Turkey’s foreign minister recognized Libya’s rebel leaders as the country’s legitimate representatives and promised them an additional $200 million in aid during a visit Sunday.
The visit by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu marked Turkey’s strongest show of support yet for the opposition forces trying to out Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Turkey, a regional power, initially balked at the idea of military action in Libya and Turkish companies were involved in Libyan construction projects worth billions of dollars before the outbreak of an anti-Gadhafi uprising in February.
The revolt has turned into a protracted, largely deadlocked armed conflict, in which the rebels control Libya’s eastern third, while Gadhafi clings to power in the west, but has been unable to crush pockets of resistance there. As a NATO member, Turkey is now supporting the alliance’s airstrikes against targets linked to the Gadhafi regime.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that her country is concerned by reports that Syria is massing troops near the border with Turkey, which could escalate the crisis in the region, and is discussing the issue with Turkish officials.
Clinton said the reported move by Syria to surround and target the town of Khirbet al-Jouz just 500 metres from the Turkish border marked a worrying new phase of Syria’s attempt to quash anti-government protests.
“If true, that aggressive action will only exacerbate the already unstable refugee situation in Syria,” Clinton said late on Thursday.
“Unless the Syrian forces immediately end their attacks and their provocations that are not only now affecting their own citizens but (raising) the potential of border clashes, then we’re going to see an escalation of conflict in the area.”
Clinton said she had discussed the situation with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and that President Barack Obama had also talked to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
Meanwhile, the European Union is preparing a draft statement questioning the legitimacy of Syria’s leaders, expected to be released on Friday.
Israeli and Turkish officials have been holding secret direct talks to try to solve the diplomatic crisis between the two countries, a senior official in Jerusalem said. The negotiations are receiving the Americans’ support.
A source in the Turkish Foreign Ministry and a U.S. official confirmed that talks are being held, though in Israel the prime minister and foreign minister’s aides declined to comment.
The talks are being held between an Israeli official on behalf of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, a firm supporter of rehabilitating ties with Israel.
Talks are also being held between the Israeli representative on the UN inquiry committee on last year’s Gaza flotilla, Yosef Ciechanover, and Turkey’s representative on the committee, Ozdem Sanberk. The two, who have been working together for several months on the UN committee, pass on messages between Israel and Turkey and have taken pains to draft understandings to end the crisis.
In addition, the U.S. administration has held talks with senior Turkish officials, mainly to foil the flotilla to Gaza due later this month, but also in a bid to improve relations with Israel.
On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to her Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu and expressed satisfaction with the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation’s announcement that the ship the Mavi Marmara would not take part in the flotilla this time around, officials said.
Syrian forces have swept through a northwestern border region to stem an exodus of refugees to Turkey that is raising international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, witnesses and a rights activist said.
Reports of the military campaign on Sunday came as state media announced Assad would address the nation on Monday.
Meanwhile, Syrian human rights campaigner Ammar al-Qurabi accused pro-government forces of attacking people who were helping refugees try to escape from a widening military campaign to crush protests against Assad’s rule.
“The Syrian army has spread around the border area to prevent frightened residents from fleeing across the border to Turkey,” Qurabi told the Reuters news agency.
“Militiamen close to the regime are attacking people in Bdama and the surrounding areas who are trying to deliver relief and food to thousands of refugees stuck along the border and trying to flee,” said Qurabi.
Syrian troops and gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are reported to have stormed the town of Bdama near the Turkish border.
The alleged assault on Saturday followed another Friday of protests, which have grown in size despite Assad’s wide-ranging military campaign to crush a three-month old uprising. Security forces shot dead 19 protesters on Friday, activists said.
“They came at 7am to Bdama. I counted nine tanks, 10 armoured carriers, 20 jeeps and 10 buses. I saw shabbiha (pro-Assad gunmen) setting fire to two houses,” said Saria Hammouda, a lawyer living in the border town, in the Jisr al-Shughur region.
Saturday’s violence centred around Bdama, about 2km from the Turkish border, which is one of the epicentres providing food and supplies for the thousands of people who have fled their homes and have taken shelter near the Turkish border.
Turkey has delivered a blunt message to the Syrian leadership, saying the regime’s willingness to undertake sweeping reforms in the unrest-laden country will determine the position of Turkey in the coming days, if not weeks, diplomatic sources told Today’s Zaman.
The Turkish response to Syria will be shaped by how the regime responds to unrest engulfing the country and whether or not the promise of switching to a multi-party system to reflect the diversity and pluralism of Syrian society will materialize, the same source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
According to an incremental plan, Turkey will start supporting tougher UN resolutions if the regime fails to live up to the expectations of the international community. The strongest message yet to the Syrian leadership was conveyed by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who spoke with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s special envoy, Hassan Turkmani, earlier this week. “We underlined that Turkish support to Syria hinges on the willingness of the Syrian government to adopt sweeping reforms in the country. We detailed our suggestions before and even relayed a written proposal to Damascus on how they should proceed to stabilize the country,” the source explained.
The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. Alawite dominance has bred resentment, which Assad has worked to tamp down by pushing a strictly secular identity in Syria. But the president now appears to be relying heavily on his Alawite power base, beginning with highly placed Assad relatives, to crush the resistance.
Turkey on Thursday signaled a diplomatic shift to further distance itself from longtime ally Syria, welcoming defecting Syrian officers and announcing plans to deliver relief assistance to beleaguered pro-democracy protesters across the border.
The shift against Damascus, where President Bashar Assad has undertaken a bloody crackdown against peaceful demonstrators, comes after months of waffling and wavering over its stance on uprisings that have shaken or brought down autocratic longtime leaders across the region. Turkey endorsed the largely peaceful revolution in Egypt, for example, but pleaded for political reforms rather than the ouster of heads of state in others, especially ones where it has business interests, such as Syria or Libya.
“Like any other country, Turkey had double standards on the ‘Arab Spring,'” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, an Ankara-based analyst for the German Marshall Fund, a think tank. “But recently Turkey is fine-tuning its policy. This new policy is based on the demands of the people instead of the priorities of the regimes.”
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, architect of Turkey’s “zero problems with neighbors” policy that prioritized good relations with Middle East governments, all but announced the abandonment of that guideline to reporters Thursday after a meeting with Turkey’s ambassadors and national security team in the capital, Ankara.
“Our region demands a serious and urgent reform process,” Davutoglu told reporters, according to the semiofficial Anatolia news agency. “Regional people’s demands are normal, rightful and legitimate. Meeting those demands will make our region a more stable, more democratic and more prosperous region. We are ready to do our utmost to help our region complete this transition process in a healthy way.”
Turkey may send its military forces into Syrian soil to establish a “buffer zone,” should the current unrest in Syria skyrocket into a refugee crisis that would pose a threat to Ankara, a report says.
The report, published in the Turkish daily Posta on Thursday, warned of the prospect of a civil war in Syria, adding that it could send around 200,000 Syrians Turkey’s way.
Referring to the likelihood of establishing the restricted area, prominent Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand also emphasized that the option “was raised at the highest level, some time ago.”
The worst case scenario that Ankara fears most and will mobilize it is that the clashes expand to Aleppo and Damascus and the Assad regime decides to react extremely tough and bloody way. The meaning of this is that Assad uses all his military power and the internal conflict transforms quickly into an Alawite-Sunni clash. What is expected as a consequence of this is the flow of tens of thousands of Sunni-Syrians to Turkey. An official I spoke to on this subject said exactly this:
“Turkey has opened its territory for now, but when the figure reaches a point where we cannot handle it then we will have to close the border.”
Now, this is the situation the political power in Ankara worries about the most. The same official continued:
“We would close the border but we cannot turn our backs on neither the Sunnis nor the Alawites. If chaos starts, then we will have to form a security zone or a buffer zone inside Syrian territory.”
Behind closed doors, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and top foreign ministry, security and intelligence officials held talks Wednesday and Thursday with Hassan Turkmani, a special envoy of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and warned him of Ankara’s deep concern for the future of its Arab neighbor.
Turkmani was reported to have been told plainly that his country had almost reached a “point of no return.” Unless the military operation was immediately stopped, urgent and radical reforms were undertaken and some key demands of the revolting people were met, the international community might be compelled to take some measures.
Syrian security forces fanned out through villages and towns in the northern province of Idlib on Thursday, randomly hauling in males over age 16 as the government worked to silence a center of anti-regime protest.
In this border region, where thousands of Syrian civilians have fled to havens in Turkey, Turkish officials were preparing to send food, clean water, medicine and other aid to thousands more stranded on the Syrian side.
The unusual plan for a cross-border operation on Syrian soil appeared to have Syrian clearance, being announced by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu after he met with an envoy from President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime.
“We have taken precautions and humanitarian aid will be supplied for around 10,000 people who are waiting on the Syrian side of the border,” Davutoglu said. He also reiterated Turkey’s support for major democratic reform in Syria.
The random detentions were concentrated on the major towns of Jisr al-Shughour and Maaret al-Numan and in nearby villages, an area where the army has massed troops for days in apparent preparation for a fresh military operation, Syrian human rights activist Mustafa Osso reported. He said at least 300 people were being detained daily.
They were once ordinary Syrians: farmers with fields to tend, doctors with patients to treat, students with exams to take and homemakers with children to nurture.
But after longtime Syrian President Bashar Assad’s security forces stormed their towns and villages in an attempt to crush a largely peaceful pro-democracy movement, they represent the emerging human toll, a small segment of the many thousands of Syrian civilians who have fled into the hills or across the border into Turkey to escape the violence.
Hundreds have set up a temporary camp in a muddy field on their country’s border with Turkey.
Now, they draw fetid water from a well and relieve themselves in the woods. They rely on handouts of food from relatives smuggled from across the border. They seek medical care at a makeshift “clinic,” a tarp where a 30-year-old pharmacist attempts to give medical advice.
The Syrian military widened its crackdown on anti-government protesters Tuesday, dispatching tanks to at least two more locations, including a town near the border with Iraq, as the government sought to extinguish an expanding rebellion that has appeared to threaten the army’s cohesion.
Tanks moved into position on the outskirts of the eastern border town of Deir al-Zour, site of some of the biggest protests of the three-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s government. Activists said tanks were also converging on the town of Maarat al-Nouman on the highway between Hama and Aleppo, where protesters reportedly burned government buildings over the weekend.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s re-elected prime minister, has pledged to build a new constitution for the country by consensus after winning a third straight term in parliamentary elections.
Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won nearly 50 per cent of the vote on Sunday, but came up just short of its target of 330 seats in the new parliament, which would have enabled it to draft a new constitution without consulting other parties.
In a victory speech before thousands of flag-waving supporters in the capital, Ankara, Erdogan pledged “humility” and said he would work with rivals.
“People gave us a message to build the new constitution through consensus and negotiation,” he said.
“We will discuss the new constitution with opposition parties. This new constitution will meet peace and justice demands.”
Erdogan put his plans for constitutional change at the heart of his party’s election campaign, arguing that a new one was needed to make Turkey more democratic and to enhance individual freedoms, replacing a document drafted under martial law in 1982.
The June 12 election, which gave the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) 50 per cent of the votes and a clear majority in the parliament, is a victory not only for Prime Minister Erdogan but also for Turkish democracy. With a new mandate to govern for another term, the AKP will now seek a broad consensus to write a new constitution and find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue.
Since the start of multi-party politics in 1946, no political party in Turkey has been able to rule for three consecutive terms while increasing its votes. The AKP came to power at the end of 2002 and has since then implemented numerous political and judicial reforms, boosted the Turkish economy, and expanded foreign policy. The results from Sunday’s elections show that the vast majority of the Turkish public approve of this model of development that has been spearheaded by Prime Minister Erdogan.
The opposition parties too have made some gains. The main opposition party, the People’s Republican Party (CHP), known for its radical secularism and pro-establishment stance, ran an issue-based campaign and increased its seats in the parliament. Contrary to expectations, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) passed the 10 per cent threshold but lost seats. The pro-Kurdish coalition group, known for its ties to the outlawed Kurdish terrorist group PKK, ran with independents and won 36 seats. Other smaller parties have fallen by the wayside.
Given decades of military coups and anti-democratic practices, this election once more proves the strength of Turkish democracy. The AKP’s success comes mainly from its ability to maintain a balance between democratization and reforms on the one hand, and nation-wide services and steady economic development on the other. Markets have already responded positively to the election results, and the strength of Turkish economy is expected to continue.
The cries tumbled from a balcony as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan swaggered down the campaign trail in this picturesque industrial city and former Ottoman capital. “Papa Tayyip!” went the refrain, drawing a wry smile from the man himself.
The words may have lacked the weight of “Father of the Turks,” the title given Mustafa Kemal Ataturk after he established modern Turkey in 1923. But it said much about Mr. Erdogan — arrogant and populist to detractors, charismatic and visionary to supporters — who will soon enter his second decade as leader of a country he has helped transform.
As Turkey heads to an election on June 12 — the size of Mr. Erdogan’s majority the only question — the country faces an Arab Spring, which took it by surprise; ambitions that stretch beyond its means; and growing fears that Mr. Erdogan’s eight years in office have decisively shifted power from the old secular elite and toward his party and the merchant class, migrants and downtrodden that it courts.
But even his critics acknowledge that this country of 79 million is a far different place from the one he inherited, emerging as a decisive power in a region long dominated by the United States.
Though Turkey is still dogged by unemployment, its businesses are booming. In foreign policy, it is acting like the heir of the Ottoman Empire that preceded it, building relationships with Iran and Arab neighbors at the expense of Israel.
Every springtime Pervin Çoban Savran takes her camels and sheep up into the Taurus mountains of southern Turkey, following the same routes along the Goksu river that Yoruk people like her have taken for more than 1,000 years. To many Turks these last nomadic tribes are symbols of the soul of their nation.
Their way of life – and that of millions of small farmers – is being threatened by Turkey’s Great Leap Forward, one of the most dramatic and potentially devastating rushes for economic development and prosperity Europe has seen in decades.
Thousands of dam and hydropower schemes are being built on almost all of the main rivers in a pharaonic push to make Turkey a world economic power by the centenary of the republic in 2023.
The ruling AK party, expected to win a record third term in next month’s elections, is forcing through a series of gigantic public works projects that include three nuclear power plants – despite Turkey being one of the most seismically active nations on earth.
Reports that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is considering some form of membership for two non-Gulf states – Jordan and Morocco – confirm that the conservative Sunni monarchies of the Middle East are closing ranks against Iran, Shiite-led Iraq and the democratic wave sweeping the region.
GCC secretary general Abdullatif al-Zayani made the announcement Tuesday after a summit of the six-member group affirmed support for Saudi and United Arab Emirates military intervention against predominantly Shiite pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain.
Zayani did not make clear whether Morocco and Jordan would be offered a second-tier membership in the GCC, which groups Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain.
Foreign ministers from Jordan and Morocco will meet with GCC foreign ministers to “complete required procedures”, Zayani told reporters.
Founded in 1981 in the aftermath of Iran’s 1979 revolution and in the midst of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the GCC encourages economic and especially military cooperation among its members, which all border the Persian Gulf. In territorial terms, it would make more sense to offer membership to Iraq or Yemen than to Jordan or faraway Morocco.
However, the wave of popular unrest that has swept the region since January – and toppled once durable pro-Western authoritarian non- monarchies in Tunisia and Egypt – has spread anxiety among conservative Sunni monarchies already unsettled by the Shiite replacement of a Sunni regime in Iraq and by Iran’s slow but steady nuclear advancement. (IPS)
The Syrian military intensified a methodical, ferocious march across the country’s most restive locales on Wednesday, shelling the country’s third-largest city from tanks, forcing hundreds to flee and detaining hundreds more in what has emerged as one of the most brutal waves of repression since the Arab Spring began.
Homs, in central Syria near the Lebanese border, has become the latest target of the crackdown, which has already besieged and silenced, for now, the cities of Dara’a, in the fertile but drought-stricken southern steppe, and Baniyas, on the Mediterranean coast. Dozens of tanks occupied Homs, as black-clad security forces, soldiers and militiamen in plain clothes filtered through the industrial city of 1.5 million people. At least 19 people were killed there Wednesday, human rights groups said.
The crackdown in some neighborhoods alternated with the relative calm in the center of a city that is home to a Sunni Muslim majority and a Christian minority.
“We see the smoke rising in the sky after we hear the shells explode,” said Abu Haydar, a resident reached by telephone. “The sky was pretty quickly covered in smoke.”
In public statements and interviews, the government has acknowledged the crackdown, describing the military’s targets as militant Islamists and saboteurs. It said nearly 100 soldiers and members of the security forces had been killed, and American officials say that some protesters have indeed taken up arms.
In Washington, two Obama administration officials said that the United States still did not see a clear or organized opposition or another leader in Syria who could serve to unite the foes of the government of President Bashar al-Assad. (New York Times)
Joshua Landis writes: I am a pessimist about Syria’s future because the regime will dig in its heels and fight to the end. The Syrian opposition has successfully established a culture of resistance that is widespread in Syria and will not be eliminated. Even if demonstrations can be shut down for the time being, the opposition will not be defeated. Syria’s youth, long apolitical and appathetic, is now politicized, mobilized, and passionate. All the same, the opposition remains divided and leaderless, which presents great dangers for a post-Assad Syria.
It is hard to see any soft landing for the regime or the people. It is also hard to see how the regime will be brought down short of economic collapse and its inability to pay wages, which would lead to wider social defections and a possible splitting of the military, as happened in Lebanon and Libya. If the military splits, both sides would have ample firepower to do real damage. Large sections of Syria could fall out of state control. Regions not divided by sect could remain fairly quite and stable for a time if there is a unified political leadership to step into the vacuum. Otherwise competing parties will develop militias as happened in Iraq and Lebanon.
No foreign power will feel compelled to step in to protect the people or stop the fighting because no one will be responsible for “losing Syria.” Syria is a political orphan today.
The army has split in Syria once before. This happened in Feb 1954 at the end of Adib Shishakli’s rule. The army divided along geographic lines. The divisions in the North went with the opposition centered on the People’s Party based in Homs and Aleppo. The South stood by Shishakli. Fortunately, General Shishakli decided to leave the country and flew off to Saudi Arabia, helped by the US. He had a change of mind in mid air but the US prevented his return. Washington convinced Lebanon to refuse his jet landing rights. After a brief spell in Arabia, Shishakli migrated to Brazil, where a relative of a Druze man, for whose death Shishakli was responsible, assassinated him.
Syria’s great weakness is it lack of unity. This is why the Assad household has been able to rule for so long. Hafiz al-Assad was able to bring stability to Syria after 20 years of coups and political chaos by reverting to the use of traditional loyalties. He ended Syria’s period as a banana republic by placing his brother in charge of protecting the presidency and using tribal and sectarian loyalties to coup-proof the regime. Alawite faithful were carefully recruited to all the sensitive security positions in the Mukhabarat and military. The Sunni elite was grateful for the stability and was further brought in through the crafty use of graft and patronage. Rami Makhlouf is corrupt, but he is also the fixer for the Sunni merchant class. The way he brought the Sham Holding Company in to the circle of regime loyalists was a classic use of privilege and muscle to glue the elite families of Syria to the regime. They have made millions my accepting an offer that they could not refuse.
The Syrian opposition has always been divided between Arab nationalists, Islamist currents, liberals, and all those who disprove of the regime but are too conservative to take part in active opposition. Then there are the sectarian communities and the Kurds, class divisions, and the urban-rural split, not to mention the traditional rivalry between Damascus and Aleppo. The reason that the Assads have been so successful for so long is largely due to the inability of Syrians to unite around a common platform and national identity. The oppositions lack of unity does not augur well for a post Assad future, especially as the death toll mounts and the desire for revenge grows. (Syria Comment)
Yemeni forces have opened fire on demonstrators in three major cities, killing at least 18 and wounding hundreds in one of the fiercest bouts of violence witnessed in nearly three months of popular unrest aimed at toppling President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The clashes between a defected faction of Yemen’s army and the republican guard, have raised fears that Yemen may be reaching a critical juncture as public fury continues to mount at the president’s refusal to step down.
Violence broke out in the capital when a throng of 2,000 protesters tore away from the main sit-in area at Sana’a University and surged en masse towards the cabinet building in downtown Sana’a with shouts of “God is great” and “Allah rid us of this tyrant”. (The Guardian)
Hamas is not a terror organization, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview with U.S. television late Wednesday, saying he felt the recently penned Palestinian reconciliation agreement was an essential step toward Mideast peace.
Erdogan’s comments came one day after Hamas Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar said that while his organization would accept a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, it would never recognize Israel, as a result of the damage such a move would do to Palestinian refugees in the “diaspora.”
Senior Israeli officials, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have voiced opposition to Fatah’s new unity deal with Hamas, saying that a Palestinian government that included a terrorist group calling for Israel’s destruction could not be a partner for peace.
Speaking to Charlie Rose on Wednesday, however, the Turkish PM chimed in on the recently achieved unity agreement between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas, indicating that he did not feel Hamas was an obstacle in achieving Mideast peace. (Haaretz)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told Egyptian officials that incumbent Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is his only candidate to head the burgeoning Palestinian unity cabinet, the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat reported on Thursday.
The report came after international donors were reportedly applying significant pressure on Abbas to retain Fayyad as prime minister, after earlier reports claimed the Palestinian prime minister would have to step down as a result of Fatah’s newly signed unity pact with former rivals Hamas. (Haaretz)
Muammar Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli has been hit by Nato rockets again, a few hours after the veteran autocrat appeared in public for the first time in almost two weeks.
Gaddafi was shown on state television in a traditional brown robe addressing tribal leaders, whom he empowered to speak on behalf of a nation he has ruled with absolute power for almost 42 years.
The labyrinthine complex in the heart of the capital was struck at around 3am with five bombs and rockets that appeared to target military installations and bunkers.
A giant crater could be seen in the lawn in the middle of the complex, with one of the rockets having hit what appeared to be a bunker . Officials said six people were killed in the attack, including two Libyan reporters who had been interviewing supporters camped out at the scene.
“These locations were known to be command and control facilities engaged in co-ordinating attacks against civilian populations in Libya,” said a Nato official speaking from Brussels.
Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the underground facility was not a bunker, but a sewage network. But following the strike, chanting Gaddafi supporters guarded a stairwell leading to the ruined site, having been told to let no reporters near it. Heat rose from a second smaller crater, where shattered reinforced concrete exposed a cavernous hole beneath. (The Guardian)
The Obama administration is stepping up its engagement with forces fighting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, inviting opposition leaders to meet with U.S. officials at the White House Friday, while stopping short of recognizing their council as Libya’s legitimate government.
The White House said Mahmoud Jibril, a representative of the Libyan Transitional National Council, would meet with senior administration officials, including National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, as well as members of Congress. But there were no plans for President Barack Obama to meet with Jibril and his delegation.
France and Italy are among the nations that recognize the Council as Libya’s legitimate government. But White House press secretary Jay Carney said today that while the U.S. would continue consulting and assisting the opposition, giving the Council political legitimacy would be “premature.”
Defence Secretary Robert Gates, speaking with Marines, said the U.S. is keeping a “wary eye” on the opposition, and lacks clarity about exactly who the opposition is and what actions they may take long-term.
Still, the U.S. has been boosting its support for the opposition over the past month, including Obama’s authorization of $25 million in non-lethal assistance to the revolutionaries. The first shipment of that aid — 10,000 meals ready to eat from Pentagon stocks — arrived in the liberated city of Benghazi this week. The U.S. has also supplied some $53 million in humanitarian aid.
In addition, the administration has begun working with Congress to free up a portion of the more than $30 billion in frozen Gaddafi regime assets in U.S. banks so it can be spent to help the Libyan people. Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, who met with Jibril this week, said yesterday he was drafting legislation at the request of the White House that would allow that to happen.
The revolutionaries have said they need up to $3 billion in the coming months for military salaries, food, medicine and other supplies in order to keep fighting Gaddafi’s forces. They also say no country has sent the arms that they desperately need. (Libya TV)
Less than two weeks after U.S. special operations commandos killed Osama bin Laden, a resolution viewed as an expansion of the legal basis for the global war on terror is moving through Congress.
The House Armed Services Committee added language to the fiscal 2012 Defense Authorization bill on Wednesday that would define the current war on al Qaeda to include the Taliban and affiliated armed groups, affirming the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s interpretation of the 2001 war resolution.
The committee began marking up the bill on Wednesday. It sets out the guidance for the U.S. defense budget.
The provision, known as the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, is key legislation used by lawyers for both President George W. Bush and President Obama as a legal basis for detaining terrorists without trial who are captured around the world. The legislation also was used to authorize U.S. drone strikes and special operations forces raids in countries where the United States is not formally at war.
Civil liberties groups have expressed worries that the new legislation, sponsored by Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, California Republican and committee chairman, significantly expands the scope of the global war on terror. (Washington Times)
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they eschewed most modern technology, including television and music players.
But in the latest sign of the hardline movement’s rapprochement with at least some areas of the modern world, the Taliban have embraced microblogging.
Their Twitter feed, @alemarahweb, pumps out several messages each day, keeping 224 followers up to date with often highly exaggerated reports of strikes against the “infidel forces” and the “Karzai puppet regime”.
Most messages by the increasingly media-savvy movement are in Pashtu, with links to news stories on the elaborate and multilingual website of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban’s shadow government likes to style itself. (The Guardian)
