23 May 2012 Osint Levant Tracker

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This OSINT publication contains foreign media derived entirely from open sources in and around the CENTCOM AOR.
23 May 2012
EGYPT As Egyptians Cast their Ballots, Five Main Contenders Vie for Presidency: Al Arabiya Egyptians went to the polls on Wednesday for the first presidential vote since the 2011 uprising that overthrew former president Mubarak. Voting will take place over two days. There are 13 candidates on the ballot, one has dropped out and endorsed a former rival, five of which are regarded as the main contenders. (Source: Dubai, UAE; Owned by MBC Group, Intl (Large Iraqi following); Neutral; Daily) Egyptian Policeman Killed at Polling Station, Security Says: Now Lebanon An Egyptian policeman was shot dead on Wednesday when he was caught up in a gunfight between supporters of two presidential candidates outside a polling station in Cairo, security officials told AFP. (Source: Beirut, Lebanon; Privately Funded / Independent; Liberal) Live Updates: Candidates Cast their Ballots: Al Masry Al Youm Egyptians are voting today for the first president after the 25 January uprising. More than 50 million citizens across Egypts 27 governorates are eligible to vote, choosing from 11 candidates. The contest is considered wide open. Egypt Independent will be bringing you live updates throughout the day. (Source: Cairo, Egypt; Independent; Daily; Undetermined). SCAF General says Military is Securing Election as Governorates Prepare: Al Masry Al Youm Supreme Council of the Armed Forces member General Mohamed al-Assar said that the armed forces will secure the presidential elections process with more than 150,000 officers and soldiers. He added that 11,000 vehicles, including planes, have been allocated for transporting troops, evacuations and medical emergencies. (Source: Cairo, Egypt; Independent; Daily; Undetermined). ISRAEL / GAZA Atomic Weapons against Islam, says Ahmadinejad as Israel Warns World Powers Not to Waver in Iran Talks: Al Arabiya Islam forbids atomic weapons and other arms of mass destruction, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on Wednesday ahead of his countrys nuclear talks with world powers in Baghdad, as Israel urged world powers not to waver in key talks with Iran. (Source: Dubai, UAE; Owned by MBC Group, Intl (Large Iraqi following); Neutral; Daily) Paper: Turkey Indicts Israeli Commanders over Mavi Marmara Raid: Maan News Agency A Turkish prosecutor has prepared an indictment seeking life sentences for four former Israeli military commanders over their alleged involvement in the 2010 killing of nine Turks on a Gaza-bound aid ship, Turkish newspaper Sabah reported on Wednesday. (Source: Bethlehem, Israel; Funded by Dutch and Danish Foreign Ministries; anti-Zionism / anti-West) Israel Urged to Release Satellite TV Director: Maan News Agency Israeli authorities should release the director of a new Palestinian satellite broadcaster who has been detained since Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. . (Source: Bethlehem, Israel; Funded by Dutch and Danish Foreign Ministries; anti-Zionism / anti-West) JORDAN Jordan, US Discuss Security Cooperation: Jordan Times Jordan and the US on Tuesday examined means to enhance cooperation in security and efforts to combat human trafficking. (Source: Amman, Jordan; Independent; Neutral)
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23 May 2012
Delay in Preparations for Polls cannot be Tolerated, King: Jordan Times His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday stressed that all Jordanians are looking forward to see the parliamentary elections held this year in complete fairness, transparency and neutrality. (Source: Amman, Jordan; Independent; Neutral) LEBANON Lebanese Pilgrims 'Kidnapped' in Syria: Al Jazeera At least 11 Lebanese men and their Syrian driver have been kidnapped in the Aleppo province of Syria while heading back home by bus from a pilgrimage in Iran. Syrian media said an "armed terrorist gang" was responsible. (Source: Doha, Qatar; Independent; Website of the TV Network; Claim Neutrality) Saudi King Voices Fear of Targeting Lebanon's Sunnis: Ahram Online Saudi King Abdullah voiced fear over targeting the Sunni community in Lebanon and urged action to avert a sectarian strife resulting from a spillover of the conflict in neighboring Syria. (Source: Cairo, Egypt; Daily; Neutral) Akkar Mufti Calls Abdel Waheds Killing Assassination: Now Lebanon Akkar Mufti Sheikh Osama Rifai said on Wednesday that the incident of the killing of Sunni cleric Ahmad Abdel Wahed was deliberate murder. (Source: Beirut, Lebanon; Privately Funded / Independent; Liberal) Hezbollah Wins Pledge that Lebanese Hostages will be Released: The Daily Star Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar said Wednesday that his party has been assured of the release of at least 11 Lebanese men kidnapped a day earlier in Syria. (Source: Beirut, Lebanon; Independent; Daily, Except Sunday; Neutral) SYRIA Live Blog on Developments in Syria: Now Lebanon Daily Syria Blog (Source: Beirut, Lebanon; Privately Funded / Independent; Liberal) Ankara makes Arrests in FSA Commander Kidnap Plot: Asharq Al-Awsat Colonel Malik al-Kurdi, the Free Syrian Army's [FSA] deputy commander, confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat the reports about the Turkish authorities arresting a group that planned to kidnap FSA Commander Riad al-Asaad. (Source: London, England; pan-Arab daily news; Pro Arab) Syrian Troops Pound Rastan as U.N. Team Brokers Swap between Regimes, Rebels: Al Arabiya Regime forces Wednesday pounded rebel bastion Rastan, in central Syria, at an average rate of one shell a minute, said a monitoring group, adding that six people were killed across the country amid reports that a U.N. has brokered an exchange between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and opposition fighters. (Source: Dubai, UAE; Owned by MBC Group, Intl (Large Iraqi following); Neutral; Daily) Armed Terrorist Groups Escalate Attacks and Bombings: SANA Foreign-backed armed terrorist groups have increased their aggressions and attacks against civilians and security protection personnel in scores of Syrian Governorates. (Source: Syria, Syria Government owned pro Syrian regime) Three Iranian Truck Drivers Abducted in Syria, says Embassy: Now Lebanon Three Iranian truck drivers have been abducted by "armed opposition groups" in Syria, according to Iran's charge daffaires in Damascus quoted by media Wednesday. (Source: Beirut, Lebanon; Privately Funded / Independent; Liberal)
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23 May 2012
EDITORIALS Intl Community has Failed the Syrian People- Former Syrian MB Chief: Asharq Al-Awsat Uncertainty continues to surround the claims that a number of senior Syrian officials, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assads brother-in-law and intelligence Chief Assef Shawkat, were assassinated on Sunday, despite official denials of this. (Source: London, England; pan-Arab daily news; Pro Arab) A Possible Agenda for Transition in Egypt: Al Jazeera This is the second in a two-part series about revolution and reform in Egypt. To read the first part in its entirety, click here. Below is a segue into part two of the series: (Source: Doha, Qatar; Independent; Website of the TV Network; Claim Neutrality) Syrian Regime: Tripoli is Kandahar: Al Arabiya The intermittent skirmishes in northern Lebanon, specifically Tripoli, can be termed a natural extension of the current tension in neighboring Syria. In Tripoli, as Shiite and Alawi sects live together, some people see what is happening in Syria as a conflict between these two religious sects. (Source: Dubai, UAE; Owned by MBC Group, Intl (Large Iraqi following); Neutral; Daily) Al-Assads Qaeda: Asharq Al-Awsat Two bloody incidents have taken place in the region, and we must now connect these two events to one another in order to clarify the bigger and more important picture regarding the course of regional events, whether in Yemen, Syria or Lebanon, and possibly the Gulf in the future. (Source: London, England; pan-Arab daily news; Pro Arab) Supporting Documentation:
EGYPT (Top) 23 May 2012 Al Arabiya As Egyptians Cast their Ballots, Five Main Contenders Vie for Presidency
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23 May 2012
(U) Five candidates (L to R) hope to lead Egypt as president: Mohammed Mursi, Abdul Muniem Abul Fotouh, Amr Moussa, Ahmed Shafiq and Hamdeen Sabbahi. (File photo) Egyptians went to the polls on Wednesday for the first presidential vote since the 2011 uprising that overthrew former president Hosni Mubarak. Voting will take place over two days. There are 13 candidates on the ballot, one has dropped out and endorsed a former rival, five of which are regarded as the main contenders. Mohammed Mursi Mohammed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhoods candidate in Egypts presidential election, is the Islamists fallback representative after their deputy leader Khairat al-Shater was disqualified. But the powerful Islamist movement is throwing its entire formidable network of supporters behind the bearded and bespectacled engineer who was appointed last year as the head of its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). Brotherhood supporters lined up for kilometers along main Cairo roads and north of the capital last week holding up pictures of the portly 60-year-old former professor. On Sunday, Mursi addressed thousands of supporters in a mass Cairo rally in a fiery stump speech, pledging his presidency would be based on Islam but would not be a theocracy. The candidate has grown more comfortable in his new role as a potential president, gaining confidence in his interviews and public speeches. Mursi was born in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya and graduated with an engineering degree from Cairo University in 1975. He received in 1982 a PhD from the University of Southern California, where he was an assistant professor. He was a member of an anti-Israel group, the Committee to Resist Zionism, but dedicated much of his time to the Muslim Brotherhood, which first fielded him in a parliamentary election in 2000. He kept his seat in the next election in 2005, which left the Brotherhood with a fifth of parliament, but was soon arrested and jailed for seven months after participating in protests supporting reformist judges. By the 2010 election, Mursi had become a spokesman for the Islamists and a member of their politburo. He was jailed again on the morning of Jan. 28, 2011, a day after the Muslim Brotherhood announced it would join the protests that would topple Mubarak almost two weeks later. Mursi, and other Brotherhood leaders arrested at the time, served only a few days before they were sprung from jail during massive prison breaks across the country. He now presents himself as the only candidate with an Islamic program. Abdul Muniem Abul Fotouh Ex-Muslim Brotherhood member Abdul Moniem Abul Fotouh has attracted support from both hardline Islamists and liberals who believe he could defuse Egypts post-revolt religious divide.
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23 May 2012
The 61-year-old physician says he is the candidate of the revolution that toppled Mubarak. He says former regime members should stay out of the presidential race. He has been endorsed by the radical Islamist group Jamaa Islamiyya, involved in the assassination of president Anwar Sadat, as well the fundamentalist Islamist party al-Nour. But he is also well regarded by a large number of secular-minded youth who participated in last years uprising. Abul Fotouhs broad appeal stems partly from the fact that he has surrounded himself with a diverse team of advisors that include Marxists, feminists and Coptic Christians. But others argue that Abul Fotouh has cast his net too wide, making different promises to different sectors of society, while some are suspicious of his talk of personal freedoms, believing he is more conservative than he publicly admits. Abul Fotouh has campaigned heavily on the right of all Egyptians to health care and education, as well as personal freedom, earning him support from some leftist quarters. When people hear Sharia (Islamic law) mentioned, they immediately think that means the women will be forced to veil, tourism will be banned ... but they don't think of the amazing aspects of Sharia such as the emphasis on personal freedom, justice and development, he told a popular talk show. He is currently head of the Arab Medical Union, an emergency and relief group which has offered assistance to Gaza, Syria and Libya during times of conflict. In an interview on Egyptian television, he branded Israel a racist state and said a 1979 peace treaty was a national security threat that should be revised. Abul Fotouhs political activism began when he was studying for a degree in medicine at Cairo University. In 1977, when he was head of the university student union, he publicly confronted Sadat, accusing him of being a hypocrite surrounded by sycophants. The exchange infuriated Sadat and raised Abul Fotouhs profile. Abul Fotouh joined the Muslim Brotherhood as a young activist and became a member of its politburo in 1987, when the group was still banned. He received a second university degree, a bachelor of laws, while in prison. Married to a physician Alia Khalil, he is the father of six children. Amr Moussa Amr Moussa, a veteran foreign minister, former Arab League chief and the presidential elections main secular candidate, vows to lead a multi-confessional Egypt in the face of the rising power of Islamists. His posters show him alternately smiling in casual attire, or serious and in suit and tie, posing in front of the countrys ancient temples or petrochemical facilities.
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23 May 2012
For months, the indefatigable diplomat has been actively campaigning in the Nile Delta and Upper Egypt, far from the diplomatic corridors where he spent most of his career. The fall of Mubarak, with whom he kept uneasy relations, has allowed him to display his presidential ambitions. On Feb. 4, 2011, just days before Mubarak stepped down; Moussa gave hints of his desire to succeed his former boss. I am ready to serve as a citizen, who has the right to stand, he said from the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo that overlooks al-Tahrir Square where crowds chanted to bring down the regime. His campaign posters, of minarets and church steeples side by side, sit well with the Christian electorate that represents around 10 percent of the population. Following the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi fundamentalist movements, who already control parliament, Moussa warns of the risk of turning the country into a research lab for followers of political Islam. Nonetheless, Moussa never fails to emphasize his Muslim identity, praying five times a day, even on his campaign bus. His post as Mubaraks foreign minister from 1991 to 2001 is a handicap that he counters by implying his relations with the former strongman had been strained. His popularity was not comfortable for Mubarak, he acknowledged in a recent interview with AFP. Moussa prefers to talk of the following decade, when he headed the 22-member Arab League, to which some say he was banished in order to keep him away from domestic politics. His diatribes against Israel only added to his popularity among Egyptians. He makes no secret of his lack of enthusiasm for the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian Camp David accord, which according to him is in the drawer, although he insists he does not want to jeopardize peace with Israel. As head of the Arab League, he was one of the few regional leaders to sense the earthquake of the Arab Spring. In January 2011, days after the fall of Tunisian President Zine ElAbidine Ben Ali and shortly before the start of Egypts revolt, he caused a stir by warning the anger and frustration is among the regions people. Ahmed Shafiq Ahmed Shafiq was the last prime minister to serve under ousted president Mubarak and like his former boss is a product of Egypts powerful military machine. Shafiq, who was air force chief of staff until 2002, was almost disqualified from the presidential race after the adoption of a law prohibiting senior members of the Mubarak era from running, but the decision was reversed at the last minute. His campaign shifted to a higher gear in recent weeks, with huge portraits of him in a suit taking up the top spots of many buildings in Cairo and across the country.
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23 May 2012
With a reputation as a good technocrat, Shafiq, 70, was appointed prime minister during Mubaraks last days in power in a bid to appease the popular revolt that eventually overthrew the strongman on Feb. 11, 2011. But the former general has been criticized for his association with the old regime and for having retained many Mubarak ministers in his cabinet, a decision which would force him to resign a month later under pressure from youth movements who spearheaded the uprising. Like Mubarak, Shafiq was a pilot who graduated from the Military Aviation Academy and touts his many military successes -- his campaign recently boasted that he shot down two Israeli planes in wars with the Jewish state. He is also eager to highlight his civilian achievements, saying he modernized the national carrier Egypt air and Cairos international airport. In a country where all presidents since the fall of the monarchy in 1952 have hailed from military backgrounds, Shafiq says he is proud and honored to be a son of the armed forces. He believes that one of his strongest assets is in fact this military background, which he says will be crucial in ensuring a smooth relationship with the ruling military during the transition period. But it could also be a disadvantage to a segment of the population who wants to see a clear separation between the presidency and the army. Shafiq boasts of his experience and insists he is open to criticism, but in several television interviews he has showed a strict and impatient side. To those who accuse him of being a feloul -- a pejorative term used by Egyptians to describe members of the old regime -- he says that he was only one of the (people) chosen for vital positions. Who said I was not opposing the Mubarak regime? he said, claiming to have objected to many decisions taken by the former regime and insisting he was more useful to his country by working for reform from the inside. Shafiq has made security and the fight against crime his top priority. If elected, he said, he is prepared to appoint an Islamist vice president, whether from the powerful Muslim Brotherhood or the more hard-line Salafi parties. Hamdeen Sabbahi Hamdeen Sabbahi, a leftist inspired by late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, whos Free Officers overthrew King Farouk in 1952 and set up the system that has put military men in the presidency for the past 60 years. He is a former Member of Parliament and long-time activist. Any conversation about Sabbahi usually begins with reference to his audacious face-to-face dress-down of thenPresident Anwar al-Sadat in 1977, when the latter decided to conduct a series of town hall meetings at universities to prove his openness to dialogue. Then a student of mass communications and president of the student union at Cairo University, Sabbahi criticized Sadat over his departure from Nasserism (following the socialist ideologies of Abdul Nasser) and shift towards neo-liberalism, as well as the seemingly decreasing support for the Palestinian cause.
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23 May 2012
Since 1977, Sabbahi has been an omnipresent opposition figure in Egyptian politics. In 1979, he was imprisoned along with other prominent leftist activists for being one of the instigators of the bread riots that saw widespread demonstrations against inflated prices of staple goods. It would be the first of a series of detentions, the last of which was in 2003, when Sabbahi was arrested for protesting Egypts support of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Through his membership of the Arab Democratic Nasserist Party, Sabbahi stayed active in politics. He emerged as a leader within the Nasserist current after leaving the party in 1996 claiming it has become obsolete and forming the Karama party on similar ideological grounds. Until the 25 January revolution, Karama was not recognized as an official political party for espousing what the Mubarak regime considered a radical ideology. Meanwhile, Sabbahi ran for and was seated in parliament as an independent from 2000 to 2010. In 2005, he joined a group of activists and intellectuals to form the Kefaya movement which led a wave of protests against the rule of Mubarak and the grooming of his son, Gamal, to take over the presidency. As a founding member of a group, which is considered one of the direct precursors to the Jan. 25 revolution? Nasserists generally hold a tough line towards Israel. In 2008, Sabbahi was one of the first Egyptian parliamentarians to go to the Gaza Strip on an official visit highlighting the need for more support and to call for the end the Israeli siege of the area. Born in 1954 to a rural family from the village of Balteem in Kafr al-Sheikh in northern Egypt, Sabbahi has always fashioned himself as a man of the people. His electoral slogan is one of us. I would uphold Nassers principles on social justice while pushing for a completely democratic system that clearly defines and limits the role of the president, Sabbahi said in a January 2012 interview with the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute.
23 May 2012 Now Lebanon Egyptian Policeman Killed at Polling Station, Security Says An Egyptian policeman was shot dead on Wednesday when he was caught up in a gunfight between supporters of two presidential candidates outside a polling station in Cairo, security officials told AFP. Another person was injured in the same fight, which erupted as Egyptians were voting to choose a successor to President Hosni Mubarak, ousted last year in a popular uprising. The police officer was killed by a shot to the chest, while the second person, a civilian, was hit in the leg, security officials said, adding the incident occurred in the northeastern Cairo district of Rod al-Farag. It was not immediately clear which candidates those involved in the altercation were backing, but the gunfight underscored security concerns as millions went to the polls to choose Mubarak's successor. Soldiers guarded the entrance of schools and other institutions serving as polling stations across the country, backed up by Egyptian policeman in their white summer uniforms. More than 50 million eligible voters have been called to choose one of 12 candidates wrestling to succeed Mubarak. Voting over two days is taking place at 13,000 polling stations, with initial results expected on Sunday. Voting ends at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) on both days.
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23 May 2012
23 May 2012 Al Masry Al Youm Live Updates: Candidates Cast their Ballots
Unclassified Egyptians are voting today for the first president after the 25 January uprising. More than 50 million citizens across Egypts 27 governorates are eligible to vote, choosing from 11 candidates. The contest is considered wide open. Egypt Independent will be bringing you live updates throughout the day. 12:30 pm: In Fatma Anan School in the Fifth Settlement, New Cairo, campaigners for Morsy blocked Moussa from entering the polling station because of the large number of local and foreign reporters accompanying him. Scuffles broke out between groups of campaigners and photographers; military police divided them. Mahdi Akef, former general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, voted in one of the polling stations in the Fifth Settlement neighborhood. Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that Akef, 84, didn't manage to stand in the queue with other voters and sat on a chair waiting for his turn. Akef said last April that he prays to God that the Brotherhood will not win the presidential elections, adding that the presidency will be a huge burden for the Brotherhood if their candidate wins the elections. In the rural area of Minya, turnout remained low. Judges cracked down on any campaigning in or around the polling station, and an employee with a badge reading "queue organizer," allowed three people in at a time most waiting in line said they were voting for either Morsy or Abouel Fotouh. In Mahalla, voters filled the polling stations. Egypt Independent witnessed few violations, though a few Abouel Fotouh campaigners were making rounds in the area. Ayman Kamal, 20, an engineering student voting in Sayeda Zeinab, was proud to be casting his first presidential ballot. "For the first time everyone has a voice and opinion about who they want to vote for," he said. "I voted for Hamdeen because he expresses the views of all Egyptians, not just a particular group including the poor, workers, and farmers."
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23 May 2012
11:30 am: Polling stations in Mansoura, the capital of Daqahlia Governorate, are crowded, with some voters feeling frustrated by long waits. Still, many voters in Mansoura are still unsure which candidate they will vote for and are asking other voters nearby for advice. In the Cairo neighborhood of Heliopolis, a female voter in Kawekeb School complained about not being sure who to vote for. She said she is interested in voting for Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy but also heard that Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, a former member of the group, is a good option. I guess I will go in and decide on the spot, she said. Confusion and uncertainty are also on display, not just about which candidate is the best choice. In the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood in Cairo, Mohy Eddin Abdel Aziz Gad, 71, says the Presidential Elections Commissions website gave him the wrong voter ID number and polling station information, which delayed his ability to cast his vote. 11:00 am: Candidates have started casting their ballots. Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh has cast his vote at Ibn al-Nafees Preparatory School in Nasr City, Reuters reports. Former Arab League chief Amr Moussa arrived at the polling station at Fatma Anan School in the Fifth Settlement, New Cairo, at 8:30 am, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm. He waited in line for an hour and a half to cast the ballot. Moussa said he would accept whatever outcome the election brings, describing the polls as an important lesson in democracy. Egyptians should have good judgment in selecting the person who would shape Egypts future over the next period, Moussa said. We are up to the challenge. In the same line, four young voters hoisted posters of protesters killed in the Maspero violence when the military forcibly dispersed a mostly Coptic march next to the state TV building last October, and the clashes near the Interior Ministry last November between Central Security Forces and demonstrators, and other incidents of violence that marred Egypt in the last months. Those people sacrificed their lives to elect a candidate who represents the revolution rather than one who is affiliated with the old regime, one voter said, warning the rest against electing Moussa. Similarly, leftist lawyer Khaled Ali was photographed by El Badil news website standing in line to cast his vote. Al-Masry Al-Youm also reported that Peoples Assembly Speaker and Muslim Brotherhood leader Saad al-Katatny arrived at a polling station in 6th of October City to cast his ballot. He entered the polling station quickly but later was asked by one of the voters to go back to the end of the line. Katatny agreed to return back, with voters clapping for him. He told reporters while waiting that the winner of this election whether he is the Brotherhoods candidate or any other candidate would be a choice that reflects the will of the people. He added that the peoples choice should be respected. Meanwhile, voters continued to flock to polling stations around Cairo. In Sayeda Zeinab, hundreds of people showed up to vote. Mohamed Selim Mohamed, 22, a business graduate from Cairo University who wants to work as a stock broker but is now working in a restaurant, is voting for Ahmed Shafiq, who served as prime minister under Hosni Mubaraks regime.
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23 May 2012
I heard many opinions and debates before making my decision two days ago about who to vote for. My conscience is now clear and settled with the choice Ive made, he said. The most important thing for the coming period is security. Security will come through the law. The police will come under the law and deal with citizens in a legal way. After this tourism has to come back to Egypt and then education needs to improve so that Egypt will become like Turkey, Malaysia and Singapore. Mohamed added that Shafiqs history distinguished him and, though some say he was implicated in the Battle of Camel, if that is true, he would come under the law. I doubt the law will be above him, given that Mubarak is in prison, Mohamed says. In Dar al-Salaam, at a school compound, a female observer let two campaigners help people find their polling stations. As long as youre not from the Brotherhood or feloul [remnants of the old regime], she said. In Shubra at the Tawfikeya Secondary School, a line of male voters waited patiently in the shade to cast their ballot. There is a large security presence, comprising military troops and military police as well as regular police. Tarek Emad, a voter in the line, said, Its an important day the first time Im voting because for once we dont know who will win. What I hope is that there is no problems by supporters of failed candidates and accept the result. I will vote for Amr Moussa because I feel he is the most suited for the upcoming period, and after that any other candidate. The important thing is to come out of this current phase to safety, he said. Outside of Cairo, voters turnout ranged between low and moderate so far. In villages surrounding the Upper Egyptian city of Sohag, where more than 2 million citizens are eligible to vote, low turnout was reported in the morning since the polls opened at 8 am. The urban centers, meanwhile, witnessed longer lines of voters. In a polling station in one of the villages surrounding Sohag, the lack of supplies of phosphoric ink and locks for the ballot boxes caused the judge in charge to keep the station closed. In the coastal Red Sea Governorate, home to more than 200,000 voters, moderate turnout was reported. Joint police and army forces are securing the vote. 10:30 am: Waits appear to be getting longer at some polling stations. At Al-Taliaa Preparatory Boys School in Sayeda Zeinab, hundreds of voters are lined up to enter the school. A few voters complained they were assigned the wrong number, but overall the process seemed to be going smoothly. In Dar al-Salaam, some voters complained about the long waits. The only problem is that theyve rounded up all the old people and given them the same station to vote in, said Maghoub Ali, 64. Voters seemed divided between former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and former Muslim Brotherhood member Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, and were not hesitant to discuss the candidate they were casting their ballots for. We dont want to be experimenting with the presidency, said Ghada Mohamed, a 43-year-old schoolteacher voting in Basateen, a neighborhood in southern Cairo. Moussa has his flaws but he is the lesser of evils.
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23 May 2012
10:00 am: Turnout so far appears to be low. Polling stations in Suez are largely empty. There is a very short line outside of the Sayeda Aisha School in the central Arbaeen district. At a polling station at the Ahmed Oraby Elementary School in Cairos Dar al-Salaam neighborhood, Moez Mohamed Nour, an election observer, said, So far things have gone smoothly, but Im disappointed with the low turnout. But I am expecting more people in the afternoon and tomorrow, since its Thursday, which a lot of people have off. Polling stations in Giza and Heliopolis are free of long lines, according to Egypt Independent correspondents. There have been some minor irregularities. Ahmed Abul Amayem, the judge supervising the polling station at Sayeda Aisha School in Suez, said that half of the employees who were supposed help run the polls have not yet arrived. He opened the polling station with the employees available to him. At the Ali Mubarak School in the Cairo neighborhood of Marg, voting began more than 15 minutes late after the Mohamed Morsy campaign sent 11 observers to the polling station instead of the prescribed number, two. Local watchdog Activists without Borders has said in a statement that some of its activists reported members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been trying to influence voters. The statement added that the Brotherhoods supporters are standing outside the polling station, trying to convince voters to vote for Mohamed Morsy. 9:30 am: Egypt Independents correspondent in Suez reports that most polling stations in that city are still empty. State-run news agency MENA reports that one female voter has filed a complaint against an employee at a polling station in Nasr City. She said the employee told her she should vote for Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy. The judges in the polling station decided immediately to dismiss the employee, MENA says. 8:00 am: Polling stations, which are usually held in schools and are divided according to gender, officially open. Lines have already begun to form.
23 May 2012 Al Masry Al Youm SCAF General says Military is Securing Election as Governorates Prepare Supreme Council of the Armed Forces member General Mohamed al-Assar said that the armed forces will secure the presidential elections process with more than 150,000 officers and soldiers. He added that 11,000 vehicles, including planes, have been allocated for transporting troops, evacuations and medical emergencies. He also said that the armed forces will transport 480 judges to distant polling stations. We were committed during the transitional period to the demands of the 25 January revolution and to holding a presidential election so that power can be transferred to a president elected by free and fair elections, Assar said in a briefing on Tuesday. Assar called on the Egyptian people to vote in the elections, reiterating his confidence in the great Egyptian people, whose revolution astounded the world and who will not hesitate to do their duty. Assar said that there are more than 50 million Egyptians registered for the election, and he hopes they will all cast their vote because this is a chance to achieve the demands of the revolution.
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23 May 2012
Assar added that the military will supervise the elections with complete transparency, and that the results must represent the will of the Egyptian people. He reiterated that the armed forces are impartial toward all candidates and added that the whole world will admire the elections fairness. Assar said that armed forces has detailed security plans for the voting process and will provide protection for the 13,000 polling stations nationwide. The armed forces have tightened measures to secure polling stations in coordination with different security bodies throughout various governorates. The armed forces have also organized patrols for organizing the electoral process, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported. In Ismailia, security forces are securing highways, streets and squares as well as 180 polling stations. Military units were deployed along the Suez Canal, where security measures have been tightened. The governor of Kafr al-Sheikh said that only the judges are in charge of the presidential election, while the armed forces and police are only securing the process. Minyas head of security said that preparations have been finished in coordination with the armed forces. 3,500 police officers have been deployed in the governorate. In Sharqiya, the head of the primary court and supervisor of the elections, Mohamed Amer, said that 80 percent of the judges monitoring the elections are from inside the governorate. In Port Said, military patrols were deployed to secure vital locations like the customs department, the Suez Canal Authority, the ferries facility and the customs gates at Port Said port. A military source warned that the military will respond forcefully to any attempts to foment unrest during the electoral process.
ISRAEL / GAZA (Top) 23 May 2012 Al Arabiya Atomic Weapons against Islam, says Ahmadinejad as Israel Warns World Powers not to Waver in Iran Talks
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(U) The United States has seized on Khameneis stance as a possible basis to resolve the dangerous standoff with Iran. (File photo) Islam forbids atomic weapons and other arms of mass destruction, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on Wednesday ahead of his countrys nuclear talks with world powers in Baghdad, as Israel urged world powers not to waver in key talks with Iran. Based on Islamic teachings and the clear fatwa (edict) of the supreme leader, the production and use of weapons of mass destruction is haram (forbidden) and have no place in the Islamic Republic of Irans defense doctrine, he said. Ahmadinejads message was read out at a conference in the western city of Borujerd to commemorate Iranian victims of chemical weapons during a 1980-1988 war against Iraq, the official news agency IRNA reported. World powers were to hold crunch talks in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday with Iran to try to persuade Tehran to suspend sensitive nuclear work. Ahmadinejads mention of a fatwa against nuclear weapons by Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, referred to an edict which officials say he laid down in either 2004 or 2005. Though no published fatwa exists, Iranian scholars point out those declarations by prominent ayatollahs can later take on the weight of a fatwa. Khamenei has spoken out against nuclear weapons on several occasions, most recently on Feb. 22 when he said that possessing an atomic bomb constitutes a major sin. The Iranian nation has never been seeking an atomic weapon and never will be, while developing nuclear energy was in Iran's interest, he said. The United States has seized on Khameneis stance as a possible basis to resolve the dangerous standoff with Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month that Iranian officials point to a fatwa that the supreme leader has issued against the pursuit of nuclear weapons. World powers expect Tehran to back up that position by demonstrating clearly in the actions they propose that they have truly abandoned any nuclear weapons ambition, she said. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak urged world powers not to waver in key talks with Iran on Wednesday, warning that any failure to halt enrichment would see Tehran obtain a nuclear weapon. In Baghdad, we must watch out that partial concessions do not allow Iran to avoid a tightening of sanctions, he said, just hours before the start of a second round of talks between Tehran and six world powers in the Iraqi capital. Without strengthening the current painful sanctions, Iran will continue towards a nuclear capability, the defense minister told Israels public radio. We must not blink, give up or capitulate until the very last minute, he said. If they let them continue, Iran will keep on enriching uranium from 20 percent to 60 percent and 90 percent and they really will get a nuclear weapon. I dont know exactly when but it will happen, he warned.
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Now is the time for the entire world to stop them, said Barak. A day ahead of the second round, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Yukiya Amano said his agency was poised to ink a deal with Tehran, in a move which was greeted with deep suspicion by Israel, which sees Iran's willingness to talk as a ploy to win an easing of sanctions and to gain more time for enrichment. Israel has also poured scorn on the P5+1 talks, with Barak deriding its demands of Tehran as minimalist and saying they would never be enough to make Iran halt its nuclear program.
23 May 2012 Maan News Agency Paper: Turkey Indicts Israeli Commanders over Mavi Marmara Raid A Turkish prosecutor has prepared an indictment seeking life sentences for four former Israeli military commanders over their alleged involvement in the 2010 killing of nine Turks on a Gaza-bound aid ship, Turkish newspaper Sabah reported on Wednesday. Relations between the regional powers deteriorated sharply after Israeli commandos raided the Mavi Marmara aid vessel in May 2010 to enforce a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists on board the ship. Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and froze all military cooperation after a UN report into the incident released last September largely exonerated Israeli forces. Sabah said it had seen details of the indictment prepared by Istanbul state prosecutor Mehmet Akif Ekinci and that it called for 10 life sentences to be given to each of the four commanders. It said the Istanbul chief prosecutor must approve the indictment before it is sent to the relevant court. The prosecutor could not immediately be reached for comment. The indictment was reported to accuse Israel's former Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and three other retired senior military commanders of involvement in the raid and refers to them as "fugitive suspects", Sabah reported. The 144-page indictment, it said, had been prepared after testimony from some 600 people, including 490 passengers from the six-ship flotilla and relatives of those who had died. Correspondence from the Turkish prime minister's office, the foreign and justice ministries and the intelligence service had also helped the prosecutor draw up the indictment, it said. In Jerusalem, an Israeli military spokeswoman had no immediate comment. Turkey had previously said it would try to prosecute all Israelis responsible for crimes committed during the raid and the prosecutor had written to Israel seeking the names of those involved but had received no answer. The UN report into the raid last September was meant to encourage a rapprochement between the two countries but ultimately deepened the rift when it concluded Israel had used unreasonable force but that the blockade on Gaza was legal. Turkey was stung by Israel's refusal to make a formal apology and pay compensation to families of the dead.
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Israel said its marines had been attacked by activists wielding metal bars, clubs and knives when they boarded the Mavi Marmara and had opened fire in self-defence. Relations have been strained since the raid. Last week Turkey said it had scrambled military jets to intercept an Israeli plane that had violated northern Cypriot airspace and demanded an explanation. Israel declined to comment. Ankara is also involved in a long-running dispute with Israel and Cyprus over who has the right to drill for energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.
23 May 2012 Maan News Agency Israel Urged to Release Satellite TV Director Israeli authorities should release the director of a new Palestinian satellite broadcaster who has been detained since Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. "Israeli authorities should consider the message they are sending by imprisoning the head of a station that covers news about prisoners," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's coordinator for Mideast issues. "Authorities should not be holding Bahaa Khairi Moussa, and certainly not without explanation. He should be released immediately, and the station's equipment should be returned." Moussa, the general director of the Palestine Prisoner Channel, was arrested Thursday in Jenin. Soldiers confiscated his station's equipment during the raid, his colleagues said. Reporters Without Borders, meanwhile, strongly condemned the arrest. Such abuses aimed at stifling the Palestinian media must cease, the group said Monday. This is the third time since the start of 2012 that the Israeli authorities have victimized a Palestinian media organization. We call for the immediate release of Baha Mousa and the return of all confiscated equipment," the Paris-based group said in a statement. It called the raid "illegal under international law" because it took place in Palestinian territory. In April, soldiers shut down the officers of a new broadcaster in occupied East Jerusalem and in February, soldiers raided two Palestinian TV stations, Watan and Al-Quds TV in Ramallah.
JORDAN (Top) 23 May 2012 Jordan Times Jordan, US Discuss Security Cooperation Jordan and the US on Tuesday examined means to enhance cooperation in security and efforts to combat human trafficking. His Majesty King Abdullah and several senior officials met with US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who began a two-day visit to the Kingdom on Tuesday.
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(U) His Majesty King Abdullah holds talks with US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Tuesday (Photo by Yousef Allan) During a meeting with the US secretary, Prime Minister Fayez Tarawneh welcomed cooperation between Jordan and the US in civil aviation security, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. According to a US embassy statement, Napolitano will sign a memorandum of cooperation between the US Transportation Security Administration and the Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission during her visit. The memorandum will facilitate the exchange of information and technical assistance between the two countries to strengthen aviation security, the statement said. During the meeting, which was also attended by US Ambassador to Jordan Stuart E. Jones, Tarawneh highlighted the economic conditions in Jordan and the governments efforts to address imbalances in the state budget. Tarawneh also briefed the US official on the regional situation and the impact on Jordan, highlighting the waves of refugees that the country has had to deal with throughout the past years. Tarawneh said the Kingdom is dealing with the situation in Syria in a manner that safeguards Jordans interests, voicing hope that the Syrian people will be able to resolve the crisis. Napolitano expressed the US pride in its friendship with Jordan, lauding the Kingdoms security and recent constitutional amendments that boost the countrys drive towards political reform, Petra reported. King Abdullah discussed the latest regional developments with Napolitano and ways to strengthen Jordanian-US relations, a Royal Court statement said. The US official also met separately with Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Gen. Mashal Al Zaben. Judeh and Napolitano discussed cooperation in combating human trafficking and smuggling. The US official commended Jordans commitment to safeguarding its borders with all neighboring countries. Zaben and the US secretary examined means to enhance defence cooperation.
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23 May 2012 Jordan Times Delay in Preparations for Polls cannot be Tolerated, King His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday stressed that all Jordanians are looking forward to see the parliamentary elections held this year in complete fairness, transparency and neutrality. Receiving president and members of the Independent Elections Commission (IEC), the Monarch voiced his support for the agency to help conduct the parliamentary elections before the end of this year, according to a Royal Court statement. The King also underlined that the IEC is a major pillar in efforts to prepare the stage for a new era in the Kingdoms history, noting that he will not tolerate any delay or hindrance to the commissions work, the statement said. In addition, the Monarch underscored that the upcoming parliamentary elections should be conducted according to the highest levels of impartiality and transparency that ultimately bring about a competent Chamber of Deputies that represents all segments of society and that can perform its legislative and monitoring duties with complete professionalism, the statement said. The King also stressed that the IECs success is key to political reform, urging the commission to carry out its duties in line with its mandate until parliamentary elections are held in a manner that meets peoples expectations of a better future, the statement said. President of the Board of Commissioners of the IEC Abdul Ilah Khatib pledged that the agency, which was established under the new version of the Constitution endorsed in September, will be up to the ambitions of His Majesty and all Jordanians and will perform its duties with complete responsibility, objectivity and neutrality, the statement said. In statements to the Jordan News Agency, Petra, and Jordan TV following the meeting, Khatib said that the IEC members immediately embarked on the job upon the inception of the body earlier this month, adding that they are in the process of setting up the commissions constitutional structure and recruiting qualified staff.
LEBANON (Top) 23 May 2012 Al Jazeera Lebanese Pilgrims 'Kidnapped' in Syria At least 11 Lebanese men and their Syrian driver have been kidnapped in the Aleppo province of Syria while heading back home by bus from a pilgrimage in Iran. Syrian media said an "armed terrorist gang" was responsible. Adnan Mansur, Lebanon's foreign minister, said on Wednesday that those kidnapped would be freed "within hours". "According to information provided by an Arab country, those kidnapped will be free within hours," Mansur told AlJadeed, a private satellite television station. He identified the men behind the abductions as "a splinter group of the armed Syrian opposition," but did not give details. The women in the group were not seized during Tuesday's incident.
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(U) Protesters in Beirut closed down several roads with burning tires and garbage bins [Reuters] A group of 34 women returned to Beirut early on Wednesday. "After we crossed the Turkish Syrian border, a white car with gunmen inside stopped us," Anaam Yateem, a woman Who was with the abducted men, told reporters at the airport? "They pointed their guns and got into the buses. First they took us to the fields saying that they are taking us away from the shelling, while they took us there to kidnap the men ...They said they are the Free Syrian Army." Lebanon backlash The kidnappings prompted families of those abducted to gather in Beirut's mainly Shia southern suburbs to demand their release. The protesters closed down several roads, including the old airport road, with burning tires and garbage bins. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah appealed for restraint in an address broadcast by Lebanese TV stations, saying: "...any act of violence or individual action will not help this case at all". The kidnappings were sure to further inflame sectarian tension in Lebanon, where clashes between the supporters and opponents of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad have left at least 12 people dead in the past 10 days. The abductions came hours after a court released on bail a Sunni Muslim whose arrest earlier this month sparked unrest in a Sunni region of north Lebanon that backs the revolt against Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect. 'Shooting' in Deir al-Zor In a separate incident on Tuesday, two people were killed in eastern Syria after police opened fire on a crowd who came out to welcome UN ceasefire observers, a rebel official said. There was no independent confirmation of the incident that was said to have occurred in the province of Deir al-Zor.
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"As soon as the UN convoy entered al-Busaira, a jubilant crowd of hundreds came out to welcome them. It was not minutes before they came under fire," Abu Laila, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) official, said by phone from the town. "The observers immediately left al-Busaira. We called them to come back but they refused." Fighting ensued between Assad's forces and FSA fighters based in the town, Abu Laila said. Another opposition source in Deir al-Zor said that government forces surrounding al-Busaira began firing antiaircraft guns at the town. The reports of violence come three days after a suicide attack hit the main town of in Deir al-Zor, killing at least seven people and wounding 100 others. Al-Busaira is one of many towns and villages under rebel control in Deir al-Zor, a large oil-producing province bordering Iraq, that have been attacked repeatedly in the last four months by government troops trying to regain control. Assad had relied on a network of alliances with Sunni Muslim tribes forged by his late father, Hafez al-Assad, to keep Deir al-Zor under control. But these understandings began breaking down after the province erupted in mass demonstrations in July demanding Assad's removal, and tanks were sent to quell the protest movement.
23 May 2012 Ahram Online Saudi King Voices Fear of Targeting Lebanon's Sunnis
(U) Lebanese Sunni Muslim mourners carry the body of Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahid, a Sunni Muslim cleric, during his funeral at his hometown at al-Bireh, northern Lebanon, May 21, 2012. (Photo: Reuters) Saudi King Abdullah voiced fear over targeting the Sunni community in Lebanon and urged action to avert a sectarian strife resulting from a spillover of the conflict in neighboring Syria. The kingdom "follows with deep concerns the developments in Tripoli (in north Lebanon), especially the targeting of one of the main sects of Lebanon," he said in reference to co-religionist Sunnis, in a phone call with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, SPA state news agency reported late Tuesday.
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He called on Sleiman to act "due to the gravity of the crisis and its potential to escalate into a sectarian conflict in Lebanon, dragging it back into the specter of civil war." Abdullah urged Sleiman to act within the framework of his efforts to "dissociate Lebanon from external conflicts, especially the crisis in neighboring Syria," SPA said. It said the leader of the Sunni heavyweight also urged Lebanese parties to "give priority to the interest of Lebanon over all other factional interests, and that of external parties that do not want good for Lebanon or the Arab region in general." Tension has heightened in Lebanon over the past 10 days amid clashes between factions supporting the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and others backing the Syrian rebellion. A Sunni cleric known for supporting Syrian rebels and refugees was shot dead Sunday along with a companion by the Lebanese army in northern Lebanon in a vague incident that is being investigated by authorities. The killing triggered a wave of Sunni protests in several parts of the multi-confessional nation. In a related development, Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader Walid Jumblatt flew to Saudi Arabia Sunday on an official invitation to meet the country's King, along with an array of high-ranking Saudi officials and Lebanon's expremier Saad Hariri. Sources close to him told The Lebanese Daily Star. The PSP leaders ties with Saudi Arabia cooled down after he nominated Najib Mikati, Hariris rival, for premiership last January. Several attempts by the Druze leader to restore ties with Saudi Arabias King Abdullah have been unsuccessful so far. The newspaper pointed out that it was still too early to predict the outcomes of Jumblatts visit on the domestic level or the effects it would have on the fate of the Mikati government, as sources from the parliamentary majority did not entirely rule out the possibility of Jumblatt changing stances or shifting alliances following his visit to Riyadh.
23 May 2012 Now Lebanon Akkar Mufti Calls Abdel Waheds Killing Assassination Akkar Mufti Sheikh Osama Rifai said on Wednesday that the incident of the killing of Sunni cleric Ahmad Abdel Wahed was deliberate murder. The incident which took place and which was called an incident is rather a deliberate murder and a broad-daylight assassination, Rifai said in a statement delivered during a gathering in the Akkar town of Bireh the hometown of Abdel Wahed. While voicing support for the Lebanese army, the mufti also said that it would be regrettable if investigations were not launched and punishments imposed on those who [infiltrated] the army and damaged its reputation. Meanwhile, Akkars Greek Orthodox Bishop Basilios Mansour also said during the Bireh gathering that the region of Akkar supports the army and longs for peace, adding: We ask the politicians in Beirut to shield us from their disputes. On Sunday, army troops shot dead the Sunni cleric when his convoy allegedly failed to stop at a checkpoint in North Lebanon, the scene of deadly clashes linked to the uprising in Syria.
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His death sparked tension in many Lebanese areas where protesters blocked roads using burning tires. In Beirut, two people were killed overnight Sunday in street battles in Tariq al-Jedideh.
23 May 2012 The Daily Star Hezbollah Wins Pledge that Lebanese Hostages will be Released
(U) Protesters burn tires in the southern suburb of Beirut, Tuesday, May 22, 2012, to condemn the kidnapping of 13 Lebanese men by Syrian rebels near the city of Aleppo in north Syria. (The Daily Star/Hasan Shaaban) Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar said Wednesday that his party has been assured of the release of at least 11 Lebanese men kidnapped a day earlier in Syria. Weve been promised they will be released, Ammar told The Daily Star in reference to the Lebanese hostages who were abducted by armed Syrians in Aleppo Tuesday while aboard two buses. They were returning from a visit to Shiite holy sites in Iran. Communication on the international, regional and local levels is taking place around the clock in an effort to win their release, he said. Ammar said efforts were made to enlist the aid of Turkey and several Gulf states as well as world organizations to pressure the gunmen to free the hostages. There was a discrepancy in the figures cited regarding the number of hostages. While some Lebanese officials put the number at 13, Ammar said the hostages are between 11 and 13. In response to a question, Ammar said the kidnappers did not make any demands. But the hostages relatives disagree. The hostages are being held by an extreme Syrian fundamentalist group in hopes of swapping them for those of their comrades held [by Assad's forces], one relative told The Daily Star. He spoke on condition of anonymity and said that the hostages are unlikely to be released anytime soon as more negotiations are needed. "The ordeal will probably take another day or two or three," he added.
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Other hostages' relatives were quoted as blaming the rebel Free Syrian Army for the abduction. "The Free Syrian Army said they took them. They let the women go and kept the men. They told them that they would keep them until the Syrian army releases FSA detainees, a relative of one of the men was quoted by Reuters as saying. An FSA spokesperson strongly denied that the group was behind the abduction. When we crossed the border, around 40 gunmen stopped the bus and forced it into a nearby orchard and said women should stay on the bus and men should get out, Hayat Awali, who identified herself as a pilgrim, told Lebanons Al-Jadeed TV from Aleppo. Quoting a member of the Syrian opposition, Reuters reported that Syrian forces launched raids with tanks and other armored vehicles in an area of northern Aleppo province near the site where the abduction had taken place. Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, speaking Wednesday to the Kataeb-run Voice of Lebanon radio station, said the kidnapping ordeal would end today as the whereabouts of the captives has been uncovered. Mansour also confirmed that the Lebanese government has been in contact with a number of Arab officials as well as with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Of the pilgrims, 51 women and four men were not abducted. They arrived at Beirut airport after midnight. Inham Yatim, a pilgrim, said that armed men in a white car forced them to move to an orchard under the pretext of protecting them from shelling. The male pilgrims were then handcuffed and made to face a wall. Mansour said in comments shortly after news of the abduction broke Tuesday that the kidnappers belonged to an opposition Syrian group. Syria's political opposition in exile, the Syrian National Council, called on rebels in Syria Wednesday to help secure the release of the Lebanese hostages. "The Syrian National Council condemns any kidnappings, assault or terrorizing of our Lebanese brothers and demands their immediate release," an SNC statement said. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said a "group of armed terrorists" kidnapped 11 Lebanese citizens and the Syrian bus driver. On hearing news of the abduction, angry relatives took to the streets of Beiruts southern suburbs where most of the kidnapped live blocking roads with burning tires. The roads reopened soon after Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah called for calm. On behalf of Hezbollah and Amal [Movement], I call on all relatives and supporters in the various regions to cooperate to end the closure of roads. Blocking roads does no good, said Nasrallah on Al-Manar TV, expressing concern over attempts to create conflict between the people and the Lebanese Army.
SYRIA (Top) 23 May 2012 Now Lebanon Live Blog on Developments in Syria
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13:19 Activists said on Wednesday that Syrian security forces killed 11 people, Al-Arabiya reported. 11:59 Three Iranian truck drivers have been abducted by "armed opposition groups" in Syria, according to Iran's charge daffaires in Damascus quoted by media Wednesday.
9:39 The Free Syrian Army, which is seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, on Wednesday denied abducting a group of Shia Lebanese pilgrims inside Syria. 9:29 Regime forces Wednesday pounded rebel bastion Rastan, in central Syria, at an average rate of "one shell a minute," said a monitoring group, adding that six people were killed across the country. 8:30 MORNING LEADER: The Syrian conflict took a broader turn in the region on Tuesday after Syrian rebels reportedly kidnapped 13 Lebanese Shia Muslims as they were headed home by bus from a pilgrimage in Iran.
23 May 2012 Asharq Al-Awsat Ankara Makes Arrests in FSA Commander Kidnap Plot Colonel Malik al-Kurdi, the Free Syrian Army's [FSA] deputy commander, confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat the reports about the Turkish authorities arresting a group that planned to kidnap FSA Commander Riad al-Asaad. He said: "The information is correct but we do not have the details", adding that the "Turkish authorities have foiled almost 20 plans to kidnap FSA commanders." The Deutsche Presse-Agent (DPA) reported the Turkish police's arrest yesterday of two Turks and a Syrian in the south of the country, on the charge of "being agents of the Syrian regime and planning to kidnap Col. Riad alAsaad." Turkish media reported the three intended to kidnap al-Assad from the refugee camp in Abaydin and bring him back to Syria, quoting the Turkish prosecutor as saying that an antiterrorist unit had arrested the suspects and that an investigation was now underway. While Col. Al-Asaad is yet to comment, al-Kurdi asserted "we heard the news through the media and confirmed its validity after contacting the Turkish government." He pointed out that the "Turkish government has arrested similar groups, and often foils similar plans without informing us." Al-Kurdi stressed that "these attempts are not unusual for the Syrian regime but they do not intimidate us or disrupt our morale at all. We also do not rule out such action in future." He added: "We believe in our cause, we only have one life, and we will be ready when our time comes." The Turkish media reported several few weeks ago that a Syrian man and woman had been arrested in Hatay Province, on the charge of being agents of Syrian intelligence and preparing operations to carry out kidnappings in Abaydin.
23 May 2012 Al Arabiya Syrian Troops Pound Rastan as U.N. Team Brokers Swap between Regimes, Rebels Regime forces Wednesday pounded rebel bastion Rastan, in central Syria, at an average rate of one shell a minute, said a monitoring group, adding that six people were killed across the country amid reports that a U.N. has brokered an exchange between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and opposition fighters. As many as 25 people were reported to have been killed by the gunfire of Syrian forces on Tuesday across the country, activists
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told Al Arabiya. Besieged by regime forces, Rastan is home to a large number of rebel fighters, according to opposition sources.
(U) More than 12,000 people have been killed in Syria since a revolt broke out in March last year, prompting the regime to launch a fierce crackdown on dissent. (Reuters) Most of Rastans residents have fled after months of fighting, but regime forces have been unable to regain control of the town. On May 14, 23 regular troops were killed in fighting during a failed assault. In the southern province of Deraa, one civilian was shot dead near an army checkpoint at Inkhel, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, according to AFP. In nearby Sheikh Meskin, several youths were arrested, according to the Britain-based watchdog. Another civilian was killed by regime forces in the northern city of Aleppo, while in Qusayr in the central Homs province, a third civilian was shot dead by a sniper, the monitoring group added. In the suburbs of Damascus, a blast killed three people on the international airport road, the Observatory said, without specifying whether they were civilians or soldiers. A loud explosion was heard in the capital Damascus, the Observatory said, without providing any further details on the blast. Other blasts were heard in several Syrian provinces during the night, including in Harasta and Duma, two suburbs of the capital that have seen fierce fighting between regime and rebel forces in the past few days. Fighting has grown increasingly violent around Damascus, Aleppo and northwest Idlib, despite the presence of U.N. truce monitors on the ground. More than 12,000 people have been killed in Syria since a revolt broke out in March last year, prompting the regime to launch a fierce crackdown on dissent. Meanwhile, a U.N. team in Syria said it has brokered an exchange between forces loyal to Assad and opposition fighters seeking to topple his regime.
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The U.N. said in a statement late Tuesday that government forces released two detainees from the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northwest Syria in exchange for permission to retrieve a destroyed tank, according to The Associated Press. Video posted online showed members of the U.N. team interacting with both sides and a large trailer removing a charred tank from the town. More than 250 U.N. observers are in Syria trying to salvage a peace plan to end the countrys 14-month-old crisis. But a cease-fire meant to start last month has never fully taken hold, undermining the rest of the plan.
23 May 2012 SANA Armed Terrorist Groups Escalate Attacks and Bombings
Unclassified Foreign-backed armed terrorist groups have increased their aggressions and attacks against civilians and security protection personnel in scores of Syrian Governorates. In Idlib, an explosive charge planted by an armed terrorist group exploded and wounded six security personnel and a child. In Damascus Governorate, three terrorists attacked a patrol for security protection personnel; two terrorists were killed, one of them dressed in a woman clothes, and the third was arrested. In Deir Ezzor three terrorists were killed and scores arrested in a clash with an armed terrorist group. The competent authorities confiscated huge quantities of weapons including machine guns and snipers and a sum of 3 million Syrian Pounds which were with the terrorists. Law-enforcement Member and Civilian Martyred by Terrorists' Gunfire in Homs A law-enforcement member and a civilian were martyred and others were injured on Tuesday by the gunfire of an armed terrorist group in al-AKhaldiyeh neighborhood in Homs province.
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A source in the province told SANA that an armed terrorist group opened fire on the law-enforcement forces in the neighborhood causing the death of the law-enforcement member Marwan Ismael and the civilian Bashar al-Jamal and injuring others. A Number of Terrorists Killed in Blast in Explosive Device Making Factory in Homs Meanwhile, a blast took place in a factory for making explosive devices in al-Warsha neighborhood in Homs killing a number of terrorists who were making explosive devices inside the factory. Two Explosive Devices Dismantled in Idleb In Idleb province, military engineering units dismantled two explosive devices planted by an armed terrorist group on Ariha-Lattakia highway. An informed source told SANA reporter that the explosive devices weigh 25-30 kilograms, and they were planted close to each other and set to be remotely detonated. Authorities confront terrorists in al-Numra, Idleb, Kill a number of them An armed terrorist group today attacked law enforcement forces at al-Numra site on Idleb-Salkin road. The component authorities confronted them, killing and injuring a number of terrorists and confiscating their weapons of explosives, machine guns, RPGs and ammunitions. SANA reporter learned that one of the law enforcement members was injured during the clashes
23 May 2012 Now Lebanon Three Iranian Truck Drivers Abducted in Syria, Says Embassy Three Iranian truck drivers have been abducted by "armed opposition groups" in Syria, according to Iran's charge daffaires in Damascus quoted by media Wednesday. Abbas Golrou said the drivers, identified as Morteza Adeli, Hossein Alinejad and Esmaeel Mohammad Zeinali, were taking unspecified cargo from Iran to Syria when they were abducted on Monday. Other Iranians have been abducted in Syria since late last year. Several Iranian pilgrims who were kidnapped in December when travelling to holy Shia sites in Syria have been released, though others remain captive. Seven Iranian engineers were also abducted near central Homs city, where they worked at an electricity plant for Iran's Power Plant Projects Management Company, according to Iranian officials. Two of them were released in mid-May. Syria, Iran's principal ally in the Middle East, is roiled by a year-long uprising that has seen more than 12,000 people killed, according to activists. Rebels accuse Iran of helping Syrian authorities in their deadly crackdown.
REGIONAL EDITORIALS (Top)
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23 May 2012 Asharq Al-Awsat Intl Community has Failed the Syrian People- Former Syrian MB Chief By Mohammed Al-Shafey Uncertainty continues to surround the claims that a number of senior Syrian officials, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assads brother-in-law and intelligence Chief Assef Shawkat, were assassinated on Sunday, despite official denials of this. A number of Syrian activists have confirmed that an assassination attempt against the so-called crisis cell of the Syrian regime went ahead on Sunday, targeting senior Syrian officials including Syrias Defense Minister, Interior Minister and Intelligence Chief, revealing that they were poisoned. However former Syrian Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni did not rule out that the al-Assad regime itself could be behind the alSahaba battalion video, informing Asharq Al-Awsat that previously, the regime has carried out similar media leaks to discredit the Syrian revolution. He stressed that this incident reminds us of the media fabrications and unbelievable stories that the regime continues to depend on in its dealings with the popular revolution, as well as the [false] news and information regarding what is happening on the ground that is conveyed by the activists. Bayanouni added the revolutionaries in Syria have imposed a new reality on the ground, and there is talk about the future of Syria and about who will rule the country in the forthcoming period following the collapse of the regimeafter it carried out crimes against the Syrian people FSA activists claimed the al-Sahaba battalion had killed six high-ranking officials within the al-Assad regime in Damascus on Sunday night, including Intelligence Chief Assef Shawkat, Interior Minister Mohammad Shaar, Defense Minister Daoud Rajiha, Vice Presidents Deputy Hassan Turkmani, head of the National Security Branch of the Baathist Party Major-General Hisham Bekhtiyar and Deputy Secretary-General of the Baathist Party Muhammad Said Bekeytan, amongst others. For its part, Syrian state media described the allegations as categorically baseless, whilst three of those reportedly killed were quoted in a Syrian Arab News Agency [SANA] report attempting to refuse the claims. Syrian Interior Minister Mohammad Shaar denied the FSAs claims at a press conference, whilst Vice Presidents Deputy Hassan Turkmani was interviewed by state-run Syrian TV in his office, stressing that the al-Sahaba battalion claims were blatant lies. However nothing has been heard from Syrian President Bashar al-Assads brother-in-law and Intelligence Chief Assef Shawkat since the FSAs claims. A spokesman for the al-Sahaba battalion, First Lieutenant Ahmed Mohamed Taqtaq, claiming to be one of the field commanders of the al-Sahaba battalions in Damascus, issued a statement which read I announce the following operation has been executed by the special operations company of the al-Sahaba battalions. This company carried out a covert military operation. They spent two months keeping the members of Syrias so-called crisis cell under surveillance. One of the companys heroes then carried out a covert military operation within the area. He then killed them in a certain manner for now we will refrain from disclosing details. For his part, General Guide of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Riyad Shaqfah, informed Asharq AlAwsat that we do not have any specific information regarding the al-Sahaba battalion statement, particularly as Interior Minister Mohammad Shaar and Turkmani have both appeared on Syrian television denying the operation and confirming that they are still alive, however Assef Shawkat, who is responsible for Syrias security and intelligence apparatus, has not appearedperhaps there were casualties or injuries in the operation, although there are no specific details until now.
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Answering a question regarding whether the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was coordinating with Syrian businessman abroad to arm the Syrian opposition, Shaqfah said self-defense is a legitimate right confirmed by divine law adding the regime cannot continue killing the Syrian people without the latter defending themselves The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood General Guide also told Asharq Al-Awsat that the international community has failed the Syrian people, and following the failure of Annans mission we have no other choice but to call for the arming of the FSA, and this demand is not confined to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, but is something that practically all members of the Syrian National Council [SNC] is calling for. Commenting on the al-Sahaba battalion statement, a senior member of the Syrian opposition in Britain, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, said this type of statement is akin to a trap to discredit the media coverage of the Syrian revolution adding the al-Sahaba battalion spokesman claimed they had recruited a cook from the Golan Heights to position the Syrian officials as if they are guests at a party, but it is well known that food passes by more than one person before it reaches the senior officials.
23 May 2012 Al Arabiya Syrian Regime: Tripoli Is Kandahar The intermittent skirmishes in northern Lebanon, specifically Tripoli, can be termed a natural extension of the current tension in neighboring Syria. In Tripoli, as Shiite and Alawi sects live together, some people see what is happening in Syria as a conflict between these two religious sects. Since the beginning of the crisis, the Syrian regime has been trying to exploit the situation in the border areas and drag Lebanon into a civil war. Despite the tension and the intermittent skirmishes, northern Lebanon including Jabal Mohsen and Bab Al-Tabbanah, where extremists from the two sects battled remained relatively calm. The Syrian regime, however, wants to convince the world by its fabricated story that it is actually fighting terrorist groups. This is a last straw to which the regime clings on to gain support of the West. According to the claims of the regime, if the freedom fighters were terrorists, then Tripoli was Kandahar. The regime also pledges that the Gulf citizens were financing terrorist operations against it. These claims were made to serve what can be called "a badly produced movie" about elements from Hezbollah, working within the Lebanese general security, and arresting a man named Chadi Al-Mawlawi, who is a Sunni living in a Sunni-dominated area. The elements were aware that the man used to visit the office of Sunni leader Muhammad Al-Safdi regularly, so they called him to come to the office to receive a social assistance. When he arrived in the office, the Hezbollah men arrested him. Before Al-Mawlawi was interrogated, the Syrians and the Lebanese media supporting them circulated news that he was a member of Al-Qaeda and was financing operations against the regime. To make the story more credible, the regime's puppets arrested a Qatari citizen who came to Lebanon for medical treatment on the pretext that he had arrived in Lebanon to finance Al-Qaeda to fight the regime, and that he was also providing Al-Mawlawi with finances. This story was described by some parties as absurd. They doubted that an old man from Qatar would come to Lebanon especially to finance terrorist operations against the Syrian regime without fearing to be uncovered and exposed. The parties also said it was a lot easier for a Gulf citizen to be smuggled into Syria and work against the regime from inside than doing this from Lebanon, which is replete with Syrian security organs and intelligence men. When the persons who arrested Al-Mawlawi were asked how they questioned him in the absence of a lawyer, they claimed that he refused to appoint a lawyer to represent him. This, in fact, is far from being true. The Lebanese
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security forces were trying to make up a story that north Lebanon had been turned into a land for Al-Qaeda and that the Gulf citizens were in Lebanon especially to finance the terrorist operations against the Syrian regime. As a result of these false stories of the Syrian regime, which were supported by Hezbollah, three GCC countries warned its citizens from traveling to Lebanon. They also asked their citizens who are already in Lebanon to leave the country immediately because it is no longer safe for them. This is what the Syrian regime is actually working for: To export chaos to Lebanon and make it unsafe, particularly with school summer vacation rapidly approaching. Since the beginning of the revolution in Syria, the Syrian security forces and their allies in Lebanon have been endeavoring to achieve two goals: To expand the crisis to cover neighboring Lebanon and to control it, benefiting from the weak government in Beirut. The Al-Mawlawi story is not only an indication of the atrocities of the Syrian security forces, but also of the submissiveness of the Lebanese intelligence to them. The official institutions in Lebanon kept mum on all these violations. It is true that the Qatari citizen was released and traveled home, but the Syrian regime has achieved its purpose by stabbing the Lebanese economy, making it chaotic.
23 May 2012 Al Jazeera A Possible Agenda for Transition in Egypt By David Kennedy
(U) Firm institutions are required to make the upcoming presidential elections fair [EPA] This is the second in a two-part series about revolution and reform in Egypt. To read the first part in its entirety, click here. Below is a segue into part two of the series: The Egyptian leadership is undoubtedly being buffeted from all sides by demands and recommendations about where to begin. After a year, the clamor, the disenchantment, and the resignation - along with the hope that nothing enduring will change - have all grown. At the same time, the "transition" process offers complex opportunities for existing and aspiring elites to jockey for position and struggle to improve their position for the next round.
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Signals are more significant than substance, and everyone is trying to send signals. The method, speed and extent of the proposed constitutional revision are signal, but not a plan for political reforms. The abolition - or reinforcement - of Article 2 of the old Constitution establishing principles of sharia as the main source of legislation is a signal, but will not establish the foundation for a cultural accommodation of religious life. Seizing assets, calling for prosecutions, and denouncing corruption are all signals, but not a plan for the transformation of Egypt's dysfunctional and kleptocratic economy. In each case, everything will depend upon what happens later. How will Article 2 - or its absence - be interpreted by judges? What will become of the judiciary itself? Will fighting corruption mean cleaning up procurement and reducing opportunities for private rent-seeking at the top, or will it mean a more equitable sharing of the nation's wealth? Part II The next government - and the next after that - will be, we hope, transitional. Whether they are composed of technocrats or broadly represent the range of movements and parties, they will have three large sets of issues on their desk: political reform, economic reform, and the reform of information and cultural policy. A meaningful transition - completing the revolution - will require sustained effort in each area for some time. Political reform There seems to be no Egyptian Mandela and no obvious new Mubarak, although there will certainly be contenders for that role. That creates opportunities but makes them difficult to realise. Breaking with the old regime, freeing political prisoners, lifting the emergency law, changing the law restricting the formation of political parties, establishing the constitutional and institutional prerequisites for selecting a new government , laying the basis for a new relationship between policy and citizenry, military and civilian leadership - these have all been and constitute an enormous agenda on its own. It is tempting to imagine that it can be achieved by constitutional amendment, legislative decree or by the dismissal or appointment of an official. But we know from experience elsewhere that a more open, inclusive, and responsible political culture of institutions cannot be legislated or decreed. We will certainly learn something from the constitution to be proposed. It will signal where the elites believe they are headed. But constitutional reforms are not the main story here and neither are elections, although it will be important to do what one can to get them right. Unfortunately, the stagnant politics of crony-capitalism is compatible with an extremely wide range of constitutional arrangements that survive across the developing world in the shadow of myriad legislative pronouncements and electoral practices. Even putting social and economic justice prominently into a constitutional text, as we have learned from South Africa, is no substitute for rebuilding the economic, political, and legal arrangements that reproduce inequality or stifle growth. In the long run, internal reform of the institutions of the state - the security apparatus, the police, the judiciary, and the administrative bureaucracy - will be far more important than a new legislature, a new president, or a new constitution. At the end of the day, the rule of law is micro, not macro. It is a discipline wrought by the citizenry in the quotidian activities of the state, a regularization of the expectation that officials respond to rules. This will be achieved neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city, institution by institution. Egypt's economy has been repositioned to be far more dependent upon its role in the global economy, its natural resources and strategic position, than upon its own industrial production. A new social deal will need to be struck. The Egyptian revolution was the confluence of an extremely wide array of social, economic and political forces, sharing bitter experience at the hands of the regime, but otherwise quite distinct. The institutions for an open
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political culture among these groups will only be built and sustained if cultural and economic reforms succeed. In this sense, political reform may best be approached indirectly, through economic reform and cultural change. Economic reform Serious economic reform would mean dismantling the crony capitalism of the renter state and replacing it with vigorous and equitable national economic development. This is very difficult to do. What is often hard to remember is that this is not the same thing as adopting neo-liberal policies of privatization, deregulation, or free trade. Unfortunately, more than two decades after the exuberant one-size-fits-all development models of the Washington Consensus were everywhere chastened and discredited, many remain primed to judge economic reform in Egypt by the obsolete metric of "openness", measured policies of "privatization", "free trade", and "anti-corruption". Most importantly, a focus on "opening" the economy in these ways ignores the far more important social demand for equitable participation in the economy. The import-substitution industrialization project of the Nasser regime made a powerful social promise: The gains from industrial development would be distributed to a new working class as wages and subsidies for the purchase of essentials. These promises were only imperfectly realized, of course, and at great cost to many others, particularly in the rural and agricultural sectors, who were promised only a stable, if shrinking, share of the pie. In any event, that program is no longer available. Egypt's economy has been repositioned to be far more dependent upon its role in the global economy, its natural resources and strategic position, than upon its own industrial production. A new social deal will need to be struck. Beginning in the 1970s, the Nasser era social promise was dismantled as the economy shifted to depend far more on what might be termed public "rents" from extractive industry, foreign aid, Suez canal fees, and the various fees and taxes extracted from state-controlled, if not state-owned, sectors of the economy - most crucially, tourism. These public rents have been distributed to Egyptian and foreign entities close to the regime to ensure its political survival, while the conditions for a social wage have been dismantled. The nation's political economy cannot be turned on a dime. In Egypt, as elsewhere, "privatization" has been an integral part of crony-capitalism. The result has been the progressive pauperization of the vast majority of the Egyptian people. Subsidies have been replaced by micro-credit, enforced in ways which have extended the experience of vulnerability to arbitrary police power across the nation's poor. Periodic half-hearted campaigns to "open" or "reform" the economy have been part of the problem, as subsidies have been withdrawn, wages have fallen, and social welfare has devolved from a national responsibility to families and local or religious communities. Women have often borne the brunt of these changing social conditions. Completing the revolution will require that the conditions for robust economic development are linked to new modes of social welfare. Import substitution industries now compete with foreign production and are, in any event, no longer a large enough component of the economy for industrial wages to be a sufficient social welfare cushion. Wages will need to rise throughout the economy, and subsidies for basic commodities will need to be replaced by support for human capital development in education and health as well as credit and other support for small and medium-sized enterprises. Ultimately, the rents in this renter economy will need to be distributed in accordance with a new political settlement, on budget, negotiated and legislated in a parliament But that remains far in the future. The nation's political economy cannot be turned on a dime. In Egypt, as elsewhere, "privatization" has been an integral part of crony-capitalism. Friends and family of the leadership have embedded themselves in the "private sector." Further privatization could well offer more of the same, entrenching
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interests who will have the motive and capability - even the legal entitlement - to frustrate future development policy. De-concentrating economic life today will require the careful management of industrial, anti-trust, and credit policy, oriented to the successful establishment of new competitive national firms in various sectors, far more than further privatization of public enterprises. Indeed, public ownership and management may continue to be crucial. Replacing public with private rent-seeking is less important than ensuring that the economic life sustained in the wake of these rents is vigorous and competitive Much of Egypt's economy flows through the regime, including fees from the Suez Canal, receipts from natural gas, foreign aid, as well as returns from multiple taxes, tariffs, and fees. Much state income is not reported in the state budget, but has been managed directly by the President without parliamentary oversight. Transparent budgeting in the hands of an accountable development agency or bank would be an excellent first step. The Central Agency for Accountancy, reporting to a newly independent Parliament, could play a crucial role here. A truly independent and professionally competent development agency or bank should aim to ensure that economic activity generating public rents - including tourism, energy, and telecommunications - and supported by the disbursement of those rents in areas such as construction or housing, all have strong forward and backward linkages to the rest of the Egyptian economy, support a decent minimum wage, and be characterized by transparent and accountable contracting procedures. Moreover, Egypt will need to retain the national economic freedom of action to carry out such reforms. As much as we can all applaud efforts to reduce "corruption," most of what we will hear on this score will be sound and fury - of political rather than economic significance as people settle scores and jockey for position in a new political and economic landscape. Comparative study of "anti-corruption commissions" demonstrates how routinely procedures of investigation have been instrumentals by private or political interests to become a form of corruption by other means. Indeed, the longer-term effort to build an open and productive economic culture can be set back by misguided anti-corruption prosecution. Open procurement procedures, realistic civil service wage structures, a culturally embedded sensitivity to conflict of interest, must all be achieved institutionally and culturally. A complex, if dysfunctional, economic system cannot be prosecuted into submission. It must be rebuilt from within. We need to remember that crony capitalism works. People throughout the economy are complicit and embedded in its embrace. Moreover, not everything should be dismantled. Quite the opposite. The economic transitions in East/Central Europe, Russia, and China teach us, in different ways, the importance of existing economic habits, pathways, and social relationships to fuel new economic activities. We must recognize that the social relations forged under crony capitalism will remain crucial as new forms of investment and new economic opportunities emerge. Over time, of course, eggs will need to be broken, resources will need to be re-arranged, and economic entitlements will need to be conditioned on economic performance etc. Indeed, it is important not to fortify cronyism with entitlement. Economic reform and equitable development require an open horizon of policy space, a national capacity to debate and alter the conditions for economic life. At the same time, however, one can only un-build current conditions of economic survival by offering people alternatives. The military, for example, will need to return to their barracks, but they will need barracks to return to. The police will need to return to the streets, but with sufficient tools, salaries, and technologies to guarantee a new public order. Unpredictable and unaccountable abuse at the hands of public authority was not only a tool of political power; it was an economic order, enabling individuals within the police establishment to collect fees from those it could abuse. Disestablishing that abuse requires a new economic basis for the maintenance of public order namely, a sufficient distribution of public rents to the police to ensure professionalism.
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One cannot abolish crony capitalism in a day because to do so would also abolish economic life. After all, closing an inefficient enterprise is only helpful if one also is able to transition the people and assets to more productive uses. Opening the domestic market to free trade, as was done in the early days of the Iraq occupation, may quickly put inefficient local firms long protected by the sinews of the renter state out of business by allowing imports to flood the market. But that is not at all the same thing as transitioning those inefficient firms to more robust economic performance. Rather, it is the opposite Swift deregulation of financial services may increase the competitive penetration of the local banking sector by foreign firms, but that is not the same thing as ensuring the availability of credit for small or medium-sized enterprises in the economic transition, or bringing the unbanked poor into the nation's financial system. The point is to strategize about how one engages the global economy where there are opportunities for local firms and industries to capture and reinvest rents from trade Accomplishing such a sustainable economic revitalization requires trust and collaboration, for it will create losers as often as it opens new opportunities. To get there, state regulation and participation in the economy will continue to be important. As much as one needs to rely on existing relationships and pathways, one also needs to be able to transform them. Economic arrangements will need to remain flexible, harnessed to a national capacity for making and remaking the opportunities for productive economic activity. To that end, economic reform and equitable development require an open horizon of policy space, a national capacity to debate and alter the conditions for economic life Again, the keys will be institutional and cultural. We should look for cultural changes in attitudes towards petty bribery, institutional regularization of army and government procurement, establishment of realistic civil service and military salary structures, and increased transparency in the distribution of rents, licenses, and contracts. Years of cosmetic reform have left a residue of ineffective economic regulatory agencies and "High Councils" on everything from population and motherhood to human rights. These will need to be rendered credible and effective - or abolished. More important than anti-corruption or transitional justice machinery will be things like the establishment of a transparent state budget, the independence of a professional national development agency or bank, the emergence of competitive national firms, the establishment of a realistic and sustainable minimum wage, and the establishment of an independent institution to manage and fine-tune industrial and development policy. These things are not mysterious: All have been achieved elsewhere, reinforced by cultural habits and attitudes. Accountability, for administrative and economic actors, requires habits of monitoring and adjustment that must be embedded in institutions and supported by cultural confidence in the direction of economic transformation. Culture and information reform Here is a key demand of the opposition: the development of an independent and open information space as well as changing habits of secrecy at the top. The workings of the old economy were always transparent to someone - just not to outsiders. It was by seizing the initiative to forge a new social narrative and manage the image and information about what was happening that the revolution gained momentum, broke through, and has now gone viral across the Middle East. We are accustomed to thinking about modern cultural revolution as a matter of constitutional protection for freedoms of speech and assembly on the one hand, and of deregulation in the telecommunications and internet space on the other. Cultural life will need to remain vibrant for collective engagement to be sustained and to encourage a long-term collective discussion about the nation's direction that remains open to experimentation and innovation. These are certainly important. But the cultural reform necessary to sustain a meaningful economic and political transition and complete the revolution will require something more. Enshrining rights in a constitution, even social and political rights, is quite different from rebuilding the conditions of social and economic possibility. A culture of
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economic accountability and social solidarity cannot be adjudicated into existence any more than it can be legislated. A social and cultural project to deepen the society's commitment to "rights" may be useful but it can also generate habits of individual grievance and entitlement rather than sustaining the collaborative effort necessary to achieve social justice over time. And, it can restrict the horizon for economic policy and institutional reform. Political and social life has repeatedly heated and cooled over the last months. Many have become worn out. To complete the revolution will require that the pot continue to boil. Cultural life will need to remain vibrant for collective engagement to be sustained and to encourage a long-term collective discussion about the nation's direction that remains open to experimentation and innovation. Only in such an atmosphere, for example, can a habit of religious freedom and pluralism be sustained without devolving into a set of rigidifying sectarian trade-offs and accommodations. Only in such an atmosphere can the ongoing transformations of the nation's political and economic life necessary for robust economic development be sustained without settling into a new arrangement of self-dealing and cronyism. We will hear a great deal about the preparation for a presidential election in Egypt. There is no question fair elections require a firm institutional foundation. But for elections to lay the foundation for a new politics, they will also require an electorate ready to debate and engage in ways that do more than strengthen existing social identities and established professional or religious communities. As elsewhere, these divisions have been deepened by the cultural habits and institutional practices of crony capitalism. It is not yet clear whether the parliamentary elections solidified or unsettled those arrangements. As at other revolutionary moments, the terms for future ideological debate and social mobilization in Egypt are open. Transforming industrial, Labour, professional, or religious affiliations into political parties without freezing the national political debate in ideological ritual will be very difficult. Even small things can matter a lot. Completing the revolution will require a tacit alliance among technocrats who either served the old regime or left the country, a rising professional and middle class, alongside the traditional social, religious, Labour and industrial groups. Simple things - a regular national television show bringing people from these and other backgrounds into a common discussion about the nation's future - may matter more than careful election monitoring or sound administrative rules for participation in the electoral process. It will require serious work. There is a role here for civil society, for the media, for the spontaneous revolutionary groups and neighbourhood committees which have sprung up, as well as for the traditional opposition, the trade unions, and the civil service organizations. Across these groups, women have taken on new authority and their leadership will be crucial. To a large extent, of course, the new Egypt will need to be built from the institutions of the old. The judiciary, for example, could play a key role. Although in large part a professional and independent institution, the judiciary suffers from political pressures, low salaries, and difficult working conditions. It will need serious repair before it can help midwife a revolution of reforms. The most significant issue is how the Egyptian people come to metabolize what has happened - whether they are able to consolidate their revolution in habits of engagement and debate, entitlements to know, and routines of tolerance and freedom. The cultural and institutional objective is to model and rehearse new forms of political and social collaboration, new attitudes towards economic and political participation that are not just a matter of new hands on the rents, but of new forms of social and economic cooperation. Much that now happens in the informal sector, within communities defined by religious, class, professional, or neighbourhood identification, will need to be generalized across the society. People will have to learn to do business with anyone and to carry on politics with everyone. Only in this way will the force of the revolutionary transformation in collective consciousness become the driveshaft for meaningful political and economic reform.
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Undertaken in the right spirit, political, economic and cultural reforms reinforce one another. But the greatest of these is cultural. We have an unfortunate tendency to treat the political transition as most immediate and significant, as the precondition to a sensible economic development path or an open information culture. In fact, things are just the other way around. This is an inter-subjective revolution, which will be won or lost in the minds of the Egyptian people. As a consequence, the most important reform priority and the terrain on which a "new Egypt" will or will not be built is cultural. Many of the demonstrators understood this. Managing media and information, from foreign journalists to social media and street graffiti, was their metier. It seems like a long time ago that people felt moved to clean up the square - but that may turn out to be as significant as this or that appointment or reform timetable for what happens longer-term. Indeed, the most significant issue is how the Egyptian people come to metabolize what has happened - whether they are able to consolidate their revolution in habits of engagement and debate, entitlements to know, and routines of tolerance and freedom. Only then can we expect a development policy to remake economic life, or a rearrangement of constitutional powers to remake the culture of Egyptian politics. Only then will the revolution have been won by reform
22 May 2012 Asharq Al-Awsat Al-Assads Qaeda By Tariq Alhomayed Two bloody incidents have taken place in the region, and we must now connect these two events to one another in order to clarify the bigger and more important picture regarding the course of regional events, whether in Yemen, Syria or Lebanon, and possibly the Gulf in the future. However what is important now is to connect what happened in Yemen yesterday with what is happening in Lebanon today, and therefore what is happening in Syria. Someone might ask: how can we do this? We must first take a closer look at the bloody terrorist operation carried out by Al Qaeda in Yemen targeting the army there; this operation saw an Al Qaeda suicide bomber detonate himself in the midst of a large crowd of Yemeni soldiers. This operation bears the bloody and brutal hallmarks of the Al Qaeda organization, not to mention the intention to inflict the greatest possible number of casualties, as is the norm for this organization in all of its terrorist operations. Therefore what happened in Yemen precisely resembles the crimes of Al Qaeda in Iraq, with regards to the violence, bloodshed and desire to inflict the greatest possible number of casualties, and this in turn resembles the Al Qaeda operations previously carried out in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, whether we are talking about the previous targeting of the [Riyadh] residential compound or the Interior Ministry compound, or any other operation. In comparison, we must note that all operations attributed to Al Qaeda in Syria have targeted security headquarters, the majority of which are holding Syrian detainees who are sympathetic to the revolution, whilst these Syrian detainees also make up the majority of the casualties of such attacks, rather than security officers affiliated to the tyrant al-Assad, for example. We must also take note of another important thing, namely the timing of the suicide operations in Syria. With this simple but important comparison, it appears that the Al Qaeda that is present in Yemen or Iraq, for example, is completely different to the Al Qaeda that the al-Assad regime claims is present in Syria. In fact, what is present in Syria is closer to Abu Adas [a Lebanese citizen who appeared in a video falsely claiming responsibility for the
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assassination of Rafik Hariri], and this is the well-known method of the al-Assad regime, whereas what is present in Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan is the genuine Al Qaeda organization, with all its bloody and ugly dimensions. Therefore, what we saw in Syria was al-Assads Qaeda, rather than the genuine blood-thirsty Al Qaeda organization. Al-Assads Qaeda is based on conspiracy theories and utilizing whatever cards are in its possession to ignite certain issues, rather than destruction for destructions sake and inciting wide-spread terror, which is what the Al Qaeda organization is known for. Therefore what is happening in Lebanon today, simply speaking, is that the al-Assad regime has decided to spark a fire in the hopes of alleviating the pressure it is facing in Syria, and in order to push the international community to negotiate with Damascus in order to restore calm to Lebanon. This, of course, is a sign of the bankruptcy of the alAssad regime; indeed the clearest indication of the al-Assad regimes bankruptcy can be seen in the fact that no member of Hezbollah or the Amal movement has gotten involved in the conflict in Lebanon, but rather we are talking about a small group that is affiliated to the al-Assad regime but which possess no inherent value. This is the method of al-Assads Qaeda, namely complicating the situation and then claiming that Damascus can resolve everything. This is something that al-Assad has successfully done in Lebanon repeatedly, however the situation today is different, he has failed in Syria, and so he is now returning to attempts this once more in Lebanon, but this attempt will fail as well. Despite all this, the danger today is that the longer that al-Assad remains in power, the more he will be tempted to use his Qaeda in the Gulf and elsewhere, for it is clear that the regime of the tyrant is prepared as it has stated on numerous occasions to set fire to the entire region in order to cling to power. In this regard, al-Assads Qaeda is no different than Al Qaeda itself which is present in Yemen and elsewhere, the only difference is that the terrorist organization is obvious, whilst al-Assads Qaeda is deceptive, cunning, and backed by Damascus, making it even more dangerous!
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23 May 2012 Osint Levant Tracker

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OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

REGIONAL EDITORIALS (Top)

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: CCJ2-OSINT@CENTCOM.SMIL.MIL

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