“New Strategy” in the 'War on Terror '

Lebanese man says deported by UAE for refusing to spy on Hezbollah

A Lebanese businessman alleged Thursday that he and several hundred compatriots were expelled from the United Arab Emirates because they refused to spy on the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and other fellow citizens.

Hassan Alayan said more than 300 Lebanese - mostly Shiites - have been forced to leave the Emirates over the past three months. He said most of those deported said UAE authorities asked them to inform on fellow Lebanese Shiites living in the country and on Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Authorities told the Lebanese they were being deported for security reasons, but they believe their refusal to spy was the real reason, Alayan told a news conference in Beirut. The Emirates refused to comment on the allegations, and Lebanese officials said they were contacting authorities there over the matter.

One of those deported, Zuhair Hamdan, said his residency permit was rejected after he refused to give authorities information about fellow Lebanese or possible Hezbollah sleeper cells in the UAE. More

Settlers chop down Nablus olive grove on eve of harvest

Dozens of chainsaw-wielding Israeli settlers cut down more than 150 olive trees in to the northern West Bank village of Burin, south of Nablus on Monday.

The assault came a few days before Palestinian farmers throughout the country begin harvesting their olives.

According to Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian official in charge of monitoring settlement activity in the northern West Bank, dozens of Israelis from the settlement Yitzhar raided fields in the area of Khallat Siwar between the villages of Huwwara and Burin and cut down more than 150 olive trees using chainsaws. More

Zionist Psychologists to "Rescue" Women in the Nation of Gays

Youth counselors and psychologists are going after young Jewish women who are dating Arab men to "rescue" them.

A local authority in Israel has announced that it is establishing a special team of youth counselors and psychologists whose job it will be to identify young Jewish women who are dating Arab men and "rescue" them.

The move by the municipality of Petah Tikva, a city close to Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of separate -- and little discussed -- initiatives from official bodies, rabbis, private organisations and groups of Israeli residents to try to prevent interracial dating and marriage.

In a related development, the Israeli media reported this month that residents of Pisgat Zeev, a large Jewish settlement in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, had formed a vigilante-style patrol to stop Arab men from mixing with local Jewish girls.

Hostility to intimate relationships developing across Israel's ethnic divide is shared by many Israeli Jews, who regard such behaviour as a threat to the state's Jewishness. One of the few polls on the subject, in 2007, found that more than half of Israeli Jews believed intermarriage should be equated with "national treason."

Since the state's founding in 1948, analysts have noted, a series of legal and administrative measures have been taken by Israel to limit the possibilities of close links developing between Jewish and Arab citizens, the latter comprising a fifth of the population.

Largely segregated communities and separate education systems mean that there are few opportunities for young Arabs and Jews to get to know each other. Even in the handful of "mixed cities", Arab residents are usually confined to separate neighborhoods.

In addition, civil marriage is banned in Israel, meaning that in the small number of cases where Jews and Arabs want to wed, they can do so only by leaving the country for a ceremony abroad. The marriage is recognized on the couple's return.

Yuval Yonay, a sociologist at Haifa University, said the number of interracial marriages was "too small to be studied." "Separation between Jews and Arabs is so ingrained in Israeli society, it is surprising that anyone manages to escape these central controls." More

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One Year After Her Family Died In U.S. Airstrike, Seven-Year-Old Afghan Girl Lives In Constant Fear

On the night of August 22, 2008, Zahra's father, mother, sister and two brothers were killed by American bombs. This is her life now.

Seven-year-old Zahra looks like a typical Afghan girl in her traditional long dress and scarf, her short black hair peeking out from her head covering. She sticks close to home, seldom venturing far from her house. But it is not tradition that keeps her home but fear.

On the night of August 22 2008, all of Zahra's immediate family was killed by American bombs. In pursuit of Taliban commander Mullah Siddiq, United States Special Forces and the Afghan army launched an airstrike on the village of Azizabad in Shindand district of Herat. An investigation by the United Nations said that 90 people, 60 children and 30 adults, died.

The American military initially denied that any civilians were harmed in the attack. Only after prolonged pressure, in October of last year, did they acknowledge that the strike killed 33 civilians.

Zahra's father, mother, sister and two brothers died that night. She is the only survivor, together with her grandmother, Maryam, known in the village as Pori. One year later the two traumatized females, one seven years old the other 75, are still living in Azizabad, in a small, dirty, three-room house donated to them by a kind-hearted neighbor.

The house the pair inhabit has no doors and no windows. Inside it is dark and dusty - the floor is carpeted with old sacks. It looks more like a dirty storeroom than a place where people live. There are some teacups, two buckets full of water, three small pots and three threadbare blankets. Every day Zahra cleans and arranges the few items they possess.

The rest of the time she sits alone, staring into the void. More

Israel offered 'secret deal' on settlements

Citing Israeli officials, the Washington Times reported Tuesday that Tel Aviv has agreed to a partial freeze of settlement construction for six to nine months but still wants to build more than 2,500 new housing units.

In exchange, certain Arab and North African states have privately assured US special Mideast envoy George Mitchell that they would grant over-flight rights to Israeli airliners, open interest sections in Israel, and end a travel ban on Israelis, the report quoted a US official as saying.

Currently Israeli airliners flying to destinations in the Far East must make a wide detour to avoid flying over countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia, however, has refused to grant these assurances, insisting a peace agreement must first be signed.

The report comes just ahead of a tripartite meeting between US President Barack Obama, acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

On Monday, Netanyahu's media adviser, Nir Hefetz, told Israeli radio that the premier would not support a settlement freeze, because he considers the settlements to be a "Zionist enterprise."

Based on the report, Netanyahu considers moving forward with 2,500 to 3,000 housing units already approved. He is also seeking to exempt East Jerusalem from the freeze.

Why I Threw The Shoe

I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents

As he flung the shoes, Mr Zaidi shouted: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents. Read more.

UN calls for probe into Yemen's raid on civilians

United Nations' top human rights official has called for an investigation into a deadly attack on a refugee camp that left over 80 civilians killed in northern Yemen.

Neocon Ali Saleh

In a statement released on Friday, Navi Pillay the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned the Yemeni government to avoid a repeat of the incident, underlining its obligation to protect civilians, Reuters reported.

"It was the second deadly air strike resulting in civilian deaths in the space of three days," she said.

"The government should launch a full-fledged investigation into what went wrong and take immediate measures to try to ensure we do not see a further avoidable tragedy of this nature," Pillay added.

In an effort to crush Zaidi Shia fighters, led by Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, the Yemeni government has launched a fierce operation on the northern Saada province from August 11. More

Air raid kills 80 Yemeni civilians

Today's Iraq: The Police State That America Built

The Economist -- the veritable Bible of the Anglo-American Establishment -- paints a grim portrait of the Iraqi regime installed at the point of American guns: a sinkhole of torture, execution, increasing repression and brazen power-grabs.

The Shia-led government has overseen a ballooning of the country’s security apparatus. Human-rights violations are becoming more common. In private many Iraqis, especially educated ones, are asking if their country may go back to being a police state. More

How Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal endangers Us All

On September 24th, U.S. President Barack Obama will preside over a U.N. Security Council session on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. In March 2010, Moscow will host a Global Nuclear Summit that the U.S. has agreed to attend.

The next six months could prove hopeful or harmful—depending on the impact on Israel’s nuclear arsenal. With U.S. backing, Tel Aviv has thus far avoided compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—joining North Korea, India and Pakistan.

President John F. Kennedy tried to stop Israel from starting a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In a June 1963 letter to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, he insisted on proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Israel was not developing nuclear weapons at its Dimona reactor facility. Though his letter was cabled to the U.S. embassy, Ben-Gurion resigned (citing undisclosed personal reasons) before the message could be physically delivered.

With Israel’s nuclear ambitions under attack by its key ally, that strategically well-timed resignation duped an inexperienced young president and denied him a diplomatic victory that might well have precluded the wars now being waged in the Middle East. More

Iraq's spat with Syria backfiring on PM

Iraq’s prime minister is feeling a backlash over a bitter fight he picked with Syria, which he accuses of harboring Saddam Hussein loyalists suspected in deadly bombings in Baghdad. Critics say he wants to divert attention from his own government’s security failures. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, is trying to shore up his position ahead of January parliamentary elections after the increase in violence in recent months deeply hurt his security credentials and after the Shiite coalition that once backed him split. More

Saudi Arabia arrested thousands without trial

Saudi Arabia has detained thousands of people as part of its anti-terrorism drive without charging them and sometimes even ignoring court rulings ordering their release, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

New York-based HRW is the second international rights body to criticise the U.S. ally and the world’s biggest oil exporter for violating human rights on security grounds. Amnesty International issued a similar report in July.

In a report, HRW said the General Directorate for Investigations, the domestic intelligence agency, was holding an unknown number of people in its prisons, among them foreigners, and dissidents demanding democratic reforms.

HRW estimated that more than 9,000 had been held since al Qaeda launched a campaign in 2003, of whom probably between 2,000 and 4,000 were still detained, said Christoph Wilcke, the author of the report.

Few were ever charged or had access to lawyers, even if Saudi laws limit detention without trial to six months, with the intelligence agency ignoring court rulings ordering a release in some cases, HRW said, citing families of detainees or activists.

“Saudi Arabia’s response to terrorism for years has been to lock up thousands of suspects and throw away the key,” the organisation said, listing several cases of people held under what it said were questionable circumstances.

A spokesman for the interior ministry declined to comment, saying the government had to study the report first. The ministry has not commented on the Amnesty report.

Saudi Arabia’s much praised rehabilitation program for terror suspects is under fire from the US-based Human Rights Watch because its participants are detained for lengthy periods without charges.

The program a key part of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism campaign relies on preventive efforts to teach detained men that terrorism is un-Islamic. But since most of the detainees haven’t been convicted of any crime, it violates international law, the group argues in a report released Monday.

“Except as part of a sentence imposed after conviction for a crime, international human rights law does not permit the detention of persons to undergo a reeducation program,” the report says. Such programs “cannot be forced upon persons whose guilt has not been established.”

Rehab program praised by US

The program has drawn praise from US and Saudi officials who argue that conventional policing alone is insufficient to control Islamist militants.

While the program “may deserve credit for its intentions, innovations, and apparently low rate of acts of violence pursued by those released,” Human Rights Watch says, those extolling it overlook that its enrollees “were not convicted criminals but rather men held in long-term detention without charge.”

The report also says that the convictions of 330 Al Qaeda terror suspects announced by Saudi Arabia in July were “flawed” because the trials were held in secret. It criticizes the Saudi Interior Ministry for detaining thousands of suspects for years without charges, and in some cases, refusing to comply with court orders to release prisoners.

Gen. Mansour Turki, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said in an e-mail that he was unable to comment on the report until he had discussed it with ministry officials. An e-mail seeking comment to the Ministry of Justice spokesman went unanswered.

Indefinite detention is ‘wrong’

Saudi human rights activist Mohammad Al Qahtani praised the report because “it documented the process of arresting people in indefinite detention.” He disagreed with the protestation of a Saudi official quoted in the report, who said that public trials for terrorism suspects are unsuited to Saudi Arabia’s tribal society.

“This is very wrong,” said Mr. Qahtani. “A modern society should apply the law. This is an excuse to get away with illegal things. It doesn’t make sense to hold secret tribunals.”

The program has not been without its problems. In January of this year, Saudi Arabia disclosed that 11 graduates of the program, some of whom had previously been detained at the US prison camp in Guantánamo, Cuba, have been re-arrested for joining militant groups. Still, US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair described the program in glowing terms in a memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this year, calling it “the most comprehensive of its kind [designed] to address the religious, psychological, and socio-economic issues that contribute to radicalization.”

The Human Rights Watch report follows a July 21 study by Amnesty International that alleged Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism campaign led to increased human rights violations.

One response to 2003 attacks

Saudi Arabia was rocked by a wave of violence from Al Qaeda extremists in 2003 and 2004 that left 74 security personnel and 90 civilians dead, according to Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi interior minister. Another 1,096 persons were injured.

The government responded with mass arrests. An unknown but large number of the 9,000 civilians detained since 2003 are still held, though Saudi law stipulates that six months is the longest a person can be jailed without charges. Some detainees are held even after the rehabilitation program or Saudi courts recommend their release.

The rehabilitation program began in 2004. Using psychological and religious counseling, it aims to convince prisoners to abandon what Saudi officials call the “deviant” or “misguided” beliefs that led them into extremist groups.

Saudi officials have said the program is voluntary but also acknowledge that completing it is a condition, though not a guarantee, for a prisoner’s release.

Half-way house added

In 2007, a second component to the program was added with a half-way house to ease prisoners back into society. Of the 270 detainees who went through this part of the program, 117 were former inmates at the US-run Guantánamo Bay detention camp.

The latest Human Rights Watch report also criticizes the lack of information about the trials of 330 terror suspects. “The absence of public observers at these trials cast significant doubt on their fairness, underlined by indications that defendants do not have legal assistance and adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense,” the report says.

The Christian Science Monitor

Palestinian Holocaust Online

"We will carry out a greater holocaust against the Palestinians," Matan Vilnai, Deputy israeli Defense Minister

The Palestinian Holocaust Memorial Museum (PHMM) will feature the photos, names and stories of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in the context of a new Holocaust. PHMM will highlight the elements of the new Holocaust; the locations, weapons and impacts. Testimonies of the survivors will also be published.. More

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U.K. troubled by increasingly violent anti-Islam protests

Violent clashes between anti-Islam demonstrators and Muslim counter-protesters in English cities are worrying the government, with one British minister comparing the disturbances to 1930s-era fascist incitement.

The violence that has hit Luton, Birmingham and London in the last few months has involved a loose collection of far-right groups, such as the previously unknown English Defense League, on one side and anti-fascist organizations and Muslim youth on the other.

In an interview published Saturday, Communities Minister John Denham accused the anti-Islam protesters of deliberately stirring up trouble. More

Calls for Frog-Eater to Resign

The French Interior Monster (He is the godfather of one of Hungarian Jewish peddlar Nicolas Sarkozy's sons.) faced calls for his resignation last night after he was caught on camera making apparently racist remarks directed at Arabs.

As outrage greeted the video clip on the internet Brice Hortefeux claimed that critics had misinterpreted his quip: “When there’s one that’s all right. It’s when there a lot of them that there are problems.”

He insisted that he had not been talking about Arabs, as many had assumed, but about Auvergnats — people from the Auvergne region of central France.

His defence however failed to calm a storm which was threatening to inflict political damage on President Sarkozy, his mentor and friend who had pledged to heal racial divisions in France. “The question is not whether he should resign or not, but what he is still doing in the government,” Benoit Hamon, a spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party, said.

Ta Gueule, Brice Hortefeux!! MàJ