Celebratory explosions in Tripoli?

In a telephone address to the Libyan people, Muammar Gaddafi appealed to them to “Go forward, go forward,” and he then hung up. An advance is indeed under way, but not the one Brother Muammar was asking for.

“If you can call any mobile number in Tripoli, you will hear in the background the beautiful sound of the bullets of freedom,” Anwar Fekini, a rebel leader from the mountainous region in western Libya, told the New York Times yesterday.

Phone calls to several Tripoli residents from different neighborhoods confirmed widespread gunfire and explosions. And there were reports of frequent NATO jet overflights and airstrikes — a common accompaniment to the drumbeat of the rebel advance in the past week.

But a report from Russia Today has a different angle. “[E]yewitnesses say the gunfire is sporadic and the explosions heard are victory celebrations of Gaddafi loyalists.”

Apparently the RT website does have some kind of editorial review since that line doesn’t appear in later version of this report. I guess even the most stalwart Gaddafi sympathizers have a hard time believing Gaddafi loyalists are detonating victory bombs.

Mahdi Nazemroaya, reporting for RT, says that the mainstream media is part of the NATO war machine, so I guess reports about Gaddafi’s imminent defeat, the continued defection of senior officials, and now large anti-government protests inside Tripoli are all just part of the misinformation campaign designed to demoralize Gaddafi’s supporters. And I guess if you subscribe to the notion that most of the reports coming out of Libya right now are misinformation, there’s no point reading any more of this post.

Taher, a resident and fighter close to the center of Tripoli, tells Al Jazeera that those inside the city now rising up against Gaddafi forces are not getting the support from NATO that they want — so much for the idea that everything now taking place is being choreographed by NATO.

The Guardian reports:

The fighting in Tripoli comes after days of battlefield defeats left Muammar Gaddafi’s government and troops penned ever more tightly in the besieged capital. Although the scale of the clashes was impossible to determine, there were widespread claims among the Libyan rebels that Gaddafi’s 41-year rule was edging ever closer to collapse.

As gunfire was still audible outside, a government spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, told reporters the incidents were “isolated” and short-lived. He blamed “armed gangs” of a few dozen rebels who had sneaked into Tripoli, including foreign mercenaries, some of whom had been captured.

“Sure, there were some armed militants who escaped into some neighbourhoods and there were some scuffles, but we dealt with it within a half hour and it is now calm,” the spokesman said.

He added: “I ensure Libyans that Gaddafi is your leader … Tripoli is surrounded by thousands to defend it.”

Later in the evening news agencies in Tripoli reported that the sound of gunfire appeared to diminish – although why was not clear. “It has become much less,” said a Reuters reporter. “Almost a minute went by without the sound of gunfire.”

Two Tripoli residents in different parts of the city also said the sound of shooting, which earlier had been intense, had subsided, suggesting Gadaffi’s forces remained largely in control. The reports of clashes in Tripoli came in the midst of a febrile mood among rebel forces, who swapped rumours and fired weapons in celebration, convinced that Gaddafi’s days are almost over.

One of the few things that was certain was that the long anticipated battle for Tripoli itself – if not here yet – was coming closer.

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Egyptians protesting outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo

On August 19-20, 2011 Egyptians mobilized for a demonstration in front of the Israeli Embassy demanding the removal of the flag and for the ambassador to leave as an Egyptian Army officer and 2 soldiers were killed at the Israeli-Egyptian border by Israeli helicopter the day before. A man called “Ahmed El-Shahat” managed to climb the embassy building and remove the Israeli flag and replace it with the Egyptian one.

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Libyan capital rocked by blasts and gunfire

Al Jazeera reports:

Sustained automatic gun fire and a series of explosions have rung out in Tripoli, reports in the Libyan capital said.

Blasts and gunfire rocked Tripoli after the break of the dawn-to-dusk fast of Ramadan on Saturday and witnesses reported fighting in the eastern neighbourhoods of Souq al-Jomaa, Arada and Tajoura.

A government spokesman had earlier said an attack on Tripoli by rebels seeking to depose Muammar Gaddafi had been “dealt with”.

“Sure, there were some armed militants who escaped into some neighborhoods and there were some scuffles, but we dealt with it within a half hour and it is now calm,” Moussa Ibrahim said.

“The situation is under control,” Ibrahim said on television, adding that pro-regime volunteers had repelled insurgents’ attacks in several neighbourhoods.

Ibrahim dismissed mounting speculation that the regime was on the brink as a “media attack” but more gunfire was heard after he spoke on television.

In a live audio broadcast over state television early on Sunday, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi congratulated his supporters for repelling an attack by rebel “rats” in the capital Tripoli.

Gaddafi accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of trying to steal the country’s oil and said that the rebels were “bent on the destruction of the Libyan people.”

Gunbattles and mortar rounds were heard clearly at the hotel where foreign correspondents stay in the capital.

Explosions also sounded in the same area as NATO aircraft carried out heavy bombing runs after nightfall.A senior official in the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Sunday that Tripoli operation was coordinated between opponents of Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli and the rebels.

“The zero hour has started. The rebels in Tripoli have risen up,” said Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the NTC, based in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

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Israeli army hasn’t the faintest idea who launched the Eilat attacks

The Real News Network‘s Lia Tarachansky asked IDF Spokesperson Lt. Colonel Avital Leibovitz how the IDF reached their conclusions about who was responsible for Thursday’s attacks near Eilat in southern Israel.

Tarachansky: On what are you basing your conclusion that this group [the Popular Resistance Committees] is responsible for the terror attacks?

IDF Spokesperson: We did not say that this group was responsible for the terror attack. We based this on intelligence information as well as some facts that [we] actually presented an hour ago to some wires and journalists. Some of the findings that were from the bodies of the terrorists, and they are using for example Kalashnikov bullets and Kalashnikov rifles are very common in Gaza —

Tarachansky: Many terrorist groups use Kalashnikovs —

IDF Spokesperson: No, not many terror groups. I’m not saying — I’m referring to the terrorists that came from Gaza.

Tarachansky: Prime Minister Netanyahu said today that the group that was responsible for the terror attack was the one that was eliminated [in Gaza] and you’re saying that’s not the case?

IDF Spokesperson: I don’t know what he said [when speaking on Israeli national television] — I’m not Prime Minister Netanyahu. I’m saying that the group came from Gaza and I’m giving you proof why it came from Gaza — how we know it came from Gaza. This is all I’m saying.

The Kalashnikov is the most widely available weapon on the planet. According to Jane’s Infantry Weapons 2009/2010 this rifle is in use in over 70 countries. An estimated 20% of all firearms available worldwide are of the Kalashnikov family.

So, the IDF says it “knows” the gunmen came from Gaza because they were using Kalashnikovs. That’s about as logical as saying they know they came from Gaza because they appeared to be Arabs.

Why then is Israel now bombing Gaza? Simply because it bombs Gaza every chance it gets. It bombs Gaza knowing that Washington will never object. It bombs Gaza because whenever Jews are killed the easiest form of revenge is to kill Palestinians — even when those particular Palestinians most likely have nothing whatsoever to do with the deaths that triggered this particular cycle of violence.

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Next stop Tripoli — Libya’s rebels sense victory is within reach

The Independent reports:

Another town falls. Another hook of the trap around Tripoli locks into place. More die, more homes burn, the hatred deepens. But after months of savage strife, there is now a sense that the endgame is at last approaching in Libya’s bloody civil war.

The latest battleground was Sabratha, an ancient city and Unesco heritage site. Yesterday I walked through its streets, now in rebel hands after prolonged and fierce fighting. This has further cut off Muammar Gaddafi’s regime from its lifeline to the outside world, depriving it of food, fuel and reinforcements. “We are going to Tripoli and meet Gaddafi,” shouted a rebel fighter waving his Kalashnikov. It was a battle-cry we have heard many times in the past, but now that final journey may not be too far away.

Underlining the sense of desperation and foreboding in the Libyan capital, the United Nations announced yesterday that it was mounting an emergency evacuation of the thousands of foreigners trapped there. A spokeswoman for the International Organisation for Migration stressed: “We have a very limited window of opportunity to carry out this operation because of the fighting.”

The New York Times reported:

Tens of thousands of other foreigners fled Libya in the conflict’s early stages, many overland into neighboring Tunisia. But that route has now been effectively blocked by increasingly emboldened rebel forces.

It is unclear whether Colonel Qaddafi, whose four-decade hold on power in Libya looks increasingly tenuous, will authorize a foreign-supervised departure of the remaining foreign nationals in Tripoli. There are still many thousands there, a large number of them Egyptians.

“We don’t know how many migrants are left in Tripoli and how many in total want to leave,” said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, said in a telephone interview. “But we can say we’re seeing an increase in the number of requests.”

Charles Levinson reports from Gharyan in Libya’s Western Mountains:

Long regarded as the Libyan leader’s Western Mountain stronghold, Gharyan’s defenses collapsed in just four or five hours on Sunday, one day after the battle for Zawiya began. It took another 24 hours to clear out the last remnants of Col. Gadhafi’s forces from the city.

“We had always been told how important Gharyan was, we heard Gadhafi had brough in reinforcements, but when we attacked, it all dissolved,” said Adel Seger, a rebel commander in the city. Still, rebels said they lost 35 fighters in the battle to retake the city.

Rebels marched through the city’s streets firing rifles into the air and waving rebel flags on Friday. They also buried their dead, including a 19-year-old boy killed by a sniper.

At the boy’s gravesite, his brothers wept and had to be carried away draped over their friends’ shoulders. There were hints of the scars that six months of civil war have left on Libyan society. One resident, Faisal Jailani, said one of the snipers who had terrorized the city’s residents had lived among them for nearly 30 years, before rebels captured him this week.

“We helped raise this boy. How could he turn against us like this?” wondered Mr. Jailani. “I hope he hangs.”

But for the rest of the city, Friday was a day of jubilation. Muftah al-Arabi reopened his camera shop and recounted how Col. Gadhafi’s henchmen used to show up and demand free services, such as, on one occasion, 1,000 posters of Col. Gadhafi. If he refused, he would be branded a dissident and jailed, he said.

“He’s finished, Gadhafi is finished,” Mr. Arabi said, with a beaming smile.

That buoyant optimism has infected rebel ranks. In recent days, as rebels have advanced closer to Tripoli, there have been an increasing flow of reports in Arab and Western media outlets that the end of Col. Gadhafi’s rule is imminent.

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While Gaza is being bombed by Israel, Hamas armed wing decides a unilateral ceasefire is worthless

Ma’an News Agency reports:

The military wing of Hamas, the Al-Qassam Brigades, has called off a ceasefire with Israel and will allow factions in Gaza to respond to Israeli attacks, Al-Aqsa Radio reported late Friday.

“There can be no truce with the Israeli occupation while it commits massacres against the Palestinian people without justification,” a representative of the militant group was quoted as saying.

Al-Qassam “calls on all factions to respond to the Israeli occupation’s crimes.”

Air attacks have killed at least 13 Palestinians in 24 hours, after Israeli leaders threatened to respond harshly to an operation Thursday near Eilat that left eight Israeli citizens dead.

Al Jazeera adds:

Israeli officials have blamed a Gaza-based militant group called the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) for Thursday’s attacks, although the faction has denied any involvement. The PRC is not affiliated with the Hamas movement that governs Gaza.

Three Palestinians including a 5-year-old boy were killed and 3 passersby were injured in an attack on a vehicle in central Gazas City. Al Jazeera’s Safwat Al Kahlout reported.

Previously, the latest air strike on the Gaza Strip hit Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza late Friday night, killing two men.

The Al-Quds Brigade, the armed wing of the militant Islamic Jihad, confirmed that one of the men, Emad Abu Abda, was their member. The other man’s identity and possible affiliations were not immediately known.

This was the Israeli air forces’ sixth operation since beginning their raids in retaliation for Thursday’s incidents.

Hours earlier, the Israeli air force targeted rocket launchers, “two weapons manufacturing sites in central Gaza” and “terrorist activity in the north and the south” of the strip”, the Israeli military told Al Jazeera.

Five members of the PRC, including its leader, were killed in Thursday’s overnight air strike in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah and another killed on Friday, Al Kahlout reported from Gaza.

Abu Mujahid, a PRC spokesman, has said the group vows to take revenge “against everything and everyone” for its members’ deaths.

Medical sources said at least three civilians have also been killed, including two boys aged three and 13 who died early on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports:

As Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants continued to clash Friday, Egypt expressed anger over the deaths of three of its soldiers apparently killed by Israeli helicopters pursuing militants across the Israel-Egyptian border a day earlier.

The incident threatened to destabilize relations between Israel and Egypt, already tense in the wake of the overthrow in February of Hosni Mubarak as Egyptian president.

The Egyptian government submitted a formal protest to Israel and called for an urgent probe into the deaths of the soldiers, the Egyptian state news agency MENA said. Egypt also closed until further notice the Al Awja crossing between Egypt and Israel, used for the passage of trade and exports, MENA said.

Egyptian voices outside the government also condemned the Israeli action.

“The Zionist attacks that killed three Egyptian soldiers on Thursday need a different response than the pre-Jan. 25 revolution period,” said Saad el Katatni, General Secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, referring to the popular protests that brought down Mubarak. “Zionists should realize that Egyptian blood now has a price, and it’s a very high price after the success of our blessed revolution.”

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Anti-Arab sentiment in Israel

Eli Ungar-Sargon writes:

Over the past three years, my wife Pennie and I have been working on a documentary film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During our second production trip to the region, one of the many remarkable people we encountered was Uri Davis. He is one of a handful of Israelis who has built a life for himself among the Palestinians of the West Bank. This made him a very interesting subject for our film, which examines the practical and moral failings of the two-state solution.

During our interview with Davis, one of the questions we asked was whether he had encountered any anti-Semitism in the West Bank. The question was motivated by a desire on our part to address a narrative — prevalent among American and Israeli Jews — which claims that anti-Semitism is an obvious feature of Palestinian culture.

As these two groups are an important part of our target audience, we felt that it was our responsibility to address this perception. Who better to ask about the veracity of this narrative than a Jew living among Palestinians? Davis answered by saying that although Palestinian anti-Semitism does exist, it is a marginal phenomenon, while anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis is a mainstream phenomenon. Shortly after the interview, it occurred to us that we could either substantiate or disprove Davis’s provocative statement with our cameras.

Trailer for the upcoming documentary “A People Without a Land”:

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Hold Israel accountable with Leahy law

Josh Ruebner writes:

Apologists for Israeli occupation and apartheid claim that advocates for holding Israel accountable for its human rights abuses of Palestinians are “singling Israel out for extra scrutiny” or “holding Israel to a higher standard than other countries.”

Yet, ironically, Israel’s supporters also claim that U.S. military aid to Israel is sacrosanct and, unlike every other governmental program on the chopping block these days, cannot be questioned due to the “special U.S.-Israeli relationship.” Dan Carle, a spokesperson for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), has noted correctly that you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

In response to an article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz suggesting that the Vermont Senator will attempt to apply sanctions to certain units of the Israeli military for human rights violations, Carle explained that “the [Leahy] law applies to U.S. aid to foreign security forces around the globe and is intended to be applied consistently across the spectrum of U.S. military aid abroad. Under the law the State Department is responsible for evaluations and enforcement decisions and over the years Senator Leahy has pressed for faithful and consistent application of the law.”

The possibility of Senator Leahy consistently applying this eponymous legislation and holding Israel to the exact same standard as every other country has Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose office may have leaked the story in an effort to kill the initiative, in a tizzy.

The “Leahy Law,” as it is commonly known, prohibits the United States from providing any weapons or training to “any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights.” In the past, this law has been invoked to curtail military aid to countries as diverse as Indonesia, Colombia, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Along with other provisions in the Foreign Assistance Act, of which it is a part, and the Arms Export Control Act, it forms the basis of an across-the-board policy that is supposed to ensure that U.S. assistance does not contribute to human rights abuses.

Ha’aretz reports that the Senator is looking to invoke this prohibition regarding “Israel Navy’s Shayetet 13 unit, the undercover Duvdevan unit and the Israel Air Force’s Shaldag unit.” The inclusion of specific units in the story may indicate that Leahy already has findings from the Secretary of State that these Israeli military units have committed human rights abuses.

If so, then this could be a much-overdue watershed in holding accountable Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, for its gross misuse of U.S. weapons to commit systematic human rights abuses of Palestinians living under Israel’s illegal 44-year military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.

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Out with Mubarak, in with Marx?

Austin Mackell writes:

In a recent TV discussion, Hossam el-Hamalawy, the prominent Egyptian leftist blogger, was asked: “So you’re the president of Egypt. You wake up, what’s the first thing you’re going to do to reorient the economy?”

Hamalawy’s answer was admirably concrete: raise the minimum wage to 1,200 Egyptian pounds ($198) per month, set a wage ceiling of 15,000 pounds ($2,480), renationalise the corruptly privatised factories, cut military spending and redirect those funds to health and education.

That a Marxist should suggest such steps is not surprising, but in Egypt they have now entered the mainstream. Neoliberal economic policies were thoroughly tried under the Mubarak regime, and demonstrably failed.

In 2008 the World Bank named Egypt as its “top reformer”. Mubarak’s adherence to the Washington Consensus strategies, however, delivered prosperity only for the already affluent elite. Meanwhile, the quality of life for the rest of the country deteriorated. This has not been lost on Egyptians.

In a recent conversation, Ahmed Attiya, a journalist for the Egyptian daily al-Shorouk – who describes his own politics as centre-right – put it to me that “even the conservative liberals nowadays support income taxes and minimum wages”, adding that “social justice measures are on the agenda of every Egyptian party I have heard of”.

Even the interim cabinet seems to get it. In March, as part his first TV address as interim prime minister, Essam Sharaf affirmed social justice, along with freedom and democracy, as one of the main principles of the revolution. These words have been accompanied by at least some action – one example being tentative moves to reform Egypt’s regressive income tax.

The old system (typical of tax policy in the region) was basically flat, with a top rate of 20%. This put an unfair burden on society’s lower ranks and allowed those at the top to accumulate massive fortunes. These fortunes in turn drove rampant inflation which, combined with a 10% sales tax, put an ever-increasing strain on the spending power of the poor. Meanwhile, the public health and education systems fell apart.

The changes made so far are small – the tax-free threshold has been lifted slightly and the top rate raised to 25% – but they are an indication that Egypt’s political class know which way they are supposed to be moving.

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The writing is on the wall for Gaddafi

Brian Whitaker writes:

Take a look on Google and you’ll find more than 1,500 news items combining the words “Libya” and “stalemate”. Repeating the search for Syria and “stalemate” reveals a mere 109 items, and for Yemen only 73.

This is rather strange, because the Yemeni and Syrian uprisings – unlike that in Libya – are both obvious examples of a state of stalemate. In Yemen and Syria, the regimes have no prospect of restoring the status quo, but at the same time it’s difficult to see how their opponents can decisively gain the upper hand.

That has never really been the case in Libya, despite many articles predicting that stalemate would occur, and others treating it as an established fact. Once Nato intervened and the National Transitional Council (NTC) began winning international recognition, the writing was on the wall for Gaddafi.

It has turned into a drawn-out struggle and Gaddafi’s forces have had successes as well as failures along the way, but the overall direction has always been clear: the regime’s opponents have been getting stronger while the regime itself, under multiple pressures, has been steadily weakening. There is also no realistic possibility now that Gaddafi can reverse this trend.

Commenting on the “Draft Constitutional Charter” issued by the Libyan National Transitional Council, Whitaker writes:

As might be expected, it contains things that would appeal to a variety of different elements. Parts of it have been copied from Gaddafi’s 1969 constitution, and it is interesting to compare the two documents to see what has been included and what has been omitted. For example, the Arab and pan-Arab nationalism has gone. Libya is no longer described as an Arab state, though Arabic will remain as the official language “while preserving the linguistic and cultural rights of all components of the Libyan society”. This is a major step towards de-marginalising the Amazigh (Berbers).

Article 1 says “Islam is the religion of the state”. Undesirable as this may be in terms of separating religion from the state, it leaves the Gaddafi constitution unchanged – and the same applies in most other Arab countries.

The new part is that it also says Islamic jurisprudence (sharia) will be “the principal source of legislation”. This form of words is also used in the Egyptian constitution and it’s something that Islamists are obviously keen on.

It adds that non-Muslims will be allowed to practise their religion and, as in Egypt and several other Arab countries, it talks of different personal status laws for different religions (which has proved very problematic in practice).

Other parts of the document talk about democracy, a multi-party system, equal rights, freedom of expression, independence of the judiciary, etc. Women will have the right to participate “entirely and actively in political, economic and social spheres”.

Taken as a whole, the document has quite a lot of good points. But so too did Gaddafi’s 1969 constitution. The real test comes later, in the application.

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The context of the Eilat attacks and the threat to Gaza

Israelis who today for some reason feel safer because Gaza is getting bombed, might pause to consider this question: why would a member of the group that launched attacks outside Eilat yesterday — a group supposedly based in Gaza and sworn to the destruction of Israel — today blow himself up in an attack on Egyptian soldiers?

Many Israelis might avoid attempting to answer such a question and respond that it’s a jungle out there beyond Israel’s borders, as does commentator Yigal Walt, who writes:

The halcyon days of Oslo and dreams of a “New Middle East” and open borders between Israel and its neighbors are long gone; instead, we are facing a Mideast that is crueler and more dangerous than ever. As it did in the face of Palestinian murderousness in the past decade, Israel’s government must embark on a national project aimed at building large, effective fences around much of the country.

The notion of fences may be unsavory to many of us, but ignoring reality would not be a wise move. Should we fail to protect our villa by all means necessary, we shall find ourselves increasingly vulnerable to the Arab jungle around us.

As for those who have an interest in evidence, rather than taking comfort in deeply ingrained prejudice, the evidence suggests that the men who attacked Israelis yesterday and Egyptians today are in conflict with both states. More than likely, this has much less to do with Gaza or the Palestinian national cause than it has with the aspirations of radical groups based in the Sinai.

Those responsible for maintaining Israel’s security quickly claimed they knew exactly who was behind yesterday’s attacks in Eilat and duly dispatched the Israeli air force to rain down missiles on Gaza. No one explained why, if Israeli intelligence was so good, they had not prevented the attacks. Even so, the domestically perceived legitimacy of a security state depends less on its ability to thwart terrorism than its willingness to make a timely show of force. Indeed, the occasional tragedy has obvious political utility. The attacks in Eilat serve to remind Israelis that the state created as a safe haven for Jews can only remain safe so long as everyone remains afraid.

The problem with fear though, is that it inhibits curiosity — a population that lives in fear has a visceral need for security that overrides the cognitive need for understanding. Once hit, the reflex to hit back marginalizes the need to understand who, how and why.

In attempting to understand attacks that took place on the edge of the Sinai, the likelihood is that the explanation about who launched the attacks and why, would be found not elsewhere but in the Sinai itself.

The day before the attacks, CNN reported:

The Egyptian army and police are cracking down in an “anti-terror” operation in the Sinai area of Egypt, state-owned media reported on Tuesday, as reports emerge of Osama bin Laden’s doctor surfacing in the area.

Police said they found hand grenades, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition in the operation that targets Sinai “terror cells” suspected in attacks on a gas pipeline to Israel and a police station in the border town of el-Arish.

One person was killed and 12 were arrested on Monday, the first day of the operation, said Hazem al-Maadawi, a police officer involved in the offensive.

Citing an unnamed security official, state news agency EgyNews said authorities are targeting 15 more people who participated in attacks at an el-Arish police station — some of whom are members of the extremist Jaish el-Islam group, which is affiliated with al Qaeda.

The crackdown comes amid new developments on the whereabouts of a bin Laden associate.

Ramzi Mahmoud Al Mowafi, the doctor of the late al Qaeda leader, escaped from a Cairo prison during the Egyptian revolution earlier this year and has resurfaced in the country’s North Sinai area, an official said.

“Al Mowafi, also known among his fellow Jihadists as the ‘chemist,’ escaped from a maximum security prison in Cairo on January 30 while serving a life sentence,” Maj. Yaser Atia from Egyptian General Security told CNN Monday. According to prison records, Al Mowafi was sentenced to life for a “military case” — but more details were not immediately known.

Bin Laden’s longtime personal doctor and an explosives expert, Al Mowafi was born in Egypt in 1952. He left for Afghanistan to join al Qaeda, according to the data listed in his prison records.

“Al Mowafi was seen in Sinai by several Jihadist(s) according to witness testimonials,” Gen. Sameh Seif Al Yezen said. “I know he is very dangerous and that he had set up his own laboratory in Tora Bora with bin Laden. A full report will be published on this matter in the upcoming week.”

A general in Egypt’s intelligence service, who did not want to be identified because he is not authorized to speak with the media, told CNN that “Al Mowafi surfaced in el-Arish and communicated with several ‘terrorists’ from the Egyptian Takfir wal-Hijra and the Palestinian Islamic Army.”

Takfir wal-Hijra is a militant Islamist group.

The general added, “Al Qaeda is present in Sinai, mainly in the area of Sakaska close to Rafah.”

Andrew McGregor provides more historical background on the region.

As the meeting point of Asia and Africa, the Sinai has always been important to Egypt’s security. Though the Sinai has been, with brief interruptions, a part of Egypt in one form or another since the time of the First Egyptian Dynasty (c. 3100 – 2890 B.C.E.), it has also been regarded as something apart from the Egypt of the Nile and Delta, a remote wasteland useful for mineral exploitation and strategic reasons but otherwise best left (outside of Egyptian security outposts) to the unruly Semitic and Bedouin tribes that have called the Sinai home since ancient times. The effect of these policies is that the Sinai Bedouin form only a tiny minority of Egypt’s total population, but retain an absolute majority in the Sinai.

In recent decades, however, Cairo has attempted to impose the deeply infiltrated security regime that existed in the rest of the country up until last January’s revolution. Many Bedouin involved in traditional smuggling activities found themselves in Egyptian prisons serving long sentences in often brutal conditions. The attempt to impose a security regime on the freedom-minded Bedouin led to a greater alienation of the tribesmen from the state, and the Egyptian uprising presented an opportunity to quickly roll back decades of attempts to impose state control on life in the Sinai. Most importantly, it opened the door for those influenced by the Salafist movements of neighboring Gaza to begin operations.

There are roughly 15 Bedouin tribes in the Sinai. In the politically sensitive northeast region (including al-Arish and the border area) the most important are the Sawarka and Rumaylat. There are also significant Palestinian populations in al-Arish and the border towns of Rafah and Zuwaid.

Local Bedouin took the opportunity of storming the Sinai’s prisons, freeing an unknown number of Bedouin smugglers and Palestinian militants. In nearly all cases they were unopposed by prison staff. One of the escapees was Ali Abu Faris, who was convicted for involvement in the Sharm al-Shaykh bombings that killed 88 people in 2005. Others freed included Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners convicted more recently of planning terrorist operations in Egypt (see Terrorism Monitor, June 12, 2009). Since emptying the prisons the tribesmen have warned the police to stay out of the main smuggling centers on penalty of death and the region has been effectively operating without any type of government.

But even if Israel faces a threat emanating from Egypt, Gaza presents a more convenient target of retaliation — even if this now opens a new risk of escalation.

Tony Karon writes:

There was a time when attacks such as those in southern Israel on Thursday might have been assumed to be the work of Hamas, out to torpedo the peace process. But there is no peace process to torpedo; it sank without trace some years ago without any help from Hamas. And Hamas is facing a potential crisis because its Syrian patron, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, may be on its way out of power, jeopardizing the status of the Hamas political leadership and headquarters in Damascus. The situation in Syria, and the new possibilities opened up by the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and the growing influnence of Hamas’ Egyptian founding organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, give Hamas nothing to gain and much to lose by making life difficult for the military leadership in Cairo. Attacking Israel from Egyptian soil makes little sense for Hamas given its current political and diplomatic needs.

And a new crisis in Gaza hardly suits the agenda of President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority: They plan next month to seek U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood on the 1967 lines, and it hardly helps their case to have the fact that they have no control over events in Gaza — a substantial part of the state they are claiming — so graphically demonstrated.

But for a bit player like the PRC [Popular Resistance Committees] — if, indeed, it was responsible — or any other smaller groups challenging Hamas’ authority and pressing their own claims, the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in February and the weakening of his police state created a new opportunity to slip the shackles of Hamas’ cease-fire by leaving Gaza and launching an attack from Sinai. As our own Abigail Hauslohner has reported, Sinai has become a playground for Bedouin smugglers and various jihadists since Mubarak’s fall, with salafist groups (who share an ideology with al-Qaeda) believed to have been behind repeat attacks on the natural gas pipeline that runs through Sinai to Israel.

Thursday’s attacks came just days after 1,000 Egyptian troops launched an operation in northern Sinai against Islamist cells believed to be inspired by al-Qaeda, which had challenged Hamas in Gaza. Israel gave its approval for the operation — the 1979 Camp David Agreement requires Israeli approval for Egypt to deploy significant numbers of troops in Sinai — and so did Hamas.

The fall of Mubarak had created a vacuum in Sinai into which some of Hamas’ rivals have been able to move to provoke a confrontation that Hamas had been trying to avoid. But once the Israelis are bombing Gaza, Hamas may find it difficult or impolitic to restrain its own armed wing, or other groups from firing at Israel. So the danger of escalation becomes more acute. On the Israeli side, too. Defense Minister Ehud Barak seemed to hint that Israel may be planning a more sustained attack on Gaza, warning on Thursday that Israel sees the territory as “a source of terror, and we will take full-force action against them.”

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Al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula

In a report for The Jamestown Foundation, Andrew McGregor writes:

In the absence of police and government security forces, al-Qaeda-sympathetic movements, including al-Shabaab al-Islam (The Youth of Islam), have formed in the Sinai Peninsula. The demands of these Salafi-Jihadist groups reflect both local and regional concerns. Among their demands are calls for a full implementation of Shari’a, the revocation of Egypt’s treaties with Israel, the establishment of an Islamic Emirate in the Sinai and Egyptian military intervention against Israel on behalf of the Palestinians in Gaza. Despite a statement proclaiming the establishment of al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, core al-Qaeda has not yet acknowledged this new chapter of the movement. Sinai-based militants have repeatedly targeted a natural gas pipeline to Israel in a show of distaste for Arab-Israeli relations and to strike a symbol of the corruption of Mubarak’s regime. These attacks and the recent storming of a police station by armed militants in the regional capital of al-Arish have alarmed Cairo, which has lost control of the region since security forces fled Bedouin attacks in the January revolution. In response to these developments, Egyptian security forces have returned to the Sinai, though there are conflicting accounts of whether their mission will be solely defensive or directed at eliminating the militant threat. The size and armament of the deployment is limited by restrictions imposed by the Camp David Accords signed with Israel. The long standing alienation of the Sinai Bedouin from the rest of Egypt and the growth of a radical Salafist movement influenced by like-minded groups in Gaza have combined to pose a serious challenge to a regime that is handcuffed in its response.

The one area of Egypt that appeared ready to explode into violence during last January’s revolution was the Sinai. Unlike the unarmed, peaceful demonstrators that filled the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, the Bedouin tribesmen of the Sinai were well armed and already engaged in a low-level conflict with Egyptian authorities over a number of issues, including Bedouin smuggling activities, a traditional occupation that has lately become politicized through Bedouin interaction with radical Islamists in Gaza, the end-user of the weapons the desert dwellers are shipping to Sinai’s eastern border. Possibly the only reason a large-scale conflict did not break out in Sinai at the time was the flight or desertion of nearly all the police and security forces based in Sinai after a number of attacks on police stations. Now, however, after a growing number of acts of militancy and the release of an alarming video allegedly depicting the formation of an al-Qaeda-sympathetic movement in Sinai known as al-Shabaab al-Islam (The Youth of Islam), Egypt’s security forces are back, this time accompanied by a significant military presence. [1] The release of the video and a subsequent statement followed an attack on an al-Arish police station in northeast Sinai and the fifth attack this year on a pipeline supplying natural gas to Israel

An August 2 pamphlet distributed in al-Arish entitled “A Statement from al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula” displayed a mix of local and regional concerns, demanding an Islamic Emirate in the Sinai, an end to the exploitation of Sinai’s wealth by non-residents, the full implementation of Shari’a, an end to discrimination against the Bedouin, the revocation of Egypt’s treaties with Israel and Egyptian military intervention on behalf of the Palestinians in Gaza.

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Who benefits from the attacks in Israel?

Today’s attacks in southern Israel in which gunmen killed eight people were clearly carefully planned. It seems reasonable to assume that as much attention was given to the attacks’ timing.

Reuters reported:

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said seven people were killed along the road, just meters from the border with Egypt. The military put the number of wounded at around 25.

Israeli special forces were called in and engaged the gunmen as police and the military closed roads around Eilat, a popular Red Sea resort. The military said between two and four gunmen were killed. Israeli media reports said up to seven were killed.

The Israeli government was swift to assign responsibility for the attacks as spokesman Mark Regev said Israel “has specific and precise information that these terrorists who targeted Israelis today came out of the Gaza Strip.”

Time reports:

Israeli security officials had been tracking the militants from the Gaza Strip, where plans were laid for the attack, into the lawless Sinai desert that since the fall of Hosni Mubarak has offered a more and more accessible back door to Israel. But somehow, the militants found a way to strike first, killing seven Israelis on a lonely desert highway.

“It wasn’t supposed to end this way,” a senior Israeli intelligence officer tells TIME. “And now we have to find out why it didn’t end the way it should have.”

Retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza today were aimed at members of the Popular Resistance Committees. Reports on Twitter describe ongoing Israeli missile strikes on multiple locations across Gaza.

One of the other immediate results of the attacks was that J14 protests scheduled to take place across Israel were cancelled. That decision was then reversed and Saturday night’s main rally in Tel Aviv will take the the form of a quiet memorial march with torches and candles.

Will this be the moment at which Israelis once again close ranks as they find solidarity through opposition to a common enemy? In other words, is the J14 movement about to fizzle out?

If every act of terrorism can be regarded as a form of bloody political theater, it’s hard to imagine that the organizers of this performance would have been oblivious about who happened to be in the audience at this time. A group of Republican members of Congress is visiting Israel this week, with another batch scheduled to arrive this weekend, Politico notes.

No doubt many of the visiting Americans will have exceptionally harsh words for one of their colleagues upon their return to Washington. Sen. Patrick Leahy’s effort to apply sanctions against Israeli special forces units accused of human rights violations, now looks particularly badly timed.

Just as Benjamin Netanyahu felt that the 9/11 attacks were good for Israel, it’s hard not to believe that he must feel that today’s attacks are good for his government.

And just in case anyone in Turkey still holds out any hope that Israel might apologize for murdering nine of its citizens just over a year ago, today’s events will merely make this week’s refusal even more emphatic.

Meanwhile, Hamas is cooperating with the Egyptian government in an effort to shut down an al Qaeda affiliate based in Gaza.

Al-Masry Al-Youm reports:

Hamas has responded to Egypt’s request to crack down on the Army of Islam and prevent its forces from infiltrating through the tunnels into Egypt.

A security source said clashes took place on Wednesday between Hamas and the Army of Islam in Gaza in a bid to capture their leader Mumtaz Daghmash, who is accused of carrying out bombings and terrorist attacks in Egypt.

Hamas met on Wednesday with officials of the Egyptian intelligence service to agree on border control measures with a view to preventing attacks by elements of the Army of Islam and the Jaljalat organization, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

The Egyptian military and police sent a large number of special forces troops into North Sinai a week ago in an effort to crack down on armed criminal gangs and insurgents in the peninsula. The initiative, named Operation Eagle, saw Egyptian army tanks and troops deployed to the streets of Sinai towns for the first time since the 1970s.

Bloomberg adds:

Egyptian security forces in the northern Sinai Peninsula arrested 20 people, including Palestinians, suspected of involvement in attacks on police stations and a natural gas pipeline to Israel, the state-run Middle East News Agency said.

Some of the suspects belong to “jihadi cells,” and others are accused of criminal activities, MENA reported today, citing Saleh el-Masri, the Northern Sinai security chief, as saying. Those arrested include Egyptians from other provinces who have been recruited and sent to Sinai, it reported.

Violence in Sinai since the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak prompted security forces to conduct an operation to capture “criminals and extremists” in the peninsula, the state-run Al Ahram newspaper said on Aug. 16. Egyptian gas supplies to Israel were disrupted after four attacks on the pipeline network from Feb. 5 to July 12.

El-Masri said forces discovered a workshop that manufactures explosive devices, explosive belts and landmines, MENA reported. He stressed the importance of the cooperation of tribal leaders in the area with the army and other forces to restore security in Sinai, it said.

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Libya’s rebels face questions as transition looms

Reuters reports:

Opponents of Muammar Gaddafi have managed to cobble together an alliance and, with plenty of NATO help, fight the Libyan leader’s forces to what increasingly looks like the verge of defeat.

Now the hard part might be about to begin: The rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) might soon have to step up and run the country, if Gaddafi is swept aside.

The council has been unable to shake off fears about its ability to govern, let alone remain united, in this oil-producing country awash with weapons. It may face tribal and regional divides and creeping Islamisation.

The council, recognised as Libya’s legitimate authority by more than 30 countries, says it is ready to lead Libya on a path to stability and democracy.

“Of course we’re ready to take over,” the head of the NTC’s political committee, Fatih Baja, told Reuters. “We’ve been preparing for this since the first month of the revolution.”

The NTC is a disparate group of Gaddafi opponents which emerged in February in the wake of uprisings in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt. It includes former Gaddafi officials.

It is based in Benghazi, operating out of hotels and homes in eastern Libya’s biggest city, which feels more like a laid-back seaside town than the hub of a revolution.

The NTC’s suburban headquarters is guarded by fighters in pick-up trucks with machine guns mounted in the back. Reporters have to show rebel-issued press cards before passing through a metal-detecting gate.

Along with fly-blown piles of uncollected trash in the streets, there is a sense of disorganisation. Rebel officials have earned a reputation for poor communications, both among themselves and with their allies and the media.

Faced with the prospect of Gaddafi’s departure after 41 years of harsh rule, they have set up a task force with a plan to take over quickly in the capital, Tripoli, Baja said.

“Security is at the top of the list, to secure Tripoli militarily and socially,” he said.

But analysts fear trouble could begin as soon as the inevitable volleys of celebratory gunfire die down.

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Libyan rebels ‘capture Zawiya oil refinery’

Reuters reports:

Libyan rebels took control of an oil refinery in the western town of Zawiyah and blocked the main highway north to the capital on Thursday, further isolating Muammar Gaddafi’s Tripoli stronghold.

Rebel advances in recent days have cut Gaddafi’s forces off from their main resupply routes following a months-long stalemate, putting the Libyan leader’s 41-year rule under unprecedented pressure.

Small groups of rebel fighters occupied the inside of the Zawiyah refinery complex, about 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli along the highway linking Tripoli to Tunisia, with no sign of the pro-Gaddafi forces that had battled for the plant.

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Obama calls on Syria’s Assad to step down

Al Jazeera reports:

International pressure is mounting on Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, with the United States calling for his resignation and the United Nations claiming Syria’s use of force against anti-government protests may constitute crimes against humanity.

In a written statement on Thursday, President Barack Obama said: “The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way … For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”

Obama said the US “cannot and will not impose this transition upon Syria” but will support “an effort to bring about a Syria that is democratic, just, and inclusive for all Syrians. We will support this outcome by pressuring President Assad to get out of the way of this transition”.

Obama said Syrians “have spoken with their peaceful marches” and that the Syrian government “has responded with a sustained onslaught”.

“I strongly condemn this brutality, including the disgraceful attacks on Syrian civilians in cities like Hama and Deir ez-Zor, and the arrests of opposition figures who have been denied justice and subjected to torture at the hands of the regime,” the president’s statement said.

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Phone hacking: News of the World Hollywood reporter is arrested

The Guardian reports:

James Desborough, an award-winning reporter at the former News of the World newspaper, has been arrested by officers investigating the phone-hacking scandal.

Desborough was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to section 1 (1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 after arriving at a south London police station on Thursday morning at 10.30am. He had arrived at the station by appointment for questioning about criminal activities at the paper.

The allegations are believed to relate to events prior to Desborough being promoted to be the newspaper’s Los Angeles-based US editor in April 2009.

He was given the job less than a month after winning the British Press Award for showbusiness reporter of the year.

His move to the US makes his arrest, the 13th made by Operation Weeting, particularly significant. If Desborough was involved in hacking while in Britain, as police appear to believe he was, it raises the question of whether he practised those techniques in the US – and if so, whether he was the first and only News of the World journalist in the US to do so.

Meanwhile, News Corp shareholders have been warned about the cost of phone hacking.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has warned that it is “not able to predict the ultimate outcome or cost” of the phone-hacking scandal, admitting it could “impair” its ability to conduct its business.

In its annual report filed on Wednesday, News Corp said its reputation could be damaged by the crisis that has engulfed the company and led to the closure of the News of the World.

The report also revealed that Freud Communications, the public relations firm run by Matthew Freud, Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law, was paid $202,000 (£122,000) by News Corp in the financial year ended 30 June 2011 for “press and publicity activities”.

News Corp, which is the subject of a wide-ranging FBI investigation, said it was “not able to predict the ultimate outcome or cost” of the police investigations and civil actions related to alleged unlawful activity.

“UK and US regulators and governmental authorities are conducting investigations after allegations of phone hacking and inappropriate payments to police at our former publication, News of the World, and other related matters, including investigations into whether similar conduct may have occurred at the company’s subsidiaries outside of the UK,” said News Corp in its report.

“The company is co-operating fully with these investigations. It is possible that these proceedings could damage our reputation and might impair our ability to conduct our business.”

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How Rupert Murdoch tries to destroy the lives of his enemies

The Guardian reports:

Five years ago Robert Emmel was enjoying the American dream. He lived in a detached house in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, drove a BMW, and earned $140,000 a year as an accounts director in a highly successful advertising company called News America Marketing.

Today, Emmel is described by his lawyers as destitute. Jobless and in debt, he was discharged from bankruptcy last year. He does occasional consultancy work that last month brought in $500, and this month, court documents show, will probably produce nothing. His wife’s earnings raise monthly household income to about $3,000 – half their outgoings.

This is a cautionary tale about what can happen to someone who dares to become a corporate whistleblower. Or, more specifically, someone who incurs the wrath of News Corporation, the media empire owned by Rupert Murdoch, of which News America forms a part.

Emmel’s lawyer, Philip Hilder, has had a ringside seat at the gradual unravelling of his client’s life. A former federal prosecutor based in Houston, Texas, Hilder is well versed in whistleblower cases having represented Sherron Watkins, who helped uncover the Enron scandal. Hilder said: “News America has engaged in Rambo litigation tactics. They have a scorched earth policy, and it’s taken a huge toll on him.”

News Corp has devoted the efforts of up to 29 lawyers to pursuing Emmel personally, at a cost estimated at more than $2m. Emmel, by contrast, has relied on two lawyers, Hilder and Marc Garber in Atlanta, working for no pay since January 2009.

Attention has been focused on News Corporation’s activities in the UK, where the News of the World phone-hacking scandal has led to the arrest of 10 people associated with the company. In the US, oversight of News Corp is gathering pace with the department of justice and the FBI looking into the company, while senators are considering launching committee hearings into News Corp practices.

One incident that US investigators are exploring is the hacking of a website run by one of News America’s rivals, an instore advertising business called Floorgraphics. The firm discovered that its password-protected site had been breached from an IP address at News America’s offices in Connecticut. News America has condemned the breach as a “violation of the standards of our company” but says it does not know how it happened.

Emmel was one of the main witnesses for Floorgraphics at a subsequent trial against his old company. He worked for News America for seven years from 1999 to 2006, turning whistleblower in his final year there. The company is the leading US provider of in-store advertising services, helping to bring products from firms such as Coca-Cola, Kraft and Nabisco to the attention of supermarket shoppers. Headed by Paul Carlucci, who now publishes Murdoch’s tabloid the New York Post, it enjoys annual revenues of more than $1bn and has a 90% stranglehold on the market. News America also has a record of legal disputes with its commercial rivals, three of whom have launched lawsuits against it in recent years accusing the firm of using unlawful practices.

All three lawsuits – including the Floorgraphics one and cases initiated by Valassis and Insignia – were eventually settled, but not before News America agreed to pay an astounding $655m to end the disputes. Emmel acted as a whistleblower in all three cases. He gave two days of evidence in the Floorgraphics trial after which News America rapidly settled, and was also named in the Valassis and Insignia cases.

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