06 Apr 2012 OSINT Levant Tracker

UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO The CENTCOM

This OSINT publication contains foreign media derived entirely from open sources in and around the CENTCOM AOR.

06 April 2012

EGYPT Mass Protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square: Arutz Sheva Protests erupted in Egypt's symbolic Tahrir Square with thousands chanting "A constitution for every citizen!" The demonstration was initiated by political parties and movements opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and their attempt to take control of state institutions and the constitution. Challenging Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood from the Inside: Haaretz Now Egypt is awash with candidates, posters on walls and polls, pictures of would-be presidents filling the city plazas, and most of all, the absence of the feeling that there is only one leading and familiar candidate, freeing the voter from the burden of making a choice. Egypt: Military to Hand Over Power on June 30th, Ready or Not: Bikya Masr The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) member Maj. Gen. Mamdouh Shahin said in an official government statement to press, “SCAF will hand over the power on June 30 whether the constitution is set or not.” Egypt to Extend Absentee Ballot Registration: Bikya Masr Egypt’s Foreign Ministry’s request an extension in the period of registration for Egyptian expatriates in the upcoming presidential elections, which has been accepted by the Higher Presidential Elections Commission. Egypt: Life of the Egyptians Party: Bikya Masr Prominent Liberal Member of the Parliament Mohamed Abu Hamed, announced the establishment of a his new political party, called The Life of the Egyptians (Hayat Al Masryeen) on Wednesday. The MP and cofounder, told a news conference at the party headquarters, that the party will not be compromising with any political movement claiming to be a spokesman of the religion, and gives its ideas the holiness of religions, or trying to change the Egyptian identity and discriminates against people of one nation. Egypt: Anti-Shater Campaign on Facebook: Bikya Masr A number of Facebook users in Egypt created a page against the nomination of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leader Khairat Al Shater for presidential elections, following the announcement of the nomination, and with the support of the Freedom and Justice Party. Egypt's Journalists' Syndicate Withdraws from Constituent Assembly: Ahram Online Gamal Fahmy, Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate council member, announced on Thursday that the syndicate will officially withdraw from the constituent assembly, the body mandated to write Egypt's new constitution. Coalition at Al Azhar wants to End Alliance with Egyptian Government: The National A coalition of young sheikhs and imams attached to the renowned university and mosque is pressuring it to end its longtime alliance with the Egyptian government. In their view, the 1,000-year-old institution has become a tool used by government officials to quell dissent. They have been joined in their demand for reform by the Muslim Brotherhood, the most influential force in Egypt's new, democratically elected parliament. US Tie could Bar Salafist from Run for Egyptian Presidency: Now Lebanon Salafist sheikh Hazem Abu Ismail could be barred from pursuing his bid for Egypt's presidency because his mother held a US passport, the electoral commission said on Thursday. ISRAEL / GAZA Pilgrims Fill Jerusalem for Good Friday, Passover: Now Lebanon

OSINT Phone #: 813.827.1441 - Email: [email protected]

UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Christians and Jews in the Holy Land were on Friday set to begin marking their most important festivals as Good Friday and Jewish holiday of Passover coincided. Netanyahu Slams German Writer's Comments on Israel: Ma’an News Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said it was no surprise that German writer Guenter Grass, who for decades had hidden his membership of the Nazi Waffen SS, had described Israel as a threat to world peace. Abbas Urged to Investigate Land Day Violence: Ma’an News Palestinian civil society and activists on Wednesday urged President Abbas to investigate attacks on demonstrators during a rally to mark Land Day. Egypt: No Evidence of Sinai Rocket Launch: Ma’an News Egyptian officials disputed Israeli assessments showing that rockets which struck the city of Eilat were fired from Egypt's Sinai desert. JORDAN Friday Protests to Urge Release of Activists: Jordan Times Islamists, leftists and independent activists across the Kingdom plan to hit the streets on Friday to protest against the ongoing detention of youth activists, which they claim represents an “attack” on the pro-reform movement. Senate Panel Places Restrictions on Lawmakers’ Pensions: Jordan Times A joint Senate panel comprising members of the legal affairs and financial and economic affairs committees on Thursday suggested that only deputies and senators who have at least ten years of service as members of Parliament are entitled to life pensions. King Meets Qatari Army Chief: Petra His Majesty King Abdullah II on Thursday met with Chief of Staff of the Qatari Armed Forces Major General Hamad bin Ali al- Attiyah who conveyed to the King greetings of the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. LEBANON Soueid: Geagea’s Assassination would’ve 'Weakened' Sunni Sect: Now Lebanon March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soueid said that if Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea had been assassinated then the Sunnis in Lebanon would have been “weakened.” U.S. says Geagea's Targeting Possibly Due to Views on Syria, Hezbollah: The Daily Star U.S. Department of State spokesperson Mark Toner said his country suspects that Samir Geagea’s attempted assassination may have been due to his criticism of President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah. Italian PM in Lebanon on Saturday, Expected to Meet Senior Officials: Naharnet Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti is expected to arrive in Lebanon on Saturday on a one-day official visit, An Nahar newspaper reported. Abu Faour: Hezbollah’s Stance on Syrian Refugees ‘Positive’: The Daily Star Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour said in remarks published on Friday that Hezbollah’s stance regarding Syrian refugees in Lebanon was “positive.” Al-Rahi Urges End of Corruption in Easter Message: Naharnet


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi called on Good Friday for an end to violence and urged politicians to steer clear of corruption and the use of power for personal gains. Jumblatt Denies PSP will Quit Cabinet if Proportional Representation Approved: Now Lebanon Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt denied he would withdraw his minister from the cabinet if it approves an electoral law based on proportional representation. SYRIA Al-Hayat: Syrian Embassy in Lebanon Smuggling Weapons: Now Lebanon Lebanese security forces apprehended two days ago a Lebanese military vehicle put at the disposal of the Syrian embassy transporting unlicensed weapons toward Syria, Al-Hayat newspaper reported on Friday. Defiant Syria is Upgrading its Military Capabilities: Jerusalem Post Despite the ongoing internal unrest, Syria is continuing to upgrade its military capabilities and recently declared a number of new surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs) operational. Syrian Envoy Lashes Out at Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia: Now Lebanon Syria's UN envoy demanded that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Western nations not undermine Kofi Annan's peace mission by paying and supporting opposition groups. Iran, Hezbollah Significantly Increase Aid to Syria's Assad: Haaretz Iran and Hezbollah have significantly stepped up support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, Western intelligence reports have revealed. Foreign Ministry Stresses Rejection of Pillay's Statements: SANA Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates stressed Syria's utter rejection of earlier statements by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in which she appeared to have neglected her work to become an attorney general against the countries whom the Western countries choose to target. Syria Revolt Hampered by Disunity, Supply Failures: Ma’an News Syrian activist Mahmoud Ali walked for two days across rugged hills to Turkey to collect a satellite phone and video equipment promised by dissidents in exile, only to draw a blank. "It has been all in vain," he said. "Communications in most of Idlib have been cut for three months and we cannot get a Thuraya (satellite) phone because of the incompetence, or corruption, of the opposition on the outside." Security Council Adopts Statement that Sets April 10th as Deadline for Cease-fire: SANA UN Security Council Thursday adopted a presidential statement that sets April 10th as deadline for cease-fire in Syria. Syrian Tanks in Action Four Days Before Pullout Date: The Daily Star Syrian troops and tanks battled rebels on Friday, opposition activists said, only four days before a troop pullback agreed by President Bashar Assad as part of international envoy Kofi Annan's plan to end a year of bloodshed. Refugee Flow Quickens as Syrian Deadline Approaches: The Daily Star Turkish officials say more than 2,800 Syrians fled into Turkey from the region of Idlib, focus of military action, during Thursday - a sharp increase from the flow, well below a thousand, on most previous days. EDITORIALS


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

The Military vs. the Muslim Brotherhood: Interview with an Egyptian Colonel: Huffington Post Suddenly, two months ago, the news from Egypt was no longer in the streets. You couldn't look out the window at Tahrir Square, at Mohamed Mahmoud, at the sit-in outside Parliament. You had to do what political journalists and dinner party conversationalists do in most places -- interpret shrouded speeches and sudden decisions, watch for subtle shifts and buried implications in the fight between powerful institutions. You had to speculate. Here was the Brotherhood's risky nomination of a mysterious string-puller for the presidency, there was the military council's warning, veiled but soaked with suggestion: "We ask everyone to be aware of the lessons of history to avoid mistakes from a past we do not want to return to, and to look towards the future." Syria's WMD Threat: The National Interest.org Buoyed by the loyalty of his Alawite community, Bashar al-Assad has acted ruthlessly to crush dissent in Syria. His brutality has outraged the international community, but that has not deterred Assad. And the worst may lie ahead. Will Assad employ his weapons of mass destruction to quell dissent? And what will happen to his WMD arsenal should—President Obama now says “when”—Assad’s regime collapses? US Willfully Blind on Syria: Now Lebanon Following the conclusion of the latest meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People in Istanbul last week, there has been speculation about a possible shift in US policy. However, the confusion that has plagued Washington’s thinking remains, as the administration continues to miss the issue that is confounding its regional allies—Iran. Even after Istanbul, the White House is still willfully blind to the major issue that is driving its allies’ push for decisive action. Two Bullets and a Ballot: The Daily Star It has been a busy few weeks for the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. On Wednesday he dodged a bullet—in fact two—just days after organizing a rally to commemorate the dissolution of his party in 1994. This followed Geagea’s high-profile criticisms in mid-March of two leading Maronite figures, Patriarch Bechara al-Rai and Michel Aoun—both men for defending the Syrian regime, and the second for having assailed the Sunni community. Nasrallah’s Loyalty to Assad could Isolate Hezbollah: Ya Libnan Like many Syrians, Mazen, 35, revered Mr. Nasrallah for his confrontational stance with Israel. He considered Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party, as an Arab champion of the dispossessed. But now that Hezbollah has stood by Mr. Assad during his deadly yearlong crackdown on the uprising against his rule, Mazen sees Hezbollah as a sectarian party that supports Mr. Assad because his opponents are mainly Sunnis. Brotherhood Crushed in 1954: Could History Repeat itself in 2012?: Ahram Online History sometimes repeats itself, but Egypt's powerful political force maybe in better shape after the Jan 25 revolution vis-à-vis the ruling generals compared to 1954 when the Brotherhood was decimated by then-president Nasser Israeli-Palestinian Peace: A Special Regime Option for the Old City of Jerusalem – Analysis: Eurasia Review Jerusalem will probably be the toughest issue in any future Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The other three core issues – borders/settlements, security, and Palestinian refugees – will also be very difficult, but Jerusalem is at a different level. Jews, Muslims, and Christians worldwide have strong attachment to the city and its many holy sites. For Israelis and Palestinians, Jerusalem is the focal point of national, cultural, and religious identities and aspirations. Their conflicting claims are based on long history and narratives that do not accommodate the other. Opinion: What Marwan Barghouti Really Means to Palestinians: Ma’an News Last week Marwan Barghouti, the prominent Palestinian political prisoner and Fatah leader, called on Palestinians to launch a "large-scale popular resistance" which would "serve the cause of our people."


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Supporting Documentation:

EGYPT (Top)

06 April 2012 Arutz Sheva Mass Protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square Protests erupted in Egypt's symbolic Tahrir Square with thousands chanting "A constitution for every citizen!" The demonstration was initiated by political parties and movements opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and their attempt to take control of state institutions and the constitution. The leading Muslim Brotherhood candidate for the presidency has tried to lure members of the ultra-conservative Salafi al-Nour party into backing him by promising the create a supragovernmental council of Islamic clerics who would have the right to veto legislation. 06 April 2012 Haaretz Challenging Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood from the Inside One cannot help but be impressed by the buildup to the election in Egypt, which for the first time in 60 years is experiencing uncertainty. Suddenly, the stability which determined who the next president of Egypt will be left the Egyptian citizen with one of two possibilities: vote for the incumbent or stay at home in protest. No more. Now Egypt is awash with candidates, posters on walls and polls, pictures of would-be presidents filling the city plazas, and most of all, the absence of the feeling that there is only one leading and familiar candidate, freeing the voter from the burden of making a choice.

(U) Egyptian Muslim cleric and candidate for the Egyptian presidency Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, center, is guarded by his supporters as he enters Tahrir Square for a protest against the military council. Photo by: AP Every week has its rising star. In the early days of the revolution it was Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei who grabbed headlines as a possible Mubarak replacement. After him came Amr Mussa, the former Secretary General of the Arab League, who tried to promote himself with a program to advance Egyptian technological and academic learning. A long list of names followed.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Omar Suliman, who headed Egypt's intelligence service, flip-flopped between announcing his candidacy, retracting it, and announcing it again. A process that came to an end on Wednesday, when he announced that he wouldn’t be able to overcome the difficulties he is facing and therefore he will not be throwing his hat into the race. These difficulties are mostly related to the fact that being associated with the Mubarak regime, the supporters of the revolution that ousted Mubarak cannot support his head security of security. Suliman was also offended by Mussa’s statement that it was the Egyptian military that was pushing for Suliman’s presidential drive as a counterbalance to Khairat al-Shate, the Muslim Brotherhood's nominee. Mussa’s opponents take care to remind him that he was appointed foreign minister by Mubarak, who also pushed for his election as Secretary General of the Arab League. Mussa prefers to present himself as an independent liberal, unsupported by the military and in opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, who “everyone knows” made a deal with army. But the Muslim Brotherhood candidate al-Shate has his work cut out for him. He is opposed from the religious camp by Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a religious leader, senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, lawyer and former Member of Parliament, who in the past few months has been promoting a radical religious agenda, which includes the strict implementation of Islamic law, the banning of “promiscuous beach tourism,” the banning of alcohol and the rehabilitation of the religious school system. Abu Ismail is no small challenge for the Muslim Brotherhood, who are running a public relations campaign in the United States, meeting with senior officials in the administration and with members of the American business community, and whose leaders are releasing statements assuring the world that they intend to keep to the Camp David agreements and to their supporters presenting a strong opposition to the military council. On the other hand, they must appeal to their public and explain where exactly their religious agenda is hiding. The result is that al-Shate announced this week that he intendeds to establish an organization dedicated to the supervision of morality, not a morality police per se, rather an administration dedicated supervising the implementation of Islamic Sharia law. But it seems that the Muslim Brotherhoods heavy ammunition against Abu Ismail lay elsewhere. “Somebody” posted rumors on the web that his mother holds a American passport and that his sister lives in the U.S. Suddenly, the anti-American crusading religious leader is exposed as a son of an American. The hit to his prestige is significant but more so is the Egyptian law stating that an Egyptian president must be a son of two Egyptians, which means his mother’s passport bars him from running. Abu Ismail is waging a battle for his political life and the court, which is still waiting on his mother’s documentation, will have to rule on whether he can run or whether he must leave the stage clear for the Muslim Brotherhood. But in the meanwhile, he is everyone’s hero: causing both the Muslim Brotherhood and the liberals to shudder as they sit on the sidelines, watching as a scandal that was supposed to discredit him simply making him more popular. And if that is not enough, reports have surfaced this week about the vast sums of money his election campaign has amassed. “Where did he get 11 million Egyptian Liras to run his campaign,” Egyptians asked on Facebook. One could also wonder who is behind the campaign to smear him. It is doubtful whether Abu Ismail will become Egypt’s next president, even if his mother is found sufficiently Egyptian. But uncertainty is a central aspect of these elections making them for the first time real elections.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

06 April 2012 Bikya Masr Egypt: Military to Hand Over Power on June 30th, Ready or Not

(U) Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi has been the transitional leader of Egypt since 2011. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) member Maj. Gen. Mamdouh Shahin said in an official government statement to press, “SCAF will hand over the power on June 30 whether the constitution is set or not.” Shahin said in his statement this week that no one has to intervene in the affairs of the Constituent Assembly because it is the third born after the elections of both the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council, stressing that the Egyptians are the master of their own decision. The SCAF has been the custodial government in Egypt since the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Egyptians are quite eager to see an elected representational government come to power for the first time in Egypt’s recorded history. 06 April 2012 Bikya Masr Egypt to Extend Absentee Ballot Registration

(U) Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry’s request an extension in the period of registration for Egyptian expatriates in the upcoming presidential elections, which has been accepted by the Higher Presidential Elections Commission (HPEC). The period has been prolonged for one week, until April 11, the Spokesman for the Foreign Ministry Amr Roshdy said in a statement to Bikyamasr.com. Under Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr’s directives, all Egyptian embassies and consulates will continue offering help to Egyptians abroad to enlist them for the polls, said Roshdy. 05 April 2012 Bikya Masr Egypt: Life of the Egyptians Party

(U) Mohamed Abu Hamed held up a spent shell casing in parliament, as evidence state security forces were using live ammunition on demonstrators. Prominent Liberal Member of the Parliament Mohamed Abu Hamed, announced the establishment of a his new political party, called The Life of the Egyptians (Hayat Al Masryeen) on Wednesday. The MP and cofounder, told a news conference at the party headquarters , that the party will not be compromising with any political movement claiming to be a spokesman of the religion, and gives its ideas the holiness of religions, or trying to change the Egyptian identity and discriminates against people of one nation. Abu Hamed said that the new party will struggle to prevent all forms of exploitation of religion in politics, while working on a mechanism for the development of religious discourse, using academics whom specialize in this area of the party members and cadres, in collaboration with religious entities. Abu Hamid also confirmed that more than 75% of the membership of the party is allocated for young people, whose ages do not exceed 45 years, They are effective and active cadres who will start a large project for the party who seeks to contest the forthcoming local council elections with complete lists of young people. Bikya Masr 05 April 2012 Egypt: Anti-Shater Campaign on Facebook A number of Facebook users in Egypt created a page against the nomination of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leader Khairat Al Shater for presidential elections, following the announcement of the nomination, and with the support of the Freedom and Justice Party.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

The users of Facebook launched a page to represent a campaign against the nomination of the MB group senior member Khairat Al Shater, entitled “I Will Not Vote For Khairat Al Shater,” with the slogan “ share it amongst all Egyptians” in protest. The number of members of the page amounted to 131,201 people since its creation, one day following the announcement of his candidacy. The campaign to support the nomination of Shater for the presidency, has launched an official face book page on 31 March, the same day of his announcement to run for presidential elections. The participants in the anti-Shater campaign, posted a number of videos of some public figures and members of the Muslim Brotherhood who had announced their resignation from the group, refusing the nomination of Shater. 05 Apr 2012 Ahram Online Egypt's Journalists' Syndicate Withdraws from Constituent Assembly Following protests by members, the journalists' syndicate will withdraw from the body that will write Egypt's next constitution

(U) Liberal MP Amr Hamzawy, and Gamal Fahmy, press syndicate council member (Photo: Sarah Mourad) Gamal Fahmy, Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate council member, announced on Thursday that the syndicate will officially withdraw from the constituent assembly, the body mandated to write Egypt's new constitution. Fahmy supported the protest by members of the syndicate last Tuesday which demanded the syndicate's withdrawal from the assembly. Fahmy said that the press syndicate postponed announcing their decision on whether or not they would withdraw because the head, Mamdouh El-Waly, who is considered to be an Islamist, refused to withdraw.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

However, El-Waly finally agreed, arguing that it is not possible for the constituent assembly to include only Islamists, and lack the full spectrum of society from Al-Azhar and the Coptic Orthodox Church, to many liberal forces, and professional and workers' unions. The constituent assembly members' list was announced on Sunday 25 March. Sixty-five percent of the members are Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist political parties, leading many liberals and leftists to reject the assembly's legitimacy. 05 Apr 2012 The National Coalition At Al Azhar wants to End Alliance with Egyptian Government The upheaval that began last year in the streets of Sidi Bouzid, Cairo and Benghazi has left no government ministry or parliament in the Arab world untouched. Now, the ferment has crept into the worldwide centre of Sunni Islamic learning: Al Azhar.

(U) Sheikh Rabei Marzouk is the spokesman for a 10,000-strong coalition of imams pushing for Al Azhar's independence from the government. David Degner for The Nation A coalition of young sheikhs and imams attached to the renowned university and mosque is pressuring it to end its longtime alliance with the Egyptian government. In their view, the 1,000-year-old institution has become a tool used by government officials to quell dissent. They have been joined in their demand for reform by the Muslim Brotherhood, the most influential force in Egypt's new, democratically elected parliament. Deftly taking advantage of their power to appoint Al Azhar's Grand Sheikh, successive Egyptian presidents starting with President Gamel Abdel Nasser in 1961 have benefited from the government-friendly fatwas issued by the institution - to the detriment of the institution, say the reform-minded young clerics. The struggle among the clerics of Al Azhar over whether the venerable institution should declare its independence from the Egyptian state could have more far-reaching repercussions than the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

For more than a billion of the world's Sunni Muslims, the views and policies promulgated by Al Azhar are seen as an authoritative counterweight to extremist movements within Islam. The clash over Al Azhar's ties to the Egyptian government flared in the waning days of Mubarak's rule, with a generation of young clerics seeing the protests for political change in Cairo's streets as an historic opportunity to push for the religious reforms they had long sought. The grievances of the clerics, who call themselves the Coalition of Revered Al Azhar Pundits, stem from what they feared was the institution's lapse into irrelevance amid a cacophony of powerfully amplified voices competing for the minds and hearts of young Muslims, according to Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Democracy. "The role of Al Azhar has been diminished over the years because it lost its independence," Mr. Masmoudi said. "When Al Azhar and other moderate scholars and leaders lose independence and credibility, the people and especially the youth turn to satellite channel stations dominated by the [extremist] Salafis and the Wahhabis." After Mubarak was forced from office, Egypt's new rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), were sufficiently attuned to the disquiet at Al Azhar to rush through a law in January that they said would give it greater autonomy. The law, approved just days before Egypt's new parliament was sworn in, reactivated the Senior Scholars Authority, a group of 40 senior Azhar officials, as the sole body for appointing a new leader. Members of the Coalition of Revered Al Azhar Pundits remain dissatisfied. They have criticised the new law, saying it preserves the status quo by allowing the current Grand Sheikh, Ahmed El Tayeb, a scholar appointed to the top position of Al Azhar by Mubarak in 2010, to stay in power until he dies or is no longer fit for his post. Their calls to overturn the law have received the support of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party, which now enjoys the largest bloc of seats in parliament. "Both the Azhar institution and Scaf will be mistaken if the bill is ratified since it bypasses elected parliamentarians chosen to represent the will of the people and treads on their mandate," Khairat Al Shater, deputy chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, said after the law was published. Rabei Marzouk, a coalition spokesman and the imam of Al Rahman mosque on the island of Zamalek in Cairo, said his group of 11,000 Azhar sheikhs are now working with the new religious committee of the parliament to repeal the law. 05 April 2012 Now Lebanon US Tie could Bar Salafist from Run for Egyptian Presidency Salafist sheikh Hazem Abu Ismail could be barred from pursuing his bid for Egypt's presidency because his mother held a US passport, the electoral commission said on Thursday. Under the electoral law, all candidates for the presidency, their parents and their wives must have only Egyptian citizenship.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Commission chief Hatem Begato said the agency had received information according to which Ismail's mother had "used an American passport for travel to and from Egypt" before her death. A statement given to journalists said "Nawal Abdel Aziz Nur, the mother of presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, held a US passport with the number 500611598." Citing the Interior Ministry's passport department, it said she had used the document for travel to the United States and Germany, as well as within Egypt. The commission said files would be examined on April 12 and 13 and that any candidate not fulfilling the requirements would be informed. Those rejected would then have 48 hours to appeal. The final list of candidates will be announced on April 26, the statement said. Abu Ismail's supporters have said they will demonstrate in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to protest against the possible invalidation of his candidacy. Abu Ismail launched his candidacy on March 30 with a large motorcade that headed to the electoral commission headquarters in Cairo. He advocates a strict interpretation of Islam similar to the one practiced in Saudi Arabia and has become a familiar sight in Cairo, with his posters adorning many cars and micro buses. The May election will mark the beginning of a handover of power by the ruling military to an elected civilian leader, following last year's popular uprising that overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak. Abu Ismail will compete with more moderate Islamist candidates, such as senior Muslim Brotherhood figure Khairat al-Shater, as well as former regime figures such as Amr Moussa, an ex-foreign minister who headed the Arab League, and former premier Ahmad Shafiq. Islamists have made big strides since Mubarak's ouster, winning majorities in elections to both houses of parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party won the most seats in parliamentary elections earlier this year, but the Salafists captured nearly a quarter themselves.

ISRAEL / GAZA (Top)

06 April 2012 Now Lebanon Pilgrims Fill Jerusalem for Good Friday, Passover Christians and Jews in the Holy Land were on Friday set to begin marking their most important festivals as Good Friday and Jewish holiday of Passover coincided. As Jewish families completed the last-minute preparations for Passover, which begins at sundown and commemorates how the Israelites escaped from slavery in Egypt, thousands of Christians were gathering in and around the Old City to remember the crucifixion and burial of Jesus.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Ahead of the holidays, the Israeli military imposed a two-day closure on the West Bank, saying it would only allow Palestinians access into Israel for emergency medical or humanitarian reasons. According to the account in the Gospels, Jesus, who was Jewish, was betrayed just hours after eating the traditional Passover meal with his disciples at a house in Jerusalem. Hours later, he was condemned to death and forced to carry his cross to the crucifixion site on a hill outside the city, known as Golgotha, or "place of the skull" in Aramaic. Christian pilgrims mark the anniversary every year by walking from the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives then along the path where Jesus walked, now known as the "Via Dolorosa" or the "Way of Suffering." The march ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the middle of the Old City, an ancient sprawling shrine which Orthodox and Catholic Christians believe was built on the original site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. Other quiet remembrance ceremonies were to take place at the nearby Garden Tomb, an alternative site outside the Old City walls which some believe is the true site of the crucifixion. Known as Gordon's Calvary after the British general who discovered it in 1894, the site houses a rock-cut tomb and a hillside which looks like a skull, believed to be Golgotha. According to the Gospels, Jesus was crucified and buried a day after he celebrated Passover, then rose from the dead on the morning of what has become known as Easter Sunday -- the most important day of the year for Christians. 06 April 2012 Ma’an News Netanyahu Slams German Writer's Comments on Israel By Ori Lewis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday it was no surprise that German writer Guenter Grass, who for decades had hidden his membership of the Nazi Waffen SS, had described Israel as a threat to world peace. In a poem published earlier this week, the Nobel Prize-winning writer criticized Israel and said it must not be allowed to launch military strikes against Iran. "Guenter Grass's shameful moral equivalence between Israel and Iran, a regime that denies the Holocaust and threatens to annihilate Israel, says little about Israel and much about Mr. Grass," a statement from Netanyahu's office said. Grass, 84, a seasoned campaigner for left-wing causes and a critic of Western military interventions, such as in Iraq, also condemned German arms sales to Israel in his poem "What must be said", that was published on Wednesday. "For six decades, Mr. Grass hid the fact that he had been a member of the Waffen SS. So for him to cast the one and only Jewish state as the greatest threat to world peace and to oppose giving Israel the means to defend itself is perhaps not surprising," Netanyahu added.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Grass's words were also criticized in Germany, where any strong condemnation of Israel is taboo because of the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust. Grass's own moral authority has never fully recovered from his 2006 admission that he once served in Hitler's SS. "Why do I say only now ... that the nuclear power Israel endangers an already fragile world peace? Because that must be said which may already be too late to say tomorrow," Grass wrote in the German-language poem. "Also because we - as Germans burdened enough - may become a subcontractor to a crime that is foreseeable," he wrote, adding that Germany's Nazi past and the Holocaust were no excuse for remaining silent now about Israel's nuclear capability. "I will not remain silent because I am weary of the West's hypocrisy," wrote Grass, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 for novels such as "The Tin Drum" chronicling the horrors of 20th century German history. Israel is widely assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed nation, which it neither confirms nor denies. These could be carried by Dolphin submarines that it has bought, at a sharp discount, from Germany. Action against Iran The Jewish state has threatened to take military action, with or without US support, to halt what it sees as a nuclear threat from Iran. Tehran says it is developing nuclear technology for purely peaceful purposes. "It is Iran, not Israel, that is a threat to the peace and security of the world. It is Iran, not Israel, that threatens other states with annihilation ... decent people everywhere should strongly condemn these ignorant and reprehensible statements," Netanyahu added. Germany said recently it would sell Israel a sixth Dolphin submarine and shoulder part of the cost, although it also cautioned its ally that any military escalation with Iran could bring incalculable risks. One of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany, the SS was first an elite force of volunteers that played a key role in the Holocaust, operating the death camps in which millions died. But by the war's end, most were drafted and many under 18 years old. Grass said he was called up to join the SS as a teenager and insisted that he never fired a shot. But some critics inside and outside Germany said this explanation had come too late. Grass made the confession shortly before publishing his autobiography "Peeling Onions" which details his war service. 06 April 2012 Ma’an News Abbas Urged to Investigate Land Day Violence Palestinian civil society and activists on Wednesday urged President Mahmoud Abbas to investigate attacks on demonstrators during a rally to mark Land Day. A coalition of NGOs and civil society leaders called on the president to form an "independent and transparent" committee to investigate an attack on MP Mustafa Barghouti, who was injured at a demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah on March 30.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Barghouthi, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, was "attacked by unidentified individuals" at the rally, said a joint statement from the Palestinian NGO network, PLC members and civil society leaders. "We ask that the people behind these attacks be held accountable in a non-partisan fashion and that their actions be recognized as an unconscionable attempt to derail the peaceful popular resistance struggle," the statement said. The group, which held a meeting Wednesday in Ramallah, urged national and Islamic factions "to take a firm stand and reject the type of behavior behind the Land Day attacks." Palestinian police on Saturday opened an investigation into Barghouti's injury. An aide said the same day the lawmaker was injured by a tear-gas canister fired by Israeli forces. She said the police were informed of the circumstances during their visit to the hospital. An Israeli military spokeswoman had disputed the account. The Red Crescent said medics treated 249 protesters for injuries and 20 people were hospitalized after Israeli forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and chemical water at demonstrators. Troops damaged three ambulances and nine medics were injured, the Red Crescent said. 05 April 2012 Ma’an News Egypt: No Evidence of Sinai Rocket Launch Egyptian officials disputed on Thursday Israeli assessments showing that rockets which struck the city of Eilat were fired from Egypt's Sinai desert. An Egyptian security official in the southern Sinai, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Egyptian-Israeli border was "intensively secured", and no one had detected a flash of light or sound on Wednesday. No casualties or damage were reported after the rocket struck the Israeli resort town, police said, but the incident fueled Israeli worries over militant activity in the border area. An Egyptian security source told Reuters in Cairo that forces were searching the area along the border but had not found any evidence indicating any rockets had been fired from the Sinai. The head of Eilat police, Ron Gertner, told Israeli Army Radio that explosions were heard in Eilat soon after midnight. Police found the remains of one rocket in a construction site, about 400 meters from a residential area. Asked if the rocket was fired from Sinai, Gertner said: "Based on our working assumptions and the range, yes." Officials in Israel have been worried that the Sinai has become a base for Islamist militants since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's downfall last year. "For a long while now we have been seeing that the Sinai peninsula is turning into a launching ground against the citizens of Israel, for terror," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the attack. It was launched a day before the start of the Jewish Passover holiday, which commemorates the exodus of the biblical Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Eilat is expected to be full of vacationers during the week-long holiday.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

The Israel-Egypt border had been relatively quiet since the two countries signed a peace agreement in 1979. But Israel says that since Mubarak was overthrown, Cairo has lost its grip on the Sinai and militants are exploiting the lawlessness.

JORDAN (Top)

06 April 2012 Jordan Times Friday Protests to Urge Release of Activists Islamists, leftists and independent activists across the Kingdom plan to hit the streets on Friday to protest against the ongoing detention of youth activists, which they claim represents an “attack” on the pro-reform movement. Amman is expected to be the epicentre of protests over the recent arrests of members of the Kingdom’s popular youth movements, with Islamists and leftist parties holding separate demonstrations in the capital, according to organisers. The Muslim Brotherhood is set to organise a rally at the University of Jordan following noon prayers to protest against last week’s arrest of some two dozen activists as well as to call for fighting corruption. The rally comes amidst speculation that the Kingdom’s largest opposition group is set to make a “surprise political announcement” during the rally, with expectations ranging from a shift in the movement’s position on upcoming elections to the unveiling of the Muslim Brotherhood’s new leadership. Islamists are also scheduled to hold a separate rally in downtown Zarqa under the slogan “From Tafileh to Zarqa, reform is a right and a virtue.” Meanwhile, leftist and independent activists plan to hold marches in downtown Amman and outlying governorates in solidarity with 19 activists who have been arrested and referred to the State Security Court (SSC) over the last month and face charges of slandering the King and inciting unrest, which could earn each three to 10 years in prison. Although the detainees and their supporters admit that they chanted slogans defaming the Monarch and inciting unrest — in direct violation of the Penal Code — activists claim the slogans fell within the boundaries of their right to free speech. “There is no room for red lines in a modern, democratic country and we will continue our protests to protect the freedom of speech in Jordan,” said Fakher Daas, member of the leftist Wihda Party and organiser of Friday’s downtown march. Pro-reformists are also slated to rally in Karak, Maan, Theeban and Salt with a large-scale protest planned for Tafileh: the hometown of the majority of the detainees. “We want to show our rejection of security agencies’ attempts to intimidate and silence the pro-reform movement,” said Muath Btoush of the Karak Popular Youth Movement. Friday’s protests come against the backdrop of the arrest of some 40 participants in an Amman demonstration last week protesting the detention of six Tafileh activists.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Authorities released 27 of the demonstrators, referring the remaining 13 to the SSC for allegedly raising slogans defaming the Monarch and calling for “regime change”. Earlier in March, security personnel arrested six Tafileh activists and referred them to the SSC on similar charges, sparking protests across the country urging their release. In contrast to other Arab states, Jordan’s protest movement has been largely peaceful, with some 1,000 demonstrations since the start of the Arab Spring ending without incident. 06 April 2012 Jordan Times Senate Panel Places Restrictions on Lawmakers’ Pensions

(U) Members of the Senate legal affairs and financial and economic affairs committees discuss the 2010 amendments to the Civil Retirement Law in Amman on Thursday, April 5, 2012 (Petra photo) A joint Senate panel comprising members of the legal affairs and financial and economic affairs committees on Thursday suggested that only deputies and senators who have at least ten years of service as members of Parliament are entitled to life pensions. The panel was discussing the 2010 amendments to the Civil Retirement Law, which were rejected by the Lower House late last year because the amended law stipulated that parliamentarians are not entitled to retirement payments, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. The House made changes to the law, adding a controversial provision to grant incumbent and former members of the two Houses pension salaries for life, regardless of the period of their service. During the meeting, headed by Senate President Taher Masri, the joint committee revisited Article 7 of the legislation to stipulate that members of the two Houses of Parliament are to be given lifetime pensions depending on the length of their services, setting 10 years as the minimum actual service as lawmakers.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

In addition, the panel recommended that the government come up with a law that ensures justice and equality among ministers and Parliament members in terms of pensions, Petra reported. In December last year, the Lower House rejected the 2010 amendments to the Civil Retirement Law made by the government of former prime minister Samir Rifai. Under the proposed law, members of both Houses were not to be given lifetime pensions, but MPs insisted instead on reinstating the 1999 amendments to the 1959 legislation, which granted MPs and senators pensions for life without counting duration of service as a condition. Earlier this week, the Senate Legal Affairs Committee rejected the Lower House’s controversial amendments to the 2012 Passports Law. The panel rejected deputies’ amendments to Article 9 of the 2012 Passports Law, under which Royal family members, as well as serving and former premiers, ministers, Royal Court chiefs, King’s advisers, senators, MPs and chief Islamic justices are to be given permanent diplomatic passports. The MPs’ decision to give themselves and their predecessors permanent diplomatic passports had triggered public anger over the past week, with several people criticising deputies for busying themselves with obtaining personal gains at the expense of citizens and the country. Also this week, several deputies threatened to effectively paralyse the Lower House by boycotting sessions and preventing them from proceeding due to lack of quorum if the Senate does not approve giving parliamentarians lifetime pensions. A deputy, who preferred to remain unnamed, told The Jordan Times previously that 15 to 20 MPs plan to boycott House sessions if the Senate refuses to endorse the 1999 amendments to the Civil Retirement Law, under which Parliament members are to be given lifetime pensions. 05 Apr 2012 Petra King Meets Qatari Army Chief

Unclassified


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

His Majesty King Abdullah II on Thursday met with Chief of Staff of the Qatari Armed Forces Major General Hamad bin Ali al- Attiyah who conveyed to the King greetings of the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. Talks during the meeting, attended by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lieutenant-General Mashal Mohammed Zaben, dealt with means of boosting bilateral ties and issues of common interest. The King bestowed upon Maj. Gen. al- Attiyah the Military Merit Medal of the First Order.

LEBANON (Top) 06 April 2012 Now Lebanon Soueid: Geagea’s Assassination would’ve 'Weakened' Sunni Sect March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soueid said in remarks published on Friday that if Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea had been assassinated then the Sunnis in Lebanon would have been “weakened.” On Wednesday, snipers targeted Geagea outside his Maarab residence in the district of Kesrouan, but failed to hit him. “Murder, in politics, is used to change a particular situation, and killing a [prominent Christian ally] like Samir Geagea implies that [the perpatrators’] negotiations with the Sunni [political faction] would become [easier],” Soueid told Kuwaiti newspaper As-Seyassah. “For example, why was [Future bloc leader MP] Fouad Siniora not targeted, although his office is located in Ras Beirut and his residence is not far away from this area?” Soueid explained that targeting Siniora could have caused Sunni-Shia strife, whereas a hit on Geagea would merely “have weakened the Sunni [sect].” The Future bloc is primarily comprised of Sunni MPs. The Future Movement is led by former PM Saad Hariri who is an influential Sunni leader and one of Geagea’s strongest allies in the Western-backed March 14 coalition. The March 14 General Secretariat on Wednesday called on Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi to transfer the shooting attempt against Geagea to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. 06 April 2012 The Daily Star U.S. says Geagea's Targeting Possibly Due to Views on Syria, Hezbollah

(U) State Department spokesman Mark Toner. (Reuters)


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

U.S. Department of State spokesperson Mark Toner said Thursday his country suspects that Samir Geagea’s attempted assassination may have been due to his criticism of President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah. “While we do not know who was behind the attack at this time, we are deeply concerned that Mr. Geagea may have been targeted because of his outspoken criticism of the Assad regime’s murderous repression and [Hezbollah]’s destabilizing actions in Lebanon,” Toner said in a statement. An investigation was launched into Wednesday's failed attempt to assassinate Geagea with security forces launching a hunt for the culprits. Geagea said Wednesday he had escaped an assassination attempt when sniper fire was directed at his residence in Maarab in Kesrouan, and warned that the political killings of the last decade may have yet to end. He also said the incident had required expertise, claiming that the shots had been fired at least one kilometer from the target site. In his statement, Toner said that the U.S. condemned in the strongest terms what appears to be an assassination attempt on the Lebanese Forces leader, calling on the government of Lebanon to thoroughly investigate the incident. “Lebanon and the international community have sought to bring about an end to impunity for political assassinations with the 2009 establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) to investigate the assassinations of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and other public figures from 2004 to 2007,” the statement added. It also reiterated Washington’s support for the work of the U.N.-backed court which in late June of last year accused four Hezbollah members of involvement in the assassination of Hariri and 22 others. “We call on the Government of Lebanon to cooperate fully with the Tribunal, including arresting those named in the 2011 indictment and providing funding to the Tribunal’s operations for 2012,” it said. Geagea has always been a strong critic of Syria’s policy in Lebanon and has repeatedly criticized Hezbollah’s possession of arms, accusing them of destabilizing the country. 06 April 2012 Naharnet Italian PM in Lebanon on Saturday, Expected to Meet Senior Officials Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti is expected to arrive in Lebanon on Saturday on a one-day official visit, An Nahar newspaper reported. The daily said that the PM will visit his country’s contingent in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon which is headed by Italian commander Maj. Gen. Paolo Serra. The UNIFIL command was handed over to Serra in January 2011. UNIFIL as a whole has around 12,000 soldiers from 35 countries and is led by a large Italian contingent. Monti will also hold separate meetings with President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Miqati.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

A source told An Nahar that Monti’s meetings will tackle the bilateral ties with Lebanon. He will also voice his support for the country. The source said that the Lebanese officials will discuss with the Italian PM Israel’s continued occupation of the northern part of the village of Ghajar. Monti will also address the turmoil in neighboring Syria. 06 April 2012 The Daily Star Abu Faour: Hezbollah’s Stance on Syrian Refugees ‘Positive’ Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour said in remarks published on Friday that Hezbollah’s stance regarding Syrian refugees in Lebanon was “positive.” “[Hezbollah] has not taken a negative step regarding the issue of the Syrian refugees,” Abu Faour told As-Safir newspaper. He also said that the stances of Hezbollah and Amal Movement ministers were “rational,” adding that the ministers are dealing with the file “in its humanitarian dimension.” Thousands of Syrians have fled the unrest in their country, which according to UN has left over 9,000 people killed since protests erupted in strife-stricken Syria in mid-March 2011. Lebanon’s political scene is split between supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, led by Hezbollah, and the pro-Western March 14 camp. 06 April 2012 Naharnet Al-Rahi Urges End of Corruption in Easter Message

Unclassified


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi called on Good Friday for an end to violence and urged politicians to steer clear of corruption and the use of power for personal gains. In his Easter message, al-Rahi rejected theft of public money and bribery. Without naming them, the patriarch said officials should be committed to the public good and reconstruction. He said each person should work for justice and end hatred. He preached the liberation from the chains of slavery and ending revolt against the will of God. The patriarch also called for peace in Lebanon, the world and Arab countries whose people revolted to enjoy democratic systems that would allow them to live in dignity and engage in public life. Meanwhile, Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said President Michel Suleiman and al-Rahi will hold closed-door talks in Bkirki on Sunday to discuss the details of Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Lebanon in September. Suleiman will attend Easter mass celebrated by al-Rahi in Bkirki. 06 April 2012 Now Lebanon Jumblatt Denies PSP will Quit Cabinet if Proportional Representation Approved Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt denied in remarks published on Friday that he would withdraw his minister from the cabinet if it approves an electoral law based on proportional representation. “No one suggested proportionality except for Interior Minister Marwan Charbel, and no one has discussed the issue with us,” Jumblatt told Al-Akhbar newspaper. Lebanese parties are presently debating the electoral law for the upcoming 2013 parliamentary elections. After the parliament agreed on drafting a law based on proportional representation, some parties rejected the proposed law and called for adopting the 2009 electoral law, which is based on simple majoritarian representation.

SYRIA (Top) 06 April 2012 Now Lebanon Al-Hayat: Syrian Embassy in Lebanon Smuggling Weapons Lebanese security forces apprehended two days ago a Lebanese military vehicle put at the disposal of the Syrian embassy transporting unlicensed weapons toward Syria, Al-Hayat newspaper reported on Friday. The daily also said that the vehicle had the license plate of a Syrian embassy vehicle and that an officer previously accused of abducting Syrian dissidents was inside. March 14 figures and Syrian activists have claimed that the Syrian Embassy in Lebanon is complicit in the mysterious disappearances of a number of Syrians in Lebanon.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

More than 9,000 people have been killed in an almost year-long crackdown on dissent against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, according to the UN. 06 April 2012 Jerusalem Post Defiant Syria is Upgrading its Military Capabilities By YAAKOV KATZ

(U) Damascus recently declared number of new surface-to-air missile systems operational; IDF modifies way it flies in North. By REUTERS/Sana Sana Despite the ongoing internal unrest, Syria is continuing to upgrade its military capabilities and recently declared a number of new surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs) operational. Over the past year, Syria has received a number of SA- 17 batteries from Russia under a deal signed several years ago. Two batteries are already reportedly operational and deployed along Syria’s border with Lebanon. A third is undergoing training. As a result, the IDF has modified the way it flies in the North and particularly when conducting missions over Lebanon, where it continues to fly to gather intelligence on Hezbollah activities. Also known as the Buk System, the SA-17 has a range of about 30 km. and can intercept multiple targets flying at altitudes of over 40,000 feet. The launchers are mounted on trucks and are mobile, making them difficult targets. Another system that recently became operational is the Yakhont anti-ship missile which has the Israeli Navy concerned about the possibility that it will also be transferred to Hezbollah ahead of a future conflict. Syria already tested the Yakhnot in recent maneuvers and it is said to be a sophisticated missile with a range of about 300 km. At least 10,000 people are believed to have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began a year ago.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

“The military is not overly affected by the resistance and is continuing with its procurement plans as well as the integration of new capabilities into operational service,” a senior IDF officer recently explained. In addition to establishing the new SAM batteries, Syria is also believed to be in talks with Russia about upgrading some of its older model combat aircraft with structural overhauls as well as the installation of new avionics. Syria is believed to have invested billions of dollars in the past 10 years in new SAMs aimed at undermining Israel’s ability to operate in Syria or Lebanon in a future war. Israel fears that some of the systems might make their way into Hezbollah hands in Lebanon such as the SA-8 truck mounted system. Israel is concerned with the increase in the transfer of weaponry from Syria to Lebanon in recent months. Hezbollah is believed to have obtained several dozen more M-600 long-range missiles, as well as additional 302 mm. Khaibar-1 rockets, which have a range of about 100 km. It is already believed to have a significant arsenal of M600s, which are manufactured in Syria as a clone of Iran’s Fateh-110. The M600 has a range of around 300 km. It can carry a half-ton warhead and has superior accuracy. Israel’s primary concern is with the possibility that Hezbollah will get its hands on some of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. Western countries have prepared various contingency plans for such a scenario, including the possible bombing of such a convoy if it were detected and the possible insertion of commando forces to secure the chemical stockpile if and when Assad falls. 06 April 2012 Now Lebanon Syrian Envoy Lashes out at Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia Syria's UN envoy on Thursday demanded that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Western nations not undermine Kofi Annan's peace mission by paying and supporting opposition groups. As President Bashar al-Assad's government faced growing international pressure, Syrian UN envoy Bashar Jaafari said opposition groups must give a written commitment not to take advantage of any withdrawal by government troops from Syrian cities. UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan says Syria has agreed to a six-point peace plan and an April 10 deadline to withdraw troops and heavy weapons from cities, but is still continuing military operations in urban areas. Western nations have expressed strong doubts that Assad will comply with the plan. After Annan brief the UN General Assembly, Jaafari lashed out at Gulf Arab states for their "petrodollar" support for Syrian opposition groups and at Turkey for hosting a Friends of Syria meeting last weekend. "We need to get commitments from the Qataris, from the Saudis, from the Turks, from the French, from the USA, that Annan should be given a chance in order to succeed," Jaafari said. "We need a crystal-cut commitment and a guarantee by Mr. Annan himself -- after he consults with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the others -- that once the government will observe and will respect the end of violence, the other parties will do the same and will not fill the vacuum," he added.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

He said the agreement was "an integral part" of the deal between Annan and the Syrian government. In answer to widespread doubts from Western governments that Assad forces will end hostilities, Jaafari said the Syrian government was "committed" to making the Annan plan work. Annan earlier told the UN General Assembly that there were "alarming" casualties despite the Syrian government's agreement to the peace plan. UN leader Ban Ki-moon said "the violence and assaults in civilian areas have not stopped. The situation on the ground continues to deteriorate." 06 April 2012 Haaretz Iran, Hezbollah Significantly Increase Aid to Syria's Assad Reports say Iranian officers, Hezbollah militants have supplied arms to Syrian troops and trained them to aid Assad in his months-long effort to crack down on anti-regime protests. Iran and Hezbollah have significantly stepped up support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, Western intelligence reports have revealed. The reports say that Iranian officers and Hezbollah militants have supplied arms to Syrian troops and trained them, to aid Assad in his months-long effort to crack down on anti-regime protests in the country. They also show that Hezbollah fighters were killed in clashes with rebel forces.

(U) Syrian youths viewing a Damascus street through damage from a tank attack in a residential neighborhood. Photo by: AP Israeli defense officials told Haaretz this week that the potential fall of the Assad regime prompted Iran and Hezbollah to increase their involvement in the Syrian crisis. According to the officials, even though the Iranians believe Assad will survive the uprising, they are still preparing for a scenario whereby he is toppled, in order to maximize their influence on a post-Assad Syria. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, backed by Military Intelligence information, said that Assad is past the point of no return and that his regime, which is enjoying less and less domestic and international legitimacy, is likely to implode. Barak did not specify a time frame. In late 2011, he incorrectly predicted that Assad’s fall would occur “within weeks.”


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Analysts in Israel and the rest of the world were unimpressed with Assad’s declaration of victory in the flashpoint city of Homs earlier this week. Many say that Syria is sliding further into anarchy, and that it may meet the criteria of a “failed state” even before the regime collapses. Israeli officials are also skeptical about former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s recent efforts to put an end to the protracted crisis. Recent data reveal that more than 10,000 people have been killed in clashes since the unrest began early last year. Some 20 percent of those killed were believed to be Assad loyalists; more than 80 percent were thought to belong to the opposition. The number of armed rebels is estimated at more than 10,000, but they suffer from chronic shortage of supply and interruptions in international support. Iranian assistance to Syria, which has been ongoing for years and is dubbed “the shadow army” by Israel, consists of extensive arms shipments, which include rockets, mortars and anti-aircraft missiles that could be used against a potential air strike campaign by international forces, as well as riot dispersal means. The so-called shadow army was coordinated by Imad Mughniyeh and Mohammed Suleiman, who were killed in two separate incidents in 2008. Syria and Hezbollah claim the two were assassinated by Israel. Iranian and Hezbollah assistance to Assad also includes the training of Syrian troops in urban warfare, as well as drone operations. Western intelligence reports reveal that Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials frequently make top-secret visits to Syria to advise the regime on how to deal with the rebels. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has beefed up the deployment of its troops along the Lebanon-Syria border, in an attempt to prevent arms spillover from Lebanon to Sunni opposition groups. Unlike Hamas, which ended its presence in Syria almost overnight after the crisis began, Hezbollah still maintains close ties with the Syrian regime and uses bases and ammunition reservoirs on Syrian territory. The reports have also found traces of global jihad activity in Syria, mostly Al-Qaida and its ideological subsidiaries. The members of these organizations are mainly Sunni radicals, who arrived in Syria after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in December last year. It is likely that these groups are behind the recent spate of car bomb attacks in Damascus and its vicinity. 06 April 2012 SANA Foreign Ministry Stresses Rejection of Pillay's Statements Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates stressed Syria's utter rejection of earlier statements by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in which she appeared to have neglected her work to become an attorney general against the countries whom the Western countries choose to target. In a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, the Ministry said "It was supposed that the High Commissioner assumes responsibility for her post about the human rights' violations in Syria by armed terrorist groups, choosing instead to compile lies and fabrications and market them as if they were facts without bothering to verify them.'' ''It is really strange that she used the UN human and financial resources against Syria, based on lies and calls outside her jurisdiction,'' added the letter. The Ministry said that the Commissioner's bias against Syria has become evident as she turns a blind eye to terrorism targeting the Syrian people at the hands of armed groups with an external funding, adding that she disregards the ample evidence of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the armed groups.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

It also indicated that the Commissioner remained non-committal as regards 6, 143 Syrian citizens killed by the terrorist groups and 1, 590 citizens who were kidnapped, the fate of two thirds of whom remain unknown. ''It would have been better had the Commissioner stuck to objectivity and professionalism as it would have helped in preventing killing more Syrians,'' added the ministry. The Ministry clarified that the International Investigation Committee which the Commissioner claimed to have based her statements on stressed that there is no other alternative to comprehensive national dialogue which brings all the Syrian sides together to support reforms away from violence, which Syria has been calling for and opposition groups rejected. ''The Commissioner has rejected to consider the acts of terrorist groups as crimes against humanity, although all standards of identifying crimes against humanity apply to them, and chose instead to level this accusation at the state which is doing its duty in protecting its own people,'' said the ministry. The Ministry concluded ''Syria is committed to its responsibility in probing all allegations of human rights violations, but the Commissioner hasn't shared any of the allegations it received, nor has it worked to provide national or even peaceful solutions, which clearly means that the Commissioner has to review her stances on Syria.'' 06 April 2012 Ma’an News Syria Revolt Hampered by Disunity, Supply Failures By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

(U) A Syrian soldier, who has defected to join the Free Syrian Army, holds up his rifle and waves a Syrian independence flag in the Damascus suburb of Saqba. (REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah, File) Syrian activist Mahmoud Ali walked for two days across rugged hills to Turkey to collect a satellite phone and video equipment promised by dissidents in exile, only to draw a blank. The soft-spoken teacher, wanted by the Syrian authorities for membership of the grassroots Local Coordination Committees, had dodged landmines, helicopters, army shelling and roadblocks in his home province of Idlib to reach the border.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

"It has been all in vain," he said. "Communications in most of Idlib have been cut for three months and we cannot get a Thuraya (satellite) phone because of the incompetence, or corruption, of the opposition on the outside." Ali's story encapsulates the logistical shortcomings of a year-long popular uprising that has morphedn in places, into an insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who derides his divided opponents as foreign-backed Islamist "terrorists". The 27-year-old says he wants to show the world peaceful anti-Assad protests as well as tank and artillery bombardment of dozens of towns and villages in Idlib province which are still under fire despite plans for a UN-backed ceasefire next week. Assad has agreed to UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's plan for Syrian troops to pull back from restive towns and cities by April 10 before a truce with rebels and a political dialogue, but the Syrian leader's critics mistrust his intentions. Militarily, the outgunned insurgents are in disarray, but a year of bloodshed which the United Nations says has cost more than 9,000 lives has failed to quell the anti-Assad rising. It is the haphazard effort to aid the struggle in Syria that angers Ali and others exposed to Assad's wrath - 40 out of 45 of his LCC comrades in central Idlib have been arrested or killed. Ali was told that the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) had sent $17,000 to an operative in the Turkish city of Antakya to buy him cameras, satellite phones and internet video broadcasting equipment, but when he contacted the operative he was given a run-around and returned empty-handed to Syria. Internal squabbling "The SNC are squabbling and drafting plans for a post-Assad Syria while not getting simple logistical requirements right," Ali fumed. "The regime cannot annihilate the revolt, but the revolt will not be able to topple it without outside support." Prodded by Western and Arab powers alarmed by opposition disunity, the SNC said last week it would close ranks with its critics and help the revolt in Syria, where activists rage at woeful shortages of medical supplies and communications kit. SNC head Burhan Ghalioun promised efforts to arm and finance the rebel Syrian Free Army, but said it was paramount to support those organising peaceful protests at the heart of the revolt. "The opposition's performance has been below expectations," Ghalioun, a secular Paris-based academic, said of the fractious council in which the Muslim Brotherhood has a strong presence. Human rights lawyer Catherine al-Talli, who spent time in jail after leading a protest in a Damascus suburb, said the SNC must loosen the Brotherhood's grip on aid distribution, accusing the Islamists of channeling supplies only to their supporters. "Activists like Ali with no political affiliation have no one to help them," said Talli, who quit the SNC two months ago. "Outside the SNC, you have individuals giving aid to their own regions, instead of thinking of the homeland as a whole, which weakens the revolt and costs more lives," she complained.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Brotherhood sympathisers disagree with this portrayal of their role. "A Brotherhood official heads the SNCs relief committee but they do not monopolise it, and money is equally distributed to activists' groups on the inside," said Islamist SNC member Abdelrahman al Haj. "We must not forget though that the Brotherhood has its own relief and aid organisation." None of this has eroded Ali's adhesion to a cause he joined early in the revolt against 42 years of Assad family rule. "I shouted for freedom and it felt so good, although I was afraid," he said, acknowledging that once-daily protests were now limited to Fridays after prayers and funerals of "martyrs". Ali recalled the humiliation he had felt as a conscript in 2007 when military intelligence had forced all those in his battalion to "pierce our fingers and write yes with our blood to Bashar on ballot papers" in a presidential referendum. 'Corruption and blackmail "Everything became riddled with corruption and blackmail. The lowest security official could throw me out of my job and control my destiny," he said of his $200 a month teaching post in Idlib before he went on the run seven months ago. Ali, who used to supplement his income with bee-keeping, would bribe officials not to transfer him away from Idlib. Idlib, along with the neighbouring province of Hama, bore the brunt of repression when Assad's father, the late Hafez al-Assad crushed an armed Islamist uprising in the 1980s. Syrians were quiescent for decades after those bloody events, in which the military destroyed Hama's Old City, but activists say they will no longer stay silent. Abdelbasset Othman, 17, a high school student who helped guide Ali across territory riddled with Syrian tanks and snipers, said 15 tanks and armoured vehicles had occupied his home village of Izmarin on the border with Turkey this week. "The mayor went around neighbourhoods reading a statement by their commander that they will paint over (anti-Assad) graffiti and will shell any building where it re-appears. We have nothing to resist with, but we will not be subdued," he said. Nevertheless, hundreds of civilians are fleeing military assaults. Turkish officials say more than 1,600 have crossed the border in the past two days. More than 3,000 Syrian refugees now occupy the white tents of a new camp erected in farmland southwest of Antakya against a backdrop of snowcapped peaks. Two veteran dissidents who fled Syria to escape a wave of killings of human rights campaigners and protest leaders said the revolution would triumph despite the lack of supplies. "This is a popular revolution where three-quarters of the population is against the regime. The army is having to storm cities and towns several times over and every time the revolt picks up," said Fawaz Tello, a leader of the 2001 "Damascus Spring" movement who spent five years as a political prisoner. Mortal struggle


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

"The two sides are locked in a struggle to death and in the end one side will triumph. It will not be Bashar." Tello said activists in Syria had to "hold on for a couple more months as the international position turns against Bashar and the supply problem, civilian and otherwise, is solved". Fellow-dissident Mazen Adi said poorly-armed rebels were focusing on guerrilla tactics and broadening the popular support base, rather than mistaken attempts to hold urban strongholds which were then subjected to withering army bombardments. "The rebels tried to fight open battles with the army and hold on to cities in the hope of encouraging more army defectors but the regime simply shelled these areas mercilessly and the civilian population suffered greatly," Adi said. 06 April 2012 SANA Security Council Adopts Statement that Sets April 10th as Deadline for Cease-fire UN Security Council on Thursday adopted a presidential statement that sets April 10th as deadline for cease-fire in Syria. During a session held today, Suzan Rice, the US Envoy to the UN and the current President of the Council, called on the conflict sides, as government and opposition, to stop violence and settle the crisis in Syria through peaceful ways. "The statement reiterated the Council's support to Anna's plan and his call for the need to end applying it on April 10th according to the understanding between him the Syrian government which had informed Annan of its commitment to the context of the plan," Syria's permanent Envoy to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said in a statement to SANA through telephone. He added that the Syrian government declared through written correspondents with Annan its commitment to the April 10th deadline, in turn, it asked Annan with personal guarantee, to get written commitments from the armed groups and their sponsors, particularly Qatar and Saudi Arabia to stop violence, halt massacres and engage in a national comprehensive dialogue. In a televised speech to members of the UNSC, the UN Envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan reiterated that Damascus has committed to withdrawing its forces from the cities and inhabited complexes and halting the use of heavy weapons against the armed opposition groups till April 10th. He called for the necessity of respecting Syria's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity in any political democratic solution for the crisis in Syria. Annan underlined that the Syrian acceptance for his 6-point plan was an important step towards cooperation to find a Syrian comprehensive process to meet the Syrian people's legitimate demands, adding "Syria has committed to this point and appointed a mediator for this process." "Halting violence is one of the most important points in the plan to reach a solution to the crisis in Syria… the Syrian government has underlined that it withdrew forces from three regions; Idleb, Zabadani and Daraa, but the armed groups are still attacking the governmental forces," Anna said, adding that there will be steps to verify this in the forthcoming days.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

He stressed that all sides must move on April 10th to halt all forms of violence in order to reach a complete stop to the acts of violence after 48 hours, calling on the government and opposition to give their orders to reach the inform to all places. During today's session, UN secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, called all sides to support Annan's plan to solve the crisis in Syria, adding "priority will be give now for the halt of violence and bloodshed by all side. 06 April 2012 The Daily Star Syrian Tanks in Action Four Days Before Pullout Date By Mariam Karouny Syrian troops and tanks battled rebels on Friday, opposition activists said, only four days before a troop pullback agreed by President Bashar Assad as part of international envoy Kofi Annan's plan to end a year of bloodshed. The renewed violence erupted a day after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the conflict was worsening and attacks on civilian areas persisted, despite assurances from Damascus that its troops had begun withdrawing under the plan. U.N.-Arab League mediator Annan said "more far-reaching action is urgently required" to halt all forms of violence by April 12, following a withdrawal of the military's heavy weapons and troops from cities two days earlier. But activists reported tank fire in at least three urban centers on Friday -- the town of Douma near Damascus, the restive city of Homs and Rastan, north of Homs. "Tanks went into Douma last night, then they left. Today at 7 in the morning they came back. There has been shelling on Douma since the morning. We are not sure if people were killed but the shelling did not stop," a local activist said. "At least 5 tanks and 10 buses loaded with security men and Shabiha (pro-Assad militia) entered Douma," he said. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops were fighting Free Syrian Army rebels in Douma as well as in Rastan on the highway between Homs and Hama cities. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Army shelling of villages in the northwestern province of Idlib has prompted a swelling exodus of Syrian refugees. More than 2,800 fled into Turkey on Thursday, a Turkish official said, more than double the highest previous one-day total. The refugees all crossed close to the Turkish village of Bukulmez and more were waiting on the other side of the border, the official said. Forty-four minibuses ferried the arrivals from the border to a refugee camp at Reyhanli. "The army is destroying buildings and bombing them till they turn to charcoal," said Mohammed Khatib, a refugee who said he came from Kastanaz, a Syrian town of 20,000 people.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

"The army wants people to move out of their houses. If the residents refuse, they destroy them with the people inside." More than 42,000 Syrians have fled their country since the revolt against 42 years of Assad family rule began a year ago. Loyalist forces have killed over 9,000 people, by a U.N. tally. Syria says 6,044 have died, including 2,566 soldiers and police. Annan told the U.N. General Assembly by video link from Geneva that the Syrian authorities had told him this week troop withdrawals were under way in the towns of Deraa, Idlib and Zabadani. But he said he wanted "fuller information". Western powers are not convinced Assad will honour the promised truce and believe he may seek loopholes giving him more time to cripple the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and deter protesters. It is also uncertain whether the FSA has enough control over its fighters to enforce Annan's ceasefire deadline. Syria's U.N. ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said the plan did not require any pullback of police - who have played a big role in the conflict as suggested by the state's own casualty toll. Last year the opposition said troops had disguised themselves as police and repainted army vehicles in police colors before the arrival in December of Arab observers sent to monitor what proved an abortive Arab League peace plan. A Norwegian general attached to U.N. peacekeeping arrived in Damascus on Thursday to examine prospects for an eventual U.N. ceasefire monitoring mission of up to 250 unarmed observers, something which would require a Security Council resolution. The council, where Russia and China have vetoed two previous Syria resolutions, agreed on Thursday to a statement urging Damascus to meet Annan's ceasefire deadline. 06 April 2012 The Daily Star Refugee Flow Quickens as Syrian Deadline Approaches By Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Can Sezer

(U) Syrian refugees stroll at Islahiye refugee camp in Gazintep April 3, 2012. (REUTERS/Osman Orsal)


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Syrian firefighter Ahmad Zakzak clutched his stomach as he lay in a Turkish hospital, his back bleeding from a shrapnel wound suffered in a tank bombardment of a small town in Syria's nearby Idlib province. Zakzak is one of thousands of refugees who have fled towns and villages they say are being pummeled with tank and artillery fire in a renewed assault by President Bashar Assad's forces ahead of an April 10 U.N. deadline for a government ceasefire. "I'm not worried about the wounds I can see. I'm afraid that I have internal bleeding," the 45-year-old gasped, crying out from the pain of his wounds. "I'm in the rescue business and I know. God damn you, Bashar Assad, you spare no one!" With the surgery theatre full, a doctor jumped between seven other wounded Syrians in the emergency room. Ambulance sirens wailed. More wounded arrived, ferried across rugged terrain over the border by smugglers and Free Syrian Army rebels. Turkish officials say more than 2,800 Syrians fled into Turkey from the region of Idlib, focus of military action, during Thursday - a sharp increase from the flow, well below a thousand, on most previous days. Assad says his forces have been battling foreign backed Islamist militants in the year-old uprising and denies civilians are being targeted by anyone except those militants. Zakzak set out early Thursday from his home city of Aleppo, Syria's commercial center, to the village of Killi in Idlib to rescue his 20-year-old daughter when he heard the army was bombarding the area. Telephone lines have been cut for weeks. "I got there and helicopters started hitting the streets with machine guns. I escaped from my car and a young guy on a motorcycle helped me. I jumped on with him only to see a tank in front of us. It fired a shell in our direction and he was killed instantly," Zakzak said. "I could not recognise Killi. The roads were full of rubble. Shells were hitting everywhere," he said. Mohammed Khatib, a refugee who said he came from Kastanaz, a Syrian town of 20,000 people, told a similar tale. "The army is destroying buildings and bombing them till they turn to charcoal," he said. Syrian activists in the refugee camps said most newcomers had crossed from Killi and other areas in east and north Idlib. The influx has turned the small Turkish town of Reyhanli, an Arab settlement once famous for making the finest carpets in Ottoman Syria, into a refugee hub. The journey is dangerous. The Orontos River, which marks the border, is famous for its strong currents. Syrian army tents could be seen pitched amid lush farmland on the other side of the border. Syrian opposition activists said four refugees were shot dead trying to cross the river this week, and a 16-year-old boy drowned. The activists said the Syrian army fired at and sank barrels used as makeshift boats pulled by ropes.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

"Behind the tents there are army machine gun positions. If Assad lets the people escape you would see hundreds of thousands of Syrians here," said Mohammad Hijazi, who was elected as a representative of refugees in Boynuyogun camp, one of several camps Turkish authorities set up right on the border. "Every time the regime is given a deadline it is a catastrophe. Assad interprets it as a license for unlimited killing and another deadline is set," Hijazi said, referring to international envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan. "Assad wants to tell the Syrians never say no again." Refugees and activists reported hundreds of casualties from the shelling in the last few days, including 120 people killed in the last 48 hours in Taftanaz in Idlib, which was stormed by 50 tanks and armored vehicles. "I was caught by tank fire in the middle of Taftanaz after making several trips in to take relatives out. The doctor has drugged me to the point that I can't feel anything," said Ayman Shallah, who owns an interior decorating business and was hit from the waist down by seven bullets and shrapnel pieces. Accounts of the violence cannot be verified because Syrian authorities have placed tight restrictions on access by independent media. Under a U.N. plan agreed with Damascus, Syrian forces should cease operations and withdraw from settlements by April 10. Rebels should then cease fire within 48 hours. U.N. special envoy Annan said on Thursday he had been told by Damascus that troop withdrawals were underway from Idlib, as well as Zabadani and Deraa. But one resident of Zabadani, near the Lebanon border, said no significant withdrawal was under way. "They are complete liars, there is no army withdrawal, they are still in the middle of the city. They fired on the city this morning, like they do every day," a man calling himself Abu Mustafa said by phone. YouTube footage showed smoke rising from artillery barrages on Hazzano, another village in Idlib from where many refugees have fled. Some of the wounded were young conscripts who have fled the military and joined the Free Syrian Army, a loosely grouped organization of outgunned deserters who have been trying to slow down the advance of Assad's forces, dominated by the minority Alawite sect of the ruling elite. "If the defectors don't surrender, they bomb the whole village to the ground," said Abdelrahim al-Razi, who was wounded in the chest in his hometown of Sermin. It took him six days to reach Turkey. The United Nations says Assad's forces have killed more than 9,000 people in the conflict, which began with peaceful protests although armed rebels later began fighting back. Syria told the world body this week that 6,044 people had died, including 2,566 soldiers and police.

REGIONAL EDITORIALS (Top) 05 Apr 2012 Huffington Post The Military vs. the Muslim Brotherhood: Interview with an Egyptian Colonel


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Suddenly, two months ago, the news from Egypt was no longer in the streets. You couldn't look out the window at Tahrir Square, at Mohamed Mahmoud, at the sit-in outside Parliament. You had to do what political journalists and dinner party conversationalists do in most places -- interpret shrouded speeches and sudden decisions, watch for subtle shifts and buried implications in the fight between powerful institutions. You had to speculate. Here was the Brotherhood's risky nomination of a mysterious string-puller for the presidency, there was the military council's warning, veiled but soaked with suggestion: "We ask everyone to be aware of the lessons of history to avoid mistakes from a past we do not want to return to, and to look towards the future." Was it a threat? Was it a reference to Nasser's crushing of the Brotherhood in 1954? Or was it just a big empty sentence in a year full of big empty sentences? It's pouring rain outside in Port Said. The colonel wears civilian clothes, a shiny black leather jacket and loose jeans, like a young, impatient businessman as he clutches his keys, lighter, and sunglasses in one hand and scratches his cheek with the other. His office is big, but not ostentatious, with a wide desk, two couches, and two coffee tables. There's an ancient mural made of tile on the wall. A dog sleeps on the floor. The dog's name is Rommel, for Erwin Rommel, the German Field Marshal of World War II popularly known as the 'Desert Fox.' This dog comes from a German wolf breed, but is very lazy, perhaps only because of the rain. Colonel Ahmed Amr sends a young soldier to bring lunch, which comes on a big tray: bread, halvah, cheese, French fries, and hard-boiled eggs. He insists that I eat ("Together we share bread and salt, an old Egyptian saying"), which makes it hard to write down notes. This feels slightly intentional, but it does put me pleasantly off guard. I scribble when he turns away. He runs a military museum, the purpose of which is to show the people of Egypt why they should support the military, so of course he talks the talk. "The people of Egypt, we love our army," he says. "The army here have never attacked the people in Egypt. Mubarak and all the kings of Egypt have known this." Amr knows that the news has been chronicling an increasing tension between the Muslim Brotherhood, which leads Parliament, and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which is still technically running the country. The Colonel is not speaking for the SCAF, which is prudent, because he is not a diplomat. "Most Egyptians are poor and ignorant," he says. "The Islamists tell them 'Vote for us and go to heaven, or vote for liberals and go to Hell. They don't vote for Islamists because they agree with them, but because they are ignorant and afraid." Although a distaste for Islamists is often a signal for an embrace of the U.S., Amr does not exonerate us either. He thinks the U.S. is only powerful because of luck ("Look where you are located!"), because of the Soviet Union's decline ("It was Gorbachev and Perestroika"), and that the U.S. makes a lot of mistakes. "America made Yemen the center of Al Qaeda," he tells me, shifting into the second person to address me as America: "Your problems are your own fault." But, he explains, "if the U.S. would only invest in factories here, they would make Egypt their best friend in the Middle East. When we achieve social justice, the Islamists will lose their support." He puts me in charge of handing over his warning and plea to the U.S. "We need American help to create a strong civil state, without fear, without Islamists, without military rule," he shouts, nearly spitting the 't' in 'without'. "If we have Islamist rule, there will be ten Al Qaedas here. We've got to kill this possibility now. You've lived in Egypt. You can put this in the article you write about me. You should give a complete picture to the U.S., about how they should support us liberals against the Islamists." The Brotherhood, to be fair, has nothing to do with Al Qaeda, but Amr is doing what I've learned most people do in revolutionary times: speak in worst-case scenarios.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

The Brotherhood released a statement several days after I spoke with Amr, and it was far more discreet and diplomatic, though it too spoke about the worst possible outcome. "The Brotherhood found that there is a very real and imminent threat to the revolution," said the statement, in the sober third person, "and the process of democratic transition and transfer of power to an elected civilian government in accordance with the popular will." Then the Brotherhood cites the "most important aspects" of the challenges facing Egypt's transition, including the "refusal and subversion of endeavors to form a government," and "blatant threats to dissolve the People's Assembly" and "attempts to hinder the work of the Constituent Assembly." The verbs are verbal nouns. The sentences have no subjects. There is a "refusal," not someone who refuses, "threats," not someone who threatens. If you were reading without context it would seem like all of the things the Brotherhood bemoans emerged, appeared, materialized, without an actor. But if you read with context, you know they are talking about the SCAF, about military rule. The protesters on the streets, as few as they are these days, shout "Down with military rule!" The Brotherhood says it too, only with lots of verbal accessories. The revolution was about small, clear, morally incisive claims. Now, there's politics, and occasionally, men like the colonel to cut through it and show us the cross sections. 05 Apr 2011 The National Interest.org Syria's WMD Threat James P. Farwell Buoyed by the loyalty of his Alawite community, Bashar al-Assad has acted ruthlessly to crush dissent in Syria. His brutality has outraged the international community, but that has not deterred Assad. And the worst may lie ahead. Will Assad employ his weapons of mass destruction to quell dissent? And what will happen to his WMD arsenal should—President Obama now says “when”—Assad’s regime collapses? Although fears of Iraq’s chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRNE) capability were also questioned, the Syria situation is different. No one doubts that Syria possesses a modern chemical-weapons capability and thousands of rockets capable of downing passenger aircraft. In contrast, Desert Storm crippled Iraq’s chemical-warfare capability; it never reconstituted that capacity, although the Iraqi Intelligence Service maintained a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test chemicals and poisons. Iraq was planning to produce chemical-weapons agents, but coalition forces discovered no stockpiles in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the case of Syria, credible assessments suggest that capabilities already exist. Syria’s past behavior is disturbing. It is a non-nuclear-weapon state, party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and it has a comprehensive nuclear-safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Yet after Israel destroyed what was probably a plutonium-production reactor at al-Kibar in 2007, an IAEA investigation found Syria had breached its obligations under the NPT. More recently, Lt. Abdulselam Abdulrezzak, who once worked in Syria’s chemical-weapons department, made (unverified) claims that chemical weapons were employed in Bab Amr against protesters. All this points to a shared international interest in containing Assad’s CBRNE arsenal. Using these weapons against his own citizens would constitute a war crime. And the weapons falling into the hands of terrorist groups would enlarge the threat. A Lethal Arsenal


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

The nonpartisan Nuclear Threat Initiative assesses that Syria has one of the most sophisticated chemical-warfare capabilities in the world. It has mustard gas and sarin, possibly the VX nerve agent and Scud-B and Scud-D ballistic missiles capable of being fitted with chemical warheads. Some estimate it holds between one hundred and two hundred Scud missiles already loaded with a sarin agent and has several hundred tons of sarin agent and mustard gas stockpiled that could be used for aircraft bombs or artillery shells. It is one of only eight nations that is not a member of the Chemical Weapons Convention outlawing the production, possession and use of chemical weapons. Its agents are weaponized and can be delivered. Although most believe that the arsenal is in working order, we should not presume that is true. It could possibly be in a significant state of deterioration, which would intensify the hazard and suggest it must be dealt with sooner rather than later. Reports differ as to Syria’s biological-warfare capability. German and Israeli sources believe it possesses bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax), botulinum toxin and ricin. American sources believe the capability is “probable.” In 1972, Syria signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, but it has never ratified it. The international community seems prepared to act. Russia, which values Syria as an arms customer and worries Assad’s fall would reduce its influence in the Middle East, has taken pains to separate itself from Assad’s possible use of WMDs, strongly denying that it has helped Syrian forces use chemical weapons against the opposition. Even while aiding Syrian efforts to crush the protests, Iran denies transferring chemical weapons to any third party. The U.S. State Department has sent a diplomatic demarche to Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia warning against the possibilities that WMDs may cross their borders. In August, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the United States and its Mideast allies were intensifying surveillance of Syrian chemical and biological depots through satellites and other equipment. The United States has offered to help any post-Assad government secure Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons and anti-aircraft missiles. The Fallout Potential loss of control over WMDs may pose a threat, considering the terror groups that would like to get their hands on them. Col. Riad al-As’ad, head of the opposition Free Syrian Army, says al-Qaeda is not operating in Syria. But al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has reportedly ordered followers to infiltrate the Syrian opposition. Sunni radicals associated with the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda, have urged fighters to go to Syria. And one should not doubt al-Qaeda’s determination to acquire WMDs—Osama bin Laden once professed that acquiring chemical or nuclear weapons is “a religious duty.” WMDs could be smuggled into Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank or elsewhere. In the past, Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have all attempted to acquire chemical or biological weapons. In a sign of precisely how destabilizing some view this threat, Israeli officials have warned that Syria transferring chemical weapons to Hezbollah would constitute a declaration of war. An Agenda The Friends of Syria, a coalition of over fifty nations that has met in Tunis to discuss forming an international peacekeeping force backed by U.S., EU and Gulf-nation airpower, should ratchet up pressure on Assad to step down. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and other Islamic nations have clamored for ousting Assad. That’s a promising sign. Arab nations, not the West, should take the lead in dealing with Assad’s brutality. Securing Syria’s CBRNE arsenal poses a uniquely serious challenge. NATO, Russia and China should join these Arab nations in demanding that Assad immediately secure his stockpile, then show he has done so.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

President Obama has said the United States won’t commit troops to a military intervention. But there are other options. Allied partners could mount coordinated special operations to secure or destroy Assad’s arsenal. That may not be easy, but it can be done. And should the Syrian regime collapse, it will be essential. Whether it is better to mount such an operation before or after Assad falls is a decision for military and political experts. But international leaders must think through the options and be prepared to act. All nations—but particularly those in the neighborhood—have a vital stake in containing these instruments of death and destruction. Now is the time for them to exert the leadership to ensure that happens. 06 April 2012 Now Lebanon US Willfully Blind on Syria Tony Badran

(U) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Friends of the Syrian People Conference in Istanbul last week. The White House is willfully blind to the major issue that is driving its allies’ push for decisive action. (AFP photo) Following the conclusion of the latest meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People in Istanbul last week, there has been speculation about a possible shift in US policy. However, the confusion that has plagued Washington’s thinking remains, as the administration continues to miss the issue that is confounding its regional allies—Iran. Even after Istanbul, the White House is still willfully blind to the major issue that is driving its allies’ push for decisive action. This is not without consequences for US standing, as its words ring increasingly hollow with its allies, and its posture, more resembling a spectator than a shaper of dynamics, seems sharply out of sync with the strategic contest with Iran that is playing out in Syria. Heading into the conference, the Obama administration had made amply clear that it opposed the arming of the opponents of the Assad regime. It’s now old news that regional allies deeply resented this decision. They have become so frustrated with the administration’s dithering that they are not only publicly criticizing its lack of action, but are also now openly ignoring Washington’s preferences.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

For example, prior to the Istanbul meeting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks with the Saudis aimed at securing their continued compliance with the US position on military support to the Syrian rebels. “Our main focus is to try and get the guns silenced,” a senior US official said afterward. Clinton told the Saudis that the priority was to forge a ceasefire and to support Annan’s mission. However, in another revealing comment, an unnamed Western diplomat noted what had become rather obvious: “What we are doing is not necessarily to the liking of some regional states.” Sure enough, the Saudis were not impressed with the US secretary’s appeal. At the conclusion of the Friends of the Syrian People meeting, it was announced that the Gulf Arab states, led by Riyadh, were establishing a fund to pay salaries for the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The public defiance of the US in itself was remarkable. Moreover, that it has fallen on US allies and clients to threaten concrete measures against the Assad regime speaks volumes about Washington’s lack of leadership. In fact, according to a report in the Kuwaiti al-Rai, some of these Arab states have grown so exasperated with US passivity that they are now coordinating closely with the UK to see what it could do to help the rebels. The administration’s public messaging following the conference has further compounded its incoherence. When asked about where the US stood on the effort to directly fund the FSA, the State Department spokesperson noted that Washington’s regional allies “are making their own sovereign decisions about what they think is important,” adding that the administration “[has] not discouraged this initiative.” Of course, the whole point of Clinton’s meeting with the Saudis was precisely to discourage any such initiative. But far from switching tracks, the administration remains stuck in the same frame of mind. What it seems poised to do next is to use the threat of this regional support for the FSA in order to get the Russians to pressure Assad to comply with Annan’s plan. Already, US officials are talking of an “important shift” in the Russian position following Moscow’s public support for an April 10 deadline for Assad to begin implementing the plan. Needless to say, US and Russian interpretations of Assad’s compliance are bound to differ. What is sure, however, is that the Russians, much like Assad, will point – as indeed they have already – to any assistance to the opposition as a violation of the plan’s terms. But the Obama administration is also likely to cite these stipulations and to call on its regional allies to withhold lethal support for the FSA under the guise of fostering a fragile ceasefire. Ironically, Washington’s own decision to supply the opposition with non-lethal communications equipment will likely be presented by the Russians and Assad as a breach of the Annan plan. All this underlines the absurdity of the administration’s current policy, whose logical trajectory leads to conforming the US position to that of Assad's backers. And this is where the growing chasm with US regional allies lies. These states view the Syria crisis in terms of the regional balance of power. Tensions between Iran on the one hand and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the other are becoming more visible every day. The Saudis in particular read the regional context in stark terms. They see the Iranians making moves in Bahrain and Yemen after having secured strong gains in Iraq, as well as an established influence in Lebanon. The last thing they want to see is Iran scoring a victory in Syria through an initiative that keeps Assad in power. Worse still, they saw that Tehran was clearly using the Annan mission to secure a seat at the Syrian negotiating table. Little wonder then that these allies stressed at the Istanbul meeting that the endgame of any initiative should be Assad’s departure from power. The problem, of course, is that the administration has willfully dug itself into a hole with its support for the Annan plan. By wedding itself to this controversial initiative, Washington has created tensions with its regional allies instead of reassuring them that it is committed to advancing their common strategic interests by any means necessary. After Istanbul, it's clear the US is not there.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 06 April 2012 The Daily Star Two Bullets and a Ballot Michael Young

(U) LF leader Samir Geagea survived what may have been an assassination attempt this week. It may serve him politically well. (Aldo Ayoub) It has been a busy few weeks for the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. On Wednesday he dodged a bullet—in fact two—just days after organizing a rally to commemorate the dissolution of his party in 1994. This followed Geagea’s high-profile criticisms in mid-March of two leading Maronite figures, Patriarch Bechara al-Rai and Michel Aoun—both men for defending the Syrian regime, and the second for having assailed the Sunni community. The security forces are investigating the assassination attempt. Regardless of what they find, Geagea is high on any list of politicians slated for elimination. Nor is there much doubt as to who would carry out such a crime. What will be interesting to determine, however, is how the Lebanese Forces leader uses the incident as he prepares for an essential moment in his political resurrection after his release from prison in 2005, namely parliamentary elections next year. That’s not to suggest that the sniper attack was a setup. But Geagea is a political animal par excellence, and someone shrewd enough to employ all the means at his disposal to ensure that he can bring a substantial bloc to parliament and challenge that of Michel Aoun. There has been much speculation about what the assassination attempt actually meant. Are we returning to a new spate of killings similar to the one in 2005-2008? Geagea certainly sought to place the assault in that context, linking it, strikingly, to the elections of 2005 and the rationale behind the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. “Why did they assassinate … Hariri?” Geagea asked in a press conference, before explaining: “All he did was acquire greater power than they had given him, and it was clear that he was likely to acquire a parliamentary majority during the 2005 elections.”


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

The implication was that Geagea, too, had been targeted because he was expected to perform well in upcoming elections. Moreover, his remarks were designed to induce his audience to set off into specific speculative directions, all otherwise left unstated by the Lebanese Forces leader. Who loses if Geagea gains? Aoun, of course, but also his allies in Hezbollah. What does this tell us? Among other things, that Hezbollah has infiltrated the Christian mountains, where Geagea resides. And who has covered for Hezbollah’s growing military presence in these mountains? Obviously Michel Aoun. That thought process could be damaging to Aoun next year. It comes in the wake of a dispute at the Antonine University, in which Shia students prayed outside a church in contravention of the institution’s rules. The Aounists were embarrassed by the consequences, and in the eyes of many outraged Christians responded lamely to what had occurred. Meanwhile, MTV, over which Geagea enjoys influence, has broadcast reports of how Christian neighborhoods abutting the southern suburbs are being transformed by Shia-led construction. Baabda, where Aoun and Hezbollah are powerful, will be a key electoral battleground for Geagea. Expect the Lebanese Forces to play on Christian fears of the demographic shifts in their neighborhoods. More broadly, from one side Geagea will scare Christian voters by raising the Shia scarecrow; from the other, Aoun will raise the Sunni scarecrow. The election themes in Christian districts will revolve around communal anxiety and identity politics, which risks leaving Christians even more isolated and wary than they already are. Nor will there be a Maronite patriarch in place who can unite the community and inject confidence into his flock. Instead, the Maronites merely have Bechara al-Rai, who in sectarian terms has proven to be even more polarizing than Geagea or Aoun. Given the cleric’s weakness for politics, and his compulsive recklessness, the patriarch will be open to manipulation by both men. Geagea is a deliberate operator. Whenever he does something, he usually has put some thinking into it. The Lebanese Forces leader has been consciously in the limelight lately, defining himself more sharply while differentiating himself just as sharply from other Maronite figures. He’s backed the Arab uprisings, especially in Syria, unlike most of his Maronite political and religious counterparts; he’s defended the Sunnis against Aoun, when many Christians are worried about Sunni political Islam throughout the Middle East; and he’s even attempted to portray himself as a man of regional stature, by inviting speakers from various Arab countries that are currently experiencing political upheavals to address the Lebanese Forces ceremony. Elections are high on Geagea’s mind. He evidently feels that now is his time to make a qualitative leap forward to become Lebanon’s dominating Christian representative in the coming years. Aoun is his primary impediment, but time isn’t really on the general’s side, and many believe that the Free Patriotic Movement and its electorate will fragment once he leaves the scene. Someone will have to pick up the pieces, and Geagea aspires to amass a large share. In that context, we can say, rather cynically, that the bungled assassination attempt could ultimately serve Geagea well. It casts a disparaging light on everything the Lebanese Forces leader has warned against, and, as during his 11-year imprisonment, shows him to be a man defying the odds. Geagea’s enemies, but also his allies, will have to remember that once election season comes. Michael Young is opinion editor of The Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon. 06 April 2012 Ya Libnan Nasrallah’s Loyalty to Assad could Isolate Hezbollah


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

Mazen, a carpenter who organizes protests against President Bashar al-Assad in a suburb of Damascus, Syria, has torn down the posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, that once decorated his car and shop. Like many Syrians, Mazen, 35, revered Mr. Nasrallah for his confrontational stance with Israel. He considered Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party, as an Arab champion of the dispossessed, not just for its Shiite Muslim base but for Sunnis like himself. But now that Hezbollah has stood by Mr. Assad during his deadly yearlong crackdown on the uprising against his rule, Mazen sees Hezbollah as a sectarian party that supports Mr. Assad because his opponents are mainly Sunnis. “Now, I hate Hezbollah,” he said. “Nasrallah should stand with the people’s revolution if he believes in God.” Mr. Nasrallah’s decision to maintain his critical alliance with Syria has risked Hezbollah’s standing and its attempts to build pan-Islamic ties in Lebanon and the wider Arab world. Though Hezbollah’s base in Lebanon remains strong, it runs an increasing risk of finding itself isolated, possibly caught up in a sectarian war between its patron, Iran, the region’s Shiite power, and Saudi Arabia, a protector of Sunni interests in the Middle East. Its longtime ally, Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, has distanced itself from the Assad government, moving its headquarters out of Damascus, and Sunni revolutionaries in Syria have explicitly denounced Hezbollah as an enemy. At home, its Lebanese rivals sense a rare opportunity to erode its power. In a delicate adjustment in the face of these new realities — and the resilience of the uprising — Hezbollah has shifted its tone. In carefully calibrated speeches last month, Mr. Nasrallah gently but firmly signaled that Mr. Assad could not crush the uprising by force and must lay down arms and seek a political settlement. He implicitly acknowledged the growing moral outrage in the wider Muslim world at the mounting death toll, obliquely noted that the Syrian government was accused of “targeting civilians” and urged Mr. Assad to “present the facts to the people.” Behind the scenes, Mr. Nasrallah personally tried to start a reconciliation process in Syria early in the uprising and is now renewing those efforts, said Ali Barakeh, a Hamas official involved in the talks. “He refuses the killing for both sides,” said Mr. Barakeh, the Beirut representative for Hamas. Mr. Barakeh said that Mr. Nasrallah visited Damascus in April of last year and briefly persuaded Mr. Assad to try to reach a political solution, with Hezbollah and Hamas acting as mediators. But as Hamas began reaching out to fellow Sunni Muslims in the opposition, the plan was scuttled by the Syrian government. Hezbollah rarely allows official interviews and has refused them for months. But supporters and current and former party activists suggest that the situation is fueling fears of an anti-Shiite backlash and is testing loyalists who must explain the party’s position to others, and themselves. Mr. Nasrallah is tempering his position because he wants to avoid asking supporters to endure another war, said a former student activist who spends hours defending the party on Facebook, arguing, for example, that rogue forces, not Mr. Assad, are responsible for the “mistakes.” Mr. Nasrallah “doesn’t want supporters to suffer,” said the woman, who works at a Hezbollah foundation, adding that some still feel “broken inside” from the 2006 war with Israel and “don’t want more pressure.” Syria’s conflict is testing Hezbollah’s longstanding contradictions. It relies on public support, yet sometimes behaves autocratically; it is a national group founded to fight Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, but owes its military might — and the funds that rebuilt the south after the 2006 war — to Iran’s desire to project power; and it


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

styles itself pan-Islamic, but it depends on rock-solid support from Lebanese Shiites for whom it won long-denied power as it became the Middle East’s most formidable militant group and Lebanon’s strongest political force. Most of all, Hezbollah won respect by sticking to its principles, even among rival sects and the leftist cafe regulars in Beirut who are skeptical of its religious conservatism. Now it is paying a price for its politics of pragmatism in Syria. To a young, college-educated health care worker who is a lifelong supporter of Hezbollah, the party’s support of Mr. Assad keeps faith with the most important principle of all: opposing Israel. “This revolution is not made in Syria,” she told friends at a seaside cafe in Sidon, Lebanon, after shopping at a shiny new mall. “The real target is Lebanon and the resistance.” Echoing the party line, she said that the United States and its Arab allies fomented Syria’s revolt to punish Hezbollah for fighting the Israelis in 2006. But that argument has frayed. Hamas, unable to disown Syria’s Sunni revolutionaries, declared itself neutral, angering Mr. Assad, and then moved its leadership from Damascus. Some Hamas leaders from Gaza went further, praising the Syrian revolution to crowds that shout, “No, no, Hezbollah.” Deprived of Hamas’s political cover, Hezbollah has been accused of sectarian hatred, and has been its target as well. Syrian rebels have burned the Hezbollah flag, claimed that its snipers are killing civilians in Syria, and named their brigades after historic warriors who defeated Shiites in Islam’s early schismatic battles. Early on, some analysts thought that if a Sunni government would arise in Damascus it might support Hezbollah against Israel. But now, says Michael Wahid Hanna of the Century Foundation, Hezbollah may have missed a chance to hedge its bets. Hezbollah’s supporters, none of whom wished to be identified because the party discourages interviews with reporters, framed their fears in sectarian terms. One worried that if Sunnis came to power in Syria, they would bar Shiites access to shrines there and in Iraq, as prophesied in a Shiite text. Another supporter thought Sunni extremists might bomb Hezbollah areas. Hezbollah seems in no danger of losing its most hard-core supporters. But some of its loyalists have questions. n the Sidon cafe, the health worker declared that Syrians, with free education and medical care, had no reason to rebel. Her friend, a Shiite from Hezbollah’s heartland in southern Lebanon, disagreed. “They have things,” she said, “but they are fighting for their rights.” A supporter of Lebanon's Muslim Brotherhood party holds a poster of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah during a rally in the port-city of Sidon, southern Lebanon, against attacks by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces on the Syrian city of Homs. The poster reads from right to left: "This man sees only with one eye. " Hey chief it is only 5000 LL...go and shave your beard" A supporter in the Dahiya, Hezbollah’s Beirut stronghold, said that Al Jazeera, the television news network, was faking atrocities and blaming the government for them. A friend mocked him: Mr. Assad’s fall would be bad for Shiites, he said, but he is “slaughtering his people.” A Hezbollah party member said that government shelling had killed many civilians, but it was justified because the victims had let the rebels use their houses “as bunkers.” Israel used a similar argument, which Hezbollah condemned, to defend its bombing of Hezbollah neighborhoods in 2006.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

(U) A supporter of Lebanon's Muslim Brotherhood party holds a poster of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah during a rally in the port-city of Sidon, southern Lebanon, against attacks by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces on the Syrian city of Homs. The poster reads from right to left: "This man sees only with one eye. " Hey chief it is only 5000 LL...go and shave your beard" Mr. Barakeh of Hamas suggested that Hezbollah’s leaders, who prize their reputations for morality, were troubled by the “killing of innocents” on both sides and knew that the government was not blameless. “They are aware,” he said. He said he spoke with Mr. Nasrallah for five hours on March 9, telling him that neither side could win by force. On March 14, Hezbollah again blessed Hamas’s efforts to engage the opposition through its contacts in the Muslim Brotherhood, the pro-Hezbollah newspaper Assafir reported. The next day, as Mr. Assad insisted that the rebels stop shooting first, Mr. Nasrallah called on all Syrians — “people, regime, state, army” — to lay down their arms “simultaneously.” He later called for “serious and genuine” reforms. Citing religious, “pan-Arab and moral considerations,” he said a political solution was the duty of all “whose hearts are throbbing with sympathy for the Syrian people — men, women, children and elderly.” It was a dig at Saudi Arabia for trying to arm the rebels, but also nodded at regional anguish over the killing. Even for Hezbollah loyalists who call Syria’s revolt foreign-inspired, the idea of revolution has a natural resonance. “Arab people need to wake up,” the former student activist said at her office. “How do you spend your day, Arab guy? Watching Lady Gaga. Smoking argileh,” the traditional water pipe. She fantasized about a “clean and pure” revolution in the Arab world. “If it was real, if it was really the people’s will,” she said, “it wouldn’t just be good, it would be great.”


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

(U) Syrian protesters step on a poster of Syrian President Basahr al-Assad and Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during a protest against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Saqba, Syria on Jan. 27, 2012. 05 April 2012 Ahram Online Brotherhood Crushed in 1954: Could History Repeat itself in 2012? History sometimes repeats itself, but Egypt's powerful political force maybe in better shape after the Jan 25 revolution vis-à-vis the ruling generals compared to 1954 when the Brotherhood was decimated by then-president Nasser

(U) A crowd gathers by the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo after setting it on fire in retaliation for an assassination attempt on Gamal Abdel Nasser, then prime minister, in October 1954 (Photo: AP) In response to a recent statement by the Muslim Brotherhood challenging the sincerity of Egyptian military rule, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued a statement the next day, hitting back at its critics and defending its intentions.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) called for the dissolution of the incumbent government of Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri, asserting that the latter had "failed in fulfilling its duties." SCAF, however, has insisted on keeping the interim cabinet in place until the end of the current transitional period. The Brotherhood then questioned whether the reason why the government was being kept in place was to "abort the revolution or to orchestrate upcoming presidential elections." In a veiled a threat, the SCAF statement included the following: "We ask everyone to be aware of the lessons of history, to avoid mistakes from a past we do not want to return to, and to look towards the future." In 1954, a brief honeymoon between late President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Revolutionary Command Council and the Brotherhood ended in a widescale clampdown on the group, which was outlawed for decades until last year's Tahrir Square uprising. The Free Officers, whose movement sparked the July 1952 Egyptian Revolution, was composed of young junior army officers committed to unseating the Egyptian monarchy and its British advisors. Gamal Abdel Nasser founded the group in the aftermath of Egypt's defeat in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, then becoming president from 1956 until his death on 28 September 1970. Nasser along with Muhammed Naguib, who was briefly Egypt's first post-monarchy president, led the revolution A large number of Brotherhood leaders were jailed and some even faced the death penalty after being accused of involvement in an attempt to assassinate then-President Nasser. Latifa Salem, author, and history professor at Benha University, explains that Gamal Abdel Nasser formed the Free Officers movement after he checked every other party that was present at the time "but couldn't find what he was looking for, since he had a different ideology. That’s why he formed the movement." She adds that the Free Officers included people of all social spectrums. "They were Wafdians, leftists, Islamists, etc,” Salem said. Mohamed Faeq, vice-president of the National Council for Human Rights and a member of the Free Officers movement, and former foreign minister in Nasser’s era, said: "The claim that the Muslim Brotherhood was a huge part of the 23 July 1952 revolution is a myth. The truth is that there were two or three Brotherhood officers among us. Just like there were officers who represented various segments of society, and political ideologies." All accepted the ideology and rules of the Free Officers movement. The revolution was supported by different sectors of society the day it happened. “The Muslim Brotherhood was amongst those supporters. Not as a majority,” Faeq said. In 1954, in an effort to build a democratic state, the Revolutionary Command Council demanded that all parties be cleansed, especially of persons that had had connections with the previous ruling regime. Since it did not happen, the Revolutionary Command Council dissolved the parties. The council initially decided to not desolve the Muslim Brotherhood, however, as it was not a political party but rather a religious group. After the revolution succeeded, Nasser elected Brotherhood members as ministers in the newly formed government: Ahmed Hosny as minister of justice, and Ahmed Hassan El-Bakoury as minister of Awqaf. However, the Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Office insisted on selecting the ministers themselves, demanding having the right to withdraw and appoint whomever of the Brotherhood they find suitable. This was refused by the Revolutionary Command Council. Nasser also asked the Brotherhood to disband their secret armed wing, responsible of several murderous operations before the revolution, such as murdering Egyptian Prime Minister Mohamed Fahmy El-Nokrashy in 1948. The Brotherhood refused to acquiesce. This is when the major clash began between the Revolutionary Command Council and the Muslim Brotherhood began.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

"Nasser was known for not trusting people easily. And he sensed that the Brotherhood would be a threat to the country. So he decided to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood." Salem said. Nasser’s decision resulted in the Brotherhood’s failed attempt to assassinate Nasser while giving a speech. The Brotherhood was banned as a result, and this time thousands of its members were imprisoned, many of them held for years in concentration camps. In response to assasination attempt on Nasser, the people were angry with the Brotherhood. Crowds gathered at the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo and set it on fire. Muhammed Naguib agreed with the Brotherhood wielding more power. Saber Arab, historian and member of National Council for Women, explains that one of the main reasons why Naguib was overthrown was his alliance with the Brotherhood. “The Revolutionary Command Council had a more open vision regarding women, Copts and social justice, which was absolutely different than that of the Brotherhood, who was supported by Naguib,” Faeq said. The Muslim Brotherhood even opposed the secularist constitution of 1954. Although it was never used, it remains highly respected. Salem believes that the difference between the Muslim Brotherhood of the post-1952 revolution, and the Brotherhood now, after the January 25 Revolution, is that back in the 1950s, Nasser knew well how to put an end to their greed regarding power. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) failed in doing this. Arab added that the fact that SCAF failed to manage the transitional period since February 2011 is of the main reasons why a dominant party is now emerging, like a mirror to the previous regime. Salem and Arab both agree that the root of the current crisis is that the constitution should have been written prior to parliamentary elections and not after. In addition, the Brotherhood has become more powerful and more widespread since becoming again active under former President Anwar El-Sadat in 1970s, with his tacit assent. Indeed, the number of Brotherhood members have grown much in the past 40 years. Despite tough economic circumstances, and despite the very high poverty rate, Egypt became a capitalist country, moving away from socialism. "Most, if not all, the leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood are capitalists," Salem said. Arab explains: “At the time of Nasser, and earlier than that, there were projects for developing education, and health systems, in addition to applying social justice, and Arab nationalism. And people were very attached to those ideologies, and to July 23 Revolution, supporting them by heart. It was almost impossible for the Muslim Brotherhood to penetrate that sense of stability and satisfaction towards the situation at the time.” The situation is different now, which has helped the Brotherhood to attract new members to the group, since they financially and also morally support people. “Especially in the police state we were living in, under Mubarak’s rule,” Salem said. The financial aspect of drawing in and directing members, Salem added, was also a factor during November's parliamentary elections, and could be a factor during the presidential elections as well. Without doubt, after the January 25 Revolution many people — both those politically involved and those not — sympathised with the Brotherhood and how they have been oppressed for decades. Especially when the group promised that despite their large numbers and financial resources they would not be a dominating party on the


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

political scene. However, this is not the case. The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which the Brotherhood established after the revolution, holds around 48 per cent of seats in the People’s Assembly and almost 75 per cent (along with Al-Nour Party) of the Constituent Assembly tasked with writing Egypt’s new constitution. Now prominent Brotherhood member Khairat El-Shater will run for the presidency. The move has met heated debate both inside and outside the Brotherhood. Arab also explained that the FJP connects with the Brotherhood and directly receives orders from the Brotherhood's supreme guide. In that case, Egypt is basically being ruled by the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, who believes he’s above the constitution and the law, and the different authorities ruled by the FJP — the People’s Assembly, the Shura Council, the Constituent Assembly, and maybe presidency as well. "Such power that the Brotherhood currently wields makes it very hard for the 1954 scenario to be repeated," said Wahid Abdel Meguid, analyst at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "If the Brotherhood and SCAF clashed, all sides would eventually lose." 05 April 2012 Eurasia Review Israeli-Palestinian Peace: A Special Regime Option for the Old City of Jerusalem – Analysis By Arthur Hughes Jerusalem will probably be the toughest issue in any future Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The other three core issues – borders/settlements, security, and Palestinian refugees – will also be very difficult, but Jerusalem is at a different level. Jews, Muslims, and Christians worldwide have strong attachment to the city and its many holy sites. For Israelis and Palestinians, Jerusalem is the focal point of national, cultural, and religious identities and aspirations. Their conflicting claims are based on long history and narratives that do not accommodate the other. The question thus becomes: in order to achieve a peace deal, what arrangements might be possible that could meet the basic needs of all? In this time of scant mutual trust would it possible to find a way ahead? Israel Israel The prevalent concept for a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement is for two states, Israel and the new state of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders have stated their support for this outcome. Generally included in this concept are two capitals for the two states: Israeli Yerushalayim in western Jerusalem and Palestinian al Quds (the Holy) in eastern Jerusalem. But the Old City, with its many holy sites of all three religions, poses special problems. Who has authority over these sites? Would either Israel or Palestine agree that the Old City belonged solely to the other, that one or the other has sovereignty? Might the Old City, less than one square kilometer, be divided up, as the Clinton Parameters and the Geneva Accords suggest? Is there a way to share authority? What arrangements are thinkable to deal with the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif and the Western Wall that together are one holy place? Is there a way to set up a trusted authority to govern the Old City as a single unit? Working on the hypothesis of a two-state and two-capital solution, the Jerusalem Old City Initiative (JOCI) has developed in great detail the concept of a Special Regime (SR) for the Old City. Initiated by a small group of Canadians with long and deep experience and responsibilities in the area, JOCI came to include Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and others in an eight year effort to design a Special Regime that would meet three key tests:


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

* Ensure the security and safety of all persons residing in or visiting the Old City; * Ensure the security and sanctity of and appropriate access to the holy sites in the Old City; and * Is sustainable, thus contributing to the stability and sustainability of the entire peace agreement. The SR does not address sovereignty, but neither would it prejudice the claims of either party. Those could be further negotiated when mutual trust and confidence had been achieved. The SR is seen as an interim arrangement, but with no expiration date, that would deal with the Old City as a necessary part of reaching a peace agreement. It is designed to meet the basic needs of Israel, Palestine, and believers everywhere, and provide stability and calm at the heart of the conflict. It is the practical means by which Israel and Palestine together would ensure good governance of the Old City and preserve their interests without prejudicing their respective claims. The issues of sovereignty and possible division of the Old City are very difficult. After scores of hours of discussion and debate with Palestinians and Israelis, JOCI concluded that in peace negotiations neither side would concede sovereignty to the other and that each would demand at least parity with the other. For example, Israeli law confirmed by its high court holds that only Jews may own property and reside in the Jewish Quarter. It is unimaginable that the Palestinians would agree to a peace deal that left that in place without at least providing parallel arrangements for Muslims and Christians in the Muslim, Christian, and Armenian Quarters. Then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apparently reached the same conclusions when he proposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (as Olmert recalled in a speech on March 26, 2012 in Washington) that “there would be no sovereignty over the Holy Basin or Temple Mount, not yours not ours,” and that “the Temple Mount and the Holy Basin would be administered by five nations, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and America.” Olmert further said that he had proposed the Israeli capital be composed of the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem and that the Palestinians would have theirs in the Arab neighborhoods. Also relevant to the sovereignty question is that neither the United States nor the international community recognize Israel’s assertion of sovereignty over the Old City and east Jerusalem annexed after the 1967 war. JOCI concluded as well that dividing the tiny Old City, especially because of security issues, would present very serious sustainability questions. A Special Regime is seen as a way to avoid these problems and enable a peace deal while ensuring good and equitable governance of the Old City, assured security for residents and visitors, and continued management of the holy sites by their current religious authorities. The key element of the SR developed by JOCI is that it would be created by Israel and the new state of Palestine in their peace agreement. It would belong to them and be supervised by them. It would not be pressed upon them or controlled by outsiders. The JOCI Special Regime is not a revival of “internationalization.” Outside involvement in this SR would be strictly at the invitation of Israel and Palestine and restricted solely to responsibilities and tasks assigned by the two parties themselves in their treaty. The SR would be assigned in the peace treaty powers and authority only in specific closely-defined areas and functions. These would include, for example, security, public order and safety and environmental protection. All of those not specified, including, for example, education, health, and family law, would be left for Israel and Palestine, each country for its own citizens. Jurisdiction for inter-communal and non-citizen matters would be defined in the treaty. While the Old City would be a separate jurisdiction with its own legal system for specified matters, the SR would have close relations and interactions with the two capital cities and with Israel and Palestine. The Old City would remain populated for the most part by Palestinians and Israelis who would have their close personal, family, economic and other links with their countries of citizenship. The SR would have mixed legal jurisdiction with different authorities, the SR, Israel and Palestine, for different matters.


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

The SR would be established with two main organs: a Governance Board and a Chief Administrator. The Governance Board would be the oversight authority of the SR. It would consist of Palestinian and Israeli representatives and presumably those from other states as the two parties would agree. The Board would appoint a Chief Administrator (not an Israeli or Palestinian) to be the executive authority of the SR. While not being involved in the day-to-day operations of the SR, the Board would supervise and hold the Chief Administrator (CA) responsible in fulfilling his responsibilities set out in the peace agreement. The Board would set its own organization and rules of procedure in ways that would not put at risk the claims and fundamental interests of either Israel or Palestine. The Chief Administrator, under the supervision of and responsible to the Board, would have executive and regulatory powers of the SR. He could establish a police service and administrative apparatus to enable the SR to fulfill its mandate. Under the SR, the Old City would be a weapons-free zone except for Police Service officers. The Service would have full authority to enforce law and maintain security and safety. It would consist of officers recruited from countries agreed by Palestine and Israel, but not from them. Israelis and Palestinians could serve on the Service as unarmed Community Liaison Officers. The CA and the SR would be given no responsibilities for the internal management of the Holy Sites in the Old City. These sites would remain under the current religious authorities, perhaps as further set out in the peace agreement. The SR would have responsibility for security of the sites, ensuring appropriate access, decorum and respect for customary practice, and for structural soundness on safety grounds. The mandate of the CA and SR would also include authority for planning, zoning and property, and for archeology. This is necessary to ensure that these highly contentious matters would not continue as flash points that could endanger the SR and even the peace agreement itself. The SR as developed by JOCI has been widely briefed to and discussed among Israelis and Palestinians including at the highest levels. It has also been briefed throughout the U.S. government and in other capitals, and was the subject of a conference in May, 2010 in Washington, D.C. co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and Windsor University, Ontario, Canada. Full details of JOCI’s work can be found at www.uwindsor.ca/jerusaleminitiative. Author: Ambassador Arthur Hughes served as Director-General of the Egypt-Israel Multinational Force and Observers from 1998 – 2004. Prior to that he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, after which he became the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. He has also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near East and South Asia and has held numerous other posts with the U.S. Foreign Service, including as Deputy Chief of Mission in Tel Aviv. 05 April 2012 Ma’an News Opinion: What Marwan Barghouti Really Means to Palestinians By Ramzy Baroud


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO



06 April 2012

(U) (MaanImages/file) Last week Marwan Barghouti, the prominent Palestinian political prisoner and Fatah leader, called on Palestinians to launch a "large-scale popular resistance" which would "serve the cause of our people." The message was widely disseminated as it coincided with Land Day, an event that has unified Palestinians since March 1976. Its meaning has morphed through the years to represent the collective grievances shared by most Palestinians, including dispossession from their land as a result of Israeli occupation. Barghouti is also a unifying figure among Palestinians. Even at the height of the Hamas-Fatah clashes in 2007, he insisted on unity and shunned factionalism. It is no secret that Barghouti is still a very popular figure in Fatah, to the displeasure of various Fatah leaders, not least Mahmoud Abbas, who heads both the Palestinian Authority and Fatah. Throughout indirect prisoner exchange talks with Israel, Hamas insisted on Barghouti’s release. Israel, which had officially charged and imprisoned Barghouti in 2004 for five alleged counts of murder -- but more likely because of his leading role in the Second Palestinian Intifada -- insisted otherwise. Israel held onto Barghouti largely because of his broad appeal among Palestinians. In late 2009, he told Milan-based Corriere Della Sera that "the main issue topping his agenda currently is achieving unity between rival Palestinian factions". Moreover, he claimed that following a unity deal he would be ready to submit candidacy for Palestinian presidency. Barghouti, is, of course, still in prison. Although a unity deal has been signed, it is yet to be actualized. Barghouti’s latest statement is clearly targeting the political class that has ruled Palestinians for many years, and is now merely managing and profiting from the occupation. "Stop marketing the illusion that there is a possibility of ending the occupation and achieving a state through negotiations after this vision has failed miserably," he said. "It is the Palestinian people's right to oppose the occupation in all means, and the resistance must be focused on the 1967 territories." Last December, Jospeh Dana wrote, "Barghouti is a figure of towering reverence among Palestinians and even some Israelis, regardless of political persuasion." However he did not earn his legitimacy among Palestinians


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO

UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO


UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO

The CENTCOM


06 April 2012

through his prophetic political views or negotiation skills. In fact, he was among the Fatah leaders who hopelessly, although genuinely pursued peace through the "peace process" -- which proved costly, if not lethal to the Palestinian national movement. Dana wrote, "Barghouti's pragmatic approach to peace during the 1990s demonstrated his overarching desire to end Israeli occupation at all costs." Although his latest message has articulated a conclusion that became obvious to most Palestinians – for example, that "it must be understood that there is no partner for peace in Israel when the settlements have doubled," – Barghouti’s call delineates a level of political maturity that is unlikely to go down well, whether in Ramallah or Tel Aviv. So it’s not his political savvy per se that made him popular among Palestinians, but the fact that he stands as the antithesis of traditional Fatah and PA leadership. Starting his political career at the age of 15, before being imprisoned and deported to Jordan in his early 20's, Barghouti was viewed among Fatah youth – the Shabibah – as the desired new face of the movement. When he realized that the "peace process" was a sham, intended to win time for Israeli land confiscation and settlements and reward a few accommodating Palestinians, Barghouti broke away from the Fatah echelons. Predictably, it was also then, in 2001, that Israel tried to assassinate him. Marwan Barghouti still has some support in Israel itself, specifically among the politically sensible who understand that Netanyahu’s right-wing government cannot reach a peaceful resolution, and that the so-called two-state solution is all but dead. In a Haaretz editorial entitled "Listen to Marwan Barghouti," the authors discussed how "back when he was a peace-loving, popular leader who had not yet turned to violence, Barghouti made the rounds of Israeli politicians, opinion-makers and the central committees of the Zionist parties and urged them to reach an agreement with the Palestinians." The authors recommended that "Jerusalem" listen to Barghouti because he "is the most authentic leader Fatah has produced and he can lead his people to an agreement." In his article entitled "The New Mandela," Uri Avnery wrote that Barghouti "is one of the very few personalities around whom all Palestinians, Fatah as well as Hamas, can unite." However, it is essential that a conscious separation is made between how Barghouti is interpreted by the Palestinians themselves and Israelis (even those in the left). Among the latter, Barghouti is presented as a figure who might have been involved in the "murderous terror" of the second Intifada but who can also "lead his people to an agreement" - as if Palestinians are reckless multitudes desperate for their own Mandela who is capable, through his natural leadership skills, of uniting them into signing another document. For years, but especially after the Oslo peace process, successive Israeli governments and officials have insisted that there was "no one to talk to on the Palestinian side." The tired assertion was meant to justify Israel’s unilateral policies, including settlement construction. However Barghouti is a treasured leader in the eyes of many Palestinians not because he is the man that Israel can talk to, and not because of any stereotypical undertones of him being a "strong man" who can lead the unruly Arabs. Nor can his popularity be attributed to his political savvy or the prominence of his family. Throughout the years, hundreds of Palestinians have been targeted in extrajudicial assassinations; hundreds were deported and thousands continued to be imprisoned. Marwan Barghouti is a representation of all of them and more, and it’s because of this legacy that his messages matters, and greatly so. In his latest message, Barghouti said that the Palestinian Authority should immediately halt "all co-ordination with Israel - economic and security - and work toward Palestinian reconciliation," rather than another peace agreement. Most Palestinians already agree. Ramzy Baroud is an internationally syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com

Date post:	14-Oct-2014
Category:	Documents
Upload:	beowulf-durendal
View:	19 times
Download:	1 times

06 Apr 2012 OSINT Levant Tracker

Documents