Al Jazeera Host Asks Why Can’t Arab Armies Be More Humane, Like Israel? (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

An Al Jazeera Arabic anchor recently asked his audience why Arab armies, and, in particular, the regime of Bashar al-Assad, in Syria, can’t behave more humanely towards civilians, like the Israeli and French armies do?

In a clip uploaded to YouTube this week and flagged by Mideast Media Analyst Tom Gross, the anchor asks, “Why don’t they learn from the Israeli army which tries, through great efforts, to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine? Didn’t Hezbollah take shelter in areas populated by civilians because it knows that Israeli Air Force doesn’t bomb those areas? Why doesn’t the Syrian army respect premises of universities, schools or inhabited neighborhoods? Why does it shell even the areas of its supporters?”

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Obama Acting Like Weak Power in Iran Negotiations

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Here’s a thought: If we’re starting negotiations to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program cowering in fear that Iran will walk away from the table, we’re probably not negotiating from a position of strength.

America’s interim deal with Iran went into effect over the weekend, giving the U.S. and other so-called world powers six months to negotiate a deal to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. There is good reason to be skeptical that Iran would ever negotiate away its nuclear weapons program — which it denies even having — but given the Obama administration’s claim that sanctions brought Iran to the table, wouldn’t the prospect of more sanctions if a deal does not materialize provide even greater incentive for Iran to capitulate?

You would think so, but President Barack Obama is adamantly opposed to a Senate bill co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Mark Kirk and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez that would impose further sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic doesn’t come to an acceptable agreement with the U.S. on its nuclear program. The bill, so far backed by 59 Senate Republicans and Democrats, has sent the Obama administration into a tizzy. The president has pledged to veto it. Administration officials say those who support it are essentially warmongers — in contrast, of course, to the president, who says he only wants to “give peace a chance.”

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Ambassador Stevens Cabled Washington: CIA Says ‘AQ [Al Qaeda] Training Camps Within Benghazi’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

On August 16, 2012–a little less than a month before the terrorist attacks on the U.S. State Department and CIA facilities in Benghazi, Libya–Amb. Chris Stevens sent a cable to State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. stating that a CIA officer on the ground in Benghazi had briefed a State Department officer in that city the day before “on the location of approximately ten Islamist militias and AQ training camps within Benghazi.”

This information was released today in a report issued by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

“AQ,” the initials for al Qaeda, are used in intelligence documents quoted in the report to indicate a tie to al Qaeda. For example, a Defense Intelligence Agency report refers to “al Qa’ida (AQ) regional nodes;” a Pentagon Joint Chief’s intelligence report refers to “AQ associates;” and a CIA report entitled “Libya: Al Qa’ida Establishing Sanctuary,” refers to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as “AQAP” and al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Magreb as “AQIM.”

The CIA officer’s discussion of the “AQ training camps” in Benghazi occurred at an “Emergency Action Committee” meeting convened August 15, 2012 by the State Department’s principal officer in Benghazi.

“In an August 16, 2012, cable to State headquarters, Stevens raised additional concerns about the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi following an Emergency Action Committee (EAC) meeting held on August 15, 2012, in Benghazi,” says a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Benghazi that was released today.

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Iran’s Chief Negotiator: We Won

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Iran’s chief negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, who helped his country secure the nuclear deal with the U.S. and other Western countries, is claiming victory.

“No facility will be closed; enrichment will continue, and qualitative and nuclear research will be expanded,” Araqchi recently said, explaining the deal in an interview with the propaganda organ the Iranian Students News Agency. “All research into a new generation of centrifuges will continue.”

The nuclear deal is supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. But if the chief negotiator for Iran is to be believed, his country’s pursuit will continue, practically unchanged.

The deal was praised by President Obama at the White House yesterday who told Americans to “give peace a chance.”

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White House Has Harsh Words for Senators Seeking New Iran Sanctions: Actions Could Lead to War

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Photo Credit: T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images

Photo Credit: T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images

The White House launched a harsh attack on supporters of a Senate bill to impose fresh sanctions on Iran, suggesting that they have a hidden goal of drawing the country into another Mideast war.

If supporters “want the United States to take military action, they should be up front with the American people and say so,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. “Otherwise, it’s not clear why any member of Congress would support a bill that possibly closes the door on diplomacy and makes it more likely that the United States will have to choose between military options or allowing Iran’s nuclear program to continue.”

[Updated at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 10: A pro-sanctions advocacy group, United Against a Nuclear Iran, pushed back.]

“It is wrong for the White House to continue questioning the integrity and motives of anyone who supports more sanctions,” said Mark Wallace, chief executive of the group. “It is nonsensical and out of bounds to say that a bipartisn majority of U.S. senators secretly wants war with Iran.”]

The White House argues that by driving Iran from the bargaining table, the tough new sanctions bill could undermine international negotiations aimed at an agreement to ensure that Tehran’s nuclear program remains peaceful. Many nations fear that Iran, despite its denials, seeks a nuclear weapon capability.

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Al-Qaeda’s New Poster Boy for the Middle East

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Photo Credit: Telegraph

Photo Credit: Telegraph

THE FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it.

Taken during his years as a detainee at the US-run Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, this is the only known photograph of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. But while he may lack the photogenic qualities of his hero, Osama bin Laden, he is fast becoming the new poster-boy for the global jihadist movement.

Well-organised and utterly ruthless, the ex-preacher is the driving force behind al-Qaeda’s resurgence throughout Syria and Iraq, putting it at the forefront of the war to topple President Bashar al-Assad and starting a fresh campaign of mayhem against the Western-backed government in Baghdad.

Last week, his forces fought open clashes with Iraqi army troops around the city of Fallujah – once known as the graveyard of the Americans – after brazenly attempting to seize control there the weekend before.

“They turned up in convoys waving their black flags and saying that Fallujah belongs to al-Qaeda again,” said Ayad Dulaimi, a local resident. “With God’s help, the army will destroy them.”

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Report: Rate of Christians Killed for their Faith Doubled in 2013

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Reported cases of Christians killed for their faith around the world doubled in 2013 from the year before, with Syria accounting for more than the whole global total in 2012, according to an annual survey.

Open Doors, a non-denominational group supporting persecuted Christians worldwide, said on Wednesday it had documented 2,123 “martyr” killings, compared with 1,201 in 2012. There were 1,213 such deaths in Syria alone last year, it said.

“This is a very minimal count based on what has been reported in the media and we can confirm,” said Frans Veerman, head of research for Open Doors. Estimates by other Christian groups put the annual figure as high as 8,000.

The Open Doors report placed North Korea at the top of its list of 50 most dangerous countries for Christians, a position it has held since the annual survey began 12 years ago. Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan were the next four in line.

The United States-based group reported increasing violence against Christians in Africa and said radical Muslims were the main source of persecution in 36 countries on its list.

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Al Qaeda Controls More Territory Than Ever in Middle East

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

From around Aleppo in western Syria to small areas of Falluja in central Iraq, al Qaeda now controls territory that stretches more than 400 miles across the heart of the Middle East, according to English and Arab language news accounts as well as accounts on jihadist websites.

Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history.

The focus of al Qaeda’s leaders has always been regime change in the Arab world in order to install Taliban-style regimes. Al Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri acknowledged as much in his 2001 autobiography, “Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet,” when he explained that the most important strategic goal of al Qaeda was to seize control of a state, or part of a state, somewhere in the Muslim world, explaining that, “without achieving this goal our actions will mean nothing.”

Now al-Zawahiri is closer to his goal than he has ever been. On Friday al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq seized control of parts of the city of Falluja and parts of the city of Ramadi, both of which are located in Iraq’s restive Anbar Province.

Anbar is home to predominantly Sunni Muslims, who feel that that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki treats the Sunnis as second-class citizens.

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Afghanistan Releasing 72 Prisoners Considered Security Threat by US

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the country is going to release all but 16 of 88 prisoners considered a security threat by the United States.

In a statement Thursday, Karzai says that a review of the prisoners’ cases by Afghan intelligence and judicial officials turned up no evidence of wrongdoing for 45 of the detainees. Karzai says there was insufficient evidence on another 27 and that they must be released.

The U.S. is strongly opposed to their release because it says the prisoners have been involved in the wounding or killing of U.S. and coalition troops, Reuters reported.

The issue has been a sticking point in Afghan-U.S. relations as the two sides struggle to agree on a framework for the withdrawal of American and allied forces by the end of next year and the aftermath. Last week, a group of U.S. senators met Karzai in Kabul to warn him that release of the 88 detainees from the Parwan Detention Facility “would be a major step backward” for U.S.-Afghan relations.

A review of the prisoners’ cases by Afghan intelligence and judicial officials turned up no evidence of wrongdoing for 45 of the detainees, and there was insufficient evidence on another 27, so they must be released, Karzai said in a statement. He gave no details on when the release will take place.

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North Korea Tops Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan as Worst Place to Be Christian

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon

On the day former NBA star Dennis Rodman sang “happy birthday” to Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, a religious freedom advocacy group named North Korea the world’s worst country to be a Christian for the 12th consecutive year.

Islamic states dominated Open Doors’ 2014 world watch list, accounting for nine of the ten countries with the worst records. Of the full 50-country list released Wednesday, 36 are countries where Islamic extremism is “the main engine driving persecution of Christians,” stretching from North Africa to Brunei.

The top ten countries for persecuting Christians over the last year were: North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran and Yemen.

“In no other country in the world are Christians so fiercely persecuted because of their faith than in North Korea,” said Open Doors. “Like others in that country, Christians have to survive under one of the most oppressive regimes in contemporary times. They have to deal with corrupt officials, bad policies, natural disasters, diseases and hunger.

“On top of that, they must hide their decision to follow Christ. Being caught with a Bible is grounds for execution or a life-long political prison sentence. An estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians live in concentration camps, prisons and prison-like circumstances under the regime of leader Kim Jong-un.”

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