West Asia News and Discussions

habal · Post by **habal** » 30 Jun 2013 13:09

FSA rebel tries to get by SAA checkpoint dressed as a bride

habal · Post by **habal** » 30 Jun 2013 14:15

Sub: Saudi conference on Women in society

Question: Spot the woman

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 30 Jun 2013 15:36

i hope the religious police are taking note of all this gratuitous ankle showing

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 30 Jun 2013 15:44

Big showdown today in Egypt. Alexandria MB offices burnt down just for warm up. What happens in Egypt today will reveberate all over the Arab world. So eyes posted on your TV screens. Key issue will be the position of the military (a la TSP)

Will post a detailed analysis later.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 30 Jun 2013 17:19

New Video emerges of 2 Assad loyalist getting beheaded by Islamist

Video ( Graphics Warning ) http://rt.com/news/syria-beheadings-video-assad-401/

Another one but more detailed http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/krigogka ... 027260.ece

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 30 Jun 2013 22:28

Quick summary of Egypt events for those interested:
- Army have the best intel on what is happening through HUMINT and hundreds of CCTV cameras in Cairo
- Morsi has lost support of women, students, business leaders (pro-Mubarak) and working class who had initially voted for him. Backed by Copts too.
- since revolution poverty increased by 25%
- Deficit at $29bn
- US tried to arm twist GCC to urgently give financial aid to Egypt. GCC refused.
- Opposition is backed financially by old regime businessmen who feel betrayed as they have been charged for Mubarak day corruption charges. Internation, regional govts who are anti MB.
- At the minimum the opposition can bring the country to standstill.
- MB supporters won't be able to go on for long financially and neither will the army sit still. So army will be forced to make a decision to intervene
- Collision between both oppostion and pro MB groups bound to happen at some point - violence likey.
- This is where military intel apparatus will come into play and look at what is happening, then make a decision to side with the winner purely by looking at the numbers on the street.
- Already Egyptian helicopters have been flying low over Tahrir sq.

So what happens:
1) MB cement their rule by looking at their legitimacy of presidential rule. Likelyhood of outcome low
2) Second possibility is a rebel movement's success leading to the overthrow of the regime decisively
3) No one comes out on the streets - possibly the worst case as MB will probably go to ballot boxes after using the security forces to clean up the streets. This will prolong the whole conflict and economic instability.

But latest pics show Outcome 3 - might be unlikely.

As I mentioned many times what happened in Egypt was not a revolution (total replacement of the system) but a coup.

I said in 2011, the MB coming to power at this point in time was a good move because they will F up the economy (which they succeeded in doing) and people will get sick of them (evidence today suggests that is the case) and will vote them out. All the west needed to do is ensure democratic process continues. EU was the biggest source of aid to Egyptian economy - so all this is fall out of EU economic crisis.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 30 Jun 2013 22:48

habal wrote:Sub: Saudi conference on Women in society

Question: Spot the woman

Errrr......Saudi women have sent their representatives for this conference

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 01 Jul 2013 01:31

Chaps what you are seeing in Egypt today is the end of the MB rule pretty much.

Egyptian military declared this the largest demonstrations in their history - i.e. you know who they are going to side with - the opposition. Army is worried because they know the MB will have to resist in order to stay in power as they are the elected ones and they know the MB will not return to power in the elections.

Prospect of violence now extremely high unless the MB decide to leave power peacefully.

Shanmukh · Post by **Shanmukh** » 01 Jul 2013 01:35

shyamd wrote:Chaps what you are seeing in Egypt today is the end of the MB rule pretty much.

So when is Morsi going to fall? And so are the Egyptians back to the Army rule?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Jul 2013 02:25

Didnt we say before Egypt always had General's rule through the ancient Pharoh times?

habal · Post by **habal** » 01 Jul 2013 07:14

It increasingly looks like SAA are receiving up-to-date info from the Russians using satellite imagery on rebel positions. Result is that the ambush that the rebels had laid for the SAA armor in Jobar enroute to Al-Qaboon turned into a turkey-shoot for SAA. An ambush was laid with 20 RPG, 6 23mm AA rifles, and the usual AKs. While those who lay in ambush were ambushed themselves using SAA operated RPG. Main weapon used by SAA was the Mi-24 Hinds which sprayed pellets in this turkey-shoot.

In the eastern province of Deir-El-Zor, the rebels lost 3 professional officers (deserters of rank colonel, major & captain) amongst 7 others in a misjudged attack on an SAA checkpoint.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 01 Jul 2013 08:10

Well, in that case - isnt it best for the army to let Morsi continue and not overtly support the opposition?

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 01 Jul 2013 17:31

ramana wrote:Didnt we say before Egypt always had General's rule through the ancient Pharoh times?

Egyptian mili intel has told the US they are ready to vacate the presidency by end of the week (possibly by Wednesday).

Update: 1508: SCAF to issue statement shortly per TV reports

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 01 Jul 2013 20:17

SCAF gives Morsi 48 hours to vacate. And source got it spot on yesterday

1720 update : RT @AlArabiya_Eng: Ten ministers resign from the Egyptian government: Al Arabiya http://t.co/wW8yjoML1P | #June30

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Jul 2013 22:52

Err what or who is SCAF? Please until people get familiar with acronyms don't use them. It will save bandwidth.

Garooda · Post by **Garooda** » 01 Jul 2013 22:57

If it helps. Supreme_Council_of the_Armed_Forces

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) (Arabic: المجلس الأعلى للقوات المسلحة‎, al-Maǧlis al-ʾAʿlā lil-Quwwāt al-Musallaḥah, also Higher Council of the Armed Forces) is the governing body of 21 senior officers in the Egyptian military. As a consequence of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, SCAF took the power to govern Egypt from its departing President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011, and relinquished power on 30 June 2012 upon the start of Mohamed Morsi's term as President.

The Council met regularly,[citation needed] as well as in times of a national emergency. During the course of the 2011 revolution, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces met first on February 9, 2011 under the chairmanship of Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak. The Council met for the first time without the chairmanship of the President on the following day, February 10, and issued their first press statement which signaled that the council was about to assume power which they did the next day following Mubarak's resignation. The military junta was headed by the Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi who served as the Minister of Defense under Mubarak, and included the service heads and other senior commanders of the Egyptian Armed Forces, namely Air Marshal Reda Mahmoud Hafez Mohamed, Air Force commander, Lt. Gen. Sami Hafez Anan, Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Abd El Aziz Seif-Eldeen, Commander of Air Defense, and Vice Admiral Mohab Mamish, Navy Commander in Chief.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Jul 2013 00:20

So its back to Rule of the Generals!
Or return of the Mamelukes.

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 02 Jul 2013 00:24

After a long time Assad must be laughing his a$$ off seeing the real revolution in Egypt and Turkey
causing their sunni salafis much taklifs. It's just a matter of time things may go in the same direction
in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait,...and at last Al Saud. Unkil is also too much on pins and needles due to
some transparency ('yen-yes-yey' @n@al leakage).

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 02 Jul 2013 01:33

Not sure if this is a psy-op...

Israel is preparing for its next war with Hezbollah
http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-in- ... ah/5341070

... and concluded a massive exercise in central Golan.

RoyG · Post by **RoyG** » 02 Jul 2013 02:15

Hard to believe that we have FSA jihadi sympathizers on BRF. These people are sick.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Jul 2013 02:42

Looks like Egypt is throwing back the MB velvet revolution. This could have its own impact on Syria and ME.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 02 Jul 2013 03:24

ramana wrote:Looks like Egypt is throwing back the MB velvet revolution. This could have its own impact on Syria and ME.

It wasn't a revolution from day1. The same system exists. What took place was a coup. Mubarak quietly been acquitted of some charges.

Coup number 2 taking place now. MB been trying to get to power since 1928, it took 1 year for people to get rid of the MB from power.

The military doesn't want to run the show because there are no easy answers to the economic problems - the basis of protests.

The military wanted US nod for the coup, looks like they got it this afternoon. Just works exactly like the textbooks

Before we start talking more - MB are resisting this move so far. So still wait and watch what happens on Wednesday scenario.

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 02 Jul 2013 06:44

shyamd wrote:Quick summary of Egypt events for those interested:
- Army have the best intel on what is happening through HUMINT and hundreds of CCTV cameras in Cairo
- Morsi has lost support of women, students, business leaders (pro-Mubarak) and working class who had initially voted for him. Backed by Copts too.
- since revolution poverty increased by 25%
- Deficit at $29bn
- US tried to arm twist GCC to urgently give financial aid to Egypt. GCC refused.
- Opposition is backed financially by old regime businessmen who feel betrayed as they have been charged for Mubarak day corruption charges. Internation, regional govts who are anti MB.
- At the minimum the opposition can bring the country to standstill.
- MB supporters won't be able to go on for long financially and neither will the army sit still. So army will be forced to make a decision to intervene
- Collision between both oppostion and pro MB groups bound to happen at some point - violence likey.
- This is where military intel apparatus will come into play and look at what is happening, then make a decision to side with the winner purely by looking at the numbers on the street.
- Already Egyptian helicopters have been flying low over Tahrir sq.

Shymdji, If I could quote from a earlier post about what Brzeski said, following seems to be playing out "Esrael's strategic prospects are best served if all of its adjoining neighbors are destabilized...."

arun · Post by **arun** » 02 Jul 2013 08:33

X Posted from the Islamism thread.

Christist cleric belonging to the Catholic sect beheaded by Mohammaddens in Syria:

Francois Murad, Catholic Priest 'Beheaded By Jihadist Fighters In Syria'

The video itself is posted at Liveleak. URL is below. WARNING! GRAPHIC!:

Syrian rebels beheads bishop François Murad

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 02 Jul 2013 09:15

Syria-Hardened Fighters Behind Attacks in China – Report

Islamic militants, battle-hardened in Syria, were behind two terrorist attacks that left dozens dead in a northwest Chinese province, in which separatists have wanted to establish a sovereign state of “East Turkestan,” a Chinese news agency reported Monday.

About a hundred militants associated with the group behind the attacks went to Syria via Turkey to fight alongside rebel forces battling the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, China’s The Global Times reported, citing an unnamed anti-terrorism official.

They went there “to overcome their fears, improve their fighting skills and gain experience in carrying out terror attacks,” the official was quoted as saying.

The two terrorist attacks in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, claimed the lives of 35 people, including policemen and civilians. The province, which borders Central Asia, is home to 10 million Muslim Uighurs.

The attacks came several days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the July 5 riot in the provincial capital of Urumqi that saw Uighurs pitted against ethnic Chinese in a deadly clash that left nearly 200 people killed.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 02 Jul 2013 09:47

The Shadow War Against Syria’s Christians

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 02 Jul 2013 11:45

morsi is saying he rejects the army's ultimatum to leave office - don't know if MB is strong enough to take to the streets given how they were unable to prevent their offices being ransacked, but its looking very ugly

on the face of it, both egypt and turkey appear to be going through a populist lurch to the islamist right and then now a lurch back to the centre - on both cases the army appears to be the ultimate power brokers

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Jul 2013 19:57

so far no visible blowback on the two cats-paws - qatar and KSA. they richly deserve to get scalded for the boiling hot oil they are throwing around the school playground.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 02 Jul 2013 20:10

i wonder if the king and the king exported their disgruntled young men in designer combat jeans and gucci visors to syria to get them out of the way of blowback opportunities?

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 02 Jul 2013 21:08

There won't be blowback in KSA or Qatar. Maybe kuwait, Oman, Bah or eastern KSA. As long as the kings provide money to the people and tribals are listened to there won't be a problem. They get money for literally everything from education, marriage etc

-----
@ReutersWorld: Exclusive: draft Egypt army roadmap proposes to change constitution and scrap parliament, say military sources http://t.co/XgfUh0VMoX

RT @AFP: #BREAKING Egypt Brotherhood leader calls for 'martyrdom' to stop coup
LOL!

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 02 Jul 2013 21:55

MB should not be underestimated. Urban protests get more coverage - but the larger rural, semi-rural, small-town populations will be more Islamist and more MB by inclination.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 02 Jul 2013 21:57

The military would try to destroy both MB leadership as well as MB opponents leadership. Their expected route will be to target Morsi and pamper the next rung of MB leadership. They will be much more angry and fearful of the anti-Islamist trends within the urban protests and will seek to crush them first before encountering MB as such.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 02 Jul 2013 23:06

'Iranians will stand by Syria as long Russia stands by it as well' - Ahmadinejad

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 03 Jul 2013 01:26

The Role of Religion in Postconflict Syria
http://www.cfr.org/syria/role-religion- ... ria/p31050

( Jakham Dene Wale, Darro Dwa Batta rahe Hain )

The death toll in Syria is now estimated to be upwards of one hundred thousand and shows little sign of abating. The once secular and nonviolent revolt has taken on the tones of a regional sectarian proxy war as Iran and Hezbollah intervene on the regime's behalf while Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey aid the rebels. While acknowledging the role of religion in provoking conflict, Daniel Philpott, professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and coauthor of God's Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, argues that religious leaders have a critical role to play in negotiating societies' transitions from conflict to postconflict. "In Syria, there ought to be a lot of potential for entrepreneurial religious leaders to step up and pronounce a message of reconciliation," he says.

Three years into the Syrian civil war, any plausible policy the United States might pursue seems bound to raise a host of new problems. With decades of misrule compounded by sectarian differences, how do you begin to think about reconciliation?

This is a conflict where religion matters. It may not be the case that religion is the primary driver of the conflict, but it is certainly mixed up in the causes, both in defining the identities of communities as well as actual grievances. The Bashar al-Assad dictatorship follows a pattern of Arab dictatorship with respect to religion that is very interesting and very fraught. It can be seen as a protector of minorities: it protects the Alawites and Christians, but it follows a pattern of authoritarian rule which my coauthors and I have termed "seculocracy." It is based upon an Arab nationalist ideology that is all about modernization: we want to become more like the West; we want to become technologically advanced; we're based upon this secular nation idea; we want equality and social progress. The view of religion is that Islam is something that very much needs to be contained and managed.
The Alawites, and how they relate to other Shiites, seem to be poorly understood in the West--perhaps more a marriage of political convenience than a reflection of deeply rooted religious affinity. How does this play into the dynamics on the ground?
It does help to explain the relationship between Assad and Iran and then Hezbollah, which are its allies; the Shiite common identity helps to build that geopolitical alliance. In part, what's feared is that if Assad is overthrown this will not become a kind of secular democracy, but Sunni Islamist, and that it will then become an ally of other Sunni Muslim forces around the region.
Across the Shia Crescent, there seems to be a palpable fear that if Assad falls, the fate of Shiites in Lebanon and Iraq becomes much more precarious, making the whole region even more combustible.

"The failure of nationalism creates a vacuum. People's religious identities haven't gone away; they've started to mobilize around them politically. "

There is a kind of transnational Shiite solidarity. I would stress not only the role of religion in the conflict, but the sense of religion being opposed to secular government and a sense that the Arab nationalism project ran out of steam. In the 1950s and 1960s it looked great; they thought religion would disappear as a force, but in the last forty years there has been a resurgence of religion in global politics. Certainly there has been an Islamic resurgence. Meanwhile, the Arab nationalist project has been an economic disaster, often built on socialism, on statist-style economies.
Is the failure of these nationalist projects what brought people back to Islam in this political sense?
The failure of nationalism creates a vacuum. People's religious identities haven't gone away; they've started to mobilize around them politically.
And you see that many Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, proved much more effective than some states in providing services people expect.
Exactly. So in the 1970s you started to see student mobilization, and the Muslim Brotherhood really became a widespread popular force, rather than just a few radicals.
The prospect of a negotiated settlement all sides can sign on to seems completely remote; even as there's broad agreement that there should be a Geneva II peace conference, the conference has been delayed repeatedly--it now seems unlikely to take place before the fall--and disagreement over the agenda and even the participants persists. So where do we go from here?
I am deeply pessimistic. Assad is starting to resurge, and if he thinks he is going to win, he is not going to negotiate. The question for the United States is: Should we arm the rebels, establish a no-fly zone? I'm skeptical. It's unclear who we are supporting and what they represent. It could end up being an Islamist-style government. Al-Nusra is already ruling in the east, imposing a very harsh form of Sharia law connected to al-Qaeda. The response to that is, we should support the moderates and make them stronger, but I don't know that we have that kind of control over things. My fear is that Assad falls and they are going to turn against each other: the more secular democratic people versus the Islamists, because their visions are just as opposed to each other as are either to Assad.
Can the case of Iraq, where Sunni-Shia fighting ran in parallel with the insurgency against U.S. forces, inform decision-making, or does it just muddle our thinking about Syria?
U.S. policymakers did not anticipate that after Saddam fell there would be this massive civil war partly between Sunnis and Shiites--you also had the Kurdish dimension. It's because of the failure of American foreign policymakers to understand the power of religion. Saddam, as bad as he was, was keeping all these things bottled, sometimes very brutally. Once you pull this lid off, these sectarian, religiously motivated passions came to the fore; that's something we didn't anticipate. You could see something like that with Syria. I would encourage American foreign policymakers to be aware and remember that religion matters.
How do you make thinking about religion a part of the intellectual culture at the State Department and in the national security apparatus?"I would encourage American foreign policy makers to be aware and remember that religion matters."
There are some efforts to train people in the State Department and in the political realm in a kind of religious literacy. There has been a State Department working group on religion. If you want to pursue the goals of American foreign policy like stability, democracy, peace, antiterrorism, and so forth, then you've got to work with religious actors and understand the dynamics in building alliances. This is not to ignore the dark sides of religion too, the way that religion can foment conflict, but that too is something that policymakers could understand better.
With the UN Security Council deadlocked, is there a diplomatic avenue that seems promising? Or do we just have to see how it plays out on the ground and let the war exhaust itself?
I suppose that if the United States and Russia could agree on an approach, that could do a lot, but I don't see that happening any time soon. I don't want to seem naive here, but this is a case where religious leaders could make a difference, if you had religious leaders committed to a vision of reconciliation rooted in their religious traditions and were willing to coalesce around that. I think there has been an effort made to bring together Sunni and Shiite leaders, and often you can find agreements among the religious leaders saying,"we can live together in a country where there is going to be protection for religious freedom, there is going to be protection for minorities, and yet we're going to be a religiously informed polity."

Political scientists debate the relative merit of war crimes tribunals and amnesty-granting truth commissions in postconflict transitions. Looking ahead, do you have a take on what would be best for Syria?
Here's again where religious leaders can make a big difference. If it's a little bit unrealistic to think that they are going to make a difference during the war, it's more realistic to think that they could make a big difference after the war. Reconciliation need not reject war crimes tribunals or accountability. Whether or not to have that or amnesty is a pragmatic decision. In an ideal world you would have accountability for war criminals. However, the human rights community and international law community place almost an exclusive emphasis upon trials and rule of law whereas I think a reconciliation paradigm would be much broader, where you would see things like acknowledgement of victims, apology, and forgiveness to overcome some of those past wounds which are getting more and more horrible the more the death toll mounts, and the bitterness and the hatred and revenge, and all that goes with it. It seems to me that if those emotions and those wounds are not addressed, then we can't expect a stable peace in Syria.

Do you think war crimes trials run the risk of alienating armed groups that could potentially be avoided with the truth and reconciliation approach?
One wants to acknowledge the depth and magnitude of the wounds. But, on the other hand, we do have examples of countries like South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, and Northern Ireland, where through religious leadership there have been real efforts to heal the wounds and to encourage people to reconcile or at least partially reconcile and be able to live together again.
Commentators have raised the Balkan wars as an apt analogy for the kind of communal fighting in Syria. Does their postconflict experience hold any relevant lessons?
The Balkans is a place where there had been some interreligious efforts towards peace, but I wouldn't call it one of the stronger cases in the world of reconciliation. You had the international criminal trial for Yugoslavia, so you did have some progress toward accountability, and that's a good thing in itself. I don't think that it had very much impact on peace on the ground.
Was it a failure of tactics? Could they have done better?
They never succeeded in having any kind of powerful truth-telling process or practices of apology, reparations, or forgiveness. In Syria, there ought to be a lot of potential for entrepreneurial religious leaders to step up and pronounce a message of reconciliation.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 03 Jul 2013 04:03

Folks to cut things short. Morsi is saying - legitimacy a number of times in his speech and that he is the protector or Egypt and asked people not to attack military and he's ready to pay for legitimacy with his life. (Note how source used the same words to me on Sunday).

Source informs me that likelihood is that the MB will begin deploying their military teams. They will target specific individuals (important individuals) and the anti Morsi protestors (I am told probably with sniper teams). The MB will use it's takfiri allies such as Jemaa islamia.

He tells me don't forget the MB have a trained intel service and military teams.

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 03 Jul 2013 06:07

Could this explain the Tahrir-fest? (Source: Heritage Foundation)

http://www.heritage.org/research/report ... d-to-egypt

Last week, Egyptian courts sentenced 43 staff members of pro-democracy non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including 16 Americans, to prison terms of up to five years for their activities to support civil society and democracy after Egypt’s 2011 revolution. The trial and harsh sentences underscore the fact that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government is becoming even more authoritarian than the Hosni Mubarak regime, which allowed the NGOs to operate before 2011.....

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 03 Jul 2013 12:20

is the MB willing to risk a civil war at this stage? the army will not take very kindly to that

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 03 Jul 2013 19:54

From Al Manar News...
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adeta ... &fromval=1

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 03 Jul 2013 20:09

Syria under Assad was the only stable enitity that could cause Israel grief. So this Arab spring was launched to plunge Syria into civil war. The front backers are KSA and GCC but US is not to far behind. In case people need to be reminded US launched it first frienly coup in Syria in the early 1950s under benign avuncular Ike!

Meantime is Egypt is on fire as the Arab Spring turned into Arab winter of discontent with Shariat lite.
Egyptian military learned lesson form TSPA.

Launch a coup and have a dummy election to get US to subsidise or rather pay jiziaya.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 03 Jul 2013 21:29

^^ essentially Army strategy is to hold power for few months and give back power to civilians ASAP.
Main concern for army is to get access to the international aid pretty quick.

MB strategy now is to foil army plans and spread as much chaos as possible. Both heading for a big collision. Violence and all will be used by the MB. Just wait and see.

Army sealing off the roads to palace now. Morsi locked in a room in a republican guard base. MB Spokesman screaming COUP! Coup!

As I type Egyptian military have deployed in several neighbourhoods and key areas of Cairo