A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told reporters at a news conference covered by NBC News he could not say whether the plane had crashed or been shot down.
He said he had no word on the fate of the plane's two airmen.
"The chief of general staff has made the necessary statement about the missing plane. I am not saying it was brought down at the point it fell. It is not possible to say this without knowing the exact facts," Erdogan told a news conference.
Turkish ships and helicopters were searching for the airmen in cooperation with Syrian vessels, Erdogan said.
He said he wasn't aware of any Syrian claims of responsibility for bringing down the plane or of earlier reports that Syrian authorities had apologized.
Earlier, Lebanon's Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar television station said that Syrian air defenses shot down a Turkish military aircraft, quoting Syrian security sources.
This has the potential for being the rationale for getting NATO involved in the Syrian civil war.
I fully expect Syria to claim that this was an accident/misunderstanding/failure to communicate, etc., while Turkey might try to minimize the severity of the incident as well, since they're generally on talking terms with Assad.
However, there have been several incidents since the uprising began that saw Syrian forces fire on or into Turkey and the Turkish government has increasingly grown tired of the violence in Syria and the strain on humanitarian resources near the border with Syria from the flow of refugees.
The fighting in Syria rages on despite the fact that there's supposedly a ceasefire in place between rebel forces arrayed against Bashar al-Assad's security forces.
Bombings are increasingly common. A pair of bombings today killed at least 55 people and injured more than 400 others.
The explosions struck at rush hour in the Al Qazaz neighborhood and tore through a crowded intersection near a military intelligence branch, injuring 372 people, both civilians and members of the military, officials said. The blast was heard and felt throughout the city.
In a statement released by his spokesman, Annan reiterated his call to all parties to adhere to the weeks-old cease-fire. Previous calls for a stop to the violence have gone unheeded as President Bashar Assad's security forces have continued a brutal crackdown on dissent and some opposition fighters have taken up arms again.
The UN has tried to broker a ceasefire deal, but Assad's refused to stop his brutal crackdown against those opposed to his regime.
The pair of blasts were apparently two vehicles loaded with 2,200 of explosives and driven by suicide bombers.
The U.N. plan is most publicly supported by the Russians, who believe there is still a way to mediate an end to the crisis in Syria. The Russians, long-time allies of the Syrian government, have opposed strict U.N. sanctions and calls for foreign intervention.
But a growing number feel the peace plan has failed.
They include Wissam Tarif, who runs the Beirut office of the activist group Avaaz, which does extensive work on Syria. He and others say the Syrian regime is simply not willing to stop the violence, which means it will never be able to reach a negotiated solution.
That's why Tarif calls the U.N. plan a "necessary failure" — meaning that the more the Russians see the regime's violations, the more likely they will be to go along with tougher measures against the Syrian leadership.
"Having said that, it's very important to note that this failure is very expensive and it's by the Syrian people's blood because hundreds continue to be killed in the country," Tarif says.
The Russians have blocked any more stringent actions against Assad, but the US doesn't want to get bogged down in another attempt at nation building coming off the heels of the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences.
This leaves Assad with the ability to crush the rebellion and do so with a free hand since there's little chance that he would see NATO forces prepare the battlefield in the manner that they did with the Libyan civil war.
Yes, you read that headline correctly. Libyan dictator Mumar Khadafi, whose 40+ year rule included open support for terror groups, carrying out war crimes against his own population, and all manner of depravity, was killed by Libyan rebels after a NATO airstrike hit the convoy in which he rode.
Marcel Ceccaldi, a French lawyer who previously worked for Kadafi's regime and now represents his family, told AFP on Wednesday that the complaint would be filed with the International Criminal Court in the Hague because the family believes a NATO strike on Kadafi’s convoy led directly to his death.
Kadafi, who ruled Libya for more than four decades, was captured alive by revolutionary fighters on Thursday in his hometown of Surt, ending an eight-month war that cost more than 30,000 lives. The circumstances of his death remain unclear.
Libyan authorities have said he likely died in crossfire. Others, including the international rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch, believe Kadafi was executed. But Kadafi’s family is convinced that he died as a result of NATO aircraft firing on his convoy as it fled Surt, Ceccaldi told AFP.
"The willful killing [of someone protected by the Geneva Convention] is defined as a war crime by Article 8 of the ICC's Rome Statute," the news agency quoted Ceccaldi as saying. "Kadafi's homicide shows that the goal of [NATO] member states was not to protect civilians but to overthrow the regime.”
It was unclear when the complaint would be filed, but Ceccaldi said the lawsuit would target NATO executive bodies and leaders of the alliance’s member states.
In June, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Kadafi, his son and onetime heir apparent Seif Islam Kadafi, and Abdullah Sanoussi, the regime's former security chief, for murder and other crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the regime's crackdown on protesters this year.
Somehow, the death of Khadafi under suspect conditions while in the custody of rebel forces makes NATO liable?
It was not foreseeable that the NATO airstrike would lead to the rebels executing Khadafi in cold blood. After all, they pulled him from the culvert wounded but alive. But for the actions of someone in that crowd executing him in cold blood, Khadafi may well have survived had he received treatment.
That isn't on NATO. That's on the individual rebel group that captured him. But for family members, they want to go after NATO, which they blame for the fall of the regime that kept the family living in relative luxury.
This case also shows just how perverse the notion of international justice is. If this group submits to ICC jurisdiction, how about holding the relatives liable for Khadafi's war crimes - and they were more involved in the daily affairs of the regime than NATO was in Khadafi's death. Do Khadafi's relatives really want to go down this path? After all, Khadafi's relatives profited from 40+ years of Mumar's rule, benefited from the use of violence to quell dissent within the country, became enriched from the wealth of natural resources stolen from the people, and knew, or had reason to know of the use of deadly force to stop the protests. They did nothing to stop Khadafi's use of force to stop the protests.
Family members were enablers and championed Khadafi, even though it extended the misery of the Libyan people.
In the wake of the death of Libyan despot Mumar Khadafi, Syrians have renewed calls for the removal of Bashar al Assad. Assad's security forces would not tolerate protests, and have once again murdered the protesters. 13 more people were added to the butcher's bill.
Homs, the city of one million has been scene of extensive military operations to suppress regular protests and a nascent armed insurgency that has emerged after a relentless crackdown on persistent demonstrations calling for more political freedoms.
"Gaddafi is finished. It is your turn now Bashar!" shouted demonstrators in the town of Maaret al-Numaan in the northwestern province of Idlib, according to one witness.
"Prepare yourself Assad!" chanted protesters in the town of Tayyana in the tribal province of Deir al-Zor, on the border with Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.
Assad, an ophthalmologist who inherited power from his late father in 2000, strengthened ties with Gaddafi months before the Arab Spring wave of popular unrest against repressive ruling elites erupted in Tunisia in December.
The two countries struck a series of cooperation deals and Assad later allowing a Syrian-based satellite station to broadcast messages from Gaddafi while he was on the run. He was killed in unclear circumstances after his capture on Thursday.
In the town of Houla northwest of Homs, a crowd of several thousands held shoulders and waved old Syrian flags dating to before Assad's Baath party took power in a coup 48 years ago.
"Doctor, you are next!" read banners carried by the villagers, according to live video footage.
Demonstrations also broke out in Homs, the provincial capital 140 km (85 miles) north of Damascus, where three members of same family were also shot dead at an army road block in Bab Sbaa district on their way to prayers, local activists said.
With the NATO operations winding down in Libya in support of the Libyan Transitional Council efforts to wrest control of the country from Khadafi and his loyalists, they may now be more attuned to the plight of the Syrian opposition. The Syrian opposition has grown more cohesive and formed an actual council akin to the Libyan effort. That is key to generating support among international diplomats and leveraging defectors among the Syrian elites to encourage NATO to consider action.
There are key differences though. For starters, Assad has largely kept his attacks against protesters to ground operations and he has significant support from terror groups like Hizbullah and Hamas, both of which have major operations and key leaders encamped in Damascus. More importantly, Assad has the support of Iran, which backs his regime and is likely to counter any Western efforts in a much more direct manner.
So, for now, the Syrian opposition has an uphill battle to counter Assad's built-in advantages.
It wouldn't be the first time that there has been wild rumors about the capture or death of a Khadafi or that early reports turned out to be mistaken. Yet, these reports seem to be getting confirmation from higher level officials. There's still no official word from the US State Department confirming Khadafi's capture or death, but these must be dark times for Khadafi's followers. AFP has a photo showing a bloodied Khadafi in custody.
The military official, Abdel Majid Mlegta, had told Reuters earlier that Gadhafi was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes had attacked.
"He was also hit in his head," said Mlegta. "There was a lot of firing against his group and he died."
Asked if there was photographic evidence to prove that Gadhafi was dead, Mlegta said: "We have the footage but it is not available now."
However, the AFP news agency provided a photograph that appeared to show a wounded or dead Gadhafi. The image has not been independently verified.
Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam told the AP that he had confirmed that Gadhafi was dead from fighters that said they saw the body.
Khadafi's hometown Sirte has been overrun by the rebels, who have become the officially recognized government by world leaders. The Khadafi loyalists are on the run and continue to lose ground to the new Libyan National Transitional Council government. Khadafi was hit when his convoy was attacked by NATO aircraft.
While Khadafi's death would be a great relief to many Libyans, it is possible that the new government may face an ongoing period of insurgency by Khadafi loyalists who would seek retribution against the new government for being ousted from power.
Khadafi had long declared that he would never surrender and that appears to be the case.
UPDATE:
Yes, it would appear that Khadafi has been captured, but no official word that he was killed (at least from the State Department). The photo of a bloodied Khadafi and the look on his face is one that suggests disbelief and perhaps the realization that his end was near.
It didn't have to be that way. Khadafi could have taken the golden parachute to despot exile, but instead chose to fight it out to stay in power. Now? He's got nothing except a spot in a box (whether it's a coffin or a holding cell is still yet to be known though I think he's due for a coffin fitting about now).
UPDATE:
Who takes credit for the end of the Khadafi regime? First and foremost, it's the Libyan people. They were the ones who rose up against a despot who ruled with an iron fist for 42 years. They were the ones risking everything for a chance at a better tomorrow.
NATO helped, but it was the Libyan people who shed the blood and who died for their freedom. The President gets credit for authorizing US and NATO actions to support the Libyan rebels once they organized and became a credible entity to work with against Khadafi.
Anything else would be a misreading of history and the facts.
Gadhafi's son, Mutassim, and his chief of intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, have been killed, according to Anees al-Sharif, spokesman for AbdelHakim Belhajj of the Tripoli military council.
This report comes on the day that Moammar Gadhafi has been killed.
[Update 10:36 a.m. ET] Former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has been killed, interim Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril told reporters in Tripoli Thursday.
UPDATE:
Video shows that Khadafi was alive when he was captured.
The hunt for Mumar Khadafi continues. Mumar Khadafi was nowhere to be seen in the capital of Tripoli or in his overrun compound, but he apparently issued an audio recording calling on his supporters to fight to the bitter end. He also vowed to fight to victory or death. Rebels ransacked Khadafi's compound, which included all kinds of valuables, including some of the uniforms and costumes Khadafi wore in public, statues to himself, and other assorted items.
I think the Libyans will oblige him on the latter bit. Khadafi's now incapable of winning; his forces were routed from key areas around the country and his area of operations keeps shrinking. It's wishful thinking for the loyalists to think they can stem the tide of history.
Khadafi can't be seen out in the public and his son Saif could only show himself during a few minutes during the overnight to repute claims he had been captured by rebel forces.
None of this means that the country is safe by any stretch. Journalists holed up in the Rixos hotel are effectively prisoners to Khadafi's loyalists; they aren't allowed to leave, which means that the few journalists who opted not to stay in the hotel are going to get the scoops of a lifetime. The fighting continues as pockets of resistance are dealt with by the rebel forces, and artillery and gunfire continues to ricochet around the capital.
The concern is that like Saddam Hussein, did Khadafi plot the disappearance of his key forces so as to carry on an insurgency against the rebel groups.
With Gaddafi and son Saif al-Islam still nowhere to be found, it is likely that the family slipped out of the capital at the last moment, along with their die-hard supporters, according to one Libyan who has had contact with regime supporters during the conflict. He says he was told last month by tribal officials allied to Gaddafi that they had been carefully crafting a retreat, as the regime increasingly became aware that it was unlikely to survive. "It is obvious that everything is ready for them," says Noman Benotman, former head of an armed militant Libyan group who is now senior analyst for the London think tank Quilliam. "The way he evacuated Tripoli was all part of the plan." (See pictures of the lengthy battle for Libya.)
In a crackling audio address from his hideout in the early hours of Wednesday, Gaddafi said he had made a "tactical retreat" from Tripoli. Of the rebel fighters, he said: "They are evil incarnate. We should fight them." His words were broadcast on a new pro-Gaddafi web-television channel seemingly designed to replace the national propaganda network the leader has just lost. The address was widely dismissed by Libyans as the desperate words of a defeated tyrant. But they might hold some other meaning, according to Benotman. He claims to have met officials last month from a "very significant, large tribe" supportive of the regime, who told him that they had made a "pact" to support the regime's holdouts if Gaddafi's rule collapsed — even if the Colonel himself was captured or killed. Benotman believes that Gaddafi might have retreated to Al-Jufra, a military base south of the leader's hometown of Sirte, and that Saif al-Islam likely slipped out of Tripoli early Tuesday, shortly after dropping by the Rixos Hotel, where about 35 foreign journalists have been besieged since last weekend.
While Khadafi purportedly claims to still be inside Tripoli somewhere, I think he's slipped out of the city and moved towards Sirte, which is his hometown. I just can't picture him leading this fight from the front and he's much more likely to be caught wearing a burkha or costume to avoid being captured than wearing a military uniform.
UPDATE:
The number of regimes and countries still considering Khadafi (or Gathafi as his passport apparently shows) is shrinking. Burkina Faso and Chad, two nations which received large amounts of aid from Libya under Col Gaddafi, have now joined the list of more than 40 countries recognising the rebels' NTC as Libya's legitimate authority. Burkina Faso says it will offer Col Gaddafi exile if he requests it. From what Khadafi has been saying, I doubt Burkina Faso will have to worry about putting him up. The BBC also reports that there are more defections.
Despite reports yesterday claiming that several of Mumar Khadafi's sons were taken into custody by rebel forces in and around Tripoli, it turns out that it wasn't the case. Saif al-Islam made a pretty dramatic entrance and posed for photos among his supporters inside Tripoli.
Chalk that up to the fog of war and overly optimistic reporting/announcements from the rebels. However, the BBC live-blog is reporting that rebel spokesman Hany Hassan Soufrakis relates that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was actually captured but somehow managed to escape from the rebels: "He was captured and apparently he escaped; that's the information we're getting. To be honest, it's an embarrassment," he told the BBC World Service.
It was not clear whether the recent rebel gains were the beginnings of a decisive victory or, rather, the start of potentially prolonged street fighting for control of the capital. NATO officials in Brussels and London said the alliance’s warplanes were flying reconnaissance and other missions over Libya but declined to say whether the planes had bombed the fortified Qaddafi compound in Tripoli.
“Our mission is not over yet,” said Col. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, at a news conference in Naples, Italy, urging pro-Qaddafi forces to return to their barracks. “Until this is the case we will carry on with our mission.” Asked if the alliance knew where Colonel Qaddafi was, he said: “We don’t know. I don’t have a clue.”
“The situation in Tripoli is still very serious and very dangerous,” Colonel Lavoie said.
He acknowledged that the urban environment in Tripoli, a city of some two million, was “far more complex” for airstrikes, but said the alliance had precision weapons at its disposal to enforce its United Nations Security Council mandate, which is to protect civilians from attack.
The thing is that no one knows where Mumar Khadafi is, and the state television network has finally gone off the air. Typically, state-run television broadcasts reports sympathetic to the regimes in power, so this is a positive development for the rebel forces.
Hours after the Jamahiriya (State of the Masses) channel had broadcast increasingly desperate pleas from Muammar Gaddafi, TV screens airing the station suddenly turned black. Minutes later the network's logo appeared at the bottom right of the screen, but without any picture or sound.
A spokesman for the rebel alliance claimed control of the media group's headquarters: ''The revolutionaries stormed the television building … after killing the soldiers surrounding it. It is now under their control.''
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Rebel forces also claimed to have detained Hala Misrati, the Libyan state TV anchor who famously vowed to die a martyr for Colonel Gaddafi while waving a gun on air on Sunday.
Outside the capital, rebels have been telling AFP that they are pushing towards the oil hub of Ras Lanouf, on the road towards Col Gaddafi's hometown, Sirte. They hope to be in Ras Lanouf by tonight.
Since no one knows where Khadafi's gone, it is possible that he returned to his hometown where he may be able to rely on his connections to sustain the fight for just a while longer (further extending the bloodshed).
That Saif apparently escaped isn't a good sign for the rebels, but his appearance in the dark of night doesn't exactly inspire confidence in what's left of the Khadafi regime either - they can't go out in the open and are on the run.
Rebels have hoisted their flag over Col Gaddafi's home in the Bab al-Aziziya compound, rebel TV reports.
Andy Carvin tweets: Even if opposition gets into compound and Gaddafi is there, there's a huge network of tunnels under the city. Could become cat and mouse.
UPDATE:
Libyan kids playing atop a tank belonging to Khadafi's formerly elite military unit:
Libyan rebels inside the Khadafi compound (HT: Killgore Trout):
Still, no one knows where Mumar Khadafi has gone. I think he's gone back to his home town of Sirte, even as his loyalists have reportedly flocked to Tripoli to attempt to thwart the rebel groups. Meanwhile, the rebels appear to be consolidating their gains although the loyalists have again fired Scud missiles towards Misrata.
Dictators always believe that they're in control, up until the moment they're not. They never quite realize that their perch in power is precarious; someone could sell them out (coup d'etat), they could buy the farm in an airstrike or bombing, or any number of other events that are beyond their control. Khadafi has resisted calls for a peaceful transfer of power, or finding a safe haven in exile.
Instead of stepping down of his own accord and retiring to a peaceful compound surrounded by his female Praetorian guard in some cozy secluded island retreat, he decided to slug it out with anyone and everyone because his ego really is that big. Thousands died because he sought to maintain a firm grip on power, instead of relenting to the people who had finally had enough of Khadafi's reign after coming to power in a coup d'etat 42 years ago.
So now, Khadafi may find out what it's like to be strung up from a lamppost, or tried before a court for all of his crimes against the Libyan people, or may end up getting caught in a rat hole like another rabid dog.
You see, dictators never think it's going to happen to them. It's always going to be the other dumb dictator who doesn't quite play by the Dictator's playbook.
And that should be a lesson to Bashar Assad, but Assad is already claiming that this would never happen to him. Assad has already issued statements showing that he has no fear that such a civil war or revolution could happen to him. Here's hoping that he's sorely mistaken in that conviction.
What does this mean for the rest of the world? Well, some people think that this may lead to a reduction in oil prices as the reliable supply of oil can increase due to the end of another conflict in an oil-rich region. It would probably take some time before the oil flows smoothly from Libya, but expect to see downward pressure on oil prices in the coming days as the situation in Libya sorts itself out:
For the first time in months, witnesses in Tripoli reported heavy fighting across the capital late Saturday night, even as rebel forces claimed to have encircled the city by taking major towns to its east, west and south.
Rebel leaders in Tunis and eastern Libya hailed the beginning of a new uprising in the capital against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s rule. And after months of rebel offenses that crumbled or stalled despite heavy support from a NATO airstrike campaign, it was the first time since the uprising began in February that the rebels threatened Colonel Qaddafi’s ultimate stronghold.
“We are coordinating the attacks inside, and our forces from outside are ready to enter Tripoli,” said Anwar Fekini, a rebel leader from the mountainous region in western Libya, speaking by telephone from Tunis. “If you can call any mobile number in Tripoli, you will hear in the background the beautiful sound of the bullets of freedom.”
Phone calls to several Tripoli residents from different neighborhoods confirmed widespread gunfire and explosions. And there were reports of frequent NATO jet overflights and airstrikes — a common accompaniment to the drumbeat of the rebel advance in the past week.
But in an audio message broadcast on state television, his second in a week, Colonel Qaddafi rejected claims of rebel gains, saying his forces had beaten back the Tripoli uprising within hours and announcing military successes in the same cities rebels had claimed to seize on Saturday. He gave the date and time several times to confirm that he was speaking as events were unfolding.
UPDATE:
Khadafi's compound may have been breached, but there's no way to know whether he's still in the city, or has been there for any time in the past couple of weeks. One of the major worries is that he fled for the mountains and will attempt to fight a guerrilla campaign. That's even with Khadafi claiming that he'll stay in Tripoli to the last.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Sunday he will stay in Tripoli "until the end" and called on his supporters around the country to help liberate the capital from a rebel offensive.
He said in an audio message played over state television he was "afraid that Tripoli will burn" and he said he would provide weapons to supporters to fight off the rebels.
Earlier, Libyan rebels captured a major military base that defends Gadhafi's stronghold of Tripoli as clashes and protests raged in the streets of the capital on Sunday.
An Associated Press reporter with the rebels rapidly advancing toward Tripoli saw them take over the base of the Khamis Brigade, 16 miles west of the capital. After a brief gunbattle, Gadhafi's forces fled.
If it's turning into a rout in Tripoli, the rebels will likely claim victory over Khadafi's regime despite Khadafi's protestations to the contrary (and on that front, Khadafi may rival Baghdad Bob on handling the truth).
UPDATE:
The end may have come even quicker than anyone could have imagined. There are reports that Khadafi's son has been captured by rebel groups, and there are even reports that Khadafi himself has been shot and killed, or has otherwise fled to Algeria.
Despite protestations from Bashar Assad's regime that they are engaging in all manner of reforms and that they're dealing only with saboteurs and foreign elements that are riling up an otherwise satisfied populace, his military continues the brutalization of the Syrian people.
And once again, the city of Hama comes under the gun. Dozens of people were brutally killed for standing up and protesting against the regime. Some estimates put the tally at more than 100, with the majority occurring in Hama. Welcome to the Hama Rules, Version 2.0.
Rights activists said 80 civilians were killed in Sunday's tank-backed assault in Hama , scene of a 1982 massacre. It was one of the bloodiest days of a five-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.
Tanks shelled a northeastern district of Hama on Monday, killing at least four civilians, two residents said.
"Moscow is seriously concerned by information about numerous casualties," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "The use of force against civilians and representatives of state structures is unacceptable and must cease."
A U.S. official gave a blunt assessment.
"The authorities think that somehow they can prolong their existence by engaging in full armed warfare on their own citizens," U.S. Press Attache J.J. Harder told Reuters.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined a growing international outcry over the violence.
"Chancellor Merkel condemns in the strongest of terms the Syrian government's action against its own civilian population," government spokesman Christoph Steegmans said.
The EU is extending sanctions, but that will have little effect on Assad, who continues to receive economic and political support from the Iranians.
I'm not sure why people think that things will calm down during Ramadan or that autocratic, despotic, or desperate leaders will curtail their crackdowns against protesters. Protesters in Syria have vowed large daily protests all through Ramadan, meaning that the likelihood of an escalated body count has gone up exponentially.
The shelling resumed on Monday in the early hours of the morning as people were returning home from mosques where they had performed dawn prayers, according to residents and protesters. At least three people were killed, according to activists.
Obada Arwany, an activist reached by telephone, said that tanks had entered two neighborhoods, Al-Qousour and Al-Hamidiya, and bombed residential buildings there. One man died in his sleep when his house was bombed and another was killed by a sniper’s bullet as he was getting in his car.
“The city is like a ghost town,” Mr. Arwany said. “We were not expecting this at all. Hama is getting massacred.”
One protester was also killed in Deir al-Zour in northwestern Syria, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that helps organize and document protests.
The simultaneous raids on several cities on Sunday came a day before the holy month of Ramadan began, a time in which Syrian activists have vowed to escalate their uprising with nightly protests. The scale of the assault and the mounting death toll underlined the government’s intention to crush the uprising by force, despite international condemnation and its own tentative and mostly illusory reforms ostensibly aimed at placating protesters’ demands.
The Pakistanis are double dealing when it comes to the US, NATO, and claims that they're doing all they can to stop terrorists from operating within their territory.
The former commander said that he was supported by the Pakistani military for 15 years as a fighter, leader and trainer of insurgents until he quit a few years ago. Well known in militant circles but accustomed to a covert existence, he gave an interview to The New York Times on the condition that his name, location and other personal details not be revealed.
Militant groups, like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen and Hizbul Mujahedeen, are run by religious leaders, with the Pakistani military providing training, strategic planning and protection. That system was still functioning, he said.
The former commander’s account belies years of assurances by Pakistan to American officials since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that it has ceased supporting militant groups in its territory. The United States has given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid over the past decade for its help with counterterrorism operations. Still, the former commander said, Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment has not abandoned its policy of supporting the militant groups as tools in Pakistan’s dispute with India over the border territory of Kashmir and in Afghanistan to drive out American and NATO forces.
“There are two bodies running these affairs: mullahs and retired generals,” he said. He named a number of former military officials involved in the program, including former chiefs of the intelligence service and other former generals. “These people have a very big role still,” he said.
Maj. Gen. Zaheer ul-Islam Abbasi, a former intelligence officer who was convicted of attempting a coup against the government of Benazir Bhutto in 1995 and who is now dead, was one of the most active supporters of the militant groups in the years after Sept. 11, the former commander said.
He said he saw General Abbasi several times: once at a meeting of Taliban and Pakistani militant leaders in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province as they planned how to confront the American military in Afghanistan; and twice in Mir Ali, which became the center for foreign militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, including members of Al Qaeda.
There were about 60 people at the Taliban meeting in late 2001, soon after the Taliban government fell, the former commander said. Pakistani militant leaders were present, as were the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, and Muhammad Haqqani, a member of the Haqqani network.
Several retired officials of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, were also there, he said, including a man known as Colonel Imam but who was actually Brig. Sultan Amir, a well-known trainer and mentor of militants, and General Abbasi. The militant groups divided Afghanistan into separate areas of operations and discussed how to “trip up America,” he said.
The Pakistani military still supports the Afghan Taliban in their fight to force out American and NATO forces from Afghanistan, he said, adding that he thought they would be successful.
Some Pakistanis will say that these kinds of linkages were severed and these groups are no longer operating with the sanction of the government, but that's highly suspect.
Judges at the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Monday for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and two of his most trusted lieutenants on war crimes charges.
The decision came after ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had asked for arrest warrants for Mr. Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi.
Moreno-Ocampo says Gadhafi and his government carried out attacks against demonstrators, and ordered snipers to fire on civilians leaving mosques during the crackdown against rebels seeking Gadhafi's ouster.
Meanwhile, witnesses in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, say they have heard two loud explosions and could see smoke rising from the area near Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound Monday.
What's interesting is that the arrest warrants against Khadafi and his minions could easily be duplicated and issued against Syria's Bashar al Assad and his top thugs since they too are engaging in essentially the same exact crimes against humanity in Assad's ongoing brutal crackdown against protesters. The key difference is that NATO and the UN have not acted to thwart Assad, while the UN and NATO have launched military operations to prevent Khadafi from reasserting power across all of Libya.
African Union members continue expressing concern over the situation in Libya and that Khadafi has no role in the future of the country; the AU calls on both Khadafi and the transitional government to agree to an immediate cessation of military operations:
Once Syrian media began reporting that security forces were ambushed and killed in Jisr al Shugur in a northern province near the Turkish border and swiftly ran up the body count, you just knew that something real bad was going to happen to the people there, whether or not the security forces were killed. Even as Syrian media outlets reported that 120 security forces were killed in the ambush, locals were getting the message out that far fewer people were killed or that some of those killed were actually security forces who refused to take orders to crack down on protesters and were instead shot and killed by security forces loyal to Bashar al Assad.
The Syrian government said earlier that "armed gangs" killed more than 120 security personnel in Jisr al-Shughour , a town of 50,000, earlier this week. State TV described the incident as "a genuine massacre".
"Our correspondent in Jisr al-Shughour told us now that in response to people's calls, units from the Syrian Arabic Army started its duties in Jisr al-Shughour ... to arrest armed members," state television reported Friday.
About 2,700 Syrian refugees have crossed into Turkey since the uprising began, with most fleeing in the last two days. At least 15,000 troops had deployed near Jisr al-Shughour, which residents said had largely emptied of people.
Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said residents in the northwestern town told him the army was still advancing toward the town. "They can hear gunfire and so far we do not have any casualty reports," he told Reuters.
Story: Fleeing Syrians tell of revolt, mutiny, mayhem
The latest reports of a government crackdown intensified international concerns over Syria's handling of pro-democracy protests, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal have asked the U.N. Security Council to condemn Assad, whose family has ruled the country for more than 40 years, although veto-wielding Russia has said it would oppose such a move.
World powers have shown no appetite for any Libya-style military intervention in Syria, which has so far shrugged off sanctions and verbal reprimands from abroad.
Human rights groups say more than 1,300 people have died in the crackdown on the 11-week uprising, most of them unarmed civilians. A government spokeswoman countered that a total of 500 security forces had died in the revolt.
After not effectively playing by his father's playbook, Bashar is now operating directly from the Hama rules and is likely to begin razing the town as both reprisal and a warning to other towns and cities that Assad will not tolerate the slightest bit of opposition.
There will be a massacre here, and the UN will stand by idly and do nothing. Russia has effectively blocked actions and NATO lacks the capacity to act on the UN's behalf since it's already engaged in Libya - carrying out much the same mission as it would do if it intervened in Syria on behalf of the Syrian people.
The US and its coalition partners have frequently targeted compounds in Afghanistan where Taliban and al Qaeda are suspected of carrying on meetings or gathering. Some of those airstrikes have resulted in civilian casualties, but after the latest such incident, Afghan leader Hamid Karzai has called on the US and the ISAF to cease targeting housing compounds, according to USA Today:
"From this moment, airstrikes on the houses of people are not allowed," Karzai told reporters in Kabul.
NATO says it never conducts such strikes without Afghan government coordination and approval. A spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan said they will review their procedures for airstrikes given Karzai's statement but did not say that it would force any immediate change in tactics.
"In the days and weeks ahead we will coordinate very closely with President Karzai to ensure that his intent is met," spokeswoman Maj. Sunset Belinsky said. Karzai has previously made strong statements against certain military tactics — such as night raids — only to back off from them later.
But if Karzai holds to what sounds like an order to international troops to abandon strikes, it could bring the Afghan government in direct conflict with its international allies.
"Coalition forces constantly strive to reduce the chance of civilian casualties and damage to structures, but when the insurgents use civilians as a shield and put our forces in a position where their only option is to use airstrikes, then they will take that option," Belinsky said.
Speaking at a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Mr. Karzai declined to offer specifics on what actions the government would take, saying only that Afghanistan “has a lot of ways of stopping it.”
In an admonishment that carried an air of threat, he said NATO forces were on the verge of being considered occupiers rather than allies.
“If they continue their attacks on our houses, then their presence will change from a force that is fighting against terrorism to a force that is fighting against the people of Afghanistan,” he said. “And in that case, history shows what Afghans do with trespassers and with occupiers.”
Mr. Karzai has used similar language before, but taken with other recent statements, his comments could further threaten a relationship with his Western backers that has been strained over issues like night raids, corruption and the continuing scandal surrounding questionable loans and huge losses at Kabul Bank.
NATO officials responded diplomatically, saying they would continue to work with the Afghan government to reduce civilian casualties.
“General Petraeus has repeatedly noted that every liberation force has to be very conscious that it can, over time, become seen as an occupation force,” Rear Adm. Vic Beck of the Navy, a spokesman for the NATO-led military coalition, said in a statement, referring to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top coalition commander in Afghanistan. He added, “We are in agreement with President Karzai on the importance of constantly examining our actions in light of that reality — and we are doing just that.”
Karzai says that NATO shouldn't treat Afghanistan as an occupying nation. Nowhere does he make such harsh statements against the Taliban, which has been the bane of the Afghan's existence for so long:
That all but cedes the field of battle to the Taliban, who have no such interest in preserving civilian lives and who all too frequently target civilians and use civilians as human shields.
It makes going after the Taliban and al Qaeda increasingly difficult and means that further airstrikes against housing compounds would be bringing the US into a more direct conflict with Karzai and the Afghan government.
This puts the US in an untenable situation of trying to deal with the Taliban, who not only use the Pakistani frontier provinces as a safe haven, but use housing compounds inside Afghanistan to further destabilize the US-backed Afghan government.
For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the repeated appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.
But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.
“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”
So, no one knows who the guy really was, and what he has done with the money.
Classic.
And what should really be noteworthy is just how much contact this guy had with top level Afghan and NATO commanders and political leaders, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai and had been flown around in NATO aircraft. This represents a serious flaw and failure in the intel on Mansour and the Taliban.
It's also on the heels of alerts in Europe over potential terror attacks. The US State Department issued warnings to those Americans visiting Europe to be vigilant (as if that isn't what people should be doing generally).
The CIA has been trying to eliminate leaders of the Haqqani network, an Afghan Taliban faction operating out of North Waziristan which is seen as one of the most effective forces fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
North Waziristan is home to a variety of militant groups, some fighting the Pakistani government, others battling U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Some militants are foreigners who have taken up the cause of holy war against the West and see North Waziristan as a safe haven or training ground.
U.S. and British alerts about possible attacks in Europe highlight concern that growing numbers of militants are going from the West to remote war zones for training in answer to al Qaeda's online call for violence.
The immediate trigger for Sunday's travel alerts was intelligence about a plot against European targets reportedly originating with a group of individuals in mountainous northern Pakistan, some of them believed to be European citizens.
Few details of the conspiracy are known. But the plot appears to be of the kind that Western officials believe poses the most significant danger today -- the use of so-called self-radicalized militants with no previous record of extremism.
This area has been the focus of military action for quite some time. Mir Ali was the scene of a major Pakistani military action in 2007, where Pakistani troops killed nearly 200 people, most of whom were terrorists, though the Pakistani forces got bloodied in the process. Quite a few of the UAV airstrikes have been directed in the vicinity of Mir Ali.
However, that doesn't mean that NATO is cognizant of that particularly important fact. They're trying to puff up the Afghan capabilities beyond what is reasonable.
That the enemy controls so many towers is proof they control the ground. Near Sangin, the enemy controls a power station within walking distance of three British bases (2009).
Trying to puff up the Afghan aspect of a recent operation in Helmand province does little to actually improve security on the ground. The gains were fully the result of ISAF and the US forces that participated whereas the Afghan forces involved were merely spectators. This is propaganda we can do without and it does nothing to improve the facts and security on the ground.
What we do know is that the Afghan military is still incapable of the heavy lifting necessary to deal with the ongoing Taliban threat. That's a huge problem and a major impediment to drawing down US or NATO forces in Afghanistan. Moreover, there are issues with the Dutch commitment to NATO's Afghan operation. The Dutch government collapsed yesterday over disagreement over continuing that commitment. Considering that the NATO obligation to help member nations is central to the premise of NATO, this is a huge blow to the organization and to the Dutch government.
Even as the allied offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja continued Saturday, it appeared almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops would be gone from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The question plaguing military planners was whether a Dutch departure would embolden the war’s critics in other allied countries, where debate over deployment is continuing, and hasten the withdrawal of their troops as well.
“If the Dutch go, which is the implication of all this, that could open the floodgates for other Europeans to say, ‘The Dutch are going, we can go, too,’ ” said Julian Lindley-French, professor of defense strategy at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. “The implications are that the U.S. and the British are going to take on more of the load.”
The fact is that the US and British have been carrying the heaviest load in Afghanistan all along both in terms of troop commitments and combat operations. Some NATO countries have attempted to limit their offensive military operations in an attempt to limit casualties (to mixed effect as the Taliban attack targets of opportunity). This is yet another test of the Obama Administration to maintain the NATO coalition efforts in Afghanistan and is a test of resolve for NATO planners and military strategists on both sides of the Atlantic.
Revolving door justice takes to the high seas as members of the NATO anti-piracy fleet engage in protecting shipping by catching pirate ships after they've attacked shipping and then release them after disarming the pirates. NATO appears to have thwarted another pirate attack, and fired on a pirate skiff that had seven of these thugs on board before finally apprehending them after a seven-hour chase. Then, the Canadian contingent that captured them, released them:
Seven pirates attempted to attack the Norwegian-flagged MV Front Ardenne late Saturday but fled after crew took evasive maneuvers and alerted warships in the area, said Portuguese Lt. Cmdr. Alexandre Santos Fernandes, aboard a warship in the Gulf of Aden, and Cmdr. Chris Davies, of NATO's maritime headquarters in England.
"How the attack was thwarted is unclear, it appears to have been the actions of the tanker," Davies said. Fernandes said no shots were fired at the tanker.
Davies said the pirates sailed into the path of the Canadian warship Winnipeg, which was escorting a World Food Program delivery ship through the Gulf of Aden. The American ship USS Halyburton was also in the area and joined the chase.
"There was a lengthy pursuit, over seven hours," Davies said.
The pirates hurled weapons into the dark seas as the Canadian and U.S. warships closed in. The ships are part of NATO's anti-piracy mission.
"The skiff abandoned the scene and tried to escape to Somali territory," Fernandes said. "It was heading toward Bossaso we managed to track them ... warning shots have been made after several attempts to stop the vessel."
Both ships deployed helicopters, and naval officers hailed the pirates over loudspeakers and finally fired warning shots to stop them, Fernandes said, but not before the pirates had dumped most of their weapons overboard. NATO forces boarded the skiff, where they found a rocket-propelled grenade, and interrogated, disarmed and released the pirates.
The pirates cannot be prosecuted under Canadian law because they did not attack Canadian citizens or interests and the crime was not committed on Canadian territory.
"When a ship is part of NATO, the detention of person is a matter for the national authorities," Fernandes said. "It stops being a NATO issue and starts being a national issue."
This is absolutely ridiculous. The pirates know that they will not suffer any consequences from attempting to capture and hold for ransom crews and shipping cargo unless the world puts its collective foot down and stamps out the piracy on the high seas and the pirate safe havens onshore.
Catch and release is an astoundingly bad idea that reinforces the notion that the world is powerless to deal with the piracy threat.
The problems are going to get a whole lot worse before the world finally responds in the kind of force needed to end the piracy on the high seas.
Somali parliamentarians announced that they will enact Islamic law over the country, claiming that this will somehow reduce the support for the Islamist insurgents fighting the UN backed government. It sounds to me like the "government" is capitulating to the Islamists.
In any event, the Islamists are taking over Somalia and everyone is pretty much ignoring the situation, along with the ongoing piracy in the region.
Various navies are patrolling off the coast of Somalia, but they're not going after the ports-of-call in Somalia where the pirates call home. They're simply trying to deter pirates from attacking along the main sea lanes and attempting to come to the defense of those ships that are attacked. It's a response posture rather than taking the offense, and it means that shipping will remain threatened by the pirates until such time that the world powers agree that something must be done onshore.
Dutch commandos freed 20 Yemeni hostages on Saturday and briefly detained seven pirates who had forced their captives to sail a "mother ship" attacking vessels in the Gulf of Aden, NATO officials said.
Meanwhile, a Belgian government crisis centre spokesman said that a Belgian-registered ship with a 10-member international crew, including two Belgians, was feared hijacked by Somali pirates on Saturday.
Sea gangs have captured dozens of ships, taken hundreds of sailors prisoner and made off with millions of dollars in ransoms despite an unprecedented deployment by foreign navies off the east African coast.
There's a reason that the foreign navies aren't stopping the piracy. It's precisely because they're not going after the pirate safe havens onshore and they're simply playing catch and release with those pirates they happen to capture. They also allow those pirate ships to continue floating instead of destroying them. In sum, those actions allow the pirates to persist despite the efforts of those navies to stop the pirates. There simply is no deterrence factor unless force is used against the pirates to dramatically increase the risk to the pirates themselves. Instead, the pirates continue attacking shipping in the hopes of taking hostages that they can trade for ransoms that they know that shipping companies will eventually pay.
