Egypt jails Al Jazeera journalists, U.S. calls sentences 'chilling'

By Maggie Fick

CAIRO (Reuters) - Three Al Jazeera journalists were jailed for seven years each by an Egyptian judge on Monday, in what Washington called "chilling, draconian sentences" that must be reversed.

Cairo defended the journalists' convictions - for aiding a "terrorist organisation" - and rejected the widespread condemnation as "interference in its internal affairs".

The three, who all denied the charge of working with the now banned Muslim Brotherhood, included Australian Peter Greste and Canadian-Egyptian national Mohamed Fahmy, Cairo bureau chief of Al Jazeera English.

The third defendant, Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed, was given an extra three years for possessing a single bullet, at the hearing attended by Western diplomats, some of whose governments summoned Egypt's ambassadors over the case.

The men have been held at Egypt's notorious Tora Prison for six months, with the case becoming a rallying point for rights groups and news organisations around the world.

They were detained in late December and charged with helping "a terrorist group" - a reference to the Muslim brotherhood - by broadcasting lies that harmed national security and supplying money, equipment and information to a group of Egyptians.

The Brotherhood was banned and declared a terrorist group after the army deposed elected Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July following mass protests against his rule. The Brotherhood says it is a peaceful organisation.

View gallery

Al Jazeera journalists (L-R) Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed stand behind bars at a c …

Al Jazeera, whose Qatari owners back the Brotherhood and have been at odds with Egypt's leadership, said the ruling defied "logic, sense and any semblance of justice". "There is only one sensible outcome now. For the verdict to be overturned, and justice to be recognised by Egypt," Al Jazeera English managing director Al Anstey said in a statement.

The ruling came a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met newly elected Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo and raised the issue of the journalists.

On Monday, Kerry said he called Egypt's foreign minister to register his "serious displeasure" at the "chilling, draconian sentences".

"Injustices like these simply cannot stand if Egypt is to move forward in the way that President al-Sisi and Foreign Minister (Sameh) Shoukry told me just yesterday that they aspire to see their country advance," Kerry said in a statement.

DUMBSTRUCK

The court descended into chaos as the verdict was read out. Near tears, Greste's brother Michael said: "This is terribly devastating. I am stunned, dumbstruck. I've no other words."

The three men had looked upbeat as they entered the courtroom in handcuffs, waving at relatives who had earlier told journalists they expected them to be freed for lack of evidence.

View gallery

Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed (L-R) listen to the ruling at a court in Cairo June 23 …

One Dutch woman and two Britons were sentenced to 10 years in absentia on the same charges of aiding a "terrorist group".

Judicial sources told Reuters the verdicts could be appealed before a higher court and a pardon was still possible.

Egypt's public prosecutor last week ordered the release of another Al Jazeera journalist, Abdullah al-Shamy, on health grounds after he spent more than 130 days on hunger strike.

Western governments and rights groups have voiced concern over freedom of expression in Egypt since Mursi was ousted. The crackdown has reinforced doubts about Egypt's democratic credentials three years after an uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak and raised hopes of greater freedoms.

The case comes after a similar outcry over mass death sentences being handed down to Brotherhood supporters.

"Egypt's reputation, and especially the reputation of its judiciary as an independent institution, are at stake," U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said. "There is a risk that miscarriage of justice is becoming the norm in Egypt."

Britain, whose ambassador attended the hearing, said it was summoning the Egyptian ambassador to protest.

View gallery

Mohamed Fahmy (R) and other defendants react after hearing the ruling at a court in Cairo June 23, 2 …

"Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of a stable and prosperous society," Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

The Dutch foreign minister also summoned Egypt's ambassador. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said her government was "deeply dismayed that any sentence was imposed" and was "appalled by the severity of it".

"The Egyptian foreign ministry strongly rejects any comment from a foreign party that casts doubt on the independence of the Egyptian judiciary and the justice of its verdicts," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

STRATEGIC PARTNER

Human Rights Watch said: "These... verdicts are a stark admission that in today's Egypt, simply practicing professional journalism is a crime and that the new constitution's guarantees of free expression are not worth the paper they are written on."

Egyptian officials have said the case is not about freedom of expression and that the journalists raised suspicions by operating without proper accreditation.

Despite Kerry's condemnation on Monday, U.S. concerns are balanced by an acknowledgement of the importance of Egypt as a strategic partner in the Middle East.

Kerry said on Sunday Egypt would be given aid in the form of Apache helicopters to use against militants in the Sinai peninsula that borders Israel.

Many Egyptians see Al Jazeera as a force determined to destabilise the country, a view that has been encouraged in the local media, which has labelled the journalists "The Marriott Cell" because they worked from a hotel of the U.S.-based chain.

A video that appeared on a pro-government channel and spread online, reinforced the view that the journalists had sinister intents, showing their arrest in their hotel room, with close-ups of their computers, cameras and communications equipment.

Al Jazeera's Cairo offices have been closed since July 3 when security forces raided them hours after Mursi was ousted. Criticism of the government and army has virtually vanished from Egyptian media since then.

In total, 20 people were sentenced on Monday. They included at least 14 Egyptians who were charged with belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Two were acquitted, including Anas al-Beltagi, the son of a senior Brotherhood official who is in jail. Four received seven-year sentences and the rest 10 years in absentia.

(Additional reporting by Amena Bakr in Doha, Lin Noueihed and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Thomas Escritt in Amsterdam and Byron Kaye in Sydney; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Alison Williams and Robin Pomeroy)

• Politics & Government
• Society & Culture
• Al Jazeera
• Muslim Brotherhood
• Al Jazeera English
• Egypt
• John Kerry

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

U.S. ship to start loading Syrian chemical agents next week

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An American cargo ship converted into a mobile chemical weapons destroyer is expected to take charge of some of Syria's most dangerous materials next week, a U.S. defense official said.

Syria on Monday handed over the remaining 8 percent of a total 1,300 tonnes that Syria declared to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The handover had faced repeated delays, leaving the Cape Ray docked in southern Spain awaiting a green light to proceed. Its mission now is to transform toxic agents into a much less poisonous soup of chemicals, ready for disposal back on land.

The Cape Ray's crew were given word on Monday that they needed to be ready to depart Spain in the coming days for southern Italy's Gioia Tauro port, where they will meet with a Danish ship carrying Syrian chemical agents, the U.S. defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The cargo will then be transferred from the Danish ship to the Cape Ray in a pier-side operation next week. The Cape Ray is expected to leave sometime later next week for international waters of the Mediterranean, the official said.

Once there, the Cape Ray will need weeks of round-the-clock processing to neutralize the chemical agents.

Syria agreed last September to destroy its entire chemical weapons program under a deal that averted U.S. military strikes after hundreds of people were killed in a sarin gas attack in the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Ken Wills)

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Suicide car bomber wounds 19 in south Beirut

A suicide bomber blew up his car in southern Beirut on Monday night near an army checkpoint, killing himself and wounding several people watching the soccer World Cup in a nearby cafe.

The bombing came just three days after a failed attempt to kill one of the top security officials in Lebanon, which has suffered a wave of sectarian violence linked to the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

Monday's explosion, shortly before midnight (2100 GMT), killed the bomber and wounded 19 people, Lebanon's civil defence force said. An emergency worker at the nearby Sahel hospital said it treated 11 lightly wounded people.

Reuters television footage from the scene showed the blackened wreckage of a car, surrounded by damaged vehicles.

Windows in nearby buildings were shattered by the blast, which occurred in a mainly Shi'ite Muslim district of southern Beirut inhabited by supporters of the Shi'ite group Amal, an ally of the militant movement Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has been fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria against the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels, who have also been supported by Lebanese Sunnis.

The conflict has spilled over into sectarian violence in Lebanon, with rocket attacks on Shi'ite towns in the Bekaa Valley, close to the border with Syria, and bombings of Shi'ite and Sunni targets in Lebanon's main coastal cities.

Security forces have been on high alert since a suicide bomber killed one person and wounded 37 near the Syrian border on Friday in an attack that narrowly missed Major General Abbas Ibrahim, head of Lebanon's General Security department.

The latest violence in Lebanon comes after Sunni insurgents including the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) swept through north and west Iraq and pushing towards the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

"What is happening in Iraq isn't far from what is happening in Lebanon, but Lebanon will not let ISIL spread here," Hezbollah parliamentarian Ali Ammar told Al-Manar television.

One security source said before Monday night's explosion that security forces were hunting for two potential suicide bombers in the Lebanese capital.

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Toni Reinhold, Bernard Orr)

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Politics & Government
• suicide bomber
• Lebanon

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kerry promises 'intense and sustained' U.S. support for Iraq

By Lesley Wroughton and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday promised "intense and sustained" U.S. support for Iraq, but said the divided country would only survive if its leaders took urgent steps to bring it together.

Hours before Kerry arrived in Baghdad, Sunni tribes who have joined a militant takeover of northern Iraq seized the only legal crossing point with Jordan, security sources said, leaving troops with no presence along the entire western frontier which includes some of the Middle East's most important trade routes.

U.S. President Barack Obama has offered up to 300 American advisers to Iraq but held off granting a request by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite Muslim-led government for air strikes to counter the two-week advance by Sunni militants.

Officials have meanwhile called for Iraqis to form an inclusive government. The insurgency has been fuelled largely by a sense of materialization and persecution among Iraq's Sunnis.

"The support will be intense and sustained and if Iraq's leaders take the necessary steps to bring the country together, it will be effective," Kerry told reporters in Baghdad.

He said Maliki had "on multiple occasions affirmed his commitment to July 1" as the date to start the formation of a new government bringing in more Sunnis and Kurds to share power, a move Washington is keen to see.

Iraqi and Jordanian security sources said tribal leaders were negotiating to hand the Turabil desert border post to Sunni Islamists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who took two main crossings with Syria in recent days and have pushed Iraqi government forces back toward Baghdad.

Iraq state television said late on Monday that the army had recaptured both the crossing with Jordan and the al-Waleed crossing with Syria. Reuters could not independently confirm reports due to security restrictions.

Ethnic Kurdish forces control a third border post with Syria in the north, leaving government troops with no presence along Iraq's 800-km (500-mile) western border.

For the insurgents, capturing the frontier is a dramatic step towards the goal of erasing the modern border altogether and building a caliphate across swaths of Syria and Iraq.

Kerry said: "Iraq faces an existential threat and Iraq's leaders have to beat that threat with the incredible urgency that it demands. The very future of Iraq depends on choices that will be made in the next days and weeks."

Washington, which withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2011 after an occupation that followed the 2003 invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, has been struggling to help Maliki's administration contain a Sunni insurgency led by ISIL, an al Qaeda offshoot which seized northern cities this month.

PRESSURE ON MALIKI

Washington is worried Maliki and fellow Shi'ites who have won U.S.-backed elections have worsened the insurgency by alienating moderate Sunnis who once fought al Qaeda but have now joined the ISIL revolt. While Washington has been careful not to say publicly it wants Maliki to step aside, Iraqi officials say such a message was delivered behind the scenes.

There was little small talk when Kerry met Maliki, the two men seated in chairs in a room with other officials.

The meeting lasted one hour and 40 minutes, after which Kerry was escorted to his car by Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari. As Kerry got in, he said: "That was good."

In Washington, officials said Iraq has given assurances to the United States that the special operations forces Obama has ordered into the country will be shielded from possible prosecution in Iraqi courts.

The Obama administration has said its decision not to leave a residual U.S. force in Iraq in 2011 stemmed from difficulty in getting a deal from Iraqi leaders to keep American troops from being tried in local courts.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Washington on Sunday of trying to regain control of the country it once occupied - a charge Kerry denied.

Iraqis are due to form a new government after an election in April. Maliki's list won the most seats in parliament but would still require allies to secure a majority.

Senior Iraqi politicians, including at least one member of Maliki's own ruling list, have told Reuters that the message that Washington would be open to Maliki leaving power has been delivered in diplomatic language to Iraqi leaders.

Recent meetings between Maliki and American officials have been described as tense. According to a Western diplomat briefed on the conversations by someone attending the meetings, U.S. diplomats have informed Maliki he should accept leaving if he cannot gather a majority in parliament for a third term. U.S. officials have contested that such a message was delivered.

A close ally of Maliki has described him as having grown bitter toward the Americans in recent days over their failure to provide strong military support.

The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, which has seized on the chaos to expand its northern territory to include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, blamed Maliki's "wrong policies" for the turn of events and joined calls for him to quit.

Massoud Barzani said Iraq was falling apart and reiterated a threat to hold a referendum on independence from the rest of the country.

"The time is now for the Kurdish people to determine their future," Barzani said in an interview with CNN. "We are living in an Iraq that is completely different from the Iraq of two weeks ago."

IRANIAN ACCUSATION

Jordanian army sources said Jordan's troops had been put in a state of alert in recent days along the 181-km (112-mile) border with Iraq, redeploying in some areas as part of steps to ward off "any potential or perceived security threats".

The Jordan border post was in the hands of Sunni tribesmen after government troops fled. An Iraqi tribal figure said there was a chance it would soon be passed to control of the militants, who seized the nearby crossing to Syria on the Damascus-Baghdad highway on Sunday.

He said he was mediating with ISIL in a "bid to spare blood and make things safer for the employees of the crossing. We are receiving positive messages from the militants."

The need to battle the Sunni insurgency has put the United States on the same side as its enemy of 35 years, Iran, which has close ties to the Shi'ite parties that came to power in Baghdad after U.S. forces toppled Saddam.

However, Iran's supreme leader made clear on Sunday that a rapprochement would not be easy.

"We are strongly opposed to U.S. and other intervention in Iraq," IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei as saying. "We don't approve of it as we believe the Iraqi government, nation and religious authorities are capable of ending the sedition."

Some Iraqi analysts in Baghdad interpreted Khamenei's comments as a warning to the United States to stay out of the process of selecting any successor to Maliki.

(Additional by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Isabel Coles in Arbil and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Oliver Holmes and Will Dunham; Editing by Peter Graff, Alastair Macdonald, Philippa Fletcher and Mohammad Zargham)

• Politics & Government
• Foreign Policy
• John Kerry
• Iraq
• President Barack Obama

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Opponents of Thai military regime launch campaign for democracy

By Alan Raybould

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Opponents of Thailand's junta launched a campaign on Tuesday to restore democracy and "oppose the military dictatorship and its aristocratic network", the first sign of organized resistance to the army since it seized power last month.

Jarupong Ruangsuwan, chairman of the Puea Thai Party that led the government ousted by the military, said in an open letter to fellow Thais that the military council had no legitimacy. He cast doubt on its promise to transfer power back to civilian authorities at some point.

The military's aim, he said, was to create "a new puppet structure whose sole purpose will be to re-entrench anti-democratic elements into Thailand's body politic and to sabotage the development of Thai democracy".

"Any such structure will need to be removed before a more democratic and civilized society can be built," he added.

His movement, the letter said, sought "to oppose the military dictatorship and its aristocratic network and establish the people's complete and unchallenged sovereignty".

The military staged a bloodless coup after months of street protests had undermined the government of Yingluck Shinawatra. The protesters wanted to kick out Yingluck and change the electoral system to stop her influential brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, from ever controlling the government again.

Yingluck was removed by the Constitutional Court for abuse of power on May 7, leaving a rump cabinet that was then ousted in the coup on May 22.

Thailand has been in crisis for almost a decade because of a power struggle between Thaksin and the royalist establishment backed by the army and the middle class in Bangkok.

Thaksin, a billionaire former telecoms tycoon, is adored by the poor in the rural north and northeast, because of policies such as cheap healthcare and village development that raised their living standards when he was in office from 2001.

He was toppled in a coup in 2006 and has chosen to live in exile since 2008 rather than serve jail time for an abuse of power conviction, but parties led by or loyal to him have won every election since 2001.

The junta moved quickly to neutralize resistance inside Thailand after its coup in May, briefly detaining hundreds of politicians and members of the pro-Thaksin "red shirt" movement and warning them not to work against the military government.

It was unclear how Jarupong's movement, the Organisation of Free Thais for Human Rights and Democracy, would oppose the junta and his letter did not reveal where it was based.

Jakrapob Penkair, a former spokesman for Thaksin, told Reuters from neighboring Cambodia on June 5 that a movement was being formed outside Thailand to lead a campaign of civil disobedience.

Cambodia's long-serving prime minister, Hun Sen, is close to Thaksin, but his government has said it will not allow a Thai resistance movement to base itself in the country.

(Edited by Ron Popeski and Jeremy Laurence)

• Politics & Government
• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Thailand
• Thaksin Shinawatra
• military dictatorship
• Yingluck Shinawatra
• Puea Thai Party

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Fighting strains Ukraine ceasefire, Putin urges dialogue

MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) - Fighting flared between Ukrainian and pro-Moscow separatist forces, both sides reported on Sunday, further straining a unilateral ceasefire declared by Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin pressed Kiev to talk to the rebels. Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, at separate ceremonies marking the anniversary of Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, both stressed the need to bring peace to Ukraine's rebellious east.

The seven-day ceasefire came under pressure almost as soon at it began on Friday night, with the government accusing the separatists of attacking its military bases and posts on the Russian border. The violence continued for a second night into Sunday.

"Unfortunately, what we are seeing ... tells us that the fighting is still going on and last night we saw some active use of artillery from the Ukrainian side," Putin said after laying flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow.

He said it was not clear whether artillery was used by the Ukrainian army or the "so-called paramilitary of the right-wing forces" supporting the government. He appeared to attach no blame to separatist forces.

Poroshenko wants Putin's unqualified backing for a 15-point peace plan he announced on Friday, before meetings with the European Union in the coming week. These will include the signing on June 27 of an association agreement with the bloc which includes a free trade deal.

In his comments published on the Kremlin website, Putin repeated his support for the ceasefire and peace plan in only general terms.

"We need to ensure that all fighting is stopped," he said. "Ultimately the political process is the most important. It is important that this ceasefire lead to dialogue between all opposing sides in order to find compromises acceptable for all."

Poroshenko told U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during a phone call on Sunday that Russian separatists continue to attack Ukrainian forces, including with artillery, despite the ceasefire, the White House said.

"The vice president reiterated that the United States was working closely with its G-7 partners to prepare further economic sanctions against Russia if Moscow did not take actions ... to stop the flow of arms and militants across the border and use its influence to publicly call on the separatists to lay down their arms," the White House added.

The insurgency in the largely Russian-speaking east erupted in April after street protests in the capital Kiev toppled the Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich. Russia subsequently annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and the West has accused Russia of supporting the insurgency. French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Putin by telephone on Sunday to work for the resumption of talks to end the conflict, Hollande's office said. The two leaders "reiterated the importance of ensuring full control of the Russia-Ukraine border to prevent the infiltration of gunmen and military equipment", the statement said. In Kiev, Poroshenko stressed the need for dialogue, saying his plan "was specifically put together to ensure peace, the laying down of weapons and to establish, through talks, a single united state", news agency Interfax Ukraine quoted him as saying. Ukraine's state border service reported further rebel attacks on its posts in Luhansk region on Sunday, while a separatist spokesman said Ukrainian forces were firing mortars at a village near the Russian frontier. In Donetsk region, which like Luhansk has declared itself a "people's republic", rebels reported a morning shootout with Ukrainian troops in Siversk, north of the city of Donetsk.

(Reporting by Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Aleksandar Vasovic in Siversk, Alessandra Prentice in Kiev, Laurence Frost in Paris and Mark Felsenthal in Washington; Editing by Richard Balmforth, David Stamp and Eric Walsh)

• Politics & Government
• Armed Forces
• Ukraine
• Interfax Ukraine

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Equipped with Humvees, ISIL clashes with rivals in Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL) battled with rival opposition fighters in northern Syria on Sunday, using U.S.-made military vehicles captured from neighboring Iraq for the first time, a monitoring group said.

ISIL, a splinter group of al Qaeda which wants to set up an Islamic caliphate encompassing both Iraq and Syria, has made rapid gains in Iraq in the past two weeks, taking control of the northern city of Mosul and major border crossings with Syria.

Its advances in Iraq appear to have spurred on the Syrian branch, which is fighting both the army of President Bashar al-Assad and also rival opposition groups such as the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, a more moderate force.

The Sunni Muslim ISIL fighters seized strategic Syrian towns near the Iraqi border from rivals last week.

For the first time, ISIL combatants have been using U.S-made Humvees - four-wheel drive military vehicles - in fighting in northern areas of Syria's Aleppo province, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The vehicles, which appear to have been seized during ISIL's recent Iraqi offensive, were used to gain control of villages outside the town of Azaz, close to the Turkish border, it said.

The Observatory, an anti-Assad group which tracks events on the ground through activists, said ISIL in Syria had been supplied with dozens of the vehicles from Iraq.

The United States has long supplied Humvees to the Iraqi army, which has been fighting an increasing violent insurgency since U.S. forces withdrew at the end of 2011.

ISIL fighters in Iraq have often seized abandoned military equipment from Iraqi forces, including armored vehicles.

The capture of border areas by ISIL on Sunday is likely to make it easier for the group to transfer equipment and fighters between the countries, where the conflicts have fed off each other.

As in Syria, ISIL has started to clash with other Sunni militias in Iraq. In the Iraqi town of Hawija, ISIL and members of the Naqshbandi Army, made up of former army officers as well as loyalists of Saddam Hussein's former ruling Baath party, battled for a third consecutive day on Sunday.

The Observatory also said on Sunday that ISIL had kidnapped 20 Kurdish students on a road in northern Syria, just weeks after the group abducted 145 students in Aleppo.

Relatives and residents are scared that ISIL will use kidnapped students to carry out car bombs or suicide attacks, the Observatory said.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Gareth Jones)

• Politics & Government
• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Syria
• Islamic State of Iraq

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Iran rejects U.S. action in Iraq, ISIL tightens Syria border grip

By Kamal Namaa

ANBAR Iraq (Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader accused the United States on Sunday of trying to retake control of Iraq by exploiting sectarian rivalries, as Sunni insurgents drove towards Baghdad from new strongholds along the Syrian border.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's condemnation of U.S. action came three days after President Barack Obama offered to send 300 military advisers to help the Iraqi government. Khamenei may want to block any U.S. choice of a new prime minister after grumbling in Washington about Shi'ite premier Nuri al-Maliki.

The supreme leader did not mention the Iranian president's recent suggestion of cooperation with Shi'ite Tehran's old U.S. adversary in defense of their mutual ally in Baghdad.

On Sunday, militants overran a second frontier post on the Syrian border, extending two weeks of swift territorial gains as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) pursues the goal of its own power base, a "caliphate" straddling both countries that has raised alarm across the Middle East and in the West.

"We are strongly opposed to U.S. and other intervention in Iraq," IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei as saying. "We don't approve of it as we believe the Iraqi government, nation and religious authorities are capable of ending the sedition."

Some Iraqi analysts interpreted his remarks as a warning to the United States not to try to pick its own replacement for Maliki, whom many in the West and Iraq hold responsible for the crisis. In eight years in power, he has alienated many in the Sunni minority that dominated the country under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Khamenei has not made clear how far Iran itself will back Maliki to hold on to his job once parliament reconvenes following an election in which Maliki's bloc won the most seats.

Speaking in Cairo, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States wanted Iraqis to find a leadership that would represent all the country's communities - though he echoed Obama in saying it would not pick or choose those leaders. "The United States would like the Iraqi people to find leadership that is prepared to represent all of the people of Iraq, that is prepared to be inclusive and share power," Kerry said. (Full Story)

The U.S. and Iranian governments had seemed open to collaboration against ISIL, which is also fighting the Iranian-backed president of Syria, whom Washington wants to see removed.

"American authorities are trying to portray this as a sectarian war, but what is happening in Iraq is not a war between Shi'ites and Sunnis," said Khamenei, who has the last word in the Islamic Republic's Shi'ite clerical administration. (Full Story)

View gallery

Members of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) take their positions during a patrol looking f …

Accusing Washington of using Sunni Islamists and loyalists of Saddam's Baath party, he added: "The U.S. is seeking an Iraq under its hegemony and ruled by its stooges." During Iran's long war with Saddam in the 1980s, Iraq enjoyed quiet U.S. support.

Tehran and Washington have been shocked by the lightning offensive, spearheaded by ISIL but also involving Sunni tribes and Saddam loyalists. It has seen swaths of northern and western Iraq fall, including the major city of Mosul on June 10.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized oil-rich Sunni Gulf states that he said were funding "terrorists" - a reference to the likes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar which have backed Sunni rebels against Syria's Iranian-backed leader, Bashar al-Assad.

"We emphatically tell those Islamic states and all others funding terrorists with their petrodollars that these terrorist savages you have set on other people's lives will come to haunt you," IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying on Sunday.

WESTERN OFFENSIVE

ISIL thrust east from a newly captured Iraqi-Syrian border post on Sunday, taking three towns in Iraq's western Anbar province after seizing the frontier crossing near the town of Qaim on Saturday, witnesses and security sources said.

They seized a second border post, al-Waleed, on Sunday. (Full Story)

The gains have helped ISIL secure supply lines to Syria, where it has exploited the chaos of the uprising against Assad to seize territory. It is considered the most powerful force among armed groups who seized Falluja, just west of Baghdad, and took parts of Anbar's capital Ramadi at the start of the year.

The fall of Qaim represented another step towards the realization of ISIL's military goals - erasing a frontier drawn by colonial powers carving up the Ottoman empire a century ago.

ISIL's gains on Sunday included the towns of Rawa and Ana along the Euphrates river east of Qaim, as well as the town of Rutba further south on the main highway from Jordan to Baghdad. Jordan said traffic had stopped arriving from Iraq.

An Iraqi military intelligence official said Iraqi troops had withdrawn from Rawa and Ana after ISIL militants attacked the settlements late on Saturday. "Troops withdrew from Rawa, Ana and Rutba this morning and ISIL moved quickly to completely control these towns," the official said.

"They took Ana and Rawa this morning without a fight."

IRAQ SPLINTERS

Military spokesman Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi said the withdrawal from the towns was intended to ensure "command and control" and to allow troops to regroup and retake the areas.

The towns are on a supply route between ISIL's positions in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, where the group has taken a string of towns and strategic positions over the past few days from rival Sunni forces fighting Assad.

The last major Syrian town not in ISIL's hands in the region, the border town of Albukamal, is controlled by the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's branch in Syria which has clashed with ISIL.

A monitoring group said on Sunday that ISIL fighters in northern Syria had for the first time been seen using U.S.-made Humvee all-terrain vehicles seized from the Iraqi army. (Full Story)

Disowned by al Qaeda in February after defying the global leadership to pursue its own goals in Syria, ISIL has pushed south down the Tigris valley since capturing Mosul with barely a fight, occupying towns and taking large amounts of weaponry from the collapsing, U.S.-trained Iraqi army.

Sunni militants also seized Tal Afar, west of Mosul, an Iraqi government official said late on Sunday. Tal Afar has been contested for a week after the military initially lost the community of Sunni and Shi'ite Turkmens and then kicked off a counter-offensive. Iraqi officials have wanted to use Tal Afar as a launching pad for rallying Mosul's Sunni population to oust ISIL.

Overnight, ISIL fighters attacked the town of al-Alam, north of Tikrit, according to witnesses and police in the town. The attackers were repelled by security forces and tribal fighters, they said, adding that two ISIL fighters had been killed.

State television reported that "anti-terrorism forces" in coordination with the air force had killed 40 ISIL members and destroyed five vehicles in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown.

There was a lull in fighting at Iraq's largest refinery, Baiji, near Tikrit, on Sunday. The site had been a battlefield since Wednesday as Sunni fighters launched an assault on the plant. Militants entered the large compound but were repelled by Iraqi military units. The fighters now surround the compound.

A black column of smoke rose from the site on Sunday. Refinery officials said it was caused by a controlled burning of waste.

At least 17 soldiers and volunteers were killed in overnight clashes with ISIL militants in the Saied Ghareeb area near Dujail, 50 km (30 miles) north of Baghdad, army and medical sources said. Near the city of Ramadi, west of the capital, a suicide bomber and a car bomb killed six people at a funeral for an army officer killed the previous day.

SUNNI CLASHES

Relations between diverse Sunni fighting groups have not been entirely smooth. On Sunday morning, clashes raged for a third day between ISIL and Sunni tribes backed by the Naqshbandi Army, a group led by former army officers and Baathists, around Hawija, southwest of Kirkuk, local security sources and tribal leaders said.

More than 10 people were killed in clashes, the sources said. On Friday, ISIL and Naqshbandi fighters began fighting each other in Hawija. Iraqi and Western officials have argued that ISIL and other Sunni factions may turn on each other after capturing territory.

The fighting has threatened to tear the country apart for good, reducing Iraq to separate Sunni, Shi'ite and ethnic Kurdish regions. It has highlighted divisions among regional powers, notably between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Iraq's Kurds have meanwhile expanded their territory beyond their autonomous region in the northeast, notably taking over the long-prized oil city of Kirkuk. Two Kurdish militiamen were killed by a roadside bomb there on Sunday, a police source said.

The government has mobilized Shi'ite militias and other volunteers to fight on the frontlines and defend the capital - thousands of fighters in military fatigues marched in a Shi'ite slum of the capital Baghdad on Saturday.

(Additional reporting by a correspondent in Tikrit, Ahmed Rasheed and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and Mehrdad Balali in Dubai; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz and Ned Parker; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Politics & Government
• Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
• Iran
• President Barack Obama
• Baghdad
• Iraq
• Syrian border
• Islamic State of Iraq

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Attack from Syria kills Israeli teen on Golan, Israel says

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An attack from inside Syria on Sunday killed a 13-year-old Israeli boy on the occupied Golan Heights, the first fatality on Israel's side of the frontier since the Syrian civil war began, relatives and the military said.

Israeli tanks fired at Syrian army positions in response to what an Israeli military spokesman described as an intentional attack. Israel launched more strikes later from the air and land at nine Syrian army positions, including a military headquarters, the army said. It confirmed direct hits on the targets.

The Defense Ministry said the teenager, an Arab citizen of Israel from a village in the Galilee, had accompanied his father, one of the ministry's civilian contractors, to the Golan, and that two other people were wounded in the incident.

Israeli officials initially said the boy, Mohammed Qaraqara, was 15. Relatives said he was 13. "He was an excellent student, everyone loved him," his cousin, Salah Qaraqara, 52, told Reuters.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the attackers of indiscriminate killing of Israeli citizens.

"The enemies of the state of Israel use all means, they don't hesitate to attack civilians and kill children ... they do not differentiate between Israel's Jewish and non-Jewish citizens," he said.

A military spokeswoman said an anti-tank missile fired from Syria across the frontier fence on the Golan had struck the water tanker in which Qaraqara had been traveling.

"This is the most substantial event that we have had on the border with Syria since the beginning of the (Syrian civil) war," a military spokesman said.

Shelling from the Syrian civil war has occasionally spilled over onto the Golan, including what Israel has said were deliberate attacks on its troops. Israel captured the western part of the plateau from Syria in a 1967 war and annexed it in a move that is not internationally recognized. While the Syrian army has a presence on the Golan, some areas are controlled by rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, including al Qaeda-inspired militants hostile to the Jewish state.

Israel says Hezbollah guerrillas from Lebanon are also operating, on Assad's behalf, on the Golan. Israeli officials have voiced concern that Israel will increasingly become a target during and after the Syrian conflict.

Last March, four Israeli soldiers were wounded in a roadside bombing along the Golan frontier. Israel responded to that incident by launching air strikes against Syrian military sites.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, Dan Williams, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Ori Lewis, Editing by Jeffrey Heller, Rosalind Russell and Mohammad Zargham)

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Politics & Government
• Golan Heights
• Israel
• Syria

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Pakistani police clash with supporters of anti-government cleric

By Syed Raza Hassan

RAWALPINDI Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani police fired tear gas on Monday to disperse crowds of supporters of a prominent anti-government cleric who was due to arrive in the country to lead a self-proclaimed revolution against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

A Reuters reporter at the scene said about 2,000 supporters of Tahirul Qadri, who is usually based in Canada, clashed with police outside an airport near the capital Islamabad where the cleric had been due to land at 7 a.m. on Monday.

Amid chaotic scenes at Benazir Bhutto International Airport, it was not immediately clear if his plane had landed as planned.

Police cordoned off major roads leading to the airport with cargo containers and blocked mobile phone services to prevent protesters from communicating with each other.

Qadri, who champions religious tolerance and once issued a fatwa against the Taliban, is a divisive figure in Pakistan where he made headlines last year when he led mass rallies against the previous government.

His sudden ascent to prominence has prompted speculation that the military, which ruled Pakistan for decades, may be using him as a proxy in its efforts to sideline the civilian government.

"Long live the army!" and "Revolution will come!" chanted his supporters who had gathered outside the airport in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad.

In remarks issued on the eve of his expected return, Qadri said he was ready to lead a "revolution" against the government and praised the army.

His reappearance comes at a tense time in Pakistan after the army announced an all-out offensive against militants on the Afghan border, triggering a wave of refugees from the region.

Sharif, who was once toppled by the military and has an uneasy relations with the army, has long been opposed to military action and the decision to send troops there was seen as a major win for the army.

(Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

• Politics & Government
• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• RAWALPINDI Pakistan

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More