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
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Exclusive - Secret Turkish nerve centre leads aid to Syria rebels | Reuters - 0 views
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"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,"
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"The Americans are very hands-off on this. U.S. intel(ligence) are working through middlemen. Middlemen are controlling access to weapons and routes."
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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
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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.
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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BBC NEWS | Middle East | Gaddafi storms out of Arab League - 0 views
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Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has stormed out of the Arab League summit in Qatar having denounced the Saudi king for his ties with the West. He disrupted the opening session by criticising King Abdullah, calling him a British product and an American ally.
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Col Gaddafi's grudge against King Abdullah goes back to an Arab meeting shortly before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when they exchanged harsh words. "Now after six years, it has [been] proved that you were the liar," said the Libyan leader. He added that he now considered their "problem" over and was ready to reconcile.
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Splits among the Arab League nations have become glaring, says the BBC's Katya Adler who is in Doha, over Arab nations' differing attitudes to internal Palestinian divisions between the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamist militant group Hamas. Our correspondent says Western-backed Sunni nations fear the spread of Iranian influence - in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and among marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf States - and are suspicious of those they regard as Iran's Arab friends, such as Syria and Qatar.
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But when the emir of Qatar switched off his microphone, Col Gaddafi insisted that he could not be denied the right to address the summit as - he called himself - the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims.
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Arab leaders have concluded their annual summit by showing their support for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir who is wanted for war crimes. The Arab League said it rejected the International Criminal Court's decision to issue a warrant for his arrest. President Bashir had earlier spoken at the summit in Qatar, and won strong support from his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
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earlier reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had stormed out of the Arab League summit were incorrect. But, our correspondent says, Mr Gaddafi used the floor to settle old scores, criticising Saudi King Abdullah and appearing to reignite a public spat he had at the 2003 Arab summit. At Monday's opening session he called the king a British product and an American ally. But he added that he now considered their "problem" over and was ready to reconcile, drawing applause from the other delegates. The two leaders appeared to bury the hatchet with a 30 minute face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the summit, reports said.
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At the end of the summit a joint statement by the Arab League said: "We stress our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the ICC (International Criminal Court) decision." Earlier in the day, Syrian President Assad said those who had "committed massacres and atrocities in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon" should be arrested first.
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In his opening remarks, Syria's President Assad also spoke about Israel - saying the Arab world had no "real partner in the peace process".
US 'building missile defence radar' in Qatar - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views
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Obama inks 'secret order' to aid Syria rebels - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views
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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.
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The White House has apparently stopped short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some US allies have been doing just that.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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".
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US warns Israel off pre-emptive strike on Iran | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views
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US military commanders have warned their Israeli counterparts that any action against Iran would severely limit the ability of American forces in the region to mount their own operations against the Iranian nuclear programme by cutting off vital logistical support from Gulf Arab allies.
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The US Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain and the US air force has major bases in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Senior US officers believe the one case in which they could not rely fully on those bases for military operations against Iranian installations would be if Israel acted first.
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"The Gulf states' one great fear is Iran going nuclear. The other is a regional war that would destabilise them," said a source in the region. "They might support a massive war against Iran, but they know they are not going to get that, and they know a limited strike is not worth it, as it will not destroy the programme and only make Iran angrier."
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Barak's comments appear to signal that Israel's new red line is an Iranian stockpile of about 200kg of 20%-enriched uranium in convertible form, enough if enriched further to make one bomb. Western diplomats argue the benchmark is arbitrary, as it would take Iran another few months to enrich the stockpile to 90% (weapons-grade) purity, and then perhaps another year to develop a warhead small enough to put on a missile.
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Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, said this week in London that it was the Iranian decision this year to convert a third of the country's stock of 20%-enriched uranium into fuel (making it harder to convert to weapons-grade material if Iran decided to make a weapon) that had bought another "eight to 10 months".
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Israeli leaders had hinted they might take military action to set back the Iranian programme, but that threat receded in September when the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told the United Nations general assembly that Iran's advances in uranium enrichment would only breach Israel's "red line" in spring or summer next year.
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France's president, François Hollande, met Netanyahu in Paris on Wednesday but rejected the push for military action."It's a threat that cannot be accepted by France," Hollande said, arguing for further sanctions coupled with negotiations. A new round of international talks with Iran are due after the US presidential elections, in which Tehran is expected to be offered sanctions relief in return for an end to 20% enrichment.
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The UK government has told the US that it cannot rely on the use of British bases in Ascension Island, Cyprus, and Diego Garcia for an assault on Iran as pre-emptive action would be illegal. The Arab spring has also complicated US contingency planning for any new conflict in the Gulf.
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US naval commanders have watched with unease as the newly elected Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has made overtures towards Iran. US ships make 200 transits a year through the Suez canal. Manama, the Fifth Fleet headquarters, is the capital of a country that is 70% Shia and currently in turmoil.
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Ami Ayalon, a former chief of the Israeli navy and the country's internal intelligence service, Shin Bet, argues Israel too cannot ignore the new Arab realities."We live in a new Middle East where the street has become stronger and the leaders are weaker," Ayalon told the Guardian. "In order for Israel to face Iran we will have to form a coalition of relatively pragmatic regimes in the region, and the only way to create that coalition is to show progress on the Israel-Palestinian track."
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Think Twice on Bashir | Print Article | Newsweek.com - 0 views
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Sudan ICC Omar al-Bashir Darfur Comprehensive Peace Agreement Justice and Equality Movement
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policymakers ought to think twice before following through on the ICC's decision. While the warrant sends a clear signal to Bashir and others with blood on their hands that justice will be served, it has already halted further progress at the Darfur peace talks that have been underway in Qatar between Khartoum and the most powerful rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement. While these talks have to date yielded little more than a good-will agreement to end the conflict, it appears that thearrest warrant for Bashir has shattered even these fragile gains, as the rebel group announced in the wake of the ICC warrant that it is pulling back from further negotiations. Bashir too may now see little to gain from them.
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The warrant could also endanger the United Nations peacekeepers and humanitarian workers who have done so much to reduce the suffering in the region. Although the horrors continue in Darfur, they are nowhere near the level that existed before these workers were allowed to operate. Soon after the ICC ruling, Sudan announced that it was expelling many aid groups, which will clearly jeapordize the delivery of much-needed humanitarian assistance. The UN could be next.
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Finally, and most ominously, the warrant could undermine the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between northern and southern Sudan, which brought to an end a civil war that lasted 20 years and cost more than 2 million lives. This landmark deal is fraying badly already. Elections scheduled for 2009 are behind schedule, and implementation of wealth and power-sharing provisions have stalled. Bashir fought many in his party to sign the CPA, and leaders in the south now worry that the indictment will jeopardize the 2011 referendum giving it the right to secede from Sudan. Collapse of the CPA would almost certainly lead to renewed conflict between north and south, with fragmentation and bloodshed that could rival the violence of Darfur at its worst.
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So what to do? Africa's regional leaders may provide the answer. The African Union has for some time been pushing to have the indictment deferred by the U.N. Security Council, which it has the authority to do under Article 16 of the ICC charter.
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The Arab League, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the semiautonomous government of Southern Sudan have also voiced support for a deferral.
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deferring the warrant would be contingent upon concessions from Bashir and his party—namely, agreements to work to hasten the implementation of the CPA, hold elections this year and work with the UN and international mediators toward peace in Darfur, starting immediately with a ceasefire.
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the United States could always push to reinstate the indictment and use the warrant as leverage to compel Khartoum to act and honor its commitments.
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A conditional suspension of the ICC's warrant for Bashir is the best way to prevent a collapse of the CPA, protect those still in need and force Khartoum to act toward ending the conflict in Darfur.
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BBC NEWS | Europe | Prominent Chechen killed in Dubai - 0 views
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The Russian authorities have confirmed a prominent opponent of the pro-Kremlin Chechen President, Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot dead in Dubai on Saturday. Diplomats said Sulim Yamadayev's body had been identified by his relatives. Mr Yamadayev fell out with Mr Kadyrov last year and was sacked as commander of an elite security forces battalion. Saturday's killing is the fourth of a prominent Chechen since September, when Mr Yamadayev's brother Ruslan was shot dead while driving in central Moscow. The Chechen leader has denied any involvement in the killings.
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Russia is poised to declare a formal end to its 10-year war in Chechnya this week, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Moscow.
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Mr Yamadayev became commander of the elite Vostok security forces battalion, a unit of former rebels who have helped quell separatist resistance. In 2005, he was named a Hero of Russia, the top national honour. But last year, he was dismissed after falling out with Mr Kadyrov and later fled to the United Arab Emirates.
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In January, Umar Israilov, a former bodyguard for Mr Kadyrov who had accused him of torture and kidnapping, was shot dead on a street in Vienna. Then last month, a former deputy mayor of Grozny was shot dead in Moscow. In 2004, two Russian intelligence agents were convicted of killing a former Chechen president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, in the nearby state of Qatar.