Pro-democracy protesters at Saudi embassy
20 July, 2012 – Sarah Homewood – The Cannbera Times

A group of about 50 people from as far as Sydney and Melbourne converged on the Saudi Arabian embassy in Yarralumla yesterday, protesting against an alleged government crackdown on pro-democracy movements in Bahrain.

Led by the Bahrain Australian Youth Movement, the group said the protest was sparked by the alleged arrest and imprisonment of children by Bahraini government forces.

The rally, which began outside the Saudi embassy at about 10am, was closely watched by a small contingent of police.

A protest organiser, Husain Alqatari, said: ”This protest today is about the crackdown happening in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia; we are here to support the people seeking freedom of speech, seeking human rights, freedom for women”.

No Saudi Arabian students were present at the protest, a fact that Mr Alqatari attributes to threats from the Saudi embassy.

”The embassy sent out a letter saying that if Saudi students were to come to the protest then the embassy would cancel their visas,” Mr Alqatari said.

A spokesman for the embassy said he was unable to comment on the accusations or the protest.

The protesters weren’t hopeful that the embassy would come out and address their demands.

”We have been trying to contact the embassy for a week and a half to talk to us but they haven’t been answering,” he said.

The protesters had originally planned to move to the US embassy later in the morning, but cancelled the second half of the protest, instead opting to begin the journeys back to Melbourne and Sydney.

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Bahrain Crackdowns Intensifying, Saudi Protests Spreading
19 July, 2012 – POMED

Government crackdowns in Bahrain are intensifying this week with increased police checkpoints and house raids. Said Yousif of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights compared the heightened police presence to an imposition of martial law. Jen Marlow, the American filmmaker who was recently deported from Bahrain, commented that in the three weeks she was in the country, she felt the situation had deteriorated substantially. According to her, crackdowns are country-wide as the “practice of targeting activists and demonstrators seems to be on the rise and very widespread” with “absolutely no distinction between civilians of any kind.” Also, police have arrested a sixth alleged terror suspect today as part of their list of 20 people accused of making homemade bombs.

Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, Al-Monitor reports that protests have spread beyond the Eastern Province in an article titled “Has the Arab Spring Finally Arrived in Saudi Arabia?” According to Saudi activist Hamza al-Hassan, “we are seeing clashes in Ar’ar, protests in Riyadh, and there is hardly a place with no active popular movements in Saudi Arabia,” adding that Sunnis are now in the streets as well. Hassan attributes the sustained protests after the arrest of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr to the elders of the Eastern Province refusing to accept concessions from the regime as they have in the past.

Also, a Saudi court ruled that women can divorce their husbands if they discover after the marriage that their husband is a smoker. The ruling is intended to protect women’s health, but does not extend to women who know before marriage that their future husband smokes, or women who have been married to a smoker for a long time. …source

Bahrain police arrest sixth ‘terror’ suspect
Agence France-Presse – 20 July, 2012 – The National

Bahraini police said they had arrested another among a group of 20 people wanted over “terror attacks” in the kingdom.

Bahraini police had earlier announced the arrests of five other people on the list of suspects.

“Public security chief Major-General Tariq Al Hassan announced yesterday the arrest of suspect Hussain Isa Mohammed Isa Adam, included in the list of 20 people accused of terrorist blasts,” state news agency BNA reported.

“The suspect was referred to the public prosecution to take legal action against him over charges of manufacturing homemade bombs and carrying out criminal acts that caused injury to civilians and policemen,” BNA said.

Major Hassan said police had circulated photographs of the wanted men through the media, which had facilitated their capture but did not specify when the arrests were made.

Bahraini authorities accuse Shiite youth protesters of using petrol bombs against security forces during demonstrations in villages outside the capital Manama. …more

Russia, China veto third UN Syria resolution
19 July, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Russia and China on Thursday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that sought to impose sanctions and open the door for military action against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

It was the third time in nine months that the two powers have used their vetoes as permanent members of the 15-nation council to block Western-backed resolutions on Syria.

There were 11 votes in favor, Russia and China’s votes against and two abstentions – Pakistan and South Africa.

The text, backed by the United States, France, Germany and Portugal, called for non-military sanctions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter if Assad did not withdraw heavy weapons from Syrian cities in 10 days.

Russia had said it could not accept Chapter VII as it was wary of foreign interference in Syria.

Moscow’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said after the veto that the resolution sought to “open the path to the pressure of sanctions and further to external military involvement in Syrian domestic affairs.”

“Their calculations to use the UN Security Council to further their plans to put their pressure on sovereign states will not pass,” Churkin added in an acrimonious council debate on Syria after the veto.

The West and Russia have been at fierce odds over the Syrian crisis, with Moscow and Beijing concerned Western powers are seeking to exploit the violence to further their interests.

Syria has been a staunch ally of Russia, hosting Moscow’s only naval base in the Mediterranean.

Western powers have backed rebels waging the fight against Assad, deepening the division with Russia over the crisis.

Last year a similar resolution was used to justify a NATO bombing campaign in Libya to bring down the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

Britain’s envoy to the UN Mark Lyall Grant, whose country took the lead in writing the resolution, said he was “appalled” by the veto. …source

Once again the US war machine is in full swing, first Panetta boasts of a defeated Al Qaeda and now its about to grab Syria’s Chemical Weapons Supply. Sound Familiar? All this after the US and Saudi Arabia, only months earlier, recruited and armed Al Qadea and BlackWater operatives, who worked together in Iraq, to organize the Syrian Opposition. A familiar pattern has emerged reminiscent of George Bush’s orchestration of the invasion of Iraq. With President Obama’s “Victory in Libya” under his belt, a more sophisticated President Obama and “learned” Pentagon, has Prime Minister Cameron calling for Syria Regime change and King Abdullah of Jordan filling the role of General Colin Powell in Iraq, as town crier, warning of loose Chemical Weapons. One things is for certain, the American public is mostly brain dead and its Masters seek to beat down Syria in another Neoliberal feeding frenzy. Phlipn.

Al-Qaeda has presence in Syria, says Leon Panetta
11 May, 2012 – UK Guardian
US defence secretary Leon Panetta says intelligence indicates an al-Qaeda presence in Syria, but admits the US does not know what activities the group is engaged in. On Thursday Syria suffered its worst terrorist attack since the start of the uprising when 55 people were reported killed in twin bomb blasts in Damascus




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Eight Months Earlier – Al Qaeda defeat is imminent:

Former CIA Director and current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declared that the United States is “within reach of strategically defeating al Qaeda.”

Destroying Al Qaeda
America’s Greatest National Security Accomplishment in Decades
By Brian Katulis, Peter Juul – 1 November, 2011

The Al Qaeda network over the past three years suffered its greatest losses since the United States and its allies evicted the terrorist organization from Afghanistan in 2001. Consider the achievements:

President Barack Obama ordered a daring and risky Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, and dozens of other senior Al Qaeda leaders have met their demise since President Obama took office.
This summer, U.S. drones killed Ilyas Kashmiri, commander of Al Qaeda’s Pakistan operation, and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, Al Qaeda’s top operational planner who became the organization’s number two after bin Laden’s death.
Anwar al-Awlaki, a key member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula believed to be responsible for organizing a number of attempted attacks against the United States, was killed in another drone strike in Yemen at the end of September.

Hardly a week goes by without some key figure in the Al Qaeda network and its affiliates being targeted in a range of actions, including drone strikes as well as other actions by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to prevent attacks and degrade the Al Qaeda network. The damage done to Al Qaeda by the Obama administration represents America’s greatest national security success since the fall of the Soviet Union and the peaceful integration of Eastern European countries in the 1990s.

Given these major successes, it’s no wonder U.S. officials, including former CIA Director and current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, are declaring that the United States is “within reach of strategically defeating al Qaeda.” As President Obama put it in June, the United States has “put al Qaeda on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done.” …more