Terrorism & Security
A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Muslim refugees, fled from ethnic violence, have some chores to be done, around their tents at Thechaung refugee camp in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar, Tuesday, Oct. 30. (Khin Maung Win/AP)
Myanmar unrest threatens to destabilize democracy and region
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Nearly a week of violence between Buddhists and Muslims in western Myanmar that has killed more than 80 people and forced tens of thousands to flee could jeopardize the country’s fledgling democratic process, observers say.
Fighting between the two ethnic groups, Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, began last June, but the most recent violence started on Oct. 21, just days after Burmese President Thein Sein was reelected as the chairman of the ruling Union Solidarity Development Party.
The government reported 84 people dead and another 29 injured in the latest outbreak of violence, but human rights groups estimate that the death toll could be much higher, reports the Associated Press. More than 32,000 people were displaced by the conflict during the past week, with the Rohingya bearing the brunt of the violence.
The head of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Surin Pitsuwan, put pressure on the Myanmar government to resolve the situation quickly, warning that if the violence is not contained and resolved, it could lead to the radicalization of the Rohingyas. This could not only stress the fragile democracy in Myanmar, but threaten regional security as a whole, report Agence France-Presse and Voice of America.
"If the international community, including ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations], are not able to relieve that pressure and pain [the Rohingya] could become radicalized and the entire region could be destabilized,” Mr. Pitsuwan said.
Though the Rohingya have lived in Myanmar (also called Burma) for decades, they are largely viewed domestically as land-hungry intruders who came illegally from neighboring Bangladesh.
The discrimination against the Rohingya is not only culturally ingrained in Myanmar, but institutionalized as well, according to a second Associated Press report:
Today, the Rohingya also face official discrimination, a policy encouraged by Myanmar's previous military regimes to enlist popular support among other groups. A 1984 law formally excluded them as one of the country's 135 ethnicities, meaning most are denied basic civil rights and are deprived of citizenship.
Neighboring Bangladesh, which also does not recognize the Rohingya as citizens, says thousands of Rohingya refugees have sought to flee there by boat. Its policy, however, is to refuse them entry.
"We don't feel safe," a Muslim refugee, Zainabi, told the AP. The fish-seller fled her village with her two sons Thursday after attackers set her home on fire. "I wish the violence would stop, so we can live peacefully."
On Sunday, boats carried refugees toward cramped camps that already house thousands of Rohingyas who fled their homes after a previous wave of violence broke out over the summer. In June, three Rohingya men were accused of raping a Rakhine woman, sparking widespread rioting and leading nearly 80,000 people – mostly Muslim – to flee to nearby camps, reports The Christian Science Monitor.
“I fled my hometown, Pauktaw, on Friday because there is no security at all,” another refugee told AP. “My house was burned to ashes and I have no money left.”
Human Rights Watch released stark satellite pictures showing parts of the area of unrest. One photo was taken on Oct. 9 and shows “hundreds of closely packed houses” and “scores of houseboats along the northern shoreline,” reports the BBC. A second photo, taken on Oct. 25, shows the same 35-acre stretch of land almost entirely absent of houses.
“In one district, with a population of some 3,000, only burnt out poles from the houses and charred stubs of trees were to be seen,” reports the BBC.
President Thein Sein acknowledges the damage, according to his spokesman: "There have been incidents of whole villages and parts of the towns being burnt down in Rakhine state.”
But acknowledging the violence may not be enough. Some fear the country’s failure to address the root cause of violence could exacerbate the crisis.
"These latest incidents between Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhists demonstrate how urgent it is that the authorities intervene to protect everyone, and break the cycle of discrimination and violence," Isabelle Arradon, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific deputy director, said in a statement.
Salai Elaisa Vahnie, the executive director of the Burmese American Community Institute, based in the US, notes in the Burmese and Southeast Asian newspaper The Irawaddy that Myanmar’s ethnic conflict is a formidable barrier to democracy.
The continued ethnic conflict in Burma reflects the nature of the political crisis in Burma – deeply rooted in and prolonged by the Burman nationalistic claim that effectively utilized the world’s most reclusive and successive military as a tool to accomplish its goals of ethnic cleansing, a policy which ravaged 60 million people with fear and poverty, killed thousands, and produced millions of refugees.
With the recent positive developments led by President Thein Sein, the international community must continue to recognize that the ethnic issue is at the heart of the country’s problem, and only when this issue has been addressed fundamentally, with constitutional and institutional arrangement, can a stable democratic state that respects human rights and embraces peaceful co-existence in diversity be realized. That is when Burma, in real sense and substance, can be considered a democratic state that is capable of positively contributing to regional and world peace, stability and economy.
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian citizens gather in front of a damaged building that was destroyed by a car bomb, at Jaramana neighborhood, in Damascus, Syria, Monday Oct. 29, 2012. A Syrian government official says a car bomb in a Damascus suburb has killed 10 people. (SANA/AP)
Airstrikes, car bombs in Syria leave brief cease-fire in tatters
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Syrian opposition activists report that jets fired on several spots throughout the country yesterday, signaling decisively the demise of a United Nations-brokered cease-fire, which was broken by skirmishes almost as soon as it began last week.
Both sides have repeatedly broken the agreement since it began, with the government placing the blame on "terrorists" and the rebels saying they couldn't trust President Bashar al-Assad to uphold the cease-fire while his troops continued to stage strikes throughout the country. Reuters writes:
Syrian authorities blame "terrorists" for breaking the truce and the opposition says a ceasefire is impossible while Assad moves tanks and uses artillery and jets against populated areas.
A statement by the Syrian military said "blatant" rebel violations proved they want to "fragment and destroy Syria".
"These terrorist groups must be confronted, their remnants chased and an iron fist used to exterminate them and save the homeland from their evil," the statement said.
Reuters adds that in Damascus, residents reported bombings in several suburbs, as well as two car bombs. There were also air strikes in the provinces of Deir al-Zour, Idlib, and Aleppo, the latter two of which are mostly under rebel control on the ground. Activists also reported fighting in the city of Aleppo.
The BBC reports that according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group, at least 110 people were killed yesterday alone, the third day of the cease-fire – 39 civilians, 34 rebel fighters, and 35 government security forces.
The Telegraph reports that death estimates for the second day of the cease-fire were somewhere between 91 and 114 – far lower than at the height of fighting, but still not a good sign for the chances of an extension of the break in fighting.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special envoy to Syria who brokered the agreement, is expected to reopen talks at the UN Security Council, which backed the cease-fire. However, it is unclear what options he is left with after both the government and the rebels made it clear there would be no total compliance with this agreement.
Page Fortna, a Columbia University political science professor who has authored books on peacekeeping and cease-fires, wrote presciently in Foreign Policy in the early hours of the agreement that "a few days of relief" will be useful and that there was the possibility of an agreement helping to build "a sliver of trust momentum toward a permanent end," but the factors working against that are myriad in a temporary cease-fire.
All cease-fires are fragile, but temporary ones face a structural problem that makes them more fragile than most. As the end of the ceasefire period nears, there is an incentive to go on the offensive prior to the expiration date in order to gain an advantage over the other side. The other side is aware of this, however, and has an equal incentive to move against its adversaries, who, in turn, know this, and so have an incentive to attack even sooner, and so on and so forth. Not surprisingly, temporary ceasefires with a fixed expiration have a tendency to unravel.
This problem can be mitigated if both sides know that it would be clear who broke the ceasefire first – provided there are real costs to doing so.
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But this is a do-it-yourself ceasefire – there will be no monitors to observe compliance, since the UN withdrew its observer mission over the summer. As a result, if fighting resumes, it will be difficult for outsiders to tell who started what. The military incentives to strike first, coupled with plausible deniability, thus make it less likely that the truce will hold through the holiday weekend.
Professor Fortna warns that the more times mediation attempts fail, the higher the hurdles to peace become each time around. The best way to make a cease-fire durable is to put peacekeepers on the ground to hold accountable whoever breaks the agreement first.
The UN has already set in motion another attempt at a monitoring mission; the last one was called off because the violence became too great for them to work.
Fortna writes:
Peacekeeping missions are notoriously dysfunctional – chronically underfunded and underequipped; they tend to arrive late and are plagued by force interoperability problems. And yet, they are surprisingly effective. Why is this so? Impartial observers make it more costly to violate the terms of a ceasefire (or a more comprehensive peace deal) by providing information to the international community about who is or is not living up to commitments. They also provide the same information to the local population. So to the extent that the parties are vying for both international and domestic legitimacy, their presence makes returning to war more costly and maintaining a ceasefire more likely.
IN PICTURES: Battle for the heart of Syria: inside Aleppo
Rubble fills streets as the intense human and material cost grows from three months of intense fighting between regime forces and rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Aleppo, Syria, on Wednesday. (Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images)
Holiday cease-fire in Syria pocked with bullets
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Just hours after the Syrian cease-fire took hold, reports of its violation began to emerge. Two previous truces in the 20 month conflict did not last, but there is hope that this most recent cease-fire will provide a long-enough pause in the fighting to begin negotiations to end the conflict.
But both sides have attached caveats to their agreement to a cessation of violence – which has already killed nearly 35,000 people, according to the opposition, and displaced hundreds of thousands – eroding the likelihood that it can hold.
The Syrian Army warned that although it agreed to the cease-fire, it would respond to rebel attacks, while the rebel forces – who lack a unified leadership – gave varying answers about how much they would respect the agreement.
"Syrian armed forces will, however, reserve the right to reply to terrorists attacks, attempts of armed groups to reinforce or resupply, or attempts to infiltrate from neighboring countries," the Army said in a statement, according to BBC.
Col. Ahmed Hijazi, who identified himself as the chief of staff of the Free Syrian Army, the rebels’ primary fighting force, said the rebels wouldn’t agree to a cease-fire because it was skeptical of the regime’s compliance. "The regime is used to treachery and scheming," Colonel Hijazi said, according to the BBC. "It is not to be trusted."
Meanwhile, rebel spokesman Brig. Methqal Husani al-Btaish al-Neemeh laid out conditions for a cessation to fighting: freedom for all prisoners, an end to air strikes, an end to the siege on the city of Homs, and a promise not to use the pause in fighting to re-arm. None of those conditions have been met.
One of the first breaks in the cease-fire seems to have happened near Aleppo, when Syrian government troops fired on anti-government activists attempting to stage a demonstration, The Washington Post reports. Emboldened by the government’s agreement to the cease-fire, Syrians staged similar protests across the country, reminiscent of the large Friday protests that sparked the uprising-turned-civil-war in the first place, but which have largely ceased amid the violence.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were “fierce clashes” in northern Idlib province, reporting that fighters with rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra Front, one of the factions that said it would not observe a truce, attacked a Syrian Army checkpoint. The Army retaliated by shelling a nearby village.
Jabhat al-Nusra’s attack highlights one of the key challenges of any agreement in Syria: The Free Syrian Army, the main rebel fighting force, and the Syrian National Council, the political entity that represents many of the anti-regime groups, can only nominally control the many factions of the vast opposition movement. Jabhat al-Nusra is one of the many that the FSA has been unable to bring under its wing.
According to the Post, Mustafa al-Sheik, commander of the FSA’s military council, told Al Jazeera that if the Syrian Army stopped its shelling campaign, the rebels would obey the cease-fire. But later in the interview he seemed to acknowledge he couldn’t make that promise.
“For now, no one can speak for the armed opposition,” Mr. Sheik said. “It only listens to the Syrian will.”
Tony Karon speculates in Time that the true intent of the cease-fire isn’t a pause in fighting – that perhaps even United Nations special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, who brokered the agreement, accepts that neither side intended to keep its promise – but to make clear who the parties for a final agreement might be.
The absence of any external monitoring personnel or established protocols for disengagement, much less any enforcement mechanism, is a clear sign that the Eid al-Adha truce plan is largely an effort to have the combatants make a symbolic commitment to the idea of a future political settlement. Having honed his reputation in decades of mediating such intractable conflicts as the civil wars Lebanon and Afghanistan, Brahimi is not so naive as to believe Syria’s can be ended any time soon; instead, he’s establishing lines of communication with all sides, making sure that the Syrian combatants and their foreign sponsors will know where to turn when one or the other is ready to sue for peace. That moment, though, will likely be some time in coming.
“Brahimi is not making the same mistake as his predecessor in the mediator’s role, Kofi Annan, in pretending he can solve the conflict any time soon,” says Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. “Instead, he’s establishing himself as a go-between, knocking on the doors of all the players inside Syria and outside, looking for the lowest common denominators that can change the dynamic without making optimistic claims. And the fact that he’s got the major actors saying ‘yes’ to a cease-fire even when we all know they mean ‘no’, is a sign that the Syrian parties remain concerned to maintain international backing.”
Onlookers gather to looks at a huge fire that engulf the Yarmook ammunition factory in Khartoum October 24. A huge fire broke out after a loud explosion on Tuesday night at the arms factory in Sudan's capital Khartoum, a Reuters witness said. Soldiers blocked roads to the factory where more explosions took place as firefighters tried to contain the blaze, a Reuters reporter at the scene in southern Khartoum said. (Reuters)
Did Israel just blow up an Iranian weapons factory in Sudan?
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The Sudanese government is blaming Israel for an explosion at a munitions plant in Khartoum early yesterday morning that Israeli media say was owned by Iran's Revolutionary Guard and made arms for Hamas.
The Sudan Tribune reports that Ahmad Bilal Osman, Sudan's media minister, said in a press conference yesterday that the government had proof that Israel was behind the explosion that destroyed the Yarmook military factory and killed two people around midnight.
The Sudanese minister said that their accusation against the Jewish state did not come out of thin air but was based on evidences and accounts of eye witnesses confirming that four planes that entered the country from the east had destroyed factory using high technology that jammed radars at Khartoum airport.
Osman dismissed the possibility that neighboring South Sudan or internal rebel groups were behind the attack, saying only Israel has the kind of high technology with which the attack was carried out.
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The minister of media said in his press conference in Khartoum that 60 percent of Al-Yarmook ammunition factory was completely destroyed while 40 percent was partially destroyed. He revealed that the government had plans to relocate the factory to an area outside of the capital “but the Israelis knew this and decided to attack preemptively.”
Mr. Osman also said that the factory made small arms, and was not involved in assembly of advanced munitions, such as nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
Opposition sources in Sudan claim that the Yarmook factory was owned by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which has a history of involvement in Sudan in order to supply Hamas with arms, reports Haaretz.
In recent years, several reports published in the Arab media said that Iran's Revolutionary Guard built weapons manufacturing plants together with the Sudanese government.
However, their military cooperation does not end with the establishment of one military plant, and even senior Sudanese officials have not denied in the past that Iran has military factories on their land.
In fact, according to foreign reports, the arms factories that Iran built in Sudan were meant to arm Hamas. In the past, European media reported that Iran has sent men from the Republican Guard in order to train the Sudanese army.
Residents of Khartoum confirmed to Reuters that they had heard planes or missiles before the explosions that destroyed the factory, although reporters were unable to assess the damage to the factory itself because the Sudanese military blocked off the plant after the blast.
"I heard a sound like a plane or missile and then the sky was lit up and a huge explosion occurred," a resident who declined to be identified said. "There was a big fire and several subsequent explosions."
Two other residents said buildings near the plant had suffered minor damage.
Israeli officials declined to comment on the accusations. The Globe and Mail reports that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, “There is nothing I can say about this subject,” and Israeli defense official Amos Gilad did not reply directly when asked on Israeli army radio about Israel's involvement in the attack, although he did call Sudan a "dangerous terrorist state" that is "supported by Iran," reports Agence France-Presse.
BBC News diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus writes that while Sudan has yet to offer any proof of Israel's involvement in the explosion, the claim "is by no means as outlandish as it might sound. For a bitter secret war has been going on for a number of years between Israel and Hamas, with Sudan apparently very much one of the battlegrounds."
US diplomatic cables have revealed alleged arms smuggling networks running through Sudan. In January and February of 2009 there were two mystery air attacks on convoys in the Sudanese desert. More recently, in April last year, there were reports that a senior Hamas figure, thought to be responsible for arranging arms supplies, was killed near Port Sudan.
The Sudanese government said that Israeli attack helicopters had destroyed the car in which two individuals were travelling. Again there is no confirmation of any of this and the Israelis are saying nothing.
Israel's Ynetnews notes that according to an Al Hayat report, the US embassy in Khartoum was closed yesterday, which some in Sudan say is an indication that the US had foreknowledge of the apparent attack on the Yarmook factory.
In this photo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (l.) greets United Nations Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi prior to their closed-door meeting in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Oct. 21. Brahimi met with Assad as part of his push for a cease-fire between rebels and government forces for the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins Oct. 26. (SANA/AP)
Brahimi's plan for Syria cease-fire takes two steps forward, one step back
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United Nations special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said today that the government agreed to a cease-fire over the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, but Syrian officials almost immediately dismissed his statement, claiming that it was still considering the proposal.
There are high stakes for the potential cease-fire, which is currently the only proposal on the table for ending the 19-month conflict that has killed between 20,000 and 34,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. But there seems to be little optimism that the three- or four-day break in violence will bring about a substantial change.
A cease-fire agreement in April (described as “so fragile it could collapse with a single gunshot,” reported the Associated Press at the time) failed within days, with both rebels and the Army accusing one another of breaking the agreement.
"After the visit I made to Damascus, there is agreement from the Syrian government for a cease-fire during the Eid," Mr. Brahimi told a news conference at the Cairo-based Arab League. Rebel groups have also agreed to the truce “in principle," Reuters reports.
However, an hour after Brahimi's announcement, the Syrian government said it was still "studying" the proposal and would announce its decision tomorrow.
Rebel sources earlier told the news agency there was “little point if it could not be monitored and enforced,” according to a separate Reuters report, and Brahimi’s plan didn’t note the presence of international observers to monitor the cease-fire, according to the first report.
"If this humble initiative succeeds, we hope that we can build on it in order to discuss a longer and more effective cease-fire, and this has to be part of a comprehensive political process," Brahimi said.
Brahimi's announcement follows another bloody day in Syria. One of the few bakeries still operating in Aleppo was shelled yesterday, as about 100 people waited in line for bread, reports the Los Angeles Times. An estimated 20 people were killed and another 50 wounded in the blast in the Masaken Hanano neighborhood.
This was the third day in a row that the opposition-held neighborhood came under Army shelling. Abu al-Hasan, an activist from an Aleppo suburb, told The New York Times that residents in the area were too scared to leave their homes the past few days because of the intense shelling but “finally took the risk in order to buy food for Eid al-Adha,” the widely celebrated holiday that starts at the end of the week. The N.Y. Times notes how important bakeries have become in the three-month battle over Aleppo, Syria’s largest city:
…[B]akeries in rebel-held areas of Aleppo have emerged as vitally important resources that are clearly potential targets for Syrian forces seeking to starve the insurgents and their sympathizers into submission. Many of the bakeries are run by the insurgents, who have learned how to bake bread as part of the war effort.
Nearly a dozen bakeries have been targeted in Aleppo since fighting broke out there. Abu Firas, a spokesman for the Revolutionary Council for Aleppo and its suburbs, told the L.A. Times that the Assad regime has targeted bakeries because it wants “life to stop.”
"They are directly targeting the bakeries because many people gather there. Why are they shelling it? There aren't any Free Syrian Army fighters," Abu Firas said, referring to the main rebel fighting force, also known as the FSA.
The Syrian Army is relying more and more on air strikes as it has lost territory to rebel groups.
"Some of the bombs were so big they sucked in the air and everything crashes down, even four-story buildings. We used to have one or two rockets a day, now for the past 10 days it has become constant, we run from one shelter to another. They drop a few bombs and it's like a massacre," a 20-year-old refugee named Nabil told Reuters at a camp in the Syrian town of Atimah, which overlooks the Turkish border.
Bakeries aren’t the only targets. The BBC reports from the town of Marea near the Turkish border, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, that funeral processions, the weekly market, and other quotidian activities seem just as likely to be targeted by bombs.
Almost everyone we meet has lost someone to the enemy in the sky – here, a boy was shot dead from the air as he rode his motor bike – there, a group of teenage lads were blown to pieces by a bomb dropped from a MiG fighter as they loaded potatoes onto a truck.
There seems to be no object to the random bombing, other than to sow terror.
"It's revenge," says Yasser al-Haji, a businessman from Marea who moved abroad, then returned last year to join the revolution. "Marea was one of first cities to demonstrate.
"It's an economic war, too. Above all, they want to humiliate us for rising up against the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad," he adds.
The bakery hit yesterday in Aleppo was housed in a large warehouse, according to Abu al-Hasan who spoke to the N.Y. Times. He says it’s actually unclear whether the bakery was the target.
“The problem is those kinds of missiles are not guided to their intended targets,” he said. “They’re not precise. They fall on random buildings.”
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that there are now more than 358,000 Syrian refugees in the region, according to the L.A. Times. Last week alone more than 5,500 Syrians registered with UNHCR.
“The longer Syrians remain in exile, the more likely they are to seek help as their savings are depleted. Many refugees fled home with few resources because work has been disrupted for more than a year in some areas of Syria,” the LA Times reports.
With a potential cease-fire on the horizon, many are speculating about the future of Syria and President Bashar al-Assad. James Van de Velde, a lecturer at the Center for Advanced Studies at Johns Hopkins University writes in a commentary for The Jerusalem Post that no regime that follows Assad could be worse, “though it may not be much better in the near term.”
Mr. Van de Velde lays out five potential outcomes in Syria, none of which he expects will include Assad:
1. Assad flees and those Alawite members of the regime who remain pledge to join and cooperate with the new (Sunni-dominated) Free Syrian Army (FSA) government (the optimal, ideal, Western-driven future, although sadly there is no evidence the United States is pursuing such an outcome)….
2. Assad resigns at the direction of Russia, which creates a new Syrian government (a Russian-driven future). A UN-Russian plan creates a transitional government made up of FSA members and current regime elements, made possible and heavily influenced by Russia, which wishes to maintain a favored-nation status with the new Syrian government, which affords Russia special influence for pulling Assad. The United States is largely shut out of the new government, given the perception that the United States was indifferent to the opposition….
3. Assad flees at the direction of Iran (an Iran-driven future). A UN plan creates a transitional government made up of FSA members and current regime elements, but one that is heavily influenced behind the scenes in Syria by Iran, which wishes to keep Syria a client state and to continue to support Lebanese Hezbollah through Syria. The United States is largely shut out, given the perception that the United States was indifferent to the opposition.
4. Assad flees or is killed and leaves behind chaos (a “no one is driving” future). The FSA takes over the country; the Alawites are purged from the new government. There is a scramble among the FSA, al-Qaida in Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran to secure and control Syrian chemical and biological weapons and shape the new government. The outcome of such violence is uncertain. here is no sympathy for the United States, given the perception that the United States was indifferent to the opposition.
5. Assad flees or is killed and Alawite members of the SSRC, the Republican Guard and former regime elements – including thousands of private Alawite militia, retreat to the Latakia Province and create a defensive enclave, armed with Syrian regime weapons, perhaps including chemical and biological weapons (a sectarian-driven future) – perhaps the most likely future now....
Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (l.) and Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh (r.), wave to the crowd as they arrive for the cornerstone laying ceremony of a Qatari funded rehabilitation center in Gaza City, Gaza, Tuesday, Oct. 23. The emir of Qatar received a hero's welcome in Gaza on Tuesday, becoming the first head of state to visit the Palestinian territory since the Islamist militant Hamas seized control there in 2007. (Hatem Moussa/AP)
Qatari emir comes to Gaza bearing gifts – maybe with some strings attached
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The emir of Qatar traveled to Gaza today, becoming the first head of state from any nation to visit the territory since the Islamist group Hamas took power five years ago. The emir is bringing significant offers of aid, furthering the small oil-rich nation's efforts to gain influence around the region.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani's visit is pinned to the launch of an aid package earmarked for $254 million to fund reconstruction projects in Gaza – "symbolic" relief for a territory that has been economically and politically isolated by the West and Israel since Hamas took over in 2007. Reuters noted upon the emir's arrival that the original amount was increased to $400 million.
During the emir's four-hour visit, he will inaugurate several projects, among them a housing project, hospital, and renovation of Gaza's major north-south highway, Salaha-Din Road.
This is the "latest example of Qatar’s use of its oil and gas riches and ties to Islamist organizations to expand its regional influence," reports The Wall Street Journal. It has played an active role in the regional uprisings, leading regional efforts to isolate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – it was one of the first countries to close its embassy there – and overthrow former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party presides over the government in the West Bank, said he welcomed Qatar’s aid package, but stressed that he is the official, internationally recognized leader of the Palestinian people, according to The Associated Press.
The two Palestinian territories have been politically divided since the Hamas takeover, and reconciliation efforts have failed repeatedly. Some Palestinians expressed reservations about the emir’s visit and Qatar’s role, fearing that Mr. Thani's visit could deepen the split, The Wall Street Journal reports.
But many Palestinians have expressed uneasiness about Qatar's role, describing it as aggravating their domestic political feud by favoring Hamas over the secular Fatah Party, which runs the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Fatah representatives couldn't be reached on Monday, but the party's Facebook page contained a photograph of the emir with a red line through his face and a caption reading "You are unwelcome. Gaza is not for sale."
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"It's political money. It's not innocent money," said Omar Shaban, director of the Gaza economic think tank Pal-Think for Strategic Studies. "Some people think that it will damage reconciliation. It will encourage Hamas and embolden Hamas'' not to compromise with Fatah.
But the United Arab Emirates' Gulf News writes in an editorial that the emir’s visit is an opportunity for mending ties.
It is important that Shaikh Hamad takes the opportunity to urge the Hamas leaders to seek the promised reconciliation with Fatah, so that the Palestinians can once again have a single and unified government with which they will be able to face the Israeli aggression more confidently.
It is also important that Fatah works to implement reconciliation. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has officially welcomed Shaikh Hamad’s visit to Gaza, but he should also take the opportunity to stress on restarting the reconciliation process so that Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza can once again re-unite under one government.
Earlier this year Thani attempted to facilitate a reconciliation, hosting talks between Mr. Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, reports Voice of America. Those talks did not bring about a resolution, but they are indicative of Qatar’s emerging role as a mediator, as The Christian Science Monitor reported last spring.
Qatar offers a powerful combination of money, hotel space, and connections – and is largely devoid of historical baggage.
The government, which aims to increase its international stature, spends millions footing hotel bills for rebels. After agreements are signed, Qatar sweetens the deal with reconstruction and development aid. The Qatari emir and the foreign minister personally invest in building relationships with the various parties.
The talks have had mixed results. But for Qatar, playing host has raised its international profile, helped forge allies in the West, and won praise almost universally. Mediation is proving to be a powerful – and fail-safe – way to boost its brand.
Another Monitor report notes that Qatar's pivot from neutrality to a more activist agenda could result in future challenges for the country.
“Qatar was long seen as the Switzerland of the Middle East – a small, neutral country friendly to everyone from Iran to the US Central Command, which it hosts,” the Monitor reports.
But according to Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen, a scholar of Gulf politics at the London School of Economics, "They're losing that [neutral] reputation…. They are playing a very political game, and it could come back to haunt them."
Thani's visit to Gaza riled Israel, which has led the effort to isolate Gaza, imposing strict controls on what can enter the territory.
"We find it weird that the emir doesn't support all of the Palestinians but sides with Hamas over the Palestinian Authority [in the West Bank], which he has never visited," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told The Telegraph. "The emir has chosen his camp and it is not good."
A Free Syrian Army fighter takes cover within the confines of a damaged building during clashes with the Syrian Army in Karmal Jabl district, Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (Manu Brabo/AP)
Syria: Little hope for Eid ceasefire as conflict spills across borders (+video)
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An Arab League official says hopes for a cease-fire in Syria over the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha are "weak," as President Bashar al-Assad shows little indication of support for the concept, despite his words in favor of a ceasefire.
Ahmed Ben Helli, deputy secretary general of the Arab League, told Reuters that "The indications that are now apparent and the government's reaction ... do not show any signs of a real desire to implement this cease-fire." The proposal, brought to Mr. Assad and the rebels over the weekend by United Nations special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, would entail an end to fighting beginning Oct. 26 and and lasting through the weekend, during the holiday of Eid al-Adha.
"We are days away from Eid," Mr. Ben Helli said. "We hope the situation changes and the government and opposition respond even a little bit to this door for negotiations."
Mr. Brahimi met separately with Syrian rebel leaders and Assad over the weekend, reports Deutsche Welle. Although the opposition is said to be in favor of a ceasefire, DW writes that Assad was less receptive to the idea and conditioned his regime's acquiescence to a political solution to the conflict on an end to foreign powers' arming of the rebels.
Assad called for a "halt to terrorism" as well as "a commitment on the part of certain implicated countries to stop harboring, supporting and arming terrorists" in Syria, state-run television reported.
Violence continued unabated in Damascus and Aleppo over the weekend as Brahimi pushed for a peaceful resolution, reports Al Arabiya. The rebel-controlled town of Harasta, on the outskirts of Damascus, was the scene of ongoing clashes as regime troops attacked the city, killing "scores" of rebels and civilians. And fighting continued across Aleppo, where rebels and regime troops have been clashing for three months. The London-based opposition group the Syrian Observation for Human Rights says that 173 people, including 65 civilians, were killed nationwide yesterday.
The weekend also showed signs that the conflict in Syria is spilling across its borders into neighboring Lebanon and Jordan.
The New York Times reports that protests broke out in Lebanon yesterday, with isolated clashes with security continuing early this morning, after the funeral of Lebanese security chief and anti-Syrian politician Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, who was killed in a car bombing on Oct. 19. The Times writes that the protests "exposed the undercurrent of tension buzzing through Lebanon for much of the 19 months since the uprising began against Mr. Assad’s government. The eruption on Sunday reflected a simmering anger over the killing of Sunni civilians in Syria by allies of Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect."
And early today, a Jordanian soldier was killed when a group of armed militants attempted to cross the Jordanian border into Syria, reports Agence France-Presse. Several of the gunmen were captured, Information and Culture Minister Samih Maaytah told AFP, but not before they killed the corporal.
The border shooting comes on the heels of yesterday's announcement that Jordan had arrested 11 "Al Qaeda" suspects who had planned to launch a coordinated attack on civilian and foreign diplomatic targets in the Jordanian capital of Amman, reports The Daily Telegraph. Using arms smuggled into Jordan from Syria, the militants planned to launch suicide bombings against a pair of shopping malls in Amman. After security forces responded to the attacks, the militants would than assault their primary target, the city's affluent Abdoun district, where many Western diplomats are based.
The 11 suspects are all believed to be Jordanian nationals, and are said to have been instructed by Al Qaeda explosive experts in Iraq. The Telegraph notes that the late Abu Musab al Zarqawi, former leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, was Jordanian.
IN PICTURES: Reaching a critical juncture in Syria
Vessels roam the waters of East China Sea during a naval drill Friday. The Chinese navy conducted a joint exercise with the country's fishery administration and marine surveillance agency in the East China Sea. (China Daily/Reuters)
China's naval exercises in East China Sea send warning to regional rivals
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
China held naval exercises in the East China Sea today in a robust show of military force intended to warn regional rivals against escalating territorial disputes.
China regularly holds maritime drills in the fall, but "sources close to the military" said the drills were related to a territorial dispute that has been the source of recent flare-up between China and Japan, the Financial Times reports.
Japan and China have long been at odds over a string of islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, but tensions ratcheted up last month when the Japanese government agreed to buy three of the islands that were privately owned by a Japanese businessman. The incident brought relations between the countries to a 40-year low and prompted the cancellation of celebrations planned for last month to fete the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations, as The Christian Science Monitor reported in an in-depth report on the dispute last month.
"Relations are worse than they have ever been in 40 years," Liu Jiangyong, a professor of Japanese politics at Tsinghua University in Beijing, told the Monitor. "I don't see much chance of a war; but I think Japan is preparing for one, and we should, too."
The Japanese government said that the intent was not to challenge China, but to prevent the islands' sale to the governor of Tokyo, a vocal nationalist who might have used them to antagonize China. The explanation did not quiet Chinese anger.
The exercises also come on the heels of visits earlier this week by Japanese opposition leader Shinzo Abe as well as two cabinet ministers to the controversial Yasukuni shrine. The shrine, which honors Japan's war dead – among them 14 class A war criminals convicted after World War II – is seen in China as a "symbol of Japan's military atrocities" during its decades-long occupation of much of the region until Japan's defeat in 1945, Bloomberg reports.
Chinese news agency Xinhua said the officials' visit "would further poison bilateral ties" and "added insult to injury," according to Bloomberg.
Drills like those held today are a routine event, but military sources told the Financial Times "this drill could only be read as directed at the island crisis."
“This exercise will simulate a situation where foreign law enforcement vessels obstruct and interfere with our maritime surveillance and fisheries administration vessels on a mission to safeguard maritime rights and enforce the law,” said state media, referring to a statement from the East Sea Fleet which is participating in the drill.
According to the statement, the simulated scenario includes a collision in which the Chinese ships are damaged and some patrol staff are hurt and fall into the water. The East Sea Fleet then “sends a frigate, a hospital ship, a tugboat, advanced fighters and helicopters for support, cover and emergency rescue.”
…
“With this content, this drill must be seen in the context of the Diaoyu Islands,” said a source familiar with the military’s intentions.
According to Xinhua, the Navy held the exercises with the fishery administration and marine surveillance agency in order to "improve coordination" and their ability to respond to emergencies. Eleven vessels and eight aircraft were involved in the effort.
The Associated Press reports that Japan plans to hold similar drills with the US later this year centered around a theoretical challenge of "taking a remote island back from a foreign intruder."
Multiple experts interviewed by the Monitor said that they don't think either country wants to go to war. The real cause for concern is that it would take little to tip the countries into open conflict with tensions at a slow boil for so long, and both taking steps to intimidate the other.
So far, hostilities have been limited to water-cannon duels, as happened Sept. 24 between Japanese and Taiwanese Coast Guard vessels. But "when you have that many boats sailing around, the potential for mishap is quite high," points out Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The danger, adds Valérie Niquet, a China analyst at the Foundation for Strategic Research, a think tank in Paris, is that a collision, a sinking, or a fatality "could start something that would be difficult to stop," especially since China and Japan have no procedures in place to handle maritime crises.
UN-Arab League peace envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi (l.) speaks during a joint news conference with Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh (r.) in Amman October 18, 2012. (Ali Jarekji/REUTERS)
Cease-fire in Syria? Support from Iran and Turkey boosts UN envoy's bid
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
A fresh cease-fire proposal for Syria received a much-needed boost today when Iran and Turkey, two regional powers who back opposite sides in the Syrian conflict, declared their support for the plan being shopped around by United Nations special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.
Although the actual fighting has been limited to Syria, other countries are providing funds, arms, fighters, and de facto safe havens, making outside support for the cease-fire critical to its success.
Mr. Brahimi has spent the week making his rounds of the region to garner support for the cease-fire, which would be slated for the three-day Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha later this month. His hope, The New York Times reports, is that a holiday "universally respected by Muslims could be the basis not only for a pause in the fighting but perhaps the beginnings of a dialogue in Syria."
The envoy said today that rebel leaders had pledged to observe the cease-fire, but that they insisted the government halt its fighting first, BBC reports.
"We heard from everyone we met in the opposition, and everyone [else] we met that, if the government stops using violence, 'We will respond to this directly'," Brahimi said from Beirut today.
"The Syrian people are burying hundreds of people each day, so if they bury fewer people during the days of the holiday, this could be the start of Syria's return from the dangerous situation that it has slipped and is continuing to slip toward."
Brahimi also warned regional leaders today that the 19-month conflict could not be contained within Syria's borders for much longer. Syrian Army shelling has already landed in both Lebanese and Turkish territory multiple times, Agence France-Presse reports.
"This crisis cannot remain confined within Syrian territory," he told reporters. "Either it is solved, or it gets worse... and sets [the region] ablaze."
With support from Iran and Turkey secured, the next obstacle facing Brahimi is the Syrian opposition's lack of a unified leadership. The Syrian government has cited this as a key reason it has been unwilling to reach any previous agreement with the rebels, saying that even if one representative of the rebels signs an agreement, the number of factions means there is no guarantee of total buy-in from the opposition.
Other countries have put significant pressure on the rebels to put aside their differences. Reuters reports that Qatar and Turkey have brokered an agreement to unite the various factions fighting the Assad regime.
"The agreement has been reached, they only need to sign it now," one anonymous rebel source said. "[Foreign supporters] are telling us: 'Sort yourselves out and unite, we need a clear and credible side to provide it with quality weapons.' "
But it appears that at least some countries are not waiting for greater unity among rebel fighters. The Wall Street Journal reports that video footage of fighting in Syria earlier this week shows rebel forces firing advanced portable antiaircraft weapons – the first such instance in the conflict, according to rebels and regional experts. According to fighters, they have managed to down Syrian Army helicopters.
Weapons that give rebels the ability to shoot down regime aircraft could be a game-changer for a conflict in which regime forces have so far enjoyed vast military superiority, particularly because of the Air Force's ability to bomb rebel positions.
"Northern Syria is awash with advanced antitank and antiaircraft weapons. The situation has changed very quickly," a Syrian who coordinates weapons supplies from outside Syria told the Wall Street Journal.
According to rebels, the weapons, known as man-portable air defense systems (Manpads), were smuggled into the country via Turkey and Lebanon in the past two months, although Lebanon has recently cracked down on weapons smuggling and Turkey has insisted it is not involved in weapons supplying.
IN PICTURES: Inside Aleppo, Syria
United Nations special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi speaks during a news conference after meeting with Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati (not pictured) at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday. (Hasan Shaaban/Reuters)
UN envoy to Syria visits region to resurrect cease-fire efforts
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
United Nations special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Beirut today as part of a tour of the region, advocating a fresh ceasefire in Syria pegged to the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha later this month. However, like plans put forward by his predecessor, Kofi Annan, there is doubt whether the regional, national, and rebel support necessary for success is there.
Mr. Brahimi asked Iranian officials to help broker a truce earlier this week, and yesterday the Syrian government offered “the slenderest of hopes” when a spokesman said it was studying the proposed plan, reports the Telegraph.
“In order to succeed in any initiative, it takes two sides,” said Jihad Maqdisi, a Syrian foreign ministry spokesman.
A Western diplomat told Reuters that a ceasefire “could open the door to something more sustained" in Syria. "But it's not clear how realistic this idea is. Annan tried and failed to do the same thing," the diplomat said.
Though there are plenty who say the ceasefire is improbable, if not impossible – all international efforts to date to end the 19-month conflict in Syria have failed, with both rebels and the Syrian government ignoring previous ceasefires – some say a pause in the violence that has killed between 20,000 and 30,000 people according to the UN and rebel groups is desperately needed. Kaveh Afrasiabi, author of “After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy,” writes in an commentary for the Asia Times:
A temporary respite is desperately needed for the civilian population throughout the country, many of whom have become refugees or are bunkered inside their homes, as well as by the plethora of stakeholders in the Syrian theater, whose diverse interests may be converging toward a ceasefire.
As the Syrian conflict increasingly tears the country apart and risks the stability of neighboring countries, the timing of Brahimi's new push for a ceasefire is right...
The UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations told Brahimi it could put together a monitoring group of up to 3,000 people who could potentially separate the rebels and the regime in order to ensure fighting doesn’t pick up again after the ceasefire, reports Reuters. However, sending any monitors would require a UN Security Council mandate, and no Western countries have pledged troops yet. A previous observer mission to the country was disbanded because violence prevented them from being able to get out and monitor the situation.
“The Syrian side is interested in exploring this option,” Syria’s Mr. Maqdisi said in reference to the ceasefire proposal, also noting the government was waiting to hear the results of Brahimi’s tour, The Telegraph reports. He will also visit opposition backers Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Syrian regime supporter Iran, as well as Iraq and, as of today, Lebanon.
It is unclear whether Brahimi will travel to Damascus after Beirut, reports the Associated Press.
Syria wants to know if influential countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey are on board, and if they will pressure rebel groups “that they host and finance and arm” to abide by such a ceasefire, said Maqdisi.
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has accepted two international ceasefire proposals in the past, only to intensify the conflict, according to the Telegraph.
The divisions among rebel groups are another obstacle to the regime putting faith in a ceasefire: It has no guarantee that because one rebel group agrees to the proposal, the others will as well. There are myriad rebel groups, many of which work autonomously and without information sharing, according to a separate AP story, and there is no unified leadership among the rebels.
Today, state-run newspaper Al-Thawra said the biggest challenge to a potential ceasefire is the rebels' lack of unity.
"There is the state, represented by the government and the army on one front, but who is on the other front?" reads an editorial in the newspaper, according to AP.
Others have echoed concerns about the disjointed rebel front, but still say intervention is necessary. Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum writes that by focusing on concrete problems, these fragmented groups have an opportunity to unite, and outside nations like the United States have an opportunity to help:
There are no real military options in Syria and I understand the arguments against arming the rebels. To date, the Syrian opposition has failed to coalesce around a single idea, structure or leadership. Nobody wants to pump more weapons into a region already awash with guns, especially if it is not clear who might end up using them or for what purpose. Yet, keeping the distance does not remove the US from the conflict, nor does it absolve America from responsibility for the outcome….
If the West is absent, if we can’t provide moral and material support for a liberal, secular alternative – a constitution that guarantees minority rights, an inclusive political order and an open economic system — then there might not be one at all.
America is not entirely powerless, though. Some areas of Syria, abandoned by the Al Assad regime, are now controlled by local coordination committees. The US should be there to help them – and not just with emergency aid…. [I]t is also possible to start thinking, now, about the economics of post-war Syria, a country whose budget is being drained and whose infrastructure is in ruins. By focusing on concrete problems, the opposition, the rebels and the coordination committees may find that they can unify around the solutions.
Two rebel groups announced yesterday that they have agreed to set up a joint leadership in order to meet the international calls for unity, according to a separate Reuters report.
"The agreement has been reached, they only need to sign it now," one rebel source said. Foreign supporters "are telling us: 'Sort yourselves out and unite, we need a clear and credible side to provide it with quality weapons'."
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The new leadership will include FSA leaders Riad al-Asaad and Mustafa Sheikh – criticised by many rebels because they are based in Turkey – and recently defected General Mohammad Haj Ali, as well as heads of rebel provincial military councils inside Syria like Qassem Saadeddine, based in Homs province.
Even if a unified rebel front can be created, outside powers also present hurdles. The UN Security Council has been deadlocked over how to move forward in the war-torn country for months. Russia and China have vetoed three UN resolutions thus far.
"There will never be unity inside Syria unless the countries supporting the revolt agree because each group is supported and backed by (one) country," a rebel source told Reuters.
"Now the countries are becoming nervous and the Syrian issue has become bigger than they expected and almost out of control."
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