Bahraini forces detain 15 years Ebrahim Al Moqdad
24 July, 2012 – Shia Post

US-Saudi backed Bahraini regime forces have detained 15 years teenager Ebrahim Moqdad on Tuesday 24th July 2012 and shifted him to unknown place. The Shia Post reported.

According to eyewitness Ebrahim Al Moqdad was seen being dragged to a farm brutally beaten in Belad Al-Qadeem village.

After the missing of Ebrahim Al Moqdad, his family is worried about his life and has termed him on risk.

Bahrain Center for Human Rights have also contained the detention Ebrahim Al Moqdad by saying that 38 hours has been passed since riot police kidnapped child Ebrahim Al Moqdad, he was beaten, his screams could be heard.

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of anti-government protesters have been staging regular demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

According to human rights organization Amnesty International, scores of people have been killed since the protests first erupted in February 2011.

On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested in the crackdown.

Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have also been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters. …more

Cyber Attacks on Activists Traced to FinFisher Spyware of Gamma
By Vernon Silver – 25 July, 2012 – Bloomberg

It’s one of the world’s best-known and elusive cyber weapons: FinFisher, a spyware sold by U.K.- based Gamma Group, which can secretly take remote control of a computer, copying files, intercepting Skype calls and logging every keystroke.

For the past year, human rights advocates and virus hunters have scrutinized FinFisher, seeking to uncover potential abuses. They got a glimpse of its reach when a FinFisher sales pitch to Egyptian state security was uncovered after that country’s February 2011 revolution. In December, anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks published Gamma promotional videos showing how police could plant FinFisher on a target’s computer.
Enlarge image Cyber Attacks on Activists Traced to FinFisher

Husain Abdulla, a U.S. citizen who is director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain, is considering lawsuits and a complaint to the U.S. State Department about the border-crossing hack. Source: Husain Abdulla via Bloomberg
Enlarge image Citizen Lab Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire

Morgan Marquis-Boire, a security researcher at Citizen Lab, analyzed the infected e-mails for this story. Photographer: Jacob Kepler/Bloomberg
Enlarge image Bill Marzcak

Marczak found evidence that traces malicious software e-mailed to Bahraini activists back to FinFisher, a spyware sold by U.K.-based Gamma Group. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

“We know it exists, but we’ve never seen it — you can imagine a rare diamond,” says Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Helsinki-based data security company F-Secure Oyj. (FSC1V) He posted the Egypt documents online last year and said if a copy of the software itself were found, he’d write anti-virus protection against it.

Now he may get his wish.

Researchers believe they’ve identified copies of FinFisher, based on an examination of malicious software e-mailed to Bahraini activists, they say. Their research, which is being published today by the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs’ Citizen Lab, is based on five different e-mails obtained by Bloomberg News from people targeted by the malware.
Global Reach

Pro-democracy activists received the malware in Washington, London and Manama, the capital of Bahrain, the Persian Gulf kingdom that has been gripped by tension since a crackdown on protests last year.

The findings illustrate how the largely unregulated trade in offensive hacking tools is transforming surveillance, making it more intrusive as it reaches across borders and peers into peoples’ digital devices. From anywhere on the globe, the software can penetrate the most private spaces, turning on computer web cameras and reading documents as they are being typed.

“Selling software that allows for the taking over of computers without rule of law can lead to abuse,” says Courtney Radsch, senior program manager for freedom of expression at Washington-based Freedom House, which promotes human rights. …more

From Bahrain With Love: FinFisher’s Spy Kit Exposed?
25 July, 2012 – The Citizen Lab

The FinFisher Suite is described by its distributors, Gamma International UK Ltd., as “Governmental IT Intrusion and Remote Monitoring Solutions.” 1 The toolset first gained notoriety after it was revealed that the Egyptian Government’s state security apparatus had been involved in negotiations with Gamma International UK Ltd. over the purchase of the software. Promotional materials have been leaked that describe the tools as providing a wide range of intrusion and monitoring capabilities.2 Despite this, however, the toolset itself has not been publicly analyzed.

This post contains analysis of several pieces of malware obtained by Vernon Silver of Bloomberg News that were sent to Bahraini pro-democracy activists in April and May of this year. The purpose of this work is identification and classification of the malware to better understand the actors behind the attacks and the risk to victims. In order to accomplish this, we undertook several different approaches during the investigation.

As well as directly examining the samples through static and dynamic analysis, we infected a virtual machine (VM) with the malware. We monitored the filesystem, network, and running operating system of the infected VM.

This analysis suggests the use of “Finspy”, part of the commercial intrusion kit, Finfisher, distributed by Gamma International.
Delivery

This section describes how the malware was delivered to potential victims using e-mails with malicious attachments.

In early May, we were alerted that Bahraini activists were targeted with apparently malicious e-mails. The emails ostensibly pertained to the ongoing turmoil in Bahrain, and encouraged recipients to open a series of suspicious attachments. The screenshot below is indicative of typical message content: …more

Bahrain hacking into activists’ computers: opposition
25 July, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Bahrain has been using a virus to hack into and control the computers of key anti-government activists as they seek to crackdown on an uprising across the country, opposition figures claimed on Wednesday.

The activists’ claimed that forces loyal to the government have been using a British-made system to seek to spy on them, which was downloaded onto computers through a fake attachment.

A number of prominent anti-government figures received an email which purported to be from a journalist at the Qatari-owned television channel al-Jazeera.

It claimed to have an attachment which included photographs of the government torture of Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights who is currently in jail.

But activists who clicked on it were downloading a virus that allowed the controllers to monitor the computer, intercept Skype calls and log every keystroke.

It was impossible to be certain that the government forces were responsible for the hacking but Ala’a Shehabi, founder of the Bahrain Watch website and one of those targeted by the email, said she thought it was part of a wider cyber war.

“We only received this (email) in April and it seems like a new tactic,” she said. “This is a different technique but its part of a wider cyber war.”

She added that the program, which allegedly cost $500,000, was a waste of funds for the Bahraini government.

“They don’t think they are getting value for money. The software reportedly costs around $500,000, we know that only about 10 people got infected by it.”

The Bahraini government denied it was behind the hacking equipment.

“Such allegations are taken very seriously and if there is any evidence that there is any misconduct in use of such technology, each case will be investigated immediately according to the laws and regulations of the Kingdom of Bahrain,” Luma Bashmi, a spokesperson the government’s Information Affairs Authority, told Bloomberg.

Bahrain has been fighting to suppress an uprising since February 2011, with Saudi forces being deployed to help crush the pro-democracy movement. …source

Netanyahu turns to Turkey amid regional turmoil
25 July, 2012 – AL Akhbar

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the Jewish state and its former ally Turkey must repair their relationship because of the instability in their region.

Turkey cut its once extensive ties with Israel after Israeli marines killed nine Turkish activists in May 2010 on a humanitarian vessel trying to breach Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, considered a violation of international law by rights groups.

“Turkey and Israel are two important, strong and stable states in this region…We must find ways to restore the relations we once had…it is important, particularly now, for stability in the region in these times,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.

It said he gave the message to Turkish journalists in a meeting late on Monday.

While the statement gave no reason for the timing of his comments, both Israel and Turkey border Syria.

Turkey has called for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to quit after he failed to heed calls for reform and the country has harbored Syrian rebels and tens of thousands of refugees along its border with Syria.

Israel has upped its rhetoric of possibly intervening militarily in the Syrian crisis, raising concern over Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

Israeli officials said on Tuesday that Assad’s forces retained full control of such weapons, but far-right foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman again warned on Wednesday that any transfer of chemical weapons to Hezbollah would be a “casus belli”.

“For us, that’s a casus belli, a red line,” Lieberman told Israel Radio.

Numerous attempts by Israel and Turkey to rekindle their once-close strategic relationship have failed. Israel has rejected Ankara’s demands for a formal apology, compensation for the families of those killed in the raid and end to the Gaza blockade.

There was no indication in Netanyahu’s statement that Israel would change its stance and meet any of Turkey’s demands.

Netanyahu’s move comes a week after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Israel, and reportedly urged Israeli leaders to amend relations with Turkey as the region descends further into turmoil.

Hamas leader in Turkey

One major obstacle to Israeli-Turkish ties is Ankara’s warm relations with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is in Turkey for talks with Turkish leaders on developments.

State-run television said Turkey’s prime minister met exiled Hamas leader Meshal to break the daily fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

TRT television said Wednesday that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted Meshal at his residence in Ankara on Tuesday evening.

Ties between Turkey, NATO’s biggest Muslim member, and Hamas, which rules Gaza, have been developing since Turkey’s alliance with Israel collapsed.

In January, Hamas premier of the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, visited Erdogan at his Istanbul home. …more

Turkey blocks trucking with Syria, rebels fight on
25 July, 2012 – By Paul Schemm – Associated Press

BEIRUT: Turkey sealed its border with Syria to trucks Wednesday, cutting off a vital supply line to the embattled nation as fighting stretched into its fifth day in the commercial capital of Aleppo.

Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan said deteriorating security was behind the closure.

“We have serious concerns over the safety of Turkish trucks regarding their entry and return from Syria,” Caglayan said, noting that there had already been a 87 percent drop in trucks traveling to Syria this year.

Turkey was an ally of neighboring Syria before the uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad began 16 months ago. But it has turned into a harsh critic and its territory along the of the 911 kilometer border is used as a staging ground for the rebel army as well as a haven for thousands of refugees fleeing violence that activists say has killed 19,000 people so far.

Northern Syria, especially the province of Idlib, has been a steady scene of heavy fighting between Syrian forces and the rebels and large swathes of the countryside are under rebel control. Rebels, for their part, generally move their weapons and material over the border through clandestine smuggler routes.

Caglayan told reporters Turkish trucks would not be allowed to into Syria, though no restrictions were being imposed on trucks going the other way. The sealing will deprive Syria of a common route for imports. Dozens of Turkish trucks were either looted or torched when the rebels captured the border crossing of Bab al-Hawa last week. Turkish truck drivers have also been caught in the cross fire or been the target of attacks during the civil war.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed confidence at rebel advances, saying that they were taking more and more territory.
…source

Russia says U.S. tries to justify terrorism in Syria
25 July, 2012 – By Steve Gutterman – Reuters

MOSCOW: Russia accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to justify terrorism against the Syrian government and berated Western nations it said had failed to condemn a bomb attack that killed senior security officials.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, referring to what he said were comments by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland indicating such attacks were not surprising, said: “This is a direct justification of terrorism.”

“To put it mildly, we don’t understand the refusal of our partners to condemn the terrorist attack in Damascus,” he said.

He suggested Washington was using the threat of further attacks to push the U.N. Security Council to place international mediator Kofi Annan’s peace plan under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter.

Chapter 7 allows the council to authorize actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention, although U.S. officials have said they would prefer the former course of action.

Lavrov said the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, had cited the July 18 bomb attack in Damascus as evidence that the Security Council should not delay further in adopting a Chapter 7 resolution.

“In other words this means ‘We will continue to support such terrorist attacks until the Security Council does what we want,'” Lavrov told a news conference after talks with Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis.

“This is a terrible position.”

Lavrov criticised Western sanctions on Syria and defended Russia’s veto last week of a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have threatened the Syrian authorities with sanctions if they did not halt violence.

He also reiterated Moscow’s stance that Assad’s departure from power could not be a precondition to a political dialogue aimed at ending the 16-month-old conflict and that Syrians themselves must decide the country’s future.

Two rebel Syrian groups claimed responsibility for the bombing that killed Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, a senior commander and one of the pillars of the Assad clan’s rule, as well as Defence Minister Daoud Rajha, intelligence chief Hisham Bekhtyar and veteran army general Hassan Turkmani.

…source

Hezbollah slams Israeli move to destroy Palestinian villages

25 July, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Lebanon’s Hezbollah late Tuesday condemned an Israeli decision to destroy eight Palestinian villages in the West Bank to make way for an Israeli army training ground.

Hezbollah slammed the decision as the “new Zionist crime which violates all boundaries”, adding that such acts are displayed for “those who are still in favor of negotiations with the enemy.”

The powerful Lebanese group called on “both the Muslim and Arab nations, as well as the international community, to assume their duty of protecting the Palestinians, and annihilating all evacuation decisions.”

It also called on the Palestinian people to “hold on to their lands and to their resistance.”

Hezbollah said the Israeli move came “in the light of complete Arab silence and international abstinence from preventing Israeli decisions and their implementation.”

Israel’s decision to destroy the villages, which are located south of Al-Khalil, and displace the native Palestinian population of 1,500, falls under “the extensive Zionist plan to cleanse Palestinians from their remaining lands while occupying it under violence and force,” the statement read.

“This new crime is nothing but a clear indication of the degree of the Zionist hatred towards the Palestinians, and their continuous blatant arrogance when dealing with them, while their cleansing practices affecting the entire land of Palestine, and especially Jerusalem, go unquestioned.”

Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank, and continues to expand illegal Jewish settlements in defiance of international law.

Hezbollah fought a two decade Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, forcing the Jewish state to withdraw in 2000. Hezbollah again fought off an attempted Israeli invasion of Lebanon in July 2006.

Fears of a renewed conflict have escalated in recent weeks, with increasing rhetoric from Israel of a potential strike on Lebanon and Syria as the Syrian crisis intensifies. …source