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1720c77612f96dc06940db3610f0fa5f | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-bullfighting-20160412-story.html | As Baja resumes bullfighting, Mexicans debate: Is it an art form or a cruel, outdated ritual? | As Baja resumes bullfighting, Mexicans debate: Is it an art form or a cruel, outdated ritual?
Just before 4 p.m. Sunday, with sunshine filling the stadium and a gentle breeze wafting off the Pacific Ocean just a few hundred yards away, the chant begins.
“To-ro! To-ro! To-ro!” They are calling for the bull.
It has been months since the last bullfight, which many believe should have been the last bullfight ever. Just three days before, Baja California’s congress — its state legislature — postponed a vote that would have banned bullfighting in the Mexican state and forced the cancellation of this spectacle.
The crowd is restless.
Ever greater numbers of Mexicans see this as a cruel and outdated ritual. Polls show that roughly 80% of Baja Californians oppose it. But as the bullfighting season opened on schedule Sunday, the dwindling ranks of traditionalists could savor at least a temporary victory and another day of what, they insist, is an art form.
Trumpets sound from a band on the third level of the stadium. The crowd erupts. From a tunnel walk four young men in glittering, neon-colored skintight outfits. The crowd continues to cheer warily — the talent of these younger men can vary, though they are soon successfully goading a young bull named Galan into chasing them.
Part rodeo, part derby and part tailgate, the Tijuana bullfights are an amalgam of Mexican society in the borderlands. Ranchers in wide-brimmed hats coax their wives in jean jackets through the busy gates outside the stadium, divided between Sombra (shade) and Sol (seats in the sun).
Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza places his elbow on the head of a bull while circling it during a bullfight at Plaza de Toros Monumental de Tijuana on Sunday.
Eulalio Lopez, known as “El Zotoluco,” faces off with a bull at Plaza de Toros Monumental de Tijuana on Sunday, the first day of the bullfighting season.
Eulalio Lopez, “El Zotoluco,” guides a bull at Plaza de Toros Monumental in Tijuana.
A worker tries to remove a bull killed by Eulalio Lopez in Tijuana’s Plaza de Toros Monumental.
José Mauricio dances beside the bull during a fight at Plaza de Toros Monumental de Tijuana on Sunday.
José Mauricio gets on his knees and guides the bull around him.
José Mauricio smiles as he receives roses and gifts from the crowd.
A crowd watches a bullfight at Plaza de Toros Monumental. Part rodeo, part derby and part tailgate, the Tijuana bullfights are an amalgam of Mexican society in the borderlands.
Fans cheer for the matadors after a bullfight in Tijuana.
Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza celebrates after the bull goes down.
After claiming victory, Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza smells a flower thrown by a fan.
Everyone gets a turn to pay his respects to the dead bull before it is slaughtered and the meat distributed at Plaza de Toros Monumental de Tijuana.
A fan with his purchase -- the tail from a fallen bull in Tijuana. Baja Califiornia’s congress has repeatedly considered a ban on bullfighting, but has put off a final decision.
A man walks away from Plaza de Toros Monumental with a pair of bull horns on Sunday, the first day of the bullfighting season.
Inside, young men in flannel shirts cluster next to society women in gowns and extravagant hats or with flowers in their hair. There are very few children, despite free admission to those younger than 12.
A sign in front of the stadium reads “Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza” in giant red-and-white letters. Pictured is a man on horseback, with a navy coat and silver trim. He is astride a horse and he is considered the best in the world at what he does — namely, killing bulls while astride a horse, forcing him to control his horse and the bull at the same time.
But first, the young men must face Galan, a large, muscular and not especially aggressive bull.
The men leap head-first over the charging animal; the crowd swoons. The men wave capes at him and, when he charges, they run behind red barriers or, in a few breathless instances, allow the bull to nearly strike them before sliding out of the way at the last perceptible second. When they’re not actively engaging him, Galan stands peacefully, waving his tail.
Eventually, he tires. Froth foams at the tips of his mouth and his tongue lolls along his lower lip. He has kicked back dirt and charged 10, 20, 30 times this afternoon. Somewhere, a decision is made, and the four men in neon outfits kneel down while the bull remains standing. It’s over.
Galan runs back to the bull tunnel, untouched. The crowd claps and throws roses to the young men.
The arena clears. Three men in yellow with pink capes emerge from gaps in the wall of the arena.
Then the man in navy blue-and-silver, Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza, appears, and the crowd cheers lustily.
Mendoza is a rejoneador, a matador who fights from horseback. His picture illustrates the Wikipedia entry for rejoneadors.
Bullfighters would starve if every bull were like the docile Galan. But there is no wait for Mendoza’s opponent. Out of the gates charges a bull weighing 1,179 pounds.
His name is Pedrin.
::
Ruben Urenda, 69, started at the bullfights when he was 18, when Tijuana was far smaller but had two bullfighting rings. One closed in 2000, but the one that still stands is a grand old stone arena, the Plaza de Toros Monumental de Tijuana, built in a corner of the city where Mexico meets the U.S. border to the north and the sea to the west.
Urenda and all other stadium staff are part of a union of food workers in Tijuana who serve the bullring, as well as catered events, soccer games and private parties. He has worked his way up, from a simple beer vendor to a waiter, a coveted, well-paying job in which he wears a black vest over a white button-up shirt.
The stadium employs about 70 beer vendors, and hopeful fill-ins line up outside the morning of every bullfight. Urenda smiles at the memory. “I remember that. One hundred beers [was] a very good day.”
A man named Gerardo Mancillas passes in front of him with two children, ages 9 and 11, in tow. He drove them four hours from their home in Zacatecas to see the bullfight. Urenda motions to the children.
“They should see it and understand,” he says.
Then he hears the term “activist” and his face darkens.
There are no protesters here today, but bullfighting is under siege.
The Mexican states of Sonora and Coahuila, which also border the U.S., have banned bullfighting, as has the southern state of Guerrero. Even in Spain, where bullfighting reached its apex, protests are increasingly common.
I don’t like the blood. They harass the animals, mistreat them. Even after three years it’s difficult [for me] to watch. But I really need the money.
Jessica Hernandez, a beer vendor at the bullfight arena
Baja’s congress has repeatedly considered a ban on bullfighting, but has put off a final decision. On Thursday, it did so again, saying the matter required further study.
At issue, from the state’s point of view, is the economic draw of bullfights, which pull in Mexicans from surrounding regions and Americans who cross the border from San Diego.
At the same time, legislators are increasingly aware of animal rights activists who say there is no justification for a sport that amounts to torture.
Urenda, the waiter, insists that bullfighting it not primarily about killing a bull, but about the art with which it’s done.
“Everyone knows the bull is going to lose,” he says. “If they succeed in closing [the bullring], it will be because they don’t understand. I would lose my source of income, definitely. All the waiters, all the [beer] vendors. Seventy families would be left with nothing.”
Twenty feet away, Jessica Hernandez, 21, wishes the activists would finally shut down the bullfights so the food-workers union would relocate her. She’s been a beer vendor for three years at the bullfights.
“I don’t like the blood,” she said. “They harass the animals, mistreat them. Even after three years it’s difficult [for me] to watch. But I really need the money and this is what was open.”
::
It is afternoon, and Pedrin is bleeding.
Mendoza, the rejoneador, is on a black horse and has lanced him twice. A wound in Pedrin’s right shoulder is shallow, but his left shoulder has begun to drip red down his back.
Mendoza’s job on the black horse is to weaken the bull’s neck muscles by stabbing the animal in the mound of muscle behind his neck. The lances force Pedrin to charge with his neck lowered, which will help Mendoza to aim and deliver blows. Two spears dangle from Pedrin’s shoulders. More will follow.
Mendoza briefly leaves the arena and returns, in his glittering jacket, atop a white horse. Pedrin, black and gray and muscular, turns his attention to him.
Mendoza rides his horse directly toward the bull, then veers. The crowd cheers, but this is simply the warmup.
Pedrin follows the horse, bucking his neck, trying to strike the animal’s flank. He pulls close and the horse kicks Pedrin in the face. The crowd cheers and laughs.
Mendoza delivers another lance to Pedrin’s flank. The bull doesn’t slow.
“Aiyeee!” shouts a woman in the first row, close enough to smell the bull.
The blood has begun to flood out of Pedrin’s shoulder and down to his flank, thick wet rivulets pouring over black fur already wet and matted with blood.
Mendoza reins his horse into a small dance near the bull, the horse taking short steps forward and back while the bull tries to gore it. This is the closest he has taken the horse to the bull, and the crowd laps it up.
Pedrin is slowing. His neck is bowed and his charges aren’t as quick, but he still has designs on Mendoza and his horse. The rejoneador grins. He circles the arena, waving his black cap, as Pedrin watches him warily from its center.
Mendoza approaches the bull and lances it again, then once more. The bull bucks and kicks but continues to charge.
Mendoza dismounts and approaches. The men in yellow with pink capes draw closer. A short, mustachioed man in a small black cap walks behind the bull.
Pedrin stares straight ahead at the rejoneador, who lifts his arms and walks closer.
Suddenly, Pedrin kneels down. The crowd stands and cheers. The bull is finished.
Mendoza bows.
The man with the mustache and small black cap strides up behind the bull. He pulls out a knife with a half-foot blade and draws it and stabs the bull once in the back of the head to sever the spine and then stabs the bull again in the same spot and wipes it carelessly on the bull’s right flank.
Pedrin rolls onto his right side. His back legs kick twice and he is still.
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0513230745ba0f930a324c75362fad23 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-caravan-leaders-20181206-story.html | Pueblo Sin Fronteras uses caravans to shine light on the plight of migrants — but has that backfired? | Pueblo Sin Fronteras uses caravans to shine light on the plight of migrants — but has that backfired?
As a cold rain fell in Tijuana, a group of Central Americans faced off with Mexican police sent to block them from launching a hunger strike near the U.S. border.
Leading the migrants were activists from the group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders.
For the record:
5:15 PM, Dec. 07, 2018This article states that Pueblo Sin Fronteras said it was funded by Freedom for Immigrants. Freedom for Immigrants says it raises funds on behalf of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, but does not fund the group directly.
The small collective of volunteers based in the U.S. and Mexico helped create the migrant caravan trend; it organized the first caravan to the U.S. border last year and has helped guide the groups now in Tijuana.
It says the caravans help protect migrants from rape, kidnapping and other perils while drawing attention to the reasons they flee and their treatment on the journey north.
But Pueblo Sin Fronteras has drawn considerable criticism. Conservatives accuse the group of human trafficking. And some former allies on the left say it is using migrants to advance its political agenda — imperiling the people it claims to protect.
“They are helping Donald Trump say there is an invasion,” said Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest and one of Mexico’s most prominent migrant activists.
Solalinde believes the caravan strategy has backfired, with images of migrants streaming north and scaling border walls helping President Trump justify harsher immigration enforcement, including sending thousands of U.S. troops to the border.
“Pueblo Sin Fronteras cheated the migrants; they told them lies that once they arrived at the border, everything would be very easy,” Solalinde said.
Instead, roughly 6,000 migrants have been left stranded in this sprawling industrial city — with most living off handouts from volunteer groups in government-run shelters — as U.S. officials at the border generally accept no more than 100 asylum applications each day.
Pueblo Sin Fronteras insists that migrants have decided for themselves where to travel and when to protest, and that it simply “accompanies” those who have already decided to try to reach the United States.
Yet it has frequently taken a more active role. In October, activists with the group ferried immigrants illegally from Guatemala into Mexico, and they have repeatedly led migrants into direct confrontations with law enforcement.
Last week’s rain-soaked altercation in Tijuana began when several members of Pueblo Sin Fronteras marched with a few dozen migrants, including children, toward the border to launch a hunger strike. When police in riot gear tried to stop them, Irineo Mujica, the director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, escalated an already tense situation.
“You’re going to tell us where we can demonstrate?” Mujica shouted as the migrants stood behind him. “It’s our right to protest!”
Eventually, police let the migrants pass. Several members of Pueblo Sin Fronteras have joined them in the weeklong hunger strike, which seeks to pressure the U.S. to speed up its intake of asylum applicants.
Another march in Tijuana led in part by Pueblo Sin Fronteras turned violent last month after some migrants pushed past Mexican police and sought to scale a border fence into San Diego. Several migrants were injured when U.S. authorities responded with rubber bullets and tear gas.
Alex Mensing, a Pueblo Sin Fronteras activist who was at the protest, said he tried to persuade migrants to not storm the border.
He said the group has been transparent about what migrants should expect.
“We have done everything we possibly can to inform people,” he said, adding that he gave migrants know-your-rights training about asylum law as they hitchhiked on 18-wheeler trucks up through Mexico last month.
“We can’t force people to listen,” Mensing said. “We never promised anybody anything other than that we would walk with them.”
::
Until recently, Pueblo Sin Fronteras was little known outside advocacy circles.
It was founded in Dallas in 2009 by Roberto Corona, a Mexican American immigrant with a background in human rights, and several other migrant advocates. One of the group’s first programs offered classes to day laborers about workplace rights.
The group expanded its work south of the border several years ago, inspired in part by the story of 72 Central American migrants who were kidnapped and massacred by a criminal group in northern Mexico in 2010. It opened two migrant shelters in the notoriously violent border state of Sonora in 2015 and 2016.
The group also began partnering with other advocates in Mexico, including Solalinde, in annual “Via Crucis” processions during Lent. During the processions, Central Americans would march together several miles at a time, a symbolic re-creation of the Stations of the Cross meant to call attention to increasingly harsh immigration enforcement by Mexican authorities.
In 2017, Pueblo Sin Fronteras took the Via Crucis a step further, organizing several hundred migrants to travel from near the Guatemala border all the way to the United States.
“We wanted the governments of Mexico and the United States to acknowledge that there was a refugee crisis and they were turning a blind eye to it,” Corona said.
The group dubbed the march a refugee caravana, and it passed largely unnoticed by authorities and the media.
But the group’s third such caravan, in the spring of 2018, received widespread media attention — and caught the interest of the U.S. president.
Trump tweeted angrily about the group of roughly 1,500 people, and said it proved the U.S. needed a wall along its southern border. Vice President Mike Pence said asylum seekers were being “exploited by open-border political activists.”
That caravan reached Tijuana in early May. It included parents and children who ended up separated under a controversial Trump administration policy that criminally prosecuted people who crossed the border illegally. Others had to wait months to apply for asylum.
Pueblo Sin Fronteras decided not to organize any more caravans after that, Corona said.
But in October, members heard of another large group of migrants heading north. After Trump tweeted about the caravan — and threatened to withhold aid from Central American countries and Mexico for failing to stop them — Pueblo Sin Fronteras decided to help.
Mujica traveled to the southern Mexican border with several members of the group, some of whom linked up with the caravan in northern Guatemala and helped hundreds of migrants illegally cross the Suchiate River into Mexico on rafts.
“What was the alternative for us?” Mujica said. “We were the only ones who could possibly walk with [the migrants], because we have been doing it for years.”
::
In recent months, Pueblo Sin Fronteras has received threats of violence and has become the subject of countless conspiracy theories. Critics have speculated that the caravans were funded alternatively by Republicans, Democrats, leftist billionaire George Soros or even Venezuela or Russia.
The group says it receives no financial support from any government, corporation or political party, and has not received money from Soros. It says its few dozen members have day jobs.
The group, which is not a registered nonprofit, says its caravan support efforts are being funded by Freedom for Immigrants, an Oakland-based nonprofit that says it is “devoted to abolishing immigration detention.”
Freedom for Immigrants monitors detention centers in the U.S. and has thrown itself into California politics, supporting measures including a ban on the expansion of for-profit immigrant detention facilities in the state, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law last year.
The group collected $588,933 in revenue between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017, according to the most recent tax records available.
Freedom for Immigrants, like other 501(c)(3) nonprofits, is not required to disclose the source of its donations. But tax records from other groups show that major donors include the Y & H Soda Foundation, a Northern California antipoverty organization that donated $65,000, and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, which donated $20,000 for a national hotline for immigrants held in detention. Pueblo Sin Fronteras said most of the money raised for it by Freedom for Immigrants comes from small, individual donations.
In Tijuana, Pueblo Sin Fronteras has struggled to keep up hope among migrants, many of whom have grown increasingly disillusioned by the difficult conditions and the long wait to apply for asylum.
Some have chosen to cross illegally into the U.S. in recent days in hopes of getting caught by authorities and then petitioning for asylum.
Others have decided to return to Central America, or have resigned themselves to staying in Mexico.
On a recent morning, 22-year-old Jecson Chicas was waiting in a long line to apply for a Mexican work permit. Chicas fears returning to Honduras, where he said gang members had killed several of his relatives, but said he had decided to stay for now in Tijuana because the wait to apply for asylum was so long.
He hadn’t eaten breakfast, so when Mujica and another activist showed up in a battered minivan and started handing out animal crackers and tamarind-flavored punch, Chicas beamed.
Mujica and other members of the group had frequently given him valuable advice, he said.
“They have helped us a lot,” Chicas said. “And we need help.”
Times staff writer Matt Pearce in Los Angeles and Cecilia Sanchez of The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Twitter: @katelinthicum
|
149c3b517de86114d1e897c61721bb44 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-city-oasis-2018-story.html | In Mexico City’s magic garden, there is only one rule: No talking | In Mexico City’s magic garden, there is only one rule: No talking
Six years ago, Hector Sampson was taking his daily walk in Mexico City’s Chapultepec park when he heard a trace of classical music drifting from the trees.
He followed the sound, down a dense corridor of shrubs and bushes, until he found himself in a verdant, sonic paradise.
Lush foliage surrounded brightly colored benches — blue, red, orange, yellow — on which people peacefully reclined while listening to music that played from a ring of speakers.
Sampson had discovered one of the city’s best-kept secrets: the Audiorama.
Far removed from the crowds and chaos that dominate the rest of Mexico’s expansive capital city, the Audiorama offers a rare refuge for reflection.
For decades, people have been coming to the free, city-run space to detach for a moment from the rest of the world — to meditate, pray, read, sit quietly with lovers, even grieve. There’s just one rule, spelled out on several small signs: “No talking.”
Another small, hand-lettered sign reads “Be happy.”
“It’s an oasis,” said Sampson, a writer and radio personality whose esoteric interests include quantum physics and research into alien life. Since coming across the Audiorama, he has visited daily and has helped organize a rotating library of books — mostly poetry, plays and historical tomes — from which visitors can borrow.
During the last several years, he has witnessed multiple whispered marriage proposals in the Audiorama. He has also watched people cry.
Twice, he said, people who were contemplating suicide told him that the beauty of the place had persuaded them to rethink their plans. One man, mourning the death of his son, told Sampson that his meditations there had helped him find peace.
Sampson said his writing has improved greatly since he began spending time in the garden.
“It just has a certain magic,” he said on a recent chilly morning as he arranged library books on a folding table.
City officials inaugurated the Audiorama in 1972 on a site famous for its mystic properties.
On one side of the garden, carved into a hillside, lies a cave known as Cincalco.
Pre-Hispanic groups considered the cave the entrance to the underworld. Huemac, the last ruler of the Toltec culture, is said to have taken his life there around 1100, distraught over his fading empire.
Caretaker Juan Carlos Hernandez y Cervantes, who spends his days in the garden, watering bursts of pink, white and red flowers, leafy trees and rows of bamboo, keeps a candle lit inside the cave at all times.
“It’s so our spirits have light,” he said.
Hernandez has been working in Chapultepec park for more than 30 years and has been taking care of the Audiorama for 10.
Stooped from his 78 years, with a bushy white mustache, Hernandez gets asked by some people when he will retire.
Hopefully no time soon, he tells them.
“I love this place,” he says. “I’m still working because I like my job.”
Beyond tending to the impressive garden, he helps care for the family of cats that roam the property and is in charge of changing the CDs that play while the space is open, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. He maintains a collection of thousands of discs, nearly all of it donated. He follows a schedule, which is posted on a sign.
Tuesday: New Age. Wednesday: Traditional Mexican. Thursday: World Music. Friday: Jazz. Saturday: Chill Out. Sunday: Classical.
On Mondays, the park is closed.
Chapultepec, which sprawls over nearly 1,700 acres in the middle of the city, is one of the largest and most visited urban parks in the Western Hemisphere. Known as “the lungs of the city” for the oxygen produced by its densely planted sequoia, cedar and cypress trees, it boasts a zoo, a man-made lake filled with blue paddle boats and towering Chapultepec Castle, whose elaborately appointed rooms were once inhabited by Emperor Maximilian I and his consort, Empress Carlota.
While Chapultepec gets roughly 40,000 visitors a day, the Audiorama typically sees only a few hundred.
That is partly because of its location, tucked in a corner of the park near a World War II memorial and a usually dry fountain that features a white marble sculpture of Goliath on one side, and on the other, a sculpture of David with his sling.
On a recent morning, seven people visited the Audiorama in the first hour it was open, according to a tally counter Sampson uses.
One of them was Geraldina Rome, a 29-year-old attorney, who for three years has been coming once a week to meditate.
“I call it my magic garden,” she said. “It’s important to disconnect for a minute, and to let your mind go to another place.”
She sat down cross-legged on a sky blue bench, began to breathe deeply and closed her eyes. All traces of the city — the honking, the thick clouds of car exhaust — were gone.
It was just her, the fragrant air, and Franz Schubert’s rousing piano composition — Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat major.
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Twitter: @katelinthicum
|
cc250e8f7c5fb396d487910e37630149 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-city-violence-20151022-story.html | In Mexico City, a body hanging from a bridge portends a shift in violence | In Mexico City, a body hanging from a bridge portends a shift in violence
The dead man’s body was bound up like a mummy, his hands roped behind his back and his head covered with a black sack. Tied by the waist, he was discovered dangling shoeless from a bridge over a busy street around 5 a.m. Monday — a shocking sight for thousands of commuters making their way into Mexico City for the start of the workweek.
City firefighters cut him down before dawn. He was 25, as yet unidentified, killed by two bullets to the head.
Such a sight might be expected in drug-violence-ravaged Mexican states such as Guerrero, Veracruz and Tamaulipas. But Mexico City has long been considered a haven from the kind of brutal terror tactics used by organized crime in other parts of the country since the beginning of the drug war nearly a decade ago.
The dangling body is just one indication that the capital may no longer be immune.
“This is an omen,” said Isabel Miranda de Wallace, an activist who founded the nonprofit Alto Al Secuestro! (An End to Kidnapping!). “This is the first time that a body has been hung here and it shows that we could be on the brink of a wave of violence.”
Mexicans in other parts of the country began to move to this megalopolis of 20 million people after then-President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on organized crime in 2006. The crackdown led to an increase in violence, extortion and kidnapping in cities such as Juarez, Tampico and Tijuana, where rival gangs battled for turf. Tourists stayed away from some vacation spots as they came under siege.
Criminal organizations have long had a quiet presence in Mexico City as well. Groups such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel, the notorious Zetas and others have established operational bases in the capital, according to analysts and a recent report from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The city is a transport hub and money-laundering center for drug cartels. In 2007, authorities here seized more than $207 million in drug money during a raid, at the time thought to be the biggest seizure of its kind.
Organizations run labs here to process substances before they’re sold or shipped north. A recent TV report by the British broadcaster Sky News depicted labs in Mexico City processing cocaine — coverage that caught the attention of the local press.
“Of course there’s always been organized crime in Mexico City, but [the gangs] have behaved differently here,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and editor of El Daily Post.
The capital has seen some isolated incidents of bodies dumped and severed heads over the last few years, but nothing on the scale seen elsewhere in the country. It has largely managed to maintain immunity in part because of its size, Hope said. Territorial disputes that are usually at the root of conflict in other regions tend not to be a problem in Mexico City because there’s enough ground to go around.
The federal police, army and marines are headquartered here, as well as the presidency, Senate and Chamber of Deputies — adding a layer of security and resources not enjoyed in the provinces.
“The police force is so large here that it cannot be bought off the way it can in smaller cities,” Hope said.
But Monday’s grim discovery is one of various signs that things in the capital may be shifting, and that the gloves could be coming off in the fight for control of Mexico City’s lucrative drug market opportunities.
Violent homicides rose by 21% to 566 in the first eight months of the year compared with the same period in 2014, according to figures from the local attorney general’s office. That’s high for Mexico City, where the number of homicides had been dropping, although still nowhere near as high as in other parts of the country. The capital district’s homicide rate ranks seventh among Mexico’s 32 regions.
Last week, an organization representing businesses in the city’s historic center appealed publicly to Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera to address an increase in homicides, theft and extortion — problems they attribute to criminal organizations.
“There are at least seven or eight organized criminal groups operating here,” Guillermo Gazal, president of the organization Procentrhico, told the SinEmbargo news website.
Local news reports of extortion targeting bars and restaurants in some neighborhoods have increased in recent months.
On Monday, the same day the hanging body was discovered, five armed men held up a restaurant in the Roma neighborhood and robbed 25 customers at their tables. The owner of a bar in the hip Condesa zone was shot dead in June as he was getting out of his car in front of his business.
In May, a group of armed men, reportedly from the Jalisco New Generation cartel, broke into a police station to free a member of the gang who had been detained for carrying a gun, prompting a police chase on the city’s streets.
And on Wednesday morning, Mexico City’s attorney general said the body of another homicide victim was dumped during the night in the neighborhood where the dangling cadaver was discovered. The 45-year-old was killed by a single shot to the head. Local media reported that a message was left with the body, addressed to the mayor. It purported to be from a criminal group claiming ownership of the drug market in a local prison.
The list goes on — crimes that might give tourists second thoughts about visiting the city, as well as keep Mexicans in a state of fear. Mexico City recorded the most tourists of any area of Mexico last year, and tourism in the city was up 10% in the first six months of this year.
There have also been a spate of reports in the news media and social networks of narco-mantas, signs believed to be written and hung by criminal groups, increasingly appearing around the city.
The source of such messages is impossible to verify, as opportunistic criminals often claim membership in gangs to generate fear.
Mancera has maintained that organized crime doesn’t have a significant presence in the city, but that conviction could be slipping. At a news conference after Monday’s discovery of the body, Mancera said: “The message for residents is that we’re not going to allow impunity. And, well — is this the work of a criminal organization? I don’t know, but it’s a criminal act that the city must attend to.”
He added that a sign left nearby indicated the killing may have been tied to a dispute between prisoners in a local jail, and that an investigation was underway. The city’s attorney general, Rodolfo Rios Garza, however, said in a telephone interview that Monday’s incident showed no signs at all of having been perpetrated by any of Mexico’s established criminal groups.
“Organized crime does not have a presence in Mexico City,” declared Rios Garza.
After the discovery of the second body on Wednesday and the note left with it, Rios acknowledged during a news conference that the violence did seem to be connected to control of drug markets in the city prison.
Ernesto Lopez Portillo, a security expert with the Institute for Security and Democracy, said claims that there is no organized crime in Mexico City are “unbelievable.” Research by his group shows 90% of the crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs, such as extortion and kidnapping, are not reported because the victims fear retaliation, suggesting that drug-related violence here is probably much higher than recent events might indicate.
“Mexico’s criminal organizations grow more powerful by the day,” Portillo said. “And Mexico City is no exception.”
Bonello is a special correspondent. Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
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0aef96539905a4e8b54a49798aa58ed0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-closing-chinese-megamall-20150128-story.html | Mexico halts Chinese mega-mall project after damage to environment | Mexico halts Chinese mega-mall project after damage to environment
It was supposed to be a major Chinese foothold for doing business in Latin America, the largest venue for selling Chinese goods in the Western Hemisphere.
The multimillion-dollar Dragon Mart mega-mall would cover nearly 1,400 acres two miles from the Caribbean Sea just south of the posh Cancun resort area and cater to an army of Chinese vendors.
But Mexico has pulled the plug on the project, the second huge endeavor involving Chinese business that the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto has canceled in just under three months.
After a protracted legal tug of war, Mexico’s environmental protection agency ruled this week that the project, which has been in the works since 2013, had done serious harm to the area’s sensitive beaches and protected flora and birds. It ordered all work shut down and imposed about $1.5 million in fines on the Dragon Mart developers.
The agency’s federal prosecutor for environmental protection, Guillermo Haro, said his office had determined “with all clarity that the activities the developers were conducting have deteriorated, impacted and damaged conditions of ecological balance, forest ecosystem and biodiversity of the zone.”
About 370 acres of mangrove and other plant life and seascape have been razed or damaged south of Cancun’s white beaches and turquoise waters, Haro said.
The decision reversed a ruling by the federal government that greenlighted the project. Haro said the government had erred. The fines were of “historic” amounts, he said, and the developers could also face jail time for the damage done to wetlands and other protected lands.
Dragon Mart developers contend that Mexico is missing out on a profitable, job-creating opportunity to thrust itself into the center of East-West commerce. Buyers from all over the Americas, “from Canada to Argentina,” could find vast quantities of Chinese products in easy-to-reach Cancun, already the destination of more than 10 million visitors annually, they say.
The Cancun Dragon Mart would be the second-largest retail venue for Chinese products outside China, behind a Dragon Mart erected in 2004 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, company executives said, and would provide the Chinese with a huge entry into a continent where trade with Asia is growing fast.
But the $200-million project has been opposed by environmentalists who feared ecological destruction and Mexican industrialists who objected to the flooding of their markets with cheap Chinese wares. Plans called for Dragon Mart to house 3,040 exhibition spaces for Chinese-produced electronics, software, toys, clothing, home-building supplies and other goods.
The project was being financed by a consortium of Mexican developers and a Dutch-registered company run by a Chinese businessman. Plans also envisioned housing for about 700 Chinese nationals in the middle of the complex.
Juan Carlos Lopez, Dragon Mart’s executive director, in a 2013 interview with The Times compared the planned retail center to a giant, permanent “trade show in Vegas.”
On Wednesday, Lopez told The Times that he considered the shutdown temporary and that his company would continue to fight the decision in court. “We figure that the legal matter could still take 10 to 12 months to resolve,” he said.
The city government of Cancun originally denied Dragon Mart a building permit, but the developers obtained permission by appealing to state and federal governments more sympathetic to the project and keen on expanding trade with China. It is that federal permission that was revoked this week.
Environmentalists welcomed the decision. The Mexican Environmental Law Center said the move set an important precedent by requiring builders to get permits and respect environmental impact, steps developers in Mexico routinely skirt.
“Development projects are very necessary in our country to promote growth and job creation,” the center’s representative in the Cancun area, Alejandra Serrano Pavon, said in a statement. But “development must come with a vision of sustainability.”
Serrano said in a telephone interview that she doubted Dragon Mart would be able to get around the fines and requirements that denuded land be reforested, and acquire new permits to revive the project any time soon.
“This is a positive message,” she said.
Araceli Dominguez, president of Mayab, a prominent environmental group in Cancun, said, “The developers never did the correct thing … and thought that by doing dirty business with the state government they were going to achieve their goals.”
Haro said that despite Lopez’s vow to fight on, it was doubtful the project could move ahead. “It would be difficult now to build a project of these dimensions,” he said.
Mexican industrialists also praised stopping Dragon Mart, which they said would have flooded the domestic market with 300,000 tons annually of Chinese merchandise worth $2 billion.
“Canceling the project sends a clear signal to investors [against] the use of disloyal competition,” Francisco J. Funtanet Mange, president of Mexico’s major chamber of industrialists, said in a statement. The decision represents “a good result for Mexican industry.”
In November, the government canceled a $4-billion contract with a Chinese-Mexican consortium to build a bullet train from Mexico City to the industrial hub of Queretaro.
Officials said they were responding to an appearance of favoritism with the awarding of the contract, though they denied any impropriety. It later was revealed that one of the winning bidders had sold a mansion to the president’s wife under favorable terms.
Twitter: @TracyKWilkinson
Sanchez is a news assistant in The Times’ Mexico City bureau.
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b9c0ec2b9edc12480cd723f8006218c0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-disappeared-20170511-story.html | A mom demanded justice for her daughter’s death in Mexico. On Mexican Mother’s Day, she was killed | A mom demanded justice for her daughter’s death in Mexico. On Mexican Mother’s Day, she was killed
She led a search for the “disappeared” in her home state of Tamaulipas, among the most violent in Mexico, after her daughter was kidnapped in 2012.
Her strenuous efforts in the face of official inaction helped nudge authorities in the embattled Gulf state along the Texas border to discover the partial remains of her daughter and arrest those allegedly involved in her death.
She sought protection from Mexican authorities this year after a prison break that she feared may have resulted in the escape of suspects in her daughter’s killing.
Now, Miriam Elizabeth Rodriguez has joined the growing roster of activists, journalists, clergy and others slain in a wave of killings in Mexico.
On Thursday, authorities confirmed that armed assailants opened fire late Wednesday on Rodriguez’s home in the city of San Fernando, fatally wounding the activist. She died on the way to the hospital.
She was killed on Mexico’s Mother’s Day, a major holiday in Mexico.
May 10 has also become a symbolically charged day when the mothers and other relatives of Mexico’s legions of missing publicly demand that authorities act on the cases of their vanished loved ones.
Protests to clarify the cases of Mexico’s estimated 30,000 or so disappeared — many abducted during the country’s more than decade-long war on drugs — took place throughout Mexico on Wednesday, the same day that Rodriguez was slain.
Rodriguez was part of a growing national movement of mothers and others who have sought out clandestine graves where their missing kin are believed to be buried. Some have taken picks and shovels to unearth remains from the secret graves.
Many contend that corrupt Mexican police and politicians acting in league with organized crime were implicated in the disappearances of their kin.
The killing of Rodriguez drew expressions of outrage from domestic and international activists, including from Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“The violent murder of Miriam Rodriguez should be investigated in [an] independent, impartial and exhaustive manner,” said Erika Guevera Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas’ chief. “Steps should be taken to defend those who seek their [missing] loved ones.”
Federal and state authorities vowed to find her killers.
“I express my energetic condemnation for the cowardly murder of the activist Miriam Rodriguez,” Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco Javier Cabeza de Vaca said in a Twitter message. “The government of Tamaulipas will not permit that the death of Miriam Rordiguez will become one more statistic.”
Following her death, her activists colleagues charged that Rodriguez had requested police protection following the escape in March of inmates possibly linked to her daughter’s murder from a prison in Ciudad Victoria in Tamaulipas state.
“She herself expressed on various occasions in meetings with authorities that she was concerned that the kidnappers of her daughter had escaped ... and that this put her life at risk,” a fellow Tamaulipas activist, Guillermo Gutierrez, said in a radio interview. “We hope that with this lamentable event the state government put aside their authoritarianism and arrogance and punish the officials who should have given protection to our partner Miriam.”
But Luis Alberto Rodriguez Juarez, a state government spokesman in Tamaulipas, said officials had provided additional protection to Rodriguez in her home, with patrols passing by her home three times a day.
But the effort clearly did not deter her killers. Tamaulipas, which borders Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, is home turf for a number of criminal groups, including the ultra- violent Zetas cartel. The Zetas were implicated in the so-called “San Fernando massacre,” the mass murder in 2010 of 72 migrants — mostly U.S.-bound Central Americans — in the municipality of San Fernando, where Rodriguez was killed.
Heavily armed criminal organizations control drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and other illicit enterprises throughout Mexico.
Cecilia Sanchez of the Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
twitter: @mcdneville
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81d5e6021394eb7bc81427de64701d97 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-earthquake-frida-sofia-20170921-story.html?_amp=true | The fate of earthquake victim ‘Frida Sofia’ captivated Mexico. But it seems she never existed | The fate of earthquake victim ‘Frida Sofia’ captivated Mexico. But it seems she never existed
As rescue efforts enter a third day, Mexicans have been captivated by the fate of earthquake victim “Frida Sofia,” a young girl supposedly trapped under the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City.
But even as Frida Sofia gained fame around the world, her story quickly began to fall apart.
Government officials never confirmed the identity of such a child. No student was registered at the school under that name, they insisted.
The secretary of education on Thursday also said authorities had been unable to locate any parents of a girl identified in widespread Mexican media reports as the 12-year-old Frida Sofia.
And on Thursday afternoon, the Mexican navy reported that there were no signs that a child was still alive in the wreckage of the three-story school building that was turned into a mound of concrete rubble by Tuesday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
“All of the children are, unfortunately, dead or safe at home,” said Angel Enrique Sarmiento, the undersecretary of the navy. In fact, he said, government authorities were never aware of the existence of any child named Frida Sofia.
The confusing Frida Sofia saga took another strange turn Thursday night, when a grim-faced Sarmiento went on live television and sought to explain earlier statements by the navy about the girl. He ended up confusing matters even further.
Earlier Thursday, Sarmiento had insisted that the navy never had any knowledge of a girl who was supposedly trapped in the rubble.
In his evening news conference, however, Sarmiento contradicted the earlier statement, conceding that the navy had distributed reports of a girl surviving inside the school “based on technical reports and the testimony of civilian rescue workers and of this institution.” He offered no explanation for the conflicting accounts, but apologized.
“I offer an apology to Mexicans for the information given this afternoon in which I said that the navy did not have any details about a supposed minor survivor in this tragedy,” Sarmiento, dressed in military fatigues, told reporters at an outdoor news conference.
Sarmiento repeated his earlier assertion that it was possible that someone remained alive in the rubble. But Thursday evening he did not rule out the possibility that it was a child. Mexicans and others following the matter were left perplexed.
“Nonetheless,” Sarmiento added, “the Mexican people should know that as long as the minimum possibility exists that there is someone alive, we will keep on looking with the same determination.”
Both he and a colleague, Maj. Jose Luis Vergara, denied any effort to mislead the public.
Hope that a child was still alive at the school had energized emergency crews and volunteers who have extracted more than 20 bodies, mostly those of children, from the collapsed structure.
The story of the missing girl had inspired the hashtag #FridaSofia, which trended on Twitter. Mexicans captivated by the story shared it as a beacon of optimism and hope across social media.
Much of the story appeared to originate from reporters for the Televisa network. They said on social media that the girl told rescue workers that she was with five other classmates.
News that there apparently was no living girl under the rubble prompted a new social media eruption, this one of outrage.
“Fake news,” many people tweeted.
“State-run media failed hoax,” said one Twitter user. “Distracted [international] community for at least 72 hours.”
For some Mexicans, the ghostly saga of Frida Sofia was reminiscent of the attempted rescue tale of Luis “Monchito” Navarrete, a 9-year-old boy who was believed to be buried with his grandfather under the rubble of an apartment building after the magnitude 8.1 earthquake that hit Mexico City in 1985.
According to news stories from the time, rescue workers spent more than two weeks trying to rescue the boy and his grandfather after apparently communicating with the boy.
Hope rose and fell for the boy’s parents, who kept a vigil in the street, especially as workers alternately said they had spoken to the boy, then recanted their story.
In the end, the grandfather’s body was extracted from the building, but not the boy’s.
ruben.vives@latimes.com
Twitter: @latvives
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
Twitter: @mcdneville
Vives reported from Los Angeles and McDonnell from Mexico City.
Cecilia Sanchez of the Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
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UPDATES:
9:50 p.m.: This article was updated with additional comments by Angel Enrique Sarmiento.
4:35 p.m.: This article was updated with information about a previous unsuccessful rescue attempt.
3:40 p.m.: This article was updated with background about a 1985 rescue effort.
1:40 p.m.: This article was updated with confirmation from authorities that no children are believed to be alive in the rubble of the school.
1:00 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details from school authorities about the student.
This article was originally published at 10:25 a.m.
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991989ccf7419895f78ba532fa86f9fa | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-election-20180630-story.html | Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wins Mexico’s presidential election in a massive landslide | Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wins Mexico’s presidential election in a massive landslide
Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador won Sunday’s presidential election by a landslide, ushering in a new era in Mexican politics that could have profound implications for the country’s domestic and international policies — including its relationship with the United States.
Lopez Obrador’s projected margin of victory was 31 percentage points — the largest in Mexico’s recent electoral history. His opponents conceded before any actual results were released, based on exit polls showing the firebrand populist’s commanding lead.
Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement — a relatively new political bloc known as Morena — appeared headed for significant victories in congressional and gubernatorial races, according to exit polls.
It was unclear late Sunday whether Lopez Obrador’s party and its allies would garner sufficient victories to forge a majority in Mexico’s Congress, thus assisting the new president in implementing his sweeping legislative agenda.
Mexico’s electoral institute declared that a partial count confirmed the victory of Lopez Obrador, who would become president-elect once the final results are certified. In a race of four main candidates, it said he was on pace to win 53% of the vote.
Mexico’s current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, also went on national television to confirm Lopez Obrador’s ascension to the chief executive post.
A smiling Lopez Obrador left his campaign headquarters in the capital’s Roma district in a white Volkswagen sedan, which was mobbed by well-wishers and supporters seeking selfies as the car made its way to his campaign headquarters along the elegant Paseo de la Reforma boulevard.
“This is a historic day,” Lopez Obrador declared in a speech at a hotel downtown where supporters gathered. He vowed to seek an “authentic democracy” and rejected charges that he sought to impose a “dictatorship” on the country. “Under no circumstances will the next president of the republic allow corruption or impunity.”
No one will be spared, he said, not members of his party, not his friends. He called for “reconciliation” with opposition parties and pledged to represent the interests of all Mexicans, but said his priority would be the country’s poor and indigenous.
“We will respect everybody but we will give a preference to the humble and forgotten,” he said.
A celebratory scene enveloped downtown Mexico City as the country witnessed the election of its first opposition leader avowedly from the left.
His election could mark a new political era for Mexico, even though Lopez Obrador was a stalwart of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, before he and others on the left broke away in the late 1980s.
“There is no more happiness than knowing your country is liberated,” said Blanca Rosa Rubacalba, 76, sobbing and clutching a Mexican flag in a crowd gathered outside the hotel.
“Liberated from the corruption, the robbery, the lies,” she said. “I can die now.”
It was a stunning and momentous win for a lifelong politician and relentless campaigner who had lost the previous two presidential elections — and in both instances alleged that he had been robbed of victory through fraud. His critics dismissed him as a sore loser, a crank and a would-be Hugo Chavez, after Venezuela’s late leftist leader.
But the third try proved the charm for Lopez Obrador, 64, a shopkeeper’s son from the southern state of Tabasco who rode to victory on a wave of voter discontent with rampant corruption, escalating crime and a sluggish economy.
Once his victory is confirmed, he is set to take office on Dec. 1.
Among the many foreign leaders offering congratulations was President Trump, who said in a Twitter message that he looked forward to working with Mexico’s new leader.
“There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!” said Trump, who has consistently singled out Mexico and Mexicans for withering criticism on issues of free trade, drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
As president, Lopez Obrador — who embraces a throwback, fiercely nationalist tradition — is widely expected to be less deferential to Washington than his predecessors. How his presidency will play out in U.S.-Mexico relations remains to be seen.
He said during the campaign that he was keen to have good relations with Washington and was in favor of negotiating a new free-trade deal with the United States. In his acceptance speech on Sunday, he said he sought a relationship of “friendship” and “mutual respect” with the United States.
Lopez Obrador has vowed a grandiose “transformation” of Mexico akin to past historical events — independence from Spain, the 19th century reign of President Benito Juarez, and the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century. He repeatedly denounced corruption. But critics accused him of being a would-be dictator.
Shortly after the last polls closed at 8 p.m. in Mexico City, and before any actual results were released, the other candidates began conceding defeat.
“I recognize that the tendencies do not favor me,” Jose Antonio Meade, presidential hopeful of the PRI, said in a speech. “At this moment I will have to recognize that, in accordance with the tendencies, it was Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who obtained the majority. He will have the responsibility of directing executive power. And for the good of Mexico I wish him the best success.”
Ricardo Anaya of the center-right National Action Party soon followed, as did the sole independent candidate, Jaime “El Bronco” Rodriguez.
“I wish him success for the best of Mexico,” Anaya said.
Election officials projected Anaya would win 22% of the vote, Meade 16% and Rodriguez 5%.
Lopez Obrador’s lead was even bigger than his sizable advantage in preelection surveys that had long showed him as a runaway winner. His challengers had been unable to chip away at Lopez Obrador’s lead, which was largely fueled by voter anger at the status quo of Mexican politics.
Mexico’s political class appeared astonished, despite the months of preelection polls.
“We have an electoral tsunami,” Marco A. Fernandez, an analyst at the Technical Institute of Monterrey, said in a Twitter message. “High electoral participation punished corruption at the ballot [box]. The citizens participated and expressed their outrage and anger.”
The electoral process unfolded without major disruptions, authorities said, despite scattered acts of violence and some reports of missing ballots.
In the run-up to the elections, dozens of office-seekers had been slain, mostly candidates for local posts in provincial areas where organized crime holds sway. Police were out in force on Sunday throughout the nation in elections that officials called the largest in the country’s history.
Apart from the presidential vote, Mexicans were also electing a new federal legislature, eight state governors, a Mexico City mayor and representatives for thousands of state and municipal posts.
Lopez Obrador — a former mayor of Mexico City — launched his Morena movement four years ago after splitting from the center-left party that he formerly headed.
His rhetoric has targeted “the mafia of power,” his depiction of the elite clique of political parties and business interests that have long dominated Mexico. It is an anti-status quo message that has overwhelmed similar vows of “change” from the presidential aspirants from more traditional parties.
Among his promises: increasing social welfare payments to the poor and elderly, providing scholarships to the young and reviewing various projects of the current government, including energy and education reforms and the construction of a new Mexico City airport.
“We are struggling,” said Ivan Jaramillo, 36, a tall, tattooed industrial engineer and Lopez Obrador backer who cast his ballot Sunday. “Yet we see how our leaders get richer.”
Lopez Obrador’s fiery rhetoric has clearly drawn many supporters, but his candidacy has also stoked deep concern among many who view him as a potential autocrat and as an unreconstructed leftist who could wreck an already shaky economy.
In the wealthy Mexico City enclave of Bosques de las Lomas, Veronica Soto, 46, stepped into a waiting Audi sedan after casting her ballot.
Soto, a stay-at-home mom, said she was voting for Anaya, the presidential candidate of the National Action Party, largely because she is afraid of a Lopez Obrador presidency — a fear especially common among upper-class Mexicans.
“He wants to turn Mexico into Venezuela,” said Soto, echoing a common criticism here.
“He wants to take Mexico backward,” she said, “to a situation where the poor won’t be rich and the rich won’t be rich either.”
She said many in this neighborhood of lush haciendas tucked behind high walls were nervous about what will happen to the economy under Lopez Obrador.
For almost a century, Mexican presidents have come from two political parties: the PRI, which emerged from the Mexican Revolution to rule the country in autocratic fashion for more than seven decades; and the center-right National Action Party, which wrested the presidency from the PRI in elections in 2000 and 2006.
Cecilia Sanchez of The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
Twitter: @PmcdonnellLAT
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Twitter: @katelinthicum
UPDATES:
10:25 p.m.: This article has been updated with victory scenes, political analysis and projected percentages for each candidate.
7:08 p.m.: This article has been updated with the news that Lopez Obrador has won the election after his competitors conceded.
5:55 p.m.: This article was updated with the news that polls have closed across much of the country and other details.
This article was originally published at 11: 45 a.m.
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2b2124050f04314e9609d14ad706dc01 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-elections-pri-20160606-snap-story.html | Early results show major losses for Mexico’s ruling party in nationwide elections | Early results show major losses for Mexico’s ruling party in nationwide elections
State and local elections held across Mexico appeared to be turning into a major defeat for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, according to partial results released Monday.
The voting, held Sunday in states that account for slightly more than one-third of Mexico’s population, were viewed as leading indicators for the presidential election in 2018.
The ruling party, or PRI, appeared to be leading in only five of the 12 states where voters were electing governors, according to the partial count. The PRI went into the elections holding the governor’s seat in nine of the 12 states.
See the most-read stories this hour >>
The big winner appeared to be the PRI’s chief rival, the National Action Party, or PAN, which was leading in seven states, sometimes in coalition with the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
Most significantly, the PRI gubernatorial candidate conceded defeat in Veracruz and appeared to be trailing in another closely watched election in Tamaulipas, which is on the northern border with Texas. The two critical gulf states — longtime bastions of the PRI — featured hard-fought gubernatorial contests.
The Veracruz race, which featured dueling cousins as the two leading candidates, was viewed as the most polemical in this year’s elections, featuring allegations among candidates of corruption, links to drug mafias, secret deals and even pedophilia. The PAN candidate said he was the victim of a “dirty war” waged by the PRI, which was keen not to lose leadership of the oil-rich state.
With almost 80% of the votes counted in Veracruz, Miguel Angel Yunes Linares, candidate of the PAN-led opposition bloc, had garnered 33.86% of the vote, compared with 30.01% for his cousin, PRI candidate Hector Yunes Landa.
Cuitlahuac Garcia, candidate of a relatively new left-wing political bloc known as Morena, had garnered 27.96% of the vote.
The PRI candidate, Yunes Landa, acknowledged his defeat. “There is a clear message here not just for the PRI, but for all of our governments.” he said. “Let’s assume responsibly this message.”
Along with Veracruz and Tamaulipas, the PAN or PAN-led alliance was leading in five other states — Puebla, Chihuahua, Durango, Quintana Roo and Aguascalientes — according to partial results.
The PRI was leading in five states: Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Tlaxcala and Zacatecas.
In a radio interview, the president of the PRI, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, seemed to acknowledge that things were not going well.
“What we have to do is observe these elections and take into account the message that the electorate has given the PRI,” Beltrones said. “There are actions to improve and change and reconnect with the citizens.’”
Analysts said the results in Sunday’s vote could point to the difficulty facing the PRI in retaining the presidency in 2018.
President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is more than halfway through his six-year term, faces low approval ratings amid voter discontent with a sluggish economy, unchecked violence and corruption.
Peña Nieto won back the presidency for the PRI in 2012 after a 12-year hiatus in which the PAN held the nation’s top office. Officials of the PAN were celebrating their apparent triumphs this week and proclaiming that their chances for recapturing Los Pinos, the Mexican White House, had improved substantially.
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Cecilia Sanchez of The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
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ad3715f2e3e5693dc9c52f031ce51e41 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-hurricane-patricia-20151026-htmlstory.html | How Mexico escaped the worst of Hurricane Patricia | How Mexico escaped the worst of Hurricane Patricia
Days after Hurricane Patricia made landfall on Mexico's western coast, much of the destruction was limited to flooding and wind damage to homes, as well as power outages and small mudslides.
Patricia grew at "an incredible rate" over a 12-hour span from Thursday night to early Friday, according to the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization. By Friday morning, the storm's power was comparable to that of Typhoon Haiyan, which displaced millions of people and left more than 7,300 dead or missing in the Philippines in 2013.
See the most-read stories this hour >>
As of Monday afternoon, the official death toll in this disaster is zero. So how did the country survive the strongest hurricane ever measured in the Western Hemisphere?
Mexico learned from past disasters
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto attributed the outcome to government planning and experience with previous natural disasters.
"Each of these episodes that we've experienced has allowed us each time to improve our system of civil protection," he told reporters.
Among the most recent disasters were Tropical Storm Manuel and Hurricane Ingrid, which struck Mexico almost simultaneously in 2013. Manuel came in hard from the south onto the coast of Guerrero state, slamming Acapulco. The next day, Ingrid pummeled the state of Tamaulipas on Mexico's eastern coast. At least 120 people died as a result of Manuel, many of them in Acapulco's poor neighborhoods, which suffered intense flooding.
The government came under heavy criticism after the storm, accused of not providing adequate warning or a decent evacuation to residents of Guerrero state. The state governor at the time, Angel Aguirre, was reported to be out partying rather than mustering the evacuation of residents in high-risk zones.
"The hurricane put to the test the reaction of all three levels of government," Ricardo Aleman wrote in his Sunday column in the newspaper El Universal. "And unlike many other occasions, the coordination [this time around] was almost perfect."
Evacuees at a shelter in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, as Hurricane Patricia approached. (Hector Guerrero / AFP/Getty Images)
The worst natural disaster in Mexico's recent memory, the magnitude 8 earthquake of 1985, looms as an example of government failure. Although the quake far predated Peña Nieto's presidency, his party -- the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI -- was in power and was accused of taking too long to react to the devastation.
Thousands of people died, thousands were left homeless and it took days for authorities to accept humanitarian aid from other countries.
The country blared warnings and deployed planes and soldiers
With past experiences in mind, Mexico prepared for the worst as Patricia approached. Before and after the hurricane, warnings blared on radio and television broadcasts across the region, and government pickup trucks with loudspeakers made their way through neighborhoods.
Tens of thousands of people along the coast were evacuated into shelters and out of the danger zone. Some piled into cars and buses; others took government-provided flights and ground transportation.
States of emergency were declared in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco states, which include the tourist resorts of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo.
About 3,000 soldiers and more than 800 federal police officers were dispatched to the area. More than 1,200 shelters were set up, able to accommodate 240,000 people. Schools were closed and three airports shut down.
As people begin to arrive at a makeshift shelter in Puerto Vallarta, men try to secure the windows against Hurricane Patricia. (Cesar Rodriguez / Associated Press)
Extraordinary luck helped too
Patricia, recorded while it was at sea as the most intense storm ever measured in the Western Hemisphere, did not lack strength. It was still packing 165-mph winds when it made landfall early Friday evening.
But the storm weakened to a tropical depression as it moved across the country, dissolving into a rainy low-pressure area and carrying winds of only 30 miles per hour.
Communications and Transport Minister Gerardo Ruíz Esparza told reporters that the worst of the storm moved into the mountains, which lessened its effect on populated areas. The wind and water hit, but many buildings were able to withstand it.
The sign outside a restaurant in Barra de Navidad, in Mexico's Jalisco state, lies flattened the day after Hurricane Patricia hit the coast. (Omar Torres / AFP/Getty Images)
Times staff writers Alan Zarembo and Alexandra Zavis in Los Angeles and special correspondent Deborah Bonello in Mexico City contributed to this report.
Chase storms with @sarahparvini on Twitter.
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05ce3a32cdb22d6288f915b19b0a7e3f | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-immigrants-20161116-story.html | Mexico instructs its embassy and consulates in the U.S. to increase measures to protect immigrants | Mexico instructs its embassy and consulates in the U.S. to increase measures to protect immigrants
One week after Donald Trump’s election as the next U.S. president, Mexico has issued a message of support for Mexican immigrants living in the United States: “We are with you.”
On Wednesday, the Mexican government instructed its embassy and consulates in the U.S. to step up measures to protect Mexican immigrants. The measures include a 24-hour hotline that will allow people to report harassment and immigration raids, as well as the expansion of deportation-defense work at 50 consulates.
“These are uncertain times,” said Foreign Secretary Claudia Ruiz Massieu in an online video introducing the new measures. “The government of President Enrique Peña Nieto and all Mexicans are with you. We are going to be closer than ever.”
Ruiz urged those living in the U.S. to contact Mexican consulates to find out whether they might be targeted for deportation after Trump takes office next year.
Trump’s vows of mass deportations have caused deep anxiety among those living in the U.S. illegally, about 5 million to 6 million of whom were born in Mexico. His repeated criticism of Mexico has also put millions of legal Mexican immigrants on edge.
The new measures introduced Wednesday illustrate the level of concern that is also felt south of the border over Trump’s immigration threats.
While Mexican officials have been seeking ways to defend Mexico against Trump’s pledge to impose stiff tariffs on Mexican goods and tear up free trade agreements, his threat to ramp up deportations could devastate the Mexican economy.
Mexico, whose peso has been faltering since news of Trump’s victory, is highly reliant on the billions of dollars in remittances it receives each year from immigrants living in the U.S. And experts say it would be difficult for Mexico to absorb large numbers of new deportees.
Already, Mexican officials have been struggling to integrate the roughly 200,000 Mexicans who are repatriated annually by U.S. immigration authorities. Many returnees lack the proper Mexican documents to find work, and many come with their children, some of whom are U.S. citizens who don’t speak Spanish. Nearly half a million U.S. citizen children are enrolled in Mexican schools, according to government statistics.
As part of its Trump-related action plan, Mexico says it will make it easier for Mexicans living in the U.S. to obtain proper Mexican identity documents and will intensify a campaign to register as Mexican citizens children born in the U.S. to parents who are Mexican nationals.
A statement released by the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday titled “We Are With You” also pledged to “strengthen dialogue with state and local authorities.”
While immigration laws are enforced by federal officials, increasing numbers of local and state municipalities have taken steps to limit collaboration on deportations. It is “local policies that determine, to a large extent, the daily lives of Mexicans in the United States,” the statement said.
The statement called on Mexicans living in the U.S. to avoid “situations of conflict” that could lead to jail time and eventually a deportation order. Ruiz echoed that sentiment in her video. “Stay calm,” she said.
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Twitter: @katelinthicum
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d41c1981db720aba4a21e0d952a3daf3 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-journalist-fired-20150316-story.html | Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui fired by radio station | Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui fired by radio station
Carmen Aristegui, the award-winning Mexican journalist behind the exposure of numerous scandals involving the government and other holders of power, has lost her popular daily radio show in a dispute with the station’s owners.
Mexicans who tuned in Monday morning to MVS Radio to hear Aristegui found instead a new host and routine recitation of the news. On the station’s website, Aristegui’s once-prominent photograph was gone.
Station managers posted a statement announcing the “termination” of MVS Radio’s work relationship with Aristegui. The statement also was read during the time slot that once belonged to Aristegui.
Aristegui’s often-thorny relationship with the station’s management came to a head last week when managers, without consulting her, fired two key reporters from her investigative staff. The station said the two had, without permission, used the name of MVS in the launching of a new Internet initiative called Mexicoleaks dedicated to the probing of corruption.
Aristegui demanded the reinstatement of the reporters, who, among other stories in their careers, revealed possible conflicts of interest in real estate deals by President Enrique Peña Nieto, his wife and closest aides.
“MVS Radio does not accept Carmen Aristegui’s ultimatum,” the station said.
The loss of one of Mexico’s most critical journalistic voices comes as revelations of corruption and killings by police and the army have roiled the country and plunged Peña Nieto into the worst crisis of his 27-month-old presidency.
Aristegui appeared on the sidewalk outside the radio station Monday morning, declaring that her dismissal was unfair and vowing to fight on. She was joined by several members of her staff, who had said they were barred from going into work.
“Let no one doubt, this is a battle for freedom,” she said earlier.
Also gone from Monday’s program was a weekly panel of news analysis by three highly critical commentators, a much listened-to feature.
Journalists, intellectuals and users of social media -- many of whom never exactly saw eye to eye with Aristegui -- expressed outrage Monday, with some vowing to follow Aristegui to any broadcaster where she might end up. She also has a prime-time talk show on CNN and writes a column in the Reforma newspaper.
“This is as if the Washington Post fired [Bob] Woodward and [Carl] Bernstein in the 1970s,” Sergio Aguayo, a political scientist with the Colegio de Mexico and visiting professor at Harvard, said by telephone from Boston. He was a member of the panel that appeared weekly on Aristegui’s program. Like many, he believes the government pressured MVS to find a way to get rid of Aristegui.
“The government of the republic has respected the critical and professional exercise of journalism and will continue to do so,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The dispute between MVS and Aristegui, the ministry said, should be resolved through dialogue.
When Aristegui was briefly fired from MVS in 2012 after repeating unsubstantiated claims that then-President Felipe Calderon had a serious drinking problem, a studio executive acknowledged he had been pressured by Calderon’s staff.
“Carmen Aristegui is an indispensable voice in our public life,” preeminent historian Enrique Krauze said via Twitter. “Her departure from MVS seriously threatens the freedom of expression in Mexico.”
“It is a great pride to be fired by MVS for being part of Carmen Aristegui’s team,” said her former information director, Salvador Camarena.
Even the MVS ombudsman lamented the turn of events. Gabriel Sosa Plata agreed it was improper for the two reporters to use the MVS name without permission, but said firing them was a “disproportionate” response.
“This is a sad [moment] for journalism and the freedom of expression,” he said via his Twitter account after Aristegui was dismissed. “As much as we called for dialogue, obstinacy prevailed.”
Follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter for news out of Mexico
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ff9f836363f0a192a430137a6832f494 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-journalist-killed-20170731-story.html | Another journalist has been gunned down in Mexico — the eighth killed this year | Another journalist has been gunned down in Mexico — the eighth killed this year
A journalist celebrating his 29th birthday was shot dead early Monday at a bar in the Mexican resort city of Rosarito.
Luciano Rivera Salgado, who covered crime for a Baja California television channel and published a news website called El Dictamen, is at least the eighth journalist to be killed this year in a country that ranks among the most dangerous for members of the media.
The motive behind the killing — including whether Rivera Salgado was killed because of his journalistic work — was still unclear.
A police official told Zeta newspaper that Rivera Salgado was shot in the head at 1:40 a.m. at La Antigua Bar, an upscale drinking establishment a few blocks from the ocean. Security camera footage from outside the bar shows several men racing out shortly after the shooting.
The official who spoke to Zeta said authorities would investigate the motive but that it appeared Rivera Salgado may have been killed because of “a dispute between the reporter and his aggressors” at the bar. A reporter in Baja California said camera footage from inside the bar suggested Rivera Salgado may have angered other patrons when he defended a group of women whom he believed were being harassed.
Determining exactly why a journalist was killed can be difficult in Mexico, where reporters are frequently targeted because of the stories they publish, but where more general violence is also becoming increasingly widespread.
Mario Rivera, the director of CNR TV, where Rivera Salgado worked for nearly 10 years, said it was essential that authorities look closely at whether Rivera Salgado’s work played a role in his killing.
“He often criticized the security situation here,” the director said of Rivera Salgado. “We as a station have been very tough critics.”
“We are looking at all of the lines of investigation,” he said, adding that the station is checking to see whether Rivera Salgado had recently received any threats.
Of the seven other journalists killed in Mexico this year, at least four were slain in direct retaliation for their work, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has named Mexico the most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere for journalists. Only Iraq has seen more journalists killed.
The recent killings include the mid-day slaying in May of investigative reporter Javier Valdez as well as the March shooting of journalist Miroslava Breach, who had investigated links between organized crime and political candidates in the state of Chihuahua.
Their deaths have prompted an international campaign aimed at Mexico’s top leaders, with news outlets from around the world calling on President Enrique Peña Nieto to do more to investigate the killings. Like most slayings in Mexico, those targeting media workers are rarely solved.
One of the most recent stories published on Rivera Salgado’s El Dictamen website marked the anniversary of the unsolved killing two years ago of Mexican photographer Ruben Espinosa.
Violence targeting journalists is part of a larger crime wave sweeping the country, which is on track to record more killings this year than at any point in the last two decades. Baja California, which has been the site of a turf battle between warring drug cartels, has been especially hard hit.
Government statistics show that 185 people were killed in the state in May, which equates to an annual rate of 67 deaths per 100,000 people — or roughly 11 times that of Los Angeles in recent years.
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Twitter: @katelinthicum
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68010af5f982473ddb88691fdfc56dc0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-na-mexico-trump-20170121-story.html | Mexico’s president will be among the first foreign leaders to meet with Trump this month | Mexico’s president will be among the first foreign leaders to meet with Trump this month
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto spoke to President Trump by phone Saturday morning to congratulate him on his inauguration and set the tone for upcoming talks between the two countries.
Trump and Peña Nieto will meet in Washington on Jan. 31 to discuss trade, immigration and security, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in Washington.
The Mexican president’s early visit to the Trump White House underscores the importance that Mexico City places on having smooth relations with the new U.S. administration, despite candidate Trump’s many broadsides against Mexico and Mexicans.
According to a statement released by the Mexican government, Peña Nieto told Trump on Saturday that he hopes to work together “with a focus on respect for the sovereignty of both nations and shared responsibility.”
There is deep concern here that some of Trump’s campaign threats — such as undertaking large-scale deportations and renegotiating trade deals — could send Mexico into an economic tailspin. Mexican officials are keen to demonstrate good will and to short-circuit any U.S. actions that could further unsettle the Mexican economy.
Mexico’s peso went into a steady decline against the dollar last year as Trump rose in the polls, and dropped to new lows following his election.
Peña Nieto’s approval ratings have also fallen at a swift rate -- down to 12% last week -- in part because he has been seen as placating Trump.
Peña Nieto has been forced to walk a fine line when it comes to Trump, whose disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants have made him a near universally reviled figure here. He risks angering Trump if he attacks him too much, and angering voters if doesn’t do so enough.
This month, Peña Nieto struck a more defiant tone, warning that Mexico will push back if Trump attacks the country on trade or other fronts — using its cooperation on crucial issues such as immigration and security as leverage.
Two Mexican Cabinet members — Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo — are scheduled to travel to Washington on Wednesday to discuss the “bilateral relationship” with members of the Trump administration, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has announced.
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Twitter: @katelinthicum
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
twitter: @mcdneville
Times staff writer Michael A. Memoli contributed to the report from Washington.
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e3a623867c2d98f6917e5a1bd71dc105 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-congress-reaction-iran-20150714-story.html | Some Democrats voice concerns on Iran deal but so far appear ready to support Obama | Some Democrats voice concerns on Iran deal but so far appear ready to support Obama
Many members of Congress remain deeply skeptical of the landmark deal announced Tuesday to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions but are unlikely to have the votes to stop it.
While Democrats largely back President Obama’s pursuit of an agreement to lift sanctions on Iran in return for measures to prevent the country from building nuclear weapons, Republicans, who have the majority in the House and Senate, say the administration should walk away from a deal they fear concedes too much.
But in a promising sign for Obama, few Democrats stood up publicly Tuesday to oppose the deal and the party’s presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, expressed support.
The final outcome will probably turn on a core group of centrist Democrats in the House and Senate, along with a handful of Republicans, whose votes could determine whether the agreement holds.
“I think people are going to understand that we’re in a deteriorating situation in the Middle East, and this offers an opportunity to turn the page,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. “I know we have a lot of geniuses around here, but I would just hope that people would hold their fire.”
Clinton gave lawmakers similar advice during an unusual daylong series of private meetings with House and Senate caucuses on Capitol Hill, where she spoke favorably of the agreement reached with the U.S., Iran and other major countries.
After the morning session with Clinton, Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks, who has concerns about the deal, said lawmakers’ options are limited. “We cannot be as tough as the tough guys want to be on Iran so long as the president of the U.S. supports this deal,” he said. “You’re trying to pressure and cajole and threaten Tehran from Capitol Hill.”
Congress has 60 days to vote on the agreement, keeping the issue at the forefront of congressional politics and the 2016 presidential campaign.
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who bypassed the White House earlier this year by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to criticize the deal in an address to Congress, promised a fight.
“This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats,” Boehner said. “We will fight a bad deal that is wrong for our national security and wrong for our country.”
Although Congress may have enough votes to pass a resolution of disapproval, there would not likely be the two-thirds majority required to overturn Obama’s promised veto, allowing the agreement to stand.
Republicans are eager for a veto showdown over foreign policy with Obama, believing the public – or at least their constituents – would be on their side.
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who this year wrote a provocative public letter against the deal to the Iranian government, called it a “grievous, dangerous mistake.”
But what became clear Tuesday was that although the Republicans in the House would almost certainly be able to pass the disapproval resolution under their majority-rules voting structure, the Senate outcome is less certain.
In the Senate, a 60-vote threshold is needed to advance legislation over a filibuster. Although several key Democrats are deeply skeptical of the deal, the lack of immediate opposition from within the president’s party offered a potentially positive development for the administration as it tries to rally public support.
“First thing is to not tear down this agreement before the ink is even dry, before we even read it,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), among those who could sway the vote. “Congress has a role now, by law, and it’s to thoroughly scrutinize the details of the agreement.”
Final votes are not expected until September, guaranteeing a lobbying blitz by the White House and the deal’s opponents, including Israel.
“Supporting or opposing this agreement is not a decision to be made lightly, and I plan to carefully study the agreement before making an informed decision,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
The 60-day clock does not start ticking until the administration sends the full agreement to Congress, which by law must be five days from striking the deal.
The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), is expected to launch hearings next week.
“I begin from a place of deep skepticism that the deal actually meets the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Corker said. “Congress will need to scrutinize this deal and answer whether implementing the agreement is worth dismantling our painstakingly constructed sanctions regime.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) welcomed the deal, but said Congress “must maintain our vigilance.”
“There’s a block of members here who will really decide whether this agreement is sustained or not,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank). “I would hope all of us give the pros and cons of this agreement serious consideration, and also look soberly at the alternatives.”
For the latest from Congress and the 2016 campaign, follow @LisaMascaro.
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cc3d5ac87ad92dd3dc1262eb77aa9904 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-diplomatic-brouhaha-israel-labels-20151129-story.html | A diplomatic brouhaha erupts over ‘Made in Israel’ labels | A diplomatic brouhaha erupts over ‘Made in Israel’ labels
Two weeks after the European Union approved guidelines for labeling goods from Israeli settlements, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the Foreign Ministry to suspend diplomatic contacts with EU institutions on matters related to the peace process with the Palestinians.
According to a statement from the ministry Sunday, Netanyahu ordered a reassessment of EU institutions’ involvement in the diplomatic process and a halt of all related contacts until it is completed.
The ministry stressed that Israel will continue to have diplomatic contacts with individual countries such as Germany, Britain and France, and that the ban applies only to the European Union institutions and their representatives.
Earlier this month, the EU adopted guidelines for marking goods from the West Bank and Golan Heights sold in Europe separately from goods from Israel, and excluding settlement products from the preferential tariffs Israeli goods enjoy under the mutual trade agreements.
Although European officials insisted the move was technical rather than political, it infuriated Netanyahu, who said Europe should be “ashamed” of the “immoral decision.”
Sunday’s announcement comes as the European Union seeks to increase its role in advancing renewed efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also comes just ahead of the U.N. climate conference in France, where Netanyahu is set to hold talks with several international leaders, including French President Francois Hollande. He will also meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for continued coordination regarding military activities in the increasingly crowded airspace on Israel’s northern borders.
While Israel’s diplomatic relations with Europe and other countries are frequently strained over the settlements and Palestinian issue, practical mutual interests abound on a wide range of issues, including Middle East crises increasingly affecting the international community.
In its more immediate region, Israel is moving to tighten bilateral relations with Greece and Cyprus, its closest European neighbors, and last week announced finalizing the opening of a mission in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.
Sobelman is a special correspondent.
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7f33a229ad2f1bf15d4df76d8449b371 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-egypt-sinai-trail-20180621-story.html | Global Development: A long-distance hiking trail in Egypt has reunited Bedouin tribes in the name of jobs and tourism | Global Development: A long-distance hiking trail in Egypt has reunited Bedouin tribes in the name of jobs and tourism
Bedouin hiking guide Mussallam Faraj beamed while chatting late into the evening in a desert in the southwest of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
In the background, some hikers pitched tents or searched for spots to place their sleeping bags in the open air under the stars. Others sang and danced to the beat of the traditional darbuka drum and oud.
“I’m very excited,” said Faraj, who is part of the Tarabin tribe.
The celebratory mood came with the more than 100 hikers from around the world who gathered in an area called Serabit el Khadim for a two-day trek in May to mark the extension of the Sinai Trail — a long-distance trail that crosses South Sinai. The area is home to the Alegat tribe, one of eight tribes participating in the Bedouin-led hiking initiative, which aims to boost tourism.
Faraj in 2015 helped launch the original, shorter version of the Sinai Trail — Egypt’s first long-distance hiking route — that crossed through the territories of the Jebeleya, Muzeina and Tarabin tribes. The new trail, which will open fully in October, crosses the territories of all eight tribes once known as the Towarah Alliance, including the Alegat, Awlad Said, Garasha, Sowalha and Hamada tribes.
The trail will lengthen from a nearly 137-mile route taking 12 days to a 342-mile route taking 42 days, stretching from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Gulf of Suez.
The tourism industry, central to South Sinai’s economy, was hit hard by years of political turmoil after the Egyptian revolution in 2011. An ongoing Islamist insurgency in North Sinai and the downing of a Russian plane in October 2015 over the peninsula further compounded challenges to the tourism industry.
The Sinai Trail’s founders believed a collective initiative would be more effective than working separately in such dire times. After all, members of the alliance worked together many years ago to escort travelers through the region before that system faded away with time.
The sheiks of each tribe came to an agreement Feb. 20 near St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai, after a year of discussions.
The agreement sees the reassembling of the alliance — whose members would work together and help one another in times of need — aptly around a hiking route, given the importance of walking to Bedouin identity.
“Bedouin history is traveling, so it’s something that feeds our culture,” said Faraj, adding that Bedouins once moved from place to place with their tents and families. “Today we don’t do this, but we hike.”
The revival of the alliance provides a moment of deep pride, said Yossef Barakat, a guide from the Alegat tribe.
For the Bedouin, escorting travelers and pilgrims through the Sinai has a long history. Each tribe would shepherd travelers — including Muslims heading to Mecca and Christians to St. Catherine’s Monastery and Jerusalem — through its lands before passing them on to the next tribe.
The eight tribes are set to restore this tradition across South Sinai — adapting it for the modern era on the Sinai Trail — with each tribe taking over the guiding of hikers as they move through their territory.
In 2016, the Sinai Trail was named the “Best Wider World project” by the British Guild of Travel Writers. Since late 2015, it has attracted more than 500 hikers and provided jobs for more than 40 Bedouins, including as guides, cameleers and cooks — a figure expected to increase as the longer trail comes into operation.
The trail’s success in creating jobs, said Barakat, was why his Alegat tribe decided to join: “We have a lot of people who weren’t working.”
Despite the economic benefits for each tribe, persuading the five new tribes took some time, said Ben Hoffler, a co-founder of the trail and author of “Sinai: The Trekking Guide.”
Some of them didn’t see its relevance, as they hadn’t traditionally experienced tourism in their areas. The founders also had to “find a way to make them all feel equally compensated and valued” given the big differences in their land size, he said.
There were also rivalries and conflicts between certain tribes owing to old power struggles and feuds that date back to at least the 18th century.
The fact that the tribes have been able to unite holds potential beyond the Sinai Trail, Hoffler said.
“They’re walking a lot together, working a lot together, they’ll form relationships, they’ll get to know each other and I’m sure that that will expand in other ways in the future,” he said.
During last month’s hike in Serabit el Khadim, the Bedouin guides and hikers got a surprise taste of what it could be like to walk with a tribesman from North Sinai.
On the second day, guide Nasser Mansour of the Jebeleya tribe introduced the elderly and shy Salim Salam, from the Badara, Sinai’s poorest tribe.
Salam had been making his regular six-day trip by camel to the town of Abu Zenima for food supplies for his family ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, as his own area lacks shops and amenities. As he returned, he met a friend from the Alegat who suggested he join the hike to break up his grueling, solitary trip.
Mansour pointed at the vast plateau of Hadabat el Teeh behind him in the distance, representing the historical boundary between North and South Sinai, on which the Badara live.
Salam, he said, had told the guides, “We have a very nice area there, please come to us one day.”
Islam is a special correspondent.
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196ffe8890a66379c7fb8baac13cbf1b | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-egypt-sisi-verdicts-20140624-story.html | Egypt’s president won’t ‘interfere’ in verdict against journalists | Egypt’s president won’t ‘interfere’ in verdict against journalists
Striking a defiant tone amid a cascade of international criticism, President Abdel Fattah Sisi declared Tuesday that he would not intercede in the case of three journalists for Al Jazeera who were sentenced a day earlier to lengthy prison terms.
The sentencing of the three men to seven years in jail on terrorism-related charges, with an additional three-year term handed down to one of them for allegedly possessing ammunition, triggered denunciations by rights groups and calls for Sisi to step in. Western governments, including the Obama administration, condemned the court proceedings as unfair and the verdict as gravely harsh.
Rights groups and other observers maintain that Egyptian authorities’ claim that the three aided the Muslim Brotherhood -- an Islamist movement banned as a terrorist group -- was motivated by Egypt’s anger at Qatar, which owns and operates Al Jazeera. The Persian Gulf emirate has been a vocal backer of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who was deposed last summer in a military coup after nationwide protests demanding he step down.
The three journalists -- Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, all with long resumes of work at well-regarded international outlets -- have been held since December. Colleagues around the world have sought to keep the case in the public eye with online protest campaigns calling for their release.
In London, BBC journalists and colleagues from other news organizations, some with their mouths taped shut, held a moment of silence outside BBC headquarters Tuesday to express solidarity with the three jailed reporters.
The journalists’ families and others had expressed hopes that Sisi might commute the sentences or pardon them outright. But the former military man appeared to dash those hopes in a televised address at a military graduation ceremony, in which he insisted -- as Egyptian officials have done with regard to other extreme rulings, such as mass death sentences -- that the independence of the courts must be respected.
“There has been a lot of talk over the verdicts issued yesterday,” the president told his audience. He said he had spoken with the justice minister and “I told him one thing: We won’t interfere in judiciary matters, because the Egyptian judiciary is independent and lofty.”
Sisi’s remarks echoed the Foreign Ministry guidance given to Egypt’s diplomats around the world for discussions with governments objecting to the verdict. A number of envoys had already been summoned by the governments in question, including Britain, Australia and the Netherlands. Two Britons and a Dutch national received 10-year jail terms in absentia in the same case.
Monday’s sentencing came only a day after U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry had visited Cairo and raised concerns about the case, while publicly promising the swift restoration of military aid suspended last year amid concern over the Cairo government’s campaign to crush the Brotherhood.
Kerry himself is now being sharply criticized by supporters of the convicted journalists for an overly accommodating stance toward the Egyptian leadership, which has enacted a range of repressive measures in the last year. Sisi took office as president this month but had been the main power since the toppling of Morsi.
Meanwhile, state media reported Tuesday that another mass trial of alleged Islamists would take place soon in connection with violence that broke out last summer after Morsi’s ouster. This time there are 494 defendants, the official news agency reported.
Last week, a court in Minya, in southern Egypt, upheld death sentences previously handed down to 183 defendants, while overturning some 500 others. Defense lawyers and legal organizations say meaningful due process is impossible when such large numbers of accused are tried simultaneously.
Special correspondent Amro Hassan contributed to this report.
For more news out of Egypt, follow @laurakingLAT
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62dd1373411af5b4549dc296f5be7f00 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-faa-israel-20140724-story.html | FAA caution on Israel flights reflects concern after Ukraine incident | FAA caution on Israel flights reflects concern after Ukraine incident
The Federal Aviation Administration’s temporary ban on U.S. flights to Israel, which was renewed Wednesday, reflects a new and possibly permanent regulatory cautiousness in the aftermath of last week’s downing of a commercial airliner over Ukraine, aviation experts said.
“The Ukraine incident is a game changer in many, many ways,” said Billie H. Vincent, former head of the FAA’s Office of Civil Aviation Security. “There will be a great deal more caution in flying over areas with political and military insecurity.”
He predicted that the aviation industry’s approach to security would be permanently separated into periods “before and after the Ukraine shoot-down.”
Although aviation security has historically focused on internal threats to airports or airplanes such as bombs or hijackers, recent turmoil around the world has heightened concern about external threats.
Those threats include unsophisticated rockets, such as those fired from the Gaza Strip, as well as the Russian-made SA-11 missile believed to have brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing 298 people.
“The FAA’s extension [of the Israel ban] is very prudent in light of recent circumstances,” said William Waldock, professor of safety science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “MH-17 woke up a lot of people.... I think eventually we’re going to have to take a look at any conflict zone.”
Robert Ditchey, an aviation consultant and cofounder of America West Airlines, said airlines may now come under pressure from their insurance companies to stay clear of war zones or face the possibility that premiums will sharply increase.
The FAA has restrictions or warnings on flights to Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, North and South Korea, Libya, Mali, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.
The FAA ban on flights to Tel Aviv was imposed Tuesday after a rocket fired from Gaza struck a home about a mile from Ben Gurion International Airport, apparently circumventing Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system.
The decision resulted in an avalanche of criticism from Israel, where tourism from the United States is a key driver of the economy, especially in the summer. A cutoff of flights to the U.S. is also an important psychological setback in a country that feels isolated in a hostile Middle East.
But even as the U.S. regulatory agency on Wednesday renewed the ban for “up to an additional 24 hours,” there were indications that the restrictions might soon be lifted. FAA officials said in a statement that they were reviewing “significant new information” provided by the Israeli government to address FAA concerns and highlight security measures around the airport.
Israeli newspapers said that tens of thousands of Israelis were stranded overseas and thousands of tourists unable to leave Israel as planned. Most major European airlines also canceled their flights, though Israel’s national airline, El Al, and some international carriers continued to fly.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Tuesday night for a lifting of the flight ban. Kerry at least gave Israel a psychological boost Wednesday, flying in his government jet into Ben Gurion Airport from Egypt. So did former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, on El Al.
“You can fly in and out of Israel,” Netanyahu told Bloomberg after his arrival. “We protect this airport. There’s no reason whatsoever for the mistaken FAA decision to instruct American planes not to come here. I think you’re proving it by coming here.”
tim.phelps@latimes.com
rebecca.bratek@latimes.com
Times staff writer Hugo Martin in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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55149efc61972d01668c9773d25d858a | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-fire-dubai-building-20151231-story.html | Dubai New Year’s fireworks kick off while fire engulfs nearby 63-story tower | Dubai New Year’s fireworks kick off while fire engulfs nearby 63-story tower
A massive fireworks display kicked off for New Year’s at the world’s tallest tower in Dubai, while plumes of smoke billowed in the air from a fire raging at a nearby luxury tower.
Tens of thousands of people whistled and cheered at the show taking place at the Burj Khalifa skyscraper as teams of firefighters were working to put out the blaze that had engulfed a 63-story luxury hotel and residential building. Just minutes before the fireworks began, large explosions could be heard from inside the burning building, which was cloaked in thick black smoke. It was not clear what caused the blasts.
At least 14 people were slightly injured and one person suffered a heart attack from the smoke and over-crowding during evacuation late Thursday, according to Dubai Media Office. The statement said another person was moderately injured, without elaborating further. No children were among those injured, it said.
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Around 1 million people had been expected to gather around the Burj Khalifa to watch the fireworks. Dubai’s economy depends heavily on tourism, and New Year’s is one of the busiest seasons, drawing people from around the world to watch the fireworks that the emirate puts on at the world’s tallest tower, as well as the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab and over a man-made palm-shaped island.
Organizers had installed 400,000 LED lights on the Burj Khalifa and used some 1.6 tons of fireworks for the seven-minute extravaganza. Two years ago on New Year’s, Dubai broke the world record for the largest fireworks display.
OMG fire at the address downtown #Dubai! help!!! It's burning @MyDowntownDubai @gulf_news @7DAYSUAE @Emirates247 pic.twitter.com/adD6DMR4qj
The fire engulfed the Address Downtown, one of the most upscale hotels and residences in Dubai, which was likely to have been packed with people because of its clear view of the 2,715-foot-tall Burj Khalifa.
The hotel towers over the Souq Al Bahar, a popular shopping area with walkways that connect to the Burj Khalifa and the Middle East’s largest mall, the Dubai Mall.
It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, which ran up the 63-story building. The Address is a 991-foot-tall skyscraper that has 626 luxury apartments and 196 hotel rooms, according to Skyscraper Center, which tracks such buildings.
Dubai’s Media Office wrote on its official Twitter account that four teams of firefighters were working to put out the blaze. They said the fire appears to have originated on a 20th floor terrace.
The fire broke out about two hours before the midnight fireworks display was set to begin. To manage the crowds, Dubai police had closed off some roads and the metro before the fire broke out.
Nearly an hour after the fire began, some onlookers began to leave while others stood, pressed against crowd barricades, watching the blaze. Among them was Chris Browne, a tourist from London, who watched with her husband, Stephen, standing behind her. They said they hoped no one was injured.
“It’s pretty scary stuff,” she said.
Standing nearby, Stuart O’Donnell, a British intensive care nurse who works in Dubai, said he was worried for those inside the building as it was in a prime location to watch the fireworks display.
“You feel sad for the people inside. ... It spread so quickly when it started,” he said.
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He and others in the crowd wondered what had started the blaze. “I do feel suspicious of when a fire breaks out on New Year’s Eve,” he said.
The Dubai Media Office said that Dubai’s tourism department would provide guests evacuated from the building with alternative hotel accommodations.
After the fireworks show, Girlie Omilda, a Filipina who works in the aviation industry in Dubai, said she was glad to have seen the fireworks, even as the tower continued to burn. She too was concerned about threats from extremists such as the Islamic State group. She said Dubai’s large expatriate, non-Muslim population made the city a tempting target.
“Sometimes it makes me feel unsafe,” she said.
NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>
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700b79a654519b0dc91ab757a685838b | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-gaza-airstrike-20160312-story.html | Palestinian brother and sister, 10 and 6, killed in retaliatory airstrike by Israel | Palestinian brother and sister, 10 and 6, killed in retaliatory airstrike by Israel
Two Palestinian children, a brother and sister, were killed in Gaza on Saturday when shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike hit their home, medical officials said.
The strike was targeting four training camps for Hamas militants and came in response to the firing of four missiles from Gaza into open areas of southern Israel late Friday, according to a statement from the Israeli military.
Residents of Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip, said 10-year-old Yassin Abu Khoussa died when shrapnel hit his family home, situated near a militant training camp. His 6-year-old sister, Isra, was seriously wounded in the strike and later died at a hospital.
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Their 13-year old brother was wounded but survived, according to Gaza’s health ministry spokesman, Ashraf Qidra.
The house had already been partially destroyed during the most recent Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip in 2014, but the family was still living there, local sources said.
The Israeli strikes hit five targets across the Gaza Strip, according to a statement from Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Palestinian coastal enclave.
No organization has claimed responsibility for firing the four rockets into Israel, but Israel has said it holds Hamas responsible for any attacks launched from the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, described the attacks as an effort to “threaten the security and safety of the people of southern Israel.”
“The military will continue to act to protect those who threaten innocent lives and Israel’s sovereignty,” he said.
During the Gaza war of 2014, militants fired thousands of rockets and mortars into Israel, which responded heavily with airstrikes, naval strikes and later a ground invasion. In all, 1,200 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians. Israel lost six civilians and 67 soldiers.
The war ended with a fragile cease-fire, and rocket fire tapered off.
The last missile attack from the Gaza Strip was in October 2015. In an ensuing airstrike by Israel, a 2-year-old girl and her pregnant mother were killed when their house collapsed.
------------
FOR THE RECORD
March 14, 5:35 p.m.: An earlier version of this article said that four missiles fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel last week were the first such projectiles fired since October. The missiles were the first since October to prompt an Israeli response that led to Palestinian deaths.
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A 5-year-old was killed in February when an unexploded shell thought to be a dud detonated, and several other Palestinians were shot dead during demonstrations near the border with Israel.
In contrast, violence has surged in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, where nearly 200 Palestinians and 33 Israelis have been killed this year.
The next frontier in the conflict may not be the air but underground. The Israeli military has said Hamas militant fighters have been digging tunnels with the aim of reaching inside Israel to carry out more attacks. Israel is working on technology to detect and destroy such tunnels.
Special correspondent Shuttleworth reported from Jerusalem. Special correspondent Abu Alouf reported from Gaza.
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64aef3d08cb5ecd0a77d78767d594bbe | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-gaza-assess-20140806-story.html | As Israel and Hamas claim victory, Gaza residents ask what was gained | As Israel and Hamas claim victory, Gaza residents ask what was gained
In the wake of any ugly conflict, the question of who won can seem beside the point. Still, as fighting in the Gaza Strip gave way to a truce on Tuesday, Israel and Hamas both were quick to claim victory.
And it was left to those who took the pounding during the four-week war, particularly residents of this luckless sliver of seaside territory, to question whether anything of worth could be found.
On the first day of the most durable-seeming cease-fire since the conflict erupted July 8, each side claimed to have dealt the other a damaging blow while achieving significant aims of its own.
Hamas depicted Israel as irretrievably tarred in the eyes of the world and as having proved vulnerable to the elaborate warren of tunnels under Gaza and its boundaries. Israel portrayed Hamas as a willing executioner of its own people, a fighting force left crippled by the Israeli onslaught, and a pariah to its Arab neighbors.
“Mission accomplished,” the Israeli army spokesman’s office said on Twitter as the 72-hour cease-fire, which went on to last throughout the day, took hold at 8 a.m. “We have destroyed tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel. All of Israel is now safer.” The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to send a delegation to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, for indirect negotiations with Hamas.
Hamas official Sami abu Zuhri, speaking to the movement’s Al Aqsa television, boasted that the tenacity of Gaza’s defenders — popping in and out of their tunnels, often inflicting multiple casualties on Israeli forces, coming close to capturing two Israeli troops who were ultimately declared dead — had deprived Israel of its traditional power of deterrence.
“Netanyahu has failed 100% in Gaza,” he said, adding that Hamas still had “much that we can do.”
For Gaza residents, the picture was sadder and more complicated. To Mustafa Taha, shepherding his family of nine back to their half-ruined house in Beit Hanoun, in Gaza’s battered northern tier, the suffering of these past weeks seemed pointless.
“What did anyone gain by this?” he asked, teetering atop a jumble of household possessions — flowered mattresses, pink dish towels, cracked dinner plates — piled into a donkey-drawn cart.
Some on the Israeli side agreed that the country’s third war with Hamas in six years had yielded little in the way of strategic advantage, especially when weighed against the degree of devastation. “Neither side won,” said Israeli newspaper columnist Danny Rubinstein.
In Gaza, particularly in areas that lie close to Israel, whole districts were leveled, with piles of rubble where homes once stood.
Nearly 1,900 Palestinians were killed, about 400 children among them, by the estimate of Palestinian officials and human rights groups. Already feeble infrastructure was smashed and about 400,000 people — nearly a quarter of the territory’s population — were displaced by fighting.
In a theme that will probably be sounded in coming days, disputes broke out over how many of the Palestinian dead were noncombatants. Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said up to 900 of those killed were fighters from Hamas or other militant groups. Other Israeli military sources have estimated the figure to be around 300.
As the truce held through the day on Tuesday, the gravediggers of Gaza were busy carving out narrow niches in the sandy ground, as more bodies were retrieved from under rubble. Shops and businesses reopened. Children played in the surf at Gaza’s seafront. Fishermen cast their nets. Barbers did a brisk business in haircuts, a tradition for the Eid holiday that came and went during the fighting.
“Pizza tomorrow!” crowed Mahmoud Yaghi, the proprietor of a small restaurant. Traffic was flowing, though not at its usual chaotic volume. The occasional sound of Israeli drones made some passersby glance anxiously upward.
Palestinians made the rounds of bomb-wrecked homes, salvaging what they could. Tarek Aijlah, 30, wryly held up a find: a roll of gauze. “Enough destruction,” he said.
On the Israeli side, civilian deaths over the last month could be counted on one hand — three, including a foreign farm worker. But in a country where army service remains an instrument of national solidarity, the deaths of 64 troops amounted to military loss on a scale not seen in nearly a decade.
For weeks, continual rocket fire disrupted lives and rattled nerves across Israel, even though nearly all the projectiles that would have struck populated areas were intercepted by a sophisticated U.S.-funded antimissile system. Israel estimated that Hamas had embarked on the fight with an arsenal of about 10,000 rockets and missiles. About two-thirds of those were fired at Israel or destroyed.
On Tuesday, parents of Israeli soldiers drove south to military staging grounds to visit sons they hadn’t seen for at least a month. Some had come out of Gaza only hours before.
Closed military areas adjacent to Gaza were reopened, and heavy movement of military vehicles caused traffic jams on roadways in southern Israel. Authorities also eased restrictions that had been imposed on large public gatherings because of the threat of rockets fired from Gaza. Major universities and colleges announced plans to resume classes in coming days.
The extent of the threat from Hamas’ elaborate network of tunnels stirred dread among Israelis. Military video of the “Gaza Underground” showed well-engineered subterranean passageways ready to funnel fighters under the fence surrounding the strip for large-scale assaults.
Hamas boasted it would build more, but that would be difficult without the cement and other materials that flowed freely through Egyptian smuggling tunnels during the yearlong rule of Egypt’s Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, who was toppled last summer by the military.
As the Palestinian death toll spiraled, Israel came under a wave of international opprobrium, including unusually sharp criticism from its closest ally, the United States. International experts said Israel faced the very real threat of war crimes prosecution. But the Netanyahu government insisted that the fact that more Palestinians died than in the last two wars in Gaza combined was a direct consequence of Hamas and other militant groups having tunnels and weaponry in crowded neighborhoods.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the prime minister’s office, said that because Hamas had spurned a cease-fire proposal by Egypt three weeks ago that was nearly identical to the one accepted late Monday meant it and not Israel bore responsibility for subsequent deaths.
“The people of Gaza are not our enemy,” Regev told CNN.
Israel’s hope that Gazans would blame Hamas for the carnage appeared largely unrealized. Even at the height of the fighting, at still-smoking bombardment sites and in hospital emergency rooms with blood-slicked floors, Palestinians tended to offer only the most muted criticism of the militant group. If they did criticize Hamas, they did so gingerly, and coupled their words with far harsher condemnation of Israel.
In a compound across the street from a bombed-out building in the Jabaliya refugee camp, where Israel killed a leader of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad and at least six other men in an airstrike Monday, a tiny boy of no more than 4 approached a pair of Western visitors, eager to speak.
“May God take vengeance upon Israel!” he squeaked, to the approving nods of adult onlookers.
Pro-Hamas sentiment could shift, however, if the movement and its allies are unable, after so many deaths, to make headway in the upcoming negotiations on their principal demand: that Israel and Egypt ease their tight curtailment of goods and people in and out of the tiny coastal strip.
“All the industries are dying, and there are no jobs for the young,” said a 50-year-old gold merchant in Gaza’s old city who wanted to be identified only by the nickname Abu Mohammed. “It’s a kind of suffocation. So if we can’t change that, this has all been for nothing.
“In bombings you die instantly,” he said. “Maybe that is better than dying slowly in this blockade.”
laura.king@latimes.com
Special correspondent Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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da0f0d0d404ea5da79cb80909f094e07 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-gaza-displacement-20140811-story.html | About 80 Gaza clan members squeeze into one household | About 80 Gaza clan members squeeze into one household
On thin mattresses spread in an open-air courtyard, children slept bunched together as puppies or kittens might. Women bent over a sack of flour, preparing to bake bread on a crude wood stove fashioned from a metal barrel. It was the start of another day of enforced family togetherness — the strain of which was beginning to tell on even a close-knit Palestinian clan.
For most of the last month of fighting between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces, up to 80 people from one extended Palestinian clan, the Abu Amshahs, have sheltered at a relative’s home in central Gaza City. Cultural traditions of hospitality and kinship led their hosts — a wife who hails from the family, and her husband, a Palestinian government worker — to take in dozens of long-term houseguests without question, and for what looked to be an open-ended duration.
The temporary arrivals range in age from 1-month-old Mohammed, gurgling in a plastic car seat, to his 78-year-old great-grandfather, Ahmed. No one could say with precision how many of the houseguests are children; the question prompted a brief debate among adults who ticked off names on their fingers — Aisha, Sami, Abdul, no, you already counted him! Around 50 under the age of 16, the eventual consensus went.
Before the war, the Abu Amshahs lived in six houses in the district of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, which was pounded by Israeli artillery, tank fire and airstrikes in the early days of the fighting. The family fled relatively early on, leaving their homes one morning as shellfire raged around them, taking with them little more than the clothes they were wearing.
They credit that caution with saving their lives. Days later, they learned of friends and neighbors who lay dead in the rubble of their homes.
The Abu Amshahs’ plight serves as a microcosm of the disruption and displacement that will mark Gaza for years to come. At the height of the fighting, an estimated 400,000 people — nearly a quarter of the territory’s population — had been driven from their homes. They took shelter wherever they could find it: in schools designated as U.N. shelters, half a dozen of which were hit by deadly strikes in the course of the warfare; in encampments on the grounds of hospitals and other places considered safe; or on the comfortless concrete slabs of half-constructed high-rise buildings.
Or, in this family’s case, with a relative willing to take them in. All of them.
Some of these stays will be short-term; many not. At least 10,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged too badly to be habitable, according to Palestinian and U.N. estimates. With family size commonly running to a dozen people, that adds up to 100,000 or more who have no home to which to return. War damage in the already impoverished coastal strip runs in the neighborhood of $5 billion, and although the international community has expressed willingness to fund reconstruction, it would have to come in the framework of a so-far-elusive peace accord and could take many years to fulfill.
For the first week of fighting, members of the Abu Amshah family said, there was no electricity, and no fuel to power a generator. Now they have about two hours of power a day, during which they take turns charging cellphones or hurrying to finish tasks. There is one toilet on each floor of the three-story house, including a courtyard privy, and the queue seems ceaseless.
Looking around him, the host, Mohammed Tubeel, a 44-year-old worker with Gaza’s Health Ministry, had only one complaint, and it was a mild one.
“I will miss that fig tree,” he said, gesturing toward a mangled stump. In the early, desperate days when it was too dangerous to leave the walled compound, they chopped it down for firewood.
Tubeel’s wife, Manar, 37, smiled and shook her head when asked how long all these people could remain under their roof.
“It is one day, and then another,” she said. “And then another.”
***
The lack of privacy has proved one of the most difficult challenges of this communal arrangement, the women confided. Almost everyone in the clan is acquainted with one another, but not accustomed to living together in such close quarters.
Women and older girls sleep in a small outbuilding; the men mainly in one basement room and children in another next door, although they tend to wander outside to escape the stifling heat. Because the women are in contact with men who are not immediate family, they wear tight head scarves and long robes at all times. In the heat of the afternoon, they mop their faces, moistening a rag with water from the big plastic tank filled every few days, whenever a tanker truck can make the rounds.
Fitful cease-fires have afforded the opportunity to shop for food, using dwindling pooled funds, but no one strays far from the compound. Too often, short-term truces have deteriorated into fighting, as one did Friday. A new one started at midnight Sunday. No one wanted to be caught away from shelter.
The children, even the smallest, easily distinguish between Israeli aerial bombardment and outgoing rockets fired by Palestinian militants. One afternoon, a pair of Kassam rockets roared directly overhead — fired, apparently, from somewhere close by. Family members appeared only mildly startled at the time, but the next day, one of the men of the family demanded of visitors that no mention be made of the incident.
“You can’t say rockets are coming from anywhere near here!” he declared agitatedly to a visitor. “Do you want Israel to bomb this house and everyone in it?”
***
In Beit Hanoun, the family’s neighborhood, people have a more shellshocked look about them than those in the center of Gaza City, the much safer area where the family is sheltering.
It’s easy to see why.
Together with Shajaiya, east of Gaza City, and Rafah, in the south, it has been one of the hardest-hit districts. All lie close to the border fence with Israel; all were used as staging grounds for Palestinian militants’ attacks, either as sites from which to launch rockets, or as the entry point for tunnels running under the border fence.
A glimpse of one of the family homes on a cease-fire day was no occasion for rejoicing. Rather, it drove home the full proof of the extent of their personal loss. Almost nothing of value could be salvaged, family members said.
“My whole life I worked for my house, and now it is gone,” said a wet-eyed Mohammed Abu Amshah, a 52-year-old merchant and father of 13. His family house was still standing, but punctured in half a dozen places by tank shells. Nearby, a few male relatives debated whether tents could at some point be put up on the patch of open ground, or in the ruined courtyard.
Back at the central city compound, four children clustered on a plastic mat, eating bread and hummus, a mainstay of the house diet. Big sit-down meals were too difficult and impractical, so the children were allowed to eat whenever food was available. But the women mourned the loss of their family meal, the daily glue of their home lives.
“Nothing is the same,” said one. “Our lives are upside down.”
In the shade of the courtyard wall, a few older teenagers were trying to read from salvaged textbooks, absently patting or lightly swatting the children who swarmed around them, shrieking. The universities are closed, but five cousins from the family hoped to start classes when the conflict allowed schools to reopen.
Sirrya, the 73-year-old family matriarch, recalled the family’s exodus at the start of the fighting — nearly 70 years after the turmoil of 1948, when her family first fled its home to the north of Beit Hanoun, in what is now Israel.
“It’s always the same when you run away from your house,” she said. “Just walking, walking, walking. Everyone crying. Every time, we didn’t know where we were going. We just walked.”
As she spoke, she waggled her bare toes. In the panicky rush to flee, she had left her home without shoes. Someone later found her a pair of plastic sandals, but they did not fit well, so she set them aside.
Nearby, the baby Mohammed began to wail. His mother, Reem, moved to tend to him, wincing. The family’s flight came only days after his birth, a difficult one. Another of the women confided in a low voice that Reem was still bleeding and in pain, and needed to see a doctor. So far, she had not felt safe going out.
Lifted from his car seat, swaddled in a sheet and passed from hand to hand, the baby quieted.
“We will raise this child, all of us,” said his great-grandmother. “But then, maybe another war will take him.”
@laurakingLAT
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caa8d98c6596b90de4122fe98f96baf8 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-goodbye-aleppo-messages-20161214-story.html | Aleppo residents post farewell messages: ‘You can’t help us anymore’ | Aleppo residents post farewell messages: ‘You can’t help us anymore’
Caught between rebels and government forces, the Syrian city of Aleppo has largely been cut off from the rest of the world in recent months. But this week, as Syrian forces advanced on rebel-held areas, residents took to social media to send pleas and heartbreaking farewells to a global audience.
As the shelling of the city continued, residents reported on the carnage (“Every bomb is a new massacre”) or suggested their most recent communication might be their last.
On Tuesday, under the terms of a cease-fire brokered by Turkey and Russia, Syrian rebels were to be allowed to leave for rebel-held territories and civilians were to be evacuated. But after just a few hours of calm, shelling resumed, and the green buses meant for shuttling opposition fighters out have remained empty.
Aleppo, once Syria’s most populous city, has been the focus of intense fighting between anti-government rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The tweets, photographs and videos beaming out of the city in recent days were liked, shared and retweeted thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of times. Often the sounds of warfare can be heard in the background, and the speakers’ dress even when inside — heavy clothing and wool caps — is a reminder that utilities have been inconsistent or completely cut off.
Here is what some of them, writing or speaking in English, said:
Lina Shamy, activist
The young woman wearing a hijab and oversize glasses posted a video from Aleppo early Tuesday morning:
“To everyone who can hear me, we are here exposed to a genocide in the besieged city of Aleppo. This may be my last video. More than 50,000 of civilians who rebelled against the dictator Al Assad are threatened with field executions or dying under bombing…The civilians are stuck in a very small area that doesn’t exceed 2 square kilometers.
“With no safe zones, no life. Every bomb is a new massacre. Save Aleppo. Save the humanity.”
Two days later, after the cease-fire broke, Shamy asked her followers to continue their efforts. The sound of explosions could be heard in the distance:
“Civilians are stuck again in the city. No one could have leaved [sic] the city under this agreement. How can we trust Russia after they have promised that this agreement will occur and that no one would attack the civilians?”
To everyone who can hear me!#SaveAleppo#SaveHumanity pic.twitter.com/cbExEMKqEY
Rami Zien, activist and journalist
Lit only by his phone, Rami Zien spoke hopefully Tuesday about the cease-fire.
“What we have seen the last two days is indescribable. Anyhow the cease-fire is ongoing and we’re hoping that the agreement about evacuation in the city and the fighters will reach and will be implemented so we can go all safely. Thanks for everyone who prayed for us, and we still need your prayers and your voices.”
Later that night, in a video streaming on Periscope that had over 100,000 views, Zien described his hopes of fleeing to the countryside and then Turkey – and maybe one day, London.
#standwithaleppoA message from besieged #aleppoWe might survive yet Still need your prayers Thanks all pic.twitter.com/yqoT2kacfL
Abdul Kafi Alhamdo, teacher and activist
“This is a call and might be the last call,” Alhamdo tweeted Monday. “Save Aleppo people. Save my daughter and other children. #StandwithAleppo.”
A few hours later: “the last message. Thanks for everything. We shared many moments. The last tweets were from an emotiomal [sic] father. Farewell, #Aleppo.”
On Tuesday, in a live stream on Periscope, Alhamdo described the situation:
“Now it’s raining, bombs a little bit calmer, the Assad militias are maybe 300 meters away, no place now to go. It’s the last of days. I hope we can speak again…. Really I don’t know what to say but I hope you can do something for Aleppo people, for my daughter, for the other children.”
this is a call and might be the last call.Save Aleppo people. Save my daughter and other children. #StandWithAleppo
the last massage. Thanks for everything. we shared many moments. The last tweets were from an emotiomal father. Farewell, #Aleppo
مباشر على #Periscope the last call from #Aleppo https://t.co/A3jWEWyjFT
Ismail Alabdullah, Syria Civil Defense volunteer
On Wednesday, he bid a farewell to the city in a tweet: “You are more than a mother to me, you will stay in my heart even in my grave my beloved #Aleppo.”
The civil defense workers, volunteers known as the White Helmets for their headgear, are trained in basic first aid and respond to airstrikes and bombings. Some Aleppo residents call them heroes, others suspect them of being rebel fighters.
A few hours later, over what sounded like a steady stream of rain punctuated by shelling, Alabdullah spoke brokenheartedly about leaving Aleppo in a video posted by the Syria Civil Defense organization:
“This time maybe it is the last time that I talk to you from Aleppo…. Another crime, forcing the people to leave their city. Today we couldn’t help the injured people, we couldn’t bury the dead bodies because of the situation, because of the bombing before the cease-fire.
“All of that because the whole world let us down and we couldn’t stay in Aleppo city to help our people, to help our kids, and now you can’t help us. You can’t help us anymore.”
Message from @ishmael12345611 SCD volunteer from inside besieged city of Aleppo.#save_Aleppo pic.twitter.com/hrfbfUcvB4
Salah Ashkar, activist
In a video posted Wednesday on Twitter, Ashkar stepped over rubble and appeared out of breath.
“A missile just fell on the roof of my building,” he narrated as he climbed over debris. “Now the people who were awaiting… the bus, have to run back for their life again and find shelter.”
He panned to the destruction on the roof and looked into the camera one last time before shutting it off.
A missile just fell on the roof of my buildingNow the people who were waiting the buses have to run back for their lives again find shelter pic.twitter.com/WGGfc1BEdX
nina.agrawal@latimes.com
Twitter: @AgrawalNina
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5b0747e1bb2162831bd1c3421dd86235 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-gop-senator-benghazi-garbage-20141123-story.html | GOP senator calls House panel’s Benghazi report a ‘bunch of garbage’ | GOP senator calls House panel’s Benghazi report a ‘bunch of garbage’
A top Republican on Sunday dismissed as “full of crap” a report by the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee that largely absolves the Obama administration for its handling of the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that in compiling its report the committee accepted a “complete bunch of garbage” and allowed more finger-pointing within the administration about responsibility for the fatalities at the consulate.
“I’m saying the House Intelligence Committee is doing a lousy job policing their own,” Graham said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“This report puts all the blame on the State Department and absolves the intelligence community,” he said. “When the Department of Defense committees looked at it, the Department of Defense was held blameless. At the end of the day, everybody is pointing fingers to everybody else.”
But other Republican members of Congress suggested Sunday that it’s time to leave the Benghazi debate behind. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said he thinks it’s time to “move beyond that.”
The back-and-forth followed the release Friday of the latest report about the attacks that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other embassy officials.
The House Intelligence Committee review found that the Obama administration did not intentionally mislead people about how the attacks unfolded, despite the fact that its early talking points turned out to be wrong.
No one gave an order to the U.S. military to “stand down” in their efforts to save the Americans in the consulate, as some have claimed, the report concludes.
Like previous reviews, the investigation determined that the State Department didn’t have enough security at the compound to begin with and needed CIA assistance to get the situation under control.
Though the new report reached many of the same conclusions as previous reviews, it drew new attention because it was generated by House Republicans.
In his interview on “Meet the Press,” Flake said his concern about Benghazi was how the administration portrayed it, especially when a top Obama advisor went on television shortly after the attack.
Susan Rice, a top aide to Obama and now his national security advisor, said the attack arose from a popular protest against an anti-Islam video made in the U.S. and not a premeditated terrorist attack. The administration later said otherwise.
“I’ve always thought the biggest problem with Benghazi is how it was cast by the administration and the remarks that Susan Rice just really threw in the face of what we knew was going on,” he said.
“But with regard to the other things that were addressed by this report, well, yes, I thought for a long time that we ought to move beyond that.”
But Graham said he was looking forward to the work of another House panel, the Select Committee on Benghazi, to dig further into the matter. The committee is the eight such government panel to investigate the incident.
Meanwhile, one House Democrat called Friday’s Intelligence Committee report the result of a “two-year exhaustive investigation.”
“It was released by the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee and had the support of all the Republicans and Democrats on the committee,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California. “It’s designed to be the definitive word on what happened from the intelligence community’s point of view.”
“It reminds me of a lawyer’s maxim that, if the law is not on your side, emphasize the facts. If the facts aren’t on your side, bang on the table,” said Schiff. “I think we heard Lindsey banging on the table quite a bit this morning.”
For news about President Obama and the Obama administration, follow me on Twitter: @cparsons
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51d2e02c26808ab05c5fd3885ec8c8e8 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-afghanistan-killing-20160421-story.html | 6-year-old Afghan girl’s murder puts spotlight on history of discrimination and abuse in Iran | 6-year-old Afghan girl’s murder puts spotlight on history of discrimination and abuse in Iran
On the last day of her short life, Setayesh Qoreishi – a 6-year-old Afghan refugee – stepped out of her family’s home in the Tehran suburbs to buy an ice cream. She didn’t return.
Police records say she was kidnapped by a teenage Iranian neighbor who raped and stabbed the girl to death, and then attempted to dispose of her body by drowning it in a tub full of acid.
When Setayesh’s body did not dissolve, the boy began to panic. He called a neighbor, who called his parents. They alerted police, who took the boy into custody.
#JusticeForSetayesh #IAmSetayesh pic.twitter.com/d8vXjthV7j
The brutality of the April 9 incident shocked Afghans, who have complained for years about facing violence and injustice in Iran, where millions live as refugees. And it has also fueled outrage among Iranians who have been unable to comprehend the cruelty of her killer. News reports have said he was 17 years old, though his mother has been quoted saying he is 15.
For a rare moment, Afghans in the Islamic Republic and many of their Iranian hosts were emotionally united. As the news of Setayesh’s killing spread, it shined a spotlight on the discrimination and abuse Afghan refugees say they face daily, though it goes almost unnoticed by the Iranian public.
Iranian social media embraced the hashtag “I Am Setayesh.” Hasan Khomeini – grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of modern Iran – said, “Any wrongdoing against the Afghan people, who are our guests, is a matter of shame for us.”
Iranian Vice President Shahindokht Molaverdi condemned the “despicable murder” and assured the public that there would be a “punishment appropriate to the magnitude of the horrific crime.”
Yet widespread hostility in Iran against Afghan refugees has led many in both countries to doubt those words.
Jila Baniyanghoob, who attended a candlelight vigil this week near the Afghan embassy in Tehran, said Iranian police officers openly asked why those assembled felt pity for Afghans “who have committed many crimes here.”
As many as 3 million Afghans live as refugees in Iran, although only 1 million are documented, according to Human Rights Watch. The first waves of Afghans crossed over during the Soviet occupation of their country in the 1980s. While many have returned to Afghanistan, a new exodus to Iran has begun in recent months due to economic stagnation and worsening hostilities between Afghan government forces and Taliban insurgents.
Most Afghans in Iran work as hawkers, construction workers or low-skilled laborers. Human rights groups say Afghans find it difficult to find formal jobs or education, and live in perpetual fear of being arrested and deported. They are barred from holding bank accounts or cellphones in their names, and only recently were Afghans allowed to enroll their children in public primary schools.
Nearly one-third had faced some form of physical abuse, Human Rights Watch found in a 2013 survey of 100 Afghan refugees in Iran.
Untold numbers of others have been detained and even put to death inside Iran’s opaque justice system. Two years ago, amid reports that at least 3,000 Afghans were imprisoned in Iran for various alleged offenses, the Afghan government called for an end to what it said was the “continuous” practice of its citizens being executed in Iranian jails.
At demonstrations on behalf of Setayesh in several Afghan cities, Afghans said they worried that the Kabul government would not be able to apply enough pressure on Tehran to ensure justice will be served.
“Unfortunately I spent 22 years of my life in Iran, and in that time I suffered through thousands of instances of daily abuse,” said Soghra Atayi, 37, an activist who participated in a demonstration in the central province of Bamiyan.
Behista Rohan, who attended a protest this week outside the Iranian consulate in the western city of Herat, said history has shown that abuses against Afghans in Iran often go unpunished.
“This case highlights the double standard in Iran,” Rohan said. “If an Afghan is suspected of even the smallest crime they are put to death, but when one of their own commits such a heinous crime nothing happens.”
Yaghma Golrouee, a prominent Iranian poet and songwriter, addressed this prejudice in an Instagram post.
“Admit it or not, we are racist people, proud of our history and old civilizations and ancient kings,” he wrote.
The boy’s father said the crime has brought shame on his family, and that his son should face appropriate punishment. His mother, too, has expressed remorse, saying the two families were close and that she often commiserated with Setayesh’s mother about the difficulties they both faced.
Yet some in Iran already appeared to be seeking to explain the attack against Setayesh, for which police have yet to give a motive. One hardline Iranian news agency, Raja News, blamed online pornography for motivating the teenage boy to rape the girl.
Atayi, the former refugee, said she returned to Afghanistan 13 years ago following the U.S.-led military invasion, deciding that she would rather take her chances with the Taliban than endure continued ill treatment in Iran.
“I laugh when I hear that Iranis are now calling for justice,” Atayi said. “There have been hundreds of other cases of abuse and murder that went unnoticed. Now that they have been publicly shamed in their own media the Iranians are calling for justice.”
Special correspondents Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Latifi from Kabul, Afghanistan.
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a7d92cc41a726e55e1680923dd5f657c | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-analysis-20180102-story.html | Young, working-class and fed up: Iran’s deadly protests driven by a new crop of dissenters | Young, working-class and fed up: Iran’s deadly protests driven by a new crop of dissenters
The 28-year-old university graduate stood in front of a bookstore window in central Tehran, pretending to browse the titles on the shelves. He really was looking out for Iranian security forces sent to quash anti-government protesters.
Kambiz, who gave only his first name, earned a physics degree but is among the millions of young Iranians who lack a steady job. For the past several nights, he has joined demonstrators in the side streets near Tehran University, chanting slogans to bring down the theocracy in the most significant unrest in Iran in nearly a decade.
“There is no future for me, let alone for millions of high school or college graduates,” said Kambiz, who has never voted in an election. “I don’t care about politics or domestic or foreign policy or the nuclear deal. I just need a predictable future.”
Iran’s economy has continued to sputter despite the 2015 nuclear agreement that eased international sanctions, and its leaders are increasingly seen as making things worse — tolerating corruption while supporting costly proxy wars overseas. The resulting public frustration has bubbled over into six days of protests that have left at least 21 people dead, state TV reported Tuesday.
The rallies in more than two dozen cities appear to herald a new crop of Iranian dissenters: young and working-class, alienated from a political system rigged by the ruling mullahs but connected through social media and filled with expectations for their own futures.
It is difficult to get a clear picture of the unrest; the Iranian government closely monitors journalists and allows foreign reporters outside Tehran only selectively. Most news and images from the protests, particularly beyond the capital, have come through Telegram and other Internet messaging apps and are difficult to verify.
But analysts say the protests — which began in the provinces before reaching Tehran — are being driven by working-class Iranians who are expressing an anger that seems sharper than in the last major political uprising in 2009. Demonstrators have chanted, “Death to the dictator,” meaning Iran’s supreme leader, and some have even called for a return to the monarchy that ruled before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the clerical establishment to power.
“This is a much broader and deeper disavowal of the regime as a whole,” said Ali Ansari, founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
“If 2009 was a very middle-class rebellion, this is much cruder than that and much angrier than that. This is simpler folk, people who are basically fighting to make a living every day and have very basic demands.”
Iran’s leaders have painted the unrest as a foreign plot. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei broke his silence on the protests Tuesday, saying that “Iran’s enemies, using the various tools at their disposal, including money, weapons, politics, and security apparatus, have allied [with one another] to create problems for the Islamic establishment.”
The speed and geographic spread of the rallies have surprised not only the mullahs but also veterans of Iran’s mainstream political reform movement, forged in the crucible of a disputed 2009 election that many of today’s protesters were too young to have voted in. A Tehran police official said this week that 90% of those arrested in the first five days of rallies were younger than 25.
A 25-year-old working in his father’s grocery shop in Tehran, who asked to be identified only as Saeed, sounded despondent when asked why he was protesting.
“Tell me what my future is,” the high school graduate said in a near-whisper, elbows propped on the counter. “I am a burden on my family. I’m not able to earn enough money. Tell me what else to do.”
The unrest began Thursday in the northeastern city of Mashhad, one of Iran’s most conservative cities. Hard-liners organized a rally against President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric, that quickly expanded into a critique of the entire ruling system.
“It got out of hand because the actual societal discontent cannot be channeled against a particular faction — it is structural,” said Rouzbeh Parsi, an Iran scholar at Lund University in Sweden. “No matter who is running the country, it’s the same crap for people at the bottom.”
The 2009 uprising was centered in Tehran among educated, middle-class and politically engaged Iranians. Dubbed the “Green Movement,” those protests prompted a violent crackdown in which dozens were killed and thousands arrested. Authorities tortured prisoners and held Stalin-style show trials in which defendants were forced to confess they were foreign agents.
The shell of the Green Movement — whose leaders, former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi, remain under house arrest — still carries the hopes of many reform-minded Iranian urbanites. When Rouhani campaigned for reelection last year, many in attendance at his rallies wore green armbands.
But some analysts say the movement stalled not only because of the clampdown but also because its vision for reform appeared to stop at the ballot box.
In nearly a decade since, Iran’s economy has been further hobbled by sanctions, corruption and mismanagement. Youth unemployment is believed to exceed 30%. The crash of oil prices has robbed Iran of its most reliable source of foreign exchange.
Rouhani’s promises that the nuclear agreement would help create jobs fell flat, and his attempts to impose austerity measures have slashed the subsidies on which many poorer Iranians had come to rely.
“The fact that many of the protesters don’t have the experience [of 2009] means they are willing in different ways to try it again,” Parsi said. “The demands are sharper because they’ve been cut to the bone economically much more than in 2009.”
At the same time, access to satellite television and the internet — although subject to controls — has raised the expectations of Iranians who live in areas outside Tehran and challenged the theocracy’s ability to shape public opinion.
Several years ago, Iranians nationwide were enthralled by a documentary series by a London-based satellite channel that lionized former monarch Reza Shah Pahlavi, whose son was deposed in the Islamic Revolution.
Senior government officials appear to be blaming the protests on various forms of interference from outside. The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said 27% of social media hashtags celebrating the protests were created by the Saudi government.
The U.S. has expressed open support for the demonstrators, calling for Iran to stop blocking social media platforms that allow them to communicate. President Trump chimed in again Tuesday on Twitter: “The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights,” he said. “The U.S. is watching!”
The current crop of protesters, lacking a leader or coherent message, have been greeted with skepticism by better-known critics of the establishment. Reihane Taravati, a social media activist in her 20s who gained notoriety in 2014 when she was arrested for participating in an online video inspired by the American pop song “Happy,” called the protesters “fishy and dubious.”
“My friends and I don’t identify with them,” Taravati said. “None of my many activist friends have any idea what or who the protesters are, what their agenda is, if they have any at all. Their slogans are weird.”
The authorities’ response suggests they are focused on neutralizing the protests but not addressing fundamental grievances.
“Even if this dies down, in a few days’ time or six months’ time, the regime has a problem, in that this discontent will simmer until they either take dramatic steps themselves or are forced to take them,” Ansari said.
“These protests are an awakening, although people have been waking up for some time.”
Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Bengali from Mumbai, India.
shashank.bengali@latimes.com
Follow @SBengali on Twitter
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UPDATES:
1:40 p.m.: This article was updated with U.S. government reaction to the protests.
This article was originally published at 12:05 p.m.
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df0897b99cf5158386be94ee8fa049fd | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-election-20160430-story.html | Iran’s moderates make gains in runoff but fail to clinch a parliamentary majority | Iran’s moderates make gains in runoff but fail to clinch a parliamentary majority
Iranian moderates and reformists who support last year’s landmark nuclear deal have won the largest number of seats in parliament following runoff elections, marking a shift away from hard-liners and boosting moderate President Hassan Rouhani as he looks to secure a second term in office.
The results released Saturday on state television failed to give the moderate-reformist camp an outright majority in the 290-seat chamber, however. They will now probably try to attract support from dozens of independent lawmakers whose political leanings vary depending on the issue at hand.
There were 68 seats being contested in runoff elections held Friday in 55 constituencies around the country. Residents in the capital, Tehran, did not take part in the second-round balloting because moderates won all 30 seats there outright in February’s first round of voting.
The reformist and moderate list claimed 37 seats in Friday’s vote, giving them a total of 143 seats in the assembly — just two seats shy of 50%. They were followed by hard-liners, with 86 seats, and independents, with 61. Twenty-two hard-liners and nine independents won seats in the runoff.
Mohammad Reza Aref, head of the moderate-reformist bloc, welcomed the victory, saying, “Our priority is engagement with other factions rather than confrontation,” the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.
Tehran-based political analyst Saeed Leilaz called the results a “decisive victory” for the moderate-reformist bloc.
“It is now clear that they are more popular than hard-liners, even in the remote areas,” where their support was seen as lower than in major cities, Leilaz said.
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A total of 17 women won seats in both rounds of elections, the largest number ever. At least 11 of them are from the moderate-reformist camp.
Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Ali Amiri told state TV that turnout in the runoff elections was 59%, compared with 62% in the February elections. About 17 million Iranians were eligible to vote.
Iran does not allow international election observers to monitor its polls, which are organized by the Interior Ministry.
Friday’s vote was marred by violence in the town of Mamasani, where four people were wounded in a shooting that followed an argument between supporters of rival candidates there.
Last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and world powers called for curbs designed to prevent Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons in exchange for the easing of painful economic sanctions. Although nuclear-related sanctions have been lifted, other international sanctions remain in place, and the deal’s promised economic benefits are only starting to be felt.
NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>
Rouhani could enjoy a boost in popularity heading into next year’s presidential elections if the new parliament is seen as delivering on his priorities.
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551506857b727bdd35a2da2d43281740 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-elections-20160228-story.html | Reformers and moderates romp in Tehran as Iran election gauges popularity of nuclear deal | Reformers and moderates romp in Tehran as Iran election gauges popularity of nuclear deal
Reformists and moderates swept all 30 parliamentary seats in the Iranian capital, according to unofficial election results announced Sunday, marking a resounding vote of confidence for President Hassan Rouhani.
While state television reported that conservative candidates were leading in other parts of Iran, the clean sweep in Tehran – where lawmakers hold outsize influence in the 290-seat parliament – was seen as an endorsement of the deal Rouhani sealed with six world powers last year to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
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Nasim, a news agency loyal to hard-liners, acknowledged that Rouhani’s moderate and reformist allies, who favor better relations with the West, won all 30 seats in Tehran. A leading hard-liner, Gholam Ali Hadaddad Adel, was in 31st place, according to reports.
A high voter turnout exceeding 60% of Iran’s 55 million eligible voters appeared to propel moderates and reformists to their best electoral showing since 2004. Final results were expected Monday.
Hard-liners who oppose the nuclear deal also suffered significant setbacks in a parallel election taking place for the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member panel of Islamic jurists who are supposed to select the clerical supreme leader, the most powerful figure in Iran’s hybrid political system.
Two of the most conservative members of the assembly, Mohammad Yazdi and Mesbah Yazdi, were not reelected to their posts following a social-media campaign to oust hard-liners. The assembly election is being closely watched because its members could choose the successor to the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 77 and in declining health.
Friday’s election was seen as a referendum on the nuclear agreement, which prompted the United States and other countries to lift harsh economic sanctions that had left Iran increasingly isolated from the Western world. Rouhani was elected in 2013 on promises to resolve the nuclear dispute, repair ties with the West, improve the economy and expand social freedoms.
Hamid Reza Taraghi, a prominent conservative lawmaker, predicted that the pro-democracy reformists would hold 25% of seats in the new parliament, a major turnaround. The group has been all but shut out of the legislature since boycotting the 2004 parliamentary elections after many of their candidates were disqualified by the hard-line Guardian Council.
Moderates who have allied with the reformists in this election to make up the pro-Rouhani “List of Hope” would win about 15% of seats, Taraghi said. About 50 seats were expected to require runoff elections.
Together that would give Rouhani a significant bloc of support in parliament, which until now has thwarted his efforts to introduce political reforms and more social freedoms.
But the coalition could prove fragile under pressure from conservatives, who were on track to win a roughly equal number of seats, and hard-liners who still control most of the reins of power in the Islamic republic.
“They will be divided and in disarray and will fail to be effective,” Taraghi said of the pro-Rouhani group.
Analysts said Rouhani and his allies need to manage the expectations of supporters impatient for rapid change in a country in which half of the electorate is younger than 35. Buoyed by their apparent electoral success, reformists renewed calls Sunday for the release of former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karrubi, who are under house arrest.
Since taking office, Rouhani has been unable to secure the release of political prisoners, a sign of hard-liners’ enduring clout.
“As experience indicates, the reformists usually are good at raising expectations to woo votes from middle-class people but are not good at all in meeting and managing the expectations after the elections,” said Farshad Qourbanpour, a political analyst.
Mostaghim is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Bengali reported from Mumbai, India.
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95d7a41c917063907158093da6c79667 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-idol-20141117-story.html | In Iran, thousands mourn pop singer Morteza Pashaei | In Iran, thousands mourn pop singer Morteza Pashaei
Thousands of distraught music fans, many in tears, lined the streets of the Iranian capital on Sunday to mourn Morteza Pashaei, a beloved Iranian pop star who died of cancer.
Pashaei, a favorite of young Iranians and Persian speakers worldwide, was 30. He had been battling stomach cancer for months, but chemotherapy for the aggressive ailment failed and Pashaei died Friday, according to Iranian news reports.
His funeral took place Sunday at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall, an elegant former opera house where many of the nation’s most prominent musicians have performed. Photographs showed throngs of young fans reaching for his casket as it was carried through central Tehran.
The turnout was so large, reported Press TV, Iran’s official English-language news service, “that his body could not be transferred to its resting place and the burial had to be postponed to a later time.”
Pashaei was to be buried at Behesht Zahra cemetery in south Tehran.
On Sunday, admirers of the late singer were weeping openly in front of Vahdat Hall.
“He was very close to our hearts,” said Mohsen, 25, who, like others interviewed, declined to give his full name for privacy reasons. “We enjoyed his lyrics about love stories. We do not care about politics.”
Pashaei, who often appeared on Iranian television, specialized in ballads of the heart. Despite his illness, he continued to perform publicly, giving his last concert last month in Tehran, media reported. After losing his hair to radiation treatment, he began wearing a fedora and yellow sunglasses, noted the Tehran Times newspaper.
“Young people have their own idols,” said another mourner, Halaleh, 29, who noted that the crowds honoring the late singer were much larger than those last month mourning the death of Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, 83, a top cleric and powerful political figure.
Young devotees of Pashaei took to the streets to mourn the singer in other cities, including Mashhad, a religious center. Some sang songs and carried candles in his memory. Media in Mashhad reported some minor clashes between police and mourners.
Mostaghim is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell in Beirut contributed to this report.
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3666abc1bf902f0e23e437f66fd440ba | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-nuclear-khameini-20150903-story.html | Iran’s supreme leader calls for parliament vote on nuclear pact | Iran’s supreme leader calls for parliament vote on nuclear pact
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Thursday that the Iranian parliament should vote on a landmark nuclear accord with Western powers. He also called for a full lifting of sanctions against Iran, rather than a partial one.
“I am not advising parliament to approve or disapprove” the nuclear accord, state media quoted the ayatollah as saying. “It is up to them to decide.”
But lawmakers, he added, should not be “sidelined.”
The comments came a day after President Obama secured sufficient congressional backing to ensure that the accord will not be blocked by opponents of the deal. Under the terms, sanctions would be eased but not abolished.
NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>
A reformist analyst, Farshad Qourbanpour, said Khamenei’s remarks were consistent with previous statements trying to balance the interests of Iranian hard-liners, who bitterly oppose the deal, and reformists, who generally support it.
“What he said today does not jeopardize” the deal, Qourbanpour said.
Additional Khamenei comments reported by the Fars News Agency pointed to an effort to appease hard-liners with pledges that cooperation with Washington and its allies was limited only to the nuclear issue.
“We should always be vigilant about the tricks of the enemy,” the agency quoted Khamenei as saying.
Word that Obama had attained his goal drew mixed reviews from major newspapers, depending on whether they were in the moderate camp backing President Hassan Rouhani. Reformist dailies described the accord as a done deal.
“Given the new situation in America, the [nuclear deal] is definitely implementable,” the Aftab daily declared on its front page.
Hard-liners, meanwhile, ignored the news from Washington and concentrated on developments such as fresh anti-American slogans painted on the wall of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran. Times staff writer Laura King in Cairo contributed to this report.
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7e6e6d22ca5b1284035c561086183334 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-nuclear-saudi-arabia-20160112-story.html | U.S. says Iran compliance with nuclear deal means easing of U.N. sanctions soon | U.S. says Iran compliance with nuclear deal means easing of U.N. sanctions soon
Iran has complied with a landmark arms control agreement and is only days away from dismantling enough of its nuclear infrastructure so the United Nations can begin easing international economic sanctions, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Wednesday, even as critics warn that Iran is stirring turmoil across the region.
Speaking at the National Defense University, Kerry said that Iranian technicians had removed the core of the plutonium-producing heavy water reactor at Arak, and that the reactor would be filled with cement and destroyed “in the next hours.”
Once that and other final steps are confirmed, the U.N. Security Council is obligated to start lifting the international sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. The government in Tehran will quickly gain access to more than $50 billion in frozen assets and oil revenue, mostly held in Asian banks.
Kerry said that the so-called implementation day “is going to take place very soon, likely within the next coming days somewhere.”
Although the terms of the accord have been public since the deal was signed in July, the return of tens of billions of dollars to Iran is especially awkward for the White House, which considers the disarmament deal a signature foreign policy achievement for President Obama and is eager to see it succeed.
Critics say the White House is too eager, especially given the uncertain Middle Eastern political landscape on which the deal is playing out.
In the latest incident, Iran’s coast guard detained 10 U.S. sailors Tuesday after their riverine boats apparently strayed into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. The Americans and their vessels were released without harm early Wednesday, and it’s still unclear whether the U.S. military personnel were rescued or captured.
A senior State Department official said Wednesday that Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke by phone at least five times Tuesday to discuss the sailors’ release. The two diplomats already conduct regular daily conversations regarding implementation of the nuclear deal, the official said.
“Had this happened a few years ago, before we had this very direct line of communication at a very senior level of our government, it undoubtedly would have been much more complicated to unwind, would undoubtedly have taken longer and risked all sorts of ancillary effects that would be unpredictable,” said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
Administration critics already suspicious of Iranian motives argued that the naval incident, hours before President Obama delivered his State of the Union speech, proved Tehran could not be trusted.
They point to Iran’s spat this month with regional archrival Saudi Arabia and other gulf states, and its tests of ballistic missiles last fall in apparent violation of a U.N. resolution that is not part of the nuclear accord.
Capping their concerns, an Iranian naval vessel last month fired several unguided rockets within 1,500 yards of a U.S. aircraft carrier, the Harry S. Truman, and other ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
The missile launches also rattled the White House. On Dec. 30, the administration notified Congress that it intended to impose new financial sanctions on individuals and companies in Iran for the missile launches. It then pulled back, although it has not explained why.
Even some Democrats, including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the party chairwoman, criticized the White House for not penalizing Tehran.
“The United States and our allies must take immediate, punitive action and send a clear message to Iran that violating international laws, treaties and agreements will have serious consequences,” Schultz and six other House Democrats wrote in a letter to Obama.
“Inaction … would send the misguided message that, in the wake of the [nuclear deal], the international community has lost the willingness to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its support for terrorism and other offensive actions throughout the region,” they wrote.
Iran is “testing the limits of international patience” with its missile launches, said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow with the Council of Foreign Relations and former advisor to the Obama administration.
Some analysts argue that the backpedaling on sanctions set the stage for a diplomatic flare-up days later between Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally, and the Shiite Muslim government in Iran, its chief rival for influence and power.
By most accounts, Saudi authorities have lost confidence in Washington as an unflinching ally because of its attempts to engage with Tehran.
Saudis fear the nuclear deal will empower Iran in the short term and allow it to simply postpone its nuclear ambitions for a decade or so, posing an existential threat to the kingdom.
U.S. officials argue that Iran will use any money it gets to prop up its economy, not the military, and that the key nuclear constraints in the deal are permanent.
The dispute spilled over Jan. 2 when Saudi authorities ignored U.S. pleas for leniency and executed a prominent Shiite cleric who had led antigovernment demonstrations.
In response, Iranian protesters burned the Saudi Embassy in Tehran while police reportedly stood by. Riyadh then cut diplomatic ties with Tehran, and several Saudi allies soon followed suit.
Iran apologized for the embassy attack and sought to downplay its diplomatic isolation. The Obama administration has taken a neutral stance, calling on both sides to de-escalate.
“Iran sees it has a chance to get out of the penalty box, and they don’t want a fight with Saudi Arabia right now,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a New York-based organization that analyzes international affairs.
U.S. experts say Iran’s leaders still want to see the nuclear deal proceed — President Hassan Rouhani because of the boost it may give moderates in parliamentary elections next month and supreme leader Ali Khamenei because it allows Iran to reenter the global marketplace and inject life, and cash, into its moribund economy.
In addition to complying with the nuclear deal, Iran has not pulled out of the U.N.-backed Syria talks, which are due to start Jan. 25, and is supporting Iraqi government troops in some combat operations against the militant group Islamic State, issues in which it is in alignment with U.S. efforts.
In Iran, the months after the deal was signed in July saw an uptick in anti-U.S. rhetoric and crackdowns on dissidents. Those actions may have been a sop to domestic hard-liners.
Since the nuclear deal was signed, “Iran has become more aggressive in the region, more repressive at home and less compliant with its arms control obligations,” Takeyh said. “But … I think the accord was very favorable to Iran. It would be in their interest to sustain it.”
Iran already is well on its way to meeting its obligations under the deal, according to U.S. officials.
It dismantled or mothballed thousands of centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium, late last year. Last month, Iran shipped 12.5 tons of enriched uranium — nearly its entire stockpile — to Russia for reprocessing, as the accord requires.
Moving that potential bomb fuel tripled the time Iran would need to produce a single nuclear weapon, Kerry said Wednesday, referring to a key goal of the six world powers that negotiated the deal in Vienna.
“I can assure you that we will continue to monitor implementation of this agreement closely because yes, existential challenges are at stake here,” he said. “We will ensure that the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran is removed as a threat to Middle East security and global peace.”
Once the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency, certifies that Iran has met its obligations, the Security Council can vote to lift U.N. sanctions. Various countries or blocs then can begin to ease sanctions and release billions of dollars in Iranian funds frozen in banks and financial institutions.
It is likely that the first money to become accessible to Iran is an estimated $50 to $60 billion from exports of Iranian oil to several Asian countries. The money has been sitting in Asian banks for years.
The U.S. embargo on trade with Iran will continue, but several exceptions will be allowed, including the import and export of foodstuffs.
Iranian individuals will be removed from U.S. government blacklists, while Europe will allow trade in software, gold and metals, and transportation equipment. Iran will be allowed to rejoin the international banking system and will be permitted to resume selling oil and other energy supplies on the open market.
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a333b63d1c4c9711920709ec0f56b9d0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-nuclear-talks-20141125-story.html | Iran’s supreme leader boasts nation is standing tall on nuclear issue | Iran’s supreme leader boasts nation is standing tall on nuclear issue
Iran’s supreme leader declared Tuesday that the nation’s enemies had failed “to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees,” as advocates and critics of a nuclear deal hastened to put their spin on the latest extension of negotiations with world powers.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking a day after negotiators in Vienna agreed on a seven-month extension of the nuclear talks, boasted that Iran was standing tall against a bullying West.
“The United States and European colonialist countries gathered and applied their entire efforts to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees — but they could not and they will not,” Khamenei told a gathering of clerics in the capital, Tehran.
The supreme leader did not explicitly endorse the extension, maintaining a characteristic aloofness, but it was not necessary for him to do so. Iran’s negotiating team would not have agreed to further talks without approval from Khamenei, who has the final say on matters of state policy.
The supreme leader, analysts say, has positioned himself skillfully to avoid any political fallout, deal or no deal. He has publicly backed the negotiations but expressed deep reservations about a satisfactory result, while always appealing to Iranians’ sense of pride.
Since the extension has his imprimatur, conservatives who had previously denounced the notion of continuing talks beyond the deadline were obliged to accept the new timetable, while voicing doubts that any final deal would ever emerge. Many here view the talks as part of a broader, U.S.-led scheme to weaken and ultimately overthrow Iran’s government.
“There is almost no doubt that, given America’s current stance, it will be very difficult to reach an agreement to which both sides remain committed,” wrote Hassan Mohammadi, a conservative analyst who urged officials to reveal “what humiliation the U.S.A. is trying to impose on the Iranian people.”
While the talks involve Iran and six nations — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — the key players are Washington and Tehran.
Unresolved are a number of core issues, including the scope of Iran’s future nuclear program and the timetable for lifting economic sanctions against Iran. Tehran insists its nuclear efforts are strictly for peaceful purposes, while Washington and its allies suspect a covert effort to produce atomic weapons.
Hard-liners here made much of what they labeled the pernicious influence of Saudi Arabia and Israel, close U.S. allies and regional archenemies of the Islamic Republic. Many Iranian commentators view Israel and Saudi Arabia as working hard behind the scenes to torpedo any realistic accord, even though neither nation is a party to the talks.
The Iranian press depicted U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry as taking marching orders from the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, who flew to Vienna and met with Kerry.
“Saudi Arabia should know that petro-dollars do not always work,” Esmail Kosari, a conservative parliamentarian, told Iran’s Tasnim News Agency. “America is not to be trusted. The Zionist regime put pressure on Obama.”
Moderates favoring a nuclear accommodation took solace in the fact that the talks did not collapse outright, and that Iran will continue to receive limited sanctions relief in the form of $700 million a month from frozen accounts.
They described a future deal as inevitable, citing various factors: a closing of the gaps in each side’s demands; the fact that top U.S. and Iranian diplomats are meeting publicly, a sea change in the long-acrimonious relations; and common interests in the volatile region, including the battle against Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria.
“The path of the negotiations will lead to a final agreement, whether it is today or tomorrow,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric who has championed the talks, predicted on Iranian TV. “The world does not have any other way but to engage in negotiations with the representatives of the Iranian nation.”
For the long-suffering Iranian masses, the extension did little to buoy hopes for improved living standards and an end to decades of relative isolation. Many citizens who backed the president’s push for sanctions relief say they feel deceived.
“For me and my family, life will be as hard as before,” concluded Mehdi, 29, a clerk who declined to give his last name for privacy reasons. “President Rouhani tied the improvement of everything to the success of sealing a deal and lifting sanctions. His talk is empty.”
Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer McDonnell from Beirut.
Twitter: @mcdneville
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3a3449abc30abb3bb8015a36dc00af96 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-protests-climate-change-2018-story.html | A long-simmering factor in Iran protests: climate change | A long-simmering factor in Iran protests: climate change
In the mountains of western Iran, the province of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari is known for mile-high lagoons, flowing rivers and wetlands that attract thousands of species of migratory birds.
But years of diminishing rainfall have shriveled water sources. Conditions worsened, residents say, after Iranian authorities began funneling water 60 miles away to the lowland city of Esfahan, sparking protests as far back as 2014.
On Dec. 30 of last year, about 200 people gathered in front of the provincial governor’s office to protest the water transfer project. Their slogans soon morphed into chants of “Death to the dictator,” the main rallying cry of anti-government protesters who poured into streets nationwide in the biggest spasm of public anger Iran has seen in years.
The uprising — in which at least 21 people died and thousands were arrested before authorities reimposed order — had many sparks: rising prices, persistent unemployment, bank collapses, a wide wealth gap, corruption in the theocracy.
But an overlooked factor, analysts say, is the impact of climate change and the widespread perception that Iran’s leaders are mishandling a growing problem of water scarcity.
“People believe that this is yet another major crisis the country is facing, and the people at the top are too incompetent and too corrupt to care,” said Meir Javedanfar, a professor of Iranian politics at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, an Israeli university.
“It does not seem to be a priority of the regime to address the drought issue,” he said. “As long as it’s not a priority, nothing will happen until something breaks.”
Many environmental activists believe Iran is quickly approaching its breaking point as diminishing rainfall and warmer temperatures have caused lakes to disappear, kicked up blinding dust storms and emptied out once fertile regions as farmers seek economic refuge in cities.
Drought is a concern across the Middle East, but Iran’s 80 million people are especially at risk. This month, the director of Iran’s Drought and Crisis Management Center, Shahrokh Fateh, said that 96% of the country’s land area was experiencing prolonged drought conditions, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.
In some of the hardest hit areas, including border provinces where ethnic and religious minorities complain of official neglect, concerns over natural resources were a key driver of the demonstrations that began in late December.
“People in my area do not want to politicize their environmental concerns, but water shortages and pollution of the air and rivers are seen as political crises,” said Yusef Farhadi Babadi, an environmental activist in Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari. “People want to reclaim their rights to clean air and water and efficient water use.”
In the province, which covers an area slightly larger than the state of Connecticut, there were once 3,800 natural springs, but about 1,100 have dried up, Babadi said, citing official statistics. The Iran Meteorological Organization forecast recently that for the Iranian year ending March 20, rainfall in the province would be more than 80% below the long-term average.
Many in the predominantly agricultural region complain about a controversial series of canals the government has built to bring hundreds of millions of cubic feet of water from the Karun River, which runs through Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, to growing populations in central provinces.
Some of the water has gone to state-run steel mills in Esfahan, which Babadi described as “bankrupt industries.” Meanwhile, with the exception of Shahr-e Kord, the provincial capital of about 150,000 people, towns in the area rely on tanker water that is riddled with chemicals, he said.
Farmers and cattle breeders have occasionally clashed with security forces, including in 2016, when multiple days of protests in the town of Boldaji left one demonstrator dead and nearly 200 injured. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s powerful paramilitary organization, reportedly sent troops from 16 units to put down the uprising.
In neighboring Khuzestan, an oil-rich province with a large population of ethnic Arabs on the border with Iraq, desertification and industrial waste have destroyed date orchards and wetlands. The World Health Organization lists the provincial capital of Ahvaz as one of the world’s most polluted cities, and for much of the year a yellow smog blankets the city, sending residents fleeing to the hospital for help with breathing difficulties.
Ahvaz saw large protests for more than a week beginning Dec. 30, but they were the latest in a years-long string of demonstrations over environmental conditions, said Abafazl Abidi, a correspondent for the reform-minded Shargh newspaper in Tehran.
“Many are suffering from chronic environmental problems or pollution-related diseases like asthma and skin ailments,” Abidi said. “People suffer from acid rain, visibility is only a few meters, there are outages of drinking water and electricity. The recent protests seem to me no surprise at all.”
The conditions have worsened because of the rampant construction of dams, more than a dozen of which have been built in the province in the last 40 years, many reportedly by businesses linked to the Revolutionary Guard.
Experts say the projects have aimed to benefit regions and industries with better political connections while worsening water access for marginalized people.
“They have built them in a way that the consequences are so bad for the environment,” Javedanfar said. “And there is so much lack of trust that even if the water projects were justified, people would oppose them. If the Iranian regime were to reinvent the wheel, some would complain that it’s too round.”
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on the government to “manage climate change and environmental threats,” but the response from successive governments has been mixed.
Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised populist schemes to help farmers, but allowed industries to build haphazardly, and he once blamed Iran’s drought on Western countries. President Hassan Rouhani, elected in 2013, has pumped funds into restoring the depleted Lake Urmia, but when he visited Khuzestan last year he was greeted by a fierce protest.
“In every election we try to send defenders of our rights to parliament or elect presidents who can address environmental issues…but in vain,” Babadi said.
Authorities cracked down swiftly on the recent protests in Shahr-e Kord, but Babadi predicted the respite would be temporary.
“The drought and water transfer projects are so dangerous and detrimental that environmental protests will resume soon,” he said.
Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Bengali from Mumbai, India.
shashank.bengali@latimes.com
Follow @SBengali on Twitter
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a46e024097cfdc3e12fb35637fe82ad6 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-talks-resume-20150326-story.html | Iranian president sends letter to Obama as nuclear talks near deadline | Iranian president sends letter to Obama as nuclear talks near deadline
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wrote a letter Thursday to President Obama and leaders of the other five countries engaged in talks aimed at a nuclear deal, urging them to overcome differences so that an agreement can be reached by the end of the month.
Rouhani, who didn’t disclose the full contents of the letter, also raised the Saudi Arabian air attacks on Iranian-supported rebels in Yemen, an action Iran has strongly criticized. He said on Twitter that he had condemned the attacks, contending they are only “exacerbating the crisis” in a country fighting a many-sided civil war.
But Rouhani did not suggest that dispute would stand in the way of a nuclear deal, making clear, instead, that he believes the talks can reach a deal that would remove sanctions on Iran’s economy if it accepts curbs aimed at preventing it from gaining nuclear weapons capability.
The negotiators are seeking to reach the outline of a deal by Tuesday and to complete a detailed, comprehensive agreement by June 30.
Rouhani also spoke by phone with French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rouhani hinted on Twitter that France and Britain had been pressuring Iran for concessions. He said he made the point to them that France and Britain should be “preparing for future cooperation” rather than “resorting to pressure and opposition.”
Rouhani pressed Iran’s top talking point, which is that it will only accept a deal if the six countries on the other side of the table -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- agree to quickly drop sanctions.
“Lifting all unjust #sanctions main step to reach a deal,” he wrote on Twitter.
A spokeswoman for Cameron said the prime minister had told Rouhani that Iran “needs to recognize that there are concerns held by the wider international community about whether Iran’s nuclear program is being developed for peaceful purposes.”
The White House declined to comment on the contents of Rouhani’s letter but did not dispute his account.
The letter came as Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif resumed negotiations Thursday morning.
U.S. officials said last week’s five-day negotiating session, which ended Saturday for a three-day break, had made more progress than any previous round. They said they view March 31 as a firm deadline for the first-phase agreement they are seeking to reach.
“We very much believe we can get this done by the 31st,” a senior administration official told reporters on Kerry’s plane Wednesday night. “We see a path to do that.”
At the same time, the official acknowledged that the talks, which missed two deadlines last year, could stall again.
Though negotiators have tentatively resolved a series of thorny issues, U.S. officials indicated that a key question -- how long the deal should last -- has not been finally settled. An official, who declined to be identified under ground rules set by the State Department, said conversations on the subject are “ongoing.”
“All of us want as long a duration as is possible,” the official said. “The question is what is realistic -- what [restrictions] should be in place for what length of time.”
Officials have said that restrictions on Iran would begin to be eased after a number of years. But some curbs, as well as close monitoring and inspections, would continue indefinitely, U.S. officials have promised.
Officials suggested that Thursday’s meeting could be crucial, because they are waiting to see if the Iranian leadership, during consultations with Zarif over the weekend, accepted the six powers’ proposals for resolving other outstanding issues.
After this meeting, “we will have a much better sense of where Iran is,” the official said.
The officials promised that the first-stage agreement -- sometimes referred to as a “framework” or “political understanding” -- would include enough details to allow the public to judge its value.
It has been unclear how specific the agreement would be. Iran wants no written document issued until the entire deal is complete, while Congress is demanding a detailed understanding of how the negotiators intend to resolve all important issues.
Advocates for the deal in the United States have been urging the White House to release as many details as possible so that supporters can defend it against critics in Congress and elsewhere.
“We will need to communicate as many specifics as possible to the public in some form or fashion,” an official said.
President Obama this week promised that the public would be able to “lift up the hood” to see what’s in the agreement.
The officials said it was still unresolved whether the agreement would be described in a written statement, public remarks or both.
The officials said the interim nuclear agreement of November 2013, which temporarily restricts Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief, would remain in effect if the group doesn’t meet the March 31 deadline. However, they said the administration would “evaluate” what course it would take next if negotiators fell short again, for the third time.
The deadline issue is sensitive for the administration because it is under pressure to show concrete progress or face congressional action that the administration fears could sink the negotiations. The administration could theoretically continue talking until mid-April, because Congress doesn’t return until April 11.
French officials have been urging the group not to worry about the March 31 deadline, because setting a date in that way gives Iran added negotiating leverage. A senior U.S. official said the six powers were united on overall strategy, though there are tactical differences between them.
A U.S. official described the plans for the talks as “incredibly fluid.” The U.S. negotiators’ schedule has no details for the next week, but says only “negotiations.”
Kerry, addressing the deal’s critics in remarks in Washington on Wednesday, warned that if the United States abandoned a deal that other world powers consider reasonable, the sanctions regime would collapse and the Iranian nuclear threat would sharpen.
“The talks would collapse,” he said. “Iran would have the ability to go right back to spinning its centrifuges and enriching [uranium] to the degree they want.”
For more on U.S. foreign policy, follow @RichtPau on Twitter.
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59abc68aeb06a79ffb788166d1f4048c | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-us-nuclear-talks-20150310-story.html | Iran leader says GOP senators’ letter implies U.S. ‘not trustworthy’ | Iran leader says GOP senators’ letter implies U.S. ‘not trustworthy’
Iran’s foreign minister on Tuesday said that a letter from 47 Republican senators warning that any agreement on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program must receive congressional approval suggests that the U.S. is “not trustworthy.”
The open letter released Monday also warned Iran’s leaders that the next U.S. president could revoke a deal reached with President Obama.
“This kind of communication is unprecedented and undiplomatic,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said, according to a state-run television website. “In fact it implies that the United States is not trustworthy.”
Zarif described the letter as part of a “propaganda campaign” that began with an address last week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Congress, in which he challenged the still-developing deal as unwise and dangerous.
He also suggested that some members of Congress were not fully abreast of international law or their own Constitution when it comes to the authority of the president to conduct foreign policy.
“The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal laws as justification for a failure to perform their international obligations,” Zarif was quoted as saying. “We insist that a possible deal should be one where our people’s rights are observed and we are certain that there are measures to achieve such a deal.”
Obama and Democrats in Congress have also denounced the letter, accusing Senate Republicans of trying to scupper the negotiations.
“It’s somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran,” Obama said. “It’s an unusual coalition.”
The letter was drafted by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and signed by 46 of his Republican colleagues.
The U.S. and five world powers have struggled since 2013 to negotiate a deal that would impose limits and oversight on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Negotiators hope to reach a framework agreement this month and a final accord later this year.
Western nations have long suspected that Iran is trying to develop the ability to build a nuclear bomb, charges denied by Tehran which insists its program is restricted to civilian uses such as power generation.
For more international news, follow @alexzavis on Twitter
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5f42bd3a5148e8a200909a1e40ea6af7 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iranian-supreme-leader-backs-his-governments-nuclear-deal-efforts-20150321-story.html | As crowd chants ‘Death to America,’ Khamenei backs nuclear talks | As crowd chants ‘Death to America,’ Khamenei backs nuclear talks
Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday urged Iranians to support their government’s efforts to negotiate a nuclear deal, even while denouncing the United States and other Western governments involved in the talks.
In a much-anticipated speech on the first day of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said all Iranians should support the government of President Hassan Rouhani, even if they didn’t vote for him in the presidential election. Rouhani has made negotiation of a nuclear deal with world powers a centerpiece of his administration.
Khamenei, speaking before a boisterous crowd in the northern holy city of Mashhad, also demanded that a nuclear deal end economic sanctions on Iran at its outset, rather than gradually, as the United States and five other world powers have said during negotiations.
“Sanctions must be lifted immediately,” Khamenei said.
The comments came as the United States and five other world powers have been racing to complete the outline of a nuclear pact with Iran by month’s end. The world powers would lift sanctions that have been hobbling Iran’s economy if Tehran agreed to restrictions aimed at keeping it from obtaining nuclear weapons capability.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday urged a quick resolution, amid French warnings that too much haste could yield a bad deal.
In a rare hint of division between Western governments on the issue, Kerry said the nations bargaining with Iran — the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — should try to complete the outline of a deal by March 31.
The decisions “don’t get any easier as time goes by,” he said before leaving Lausanne, Switzerland, where the negotiations were being held, and heading to London for a late afternoon meeting with French, German and British foreign ministers.
Gerard Araud, France’s ambassador to the United States, said Friday on Twitter that the U.S. target deadline was a “bad tactic” that would put the six powers at a disadvantage in the bargaining. President Obama telephoned French President Francois Hollande on Friday to discuss the negotiations, among other issues.
Obama, in an interview with the Huffington Post published Saturday, cautioned that it was too soon to say that a draft agreement was being sent around but reiterated that the U.S. would like a deal done soon.
“There is no deal until everything is worked out, and I think that it’s premature to suggest that there is a draft out there,” Obama said. “What is true is that there has been movement from the Iranian side.”
In Tehran, Khamenei on Saturday attacked Obama’s recorded Nowruz message to Iranians, which was released Thursday. In the video, Obama appealed to younger Iranians to press their government to agree to a deal, saying it would restore Iran’s ties to the world and improve their lives.
The Americans “want to turn the people against the government,” Khamenei said, calling Obama’s message “dishonest.”
As the supreme leader spoke, a crowd chanted, “Death to America.” Khamenei said the rhetoric was justified because America is behind all threats to Iran.
Despite such criticism and the terms he is seeking, Khamenei’s speech represented a qualified support for continued negotiations, analysts said.
Ali Khorram, a former top Iranian diplomat, said the supreme leader was signaling that Iran was ready to negotiate and that “if the deal doesn’t happen, it is the fault of the USA.”
In this way, Khamenei was seeking to balance the demands of Iran’s political reformers, who are eager for a deal, and conservatives who are deeply wary, Khorram said.
In comments to Iranian reporters Saturday, Rouhani said a deal would face “pressures” as it moved toward conclusion.
The United States and the other world powers have made the gradual lifting of sanctions a central demand. They want to be able to reinstate tough restrictions if Iran stops complying with the terms of the deal.
Iran is wary of leaving leverage in the West’s hands and has been pushing especially hard for a quick lifting of United Nations’ sanctions.
The Western governments publicly insist that there are no important differences among themselves. But French diplomats have been staking out tougher positions on some issues, diplomats said.
France has said it wants the deal to last 15 years; U.S. officials have sometimes said 10 to 15 years, though they have also said that the duration remains to be negotiated. U.S. officials want sanctions to be gradually removed as Iran takes steps to comply with the deal. France contends they should remain in force until later in the process.
Iranian officials, though generally optimistic in public remarks that a deal can be reached, have privately pointed to the French concern as a possible obstacle to completion of the deal in the next 10 days.
Any deal that would immediately remove sanctions probably would face fierce opposition in the West, Israel and much of the Arab world.
If the outline of a deal can be completed, negotiators would aim to iron out the remaining details of a comprehensive agreement by June 30.
Differences between the Western governments could prove awkward, because they have more leverage if they bargain as a unified group.
U.S. officials have sometimes said French statements were designed for domestic consumption. Some analysts say France’s demands reflect its desire to show key allies and business partners in the Arab world and Israel that it has done all it could to defend mutual interests.
Many diplomats consider it unlikely, however, that France would stand in the way if the United States and other countries at the table were ready to accept a deal.
Kerry said the meeting Saturday in London was an effort to reach agreement among the four Western governments on the final issues.
World powers suspended their talks Friday, with plans to resume in Lausanne on Wednesday.
Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Richter from Lausanne.
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1cf50ee2d216f30dd9ea5f49712c4bed | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-airstrikes-20140816-story.html | Iraq massacre reported as U.S. strikes target militants at Mosul dam | Iraq massacre reported as U.S. strikes target militants at Mosul dam
In a significant expansion of the air campaign in Iraq, U.S. warplanes and armed drones launched airstrikes Saturday near the Mosul dam in the first joint operation with Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces attempting to retake the strategic northern facility from Islamist militants, U.S. officials said.
The attacks came amid new reports of a massacre of minority Yazidis for which Iraqi officials blamed the militants.
Two days after the resignation of controversial Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, which U.S. officials said cleared the way for greater military assistance to Iraq, American warplanes carried out several attacks to offer cover for Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish pro-government peshmerga fighters trying to regain control of Iraq’s largest hydroelectric facility, a U.S. official said.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that warplanes had conducted nine airstrikes Saturday near the dam and the city of Irbil, the heaviest day of attacks since the air campaign began, destroying or damaging “four armored personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armored vehicle.”
U.S. officials said the operation, which stretched by hundreds of miles the geographic area where U.S. warplanes are attacking, did not stray beyond the limits President Obama has placed on military action in Iraq. Obama has repeatedly said such action would be limited to protecting American personnel, preventing “genocide” and providing humanitarian aid.
It is “supportive of both the humanitarian mission and of the need to protect U.S. personnel due to the damage that could be wrought from their control of the dam,” said one official. “We’ve talked about protecting critical infrastructure before.”
A second U.S. official said no U.S. forces were on the ground near the dam. The officials asked not to be identified while discussing military operations.
The stepped-up air campaign has buoyed the spirits of Iraq’s mostly northern-based Kurdish population, whose political leaders have longtime links to U.S. officials, and of other Iraqi ethnic minorities who feel targeted by the marauding Islamic State extremist group.
Reports emerged Saturday of a new massacre by the militants against members of the minority Yazidi sect, whose encirclement by Islamic State forces atop remote Mt. Sinjar prompted Obama to begin the airstrikes early this month. Iraqi officials said militants entered a Yazidi village near the mountain range Friday and killed scores of men, then took hundreds of women and children captive.
The militants had surrounded the village of Kocho for several days and given the Yazidis, whom they consider heretics, a deadline for converting to Islam, said Mahma Khalil, a Yazidi lawmaker. Khalil cited accounts by two survivors who feigned death, then fled to safety.
The village contained about 300 men, but it was not immediately clear how many were killed. Iraqi news agencies reported that at least 81 died. About 600 women and children from the village have been taken to the town of Tall Afar, which is under the control of the militant group, Khalil said.
The information could not be immediately verified because the area is inaccessible to journalists.
The U.S. bombing campaign around the mountain helped facilitate the escape of tens of thousands of Yazidis, but others are holed up in the mountains or in surrounding villages like Kocho where they are still threatened by the militants.
Obama has said the airstrikes and airdrops of humanitarian aid broke the “siege of Mt. Sinjar.” But Iraqi officials said the attack in Kocho, about 10 miles from the mountain area, showed that the risk remained high for the Yazidis, an ancient sect ethnically linked to the Kurds.
“When President Obama said in his statement that things were stable for the Yazidis, this is not true,” Khalil said.
Peshmerga forces also were reportedly preparing to launch a ground assault aimed at retaking the town of Sinjar, whose capture by militants sparked the harrowing exodus this month of thousands of Yazidis through the mountain highlands.
The bombing campaign has aided Kurdish forces, including militiamen from Syria and Turkey, who have taken control of much of the 30-mile-long mountain range. The Kurdish fighters have also opened a corridor to the Syrian Kurdish zone for Yazidis and others fleeing the Islamic State, whose fighters have seized much of northern and western Iraq.
“We were very pleased to see the Americans get involved,” said Ziab Zuber, a commander with the Kurdish peshmerga forces at a checkpoint outside the town of Gwer, near Irbil, the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdish region. “We need more aircraft and heavier weapons in this fight.”
Yet the air campaign has both advantages and limitations, experts say.
In the flat, open terrain prevalent in much of northern Iraq, aerial bombardment can easily hit fixed militant positions and mechanized units. But it is less effective in urban areas such as Mosul and Tall Afar, where Islamic State fighters mingle among the population.
Sunni Arab activists have already accused the Iraqi military of indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas in Mosul and Tikrit, another militant-held city. Washington is aware that civilian casualties from airstrikes could cement bonds between the Islamic State and Sunni Arab communities, dashing hope for a Sunni uprising against the extremists like that seen during the U.S. occupation of Iraq that ended in 2011.
Whether Kurdish ground forces can expel the Islamic State from Sinjar and other areas, however, remains to be seen. Kurdish officials readily concede that they are outgunned by the extremists, flush with weapons seized from the Iraqi army, including U.S.-made armored Humvees.
Islamic State fighters seized Gwer and a nearby town, Makhmour, on Aug. 7, causing a near-panic 25 miles away in Irbil, a thriving city of more than 1.5 million. Kurdish troops beat an embarrassing retreat from the two towns as the militants advanced, raising questions about the abilities of the once vaunted peshmerga forces.
“The tragedy started from there, when the leaders of the peshmerga withdrew without fighting,” said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish politician. “That is a big crime.”
The Islamic State pulled back from Gwer and Makhmour on Aug. 10 amid a Kurdish counteroffensive helped by U.S. and Iraqi airstrikes, Kurdish commanders said.
The militants still hold much of the Mosul dam area, which includes a 40-mile-long lake along the Tigris River and is the source of water and electricity for a vast area of northern Iraq. In the worst-case scenario, U.S. officials worry that the militants will open or destroy the dam, flooding towns and cities downstream.
But the main casualty of such action would be the city of Mosul, about 30 miles away, which is the militants’ main stronghold in Iraq and home to a mainly Sunni Muslim population.
In Irbil, long a bastion of stability in crisis-ridden Iraq, life has returned to normal since the threat of a militant thrust toward the city has abated. But the city, like others, has absorbed a massive influx of displaced families, mostly from minority groups who view a Western offensive against the militants as their only chance to return to their ancestral homes.
“The Americans must help us; it is the only way to drive off these terrorists,” said Moussa Berri Abbas, 47, one of 20,000 Yazidis who sought shelter at the desolate Bajed Kandala camp in northern Iraq near the Syrian border.
“We need help from America, from Europe. We are peaceful people and do not have an army to fight against these killers.”
Bengali reported from Baghdad, Cloud from Washington and McDonnell from Irbil.Follow news out of Iraq on Twitter at @SBengali, @mcdneville and @DavidCloudLAT.
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c4e6ecf0de4b9ecb4281e9c42f5832d8 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-anbar-islamic-state-20150526-story.html | Iraq offensive underway to take back Ramadi from Islamic State | Iraq offensive underway to take back Ramadi from Islamic State
Iraqi military and other pro-government forces on Tuesday launched an offensive, spearheaded by Shiite Muslim militias, to take back Ramadi from Islamic State fighters who seized the city last week.
The state-run media quoted the military command as saying “wide-ranging” operations commenced to “liberate” Ramadi, about 60 miles west of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.
There were no immediate reports of major battles along an extensive front line that has been experiencing periodic skirmishes since the Al Qaeda breakaway faction overran Ramadi, sending pro-government forces scattering.
The loss of Ramadi was a major setback for the U.S.-backed government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi. Although pro-government forces outnumbered the attackers, Iraqi soldiers abandoned their fighting positions in Ramadi, leaving behind heavy weapons and ammunition for the extremists.
But Abadi denied U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s comments to CNN that Iraqi defenders had “lost the will to fight.” Carter’s remarks outraged many in Iraq, where thousands of pro-government fighters have lost their lives in the almost yearlong struggle against Islamic State.
In a BBC interview this week, Abadi vowed to take back Ramadi within days.
On Tuesday, the White House lauded Baghdad’s plans to regain Ramadi, seeking to mollify some of the anger in Iraq that followed the Pentagon chief’s scathing assessment.
“I think that is a clear indication of the will of the Iraqi security forces to fight,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said of the plan to recapture Ramadi. “And the United States and our coalition partners will stand with them as they do so.”
The White House said none of the Iraqi forces who fled from Ramadi had been recently trained by U.S. or coalition forces assisting the Iraqi military.
A key role in the battle for Ramadi will fall to the so-called Popular Mobilization Units, composed largely of Shiite militiamen widely regarded as among Iraq’s most effective fighting forces. They are highly motivated to confront Islamic State, an ultra-fundamentalist Sunni Muslim group that regards Shiites as heretics and regularly executes Shiite captives.
Baghdad concluded that the participation of the enthusiastic Shiite irregulars was essential to take back Ramadi. The need overrode fear that their presence could inflame sectarian tension in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, regarded as Iraq’s Sunni heartland.
“Our victories will be quick because our preparations are strong,” Ahmed Assadi, a spokesman for the Popular Mobilization Units, said at a news briefing in Baghdad.
Highlighting the presence of the largely Shiite force, the spokesman said the operation to take Ramadi is being named after Hussein, a revered figure in Shiite Islam.
In Washington, Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, called the title “unhelpful.”
As Iraqi forces announced their planned offensive, warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition began carrying out airstrikes in Ramadi’s vicinity. The Pentagon described the undertaking as “shaping operations” before the expected government onslaught.
The White House has begun expediting delivery to Iraqi forces of high-powered weaponry, such as antitank missiles that can destroy armored vehicles, which Islamic State often employs as car bombs.
Iraqi forces’ hasty withdrawal from Ramadi mirrored their much larger collapse in June as Islamic State forces seized the northern city of Mosul and other parts of Iraq. The setbacks highlight how the Iraqi military continues to underperform even though Washington spent $25 billion to train, arm and equip the country’s security forces from 2003 to 2011.
The Pentagon determined last year that 26 of the Iraqi army’s 50 brigades were able to fight Islamic State. The rest were deemed to have collapsed in combat with the militants or been tainted by sectarianism and corruption.
In the last year, Washington has deployed 3,100 military personnel to try to rebuild the shattered Iraqi military into a force that can repel Islamic State.
“It’s been a tough week for us — the loss of Ramadi was particularly difficult,” said a coalition trainer in Iraq, who was not authorized to speak on the record. “The battle here is as psychological as it is anything else.”
Although Iraqi forces have predicted a quick victory in Ramadi, many analysts have cautioned that the operation could take weeks or months. Urban warfare can be a challenging struggle fought street by street, and Islamic State has proved adept at slowing down attackers with strategically placed snipers and booby traps.
Ramadi once had a population of almost 500,000, though years of conflict have led many residents to flee. Tens of thousands of civilians have left since Islamic State militants overran the city last week.
Anbar province was a hotbed of Sunni insurgents fighting American forces after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. Hundreds of American troops were killed or injured in the area before U.S. forces pulled out of Iraq in 2011.
McDonnell reported from Beirut and Hennigan from Washington. Special correspondent Nabih Bulos in Beirut contributed to this report.
Follow @mcdneville on Twitter for news out of the Middle East
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70dfddd029fe549e494ef83b86048316 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-army-towns-islamic-state-20141124-story.html | Iraq army, allies reclaim towns from Islamic State | Iraq army, allies reclaim towns from Islamic State
Iraqi and allied forces have wrested control of two towns in the eastern province of Diyala from the militant group Islamic State, Iraqi officials said Monday.
Saadiya and Jalawla, less than 20 miles from the Iranian border, were retaken after a two-day operation that brought together Iraqi army and police units along with Shiite paramilitary groups and Kurdish peshmerga fighters, officials said.
A statement from the Interior Ministry said the towns had been liberated “from the defiling of the terrorist gangs of Daesh,” an Arabic term for Islamic State.
Vast stretches of Iraqi territory still remain under the sway of Islamic State, including much of Anbar province in the west; the northern city of Mosul, Iraq’s second-most populous city; and other areas. Retaking those will be a much greater challenge.
The Badr Organization, a powerful Iraqi Shiite militia backed by Iran, was a major participant in the operation to retake Saadiya and Jalawla. According to the group’s Facebook page, its leader, Iraqi Transportation Minister Hadi Amiri, led the militiamen in the attack.
More than 70 Islamic State militants were killed and survivors fled to the nearby Hamrin Mountains, said Jabar Yawar, secretary-general of the Ministry of Peshmerga, who was reached by phone in the northern city of Irbil.
“Today there are operations to comb those areas,” said Yawar, referring to the mountains.
Diyala, an embattled, ethnically mixed province, was an important stronghold for Al Qaeda-affiliated militants during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2011. Parts of the province remain under the sway of Islamic State.
The towns of Saadiya and Jalawla were overrun by Islamic State in August, part of a militant blitz through stretches of Iraq that left Iraqi and peshmerga forces reeling. Iraqi commanders say they have since regrouped and made gains against the militants, aided by U.S. airstrikes.
The militant threat to Iraq prompted a U.S.-led coalition to initiate a widescale aerial campaign to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Islamic State, in the words of President Obama.
On Monday, U.S. Central Command issued a statement saying allied aircraft had conducted 15 more strikes in Iraq and nine in Syria against Islamic State targets.
However, coalition aircraft did not participate in the battle for Saadiya and Jalawla, Iraqi officials said. Instead, “intense bombing” was undertaken by Iraqi warplanes and helicopters, according to Yawar, the peshmerga official.
Pro-government forces had been poised to take the town since September, officials said, but their advance was hampered by the large number of improvised bombs that have become the calling card of retreating Islamic State militants. Many explosive devices remain in the area, officials said.
Peshmerga forces have declared Jalawla a military zone for 14 days while work is completed “to remove tens of explosive canisters and mines and dealing with booby-trapped homes,” reported Sumariya News, an Iraqi media outlet.
Bulos is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell contributed to this report.
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cbafc1901ffd400644063b0ec5948a4b | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-artifacts-islamic-state-20150226-story.html | Islamic State says it destroyed ancient artifacts in Mosul, Iraq | Islamic State says it destroyed ancient artifacts in Mosul, Iraq
A video released Thursday appears to show Islamic State militants methodically destroying centuries-old artifacts in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which would be the group’s most brazen attack to date on antiquities regarded by the extremists as idolatrous.
Issued by the “media office of Nineveh state,” Islamic State’s name for the Mosul region, the video uploaded by the group depicts fighters roaming through Mosul’s National Museum, leaving behind what appears to be a trail of smashed Assyrian and Akkadian statues, some of which date from as far back as the 7th century BC, according to the museum plaques shown.
The five-minute video opens with militants ripping protective wrapping off statues. A bearded man appears, explaining that the artifacts are depictions of “pagan gods” that “were worshiped instead of Allah” as the camera lingers over parts of the museum.
“It is easy for us [to destroy these artifacts], and we do not care, even if they cost billions of dollars,” the militant says before the statues are pushed and kicked off pedestals by fighters with unabashed glee. They then take to them with sledgehammers and electric drills. An Islamic nasheed, or chant, plays in the background.
According to another video, the group also burned thousands of books and ancient poetry anthologies in a bonfire in a major thoroughfare in Mosul.
The authenticity of the videos could not be independently verified. Reports indicated that the items apparently destroyed at the museum consisted of originals and cast replicas, but there was no official breakdown of the extent of the damage.
Islamic State espouses a particularly harsh interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, with punishments including amputations, crucifixions and beheadings. It also considers many artifacts, landmarks and even graves as a threat that will lead to paganism.
The group’s intolerance of historical items -- whether pre-Islamic or otherwise-- in areas under its control has raised fears of the systematic erasure of the archaeological heritage of Iraq and Syria, a region considered a cradle of modern civilization. Various rebel factions in Syria are also involved in a brisk trade of looted antiquities, authorities say.
The Sunni Muslim extremist group has destroyed numerous landmarks, churches, Shiite mosques and other sites across Iraq and Syria.
Last summer the group blew up a site in Mosul said to have been the burial place of the prophet Jonah, who figures in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions.
But Thursday’s apparent large-scale destruction of museum pieces and ancient writings seemed to take the campaign to a new level. The attacks drew immediate and widespread condemnation.
Atheel Najafi, governor of Iraq’s Nineveh province, issued a statement on social media saying that “what happened today in Mosul ... is a matter that goes beyond all ability to describe ugliness.”
“Is this service to the devil or hell or a valley of lowly contemptibility?” he asked.
“Daesh has ... declared its end,” he vowed, referring to Islamic State by its Arabic acronym.
An antiquities expert, Eleanor Robson of University College London, deplored the attacks in a BBC interview as “the cultural equivalent of the worst of the beheading videos,” referring to Islamic State signature video featuring beheadings of captives, including Western journalists and aid workers.
The wanton destruction comes as Iraqi and coalition planners prepare for an all-out attack on Mosul designed to oust Islamic State fighters from the city, long a cultural hub. The extremists, who belong to an Al Qaeda breakaway faction, swept through Mosul and large parts of northern Iraq in June. Christians and other minority groups fled the city and the region en masse as the extremists closed in.
It was unclear whether the extremists’ motivation was to erase as much as possible of Iraq’s cultural patrimony before government forces mount a counterattack to take back the city, once home to more than 2 million people. Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled Obeidi, in a statement to state news outlet Al Iraqiya on Thursday, indicated that pro-government forces are “ready to undertake a military operation to liberate the city.”
He also expected the “grand majority” of Mosul’s citizens to join the security forces “due to the crimes committed by Daesh.”
Iraqi troops and allied forces have been trying to push back Islamic State fighters since last summer, aided by U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and neighboring Syria. But the group still maintains considerable territory in its self-proclaimed caliphate across the two nations and has the support of some civilians in the area.
Bulos is a special correspondent.
Twitter: @mcdneville
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3701065e6d74afce6b436abb46f08959 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-casualties-2016-story.html | Who’s tracking casualties in Iraq? A California high school teacher | Who’s tracking casualties in Iraq? A California high school teacher
Joel Wing, a high school social studies teacher in Oakland, was at home working on his MacBook Air one recent afternoon when he saw troubling news out of Baghdad.
The United Nations had just released its estimate for the number of soldiers and other fighters killed in Iraq in November: 1,959 security forces dead, a number that looked like the highest monthly total in two years.
For the record:
Jan. 21, 7:11 p.m.: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Bruno Geddo as the head of the U.S. refugee agency in Iraq. He represents the United Nations refugee agency.
But that wasn’t what was really troubling Wing. The U.N. also announced that it would be releasing no future combatant casualty estimates: Iraqi military commanders had been criticizing the reports, calling their numbers “inaccurate and much exaggerated,” and the international agency was bowing out until “a sound methodology of verification can be found to better substantiate the figures.”
“It was a sad moment for tracking the violence and security situation in Iraq,” said Wing, who immediately fired back on his nine-year-old blog, “Musings on Iraq.”
“The Iraqi Joint Operations Command said that those figures were exaggerated without giving any correction of its own,” Wing wrote, noting that the U.N.’s decision, “will create a huge gap in keeping up with the cost of the war.”
Someone would have to fill it. For many who have followed the war in Iraq and the number of lives it has claimed, that would be Wing.
The 47-year-old teacher at Oakland Technical High School has never been to Iraq, but he has become one of the go-to sources for reliable data and trends on the violent toll of the 14-year-old conflict in the troubled country.
Wing, a native of Berkeley who earned a bachelor’s and master’s in international relations at San Francisco State University, then a teaching credential at nearby Mills College, has been teaching English and social studies at Oakland Technical High School since 1995.
Back then, Wing’s main passion was music. He played bass in several punk, ska and heavy metal bands: Dance Hall Crashers, Corrupted Morals, Bumblescrump and Desecration. Rasputin Records in Berkeley put his photo in the window on Telegraph Avenue, and as the bands toured, he got to know members of big-league groups like Metallica and Green Day.
But when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Wing found himself deeply troubled and was determined to understand the country. He launched his blog as a way to reflect and connect with experts.
Four years ago, as he sensed a battle looming to confront the militant group Islamic State’s widening hold on territory, he began compiling and posting casualty figures. Soon, academics and experts around the world began following his work.
Wing is older now, with shorter, spiky black hair and glasses, but still has no particular political agenda and takes no outside funding for his blog. His twitter profile photo is of Raiden, the Japanese god of thunder and lightning recently popularized in the Mortal Kombat video game (and the 1986 cult classic “Big Trouble in Little China”).
Wing reads 44 English and Arabic language newspapers daily, with the help of Google Translate, and has always posted regular analysis, civilian and combatant casualty totals.
Since the offensive began to retake Mosul, he expanded his blog to include daily analysis of the attacks.
He has shared interviews with Iraq experts, including Bruno Geddo, head of the United Nations refugee agency in Iraq, the governor of Anbar province, former military commanders, CIA analysts and diplomats.
Wing compiles figures from attacks reported in the media as well as from U.N. figures. He includes locations, allowing him to report that 63% of attacks last year occurred in the provinces surrounding Baghdad and Mosul.
The totals represent a disturbing trend: The number of Iraqi combatants killed in November was 1,988, the highest monthly death toll since Islamic State seized Mosul in June 2014 — and more than all the Americans killed each year since the 2003 invasion.
(A total of 4,514 U.S. forces have been killed in Iraq, with the highest death toll occurring in 2007, when 904 Americans were killed, according to the icasualties website.)
Wing loves to network and talks to everyone, from contractors removing roadside bombs in Fallujah to Iraqi reporters in Baghdad, one of whom was killed in a bombing last year which was documented on his blog.
Michael Knights, an Iraq expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called Wing a “committed Iraqi analyst — very emblematic of how technology mixed with obsessive interest can nowadays create experts in unconventional ways.”
“His work is a solid collation of open source data and decent trend spotting from the data. It is a legitimate source. He spotted a lot of stuff before traditional analysts and even intel agencies,” Knights said.
Hamit Dardagan, who co-founded the London-based Iraq Body Count website in 2003, which tracks mainly civilian casualties, called Wing “amazing,” his numbers credible.
Dardagan said Iraqi government criticism of the release of casualty statistics appears politically motivated.
Combatant casualty figures are closely guarded by Iraqi military commanders, who see them as damaging to morale and a propaganda boost for Islamic State.
“They’re concerned about winning and anything that might weaken morale is something they’re going to be very careful with,” Dardagan said.
As Wing sees it, he’s providing a public service. “Violence is part of everyday Iraqi life. It’s important to keep track of what’s going on and how much the violence has cost the country in terms of people’s lives,” he said.
There’s a history of such laymen tracking Iraq casualties. After the 2003 invasion, a Bay Area anti-war activist and Georgia software engineer built the icasualties.org site into the most reliable source for accurate figures on U.S. casualties there and, later, in Afghanistan. But that website, like others of its kind, doesn’t track Iraqi combatants.
Wing has faced his share of scrutiny from Iraq experts.
“All of these people are in Washington, D.C., and they’re like, ‘Who is this Joel Wing guy? Why is he in California? A high school teacher?’,” Wing said as he sat in his classroom after school one recent afternoon, the wall covered with whiteboards and photos from dozens of former pupils.
He’s had a student serve in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. His 12th grade American history students, whom he calls “my kids,” seem to take only a passing interest in his blog and the Iraq books on his desk (he’s reading Sir John Chilcot’s 12-volume report on the war, published in July).
Wing tries to limit blogging to his lunch, conference period and after school, but that doesn’t always work. His girlfriend has taken to calling his MacBook “your other girlfriend,” he said, “because I’m always on the computer doing Iraq stuff.”
The Pentagon has asked Wing to come work for them as an analyst, but he declined. He also declined two opportunities to travel to Iraq, once when the U.S. ambassador asked him to serve at the embassy for six months. He can’t leave his 140 students behind, he says.
“I’m very committed to teaching at a public urban school,” Wing said, “and wasn’t going to step away from the kids for that much time.”
Oakland social studies teacher Joel Wing started his “Musings on Iraq” blog eight years ago, but began tracking casualties in earnest earlier this year as forces geared up for the Oct. 17 Mosul offensive.
molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com
Twitter: @mollyhf
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938a7de2e5ba4b360733373734f33534 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-ibrahim-killed-20150417-story.html | Saddam Hussein loyalist Izzat Ibrahim killed, Iraqi officials say | Saddam Hussein loyalist Izzat Ibrahim killed, Iraqi officials say
Izzat Ibrahim, a fugitive confidant of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein who helped spearhead a deadly insurgency against U.S. troops and later formed an alliance with Islamic State militants, was shot dead Friday by security forces, Iraqi officials said.
Ibrahim, a former vice president known for his trademark ginger mustache and black beret, was dubbed the king of clubs in the deck of playing cards that the Pentagon issued to identify the most-wanted members of Hussein’s government.
The former general was the highest-ranking Iraqi official to avoid capture after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Hussein in 2003. He was the last surviving member of the late Hussein’s inner circle.
Pro-government militiamen killed Ibrahim and nine bodyguards as they traveled in a convoy north of the city of Tikrit, near the Hamrin mountain range, Iraqi Gen. Haider Basri told state television.
On his official Facebook page, Raed Jabouri, the governor of Salahuddin province, posted a photograph of what he said was Ibrahim’s body. Hadi Ameri, head of the Badr Brigades, a pro-government Shiite Muslim militia, told local reporters that DNA analysis was underway to confirm the dead man’s identity.
Ibrahim has been reported captured or killed several times. Some social media postings said to be from his supporters denied the latest reports of his demise.
Elsewhere in Iraq on Friday, Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for a car bomb that exploded outside the heavily fortified U.S. Consulate compound in the northern city of Irbil, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militants’ websites.
The State Department said no U.S. personnel were killed in the afternoon blast in the bustling capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Local news reports indicated that at least three civilians were killed in the explosion, which occurred in a district that is home to many cafes, restaurants and hotels.
In Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, a pair of car bombings also linked to Islamic State killed at least 27 people, news agencies reported. The Sunni Muslim militant group has regularly targeted Shiite neighborhoods and gatherings in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Also on Friday, fierce fighting was reported as pro-government forces held off Islamic State militants trying to overrun the western city of Ramadi and the strategic Baiji oil refinery, north of Baghdad. The dual campaigns have dramatized Islamic State’s continued strength in mostly Sunni areas of Iraq, despite the group’s recent loss of Tikrit.
Pro-government forces recaptured Tikrit this month; the city had been in militant hands since June.
A series of recent airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition backing the Iraqi government has pummeled Islamic State positions near Ramadi and Baiji.
The Tikrit area was the hometown of Ibrahim and his longtime colleague and mentor, Hussein. Both came from humble tribal backgrounds and became loyalists of the Baath Party, which is now banned. Many of Hussein’s closest aides were from Tikrit.
The Shiite-dominated Iraqi government that came to power after the U.S.-led invasion convicted Hussein of crimes against humanity and hanged him in 2006. Many members of Iraq’s Sunni minority viewed the execution of Hussein, a Sunni, as a sectarian lynching. A Sunni-Shiite civil war convulsed the nation for years after the invasion, and sectarian tension still divides Iraq.
It had long been rumored that Ibrahim, said to be in his early 70s, was holed up in the northern city of Mosul, a former Baath Party stronghold. Islamic State, which declared Mosul its capital, controls territory across Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Ibrahim has long been a mysterious figure. Once Hussein was toppled, Ibrahim reportedly ran loyalist Baath Party cells that led the Sunni Muslim insurgency against the U.S. occupation.
Ibrahim was said to be a pivotal interlocutor between pro-Hussein nationalists and the Sunni Islamist militants. The two groups with greatly differing political agendas forged an alliance against the U.S. occupation and the Shiite-dominated government that succeeded Hussein. Ibrahim’s followers included former military officers and intelligence personnel.
Last year, Ibrahim was reported to have formed an alliance with Islamic State militants who captured much of the Iraqi Sunni heartland in June. He was said to have headed a group of pro-Hussein militants known as the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order. The group is reported to have worked in tandem with Islamic State militants, but the alliance broke down.
Ibrahim and his followers brought valuable military and intelligence expertise to their collaboration with various Sunni extremist groups, analysts said.
Times staff writer McDonnell reported from Beirut and special correspondent Bulos from Amman, Jordan.
Follow @mcdneville on Twitter for news out of the Middle East
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2f54d95ac18b5097a6786e4554c1b0dc | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-isis-airstrikes-20170327-story.html | Is Islamic State luring U.S. coalition forces into killing civilians in airstrikes? | Is Islamic State luring U.S. coalition forces into killing civilians in airstrikes?
The Islamic State militants arrived at Khalida Abd Jamal’s house through holes they cut in the concrete walls. Holding a gun to her husband’s head, they corralled the family of seven into a room on the first floor.
“We were stuck in the room,” she recalled. “We had to stay. We couldn’t leave.”
Through a window, she could see a sniper positioned on top of another house in her west Mosul neighborhood of Jadidah.
Moments later, a massive explosion leveled her entire block, killing scores of civilians. The source of the attack remains under investigation, but witnesses said it was an airstrike by the U.S.-led military coalition trying to drive the militants out of the city.
Jamal and her immediate family survived. The account she gave supports the assertion by some officials that the terrorist group is using a new tactic to turn the population in Mosul against the coalition: Herding civilians into houses, then stationing snipers on the rooftops to provoke airstrikes.
“It’s like a trap,” said Basma Baseem, head of Mosul’s local council, describing what she called a “new technique” that causes a large civilian death toll and turns the snipers into martyrs.
By some estimates, more than 200 people were killed in Jadidah.
Baseem visited the site of the attack on Friday and spoke with witnesses who described a lone sniper on a roof. After she accused the coalition of a massacre, she said, Iraqi security forces barred her from west Mosul.
The Pentagon said that an airstrike had been conducted in the area that day, but the Iraqi military said over the weekend that evidence at the scene suggested that Islamic State had laced a house with explosives and used a car bomb.
A man overcome with grief cries out as he is escorted away after finding a loved one dead amid the rubble of a destroyed home following an airstrike in Mosul, Iraq.
A man points towards the fighting as he walks through an area that was affected by a reported coalition air strike in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province.
Family members identify the dead bodies recovered in the rubble of a destroyed home after there were reported coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province,.
Neighbors and volunteers watch as corpses are pulled out of the rubble of a home destroyed by reported coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Nineveh Province.
Iraqi residents carry out body bags after recovering corpses from the rubble inside a house destroyed by an airstrike in Mosul.
People move quickly to avoid danger along the destroyed streets in Mosul after an airstrike attributed to the U.S. killed scores of people in Iraqi city.
With the help of family members, Iraqi Civil Defense members recover a body that was buried in the rubble of a home destroyed by an airstrike in Mosul, Iraq.
Residents climb out of a basement after showing where family members survived an airstrike by being underground in Mosul, Iraq.
A man walks out of a destroyed home in Mosul, Iraq, climbing over piles of rubble left following an airstrike.
A man grieves for his loved ones, who were found dead in the rubble of a destroyed home after reported coalition airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq.
Turkya Azadin weeps while watching Iraqi Civil Defense members recover bodies trapped in the rubble after a reported coalition airstrike in Mosul.
Residents pile body bags in the back of a truck after airstrikes in Mosul left scores dead.
Family members help Iraqi Civil Defense members pull corpses from beneath the rubble in Mosul after airstrikes killed dozens of civilians.
Local residents help Iraqi civil defense force members recover corpses trapped in the rubble of a home destroyed after coalition air strikes in the al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul.
The dead body of an Islamic State militant lies in the street after coalition airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq. Dozens of civilians were killed during the raid.
Mosul residents pile body bags in the back of a truck after recovering the dead from the rubble in Mosul.
Iraqi Civil Defense members search for bodies in the rubble of a destroyed home after coalition airstrikes killed scores of civilians in Mosul.
A boy stands outside a house in Mosul in which neighbors had reported that Islamic State was operating. The rubble in front of the boy is what remains of a house destroyed in coalition airstrikes.
The U.S. military said Monday that analysts were viewing hundreds of hours of video captured over a 10-day period, reviewing each bomb dropped above west Mosul to find out what happened.
“We are looking at getting ground truth, it’s our highest priority,” said Col. John Thomas, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which is based in Tampa, Fla., and oversees military operations in the Middle East.
Whatever the source of the attack, experts said it is clear that drawing attention to civilian deaths has been an important part of the Islamic State’s campaign to sell its ideology and hang on in Iraq and Syria.
The group uses photos of dead women and children in the propaganda it posts each day on social media, at times including video of cities leveled by airstrikes.
A post Monday on the encrypted app Telegram attempted to justify last week’s terrorist attack in London with the unsubstantiated allegation that the U.S. had recently killed more than 80 people in recent attacks on a mosque and a school in Syria.
Islamic State seized Mosul in 2014 but has lost much of it since October, when the Iraqi army and international coalition launched an offensive to take it back.
At the urging of Iraqi officials, many civilians initially remained in their homes when the offensive started. Islamic State militants used them as cover, sheltering in homes, cutting holes between houses or digging tunnels under them to avoid airstrikes.
The group has been circulating a message on the encrypted app Telegram that 1,800 civilians have been killed in the city. The actual number remains unclear.
Amnesty International released a report Tuesday putting the number of people killed in airstrikes on Mosul in the “hundreds,” dating back to the beginning of the offensive. An increase in recent months raises “serious questions about the lawfulness of these attacks,” the report said.
“If one side uses human shields, that does not remove the obligation for the other side to protect civilians,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s Iraq researcher. If militants station a sniper on the roof, she said, “You don’t necessarily need to take down the whole house.”
The Pentagon said that since the air war against Islamic State began in mid-2014, the U.S. and its allies have carried out more than 18,900 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, and that there has been a sharp uptick in recent months, with 3,440 munitions dropped in February.
It said that at least 220 civilians have been killed. The London-based monitoring group Airwars put the figure at about 2,700.
At the Pentagon on Monday, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis defended the U.S. actions, saying, “There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties.
“We go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people,” he said. “The same cannot be said for our adversaries and that is up to you to sort out.”
Meanwhile in Jadidah on Monday, families were still recovering bodies from the rubble.
Ahmad Bashar said he lost his mother, sister and 21 other family members. “We found some of them,” he said by phone. “Some of them were hard to identify because their faces were destroyed.”
Jamal and her family, who are staying with neighbors, buried her husband’s uncle in the garden and helped bury at least 30 more victims on the grounds of a nearby mosque. Several relatives were still missing.
“There are still more dead people not found yet, in the basements, under the wreckage,” she said.
molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com
william.hennigan@latimes.com
Times staff writers Hennessy-Fiske reported from Baghdad and Hennigan from Washington.
ALSO
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U.S. acknowledges airstrike in Mosul, where more than 200 Iraqi civilians died
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6977299655ff781f39a04519d38ce646 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-islamic-state-obama-20140807-story.html | Obama weighs Iraq crisis response; airdrops, airstrikes among options | Obama weighs Iraq crisis response; airdrops, airstrikes among options
United States officials are “closely monitoring” a potential “humanitarian catastrophe” in northern Iraq but will not be sending combat troops back into the country, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday.
Earnest said the United States would cooperate with Iraqi military and Kurdish authorities in the volatile region, but he declined to respond to several questions about whether the U.S. would consider any military action to protect refugees fleeing advancing Sunni militants.
“I’m not in position to shed light on the president’s thinking” on the subject, Earnest said.
Pentagon officials denied Kurdish reports Thursday afternoon that airstrikes had begun over Iraq.
White House officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said President Obama was weighing whether sufficient core U.S. interests were at stake in the situation to justify the use of American military power. Obama has been meeting with Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other national security advisors as he reviews the situation.
A senior U.S. military official said the White House was considering airdrops of humanitarian supplies and perhaps U.S airstrikes to relieve the humanitarian crisis. A decision by the president could be made within days, the official said.
The Pentagon has drafted options for airdropping humanitarian supplies to aid tens of thousands of Iraqis, mostly from the Yazidi religious minority and Christian groups in northern Iraq, who have fled from Sunni militants.
Airstrikes against the militants are less likely, because it would signal the U.S. is reengaging militarily in Iraq, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
Obama has authorized the use of military force to head off threatened humanitarian crises in the past, most notably in Libya. How that precedent will affect his decision-making on the current situation is unclear.
In Libya, what seemed at first to be a relatively low-cost, uncomplicated operation to protect civilians threatened by government forces quickly expanded and grew more complicated. Ultimately, the U.S. and its NATO allies backed Libyan militias that overthrew the government of Col. Moammar Kadafi. The country has seen increasingly violent chaos in the three years since his ouster.
In Iraq, U.S. officials have repeatedly stressed that the threat posed by the Islamic State militia, a breakaway Al Qaeda group, cannot be solved by U.S. military action and that Iraqi leaders need to form a more inclusive government that can reach out to the country’s Sunni population, a point that Earnest emphasized.
There are “no American military solutions” to the crisis, Earnest said. However, he left open the possibility that President Obama might take other actions to support humanitarian efforts in the region.
Many refugees have taken shelter in barren mountains in the area. Kurdish authorities, who control much of northern Iraq, and international aid groups have said that many of the refugees face death from thirst or starvation.
The minority communities have been “specifically targeted” in a “cold and calculated” way, Earnest said. The U.S. is “deeply concerned” about their condition and has been consulting with the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities about how to help, he said.
For more news about the Obama administration, follow @CParsons on Twitter
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ca2b5bc93309042d818bd74bacd1787f | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-kurds-turkmen-20180311-story.html | Tuz Khurmatu is Iraq’s city of walls. Is it a sign of the country’s future? | Tuz Khurmatu is Iraq’s city of walls. Is it a sign of the country’s future?
The walls are constructed of cinder blocks, steel and concrete. Some have gates for pedestrian traffic. Others evoke the oppressive days of the Berlin Wall — towering concrete panels lined up in a row, and impassable.
The barriers snake through Tuz Khurmatu, turning it into a city of walls.
In years past, walls went up to protect against car bombs. Then Shiite Turkmens erected walls to guard against Islamic State after its resurgence in 2014. Now even after the jihadis have been driven out of the city, the walls still stand, and Tuz Khurmatu remains a flash point with an unstable melange of sects and ethnicities. Once united to fight Islamic State, Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs resumed viewing each other with hostility and suspicion.
“Without a doubt, Tuz Khurmatu is a case study for Iraq 2.0. It’s the most violent, most divided place in the country. You have so many layers of conflict,” said Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Shiite Turkmens had erected walls because the Islamic State jihadis, who adhere to a strict Sunni doctrine, believe Shiites are apostates who should be killed.
Turkmens also accused the mostly Sunni Kurdish residents of allowing, if not colluding with, the jihadis to make the city more Kurdish. Turkmens started erecting more walls, but not always with Islamic State in mind.
Mohammad Kawthar, a Turkmen judicial councilman in the city, said, “We were forced to turn all the Turkmen neighborhoods into prisons.” But the walls offered protection.
Arab tribesmen, meanwhile, are viewed with suspicion by both Turkmens and Kurds. Complicating matters further is the city’s location, about 40 miles south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and the presence of Turkmen paramilitary groups called the Popular Mobilization Forces.
In the city, explained Knights, Turkmens stand against the Kurds, “but you’ve also got a layer of powerful Popular Mobilization Forces fighting against a Kurdish oil-smuggling mafia.”
The disputes dividing the various groups were momentarily set aside in 2014 when Islamic State, also known as ISIS, launched an offensive.
“The country was not ready to defeat ISIS in a way that would usher in post-conflict stability. It defeated it, sure, but only because it had to rely on a coalition of foreign militaries and dozens of militias,” said Ramzy Mardini, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“It’s too bad ISIS wasn’t an invading foreign country,” Mardini added. “Instead of the war solidifying Iraqi nationalism, it led to a hardening of ethnic and religious identities.”
In Tuz Khurmatu, those identities solidified into physical borders threading throughout the city.
Protective walls can be found throughout Iraq, but here they are a constant feature. Initially, some were low concrete barriers designed to block traffic — the car bombs. But then people began building walls 8 feet high or taller, sometimes right in the middle of a thoroughfare.
Some barriers are nothing more than a wire fence, others elaborate constructions topped with barbed wire and sandbags and equipped with gates for pedestrian traffic that can be locked at night. Kurdish merchants abandoned the city’s central market, once a place where business trumped sect, and created their own commercial strip on the Kurdish side of the city.
Tensions took on new life last September when Kurds held a referendum calling for independence. And when the Iraqi army swept into Kirkuk, the Turkmens kicked the Kurdish peshmerga out of Tuz Khurmatu and took charge of the city’s administration — a change that people like Abbass Maarouf, a 38-year-old medical assistant, celebrated.
“I could finally visit my land near the city for the first time in 14 years,” he said. “The Kurds had taken it and they said ‘These lands are all ours.’”
Hostilities took a deadly turn in October when Turkmens and Kurds began hurling dozens of mortars and artillery shells at each other. At least 11 residents were killed, and dozens more wounded, according to the rights group Amnesty International.
The rights group said that when the peshmerga were routed, tens of thousands of Kurds fled their neighborhoods; Turkmens and the Popular Mobilization Forces followed right behind, burning and looting houses of Kurdish officials and security personnel.
The government in Baghdad, meanwhile, has sought to reassure the estimated 35,000 displaced Kurds who escaped. In the days after October’s flare-up, it assigned government troops to protect Kurdish neighborhoods.
“We’re begging the Kurds to stay,” said one major posted at the entrance to the Kurdish-dominated Jumhuriya neighborhood. His underlings handed out yellow and blue papers with numbers to call “in case of any attack.”
Tensions remain high, especially near the walls. When a visiting reporter crossed one barrier, a pair of Turkmen boys chased after him, shooting their AK-47s in the air. They later boasted that they had blown up the homes of Kurdish politicians who had supported the independence referendum.
Members from one group will sometimes slip into the other’s territory to unleash havoc. This creates unique hazards for some residents because the walls don’t always split neighborhoods neatly. Turkmens who ended up on the “Kurdish side” of a barrier spray-painted “Turkmen” on the entrance of their house in the hope of avoiding its destruction by fellow Turkmens who cross over to attack Kurds.
In January the Iraqi government said it would investigate the violence in Tuz Khurmatu, but it’s unclear what, if anything, will come of that. Iraq’s conventional army is overstretched and, according to Mardini of the Atlantic Council, there is little hope that Baghdad can “demonstrate enough control over armed forces or have enough armed forces to govern the area.”
“Tuz Khurmatu is a prime example of state weakness. The Iraqi government is too weak to reassert its political authority there,” he said. “It’s becoming clear that a post-ISIS Iraq will not experience a period of stability.”
The bitterness dividing Tuz Khurmatu was captured one day at a traditional wedding feast. Long tables were set out with rice and spiced meat. But the celebration played out in the shadow of a cinder-block wall dead-ending a street linking Turkmen and Kurdish districts.
Akram Tarzi, a resident of the Turkmen side, was in no mood to celebrate. He glowered as his 11-year-old son awkwardly limped to a white plastic chair.
“The Kurds shot him in the leg. They attacked us, came to steal our land and remove the Turkmen identity here,” he said, turning to point at the wall.
Peace negotiations were held, but had stopped. The fighting, Tarzi predicted, “will start again. We all know it.”
He was right. That wedding feast occurred more than a year ago, long before more violence in the city of walls.
Bulos is a special correspondent.
Twitter: @nabihbulos
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6d4d0da38132dba2c9ce36fdca6b4597 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-jordan-relations-2017-story.html | Relations between Israel and Jordan have become ‘very dangerous’ | Relations between Israel and Jordan have become ‘very dangerous’
Relations between Israel and Jordan, neighboring states that signed a peace treaty in 1994, have hit rock bottom after twin decisions by the Israeli government that have been widely seen as an affront to Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
The first was Israel’s order, since rescinded, to install metal detectors at the Noble Sanctuary, the Muslim name for the disputed plateau in Jerusalem’s Old City that holds the Al Aqsa Mosque and gold Dome of the Rock. Although Israel backed down, the decision was seen as a slap to Jordan, which is the legal custodian of the site.
The other involved Israel’s response to a deadly incident in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in which an Israeli Embassy guard killed two Jordanians, a 17-year-old delivery boy and an orthopedic surgeon.
The result has been a diplomatic and social-media chill between the two countries and their leaders that has little precedence in the years since the peace treaty was signed.
“The whole thing is very dangerous,” said Salameh Nematt, a Jordanian writer and political analyst, in an interview from the United States, where he was traveling.
Referring to the Amman shooting and its aftermath, he said: “The incident itself, which is provocative, isn’t dangerous for the king, but it comes as so many factors are exerting enormous pressure on Jordan: the economy, the refugee crisis, a lack of progress on internal problems. Something like this can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
Late Tuesday, addressing an emergency session of the executive committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, admonished Israel that “the crisis is over, but many more and far more dangerous crises will erupt as a result of continued Israeli violations.”
The Israeli government has not commented officially on the Jordanian complaints.
Israel and Jordan had been discreetly cooperating to resolve the upheaval at the holy site, known as the Temple Mount to Jews, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warmly welcomed home the embassy guard who was involved in the deadly altercation in Amman.
On July 25, Netanyahu tweeted — in both Arabic and English — an image of himself embracing the guard, Ziv Moyal, and praising him for having “acted well and calmly.”
You acted well, calmly. We had an obligation to get you out. This was not even a question. Only a question of time, I'm pleased it was short pic.twitter.com/J7QjKYosWN
The incident involved a dispute over a delayed delivery of furniture at the Israeli Embassy compound. Israeli and Jordanian officials said that the Jordanian teenager, Mohammed Jawawdeh, attacked Moyal with a screwdriver, and Moyal responded with shots that killed Jawawdeh and the surgeon and left another man critically injured.
After keeping silent for 48 hours, a furious King Abdullah, normally one of the Middle East’s least demonstrative leaders, fired off an extraordinary sequence of tweets, in English.
King Abdullah II: Israeli PM should honour his responsibilities & ensure justice, instead of using the crime for political showmanship #JO
King Abdullah II: Israeli PM’s conduct is rejected & provocative. It angers us all, threatens regional security & fuels extremism #Jordan
King Abdullah II: #Jordan honours its international legal obligations and respects international law and diplomatic norms
King Abdullah II: #Jordan's respect for international law guarantees our rights and rights of our citizens
It wasn’t until 7 p.m. on Friday, when Netanyahu’s religious, right-wing base had presumably switched off all electronic devices in honor of the Sabbath, that the Israeli Foreign Ministry acknowledged, only in Hebrew and only via WhatsApp, that Israel had launched a full investigation into Moyal’s actions.
Israeli analysts attributed the chaos to political pandering on Netanyahu’s part as he confronts an array of criminal investigations and challenges from within his own Cabinet. Adding to the stress, on Wednesday, his wife, Sara Netanyahu, was questioned by police as a criminal suspect in an investigation into the misappropriation of public finds.
Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent for the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, wrote that “Netanyahu’s spin machine is working overtime, and could destroy Israel’s ties with Jordan…. It’s astounding to see how much damage was caused just for short-term political spin for Israeli public opinion.”
In the eyes of many Israelis, there was something uncomfortably familiar in what was perceived as Netanyahu’s disrespect toward Abdullah.
“It’s Obama all over again,” fumed a former senior Israeli diplomat, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation. The diplomat was referring to Netanyahu’s chilly relations with former President Obama, including a 2015 address to a joint session of Congress that he delivered without coordination with the White House. In it, he argued against the nuclear deal with Iran, Obama’s signature foreign policy objective.
“This is the result of a longtime, ongoing, obstinate policy that doesn’t even bother for the sake of appearances to be considerate to any partner, friend or foe. It is simply a continuous state of non-communication,” the former diplomat said.
Oded Eran, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and a former Israeli ambassador to Jordan, said that ad hoc solutions will not repair the damage.
In an interview, he called on Israel to “seize the political and operational initiative before international and regional entities do, and propose an international summit on measures that can prevent radical entities from violating freedom of worship and freedom of access to the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Judaism and Islam.”
Before any summit could be planned, Israel and Jordan narrowly avoided yet another collision.
As relations between the two countries deteriorated, two flamboyant parliamentarians — one from Israel, one from Jordan — fought via their Twitter feeds. Eventually, Jordanian Yehiya Saoud challenged the Israeli, Oren Hazan, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, to a duel in the Judean desert at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Hazan, a former pimp who gained an extra measure of fame when he crashed Donald Trump’s arrival ceremony in Tel Aviv last May to snag a selfie with the president, accepted.
Gleeful online anticipation followed Hazan’s progress toward the Allenby Bridge border post until someone in Netanyahu’s office got wind of the scheme and sharply ordered Hazan back home.
Saoud arrived unimpeded, crossed the border into Israel, and promptly began questioning journalists who had gathered to witness the fight. “If you say you’re a journalist from historic Palestine, lets talk. If you say from Israel, no,” he said.
Like every other step in the unhappy pas de deux, this too was tweeted live.
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Tarnopolsky is a special correspondent.
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affdff016e7f68a0d7e05597860b47f4 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-palestinians-20141127-story.html | Large-scale attacks by Hamas foiled, Israeli security agency says | Large-scale attacks by Hamas foiled, Israeli security agency says
Israel uncovered a West Bank network of Hamas militants planning a series of large-scale attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem and other locations, the country’s domestic security agency said Thursday.
The targets were to include Jerusalem’s soccer stadium and light-rail system, and the militants were also instructed to abduct Israelis in the West Bank and abroad and carry out car bombings and other attacks, according to Shin Bet, the agency.
The plot was exposed in an investigation sparked by a pair of bombs that were set off by a timer in the West Bank in late August, the agency reported to local media and on its website. The blasts caused no injuries.
Officials said the investigation led to the arrest of more than 30 suspects, most of whom were recruited by Hamas in Jordan as early as 2012 and received military training in various locations including Jordan, Syria, Turkey and the Gaza Strip.
Several weapons, including firearms and bomb components, were also recovered, the officials said.
There was no immediate response from Hamas to the arrests.
According to the Shin Bet, the reported plots and other exposed networks showed that militant Islamic movement Hamas is keen on rehabilitating its military infrastructure in the West Bank to challenge both Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank.
Hamas forcefully wrested control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Despite a reconciliation accord signed earlier this year between Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah movement, mutual mistrust persists.
In recent years, both Palestinian security forces and Israel’s military have checked Hamas’ power in the West Bank. In June, Israel launched a wide-scale crackdown on the organization, arresting hundreds of suspected sympathizers following the kidnapping of three Jewish teenagers, later found dead. On several occasions, Israel warned of Hamas plots to destabilize the Palestinian Authority run by Abbas, who opposes armed struggle and has negotiated with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Israeli forces for “foiling very dangerous terrorist actions that could have claimed many victims.”
While this particular intelligence operation was publicized, others remain secret, directed at “Hamas, which challenges the existence of the Jewish nation-state and, in effect, the existence of Jews in general,” the prime minister said.
His statement seemed to draw a connection between this latest development and the ongoing controversy surrounding his effort to pass a law defining Israel as the national homeland of Jews only.
Sobelman is a special correspondent.
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338195d5a36a7fc06189a26c62dbca6e | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-resumes-airstrikes-on-gaza-20140715-story.html | Gaza militants reject cease-fire plan; Israel says Hamas ‘will pay’ | Gaza militants reject cease-fire plan; Israel says Hamas ‘will pay’
Palestinian militants fired more than 140 rockets from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in response to an Israeli-endorsed cease-fire, pressing on with a fight that has already cost the lives of nearly 200 Gaza residents in Israeli airstrikes on the densely populated seaside enclave.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, that it would regret spurning the Egyptian-drafted cease-fire proposal. And in a televised address Tuesday night, he said that Israel had “no choice” but to resume its airstrikes on Gaza.
“Hamas chose to continue fighting and will pay the price for that decision,” warned Netanyahu, who has been pressed by Israeli hard-liners to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, a move likely to inflict even higher casualties.
The Egyptian cease-fire plan had called for a 12-hour winding-down of hostilities beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, then negotiations in Cairo within the next two days on a more permanent truce. The battle is the third major Israeli-Palestinian flare-up in five years.
“We were not part of the announcement so we are not going to commit to it,” Hamas spokesman Sami abu Zuhri told The Times, suggesting that the cease-fire proposal had been worked out without consideration of the group’s interests.
Gaza residents, who have faced an Israeli economic blockade since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, say that a 2012 Egypt-brokered settlement of the last Gaza conflict remains unfulfilled. There is also less confidence now among the Palestinians that Egypt is a trusted intermediary after an army coup last year deposed a Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Cairo that was more ideologically aligned with Hamas.
Israel defends its right to respond to rocket attacks from Gaza — more than 1,100 since its offensive began July 8. Palestinian fighters demand an end to the Israeli blockade of the impoverished coastal strip.
Resumed fighting Tuesday resulted in the first Israeli fatality of the offensive. Dror Chanin, a 37-year-old from the settlement of Beit Aryeh, was hit by a mortar shell that landed at the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza, Israeli police reported. Chanin was said to be a volunteer taking food to Israeli soldiers posted at the crossing.
Besides a lifting of the blockade, Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist group, has demanded the release of members jailed in the West Bank during a recent sweep spurred by the disappearance and slaying of three Israeli teens, and the reopening of Gaza border crossings into Israel and Egypt.
“What we are demanding is not just an end to the fighting but also an end to the unjust situation that we live under,” Abu Zuhri said. “Hamas will continue our fighting and defend our people until we achieve our goals.”
Gaza journalist Sami Abed, in an interview on Israel’s Channel 10 television, said Gaza residents have turned to Hamas to give voice to their desperation even though the militia has brought on a cycle of confrontation and standoff since gaining power.
“We in Gaza live in total despair and darkness. There’s no electricity, no water, no money, no work, no cement — no anything,” Abed said. “Hamas tells us wait, we will free you, we will lift the siege. But Israel has decided to lock up Gaza and throw the keys into the sea.”
Abed said Israel had “pushed the people of Gaza into the arms of Hamas” by disrupting trade and commerce.
“In Gaza we have nothing, and we have nothing to lose,” Abed said. “Let us live in dignity, and you will receive quiet and love in return.”
In Tel Aviv, Netanyahu came under fire from hard-liners for having accepted the cease-fire without arrangements to strip Palestinian militants, who reject Israel’s right to exist, of their caches of long-range rockets and without sealing tunnels used to ferry in arms and fighters.
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon called the government’s acquiescence to a halt in military operations a “mistake,” arguing that “with the terrorists of Hamas we can only speak with the full force of the Israeli army.”
Netanyahu immediately fired Danon, saying it was “inconceivable” that a senior defense official would criticize the government so harshly at such a volatile juncture in the conflict.
Moshe Maoz, a professor emeritus and former director of Hebrew University’s Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, said Hamas probably rejected the cease-fire proposal because its military leaders feared it was a ploy by Israel to make the group the culprit in the fighting.
The Egyptian proposal appeared from Hamas’ view to be a directive “coordinated behind the scenes by Israel, the U.S. and Egypt,” designed to push Hamas into a corner, Maoz said. “Hamas saw this as a trap and rebelled.”
Israel appears to have won the faceoff, Maoz said, but “it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Israel has no strategy. Where is any of this going to lead?”
Special correspondent Sobelman reported from Jerusalem and Times staff writer Williams from Los Angeles. Special correspondents Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City and Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
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2cb6b9bdd3df42734c21bff02147795c | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-soldier-funeral-20140723-story.html | Israelis turn out en masse for funeral of soldier from Los Angeles | Israelis turn out en masse for funeral of soldier from Los Angeles
Max Steinberg, a native of Los Angeles, was laid to rest in Jerusalem on Wednesday with 30,000 people in attendance to pay last respects to the Israeli army sergeant who lost his life fighting in the Gaza Strip.
Steinberg, 24, was killed Sunday along with five others with his Golani infantry brigade when a rocket propelled grenade hit their armored vehicle. A seventh soldier was also believed to have been killed but remains missing.
As of Wednesday, 32 Israeli soldiers had been killed in Gaza in less than a week of ground fighting.
Steinberg, who grew up in Woodland Hills and attended El Camino Real High School, visited Israel in 2012 with his brother and sister and decided to stay and join the army.
Like other Jewish young adults choosing to immigrate without their parents and volunteer for military service, Steinberg was considered a “lone soldier,” a category recognizing his special circumstances and offering some extra support from the system.
Israelis mobilized to pay tribute to Steinberg and honor him with a show of support. The large crowd -- nearly all strangers -- answered calls of social media and conscience and attended the rites at the military cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mt. Herzl. Several websites live-streamed the ceremony.
Many dignitaries joined the ceremony as well, offering comforting words for Steinberg’s parents, Evie and Stuart, and his siblings, Paige and Jake, who attended the gathering. U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro extended a message of support and condolences on behalf of the American government and people.
“I didn’t know him but he fought for us and died for us,” Yuval Shimon told local media. “It is a great honor for me to be here at his funeral.”
Sobelman is a special correspondent.
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879773440419f8066a7379761d917a04 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-strikes-iranian-targets-20180510-story.html | In most serious military clash in decades, Israel hits Iranian targets in Syria | In most serious military clash in decades, Israel hits Iranian targets in Syria
The Israeli military said it attacked nearly all of Iran’s military installations in neighboring Syria in response to an Iranian rocket barrage on Israeli positions in the occupied Golan Heights, in the most serious military confrontation between the two bitter enemies in decades.
The attack early Thursday came after Iranian forces launched 20 rockets in the direction of Israeli army units in Golan Heights and marked the largest Israeli air force strike since the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel had “hit almost the entire Iranian infrastructure in Syria,” though there were reports that many of the missiles were intercepted by Syrian forces. Lieberman said Israel informed Russia and the United States ahead of the operation.
The United Nations quickly urged both sides to bring an “immediate halt to all hostile acts.”
In a statement Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 28 Israeli fighter jets took part in the operation, firing more than 70 missiles. Russia, which has been the dominant military force in Syria for several years, said roughly half the missiles were knocked down by Syrian antiaircraft systems.
The Syrian army’s general command said in a statement that its aerial defense systems had destroyed a “large portion of the Israeli aggression’s missiles.”
Iranian media described the attacks as “unprecedented.”
Referring to Israel as “the Zionist entity,” the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency cited a foreign ministry source who claimed Israel posed “a serious threat to international peace and security.”
“This aggressive behavior by the Zionist entity,” the source told the news agency, will “only lead to an increase in tensions in the area.”
The Israeli army said debris from only four of the 20 rockets actually landed in Israeli territory and that the rest had fallen short.
There were no Israeli casualties, but civilian residents of communities in the entire region were awakened by air raid sirens and forced to remain in shelters for two hours.
In a briefing, the Israeli army said “dozens of targets belonging to the Iranian Quds forces in Syrian territory” were demolished in the raid, including intelligence centers, munitions storehouses and logistics sites. Israeli fighter jets, the army said, encountered stiff opposition from Syrian aerial defense systems.
A spokesman for the Syria army reported that three fighters were killed and two wounded in the Israeli strikes.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a widely respected source, claimed 23 fighters were killed.
In a statement from Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House condemned Iran’s “provocative rocket attacks from Syria against Israeli citizens” and expressed strong support for “Israel’s right to act in self-defense.”
“The Iranian regime’s deployment into Syria of offensive rocket and missile systems aimed at Israel is an unacceptable and highly dangerous development for the entire Middle East,” Sanders said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, through his spokesman, expressed concern and urged “maximum restraint.” U.N. peacekeepers in the Golan Heights have remained in contact with both Israel and Syria military leaders.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though, seemed unbowed.
“Whoever attacks us — we will attack them sevenfold and whoever prepares to attack us — we will act against them first,” the prime minister said.
The nighttime skirmish exposed regional realignments that have been quietly underway for several years.
Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, the foreign minister of Bahrain, a Persian Gulf state that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel but is engaged in a power struggle with Iran, tweeted, “As long as Iran violates the regional status and uses its forces and missiles to transform states into wastelands, every country in the area including Israel has the right to defend itself and destroy the sources of danger.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to have received a first-person account of Israel’s position during a lightning-quick visit by Netanyahu, who returned to Israel from Moscow only hours before the Iranian barrage was launched.
In a statement, Netanyahu’s office said the summit — the eighth meeting between the Russian and Israeli leaders in two years — would help preserve “continued coordination.”
Russia took a cautious approach Thursday. The official state news agency TASS quoted Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying “in our contacts with the Iranian leadership and the leadership of Israel, including yesterday’s meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we emphasized the need for avoiding any mutually provoking moves.”
“Both Iran and Israel have assured us that there are no such intentions,” he said.
Israeli army spokesman Lt. Jonathan Conricus said he did “not yet know” if Iran’s initial act was a retaliation or if it had been provoked by President Trump’s announcement that the U.S. would withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal.
Only Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries have spoken in favor of Trump’s decision.
European co-signers to the nuclear pact have said they will try to salvage the deal, which freed Iran’s economy from crippling economic sanctions in exchange for a 10-year freeze on Iranian uranium enrichment.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday expressed deep misgivings, saying, “I do not trust these countries either.”
Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, appeared to reject the offer to salvage the nuclear deal and threatened future operations against “Iran’s enemies,” in a statement made to the official news agency Fars.
In a statement, Salami said Europe “cannot act independently over the nuclear deal,” and that “resistance is the only way to confront these enemies, not diplomacy.”
Special correspondent Tarnopolsky reported from Jerusalem. Special correspondent Nabih Boulos contributed to this report from Baghdad.
UPDATES:
12:57 p.m.: This article was updated with additional reaction.
10:47 a.m.: This article was updated with staff reports from Jerusalem and Baghdad.
6:50 a.m.: This article has been updated with White House comment.
This article was originally published at 5:15 a.m.
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a04aa6ce2cb08d7b2d6f670320a83628 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-synagogue-attack-20141119-story.html | Jerusalem synagogue attack: ‘Lone wolf’ pattern seen in deadly assault | Jerusalem synagogue attack: ‘Lone wolf’ pattern seen in deadly assault
In the pious Har Nof neighborhood in the hills of West Jerusalem, early-morning prayers at a landmark synagogue are an integral part of the rhythm of daily religious life. Those who chose that time and place to strike seemed to know that.
Two attackers brandishing weapons including a handgun and a meat cleaver burst into the synagogue early Tuesday, killing four worshipers — three of them with American citizenship, including a prominent rabbi, and the fourth a British national. As police officers converged on the scene within minutes, the assailants shot at least one of them before being slain. The officer later died, Israeli media reported.
The assailants were identified as Palestinian cousins from predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, a site of violence in recent months.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, describing the attackers as “animals,” vowed a harsh response to the killings, which he blamed on Palestinian incitement. The assault horrified Israelis, drew international condemnation and threatened to further inflame Jewish-Muslim tensions, which were already running high over a contested holy site in Jerusalem.
At least seven Israelis remained hospitalized in the wake of the attack, the deadliest in Jerusalem since 2008.
President Obama condemned the assault, saying “it is all the more important for Israeli and Palestinian leaders and ordinary citizens to work cooperatively together to lower tensions, reject violence and seek a path forward towards peace.”
The White House identified the slain Americans as Aryeh Kupinsky, Cary William Levine and Moshe Twersky, the latter a member of a noted Hasidic dynasty. Israeli news reports identified all four of the slain worshipers as rabbis, and the FBI said it was working in “close collaboration” with Israeli authorities on the case, given that three of the victims were U.S. citizens.
Tuesday’s violence appeared to fit a pattern of recent “lone wolf” attacks by Palestinians in part embittered by the dispute over the holy site, though it was somewhat more sophisticated and carried out by two people. Israeli officials have not suggested that the assaults were orchestrated by any particular group, but they have accused Palestinian leaders and media of encouraging the anger.
The men who carried out Tuesday’s attack, identified by authorities as Udai Abu Jamal and Ghassan Abu Jamal, “have no previous security records and did not operate within the framework of any organization,” Yoram Cohen, head of the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet, told members of a parliamentary committee after the incident, the newspaper Haaretz reported.
Witnesses described panic and pandemonium during the storming of the synagogue, with the dead and wounded crumpling to the floor, still clutching sacred texts. A 12-year-old boy whose father was seriously wounded crawled on the bloodied floor to escape and summon help.
For many Israelis, the specter of a calculated strike against Jews at prayer, in ritual garments, carried chilling overtones of historic persecution.
“Jewish worshipers lay dead in pools of blood, still wrapped in prayer shawls and phylacteries, with holy books strewn on the floor,” Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, who heads Zaka, an emergency response group led by Orthodox Jews, told Israel Radio. “Such sights I have never seen — they recall dark days.”
Witness Yaacov Amos said the attack came in the midst of the Shemoneh Esrei, the prayer that lies at the heart of the Jewish liturgy.
“I suddenly heard shots,” said Amos, 45, who said he took cover behind a lectern. “The shock was not to be believed — in the middle of this prayer, of all prayers, here in our synagogue, before my very eyes, at a range of zero.”
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry called Netanyahu and expressed his condolences. “This simply has no place in human behavior,” Kerry told reporters in London.
Netanyahu, who summoned top security officials to an emergency meeting, said the “despicable murderers” would not go unpunished. Within hours of the attack, a massive police contingent raided the family homes of the two assailants and arrested more than a dozen family members, according to Palestinian accounts.
The Israeli leader said the attackers’ homes would be demolished — a practice largely abandoned in recent years — and “inciters” held to account.
A government statement said unspecified “additional decisions … have been made in order to strengthen security throughout the country.” Israel had already redeployed hundreds of troops to the West Bank after a pair of lethal stabbings last week.
After Tuesday’s attack, Israeli forces in East Jerusalem and several parts of the West Bank battled stone-throwing protesters, clashes that continued as night fell. A light-rail train passing through an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem was pelted with rocks and forced out of service.
At Kerry’s prompting, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a denunciation of the attack, but he coupled it with a call for a halt to Israeli “intrusions” on a site in Jerusalem’s walled Old City that is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
The militant movement Hamas praised the attack but did not claim involvement. Celebratory gunfire rang out in the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip and at several locations in the West Bank, and a group spokesman, Sami abu Zuhri, called the assault a response to the “continuing crimes of the occupation.”
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told reporters in a conference call that allegations by some neighborhood residents that the attackers had worked in a shop near the synagogue had not been confirmed, but authorities were investigating the assailants’ ties to the Har Nof area. Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs often work in the city’s western neighborhoods.
The brutal nature of the attack, the shock of a strike on a house of prayer, and the fact that the assault took place in a part of Jerusalem considered far removed from recent clashes, boded ill for any calming of the violence that has roiled the city in recent months.
Four people on the Israeli side of the city have been killed in the last month in vehicular attacks by Palestinians, and in a spreading of “lone wolf” attacks outside the city, a soldier last week was fatally stabbed in Tel Aviv, as was a Jewish woman outside a West Bank settlement bloc.
Netanyahu this week blamed Palestinian leaders for inciting such attacks, telling Israelis in a nationally televised appearance that “Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and others spread libel and lies against the people of Israel every day.”
Much of the current burst of ill feeling is centered on the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary. Jews are allowed to visit the hilltop site but not pray there, and activists — some from within Netanyahu’s government — have been calling for a change to that long-standing “status quo,” infuriating Muslims across the Islamic world.
Kerry visited Jordan, the formal custodian of the site, last week to try to ease frictions, winning pledges for calming measures from both Netanyahu and Abbas in separate meetings. But calls for moderation are likely to be lost in the outcry over the attack, and any retaliatory strikes arising from it.
“We’re at war,” Israeli lawmaker Aryeh Deri, who comes from the neighborhood where the attack took place, told Israeli radio.
Neighbors and relatives of the attackers described them as heroes of the Palestinian cause.
Palestinian media depicted the synagogue attack as retaliation, coming after an Arab bus driver was found hanged Monday at a bus depot in West Jerusalem. A forensic report ruled that there was no sign of foul play and that the death was a suicide, but Palestinian media reports sharply contested the impartiality of the examiners.
Tuesday’s assault was the most lethal in Jerusalem in six years, since a gunman attacked a yeshiva on the city’s outskirts, killing eight of the religious students. An off-duty army officer killed that attacker.
Sobelman is a special correspondent and King a Times staff writer. Special correspondents Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank, and Tami Zer in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Twitter: @laurakingLAT
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14ba12f66dcb012525697dc045253964 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-syria-orphans-20170126-story.html | Israel to grant asylum to 100 children orphaned in Syria’s civil war | Israel to grant asylum to 100 children orphaned in Syria’s civil war
While the United States was preparing plans to close its borders to Syrian refugees, Israel announced plans Thursday to accept 100 orphaned Syrian children from around the battered city of Aleppo.
Critics immediately dismissed the plans as window dressing designed to enhance Israel’s public image. Nevertheless, the proposal represented a change in Israel’s relationship with its northern neighbor.
While millions of refugees have flowed out of Syria into neighboring countries during the course of the six-year civil war, Israel has kept its doors closed to civilians fleeing a country with which it technically remains in a state of war.
Israeli soldiers stand on a tank next to the Israeli-Syrian border, near the Syrian village of Ma’rbah, south of the Golan Heights, on Nov. 27, 2016.
Confirming a television news report from Wednesday, government officials said that the plan to bring in orphans is still in its preliminary phases and that Israel had reached out to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for assistance in identifying candidates.
The children would eventually be eligible to become permanent residents, and Israel would consider accepting immediate family members as well, according to Israel’s Channel 10 television news.
“This is a just and important decision,” Itzik Shmuli, an opposition member of parliament, said in an interview with Israel Radio. “The government should be congratulated.”
From the archives: One country that won’t be taking Syrian refugees: Israel »
But Eyal Zisser, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University, said the plans, reportedly being drawn up by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, were mostly symbolic.
“The minister wants to show empathy and show he’s doing something,” Zisser said. “The main issue here is that 100 is really nothing. It’s to show Israel’s nice face to the world and to address Israeli public opinion.”
Despite its refusal to accept Syrian refugees on an ongoing basis, Israel has temporarily admitted 3,000 Syrians for medical treatment and hospital care over the last four years from rebel-controlled villages near the countries’ border in the Golan Heights. The army has set up a field hospital on the border, and sent limited shipments of medicine, food and blankets over the border to aid those villages.
Seeking to avoid being drawn into the Syrian civil war, Israel has remained on the sidelines of the fighting. It has made exceptions to defend its border in the Golan Heights — which was bulked up with a fence — from spillover in the fighting and also launched strikes inside of Syria to intercept weapons systems destined for Hezbollah, the Shiite militant organization in Lebanon.
As the desperation of Syrians to reach Europe caught international attention in 2015, Israeli opposition politicians argued that the country had a moral obligation to absorb refugees, given its history as a shelter for European Jews who survived the Holocaust. The calls to take in refugees were rejected as too risky by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that Israel was too small to absorb Syrians.
The appeals in Israel surged again at the end of 2016 during the siege of Aleppo, which created a massive humanitarian crisis. A crowdfunding initiative raised more than $100,000 and Deri declared that Israel could not remain indifferent to the crisis in Syria. In December, Netanyahu said Israel had begun to explore the possibility of bringing refugees to Israel.
In addition to concern about the security risk from accepting civilians from an enemy state, Israeli officials have feared that accepting Syrian refugees could affect negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and its demand of a right of return to Israel. Some 500,000 Palestinians in Syria are considered refugees, and Israeli officials worry that giving Syrian refugees residency might bolster the claim of Palestinian refugees to residency rights there.
Israel has a restrictive immigration and refugee policy for non-Jewish migrants. In a span of about seven years, more than 50,000 Africans illegally crossed into southern Israel, most of them from Sudan and Eritrea. Israeli immigration officials have largely refused to grant requests for asylum, and instead have pressured the African migrants by putting men in detention centers.
Moti Kahana, an Israeli American businessman who has lobbied Israeli officials to accept Syrian refugees and founded a non-profit, Amaliah, to aid Syrians still in the country, commended the decision. But he said Israel could be doing more to help the Syrians living closer to the Golan Heights.
“The Israeli people woke up when Aleppo collapsed,” he said. “Why from Aleppo, because it sounds good politically? There are people 200 meters from the Israeli border.”
The Trump administration has drawn up plans, which were leaked Wednesday, to temporarily ban all refugees, and to enact a more permanent ban on Syrian refugees. President Trump has not yet signed the executive order that would put the plan into action.
Mitnick is a special correspondent
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01ca5102990b9b6cb39e790e6349fb7c | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-syrian-fighter-jet-shot-down-20140923-story.html | Israel says downed Syrian jet entered its airspace, acted threatening | Israel says downed Syrian jet entered its airspace, acted threatening
A Syrian fighter jet shot down after breaching the nation’s airspace could have flown anywhere over Israel within five minutes given its speed and the country’s small dimensions, Israeli military sources said Tuesday.
The jet, believed to be a Sukhoi 24, entered Israeli airspace Tuesday morning after taking off from an army air base in eastern Syria and was struck by a surface-to-air Patriot missile in what was described as Israel’s first engagement with a Syrian fighter plane in three decades, according to the Israeli military.
According to media reports, the two pilots ejected safely, landing in Syrian territory, and the downed jet fell inside Syria as well.
Three weeks ago, Israeli air-defense systems shot down a drone over the same area. In both cases, it wasn’t immediately clear if the aircraft intended to target Israel but was believed to be spillover from the civil war in Syria.
An Israeli military source said the plane shot down Tuesday probably intended to strike rebel strongholds in southern Syria -- but it crossed 800 meters into Israeli airspace before turning back toward Syria, after the decision to intercept it had already been made.
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said the plane approached Israeli territory in a threatening manner and crossed the border. “We will not allow anyone to violate our sovereignty and will react aggressively to any such attempt, whether deliberate or accidental,” he told Israeli media.
Ram Shmueli, former head of Israel’s air-force intelligence, said the country’s small size leaves “no room for mistakes” in defending its narrow airspace. “We have to be alert 24/7 for drones, jets and even civilian aircraft.”
Shmueli dismissed any connection between the interception and the U.S. strike against Islamic State targets in Syria overnight. “We are not part of the coalition, even though we support the idea,” he said, adding Israel was just defending its border.
Aviation security authorities have issued an open-ended instruction to all civilian aircraft, including drones and crop-dusters, to keep a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) distance from the Israel-Syria border.
Increasingly, the civil war in Syria has inched closer to Israel, with rebel forces wresting control of part of the strategic Golan plateau from Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army. Fighting has shut down the only formal crossing between Israel and Syria at Quneitra and driven out the United Nations peacekeeping force that has overseen the disengagement between the two countries’ armies since 1974, effectively mooting its mandate.
Throughout the warfare in Syria that began in 2011, Israel has been careful to stress that it is not a party in Syria’s internal battle, while at the same time monitoring developments closely and responding to any incidents of cross-border fire. Israel has reinforced troops in the area, upgraded the border fence and kept close watch on the fast-shifting events to its north.
Israel has welcomed the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria and is reportedly sharing intelligence with Western allies.
Israel is believed to have carried out several airstrikes against targets inside Syria during the Syrian conflict, though Israeli authorities have generally not acknowledged the attacks publicly. U.S. officials have said the Israeli strikes were generally aimed at weapons stockpiles destined for Hezbollah, the Lebanese group that is an ally of the Syrian government and an enemy of Israel.
In June, Israel acknowledged an attack with warplanes on targets in Syria after a shell from Syrian territory struck a vehicle in the Israeli-occupied section of the Golan Heights, killing an Israeli and wounding two others.
Sobelman is a special correspondent.
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f61d08d48751f9ed2445469c9bdebd0c | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-temple-mount-shooting-20170714-story.html | 2 Israeli police officers, 3 attackers are killed in Temple Mount shootout | 2 Israeli police officers, 3 attackers are killed in Temple Mount shootout
Two Israeli police officers were killed Friday when gunmen with improvised weapons opened fire near the holiest site in Jerusalem, then fled back to the Temple Mount plaza outside the Al Aqsa Mosque and engaged in a rare shootout with police.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld called the incident a “terrorist” attack and said all three attackers were killed. At least one had a knife and tried to stab Israelis, he said.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the attackers were from the Israeli Arab city of Um El Fahm and were Israeli citizens.
The slain officers were identified as Hail Stawi, 30, of Majar and Kaamil Snaan, 22, of Horfis.
Video from the Temple Mount esplanade showed Israeli security forces taking cover amid a hail of gunfire, and police shooting a man at close range. Police ordered the plaza cleared and closed ahead of noon prayers Friday.
The fighting inside the complex was one of the worst incidents of violence on the Temple Mount in years, and the images of the gun battle and fatalities are liable to raise tensions throughout the region. Violent clashes on the Temple Mount have been the spark for prolonged and deadly waves of Israeli-Palestinian violence in the past.
The holy site is known to Jews as the site of their ancient holy temple, while Muslims revere the complex as the place where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
DRAMATIC FOOTAGE: Moments 3 Arab terrorists being shot dead following Exchange of fire after terror attack on Temple Mt wounding 3 Israelis. pic.twitter.com/kx8XBuMK1j
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but the militant Palestinian group Hamas celebrated it.
“The Hamas movement praises the guerrilla attack in Jerusalem. It is a legitimate right for our people and the best evidence of their unity in resisting the brutal occupation,” Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanua said.
Police said the attack occurred shortly after 7 a.m. The three attackers had just left the religious complex and opened fire on a group of Israelis near the Old City’s Lion’s Gate, using improvised machine guns, authorities said.
After the attackers retreated to the mosque complex, teams of Israeli police forces entered the esplanade in pursuit and opened fire, killing three. An Israeli police spokesman said the identities of the suspects had been put under gag order, as had information about the victims.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Transportation and Intelligence Affairs Minister Yisrael Katz said the attack was part of a “battle for Jerusalem” and an effort aimed at “undermining our control” of the city by targeting holy sites for attacks.
Special correspondent Rushdi Abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.
Twitter: @joshmitnick
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UPDATES:
3:15 a.m.: This article was updated with a report of two police officers being killed in the clash.
12:45 a.m.: The article was updated with a statement from Hamas.
This article was originally published at 12:20 a.m
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f1760c8552203d2caf3f03b2a8a69e8d | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-trump-russia-20170517-story.html | Former top Israeli officials break with government line and call Trump leak very troubling | Former top Israeli officials break with government line and call Trump leak very troubling
Former Israeli intelligence officials expressed grave concern over reports President Trump divulged secrets to the Russians provided by Israel, breaking with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which in the wake of the revelation sought to portray the bilateral ties as business as usual.
Amid questions over the leak, Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday reported that Trump spoke with Netanyahu by phone. It further stoked speculation about Israel’s involvement in the controversy.
“What Trump did is liable to cause heavy damage to Israel’s security, as well as the source, and U.S. security,’’ Danny Yatom, a former chief of the Mossad, Israel’s international spy agency, said in an interview with a Tel Aviv radio station. “Especially if this information reaches our good friends the Iranians.”
Yatom said that if such shared intelligence information isn’t guarded, the relations will be undermined.
“There will be a loss of faith between the intelligence services,” he said.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Ofer Shelah, an opposition lawmaker who is a member of the parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee, said intelligence and security officials must exercise extra caution when dealing with Russia because of its direct involvement in the Middle East and alliances with Israeli foes.
“From our point of view, there’s room for worry, regardless of this specific report,’’ he said.
In contrast, less than a week before Trump is scheduled to arrive in Israel for an official visit, Israeli government officials were either tight-lipped or hailing the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.
The uproar in the U.S. over Trump’s divulging of classified intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about Islamic State threatened to overshadow Trump’s visit.
Trump is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Monday from Saudi Arabia and is slated to give a speech at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. He will also visit Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and make private visits to holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem before departing for Italy the next day.
The visit has stirred expectations that Trump would unveil some sort of initiative to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations while making a gesture recognizing Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem — part of which is claimed by the Palestinians as a capital of their future state.
The security relationship between Israel & our greatest ally the United States, is deep, significant & unprecedented in volume.
Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli defense minister
Israeli government officials on Wednesday issued statements that bilateral intelligence cooperation would remain unaffected, while omitting any reference to the controversy.
“The security relationship between Israel & our greatest ally the United States, is deep, significant & unprecedented in volume,” Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman tweeted Wednesday morning. “This is how it has been and how it will continue to be.’’
Israeli government spokespeople and intelligence experts recalled instances when Israeli politicians had unwittingly divulged secrets in the course of public remarks, and said leaks of sensitive information are part of the risks of intelligence sharing.
Netanyahu’s office confirmed that the two leaders had spoken for about 20 minutes on Tuesday, but would only say that the discussion dealt solely with the upcoming visit.
“Clearly, the last thing Netanyahu needs now, on the eve of a visit in which Trump is likely to saddle him with a new and ambitious initiative for peace with the Palestinians, is an intelligence crisis with the Americans,’’ wrote Amos Harel, a military columnist for Haaretz. “Even if Israel was harmed by Trump’s behavior, it won’t rush to make this public.”
Before Israel became a part of the controversy, Netanyahu was struggling with the fallout over U.S. comments regarding Trump’s campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — which has yet to be fulfilled.
After Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the U.S. was still conferring with Israelis on whether moving the embassy would help the peace process or be “a distraction,” the prime minister’s office released multiple statements insisting that Netanyahu encouraged the president to move ahead.
Trump’s visit comes a week before a deadline for him to exercise a semiannual waiver to postpone action on a congressional decision two decades ago calling for the relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem. Israeli right-wing politicians have been hoping he won’t postpone the decision, and have attacked Netanyahu for not making a strong enough case.
After the flap over the secretary of State’s remarks, Israel’s Channel 2 television news reported that during preparations for Trump’s visit to the Western Wall in the Old City, a U.S. diplomat referred to the location — one of Judaism’s holiest sites — as part of the West Bank and not belonging to Israel.
All of the Old City was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. Although Israel annexed it along with all of Jordanian East Jerusalem, the Palestinians and most of the international community consider it part of the occupied West Bank.
“The expectations from Trump were for him to act as if he were an Israeli citizen,’’ said Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin, a lawmaker from the opposition Zionist Union party. “People on the right will let Trump get away with anything as long as he acts as if the only interest that he has is Israel. And as we all know, the situation in the region is more complex than that.”
Mitnick is a special correspondent.
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fcdbbd060667549dec2e62ebd6893eb5 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-us-espionage-visas-rice-20140507-story.html | Israelis reject reports of spying on the U.S. as Susan Rice visits | Israelis reject reports of spying on the U.S. as Susan Rice visits
Israeli officials on Wednesday rejected espionage allegations reportedly made in American intelligence circles, the latest obstacle to Israel’s inclusion in the visa waiver program that would ease its citizens’ travel to the U.S.
According to a report in Newsweek, some American counterspy officials say Israel is pursuing espionage efforts against the U.S. that have “crossed red lines” and far exceed those of any other close ally.
The espionage claims emerged ahead of a visit by U.S. national security advisor Susan Rice, who arrived in Israel on Wednesday for high-level consultations on Iran and the peace process.
If past espionage involved more classic intelligence interests -- as in the case of Jonathan Pollard, who was convicted of spying on the U.S. for Israel and was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 -- the recent charges reportedly voiced in several classified hearings and reports suggest Israel’s current focus is industrial.
Such concerns reportedly are holding up agreements that would include Israel in the U.S. visa waiver program. The waiver, which eases travel to the U.S., is reserved for nationalities that are deemed as posing little security threat and that are not major sources of immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denied accusations of espionage, calling them a malicious fabrication aimed at harming relations between his nation and the U.S.
“We do not engage in espionage in the U.S., neither directly or indirectly,” he told Israel Radio on Wednesday.
Off the record, Israeli officials went further, saying the report carried a “whiff of anti-Semitism.” According to local media, an unnamed Israeli source said someone was “gunning for the visa waiver program” by playing the intelligence card.
Previously, a key obstacle keeping Israel out of the program involved charges that American citizens of Palestinian and other Arab descent faced unequal treatment when traveling to Israel, facing delays or even refused entry. “Reciprocity is the most basic condition” of the program, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki stated in March.
A main sticking point concerns many Palestinian Americans who appear in the Palestinian population registry and intend to visit the West Bank. Such travelers are often required to enter through the Allenby crossing from Jordan rather than Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv and to limit their visit to the West Bank.
Israel has promised to ease these restrictions in order to qualify for the program that would exempt Israeli citizens from the need to obtain a visa to visit the U.S., currently a lengthy and costly process for Israelis.
Another issue concerns young Israelis who travel after mandatory military service and have difficulty convincing authorities they intend to return to Israel after visiting the U.S. An estimated 20% of their visa applications are refused.
Two years ago, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv launched a campaign warning young Israelis of the risk of abusing tourist visas to work illegally in the United States.
In recent weeks, the embassy has announced a safer way for college students to live and work in the U.S. legally during summer vacation from academic studies as part of a summer travel-work program.
In a recent Facebook post, U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro emphasized that young Israelis were welcome visitors and said measures to increase the numbers of visas granted would be considered.
Including Israel in the waiver program after it met the legal criteria was a “common goal” of both countries, he wrote. The issue will be addressed by a bilateral working group currently being established.
In a column published last week, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Danny Ayalon dismissed the last round of espionage reports and said that allowing them to delay approval of a waiver as “inconceivable and even insulting.”
Israel wouldn’t risk its tight defense and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. for any marginal information it could otherwise obtain, he wrote. If Israel did, it has more sophisticated options than using tourists, added Ayalon, who suggested the waiver program was being used as diplomatic leverage.
Sobelman is a special correspondent.
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6dd755dd35e300b6159d8c78bc5ba885 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israelis-palestinians-cease-fire-20140714-story.html | Hamas keeps up rocket attacks after Israel agrees to cease-fire | Hamas keeps up rocket attacks after Israel agrees to cease-fire
Israel’s Cabinet on Tuesday accepted an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Hamas, but the militant group rejected the offer, putting a pause in the week-long armed conflict that has killed nearly 200 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at risk.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed the Israeli security cabinet’s approval of the cease-fire shortly after a 9 a.m. deadline Tuesday morning.
Hamas immediately rejected the proposal, saying the militant group’s conditions for a cease-fire were not met and it was not included in discussions. “We were not part of the announcement so we are not going to commit to it,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told The Times.
“What we are demanding is not just an end to the fighting but also an end to the unjust situation that we live under,” Abu Zuhri said. “The issue is not only the cease-fire. The most important thing is how to guarantee the stability and the rights for the people to live a normal life and to stop the catastrophe that we live in.
“So we in Hamas will continue our fighting and defend our people until we achieve our goals,” he said.
Despite Hamas’ rejection of the proposed cease-fire, Israel Defense Forces Lt. Col. Peter Lerner confirmed as of 10:50 a.m. local time Tuesday that the military was holding fire. “We remain alert and preserve high preparedness levels, both defensive and offensive. If the Hamas terror organization will fire at Israel, we shall respond,” Lerner said.
A proposal by Egyptian mediators late Monday called for both sides to observe a cease-fire within 12 hours of the proposal’s release and to sit down with mediators in Cairo within 48 hours of suspending all land, sea and airstrikes.
During a joint appearance with Germany’s foreign minister, Netanyahu said defended Israel’s military operation as one to protect Israeli citizens from rocket attacks by Hamas. “We have accepted the Egyptian proposal in order to provide the opportunity for demilitarizing the Gaza Strip of rockets and tunnels by diplomatic ways,” Netanyahu said, “But if Hamas does not accept this cease-fire proposal — and right now it looks that way — Israel will have every international legitimacy to expand its military operation to restore the necessary calm.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said through a spokeswoman that the cease-fire agreement “provides an opportunity to end the violence and restore calm.”
“We welcome the Israeli cabinet’s decision to accept it. We urge all other parties to accept the proposal,” spokeswoman Marie Harf tweeted, attributing the statement to Kerry.
Human rights groups have said bombardment of the densely populated Gaza Strip coastal region had killed more civilians than militants. Health officials in Gaza said 191 people have been killed and about 1,400 injured in the conflict. There had been no Israeli deaths from the nearly 1,088 rockets fired into Israel from Gaza, Israel’s military said Tuesday.
Three hours after the proposed deadline for the cease-fire commitments, sirens continued to sound in southern Israel as nearly two-dozen rockets were fired from Gaza. Most landed in open areas. One hit a building in Ashdod, and at least one was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Six members of Israel’s Security Cabinet voted to approve the cease-fire, while two hard-liners, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennet, opposed it.
Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog welcomed the cease-fire but said if it does not lead to a diplomatic process, it will be worthless. “The government must translate the cease-fire into the basis for a diplomatic process that will bring immediate change. Otherwise, it will be a worthless time-out before the next round,” he said.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately comment on the two sides’ responses to Egypt’s cease-fire proposal. Officials of Hamas, which controls Gaza, were scornful.
“The cease-fire proposal was discussed by everyone except us – Kerry, Netanyahu, Egypt, but not Hamas,” Abu Zuhri said. “This ceasefire proposal is like an ambush.”
The Hamas spokesman cited the proposal’s failure to require the lifting of Israel’s blockade of Palestinian territory or the opening of all border crossings with Egypt and Israel.
Hamas also demanded the release of Palestinians jailed in recent Israeli military sweeps, an end to all aggression against Palestinian territory and a halt to Israeli attempts to disrupt the work of the Palestinians’ national unity government.
Abbas, in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on Monday asked that an urgent meeting of the Security Council be convened to respond to his request for international protection under U.N. auspices of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, currently with the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, said during a conference call with reporters that “Israel has taken a brave and prudent step by creating diplomatic context to the military operation.”
The next steps toward ensuring a lasting cease-fire are not inevitable, but are likely to include a demand for some demilitarization of the Gaza Strip similar to the way Syria gave up its chemical weapons arsenal, Oren said.
“Hamas can go the way of [Syrian President] Bashar [Assad] and become more a part of the solution than the problem,” he said. “If Hamas demilitarizes, lets inspectors take out the long-range rockets ... Hamas could still be a player. Not an armed player but still there.”
Oren said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “deserves some very high credit for resisting rising public pressure to escalate quickly on the ground,” adding that he might pay a political price for preventing further escalation.
Shimon Bouskila, a resident of the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which has lived under rocket fire from Gaza for more than a decade, was not satisfied with the state of the cease-fire.
“We are not so pleased because we know it is short-lived. We want quiet for decades, not a few months,” Bouskila told Israeli TV Channel 1. “The government and army should put their heads together and figure out how to solve the problem once and for all. We are willing to spend a month and more in the bomb shelter for them to finish this rocket fire once and for all.”
Special correspondent Sobelman reported from Jerusalem and Times staff writer Williams from Los Angeles. Special correspondents Amro Hassan in Cairo, Maher Abukhater in Ramallah and Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza also contributed to this report.Follow @cjwilliamslat for the latest international news 24/7
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b426e0bb0d63e6f5b87060b10cdc543a | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israelis-palestinians-conflict-20151006-story.html | Israel demolishes homes of Palestinian attackers; clashes persist | Israel demolishes homes of Palestinian attackers; clashes persist
Israeli authorities Tuesday demolished the East Jerusalem homes of families related to two Palestinian men involved in attacking and killing Israelis and sealed off a third home belonging to relatives of another attacker.
The demolitions came hours after the Israeli security Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved taking harsher measures against Palestinians involved in attacks against Israelis.
Israeli police, meanwhile, lifted a ban keeping nonresident Palestinians from entering Jerusalem’s Old City and removed all barriers set up at the gates leading to the city. Muslim men under age 50, however, are still prohibited from entering the Al Aqsa mosque compound.
NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>
After several weeks of unrest, tension between Israelis and Palestinians varied depending on location. Fewer clashes between police and protesters were reported in some Jerusalem neighborhoods. Tension remained high in some West Bank areas, mainly near Ramallah, where Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers.
The Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry said at least 50 people were brought to hospitals and medical centers in the West Bank suffering light to medium injuries.
The homes demolished Tuesday were in Jabal al-Mukkaber neighborhood.
“We were asleep in bed when we heard powerful bangs on the doors and explosions,” said Shaker Jaabis.
His brother, Mohammed, last year rammed a tractor into vehicles on a Jerusalem road and overturned a bus. One person, an Israeli pedestrian, was hit by the tractor and killed. Mohammed Jaabis was shot and killed by Israeli security.
The other demolished home belonged to the Abu Jamal family, whose two sons, Ghassan and Udi, were involved in an attack on a Jewish synagogue last year, killing five Israelis.
Not far from the two buildings, Israeli forces sealed shut a house in Abu Tur neighborhood that belongs to the family of Mutaz Hijazi.
Hijazi shot and critically wounded a right-wing Israeli activist, Yehuda Glick, last year. He was shot dead by police at his Abu Tur home shortly after the attempt on Glick’s life. Glick survived.
In remarks at a meeting Tuesday in Ramallah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that Palestinians are not looking for fights with Israel.
“We do not want a military or security escalation between us and them,” he said. “All our instructions to our security forces, our political groups and our people are that we do not want escalation.”
He said he was still looking for a political solution to the conflict with Israel “through peaceful means and absolutely nothing else.”
Abbas is strongly opposed to violence and had often said that he would not allow a new intifada, or uprising, in the Palestinian territories. He was strongly opposed to the second intifada that broke out in 2000 and put an end to it when he took office in 2005.
Israel announced that the extra forces deployed in Jerusalem and the West Bank would remain in place for the near future.
Abukhater is a special correspondent. Special correspondent Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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adbf8b9fb857df3fc366885bc5a061b2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-jordan-balancing-act-20170430-story.html | How long can Jordan keep walking the Middle East tightrope? | How long can Jordan keep walking the Middle East tightrope?
For six tumultuous years, Jordan has weathered the war in neighboring Syria by walking a fine line: supporting the U.S.-supported rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar Assad, but also cooperating with Assad’s closest ally, Russia.
But as the Trump administration pursues a more muscular stance toward both Assad and Islamic State militants, it threatens to upend Amman’s tightrope act at a time when the Islamist threat against the kingdom has never been greater.
In the last few months, as Islamic State has lost ground near its self-proclaimed capital cities of Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqah, Syria, a new offensive has been launched by rebel forces, trained in and equipped in Jordan with U.S. help. The operation has begun to clear the jihadists from the Hamad Desert, territory that includes Syria’s southeastern corner.
As the jihadists face more pressure in Mosul and Raqqah, many fear the Islamists will forge a path to the Hamad. A longtime smuggling route, it has become a vital supply line for Islamic State, said Tlass Salama, commander of the Jaish Usood al Sharqiya, or the Lions of the East Army.
Salama said rebels there have fought as comrades in arms with members of U.S. and Norwegian special forces to repel Islamic State attacks at the desolate garrison in Tanf, a one-time agricultural facility roughly 10 miles from the Jordanian border that has been converted into a base. These opposition factions, said the coalition in a statement this month, “have been instrumental in countering the ISIS threat in southern Syria and maintaining security along the Syria-Jordan border.”
Working with other U.S.-supported rebel factions, Salama said his 1,300-man group has already clawed back hundreds of miles from Islamic State stretching toward the central desert province of Homs.
Reports have also emerged of Jordanian and U.S. troops on the section of the Jordanian border opposite southwest Syria, a possible prelude to a campaign in which rebels, supported by Jordanian and coalition forces on the ground, would overrun Islamic State’s pocket in the Yarmouk basin, near southwestern Syria’s borders with Israel and Jordan.
The news kicked up a war of words with Jordan, Russia and Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this month asked for clarification from Amman. Less than a week later, Assad, in an interview with the Russian Segodnya news agency, criticized Jordan as “part of the American plan since the beginning of the war in Syria.”
Assad said Jordan was acting at the behest of the Trump administration.
“Jordan is not an independent country anyway, whatever the American wants, it will happen, so if the Americans want to use the northern part of Jordan against Syria, they’re going to use it,” Assad said, according to a transcript released by Syrian state news operator SANA.
“We don’t discuss Jordan as a state; we discuss Jordan as land in that case, because it’s the United States who defines the plans, who defines the players, and who endorses everything regarding Syria coming from Jordan.”
Jordan rejected Assad’s remarks as “fabricated allegations,” according a statement by Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad Momani. He added that Jordan had long reiterated the importance of preserving the territorial unity of Syria and fighting terrorist organizations.
The increased tension comes after a period of cautious recalibration between the two countries. Amman, activists say, had over the last two years largely scaled back support for anti-Assad rebels and stopped them from launching attacks on Assad’s forces in Syria’s southern provinces, which abut Jordan.
In November, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat, Jordan’s top military commander, said in an interview in with the Arabic-language arm of the BBC that “since the beginning of the crisis, we never operated against the regime at all, our relations with the regime have remained, and our diplomatic relations with Syria have also remained.”
He acknowledged that Jordan has trained rebel groups, but, he insisted, the rebels were tasked with defending Jordan’s borders from Islamic State and fighting the group in the Hamad Desert.
But Jordan’s change of tone in recent weeks, which comes on the heels of a recent White House visit by the Jordanian monarch, King Abdullah II, is a reflection of the shift in U.S. policy, said Oraib Rintawi, head of the Al Quds Center think tank, which is based in Amman.
“Jordan cannot veer far from U.S. policy [on Syria] in this regard,” Rintawi said. He explained that although the U.S. has made fighting Islamic State a priority, a closer look at the policies of the U.S. shows “that the restriction of Iran takes a higher priority on the U.S. agenda.” One lingering question is what role Jordan might play in U.S. policy with Iran.
Rintawi pointed to recent statements by Abdullah against Iran. In an interview with the Washington Post this month, Abdullah warned that Iran was trying to “forge a geographic link” from Tehran to Beirut via Syria’s eastern desert once Islamic State was removed. The U.S., Rintawi said, was instead trying to fill the expected vacuum with forces friendly to the U.S.
Jordan’s increased involvement has also been noted by Islamic State. In early April, the group issued a 21-minute video vowing to conduct attacks in the country. The threats were delivered by five Jordanian members of Islamic State, all from prominent tribal families that are thought to be loyal to Jordan.
“We must hurt this arrogant regime and make it taste some of the flames of war tasted by those it had trained in Jordan,” says Qutaibah Majali, a shaggy-haired jihadist who left Jordan more than three years ago to join Islamic State in Raqqah.
Later, the scene shifts to Majali brandishing a knife.
“Our knives will get your necks and that of every Crusader in Jordan. And our bullets will bore your rotten heads, so receive good tidings of that which hurts you,” he says before kicking down a prisoner, said to be a spy recruited by Jordanian intelligence, and slicing through his neck.
But Rintawi, the analyst, said his main fear was not Islamic State, but what’s left in its aftermath. Would Syrian pro-government forces allow rebels supported by Jordan to hold ground they had taken from the extremist group? How would Jordan react when Syrian forces and the rebels clash once Islamic State is out of the picture?
Complicating the situation further is the presence of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which is stationed in Syria less than 50 miles from the Jordanian border.
“U.S. policy is set for a grand confrontation with Iran. We’re going to have a four- and five-year confrontation where the Americans don’t pay, but we do,” Rintawi said. “They fight now using Syrians, Yemenis, and others. I hope it won’t be with us as well.”
Bulos is a special correspondent.
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47097c0f5339c4a0ae56fa4c3ad639a2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-jordan-journalist-killed-cartoon-20160925-snap-story.html | Jordanian journalist shot to death on courthouse steps after posting controversial cartoon to Facebook | Jordanian journalist shot to death on courthouse steps after posting controversial cartoon to Facebook
It was Sunday morning, the start of the work week after the long Eid al-Adha holiday, when residents of the Jordanian capital, Amman, woke to reports of the killing of Nahedh Hattar.
A journalist and commentator, Hattar was long known for his controversial secularist views and vocal support of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The killing made Hattar, 56, the most recent casualty in a country-wide duel between Islamists and secularists, clashes that threatens to rock the stability of the perennially fragile kingdom, which has been a key U.S. ally in the region.
Hattar, according to local media outlets, was killed on the steps of Amman’s main courthouse, where he was set to go on trial on charges of inciting strife and insulting Islam.
Weeks earlier, he had enraged Muslims across the country by posting a cartoon, “The God of Daesh,” on his Facebook page.
Daesh is the Arabic acronym of Islamic State, and is considered pejorative by the group’s adherents.
The cartoon depicted a bearded man, presumably an Islamic State militant, lying in bed with two women while asking God to bring him wine and cashews. The man also asks God to have someone clean up the mess, install a door for his tent and to knock before entering in the future.
In Islam, those who die in combat in the name of God are rewarded with Hoor, beautiful women with lustrous eyes, and can enjoy rivers of wine. The cartoon portrayed the militant as taking that to ridiculous extremes, and also broke a taboo by portraying God.
In the ensuing backlash, some conservative Muslims called for his execution. Hattar quickly took the cartoon down, saying that he was merely “mocking the terrorists and their depiction of God and heaven.”
But he was soon arrested. The government said it had imprisoned him for his own protection, but Prime Minister Hani Mulki also said he would not allow the crossing of red lines when it came to holy issues and would deal “firmly” with the incident. The government also issued a gag order, a tactic it has frequently used in the last year in what critics say is a method of stifling necessary debate.
Hattar was released on bail earlier this month and was to appear in court on Sunday.
As he arrived, a gunman walked up to him and shot him three times, according to Petra, the state news agency. Security officials nearby quickly arrested the attacker, the agency said.
Government spokesman Mohammad Momani condemned Hattar’s killing as an “ugly crime,” adding that the “law will be firmly applied to the perpetrator,” according to Petra.
Momani added: “The government will respond with an iron fist against anyone who tries to use this crime to spread hate rhetoric in our society.”
Video taken by a bystander and posted on social media depicts the aftermath of the shooting. It shows Hattar lying on the ground, ringed by security officials while people shout frantically for an ambulance.
The killing comes at a contentious time in the country, which, although stable, has long been thought to be a tinderbox of extremism.
A significant portion of its citizens have snuck into neighboring Syria, to take up command positions in the Al Qaeda-affiliated Front for the Conquest of Syria (formerly called Al Nusra Front) and its one-time ally turned nemesis, Islamic State. Jordan’s population, overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, is deeply conservative.
In June, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism released a report saying that, although Jordan had “sought to confront and weaken the violent idea that underpins [Islamic State] and other violent extremist organizations,” anti-extremist programs remain “under-resourced and staffed,” and that its leaders “are reticent to acknowledge domestic radicalization, including self-radicalization.”
In years past, the government has toughened its anti-terrorism laws, hauling in hundreds of Jordanians for the slightest connection to Islamic State, including spreading or liking its propaganda on social media.
Yet its critics accuse it of turning a blind eye to extremism and allowing Islamists to take over vital government ministries, including the Ministry of Education.
Hattar’s family also blamed the government for his death, saying it had informed the Ministry of Interior of the death threats and that the government had done nothing.
“This rat who killed Nahedh… represents the government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in its entirety. Who killed Nahedh Hattar was the prime minister on the first day when he put Nahedh on trial,” Hattar’s brother Majed said in a statement to a local news outlet, Khaberni.
The family refused to receive the body and hold a funeral, he added, until Mulki, the prime minister, “is fired and put on trial.”
Later in the day, Mulki offered the government’s resignation, in what was framed by government officials as a procedural move following parliamentary elections held on Tuesday.
King Abdullah, Jordan’s ruler, “asked the outgoing government to continue in a caretaker capacity until a royal decree approves the new government,” according to Petra.
A prominent blogger, Naseem Tarawneh, said in a post on Sunday on his blog, the Black Iris, that the government had to do more to counter “extremism’s raging fire.”
“It is no longer enough for the King to give a speech about national unity, or for the Queen to send out a tweet, or for the government, political parties, the Jordan Press Association, the Senate, and every other State entity to come out and merely condemn this,” he wrote.
Bulos is a special correspondent.
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3ae058857285bff3235b855c4afebf5f | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-jordan-pompeo-20180430-story.html | Secretary of State Pompeo urges Palestinians to return to peace dialogue with Israel, says U.S. ‘open to’ two-state solution | Secretary of State Pompeo urges Palestinians to return to peace dialogue with Israel, says U.S. ‘open to’ two-state solution
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo finished his whirlwind Middle East tour Monday with an emphasis on peacemaking efforts in the region.
Pompeo urged Palestinians to reengage in stalled talks seeking peace with Israel and called for a political resolution to the fighting in Syria, even as he excoriated Iran for what he described as its “malign influence” and activity in the area.
His comments came during a news conference in the Jordanian capital, Amman, after a meeting with Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister.
“We’re going to make progress on these key regional issues, and we will move forward to ensure a stable and safe Middle East,” Pompeo said.
Although he had not met with Palestinian officials during his multiday visit to the region, Pompeo urged that they return to “political dialogue” and insisted a resolution to the long-standing conflict with Israel was “an incredible priority” for the U.S.
“We’re certainly open to a [two-state] solution as a likely outcome,” said Pompeo.
He did not criticize Israel’s use of deadly force in dealing with mass protests near the Gaza border in recent weeks, where Israeli troops shot and killed 45 Palestinians and wounded thousands.
“We believe the Israelis have the right to defend themselves, and we’re fully supportive of that,” he said.
Pompeo, who served as CIA director before becoming secretary of State last week, said the U.S. had not taken a position “on boundaries or borders,” which he said would remain subject to negotiation.
In his introductory remarks, Safadi spoke of discussions between the U.S. and Jordan to “try to resolve many of the conflicts and crises that have denied peoples of the region the peace and stability and opportunity that they deserve.”
“Key to that, you know for us in Jordan,” he said, “is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
The two-state solution to help bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians is “being challenged,” said Safadi, but there is no other “viable alternative that we can sustain.”
Pompeo hailed a joint U.S., Russian and Jordanian de-escalation in southern Syria. The deal, which became effective in late 2017, set a cease-fire over southwestern Syria, where opposition rebels remain entrenched in areas near the Jordanian and Israeli borders.
Loyalist troops had sought to dislodge them, raising alarm in both Jordan and Israel regarding the presence of Iranian-backed militias near their territory.
Pompeo added that the U.S. and Jordan were “in perfect accord with respect to how to proceed with the objectives” in Syria.
“It is a Geneva-based process led by the U.N. to achieve a political resolution to continue to de-escalate the conflict so that we can begin to resolve all of the various political challenges that are faced there,” said Pompeo, referring to the years-long U.N.-brokered peace talks between the Syrian government and its adversaries.
Pompeo’s visit comes a few months after then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had visited the kingdom to sign a memorandum of understanding that guaranteed Jordan at least $6.27 billion over the next five years, as well as additional funds to deal with the influx of Syrian refugees.
“Support for Jordan’s security and stability is an important national interest of the United States,” Pompeo said. “We want the Jordanian people to know this.”
He also touched on what has been the primary thrust of his first international trip as secretary of State: countering Iran’s malign influence and activities in the region.
Iran has dispatched tens of thousands of fighters to bolster the troops of Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Western and regional leaders have warned that the Islamic Republic aims to establish a “land corridor” linking Tehran to Beirut through Iraq and Syria.
The escalating rhetoric against Iran came one day after a suspected Israeli missile strike on a number of bases in Syria were reported to have killed many pro-government fighters.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency quoted an unidentified military source Monday who said facilities in the provinces of Aleppo and Hama were struck in a “new aggression” overnight.
The source did not mention any casualties, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group based in Britain, said the missiles had struck an arms depot at Brigade 47, a base south of Hama province, killing 26 fighters. It added that the death toll could rise.
The semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency, citing local activists and sources, said 18 Iranians were killed in the attack. The report was later withdrawn, and Tasnim, a news agency affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, denied any casualties.
Bulos is a special correspondent.
Twitter: @nabihbulos
UPDATES:
1:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional comments and casualty reports.
This article was originally published at 7:35 a.m.
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eceae7006e7cba513267e5dac44f92f1 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-kurd-syria-islamic-state-20150126-story.html | Kurdish fighters in Syria near victory in battle with Islamic State | Kurdish fighters in Syria near victory in battle with Islamic State
Kurdish fighters in the Syrian border town of Kobani appeared poised Monday to deal a decisive defeat to Islamic State militants after months of street clashes and U.S. aerial bombardment, signaling a major setback for the extremist group.
The U.S. Central Command confirmed that anti-Islamic State forces now control about 90% of Kobani. Centcom congratulated the “courageous fighters” who confronted Islamic State forces in the town, which is on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey.
“Anti-ISIL forces have fought aggressively with resilience and fortitude,” Centcom said in a statement, using an acronym for Islamic State. “While the fight against ISIL is far from over, ISIL’s failure in Kobani has denied them one of their strategic objectives.”
Retaking control of Kobani would be a significant victory both for Kurdish forces and the Obama administration, which has unleashed a torrent of air strikes targeting Islamic State in the Kobani area as part of its strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Al Qaeda breakaway faction.
Ultimately, Kobani’s significance is more symbolic than strategic. Islamic State forces still hold sway over a vast area of Syria and neighboring Iraq -- and managed to sustain months of U.S. bombing before pulling back from Kobani. The militants also control border crossings leading to Turkey to the east and west of Kobani.
But the apparent breakthrough shows how U.S. air power, combined with a determined allied force on the ground, can successfully confront Islamic State.
The military watched with surprise as Islamic State continued sending hundreds of fighters, vehicles and weapons to Kobani, which was of no critical strategic importance to the overall fight but had become something of a public relations fight.
“Essentially, they said, ‘This is where we are going to make a stand’ and flooded the region with fighters,” said Col. Edward Sholtis, a spokesman for U.S. Air Force Central Command, in charge of air operations in the battle against the Islamic State.
Kobani, a one-time railroad terminus little known outside the region, emerged as a global rallying cry for all sides in a conflict pitting the U.S. and its allies against Islamic State. Last October, Islamic State forces appeared on the verge of overrunning the town, adding to their roster of victories.
On Monday, however, various activists indicated that Kurdish forces had recaptured virtually the entire town after four months of battle, often urban combat in debris-strewn streets and alleys where both sides deployed snipers.
“Kobani has no more Daesh,” said one pro-Kurdish official reached by telephone in Kobani, using the Arab name for Islamic State, also known as ISIS. “It’s been totally cleansed of Daesh,” added the official, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The Kurdish Rudaw news site quoted a Kurdish peshmerga commander on the scene saying that militants only remained in one small village attached to the city.
“Retaking that village is easy and today all of Kobani will be free,” the peshmerga commander, Muslih Zebari, told Rudaw.
In previous retreats, Islamic State forces have left behind booby-trapped homes and roadside bombs in an effort to slow advancing enemy forces.
There were reports of spontaneous celebrations in Kurdish areas of Syria and Turkey as word spread about the apparent Kurdish victory in Kobani, known as Ayn-al-Arab in Syria. Kobani became a major cause among Kurds in the region and in the Kurdish diaspora.
Four months of fighting have left the town along the Turkish border largely in ruins. The vast majority of Kobani’s 200,000 or so residents, mostly ethnic Kurds, fled months ago, most into Turkey. Many are now living in refugee camps.
There was no apparent letup in the aerial assault. U.S. Central Command said Monday that the U.S.-led coalition had conducted 17 more airstrikes near Kobani, targeting various Islamic State positions.
Bombers, fighter jets and drones with the U.S.-led coalition have relentlessly targeted Islamic State positions in and around Kobani since October, attacking the militants with more than 700 air strikes -- accounting for more than 70% of the almost 1,000 strikes to date on Syria. The barrage caused heavy losses and hindered Islamic State efforts to bring in reinforcements.
Television cameras stationed on the Turkish side of the border have broadcast now-signature images of giant plumes of smoke and debris rising into the sky following U.S. bombardment. Ethnic Kurds gathered on hillsides in Turkey with a view to Kobani regularly cheered the strikes.
The Pentagon has no other ground ally in Syria as effective as the Syrian Kurdish militiamen, a secular force that controls a relatively small slice of northern and eastern Syria. The Kurds have successfully fought off Islamic State and other Syrian rebel groups. The Syrian Kurds, who represent 10% to 15% of the Syrian population, say they are seeking greater autonomy and increased rights in their region.
Elsewhere in Syria, Islamic militants have largely come to dominate the various rebel factions fighting to topple the government of President Bashar Assad. The Obama administration is stepping up training of what it calls moderate Syrian rebels against Assad.
In Iraq, U.S. officials are hopeful that Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga and the Iraqi armed forces can eventually become effective partners in the battle against Islamic State. But experts say that will take time, possibly years, and that the militants’ defeat is not assured.
Bulos is a special correspondent. Times staff writer William Hennigan in Qatar contributed to this report.
Follow @mdcneville on Twitter for news from Iraq and Syria.
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1d39dde4f931f320ea6d0c2d0443238b | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-lebanon-syria-refugees-20170818-story.html | Lebanese town looks for relief after three tough years tied to Syrian civil war | Lebanese town looks for relief after three tough years tied to Syrian civil war
Ayman Hujairi’s stone quarry in the barren hills outside the town of Arsal on Lebanon’s northeast border closed its doors after fighting broke out between Syrian militant groups and the Lebanese army three years ago.
Then his stone-cutting factory, also shuttered, was looted of all its machines and equipment, down to the wiring.
For the record:
12:24 AM, Aug. 24, 2019An earlier version of this article reported that there were 1 million Syrian refugees in Arsal, Lebanon. There are 1 million Syrian refugees in the entire country of Lebanon.
But last month the Islamist group formerly known as Al Nusra Front was routed from the outskirts of Arsal. Hujairi and other residents are hoping life will return to normal for a town that has become emblematic of the destabilizing effects of the Syrian civil war next door.
“All the people living inside Arsal are just waiting for the factories to go back to work,” Hujairi said Friday, sipping strong Arabic coffee on the veranda of his home — its walls constructed from the rose and brown-patterned stone he used to mine and cut, known in Arabic as “tiger’s skin.”
The Syrian civil war was evident in Arsal from its beginning in 2011, as refugees began streaming across the nearby border and turning empty lots into makeshift encampments. Today, refugees outnumber Lebanese residents 2 to 1, with an estimated 80,000 refugees to 40,000 Lebanese citizens, the town’s mayor said.
In 2014, after extremist groups Islamic State and Al Nusra Front launched attacks on the Lebanese Army in the area, Arsal became representative of fears that the bloodshed next door would spill into Lebanon — and the town became a de facto prison to both the refugees and Lebanese residents.
The Lebanese Army cordoned off Arsal, making travel to and from the town cumbersome at best and impossible at worst. Aid groups were largely unable to reach the refugee camps.
The quarries, stone factories and orchards that had driven Arsal’s economy largely shut their doors.
The town’s isolation even extended to daily communications — the Army cut off access to mobile data networks in the area, in a bid to keep militant groups from accessing the Internet.
Now the town has become evidence of turning political tides in Syria and in Lebanon. Last month, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah — an Iran-backed group that supports the Syrian government — launched a military offensive that routed Nusra from Arsal.
The Lebanese army has since launched an operation against pockets of Islamic State fighters nearby. As of Friday, the only evidence in Arsal of that battle was an occasional boom in the distance.
But there was a more obvious sign of the town’s changing fortune: For the first time in three years, 3G networks had been restored.
Arsal’s mayor, Basil Hujairi, said soon the factories and quarries will also be able to reopen.
The fate of the town’s refugees is still an open question. The recent Hezbollah offensive ended in an agreement between Hezbollah and the rebel coalition Hayat Tahrir Sham that sent as many as 9,000 Syrian militants and civilian refugees back to so-called “safe zones” in Syria, while several thousand more civilian refugees fled from the areas controlled by the militants into the town of Arsal.
Another 3,000 Syrian fighters and refugees left this month under a separate deal worked out between Hezbollah and the moderate rebel group Saraya Ahl Sham, which was also operating in the area, raising fears in some quarters that the deals could herald a forced return of refugees from Lebanon to Syria.
Hezbollah supports Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Saraya Ahl Sham wants him removed from power.
Mayor Hujairi said negotiations are underway for another deal that would return about 1,000 refugees living in and around Arsal to Syria. He said the system would be voluntary.
“The only thing the municipality of Arsal wants is for the fighters to go out from Arsal, but as for the refugees, the municipality welcomes them,” Hujairi said. “No one is forcing them to leave.”
Like the refugees coming from Syria, the Lebanese population of Arsal is primarily Sunni Muslim, and the town’s government supports Lebanese political factions that oppose the Syrian regime — as do most of the refugees. Because of that, there has been less tension in Arsal than in some other areas of Lebanon. The country hosts more than 1 million Syrian refugees, while its own population was about 4 million before the Syrian war.
The mayor and factory owner said there had been no major tensions between the Syrians and Lebanese in the town. Fears that Islamic State sleeper cells might emerge in Arsal have not materialized.
On Friday, many of the tents in the informal refugee encampments scattered throughout the town were flying the Lebanese flag as a signal that their loyalties lie with their host country, not with the militant Islamist groups.
At the same time, Lebanese have complained about the influx of Syrians taking away already scarce jobs and business opportunities. The mayor noted that Syrian-operated stores sell goods for cheaper and undercut the Lebanese.
The owner of one of those stores, who asked to be identified only as Abu Aadel because of concerns about his safety, said even with the business, he can barely make ends meet.
Although he and his brother run a women’s clothing store in the center of downtown Arsal, Abu Aadel still lives in a tent provided by the United Nations refugee agency, for which he pays about $50 a month in rent to the landowner. He said he can’t afford the $250 monthly rent for an apartment on top of the $200 a month he pays for the storefront.
Like many refugees in Arsal, Abu Aadel said he is not yet prepared to consider going back to his home town, Qusayr, which he fled in 2013.
“I will think about going back when the Syrian Army gets out of Qusayr,” he said.
The Lebanese residents also remain cautious in their hopes that better days are coming for Arsal.
“There is security now, but thing are not normal yet,” said the factory owner, Hujairi. “When I start work again, I will feel that the situation is normal.”
Sewell is a special correspondent.
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8eee430e2da9319b0155b5391779e906 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-lebanon-trash-protests-20150826-story.html | Protesters raise a stink as Lebanon’s garbage crisis worsens | Protesters raise a stink as Lebanon’s garbage crisis worsens
Protesters took to the streets Wednesday in Lebanon’s capital, where demonstrations over uncollected trash have grown into a movement calling for the fall of the government.
Beirut has been shaken by daily unrest since the weekend, when security personnel deployed tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to break up two massive demonstrations. Enraged protesters retaliated with barrages of rocks. Hundreds of injuries were reported on both sides.
The campaign known as “You Stink” was sparked by the government’s inability to handle waste disposal in the capital, where trash has been piling up since the main landfill was closed more than a month ago. It has since escalated into a wholesale rejection of Lebanon’s sectarian-based power-sharing system.
Shifting alliances between Lebanon’s 18 recognized religious sects have often paralyzed the parliament, which has been unable to elect a president for more than a year, even as it extended its own term to 2017 in a move condemned by critics as unconstitutional.
A full-blown sectarian war in neighboring Syria and a refugee crisis with no end in sight have exacerbated internal division, leaving the unity government seemingly powerless to address an array of indignities endured by its citizens, including electricity cuts, water shortages and some of the worst violence since Lebanon’s own 1975-90 war.
“The trash issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Prime Minister Tammam Salam said at a televised news conference Sunday at Grand Serail, the government’s Ottoman-era headquarters in Beirut’s glitzy commercial district. “But the story is larger, much larger than this straw, and it is the story of the political trash in the country.”
NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>
The protesters have been demanding Salam’s resignation, a move he hinted he might make if an emergency parliamentary session planned for Thursday doesn’t yield a solution to the crisis.
Demonstrators, meanwhile, have stationed themselves less than half a mile away, chanting slogans like “Revolution!” and a call made famous by the Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region in 2011: “The people want the regime to fall.”
“Look at us, we’re four guys here, all in our 20s, and none of us have any work,” said Wael, who joined the crowd late Tuesday with three friends. Like others, he refused to give his last name, citing security concern.
“Then you talk about water, electricity and now garbage! Why wouldn’t we come down here to protest?”
Nearby stood Hadi, a 45-year-old bank employee with a shaved head and wrestler-like build.
“My work frowns upon us participating in these demonstrations, but my daughter insists we come,” he said.
At his side was his daughter, Rawan, a shy 13-year-old with a bandanna tied under a pair of large, thick-framed black glasses.
“I want to participate in this for Lebanon and remove the trash from this country,” she said.
The protests have repeatedly teetered into chaos, with security forces sprinting toward the crowds with clubs flailing when a firecracker, water bottle or rock is thrown their way. Organizers have tried to keep the peace, often chasing down and castigating violent demonstrators themselves.
“We want this to be a peaceful demonstration, because the security services are just waiting to pounce on us under orders from these politicians,” said Nemat Badr al-Din, 34, an activist who was taking a moment’s rest after placating a shouting policeman.
Many of the participants blame much of the violence on young men they describe as “infiltrators” in the employ of Amal, a Shiite Muslim political faction.
On Monday, organizers declared that they would postpone the day’s rally until Saturday, incurring the derision of others who said the so-called infiltrators were nothing more than people from lower-income neighborhoods with more reason to be angry than most.
They “told me how electricity hasn’t come to their house in ages, how they’ve been out of a job for years ... and experienced police brutality many times before the protest even started,” activist Karim Badra wrote in a Facebook post that was widely circulated Tuesday.
See the most-read stories this hour >>
“One of them screamed at me with his face flushed red and asked if asking for food makes him an ‘infiltrator.’”
The crisis began after the government closed down Beirut’s main landfill without identifying a new site, prompting the private company in charge of waste management to declare that it would no longer empty dumpsters in the city and its suburbs.
That company’s contract has now expired. But on Tuesday, Cabinet ministers unanimously rejected the winning bids to handle waste disposal in Lebanon’s six governorates, citing costs and questions about the selection process.
Politicians who have tried to ride the wave of popular anger have been met with derision.
“What is this state that casts its trash on people and then casts its bullets upon them when they object?” Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil wrote on his Facebook page Saturday.
“Shut up and resign then!!” a commentator responded.
Bulos is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Alexandra Zavis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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0ddd0fbf61e3a415ba5acdff533b35f4 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-libya-explainer-20180905-story.html | 7 years after it was ‘liberated,’ the only thing certain in Libya is the uncertainty | 7 years after it was ‘liberated,’ the only thing certain in Libya is the uncertainty
Dozens of people have been killed after days of violent clashes in the suburbs of Tripoli, with rival militias fighting fierce street battles for control of the Libyan capital.
The upheaval is the latest setback in the long running and highly chaotic effort to cobble together a government and restore stability after strongman Moammar Kadafi was toppled from power during the height of the “Arab Spring” in 2011.
Since Kadafi was ousted, dozens of militias and an Islamic State affiliate have engaged in turf wars for control of Libya’s cities, even as countries including France, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey and Egypt tried to intervene — their efforts usually only fueling the turmoil.
But the latest conflict is less about government authority than a power play for resources.
WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW
Last week, a militia calling itself the 7th Brigade mobilized from its base in Tarhunah, a city about 40 miles southeast of Tripoli, and stormed the capital’s southern suburbs.
Billing itself as Libya’s “national army,” it attacked local militias working with the internationally recognized Government of National Accord, or GNA, and accused them of taking “public money” and “stealing people’s livelihoods.”
In response, the GNA ordered factions from neighboring towns to come to its defense. It also declared a state of emergency, saying the attacks threatened the security of the capital and safety of its citizens.
Despite two truce agreements (which were almost immediately violated), the fighting left almost 50 people dead and 130 others injured in the last week, the World Health Organization said Monday.
More than 1,800 families have fled their homes and thousands more are expected to follow if the clashes intensify, the country’s Ministry of Displaced People’s Affairs reported. Those who remain risk being trapped in the midst of the violence.
Adding to the chaos, 400 inmates on Sunday broke out of Ain Zara, a prison in Tripoli, and the city’s only functioning airport was closed.
On Saturday, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N.’s secretary general, decried the violence around the capital and the indiscriminate shelling by armed groups that seemed to be targeting civilians, including children.
Echoing the U.N., the United States, France, Italy and Britain issued a joint statement Saturday condemning the attacks.
“These attempts to weaken the legitimate Libyan authorities and hamper the course of the political process are not acceptable,” the statement read. “We urge armed groups to immediately cease all military actions and warn those who tamper with security in Tripoli or elsewhere in Libya that they will be held accountable for any such actions.”
A day later, the U.N. invited “concerned parties” to hold “an urgent dialog” on Tuesday.
Ghassan Salame, the representative of the U.N.’s secretary general in the country, arrived on Tuesday for what the U.N. described as a “meeting on the security situation.” Later, it declared Salame had brokered a cease-fire agreement “to end all hostilities, protect civilians, safeguard public and private property + reopen [Mitiga] Airport in #Tripoli #Libya.”
But it’s unclear how long the truce will hold up.
HOW DID IT COME TO THIS
Little has been straightforward in Libya since the overthrow of Kadafi, who ruled the country for almost 42 years before he was pushed from power in a revolt backed by a North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign, with the U.S., France and Britain in the lead.
Kadafi was later killed and the rebels declared Libya’s “total liberation.”
Instead, the country descended into chaos. Various groups, divided by tribal, regional, ideological and linguistic considerations, vied for power and frustrated repeated attempts to pull together a functioning government.
Eventually, two rival authorities emerged, each with its own state institutions.
The GNA, which has U.N. backing, controls the country’s western regions while the east is in the hands of the House of Representatives, the other government led by strongman Khalifa Haftar. (Islamic State also had a presence near the town of Surt and a slice of the country’s Mediterranean coast until 2015, when Haftar launched an offensive and scattered the jihadis.)
Last year, France shepherded a political plan that called for both governments to establish a framework for elections that would be held this December. It is unclear whether the elections will held.
In the meantime, the lawlessness in the country and its proximity to Europe, have made it a transit point for thousands of migrants.
WHAT’S IT LIKE IN TRIPOLI?
In Tripoli, multiple rounds of fighting have resulted in four militias affiliated with the GNA being put in charge of the capital’s security. But that relative stability has come at a price. According to a recent report by the Small Arms Survey, the de facto security forces have now morphed into a “functioning cartel” with powerful links to politicians and influential business executives.
The effect on Tripoli’s residents has been profound, with the militia controlling ports, airports, oil infrastructure and banks. It also impacted the availability of food, medicines and even currency.
“Withdrawing what is worth $50 of money from a bank has become a dream for citizens,” wrote Libyan commentator Abdul Razzaq Sarqan on the Libya al Khabar website on Tuesday.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
As rival forces continue to assemble around Tripoli and its environs, European governments, particularly Italy, fear the unrest could unleash another wave of migrants.
Meanwhile, the GNA is desperate to safeguard its presence, even from some of its supposed allies; GNA head Fayez Serraj has given militias loyal to his government until the end of the month to help secure Tripoli and then leave the capital.
But Haftar, with Egypt behind him, may take advantage of the chaos to sweep away his opponents and take over the government, analysts say.
nabih.bulos@latimes.com
Twitter: @nabihbulos
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57d53f1274a90b89618510988143c010 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-middle-east-cnn-scum-tweet-20140717-story.html | CNN reassigns reporter who referred to harassing Israelis as ‘scum’ | CNN reassigns reporter who referred to harassing Israelis as ‘scum’
A CNN journalist on the Israel-Gaza border who created controversy Thursday when she tweeted that Israelis who could be heard cheering while a presumed rocket was landing in Gaza were “scum” has been reassigned.
Diana Magnay has been moved to Moscow, a CNN spokeswoman told The Times in an email Friday.
After a report on Israeli troops moving into Gaza, CNN international correspondent Magnay tweeted, “Israelis on the hill above Sderot as bombs land on Gaza; threatened to ‘destroy our car if I said wrong word’. Scum”
The tweet was deleted a short time later, but people were alreadyattacking Magnay for the comment.
During her report, Magnay described the scene from the border: “It is an astonishing, macabre and awful thing to watch this display of fire in the air.”
Later, CNN and Magnay, in a statement, apologized for the tweet.
“After being threatened and harassed before and during a live shot, Diana reacted angrily on Twitter,” a CNN spokeswoman said in an email. “She deeply regrets the language used, which was aimed directly at those who had been targeting our crew.”
After 10 days of artillery exchanges with Palestinian militants, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered ground troops into the Gaza Strip on Thursday night, escalating a conflict that has claimed more than 220 lives, all but one of them Palestinian.
Under cover of darkness, tanks rolled across the northwestern border of the coastal enclave, backed by intense shelling from the air and sea, witnesses said.
Follow @theryanparker and @jpanzar for breaking news
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0fdcba3f5117c134df96ae02e44c2ded | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-fighting-20140309-story.html | Syria government forces seize strategic town near Lebanon border | Syria government forces seize strategic town near Lebanon border
BEIRUT — After weeks of fighting, the Syrian military has wrested control of a rebel-held town near the Lebanese border in the strategic province of Homs, military and opposition representatives said Saturday.
The seizure of Zara, close to the main highway linking Homs city to the Mediterranean coast, is the latest reported government advance in its effort to seal the porous border with Lebanon, long a conduit for antigovernment fighters and arms.
In a statement, the Syrian military hailed the seizure of Zara, which “had been used as a main passage for the terrorist groups that would come from Lebanon and head to neighboring areas to carry out their criminal operations.”
The Syrian government routinely refers to rebels as “terrorists” and “mercenaries.”
Syrian state media said that “large numbers” of " terrorists” were killed in the takeover of Zara and that 30 gunmen had surrendered to authorities and handed over their weapons.
A Britain-based pro-opposition group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed that Zara fell “after violent battles that lasted days.”
Syrian authorities had regarded rebel-held Zara as an especially difficult obstacle because of the presence there of well-armed Islamist rebels affiliated with various militant factions. Last month, a pro-government official in the region showed visiting journalists from The Times images on his cellphone said to depict rebel forces in Zara brandishing the severed heads of government loyalists.
Zara, along with several other towns and the historic Crusader castle of the Krak des Chevaliers, has formed the last remaining rebel-held patch of western Homs province.
Both the Syrian military and opposition websites reported the government takeover of Zara, which has a large population of Turkmens, ethnic Turks who are mostly Sunni Muslims. Syria’s Sunni majority has spearheaded the revolt against the government of President Bashar Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
The Syrian civil war, now approaching its third anniversary, has taken on a sectarian character, especially in Homs, a central province that has a volatile mix of Sunni, Alawite, and Christian populations.
On Thursday, the government said that “terrorists” had detonated a car bomb in a largely Armenian Christian neighborhood in Homs city, killing at least 15 people.
The fall of Zara, coupled with the military’s recent advances in the mountainous Qalamoun region to the southeast, solidifies the government’s gains in its long campaign to secure the Lebanese-Syrian border as well as highways linking Damascus, the capital, to Syria’s central and coastal provinces.
On Saturday, reports indicated that the government had pressed closer to another strategic rebel-held town, Yabroud, about 60 miles southeast of Zara. The opposition has reported days of heavy shelling and aerial bombardment of Yabroud, 35 miles east of the Lebanese border.
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
Bulos is a special correspondent.
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82a71a0dcb3df64ec212fb0bcf982ac7 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-migrants-jordan-20151231-story.html | Fleeing Syria: At a refugee camp in Jordan, lives are in limbo | Fleeing Syria: At a refugee camp in Jordan, lives are in limbo
The child is inconsolable. She clings to her grandmother, who knows what the girl may only sense: that this could be their final embrace, here at a makeshift bus station on the fringes of a refugee metropolis.
Passengers grimly board the waiting bus. The driver, unaccountably jovial, shakes his head as he tosses bulging backpacks, duffel bags and suitcases into the baggage compartment.
“Please don’t take too much with you,” he says, knowing few will heed him.
Luggage will only complicate matters when crossing the border and negotiating rebel lines — tense moments, sometimes punctuated with sniper rounds and mortar shells.
The little girl is named Ayaa; she is 18 months old, and her grandmother is leaving. Her father, Nour al Din Dakhl Allah, his eyes red, finally wrenches her from the arms of his mother-in-law.
“Say goodbye,” he whispers. “Wish your grandmother the best.”
This bus stop on the edge of a refugee camp in the Jordanian desert has become a bleak way station in the story of Syria’s long-running civil war. Tens of thousands of migrants have streamed in since the worst of the violence began in 2012. But even with the war still raging, many have been boarding buses to go back.
A few have funerals to attend; some are homesick, or keen to reunite with loved ones. But for others, the ongoing saga of death and mayhem at home has become less unbearable than life in this camp, with its boredom and impermanence, its safe, clustered dwellings that belong to no one.
Soon, the matriarch boards the bus and looks out through the bus window, her features distorted in the smudged glass. The senseless death of another grandchild, across the border in Syria, has necessitated her doleful journey back.
Ayaa keeps her eyes fixed on the bus.
“Her grandmother reared her,” explains the father. His daughter flails her arms toward the blurry figure in the bus window.
The father leaves the bus depot and puts the girl on the handlebars of his bicycle, which kicks up dust as he pushes it deep into the warren of the camp.
::
From its highest perch, Zaatari camp extends into the distance like a shimmering mirage. White cubicles and canvas tents with blue United Nations lettering advance in orderly columns bisected by dirt lanes. Beyond the fences lies a desolate landscape of parched scrub and brown earth stretching to the horizon.
Nowhere else in the world are Syrian refugees so densely packed as in Zaatari, where 79,000 people occupy slightly more than two square miles of barren terrain. If it were a city, it would be Jordan’s fourth largest.
While international attention has focused on Syrians fleeing to Europe, relatively few of the 4 million who have left since 2011 can afford the smuggling fees and other expenses needed to get there. Most have settled in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, each of which houses more than 1 million displaced Syrians.
The great majority live not in formal camps, but crammed into apartments, homes and ad hoc dwellings, struggling to pay rent and feed families adrift. In a sense, those in Zaatari, overseen by the U.N., are the fortunate ones.
The camp has evolved since its founding in July 2012 from an anarchic assemblage of tents to an orderly, midsize city, infused with entrepreneurial zeal. It has two field hospitals, two supermarkets, nine schools, nine clinics, more than 80 mosques and more than 3,000 shops.
There are vegetable stands and cellphone kiosks, bicycle repair outlets and bakeries, restaurants, barbershops, beauty salons and wedding boutiques. Some shops have caged songbirds outside, a common ornament in Syria.
Mothers push strollers along the Champs Elysees, as the bustling main commercial drag is known. Each week, 80 babies are born.
These days, hardly anyone in Zaatari sleeps in tents, but rather in prefabricated trailers with satellite dishes and jury-rigged electrical wiring. Communal kitchens and shared sanitary facilities, which residents rejected, have given way to family-built toilets and simple kitchens with gas stoves in each home.
Compared with the hovels where many refugees live in Lebanon, Zaatari offers five-star accommodation. But there is no escaping the claustrophobia. Residents are fenced in. They can leave only with permission from Jordanian authorities.
As much as they can, people in the camp have struggled to re-create their lives in Syria.
“When I first got here, I didn’t know what to do,” recalls Ali Saleh Jibraail, 36, who ran a falafel shop in Damascus’ Midan district, scene of heavy fighting in 2012.
Much of Midan, including Jibraail’s falafel stand, was destroyed. Jibraail and many residents fled south to Jordan.
“I realized there was a demand here, so I decided to do what I knew to do best: falafel,” says Jibraail.
Now he is known as Abu Abdullah, and his shop, open seven days a week, is a favored hangout for both residents and camp staff, including international aid workers and Jordanian police officers. He’s known throughout the camp for his version of falafel.
With proceeds from his bustling food stand, Jibraail could have arranged for his family — two wives, two daughters, four sons — to make the journey to Europe. But he thought the trek too hazardous. Besides, he says, life here is not so intolerable.
“The main problem here is that there’s not enough work for people, not enough to do,” Jibraail says. “I employ as many as I can, but most people have nothing to do, even if their basic needs are taken care of.”
He escorts a pair of visitors to his modular home, a block away. He has replaced the drab white front with a multi-hued facade suggesting a substantial, if rustic, Syrian abode. Inside, he is building a fountain of blue tile, like the ones that tinkle in the courtyards of Syrian villas.
::
Across the Champs Elysees, in a side street of identical white modules, Ibrahim Hariri and his family reflect on their more than three years at Zaatari. They are members of the prominent Hariri tribe from southern Syria’s Dara province, where most of Zaatari’s residents have their roots. More than 3,000 members of the Hariri clan now live in the camp, relatives said.
Like other extended families here, many have arranged their trailers to be near loved ones, creating tight-knit, self-supporting hamlets amid the camp’s sprawl.
“I would go back in a minute if I could,” says Hariri, 62, a retired policeman.
When he and loved ones fled three years ago, he says, “we expected to be gone for one month. Now all these years later, we are still here. Maybe I will go back soon.”
His mother, 85, and father, 90, are here, along with six children and 26 grandchildren. They all live nearby, mostly in adjoining cubicles. Like so many others, he complains of boredom and a sense of being penned in. He passes the days chatting with relatives, catching up on family gossip and sharing the latest news from Syria.
“To some extent we have managed to re-create the life we had in Syria,” says Hariri, wearing sandals and a beige smock. A red-and-white checked scarf is wrapped around his head. “To be truthful, I don’t feel comfortable when I leave the camp anymore. I want to be back.”
All here have seen the televised images of Syrians packed into boats bound for Europe — and of the often tragic aftermath as flimsy craft capsized at sea.
His son, Mutaa Hariri, 35, draws on a water pipe in the family residence, where carpets cover the floor. “If we had a chance to go legally, say to Canada or to Europe, of course we would go,” he says. “But we saw the pictures of the bodies of drowned kids washing up on shore. We don’t want that to happen to our children.”
Outside, children with blue backpacks imprinted with UNICEF logos are arriving home from school. Fayza Hariri, Ibrahim’s wife, hugs several of her grandchildren. “I want them all before me,” she says.
::
These days, the predictability of camp life contrasts dramatically with a daily drama unfolding at the camp’s small transport depot, where the buses leave for Syria.
Last summer, at the height of the migrant crisis, as many as 500 people a week boarded the buses. Some, despairing of any future in Jordan, elect to go home, whatever the risk. But many others are bound for Europe via Turkey, preferring to travel through Syria, with all the risks, rather than buy expensive plane tickets from Amman to Istanbul.
U.N. personnel try to dissuade everyone from returning.
“We tell them it’s not safe to go to Syria,” said Sophie Etzold, U.N. associate protection officer at Zaatari. “But we can’t force them to stay. At the end of the day it is their decision.”
::
Summar Obeid, 25, arrives at the depot with her four children, three boys and a girl, and three huge bundles of belongings. She is wearing a thick glaze of makeup, heels, a well-cut black dress. Her hand is festooned with henna tattoos.
This is a big day, but not one she has looked forward to. Obeid is going back to Syria to be reunited with her husband, whom she hasn’t seen in five years. But to do it she must pull her children from the safety of the camp.
“My husband doesn’t know his son,” she says, pointing to 5-year-old Laith. “He left when Laith was only 13 days old.”
Jordanian authorities refused entry to her husband for security reasons, a common problem here. Many men whose families have fled Syria have served with armed militias. Jordan is keen to keep the conflict on the other side of the border.
“I’m cut through with fear, but what else can I do?” Obeid says. “The children need to know their father.”
Also making the trip with six of his nine children is Yasser Massalmeh, a 40-year-old truck driver.
For years, he and his six brothers made a living trucking produce through the region, mostly hauling vegetables from Jordan to Iraq, until it became too dangerous. He and his brothers sold their trucks, and he is going home to Dara.
“I know it’s dangerous,” he says, fingering worry beads. “There’s bombing all the time. Everyone is there. Al Qaeda, Russia, Hezbollah.”
He plans to throw up some tents on a family plot and try to wait out the war in the countryside, planting crops for food.
“I’d rather live in a tent in Syria than in a tent here,” he says.
::
This is the same bus that will carry Fayzeh Qaddah, the grandmother of little Ayaa Dakhl Allah, back to Syria. The family fled their village in Dara in the spring of 2012.
Qaddah’s daughter Nawal was distraught over her mother’s departure. “Who is happy to see someone return to the place of death?” she said.
Qaddah’s return was prompted by the death of her 4-year-old grandson, Mohammed, who had been run over by a water truck.
Only a few months before, another grandson, Safwan, 9, had been asleep in his bed as rebels fired celebratory rounds.
A stray bullet struck him in the head. He never regained consciousness.
Nawal Qaddah has no illusions about life on the other side.
“Of course, we’d all love to go back to Syria,” she says. “But what if a shell comes and splits our children in two? What would we do then?”
Zaatari may be imperfect. But for now it will remain home, because home — the Syria she left — is a place that exists now only in collective memory.
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
Special correspondent Nabih Bulos contributed to this report.
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9b1cbf97f4571b7fb5df37359729ecff | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-palmyra-20160326-story.html | The battle for Palmyra will reveal how much damage was done to Syria’s priceless relics | The battle for Palmyra will reveal how much damage was done to Syria’s priceless relics
Syrian pro-government forces battled their way Friday into the outer areas of the city of Palmyra, the archaeological metropolis held by Islamic State militants since May of last year, as part of a punishing month-long drive to wrest control of the city and surrounding areas from the extremist group.
Syrian state television broadcast images of soldiers backed by armored units advancing toward the city as Syrian and Russian helicopters and warplanes pounded militant positions ahead of the troops. The state news agency said army units and allied fighters had retaken the ancient citadel, a 13th century castle perched atop a city whose 2,000-year-old antiquities have become some of the most devastating casualties of the occupation.
Some opposition activists disputed the extent of the gains, and fierce fighting was still underway, but it appeared clear that Russian airpower was helping turn the tide in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s push to recapture large swaths of territory that have been declared part of Islamic State’s caliphate.
Moscow earlier this month said it would withdraw most of its forces from Syria, but President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that recapturing Palmyra remains a crucial objective.
“I hope that this pearl of world civilization, or at least what’s left of it after bandits have held sway there, will be returned to the Syrian people and the entire world,” Putin said.
A UNESCO World Heritage site, Palmyra was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world; its storied ruins include more than 1,000 columns, a Roman aqueduct and a necropolis of more than 500 tombs.
Drone footage released by Russian media outlets Friday showed that many of the city’s columns and arches had been spared from destruction. Yet it also confirmed the potentially irreparable damage inflicted upon the temple of Baalshamin and the heart of the temple of Bel.
The city’s loss to Islamic State in May was a key setback for Syrian government forces. Overstretched troops, unable to hold ground across a variety of fronts, were forced to give up the city to defend provinces considered more essential to the government’s survival.
But Palmyra’s recapture would yield more than just a morale boost; The city lies along an important thoroughfare, the M20 highway, connecting the capital to government-held areas in the eastern desert.
Retaking the city would also mean access to Palmyra airport, several weapons depots and the oil and gas facilities stretching from central Homs province into the eastern province of Deir Al-Zor.
The assault on Palmyra came as government forces in neighboring Iraq began the early stages of a separate offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, captured by Islamic State in June 2014.
The semiofficial Iraqiya News network reported Thursday that Iraqi pro-government troops declared “the launch of the first phase of the conquest operation to liberate Ninawa province,” of which Mosul is the capital. Analysts say the campaign to retake Mosul, a city of more than 1 million, could drag on for months.
The tide in Palmyra began to turn on Thursday, when pro-government forces secured the southwest entrance of the city and parts of the hotel district nearby.
Opposition activists confirmed reports of the government’s advance but denied that Syrian forces had entered the city itself. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a watchdog with a network of activists on the ground in Syria, said pro-government forces had also taken areas north of the city.
Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman warned in a phone interview Thursday that any move into the city itself would be a difficult fight, with scores of mines planted around the city. Government forces are also hampered by the need to protect the ruins.
“Advances will be slower now because the regime forces can’t use any heavy weaponry for fear of damaging the archaeological sites,” said Abdul Rahman.
“It’s a street fight among the ruins, and there are very violent clashes there right now,” he said.
Opposition activists reported that Islamic State had ordered civilians to evacuate the city.
“There are no more residents in the city. [Islamic State] told them to leave,” said Abu Majd Tadmuri, an activist with the Tadmur Coordination Committee who uses a nickname for security reasons.
He added that residents, thought to number anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000, had made their way toward Raqqah, the de facto capital of Islamic State, more than 100 miles northeast of Palmyra.
The evacuations seemed to be corroborated by a video released on Thursday by Aamaq, Islamic State’s unofficial news agency. It showed a pickup driving through the streets of an abandoned Palmyra, its streets devoid of life and its storefronts shuttered. It also showed a bearded militant sitting atop the rusting hulk of a tank, voicing a threat to Putin.
“And we say to Putin, Allah permitting, no matter how much you all rally, and no matter of how much you amass against this blessed state, we will be victorious against those disbelievers,” said the fighter, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, a monitor of jihadi groups.
Islamic State marked its reign in Palmyra early in the occupation by using the city’s magnificent theater, once home to a music festival, to stage a gruesome mass execution of army soldiers left behind.
Militants blew up many of the city’s irreplaceable monuments, obliterating the magnificent Arch of Triumph, the temple of Baalshamin and the Temple of Bel, a unique structure dating from 32 A.D. — even while doing a brisk illegal trade in artifacts small enough to be smuggled across Syria’s borders.
In August, the group beheaded Khaled Assad, retired director of Palmyra’s antiquities and museum, before crucifying his mutilated corpse on a traffic light pole in the center of town.
Islamic State enforces a harsh interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, which counts monuments as sites of pagan worship.
UNESCO described the carnage as “an intolerable crime against civilization.”
Maamoun Abdel Karim, head of Syria’s antiquities and museums department, said he is hoping for “a fast operation” to liberate the city.
“Our hope is that the battle will end today or tomorrow and it will be the end of the misery we endured for ten months,” he said in a telephone interview from Damascus. “Its liberation will be one of the most beautiful moments of my life.” He said he is eager to go to Palmyra and assess the damage to the artifacts.
“We’re just waiting for the liberation to happen, and then we’ll visit the site to see the nature of the damage and their type and what we can undertake an emergency repair plan,” he said.
Bulos is a special correspondent.
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798bed32bdaf4e0eead39f3ea6a6939b | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-peace-talks-20160314-story.html | As Syrian peace talks near, Bashar Assad’s future remains a sticking point | As Syrian peace talks near, Bashar Assad’s future remains a sticking point
A new round of Syrian peace talks, unfolding as the nation’s conflict marks its fifth year, opens Monday in Geneva with both sides as deadlocked as ever on a core issue: the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Sunday called the renewed talks “a moment of truth.”
The talks are beginning as a fragile, 2-week-old “cessation of hostilities” holds in Syria, reducing violence by 80% to 90%, according to the U.S. State Department. The partial cease-fire represents the most sustained curb in violence since the conflict erupted in March 2011.
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The limited truce has also allowed for deliveries of food and other humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Syrians in besieged communities, the United Nations says.
The conflict has left much of Syria in ruins, destabilized neighboring nations, and forced almost half the country’s prewar population of 23 million from their homes, spurring Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II. Estimated death tolls range from at least 200,000 to more than 300,000.
The war also produced a new generation of Sunni Muslim militants who pose a global threat.
Diplomats view both the limited cease-fire and resumed aid deliveries as key confidence-builders that could provide momentum to a long-stalled negotiations process.
But even before the scheduled start of the U.N.-sponsored negotiations, the opposition and Damascus have staked out apparently irreconcilable positions on Assad’s fate.
The main opposition bloc in Geneva, the Saudi-based High Negotiations Committee, has made it clear that it views Assad’s departure as obligatory for any move toward a U.N. blueprint for a “transitional” government in Syria.
“We consider that the transitional period starts with the fall of Bashar al Assad or his death,” Mohammed Alloush, the committee’s chief negotiator, told reporters Saturday in Geneva.
In Damascus, the government declared that Assad’s future was not up for negotiation, and chided Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special envoy, for suggesting that new presidential balloting should be held within 18 months.
“Neither he [the U.N. envoy] nor anyone else has the right to talk about presidential elections,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said at a news conference in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
The fundamental dispute about Assad’s future helped scuttle U.N.-backed talks two years ago in Switzerland. Last month, a new series of Geneva talks was suspended before substantive talks ever began. Many are skeptical that this week’s sessions will be any more successful.
Still, a generalized sense is evident among many diplomats that the war has gone on too long and done far too much damage — fanning the European refugee crisis and producing Islamic State, the Al Qaeda breakaway faction that controls territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq. Islamic State has been linked to deadly attacks in Paris; Ankara, Turkey; and Beirut, as well as the downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt.
“All of us have come here united in our deep belief that the Syrian civil war must end,” Kerry said during a meeting in Paris on Sunday with a number of his European counterparts. “It is our sense that this is a moment of truth.”
In recent months, the Obama administration has modified its demands that Assad step down at the start of any interim governing process, conceding that he may remain on the scene for some indeterminate period, though he would have to leave office eventually, the U.S. says. In December, Kerry declared in Moscow that the United States was not seeking “regime change” in Damascus.
In Paris, Kerry blamed Damascus for trying to sabotage the talks, but said the process must go forward. Both Russia and Iran, key patrons of the Syrian government, have backed the need for a political “transition” and new presidential elections in Syria, Kerry noted.
Not included in the ongoing cease-fire in Syria is Al Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and Islamic State. Hard-line Islamist factions have come to dominate the armed opposition fighting to overthrow Assad’s secular administration.
Significantly, the Syrian cease-fire was brokered by officials in Moscow and Washington, who put pressure on their surrogate forces on the ground. Foreign sponsors will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting if a peace process is to be moved forward, analysts say.
“Expecting Syrians to come to terms among themselves is not productive,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. “The ideological, political differences between them are too great.”
The Russian air offensive that began last fall has decisively shifted much of the battle in Assad’s favor, giving Damascus less incentive to negotiate, many analysts say. In the opposition camp, many still seem to harbor hope that some kind of foreign intervention on their behalf may allow for a battlefield victory, however unlikely at this point.
The resumed talks will be “proximity talks,” in which U.N. interlocutors visit the rival negotiating teams set up in different venues at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva. A political transition in Syria is at the top of the agenda, the U.N. says.
If the talks collapse, Kerry has hinted at a vague “Plan B,” possibly involving a partition of Syria — something that no major bloc in the multi-sided war has publicly backed.
“It may be too late to keep it as a whole Syria if we wait much longer,” Kerry told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations committee last month.
But De Mistura has said more violence would be the likely outcome should the talks falter.
“The Plan B as far as we can see is just a continuation of a horrible conflict that goes on and on,” De Mistura said in an interview with the English-language division of Al Jazeera, the satellite network. “And you know who will be the real victims — the Syrian people.”
Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed to this report.
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f8b536012ee530be81e749f9b05747ea | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-russia-20170406-story.html | Russia has been Assad’s greatest ally — as it was to his father before him | Russia has been Assad’s greatest ally — as it was to his father before him
Before the White House ordered airstrikes in Syria, Russia had been the most dominant outside military force, participating in a bloody military escapade aimed at propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad and his government.
Since the fall of 2015, Russia has launched airstrikes on opposition strongholds, deployed special forces units on the ground, and supplied Syrian government troops with food and medical aid. And this intervention has been critical to ensuring Assad’s political survival.
“The regime was on the verge of collapse,” said Matthew Rojansky, director of the Washington-based Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center and an expert on U.S. relations with the states of the former Soviet Union. “Assad had lost almost everything. He was really on the ropes. Compare that to today, when he’s even been emboldened enough to use chemical weapons, and it’s clear the effect Russia’s assistance has had in the last year and a half.”
It “has really enabled the Syrian armed forces to reverse the loses they were suffering at that point,” said Daniel Treisman, a professor of political science at UCLA, whose work includes a focus on Russian politics and economics and comparative political economy. “Russian military involvement has succeeded in at least temporarily stabilizing the situation, allowing the Assad regime to win back territory that had been taken by the rebels.”
Russia also succeeded at stymieing any U.S. or NATO intentions to impose a no-fly zone in opposition-held territory, thereby limiting the West’s options for intervening had it chosen to do so, Treisman said.
Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened in order “to draw a line in the sand against uprisings that had American and Western sympathy,” said Rojansky. “He wanted to prevent that from happening in Syria.”
An opportunistic intrusion
The Kremlin’s decision to defend Syria was not purely to help Assad, analysts said. The move was largely to benefit Moscow.
Syria is important to Russia for several reasons, said Andrew Parasiliti, director of the Center for Global Risk and Security at the Rand Corporation. These include the country’s strategic geographic location in the heart of the Middle East; Russia’s naval base in the Syrian port city of Tartus, which allows access to the Mediterranean; the Hmeimim Air Base currently operated by the Russians; and the Assad regime’s role in helping to counter terrorism from jihadists who could inspire Islamist extremists on Russia’s doorstep in Central Asia, Parasiliti said.
“Putin thought that a victory in Damascus for forces he considers terrorists would be a huge victory for Islamist terrorists in the Middle East,” said Treisman, the UCLA expert.
Also, if Assad fell, that could be perceived as “victory of the West over a traditional Russian client and Putin wanted to prevent that,” Treisman said. “The intention was to preserve the credibility of the image of Russia as a reliable friend.”
A longtime friendship
That friendship dates back to the days of the Soviet Union and has included military and economic cooperation, the trading of arms, people-to-people ties and cultural bonds, among other relations, experts said.
“There has been over time warmer periods and cooler periods, but that historical relationship has always been there,” Treisman said.
According to analysts, cooperation between the USSR and Syria strengthened in the 1960s and1970s when the Soviets helped to develop Syria’s national industries, including the oil, agriculture and transportation sectors. Soviet scientists, engineers and military instructors were among the workforce dispatched to Syria, along with weapons, machinery, and other equipment, experts said.
With the blessing of Hafez Assad, Bashar Assad’s father who was then president, Moscow opened its naval base in Tartus in 1971, establishing a Soviet military foothold in the Middle East.
In 1980, Moscow and Damascus signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation, establishing specific strategic ties. The two nations fell out slightly in 1985 over disagreements related to the Palestinian cause (the Soviets backed the Palestine Liberation Organization, Syria did not) and the Iran-Iraq war (Syria supported Iran). But by the late 1980s, the friendship was back on track with Moscow continuing to provide Damascus with economic and military aid.
The early 1990s saw Syria aligning with the U.S. during the Gulf War against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. And Russia’s new President Boris Yeltsin, who took power in 1991, also sought to establish better relations with America. But by the end of the 1990s, Damascus and Moscow were again tighter with one another than with Washington.
A major reinforcement of the alliance between the two countries came in 2005 when Putin agreed to cancel almost 73% of Syria’s Soviet-era debt to Russia, according to media reports. It was therefore not surprising when in 2008 Syria threw its support behind Russia’s military intervention into the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
Since then, Damascus has continued to benefit from military cooperation with Russia, including the receipt of armaments, and help with infrastructure development.
In 2012, Moscow joined Beijing in vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for Assad to step down, despite the mounting death toll caused by the Syrian strongman’s unencumbered killing of his own people.
Moscow has also remained adamant in its rejection of any arms embargo against Syria, arguing that it would give the Syrian opposition an unfair advantage.
Today, Syria remains one of Moscow’s most significant assets in the Middle East, said Parasiliti, the Rand expert.
Autocrats in Iraq, Libya and Egypt — traditional Cold War-era allies of Russia — have all since been toppled.
“At the core was Syria,” Parasiliti said. “As a long-term ally, Russia was not going to let this one go.”
ann.simmons@latimes.com
For more on global development news, see our Global Development Watch page, and follow me @AMSimmons1 on Twitter
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53931aecb11da757e408758f9e7c3057 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-south-20150621-story.html | Syrian military and Druze allies join forces to fend off ‘terrorists’ | Syrian military and Druze allies join forces to fend off ‘terrorists’
The commander of the besieged air base west of town had a message of defiance for the world.
“This will be the terrorists’ graveyard,” vowed the Syrian army colonel at the front gate of the Thalah military airport, well within mortar range of rebels the government calls terrorists.
Here, about 70 miles southeast of Damascus, the Syrian military is making a stand against an opposition onslaught along the nation’s strategic southern flank.
Pro-government forces have repelled several attacks — involving tanks and heavy artillery — on the sprawling air installation. The insurgents are seeking to build on advances in neighboring Dara province, where government forces this month were forced to retreat from the large Brigade 52 base.
After a series of recent setbacks in northern, eastern and southern Syria, pro-government forces say they are determined to protect a vital southern approach to Damascus, seat of power of President Bashar Assad.
The overstretched Syrian military, fighting battles across multiple front lines, is relying here on a key ally: members of the Druze sect, an offshoot of Islam that has adherents in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Thousands of men from the province are said to have signed up to protect Suwayda, the Druze heartland. Syria is believed to be home to about half of the estimated 1.5 million Druze worldwide.
“We, the sons of Suwayda, will be martyred on our front doors before we let them pass,” vowed Maj. William Abu Fakher, a pro-government militiaman who stood guard with other Druze volunteers, several in their 50s, at a checkpoint in the sun-scorched terrain.
Opposition officials have accused Damascus of rousing sectarian fears among the Druze to bolster support for the government.
“The regime began to incite sectarian divisions with the Druze,” said Bashar Zoubi, head of the Yarmouk Army, a faction of the Southern Front, a Western-backed rebel coalition with supply lines to nearby Jordan.
The large mobilization of Druze fighters helped stall the opposition assault on the air base, Zoubi conceded in a telephone interview. He called the rebel forces moderate and nonsectarian.
But interviews with Druze civilians and fighters here confirm that many regard the rebel advance as a threat to the Druze’s existence. Sunni Islamist groups like Al Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot, view the Druze as heretics.
The rebels have acknowledged battlefield coordination with Nusra militants, who are widely viewed as among the most effective and best-armed fighters in Syria. Nusra has played a key role in attacking the air base, the army says. The Southern Front denies that Nusra has been involved.
This month, alarm spread among the Druze population when Nusra fighters killed at least 20 Druze in Qalb Lawzeh, a village in the northwestern province of Idlib.
Other reports have indicated that the extremists had forced Druze villagers in the north to convert to the militants’ ultra-fundamentalist version of Sunni Islam.
During the punishing, more than four-year conflict, Druze religious leaders in Syria have generally endeavored publicly to steer a middle path, voicing support for peaceful political reform in Syria while rejecting armed rebellion. But like other Syrian minority groups, the Druze are generally viewed as supporters of the government of Assad, a member of the Alawite minority sect. The Syrian rebellion arose from the nation’s Sunni majority. Minorities and secular Sunnis are key to Assad’s support base.
The Druze’s perceived pro-government stance has made the sect a target of opposition attacks in areas like Jaramana, a strategic suburb southeast of Damascus. Dozens have been killed in Jaramana by opposition car bombs and mortar strikes. Druze militiamen from Jaramana have helped drive rebels from outlying areas.
But the threat to Suwayda and the sect’s ancestral lands is on a much more profound scale for the Druze. It appears to have galvanized members across the region in a call for collective defense.
“Our only choice is to repel and refuse the entry of any terrorist group into the area of Suwayda,” Sheikh Yusef Jarboo, a top Druze cleric in Syria, told Lebanese broadcaster Al Mayadeen in an interview this month. “We shall resist with all the power we have.”
About 27,000 Druze fighters, the cleric said, were being incorporated “under the umbrella” of the Syrian military, which numbers perhaps 200,000 plus tens of thousands of pro-government militiamen and allies from Lebanon and beyond.
However, across the border in Lebanon, veteran Druze political leader Walid Jumblatt blamed the policies of Assad for bringing Syria “into this chaos” in a comment on his official Twitter account.
Some of the most strident calls to defend the Druze of Syria have come from Israel, home to a substantial Druze minority, including many in the occupied Golan Heights.
“The Druze sect is facing existential danger,” Hamad Amar, a Druze member of the Israeli Knesset, warned publicly last week, adding that his sect “will not stand with its arms folded before any current or future danger facing our brothers in Syria or elsewhere.”
In recent weeks, thousands of Druze living in Israel have taken part in rallies in support of coreligionists in Suwayda and elsewhere in Syria. Many also harshly criticized Israel’s ongoing medical treatment of wounded Syrian rebels, who, the Druze said, include Nusra militants.
Israeli officials say the medical aid is a humanitarian gesture offered to combatants and civilians alike, without regard to sect or political affiliation.
Here in Suwayda, home to about 70,000 people, mostly Druze, there is little outward sign of the war raging elsewhere in Syria. The city has been largely insulated to date. Streets are bustling and there is none of the vast devastation seen in Homs, suburban Damascus and Aleppo. The highway south from the capital remains open and under government control, though traffic is thin.
But the recent rebel attacks, which included a dozen or so mortar strikes on the city and its outskirts, have brought the conflict closer to home, as have the killings of the Druze in Idlib province
“People here were very angry about what happened to our brothers in the north,” said film editor Obeida Rahroh, 23, referring to the slayings of the villagers in Idlib province. “We are all willing to fight for our homeland if we have to. Suwayda will not fall.”
Another resident, who asked for anonymity, said many here opposed the government of Assad. “But that does not mean we want the Islamists to take over and for Syria to become like Libya or Iraq,” he added. “We want peaceful change.”
About 10 miles west, at the entrance to the Thalah military air base, Syrian soldiers were digging trenches and eyeing rebel lines from behind sandbagged machine-gun emplacements on the edges of olive groves. Smoke arose in the direction of the opposition-held village of Umm Walad, a few miles away.
Airstrikes have been critical in pushing back the rebels, who attacked this month from the west and south of the city, using tanks and mortars, the army said. The opposition labeled the attack “the battle of the crushing of the tyrants.”
Some confident rebels even planned to rename the Thalah base, once taken, after Faisal Qassem, a Suwayda native and pugnacious talk-show host on the Al Jazeera satellite channel known for his pro-opposition stance.
But the insurgents did not manage to infiltrate the air base or get close enough in the open, flat terrain to deploy suicide vehicles, said Syrian army 1st Lt. Talal Amer.
“They expected the neighboring villages to join them, but the opposite happened,” said Amer, a Druze from Suwayda.
At nearby Druze villages the other day, residents were bringing food and tea to the Syria soldiers.
“They think they can come here, then let them try,” said a Druze woman, 47, a mother of three with a white head scarf who gave her name as Umm Fadi and hosted Syrian soldiers in her home. “We won’t run away.”
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
Bulos is a special correspondent. Special correspondent Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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2ba085283a2b5d2bf6a919d71f7183ec | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-strike-20170317-story.html | U.S. military denies airstrike hit mosque in Syria, following reports of dozens killed | U.S. military denies airstrike hit mosque in Syria, following reports of dozens killed
The U.S. military launched an airstrike at a building in northern Syria targeting what it says were senior Al Qaeda militants and is investigating reports that scores of civilians were killed or injured in the attack, the Pentagon said Friday.
Photos and videos on social media showed bloodied people emerging or being carried from a smoldering building in Aleppo province that local officials said was a mosque filled with worshipers at evening prayer.
The U.S. military insists dozens of militants were killed and denied bombing a mosque.
The Pentagon released a black-and-white aerial photo of a compound that it said showed a small mosque still standing. A much larger building across the road was reduced to rubble.
“We had tracked this building for some time,” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday. “We know it was being used by Al Qaeda, but at this particular time its purpose was to host this meeting of very senior people in Al Qaeda.”
After the Pentagon released the photo, some Syrians said on social media that the building destroyed was a newly opened mosque and that the standing structure was an older place of worship.
The military is investigating whether civilians were inadvertently killed or injured, Davis added, but he said the photo showed the mosque was “relatively unscathed.”
“As of the moment, we’re not aware of any credible allegations of civilian casualties,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with a network of activists in Syria, reported Thursday that an airstrike hit the mosque in Al Jinah village and at least 42 people were killed. The group did not specify who launched the air attack.
“Some people [are] in critical situation and others are still missing,” the group’s report said, adding that the “search for missing, dead bodies and survivors under the rubble of the destruction caused by the bombing is still taking place.”
Al Jazeera news agency reported that the attack occurred during “evening prayer so the mosque was full of worshipers, with local activists saying up to 300 people were inside at the time.”
Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer rescue group better known as the White Helmets, shared a video of searching for survivors in the rubble and injured people being loaded into ambulances.
The incident is the latest example of the gulf in reporting that exists between the Pentagon and Syrian human rights and humanitarian aid groups on the impact of deadly airstrikes.
Obtaining accurate independent figures is difficult because of the challenges of reporting on the ground in the multi-sided Syrian civil war.
The Pentagon estimates that at least 220 civilians have been killed in more than 18,900 airstrikes launched by the U.S. and its allies in Iraq and Syria since the air war against Islamic State began in mid-2014.
Independent monitoring groups say, however, that errant bombs or poor targeting have caused thousands of civilian casualties.
The U.S.-led coalition, Russia and Syria’s government all conduct airstrikes against various militant groups in Syria in a civil war that has left hundreds of thousands of civilians, military and insurgents dead since 2011.
william.hennigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @wjhenn
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UPDATES:
10:53 a.m.: This article was updated with new details.
7:30 a.m.: This article was updated with a figure for the number of airstrikes launched by the U.S. and its allies in Iraq and Syria since mid-2014.
This article was originally published at 7:10 a.m.
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a769ed7097e2ffac6fbb0fc67c78d6a7 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-turkey-20151201-story.html | Downing of Russian warplane shines a light on Turkey’s shadowy links to extremists | Downing of Russian warplane shines a light on Turkey’s shadowy links to extremists
When Turkish F-16 fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane at the Turkish-Syrian border, it swung the spotlight back on the strategic region, long a focal point of conflict in the Syrian crisis.
It also focused attention on Turkey’s relationship with the Syrian rebel factions fighting to wrest control of the country from President Bashar Assad.
The Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down last week. Turkey said it had entered its airspace while on a mission to target Syria’s Turkmens, an ethnic minority with deep ancestral and linguistic ties to Turkey. The Kremlin insisted that the plane was over Syria, not Turkey.
Based in the region straddling Turkey’s Hatay province and Syria’s Latakia province, Turkmen rebel brigades have been among the groups seeking to overthrow Assad, a close Moscow ally. They have received training and arms from Turkish military bases near the border.
That support reflects a wider Turkish policy. Ankara has sponsored some of the Syrian opposition’s most prominent factions — including, according to critics, Al Qaeda-linked groups such as Al Nusra Front and Islamic State, although Turkey insists it backs only moderate insurgents.¿
“No country has been more important for the rebels than Turkey,” said regional expert Mouin Rabbani, speaking by phone from the Jordanian capital, Amman.
He contrasted the situation along Syria’s northern border with Turkey to that along the southern border with Jordan.
“The Jordanians were much more selective, while the Turks just opened the spigot on the assumption that the more open the border, the more support goes in, the faster Assad goes,” he said.
Before the civil war, relations between Syria and Turkey had been on the rise.
But in November 2011, as Syrian authorities violently put down largely peaceful antigovernment protests, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan aligned himself with what he called the “glorious resistance” and said it was time for Assad to step down.
Since then, fighters and arms have regularly flowed between the two countries and Ankara has given weapons to the opposition and organized logistical support.
It was Turkey’s national intelligence agency, known as MIT, that first organized Syrian military defectors into Western-backed groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.
Free Syrian Army factions still convene on Turkish soil in the Joint Operations Center, a CIA-led intelligence hub that gives vetted rebels training as well as U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles used to destroy Syrian army tanks and armored units.
Islamist groups, however, have benefited from Turkey’s pro-opposition policy as well.
In May, the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published video from 2014 showing customs agents impounding a truck owned by the MIT.
The truck’s manifest said it was carrying humanitarian assistance for Syrians. Instead it was bearing a cache of ammunition and shells the newspaper said were destined for Islamist rebels.
The video’s release caused a furor. Erdogan vowed to prosecute Cumhuriyet, a threat he carried out Friday when authorities arrested two of the paper’s journalists on charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization.
Turkish assistance has been instrumental in empowering the Army of Conquest, a loose coalition of hard-line Islamist factions including Al Nusra Front, which seized control of Idlib province in March in an offensive backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Economic ties also have been forged between Turkey and rebel factions.
According to a 2015 United Nations study, two border crossings controlled by a faction of the Army of Conquest handle more than 300 trucks a day, a figure that exceeds prewar levels. The traffic yields an estimated $660,000 a day in revenue for the rebel group.
But it is Turkey’s shadowy connection with the militant group Islamic State that has caused the most concern.
The rise in 2012 of extremist factions such as Al Nusra Front and later Islamic State did nothing to change Ankara’s security stance.
Until last year, when Turkey yielded to international pressure and tightened controls on who could enter the country, bearded men sporting military-style backpacks and clothing were a common sight at the airports in Istanbul, Antakya and Gaziantep. From there, they would be whisked off to Islamic State safe houses near the border and then into Syria.
Questions have been raised about Erdogan’s hands-off strategy during Islamic State’s assault on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani last year.
The town was saved after an eleventh-hour bombing campaign by the U.S.-led coalition, but many saw the Turkish government’s recalcitrance as an effort to block the possibility of a Kurdish state being established in Syrian territories. Turkey has long fought a Kurdish insurgency within its borders and is adamantly opposed to the establishment of an adjacent Kurdish state.
Although Turkish warplanes did fly some sorties against Islamic State targets, they focused mostly on positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Turkey has been fighting the separatist group for almost 40 years.
Russia’s entry into the fray in September dealt a further blow to Turkey’s hope of ousting Assad.
In recent weeks, Russian jets had pounded Turkmen areas in Syria as pro-Assad forces engaged in land operations to regain control of the mountains in northern Latakia, an area long held by the rebels.
Days before the warplane was shot down, Ankara had sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council condemning the “intense aerial bombardment which reportedly included use of cluster bombs by the Russian air forces,” according to the Turkish state news agency Anadolu.
Rabbani said he suspects the downing was a Turkish attempt to stop attacks on rebel groups it considered its own. Russia, he said, wants to weaken Syrian rebel groups supported by Turkey, seal the Turkey-Syria border and quiet calls for Assad’s departure.
“I think it’s fair to conclude that it was these objectives that were in Turkey’s crosshairs,” he said.
Bulos is a special correspondent.
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89860da95ec850024c954446195c5cd2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-un-aid-suspended-20160920-snap-story.html | U.N. suspends aid deliveries to Syria after deadly attack on humanitarian convoy | U.N. suspends aid deliveries to Syria after deadly attack on humanitarian convoy
The United Nations suspended humanitarian aid deliveries to Syria after an attack killed 21 civilians unloading supplies west of embattled Aleppo at the end of the weeklong cease-fire, officials said Tuesday.
The attack Monday night struck 18 of 31 trucks in an aid convoy in rural Urem al-Kubra, damaging the group’s warehouse and health clinic. Those killed included at least one leader of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid agency.
“We’re totally devastated by the deaths of so many people, including one of our colleagues,” Abdulrahman Attar, president of the agency, said in a statement.
Staff and volunteers “continue to pay such a high price because of the ongoing fighting,” Attar said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon assailed the “cowards” who carried out the “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate attack” on the aid convoy in Syria.
“Just when we think it cannot get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower,” he told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. “The humanitarians delivering lifesaving aid were heroes. Those who bombed them were cowards.”
U.S. officials, Syrian opposition activists and rescuers on the scene said the convoy, loaded with 9 tons of food and emergency supplies such as antibiotics and trauma kits, had been hit by an airstrike, but Russian counterparts disputed that claim.
“As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being pending further assessment of the security situation,” Jens Laerke, U.N. humanitarian aid spokesman, told reporters in Geneva. “We remain committed and undeterred to continue to the best of our ability to help all Syrians in need.”
The attack came amid activists’ reports of Syrian government airstrikes in a handful of other cities after the end of the cease-fire that began at sundown Sept. 12. The attacks reportedly resulted in multiple civilian casualties, including children.
Syria’s military announced Monday that the weeklong agreement brokered by the United States and Russia, an ally of President Bashar Assad, was over because of repeated violations by fighters who oppose the government. The opposition also had accused the government of violating the cease-fire.
Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman said the deadly attack Monday night was not an airstrike by Russian or Syrian government forces, suggesting instead that it was the work of militants and allies in the area, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
Igor Konashenkov said the Russian military had “carefully studied the video recordings of the so-called activists from the scene and found no signs that any munitions hit the convoy.”
Konashenkov said militants from the former Al Nusra Front, now called Front for the Conquest of Syria, set fire to the convoy, and he questioned why Syrian rescue workers known as “white helmets” happened to be in the area to film the attack.
“Everything shown on the video is the direct consequence of the cargo catching fire… simultaneously with militants carrying out a massive offensive in Aleppo,” Konashenkov said.
Syria Civil Defense responded on Twitter, saying the humanitarian group “absolutely rejects” the Russian allegation that the convoy caught fire, insisting that “our volunteer responders came under aerial attack.”
Amar Salmo, who runs the civil defense group’s operation in that part of Aleppo, described the attack in an online video posted Tuesday, standing in front of the convoy’s burning wreckage.
Salmo, reached by phone in Aleppo, described how he was standing on a balcony drinking tea when he saw first one helicopter, then another drop barrel bombs on the convoy.
“Then came the warplanes,” which struck the area with rockets and heavy machine gun fire, he said. “We saw the big explosions and the fires began, and we were the first to respond there.”
He said they rescued the wounded and removed bodies.
“We would have been dead had any of those bombs hit us,” he said.
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor to President Obama, said late Tuesday that the U.S. held the Russian government responsible for the attack because under the cease-fire agreement Russia was supposed to “ground air operations where humanitarian assistance was flowing.”
Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, told reporters earlier Tuesday during a telephone briefing that the U.S. military had halted all plans to work with the Russians as a result of the attack.
“This is not the vision that I think was put in place more than seven days ago, to try to get humanitarian assistance flowing into the area and try to decrease the level of violence,” Thomas said. “We won’t move forward until the diplomats and senior leaders tell us to.”
Stephen O’ Brien, the U.N.’s emergency relief coordinator, called for an independent investigation of the attack and demanded that those responsible face consequences under international law. He said all parties to the conflict had been notified of the convoy, which was intended to aid 78,000 people and “was clearly marked as humanitarian.”
“If this callous attack is found to be a deliberate targeting of humanitarians, it would amount to a war crime,” he said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross postponed an aid convoy set to deliver supplies to four Syrian towns Tuesday, but spokeswoman Krista Armstrong in Geneva stressed that “it’s not a cancellation,” just a delay, “so we can get the security guarantees so we can move convoys.”
The Syrian Arab Red Crescent suspended aid deliveries Tuesday, but also temporarily, said Stephen Ryan, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Ryan identified the staff member killed in the attack as Omar Barakat, director of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent’s Urem branch.
Attar said Barakat was a “brave member of our family of committed staff and volunteers, working relentlessly to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people.”
The convoy attack came amid already strained U.S.-Russian relations.
U.S. officials expressed outrage, while Russian and Syrian leaders cited prior violations of the cease-fire by U.S. and rebel forces, including Saturday airstrikes on Syrian troops by U.S. coalition warplanes that the Pentagon has called a mistake. More than 60 Syrian troops were killed and dozens wounded.
U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby faulted Russian and Syrian officials for not allowing humanitarian aid into the country as agreed under the cease-fire even before the attack on the Aleppo convoy, calling it an “egregious violation.”
“The destination of this convoy was known to the Syrian regime and the Russian federation and yet these aid workers were killed in their attempt to provide relief to the Syrian people,” Kirby said.
Officials had hoped the cease-fire would clear the way for not just aid to beleaguered cities but also the creation of a joint U.S.-Russian military facility in Syria to fight Islamic extremist groups. That seemed unlikely after the convoy attack.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that there was “little hope” of renewing the cease-fire, faulting American officials who he said “failed to separate terrorists from the so-called moderate opposition.”
But U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry insisted that “the cease-fire is not dead.”
Kerry met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and other foreign ministers in the International Syria Support Group as world leaders began their annual gathering at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
It was a “gloomy” meeting, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters. But the participants agreed they should do everything possible to salvage the agreement brokered by the U.S. and Russia.
Ban singled out Assad’s government, which he said continues to barrel bomb neighborhoods and torture thousands of detainees. But he also had harsh words for the “powerful patrons” that he said keep feeding the war machine in Syria.
“Present in this hall today are representatives of governments that have ignored, facilitated, funded, participated in or even planned and carried out atrocities inflicted by all sides of the Syria conflict against Syrian civilians,” Ban said.
He appealed to all those with influence over the combatants to get talks started.
molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com
@mollyhf
Times staff writers Alexandra Zavis in Los Angeles and W.J. Hennigan and Christi Parsons in Washington and special correspondent Nabih Bulos in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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UPDATES:
4:30 p.m.: This article was updated with a White House statement and other details.
1:25 p.m.: This article was updated with additional comments from U.S. officials and a leader with the Syria Civil Defense group.
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17d83928c08bd24ad9d19bce555001bd | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-us-rebels-20160629-snap-story.html | U.S.-backed rebels launched their first attack against Islamic State. They lost. | U.S.-backed rebels launched their first attack against Islamic State. They lost.
The United States trained the rebel New Syrian Army in hopes that it would be a formidable opponent to Islamic State jihadists.
But in its first serious test — an offensive near the Syrian border town of Bukamal — the rebels appear to have failed.
Islamic State took much of the oil-rich desert region straddling the border between Iraq and Syria in 2014.
On Tuesday, the New Syrian Army announced an operation to wrest control of territory near Bukamal. The group said on its Facebook page that the campaign was launched in conjunction with Iraqi pro-government forces storming the Iraqi town of Qaim just across the border.
The two towns are a crucial link in Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate.
The next day, Aamaq, a news agency affiliated with Islamic State, said the jihadists had killed 40 members of the New Syrian Army and captured 15 in a counterattack on the defunct Hamdan air base northwest of Bukamal.
See the most-read stories in World News this hour >>
Video posted by the news agency showed jubilant Islamic State fighters parading in trucks sporting the New Syrian Army’s insignia and fawning over heavy weapons and ammunition belts apparently captured in the fighting.
One militant is shown mutilating the corpse of a rebel fighter and cutting off the head.
The New Syrian Army withdrew from the area, marking the latest setback for U.S. plans to train and equip Syrian rebels capable of battling Islamic State militants.
Previous iterations of the program were widely ridiculed for producing minuscule numbers of capable fighters who were easily overwhelmed by Islamist factions wary of U.S. intervention.
Many rebels were also reluctant to enroll in any U.S. effort, because of a stringent vetting process meant to detect any Islamist sympathies and because of U.S. insistence that trained fighters concentrate on attacking only Islamic State.
The New Syrian Army, however, had promised to be different.
It first appeared in November 2015 with the stated goal of pushing Islamic State out of the eastern Syrian desert. Since then, its fighters have shown up in slickly produced videos uploaded to social media that depict uniformed men training with U.S. weapons.
Analysts say the group – which is headquartered near Tanf, a southern town close to where the borders of Jordan, Iraq and Syria converge – has also received support from Jordanian special forces units.
Wednesday’s defeat, however, may have cost the group a full fifth of its cadres.
Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the pro-opposition monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, estimated that the rebel group had comprised about 125 fighters, but that after Islamic State’s counteroffensive “they are probably less than a hundred.”
“They did nothing,” he said. “They went to the border and came back. This was more a media show than anything else.”
The New Syrian Army tried to put the best possible spin on the defeat.
On Wednesday, the group alleged that it had killed 20 Islamic State fighters and wrested control of the border crossing as well as territory in the southern and eastern approaches to Bukamal, and that it had set up a radio station in the area to “give directions and warnings to residents.”
A spokesman for the group, Mozahem Saloum, said in an interview on social media that helicopters had deployed additional rebels “behind enemy lines” near the air base — a claim that was confirmed by the observatory group but denied by Pentagon officials.
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Although Saloum acknowledged that the rebel fighters had later withdrawn from the area after heavy resistance by Islamic State, he insisted it was a tactical retreat that had marked the end of what he described as a “deep penetration raid.”
He said that only three of the group’s fighters were killed and that the group still controlled desert areas near Bukamal and maintained “the freedom of military maneuverability.”
Meanwhile, coalition warplanes conducted eight airstrikes that wiped out bridges, a training camp and militant fighting positions, according to the Pentagon. Five additional strikes in Qaim hit two weapons caches and communications facilities.
“We are looking to inflict damage on Daesh in that location inside Syria,” said Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad. “Daesh” is the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
“Cutting these supply lines will impact the flow of foreign fighters and supplies between the upper and lower Euphrates Valley,” Garver said.
Bulos is a special correspondent. Staff writer W.J. Hennigan in Washington contributed to this report.
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37a573a36090f93d5ecbc10bb88f347b | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-us-volunteers-20170713-story.html | Warriors, dreamers and just plain crazy: U.S. civilian volunteers fighting Islamic State in Syria | Warriors, dreamers and just plain crazy: U.S. civilian volunteers fighting Islamic State in Syria
The heavily armed fighters peered out of a broken second-story window at their outpost in a crumbling house on the western edge of this shell-shocked city, where Islamic State is fighting a furious battle to hold on to the capital of its self-declared caliphate.
They ducked to avoid snipers camped in nearby high-rise apartments. Armed drones hovered nearby. Just before 2 p.m. came the crack of sniper fire.
For the record:
11:33 AM, Jun. 21, 2019An earlier version of this article said slain U.S. volunteer Nicholas Warden, 29, was from Buffalo, N.H. He was from Buffalo, N.Y.
“That’s our guy,” Kevin Howard, 28, said as he rose and prepared to return fire.
Howard is not one of the hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in Syria. The U.S. Marine Corps veteran from San Francisco came here as a volunteer, part of a small group of freelance recruits who have traveled to Syria from the U.S., Europe and other regions to help local forces fight Islamic State.
Americans have a history of volunteering to fight overseas. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade fought fascists in the Spanish Civil War; U.S. pilots flew for Britain and China before World War II; and U.S. citizens have served in the Israel Defense Forces.
The war in Syria and Iraq has been more problematic. Americans who try to travel there to fight alongside Islamic State face immediate arrest, and many have been detained at U.S. airports as they prepared to respond to the militant group’s global call to arms. Those who volunteer to fight the jihadis with U.S.-allied Kurdish and Syrian militias, though the State Department advises against it, face no such legal consequences.
Several hundred such volunteers have arrived since the Syrian civil war began six years ago, according to local estimates, and several dozen remain.
Some, such as Howard, are military veterans who served in the Middle East and felt they had left a job unfinished. Others are young people drawn to the plight of the Kurdish rebels, or by the powerful lure of combat in a faraway land.
In the last week, as the battle for Raqqah has turned into a violent death spiral for Islamic State, three of the volunteers have died.
Nicholas Warden, 29, of Buffalo, N.Y., Robert Grodt, 28, originally of Simi Valley and Luke Rutter, 22, of Birkenhead, England, were killed as Kurdish forces, aided by coalition air support, advanced on Raqqah.
“Everyone is really torn up over losing those three guys, especially all at once. And they were only a few months out of the [Kurdish training] academy,” said Lucas Chapman, who returned to Washington this year after fighting alongside the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, the largest force fighting in eastern Syria.
Warden had served with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and with the French Foreign Legion, Chapman said, and came to fight Islamic State in February because of the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando, Fla.
Grodt, who graduated from Monte Vista School Independent Learning Academy in Simi Valley and studied philosophy at Moorpark College, was an idealist, friends and family said.
A few years ago, he had hitchhiked cross-country to New York to join Occupy Wall Street protests and proposed to a young woman he met there in Zuccotti Park, the Occupy movement’s base. The couple settled in New York and had a 4-year-old daughter.
In April, he traveled to Syria to join the YPG, after researching the group’s cause and meeting other volunteers who had returned to the U.S. He didn’t consider joining the U.S. military, because he wasn’t sure it was getting the job done, according to his mother, Tammy Grodt, of Simi Valley.
“My reasons for joining the YPG was to help the Kurdish people in their struggle for autonomy in Syria and elsewhere and also to do my best to help fight Daesh and help create a more secure world,” Grodt said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State in one of a series of videos he made from Syria, this one as he sat in uniform in a field, clutching his rifle.
He was killed by a mine explosion July 6, his body taken to a “martyrs’ center” at a YPG cemetery in Qamishli, his mother was told.
Tammy Grodt, a nurse and mother of six, learned of her son’s death Saturday. “The State Department is working to bring him home to us,” she said.
She said her son had seen other volunteers return home unscathed and “truly counted on coming back.” He last called home from Syria on May 11, chattering excitedly about his battle buddies and promising to return in August.
“Many may question why he chose a task that seemed so far from being one that could be successfully accomplished,” she said. “He had a lot of passion and dedication and believed with his effort and enthusiasm, working with others just as dedicated, he could accomplish anything he set his mind to.”
Others have had similar aims.
Arriving in Raqqah last week from northeastern Syria, Swedish volunteer Olivia Mefras said she had left to join the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units without telling her parents.
“They’re not that happy about it,” said Mefras, 22. The high school graduate said she had rudimentary firearms training and was eager to head to the front line.
“We all want to do something meaningful. We know it doesn’t make a difference to the people here — they would fight anyway. But it makes a difference to us in our lives,” she said.
Daman Frat, a YPG commander stationed east of Raqqah, said several foreign volunteers were fighting alongside his units in remote areas outside the city, most of whom had served previously in U.S. or European military units and wanted to be in the thick of the fight.
“They know what Daesh means, and that if they control the area, they will go to Europe more” to mount new attacks, he said.
Syrian Democratic Forces fighters, including Western volunteers, are paid about $100 to $250 a month, depending on which forces they serve with and for how long.
U.S. coalition support for the SDF does not include those salaries, said Maj. Josh T. Jacques, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, who described the fighters as “the coalition’s local ground force partner in the fight against ISIS in northern Syria.”
“Coalition forces continue to support the SDF as part of their advise and assist mission, providing equipment, training, intelligence and logistics support, precision fires, and battlefield advice,” he said.
Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the Syriac Military Council, or MFS, whose Assyrian militia joined the alliance against Islamic State, said volunteers receive basic military training, and are given standard-issue Kalashnikov rifles with limited access to other weapons, including the Russian sniper rifle Howard used. Their mine-clearing equipment: homemade bombs and string.
“So many foreign volunteers have been martyred fighting for our cause, and for that they shall always be remembered among us,” Gabriel said.
In his west Raqqah outpost, surrounded by snipers and the occasional armed drone, Howard said Western volunteers in Syria seem to fit into one of three groups: There are the anarchists and socialists, “the starry-eyed dreamers.” Then there are the “people that are running away from their past.” Finally, he said, there are the “people that are legitimately crazy.”
Across the room, Taylor Hudson, a volunteer from Pasadena, noted that Howard hadn’t said to which group he belonged.
Howard laughed.
“I just want to help people,” he said, pausing. “I’m probably crazy,” he said. “To do this — to leave home, put your life on the line — you have to be kind of crazy.”
Howard was raised in a San Francisco orphanage and went straight into the Marines at age 17. Stationed in Southern California at Twentynine Palms, he served for about five years, including tours in Afghanistan and Iraq at the height of American deployments there.
Howard and his friends returned home with post-traumatic stress, in his case due in part to traumatic brain injury, he said. He had been looking forward to civilian life, he said: “Go to college, white picket fence.” But he grew restless.
“I missed this,” he said, gesturing at the abandoned house that had become his home.
When Islamic State captured the Iraqi city of Mosul three years ago, Howard said, he was stricken by reports about atrocities the militants had committed against Yazidi religious minority communities in the area of northern Iraq where he had served as a Marine. He joined the French Foreign Legion, but didn’t get sent to Syria, even after the terrorist attacks in Paris in January and November 2015 — instead he was scrubbing toilets.
So he quit and came on his own this year and quickly found his niche with a 30-member unit of the MFS. Some fellow veterans have had trouble adjusting, he said.
“This is total anarchy, guerrilla war,” he said. “A lot of military guys can’t handle it because there isn’t structure. It just sort of flows.”
Hudson, 33, an ironworker, also joined the French Foreign Legion for a few months before coming to Syria last year. He had studied medicine at Eastern Washington University and though he never earned his degree, he has served as a medic since he arrived in Syria, where local fighters call him Doc.
He arrived planning to volunteer with Kurdish forces, then discovered the plight of the Assyrian minority, the group’s history of persecution in the region and lack of resources compared with Kurdish forces. Now he is working with the same militia as Howard.
The war in Syria, he said, is about more than defeating Islamic State. For Hudson, it’s about establishing a democracy that will protect minorities such as the Assyrians.
Howard had planned to leave once Raqqah was freed. So did Hudson. Now they are reconsidering.
“This is the most important fight in the world right now,” Howard said.
Staff writer W.J. Hennigan in Washington and special correspondent Kamiran Sadoun in Raqqah contributed to this report.
molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com
Twitter: @mollyhf
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bcde2a6203b5a69f3473d404e092d5cd | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syrian-deal-evacuation-20170414-story.html | Syrians leave family, memories behind as tens of thousands are evacuated in previously brokered deal | Syrians leave family, memories behind as tens of thousands are evacuated in previously brokered deal
For Mohammad Taqi Din, his library of 8,000 books (“I’ve been amassing it for more than 35 years,” he said) is what he’ll miss the most.
Hussam Mahmoud, meanwhile, was wondering if he would ever see his backyard again, his favorite part of his home.
Both men were set to leave the towns where they had lived for all their lives on Friday, in what marked the end of a long-standing arrangement that had bound the fate of their respective communities, one besieged by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, the other by the Islamist rebels.
That arrangement entered a new phase in the early hours of the morning as buses came to evacuate more than 30,000 residents from four areas in the country.
A convoy of 75 buses and 20 ambulances evacuated some 5,000 people from Fua and Kefraya, a pair of pro-government towns in Idlib, the northwestern Syrian province which is almost completely controlled by a loose coalition of hard-line Islamist groups including the Al Qaeda-linked Organization for the Liberation of Syria.
A further 3,000 would soon join them in Aleppo, 31 miles northeast, said Din, who is head of the crisis management group in the two Shiite towns.
At the same time, 2,350 people filled the 60 buses that had rolled during the night into Madaya, a rebel-held enclave near the capital Damascus, pro-government media and a monitoring group said. Their convoy would make its way toward rebel-controlled areas in Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory or Human Rights, a pro-opposition watchdog with a network of activists on the ground, put the number of those leaving at 2,200, adding that 400 rebel fighters were among the evacuees.
“We’re saying farewell to Madaya. … It may be the last time I see it so I’m taking pictures of the places I liked,” said Mahmoud, 29, a pro-opposition media activist, in a WhatsApp conversation on Friday. He spoke as his bus was waiting at the last checkpoint out of Madaya.
Zabadani, a one-time resort town nestled in the mountains near the border with Lebanon that, like Madaya, has long suffered under a government blockade, would also be evacuated on Friday, government media said.
Mohammad Tinawi, a fighter with the Organization for the Liberation of Syria, said Thursday on his Facebook page that only 148 jihadi fighters remained in Zabadani.
Later in the day, pro-government outlets released pictures of army troops trudging through Madaya.
The evacuations brought to a close what the U.N. in February had described as a “looming humanitarian catastrophe.”
In March 2015, a rebel offensive, spearheaded by Sunni jihadists, blitzed through Idlib province, cutting off roads leading out of Fua and Kefraya, whose populations are mostly Shiites.
A few months later, the Syrian army, bolstered by operatives from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, mounted their own siege on Madaya and Zabadani.
Since then, the four areas had endured a “cycle of daily violence and deprivation, where malnutrition and lack of proper medical care prevail,” according to the U.N.
A deal dubbed the Four Towns Agreement, with Iran representing the government and Turkey speaking for the opposition, brought the occasional aid shipment into the besieged towns. Some of the sick and wounded were also allowed to leave in a complex tit-for-tat arrangement.
There had been several attempts in the past to evacuate the four towns, but it was not until last month that Iran and Qatar pushed the deal that came to fruition on Friday.
Under the terms of the evacuation, Fua and Kefraya would be completely emptied in the coming days. Residents of Madaya and Zabadani willing to live under government control could remain.
Like other agreements offered to the rebels, those who refused a reconciliation agreement (in which fighters lay down their arms and reintegrate into state structures) would be given safe passage to Idlib.
Other areas near Damascus would also be emptied as part of the deal, include Wadi Barada, the capital’s main water source, and Serghaya.
Residents on both sides, though happy to finally be out of the blockade, expressed sadness that it came at the price of being uprooted from their homes.
“It was like my soul had been ripped out of me,” said Mahmoud. He explained he had left behind his 60-year old mother and his sister.
“I’m hoping I can arrange to bring them to where I am in the future.”
On the other side was Din. For more than a year he had waited for Fua and Kefraya to be evacuated. But now that it had come, it was “a sad day,” he said in a conversation Friday on social media.
“Is it easy to leave all the memories you’ve had from childhood till now, and your life’s work, and the memories of fathers and forefathers?”
“All this you leave and you go toward the unknown.”
Residents would have to abandon most of their belongings, said Din, explaining that each person could carry only roughly 44 pounds worth of luggage.
In recent days, opposition figures staged protests against the evacuation, accusing Damascus of imposing a demographic change in the country, even while accusing the rebels who had accepted the agreement of betrayal.
Syria’s six-year civil war, which began as mostly peaceful anti-government protests, has devolved into a sectarian bloodbath that has pitted the Sunni-dominated opposition against Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect that’s an offshoot of Shiite Islam. His troops are bolstered by Shiite irregulars from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.
Bulos is a special correspondent.
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2:10 p.m.: This article was updated with staff reporting.
8:30 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the evacuation in Syria and background on the political situation in the region.
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410659db45fbbc5e3308126529379466 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-targeted-killings-drone-snap-htmlstory.html | The kill list: Islamic State leaders taken off the battlefield | The kill list: Islamic State leaders taken off the battlefield
Since taking office, President Obama has sent U.S. troops into action on land or in the skies of seven countries on two continents. Obama’s administration has authorized Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and approved the fatal drone strike on an American cleric in Yemen.
Here is a look at targeted killings under the Obama administration.
Faruq Qatani | Al Qaeda
When: Death announced Nov. 4, 2016
How: A precision airstrike carried out by the United States military on Oct. 23, 2016
Where: Kunar Province, Afghanistan
Qatani was a top Al Qaeda leader in the eastern part of Afghanistan and one of Al Qaeda's "senior plotters of attacks against the United States," according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Read more >>
Abu Muhammad Adnani | Islamic State
When: Death announced Aug. 30, 2016
How: Drone strike but could not confirm his death. Islamic State said he was killed.
Where: Al Bab, Syria
Adnani was deeply involved in the Sunni Muslim militant group’s larger operational strategies and served as its spokesman, creating a propaganda machine that has attracted foreign recruits from all over the globe.
Read more >>
Hafiz Saeed Khan | Islamic State
When: July 26, 2016
How: Killed in a drone strike
Where: Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan
The State Department last year designated Khan a global terrorist, saying he is the leader of Islamic State in Khorasan, which includes former members of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. Khan had previously been a Tehrik-e Taliban commander, but last year pledged loyalty to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi.
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour | Taliban
Killed: May 21, 2016
How: Drone strike
Where: In western Pakistan along the Afghanistan border
Mansour was killed when a drone strike hit his vehicle as he traveled in Baluchistan, Pakistan.
Mansour, known for his mercurial leadership, had been in the U.S. military’s crosshairs for years. He officially took charge of the Taliban in the summer of 2015 after the group acknowledged the death of founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Read more >>
Rahman Mustafa Qaduli, a.k.a. Abu Ala Afri and Haji Imam | Islamic State
When: March 24, 2016
How: Died during an attempt by special operations to capture him
Where: Syria
Qaduli was an influential finance minister for Islamic State and a close advisor to the group's leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi. He was a key player in Islamic State's military and financial operations, according to the Pentagon.
Qaduli, who had as many as a dozen aliases, joined Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004, serving as Abu Musab Zarqawi's liaison for operations with Pakistan. The group was later rebranded as Islamic State. He was held in U.S. custody at the Camp Bucca military prison in Iraq in 2006, along with many other prisoners who went on to senior positions in Islamic State. He was released in 2012.
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Abu Nabil, a.k.a. Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi | Islamic State
When: Nov. 14, 2015
How: Killed by jet strike
Where: Derna, Libya
Nabil led Islamic State in Libya and was a longtime Al Qaeda figure. He was killed during a F-15 jet strike targeted at his compound in eastern Libya – the country’s government in effect has been a void since the toppling of Moammar Kadafi in 2011.
The Pentagon suggested Nabil may have played a key role in an execution video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christian Egyptians along the southern Mediterranean coast in early 2015.
Read more >>
‘Jihadi John’ Mohammed Emwazi | Islamic State
When: Nov. 12, 2015
How: Killed by drone
Where: Raqqah, Syria
The 27-year-old British citizen was given the moniker “Jihadi John” after he appeared in videos announcing the killing of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as the slaying of American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.
Emwazi was described as a quiet and hardworking schoolboy in affluent northwest London and a graduate of University of Westminster’s computer science program, and his presence brought the issue of homegrown extremism to the forefront.
"He was one of the worst, who hit and tortured without any restraint,” Didier Francois, a journalist held for 10 months in Syria, told a French radio station.
Read more >>
Muhsin Fadhli | Al Qaeda
When: July 8, 2015
How: Vehicle was hit during drone strike
Where: Sarmada, Syria
Fadhli, who fought for the Taliban as a teenager in Afghanistan, had advanced notice of the Sept. 11 attacks. Years later, U.S. intelligence analysts had fears that his faction was progressing in its ability to attack jets and other Western targets.
The head of a shadowy cell of veteran Al Qaeda operatives known as the Khorasan Group, he was killed while traveling in his vehicle near the Turkish border in the Syrian town of Sarmada. He was identified as the authority of Al Qaeda’s operations in Iran before relocating to Syria.
Read more >>
Ali Awni Harzi | Islamic State
When: June 15, 2015
How: Airstrike
Where: Mosul, Iraq
Tunisian-born Harzi was a suspect in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attack, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans. His brother, Tariq Harzi, was known as the “emir of suicide bombers” for orchestrating hundreds of suicide bombings among jihadists.
"While it may have taken years to track down and eliminate Ali Awni al Harzi, those who kill Americans must understand that our memories are long and our commitment to justice is steadfast," Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said.
Read more >>
Mokhtar Belmokhtar | Al Mourabitoun
When: June 13, 2015
How: Airstrike
Where: Libya
The Al Qaeda-linked North African was the architect of a 2013 plot to seize a natural gas refinery in Amenas, Algeria, which resulted in the deaths of more than 38 foreign captives from 10 countries, including three Americans.
Belmokhtar had an extensive history of organizing terrorism, yet always slipped out of the clutches of the U.S. military and its allies. In fact, the French government had nicknamed the Algerian militant "the Uncatchable."
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Adan Garar | Shabab
When: March 12, 2015
How: Vehicle struck by drone strike
Where: Bardera, Somalia
Garar was a strategic commander who planned the high-profile attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall in 2013, which killed at least 67 people including children. Only those who could prove they were Muslim were spared.
The Shabab leader was killed in his vehicle near the southwestern town of Bardera in Somalia. The Shabab, which has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda rather than Islamic State, has suffered blows to their military capabilities in recent years.
Read more »
Adam Gadahn | Al Qaeda
When: Jan. 19, 2015
How: CIA drone strike
Where: Waziristan, Pakistan
The Orange County native, who served as a top propagandist for Al Qaeda, was killed in a CIA drone strike in Waziristan, Pakistan.
The grandson of a Jewish doctor, Gadahn converted to Islam in 1995. He frequented the Islamic Center of Orange County, where those close to Gadahn say he fell under the influence of Hisham Diab, an accountant who lived in the Little Gaza section of Anaheim, who espoused extremist views
Gadahn appeared in five incendiary Al Qaeda videos before his death and became the first American since the World War II era to be charged with treason.
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Hakimullah Mehsud | Pakistani Taliban
When: Nov. 1, 2013
How: CIA drone strike
Where: Waziristan, Pakistan
The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, was killed by a CIA drone strike in Waziristan, Pakistan. He was known for attacking a CIA base in Afghanistan and a campaign that killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and security force members.
Mehsud was considered a top militant, and the FBI held a $5-million bounty on his head in the months before he was killed. Yet, Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan condemned the drone strikes, calling them an attempt to sabotage peace talks between the Pakistani government and the Taliban.
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Maulvi Nazir | Pakistani Taliban
When: Jan. 2, 2013
How: Drone strike
Where: Northwest Pakistan
A U.S. drone strike in northwest Pakistan killed the top Taliban commander responsible for coordinating attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Nazir was one of two Taliban commanders in the Waziristan tribal regions to issue decrees against polio vaccination efforts in their areas. Nazir said his decision to ban the vaccinations was motivated by Washington’s drone campaign and a phony inoculation program orchestrated by the CIA in 2011 to help track down Osama bin Laden.
Read more »
Abu Yahya al Libi | Al Qaeda
When: June 4, 2012
How: Drone strike
Where: North Waziristan, Pakistan
Al Qaeda’s former second-in-command, Libi was killed in a U.S. drone missile strike on Hesokhel, a small village in North Waziristan near the Afghan border. North Waziristan has long been a stronghold for Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani network and other militant groups.
Libi’s death was a big win for covert U.S. anti-terrorism operations in Pakistan, which had their milestone with the killing of Osama bin Laden in early 2011.
Read more >>
Sakhr Taifi | Al Qaeda
When: May 29, 2012
How: Airstrike
Where: Kunar, Afghanistan
Al Qaeda’s second-in-command in Afghanistan was killed in an airstrike coordinated by coalition forces. Taifi frequently commanded attacks against NATO and Afghan forces, and he traveled frequently between Afghanistan and Pakistan to relocate weapons and insurgent fighters.
Read more »
Abdul-Rahman Awlaki and Ibrahim Banna | Al Qaeda
When: Oct. 14, 2011
How: Drone strike
Where: Azzan, Yemen
Awlaki, a 16-year-old U.S. citizen, was eating dinner along the side of a road when he was killed by a drone strike. Awlaki’s father, Anwar, was killed two weeks earlier for terrorist operations, but the son’s killing sparked outrage among human rights activists who argued that Awlaki’s death was unrelated to his father’s activities and he was executed without charge, trial or legitimate reasoning.
"If the government is going to be firing Predator missiles at American citizens, surely the American public has a right to know who’s being targeted and why." Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said.
Also killed was Egyptian-born Banna, whom officials described as the media chief of the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.
Read more >>
Anwar Awlaki | Al Qaeda
When: Sept. 30, 2011
How: Drone strike
Where: Azzan, Yemen
The American-born Muslim cleric, accused of inspiring and plotting terrorist attacks on Americans, including the deadly shooting at an army base in Texas, was killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a drone aircraft operated by the CIA.
Although Awlaki was a midlevel figure in Al Qaeda, he cast a potent shadow in U.S. counter-terrorism circles because he spoke fluent English and was effective at reaching disaffected Muslims in the United States and elsewhere via speeches and sermons on the Internet.
His death marked not only an escalation of Obama administration efforts to kill leaders of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, but also another significant intelligence coup after the CIA-led raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, in Pakistan.
Read more >>
Atiyah Abdul Rahman | Al Qaeda
When: Aug. 22, 2011
How: CIA Predator drone strike
Where: Waziristan, Pakistan
Rahman first met Osama bin Laden in his teens, and the Al Qaeda kingpin appointed him to chief liaison for the group in Iran. Though he was unknown to most Americans, he "gained considerable stature in Al Qaeda as an explosives expert and Islamic scholar," according to the website of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center.
“Atiyah was at the top of Al Qaeda's trusted core," said an intelligence official, who would not be identified discussing sensitive defense matters. "His combination of background, experience and abilities are unique in Al Qaeda; without question, they will not be easily replaced."
Read more »
Ilyas Kashmiri | Al Qaeda
When: June 3, 2011
How: Drone strike
Where: South Waziristan, Pakistan
Ilyas Kashmiri, a key Al Qaeda strategist, was killed in a 2011 strike in South Waziristan, Pakistan. Reports on Kashmiri alleged that he trained mujahedin to counter Soviet forces in 1980s Afghanistan and that he was tipped to command Al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden’s death.
Kashmiri led a militant group in Pakistan and in recent years had been brought into the leadership of Al Qaeda, running a training camp and planning attacks against targets in India and Europe, said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
Read more >>
Osama bin Laden | Al Qaeda
When: May 2, 2011
How: U.S. special forces unit raid
Where: Abbottabad, Pakistan
The founder of Al Qaeda and the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks was killed during a special forces raid of his compound. The Saudi Arabia-born extremist kingpin vanished after the fall of the World Trade Center towers.
Once or twice a year, Bin Laden popped up on a new video or audio recording, mocking America's leaders and urging his faithful to follow his path. They did so with bombings in London, Madrid, Bali, Indonesia, and elsewhere.
Interrogators at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were pushed to ask Al Qaeda suspects in custody about possible couriers. The information came in pieces, a U.S. official said, and it took years.
Read more >>
Abdallah Umar Qurayshi | Al Qaeda
When: Sept. 25, 2010
How: Airstrike
Where: Kunar, Afghanistan
The bombing of a compound in Kunar province, close to the border with Pakistan, killed Abdallah Umar Qurayshi, who had led Al Qaeda-affiliated Arab fighters operating in two eastern provinces, and Abu Atta Kuwaiti, an explosives expert.
Western troops, nearly all of them American, pulled out of the remote, rugged Korengal Valley after suffering heavy losses over several years. Fighters led by Qurayshi had staged attacks on Western forces in Kunar and Nuristan provinces, where insurgents sometimes targeted isolated U.S. outposts with devastating results.
Read more »
Sheik Said Masri | Al Qaeda
When: May 21, 2010
How: Drone Strike
Where: Pakistan
Al Qaeda's former third-ranking leader — a close associate and relative by marriage to Osama bin Laden — was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region. The death of Masri, an Egyptian who was believed to act as the terrorist network's operational leader, was a major blow to Al Qaeda, which had suffered a steady degradation of its leadership and ability to mount attacks since the U.S. stepped up its campaign of missile strikes by unmanned aircraft in the tribal region.
Read more >>
Hussein Yemeni | Al Qaeda
When: March 8, 2010
How: Drone Strike
Where: Miram Shah, Pakistan
The death of the elusive Yemeni proved a source of elation for U.S. intelligence officials after the expert bomb maker was killed by drone strike in early 2010. It is believed that Yemeni played a strategic role in the 2009 Camp Chapman suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA employees and contractors.
A counter-terrorism official described the Miram Shah strike as a "clean, precise action that shows these killers cannot hide even in relatively built-up places."
Read more >>
Baitullah Mahsud | Pakistani Taliban
When: Aug. 5, 2009
How: Predator drone strike
Where: Miram Shah, Pakistan
Mahsud was a founding militant of the Pakistani Taliban, which U.S. intelligence suggested could have been behind the 2007 assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Despite his small stature, it is suggested that he had commanded as many as 20,000 fighters and provided refuge for Afghani Taliban members after the 2001 U.S. invasion.
Read more >>
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b0acd539bc03c6a01f89667fddcc0fbe | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-turkey-bombers-had-islamic-state-connections-20151014-story.html | Bombers who struck a Turkish peace rally had Islamic State connections | Bombers who struck a Turkish peace rally had Islamic State connections
Turkish officials say the two suicide bombers responsible for nearly 100 deaths at an Ankara peace rally last week had fought in Syria and had connections with Islamic State.
The Hurriyet newspaper said the bombers were identified as Yunus Emre Alagoz and Omer Deniz Dundar, both from the conservative mixed Kurdish-Turkish city of Adiyaman in Turkey’s southeast.
NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>
Alagoz was the brother of the Islamic State suicide bomber who attacked a gathering of Kurdish activists in the frontier town of Suruc in July, killing more than 30 people who were planning to move reconstruction supplies into the battered city of Kobani, Syria. Islamic State laid siege to Kobani for nearly six months beginning late last year before mostly Kurdish fighters drove the militants out.
The two men reportedly traveled in separate cars from the city of Gaziantep, a key logistics and resupply point for Islamic State militants and other rebel factions, to Ankara.
“I went to the police and told them, ‘Put him in jail,’” Dundar’s father said in an interview with Hurriyet. “They questioned and then released him and he went back to Syria.”
A third man accused of acting as a scout in last week’s bloody attack has been arrested, along with the owners of the cars used in the bombing, Turkish news reports said.
The father’s statements prompted outrage in Turkey, and top security chiefs have been removed from their posts as part of the fallout from what was the nation’s deadliest terrorist attack.
“In order to run a healthy investigation of the abominable terrorist attack ... and in line with the requests from chief civil and police inspectors, Ankara’s provincial police chief, intelligence department chief and security department chiefs have been removed from duty,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement late Tuesday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged a security lapse, in his first public comments since the attack, which prompted massive public outrage and grief.
“There must undoubtedly be a mistake, a shortcoming in some place,” said Erdogan, who laid bouquets of flowers at the blast site on Wednesday. “Of what dimension? This will emerge after examinations.”
Johnson is a special correspondent.
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Israel sends soldiers into cities to bolster security
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95e0e3620e9c099956b5b110a8f4c689 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-turkey-kurds-20170306-story.html | As Erdogan consolidates power in Turkey, the Kurdish opposition faces crackdown | As Erdogan consolidates power in Turkey, the Kurdish opposition faces crackdown
She is facing a potential sentence of 83 years in prison. The crime, some would say, is belonging to the political opposition that is under siege by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Figen Yuksekdag, co-chair of the country’s leading pro-Kurdish political party, is among the most prominent targets of a massive legal assault on Turkey’s Kurdish opposition in the run-up to a vote on a constitutional amendment that could grant Erdogan sweeping powers.
The government has already stripped her of her seat in parliament for allegedly supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). She stands accused in scores of other terrorism-related cases — as does her co-leader of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, who has been sentenced to five months in prison for “insulting the Turkish nation.”
Among Yuksekdag’s alleged crimes: delivering a speech in 2015 that lent support to Kurdish militias battling Islamic State in Syria, and attending the funeral of a suspected leftist militant in 2012.
Using emergency powers in place since last July, Turkey has jailed 13 HDP lawmakers and more than 5,000 of the party’s workers over alleged terror links. In the Kurdish southeast, where the HDP enjoys an electoral majority, more than 80 locally elected district governments have been replaced by federally appointed caretakers, their former heads imprisoned.
In addition, dozens of news outlets have been shuttered, scores of journalists arrested, and art exhibits and cultural festivals have been banned for allegedly supporting the PKK.
The crackdown has gutted what was once touted as a political bloc that could help end the PKK’s four-decades-long insurgency, which has claimed 40,000 lives.
“The government is totally turning everything upside down,” said Ahmet Yildiz, an author of several books on Turkey’s Kurdish political movement and a researcher at the Istanbul-based Al Sharq Forum. “Some [of those accused] have affiliations with the PKK, but not all of them …. It all depends on how you define terror, and the government is using a political definition of terror.”
Up to 20% of Turkey is ethnically Kurdish, but the minority has long been subject to restrictions on cultural expression, stoking tensions that gave birth to a leftist separatist insurgency by the PKK in 1984, led by the now imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Erdogan’s government enacted significant reforms, and the PKK agreed to a cease-fire in 2013. But the truce unraveled in 2015 after Turkey refused to militarily intervene in Syria on behalf of Kurdish militias who saw Ocalan as a figurehead and sought to carve out a separate state.
Erdogan views the Kurdish militias in Syria to be extensions of the PKK, which both Turkey and the United States consider a terrorist organization. In her 2015 speech, Yuksekdag said that while the government believed her party was “leaning on a terrorist organization,” she saw no harm in supporting the militias, which have been the most effective foes of Islamic State in Syria.
She has defended her attendance at the 2012 funeral as an attempt to acknowledge the grief of mothers in her constituency. Her supporters have pointed to a 2009 speech in which Erdogan ignited hope of a political solution to the PKK insurgency by speaking of the pain of mothers who lose their children. “Mothers have no ideology. Mothers have no politics, they are not rightists or leftists,” he said.
At the time he made those remarks, Erdogan had enlisted Kurdish opposition figures as mediators with the PKK’s head, Ocalan.
One such mediator was Ahmet Turk, a veteran Kurdish politician currently with the Democratic Regions Party who has lived through nearly three decades of what amounts to a revolving door between parliament and prison. He now doubts Erdogan ever sincerely wanted peace.
“Not Erdogan, not any of the governments internalized the Kurds’ identity problems, or their requests for education in their mother tongue,” said Turk, currently deposed from his job as mayor of Mardin and facing terror charges for alleged involvement in a regional Kurdish confederation inspired by Ocalan.
The accusations, Turk said, “are aimed at trying to make the Kurdish political movement fail. They are political decisions …. The government is nitpicking, they have no solid evidence.”
The case against Turk is centered on wiretapped phone recordings and a secret witness, the same kind of evidence used against Kurdish leaders under previous military-dominated governments that have banned five pro-Kurdish parties in the nation’s history over alleged ties to terrorism.
Even Kurds who have usually been allies of Erdogan’s Islamist movement find themselves in the snare.
One of Erdogan’s most regularly touted political achievements is the lifting of a ban on women wearing headscarves. Huda Kaya, an HDP lawmaker who once faced the death penalty for protesting the ban, now finds herself being accused of terrorism for a speech that sought to bring attention to alleged abuses by the military in the southeastern district of Diyarbakir.
When reports emerged of civilians dying as a result of a months-long curfew imposed as the military battled PKK militants, Kaya traveled to the area and gave a speech saying, “We are witnesses to the massacres here. We know very well who killed whom.”
Prosecutors are seeking to jail Kaya for up to 25 years for the statement, which they say “glamorized” the PKK’s narrative.
“There were dead bodies in the streets, left alone to rot because of a curfew,” Kaya said. “Neither in humanity nor in Islam is there any place for that kind of barbarity. I only went there to call for peace, and now I face accusations of being a terrorist.”
Farooq is a special correspondent.
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f98a8ee4050a9a1922425561a66949b2 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-embassy-iraq-20140615-story.html | U.S. condemns militants’ claim of executing 1,700 Iraqi soldiers | U.S. condemns militants’ claim of executing 1,700 Iraqi soldiers
The United States on Sunday condemned a militant group’s claim of killing 1,700 Iraqi soldiers, a denouncement that came a short time after officials said they were boosting security at the embassy in Baghdad and relocating some staff.
The claim by the Al Qaeda splinter group — the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS — that it had killed Shiite Muslim air force recruits in Tikrit en masse “is a horrifying and a true depiction of the bloodlust that these terrorists represent,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.
Psaki’s statement said “one of the primary goals” of the group “is to set fear into the hearts of all Iraqis and drive sectarian division among its people.”
The statement said the U.S. “will do its part to help Iraq move beyond this crisis,” but it did not specify how. “Terrorists who can commit such heinous acts are a shared enemy of the United States, Iraq and the international community,” it said.
ISIS fighters last week launched a blitz in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and an important oil hub. The assault resulted in Iraqi army and police units running for their lives, shedding uniforms and weapons as they fled. Top Iraqi officials threatened deserters with harsh punishment, including execution.
Then on Sunday, photos purportedly documenting the attack on Tikrit were posted online, beginning with typical images of ISIS fighters atop pickup trucks and sedans raising their black banner.
More disturbing photos follow, depicting rows of men lying in shallow trenches as an ISIS fighter sprays them with gunfire. A caption boasts of “killing of the herds … that have escaped from the military bases.” Other images show what are described as captured soldiers in trucks to be “taken to their deaths” as “the lions of ISIS race to devour their prey.”
Amid the tense situation in Iraq, including a series of explosions Sunday that killed at least 15 in Baghdad, the United States pulled some staff members out of its embassy in Baghdad and upped security there.
“Some additional U.S. government security personnel will be added to the staff in Baghdad; other staff will be temporarily relocated” to other parts of Iraq and to Jordan, Psaki said in a statement that came earlier in the day.
The embassy is to stay operational. “A substantial majority of the U.S. Embassy presence in Iraq will remain in place and the embassy will be fully equipped to carry out its national security mission,” Psaki said.
A State Department spokeswoman refused to say how many staffers were being removed from the embassy, citing security considerations.
The State Department advised U.S. citizens to “limit travel” in Anbar, Nineveh, Salahuddin, Diyala and Tamim provinces, as well as to make contingency plans for emergencies and to be cautious and aware.
Americans in Iraq should register with the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program for updates, the department said.
The U.S. military is providing some additional security, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement: “A small number of [Defense Department] personnel are augmenting State Department security assets in Baghdad to help ensure the safety of our facilities. The temporary relocation of some embassy personnel is being facilitated aboard commercial, charter and State Department aircraft as appropriate. The U.S. military has airlift assets at the ready should State Department request them, as per normal inter-agency support arrangements.”
“The United States strongly supports Iraq and its people as they face security challenges from violent extremists,” the State Department statement said. “The people of Iraq have repeatedly rejected violent extremism and expressed their desire to build a better society for themselves and for their children.”
For more news, follow @raablauren on Twitter.
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3bc2eebd79ea422b60ea5897eed793f7 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-iran-20140409-story.html | U.S. tells Iran its choice for U.N. ambassador is ‘not viable’ | U.S. tells Iran its choice for U.N. ambassador is ‘not viable’
WASHINGTON — The White House stepped up its opposition Tuesday to Iran’s choice for ambassador to the United Nations, but sought to keep the controversy from derailing negotiations over the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear program.
Hamid Aboutalebi, Iran’s selection as envoy to the U.N., has drawn sharp criticism in the United States because he belonged to a student group that seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took American diplomats hostage during the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Senate voted unanimously Monday evening to bar Aboutalebi from entering the United States. The House is expected to follow suit.
The Obama administration, eager to avoid disruption of the international nuclear negotiations with Iran that resumed Tuesday in Vienna, has called Aboutalebi’s selection “extremely troubling,” but it stopped short of barring his entry.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney toughened up his language, however, saying U.S. officials have told Iran that the Aboutalebi selection is “not viable.”
Though Iranian officials have called the appointment definitive, Carney described it as a “potential selection, as I understand it, that has not been formally made.”
“The legislation passed by the Senate underscores just how troubling this potential nomination would be,” he said.
Officials said they had not ruled out denying Aboutalebi a visa but that they hoped Iran would pick a new nominee so that wouldn’t be necessary.
The U.S. government has the prerogative to reject ambassadorial candidates to serve at the U.N. headquarters in New York, though it is rarely exercised.
Aboutalebi, 57, a pro-reform diplomat aligned with President Hassan Rouhani’s circle, has held a series of posts around the world, including in Australia, Italy and Belgium. He is considered liberal and pragmatic, and is well-known to American specialists on Iran.
He has played down his role in the 1979 hostage-taking, saying he served in the group primarily as an interpreter. He was a 22-year-old student at the time.
But the students’ seizure of the U.S. Embassy and its diplomats remains a scar on U.S.-Iranian relations.
Some Iran analysts were surprised that Rouhani apparently failed to anticipate that Aboutalebi would galvanize strong U.S. opposition.
“This was just a blooper,” said Cliff Kupchan, an Iran specialist at the Eurasia Group risk-consulting firm. He said the government in Tehran, which still resents the CIA-engineered ouster of Iran’s prime minister in 1953, should have recognized the sensitivity of sending a diplomat who played a role in the hostage-taking.
The nuclear talks, which are aimed at sealing a deal to prevent Iran from gaining the ability to build a nuclear weapon, have made progress since they resumed in February, negotiators say. But hard-liners in Iran and the United States are strongly suspicious of a potential accord, and critics could try to use the dispute over Aboutalebi to undermine the talks.
In Vienna on Tuesday night, U.S. and Iranian officials held a 90-minute meeting separate from the seven-country talks that are underway.
The bilateral session was “useful and professional,” said a senior State Department official, who declined to be identified when speaking about the sensitive subject.
christi.parsons@latimes.com
paul.richter@latimes.com
Special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.
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2b7bafe6702bcb5c5aedc2927fe298d0 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-iraq-20150416-story.html?track=rss | Iraqi prime minister caught between U.S. and Iran | Iraqi prime minister caught between U.S. and Iran
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi found himself caught between his government’s two most important allies - the United States and Iran - during his four day-visit in Washington.
Abadi’s trip was intended to shore up U.S. military support for the battle against Islamic State. He wants to speed up delivery of U.S. fighter jets, small drone aircraft and heavy weapons, and bring home financial aid to help rebuild Tikrit and other Iraqi cities devastated in the conflict.
But Abadi repeatedly was asked about the role of dozens of Iranian military advisors on the front lines, including a senior commander who helped direct lethal attacks on American troops during the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
Speaking Thursday at a Washington think tank, Abadi said he did not approve of widely circulated photos that showed Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force, an elite unit in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, supposedly drinking tea outside Tikrit at the start of a recent offensive.
“Certainly, it is a bad idea” for Iranian officers to appear to be commanding troops inside Iraq, Abadi said. “We don’t accept it.”
After Iraqi security forces and Shiite Muslim volunteer militias pushed the militants out of Tikrit, online photos showed Persian graffiti on the city’s walls along with photographs of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Abadi said the displays probably were intended to goad the Obama administration, which is conducting airstrikes against Islamic State positions but has not sent ground troops, and did not reflect Iranian control over Iraqi forces.
He expressed frustration, noting, “I’ve been talking to the Iranians about this.” He spoke at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Military assistance from Iran must be channeled through the central government, he said.
Iran has played an increasing role in neighboring Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 ousted Saddam Hussein, a secular strongman who had led a disastrous war against Iran in the 1980s. The U.S. considers Iran a malign force, however, that has stoked sectarian tension in Iraq.
Yet the two longtime adversaries are tacit allies in Iraq because they are both backing Baghdad’s attempts to oust Islamic State. Washington and Tehran insist they don’t have and don’t want any formal cooperation.
Human rights organizations say the Iran-backed Shiite militias have been responsible for reprisal killings and destruction of Sunni homes in Tikrit and other towns wrested from Islamic State control.
In stark contrast to his predecessor, Nouri Maliki, Abadi has publicly embraced U.S. assistance in Iraq. During his first formal visit here, he repeatedly thanked Americans for their sacrifice and support in Iraq.
Abadi, who took office in September, is eager to keep on good terms with Washington and Tehran. Iran has trained and armed the Shiite militias that have so far been some of the most effective forces against Islamic State.
U.S. advisors, meanwhile, are helping create nine new Iraqi brigades that will be used in an attempt to recapture Mosul, which Islamic State has declared the capital of an Islamic caliphate.
In addition to seeking new heavy weapons and armored personnel carriers, Abadi wants the Pentagon to help shorten the time it takes to launch an airstrike after intelligence about a potential target has come in.
That could mean putting U.S. targeters closer to the front lines, a prospect that the White House has resisted.
Twitter: @ByBrianBennett
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1a5b5c695bc69d93c4850afb96253e2f | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-saudi-iran-20160104-story.html | U.S. initiatives at risk as Mideast tensions rise | U.S. initiatives at risk as Mideast tensions rise
The Obama administration’s key Middle East initiatives — ending Syria’s civil war, combating Islamic State and implementing the Iranian nuclear deal — could be undermined by the explosion of tensions between the region’s two powerhouses, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
A historically fraught rivalry between Sunni Muslim-dominated Saudi Arabia and Shiite Muslim Iran, previously fought mostly through proxies, now is more direct than ever and threatens to engulf the region in a new spiral of bitter confrontations, analysts said.
In addition to igniting new rounds of vicious fighting in Syria and Yemen, where the two countries back opposing sides, the dispute could play into the hands of Islamic State by further stoking the sectarian conflict it relies on as its raison d’etre, the analysts warned.
The flare-up comes at an awkward time for the Obama administration. The United Nations Security Council could decide within weeks whether Iran is entitled to an easing of international sanctions, and a return to the global economy, under the controversial nuclear accord.
Saudi Arabia took the drastic measure of cutting diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday after Shiites infuriated by the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia torched the Saudi Embassy in Tehran.
The crisis widened Monday as Saudi allies Bahrain and Sudan also severed relations with Iran. The United Arab Emirates, a major trading partner with Iran, withdrew its ambassador but did not break diplomatic ties.
“This exceptional step has been taken in the light of Iran’s continuous interference in the internal affairs of gulf and Arab states, which has reached unprecedented levels,” the UAE said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia also barred its citizens from traveling to Iran and suspended air traffic and other commercial relations, although it said Iranians would still be welcome to make the annual religious pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.
Iran must behave “like a normal country” and not “a revolution,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir said, according to Reuters.
The Saudi kingdom’s decision last week to execute an outspoken Shiite cleric and government critic, Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 other dissidents and militants, apparently caught Washington by surprise.
The Obama administration had worked hard to bring Saudi Arabia and Iran into nascent negotiations aimed at finding a political solution to the civil war in Syria. Iran has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Saudi Arabia is supporting some of the armed groups fighting to oust him.
U.N.-backed peace talks are still expected to start this month, but the long-shot prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough now appear considerably dimmer.
“It was essential to bring Saudi Arabia and Iran together, and there was some progress,” said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “That is all sort of shot. This is going to complicate just about everything the administration is trying to do” in the Middle East.
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, acknowledged Monday that the escalating conflict poses problems for U.S. efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the war in Syria.
“There will always be reasons ... to be reluctant to engage,” Earnest said. But the White House is “hopeful” that won’t happen, he said, because “it is so clearly in the interest of both countries.”
The administration is urging both sides to “de-escalate” their conflict and “not further inflame” tensions, Earnest said.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry spoke by phone Monday to his Iranian counterpart and was attempting similar contact with the Saudis, spokesman John Kirby said.
“Actions like this don’t do anything to help stability in the region,” Kirby said of the flare-up. He said the U.S. had raised concerns about the Saudi legal process that sanctioned the mass execution.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, also spoke to Iranian and Saudi leaders, warning that “the security and stability of the whole region … is at stake,” her office said.
Saudi Arabia and its gulf Arab allies view Iran with growing distrust and anger, and worry that the U.S.-led nuclear deal brokered in Vienna last summer will allow Iran to end its isolation without giving up its nuclear ambitions.
Under the terms of the deal, if Iran gets rid of its enriched uranium stockpiles and dismantles or disables most of its nuclear infrastructure, it will gain access to more than $60 billion in frozen funds as early as this month, and be allowed to resume exports of oil on the open market.
A more powerful Iran, combined with low prices for the oil that supports the Saudi economy, and the largely unsuccessful war Saudi Arabia is waging against what it claims are Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Yemen, has pushed the kingdom to act more aggressively.
Saudi leaders did not publicly oppose the nuclear deal, but experts say they have lost confidence in the United States’ willingness to oppose what they consider Iranian aggression across the region.
“The Saudis have their own agenda, which they are carrying out without regard for what we say or do or need,” said Aaron David Miller, a veteran U.S. diplomat in the Middle East who is now with the nonpartisan Wilson Center in Washington.
Iranian First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said Saudi Arabia would suffer more from the cutting of diplomatic ties.
“I advise the Saudi leaders to stop these subversive, hasty, illogical, emotional acts that are marked by mismanagement,” Jahangiri said during a news conference Monday in Tehran, according to the Iranian media outlet Press TV.
Although the tensions were being ratcheted up at a brisk pace, several experts said they did not expect hostilities to escalate to open warfare.
“I don’t believe [Al-Nimr’s execution] will be a make or break issue for open war,” said Joas Wagemakers, an expert on Sunni-Shiite relations at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
“Nimr was not openly connected nor overly loyal to Iran, and he did not believe an Islamic state along Iranian lines should be founded in Saudi Arabia.”
Still, Al-Nimr will be viewed as a martyr for religious Shiites and would probably become a galvanizing figure for opposition to the Saudi government, Wagemakers said.
Times staff writer Wilkinson reported from Washington and special correspondent Bulos from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Staff writer Christi Parsons in Washington and special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.
Twitter: @TracyKWilkinson
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bfdeb6965e5b3b7c88d4b7203c676267 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-saudis-20150417-story.html?track=rss | Saudi-led Yemen air war’s high civilian toll unsettles U.S. officials | Saudi-led Yemen air war’s high civilian toll unsettles U.S. officials
Concerned about reports of hundreds of civilian casualties, Obama administration officials are increasingly uneasy about the U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led air war against rebel militias in Yemen, opening a potential rift between Washington and its ally in Riyadh.
Backed by U.S. intelligence, air refueling and other support, Saudi warplanes have conducted widespread bombing of Yemeni villages and towns since March 26 but have failed to dislodge the Houthi rebels who have overrun much of the Arab world’s poorest nation since last fall.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, widely regarded as the terrorist network’s most lethal franchise, has capitalized on the chaos by sharply expanding its reach. Fighters loyal to the group claimed control Thursday of a military base and other key facilities near Mukalla, an Arabian Sea port in southern Yemen.
Saudi officials said they are not targeting areas with Al Qaeda fighters, however, and are focusing only on the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim minority whom they view as proxies for Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival.
With the country sliding into civil war, the United Nations special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, resigned under pressure Wednesday. Officials said the Moroccan-born diplomat had lost the support of Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies.
Pentagon officials, who pride themselves on the care they take to avoid civilian casualties, have watched with growing alarm as Saudi airstrikes have hit what the U.N. this week called “dozens of public buildings,” including hospitals, schools, residential areas and mosques. The U.N. said at least 364 civilians have been killed in the campaign.
Although U.S. personnel don’t pick the bombing targets, Americans are working beside Saudi military officials to check the accuracy of target lists in a joint operations center in Riyadh, defense officials said. The Pentagon has expedited delivery of GPS-guided “smart” bomb kits to the Saudi air force to replenish supplies.
The U.S. role was quietly stepped up last week after the civilian death toll rose sharply. The number of U.S. personnel was increased from 12 to 20 in the operations center to help vet targets and to perform more precise calculations of bomb blast areas to help avoid civilian casualties.
U.S. reconnaissance drones now send live video feeds of potential targets and of damage after the bombs hit. The Air Force also began daily refueling flights last week to top off Saudi and United Arab Emirates fighter jets in midair, outside Yemen’s borders, so they can quickly return to the war.
Saudi officials say their goal is to pressure the Houthis to disarm and to reinstate President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. That would require the Houthis to give up virtually all their gains since they captured the capital, Sana, in September and forced Hadi into exile in March.
Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, was in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Thursday to consult with the kingdom’s leaders on their military plans.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing briefings on the air war, called it a “disaster,” saying the Saudis don’t have a “realistic endgame” for the bombing.
U.S. officials are especially concerned about Al Qaeda’s reemergence in Yemen after years of drone strikes and other counter-terrorism operations had pushed them into the shadows. A special U.S. counter-terrorism team was forced to abandon the country last month.
Fighters loyal to Al Qaeda claimed control of an airport, an oil terminal and a military base outside Mukalla, capital of Hadhramaut province, a stronghold for the terrorist group. This month, the militants robbed a bank and freed hundreds of inmates from a prison in the city. A U.S. official in Washington confirmed most the group’s claims.
“They are consolidating their hold of the city and will paralyze the whole coast of Hadhramaut,” Nasser Baqazouz, an activist in Mukalla, told the Associated Press. He said government troops guarding the airport put up little resistance.
Yemeni security officials in Sana, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the news media, said commanders of the military brigade responsible for protecting the area fled.
Although they are staunch opponents of Al Qaeda, the Houthis and their allies are caught up in fierce clashes with supporters of Hadi, who is supported by the Obama administration and Sunni Arab nations.
The White House took pains to tamp down reports of a rift with the Saudis, denying a statement by Iraq’s visiting prime minister, Haider Abadi, that President Obama had agreed with him that the Saudi airstrikes had gone “too far.”
Abadi did not back down but tried to play down the spat. “We have our own opinion on the war in Yemen,” Abadi said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
But U.S. officials also made it clear that they are looking for ways to resolve the crisis. They have not ruled out opening a line of communication with Houthi leaders, although so far intermediaries have been unable to broker an arrangement.
The U.S. has seen indications that Iran is providing weapons and equipment to the Houthis, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday.
“What continues to be unclear, and there is some skepticism about, is whether or not there is [Iranian] command and control of the activities of the Houthis in Yemen,” he said.
Earnest said the Saudis asked for help with the airstrikes, “and we have complied with that request in the form of providing intelligence and logistical support.”
What the U.S. “has always believed and continue to impress upon everyone involved in this situation is that our goal is to try to bring about a political resolution to the conflict,” he said.
At a Pentagon news conference, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter paused when asked whether the U.S. agreed with Saudi Arabia’s decision to bomb Yemen.
“Well, we supported it,” he said.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Houthis aspire to restore an ancient empire “that included all of Yemen and parts of southern Saudi Arabia.”
“The Saudis are right to be concerned,” he said.
The issue is sure to be on the agenda when Obama meets leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain — at the presidential retreat at Camp David next month. He initially invited them to address their concerns about a nuclear deal with Iran.
Analysts see U.S. support for the Saudi intervention as chiefly an attempt to maintain close ties with Riyadh, especially in regard to the emerging nuclear deal with Iran. Saudi officials have avoided public criticism of the April 2 preliminary deal.
“We’re doing this not because we think it would be good for Yemen policy; we’re doing it because we think it’s good for U.S.-Saudi relations,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former Obama administration official who is now with the Center for a New American Security.
Bennett and Hennigan reported from Washington and Zavis from Riyadh. Times staff writers Michael A. Memoli and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.
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120e7139597e021d6f11f814dfde728b | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-syria-20150803-story.html | Pentagon ramps up airstrikes in Syria to help U.S.-backed rebels | Pentagon ramps up airstrikes in Syria to help U.S.-backed rebels
U.S. officials Monday confirmed an expanded bombing campaign in Syria that increases the risk of confrontation with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, possibly drawing Washington more deeply into that country’s punishing four-year war.
The Obama administration authorized the Pentagon to use force to help defend a small, U.S.-trained Syrian rebel unit against other insurgent factions — or against fighters allied with the Syrian government, officials said.
U.S. warplanes already struck last week, bombarding Al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels who had attacked the Pentagon-backed force.
Until now, the U.S.-led air campaign that began last August has focused almost exclusively on Islamic State, the breakaway Al Qaeda faction that controls huge parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq. President Obama has called on Assad to step down, but the U.S. military has refrained from targeting pro-Assad forces.
U.S. officials emphasized that the expanded mission was defensive in nature and did not signal an offensive push against Assad’s military, which is also fighting Islamic State. The Pentagon downplayed the possibility of a confrontation with Assad’s forces, though the Syrian air force is active in northern Aleppo province, where the U.S.-backed forces are operating.
“We are not at war with the Assad regime,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. “This is not something we view as inviting confrontation with Assad in any way.”
There was no official comment from Damascus. But wary Syrian officials have long viewed the U.S. bombing campaign against Islamic State in Syria as a possible precursor for bombardment of pro-government forces.
The move also raises the possibility that Assad’s military may be forced to pull back its air power to avoid confrontation with U.S. forces, thus neutralizing Damascus’ major strategic advantage against myriad opposition groups, including Islamic State.
The policy shift came to light after the first group of several dozen U.S.-vetted and trained fighters in northern Syria was attacked Friday by Al Nusra Front, the official Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. U.S. warplanes soon swept in to help defend the Pentagon-trained unit, marking the first time that American aircraft had directly supported the trainees.
Additional airstrikes are likely, officials said, as the U.S.-trained unit seeks ways to confront Islamic State, which Obama has vowed to destroy.
“We won’t get into the specifics of our rules of engagement, but have said all along that we would take the steps necessary to ensure that these forces could successfully carry out their mission,” said Cmdr. Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman. “We demonstrated our resolve in this respect on Friday.”
The newly trained Syrian force was “being provided with a wide range” of support, said White House National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey. He called the airstrikes another measure “to protect them.”
The Al Nusra Front attack represents the latest setback for the Pentagon’s faltering effort to field what it calls a “moderate” force amid a disparate Syrian rebel movement now dominated by hard-core Islamists.
The Obama administration’s $500-million initiative to train and arm an opposition force in Syria has been beset by problems and delays and thus far has produced fewer than 60 fighters.
In several statements, Al Nusra Front denounced the new U.S.-trained force as Western “agents” and vowed to “cut the hand … of the Americans.” The attack on the U.S.-trained force occurred in the strategic town of Azaz, close to the Turkish border, according to various reports.
The area is part of a new, U.S.-Turkish plan for a “safe zone” in northwestern Syria that would use U.S. airstrikes and Western-backed rebels to expel Islamic State from a strip of contested territory south of Turkey’s border with Syria. But Al Nusra Front and other hard-line Islamic groups have a major presence in the proposed safe zone.
Al Nusra Front also said it had captured several members of a Western-backed rebel faction known as Division 30 in attacks last week. But U.S. officials denied that any members of the Pentagon-trained unit had been taken prisoner.
It is not the first time that Al Nusra Front has turned its guns on U.S.-backed rebel factions in northwestern Syria. Al Nusra Front fighters have previously routed a pair of high-profile Western-backed proxy fighting forces, the Harakat Hazm movement and the Syria Revolutionaries Front. Al Nusra Front said it had captured U.S.-provided weapons, including sophisticated TOW antitank missiles, in its attacks on Harakat Hazm.
In Moscow, a staunch ally of Assad, Russian officials warned Monday that the U.S. decision to back allied Syrian rebels with airstrikes threatens to unleash wider chaos in Syria and set back the fight against Islamic State.
Russia has “repeatedly underlined that help to the Syrian opposition, moreover financial and technical assistance, leads to further destabilization of the situation in the country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The expanded U.S. bombing mission comes as an independent monitoring group, Airwars.org, released the results of a six-month investigation that found U.S.-led coalition aircraft have probably killed at least 459 civilians in Syria and Iraq since the air war began last August. The Pentagon has confirmed only two civilian deaths, both children, from more than 5,600 coalition airstrikes.
The U.S. military reviews all allegations of civilian casualties to determine whether the charges are credible, said Sgt. 1st Class Sheryl L. Lawry, U.S. Central Command spokeswoman.
The military has six active investigations open, including four in Iraq and two in Syria. Four other investigations have been completed, including the one involving the two children.
“We apply very rigorous standards in our targeting process to avoid or to minimize civilian casualties in the first place,” Lawry said. “We take great care — from analysis of available intelligence to selection of the appropriate weapon to meet mission requirements — in order to minimize the risk of collateral damage, particularly any potential harm to noncombatants.”
Although U.S. airstrikes have almost exclusively focused on Islamic State, a number of attacks in northern Syria have also hit Al Nusra Front-affiliated operatives whom the Pentagon collectively calls the Khorasan Group. The Pentagon describes the group as seasoned Al Qaeda terrorists who have been plotting attacks against the West from parts of Syria held by rebels.
Under the new Syrian rebel training program announced in June 2014, the Pentagon initially envisioned 5,400 graduates within a year.
The four countries where the training takes place — Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — sharply disagree with Washington on what the proxy force should do. Leaders of those nations want the newly trained troops to focus first on ousting Assad; the White House wants the fighters to target Islamic State.
McDonnell reported from Beirut and Hennigan from Washington. Times staff writer Carol J. Williams in Los Angeles and special correspondent Nabih Bulos in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
Follow @wjhenn for military and defense info.
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2f78a6dee79dbede17edbd09765a906c | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-volunteers-syria-20171021-story.html | They went to Syria to fight Islamic State. Now two Americans find themselves in limbo | They went to Syria to fight Islamic State. Now two Americans find themselves in limbo
Former Marine Kevin Howard claimed scores of kills as a sniper volunteering this year with a militia fighting Islamic State in Syria.
He wanted to help people, Howard had said this summer, especially Christians who were being persecuted for their faith just as they had been in areas where he had fought with the Marines in Iraq.
For the record:
12:20 PM, Jun. 22, 2019This story reported that Taylor Hudson lived with a couple in Syria and became engaged with their daughter. She was a local resident but not the couple’s daughter and her family broke off the engagement.
But this fall, Howard and a fellow American volunteer, Taylor Hudson, grew disillusioned with the U.S.-backed militia and decided it was time to leave the battlefield and return home. But that decision launched both men on an uncertain and still unfolding journey that highlights the odd nature of their role as soldiers fighting for a cause, not a country.
Earlier this month, Howard, 28, a heavily tattooed veteran from San Francisco, disappeared after crossing the border in Iraq. His friend Hudson then had to decide: Stay in Syria or go to Iraq in hopes of finding his missing comrade?
“I don’t know what my situation is going to be once I cross the border” into Iraq, Hudson said Thursday from a home where he was sheltering with friends in Syria.
Americans have a history of volunteering to fight overseas, but the war in Syria presents distinct problems and challenges. The U.S. State Department advises against volunteering to fight with U.S.-allied Kurdish and Syrian militias, and the U.S. is under no obligation to aid such fighters if they get in trouble. But if the volunteers manage to return to the U.S., they face no legal consequences.
Of the several hundred such volunteers who have served since the Syrian civil war began six years ago, some died on the front line. According to local estimates, several dozen remain fighting in Syria. Others returned to the U.S. after their tours of duty, where would-be volunteers quiz them about the dangers they faced.
When Howard joined the Syriac Military Council, known as the MFS, last year, he was well aware of the risks. He made one stipulation: He would fight as a sniper team with Hudson, 33, from Pasadena, whom he trained with and trusted. Commanders agreed.
In July, when they spoke with the Los Angeles Times on the front line in Raqqah, they were encouraged. Militia fighters had broken through the city’s ancient wall and were gaining new footholds in Islamic State territory.
Days later, their unit was targeted by deadly Islamic State suicide attacks. An Assyrian fighter was shot and killed on patrol. Their missions became more ragtag, assembled at the last minute. Hudson insisted he leave the front line to get treatment for his hand, injured by shrapnel in June. He traveled north to the militia’s training academy in Tal Tamr, expecting to rejoin Howard in Raqqah in a few weeks.
But Hudson never returned. Commanders refused to allow Hudson back to the front, he said, and began pushing Howard to shift south toward the worsening battle in Dair Alzour. Each heard that the other had been killed. Howard eventually persuaded commanders to transfer him where Hudson was so they could leave Syria together. But then, Hudson said, they were detained at the academy.
An MFS spokesman insisted that the pair were “absolutely not jailed” and that “we always appreciate the will of Westerners to join our fight and cause.”
Last month, a paralegal friend of Howard’s back in the U.S., Jeanette Carlisle of Fort Worth, tweeted a plea for help to U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition. Could the military, she asked, rescue Hudson and her friend?
“While we join you in your concern for Mr. Howard, U.S. forces here are fully engaged in an international effort to defeat ISIS, and unfortunately are not resourced for or tasked with checking on Americans who make this dangerous choice for themselves,” Dillon wrote back, referring her to the State Department. ISIS is another name for Islamic State.
Hudson was desperate to leave. He still felt driven to help Syrian friends and a family that had sponsored him, but he was burned out.
“I had to come up with a formula to estimate how many of my friends I had seen shot. It was over 500,” he said.
He said he was told by a contact at the State Department that the pair could seek help from U.S. forces based in Kobani, on the northern border. But he and Howard were turned away.
“They talked to us like we are criminals,” Howard wrote in a message Oct. 9. “We need help.”
Dillon said in an interview that it wasn’t the military’s responsibility to rescue American volunteers in Syria.
“The State Department has been very clear in discouraging non-official travel of Americans to the combat theater,” he said. “Barring direct orders from higher authorities, the U.S. military is neither resourced for, nor charged with, search/rescue efforts for Americans who have voluntarily traveled into Iraq and Syria,” which he said “poses potential risk to military personnel and resources otherwise dedicated to the defeat of ISIS.”
Dillon did say that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was looking into the matter of Howard and Hudson, but a State Department official noted that the department “has no consular presence in Syria — our ability to provide consular assistance to individuals who are injured or kidnapped, or to the families of individuals who die in the conflict, is extremely limited.”
He declined to comment on the cases of Howard and Hudson, citing privacy concerns.
After the pair failed to get help in Kobani, Hudson said they returned to Tal Tamr, where he got his passport back and was allowed to leave after signing paperwork absolving the militia of responsibility for his safety. But militia leaders still held Howard, seizing his passport because he had been such a high-profile fighter, Hudson said. When Hudson last talked to him by phone Oct. 13, Howard said militia officials had moved him east to Hasakah.
“He was afraid they were going to just drive him to the Iraqi border and dump him in the middle of nowhere,” Hudson said of his friend.
The next day, he learned what had happened to Howard.
The militia released a photo and video of Howard crossing the border into Iraq at Faysh Khabur. Although Howard remained incommunicado, by Thursday the U.S. Consulate in Irbil confirmed to friends and family that Howard was being held by Kurdish officials in that northern Iraqi city, and that they should be able to secure his release in a few weeks.
Howard’s mother, Susan O’Leary of Grants Pass, Ore., said Saturday that she was contacted by consular staffers in Irbil who said they had visited her son at a nearby detention center. “His spirits were high, his health was good, and he’s looking forward to getting home,” she said.
She added that her son “knew he was going to get picked up when he got back into Iraq” for visa violations connected to his entry into Syria from Iraq. Such violations often trigger a fine. “Word is, it can range from $5,000 to $10,000,” O’Leary said.
She noted that Howard, after risking his life to help the militia effort, now has to pay to get out of the Middle East. “No hero’s welcome. No pay at all. They did this because they wanted to fight ISIS. They are not mercenaries. I wish people clearly understood that,” she said.
The U.S. Consulate is arranging an exit visa for Howard, a “repatriation loan” to pay the fine, a plane ticket “and enough money to get home,” O’Leary said. The process could take months.
Hudson, meanwhile, is still in eastern Syria, trying to figure the safest route home. In a phone interview, said he didn’t regret volunteering to fight.
“It was worth it. Saved a lot of lives,” he said. But he added, “I’m PTSD’d out. I’m done. I’ve got to go home.”
His advice to other prospective volunteers: “Know what you’re getting into.”
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1de02811a9db000a3bd080564ee6746a | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-video-claims-us-aid-worker-beheaded-20141116-story.html | U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig beheaded by Islamic State | U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig beheaded by Islamic State
Islamic State militants have beheaded Peter Kassig, a U.S. aid worker and former Army Ranger who was captured last year in Syria while on a private humanitarian mission, the White House confirmed Sunday.
U.S. officials authenticated a 16-minute video, released on various social networks by the militant group earlier in the day. The video also includes images of the mass beheading of men said to be Syrian government soldiers.
Kassig, 26, became the third U.S. citizen known to have been executed by Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot that controls vast swaths of territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq. The group arose amid the tumult of the Syrian conflict, now in its fourth year.
President Obama condemned his killing as an “act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity.”
The slain hostage’s parents, Ed and Paula Kassig, issued a statement from Indianapolis saying they were heartbroken that their son had been executed “as a result of his love for the Syrian people and his desire to ease their suffering. Our heart also goes out to the families of the Syrians who have lost their lives.”
The grieving couple also expressed condolences to the families of the other four Western hostages who have been killed by Islamic State, while saying they prayed for the safe return of all captives in the Syrian war.
“We are incredibly proud of our son for living his life according to his humanitarian calling,” the couple said. “We will work every day to keep his legacy alive as best we can.”
Islamic State has previously released videos of the beheading of two U.S. journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff. The militants have also beheaded two British aid workers, David Haines and Alan Henning. The group says the killings are revenge for the ongoing, U.S.-led air campaign against its fighters in Syria and Iraq.
The beheading of Kassig and the other hostages has fueled a sense of outrage in the West and built support for military action against Islamic State, which has proclaimed that its following is growing throughout the Middle East and elsewhere — even as its military advances have now largely been halted, in part because of the U.S. bombing campaign.
Over the weekend, Iraqi authorities said they had opened a corridor to the nation’s largest oil refinery in Baiji, which has been under Islamic State siege since June. And in northern Syria, Islamic State has suffered huge losses and been foiled in a weeks-long offensive to overrun Kobani, a city near the Turkish border that is under the control of a secular Kurdish militia. Scores of U.S. airstrikes have struck militant positions in and around Kobani.
In a statement issued from Air Force One as he flew home from Australia, Obama referred to the victim as Abdul-Rahman Kassig, “also known to us as Peter.”
Kassig adopted the Arabic name after converting to Islam while in custody, his family said. His parents refer to him as Abdul-Rahman on a Facebook page dedicated to his release.
The president offered America’s prayers and condolences to Kassig’s parents and other family members. “We cannot begin to imagine their anguish at this painful time,” he said, adding that Kassig’s life and deeds stand in stark contrast to everything Islamic State, also known as ISIL, represents.
“While ISIL revels in the slaughter of innocents, including Muslims, and is bent only on sowing death and destruction, Abdul-Rahman was a humanitarian who worked to save the lives of Syrians injured and dispossessed by the Syrian conflict,” Obama said.
Islamic State demonstrated that it represented no faith, he said, “least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own.”
Unlike videos released after the previous decapitations of Western hostages, the one issued Sunday does not show Kassig alive or during his execution. The other hostages, clearly under duress, were shown making statements critical of their governments before they were killed.
Early in the latest video, more than a dozen Islamic State fighters are shown beheading, in synchronized fashion, an equal number of Syrian government soldiers. Each militant grabs a knife from a box before proceeding to the gruesome task. The graphic video then shows a black-clad, masked militant with what sounds like a British accent saying that Kassig had been beheaded.
“This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen,” the militant declares, standing over a severed head. “Peter, who fought against the Muslims in Iraq while serving as a soldier under the American Army, doesn’t have much to say. His previous cellmates have already spoken on his behalf.”
It is not clear when or where the video was shot.
Matt Olsen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, speculated that Kassig may have refused to cooperate and speak on the video, although there was no independent corroboration of that scenario. He also said the executioner’s British accent suggested it was the same person who beheaded the other hostages, a militant dubbed “Jihad John” by the British media whose identity is the focus of intense investigation by British and U.S. officials.
Asked about broad threats to Americans issued in the video, Olsen, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” said Islamic State militants have the capacity to carry out small-scale attacks, but not on a scale that suggests an imminent danger to Americans outside the war zone.
Kassig served 15 months in the U.S. Army, including a deployment in Iraq from April to July 2007, before receiving a medical discharge as a private first class in September 2007, according to Pentagon records.
He traveled to Lebanon while on spring break from college in 2012 and began working with Palestinian refugees and victims of the Syrian war. He later founded an aid organization, Special Emergency Response and Assistance, largely funded with his savings and donations from relatives and others in the United States.
The group delivered medical supplies, food and other aid to rebel-held areas of Syria and also provided trauma training to medics treating victims of the Syrian conflict. Kassig, a trained emergency medical technician, was deeply devoted to the aid mission, friends and family said.
Before turning to humanitarian assistance, Kassig had spent much of his late teens and 20s “searching for his place in the world,” his family said in a statement last month. “He felt called to be a peacemaker” after his time in the military, his family said.
“The truth is sometimes I really think I would like to do something else, but at the end of the day, this work is really the only thing that I have found that gives my life both meaning and direction,” Kassig told Time magazine in early 2013, before being taken prisoner.
According to colleagues, Kassig had made several trips into Syria on aid missions before he was detained on Oct. 1, 2013, near the eastern Syrian city of Dair Alzour, a militant stronghold. He was fully aware of the risks, friends said, but felt he had to travel to areas where need was greatest.
A news blackout surrounded Kassig’s detention for a year until a video surfaced last month showing a masked militant threatening a man identified as Kassig.
Since then, friends and family members have been publicly calling on Islamic State to release Kassig, citing his humanitarian efforts with Syrians and his conversion to Islam.
Little is known publicly about what behind-the-scenes efforts U.S. officials made to free Kassig. The families of Foley and Sotloff have expressed frustration that federal authorities warned that they could be prosecuted if they paid ransoms. A number of European hostages in Syria were released after ransoms were paid. Long-standing U.S. policy bans paying ransoms to terrorist groups.
In a statement Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said that Kassig’s family “and the entire government” had “worked hard to avoid this tragic outcome.”
In August, after Foley’s beheading, the Pentagon revealed that U.S. special forces had mounted an air and ground operation to rescue Foley and other hostages at a compound in northern Syria. The mission failed because the hostages were not at the targeted site, the Pentagon said.
Last month, as part of the public campaign urging Kassig’s freedom, his family released portions of a letter that Kassig had penned to his parents while in captivity.
“If I do die, I figure that at least you and I can seek refuge and comfort in knowing that I went out as a result of trying to alleviate suffering and helping those in need,” Kassig wrote in the letter, which was brought out of Syria by a released hostage. “Just know I’m with you.”
McDonnell reported from Beirut and Skiba from Washington. Special correspondent Nabih Bulos in Beirut contributed to this report.
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7f1156ff62668c766d83cebce9ec2e0e | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-women-wall-snap-story.html | Battle over women praying at Jerusalem’s Western Wall continues as compromise stalls | Battle over women praying at Jerusalem’s Western Wall continues as compromise stalls
Clutching smuggled Torah scrolls, dozens of feminist activists approached the Western Wall, wrapping themselves in colorful prayer shawls and chanting passages from the Jewish Bible.
Their display of piety was met by ultra-religious hecklers who denounced them as heretics and prostitutes. “You can’t change the Torah!” one shouted. “Get out of here!” Another ripped up a prayer book used by the feminist group, Women of the Wall.
For the record:
9:25 AM, Aug. 13, 2016This article describes the Western Wall in Jerusalem as the last remnant of the ancient Jewish Temple complex. There are other remnants.
Last month’s prayer confrontation was part of a long-running struggle over worship at Judaism’s most important pilgrimage site that pits Israel’s Orthodox religious establishment, which wants to uphold a traditionalist ban on women leading prayer services, against the Women of the Wall and liberal Jewish denominations that want the site opened up to egalitarian and pluralist prayer.
“It’s my right to decide how I pray in my country,’’ said Tammy Gottlieb, 32, a Women of the Wall board member, as she rode in a van full of activists to the holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City.
In recent months, tensions over women’s prayer have been escalating, and a compromise aimed at ending the dispute has stalled. Under the deal approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet in January, Women of the Wall and liberal Jewish denominations would be given a new prayer space at a nearby spot along the Western Wall. However, the government hasn’t started implementing the compromise and ultra-Orthodox parties oppose it.
“It’s like if a Muslim came to the Al Aqsa Mosque and wanted to enter without taking their shoes off. Would they let him?” asked Haim Rabinowitz, an aide to Rabbi Yisrael Eichler, a legislator from the ultra-religious United Torah Judaism party, referring to the Islamic holy site above the Western Wall. “There are rules, and there’s religious law. In Judaism, there’s no such thing as renewal or reform. There are no compromises.”
That is not the position taken by the Reform and Conservative wings of Judaism, which are much stronger in the United States than in Israel. As a result, the turf battle at the Western Wall is undermining the longstanding alliance between Israel’s government and wide swaths of North American Jewry.
The dispute over women’s prayer at Western Wall, known in Hebrew as the Kotel, has roiled relations between Netanyahu — who relies on ultra-Orthodox religious parties to stabilize his coalition — and religiously liberal Diaspora Jews who complain that Israel’s conservative government is impeding religious freedom at Judaism’s most revered prayer site.
“In North America, there’s a whole generation of women who have been ordained as rabbis,” said Steven Wernick, chief executive of the organization representing Conservative congregations, as the women’s singing echoed throughout the plaza. “They come here and there’s no place in the Jewish homeland for us to worship at our holiest site according to the customs that we’ve developed.’’
The Jewish Agency, a nonprofit group promoting Jewish immigration to Israel, which helped broker the Western Wall compromise after three years of negotiations, warned in a statement that failure to provide a space for pluralist prayer at the wall would have “far-reaching implications” for Israel-Diaspora ties.
People are up in arms: They can’t believe that in Israel of all places, a woman is being arrested for holding a Torah.
Shira Pruce, a spokeswoman for Women of the Wall
Tensions over religion and state in Israel stretch back to the country’s founding, when Israel’s secular founders promised to defer to Orthodox Jewish leaders on public Jewish ritual, marriage and Sabbath observance in order to secure their support for the new state.
The dispute over the Western Wall is one of several tinderboxes for Israel’s Orthodox establishment and the more liberal denominations. The Israeli parliament passed legislation to ban non-Orthodox from performing conversion ceremonies in state-run ritual bathhouses.
The wall, with its giant stone blocks, is the last remnant of the Jewish Temple complex built two millenniums ago and has attracted Jewish pilgrims for centuries. After Israel conquered East Jerusalem in 1967, it cleared out a sprawling plaza that was partitioned off for gender-segregated worship, and the government handed over management of the site to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox religious authorities, who run the plaza as if it were a synagogue.
The female activists, who have been holding services at the wall on a monthly basis since 1988, have pursued several court petitions challenging the ultra-Orthodox control the site.
In their gatherings, women lead prayers, wrap themselves with black phylacteries and chant passages from the Torah scrolls — roles reserved for men under strict readings of Jewish religious law. They are often met by rowdy crowds of ultra-religious students and teams of police who have tried to block or shout down the prayer service.
“Women of the Wall is simply reminding us that the wall doesn’t belong to any one segment of the Jewish people,” said Yossi Klein Halevi, an American Israeli author and a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. “This is a battle for Zionism: Is the state going to be an expression of Zionism, with its ideology of Jewish peoplehood, or is it going to be run under ultra-Orthodox blackmail, and allow a minority of world Jewry to exclude a majority.”
In June, the executive director of Women of the Wall, Lesley Sachs, was detained by police for hours for bringing a Torah scroll into the Western Wall plaza.
“That was an escalation,” said Shira Pruce, a spokeswoman for the organization. “People are up in arms: They can’t believe that in Israel of all places, a woman is being arrested for holding a Torah. If the interim plan is arresting women at the Kotel, this issue is going to get much hotter.”
One day last month, Women of the Wall activists were checked by security guards to see if they were trying to sneak banned ritual objects into the women’s section of the plaza. Wearing stickers reading “equal” and “love thy neighbor as thyself,’’ the women held a bat mitzvah ceremony for 13-year-old Milwaukee native Frannie Turner using a smuggled Torah scroll and a ritual canopy.
The service passed relatively quietly, with no direct confrontations between the women and ultra-Orthodox demonstrators, and no one detained by police.
“The chance to join Women of the Wall and protest against archaic thinking is an honor,” wrote Claire Turner, Frannie’s mother, in an email after the ceremony. “It was joyous, supportive, and also very spiritual.”
But Shulamit Tsolani, a 59-year-old nursery school teacher from Jerusalem, surveyed the prayer service in disgust.
“When we used to come here, we felt the holiness of the place. They are ruining it,” she said. “A woman is not allowed to carry a Torah scroll. They don’t believe what we believe in.”
Mitnick is a special correspondent.
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dcd133601415a8e95772a6e6f1c4f4a4 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-drones-20140511-story.html | Debate grows over proposal for CIA to turn over drones to Pentagon | Debate grows over proposal for CIA to turn over drones to Pentagon
Soon after a U.S. military drone killed about a dozen people on a remote road in central Yemen on Dec. 12, a disturbing narrative emerged.
Witnesses and tribal leaders said the four Hellfire missiles had hit a convoy headed to a wedding, and the Yemeni government paid compensation to some of the victims’ families. After an investigation, Human Rights Watch charged that “some, if not all those killed and wounded were civilians.”
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FOR THE RECORD:Drone program: An article in the May 11 Section A about a proposal for the CIA to turn over its drone program to the military said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence committee, recently inserted language in the classified annex of a spending bill to limit such attempts. Feinstein was not involved in that legislative move, her office said. —
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Such claims are common in the U.S. drone war, and just as commonly dismissed by Obama administration officials who insist that drone strikes are based on solid intelligence and produce few unintended casualties. But in this case, the CIA and the Pentagon sharply disagreed with each other.
As a result, the Yemen attack has become fodder in a growing debate about the White House proposal for the CIA to eventually turn over its armed drones and targeted killing program to the military.
The Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, which carried out the December strike, insists that everyone killed or wounded in the attack was an Al Qaeda militant and therefore a lawful military target, U.S. officials say.
“This was not a wedding,” said a congressional aide briefed by the military. “These were bad guys.”
The CIA, which runs a separate drone killing program in Yemen, saw it differently.
According to two U.S. officials who would not be quoted discussing classified matters, the CIA informed the command before the attack that the spy agency did not have confidence in the underlying intelligence.
After the missiles hit, CIA analysts assessed that some of the victims may have been villagers, not militants. The National Counterterrorism Center, which coordinates terrorism intelligence from multiple agencies, is somewhere in the middle, saying the evidence is inconclusive.
By all accounts, the target was Shawqi Ali Ahmad Badani, a mid-level leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a virulent offshoot of Al Qaeda.
Badani, who escaped unharmed, is suspected of being the ringleader of plots that forced the State Department to temporarily close 19 U.S. diplomatic missions in the Mideast and Africa in August.
The disagreement among U.S. intelligence analysts — all of whom have access to aerial video, communications intercepts, tips from Yemenis and other intelligence — shows that drone targeting is sometimes based on shaky evidence.
To some members of Congress, the Yemen strike shows something else: The Joint Special Operations Command is not as careful as the CIA and shouldn’t be given responsibility for drone killings.
Yemen’s government apparently agrees. It demanded that the command stop drone strikes in the country, but let the CIA continue. The CIA launched three strikes last month that killed as many as 67 people.
“The amount of time that goes into a strike package at CIA is longer and more detailed than a strike package put together” at the Defense Department, said the same congressional aide. “Their standards of who is a combatant are different. Standards for collateral damage are different.”
Pentagon officials dispute that, saying that the joint command follows the policy President Obama disclosed in a speech a year ago. It bars drone strikes unless there is a “near certainty” that civilians won’t be killed.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently inserted language in the classified annex of a spending bill to limit attempts to shift the drone program from the CIA to the military.
In March 2013, long before the Yemen incident, she praised the CIA’s “patience and discretion” in carrying out drone strikes. “The military program has not done that nearly as well. That causes me concern,” she said.
The drones are controversial within the CIA, however. Though many intelligence officers say the agency has decimated Al Qaeda with its drones, some CIA officials say the focus on killing and paramilitary operations since 2001 has diverted the spy agency from its traditional espionage mission.
The CIA, the Pentagon and the White House declined to comment for this story.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he believes the military is as capable as “any other agency” in carrying out drone strikes as long as the attack is based on solid intelligence.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters who pulls the trigger,” he said.
For now, the Joint Special Operations Command is sharing intelligence with the Yemenis and helping them with military logistics, officials said, amid an outbreak of heavy fighting between government forces and Al Qaeda fighters.
U.S. intelligence officials say the military and the CIA have cooperated in backing a Yemeni military offensive that has driven the militants from strongholds in the south. On Friday, gunmen attacked Yemen’s presidential palace in an apparent attempt to kill the defense minister.
The U.S. Embassy was temporarily closed in Sana, the capital, last week after officials cited threats to Western interests.
On Friday, the State Department said two U.S. Embassy officers in Sana had shot and killed two armed assailants last month during an apparent kidnapping attempt.
The New York Times reported that the two Americans, a CIA officer and a Joint Special Operations commando, had left the country.
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4816161af8e8dbeb929b9ccb6c289109 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-fighting-20150527-story.html | Nearly 100 people killed in Saudi-led aerial assault on Yemen | Nearly 100 people killed in Saudi-led aerial assault on Yemen
Thunderous airstrikes hit Yemen’s capital, a Red Sea naval port and a border province Wednesday, killing nearly 100 people and injuring more than 270 others, officials and residents said. It was believed to be the largest single-day death toll of the 2-month-old Saudi-led aerial offensive.
Terrified civilians cowered at home or rushed into the streets as massive secondary explosions rocked a residential neighborhood in the capital, Sana, following a hit on a special forces base known as the Central Security camp. Like many of the military installations and weapons caches targeted by weeks of airstrikes, the base lay close to densely populated civilian areas.
The force of the explosions blew out the windows in a nearby hospital, showering some patients with broken glass, residents said. Dozens of homes were damaged. One eyewitness, Saleh Dowed, blamed the size of the blasts on stored ordnance ignited by the airstrikes. “The fire was enormous,” he said.
The Health Ministry said at least 40 people died and scores more were hurt in the strikes in Sana, which was overrun months ago by Shiite Muslim Houthi rebels. The Saudi-led campaign has yet to drive the insurgents from the capital or from strongholds in the strategic city of Aden in the south.
Other main targets included the port of Hodeida, home to the country’s biggest naval base, which had been in the hands of the rebels and elements of Yemen’s armed forces that took up the insurgent cause. More bombs hit the province of Hajjah, which borders Saudi Arabia, and the crossroads province of Taiz, north of Aden. At least 56 people died in those strikes, officials said.
The Saudi-led regional forces launched their offensive March 26 against the Shiite rebels, who at the time were advancing on Aden. Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi had sought haven in the city, but he and his government fled to Saudi Arabia in the face of the Houthi onslaught.
Saudi Arabia, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims, considers the rebels a proxy for largely Shiite Iran. The Tehran government denies arming the insurgents, but has been strident in its criticism of the Sunni coalition’s Yemen campaign.
Fighting and bombardments have killed some 2,000 people and imperiled thousands of others, by international estimates. Yemen, which formerly imported much of what it consumed, is now short of food, fuel, medicines and crucial commodities after two months of a blockade meant to keep out weapons destined for Houthi hands.
Special correspondent Al-Alayaa reported from Sana and Times staff writer King from Alexandria, Egypt.
Follow @laurakingLAT on Twitter for news out of the Middle East
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b536ef45df478862fa6881abcca9cfef | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-houthis-20150206-story.html | U.S. resumes drone strikes in Yemen as Houthis tighten control | U.S. resumes drone strikes in Yemen as Houthis tighten control
Amid deepening political turmoil here, the United States has resumed drone strikes against Al Qaeda’s most feared franchise without seeking approval from the Shiite Muslim rebels who have tightened their control of a government once considered a close American ally.
The insurgents, known as Houthis, dissolved Yemen’s parliament Friday and announced plans to set up interim bodies to run the government, a move that opponents said amounted to a coup. The capital was calm but tense as armed men loyal to the movement quickly filled the streets.
Yemen has been roiled by uncertainty since the Houthis seized the presidential palace and put U.S.-backed President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi under house arrest on Jan. 22, leading him and his Cabinet to tender their resignations.
Over the last two years, Hadi had strongly supported U.S. military and CIA drone strikes and special operations raids against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP. The Yemen-based group has repeatedly sought to bomb U.S. airliners and last month claimed responsibility for the massacre of 12 people at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
The counter-terrorism cooperation was so close that President Obama in August hailed Yemen as a model for the American-led campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
But the Houthis surged out of their northern stronghold in September and claimed large tracts of Yemen, including much of Sana, the capital. The U.S. was forced to halt drone strikes in November as a three-way power struggle raged between Hadi’s security forces, the Houthis and AQAP.
Although Houthi fighters have battled the Al Qaeda branch, which is Sunni Muslim, the Shiite Muslim insurgent group is deeply suspicious of American aims in Yemen and is publicly opposed to the drone strikes. U.S. officials believe the Houthis have received financial and military support from Iran.
American officials in Yemen have been in indirect communication with the Houthis, but have not begun a working relationship, according to U.S. officials familiar with the diplomacy who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
Instead, the Obama administration pressed ahead on its own and launched three drone strikes against AQAP targets in the last two weeks.
The attacks “are a pretty clear signal that the U.S. is not going to step away from what it considers to be very much in its national security interest,” said Stephen Seche, who was U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 2007 to 2010. “The message is, ‘You can rest assured we’re going to be very diligent about doing what we feel we have to do.’”
In the most significant raid, a drone-launched missile on Jan. 31 killed Harith bin Ghazi Nathari, a spiritual leader of AQAP and a member of its top command. The militant group announced his death online.
U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, say the Houthis appear to have turned a blind eye. They haven’t objected to the drone attacks or sought to halt operations in the country by U.S. special operations teams.
U.S. authorities still rely on a few units in Yemen’s security forces for intelligence collection and launching counter-terrorism operations, but far less than when Hadi was in charge. The officials acknowledge that the political instability has undercut U.S. efforts to target AQAP.
Even if the Houthis agree to support the U.S. effort, their contributions are likely to be limited, experts say.
The Shiite group will find it difficult to operate in Sunni-dominated areas of Yemen where AQAP, which has sought to align itself with local Sunni tribes, is strongest.
Moreover, Houthi control is largely limited to Yemen’s northwest, which includes the capital. AQAP operations extend over a vastly larger area, from south central Yemen into the east and west.
The political crisis deepened with the Houthis’ latest move to seize power.
In a statement read Friday on a Houthi-affiliated TV channel, the rebels said they were fulfilling “the will of the people” in nullifying the parliament.
The group said a new interim assembly would be formed, with various factions represented, and that the assembly would in turn pick a five-member council to run Yemen’s day-to-day affairs.
Swift objections were sounded by opponents, who include Sultan Aradah, governor of Marib, a province east of Sana where major electrical installations are located. Aradah said that his province’s tribal leaders were holding urgent consultations, but that they considered the Houthis’ actions a coup d’etat.
The United Nations, which has brokered talks to try to resolve the political impasse, said it would not acknowledge what it described as a unilateral move by the Houthis.
The Houthis had previously demanded a greater share of political power, but had voiced willingness to work with other factions. The political parties failed to reach agreement in talks this week, however.
The Houthi announcement, issued from the presidential palace, was described as a “constitutional decree,” which only the president is empowered under the law to issue. There was no sign that Hadi and his Cabinet have been freed from house arrest.
The U.N. envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, left for Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s powerful and Sunni-dominated neighbor. The Saudis have been alarmed by growing unrest in Yemen, and have cut off billions of dollars in aid that helped keep the impoverished country afloat.
The Saudis’ main Shiite rival, Iran, denies that it is the Houthis’ patron. Another presumed backer of the rebels is Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s onetime president, who was deposed amid the regional “Arab Spring” uprisings in 2011 and has been accused of seeking to sabotage the country’s hoped-for democratic transition.
Special correspondent Al-Alayaa reported from Sana and Richter from Washington. Times staff writers Laura King in Cairo and Brian Bennett in Washington contributed to this report.
Follow Paul Richter on Twitter: @richtpau
Follow Brian Bennett on Twitter: @ByBrianBennett
For more news from the Middle East, follow @laurakingLAT on Twitter
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21d07a954508df588e3278f5ac95af2f | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-nation-of-bereaved-20150802-story.html | A cry from the heart in Yemen: ‘We are a nation of bereaved’ | A cry from the heart in Yemen: ‘We are a nation of bereaved’
In the last four months of devastating war in my country, and in my years as a journalist before this conflict began, I have seen and written about many terrible things. But nothing prepared me for this.
On July 24, my uncle, my aunt and their five children – the oldest of them 16 and the youngest 5 – died in a barrage of airstrikes in the port city of Makha, in Taiz province, a bombardment that killed some 80 people in all. My aunt was six months pregnant with what would have been their sixth child.
All over Yemen there are people like me, who have suffered the loss of a loved one – or of a whole family dear to them. The air war that began on March 26, when a Saudi-led military coalition commenced its offensive against Shiite Muslim Houthi rebels and their allies, has killed more than 3,000 people, by the estimates of international groups. Many believe the real figure is much higher.
So we are a nation of bereaved, trying to make sense of our overpowering grief.
Quite often, I interview people who tell me about the losses they have suffered. It has sometimes surprised me that people are so willing – eager, even – to talk about their dead relatives. Now I understand their need to speak about these things.
I want to tell everyone about my uncle, Sadiq Qadasi, who was also my great friend. He was 49 years old. His wife, Intithar Qaid, was 37. Their children were Mohammed, Ahmed, Abdullah, Asma’a and Nusaibah.
My other uncle, Mohammed, begged the doctors for a different outcome, even when he knew they all were dead. He asked them: Can you at least save the unborn baby?
“May God bless my brother,” he told me on the phone, in tears. “Now he has died with nobody to carry his name.”
I could not go to the funeral. I knew what the bodies would look like. For months, our media have been full of scenes of carnage – bloodshed and scattered, mutilated body parts. How ugly is war! I hope that when it ends, our humanity does not end with it.
I am used to writing about events and describing them as best I can. But when it comes to this, the words are slipping from my brain. I cannot express what is in my heart.
Families here in Yemen are large but very close-knit. Everyone in mine was shattered by this news, especially my mother, facing the death of her brother. My particular role to play in this tragedy was that I was the first in my family to know of their deaths.
When I learned of the air raids that struck the area where they lived, I tried to call my uncle, but his phone was off. Later, I called my sources at the Red Cross, after a rescue team had arrived. I gave them my uncle’s name, and in an hour they told me that he and his family were among the dead.
I did not know what to do or whom to tell. I waited in tears until my other uncle reached the area. He undertook the task of informing everyone else in the family.
Every day my Uncle Sadiq either called me or sent me text messages telling me to take care of myself, because he knew my work takes me into harm’s way. “Stay away from clashes, from military sites,” he said. “There is nothing worth dying for, but so many things that are worth living for.”
He also said often: “Take care of your family.”
I have sometimes told people who lost someone close to them to be strong, to accept what fate has dealt them. But I find I cannot do this. When I received this news, I wept for hours. My strength and courage evaporated. I understood what it means to lose those who were beloved in the blink of an eye.
On my phone, I have text messages from my dead uncle that I read every day. I listen to the cassettes of songs that he gave me. I remember the foods he liked, the way he dressed, his cologne. I hear the echoes of his laughter.
I think of his wife, my Aunt Intithar, and their youngest son, Ahmed, who was just 5. I had not seen my uncle and his family recently because of the chaos caused by the war, but he had told me on the phone that Ahmed not only looked like me but acted like me too. Remembering this made me cry the hardest.
At home in Sana, I received callers who came to give their condolences. There is so much of that now, this paying of respect. So many people have dead to remember and honor.
Well-wishers told me: “Life goes on. You will overcome your pain.” I am not convinced. Sadiq was not just my uncle; he was like a father to me. Everyone in his village wept for his loss.
I think of his soul, of the soul of my aunt, of the souls of my five cousins, and the souls of so many others dead in this war.
Al-Alayaa is a special correspondent. Cairo bureau chief Laura King contributed to this report.
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1494038a2e1e0131a8bb03765580105f | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-xpm-2011-jul-17-la-tr-recs-20110717-story.html | Readers recommend: ‘Wonders of Israel’ tour | Readers recommend: ‘Wonders of Israel’ tour
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d4240ce460c54743bc97cd2045db947a | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-xpm-2011-mar-14-la-fg-libya-rebels-flee-20110314-story.html | Libyan rebels flee Port Brega as Kadafi’s forces advance | Libyan rebels flee Port Brega as Kadafi’s forces advance
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi pushed deeper into rebellious eastern Libya on Sunday, overrunning an important oil town while forcing lightly armed rebels back toward the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.
Rebel fighters fled Port Brega, site of a strategic refinery complex and oil terminal, under heavy bombardment and tried to hold back government forces rapidly advancing on Ajdabiya, about 95 miles south of Benghazi.
The fall of Port Brega is a serious blow to the rebel force, facing a government onslaught that has loosened the opposition’s grip on eastern Libya.
Just eight days ago, rebel fighters routed pro-Kadafi forces in Port Brega and another strategic oil city, Ras Lanuf, and spoke of taking the battle to Tripoli, the capital, far to the west.
The steady advance of Kadafi’s fighters behind airstrikes and rocket attacks puts pressure on rebel leaders in Benghazi to stop or slow the government’s assault up the Mediterranean coastal highway before it reaches the opposition stronghold.
Panicked rebels in Ajdabiya blocked reporters from driving farther southwest toward Port Brega. Many said they lacked the firepower to slow the government’s assault.
“Kadafi is on his way to Ajdabiya,” said Masoud Bwisir, a carwash owner fighting for the rebels, from the city’s western gate. “How can we stop him? He has tanks, planes. He fires at us from boats in the sea. Our guns are weak against him.”
Rockets slammed down late Sunday afternoon on the western outskirts of Ajdabiya, about 45 miles from Port Brega, as a cleric raised a bullhorn and called for warriors among the boys and young men in the city.
“If you have a weapon and want to fight, please come,” he said as rebels dug trenches and positioned antiaircraft guns. “But you need your own weapon. We have run out.”
State-run TV said Port Brega had been “cleansed of terrorist gangs of mercenaries.” It added: “All citizens are requested to go back to work and to their normal lives.”
The closed refinery at Port Brega normally produces 15% of Libya’s gasoline. With other gasoline sources also cut off by fighting, the rebels face a growing fuel crisis.
The Port Brega complex still feeds a natural gas pipeline that provides fuel for electric plants in Tripoli and Benghazi, executives of Libya’s biggest state-owned oil company said. They said Kadafi could cut the pipeline to Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, and create electricity shortages.
From Port Brega, the coastal highway to Benghazi has no fixed gun emplacements to fight off a government advance. The only defense is inexperienced and undisciplined rebel gunmen riding in cars and trucks mounted with guns.
Seizing Ajdabiya might allow government fighters to race northeast over a largely undefended desert highway to the key rebel port of Tobruk, near the Egyptian border, where they would be in position to block the coastal highway between Tobruk to Benghazi.
In Benghazi, the head of the rebel military effort called the defeat a “tactical withdrawal” and said Kadafi’s forces had overextended their supply lines.
Gen. Abdul Fatah Younis, a former interior minister who defected to the opposition, said rebel fighters would try to lure Kadafi’s forces “into an area where we can even the fight.” He declined to elaborate.
Younis said army defectors had taken over leadership of the opposition force, which he called our shabab, or “youth,” though there has been little sign at the front of experienced professional soldiers among the rebel ranks.
In Tripoli, the Kadafi regime’s Col. Milad Hussein, who directs ideological instruction for Libyan troops, said government forces were preparing to seize Benghazi without “full-scale military action.”
“Once you come to them they just stand there and give up their guns,” Hussein said of rebel fighters.
Mustafa Gheriani, an opposition spokesman in Benghazi, said Kadafi does not have enough loyal fighters to hold any eastern city or town for long. “He can bomb the heck out of these places, but he doesn’t have the foot soldiers to hold them,” he said.
Security was heightened Sunday at the downtown Benghazi courthouse that serves as opposition headquarters. Workers moved concrete barriers in place to block access to a narrow street leading to the courthouse entrance.
An announcer on rebel-controlled Free Libya radio urged residents to remain calm and patient.
The battlefield defeats left rebels suspicious of new faces, and they warned of informers in their midst. Fingers slipped toward triggers and no one smiled at checkpoints.
Dozens of retreating pickup trucks heavy with rebels and antiaircraft guns careened past, heading away from Port Brega toward Benghazi. One haggard fighter leaned out a truck and told rebels at the western gate, “Kadafi’s men are 12 miles from here. We need weapons. We don’t have the right weapons.”
Kadafi’s forces also pressed attacks against Misurata, east of Tripoli, the sole remaining opposition stronghold in western Libya, as heavy fighting continued. Salah Abdelaziz, an architect who serves as spokesman for the Misurata opposition, reported heavy bombardment and raging gun battles on the outskirts of the city, home to about 600,000.
About 50 people have been killed and at least 570 treated for injuries at a Misurata hospital, said a doctor there who asked that his name not be published.
“We have no milk for children and there is a major shortage of anesthetic drugs for operating,” he said in a telephone interview.
david.zucchino@latimes.com
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
daragahi@latimes.com
Zucchino reported from Benghazi, Fleishman from Ajdabiya and Daragahi from Tripoli.
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5d578c7b7da667d2135416178237df67 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-xpm-2012-apr-28-la-fg-israel-conflict-shift-20120429-story.html | Go-it-alone outlook now shapes Israel’s security policy | Go-it-alone outlook now shapes Israel’s security policy
JERUSALEM — The traditional Passover retelling of Exodus was barely underway in 2002 when Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer got a note with news of the latest in a string of Palestinian suicide attacks that had terrorized Israel for two years.
He dashed to an emergency meeting of military commanders, all dressed in civilian clothes because they’d left their own Seder dinner tables upon hearing that 30 Israelis had been killed in the attack on the Park Hotel.
After an all-night session, they made a decision that would change the face of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Ben-Eliezer persuaded Israel’s Cabinet to reoccupy the entire West Bank, even though it meant brushing aside the 1993 Oslo agreements that gave Palestinians control over many cities and their own security force.
Ten years later, many see that move as the start of a strategic shift that put Israel on a go-it-alone course that continues to shape its security policy, whether dealing with Palestinian statehood or responding to Iran’s purported nuclear arms program.
With the military operation in 2002, Israel took a step away from the internationally brokered peace deals that dominated the 1990s and the idea that its security could be achieved through compromise with Palestinians.
The doctrine that evolved in its place has relied instead on military strength and a willingness to take unilateral measures, even though Palestinians say the approach is threatening to kill any hope for a two-state solution and could backfire on Israel in a region where “Arab Spring” uprising memories are fresh.
Soon after the reoccupation of the West Bank came the construction of a massive separation barrier, ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice, which cut off Palestinians from Israel. Next was the withdrawal from the restive Gaza Strip, which Israel initiated on its own terms outside the formal peace process.
To many Israelis, this get-tough campaign is working and they see no reason to change it. Suicide attacks have stopped. Palestinian leaders are weaker and more moderate than before. International isolation is seen as manageable and Palestinian statehood is no longer at the top of the global agenda.
“Ten years ago, the actions taken by Israel changed the nature and the history of the behavior of the people in the West Bank,” said Ben-Eliezer, now a Labor Party lawmaker. “We showed that nothing is taboo when it comes to our security. We will cross every line. We will go in and we will hit. It’s a strategy that has kept until today and the results are clear: Quietness until now.”
Some see the success Israel believes it has enjoyed with the Palestinian issues as spreading to other areas of its foreign policy, giving it the confidence to resist the Obama administration’s pressure to freeze settlements, rejecting attempts to mend ties with onetime ally Turkey and openly threatening to launch a military strike against Iran, which many believe is working to join Israel to become the second nuclear power in the region.
Palestinians characterize Israelis as intransigent and arrogant, and worry about an increasingly vocal right-wing faction that advocates “managing” the conflict rather than resolving it.
“The Israelis abandoned the peace process a long time ago,” said Nabil Shaath, a top advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He said the change began with the collapse of the 2000 Camp David talks, when Israelis realized the gaps with Palestinians were still wide.
“They decided that Palestinian expectations were too high and had to be brought down,” Shaath said. “That meant a more diligent, militant Israeli government to put down the Palestinians’ aspirations.”
But he called the approach shortsighted.
“Israelis are intoxicated with power now,” Shaath said. “It makes you feel you don’t have to give up anything. You can have it all. Settlements. De-Arabization of Jerusalem. Control over movement from Gaza to the West Bank. They think they’ve won and can just walk over us.”
But he predicted that Israel’s overconfidence would eventually backfire, particularly with Palestinians. He noted that similar misguided thinking once led Arab rulers in the region to believe that they would never be toppled by their people as they have been in the Arab Spring.
“There will come a time when Israel will not be able to control it,” he said.
Israeli Deputy Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, who served as the army’s chief of staff during much of the second intifada, said Palestinians have no one to blame but themselves because they unleashed a campaign of suicide attacks inside Israel.
“It was a turning point, for me personally and the country,” Yaalon said. “It was an awakening. We thought, ‘Enough is enough.’ We had to operate unilaterally because we didn’t have a partner. And we still don’t.”
He credited the strategy over the last 10 years with strengthening the confidence of the Israeli public and putting the government in a stronger bargaining position.
“We know now that Israel has a military capability to defeat terror, and that legacy lives on in the Israeli spirit,” he said. “We have nothing to apologize for, because we tried very hard to reach peace through territorial compromise.”
Yet some warn that Israel’s dominance could boomerang on the country at the negotiating table.
“Negotiations between asymmetrical sides are more difficult because the weaker side has greater difficulty making concessions,” said researcher Shlomo Brom of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “The weaker party fears any concession will lead down a slippery slope, and is very apprehensive of public opinion. Concessions require strength. The other side’s weakness should not make us happy.”
Ben-Eliezer, a former Labor Party leader, said he believes Israel’s get-tough approach was justified in the beginning but that it should have been part of a carrot-and-stick approach, also offering Palestinians a genuine peace deal.
In recent years, he said, Israel’s right-wing parties have failed to do enough to convince Palestinians that Israel is serious about their statehood bid.
“In the long run, this is going to work against us,” he said. “So far Palestinians have kept quiet, but one day they will awake and the explosion will happen. People don’t accept [being] under military rule for 50 years. Maybe the explosion will bring about negotiations. But then negotiations will occur under pressure, and that is what I don’t want to see happen.”
edmund.sanders@latimes.com
Batsheva Sobelman of The Times’ Jerusalem bureau contributed to this report.
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dfb465633732d3dc3ea229026bbdb450 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-xpm-2012-dec-25-la-fg-yemen-drones-qaeda-20121225-story.html | U.S. drone strategy in Yemen is fraught with peril | U.S. drone strategy in Yemen is fraught with peril
AL SARRAIN, Yemen — The U.S. drone flew over a cluster of mud houses on a ridge and, according to Yemeni officials, locked onto Adnan Qadhi, a mercurial man of many guises, including radical militant, peace mediator, preacher of violence and army general.
Villagers said Qadhi climbed out of his utility vehicle the night of Nov. 7 to make a cellphone call shortly before the missile struck. His photo — broad face peering from beneath a tilted red beret, stars on his epaulets — now hangs in a small grocery store in a land where farmers work narrow fields below the villas of politicians, tribal leaders and a former president that rise like fortresses on nearby hilltops.
Some here call him a martyr, others a fanatic. But the life and death of Qadhi, a senior officer in the 1st Armored Division who preached holy war in mosques and donned government-issued fatigues, epitomizes the political instability, tribal intrigue, crisscrossing allegiances and radical Islamist passions the United States must sort out when targeting militants in Yemen. At times, Washington risks being drawn into internal conflicts and becoming increasingly despised in the Arab world’s poorest nation.
PHOTOS: A new breed of drones
Extremists here have a history of shifting tactics and circumstances. They were pressed into service by the government of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh when needed, then arrested and jailed when the political winds changed. Later they vanished from prisons by the scores, set loose across tribal lands. Yemeni security officials say that era is ending, and they’re stepping up military offensives to rout extremists — fighters from Libya, Somalia and other nations, and assassins on motorcycles intent on killing intelligence officials.
At the same time, the Obama administration has intensified airstrikes against the Yemeni group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which plotted in 2009 and 2010 to blow up American airliners. A 2011 drone attack killed Anwar Awlaki, an American-born Muslim preacher and militant recruiter. Weeks later, a U.S. airstrike killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, who tribesmen and relatives say had no links to terrorism.
The Long War Journal, a website that tracks U.S. drone activity, reports that since 2002, America has launched 57 airstrikes in Yemen, killing 299 militants and 82 civilians. The number of strikes has risen dramatically from four in 2010 to 40 so far this year.
FULL COVERAGE: Drones
“Why do these Americans come and interfere in Yemen?” said Radhwan Dahrooj, the grocer in Al Sarrain. “Why do they kill our people? If they have charges against someone why do they not arrest him and bring him to justice?”
Qadhi was sentenced to prison four years ago for plotting an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sana, the capital, that killed at least 16 people, no Americans among them. With the help of clansmen and army officials, he was released shortly afterward and resumed his old life: militant and officer in the 1st Armored Division, led by Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin Saleh Ahmar, a commander described in a 2005 U.S. diplomatic cable as “dealing with terrorists and extremists.”
When uprisings against President Saleh swept the country in 2011, the brigade mutinied and battled with competing tribes and security units for control of Sana.
What began as a peaceful revolution against Saleh tipped the nation — already fighting a rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south — into deeper turmoil. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its affiliate Ansar al Sharia exploited the unrest, taking over territory in the south. That gave Qadhi an opportunity to expand his militant ambitions even as he slipped into another of his guises, currying favor with the government by mediating a truce between Yemeni officials and an Al Qaeda faction.
The U.S., which this year has given Yemen $337 million in military and security aid, would not confirm that a drone targeted Qadhi. Yemeni officials and villagers, who heard a plane circling that night, said a U.S. airstrike killed him not far from his home in Beit al Ahmar. Though Qadhi was an active Al Qaeda recruiter and often accused Washington in his sermons of wanting to keep Yemen divided and in chaos, it is not clear what specific danger he was seen as presenting to the United States.
Washington has no precise rules on the criteria for targeting militants with drone strikes. But President Obama has said that an extremist must present an imminent threat to the U.S. or its allies, as Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch is considered to do, and that arrest would be impossible.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official said Qadhi’s arrest for the 2008 embassy attack would not have been enough to put him on an assassination list. White House counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan has said that militants battling solely to overthrow the government in Sana are not targeted. But Qadhi’s 1st Armored Division was certainly a threat to the Yemeni government and the country’s stability.
Yemeni officials said the nation’s new president, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, approved the strike against Qadhi after determining that an attempt to arrest him in his neighborhood could have led to more deaths. The officials said they were unaware of intelligence linking Qadhi to any active plot.
The danger in the drone program is the potential for U.S. intelligence and airstrikes to be manipulated by Yemenis seeking to weaken the competing clans and political factions. For example, Obama and his top generals felt misled in 2010 when Obama signed off on an airstrike against a senior militant that killed six people, including the deputy governor of Mareb province. The strike was based entirely on intelligence provided by the Yemenis, who had not told the U.S. that the governor would be there, a former senior U.S. official said.
Since Hadi took office in February, the cooperation and trust between the Yemeni government and the U.S. has vastly improved, U.S. and Yemeni officials say.
There are many potential drone targets. For decades, young men have left Yemen to become foot soldiers and bomb makers among the militants in Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Iraq and Libya. Some of them have come home.
One was Rashad Mohammed Saeed, who left at 15 and became a confidant of Osama bin Laden, fighting beside him in Afghanistan. He returned to Yemen around 2000 and in an interview said he had put aside his weapons to start the Renaissance Union Party, made up of former militants who run for parliament seats.
Like militants in other countries, he is struggling to reconcile a decades-long philosophy of violence and the more peaceful, and successful, political approach — at least in Tunisia and Egypt — of the protest movements that ignited the so-called Arab Spring. He worries about what many here describe as an incessant invisible buzz in the sky.
“We have entered politics. Do you think the U.S. will leave us alone to choose our own leaders and way of life?” Saeed asked. “Our party is close to Al Qaeda. We’re trying to get them to lay down their weapons. Yemen doesn’t need this violence now. We just need protection from drones. I may be a target myself.”
Hadi, who took over when Saleh stepped aside amid international pressure, has praised the drone strikes as a key to defeating terrorists. That has upset tribal scions who see their internal problems as being exploited by American interests.
“The drones have not killed the real Al Qaeda leaders, but they have increased the hatred toward America and are causing young men to join Al Qaeda to retaliate,” said Ahmed al Zurqua, an expert on Islamic militants. “President Hadi is distorting and violating Yemen’s sovereignty by cooperating with the Americans.”
The American attacks “are giving Al Qaeda immunity. The drones are killing innocent people,” said Sheik Abdrabbo Qadhi, a member of the parliament and no relation to Adnan Qadhi. “Al Qaeda is telling Yemeni that they are fighting these infidels and they’re telling our people that our state is helping the infidels.”
The sheik, pistol at his side, clicked his cellphone and held up a text message that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had recently sent to lawmakers: “You members of the infidel parliament.... The swords of justice will behead all of you.”
PHOTOS: A new breed of drones
“We want to uproot Al Qaeda,” he said, “but we have to do it ourselves.”
That has not happened, nor is it likely to.
The militants also face problems of their own making. In the spring of 2011, Al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia exploited Yemen’s political tumult, temporarily taking over towns and villages in Abyan province in the south. The militants assassinated security chiefs and enforced a Taliban-like Islamic law. Al Qaeda provided temporary electricity and other services, but its medieval system of justice by amputation and whipping quickly lost it support among the tribes.
“Abyan was really the graveyard of Al Qaeda. People saw what the militants really were,” said Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh, head of Central Security Forces. “Summary executions and chopping off of hands, this is not justice.”
Yet “Al Qaeda is not finished,” he said. “The war goes on. They have no central leadership. If they can flourish in a place, they will. Their ideology makes them strong. If one leader is killed, another one rises.”
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jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
ken.dilanian@latimes.com
Times staff writer Fleishman reported from Al Sarrain and Dilanian from Washington. Special correspondent Zaid al-Alayaa in Sana contributed to this report.
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3a7f4a6a57f9a3def6a1b3943fa67697 | https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-xpm-2012-jan-22-la-fg-syria-arab-league-20120123-story.html | Arab League calls for Syrian president to hand off power | Arab League calls for Syrian president to hand off power
With no end to the bloodshed in Syria, the Arab League on Sunday called for President Bashar Assad to hand over power to his top deputy and sought the formation of a unity government to prepare for early elections.
The league’s demands seem certain to anger the Syrian government, which blames months of unrest on “foreign conspiracies” and has repeatedly rejected what it regards as attacks on its sovereignty.
League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said the 22-member regional bloc would seek endorsement from the United Nations Security Council for its plan but did not say what it would do if Syria did not comply with its demands.
The political road map outlined by Arab foreign ministers at a meeting in Cairo is similar to a plan that saw Yemen’s longtime ruler hand much of his authority to his vice president ahead of presidential elections in February, in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
The league wants a national dialogue to begin in Syria within two weeks and a transitional government to be formed within two months to oversee preparations for general elections. It also wants the new government to form independent panels to investigate abuses and draft a new constitution.
Assad has expressed a willingness to form a more inclusive government, make changes to the constitution and hold elections on his terms. At the same time, he has pledged to respond with an iron fist against opponents he labels terrorists, and he has refused to step down.
The league’s proposals, approved by all members except Algeria and Lebanon, came out of a meeting to review the findings of a one-month observer mission in Syria. About 165 monitors were deployed to verify whether the government is fulfilling its pledge to end a violent crackdown against a 10-month uprising.
Arab foreign ministers agreed to continue the mission, which can be extended for another month with the consent of Assad’s government. But they want to increase the number of observers and provide them additional support.
The decision came despite complaints from opposition and human rights activists that the mission has only bought the government more time to pursue its crackdown.
Security forces have killed as many as 976 people since the first observers arrived in December, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a network of opposition activists who organize protests and document the violence. In all, more than 5,000 people have been killed since the start of major antigovernment protests in March, according to United Nations estimates.
Saudi Arabia said it is pulling its observers out of Syria because it sees no evidence that Damascus is complying with the league’s plan, which calls for the withdrawal of security forces from cities and residential areas, the release of political prisoners and dialogue with the government’s opponents.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal urged the international community, including Syria’s allies Russia and China, to use “all possible pressure” to persuade Assad’s government to fulfill its commitments.
Activists reported fierce clashes Sunday between security forces and defectors fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army in the Damascus suburb of Duma. At least 12 people were killed there in the last two days, according to the Local Coordination Committees.
Elaraby conceded that the government was not fully complying with the league’s plan, although he said some steps had been taken.
He said the government had released a number of detainees, although the observers had not been able to establish how many remain behind bars. And he said the government had admitted more international journalists but was still restricting their work.
He also said that the use of “excessive violence” by the Syrian security services was causing people to take up arms, which he warned in a report “carries with it the possibility of civil war.”
The emir of Qatar, which orchestrated Syria’s suspension from the league and the imposition of sweeping sanctions against the country, has called for the deployment of Arab forces to “stop the killing,” a proposal reiterated Sunday by the country’s foreign minister.
“The reality is that the bloodshed hasn’t stopped,” Foreign Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al Thani said in Cairo. “What is needed now is a total revision of the mission’s work.”
Syria has rejected Qatar’s proposal and accused the country of financing “armed gangs,” which it says killed more than 2,000 security force members. The proposal also faces resistance from a number of league members opposed to any form of military intervention in Syria.
alexandra.zavis@latimes.com
Special correspondent Hassan reported from Cairo and Times staff writer Zavis from Damascus. Special correspondent Rima Marrouch in Damascus contributed to this report.
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