Target Centermass

Category: Middle East

  • U.N. Asks Belgian to Take Over Assassination Inquiry

    The U.N. investigation into the assassination of Lebanon’s anti-Syrian former prime minister Rafik Hariri will continue under new leadership.

    The United Nations has asked a Belgian prosecutor to take over its investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, according to a spokesman for the prosecutor and senior U.N. officials.

    U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan wants Serge Brammertz, the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to succeed German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who will step down next month. Mehlis has led a six-month U.N. inquiry that has implicated members of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s inner circle in the Feb. 14 killing of Hariri.

    A U.N. spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, said that an announcement of the appointment will not be made until Jan. 11 but “we can confirm the secretary general has completed the selection process.” She said Annan “is satisfied there will be continuity in the leadership of the inquiry.”

    Senior U.N. officials said that Annan is delaying a public announcement because Brammertz wants more time to assure governments that support the criminal court that his departure will not disrupt its war crimes investigations in Sudan, Congo and Uganda. They also expressed concern about Brammertz’s safety.

    And what a rewarding position it is, replete with radicals wanting blood.

    Mehlis has received frequent death threats since taking control of the U.N. probe in May. A Lebanese newspaper, An-Nahar, reported Wednesday that a pro-Syrian organization that claimed responsibility for killing the paper’s editor, Gibran Tueni, issued a new threat against Mehlis’s successor. The group said Mehlis is lucky it has not killed him.

    There is more on the death threat here, including this juicy little bit of Arab rationalization of violence.

    The statement described Mehlis, a German prosecutor, as a “filthy infidel” who had politicized the investigation to implicate Syria. It warned Mehlis’s successor, who has not been appointed, not to come to the same conclusions.

    The statement ended with an ominous Arabic saying: “He who has given advance warning is excused.”

    Good luck, Mr. Brammertz, as you try to both keep your head and nab the guilty.

  • Germany Paroles Hijack Murder Terrorist

    Mohammed Ali Hamadi, a convicted terrorist with American blood on his hands and long wanted by the U.S., sat for years in a German prison. Four days ago, Germany quietly set him free.

    German authorities have paroled Mohammed Ali Hamadi after he served 19 years of a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and the killing of a US Navy diver.

    Hamadi has been released from prison and has left Germany, said Doris Moeller-Scheu, a spokeswoman for the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office. She said she did not know his destination.

    She said Hamadi’s case came up for a regular legally mandated review by a parole court and he was released after an expert assessment and a hearing.

    TWA flight 847 from Athens to Rome was hijacked to Beirut, where the hijackers shot US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, 23, of Waldorf, Maryland, and dumped his body on the tarmac.

    […]

    A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Martin Jaeger, said there was no connection between his release and that of Susanne Osthoff, a German woman released at the weekend after spending more than three weeks as a hostage in Iraq.

    Hmmm … tit for tat?

    Stethem, 23, was beaten and shot on June 15, 1985, while the plane was in Beirut. He was the only casualty during the hijacking ordeal, in which 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days. He received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart decorations, and a US Navy guided missile destroyer is named in his honour.

    Hamadi was arrested at Frankfurt Airport on January 13, 1987, when customs officials discovered liquid explosives in his luggage.

    Germany insisted on trying Hamadi, refusing to hand him over to the U.S. in opposition to the American death penalty.

    Well, ain’t that great. We don’t want to be overly harsh to killers and terrorists. Meanwhile, Hamadi has already returned to Lebanon and is in contact with the terrorists of Hezbollah.

  • Islamic Troubles Link Dump, 19 DEC 05

    So many stories, so little time on my accursed dial-up connection.

    Man Accused of al-Qaida Link Admits Gun Buy

    A Canadian terror suspect confessed to buying guns and rocket launchers for al-Qaida to use against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to a court filing Monday.

    In an affidavit submitted to the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, where Abdullah Khadr appeared at a preliminary hearing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Konrad Shourie said Khadr admitted ties to senior al-Qaida members and confessed to buying guns and rocket launchers for them in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Khadr also admitted to a role in an unspecified plot to assassinate Pakistan’s prime minister, Shourie wrote.

    Khadr, 24, who entered no plea at the hearing, faces extradition to the United States on charges of possessing, and conspiracy to possess, a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston, where the charges were filed. He faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

    Khadr was arrested Saturday. A bail hearing could come as soon as Wednesday.

    He is alleged to have bought AK-47 and mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and containers of mine components for al-Qaida. The weapons purchases were made at the request of his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian who was killed in 2003 when a Pakistani Cobra helicopter fired on a house where he was staying with senior al-Qaida operatives, authorities said.

    Abdullah Khadr was born in Canada in 1981 and settled with his family in Pakistan in 1997.

    The U.S. attorney in Boston said he received military training at a camp in Afghanistan for four months in the mid-1990s. Pakistani intelligence officers picked him up in a car in Islamabad on Oct. 12, 2004, and he was returned to Canada in early December.

    Some may ask Abdullah why he deals with terrorists. Well, it’s a family tradition.

    All three of Khadr’s brothers have been detained at various times and linked to terrorism.

    One brother, 19-year-old Omar Khadr, is the only Canadian detainee at the U.S. camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay. He faces trial on charges of murder and attempted murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. army medic.

    Spain arrests 15 suspects involved in Iraqi insurgency

    Spanish police arrested early Monday 15 people suspected of recruiting fighters for Iraqi terrorist groups, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

    The suspects, arrested in coordinated police raids in several provinces across Spain, were accused of belonging to a group which recruit, train and send fighters for Iraq to fuel the insurgency.

    Police also seized a great amount of documents, fake credentials, cash and components for explosive devices in the raids.

    According to the statement, eight of the 15 are Moroccans, and the seven others include an Iraqi, a Saudi Arabian, an Egyptian, a Belarussian, a French, a Spaniard and a Ghanaian.

    The group, led by a 25-year-old Iraqi who had close contact with al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was well-organized, the statement said.

    Police intelligence showed that the suspects themselves had also been engaged in terrorist activities in Iraq and other Islamic countries, but there was no sign they had any plans to launch terrorist attacks in Spain.

    This is not a new thing, as Spain has earlier claimed to have cut terrorist pipelines to Iraq. After an earlier Spanish round-up, I blogged the following:

    I would like to point out, however, that the success probably is not nearly grand as it sounds — the country is merely treating symptoms of the Islamist movement within its borders, having already run away from the attempt in Iraq to provide an alternative to the Arab world, a possible last ditch to salvage a huge chunk of the world’s population from falling hopelessly into sheer barbarism and madness.

    This kind of success, while dramatic and helpful, is fleeting. Al Queda will find other ways to move its jihadists, much as the human nervous system can sometimes find alternate routes when nerve pathways are severed. Unfortunately for Spain and the rest of Europe, other paths already exist and this one will be replaced, thus making it obvious that simply treating local symptoms of radical Islam while ignoring the global disease is not enough.

    The Spanish have yet to heed my warning.

    Video ‘shows cold-blooded killing of kidnapped US contractor’

    A barabaric video believed to show the killing of Ronald Schulz, an American security contractor kidnapped in Iraq two weeks ago, was released on the internet yesterday.

    It depicts a man with his hands handcuffed behind his back and blindfolded by an Arab headdress kneeling in an empty, open area of dirt.

    A gunman standing two yards behind him then shoots him in the back of the head, toppling the figure to the ground, before his body is then shot repeatedly.

    Although the victim cannot be identified, any hope that the former US marine may still be alive appears extinguished by a picture of him alive that appears on a split screen as the footage is aired. His identity card is shown briefly.

    The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed responsibility for his death.

    For those still ignorant of the bloody, cowardly nature of our enemy, the Jawa Report is always a good place to find such videos. As for me, I don’t need them and see no need to host them. Those who are blind will still refuse to see and continue to shriek “Abu Ghraib” as they try to demonize any allegation of atrocities thrown against American soldiers.

    ‘Dr. Germ,’ Others Released From Iraq Jail

    About 24 top former officials in Saddam Hussein’s regime, including a biological weapons expert known as “Dr. Germ,” have been released from jail, while a militant group released a video Monday of what it said was the killing of an American hostage.

    […]

    An Iraqi lawyer said the 24 or 25 officials from Saddam’s government were released from jail without charges, and some have already left the country.

    “The release was an American-Iraqi decision and in line with an Iraqi government ruling made in December 2004, but hasn’t been enforced until after the elections in an attempt to ease the political pressure in Iraq,” said the lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref.

    Among them were Rihab Taha, a British-educated biological weapons expert, who was known as “Dr. Germ” for her role in making bio-weapons in the 1980s, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, known as “Mrs. Anthrax,” a former top Baath Party official and biotech researcher, Aref said.

    “Because of security reasons, some of them want to leave the country,” he said. He declined to elaborate, but noted “some have already left Iraq today.”

    Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, would say only that eight individuals formerly designated as high-value detainees were released Saturday after a board process found they were no longer a security threat and no charges would be filed against them.

    It may take years to correctly judge the wisdom of these releases. Because of that, I’ll refrain.

    EU May Cut Aid if Hamas Wins at Polls

    Europe’s top diplomat warned Sunday the European Union might cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas militants win next month’s parliamentary election, reflecting international alarm over the Islamic group’s strong showing in West Bank local voting.

    Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said during a tour of the region that European taxpayers would have a hard time supporting the Palestinian government if it included a party that supports violence and advocates Israel’s destruction.

    The U.S. House of Representatives approved a similar declaration Friday. The Palestinian Authority counts on foreign aid for half its budget.

    […]

    The main challenge facing the Palestinian Authority now is the Jan. 25 election for parliament, where Hamas is fielding legislative candidates for the first time to challenge Fatah, which has ruled Palestinian politics for decades.

    Last week, the younger generation of Fatah leaders split from the party and formed their own group, Future, leaving Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and other Fatah old-timers with a candidate list filled with Fatah veterans that many Palestinians consider corrupt.

    The split was expected to weaken Fatah just as Hamas got a large boost its string of victories last week in West Bank local elections.

    Hey, why foot the medical bills when the lunatics are running the asylum? Still, I have little faith in Europe to actually enforce such a strong stance at this time.

  • Iran, Iran, Iran

    A real quick link dump about a brewing topic that should cause everyone much concern.

    Fear of Iranian nuclear arms high on Gulf states’ agenda

    Fearful of a nuclear-armed state on their borders, leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states meeting in Abu Dhabi contemplated Sunday declaring the Persian Gulf a nuclear weapons-free zone in the hope that their neighbor Iran would join.

    “None of the GCC states support any country having nuclear power,” said Mona Mohammed al-Hashemi of the Emirates Center For Strategic Studies and Research in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post. “As you know, Iran is a very strong country, but the GCC can say something about this issue. They can discuss and see how they should stand on this issue and see what they can do that won’t harm them,” he added

    If only in terms of being caught up in a nuclear maelstrom not of their own making, the Gulf states should have a very real concern about a nuke-armed and radical Iran. Beyond that, they bear a geopolitical concern, as such an Iran would force a huge shift in recognized power in the Moslem world at the expense of the Gulf states.

    According to GCC secretary-general Abdul Rahman Hamad al-Attiyah, quoted on the United Arab Emirates’ official Emirates News Agency, the summit will not issue any statements condemning Iran’s controversial nuclear program. That reflected Gulf nations’ reluctance to provoke Iran and to be seen as siding with the West in the confrontation over Teheran’s nuclear plans.

    […]

    But what worries the GCC most is Iran’s nuclear potential. Many in the West and in Arab countries believe Iran will use its nuclear energy program to develop nuclear weapons. The Arab countries fear such weapons would make Iran a superpower in the region. Iran denies the charge, saying its program is intended only to produce electricity.

    “We have confidence in Iran, but we don’t want to see an Iranian nuclear reactor that is closer to our territorial waters than it is to Teheran. This causes danger and harm to us,” the Emirates News Agency quoted Attiyah as saying.

    The issue has become even more important to the GCC as tensions have risen in the region following the recent anti-Israel statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

    Not even a statement? Despite their stake in the matter, the Gulf states are currently ranking slightly behind the Europeans in the role of an almost being a speed bump for Iranian endeavors.

    Iran tells West to be tolerant of Holocaust views

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

    Ahmadinejad last week called the Holocaust a myth and suggested Israel be moved to Germany or Alaska, remarks that sparked international uproar and threaten diplomatic talks with Europe over Iran’s nuclear programme.

    Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi defended the president’s remarks, which also drew a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.

    “What the president said is an academic issue. The West’s reaction shows their continued support for Zionists,” Asefi told a weekly news conference.

    “Westerners are used to leading a monologue but they should learn to listen to different views,” he added.

    Some 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945.

    Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who was elected president, also said in October Israel was a “tumour” that must be “wiped off the map”.

    A statement drafted by European Union leaders described last week’s Holocaust comment as “wholly unacceptable”. The White House termed the remarks “outrageous”.

    Asefi denounced international condemnation as emotional and illogical.

    “The EU statement is not based on international diplomatic norms. They should avoid illogical methods,” he said.

    You see, when the radical president of a bloody Iranian government seeking nukes says that Israel should be destroyed and the history of the Holocaust is a hoax, he’s merely embracing a diverse view and others should be more tolerant. Geez, with those buzzwords, how could the left fail to embrace this man?

    Meanwhile, Ace at Ace of Spades begins to embrace what he perceives as a need for a new version of an old policy, mutually-assured destruction (MAD).

    Nuking Iran

    Iran is such a depressing topic for me I haven’t blogged about it much. Iran is mere months away from developing a bomb, their hardline lunatic leadership is quite forthright about their desire to wipe Israel off the map, and they would have few qualms about delivering a bomb to Al Qaeda.

    I’d like to do the military-bluster thing and start advocating airstrikes on all their nuclear facilities, command and control sites, even their oil wells. But I don’t think that will actually solve things. Their uranium enrichment program is hidden, probably underground, and almost certainly well-dispersed. We could not end their atomic ambitions through mere airstrikes.

    For those of you counting on Israel to end this problem for us– forget it. The comparison to Iraq’s reactor is inapposite. That was a big identifiable target. The Iranian sites are largely unknown, even by the vaunted Israeli intelligence organizations.

    We’re not going to invade. We don’t have the troops and the nation doesn’t have the stomach.

    Which means that Iran will have a bomb soon.

    […]

    It is time for Bush to spell out clearly what our nuclear policy is in regard to nuclear-armed rogue states. And this is not the time for diplomatic nicety. Bush must announce, clearly and solemnly, that any nuclear-armed nation invites a nuclear attack, and that a nuclear attack by such a nation will be met with the complete destruction of that nation by nuclear fire.

    The fundamentalist religious crazies thuggishly ruling Iran may have little fear of that. They will consider giving up their own lives to strike a mighty nuclear blow for Allah a small sacrifice for greater Islamist glory.

    We have to put the fear of God Himself into those who value life more than seventy-two viriginal whores in the afterlife. The Iranian citizens, the generals, the scientists building the doomsday devices.

    We have to be clear on our response to such an attack, and we have to be resolved about carrying it out with clinical, murderous deadliness.

    And we need to inform the world, and Iran of course, of all of this in advance. We need to be quite clear on our policy, so that the world will know that Iran was forewarned.

    Ace goes on to explain his unfortunately lucid reasoning behind a devastating policy, one that could be termed as MADOIB, mutually-assured destruction on Israel’s behalf. A nuke-capable Iran could not dream to destroy the U.S. in any short- or mid-term scenario, but they could play a role in a long-term nightmare. They could, however, destroy Israel, and Ace looks at how different responses to an Iranian attack on Israel could proceed. As Ace points out, MAD is a policy that only carries weight among the rational, thus the need for the clear publication of such a policy so that external and internal pressures may be brought to bear on the history-denying, blood-craving Iranian government.

    WunderKraut also gives his thoughts on the eventuality of an Iranian nuke. That’s twice I’ve linked WunderKraut in recent weeks. I really need to update my blogroll.

  • Iran: Crashing the Iraqi Election High

    I’ll leave it to Charles Krauthammer to provide the big come-down, as he looks at the brewing danger in Iraq’s next-door neighboor, Iran.

    Lest you get carried away with today’s good news from Iraq, consider what’s happening next door in Iran. The wild pronouncements of the new Iranian president [previously discussed here, here and here], Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have gotten sporadic press ever since he called for Israel to be wiped off the map. He subsequently amended himself to say that Israel should simply be extirpated from the Middle East map and moved to some German or Austrian province. Perhaps near the site of an old extermination camp?

    Except that there were no such camps, indeed no Holocaust at all, says Ahmadinejad. Nothing but “myth,” a “legend” that was “fabricated … under the name ‘Massacre of the Jews.’”

    […]

    To be sure, Holocaust denial and calls for Israel’s destruction are commonplace in the Middle East. They can be seen every day on Hezbollah TV, in Syrian media, in Egyptian editorials appearing in semiofficial newspapers. But none of these aspiring mass murderers are on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons that could do in one afternoon what it took Hitler six years to do — destroy an entire Jewish civilization and extinguish 6 million souls.

    Everyone knows where Iran’s nuclear weapons will be aimed. Everyone knows they will be put on Shahab rockets that have been modified so they can now reach Israel. And everyone knows that if the button is ever pushed, it will be the end of Israel.

    But it gets worse.

    Go read.

    Realize that, while the greatest dream of Iran’s rulers is the destruction of Israel and the United States, their greatest fear is neither the destruction of their nuclear capabilities by those same nations, nor is it the rather laughable speedbump that has been the European opposition to Iranian nuclear ambitions to date; rather, that fear is the success of a free and democratic society, a society not dominated by Iranian dominion or a Saddam-like tyrant but a truly free society dictating its own future, sitting next door in Iraq. That is why the Iranian puzzle must be approached from two directions: stopping a madly-led society from weapons it seems quite willing to use, and providing those in Iran already thirsting for democracy an alternative to their current radical state.

  • More Iraqi Election Links

    Publius Pundit: Robert Mayer has a very interesting, well-researched analysis of what the election means about the insurgency.

    In the Bullpen: Chad Evans has the pics.

    The Indepundit: Smash rounds up the headlines.

    The Gunn Nutt: The Nutt has a nice collection of pics and stories.

  • Iraqi Voting Leave Country in Purple Haze

    Millions upon millions of Iraqis, a turnout far better than could have been reasonably hoped for, turned out to vote today for a freely elected parliament and another step toward a free democracy.

    Millions of Iraqis, from tribal sheiks to entire families with children in tow, turned out Thursday to choose a parliament in a mostly peaceful election – among the freest ever in the Arab world.

    So many Sunni Arabs voted that ballots ran out in some places. The strong participation by Sunnis, the backbone of the insurgency, bolstered U.S. hopes that the election could produce a broad-based government capable of ending the daily suicide attacks and other violence that have ravaged the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

    Difficult times lie ahead, however. The coalition of religious Shiite parties that dominates the current government is expected to win the biggest portion of the 275 seats, but will almost certainly need to compromise with rival factions, with widely differing views, to form a government.

    Up to 11 million of the nation’s 15 million registered voters took part, election officials estimated, though they had no official turnout figure.

    Many Sunnis said they voted to register their opposition to the Shiite-led government and to speed the end of the U.S. military presence.

    First, to understand today’s voting and the Iraqi parliamentary election process, PoliBlog‘s Dr. Steven Taylor has gathered together two posts, here and here, that together comprise what could best be described as an Iraqi Elections for Dummies guide.

    The right side of the political blogosphere is awash with images of purple-stained fingers, with Gateway Pundit and Michelle Malkin providing thorough and oft-updated collections of bloggings and news coverage.

    Meanwhile, Protein Wisdom‘s Jeff Goldstein and John Noonan at the Officers’ Club examine the paucity of coverage from the left side of the blogosphere. I can only take that as a sure sign of another successful election.

  • Iraq Expatriates Start Parliamentary Voting

    Sorry, y’all, but I’ve been working on my Christmas shopping, so here’s a link dump about this week’s Iraqi parliamentary elections, the nation’s third trip to the polls since the end of the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.

    First, let the balloting begin, at least the absentee balloting.

    Iraqis Go to the Polls in 15 Countries

    Iraqi expatriates voting Tuesday for a parliament in their homeland said they want stability and an end to the violence in Iraq. But the voters in 15 countries around the world were as divided on how to get there as as their communities are back home.

    Strong voter turnout was seen in polling stations around the world, including in Syria, Jordan and Iran, where Associated Press reporters witnessed heavier turnout compared to Iraq’s landmark January elections. Official turnout figures were not immediately available.

    Even for Iraqis in Israel, albeit indirectly.

    Israeli-Iraqis can vote in election

    Iraqi law doesn’t bar Iraqi dual-nationals, even those holding Israeli or Iranian passports, from voting in out-of-country polling stations for Iraq’s upcoming parliamentary elections, a top Iraqi election official said Sunday.

    Hamida al-Hussaini, director of out-of-country voting in the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, told reporters that Iraq’s election law says “anyone who carries an Iraqi citizenship has the right to cast ballot in the upcoming parliamentary elections.”

    “The law doesn’t state what could be done in the case of dual nationals,” she said, answering a question on whether Israelis or Iranians of Iraqi origin can vote. She avoided specifically naming Israel and Iran.

    “How would we know about a person’s other nationality? We will only be checking documents verifying Iraqi nationality,” al-Hussaini said.

    Participation by Iraqi-Israelis – numbering an estimated 290,000 – is expected to be limited as there will be no polling stations in Israel and they must vote in another country, said Mordechai Ben-Porat, who led the Jewish underground in Iraq and helped organize the 1950s exodus of Iraq’s Jews.

    “If there had been a polling station in Israel, I would definitely go,” Ben-Porat said, adding Jordan will be the closest polling station.

    Meanwhile, sucurity is an obvious concern for Thursday’s in-country voting.

    Curfew imposed to stop insurgent attacks in Iraq

    US-led coalition soldiers and the Iraqi security forces last night imposed a nation-wide curfew to try to stop insurgents disrupting tomorrow’s general election. A British military spokesman in Iraq said the “lockdown” meant the borders were sealed from last night to Saturday, and no private or commercial vehicles would be allowed on the roads except those of the security forces and election officers.

    A curfew will be in place from 10pm each night. Action against anyone found in the streets defying the curfew will be determined on whether he or she is considered a threat, he said.

    […]

    The British military spokesman denied the lockdown was draconian. “Why run the risk of spectaculars against polling stations?” he said. By “spectacular”, he said he meant vehicles loaded with explosives and driven by suicide bombers.

    Iraqi police will be positioned at polling stations. About 150,000 members of the 216,000-strong Iraqi army will cordon off the area around the stations to divert suicide bombers. The 150,000-strong US-led coalition will be mainly out of sight but ready to intervene. Local police and election officers will be able to make exemptions to the traffic ban to avoid the disenfranchisement of people living far away.

    The Islamist terrorists and home-grown insurgents seem rather split on the pending election. The predominantly-Sunni insurgency seems to have at least shown a willingness to temporarily embrace the process.

    Iraqi insurgents urge Sunnis to vote, warn Zarqawi

    Saddam Hussein loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday’s polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack.

    In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

    Graffiti calling for holy war is now hard to find.

    Instead, election campaign posters dominate buildings in the rebel strongholds of Ramadi and nearby Falluja, where Sunnis staged a boycott or were too scared to vote last time around.

    “We want to see a nationalist government that will have a balance of interests. So our Sunni brothers will be safe when they vote,” said Falluja resident Ali Mahmoud, a former army officer and rocket specialist under Saddam’s Baath party.

    “Sunnis should vote to make political gains. We have sent leaflets telling al Qaeda that they will face us if they attack voters.”

    The shift is encouraging for Washington, which hopes to draw Sunni Arabs into peaceful politics in order to defuse the insurgency.

    The Baathist warning to al Qaeda raises the possibility of a wider rift between secular Saddam loyalists and fundamentalist militants, who have been cooperating in their efforts to drive out U.S. forces.

    But it is far too early to suggest any breakthroughs will ease insurgent violence that has killed thousands.

    Meanwhile, those terror groups the insurgenst threaten are still singing their same old tune.

    Insurgents denounce Iraq vote as ‘satanic’

    Soldiers, patients and prisoners began voting Monday in national elections, three days before the general population, while insurgents denounced the balloting as a “satanic project” but did not threaten to attack polling stations.

    […]

    In a rare joint statement, Al Qaeda in Iraq and four other Islamic extremist groups denounced the election as a “satanic project” and said that “to engage in the so-called political process” violates “the legitimate policy approved by God.”

    However, the statement contained no clear threat to disrupt voting as in the run-up to the Jan. 30 election and the Oct. 15 referendum on the constitution.

    It is interesting to note the lack of “streets will run with blood” threats that proved so hollow and displayed the actual large-scale impotence of the terrorists in the previous two elections.

  • Syria “Likely Involved” in Hariri Offing

    The U.N. report investigating the assassination of Lebanon’s anti-Syrian former prime minister Rafik Hariri paints the picture of systematic obstruction and likely involvement by top Syrian officials.

    [… ] details from a report submitted by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis reached the press, indicating that the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were likely involved in the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

    The 25-page report from the German prosecutor and his team again accused Syria of trying to obstruct his probe when it demanded that they revise their findings after a crucial witness recanted his testimony.

    “This was, at the least, an attempt to hinder the investigation internally and procedurally,” commented Mehlis.

    Syria denies involvement in the Hariri blast and has also waged a campaign to discredit the commission, citing a Syrian witness, Husam Taher Husam, who recanted his testimony to the commission and said he had been bribed to frame Syria.

    Mehlis said that recantation hadn’t affected his findings. In fact, he said, “the investigation has continued to develop multiple lines of inquiry which, if anything, reinforce this conclusion.”

    According to Channel 2, the report urges Syria to detain its senior officers, suspected of involvement in the assassination. Among those Mehlis wants to interrogate, according to the report, is Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara. The report names 19 Syrian and Lebanese officials who are suspected of involvement in the hit.

    In addition, the report accuses Syria of burning intelligence documents pertaining to the assassination and methodically intimidating witnesses. Mehlis also claims that there are new witnesses who had followed Hariri prior to his assassination.

    The latest claim of obstruction would be important because after Mehlis delivered his earlier report, the council had warned Syria that it would face further action – possibly including sanctions – if it didn’t cooperate fully.

    […]

    Lebanon has asked the Security Council to extend Mehlis’ commission for six months after its mandate expires on Thursday. The Security Council, whose approval would be required, is likely to agree to extend it until June 15

    There’s further reason to not disband the commision, as another anti-Syrian Lebanese official met his fiery end today.

    A car bomb killed Lebanese newspaper magnate and anti-Syrian legislator Gebran Tueni in Beirut on Monday, triggering an official call for a U.N. inquiry that split the government along sectarian lines.

    Five Shi’ite Muslim ministers close to Syria and an ally of the pro-Syrian president suspended participation in the cabinet after it voted to seek a U.N. investigation into a series of assassinations that have rocked Lebanon over the past 14 months.

    Tueni, publisher of the An-Nahar daily, was killed in a blast that destroyed his armoured car in mainly Christian east Beirut, the morning after he returned from Paris where he lived for several months because of assassination fears.

    Several politicians blamed Syria, but Damascus denied any role and said the killing was an attempt to smear it hours before the release of a U.N. report into the February 14 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

    Syrian denials — yeah, those mean a damn thing.

  • Iran’s Leader Criticized at Home, Abroad

    The recent statements by the hard-line Iranian president that Israel should be moved to Europe and that the Holocaust is a myth have continued to cause an international tempest that even angered the Saudis and some Iranians.

    Saudis fumed Friday that Iran’s hard-line president marred a summit dedicated to showing Islam’s moderate face by calling for Israel to be moved to Europe, and the chief U.N. nuclear inspector said he was losing patience with the Tehran regime.

    Even some of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s conservative allies in Iran were growing disillusioned, fearing he has hurt the country with his wild rhetoric.

    “The president has to choose his words carefully. He can convey his message to the world in better language tone,” Hamid Reza Taraqi, a leader of a hard-line party, the Islamic Coalition Society, told the Associated Press.

    The U.S., Israel, Europe and Russia condemned Ahmadinejad over his remarks, made Thursday on the sidelines of the Mecca, Saudi Arabia, summit of more than 50 Islamic nations.

    Hours before the participants issued the summit’s centerpiece — the Mecca Declaration, promising to stamp out extremist thought — Ahmadinejad spoke at a news conference, casting doubt on whether the Holocaust took place and suggesting Europe give land for a Jewish state if it felt guilty.

    Privately, Saudi officials were furious Friday. Three senior Saudi officials complained that the comments contradicted and diverted attention from the message of tolerance the summit was trying to project.

    One Saudi official compared Ahmadinejad to Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, whose renegade statements frequently infuriated Arab leaders.

    The Saudi reaction is somewhat surprising, and there’s even more about their anger in this article, which takes pains to point out that the anti-Israeli comment were not carried in the Saudi written press. The best quote of the article is the following:

    “The Iranian president seems to have lost his direction,” said Gilan al-Ghamidi, a prominent commentator in Saudi media. “Iran should be logical if it wants to receive the support of the world. The president didn’t score any points. He lost points.”

    Lost points? Well, let’s run a little tally. Who, besides the Saudis, has come out against Ahmadinejad’s comments?

    Is anybody getting Ahmadinejad’s back on this matter? Well, of course there is, as the world is more chockful of crazies than Microsoft products are of bugs (theoretically, as it would be difficult to actually run the figures). Chief among the nutcases supporting Ahmadinejad’s statements is his nation’s supreme religious leader and de facto boss.

    Iran’s supreme leader has backed the country’s President, who said the state of Israel should be moved to Europe.

    In a TV interview last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt on whether the Holocaust happened, and then suggested that Israel should be moved to Europe.

    […]

    Iranian state radio is quoting the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, as describing the international criticism as weakness and fear, dismissing it as nothing more than the sensitivity of the Zionists and the American supporters.

    Ahmadinejad may or may not actually believe his own words, but it is quite certain that he knows where his Iranian bread is buttered.