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Pedro Gonçalves

Saudi appointment sheds new light on family succession | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...saudiarabia-middleeast

Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Nayef

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 07 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • appointment of the kingdom's new interior minister, Mohammed Bin Nayef. The significance of the sudden move is that he is the first of the younger generation of the Al Saud to be given one of the top jobs in the kingdom — which is being taken as a good indicator of the likely future succession.
  • Bin Nayef is well known and respected in the west, especially by its security and intelligence agencies, from his years as deputy minister of the interior, coordinating counter-terrorist efforts and running a successful "de-radicalisation" programme for repentant jihadis. He had an extraordinarily lucky escape in August 2009 when an al-Qaida suicide bomber from Yemen blew himself up in the minister's palace but left his target only lightly injured.
  • MBN, as he is known in leaked US diplomatic cables, is just 53 and thus counts as a youngster in the Saudi system. He is the son of the late Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, who died last June after serving as interior minister for three decades.
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  • MBN is the first grandson of the kingdom's founder Abdulaziz Ibn Saud to be appointed to one of the main leadership positions in the country in recent years. It certainly puts him in the running to be crown prince-in-waiting - and a future king. Change at the top in Saudi Arabia still takes place at a glacial pace - despite (or perhaps because of) the winds of change elsewhere in the region. This therefore counts, most observers agree, as a highly significant move.
  • back in 2009 MBN was marked as a favourite by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, the Emirati commentator, who pointed to another factor which seems to put the new minister in line for the very top job: MBN's claims to the throne are unrivalled in one aspect: out of some thousands of Al-Saud royals, including the top 100 or so involved in security affairs, MBN is one of the very few to be able to claim that he has 'paid in blood' for his country – and that is a tough claim to beat.
Argos Media

Yemen Dispute Slows Closing of Guantánamo - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...24yemen.html

Yemen US Guantanamo Ali Abdullah Saleh Terrorism

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The Obama administration’s effort to return the largest group of Guantánamo Bay detainees to Yemen, their home country, has stalled, creating a major new hurdle for the president’s plan to close the prison camp in Cuba by next January, American and Yemeni officials say.
  • The Yemeni government has asked Washington to return its detainees and has said that it would need substantial aid to rehabilitate the men. But the Obama administration is increasingly skeptical of Yemen’s ability to provide adequate rehabilitation and security to supervise returned prisoners. In addition, American officials are wary of sending detainees to Yemen because of growing indications of activity by Al Qaeda there.
  • The Bush administration also failed to reach a deal with President Saleh, but the Obama administration had hoped to get increased cooperation from Yemen, which critics say has a history of coddling Islamic extremists and releasing convicted terrorists. Complicating the task is the fact that security in Yemen has been deteriorating for more than a year, with several terrorist attacks, including a suicide bombing outside the American Embassy compound in September that killed 13 people.
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  • Some Republicans in Congress have mounted stiff resistance to closing Guantánamo, and officials in some American communities, fearing that terrorism suspects could be tried or held in their courts or prisons, said they would fight any such plans. Also, while some European governments have promised to resettle detainees, specific agreements have been slow in coming.
  • The Yemenis not only are the biggest group of detainees, but also are widely seen as the most difficult to transfer out of Guantánamo. Other countries are wary of many of the Yemeni detainees because jihadist groups have long had deep roots in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world and the homeland of Osama bin Laden’s father. If the Yemenis are not sent home, there may be few other options for many of the 97 men, detainees’ lawyers and human rights groups say.
  • The developments are significant for the Obama administration because the 97 Yemeni detainees make up more than 40 percent of the remaining 241 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The question of what to do with them “is integral to the process of closing Guantánamo,” said Ken Gude, an associate director at the Center for American Progress who has written about closing the prison camp.
  • Perhaps a dozen or more Yemeni detainees could face prosecution in the United States, including Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was charged in the Bush administration’s military commission system with being a coordinator of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
  • David H. Remes, a lawyer for 16 Yemeni detainees, said it appeared that many of the men might remain in American custody. “Unless President Obama reconsiders his decision to close Guantánamo,” Mr. Remes said, “the Yemeni detainees would have to be brought to the U.S. and put in some sort of prison.”
  • The complexities of the issues surrounding the detainees are a reflection of Yemen’s tangled domestic and international problems. It is a state that often appears on the verge of chaos. A weak central government is fighting a persistent insurgency in the north, restive separatists in the south and a growing Qaeda presence.
  • Some Yemeni officials say President Saleh, a wily former army officer, has used the internal threats — and perhaps even nurtured them — to press the United States and Yemen’s neighbor Saudi Arabia for more aid.As a result, people who have discussed the detainee issues with Yemeni officials say the Obama administration’s frustration with the Yemeni government may be well founded.
  • One senior Yemeni official, she said, seemed to suggest that Yemen would require a huge payment from the American government to resettle the detainees. A proper rehabilitation program, the official claimed, could cost as much as $1 million for each detainee, totaling nearly $100 million.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Americas | Bin Laden 'is still in Pakistan' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8096552.stm

bin Laden US Leon Panetta CIA Pakistan

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 12 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden is still hiding in Pakistan, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Leon Panetta has said.
Argos Media

Torture tape delays U.S.-UAE nuclear deal, say U.S. officials - CNN.com - 0 views

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

UAE Abu Dhabi Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan Torture Nuclear Proliferation US

shared by Argos Media on 30 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A videotape of a heinous torture session is delaying the ratification of a civil nuclear deal between the United Arab Emirates and the United States, senior U.S. officials familiar with the case said.
  • In the tape, an Afghan grain dealer is seen being tortured by a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, one of the UAE's seven emirates.
  • The senior U.S. officials said the administration has held off on the ratification process because it believes sensitivities over the story can hurt its passage. The tape emerged in a federal civil lawsuit filed in Houston, Texas, by Bassam Nabulsi, a U.S. citizen, against Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan. Former business partners, the men had a falling out, in part over the tape. In a statement to CNN, the sheikh's U.S. attorney said Nabulsi is using the videotape to influence the court over a business dispute.
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  • The civil nuclear agreement was signed in January between the United Arab Emirates and the Bush administration, but after the new administration took office, the deal had to be recertified
  • "It's being temporarily held up because of that tape," one senior official said.
  • The State Department had little to say publicly on the torture tape incident, but its 2008 human rights report about the United Arab Emirates refers to "reports that a royal family member tortured a foreign national who had allegedly overcharged him in a grain deal."
  • U.S. Rep. James McGovern -- the Massachusetts Democrat who co-chairs the congressional Human Rights Commission
  • McGovern asked Clinton to "place a temporary hold on further U.S. expenditures of funds, training, sales or transfers of equipment or technology, including nuclear until a full review of this matter and its policy implications can be completed." He also asked that the United States deny any visa for travel to the United States by Sheikh Issa or his immediate family, including his 18 brothers, several of whom are ruling members of the UAE government.
  • UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a half-brother of Sheikh Issa, is expected to visit Washington sometime next month.
  • Under the "1-2-3 deal," similar to one the United States signed last year with India, Washington would share nuclear technology, expertise and fuel. In exchange, the UAE commits to abide by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The small oil-rich Gulf nation promises not to enrich uranium or to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs.
  • The deal is part of a major UAE investment in nuclear, and it has already signed deals to build several nuclear power plants. The United States already has similar nuclear cooperation agreements with Egypt and Morocco, and U.S. officials said Washington is working on similar pacts with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan.
  • When the Bush administration signed the deal in January, it stressed the UAE's role in global nonproliferation initiatives, including a donation of $10 million to establish an International Atomic Energy Agency international fuel bank.
  • Congressional critics fear the deal could spark an arms race and proliferation in the region, and the UAE's ties to Iran also have caused concern.
  • Iran is among the UAE's largest trading partners. In the past, the port city of Dubai, one of the UAE's seven emirates, has been used as a transit point for sensitive technology bound for Iran.
  • Dubai was also one of the major hubs for the nuclear trafficking network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who admitted to spreading nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya up until the year 2000.
  • Such ties contributed to stiff opposition in Congress to the failed deal for Dubai Ports World to manage U.S. ports.
  • Officials said they expect the deal to be sent up to the Hill for ratification within the next few weeks, given that there has been little blowback from the publication of the tape, except for McGovern's letter to Clinton. "It will be sent very soon," one official said.
  • UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba told CNN his government always expected the deal to be sent to the Senate in early May, regardless of the controversy surrounding the tape. "As far as we are concerned, the deal is on track and this has not affected the timing," he said.
Argos Media

Divisions Arose on Rough Tactics for Qaeda Figure - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...18zubaydah.html

CIA US Torture Abu Zubaydah Al-Qaeda

shared by Argos Media on 18 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The first use of waterboarding and other rough treatment against a prisoner from Al Qaeda was ordered by senior Central Intelligence Agency officials despite the belief of interrogators that the prisoner had already told them all he knew, according to former intelligence officials and a footnote in a newly released legal memorandum.
  • The escalation to especially brutal interrogation tactics against the prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, including confining him in boxes and slamming him against the wall, was ordered by officials at C.I.A. headquarters based on a highly inflated assessment of his importance, interviews and a review of newly released documents show.
  • Abu Zubaydah had provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling produced no breakthroughs, according to one former intelligence official with direct knowledge of the case. Instead, watching his torment caused great distress to his captors, the official said.
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  • Even for those who believed that brutal treatment could produce results, the official said, “seeing these depths of human misery and degradation has a traumatic effect.”
  • A footnote to another of the memos described a rift between line officers questioning Abu Zubaydah at a secret C.I.A. prison in Thailand and their bosses at headquarters, and asserted that the brutal treatment may have been “unnecessary.”
  • In March 2002, when Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan after a gunfight with Pakistani security officers backed by F.B.I. and C.I.A. officers, Bush administration officials portrayed him as a Qaeda leader. That judgment was reflected in the Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion signed by Jay S. Bybee, then head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.The memo summarizes the C.I.A.’s judgment that Abu Zubaydah, then 31, had risen rapidly to “third or fourth man in Al Qaeda” and had served as “senior lieutenant” to Osama bin Laden. It said he had “managed a network of training camps” and had been “involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by Al Qaeda.”
  • The memo reported the C.I.A.’s portrayal of “a highly self-directed individual who prizes his independence,” a deceptive narcissist, healthy and tough, who agency officers believed was the most senior terrorist caught since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
  • His interrogation, according to multiple accounts, began in Pakistan and continued at the secret C.I.A. site in Thailand, with a traditional, rapport-building approach led by two F.B.I. agents, who even helped care for him as his gunshot wounds healed.
  • A C.I.A. interrogation team that arrived a week or two later, which included former military psychologists, did not change the approach to questioning, but began to keep him awake night and day with blasting rock music, have his clothes removed and keep his cell cold.
  • The legal basis for this treatment is uncertain, but lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters were in constant touch with interrogators, as well as with Mr. Bybee’s subordinate in the Office of Legal Counsel, John C. Yoo, who was drafting memos on the legal limits of interrogation.
  • Through the summer of 2002, Abu Zubaydah continued to provide valuable information. Interrogators began to surmise that he was not a leader, but rather a helpful training camp personnel clerk who would arrange false documents and travel for jihadists, including Qaeda members.
  • He knew enough to give interrogators “a road map of Al Qaeda operatives,” an agency officer said. He also repeated talk he had heard about possible plots or targets in the United States, though when F.B.I. agents followed up, most of it turned out to be idle discussion or preliminary brainstorming.At the time, former C.I.A. officials say, his tips were extremely useful, helping to track several other important terrorists, including Mr. Mohammed.
  • But senior agency officials, still persuaded, as they had told President George W. Bush and his staff, that he was an important Qaeda leader, insisted that he must know more.“You get a ton of information, but headquarters says, ‘There must be more,’ ” recalled one intelligence officer who was involved in the case. As described in the footnote to the memo, the use of repeated waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah was ordered “at the direction of C.I.A. headquarters,” and officials were dispatched from headquarters “to watch the last waterboard session.”
  • The memo, written in 2005 and signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that the waterboarding was justified even if the prisoner turned out not to know as much as officials had thought.
  • And he did not, according to the former intelligence officer involved in the Abu Zubaydah case. “He pleaded for his life,” the official said. “But he gave up no new information. He had no more information to give.”
  • Since 2002, the C.I.A. has downgraded its assessment of Abu Zubaydah’s significance, while continuing to call his revelations important. In an interview, an intelligence officer said that the current view was that Abu Zubaydah was “an important terrorist facilitator” who disclosed “essential raw material for successful counterterrorist action.”
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Qaeda Looking to Rebrand - 0 views

www.brandchannel.com/...-Qaeda-Looking-to-Rebrand.aspx

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Branding

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • "After (Osama) bin Laden's death and the Arab Spring, the name (al Qaeda) seems to have negative connotations and baggage,"
  • the number of jihadists going to Pakistan since bin Laden died has decreased, but there has been uptick of such travelers to Yemen and “the number of foreign fighters in Yemen now exceeds 1,000.” That would put the number in Yemen at “more than four times the number of al Qaeda members believed to be in the tribal areas of Pakistan,” Fox adds. Somalia is also considered a hotbed with more than 750 foreign fighters now training there.
  • "The al Qaeda core is no longer beneficial to be associated with ... because their main leader is gone," said Rick "Ozzie" Nelson, director of homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to Fox. "One thing about AQAP is it's got remarkable name recognition, which can serve to help recruiting.”
Argos Media

Red Cross Described 'Torture' at CIA Jails - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009031502724_pf.html

Abu Zubaydah CIA ICRC Torture

shared by Argos Media on 16 Mar 09 - Cached
  • The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document.
  • The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document. The report, an account alleging physical and psychological brutality inside CIA "black site" prisons, also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Such maltreatment of detainees is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
  • At least five copies of the report were shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007 but barred from public release by ICRC guidelines intended to preserve the humanitarian group's strict policy of neutrality in conflicts. A copy of the report was obtained by Mark Danner, a journalism professor and author who published extensive excerpts in the April 9 edition of the New York Review of Books, released yesterday. He did not say how he obtained the report.
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  • Often using the detainee's own words, the report offers a harrowing view of conditions at the secret prisons, where prisoners were told they were being taken "to the verge of death and back," according to one excerpt. During interrogations, the captives were routinely beaten, doused with cold water and slammed head-first into walls. Between sessions, they were stripped of clothing, bombarded with loud music, exposed to cold temperatures, and deprived of sleep and solid food for days on end. Some detainees described being forced to stand for days, with their arms shackled above them, wearing only diapers. "On a daily basis . . . a collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room," the report quotes detainee Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Walid Muhammad bin Attash, as saying. Later, he said, he was wrapped in a plastic sheet while cold water was "poured onto my body with buckets." He added: "I would be wrapped inside the sheet with cold water for several minutes. Then I would be taken for interrogation."
  • President George W. Bush acknowledged the use of coercive interrogation tactics on senior al-Qaeda captives detained by the CIA in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but he insisted that the measures complied with U.S. and international law. Former CIA director Michael V. Hayden confirmed last year that the measures included the use of waterboarding on three captives before 2003. President Obama outlawed such practices within hours of his inauguration in January. But Obama has expressed reluctance to conduct a legal inquiry into the CIA's policies.
  • Abu Zubaida was severely wounded during a shootout in March 2002 at a safe house he ran in Faisalabad, Pakistan, and survived thanks to CIA-arranged medical care, including multiple surgeries. After he recovered, Abu Zubaida describes being shackled to a chair at the feet and hands for two to three weeks in a cold room with "loud, shouting type music" blaring constantly, according to the ICRC report. He said that he was questioned two to three hours a day and that water was sprayed in his face if he fell asleep. At some point -- the timing is unclear from the New York Review of Books report -- Abu Zubaida's treatment became harsher. In July 2002, administration lawyers approved more aggressive techniques. Abu Zubaida said interrogators wrapped a towel around his neck and slammed him into a plywood wall mounted in his cell. He was also repeatedly slapped in the face, he said. After the beatings, he was placed in coffinlike wooden boxes in which he was forced to crouch, with no light and a restricted air supply, he said. "The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in my leg and stomach became very painful," he told the ICRC. After he was removed from a small box, he said, he was strapped to what looked like a hospital bed and waterboarded. "A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe," Abu Zubaida said. After breaks to allow him to recover, the waterboarding continued.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Anti-government clash in Georgia - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8036942.stm

Georgia Nino Burjanadze Russia Tbilissi NATO Dmitry Medvedev

shared by Argos Media on 07 May 09 - Cached

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    Anti-government clash in Georgia

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    Tensions appear to be rising in Tbilisi

    Anti-government protesters and police have clashed in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, amid rising national tensions.

    Riot police used batons on protesters trying to enter a police compound where three people were being held over the alleged beating of a local journalist.

    The clashes were the first major unrest since anti-government demonstrations began in early April.

    They come a day after the authorities said they had thwarted an army mutiny at a base outside the capital.

  • Later in the evening, opposition leaders and supporters gathered outside parliament for a rally, as they have daily since 9 April.
  • The latest unrest comes as Georgia hosts a series of Nato training exercises amid angry condemnation from Russia. They are taking place close to areas where Russian troops are stationed in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said the drills, involving more than 1,000 soldiers from 18 countries, were "an overt provocation".
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  • On Tuesday, Mr Saakashvili claimed his government had put down a brief mutiny among a tank battalion. Tbilisi had said it was part of a Russian-linked coup attempt to kill Mr Saakashvili. But opposition parties said the alleged mutiny was a deliberate attempt by the government to distract attention from the new phase of anti-government protests.
  • Anti-government protesters and police have clashed in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, amid rising national tensions. Riot police used batons on protesters trying to enter a police compound where three people were being held over the alleged beating of a local journalist. The clashes were the first major unrest since anti-government demonstrations began in early April. They come a day after the authorities said they had thwarted an army mutiny at a base outside the capital.
Argos Media

Torture-tape Gulf prince accused of 25 other attacks | World news | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...sheikh-accusation-assualt-tape

Torture Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan UAE Abu Dhabi Bassam Nabulsi US Nuclear Power

shared by Argos Media on 03 May 09 - Cached
  • The wealthy Gulf prince at the centre of a "torture tape" scandal has been accused of attacking at least 25 other people in incidents that have also been caught on film, it has been claimed.Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan is now under investigation in the United Arab Emirates after the shocking tape showed him beating a man with a nailed plank, setting him on fire, attacking him with a cattle prod and running him over.
  • But now lawyers for American businessman Bassam Nabulsi, who smuggled the tape out of the UAE, have written to the justice minister of Abu Dhabi - the most powerful of the emirates that make up the UAE - claiming to have considerably more evidence against Issa. "I have more than two hours of video footage showing Sheikh Issa's involvement in the torture of more than 25 people," wrote Texas-based lawyer Anthony Buzbee in a letter obtained by the Observer.
  • now it appears the initial tape could just be the beginning of the problem. The new tapes apparently also involve police officers taking part in Issa's attacks, and some of his victims in the as-yet-unseen videos are believed to be Sudanese immigrants.
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  • The fresh revelations about Issa's actions will add further doubt to a pending nuclear energy deal between the UAE and the US. The deal, signed in the final days of George W Bush, is seen as vital for the UAE. It will see the US share nuclear energy expertise, fuel and technology in return for a promise to abide by non-proliferation agreements. But the deal needs to be recertified by the Obama administration and there is growing outrage in America over the tapes. Congressman James McGovern, a senior Democrat, has demanded that Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, investigate the matter and find out why US officials initially appeared to play down its significance.
  • The tape emerged from a court case brought in America by Nabulsi. The American citizen is a former business partner of Sheikh Issa, and claims he, too, was tortured in the UAE after the pair fell out. Nabulsi said the first tape was shot by his brother on the orders of Sheikh Issa, who liked to view them later for his own pleasure.
Pedro Gonçalves

SPIEGEL Interview with Pervez Musharraf: Obama 'Is Aiming at the Right Things' - SPIEGE... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,628960-2,00.html

Pakistan US India Afghanistan Taliban Pervez Musharraf Mullah Omar Military bin Laden

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Jun 09 - Cached
  • SPIEGEL: Is Pakistan now paying for its earlier failures? Why didn't you eliminate the Taliban leadership when they came to Pakistan at the end of 2001 -- above all the so-called Quetta Shura, the Taliban's highest decision-making council, in the Pakistani city Quetta? Musharraf: The Quetta Shura never existed. Do you really think there is an assembly in a kind of a house where they come and discuss things in something like a regular consultation? Mullah Omar never was in Pakistan and he would be mad if he appeared there. He is much safer in Afghanistan.
  • SPIEGEL: Over the last eight years, Pakistan has received about $10 billion in military aid from the US. Apparently you didn't spend all that money on the war on terror -- some went to secure your eastern border with India. Is that true? Musharraf: Half of it, $5 billion, was reimbursed to us for services we had already rendered to the US. You have to understand how the Pakistan army operates: The divisions keep moving. If we buy new tanks for $250 million, then they will be deployed in Peshawar as part of the war on terror, but they will also go to the eastern border. But why do you care about that? Why, for heaven's sake, should I tell you how we spent the money? SPIEGEL: The American government would surely be interested in knowing. Musharraf: I also told the Americans that it has nothing to do with them. We are not obligated to give out any details. Maybe I should have said at the time: Ok, you want us to support you, give us $20 billion a year and don't ask what we are doing with it.
  • Musharraf: I do agree, they do not accept this war as their war. This has something to do with history. Please understand the reason, and you should blame the US for it. From 1979 to 1989, we fought a war with the US in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. And we won mainly because of ISI. Otherwise, the Soviet Union could not have been defeated in Afghanistan. But then the US left us all alone with 30,000 mujahedeen brought by them. Even Osama bin Laden was brought by the US, who else? They all came to fight the Soviet Union. So, did anybody in Washington develop a strategy for what to do with these people after 1989? No, nobody helped Pakistan for the next 12 years until 2001. We were left high and dry, with 30,000 mujahedeen holed up, no rehabilitation, no resettlement for them. No assistance was given to Pakistan -- instead sanctions were imposed against us. Fourty F-16s, for which we had paid money, were denied to us. Four million Afghan refugees had also come to Pakistan. The mujahedeed coalesced into al-Qaida and our social fabric was being completely destroyed. This is why the people of Pakistan felt used by the Americans, and this is why Pakistanis dislike the US and this war.
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  • SPIEGEL: A few weeks ago, you visited New Delhi and said India and Pakistan have done enough damage to each other and that it is time to find a solution. Do you view yourself as as a future ambassador for peace between the two countries? Musharraf: If the Pakistan government wants me and if the Indians also trust me, then I can be of some use.
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'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

BBC News - Pakistan army warns PM Gilani over criticisms - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-asia-16511826

Pakistan

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 11 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • The army warned of "serious ramifications with potentially grievous consequences" after the PM criticised military leaders in a media interview. Meanwhile, Mr Gilani has sacked his defence secretary, who is seen as having close ties to the military.
  • On Monday Mr Gilani was quoted telling China's People's Daily Online that Pakistan's army chief and head of intelligence acted unconstitutionally by making submissions to a Supreme Court inquiry which has been rocking the government.
  • A senior official told AFP news agency that the defence secretary, retired general Naeem Khalid Lodhi, had been removed from his post for gross misconduct. The sacking is likely to heighten frictions with military leaders. Many observers believe Gen Lodhi lost his job after writing to the Supreme Court saying the government had administrative, but not operational, control of the army.
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  • Last month Mr Gilani said conspirators were plotting to bring down his government, without specifically blaming the military. That prompted army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani to dismiss coup rumours.
  • The Supreme Court is investigating an anonymous memo which sought US help to avert a possible military coup in Pakistan following the killing by US forces of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in May. It is not clear who wrote the memo or conveyed it to the Americans.
  • The scandal has already cost Pakistan's former ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, his job. He denies any role in the memo, as does President Asif Ali Zardari. He could be forced to quit if the trail is found to lead to his door. The Supreme Court investigation aims to get to the bottom of the scandal. Mr Zardari's government is also on a collision course with the judiciary, which wants to reopen old corruption cases in which the president argues he is innocent.
Pedro Gonçalves

Exclusive - Secret Turkish nerve centre leads aid to Syria rebels | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...s-centre-idUKBRE86Q0J620120727

Syria Turkey Qatar

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 28 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Turkey has set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria's rebels from a city near the border
  • "It's the Turks who are militarily controlling it. Turkey is the main co-ordinator/facilitator. Think of a triangle, with Turkey at the top and Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the bottom,"
  • "The Americans are very hands-off on this. U.S. intel(ligence) are working through middlemen. Middlemen are controlling access to weapons and routes."
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The centre in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 100 km (60 miles) from the Syrian border, was set up after Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud visited Turkey and requested it, a source in the Gulf said
  • Adana is home to Incirlik, a large Turkish/U.S. air force base which Washington has used in the past for reconnaissance and military logistics operations. It was not clear from the sources whether the anti-Syrian "nerve centre" was located inside Incirlik base or in the city of Adana.
  • 20 former Syrian generals are now based in Turkey, from where they are helping shape the rebel forces. Israel believes up to 20,000 Syrian troops may now have defected to the opposition.
  • "All weaponry is Russian. The obvious reason is that these guys (the Syrian rebels) are trained to use Russian weapons, also because the Americans don't want their hands on it. All weapons are from the black market. The other way they get weapons is to steal them from the Syrian army. They raid weapons stores."
  • The presence of the secret Middle East-run "nerve centre" may explain how the Syrian rebels, a rag-tag assortment of ill-armed and poorly organised groups, have pulled off major strikes such as the devastating bomb attack on July 18 which killed at least four key Assad aides including the defence minister.
  • Qatar, the tiny gas-rich Gulf state which played a leading part in supplying weapons to Libyan rebels, has a key role in directing operations at the Adana base, the sources said. Qatari military intelligence and state security officials are involved.
  • "The Qataris mobilized their special forces team two weeks ago. Their remit is to train and help logistically, not to fight," said a Doha-based source with ties to the FSA.Qatar's military intelligence directorate, Foreign Ministry and State Security Bureau are involved, said the source.
Alyn William

iYogi is recognized by Deloitte for 1438 percent growth rate - 0 views

www.sfgate.com/...article.cgi

iYogi iYogi-recognized-by-deloitte

shared by Alyn William on 18 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Alyn William on 18 Nov 10
     
    iYogi ranked third in Deloitte's 50 fastest growing Indian companies in the Technology, Media & Telecom space for 2010, with a 1438 percent growth rate over the last three years.
Pedro Gonçalves

When Did the American Empire Start to Decline? | Stephen M. Walt - 0 views

walt.foreignpolicy.com/...erican_empire_start_to_decline

US Iraq Iraq War Iran

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • the Clinton administration entered office in 1993 and proceeded to adopt a strategy of "dual containment." Until that moment, the United States had acted as an "offshore balancer" in the Persian Gulf, and we had carefully refrained from deploying large air or ground force units there on a permanent basis. We had backed the Shah of Iran since the 1940s, and then switched sides and tilted toward Iraq during the 1980s. Our goal was to prevent any single power from dominating this oil-rich region, and we cleverly played competing powers off against each other for several decades. With dual containment, however, the United States had committed itself to containing two different countries -- Iran and Iraq -- who hated each other, which in turn forced us to keep lots of airplanes and troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We did this, as both Kenneth Pollack and Trita Parsi have documented, because Israel wanted us to do it, and U.S. officials foolishly believed that doing so would make Israel more compliant during the Oslo peace process. But in addition to costing a lot more money, keeping U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the long term also fueled the rise of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was deeply offended by the presence of "infidel" troops on Saudi territory, and so the foolish strategy of dual containment played no small role in causing our terrorism problem. It also helped derail several attempts to improve relations between the United States and Iran. Dual containment, in short, was a colossal blunder.
  • But no strategy is so bad that somebody else can't make it worse. And that is precisely what George W. Bush did after 9/11. Under the influence of neoconservatives who had opposed dual containment because they thought it didn't go far enough, Bush adopted a new strategy of "regional transformation." Instead of preserving a regional balance of power, or containing Iraq and Iran simultaneously, the United States was now going to use its military power to topple regimes across the Middle East and turn those countries into pro-American democracies. This was social engineering on a scale never seen before. The American public and the Congress were unenthusiastic, if not suspicious, about this grand enterprise, which forced the Bush administration to wage a massive deception campaign to get them on board for what was supposed to be the first step in this wildly ambitious scheme. The chicanery worked, and the United States launched its unnecessary war on Iraq in March 2003.
  • wrecking Iraq -- which is what we did -- destroyed the balance of power in the Gulf and improved Iran's geopolitical position. The invasion of Iraq also diverted resources away from the war in Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban to re-emerge as a formidable fighting force. Thus, Bush's decision to topple Saddam in 2003 led directly to two losing wars, not just one. And these wars were enormously expensive to boot. Combined with Bush's tax cuts and other fiscal irresponsibilities, this strategic incompetence caused the federal deficit to balloon to dangerous levels and helped bring about the fiscal impasse that we will be dealing with for years to come.
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  • when future historians search for the moment when the "American Empire" reached its pinnacle and began its descent, the war that began 21 years ago would be a good place to start.
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