Persian Gulf & Middle East Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

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Ambassador Bhadrakumar on oil and sanctions:

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Reliance is a very large conglomerate which has a large influence on Indian policies. It wants to invest in fracking in the US as well import LNG from the US and therefore moves India to be subservient to the US. This despite the democratic pretense of India.
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, also by M K Bhadrakumar.

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15 March 2014 Last updated at 12:35 ET
Berkin Elvan: Turkish PM accuses dead boy of terror links
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said a 15-year-old boy who died on Tuesday from injuries sustained in last year's anti-government protests had links to terrorism.
Berkin Elvan spent nine months in a coma after being hit by a tear gas canister as he went to buy bread.
His death triggered more clashes with the police in over 30 towns and cities.
Mr Erdogan's comments could further inflame political tensions, correspondents say.
In a campaign speech ahead of local elections on 30 March, Mr Erdogan said the teenager was connected to "terrorist organisations".
"This kid with steel marbles in his pockets, with a slingshot in his hand, his face covered with a scarf, who had been taken up into terror organisations, was unfortunately subjected to pepper gas," he said in the speech broadcast on state TV.
Berkin Elvan's funeral took place in Istanbul on Wednesday, providing a focus for further expressions of discontent with Mr Erdogan.
Police fired water cannon and tear gas at protesters near Taksim Square, while his coffin was carried through the city's streets.
Tens of thousands of mourners chanted anti-government slogans and his mother accused Mr Erdogan of killing her son.
No tolerance
Berkin Elvan's death brought to at least eight the toll from last year's unrest, including one policeman.
The protests began over plans to develop Istanbul's Gezi Park into a new mosque and shopping centre, but escalated into national demonstrations against what opponents see as Mr Erdogan's growing authoritarianism.
Speaking to supporters on Saturday, Mr Erdogan said violence would no longer be tolerated.
"We will never let the streets become battlegrounds," he said, accusing opponents of causing disruption ahead of local elections.
Mr Erdogan has promised to step down if the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) does badly in the elections.
However, the AKP, in power since 2002, is expected to do better than its rivals in the polls.

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13 March 2014 Last updated at 20:07 ET
Gaza militants and Israel exchange strikes despite 'truce'
Rocket and air strikes have continued between Gaza militants and Israel despite Palestinian claims a truce had been restored.
Several rockets hit Israeli soil on Thursday and Israel's military said it had launched retaliatory air strikes.
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad earlier said a deal had been made to resume a 2012 ceasefire agreement. Israel did not confirm this.
The day before saw the heaviest barrage of rockets since the 2012 conflict.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said about 60 rockets hit Israel on Wednesday.
It said eight more rockets struck Israel on Thursday, after which Israel attacked seven "terror sites" in Gaza.
There have been no Israeli casualties. Reuters news agency quoted witnesses as saying that three Palestinians were wounded, without identifying whether they were civilians or militants.
Islamic Jihad's leader in Gaza, Khaled al-Batch, earlier announced that Egypt had helped broker a deal to resume a 2012 ceasefire agreement and that the truce would resume if the Israelis complied.
"Following intensive Egyptian contacts and efforts, the agreement for calm has been restored in accordance with understandings reached in 2012 in Cairo," he said on Facebook.
Moments earlier, Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Peter Lerner said Israel would "continue... to eliminate threats as they develop".
He said: "This is our obligation and responsibility to those exposed to Gaza terrorism."
Explosions heard
Israel has carried out dozens of air strikes since Wednesday, hitting bases of Gaza's Hamas government and the al-Quds Brigades across the territory.
Islamic Jihad said it fired the rockets on Wednesday in retaliation for the killing of three of its militants in an Israeli air strike the day before. Israel says it attacked the militants immediately after they launched mortars at Israeli soldiers.
Air raid sirens went off in the southern Israeli cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon on Thursday when the latest volley of rockets was fired.
The rockets hit open areas, but landed deeper in Israel than on the previous day, AP reported.
On Wednesday Israel carried out 29 air strikes. The BBC's Rushdi Abu Alouf in Gaza City said explosions could be heard across the territory.
Hamas insisted it did not take part in firing the rockets but accused Israel of provoking the attacks by Islamic Jihad.
AP quoted Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri as saying Israel bore "full responsibility" for the escalation.
Israel said it holds Hamas responsible for any attacks from Gaza.

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15 March 2014 Last updated at 07:47 ET
Egypt unrest: Six soldiers shot dead in Cairo
Six Egyptian soldiers have been killed by gunmen at a checkpoint in the northern Cairo suburb of Shubra al-Khayma, state media reports.
A security official said two bombs left behind by the attackers had been defused.
The violence comes two days after another soldier was shot dead in an attack on an army bus in eastern Cairo.
There has been an upsurge in violence since the overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last July.
Islamist militants have killed hundreds of police and soldiers in numerous attacks.
The military accused Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood of carrying out this latest attack, which was carried out as the soldiers took part in dawn prayers.
The Brotherhood denies involvement in violence, saying it is committed to peaceful campaigning.
Trials
It was designated a terrorist group in December and thousands of its members have been put on trial.
A series of high-profile attacks on security forces in Cairo and the Sinai peninsula have been claimed by another group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which it says are in revenge for the military-backed government's repression of Mr Morsi's supporters.
Mr Morsi, elected in 2012 following the overthrow of veteran ruler Hosni Mubarak, was ousted by the military amid huge streets protests against him, after a year in power marred by deep political and social divisions.
Mr Morsi is in jail facing four separate trials. The charges, which he denies, include the killing of opposition protesters, espionage and conspiring to commit acts of terror.
Military chief Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is expected to stand in presidential elections which are due to be held in April.

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14 March 2014 Last updated at 04:52 ET
Syria opposition: Allies must honour weapons 'promises'
The head of Syria's main opposition alliance has said its international allies must honour what he said were pledges to supply heavy weapons.
Ahmed Jarba of the National Coalition told the BBC that he was promised them if Syrian government was at fault for the failure of recent peace talks.
The 11 core members of "The Friends of Syria" - including the US and UK - all blamed President Bashar al-Assad.
"Syrians are paying for time with blood," Mr Jarba warned.
In the interview with the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, he also blamed the Syrian government for the presence of Islamist extremists in the conflict, and promised to kick them out of Syria, as he claimed his forces had in several provinces already.
"Our main enemy is the regime that ruled this country for 50 years with fire and iron," he said. "When the revolution kicked off, there were no extremists or terrorists, there were [only] Syrian people looking only for their freedom."
While he admitted that the Assad government was the greater enemy he insisted that "regarding the terrorists, we fought and we will keep fighting against them... because we reject them and the Syrian people reject them as well."
In the interview, conducted at the National Coalition's headquarters in Istanbul, Mr Jarba also admitted he wished the US had gone through with its threat to bomb sites in Syria, saying that, if they had, "the conflict would have been much closer to the end".
"Assad has handed over the chemical weapons to save himself," he explained.
The time had come, Mr Jarba said, for diplomacy to take second place to changing the balance of power on Syria's battlefields in favour of his army, because only then would Assad feel he had to negotiate. "The Assad regime just knows the language of force," he said.
Mr Jarba's international backers may be less confident that is possible, says Jeremy Bowen, given the support the government in Damascus has from Iran and Russia, and the strength of jihadist insurgents who reject both the government and the secular opposition.
But without heavy, particularly anti-aircraft, weapons, Mr Jarba faces an uphill struggle to defeat President Assad, and that is a goal to which he is implacably committed, our correspondent adds.
"Syrians, after paying this price for freedom, won't allow this stupid man to rule them once again - whatever the price is," Mr Jarba said.

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Al Nusrah Front, Free Syrian Army launch joint operation
By BILL ROGGIOMarch 14, 2014



The Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria, teamed up with a Free Syrian Army unit known as the Liwa al Ummah to overrun a military outpost in Idlib province last week. Free Syrian Army units continue to ally themselves with the Al Nusrah Front on the battlefield despite Al Nusrah's public affiliation with al Qaeda.

The latest joint operations between the Al Nusrah Front and the Free Syrian Army took place on March 6, when the two groups attacked a Syrian Army outpost in the city of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province. The Al Nusrah Front announced the joint operation in a statement that was released yesterday; the statement was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

The statement said that "a small group from the mujahideen of the Al Nusrah Front and Liwa al Ummah attacked the Tariq 'Ajeeb barrier" and overran it, killing six Syrian soldiers and wounding 30 more. The Al Nusrah Front said that a tank was used by the group during the assault.

"The mujahideen took as spoils a BMP vehicle, 3 RPG launchers, a collection of light weapons, and various ammunition," the Al Nusrah Front claimed. The two group then proceed to attack "the neighboring Ma'arzafi barrier."

Heavy fighting has been reported in Khan Sheikhun over the past week as the Al Nusrah Front and Free Syrian Army groups have been attacking Syrian forces in the city [see video above, which shows Free Syrian Army fighters attacking Syrian troops].

The emir of the Al Nusrah Front, which was formed by al Qaeda's branch in Iraq, publicly reaffirmed his allegiance to al Qaeda's leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, in a statement released in April 2013. The group was added to the US' list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist groups in December 2012. Several Free Syrian Army groups have openly joined the Al Nusrah Front over the past year.

The Liwa al Ummah, or Brigade of the Muslim Nation, was formed by Abd al Mahdi al Harati, a deputy of Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the former emir of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Al Harati, who headed a rebel group during the Libyan revolution, led Liwa al Ummah for six months in 2012 before merging with the Free Syrian Army. Liwa al Ummah is estimated to have around 6,000 fighters, and is comprised primarily of Syrians, but also includes a large contingent of Libyans, Sudanese, Palestinians, Egyptians, and Arabs.

Hundreds of Libyan fighters are thought to have traveled to Syria to fight with rebel groups. Many of these Libyans are believed to be fighting alongside the ISIS or the Al Nusrah Front. Ansar al Sharia Libya, a Libyan jihadist group with ties to al Qaeda, helps recruit Libyan fighters to travel to Syria. Ansar al Sharia Libya is also reported to run training camps for recruits destined for Syria.

Free Syrian Army units as well as the Islamic Front, which is viewed by some analysts as "moderate" despite its close ties to al Qaeda, continue to fight alongside the Al Nusrah Front against regime forces. And even though hundreds of fighters have been killed in internecine clashes between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham on one side, and Al Nusrah, the Islamic Front, and Free Syrian Army units on the other, the groups occasionally fight alongside each other against Syrian government forces. For instance, the Islamic Front, Al Nusrah, and the ISIS have joined forces to fight the Syrian military in Yabroud.



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Saudis hardened by wars in Syria, Iraq join al Qaeda in Yemen
Fri, Mar 14 2014
By Rania El Gamal
SANAA (Reuters) - Dozens of Saudi Islamist militants have left the battlefields of Syria and Iraq for Yemen, where their experience appears to have contributed to a spate of lethal al Qaeda attacks, a senior Yemeni security official said.
The influx detected in the last few months is worrying for Yemen, a turbulent country where several hundred Saudi militants are already thought to be fighting alongside their Yemeni counterparts in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The initial core of Saudis fled to Yemen after the kingdom defeated a violent al Qaeda campaign between 2003 and 2006, helping to create AQAP with their Yemeni comrades in 2009.
"Now the Saudi who comes here is an experienced fighter from the war in Iraq or Syria and is ready to be 'martyred'," said the Yemeni security official, who asked not to be named.
"They know how to build weapons and bombs, and they are teaching others."
Foreign militants have flocked to Syria to join Islamist rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad in the last two years. Iraq had previously served as a magnet for global jihadis eager to fight U.S. forces and the Shi'ite-led authorities which came to power after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Yemen is also a jihadi battleground where U.S. drone strikes have targeted al Qaeda leaders for more than a decade.
AQAP is not short of bomb-making expertise itself, as it has shown in bomb plots against Saudi and Western targets.
These include an attempt by a Nigerian to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 with a bomb concealed in his underwear and a foiled plot to send two air freight packages containing bombs to the United States in 2010.
Al Qaeda militants exploited political chaos in Yemen after the 2011 uprising that eventually unseated veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh to seize control of several southern towns.
Despite losing that territorial base after a military offensive backed by U.S. drones in 2012, they have regrouped, staging a series of attacks across Yemen in the past few months, some of which are thought to be the work of Saudis.
A Yemeni government inquiry said most of the perpetrators of a December 5 raid on a Defence Ministry hospital in Sanaa, in which at least 52 people were killed, were Saudi citizens.
AL QAEDA APOLOGY
It was the single bloodiest incident in Yemen in 18 months and even AQAP appeared embarrassed, blaming a renegade fighter for slaughtering unarmed medics and patients at the hospital.
The killings, captured on closed-circuit television and broadcast by state media, caused outrage in Yemen, where U.S. drone strikes had previously gained some sympathy for AQAP.
The security official said some Saudi militants who had come to Yemen from Syria were on trial after being captured and that some Saudis involved in the hospital assault had fought in Iraq.
Abdulrazzaq al-Jamal, a Yemeni journalist who has interviewed AQAP members, said the group was imitating the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which operates in Iraq and Syria, in how it selects its targets and tactics.
"AQAP used to execute its operations using roadside bombs. Now it has started ... storming into facilities," he said.
On February 13, seven people were killed in a bomb, grenade and gun assault on the main prison in Sanaa and 19 people jailed for terrorism-related crimes escaped in the chaos.
Black-clad militants appeared in an AQAP video posted online last month that documented four attacks, including the one on the Defence Ministry hospital. They were seen training in the desert, preparing for action and making speeches beforehand.
Nine of the 14 men shown had Saudi accents or names such as Abu Khaled al-Makki and Abu Naser al-Najdi, suggesting they hail from the Saudi city of Mecca or the kingdom's Najd region.
INFIGHTING IN SYRIA
While the security official said dozens of Saudis had come to Yemen from Syria and Iraq, as the impact of those conflicts ripples across the Middle East, gauging their numbers is hard, partly because of the existing Saudi presence in AQAP.
On February 11, Yemen said it had handed Saudi Arabia 29 of its nationals wanted as al Qaeda militants. There was no information about when the Saudis had arrived in Yemen.
A Gulf diplomatic source said more than 10 "influential" Saudis had joined AQAP in Yemen after fighting in Syria.
However, a Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman, Major General Mansour Turki, said he thought it unlikely that many Saudi militants would be heading to Yemen from Syria or Iraq because for now those countries remained the main theatres for jihad.
He said "a few hundred" Saudi militants had previously moved to Yemen and that the ministry had no information about any who may have traveled there from Syria recently without transiting the kingdom. "We would need to look closely into it," he said.
In Syria, a commander with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, who declined to be identified, said he had heard of an outflow of Saudi militants to Yemen, but had no details.
It was not immediately clear whether their departure was part of a new strategy to step up AQAP's struggle in Yemen, or was due to disillusion caused by months of bloody infighting in Syria between ISIL and the Nusra Front, its al Qaeda rival.
Al Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahri has disavowed ISIL, whose earlier ultra-hardline incarnation in Iraq caused a Sunni Muslim backlash in the mid-2000s, prompting armed tribesmen to switch sides and help U.S. forces roll back the militants in Anbar province - ground they have since regained.
Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, said it was likely that at least some Saudis had moved from Syria to Yemen, where those with sustained battle experience would prove a valuable resource for AQAP.
AQAP and its Ansar al-Sharia affiliate have been recovering from previous setbacks and are now reasserting themselves territorially, reacquiring sources of finance, and generally preparing for a new campaign of violence, Lister said.
"Recent attacks, particularly those in Sanaa, would suggest this second offensive phase has already begun."
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Sanaa, Mariam Karouny in Beirut and Angus McDowall in Riyadh,; Writing by Rania El Gamal, Editing by William Maclean and Alistair Lyon)

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Iran official: Hezbollah Syria move ‘logical’
March 15, 2014 12:04 AM
By Kristin Dailey
The Daily Star
Rezaee: “For us the most important thing is the security of the region.”
Rezaee: “For us the most important thing is the security of the region.”
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TEHRAN: Hezbollah’s decision to enter the war in Syria was “logical” given that Damascus helped the party survive its 2006 war with Israel, a senior Iranian official who previously served as commander of the Revolutionary Guard told The Daily Star.

In a rare interview with a foreign media outlet, retired Gen. Mohsen Rezaee, secretary of Iran’s powerful Expediency Discernment Council, also said international efforts to resolve the Syria conflict would not succeed without Tehran’s participation.

“What Hezbollah is doing in Syria is quite legitimate, logical and rational. When Israel attacked Lebanon in the 33-day war, it was Syria who helped them. If Syria hadn’t helped them they would not have succeeded. So now it is their turn to compensate for that help,” said Rezaee, who served as commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from 1981 to 1997.

“ Hezbollah is a logical and very wise political organization. They don’t even do anything extreme against Israel. As we saw in the 33-day war, they could have hit Jerusalem with missiles, but they didn’t,” Rezaee said during an interview at his office in Shahid Daghayeghi, a heavily guarded, closed neighborhood of Tehran that houses the residences of senior Revolutionary Guard personnel.

The United Nations has brokered two rounds of peace talks between the Syrian government and exiled opposition leaders in an effort to put an end to the 3-year-old war, which has claimed more than 140,000 lives and displaced millions of civilians.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon initially invited Iran to join the second round of Geneva peace talks, which concluded last month in Switzerland, but he later rescinded the invitation under U.S. pressure after the opposition Syrian National Coalition threatened to boycott the meetings if Tehran attended.

High-ranking delegations from the United States, Russia and 40 other countries attended the talks, which broke down without an agreement on Feb. 16.

Rezaee said the West had erred in not allowing Iran to join the negotiations. “Until Iran enters this dialogue they can’t fix this problem.”

Rezaee said Iran was ready to cooperate with international community to stabilize the region, adding that Tehran had already demonstrated that it prioritizes maintaining regional security.

He noted that in 2007, Baghdad asked Tehran to join a trilateral committee grouping Iran, Iraq and the U.S. to stabilize Iraq, and the Islamic Republic agreed to participate.

“For us the most important thing is the security of the region, the peace in this region, the economic development of this region,” he said.

Rezaee also said Lebanese groups that criticize Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict were “making a big mistake,” because the party’s activities there bolstered Lebanon’s security.

“Just imagine if those extremists had defeated President [Bashar] Assad,” Rezaee said of radical groups fighting against the Syrian regime.

“Those extremists would have been capable of annexing parts of Lebanon into Syria,” he said. “Whatever Hezbollah has been doing is for the national security of Lebanon. And the security of Lebanon and Syria are so intertwined with one another that they cannot be separated.”

Rezaee was careful to draw a distinction between extremist militants and the more moderate opposition groups fighting against Assad.

“The Syrian opposition is divided into two groups. One includes very radical groups that are so dangerous for this region, for the stability of this region. They are more dangerous than Saddam Hussein,” he said of the former dictator of Iraq, with which Iran fought a bloody war from 1980 to 1988.

“But we have another set of opposition groups in Syria who are such logical people and who can build a setting for good dialogue with Mr. Assad,” he said, in an apparent reference to the Free Syrian Army and other moderate groups.

“We really want the Syrian people – the real Syrian people, all of them – to come together and have this dialogue and implement real political reform in Syria,” he said.

“We don’t have any problem with Syrian opposition groups that have logic ... We will never oppose them. We believe they and Mr. Assad’s regime can work together to reach reform,” he added.

Rezaee said three recent conflicts in which the West had a role had served to demonstrate how the balance of power had shifted in the region: the 2006 war in Lebanon, the 2008 Israeli assault on Gaza and the current conflict in Syria.

“My interpretation of these three conflicts is that the Americans must think logically and realistically and remove their hands from these serial defeats. If they don’t, the future of the United States in this region will be in danger.”


A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on March 15, 2014, on page 12.


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12 March 2014 Last updated at 09:51 ET
Israel ends ultra-Orthodox military service exemptions
Israel's parliament has approved legislation that will end exemptions from military service for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students.
The bill was passed by 65 votes to one, and an amendment allowing civilian national service by 67 to one.
Opposition parties, including Labour, boycotted the votes because of what they called unfair and undemocratic dealing within the governing coalition.
Secular Israelis had complained that the exemptions were unfair.
"The change begins tomorrow morning and it is expected to transform the face of Israeli society unrecognisably," said Yaakov Peri of Yesh Atid, a party in the governing coalition that led the push for the new legislation.
Criminal sanctions
Exemptions from military conscription were given to the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim, when Israel was created in 1948. At that time there were only 400 seminary students.
Now, owing to their high birth rate, the ultra-Orthodox account for about 10% of the country's population of about 8 million.
Most ultra-Orthodox men are unemployed because of their religious studies and rely on donations, state benefits and their wives' wages.
This has long caused resentment among Israel's secular majority, leading to a demand for the ultra-Orthodox to share the so-called social burden.
The ultra-Orthodox say that military service would stop them devoting themselves to the study of religious scriptures, which is seen as a foundation of Jewish life.
"We understand there is a need to participate in things, but there is also a great duty of the people of Israel to study Torah," said Yitzhak Vaknin, an MP from the opposition ultra-Orthodox Shas party.
The new legislation sets annual quotas for the drafting of yeshiva students for military or civilian national service. The goal is to enlist 5,200 per year - about 60% of those of draft age - by mid-2017.
If the quota is not met by then, the government will introduce mandatory military service for all but 1,800 "gifted scholars" each year and impose criminal sanctions on draft-dodgers, including imprisonment - something that has enraged ultra-Orthodox leaders.
Hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox took to the streets of Jerusalem earlier this month to protest against the new measures and have promised further mass demonstrations if they are enacted.
Secular critics of the legislation have meanwhile said it does not come close to equalising the social burden and plan to petition the Supreme Court to nullify it. The court ruled in 2012 that the exemptions for seminary students were unconstitutional.

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13 March 2014 Last updated at 14:31 ET
Middle East ban for Hollywood's Noah epic
The UAE, Qatar and Bahrain are among Middle Eastern countries banning Hollywood epic Noah as it breaks Islam's taboo of depicting a prophet.
"There are scenes that contradict Islam and the Bible, so we decided not to show it," Juma Al-Leem from UAE's National Media Centre said.
Director Darren Aronofsky's film stars Russell Crowe as the ark-building Biblical figure.
Paramount Pictures recently admitted the movie takes "artistic licence".
"It is important to respect these religions and not show the film," Mr Al-Leem told the Associated Press.
A separate statement from Al-Azhar in Egypt, one of Islam's most revered religious institutions, said it objects to the film because it violates Islamic law and could "provoke the feelings of believers."
The film, which is thought to have cost more than its $125m (£78m) to make, received negative reactions following test screenings across the US.
The movie also prompted controversy among conservative Christians, leading Paramount to add a disclaimer to marketing material that artistic licence had been taken with the retelling of the story.
There are differences between Biblical and Qu'ranic interpretation of Noah, referred to in Arabic as Nuh, but both mention the flood and his vessel saving a pair of each animal species.
Many children's films and cartoons have told the story in Islam without showing his face.
Other Muslim countries have said it is unlikely censors will approve the Hollywood blockbuster.
Mohammad Zareef from Pakistan's Central Board of Film Censors said they tended to steer clear of films with a religious theme, adding: "We haven't seen it yet, but I don't think it can go to cinemas in Pakistan."
In Tunisia, Culture Ministry spokesman Faisal Rokh said there had not been any requests from local distributors to show the movie, but they did not usually screen films featuring a prophet.
There were riots and demonstrations in the country in October 2011, after a private television station screened the animated film Persepolis, which includes a portrayal of God.
The head of the TV station was later fined 1,200 euros after being convicted of an "attack on the sacred".
Saudi Arabia and the Gaza Strip do not have any cinemas, but one theatre manager in the West Bank said it has ordered Noah.
"The fact that some countries in the region prohibit it makes it the more fun to watch," said Clack Cinema manager Quds Manasra.
He added: "The production is magnificent, the story is beautiful."
Hollywood's depiction of religion have provoked controversy before, including Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ, which shows the crucifixion of Jesus.
It was screened across much of the region, but it was not shown in most cinemas in Israel and parts of the Gulf.

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Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula releases 12th issue of Inspire magazine
By THOMAS JOSCELYNMarch 17, 2014

Inspire-AQAP-Spring-2014-edition.jpg

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has released the 12th issue of Inspire magazine. The Long War Journal has obtained a copy of the magazine, which is published as a pdf file online.

The cover story of the magazine, "Shattered: A Story About Change," argues that the 9/11 attacks were a "turning point" in American history. The author, Abu Abdullah Almoravid, conflates a series of unrelated issues into a single narrative that portrays the US as a crumbling empire.

In uneven English, Almoravid references everything from America's economic woes to the elementary school shootings in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Clumsy propaganda pieces such as "Shattered" are a regular feature in al Qaeda's propaganda.

On a more serious note, the magazine devotes a lengthy section to what AQAP calls "Open Source Jihad." As in past editions of Inspire, AQAP seeks to motivate and educate aspiring lone wolf jihadists who do not have the ability to receive more formal training.

In this edition, AQAP shows jihadists how to plan a car bomb attack on their own.

In the letter from the editor, Yahya Ibrahim refers to past operations, such as Faisal Shahzad's attempted May 2010 car bombing in Times Square and the attacks on the Boston Marathon in April 2013. Shahzad was trained and dispatched by the Pakistani Taliban, but AQAP wants jihadists to emulate Shahzad's actions on their own.

Ibrahim taunts American counterterrorism officials, saying the US government was unable to stop the Boston Marathon bombings, which utilized backpacks filled with pressure cooker bombs. Ibrahim adds, "I wonder if they are ready to stop car bombs!"

Ibrahim claims there are "many" Shahzads "residing inside America, and all they need is the knowledge of how to make car bombs" to "fulfill their duty of jihad."

Over several pages in Inspire, AQAP offers what it says are the instructions to make a car bomb similar to Shahzad's.

The author, dubbed the "AQ Chef," explains how a shrapnel bomb can be assembled from common household items, including cooking gas cylinders and nails. The device can be set off by a "martyrdom bomber," by a timer, or with a remote detonator. In the last instance, AQAP suggests a "toy-car remote, alarm remote, garage remote or any other," as long as the bomb maker tests the remote first.

Inspire offers advice on how to avoid being detected by authorities. "It is better to start preparing the car bomb [a] few hours before the operation, because the security forces (if they come into your work place/house) cannot accuse you of preparing a bomb, especially if you distribute the ingredients in your house well," the magazine reads.

The "AQ Chef" also offers what he calls "field data" on the types of targets that should be attacked. "This type of car bomb is used to kill individuals and NOT to destroy buildings," he says. "Therefore, look for a dense crowd."

The author advises jihadists that they should target places "flooded with individuals, e.g. sports events in which tens of thousands attend, election campaigns, festivals and other gathering [sic]. The important thing is that you target people and not buildings."

America "is our first target, followed by [the] United Kingdom, France and other crusader countries," the "AQ Chef" writes. Washington DC, New York, northern Virginia (because it "has a big military presence" and federal agencies are located there), Chicago, and Los Angeles are all listed as the preferred cities to target inside the US.

While al Qaeda is known for its desire to hit high-profile and symbolic targets, Inspire advises jihadists to hit other, more mundane locations as well.

For instance, the "AQ Chef" says that restaurants and bars in Arlington and Alexandria, Va., as well as on M Street in Washington DC, are visited by "high profile personalities" on the weekend and are, therefore, good places to attack.

Other possible targets in the UK and France are listed, including sports stadiums and tourist hotspots. Inspire says that terrorists should attack the entrances and exits of these locations as the facilities themselves are often difficult to enter with a bomb.

Inspire offers advice on the best times of the year for an attack, and even suggests that jihadists disguise themselves as Santa Claus during the Christmas holiday when carrying out a bombing.

Other pieces in the magazine were authored by high-profile al Qaeda ideologues such as Abu Musab al Suri, who was imprisoned inside Syria before the uprisings. There are conflicting reports on al Suri's current status, as he may or may not have been freed. Al Qaeda branches, such as the Al Nusrah Front, openly follow al Suri's advice. Inspire has included pieces culled from al Suri's catalogue of writings in the past.

An article by Anwar al Awlaki, the deceased AQAP cleric who helped pioneer the group's propaganda, is also included in the magazine. Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike in September 2011, and Inspire's latest edition carries multiple condemnations of America's drones.

A piece by "freelance journalist" Abdulilah Shaye tries to show the influence of al Qaeda's propaganda. In a piece entitled "City Wolves," Shaye, who was detained in Yemen for three years, blames President Obama for his arrest. Shaye claims Obama ordered his jailing to keep him quiet about a supposed "American massacre" of women and children in southern Yemen.

Shaye, who is known for his ability to get access to AQAP leaders, briefly recounts the stories of jihadists such as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Tex. in 2009, as well as the story of the Tsarnaev brothers, who were responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings.

Still another piece by AQAP theologian Ibrahim Rubaish, who was once held at Guantanamo, takes aim at the Obama administration's claim that al Qaeda is on the "path to defeat." Rubaish cites the closing of more than 20 US diplomatic facilities in August 2013 as an example of why this thinking is wrong.

The diplomatic facilities were closed after American officials learned that al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri had communicated, via a complex Internet-based system, with more than 20 al Qaeda operatives around the world. The al Qaeda terrorists reportedly discussed a possible attack on a US embassy or consulate. During the communications, Zawahiri also made it known that he had appointed Nasir al Wuhayshi, the head of AQAP, as the new general manager of al Qaeda's global operations.



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Al Qaeda veteran appears in Al Nusrah Front video, criticizes rival
By THOMAS JOSCELYNMarch 20, 2014

Abu Firas al Suri.jpg
Abu Firas al Suri, a senior al Qaeda operative, was sent to Syria from Yemen in 2013. According to the Al Nusrah Front, Al Suri served as an "envoy" for Osama bin Laden and helped establish Lashkar-e-Taiba. The picture above is from an Al Nusrah Front video.


A recently released video produced by the Al Nusrah Front features Abu Firas al Suri, an al Qaeda veteran who has waged jihad since the late 1970s. In his video debut, al Suri criticizes the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS), a jihadist group that has been disowned by al Qaeda's senior leadership.

The Al Nusrah Front is al Qaeda's official branch inside Syria and has been openly fighting ISIS both online and on the ground.

Abu Firas is one of the senior al Qaeda officials who was entrusted to mediate the dispute, but those efforts have failed.

"I was not intending to talk about the State (ISIS) and about its crimes against the Islamic ummah and against Islam," Abu Firas says in the video, according to a translation obtained by The Long War Journal. However, an ISIS leader known as Abu Muhammad al Adnani recently accused Abu Abdallah al Shami, a Nusrah Front official, of "lying and slander." Al Adnani also called for Allah to curse the lying party in the dispute, by which al Adnani meant the Al Nusrah Front.

Abu Firas says that al Adani's speech, which was widely disseminated online, was "devastating" and therefore he had to respond.

Abu Firas addresses two issues in his response to ISIS: the assassination of al Qaeda's top representative in Syria, known as Abu Khalid al Suri, and ISIS' habit of declaring other Muslims to be apostates.

Shortly before Abu Khalid al Suri (whose real name was Mohamed Bahaiah) was killed, Abu Firas says the two met. Abu Khalid claimed to have had warnings about an impending attack on him by ISIS. "They put me on the black list and they want to assassinate me," Abu Khalid said, according to Abu Firas' account.

Abu Firas maintains that he warned Abu Khalid to take special precautions, but the attack was successful on Feb. 23, the day after they met. Although Abu Khalid had worked with Abu Firas to end the disagreement between ISIS and the Al Nusrah Front, all Abu Khalid did was earn ISIS' enmity.

Another senior al Qaeda official in Syria, a Saudi known as Sanafi al Nasr, has made similar claims on his Twitter feed. Nasr has alleged that Abu Khalid al Suri warned him about ISIS' threats just two weeks prior to the suicide bombing. [See LWJ report, Head of al Qaeda 'Victory Committee' in Syria.]

Given the similarity of their claims, it is likely that al Qaeda operatives inside Syria are coordinating their testimony against ISIS. By claiming that Abu Khalid al Suri warned of his own death beforehand, they are building the case against ISIS in jihadist minds.

Abu Firas also levels another charge against ISIS: that the group is "takfiri" because it declares other practicing Muslims apostates. Abu Firas says that when the Al Nusrah Front attempted to shelter ISIS fighters during a battle in northern Syria, an ungrateful ISIS commander complained that Al Nusrah raised its banner above an ISIS building in the process.

According to Abu Firas, this same ISIS leader also lashed out at Al Nusrah for accepting oaths of support from members of the Free Syrian Army. But Abu Firas claims that Al Nusrah was simply receiving pledges of support for jihad. Thus, the longtime al Qaeda ideologue says, ISIS is "takfiri" for denouncing acts that are consistent with the will of Allah.

Little known, but with an extensive biography

Little was publicly known about Abu Firas al Suri until his sudden appearance in the Al Nusrah Front video, which includes a summary of his biography.

According to Al Nusrah, Abu Firas went to military school and joined the Syrian military, but was relieved of his duties because of his "Islamic tendencies." Abu Firas was a member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and fought against the regime of Hafez al Assad, Bashar al Assad's father, in 1979 and 1980.

Abu Firas traveled to Jordan and then Afghanistan, where he met with Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden. He trained both Afghans and Arabs, as well as jihadists from other countries around the world, and worked to end the conflict between unidentified jihadist groups inside Afghanistan.

The Al Nusrah Front claims that Abu Firas served as Osama bin Laden's "envoy" for "mobilizing Pakistanis for jihad." The Pakistani jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was set up for this purpose, the Al Nusrah Front says. The LeT and another group "were established, trained, and funded by Osama Bin Ladin."

Further demonstrating Abu Firas' seniority within al Qaeda, the Al Nusrah Front video says that he worked with the group's first two military commanders, Abu Ubaidah al Banshiri and Abu Hafs al Masri. Abu Firas also worked with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the deceased commander of al Qaeda in Iraq.

After the 9/11 attacks, Abu Firas "secured the mujahideen families in Pakistan," meaning that he helped al Qaeda families and others find safe haven in the country.

In 2003, Abu Firas relocated to Yemen and he stayed there until 2013, when the conflict between ISIS and the Al Nusrah Front erupted. Al Qaeda's senior leadership then dispatched Abu Firas to Syria in an attempt to help put an end to the dispute.

Abu Firas says in the video that he has followed the guidance of Al Nusrah's emir, Abu Muhammad al Julani, who wanted to resolve the conflict with ISIS.

'Core' al Qaeda in Syria

Abu Firas' role as a leader within the Al Nusrah Front was not publicly known until the video was released on March 18. But this is not the first time that the infighting in Syria has brought to light more details concerning al Qaeda's international network.

After the infighting between ISIS and the Al Nusrah Front broke out in April 2013, Ayman al Zawahiri named Abu Khalid al Suri as his chief mediator. Abu Khalid al Suri's position of authority inside the Syrian jihad was not known before a letter from Zawahiri to all of the parties involved, written in May 2013, was leaked online.

Subsequently, as The Long War Journal reported, Abu Khalid al Suri's leadership position within Ahrar al Sham was also discovered. Ahrar al Sham is not an official branch of al Qaeda, but it is possibly the most powerful rebel group within the Islamic Front, which is a large coalition of several Islamist groups.

While Abu Khalid al Suri was killed in late February, al Qaeda still has senior talent inside Syria, in addition to the new recruits it has garnered since the insurgency began in 2011. For instance, The Long War Journal has reported that Sanafi al Nasr, who leads al Qaeda's 'Victory Committee,' relocated to Syria from Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Nasr has also been a party to the infighting between Al Nusrah and ISIS. Like Abu Firas and Abu Khalid al Suri, Nasr is opposed to ISIS.

In February, according to BBC Monitoring, Nasr claimed on his Twitter feed that al Qaeda has sent a group of leaders to Syria and most of them were tasked with joining the Al Nusrah Front. This group includes Abu Firas.

Two of the dispatched al Qaeda operatives, however, were told to join Ahrar al Sham. However, only the deceased Abu Khalid al Suri has been identified as a dual-hatted Ahrar al Sham-al Qaeda leader. The identity of Abu Khalid's companion remains unknown.

Just as Abu Firas' role was not publicly known (at least in the West) until the Al Nusrah Front's video was released on March 18, the Syrian jihad likely masks more of al Qaeda's secrets.



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Egypt's Invisible Insurgency
Young Islamists are using Facebook to organize violent opposition
BY ERIC TRAGER Share
After Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster last summer, analysts warned that a disempowered Muslim Brotherhood might embrace jihad. Toppling an elected Islamist government, some argued, would lead the Brotherhood to abandon the democratic procedures that it accepted only belatedly, and advance its theocratic vision through al-Qaeda-like terrorism instead. Nearly eight months later, however, these expectations haven’t materialized. While Sinai-based militants have killed over 300 military and police officers since July, there is little evidence that many, if any, Muslim Brothers have joined the jihadis’ ranks.

Yet amidst a crackdown that has killed over 1,000 Morsi supporters, Muslim Brothers aren’t turning the other cheek. Armed with improvised weapons such as flaming aerosol cans and Molotov cocktails, they are directing a campaign of lower-profile violence against various governmental and civilian targets, aiming to stir chaos and thereby weaken the post-Morsi regime. Ironically, they are embracing the same tactics that anti-Brotherhood activists used to undermine Morsi’s authority after his November 2012 power grab.


To promote these violent efforts, Muslim Brothers appeal to their supporters through social media, establishing violent Facebook groups that have attracted thousands of “likes.” For example, the “Execution Movement” Facebook page, which was founded in early September to call for the deaths of Egypt’s top security officials, urges its roughly 3,000 followers to burn police cars. “There are 34,750 police officers in Egypt … 80% of them have cars,” reads a January 26 post that spread across pro-Brotherhood Facebook pages. “If we exploit the current situation of chaos and, during the night…burned 1000 [police] vehicles… Either the government will compensate [the officers] with new cars, which will cause imbalance in the budget and popular anger … or leave them without cars like the rest of the population, and this of course will have a big impact on their morale and their performance.” Indeed, police vehicles appear to be these groups’ most frequent targets.

One of the most prominent violent pro-Brotherhood Facebook groups is the “Molotov Movement,” which emerged in late 2013. Beyond posting photos of attacks, it provides instructions for mixing Molotov cocktails, constructing Molotov cocktail launchers, and using fire extinguishers as weapons. Its popularity exploded in late January, when it took credit for a series of arson incidents, and it reportedly had over 70,000 followers by the time Facebook shut it down for promoting “vandalism” in mid-February. The “Molotov Movement” quickly resurrected itself, however, creating numerous regionally-oriented Facebook pages that claimed responsibility for burning a checkpoint in October 6 City on February 18, an Alexandria police station on February 19, and three vehicles belonging to a Giza police major on February 21, among other incidents.

Despite their best efforts, Facebook and the Egyptian government struggle to contain these violent groups, because Muslim Brothers can always establish new Facebook pages and publicize them through other pro-Brotherhood pages. This is precisely what happened after the February 24 arrest of eight alleged “Molotov Movement” activists: As the group’s activity slowed considerably, violent Brotherhood content simply migrated to other pro-Brotherhood pages, such as “Islamic Egypt” (554,000 “likes”) and “Movement 18” (58,000 “likes”), which touted attacks on police cars, television station vehicles, roads, and even the engagement party of a military general’s son. These pages also encourage their members to continue fighting the current regime, and often inspire Muslim Brothers with quotes from Sayyid Qutb and images of Hamas fighters.

Technically speaking, the young Muslim Brothers’ targets are physical assets, not human lives. It’s a rather false distinction, of course, since people can get killed whenever Molotov cocktails go flying, but this is how Muslim Brothers often rationalize their behavior to themselves and others. As young Muslim Brothers who set a police officer’s home on fire told McClatchy reporter Nancy Youssef, “We tried not to kill … It’s a punch to scare them.” Yet in some cases, Brotherhood-affiliated Facebook groups have called for targeting individuals directly, including for assassination.

The Batman-themed “Bat Movement,” which has nearly 1,900 “likes,” stands out in this regard. It called on its followers to beat a television cameraman who, it alleges, is a spy for the domestic intelligence services; provided the home address and phone number of a State Security officer whom it’s accused of killing protesters; and published a list of security officers in Asyut whom, it said, were wanted “dead or alive.”

The “Martyr Brigades” is an even more worrying group. In its first statement, published by the “Molotov Movement” on February 10, the “Martyr Brigades” warned that it would go after “all who were involved in killing martyrs from the beginning of the coup until this day,” claiming that it had the addresses of those it intended to target. Six days later, it announced that it had killed an alleged “thug” in Mansoura, and it established its own Facebook page on March 1, promising “retribution” in its first post.

This low-profile violence will likely to continue indefinitely and worsen, because young Muslim Brothers are unlikely to find other, more formal, avenues for advancing their ideology anytime soon. Egypt’s military-backed government fears that permitting the Brotherhood to participate politically will enable it to return to power and seek vengeance, and by the same token Muslim Brothers are unwilling to participate in the current transition and thereby accept Morsi’s ouster. The most likely outcome, at least in the short-run, is thus a desperately unpleasant stalemate: The Brotherhood cannot beat the post-Morsi regime through its current strategy, nor can the regime achieve anything approximating stability.

Eric Trager is the Esther K. Wagner Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

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Syrian opposition leader denies being a war profiteer
The man the West is backing in Syria denies allegations of theft and war profiteering in an interview with the Telegraph
Jamal Maarouf, leader of the Jabhat Thuar Syria rebel brigade in Syria
Jamal Maarouf, leader of the Syrian Martyrs Brigade Photo: WILL WINTERCROSS FOR THE TELEGRAPH
Richard Spencer By Richard Spencer, Antakya8:20PM GMT 19 Mar 2014
The Syrian rebel leader touted as the West’s new hope to take on both militant Islamists and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has been forced to deny widespread allegations of theft and war profiteering.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Jamal Maarouf, appointed to head a new coalition of forces, the Syrian Revolutionary Front, rejected allegations that over the three years of war he had accumulated a fortune and a large collection of cars for his personal use.
He said his critics, many of them heads of rival rebel brigades, were “latecomers to the revolution” who resented his leadership and were in many cases trying to promote an Islamist ideology at odds with the moderate politics that has won him outside support.
“If you accuse us of being thieves you accuse the fighters who started the revolution of being thieves,” he said, speaking from a house over the border from Syria in the outskirts of the Turkish city of Antakya.
“That is to dishonour the revolution.”
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He claimed he had never even sat in a BMW – a car to which he is supposed to be partial, according to his accusers. “I have three wives and 13 children, but I don’t have a car,” he said. “My house was burned down by the regime seven months after the revolution started.
"Now I sleep in the captured houses of the Shabiha (the Assad ’ghost’ militia)”.
The sudden Western backing for Mr Maarouf, agreed at the end of last year, was a strategic response to the worsening situation inside the country, particularly for proponents of the “democratic uprising” originally supported by the United States, Britain and its allies.
While the regime’s forces had managed over the previous six months to stabilise their position and even retake rebel-held towns like Qusayr, other opposition territory had fallen under the sway of radical jihadists.
Some belonged to al-Qaeda splinter groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), but even “moderate” Islamist groups declared loyalty to a Sharia state and rejected the West, particularly after its refusal to intervene militarily in response to the Damascus chemical weapons attacks in August.
In advance of peace talks finally held in Geneva in January and February, the United States, other western allies including Britain, and Saudi Arabia decided to back fighters prepared to take on both the regime and ISIS, preferably without an Islamist agenda.
Mr Maarouf, leader of a “moderate” militia without an Islamist ideology, the Syrian Martyrs Brigade, well-established in the Jabal al-Zawiya mountains of Idlib province in the north-west of the country, seemed a good candidate. Within weeks, his claims to leadership were being pressed on both journalists and western politicians by an assortment of public relations and lobbying companies with close links to the Foreign Office and the Washington establishment.
In return, he endorsed the Geneva peace talks, unlike many of the rebel groups. He has also repeatedly stated that he is a “good Muslim” but that his interpretation of Islam does not include the use of force to establish the religion and the harsh punishments, including beheading, practised by ISIS.
Rebel fighters prepare to launch rockets in Idlib province at the start of March (AFP/GETTY)
In battles lasting from the beginning of January to this week, his and other brigades have driven ISIS out of Idlib and much of northern Aleppo provinces, allowing western diplomats at Geneva to boast that they had at last found a “revolution” they could support.
However, Mr Maarouf was a controversial choice as a frontman. Other groups accused him of smuggling captured oil supplies for personal profit. Last autumn, fellow fighters alleged to The Telegraph that he had deliberately held up attacks on the besieged regime base of Wadi Dayf, south-west of Aleppo, because he feared the money he received from Saudi Arabia to pursue the battle would stop if he won.
Hassan Aboud, leader of the powerful salafi Islamist Ahrar al-Sham brigade, said his men were no more than “gangs who stole from the revolution”.
Last week in southern Turkey, even a senior figure attached to a militia to which the Syrian Revolutionary Front is supposed to be allied, described him on condition of anonymity as “one of the biggest brigands in Syria”. He did add, however: “He is one of our brigands, and maybe all rebel leaders have to be brigands.”
Mr Maarouf acknowledges that he has had $4 million in funding over the last three years from Saudi Arabia, as well as more money from the United States, distributed through the official rebel military council. However, he also claimed that far from the new supplies of weapons he had been promised, the flow had dried up.
“Most of our weapons are looted from captured regime stores,” he said, confirming reports elsewhere that despite widespread suggestions that the Gulf kingdom was about to fund and supply a “spring push” against the regime, there was no sign of it on the ground.
Some reports suggest that President Barack Obama, who has exercised an effective veto over supplies of heavy weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles to the opposition, is still unhappy about the possibility they might fall into jihadist hands.
Whatever his personal record, Mr Maarouf may be the West’s last hope in Syria. On the eve of the peace talks, the new – and also Saudi-supported – leader of the political opposition, Ahmed Jarba, who led its delegation to the talks, paid the SRF a highly symbolic visit in Idlib.
The two men were photographed together – a visible gesture of backing from armed rebels for the negotiations, and for Mr Maarouf from the political leadership. The talks failed, but the battle goes on, with Syria now increasingly divided in three – the Assad regime in the centre and south, the Free Syrian Army in the north-west, and ISIS in the north-east.
As for Mr Maarouf, even his supporters acknowledge he may be a flawed hero. “We know the allegations,” one adviser to the opposition said.
“They have been dealt with.”

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Militancy on rise in Egypt
Sarah Lynch, Special for USA TODAY 5:47 p.m. EDT March 19, 2014
EGYPT BUS BOMBING
(Photo: YONHAP/EPA)
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CAIRO – Egyptian militants have intensified violence ahead of a presidential election to pick a replacement for jailed president Mohamed Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood party has called the ouster "a murderous military coup d'etat."

Militants who seek an Egypt under strict Islamic law are saying the ouster of Morsi and arrests of his leading party members prove that only violence will achieve their aim, analysts said.

"The attacks are increasing in frequency, in intensity and in geographic spread," said Issandr El Amrani, North Africa director for the International Crisis Group, in Cairo.

"We are looking at a spreading armed campaign against the government."

In January, a truck full of explosives was driven to the gate of the police headquarters in Cairo, killing four people and wounding dozens more. Three other bomb attacks at police stations and a movie theater left two more dead.

In February, four people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a tourist bus near Egypt's border with Israel in the Sinai peninsula. Gunmen also killed a police officer who had been a guard for a judge presiding over a case against Morsi. A bomb exploded on a bridge in Giza, apparently targeting security forces guarding the Israeli embassy.

On Saturday, gunmen shot and killed six Egyptian soldiers at an army checkpoint north of Cairo two days after gunmen opened fire on an army bus in Cairo.

Outside the capital, terrorists have been concentrating most major attacks in the northern Sinai, an arid and mountainous land in eastern Egypt on the border with Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

"You might be able to call it an insurgency in parts of Sinai," El Amrani said. "In the rest of the country, it's not an insurgency as much as terrorist activity or activity by armed groups."

"But the pattern is that it is growing," he said.

Violence has spread since Egyptian authorities crushed sit-ins organized by backers of Morsi, who was ousted in July by the Egyptian army one year after his election. The army arrested Morsi following days of massive protests against his rule, which his detractors said was veering into dictatorship and religious law.

The public will vote on a replacement as early as April, but candidates deemed too radical or tied too closely to Morsi are barred. Meanwhile, shootings and assaults against mostly military and police are happening almost daily.

The deadliest and dominant jihadist group here is Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, or Supporters of Jerusalem – an al-Qaeda-inspired group that is comprised predominantly of Egyptians, analysts said.

The Sinai-based group has claimed responsibility for most major attacks against Egypt and Israel since its formation three years ago, including the January bomb blasts, and a recent attack that brought down an Egyptian military helicopter as well as an attempt to assassinate the Interior minister.

It also took credit for the bomb that blew up a tourist bus in which 32 South Korean tourists were riding after visiting the ancient Greek Orthodox St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai. The attack was seen as an attempt to frighten away tourists, an important source of revenue for the Egypt government.

David Barnett, a research associate at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., described Egypt's violence as an insurgency in its infancy.

"The jihadist groups weren't necessarily ready to pounce as soon as Morsi was overthrown," Barnett said. "No one foresaw that. So they are, to a certain extent, still playing catch-up to the whole situation."

The violence has yet to reach the lethal levels Egypt withstood in the 1990s during the reign of Hosni Mubarak, when jihadists targeted government figures, police, tourists and civilians, killing dozens of people.

"It's possible that we could see the same, and it's not inconceivable it could be worse," said Anthony Skinner, director of Maplecroft, a global risk consultancy in the United Kingdom.

Many criminals, including militant Islamists incarcerated under Mubarak, gravitated to the Sinai when they were released after his ouster, Skinner said. Security and border control has been weaker in the North Sinai, and militants there have greater access to arms from countries such as Libya, where an uprising unlocked weapons arsenals that had been closed off to militants.

Militant Islamists are also using the ouster of Morsi and the subsequent crackdown on his supporters to fuel their ranks, Skinner said.

"The situation is more volatile and more difficult to control" than in the 1990s, he said.

Complaining about the West's indifference to Morsi's ouster, the Muslim Brotherhood said on its English-language website that Europe has overlooked that "a murderous military coup d'etat was executed by the generals in Egypt. ... It is an evidently illegitimate coup by all constitutional, humanitarian, legal and democratic standards."

Egypt's new Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab, who was appointed by army-backed President Adly Mansour, said Egypt is taking steps to tamp down the militant violence.

"We will work together to restore security and safety to Egypt and crush terrorism in all corners of the country," he said after his appointment, according to Reuters.

Egyptian security forces have destroyed smuggling tunnels that run under the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas, a terrorist entity that originated as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian army says it has killed dozens of suspected militants, arrested hundreds more and destroyed suspected militant hideouts as well as arms depots, local news media reported. The truth of the claims is difficult to confirm.

The military says it could do a much better job cracking down on the terrorists if it had more help from the United States.

John Edwin Mroz, president and CEO of EastWest Institute, an international organization that focuses on resolving conflict, said Egyptian authorities don't understand why Washington is withholding military assistance that could boost security efforts.

Regaining control of the northern Sinai where militant activity abounds may depend on whether Egypt gets 11 Apache helicopters that are being withheld because President Obama ordered a freeze on U.S. military aid to Egypt after Morsi's ouster, Mroz said.

"They just don't have the manpower otherwise to do it because of the terrain – the size and nature of the terrain," said Mroz, who recently met with Egyptian leaders in the ministries of defense and foreign affairs.

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Egypt says 5 Ansar Jerusalem fighters killed in clashes north of Cairo
By DAVID BARNETTMarch 19, 2014 7:35 AM




Egyptian security forces today engaged in a lengthy shootout with Islamist militants in al Qanatir al Khayriyah, approximately 20 miles north of Cairo. According to Egypt's Interior Ministry, those targeted were members of Ansar Jerusalem (Ansar Bayt al Maqdis).

Five of members of the jihadist group were killed and four others arrested, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. At least two security personnel were also killed in the shootout, which saw the militants use firearms as well as explosive belts, among other weaponry.

The Interior Ministry's statement did not specify the names of the jihadists captured or killed, but said they had been involved in a number of recent attacks in the Cairo area, including the March 15 killing of six army officers at a checkpoint. That attack has yet to be claimed.

According to the Interior Ministry, the Ansar Jerusalem members had also been linked to the January Cairo Security Directorate bombing as well as the assassination of General Mohamed Saeed, an aide to Egypt's Interior Minister.

Ansar Jerusalem has yet to comment on today's events.

On March 10, Egypt's Interior Ministry announced the arrest of Mohammed Durri Ahmad al Taliawi, who it said was involved in the January Cairo Security Directorate bombing. The following day, the ministry said security forces had killed Mohamed al Sayed Mansour al Toukhi, a key suspect in the Cairo Security Directorate attack.

While Ansar Jerusalem has yet to comment on the arrest of al Taliawi, on March 15 the group confirmed that al Toukhi was indeed one of its members and had died in a clash with Egyptian security personnel.



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Iran Is Apparently Building a Fake U.S. Aircraft Carrier

Iran, U.S. officials say, is currently at work building a nonworking replica of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. From the sounds of it, the American intelligence community hasn't quite figured out why Iran is going through the trouble to do that, but the working theory appears to be: so they can blow it in a propaganda stunt. Or, as the New York Times gloriously put it this morning, "presumably for some mysteriously bellicose purposes":

Intelligence analysts studying satellite photos of Iranian military installations first noticed the vessel rising from the Gachin shipyard, near Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf, last summer. The ship has the same distinctive shape and style of the Navy’s Nimitz-class carriers, as well as the Nimitz’s number 68 neatly painted in white near the bow. Mock aircraft can be seen on the flight deck.

The Iranian mock-up, which American officials described as more like a barge than a warship, has no nuclear propulsion system and is only about two-thirds the length of a typical 1,100-foot-long Navy carrier. Intelligence officials do not believe that Iran is capable of building an actual aircraft carrier.

The most likely scenario, U.S. officials say, is that Iran's Navy plans to eventually tow its new toy out to sea where they'll blown up—video footage of which would then surely end up on state-run television. Iran has pulled similar stunts before, according to the U.S., although it doesn't appear to have gone to such detailed lengths before. (And details, you might remember, aren't always Iran's strong suit when it comes to propaganda.)

"Based on our observations, this is not a functioning aircraft carrier; it’s a large barge built to look like an aircraft carrier," Cmdr. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, told the paper. "We’re not sure what Iran hopes to gain by building this. If it is a big propaganda piece, to what end?"

Making the entire model-building exercise that much more puzzling is the fact that Iran doesn't appear to have taken any significant steps to keep the project under wraps, building it in an open-air shipyard that is regularly monitored by Western satellites. While U.S. officials say they're not that worried about the propaganda potential of the fake aircraft carrier, they nonetheless decided they needed to go public with what they knew (and what they didn't) to, in the words of the Times, "get out ahead of the Iranians," suggesting that they're at least a little unnerved by the whole thing.

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Iranian Ship, in Plain View but Shrouded in Mystery, Looks Very Familiar to U.S.

Iran is building a nonworking mock-up of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that United States officials say may be intended to be blown up for propaganda value.

Intelligence analysts studying satellite photos of Iranian military installations first noticed the vessel rising from the Gachin shipyard, near Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf, last summer. The ship has the same distinctive shape and style of the Navy’s Nimitz-class carriers, as well as the Nimitz’s number 68 neatly painted in white near the bow. Mock aircraft can be seen on the flight deck.

The Iranian mock-up, which American officials described as more like a barge than a warship, has no nuclear propulsion system and is only about two-thirds the length of a typical 1,100-foot-long Navy carrier. Intelligence officials do not believe that Iran is capable of building an actual aircraft carrier.

“Based on our observations, this is not a functioning aircraft carrier; it’s a large barge built to look like an aircraft carrier,” said Cmdr. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf from Iran. “We’re not sure what Iran hopes to gain by building this. If it is a big propaganda piece, to what end?”

Whatever the purpose, American officials acknowledged on Thursday that they wanted to reveal the existence of the vessel to get out ahead of the Iranians.

Navy and other American intelligence analysts surmise that the vessel, which Fifth Fleet wags have nicknamed the Target Barge, is something that Iran could tow to sea, anchor and blow up — while filming the whole thing to make a propaganda point, if, say, the talks with the Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program go south.

Iran has previously used barges as targets for missile firings during training exercises, filmed the episodes and then televised them on the state-run news media, Navy officials said.

“It is not surprising that Iranian military forces might use a variety of tactics — including military deception tactics — to strategically communicate and possibly demonstrate their resolve in the region,” said an American official who has closely followed the construction of the mock-up.

But while Iran has tried to conceal its underground nuclear-related sites, the Iranian Navy has taken no steps to cloak from prying Western satellites what it is building pierside at the busy shipyard. “The system is often too opaque to understand who hatched this idea, and whether it was endorsed at the highest levels,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Iran has sought to exploit captured or pirated American military technology in the past. Last year, Iran’s political and military elite boasted that their forces had shot down an American intelligence-gathering drone, a remotely piloted Navy vehicle called ScanEagle that they quickly put on display for the Iranian news media.

Navy officials responded that no drones had been shot down by enemy fire, although the Pentagon acknowledged at the time that it had lost a small number of ScanEagles, likely to engine malfunction.

Iranian Navy officials could not be immediately reached for comment as the country prepared to celebrate its New Year festivities on Friday. American intelligence officials cited a photograph taken on Feb. 22 in Bandar Abbas and a brief description in Persian of the vessel on a website for Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade.

For now, Navy analysts and American intelligence officials say they are not unduly concerned about the mock ship. But the fact that the Iranians are building it, presumably for some mysteriously bellicose purposes, contrasts with the fact that the Iranians stepped back from their typically heavy anti-American posture during a recent naval exercise in the gulf.

Until recently, Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships, and the government in Tehran has deployed remotely piloted aircraft that carry surveillance pods and that may someday carry rockets.

With Iran’s multiple political bases of power, the government’s purposes can be hard to decipher. After the temporary nuclear agreement was reached in November between the world powers and the moderate government of Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, it was unclear to American officials whether Iran’s hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps might try to provoke a conflict with the United States Navy to undercut the accord.

The navy of the Revolutionary Guards consists of fast-attack speedboats with high-powered machine guns and torpedoes, and crews that in the past employed guerrilla tactics, including swarming perilously close to American warships.

When the mock-up will take its maiden voyage — if it ever does — is anyone’s guess, analysts said. The vessel is nearing completion, they said, and will presumably be shipped by rail on tracks that run through the shipyard, to its destiny in the Persian Gulf just a few hundred yards away.

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Franklin said:

Iran building for the future ?

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Equation said:

Either it's a barge or a target ship that resembles an aircraft carrier to test out Iran's new "Carrier Killer" missile.

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