…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

Lines of the Game: Nasrallah Declares War to Prevent War
By: Sami Kleib – 21 December, 2013

Nasrallah’s words are a cause of concern. He made a step toward confrontation. He warned the Saudis and notified March 14. He threatened Israel. He put an end to any possibility to renew or extend Lebanese President Michel Suleiman’s term. He opened four fronts in one speech. But does he really want war, or is he trying to stop it?

Nasrallah’s information is worrying. He did not reveal any of it, merely making suggestions. He pointed his arrow toward Saudi Arabia. “Somewhere in the region, someone has reached the stage of wanting to ignite the country, as a result of hatred, anger, and failure,” he said.

He would not say something like this without the support of intelligence. The front, extending from Moscow to Beirut, through Tehran and Damascus, is speaking of a real threat in Lebanon. The specter of bombings and assassinations might not stay at this point.

Did he make the threats to relieve the pressure? This is very likely, but it will not do the trick. The party is convinced that orders were given to embarrass it.
The Lebanese army, whose role was recognized by Nasrallah as important, also has important and serious information. There is even more serious information available with Western intelligence agencies who are in contact with their counterparts in Lebanon and Damascus.

Similar information was obtained by two regional powers, who used to oppose the Syrian regime. They contain more precise reports on networks being sent to Lebanon to concoct something wider than a mere bombing or border skirmish.

March 14 should also be worried by Nasrallah’s words. He used phrases closer to what he had proclaimed before 7 May 2008. Why did he ask if there was a “declaration of war,” and announce “don’t toy with us?”

But what if they do toy with him? Will his replies remain limited to speeches or will something occur on the ground? If it did, where and when? If it did, could Hezbollah handle the consequences? How will it balance its reply here and fighting in Syria?

Did he make the threats to relieve the pressure? This is very likely, but it will not do the trick. The party is convinced that orders were given to embarrass it. Thus, he warned to prevent, and extended his warning to Israel to deter. He intentionally mentioned France, so it could hear that it is risky to interfere in the presidency.

Will the fiery message stop the war or hasten its ignition? The answer, no doubt, is Saudi-Iranian, on one side, and Western-Russian, on the other. Nasrallah belongs to an axis wider than Lebanon. …more

Nasrallah: Takfiri war in Syria threatens all
21 December, 2013 – Shia Post

Hezbollah Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that a war of existence for Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and resistance in the region is playing out in Syria.

Speaking during a memorial ceremony for Martyr Commander Hassan Lakkis, Nasrallah said that takfiris now threaten all who oppose them, citing the massacre in Adra city where takfiris killed people of all sects.

He made clear that resistance can never be browbeaten on Syria as Hezbollah’s position on that is ”conclusive, final and firm.”

Some are inclined to blame everything going on in Lebanon on Hezbollah’s presence in Syria and claim that everything can be solved provided that the Party ends its involvement, Nasrallah pointed out.

He indicated that lies about Hezbollah’s existence in Syria are blown out of proportion, affirming that the Party’s involvement to date is ”restricted and humble.”

Lies about the numbers of Hezbollah’s martyrs in Syria propagated by antagonistic media are part of a psychological warfare designed for undermining the morale of resistance adherents, Nasrallah said. …source

Source: Russian Navy Formed Group of Vessels to Escort Syrian Chemical Weapons
19 December, 2013 – Fars News

TEHRAN (FNA)- The destroyer Smetlivy of the Russian Navy will lead the unit to escort Danish and Norwegian container vessels carrying Syrian chemical weapons, said a military diplomat on Thursday.

“The Russian destroyer Smetlivy was assigned to ensure the safe transportation of chemical weapons by Danish and Norwegian container ships from the Syrian port of Latakia. Two large landing ships of the Russian Navy will be attached to it at various stages of the mission. The staff of the Mediterranean naval group deployed aboard the cruiser Pyotr Velikiy will supervise operations of the convoy,” he said.

The Russian escort is yet to arrive in Latakia, the source said. The Smetlivy will come next week from Cyprus’ Limassol where its supplies will be replenished within days. …more

Anti-regime protests held across Bahrain
19 December, 2013 – Islamic Invitation Turkey

Bahraini people have held fresh protest rallies to show their solidarity with those killed or arrested during the uprising against the ruling Al Khalifa regime.

Anti-regime protesters took to the streets in Karbabad, a village situated in the northern part of the tiny kingdom on Wednesday.
The protesters carried pictures of Sheikh Abdul Amir al-Jamri, a revered Bahraini spiritual leader, who was killed in 2006.
People also took to the streets in the northern village of Samaheej and in Sanabis, another village northwest of the capital Manama, to commemorate anti-regime protesters killed by regime forces.

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of pro-democracy protesters have staged numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa ruling family to step down.

One month later, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government to crush the peaceful protests.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested in the Saudi-backed crackdown.
In October 2013, Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said, “The [Bahraini] authorities simply slap the label ‘terrorist’ on defendants and then subject them to all manner of violations to end up with a ‘confession’.”

Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have 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.
Protesters say they will continue to hold anti-regime demonstrations until their demands for the establishment of a democratically-elected government and an end to rights violations are met. …source

Former US ambassador agonises over ‘stability’

Opposing democracy in Bahrain
By Brian Whitaker – 22 December, 2013 – Palestinia Pundit

“The latest issue of the Middle East Policy Council’s journal contains a lengthy essay on US policy towards Bahrain, basically arguing that reforms in the tiny Gulf kingdom should stop short of full democracy.
Its author, Ronald Neumann, is a former US ambassador to Bahrain and currently president of the American Academy of Diplomacy in Washington, and his essay is a troubling example of the extraordinarily charitable attitude that many in the western diplomatic establishment still display in relation to Gulf autocrats.
Neumann rightly points out that US policy towards Bahrain, in its present form, lacks clarity and is leading nowhere. He also points out that almost everything about the situation in Bahrain “is as contested as it is complicated”.
If the need is for clarity, though, it might be better to dwell less on the complexities (which Neumann does at length) and focus instead on some guiding principles.
One clear and simple principle which would serve as a good starting point is that people everywhere have a right to choose their own government and hold it accountable – and that when they seek to exercise their right it should not be the role of the US, or anyone else, to stand in their way.
In Bahrain’s case, that basic principle has become clouded by other concerns such as America’s perception of its regional interests and a desire for stability. The US is no exception in this – all countries seek to protect their own interests – but when those interests appear to conflict with democracy we need to ask whether they are being interpreted correctly.
Stability and US ‘interests’
The “stability” argument is an old and familiar one that has led the US down the wrong path many times before. Stability sounds comforting and desirable but in the Middle East particularly it is also a codeword for preventing significant change. Autocratic regimes promise their people stability in return for acquiescence – and that is dangerous because in the long run it leads to more instability, not less.
Political systems actually need a degree of instability because that is how change comes about. Reforming early and often, before the system crashes, is the way to keep it healthy and resilient. The alternative – the “artificially constrained systems” beloved of Arab autocrats – may look calm on the surface but as pressure builds up below they are liable to explode.
Regimes that fail to recognise this and refuse to take reform seriously are planting the seeds of future instability, as are the countries that support them.
There’s a similar problem with defining “American interests”. Are we talking short-term or long-term? Policies that seem a good idea in the short term may turn out to be a very bad idea in the long term, especially in the Middle East. The region is in the throes of a political upheaval that will take decades to play out. Somewhere along the way the monarchies of the Gulf will either fall or become marginalised beyond recognition and other countries, including the US, need to start preparing for that. Leave it too late and they risk ending up on the wrong side of history.
A case against democracy
Opposing real democracy in Bahrain may not strike many people as a particularly smart way to prepare for the future, but let’s consider Neumann’s argument.
His starting point is that Shia Muslims form a majority of Bahrain’s population (nobody is quite sure how big a majority they are because the government would rather not find out). Thus, in a one-person-one-vote system, if Bahrainis voted along sectarian lines, the result would be a permanent Shia majority with no alternation of power. Neumann writes:

“When people vote as a community, an elected majority becomes a function of community size. This is very different from a flexible system in which losers in one election believe they have a chance to become winners at another time. If the tyranny of a minority is (rightly) seen as wrong by the majority, absolute control by the majority is equally seen as wrong by the minority.”

That certainly presents some problems (which I’ll come to shortly) but Neumann seems reluctant to acknowledge that this hypothetical tyranny of a Shia majority could scarcely be less accountable than what we have today: the tyranny of a Sunni minority headed by the Khalifa family. …more

Bahrain: Martyrs Day commemorated, children persecuted
By davidswanson – 20 DEcemebr, 2103 – warisacrime.org

The Martyrs Day was marked by Bahraini people on Tuesday 17th December in their revolutionary styles of protests, demonstration, visits to martyrs families and graves of those murdered by the Alkhalifa regime. On Tuesday night most towns and villages were engaged in an activity in one form or another to mark the occasion which has become rallying point for anti-regime activism for the past two decades. On 17th December 1994 two Bahraini youths were shot by police using live bullets. It was the beginning of the longest-ever uprising that continued until 2000. Hani Khamis and Hani Al Wasti were demonstrating against the regime in two separate locations (Jidhafs and Sanabis) when they were shot. Since then annual demonstrations continued to mark the “Martyrs Day”. On that day in 2007 another martyr was killed. Ali Jassim, 22, lost his life after he had taken part in a demonstration to mark the day. The regime’s forces took harsh measures in a desperate attem pt to stop the country-wide protests. But it failed. To revenge that the regime’s forces stormed the residential areas in Aali, Duraz, Bani Jamra, Sitra and other towns, arrested people and raided many homes. Among the detained is Isa Al Aali from Manama who had been taken away to unknown location, where torture is routine, especially the secret houses in various locations.

In UK, the Bahraini opposition organized several events including a special service for the martyrs at one of the mosques, protests outside Downing Street and the Saudi Embassy, a demonstrations on Saturday 14th December, a roundtable discussion among Bahraini human rights bodies at the Headquarters of Human Rights Watch (Monday 16th December) and a seminar at the House of Lords on Tuesday 17th December. Lord Avebury chaired the event at the House of Lords saying that the situation in Bahrain has now sunk further into repression and dictatorship. He criticized the UK government for failing to support the people and continuing to receive Bahrain’s dictators. A prominent Human Rights lawyer, Daniel Carey of London-based Pierce Deighton Glynn law firm talked of his work trying to stop the 1.6 million gas canisters to be supplied by a South Korean company to Bahrain’s brutal regime. Sarah Walden of the Campaign Against Arms Trade said that the UK is lik ely to approve more arms deals to Bahrain, thus offering legitimacy to the regime. When Bahrain buys UK arms, she said, it knows that it buys UK silence too. Jawad Fairooz , a former MP from Al Wefaq block talked about the significance of the Martyrs Day and called for concrete international action to bring those responsible for human rights violations in Bahrain to justice. Mrs Jalila Ni’ma, the aunt of Martyr Ali Ni’ma talked about the ordeals of the martyrs families and how they are persecuted to the limit. She called on the world to exert pressure on the regime to stop this persecution and prosecute killers of their sons instead.

A special report by Amnesty International published this week described how Bahrain’s children have become victims of regime’s brutality. The report said that children are being routinely detained, ill-treated and tortured. It provides an insight into the secret world of the Alkhalifa dungeons where children are subjected to horrific torture including beating and rape.

The use of public relations firms in UK and USA by the Alkhalifa regime is increasing with people’s wealth lavishly spent to defend the hereditary dictatorship. According to John Horne of Bahrain Watch, the Washington-based PR company, Qorvis was paid $239,844 by Bahrain Embassy in US between April and September this year. An article by former Bahrain Ambassador to US in The Hill was secured by PR firm Qorvis. He also said: I have found out today that one of Bahrain’s favorite UK PR firms “Gardant Communications” is now called Meade Hall & Associates.

Bahrain Freedom Movement
18th December 2013
…source

Bahrain opposition likely to boycott 2014 poll
23 Decemebr, 2013 – PressTV

Bahrain’s main opposition groups say they may not contest next year’s parliamentary and municipal elections due to their discontent toward the slow reform process in the country.

Members from the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society and the National Democratic Action Society (NDAS) on Monday blamed the government for lacking political will to carry out reforms, saying they have no choice but to boycott the 2014 poll.

“There has been no real progress made on the ground and because of this, Al Wefaq will not contest the 2014 election,” former al-Wefaq MP Abduljalil Al Khalil said.

Munira Fakhro, a member of the NDAS, said opposition groups had made a set of preconditions for participating in the ongoing National Dialogue and the demands should be addressed before the next year’s poll.

“If these are fulfilled, opposition groups will take part in the polls, otherwise there is no point contesting,” she said.

Oversight of the UN and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council on the National Dialogue, an end to media incitement, a public referendum on outcomes of the talks and release of political prisoners are among the demands by the opposition groups.

Bahrainis have been staging demonstrations since mid-February 2011, calling for political reforms and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests.

Scores have been killed, many of them under torture while in custody, and thousands more detained since the popular uprising in the Persian Gulf state.

Protesters say they will continue holding anti-regime demonstrations until their demands for the establishment of a democratically-elected government and an end to rights violations are met. …source

Bahrain acquits police officers accused of torture
By Associated Press – 23 December, 2013

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — A lawyer says a Bahrain court has acquitted two police officers accused of torturing doctors who were detained while treating wounded Shiite protesters in 2011.

Lawyer Ali Al Juffairi says he attended Monday’s court session and that none of the six doctors or the two police officers were present when the verdict was read. The doctors were released from custody at different times over the past years.

Among the two acquitted was Noora bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, a female police officer and member of Bahrain’s royal family.

The doctors were detained at the height of protests in Bahrain by Shiites demanding greater rights from the Sunni monarchy.

The case is the latest in a string of acquittals for security officers accused of using excessing force and abusing detainees in Bahrain. …source

Bahrain: Letter to Abdulhadi Al Khawaja – You are not forgotten
20 December, 2013 – fidh

Dear Abdulhadi,

I know that you won’t get this letter but I hope that you will at least hear of it. I just want you to know that you are not forgotten and that your friends and former colleagues in Front Line Defenders are thinking of you.

Here in Ireland people are finishing up for the holidays and getting ready to spend time with their friends and families. I am deeply conscious of the fact that while you remain in prison , your daughter Zainab is also in prison and your other daughter Maryam has to continue her work for human rights in Bahrain from outside the country.

Human rights defenders pay a high price for their courage but governments should realise that they will be remembered for their c

Taliban Take Over from CIA starts in Afghanistan , as 2 Afghan Women hanged By Taliban
21 December, 2013 – Jafria News

Afghan Taliban Execute WomenJNN 21 Dec 2013 Kabul : An Afghan policewoman and a pregnant teacher were hanged and their bodies dumped by Taliban within a few kilometres of a foreign military base were recently handed over to Afghan control, officials said on Thursday.

The two women, one a policewoman and mother of two Feroza and the other a teacher Malalai – like many in Afghanistan the pair use only one name – were kidnapped on Monday in the conservative southern province of Uruzgan, said Abdullah Hemat, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

“A postmortem examination shows that both were hanged,” he said.

Successive, often deadly, assaults on women working in state institutions are fuelling concern that hard-won women’s rights promoted by the United States and its allies are eroding ahead of the end of the Nato-led combat mission next year.

Several female police officers have been killed in southern provinces in recent months.

The Taliban are known to target female officials working for the US -backed government, although some attacks have been linked to family feuds and male relatives outraged that the women are going out to work.

The bodies were found in an area of provincial capital Tirin Kot on Wednesday, said provincial police chief Matiullah Khan. He believes both killings were linked to family feuds.

Australian and US forces had managed security in the province since 2005. That ended on December 11 when they formally handed over control of the province to Afghan security forces.

The place where the women’s bodies were found is only a few kilometres from the Tirin Kot base where the hand-over ceremony occurred.

Australian forces left the province on Sunday.

The US and the allied forces Invaded Afghanistan in Oct ‘2001 , in the name of War against Terrorism , But since then neither the terrorism have ended , nor their self created Taliban and Allied Terrorist Networks have ever been dismantled or have been deleted , rather we see a surge in the terrorism around the world after their Invasion of Aghanistan , Iraq & Libya by US Forces , and now as they have already left , as the People of Iraq never let them stay more , after they got the Democracy Restored , but it is observed that even after the departure of the Official US and allied forces Departure from Iraq , the terrorism in Iraq has once again been shot up , as the terrorist are deep rooted in the country . And they have been placed in such a manner in the country , that even after the departure of US and allied forces , they are calling their shots and their infested terrorist Networks are so strong and Powerful , that even the Legitimate Democratically Elected Government is unable to control the menace of the terrorism from the Country , and there is a high Level of escalation in terrorism in Iraq , during recent times.

Same is the case with the Libya, as there is Uncontrollable waves of terrorism , with NO Powerful Government in Place to fight the menace of terrorism. …more

Bombing Near Shiite Town School in Syria Kills 12
22 Decemebr, 2013 – Shia Post

A suicide bomber detonated his bomb-rigged truck near a primary school in a Syrian Shiite town on Sunday, killing at least 12 people, half of them children, as government military aircraft dropped barrels laden with explosives onto a marketplace in the north, activists said.

The suicide truck bombing occurred outside a compound of schools in the town of Umm al-Amed in the eastern province of Homs, said Rami Abdurrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The organization obtains its information from a network of activists on the ground. Syrian state media said eight people were killed, and said 34 were wounded, mostly children.

On December 19, Patriarch of the Church of Antioch Gregory III Laham said up to 1,000 Christians have been killed and over 450,000 others displaced due to the crisis in Syria since March 2011.

Christians make up about 10 percent of the country’s population. The religious minority has been subjected to numerous attacks by extremist groups since the outbreak of violence in Syria.

According to the United Nations, more than four million Syrians will be forced out of their homes in 2014 as a result of the conflict in the country.

Two million Syrians are expected to take refuge outside the country while another 2.25 million are predicted to be internally displaced next year. …more

Potential US war on Syria based on a snuff movie
21 September, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham

The American war footing towards Syria plumbs a new diabolical depth.

Not only is it an act of criminal aggression against an innocent country – the supreme crime according to Nuremberg Principles – but that transgression would itself be based on another vile crime – the deliberate killing of children for propaganda purposes.

The notorious videos purporting to show the half-clothed bodies of dozens of lifeless Syrian children are the central component of US claims for launching a war against Syria. Suspiciously, this footage gained wide circulation on the internet and on international television news bulletins within hours of the alleged toxic gas attack on 21 August near Damascus.

Now it appears that those videos are part of an elaborate, diabolical fabrication, the circumstances of which are very different from what they are meant to assign.

Nobody is questioning the fact that the children are dead. But what transpires is that the children seem to have been murdered by some form of intoxication and that their deaths were then recorded by their killers – with the calculated intention of producing a propaganda video.

That propaganda purports to blame the Syrian government forces of using chemical weapons causing massive civilian casualties. That in turn is aimed at provoking outrage among world public opinion, which would underpin US military intervention on the basis of President Obama’s so-called red line on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

In other words, the world is being pushed into acquiescing to a US-led criminal war on Syria based on a vile “snuff movie.”

In the world of vice, there can be few acts more criminal and morally depraved than that of making snuff movies. This illegal genre of film is where some unwitting victim is murdered on screen for the perverse gratification of those behind the camera and the eventual underground audience who indulge in such odious entertainment.

Usually, in the making of snuff movies, the persons recording the scene of death are the killers or their accomplices. These movies are, needless to say, highly illegal and confined to a secretive subculture. Those who make snuff movies and watch them are complicit in murder, and the videos are in effect indictable evidence of their crime.

On close examination of the alleged gas attack videos that came out of Syria on 21 August, the blunt assessment is that the footage is nothing less than a snuff movie.

This is the shocking conclusion from an independent study carried out by Syrian Christian leader Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib. Under the auspices of the Geneva-based International Institute of Peace, Justice and Human Rights, the study concludes that the infamous gas-attack videos showing dead children is a fabrication. That is, the children were not killed, as alleged, by Syrian government forces firing chemical weapons on the Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

According to the authors: “From the moment when some families of abducted children contacted us to inform us that they recognized the children among those who are presented in the videos as victims of the chemical attacks of east Ghouta, we decided to examine the videos thoroughly.”

Mother Agnes’ investigation goes on to say chillingly: “Our first concern was the fate of the children we see in the footages. Those angels are always alone in the hands of adult males that seem to be elements of armed gangs. The children that trespassed remain without their families and unidentified all the way until they are wrapped in the white shrouds of the burial. Moreover, our study highlights without any doubt that their little bodies were manipulated and disposed with theatrical arrangements to figure in the screening.”

The authors add: “Thus we want to raise awareness toward the humanitarian case of this criminal use of children in the political propaganda of the east Ghouta chemical weapons attack.”

Mother Agnes and her co-authors have submitted their findings to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva. But, tellingly, the report, which was published earlier this week, has received negligible coverage in the Western mainstream media.

It is not determined who actually killed the children and by what method. Some observers have pointed out that the victims appear to have tourniquets on their arms. That would suggest that they received a lethal injection.

It also appears that the children are not from the location of Ghouta. It is believed that many of them were abducted by the foreign-backed militants during raids on pro-government villages in the Latakia area of northwest Syria during the weeks prior to 21 August.

That confers on the crime in Ghouta on 21 August the most hideous proportions. For what is deduced is that dozens of children were abducted for the fate of cold-blooded murder, to be videoed with the purpose of fabricating a crime falsely attributed to others for propaganda effect – propaganda to precipitate a war.

When we look at the choreographed way in which the US government and its Western allies have reacted to the incident and the videos, it is suggestive of collusion at some level. Several reports have tied the involvement of Saudi, Turk and Israeli intelligence with the supply of toxic chemicals to the foreign-backed militants fighting in Syria for the Western agenda of regime change against the government of President Assad. These intelligence agencies are closely aligned with those of the US, Britain and France.

The fundamental importance of the alleged gas-attack videos to the US and Western case for military intervention in Syria raises the question of how much do these governments know about the exact circumstances of the child deaths that ostensibly occurred in Ghouta on 21 August.

Apart from flawed interpretation of the inconclusive UN chemical inspectors’ report released earlier this week, the other component of the US government’s case for a military attack on Syria are the videos purporting to show the aftermath of a chemical weapons incident in Ghouta.

Appealing to Congress for military strikes on Syria earlier this month, US Secretary of State John F Kerry described those images as “sickening,” and added that “the world must act on such horror.”

Affecting an air of privileged briefing, members of Congress were taken into closed-door sessions. There, they watched the videos showing lifeless children lying in gaunt rooms in an unknown location, apparently having died from exposure to sarin or some other toxic gas.

It appears that US lawmakers viewed the same video footage that the rest of the world has also accessed via the internet and on television news bulletins. The viewing of such distressing scenes paved the way for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to vote for resolution 2021 backing President Obama’s military attack on Syria.

While the momentum for war has abated in the past week because of the Russian-brokered deal to decommission Syrian government chemical weapons, nevertheless the US continues to threaten that military strikes still remain an option on the table.

US-led wars in the past have notoriously relied on false flags and pretexts, such as the sinking of the USS Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin incident and 9/11. But if the US commits to war on Syria, its lawlessness will have reached a new low. In that event, it will be a war of aggression based on a snuff movie. …source

Whose sarin?
Seymour M. Hersh – 19 December, 2013

Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.

In his nationally televised speech about Syria on 10 September, Obama laid the blame for the nerve gas attack on the rebel-held suburb of Eastern Ghouta firmly on Assad’s government, and made it clear he was prepared to back up his earlier public warnings that any use of chemical weapons would cross a ‘red line’: ‘Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people,’ he said. ‘We know the Assad regime was responsible … And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike.’ Obama was going to war to back up a public threat, but he was doing so without knowing for sure who did what in the early morning of 21 August.

He cited a list of what appeared to be hard-won evidence of Assad’s culpability: ‘In the days leading up to August 21st, we know that Assad’s chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from a regime-controlled area into 11 neighbourhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces.’ Obama’s certainty was echoed at the time by Denis McDonough, his chief of staff, who told the New York Times: ‘No one with whom I’ve spoken doubts the intelligence’ directly linking Assad and his regime to the sarin attacks.

But in recent interviews with intelligence and military officers and consultants past and present, I found intense concern, and on occasion anger, over what was repeatedly seen as the deliberate manipulation of intelligence. One high-level intelligence officer, in an email to a colleague, called the administration’s assurances of Assad’s responsibility a ‘ruse’. The attack ‘was not the result of the current regime’, he wrote. A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening. The distortion, he said, reminded him of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, when the Johnson administration reversed the sequence of National Security Agency intercepts to justify one of the early bombings of North Vietnam. The same official said there was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence bureaucracy: ‘The guys are throwing their hands in the air and saying, “How can we help this guy” – Obama – “when he and his cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go along?”’

The complaints focus on what Washington did not have: any advance warning from the assumed source of the attack. The military intelligence community has for years produced a highly classified early morning intelligence summary, known as the Morning Report, for the secretary of defence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; a copy also goes to the national security adviser and the director of national intelligence. The Morning Report includes no political or economic information, but provides a summary of important military events around the world, with all available intelligence about them. A senior intelligence consultant told me that some time after the attack he reviewed the reports for 20 August through 23 August. For two days – 20 and 21 August – there was no mention of Syria. On 22 August the lead item in the Morning Report dealt with Egypt; a subsequent item discussed an internal change in the command structure of one of the rebel groups in Syria. Nothing was noted about the use of nerve gas in Damascus that day. It was not until 23 August that the use of sarin became a dominant issue, although hundreds of photographs and videos of the massacre had gone viral within hours on YouTube, Facebook and other social media sites. At this point, the administration knew no more than the public.
Chicago University Press – Piercing Time by Peter Sramek

Obama left Washington early on 21 August for a hectic two-day speaking tour in New York and Pennsylvania; according to the White House press office, he was briefed later that day on the attack, and the growing public and media furore. The lack of any immediate inside intelligence was made clear on 22 August, when Jen Psaki, a spokesperson for the State Department, told reporters: ‘We are unable to conclusively determine [chemical weapons] use. But we are focused every minute of every day since these events happened … on doing everything possible within our power to nail down the facts.’ The administration’s tone had hardened by 27 August, when Jay Carney, Obama’s press secretary, told reporters – without providing any specific information – that any suggestions that the Syrian government was not responsible ‘are as preposterous as suggestions that the attack itself didn’t occur’.

The absence of immediate alarm inside the American intelligence community demonstrates that there was no intelligence about Syrian intentions in the days before the attack. And there are at least two ways the US could have known about it in advance: both were touched on in one of the top secret American intelligence documents that have been made public in recent months by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor.

On 29 August, the Washington Post published excerpts from the annual budget for all national intelligence programmes, agency by agency, provided by Snowden. In consultation with the Obama administration, the newspaper chose to publish only a slim portion of the 178-page document, which has a classification higher than top secret, but it summarised and published a section dealing with problem areas. One problem area was the gap in coverage targeting Assad’s office. The document said that the NSA’s worldwide electronic eavesdropping facilities had been ‘able to monitor unencrypted communications among senior military officials at the outset of the civil war there’. But it was ‘a vulnerability that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces apparently later recognised’. In other words, the NSA no longer had access to the conversations of the top military leadership in Syria, which would have included crucial communications from Assad, such as orders for a nerve gas attack. (In its public statements since 21 August, the Obama administration has never claimed to have specific information connecting Assad himself to the attack.)
…more

Case Against Syria’s Assad Falls Apart
23 December, 2013 – by WashingtonsBlog

Evidence for Government Use of Chemical Weapons Fizzles

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh recently destroyed America’s claim that it was clearly the Syrian government which carried out the chemical weapons attacks.

Now, the U.N. weapons inspectors have quietly retracted one of their main claims implying that Assad we behind the attack.

Former Associated Press and Newsweek reporter – Robert Parry – notes:

A United Nations analysis of samples taken from one of the two sites of the alleged Sarin attack outside Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 21 found zero chemical weapons agents, and one UN laboratory backed off its earlier claim to have found a residue that can result from degraded Sarin on the remnants of the missile, according to revisions in a new UN report.

This failure to find Sarin anywhere in Moadamiyah, a suburb south of Damascus, undercuts analyses by Human Rights Watch and the New York Times that relied on a vectoring of the two attack sites – the other in Zamalka/Ein Tarma to the east where Sarin was detected – to conclude that an elite unit of the Syrian military must have been responsible for the attacks that brought the United States close to war in Syria.

There were already problems with the analyses … because of doubts about the flight paths of the missiles and their maximum range. UN inspectors only had a rough idea of the trajectories because at least one of the projectiles appears to have deflected off a building as it crash-landed.

Also, if the two missiles had been fired from the elite military base of the 104th Brigade of the Republican Guard northwest of Damascus, they would have had to fly about nine kilometers though independent experts have suggested that the improvised missiles probably could go no more than three kilometers.

Plus, the Moadamiyah missile – with its supposedly lethal payload of Sarin – would have had to pass over the presidential palace and other sensitive government sites, a highly risky undertaking if the alleged vectoring were correct.

But the revised UN analysis, attached to a new report on several other alleged chemical weapons incidents in Syria, punched a new hole in the notion that the Republican Guard fired a Sarin-laden missile into Moadamiyah. The UN inspectors found no chemical weapons agents on the remnants of the crudely made missile that landed in Moadamiyah (or for that matter no Sarin anywhere else in the area).

In the earlier UN report about the Aug. 21 incident, one of two UN labs had detected on a metal fragment what the lab thought was a chemical residue that can be left behind by degraded Sarin. But the new analysis withdraws that finding, an indication of how fragile the chemistry can be in getting false positives on derivative chemical residue.

The two UN laboratories are now in agreement that there was neither Sarin nor possible derivatives of Sarin on the metal fragments from the Moadamiyah missile.

***

In other words, if the only Sarin attack on Aug. 21 was in the Zamalka area, the certainty that the Syrian military carried out the assault has been seriously undermined. The vectoring cited by the New York Times and Human Rights Watch would become meaningless since there would be only one flight path of a Sarin-bearing missile, the one landing in Zamalka.

***

In the Zamalka/Ein Tarma neighborhood, where a crudely made missile apparently did deliver poison gas, the inspectors stated that “the locations have been well traveled by other individuals prior to the arrival of the Mission. … During the time spent at these locations, individuals arrived carrying other suspected munitions indicating that such potential evidence is being moved and possibly manipulated.”

The inspectors also said their visits were in the “custody” of rebel forces who guided them to the sites and to alleged witnesses.

Parry also notes that the U.N. report strongly implies that rebels have – and have used – chemical weapons:

The new UN report, released Thursday, also assessed other cases of possible chemical weapons use in Syria, including claims by the government that rebels have used Sarin and other chemical agents to inflict casualties on government soldiers and civilians.

UN inspectors said they “collected credible information that corroborates the allegations that chemical weapons were used in Khan Al Asal (near the northern city of Aleppo) on 19 March 2013 against soldiers and civilians,” but the inspectors said they were unable to undertake a complete study because of time delays and security concerns.

The UN inspectors also examined a few incidents in the days after the Aug. 21 attack in which the Syrian government claimed its soldiers were targeted with chemical weapons, including an Aug. 25 incident at Ashrafiah Sahnaya, a town southwest of Damascus. The UN inspectors said they found evidence suggesting a small-scale attack was made against soldiers but were unable to establish the facts definitively.

***
Still, the totality of the new UN report suggests that Syrian rebels have developed a capability to produce at least crude chemical weapons and delivery systems, further adding to the possibility that the Aug. 21 attack east of Damascus could have resulted from a botched rebel launch of a makeshift missile aimed at government targets or as an accident. …source

Bahrain: Another Activist Subjected to Enforced Disappearance : Environmental Activist Mohamed Jawad
16 December, 2013 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses grave concern over escalating attacks on human rights defenders as yet another defender is arrested.

At dawn on 15 December 2013, the home of environmental activist Mohamed Jawad was raided by masked security men, and he was arrested without a warrant. Jawad is known for his activism in defending the environment against pollution and exposing the consequences of pollution in his area of residence; Maameer, which is close to an industrial area. For years, he has participated locally and internationally in events to raise awareness about the deteriorating health conditions of the people living in and around Maameer, and to call for better environment conditions.

Mohamed Jawad is Street Protest Against Cruel Regime in Bahrain

Jawad has also expressed support for the Bahraini people’s struggle for freedom and democracy.

The authorities did not provide any information on his whereabouts or wellbeing, despite inquiries made by his family at the police station.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights believes that Mohamed Jawad has been targeted solely for his peaceful activism in defending the environment.

The BCHR therefore calls on the US administration and other allies of Bahrain including the UK government, the EU and the leading human rights organizations to:

– Call for the immediate release of activist Mohamed Jawad as well as all other detained human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience in Bahrain.

– End the practice of intimidation, slander and harassment of activists and human rights defenders.

– Increase the pressure on the Government of Bahrain to end the on-going daily human rights violations and the escalating attacks against human rights defenders and activists.

– To put pressure on the Government of Bahrain to guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders and activists in Bahrain are able to carry out their legitimate activities without fear of reprisals, and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.

…source

Those abducted and detained by ISIS include children as young as eight who are held together with adults in the same cruel and inhuman conditions. Torture, flogging, and summary killings are rife in secret prisons run in Syria by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

Syria: Harrowing torture, summary killings in secret ISIS detention centres
Philip Luther, Amnesty International – 19 December, 2013

Torture, flogging, and summary killings are rife in secret prisons run by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), an armed group that controls large areas of northern Syria, said Amnesty International in a briefing published today.

ISIS, which claims to apply strict Shari’a (Islamic law) in areas it controls, has ruthlessly flouted the rights of local people. In the 18-page briefing, Rule of fear: ISIS abuses in detention in northern Syria, Amnesty International identifies seven detention facilities that ISIS uses in al-Raqqa governorate and Aleppo.

“Those abducted and detained by ISIS include children as young as eight who are held together with adults in the same cruel and inhuman conditions,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Former detainees describe a shocking catalogue of abuses in which they or others were flogged with rubber generator belts or cables, tortured with electric shocks or forced to adopt a painful stress position known as aqrab (scorpion), in which a detainee’s wrists are secured together over one shoulder.

Some of those held by ISIS are suspected of theft or other crimes; others are accused of “crimes” against Islam, such as smoking cigarettes or zina, sex outside marriage. Others were seized for challenging ISIS’s rule or because they belonged to rival armed groups opposed to the Syrian government. ISIS is also suspected of abducting and detaining foreign nationals, including journalists covering the fighting in Syria.

Several children were among detainees who received severe floggings, according to testimonies obtained by Amnesty International. On one occasion, an anguished father had to endure screams of pain as ISIS captors tormented his son in a nearby room. Two detainees related how they witnessed a child of about 14 receive a flogging of more than 90 lashes during interrogation at Sadd al-Ba’ath, an ISIS prison in al-Raqqa governorate. Another child of about 14 who ISIS accused of stealing a motorbike was repeatedly flogged over several days. …more

UK brigade fights in Syria secretly
20 December, 2013 – Shia Post

Sky News has gained the first access to a previously unknown brigade of exclusively British jihadists fighting in Syria.

Until now, the existence of this UK brigade has been kept a secret, but it reveals that British security services have hugely underestimated the scale of UK nationals involved in the bloodshed.

In a series of wide-ranging and frank interviews, the jihadists, who have asked Sky News to protect their identities for fear of a backlash against their families in the UK, reveal that hundreds of young men from Britain have joined the fight against Bashar al Assad’s government and that “at least” four die each month.

They also claim that the UK remains the largest single source of private fundraising for jihadi fighters, outdoing countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

In the interviews, carried out by US journalist and Muslim convert, Bilal Abdul Kareem, exclusively for Sky News, the Islamic fighters insist they have no intention of attacking UK targets or waging jihad on British soil.

The heads of the UK’s security services have warned of young men travelling to Syria risk being radicalised before returning home to carry out terror attacks in Britain.

Fighting on a mountain top in the northeast of the country, these men look like hardcore jihadists, but when they speak they are pure Brits.

They joke and laugh between themselves, sometimes comparing the now ubiquitous “selfies”.

But they hardly speak any Arabic and are dependent on one of their number to give orders on the battlefield.

Like British soldiers, they discuss kit and the best things to buy for jihad. In one exchange a young man, advised to buy new binoculars, naively asks if eBay will deliver.

The British contingent says their numbers are increasing daily and social networking sites are helping to organise the influx into Syria.

They know that returning to their families in the UK will be extremely difficult from now on, but in reality they probably won’t get the chance – the fighting footsoldier’s life expectancy in Syria is very short once serious combat begins.

This committed group buck many stereotypes used to describe the Islamist fighters in Syria.

Whether anyone agrees or disagrees with them is not in itself relevant, not yet at least, as this is the first time we have ever heard them speak.

A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: “Syria is the number one destination for jihadists anywhere in the world. There are thousands of foreign fighters in Syria, including large numbers of Europeans, gaining combat experience and forging connections with extremists.

“Some people who travel from the UK to Syria for jihadist fighting will pose a security threat when they return. We are concerned that Al-Qaeda affiliates such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Al Nusrah Front (ANF) are now able to operate in the large areas of ungoverned space that have been created by the conflict.

“We are aware of at least 200 UK-linked individuals of concern who have travelled to Syria, but the true number is likely to be higher”. …more

AKP’s members behind delivering chemical weapons to Jabat al-Nusra: Magazine
20 December, 2013 – Shia Post

Mihraç Ural, in an interview given to ’7 SABAH’ Turkish magazine, said the AKP (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) (English: The Justice and Development Party) is holding responsible for the Reyhanlı attack to cover up al-Nusra terrorist that they supported, and declared that Sarin gas was given to al-Nusra by AKP members.

Mihraç Ural, the former leader of the a faction of the ‘THKP-C Acilciler’ organisation which was declared by the Turkish media as the murderers behind the Reyhanlı attacks, has made shocking claims in an interview to 7SABAH website relating to chemical weapon attack on Syrian soil by declaring that the sarin gas used in said acts was brought to Turkey from Holland via an airport’s VIP section, and by means of AKP officials was passed through and delivered to al-Nusra.

Ural, who spoke on the chemical materials asserted to have been used in the attack in East Ghouta, Damascus, responded to the questions of reporter Cesim İlhani and said:

“The clearest truth I will say on this matter is the confession of Dutch-passport holder and Turkish citizen Turgay Yaşar who came into our hands severely wounded during the fighting in the countryside near Lattika. Although he was not subjected to cruel treatment, while we were treating his wounds, he cried, apologised to Allah, and declared that he had come with Sarin gas to Turkey from Holland via the VIP section, passed into the country with the authorisation of AKP officials. They think that preparations were made for the Sarin gas to be used on Alevis in the countryside near Lattika but due to the course taken and the comprehensive victory in the fight to save villages in which I participated at the head of the Mukavemet Surriya Forces, they further believe that they could not find an opportunity to [make these preparations] and on the 21 August 2013 they responded to the rout by using these chemicals in Ghouta.” …source

Obama Issues Directive to Sell Weapons to GCC
By ZACHARY FRYER-BIGGS and AWAD MUSTAFA – 18 December, 2013 – Defense NEws

WASHINGTON AND DUBAI — The White House this week issued a presidential determination to facilitate the sale of weapons to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The move by the Obama administration shows the rapid development in events since Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced plans this month in Bahrain to sell weapons to the Gulf Cooperation Council as a block, as opposed to selling to individual nations within the council.

According to the document issued Monday, the White House wants to confirm the eligibility of the Gulf Cooperation Council to receive defense articles and defense services under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act.

“I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and defense services to the Gulf Cooperation Council will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace,” the document stated.

The move by the White House follows last week’s announcement at the GCC Summit in Kuwait to establish a Joint GCC Military Command.

According to a State Department official, the GCC is being designated for future sales, however, congressional approval has yet to be established when deals flow to Congress.

On Dec. 7, in Manama, Hagel said the Pentagon “will better integrate with GCC members to enhance missile defense capabilities in the region,” adding “the United States continues to believe that a multilateral approach is the best answer for missile defense.”

Officials at the State Department said that over the past several years, the US and the GCC have explored ways to expand multilateral defense cooperation in response to evolving regional security challenges.

“The United States and the GCC agree on the strategic imperative to building better multilateral defense ties as a complement to the strong bilateral relationships the US has with gulf partner states,” the State Department added. …more

Washington Shakes Hands With Al-Qaeda Ally in Syria
By: Elie Hanna – 19 December, 2013

The US administration wants to meet with Syria’s Islamic Front. Washington is flirting with this al-Qaeda affiliate as it hurries to score extra points before Geneva II. The Islamic Front remains a winning card against Moscow, which is skeptical about the Syrian opposition’s representation.

US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford could be shaking the same hands of those who held the hands of al-Nusra Front’s emirs a few days ago.

Sources from the Syrian opposition and Western diplomatic circles informed Al-Akhbar that a meeting was held in Istanbul December 18 between representatives of the US administration and “intermediaries linked to the Islamic Front, not representatives.”

Remarkably, Kerry used the term “moderate” to describe the Islamic Front.
The United States wants to keep pace with the changes in the Syrian arena so it became necessary to create links with the Islamic Front, which rose to notoriety after announcing its creation a few weeks ago.

“There is an effort afoot among all of the supporting nations of the Syrian opposition to want to broaden the base of the moderate opposition and broaden the base of representation of the Syrian people in the Geneva II negotiation,” US Secretary of State John Kerry announced on December 17.

Washington is close to announcing the death of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The US administration will not protect its pawns who fail to achieve their set objectives, and will simply change the players or move them to another team.

In October 2012, then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council (SNC). “There has to be a representation of those who are on the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom,” she announced from Zagreb without blinking an eye.

The SNC had been given a grace period of several weeks to expand its ranks, without success. It was placed back on the shelf and the Syrian National Coalition became the sole representative of the Syrian opposition.

Today, the FSA, the coalition’s own military wing, is facing a similar situation. The “Friends of Syria” group demanded that the military formations be unified under the command of deserting General Salim Idriss, then the West saw countless armed groups breaking from the FSA command and joining other entities.

The fighters are on two sides. The first is Bashar, his soldiers, and those who support them, and the second side is all who fight this regime.
What the West wanted to see in the FSA, it saw in the Army of Islam, which began as the Battalions of Islam, then became the Brigade of Islam, and finally decided on Army of Islam last September, which included 43 different military formations.

The Army of Islam became an important component in the Islamic Front. Based on the numbers in the ranks of its “brigades” alone, it could be considered the most influential force in the Syrian opposition’s arena. …more

Syrian rebel leader was bin Laden’s courier, now Zawahiri’s representative
By Thomas Joscelyn – 17 December, 2013 – Long War Journal

A senior al Qaeda operative known as Abu Khalid al Suri is a leading figure in Ahrar al Sham, a Syrian extremist group that is part of the recently formed Islamic Front. Al Suri’s real name is Mohamed Bahaiah.

Bahaiah is a longtime al Qaeda operative who worked as a courier for the terror network. Spanish authorities think he may have delivered surveillance tapes of the World Trade Center and other American landmarks to al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Afghanistan in early 1998.

In addition to being a senior member of Ahrar al Sham, Bahaiah today serves as Ayman al Zawahiri’s representative in the Levant.

Ahrar al Sham is not one of al Qaeda’s two official branches inside Syria, which are the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, or Levant (ISIS) . But Ahrar al Sham has closely cooperated with the al Qaeda affiliates on the battlefield even while engaging in a very public dispute with ISIS.

Bahaiah’s role in Ahrar al Sham has been confirmed by two US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal. One official noted that while Bahaiah is not the emir or overall head of Ahrar al Sham, he is considered a central figure within in its ranks and plays a significant role in guiding the group.

Other al Qaeda operatives hold key positions within the extremist organization as well, according to the US officials.

In an article earlier this month, As-Safir, a Beirut-based publication, reported that Bahaiah “has played a prominent role” in Ahrar al Sham since its founding and “has sought to to cooperate and consult with prominent al Qaeda figures regarding the best methods of jihadist work in Syria.” The publication cited a “source in the Ahrar al Sham movement.”

The Daily Beast reports that Bahaiah is “overseeing the relationship between the al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic Front.”

Bahaiah has kept his role within Ahrar al Sham out of the spotlight. US officials say that he is part of a secretive al Qaeda cadre that has sought to influence or co-opt parts of the Syrian insurgency that are not official al Qaeda branches.

A courier for Osama bin Laden

European officials first gathered evidence connecting Bahaiah to the al Qaeda network as early as the 1990s. Spanish investigators identified Bahaiah as one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted couriers.

Bahaiah “is the person who was totally trusted by many different people in the various countries and was able to coordinate and transmit orders from bin Laden,” a Spanish judicial official told The New York Times in December 2003. This same official said that Bahaiah “was also being investigated for helping to finance an unsuccessful plot in 1997 to kill the prime minister of Yemen.”

Spanish court records reviewed by The Long War Journal cite Bahaiah’s longstanding relationship with Imad Yarkas, a fellow Syrian who headed al Qaeda’s presence inside Spain prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Spanish officials found, for example, that Bahaiah delivered money from Yarkas to Abu Qatada, an al Qaeda-affiliated ideologue, in London.

Bahaiah’s brother-in-law is Mohammed Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi, a Syrian businessman who was arrested on terrorism charges in 2002. The United Nations has described Zouaydi as “a suspected financier of al Qaeda’s worldwide terrorist efforts.” Zouaydi would say, according to Spanish court documents, that Bahaiah’s “mission had been to establish contacts at the international level.”

One of Zouaydi’s employees, a fellow Syrian named Ghasoub Al Abrash Ghalyoun, traveled to the US in 1997. During his trip, Ghalyoun made suspicious videos of the World Trade Center and other American landmarks. Ghalyoun would later claim that the videos were simply the work of an eager tourist. Spanish authorities, who tied Ghalyoun to Yarkas’ operations, had a different view.

In July 2002, after arresting Ghalyoun for a second time, Spanish police released a statement regarding the videos. “The style and duration of the recordings far exceed touristic curiosity,” the statement reads, according to an account by the Associated Press. “For example, two of the tapes are like a documentary study, with innumerable takes from all distances and angles of the Twin Towers in New York.”

In addition to the World Trade Center, Ghalyoun made recordings of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears Tower, and the Statue of Liberty, as well as theme parks. The Golden Gate Bridge’s “suspension pillar” was “given substantial attention,” according to the police statement.

Spanish investigators believed that Ghalyoun’s videos were delivered to senior al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. The allegation was contained in a Sept. 17, 2003 indictment detailing the layers of evidence amassed against Yarkas’ al Qaeda network.

“The Spanish indictment alleges that an al Qaeda courier was in Ghalyoun’s town in Spain shortly after the trip and that the courier probably delivered the tape to al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan,” the 9/11 Commission reported.

…more

Saudi Shiite Activist Gets 13-Year Prison Sentence
189 December, 2013 – Associated Press

A Human Rights Watch researcher says a judge in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a prominent Shiite political activist to 13 years in prison and a 15-year travel ban.

Adam Coogle told The Associated Press that Adel al-Labbad was convicted Thursday. Coogle says activists in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, including relatives and people close to the case, confirmed the sentence.

State media did not report the sentence, nor has the judgment been published.

Al-Labbad faced five charges, including disobedience to the ruler, disturbing public order and joining a terrorist group.

Coogle says the charge that al-Labbad is a member of the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain dates back to the 1980s before he and others struck an amnesty deal with the late Saudi King Fahd in 1993. …source

A Couple of Days in the Life of a Bahraini Political Prisoner
by: Zainab Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja – 3 July, 2013 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

June 22, 2013. It is around 8:30 p.m. and I sit reading in my cell when I suddenly hear prison guard Aysha shouting at the top of her lungs. Her shouting so loud that the whole prison goes silent.

This prison guard is known for being one of the worst, almost always barking orders and insults at the prisoners. But this time it is worse and she won’t stop shouting for no apparent reason other than asking a prisoner, “Why the hell she was on this side of the prison.”(Note: while the prison cells are open; prisoners move freely from one side of the prison to the other). My cellmates go check, and they come back and tell me it is Rabab Mohammed who is being shouted at while she stands completely silent.

Rabab is a sweet and very quiet 31-year-old first grade teacher who knows very well the price of speaking up for oneself in this country. She was first arrested in Ramadan when riot police stopped her on the street and started swearing at her using vulgar language; after calling her a “dirty Shia whore.” Rabab looked them in the eye and told them they had no right to speak to her that way. This landed her in prison. While in detention a prison guard started taunting her, hurling insults at her and her “disgusting terrorist Iranian people.” To which Rabab finally answered that she was an Arab, a proud Bahraini and no terrorist. She then asked the prison guard where she was from. The prison guard, who is one of the newly naturalized, judging by the way she looked and the difficulty she was having to speak a Bahraini accent, replied “Yes I’m “mujanasa” (note: term used for those politically naturalized by Bahrain regime specifically to work for the police & security forces who are responsible for most of the crimes committed against the people of Bahrain) and continued: “And you close your mouth and bow your head because we are the crown on your heads.” Responding with “no, you are not” is what became the second case against Rabab and the reason why she is currently in prison.

After the second case, Rabab’s lawyer gave her very strict orders: “No matter what they say to you, or how they insult you, swallow your pride and stay quiet. “And that’s exactly what she’s been doing since she got here a month ago. She has been shouted at, she has been insulted, but she remains quiet and walks away. In fact the guards seem to take extra pleasure in insulting her just waiting for her to respond.

22nd of June. As prison guard Aysha is in a fit of rage, Rabab tries to walk away but the prison guard won’t let her. Another prisoner (an older woman) is so scared the prison guard will hit Rabab that she keep asking Rabab to please just apologize. I look out of my cell and see the look on Rabab’s face as she raises her head and quietly says “I am sorry” to which the prison guard smirks, waving her away saying “Go! Get lost.”

On the 22nd of June at around 9 p.m. I walk out of my cell and go to the sitting area where 3 prison guards, including Aysha sit overseeing more than 60 prisoners. I walk up to Aysha and the following exchange ensues:

“You had no right to shout at Rabab in that way.”

I had barely spoken when she starts shouting “and who the hell do you think you are, you think you’re everyone’s lawyer!? Shut your mouth and go to your cell.”

I respond “I’m nobody’s lawyer, but when I see something wrong I will not shut my mouth at all and I will tell you exactly what I think. Your prison guard uniform gives you no right to insult and humiliate people.”

She shouts “you want to teach me my manners you piece of trash. You’re the one who wasn’t raised properly, I will make you eat shit if you dare to speak to me.”

To which I reply “if your point is to prove you’re not ill-mannered then using that language is not the best way, and if you choose to speak like this I will not stoop to that level.”

Prison guard Aysha goes into a screaming fit, stands up and as other guards hold her back she starts shivering and hysterically shouting “Go back to your country, you are not Bahraini, you traitors, etc.” to which I smile & say nothing.

An hour later the same police start calling prisoners as witnesses, calling only a few prisoners who are the closet to them. They are the prisoners who get the “special treatment” like getting more food, longer phone calls and are dubbed “the human cameras” by the other prisoners because they report everything that happens beyond the hearing and monitoring of the prison administration.

Upon seeing this, a couple of prisoners who are not Bahraini go to the police and say they want to testify. The police asks them, “who insulted who?” A Moroccan woman replies “prison guard Aysha insulted Zainab,” to which the police responds “then we don’t want your testimony… go.” When another prisoner also tries to be a witness, she is told they are out of papers. Political prisoner Siddiqa refuses to leave and insists she wants to write what she saw. They finally let her write; after which they read her testimony out loud in front of her. Prison guard Aysha keeps repeating the insults Siddiqa had written on the paper, laughing. “Yeah so I said those things, what’s wrong with that.”

June 24. I am called to the prison administration office. First I see the “specialist” Rana who had threatened to slap me at an earlier time when I told another prisoner she shouldn’t allow them to interrogate her without her lawyer present. “Al-Westa police are here to speak to you about the new case against you.” I half expect it to be the same Al-Westa police who had beaten me six months ago but it’s not. A police woman walks in “Zainab you are accused of verbally attacking & assaulting a prison guard. Telling her that she,” the police woman looks at her paper and reads, “that she has no manners, that she is trash, and ill-bred, and that she is not a Bahraini. What do you say to these accusations?” I look at the police woman. “Zainab you should talk, this case is probably going to trial and whomever was wronged will get justice,” I smile. “I will talk, but I will not sign anything without my lawyer, and I will not go to the public prosecution or attend any trial. Because I know, from experience, that is not a place where those who are wronged get justice.”

June 25. I have woken up early, and I’m sitting in my cell. Today I will be sentenced. I’m not sure in which case, and because I’m boycotting the court so I sit here waiting for my sentence. I have a phone call today, my only mode of communication since I have not been allowed family visits for almost four months now. Four months since I saw my 3-year-old, Jude.

I worry my mother or husband might get upset to know there’s yet another case against me. But I know what ill tell them: “Don’t worry about me if I get new cases. When you really need to worry is if one day I see something wrong, an injustice in front of me, and I sit quiet because I’m worried about myself.”

Note: this description of events might be too long only to give a better picture of the situation, although this incident is hardly representative of the much worse human right abuses and violations that are taking place in my country. To add to that, my sentence is almost not worth mentioning compared to my fellow countrymen who suffer under torture, in solitary confinement, and are sentenced to spending decades in prison, many of them just children. …source

Bahrain- Imprisoned human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja harassed while receiving medical care
2013-12-14

The Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR) and the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) express their grave concern over the health status of imprisoned Bahraini human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja and the harassment and ill-treatment to which she has been subjected in detention.

The GCHR and BCHR have received information about the deteriorating health conditions of Al-Khawaja, who is serving a year in Isa Town women’s prison since her detention in February this year. During a family visit on 9 December 2013, her family reports that she looked pale and tired. During the first week of December she said she was feeling dizzy and weak. She had difficulty standing and was unable to read. She asked the prison administration to see a doctor but her request was not granted until after two days.

While she was ill, she was treated poorly. She was handcuffed and taken by car to the prison clinic at the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior, where she was videotaped by a cameraman throughout the whole period until she was returned to prison, including during her examination and treatment. In addition to two policewomen accompanying her, there were two policemen sitting beside the bed in the treatment room and a camera on a stand was focused on the bed. The doctor prescribed IV with an injection and some pills but did not tell Al-Khawaja what they were. Given the presence of men in the treatment room, Al-Khawaja wouldn’t agree to lie on the bed and instead she received the IV while sitting on a chair. The five people and the two cameras were focused on her throughout this time. She was later taken back to prison in handcuffs again.

Compared to the procedure used when transferring inmates to receive medical care, Al-Khawaja has been exceptionally ill-treated with provocative, disrespectful and unnecessary measures, particularly the videotaping and the presence of men and cameras in the treatment room, violating her right to privacy at the time of treatment, and in violation of the article 53.3 of Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners in Bahrain which states: “Women prisoners shall be attended and supervised only by women officers.”

What adds to the concern of the GCHR and BCHR are the earlier reports that Al-Khawaja has been incarcerated with prisoners who have Hepatitis A and B despite informing the prison administration that she has not been vaccinated. The prison administration continues to ignore her complaints, which puts her at great risk of infection.

Background:

Human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja has been detained since 27 February 2013. She is currently serving a total of 12 months on multiple charges and due to remain in prison until February 2014. On 25 November 2013, her lawyer said that a new case had been brought against her and a new trial will commence on 22 December 2013 on charges of “insulting a police officer” in relation to Al-Khawaja’s defense of another prisoner against a prison’s guard insults and humiliation. (More details at http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/6625.)

The GCHR and BCHR believe that the harassment of human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja and the new threats of extended imprisonment is a result of the absence of strong international pressure to stop the ongoing attacks and targeting of human rights defenders in Bahrain which have left them shattered between prisons and exile.

The GCHR and BCHR urge the international community and in particular the States that are close allies of the Government of Bahrain, to call upon the Bahraini authorities to:

– Immediately and unconditionally release Zainab Al-Khawaja and all human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience unjustly detained in Bahrain;
– Immediately provide Zainab Al-Khawaja with proper medical care;
– Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Zainab Al-Khawaja and all political prisoners in Bahrain;
– Put an end to acts of harassment against all human rights defenders in Bahrain;
– Ensure that international health standards are upheld for all prisoners in Bahrain to prevent the spreading of illness and disease;
– Ensure in all circumstances the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments ratified by Bahrain.
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