AQ et al articles, 6/19

Al Qaeda-related and other articles, collected 6/19, covering 6/13 to 6/19...

Al Qaeda-Related and Other Articles, Collected 6/19/12

Table of Contents

1.1. Summary

1.2. US
1.2.1. Cuomo and Christie Request Federal Financing for Sept. 11 Museum
1.2.2. Senator Urges Bigger Cuts to Nuclear Arsenal

1.3. Middle East

1.3.1. Syria
1.3.1.1. U.N. Team In Syria Is Imperiled, Leader Says
1.3.1.2. U.N. Monitors Find Vast Devastation in Syrian Village
1.3.1.3. Video Shows Attack on U.N. Observers in Syria
1.3.1.4. U.N. Kept Out of a Town That Syria Says It Cleansed
1.3.1.5. U.N. Fears For Syrians Trapped By Fighting

1.3.2. Saudi Arabia
1.3.2.1. Saudis Seek a Crown Prince and Talk of Other Successors
1.3.2.2. Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi Crown Prince Who Led Crackdown on Al Qaeda, Dies at 78

1.3.3. Iraq
1.3.3.1. Iraq: Bomber Attacks Funeral
1.3.3.2. 2 Car Bombs Target Shiites in Baghdad

1.3.4. Israel
1.3.4.1. Formerly Captive Israeli Soldier Now a Sports Columnist
1.3.4.2. West Bank Mosque Is Set Ablaze and Vandalized
1.3.4.3. Militants Attack Israelis Across Egyptian Border, Renewing Concerns on Sinai
1.3.4.4. Analysis-No Light at End of Egyptian Tunnel for Israel
1.3.5. After Victory, Egypt Islamists Seek to Challenge Military
1.3.6. Yemeni Commander Killed in Suicide Bombing

1.4. Asia

1.4.1. Pakistan
1.4.1.1. Political Instability Rises as Pakistani Court Ousts Premier
1.4.1.2. Taliban Block Vaccinations In Pakistan
1.4.2. Insurgents Strike Checkpoint in Southern Afghanistan
1.4.3. Tense Iran Nuclear Talks Resume in Moscow
1.4.4. Internet Unshackled, Burmese Aim Venom at Ethnic Minority
1.4.5. Tibetan Herder Dies After Setting Himself on Fire in Government Protest

1.5. Africa
1.5.1. Obama Acknowledges U.S. Is Fighting Groups Tied to Al Qaeda in Somalia and Yemen
1.5.2. Death Illustrates Issues With Loose Weapons Stockpiles in Libya
1.6. Tsipras-Greek Rage to Force Bailout Changes

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1.1. Summary (back)

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1.2. US (back)

1.2.1. Cuomo and Christie Request Federal Financing for Sept. 11 Museum (back)

June 16, 2012, 10:05 pm 5 Comments--
Cuomo and Christie Request Federal Financing for Sept. 11 Museum--
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ--
Amid the seemingly interminable wrangling over financing for the National September 11 Memorial Museum, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey sent a letter to the National Park Service on Saturday seeking federal money for the project. --
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For months, disputes over financing and control of the eight-acre museum site at ground zero have hamstrung construction and delayed its opening until at least next year. --
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A nonprofit foundation, led by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, was given primary responsibility for the museum in a 2006 agreement signed by the city, the state and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. --
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But the Port Authority, which is run by Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Christie, has called for greater government oversight to help control ballooning construction costs and to manage the museum's expected $60 million annual operating budget.--
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"As governors of the states with jurisdiction over the World Trade Center site," the governors wrote in the letter, "we believe that federal support through the National Park Service would ensure long-term stability of the memorial and museum, ensure the best possible visitor experience by taking advantage of the Park Service's expertise." --
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Congress would have to approve the Park Service's involvement in the project. --
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At the behest of the Sept. 11 foundation, Senators Daniel K. Inouye, Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand introduced legislation last year that would authorize federal appropriations of up to $20 million a year for the museum provided those funds are matched by sources from outside the federal government. But members of the foundation have resisted attempts by the governors to interfere in the project, arguing that overall financing and control of the site should remain the purview of private donors. --
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The foundation has raised $430 million in private donations and has received about $250 million in federal financing and $80 million from the state for the memorial. The Port Authority halted major work on the site last September, claiming the foundation owed as much as $300 million. The foundation denies it owes anything.--
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The National September 11 Memorial Plaza at the World Trade Center site was opened last year to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. When it is completed, the museum will stretch seven stories below ground that once supported the twin towers and exhibit relics from the attacks, including pieces of the towers and personal effects of some of the victims. --

Date Collected: 6/19/2012
Source: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/cuomo-and-christie-request-feder...

1.2.2. Senator Urges Bigger Cuts to Nuclear Arsenal (back)

June 14, 2012
Senator Urges Bigger Cuts to Nuclear Arsenal
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee called on the Obama administration on Thursday to seek cuts in nuclear warheads far beyond the requirements of current treaties.

The chairman, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said the administration "should consider going far lower" than the warhead caps set by the New Start agreement with Russia, to bring the nation's arsenal in line with a diminished nuclear threat and tighter military budgets.

"I can't see any reason for having as large an inventory as we are allowed to have under New Start, in terms of real threat, potential threat," Mr. Levin said during a breakfast meeting with correspondents.

Under the treaty, signed in 2010, Russia and the United States must reduce their deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 each over a six-year period, down from 2,200 under previous agreements. Thousands more warheads can be kept in storage as spares, and the limits do not apply to the hundreds of short-range nuclear weapons that each side has.

"I am very much open to, and want the administration to feel, that they can think through this issue in terms of what numbers are still required, given the state of the world and where our threats are," Mr. Levin said.

A grave concern today is that nuclear weapons or their fissile components may fall into the hands of terrorist organizations, Mr. Levin said. "The more weapons that exist out there, the less secure we are, rather than the more secure we are," he added.

President Obama has set a goal of eventually eliminating all nuclear weapons, but the specific steps and timetable remain aspirational. The administration has nearly completed a review of warhead options for the president's consideration, ranging from a figure near the New Start limits down to just 300 to 400 warheads. A middle option, with an arsenal of about 1,000 warheads, has been gaining support among some government experts. Administration officials say Mr. Obama has not yet made his choice.

Mr. Levin said he supported, in broad terms, the analysis set forth in a recent study by Gen. James E. Cartwright, the retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former commander of the nation's nuclear arsenal. That study suggested that effective deterrence could be maintained with an arsenal of 900 strategic warheads.

All three legs of the nation's strategic nuclear triad — bombers, land-based missiles and submarines — are approaching retirement age. Facing an era of restricted spending, Pentagon planners do not want to invest in replacement weapons that may be retired quickly under any new round of negotiations to limit warheads.

Date Collected: 6/19/2012
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/us/politics/senator-levin-urges-bigger-cuts...

1.3. Middle East (back)

1.3.1. Syria (back)

1.3.1.1. U.N. Team In Syria Is Imperiled, Leader Says (back)

June 15, 2012
U.N. Team In Syria Is Imperiled, Leader Says
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the United Nations observer mission in Syria, presented a gloomy assessment of its prospects on Friday, even as the government and its opposition accused each other of fomenting bloodshed around the weekly Muslim prayer services.

"Violence over the past 10 days has been intensifying willingly by both parties, with losses on both sides and significant risks to our observers," General Mood, the Norwegian head of the unarmed observers, said at a news conference in Damascus.

His remarks came two months after the Security Council authorized the deployment of the monitoring group for 90 days, and he warned that the looming assessment on whether to continue could well be negative. The cease-fire is considered the first goal in a six-point peace plan designed to lead to a political dialogue between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and his opponents.

"There appears to be a lack of willingness to seek a peaceful transition," General Mood said. "Instead, there is a push toward advancing military positions." Those paying the price are Syrians, who in some cases have been trapped by the violence, he said.

The violence is also preventing the 300 international monitors from doing their job, the general said, "limiting our ability to observe, verify, report, as well as assist in local dialogue and stability projects."

Opposition activists monitoring flash points around the country, including Homs, Aleppo and its surrounding province and the southern province of Dara'a, reported continued shelling of civilian neighborhoods by government forces on Friday, as large antigovernment demonstrations were held.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Society to evacuate wounded people in critical condition from besieged neighborhoods in Homs, where it said there were no medical personnel to operate on them.

The opposition has repeatedly accused the government of assassinating or jailing medical personnel it suspects of giving care to anyone not supporting the government. The government has been silent about their cases.

In Dara'a Province, activists said that two mortar shells fired by government forces at protesters gathering outside the Khaled bin al-Walid mosque, in the village of Busra al-Sham, had killed eight people and wounded many more, some seriously.

Videos said to have been taken soon after the mortars fell showed the corpses lined up in a mosque as well as damaged vehicles, shattered masonry and blood on the street.

The protest went ahead anyway, said Mohammad al-Harir, an activist reached by telephone. "The regime is carrying out big attacks across Dara'a to try to finish the peaceful demonstrations and the Free Syrian Army," said Mr. Harir, referring to the coalition of local militias fighting the government. "But after a year and a half of demonstrations under the heavy crackdown, the people will not give up."

A report by the official Syrian Arab News Agency blamed an unidentified "armed terrorist group" — the standard government label for any opposition — for detonating two bombs outside the mosque in Busra al-Sham. The Syrian government sharply limits the entry of foreign journalists and their ability to move around the country, preventing any independent assessment of the differing claims.

In Damascus, activists accused the government of trying to prevent demonstrations after Friday Prayer by deploying a heavy security force, closing numerous mosques and trying to scare people away by inventing a plot by Al Qaeda to blow up several mosques during prayers. The government presented a man, who by appearance could have been an adolescent, confessing to the plot on television.

In Istanbul, various opposition groups and independent activists began a two-day meeting sponsored by the Syrian National Council, the main opposition umbrella organization in exile, to try to resolve their differences.

There has been tepid international support for the council because of constant infighting, the gap between the opposition inside Syria and abroad, as well as the lack of a tangible plan for a transition away from 40 years of rule by the Assad family.

Reporting was contributed by Dalal Mawad and Hwaida Saad from Beirut; an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria; and Alan Cowell from London.

Date Collected: 6/19/2012
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/world/middleeast/russia-denies-shipping-new...

1.3.1.2. U.N. Monitors Find Vast Devastation in Syrian Village (back)

June 14, 2012
U.N. Monitors Find Vast Devastation in Syrian Village
By RICK GLADSTONE
United Nations monitors in Syria reported fiery devastation, the smell of death, vacated homes, looted stores and vestiges of heavy weapons on Thursday during a visit to what had been a Sunni-populated village besieged for days by Syrian forces and pro-government militiamen who said they had cleansed it of rebel fighters.

In a preliminary report on their visit to the village, Al Heffa in northwestern Syria, a spokeswoman for the monitors said it appeared to be deserted, except for "pockets in the town where fighting is still ongoing." Antigovernment activists said Wednesday that Al Heffa's residents had fled in the face of relentless attacks by the Syrian military.

The siege of Al Heffa became a focal point of the Syrian conflict this week because of fears expressed by United Nations and Western officials that its residents were vulnerable to a massacre. Those fears were elevated after mass killings in other Sunni-populated locales in the past few weeks, suggesting that the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, which began 16 months ago as a peaceful political protest, has become a sectarian civil war pitting his minority Alawite sect against the majority Sunni populace and other groups.

Anti-Assad activists also reported the extensive use of Russian-made helicopter gunships in the siege of Al Heffa and attacks in the nearby port of Latakia, a relatively new tactic in Mr. Assad's campaign to crush the uprising and a possible reflection of rebel success in damaging his army's fleet of Russian tanks. The helicopters also subjected Russia, Mr. Assad's principal backer, to renewed Western criticism as an abettor of his repression. Russia has insisted that it takes no side in the conflict.

The monitors, who are unarmed, were blocked on Tuesday from visiting Al Heffa by angry civilians, apparently from nearby villages populated by Alawites. The Syrian Foreign Ministry announced 24 hours later that the monitors were welcome to visit Al Heffa, which the ministry said had been rescued from armed terrorist groups — the government term for opponents of Mr. Assad's governing Baath Party.

"The town appeared deserted," Sausan Ghosheh, the spokeswoman for the United Nations monitor mission in Syria, wrote in the preliminary report. "Most government institutions, including the post office, were set on fire from inside. Archives were burnt, stores were looted and set on fire, residential homes appeared rummaged and the doors were open."

Ms. Ghosheh wrote that the local Baath Party headquarters had been shelled and "appeared to be the site of heavy fighting."

"Remnants of heavy weapons and a range of caliber arms were found in the town," she wrote. "Cars, both civilian and security, were also set on fire and damaged."

She also wrote that a "strong stench of dead bodies was in the air," but there was no information on the number of casualties.

In Moscow on Thursday, Syria's ambassador to Russia, Riad Haddad, said at a news conference that Russia was supplying his government only with antiaircraft weapons, not attack helicopters. He was echoing statements made this week by top Russian officials in response to American accusations that Russia had risked deepening the Syrian conflict through its military support of Mr. Assad.

Mr. Haddad also rejected descriptions of the conflict as a civil war, made this week by United Nations and French officials.

"I tell them the civil war exists only in their heads," he said. "Armed terrorist groups, which receive regional and global support, want to show that there is a civil war in Syria. They are doing this to create a pretext for international interference."

Diplomacy aimed at halting the Syrian conflict has faltered despite the rising levels of violence. Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League, whose peace plan placing the monitors in Syria is widely considered near failure, has sought to convene a meeting of influential countries to press all sides in the conflict to honor a cease-fire.

Reuters, quoting unidentified diplomats, reported that such a meeting might be held on June 30 in Geneva, but there was no confirmation. The United States has said publicly that it opposes Mr. Annan's inclusion of Iran if there is a meeting.

In the central Syrian town of Rastan, north of Homs, where rebels have defied persistent military efforts to rout them, an activist reached through Skype said the situation had deteriorated in three consecutive days of bombing from land and air. The activist, who identified himself as Morhaf al-Zoaby, said the Syrian forces were using tanks, helicopters, cluster bombs and rockets emitting an unidentified gray-black gas, killing at least four people. It was impossible to verify his account.

While Syrian defectors and other opponents of Mr. Assad have said before that he has used gas and other chemical weapons in the conflict, those assertions have never been corroborated independently.

But outside rights investigators have compiled evidence that Mr. Assad's forces and pro-government militias have engaged in reprisal killings, torture, arbitrary detention and the destruction of homes. In a new report, Donatella Rovera, an investigator for Amnesty International who spent weeks in northern Syria, described what she called "systematic violations, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, being perpetrated as part of state policy to exact revenge against communities suspected of supporting the opposition and to intimidate people into submission."

The Local Coordination Committees, a network of activist groups in Syria, reported what it said was a knife massacre of dozens of people in the Damascus suburb of Homouriya and uploaded to YouTube a graphic video of what it said were victims. Like many other claims in the Syrian conflict made via the Internet, the images could not be authenticated.

Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow, and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon.

Date Collected: 6/19/2012
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/world/middleeast/monitors-report-vast-devas...

1.3.1.3. Video Shows Attack on U.N. Observers in Syria (back)

June 13, 2012, 7:52 am1 Comment--
Video Shows Attack on U.N. Observers in Syria--
By ROBERT MACKEY--
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Video posted online by Syrian activists was said to have been recorded during an attack on Tuesday by government supporters on a convoy of United Nations observers in Syria.--
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CAIRO — As my colleagues Mark Landler and Neil MacFarquhar report, Syrian activists said on Wednesday that rebel forces had pulled out of villages around the besieged northwestern town of Al Heffa.--
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A team of United Nations military observers was prevented from reaching the town on Tuesday by a hostile crowd that struck their vehicles with stones and metal rods, a United Nations spokeswoman said. "The crowd, who appeared to be residents of the area, hurled stones and metal rods at the U.N. vehicles. The U.N. observers turned back," the spokeswoman, Sausan Ghosheh, said in a statement posted on the mission's Web site. "As they were leaving the area," she added, "three vehicles heading towards Idlib were fired upon — the source of fire is still unclear."--
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Video, apparently recorded during that attack, was obtained and posted online by opposition activists. --
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Syrian state television blamed the United Nations for the episode, presenting witnesses who claimed that the observers "drove their car rashly," and struck three residents of the area outside Lattakia "while they were trying to explain their suffering due to the acts of the armed terrorist groups."--
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Faced with such denials by the Syrian government over a host of cease-fire violations, the United Nations team in Syria has recently embraced YouTube as a way to report the continuing violence its observers have encountered in the country. Video posted on the observer mission's YouTube channel on Tuesday began with images of the bombardment of an area of Homs the monitors had been unable to reach and showed some of their trip to areas north of the city on Monday.--
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Video posted on YouTube by the United Nations mission in Syria of shelling in the city of Homs on Monday.--
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According to a description of the video from the United Nations media team, after they left Homs,--
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the observers traveled to Talbiseh and Rastan, north of Homs city. The roads were empty and all shops, garages, health centers were closed. The bridge on the highway between Talbiseh and Rastan appeared shelled.--
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A Syrian opposition flag — with three stars — draped from the bridge as the smoke and fire continued to burn. United Nations military observers on patrol to these towns noticed helicopters firing. There was fresh blood on corridors and outside some of the houses.--

Date Collected: 6/19/2012
Source: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/video-shows-attack-on-u-n-observe...

1.3.1.4. U.N. Kept Out of a Town That Syria Says It Cleansed (back)

June 13, 2012
U.N. Kept Out of a Town That Syria Says It 'Cleansed'
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syria announced on Wednesday that the village of Al Heffa in its Mediterranean hinterland, which United Nations monitors had been physically blocked from visiting to check on fears of a massacre there, had been "cleansed" of armed terrorist gangs, the government's blanket term for the opposition.

Activists in the opposition said a ferocious blizzard of artillery shelling by the Syrian military had forced all residents of Al Heffa to flee.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry issued a statement declaring that the United Nations monitors, who are unarmed, were now invited to visit Al Heffa to inspect the situation after "security and calm" had been restored. It said that the armed groups had carried out "killing and terrorizing against the innocent citizens, and acts of looting and vandalism against public and private properties and shops."

The ministry declaration represented a U-turn from a day before, when the United Nations monitors retreated after an angry mob had attacked their vehicles with stones and iron rods before they reached Al Heffa. Residents of the surrounding villages are mostly Alawites, the same minority sect of President Bashar al-Assad, while Sunni Muslims were the majority in Al Heffa.

A video posted on YouTube on Wednesday showed the mob attacking the vehicles, including a young man treating one vehicle like a trampoline.

The official version of that event was also different, claiming three residents were injured after being run over while trying to get the inspectors to stop to listen to their stories about how armed gangs had terrorized them, according to the government-run Syrian Arab News Agency.

Government opponents said Al Heffa was virtually empty, with hundreds of residents and opposition fighters moving over the roughly five miles of mountainous terrain toward the Turkish border or elsewhere inside Syria.

"We didn't have enough medication to treat the injured, the roads were bad, and we were in danger," said Ahmad, an opposition activist reached by telephone, who was helping people negotiate the rough terrain. He asked to be identified only by his first name because he often crossed the border.

Ahmad and another opposition member said 1,500 people had fled elsewhere in Syria or into Turkey, including 150 wounded who had crossed the border, with about 8 of them dying along the way. In Turkey, the semiofficial Anatolian news agency said 280 Syrians, including 20 injured, had come through in one crossing. It was impossible to resolve the difference in the counts.

"Al Heffa is now empty; we evacuated everyone," said Ahmad. "There are only shabiha and security men there," he said, referring to the pro-government militiamen often deployed alongside Syria's armed forces. "All the homes have been shelled, and most of them are now destroyed."

Fighters were killed on both sides, according to the two accounts, but it was impossible to ascertain the correct toll.

Amin, a resident of Al Heffa now recuperating in a hospital in Antakya, Turkey, said he had been at a demonstration there on Friday when helicopters attacked with what he described as rockets. Everyone fled into the surrounding fields, but shrapnel from the helicopter attack wounded him in his hands and arms to the extent that he could not hold a telephone, he said, using a speakerphone to talk from a government hospital.

"It was hard getting here," he said, with helicopters shelling the convoy twice.

In the city of Homs, also the target of sustained government shelling, opposition fighters said there were at least 100 people injured, 15 critically, in a rudimentary field hospital. They could not be evacuated because government forces ringed the Old Homs neighborhood, said the head of the local coordination committee, who identified himself as Abu Bilal al-Homsi.

Even as the idea of a cease-fire under United Nations auspices became more remote by the day, outside powers were still seeking ways to bring it about. Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, echoed the head of United Nations peacekeeping operations, Hervé Ladsous, in saying that Syria could be considered to have entered into a civil war.

France, he said, would pursue making the six-point plan negotiated by the special envoy Kofi Annan enforceable under Chapter 7 rules of the United Nations, which allow for the use of force.

Russia and China have blocked two Security Council resolutions already, making clear that they will veto anything that might lead to the kind of foreign intervention used in Libya. The chances of agreement in the Council seemed to become even more remote as the United States and Russia traded accusations on Wednesday over arming Syria.

But in Damascus, the Foreign Ministry rejected the very idea of civil war, describing the conflict as a "war against the armed groups which chose terrorism as their way to achieve their objectives and conspire against the present and future of the Syrian people," according to a statement carried by the government news agency.

The opposition also rejected the civil war label, saying it was a peaceful opposition movement demanding democratic change that took up arms in self-defense.

Hwaida Saad and Dalal Mawad contributed reporting.

Date Collected: 6/19/2012
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/world/middleeast/new-weapons-push-syrian-cr...

1.3.1.5. U.N. Fears For Syrians Trapped By Fighting (back)

June 12, 2012--
U.N. Fears For Syrians Trapped By Fighting--
By RICK GLADSTONE; Dalal Mawad contributed reporting.--
The United Nations reported intense fighting between the Syrian military and opposition forces in multiple locations across Syria on Monday and expressed alarm about civilians trapped in besieged rebel strongholds in the central city of Homs and northwestern village of Al Heffa. --
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United Nations cease-fire monitors reported artillery shelling and machine-gun fire in the Khaldiyeh section of Homs as well as the towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, to the north. The monitors also reported the military's use of helicopter gunships -- a relatively new tactic employed by the Syrian Army, first observed by antigovernment activists in attacks on armed rebels around the major port of Latakia a week ago. The helicopter attacks are regarded as a significant escalation by the government side in the conflict. --
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Kofi Annan, the special envoy from the United Nations and Arab League whose peace plan that placed the cease-fire monitors into Syria has been basically ignored since its start two months ago, exhorted the antagonists to ''take all steps to ensure that civilians are not harmed.'' --
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Sausan Ghosheh, a spokeswoman for the monitors, said they had been unable to confirm reports of casualties in the new outbursts and called on both sides ''to grant the U.N. observers immediate and unfettered access to conflict zones.'' --
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She also said that members of the Free Syrian Army, a group of Syrian Army defectors and others who have taken up weapons against the government, had captured an unspecified number of Syrian soldiers in Talbiseh. --
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Echoing the United Nations concern about possibly large numbers of trapped civilians, the State Department in Washington cited accounts by both the United Nations monitors and antigovernment Syrian activists suggesting the possibility that another massacre was looming. --
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Referring to such a possibility, which could mean a fifth massacre in less than three weeks, the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, told reporters in Washington: ''We remind Syrian commanders of one of the lessons from Bosnia: The international community can and does learn what units were responsible for crimes against humanity, and you will be held responsible for your actions.'' --
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The 16-month-old conflict between the political opposition and President Bashar al-Assad's forces, which has left more than 10,000 people dead according to the United Nations, has increasingly taken on the contours of a sectarian-tinged civil war, pitting Mr. Assad's Alawite minority against the country's Sunni majority and other groups. --
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Mr. Assad's global isolation has particularly deepened since a May 25 massacre of 108 civilians in the western village of Houla and a June 6 massacre of at least 49 in the hamlet of Qubeir near Hama, in which Syrian armed forces and feared plainclothes Shabiha militiamen are suspected. Many victims were women and children, and in the Qubeir case, the military and pro-government civilians temporarily blocked United Nations monitors from visiting to collect evidence. --
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Mr. Assad's government has denied responsibility for any atrocities and has blamed his armed opponents, whom he calls foreign-backed terrorists. --
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British group with a network of contacts in Syria, said the increased use of helicopter gunships partly reflected the military's losses of tanks and other armed attack vehicles in repeated clashes in recent months. The group's leader, who goes by the pseudonym Rami Abdel-Rahman for reasons of personal safety, said at least 25 Syrian tanks had been destroyed since May 29. --
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The group reported heavy bombardments by Syrian forces on targets in Homs, Al Heffa and in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour. It said at least 50 people were reported killed in fighting nationwide on Monday, a figure that was impossible to corroborate. --
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Despite the increased bloodshed of recent weeks, United Nations diplomacy on additional steps to solve the Syria crisis remains stalled. Russia and China have said they will block any effort in the Security Council to authorize the use of force. The United States and its Western allies have imposed increasingly tough sanctions on Mr. Assad but have not supplied weapons to his opponents, who remain fractious and disorganized. --
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Date Collected: 6/19/2012
Source: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802E3D61F30F931A25755C0A9649D...

1.3.2. Saudi Arabia (back)

1.3.2.1. Saudis Seek a Crown Prince and Talk of Other Successors (back)

June 17, 2012
Saudis Seek a Crown Prince and Talk of Other Successors
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who was governor of Riyadh for nearly 50 years until his recent promotion to Saudi Arabia's defense minister, has long been an austere, hard-working family disciplinarian whose tasks included controlling the special jail for princes run amok.

Prince Salman's anticipated selection as the country's crown prince seemed, therefore, a natural choice within the family and beyond. That opinion still prevails, but the sudden death on Saturday of Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud has scrambled the complicated jigsaw puzzle of family rule in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter.

After Prince Nayef was buried in Mecca on Sunday, the ruling family faced the task of filling not just the role of crown prince, but also, if Prince Salman is chosen for that, possibly two other crucial positions — defense minister and minister of the interior, a post that Prince Nayef also held.

With the region in ferment, however, no radical change is expected. King Abdullah, 88, though ailing, remains at the helm, and the Sauds successfully bought at least temporary social peace last year when they rolled out a $130 billion public welfare program.

"In the short run you are surrounded by revolutions all over and the Iranian threat, so the same policies will continue," said Mahmoud Sabbagh, a young commentator. "I don't think we will witness anything unexpected."

Prince Nayef's death brings closer the day of reckoning when the Sauds will have to figure out how to move to the third generation of princes, the grandsons of King Abdulaziz al-Saud, who founded the kingdom in 1932.

Estimates of the number of princes of the ruling clan run to more than 7,000, but critical decisions have always been tightly held among the top three or four, including the ministers of defense and the interior, who have always been sons of King Abdulaziz. Once Prince Salman is named crown prince, most Saudi analysts say that just two younger sons of King Abdulaziz are considered by the family to be monarch material — possessing the needed blend of shrewdness, government experience and rectitude. The roughly 10 other surviving sons are marred by ill health, a lack of ability, a whiff or worse of corruption, or a reputation for practices that violate the tenets of Islam, like drinking alcohol.

One of the two possible future kings is Prince Ahmed, believed to be 71, the deputy interior minister since 1975 and the man expected to succeed his full brother Prince Nayef as the kingdom's law enforcement czar. The other is Prince Muqrin, in his 60s and the head of intelligence, although many members of the royal family are sticklers for pure Saudi genealogy and his mother was reportedly a Yemeni.

But it could get more complicated, and quickly.

The Sauds are also sticklers for deferring to age.

Whenever the king travels, even from Riyadh, the capital, to Jidda, for example, princes line up on the tarmac according to age to greet him at the airport.

There are grandsons of King Abdulaziz with extensive government experience who are barely older than his youngest sons, and it is not clear if age or patrilineage will be the primary factor in deciding succession. One of those slightly older, experienced grandsons is Prince Khaled al-Faisal, the current governor of Mecca whose appointment as defense minister could be a sign that age might triumph.

In 2006 King Abdullah created the Allegiance Council, which is made up of approximately 34 princes — one representative for each son of King Abdulaziz. It was supposed to decide the succession question, but King Abdullah exempted himself, and it has never been activated.

That prompted unusual public grumbling by some members, notably by Prince Talal, who considers himself king material despite a renegade period in the early 1960s, so the council might play at least a perfunctory role in approving Prince Salman's elevation to crown price.

One thing is certain: that and related the decisions will be made behind palace doors, with no public participation.

The choice of Prince Salman, 76, would also delay any generational change. He is said to suffer from non-life-threatening back ailments, but in recent years many senior princes have become stooped. The sight of King Abdullah and his closest brothers all in a line and bent over on wobbling canes brings into clear focus what a gerontocracy the kingdom has become.

Prince Salman still looks the part, his prominent facial features and stocky build most closely resembling the founding monarch among all the sons. He is one of a group of brothers called the Sudeiri seven — all born to Hassa al-Sudeiri, a favorite wife of King Abdulaziz. The seven once formed a powerful bloc. But three are now dead and two retired, leaving just Prince Salman and Prince Ahmed.

Prince Salman took over the Defense Ministry in November upon the death of his full brother Prince Sultan, after supervising Riyadh's growth from a minor town of around 200,000 people to a sprawling metropolis of more than 5.5 million.

Other Saudi cities have faltered in their development — Jidda, the commercial capital, notoriously lacks a sewage system, for example. But Prince Salman created a Riyadh development authority with a representative from each ministry to cut through the red tape.

A few character traits also set him apart from other princes, Saudi analysts said. He rose early to work, often holding meetings at 7 a.m., and kept his appointments on time.

"You could set your clock by Prince Salman's schedule," said Khaled Almaeena, the editor of The Saudi Gazette newspaper.

He is variously described as disciplined, active, austere, sober and traditional but not hard-line. He is considered generally popular with the family and the public, and has traveled abroad widely.

Saudi analysts peg him as a "moderate conservative" with ties to all the competing factions within the country, from strict Islamists to liberal intellectuals pushing for political change.

When nearly 50 women took to the freeways of Riyadh in November 1990 to demand the right to drive, a right they still lack, many people, including the women, said they believed that Prince Salman ensured they were taken into custody by the regular police rather than the more violent religious police.

But other times he gave free rein to the religious police to crack down on behavior like the mingling of the sexes in restaurants, deemed inappropriate by the Wahhabi brand of Islam prevalent in the country.

Prince Salman is known as a keen student of Arabian history and controls the media empire that publishes Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a large pan-Arab daily — one of many ways the royal family keeps criticism of itself to a minimum in Middle East news media.

His oldest sons are accomplished enough to prompt speculation about creating his own dynasty. Prince Sultan was the first Arab astronaut, soaring aloft in the space shuttle Discovery in 1985, before taking over the tourism authority. Prince Faisal runs the publishing empire, and a third, Prince Abdulaziz, is a deputy minister of oil.

Prince Salman is also the Saud family enforcer, reining in princes whose public violations of decorum or refusal to pay bills embarrass the family.

Six or seven princes are currently in the special jail he maintains for family members, said one prince, who spoke only without attribution to discuss family matters. The latest prince to be incarcerated had slapped a police officer at Riyadh airport, the prince said.

All ruling princes have long had the same goal: to continue the Sauds' control of the kingdom and its vast oil reserves with little questioning by the roughly 20 million Saudi subjects. While King Abdullah has loosened some aspects of public dialogue, direct challenges like a recent effort to form a political party are met with long jail terms for those who try.

So no matter what shuffling occurs among the king's men, Saudis expect only glacial change. As one Saudi analyst put it, insisting on anonymity because he was discussing the highest reaches of the monarchy, "We will continue with the same business as usual, or rather no business, as usual."

Date Collected: 6/19/2012
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/18/world/middleeast/salman-expected-to-become-...

1.3.2.2. Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi Crown Prince Who Led Crackdown on Al Qaeda, Dies at 78 (back)

June 16, 2012
Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi Crown Prince Who Led Crackdown on Al Qaeda, Dies at 78
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the hard-line Saudi interior minister who was a late if zealous convert to the fight against Al Qaeda and who took a dim view of democratic change, died in Geneva on Saturday. He was 78.

Prince Nayef was the second Saudi crown prince to die in the last eight months, throwing into stark relief the lack of a transition plan for the next generation in Saudi Arabia's royal family. The reigning monarch, King Abdullah, is 88.

The royal court announced the crown prince's death in a terse statement via the official Saudi Press Agency without stating the cause, but he was believed to have had recent heart bypass surgery.

The death of such a central, powerful figure in the ruling Saud family came as something of a surprise, as he was shown a couple of days ago on state television meeting a cabinet minister in Geneva, where he had gone in May for health reasons. His health problems meant that he had kept a low profile since his appointment as heir in November after his brother Prince Sultan, who was in his 80s, died the previous month.

His most likely successor as crown prince is Prince Salman, 77, who served as governor of Riyadh from 1963 until November, when he became defense minister. Like Prince Nayef, Prince Salman is one of a group of brothe