Skip to main content

Home/ Geopolitics Weekly/ Group items tagged Al-Jazeera

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Pedro Gonçalves

Al-Jazeera's political independence questioned amid Qatar intervention | Media | guardi... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...-independence-questioned-qatar

Qatar Al-Jazeera

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • in recent years, Qatar has taken steps to consolidate its control over the channel as the country seeks greater political influence in the Gulf.In September 2011, Wadah Khanfar, a Palestinian widely seen as independent, suddenly left as director-general after eight years in the post and was replaced by a member of the royal family, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim al-Thani, a man with no background in journalism.
Pedro Gonçalves

Mossad 'posed as CIA to recruit fighters' - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...20121142232610383.html

US Israel Iran CIA Mossad

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Agents with Israel's spy agency, Mossad, have posed as CIA agents in operations to recruit members of the Pakistani group Jundallah, according to a report in US-based Foreign Policy magazine. Using US dollars and passports, the agents passed themselves off as members of the US Central Intelligence Agency in the operations, according to memos from 2007 and 2008, said the report which was published on Friday. It is unclear whether the recruitment programme is ongoing.
  • "Israel has done this before. I know of a report very widely accepted in the US of Israeli Mossad agents in the United States, actually recruiting American Muslims," Mark Perry, who authored the report, told Al Jazeera.
  • Jundallah [which translates to "soldiers of God"] says it is fighting for the interests of Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province's large ethnic Baluch community, whose members, unlike most Iranians, mainly follow the Sunni branch of Islam. The Baluch straddle the border with neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan and Jundallah fighters have taken advantage of the unrest in the region to find safe haven in the border area.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • According to the US government, the group is responsible for targeting Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children, Foreign Policy said. In July it claimed responsibility for attacking the Grand Mosque in Sistan-Baluchistan capital of Zahedan, reportedly targeting members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, killing 28 people.
  • Tensions in the US-Iran relationship have also spiked, most recently following the car-bombing of an Iranian nuclear scientist. Foreign Policy, however, said there was no evidence of a link between the scientist's killing and Jundallah.
Pedro Gonçalves

Breakthrough in Tribunal Investigation: New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murd... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,626412-2,00.html

Lebanon Hariri Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah Jamal al-Sayyid Detlev Mehlis Hajj Salim

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 24 May 09 - Cached
  • Ghamlush's recklessness led investigators to the man they now suspect was the mastermind of the terrorist attack: Hajj Salim, 45. A southern Lebanese from Nabatiyah, Salim is considered to be the commander of the "military" wing of Hezbollah and lives in South Beirut, a Shiite stronghold. Salim's secret "Special Operational Unit" reports directly to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, 48.
  • Imad Mughniyah, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, ran the unit until Feb. 12, 2008, when he was killed in an attack in Damascus, presumably by Israeli intelligence. Since then, Salim has largely assumed the duties of his notorious predecessor, with Mughniyah's brother-in-law, Mustafa Badr al-Din, serving as his deputy. The two men report only to their superior, and to General Kassim Sulaimani, their contact in Tehran. The Iranians, the principal financiers of the military Lebanese "Party of God," have repressed the Syrians' influence.
  • The deeper the investigators in Beirut penetrated into the case, the clearer the picture became, according to the SPIEGEL source. They have apparently discovered which Hezbollah member obtained the small Mitsubishi truck used in the attack. They have also been able to trace the origins of the explosives, more than 1,000 kilograms of TNT, C4 and hexogen.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The Lebanese chief investigator and true hero of the story didn't live to witness many of the recent successes in the investigation. Captain Eid, 31, was killed in a terrorist attack in the Beirut suburb of Hasmiyah on Jan. 25, 2008. The attack, in which three other people were also killed, was apparently intended to slow down the investigation. And, once again, there was evidence of involvement by the Hezbollah commando unit, just as there has been in each of more than a dozen attacks against prominent Lebanese in the last four years.
  • Hariri's growing popularity could have been a thorn in the side of Lebanese Shiite leader Nasrallah. In 2005, the billionaire began to outstrip the revolutionary leader in terms of popularity. Besides, he stood for everything the fanatical and spartan Hezbollah leader hated: close ties to the West and a prominent position among moderate Arab heads of state, an opulent lifestyle, and membership in the competing Sunni faith. Hariri was, in a sense, the alternative to Nasrallah.
  • The revelations about the alleged orchestrators of the Hariri murder will likely harm Hezbollah. Large segments of the population are weary of internal conflicts and are anxious for reconciliation. The leader of the movement, which, despite its formal recognition of the democratic rules of the game, remains on the US's list of terrorist organizations, probably anticipates forthcoming problems with the UN tribunal. In a speech in Beirut, Nasrallah spoke of the tribunal's "conspiratorial intentions."
  • The UN tribunal's order to release the generals who were arrested at his specific request is, at any rate, a serious blow to the German prosecutor. One of the four, Jamal al-Sayyid, the former Lebanese general security director, has even filed a suit against Mehlis in France for "manipulated investigations." In media interviews, such as an interview with the Al-Jazeera Arab television network last week, Sayyid has even taken his allegations a step further, accusing German police commissioner Gerhard Lehmann, Mehlis's assistant in the Beirut investigations, of blackmail.
  • Sayyid claims that Lehmann, a member of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) proposed a deal with the Syrian president to the Lebanese man. Under the alleged arrangement, Assad would identify the person responsible for the Hariri killing and convince him to commit suicide, and then the case would be closed. According to Sayyid, the authorities in Beirut made "unethical proposals, as well as threats," and he claims that he has recordings of the incriminating conversations.
  • the spotlight-loving Jamil al-Sayyid could soon be embarking on a new career. He is under consideration for the post of Lebanon's next justice minister.
Pedro Gonçalves

Obama inks 'secret order' to aid Syria rebels - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...20128264510724249.html

Syria US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • US President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorising US support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, Reuters news agency said quoting sources familiar with the matter.
  • The White House has apparently stopped short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some US allies have been doing just that.
  • A US government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the US was collaborating with a secret command centre operated by Turkey and its allies.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad's opponents.
  • This "nerve centre" is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 100km from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a US airbase where US military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.
  • European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad's departure.
  • On Tuesday, reports emerged that the Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles, weapons that could be used against Assad's helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
  • NBC network said the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as MANPADs, had been delivered to the rebels via Turkey. On Wednesday, however, Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, denied the NBC report, telling the Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya that the group had "not obtained any such weapons at all".
Argos Media

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Profile: Omar Suleiman - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...2008615165753239535.html

Egypt Omar Suleiman

shared by Argos Media on 19 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Unusually for an Egyptian secret service chief, General Omar Suleiman has come into the public view in recent years - mostly for his efforts to mediate between Palestinian factions and Israel. Suleiman, who has headed the Egyptian intelligence service since the early 1990s, took up his mediating role in 2000, following the outbreak of the second intifada. He had some success negotiating a brief ceasefire in June 2003.
  • Sulieman's position as head of the Arab world's most significant intelligence agency and his closeness to Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, gave rise to speculation that he could contend with Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, for the position of Egypt's next ruler.
  • Both Mubarak and Suleimen survived an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, where they were due to attend an African summit in June 1995.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The limousine Suleiman and Mubarak were travelling in came under fire, killing a number of bodyguards travelling with their convoy, before the driver was able to turn the car round and return to the airport. The attack was blamed on members of the al-Qaeda-linked Egyptian Islamic Jihad, also known as the Society of Struggle, and said to be co-ordinated by Showqi al-Islambouli, a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. His brother, Khalid Ahmed Showqi al-Islambouli, arranged and carried out the assassination of Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, during a military parade in October 1981.
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - US forces pull out of Iraq's cities - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...200963054650513164.html

Iraq US Nuri al-Maliki

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Iraqi forces have assumed formal control of the capital, Baghdad, and other cities, six years after US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq.
  • US troops began withdrawing from the country's major cities and towns as the midnight deadline passed on Tuesday for troops to hand over security to Iraqi forces.
  • Al-Maliki described the US withdrawal as a "turning point" for the country and declared Tuesday the country's National Sovereignty Day and a public holiday.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • But Al Jazeera's Hoda-Abdel Hamid, reporting from Mosul, said: "[Despite] the impression of a withdrawal and a return to sovereignty... there is a sense of anxiety in the air.
  • Fireworks continued to light up the sky over Baghdad into the early hours on Tuesday, after thousands of Iraqis, an unprecedented number for a public post-war event, attended a party in a park where singers performed patriotic songs.
  • Despite the formal pullback, some US troops will remain in cities to train and advise Iraqi forces. US forces are also ready to return if asked. The US military is to continue combat operations in rural areas and near the border with the permission of the Iraqi government. The US has not said how many troops will be in the cities in advisory roles, but the vast majority of the more than 130,000 US troops forces remaining in the country will be in large bases scattered outside cities.
Pedro Gonçalves

'Dozens dead' in Damascus bombing - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...20121610858777140.html

Syria Hamas Arab League

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 06 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Mohammed Shaar, the Syrian interior minister, also blamed a suicide bomber for "detonating himself with the aim of killing the largest number of people". The blast came exactly two weeks after twin bombings killed 44 people in the city.
  • "The opposition, on the other hand, is saying that this is a plot staged by the government to deter thousands of people that were planning to converge on that same spot to call for the international community to step in and enforce a no-fly zone and enforce also a dramatic of the regime in Syria." Colonel Riad al-Asaad, the head of the Free Syrian Army, has dismissed the government's report of the attack, saying that Friday's explosion was "the work of the regime, just like the previous two explosions."
  • The head of the Arab League said on Friday he had asked the Damascus-based leader of the Palestinian group Hamas to ask the Syrian government to work to halt violence in the country. Nabil Elaraby, the Arab League secretary-general, was speaking alongside Khaled Meshaal after a meeting in Cairo.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Last month's bombings targeted security buildings in the capital and were also the work of suicide bombers, the Syrian authorities have said.
  • Syria has been racked for 10 months by an uprising against President al-Assad in which the UN says more than 5,000 people have been killed. The government says armed "terrorists" have killed 2,000 members of the security forces.
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Bin Laden attacks Obama policies - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...200963123251920623.html

bin Laden Obama US Richard Holbrooke Ayman al-Zawahiri

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 04 Jun 09 - No Cached
  • "Obama and his administration have sowed new seeds of hatred against America.  "He has followed the steps of his predecessor in antagonising Muslims ... and laying the foundation for long wars."
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Israeli PM lays out peace terms - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...20096141740489764.html

Israel Palestine Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli Settlements Saeb Erekat

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Jun 09 - Cached
  • "In my vision of peace, two people live in good neighbourly relations, each with their own flag ... Neither threaten the other's security," he told his audience at Bar-Ilan University, outside Tel Aviv. "In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel."
  • Netanyahu called for "immediate negotiations for peace without prior arrangements" from the Palestinians, and said he was willing to meet Arab leaders anywhere to discuss the issue.
  • "I call the leaders of the Arab nations to co-operate with the Palestinians and with us on economic peace,"
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, dismissed the speech, saying: "Netanyahu's remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralysed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions."
  • Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians' senior negotiator, called on Obama to intervene to force Israel to abide by previous interim agreements that include freezing settlement activity in the West Bank. "The peace process has been moving at the speed of a tortoise. Tonight, Netanyahu has flipped it over on its backm," he said.
  • This is the first occasion that Netanyahu has endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, but many see a disarmed Palestinian state as handing too much power to Israel. "Netanyahu did not accept the principle of a two-state solution," Lamis Andoni, Al Jazeera's Middle East analyst, said. "He reduced the concept of a Palestinian state to that of a demilitarised entity that would remain under Israeli control. 
  • "This is at best a formula to establish a Palestinian Bantustan that will not end the Israeli occupation but would legitimise Israeli control."
  • The Palestinians have said that they will not restart negotiations unless Netanyahu publicly backs the two-state solution and stops the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.
  • He said there would be an end to new settlement building, but vowed that Jerusalem would remain undivided. Addressing Palestinian, Netanyahu urged them to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. "Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and so it shall remain," he said.
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Ahmadinejad 'wins second Iran term' - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...200961391719990152.html

Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Ali Khamenei Mir Hossein Mousavi Mehdi Karroubi

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 13 Jun 09 - No Cached
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, has won a second term in office after a bitterly fought election, Iran's interior ministry has said.Ahmadinejad took 62.63 per cent of the vote, crushing Mir Hossein Mousavi, his main rival, who got just 33.75 per cent, according to results released on Saturday.
  • The Guardian Council, a powerful body of clerics which oversees Iran's constitution, is still to release its count, but there seemed little doubt about the result after Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the supreme leader, congratulated Ahmadinejad.
  • Mousavi, who had himself declared victory just moments after the polls closed on Friday, described the decision to declare Ahmadinejad as the winner as "treason to the votes of the people".  "I personally strongly protest the many obvious violations and I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade," he said in a statement. "The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardise the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny."
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Thousands of supporters of the reformist former prime minister took to the streets of Tehran shouting "Down with the Dictator" as it became clear that Mousavi had lost.
  • "There are so many inconsistencies, they are even reporting that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz, which is Mousavi's home town, with 57 per cent. That seems extremely unlikely.
  • "How come the votes were counted so quickly, even though the polls were open six hours extra?" he asked.
  • Al Jazeera's Teymoor Nabili, reporting from Tehran, said that the results declared by the interior ministry would still need to be signed off by the state audit body and the audit commission of the supreme leader. "Mousavi has the option of going to these two bodies and saying 'look I want definitive proof from you that these are clean numbers'," he said.
  • Karroubi added his voice to those criticising the result, saying it was "illegitimate and unacceptable".
Argos Media

Plot to assassinate Obama foiled in Turkey - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

Obama Assassination Attempts

shared by Argos Media on 07 Apr 09 - Cached
  • U.S. officials have taken "very seriously" a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama involving a Syrian man who was arrested late last week in Turkey
  • officials also noted that while Obama gets more threats than usual as the first African-American U.S. president,
  • The plot was first reported by the Saudi Arabian newspaper al-Watan, which revealed that Turkish security services arrested a man of Syrian origins Friday in connection with a plan to kill Obama during his visit to Turkey.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Obama was in Strasbourg, France, on Friday for a NATO summit and did not arrive in Turkey for the final leg of his trip until Sunday.
  • The Saudi paper reported the suspect, who was carrying an Al-Jazeera TV press credential in the name of "M.G.," confessed to authorities after his arrest that he and three alleged accomplices plotted to stab Obama with a knife during the Alliance of Civilizations Summit in Istanbul, which Obama attended on Monday evening. The U.S. officials confirmed those allegations, but stressed to CNN that the information provided by the man is still being verified.
Pedro Gonçalves

Syria marks revolt anniversary amid violence - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...2012314201510748320.html

Syria

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • France's foreign minister, Alain Juppe, said arming the opposition risks pushing the country into a catastrophic civil war. "The Syrian people are deeply divided, and if we give arms to a certain faction of the Syrian opposition, we would make a civil war among Christians, Alawites, Sunnis and Shiites,'' Juppe said on France-Culture radio.
Pedro Gonçalves

Tuareg rebels ready for Mali talks - Africa - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...20124121123843658.html

Mali Touareg Azawad

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) said they were no longer seeking to expand their area of control, having secured the borders of what the group considers to be a Tuareg homeland. "Our objective it not to go further than the Azawad borders. We don't want to create problems for the government of Mali, and even less create problems in the sub-region," said Hama Ag Mahmoud, of the MNLA's political wing. "We don't want to give anyone the impression that we're gung-ho for the war, so from the moment we have liberated our territories, our objective is achieved, we stop there."
Pedro Gonçalves

Turkey sanctions France over genocide bill - Europe - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...20111222222932233659.html

France Turkey Armenia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 23 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • France is home to around 500,000 citizens of Armenian descent and they are seen as a key source of support for Sarkozy and the UMP ahead of presidential and legislative elections in April and June next year.
  • The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) issued a statement of concern about the French vote setting a precedent and warned that the "criminalisation of debates on history's true course, even of obviously false and offensive statements about a nation's tragic moment, is not conducive to better understanding" among people and states.
  • Franco-Turkish relations are often tense - Sarkozy is a firm opponent of allowing Turkey to join the European Union - but 1,000 French firms work there and trade between the two is worth 12 billion euros per year. Much of Europe, including France, is facing recession amid a sovereign debt crisis, but Turkey enjoys growth rates in excess of eight percent and, with 78 million people, it is a huge potential market.
1 - 20 of 56 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page