Just Foreign Policy News
April 1, 2011
*Action: Pressure Congress to Debate Libya
Whatever one thinks of the ongoing U.S. military intervention in Libya, President Obama has set a dangerous precedent by embarking on a major military operation in Libya without Congressional authorization. Eight Members of the House have brought forward H. Con. Res. 31, a bi-partisan resolution affirming that the President must obtain specific statutory authorization for the use of U.S. armed forces in Libya. Ask your Representative to join them in affirming that U.S. military action in Libya must have Congressional authorization.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/debatelibya
How Many Should Die To Send Qaddafi to the Hague?
Voters say 61-30 percent that removing Qaddafi from power is not worth having American troops "fight and possibly die" for, a Quinnipiac University poll reported. But press reports suggest that as things stand, US troops are being asked not only to "fight and possibly die" to remove Qaddafi, but to send him to the Hague; the US and Britain appear to be blocking an Italian and Turkish proposal that would allow Qaddafi to go into exile.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/01-7
Kate Gould: ICG Calls for Ceasefire, End to "Assault on Normal, Dignified Life" in Gaza, and Hamas Engagement
The International Crisis Group (ICG) issued a warning that the recent escalation of air strikes on Gaza and rocket attacks into Israel has created "the conditions for a rapid deterioration toward the kind of clash to which neither side aspires, for which both [Israel and Hamas] have carefully prepared, and from which they will not retreat quickly."
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/866
Pepe Escobar: Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal
Two diplomatic sources at the UN independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a "yes" vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya – the main rationale that led to UN Security Council resolution 1973.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD02Ak01.html
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Defense Secretary Gates and Secretary of State Clinton signaled that the US was unlikely to arm the Libyan rebels, suggesting that this would be done by the French alone, the New York Times reports. Clinton was described by an administration official as supremely cautious about arming the rebels "because of the unknowns" about who they were and whether they might have links to Al Qaeda. NATO Secretary General Rasmussen said he believed the UN Security Council resolution authorizing the air campaign in Libya did not permit individual countries to arm the rebels.
Gates told Congress he strongly opposed putting any US uniformed U.S. ground forces in Libya.
Some Members of Congress said the president had not told the public the truth about the operation. "These are combat operations," said Representative Mike Coffman. "I don’t know why this administration has not been honest with the American people that this is about regime change."
2) An operation billed as a humanitarian intervention in Libya by President Obama was described in starkly more military terms Thursday by Defense Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, the Washington Post reports. Gates told lawmakers that coalition attacks on Libyan government troops – even when they were not directly threatening civilians – would encourage senior government and military officials to break with Libyan leader Gaddafi.
Some of the US’ partners have acknowledged that the initial descriptions of the intervention in Libya no longer apply. "What is happening in Libya is not a no-fly zone," a senior European diplomat said. "The no-fly zone was a diplomatic thing, to get the Arabs on board. What we have in Libya is more than that."
3) Capitol Hill’s most liberal voices have emerged as some of the fiercest critics of the President’s Libya policy, The Hill reports. Liberal Democrats are using floor speeches, op-eds, committee hearings and even legislation to condemn the administration’s decision to send U.S. forces to oust Gadhafi. Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said, "the Constitution grants sole authority to the Congress to commit the nation to battle in the first instance." "That decision is one of the most serious that we are called upon to make," Conyers said last week, "and we should never abdicate this responsibility to the president." A GOP bill to defund the intervention until Congress authorizes it already has as many Democratic co-sponsors as Republicans, The Hill says.
4) Thousands of Afghans seeking revenge for the burning of a Koran in Florida overran the compound of the UN in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing at least 12 people, the New York Times reports. The dead included at least seven UN workers. Unable to find Americans on whom to vent their anger, the mob turned instead on the next-best symbol of Western intrusion – the nearby UN headquarters.
5) Residents say security forces are carrying out nightly raids in the impoverished Shiite villages around Bahrain’s capital Manama, smashing down doors, destroying furniture and spraying graffiti on the walls, AP reports. The relentless crackdown is generating new anger among protesters who had been calling for democratic reform and equal rights for Shiites.
Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Human Rights Center, said his home was raided two weeks ago by several dozen masked men with guns who pulled him from his bed in front of his 8-year-old daughter, blindfolded him and took him to a car where he was beaten for nearly two hours. "They threatened to rape me and one man was touching my body," said Rajab. "They hit me with shoes and punched me with fists. They were insulting me, saying things like, ‘You’re Shiite so go back to Iran.’"
The US has urged the monarchy to respect human rights but is saying little about the allegations of ongoing repression, AP says.
Afghanistan
6) U.S. officials said six U.S. soldiers were killed in heavy fighting in Kunar province near the Pakistani border, the Washington Post reports. The province has been one of the most violent regions of Afghanistan since 2005. Current U.S. strategy, which focuses on major population centers, has led the U.S. military to shift emphasis away from the province.
Egypt
7) U.S., European and Israeli officials are worried that Murad Muwafi, Egypt’s new intelligence chief, will soon find himself working with a new government that is likely to be more responsive to public opinion, which is overwhelmingly negative on the U.S. and Israel, the Wall Street Journal reports. Egyptian officials are already talking about the need for a foreign policy more independent of the U.S.
Muwafi’s March 18 trip to Syria appears to be an indication of Egypt’s changing priorities. Senior Egyptian officials have said they want to repair their country’s relationship with Syria, and the timing of Muwafi’s visit coincided with an Egyptian push to restart the Palestinian reconciliation process. Much of Hamas’ senior leadership lives in Damascus. Meeting with them could have been the main goal of the visit, U.S. officials said. "I think if we knew more, we’d feel better about it," said the senior U.S. defense official.
Jordan
8) Hundreds of demonstrators calling for reform rallied late into the evening in the Jordanian capital Friday, a week after riot police officers and government supporters violently broke up a protest camp, the New York Times reports. "There is now an official decision not to send thugs to attack the demonstrators," said the head of the political bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood. That, he said, "proves that what happened last Friday was the result of an official decision."
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) 2 Cabinet Officials Say U.S. Isn’t Likely to Arm Libyans
Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker, New York Times, March 31, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/world/africa/01military.html
Washington – President Obama’s top two national security officials signaled on Thursday that the United States was unlikely to arm the Libyan rebels, raising the possibility that the French alone among the Western allies would provide weapons and training for the poorly organized forces fighting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made his views known for the first time on Thursday in a marathon day of testimony to members of Congress. He said the United States should stick to offering communications, surveillance and other support, but suggested that the administration had no problem with other countries sending weapons to help the rebels, who in recent days have been retreating under attack from pro-Qaddafi forces.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who pushed the president to intervene in Libya, was described by an administration official on Thursday as supremely cautious about arming the rebels "because of the unknowns" about who they were and whether they might have links to Al Qaeda.
Earlier Thursday, the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told reporters in Stockholm that he believed that the United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the air campaign in Libya did not even permit individual countries to arm the rebels. But there was considerable disagreement within the military alliance, including from the United States, which has taken the position that the resolution does in fact allow arming them.
[…] In Washington, the unified position of Mr. Gates and Mrs. Clinton appeared to dull a debate within the administration about the merits of the United States’ supplying weapons to the rebels, a disparate, little-known group. Publicly, Mr. Obama has said only that he is still weighing what to do. France is the only nation that has said it intends to supply arms to the anti-Qaddafi forces.
"What the opposition needs as much as anything right now is some training, some command and control, and some organization," Mr. Gates told members of the House Armed Services Committee in a morning session. "It’s pretty much a pickup ballgame at this point."
But, he said, providing training and weapons is "not a unique capability for the United States, and as far as I’m concerned, somebody else can do that."
Mr. Gates told Congress that he strongly opposed putting any United States forces in Libya. Asked if there would be American "boots on the ground" – uniformed members of the military – Mr. Gates swiftly replied, "Not as long as I’m in this job." He refused to address reports that the Central Intelligence Agency had sent clandestine operatives to Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and to contact and vet the rebels.
Mr. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were summoned to testify in a highly politicized atmosphere on Capitol Hill, where members of both parties charged them with either "mission creep" in Libya or with not doing enough.
Many demanded to know how the conflict would end, and others admonished the administration, saying it had gone to war without seeking Congressional authorization.
Still others said the president had not told the public the truth about the operation. The White House describes it as a humanitarian mission to protect Libyan civilians, but it has involved more than 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired at Libya and the bombing and strafing by American and allied planes of Colonel Qaddafi’s ground forces.
"These are combat operations," said Representative Mike Coffman, Republican of Colorado, during the morning session. "I don’t know why this administration has not been honest with the American people that this is about regime change."
[…] Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, was first on the offensive in the afternoon, charging the administration with walking away from the conflict now that the United States has said it will be in a military support role behind NATO.
What that means, Admiral Mullen told Mr. McCain and the rest of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is that the United States will no longer conduct airstrikes in Libya unless requested by NATO.
[…]
2) In Libya mission, war blurs humanitarian focus
Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Thursday, March 31, 9:23 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/lawmakers-batter-gates-on-libya/2011/03/31/AFLSRdAC_story.html
An operation billed as a humanitarian intervention in Libya by President Obama was described in starkly more military terms Thursday by the administration’s top two defense officials.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told lawmakers that continuing coalition attacks on Libyan government troops – even when they were not directly threatening civilians – would encourage senior government and military officials to break with Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and inspire more civilians to join opposition forces.
"His military, at a certain point, is going to have to face the question of whether they are prepared over time to be destroyed by these air attacks or whether they decide it’s time for him to go," Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
[…] In his testimony, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blamed the rebels’ losses in recent days on the heavy cloud cover in Libya, which has prevented U.S. and allied jets from attacking Gaddafi’s ground forces.
Mullen said the sustained bombing campaign had destroyed as much as 25 percent of Gaddafi’s military arsenal and pledged that coalition forces would continue to hammer away at his ground forces.
Some of the United States’ partners have acknowledged that the initial descriptions of the intervention in Libya no longer apply. "What is happening in Libya is not a no-fly zone," a senior European diplomat told reporters, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity. "The no-fly zone was a diplomatic thing, to get the Arabs on board. What we have in Libya is more than that."
[…] The militaristic language used by Gates and Mullen prompted some lawmakers who oppose the intervention to accuse the Obama administration of misleading the public about its aims in Libya. "It seems to me, and I think everybody else, that we are clearly involved in regime change," said Sen. James Webb (D-Va.).
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) said the administration’s efforts to label the Libya mission a humanitarian intervention were dishonest. "This is the most muddled definition of an operation probably in U.S. military history," he said. "To say this is not about regime change is crazy. Of course, it is about regime change."
[…]
3) Liberals among fiercest Libya critics
Mike Lillis, The Hill, 04/01/11 06:11 AM ET
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/153217-some-of-the-loudest-libya-criticism-coming-from-the-left
As President Obama struggles to sell a contentious Libya strategy to a skeptical Congress, Capitol Hill’s most liberal voices have emerged as some of the fiercest critics.
Liberal Democrats – the heart and soul of Obama’s meteoric rise to the White House – are using floor speeches, op-eds, committee hearings and even legislation to condemn the administration’s decision to send U.S. forces to help Libyan rebels oust longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The lawmakers have questioned the timing, cost, wisdom and constitutionality of the White House endeavor, stealing headlines from Democratic supporters of the policy and practically drowning out the condemnations from Obama’s more traditional conservative critics. Less then 30 months after Obama ascended to commander in chief with a message disdainful of unilateral military operations, the liberal detractors are all but charging him with hypocrisy.
"In two years, we have moved from President Bush’s doctrine of preventive war to President Obama’s assertion of the right to go to war without even the pretext of a threat to our nation," Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), an anti-war liberal, said Thursday during a 40-minute broadside fired from the House floor.
"This is a clear and arrogant violation of our Constitution," he added. "Even a war launched for humanitarian reasons is still a war – and only Congress can declare war."
Rep. John Conyers (Mich.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, agrees. Conyers conceded that Congress and the White House "have long grappled over the exact division of powers in times of war." But, he added, "the Constitution grants sole authority to the Congress to commit the nation to battle in the first instance."
"That decision is one of the most serious that we are called upon to make," Conyers said last week, "and we should never abdicate this responsibility to the president."
[…] Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) characterized Obama’s speech as "more eloquent than persuasive," while Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) accused the president of sidestepping Congress by waiting until lawmakers left town to launch the attacks. "How premeditated, and how irresponsible, I believe the current course of events to be," Kaptur said.
Wednesday’s classified briefing from administration officials – including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates – also didn’t alleviate liberal concerns over how the intervention was initiated. "It still needs authorization," Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) told The Hill as he emerged from the briefing.
These concerns are aired as the Pentagon and the White House are reportedly at odds over the scope and pace of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Those reports are sure to exacerbate the concerns of lawmakers already wondering about Obama’s exit strategy in Libya.
On Thursday, White House officials made the rounds on Capitol Hill yet again, appearing before four committees – two in each chamber – on the Libya situation. Skeptical lawmakers on both sides of the aisle voiced four primary concerns:
– Did the administration have the legal authority to enter Libya without congressional approval?
– Who will pay for the conflict?
– Who exactly are the Libyan rebels the U.S. is protecting?
– How can the United States and NATO ensure Gadhafi is bumped from power without sending ground troops to knock him off ourselves?
[…] Some liberal Democrats are lining up behind legislation to push back against the administration’s approach to Libya. A GOP bill to defund the intervention until Congress authorizes it already has as many Democratic co-sponsors as Republicans. Three Democrats – Reps. Kucinich, Pete Stark (Calif.) and Michael Capuano (Mass.) – endorsed the bill this week.
[…]
4) Afghans Angry Over Florida Koran Burning Kill U.N. Staff
Enayat Najafizada and Rod Nordland, New York Times, April 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/asia/02afghanistan.html
Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan – Stirred up by a trio of angry mullahs who urged them to avenge the burning of a Koran at a Florida church, thousands of protesters overran the compound of the United Nations in this northern Afghan city, killing at least 12 people, Afghan and United Nations officials said.
The dead included at least seven United Nations workers – four Nepalese guards and three Europeans from Romania, Sweden and Norway – according to United Nations officials in New York. One was a woman. Early reports, later denied by Afghan officials, said that at least two of the dead had been beheaded. Five Afghans were also killed.
The attack was the deadliest for the United Nations in Afghanistan since 11 people were killed in 2009, when Taliban suicide bombers invaded a guesthouse in Kabul. It also underscored the latent hostility toward the nine-year foreign presence here, even in a city long considered to be among the safest in Afghanistan – so safe that American troops no longer patrol here in any numbers.
Unable to find Americans on whom to vent their anger, the mob turned instead on the next-best symbol of Western intrusion – the nearby United Nations headquarters. "Some of our colleagues were just hunted down," said a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Kieran Dwyer, in confirming the attack.
In Washington, President Obama issued a statement strongly condemning the violence against United Nations workers. "Their work is essential to building a stronger Afghanistan for the benefit of all its citizens," he said. "We stress the importance of calm and urge all parties to reject violence." The statement made no reference to the Florida church or the burning of the Koran.
Afghanistan, deeply religious and reflexively volatile, has long been one of the most reactive flashpoints to perceived insults against Islam. When a Danish cartoonist lampooned the Prophet Muhammad, four people were killed in riots in Afghanistan within days in 2006. The year before, a one-paragraph item in Newsweek alleging that guards at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a Koran down the toilet set off three days of riots that left 14 people dead in Afghanistan.
Friday’s episode began when three mullahs, addressing worshipers at Friday Prayer inside the Blue Mosque here, one of Afghanistan’s holiest places, urged people to take to the streets to agitate for the arrest of Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who oversaw the burning of a Koran on March 20.
Otherwise, said the most prominent of them, Mullah Mohammed Shah Adeli, Afghanistan should cut off relations with the United States. "Burning the Koran is an insult to Islam, and those who committed it should be punished," he said.
The crowd – some of its members carrying signs reading "Down with America" and "Death to Obama" – poured into the streets and swelled. Gov. Atta Muhammad Noor of Balkh Province, of which Mazar-i-Sharif is the capital, later put the number at 20,000. According to Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, spokesman for Gen. Daoud Daoud, the Afghan National Police commander for the country’s north, the crowd soon overwhelmed the United Nations guards, disarming some and beating and shooting others.
[…] Mr. Jones, the Florida pastor, caused an international uproar by threatening to burn the Koran last year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Among others, the overall commander of forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, had warned at that time that such an action could provoke violence in Afghanistan and could endanger American troops. Mr. Jones subsequently promised not to burn a Koran, but he nonetheless presided over a mock trial and then the burning of the Koran at his small church in Gainesville, Fla., on March 20, with only 30 worshipers attending.
The act drew little response worldwide, but provoked angry condemnation in this region, where it was reported in the local media and where anti-American sentiment already runs high. Last week, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan condemned the burning in an address before Parliament, and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Thursday called on the United States to bring those responsible for the Koran burning to justice.
A prominent Afghan cleric, Mullah Qyamudin Kashaf, the acting head of the influential Ulema Council of Afghanistan and a Karzai appointee, also called for American authorities to arrest and try Mr. Jones in the Koran burning.
The Ulema Council recently met to discuss the Koran burning, Mullah Kashaf said in a telephone interview. "We expressed our deep concerns about this act, and we were expecting the violence that we are witnessing now," he said.
[…]
5) Bahrain wages unrelenting crackdown on Shiites
AP, April 1, 2011
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jT8sej7yw8Q5X_CxWP5pEU8uYDGQ
Manama, Bahrain – The official line: Bahrain is back to business as usual. Shiite protesters are off the streets after a month of paralyzing demonstrations. A state-run newspaper’s headline declares the Persian Gulf island to be "Back on Track."
But police checkpoints dot the highways around the tiny Sunni-led kingdom. Tanks are deployed around the lavish shopping malls in the capital.
And security forces are carrying out nightly raids in the impoverished Shiite villages around Manama, smashing down doors, destroying furniture and spraying graffiti on the walls, residents told The Associated Press.
One Bahraini human rights activist told the AP that he was beaten and hit with shoes by armed, masked men, who threatened him with rape and told to go back to Iran, the Shiite powerhouse across the Gulf.
The relentless crackdown has made major new protests a virtual impossibility for the time being, analysts and Shiite residents say. But the pressure is generating new anger among protesters who had been calling for democratic reform and equal rights for Shiites.
Another explosion of unrest in the home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet now seems inevitable, they say. "We cannot stop," said Ali Mohammed, a 33-year-old Shiite teacher fired from his job for participating in demonstrations at Manama’s Pearl Square last month. "We might go quite for a bit to mourn the dead and treat the injured and see those in jail, but then we will rise up again."
[…] Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Human Rights Center, said his home in the village of Bani Jamra, northwest of Manama, was raided two weeks ago by several dozen masked men with guns who pulled him from his bed in front of his 8-year-old daughter, blindfolded him and took him to a car where he was beaten for nearly two hours.
"They threatened to rape me and one man was touching my body," said Rajab, 47. "They hit me with shoes and punched me with fists. They were insulting me, saying things like, ‘You’re Shiite so go back to Iran.’"
On Wednesday evening, Rajab was being interviewed in his home by a television crew in his home when dozens of men in civilian clothes and black ski masks surrounded them in front of his house, pointing rifles in his face and shouting insults.
Other inhabitants of the Shiite villages ringing the capital reported similar nightly raids by police looking for activists or suspected protesters.
Some showed an AP reporter smashed front doors and broken furniture. One displayed graffiti sprayed on the wall of a home in Bani Jamra reading: "Al Khalifa is a crown on your heads," – praising the Sunni dynasty that has ruled Bahrain for two centuries.
All military vehicles on the roads and at checkpoints have Bahraini flags. The solders and police manning them wear ski masks, but people who have interacted with them are alleging that they speak in a Saudi dialect.
The Saudi-led force must leave the Gulf island immediately, senior opposition leader Ali Salman said, because "we don’t want Bahrain to turn into a conflict zone between Saudi Arabia and Iran."
The United States has urged the monarchy to respect human rights but is saying little about the allegations of ongoing repression.
Bahrain, which has long attempted to position itself as a stable regional magnate for international business, is doing its best to project an image of calm. Front-page headlines in the state-run newspapers read "Return to Normality," "Back On Track" and even "Victory."
But the Shiite opposition-run newspaper is filled with photos of protesters’ funerals, lists of missing activists and reports of daily clashes in the villages around the capital.
Five-star hotels are empty and office towers in the downtown financial district are locked. Signs on branches of international banks are "closed until further notice" and even Manama’s red light district – a popular hangout for Saudi tourists – is deserted.
[…] Bahrain Human rights organization and opposition groups say at least 20 people have been killed in total, since protests began February 14 and hundreds of activists have been either detained or questioned since martial law went into effect in mid-March. Among those in custody are doctors who treated injured protesters in the state-run Salmaniya hospital, now under control of Bahrain’s security forces.
Eyewitnesses said they saw Hani Abdul Aziz Abdullah Jumah, 32, a cleaner and a father of 2-year-old twins being chased by security personnel after clashes broke out March 19 near his home in the Shiite village of Khamis. Then they heard shots being fired, they told Human Rights Watch.
His family said he was wounded by gunfire and taken to a local health clinic in a coma before disappearing. The last time Jumah’s family saw him alive was when he was loaded into an ambulance from the Bahraini Defense Force Hospital, accompanied by two masked police officers.
His body was handed over to the family from a different hospital by authorities on March 24. "When someone leaves home he does not come back," said his father, Abdul-Aziz Abdullah Jumah. "Who is responsible for that? It is the government."
Afghanistan
6) Six U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan operation near Pakistan border
Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, Thursday, March 31, 11:52 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/six-us-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan-operation-near-pakistan-border/2011/03/31/AFHhTUDC_story.html
A large-scale helicopter-borne assault into a remote, insurgent-held sanctuary near the border with Pakistan left six U.S. soldiers dead in heavy fighting with Afghan and Pakistani insurgents, U.S. officials said.
The operation, which was continuing Thursday, was designed to drive back the enemy in the remote and mountainous border region. One Afghan soldier was also killed in the assault.
The deaths show the difficulty U.S. troops have faced in stemming the violence in Kunar province, which has been one of the most violent regions of Afghanistan since 2005. The current U.S. strategy, which focuses on major population centers, has led the U.S. military to shift emphasis away from the province and pull some troops out of its remote valleys.
Violence levels throughout Kunar remain among the highest in Afghanistan.
The area in eastern Kunar province where the six soldiers were killed has long been a problem for U.S. forces because of its proximity to the largely ungoverned regions of Pakistan’s tribal areas. In June, about 600 soldiers from the battalion involved in this week’s operation killed about 150 fighters in the same valley. Two U.S. soldiers were killed in that assault.
Egypt
7) Egypt’s Top Spy A U.S. Concern
Matthew Rosenberg, Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703461504576230042469852026.html
Cairo – When Egypt’s new intelligence chief quietly flew to Syria’s capital for a day of meetings last month, his American counterparts took note.
What was Murad Muwafi, the new Egyptian spymaster, doing in Damascus? With whom was he meeting? "Honestly, we have our ideas, but we don’t know anything for certain," said a senior U.S. defense official, who didn’t elaborate on what those ideas might be. "I wouldn’t say we’re worried-not yet. Concerned is probably a better word."
[…] U.S., European and Israeli officials are worried that Mr. Muwafi, like the rest of the Egyptian national security establishment, will soon find himself working with a new government that is likely to be more responsive to public opinion, which is overwhelmingly negative on the U.S. and Israel. Elections are scheduled for late this year.
The Muslim Brotherhood is also expected to have a powerful voice in government, and Egyptian officials are already talking about the need for a foreign policy more independent of the U.S.
Mr. Muwafi and others "have a vision for what the relationship [with the U.S.] should look like after the revolution," said Mohammed Ali Bilal, a retired army general who worked closely with Mr. Muwafi. "This is a new era and they should consider the interests of Egypt."
Mr. Muwafi’s March 18 trip to Syria appears to be an indication of Egypt’s changing priorities. Senior Egyptian officials, including Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby, have said in recent weeks they want to repair their country’s relationship with Syria, and the timing of Mr. Muwafi’s visit coincided with an Egyptian push to restart the Palestinian reconciliation process.
Much of Hamas’ senior leadership lives in Damascus. Meeting with them could have been the main goal of the visit, U.S. officials said. "I think if we knew more, we’d feel better about it," said the senior U.S. defense official.
[…]
Jordan
8) Protesters Set Up Camp in Jordan’s Capital
Ranya Kadri and Isabel Kershner, New York Times, April 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/middleeast/02jordan.html
Amman, Jordan – Hundreds of demonstrators calling for reform rallied late into the evening in the Jordanian capital on Friday, a week after riot police officers and government supporters violently broke up a rally and a protest camp, leaving one man dead and scores injured.
This Friday’s demonstration, by contrast, went on for several hours without intervention, though the reformists planned to stay on at their new location, the downtown Municipality Square, into the night.
The protesters hailed mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood and the March 24 Movement, a new organization that had planned to camp out from that date until their demands for reform were met, like those who took up temporary residency in Tahrir Square in Cairo.
The Muslim Brotherhood estimated the number of protesters on Friday at 2,000. The main demands raised by the demonstrators are an end to corruption and constitutional reform that would curb the sweeping powers of King Abdullah II.
Pro-democracy demonstrations have been taking place here regularly since January, when the Tunisian revolution set off a wave of regional upheaval. Responding to public pressure, the king replaced the cabinet and ordered his new prime minister, Marouf al-Bakhit, to begin electoral reforms and reach out to all elements of Jordanian society, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
But progress has been slow, and the opposition groups have meanwhile stepped up their demands for more fundamental constitutional reform.
Security forces were out in force on Friday, and convoys of cars driven by young men and decorated with Jordanian flags and portraits of King Abdullah paraded through streets that were blocked to other traffic. But there were no clashes this time.
Zaki Saad, head of the political bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood, said that promises had been given by the authorities that demonstrators would not be attacked.
"There is now an official decision not to send thugs to attack the demonstrators," he said in an interview. That, he said, "proves that what happened last Friday was the result of an official decision."
He was referring to the violence of the previous week when government supporters attacked the protesters with sticks and rods. When the protesters fought back, the riot police were called in, and they broke up the fighting as well as the tent camp.
[…]
–
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