ISR Weekly

Friday, March 29, 2013

Arab League summit showcases Qatar’s swagger

Friday, March 29, 2013 No comments

Hamad looking down at his Arab colleagues.

Doha, Qatar • Qatar’s emir looked over an assembly of Arab leaders Tuesday as both cordial host and impatient taskmaster. His welcoming remarks to kings, sheiks and presidents across the Arab world quickly shifted to Qatar’s priorities: Rallying greater support for Syrian rebels and helping Palestinians with efforts such as a newly proposed $1 billion fund to protect Jerusalem’s Arab heritage.

No one seemed surprised at the paternal tone or the latest big-money initiative. In a matter of just a few years, hyper-wealthy Qatar has increasingly staked out a leadership role once held by Egypt and helped redefine how Arab states measure influence and ambition.

Qatar gives al-Khatib Assad's seat; was it premature?

Little more than a spot to sink oil and gas wells a generation ago, Qatar is now a key player in nearly every Middle Eastern shakeout since the Arab Spring, using checkbook diplomacy in settings as diverse as Syria’s civil war, Italian artisan workshops struggling with the euro financial crisis, and the soccer pitches in France as owners of the Paris Saint-Germain team.

As hosts of an Arab League summit this week, Qatar gets another chance to showcase its swagger.

With power, however, come tensions. Qatar has been portrayed as an arrogant wunderkind in places such as Iraq and Lebanon where some factions object to its rising stature, and Qatar’s growing independent streak in policy-making has raised concerns among its Gulf Arab partners. It also faces questions — as do other Gulf nations and Western allies — over support for some Arab Spring uprisings while remaining loyal to the embattled monarchy in neighboring Bahrain.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Erdoğan doing everything to make Israel regret apology: Israeli far-right leader

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 No comments

The leader of Israel's far-right Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennet, slammed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's comments following his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu's apology for the Mavi Marmara killings, Israeli media reported March 27.

"It seems that since [Netanyahu's] apology, Erdoğan is doing everything to make Israel regret it," Bennett, the economy and trade minister in Netanyahu's new Cabinet, wrote on his official Facebook page, according to Jerusalem Post. "He is running a personal and vitriolic campaign at the expense of Israeli-Turkish relations," he said.

Islamists, secular rebels battle in Syria over Nusra Front’s call for Islamic state

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 No comments

TAL ABYAD, Syria — Two Syrian rebel groups – one seeking an elected civil government, the other favoring the establishment of a religious state – are battling each other in the city of Tal Abyad, on the border with Turkey, in a sign of the tensions that are likely to rule this country if the government of President Bashar Assad falls.

Four people were killed Sunday in fighting here between the Farouq Battalions, which favors elections, and Jabhat al Nusra, or the Nusra Front, which the United States has declared an al Qaida-affiliated terrorist group. Since then, Farouq has been massing men here in an example of the growing friction that’s emerged in recent months as Nusra has captured strategic infrastructure across Syria’s north and east, including oil and gas installations, grain silos and a hydroelectric dam.

Raqqa province, where Tal Abyad is, and Hasaka province, to the east, are poverty-stricken but vital to Syria’s agriculture. Hasaka and Deir el Zour province to the south are the center of the country’s oil industry.

“They want to control the border crossing here,” said Abu Mansour, a member of Farouq in Tal Abyad. Like other rebels, he uses a nom de guerre to hide his identity from the government.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/26/186970/islamists-secular-rebels-battle.html#storylink=cpy

Terror in Timbuktu: A trip through the heart of Mali

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 No comments

I have been writing about Mali since before the military coup last March. My friend Yeah Samake, the mayor of Ouelessebougou, was running for president until the coup destabilized the country and the elections were called off.

Islamist extremists took advantage of the ensuing lack of governance in the northern region and seized control of the towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu. They instituted Shariah law and brutalized the Malian people in these towns and surrounding villages. There was also an influx of insurgents from countries as far away as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Northern Mali — about the size of France — had become the epicenter for the Islamists in the Sahel. Many of these insurgents were involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

On Jan. 10, Malian President Dioncounda Traore called French President Francois Hollande and asked for military help because extremists from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) had moved south and taken over the town of Konna, just 300 miles from Bamako, the capital. The next day French troops and Mirage jets arrived from nearby Chad.

Additional troops also came from several neighboring countries. The Islamists were quickly driven from Konna, and within weeks Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal were liberated. The Islamists were driven into the northern frontier mountain region near the Algerian border, where French and Chadian troops are still seeking the extremists.

Since I continue to write regularly about Mali, I planned an information trip to the northern region for mid-March. Mr. Samake arranged for me to meet with Mahamadou Alou Toure, the mayor of the town of Bourem Sidi-Amar, 30 miles from Timbuktu.

BRICS plan new 50bn bank to rival World Bank and IMF

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 No comments

BRICS leaders, 2013

The ‘big five’ of the developing world will discuss creating their own global World Bank as their 5th annual summit kicks off Tuesday in sunny Durban.

The move is linked to the developing world’s disillusionment with the status quo of world financial institutions. The World Bank and IMF continue to favor US and European presidents over BRICS nations, and in 2010, the US failed to ratify a 2010 agreement which would allow more IMF funds to be allocated to developing nations.

"Not long ago we discussed the formation of a developmental bank... Today we are ready to launch it," South African President Jacob Zuma said on Monday.

The ‘big five’- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and its newest addition, South Africa, come together for the annual conference this year in Durban, South Africa in hopes of establishing a new development bank which will fund infrastructure and development projects in the five member states, and will pool foreign currencies to fend off any impending financial crisis.

“We will discuss ways to revive global growth and ensure macroeconomic stability, as well as mechanisms and measures to promote investment in infrastructure and sustainable development,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday, before heading to Durban.

The BRICS have called for a reconstruction of the World Bank and IMF, which were created in 1944, and want to put forth their own ‘Bretton Woods’ accord. And they are serious.

"Brics is not a talk show. It is a serious grouping," Zuma told reporters at the presidential guest house in Pretoria.

Israel's apology to shift Mideast balances: Turkish PM

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 No comments

Israeli apology to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara incident changed equation in the Middle East peace process as the bilateral deal obligates Israel to cooperate with the Turkish government over this process, the prime minister has said.

“The point we have arrived at as a result of our consultations with all our brothers in Palestine and peripheral countries is increasing our responsibility with regard to solving the Palestinian question and thus is bringing about a new equation,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in his address to his lawmakers yesterday at the Parliament. Erdoğan added that Israel agreed to make cooperation with Turkey on carrying out talks with Palestine for the Middle East peace process.

He said all his regional interlocutors, including Khaled Mashaal of the Hamas, admit that a new era has begun in the Middle East what they all call after Turkish victory on Israeli apology.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Jihadists, not Assad, apparently behind reported chemical attack in Syria

Tuesday, March 26, 2013 No comments

The explosion claimed the lives of Syrian Armed Forces soldiers who are apparently loyal to Assad, and the Syrian government was quick to demand an international investigation of the incident. These two facts would indicate that Assad's forces were not behind the attack.

In addition, from what has been released of the physical and medical evidence, it seems that some of the injuries were caused by chlorine. While chlorine gas has been used in the past as a weapon, mainly in the First World War, the chemical arsenals of nations developing these weapons have for decades focused mainly on mustard gas and various types of nerve agents, which, had they been used last week, would have caused different symptoms that were not observed.

It appears that the target of the attack was a checkpoint manned by Syrian Armed Forces, which reinforces the theory that rebel forces, probably jihadists known to be operating around Aleppo, were behind it. A report by Britain's Channel Four, based on Syrian military sources, claims that the weapon used in the attack may have been a missile carrying a warhead filled with chlorine mixed into a saline solution. The Syrian source also said that a factory that manufactures chlorine is located nearby.

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