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cguybar

Egypt's Struggle for Power - Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

www.cfr.org/...p29599

muslim brotherhood power struggle egypt

shared by cguybar on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • cguybar on 05 Apr 16
     
    Gives insight on the confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist parties. Describes the Brotherhood as using their influences in the "electoral arena" because they can win elections. Also poses compromise as a question for the future and implies compromise wont happen due to all parties being very confrontational.
cguybar

A New Chapter in Egypt's Power Struggle | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...-chapter-egypts-power-struggle

muslim brotherhood power struggle egypt

shared by cguybar on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • cguybar on 05 Apr 16
     
    Discusses the stability of Egypt and the dynamic aspect of the confrontation between the government and Brotherhood. Can be tied into a number of controversies of globalization chapters regarding motives for many decisions.
katelynklug

We Were Born From the Womb of the Revolution - 0 views

www.tahrirdocuments.org/...rom-the-womb-of-the-revolution

shared by katelynklug on 14 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • 25 January 2011
  • energy of a struggle
  • thanks to the youths
  • ...47 more annotations...
  • feelings of social injustice
  • biased toward the rich
  • millions of Egyptians live in slums
  • mansions and resorts
  • collapse of educational and public health services
  • stealing of pension
  • reduction of all social safety nets
  • unemployment
  • risk death
  • fleeing an inhuman life
  • culture and art were turned into commodities
  • transferring power to a temporary, civil government
  • ignite sectarian strife
  • isolate Christians from political action
  • Tahrir Square
  • inspiring example
  • face of Fighting Egypt
  • forces of the Egyptian Left
  • equal
  • socialism
  • will to change
  • met with the powers of the Egyptian Left
  • distortion of consciousness and existence
  • We insist upon the realization of all the demands related to democracy and political reform
  • “Popular Alliance” party is born from the womb of the revolution
  • revoking Emergency Law
  • releasing all prisoners
  • new constitution
  • separation of powers
  • social change
  • human rights
  • plan for growth
  • rights to food, shelter, education, work, fair wages, and health care must be guaranteed
  • Minimum and maximum wage
  • Progressive taxes
  • subordination to Zionism
  • must be opposed
  • resistance to normalization with Israel
  • supporting instead the Arab people
  • Palestinian people’s struggle to achieve their freedom and establish a state
  • civil state
  • oppose all forms of discrimination
  • separation of religion from politics
  • opposed to capitalist exploitation
  • supports the interest of the poor
  • open, democratic party
  • diversity of platforms
  • katelynklug on 14 Sep 14
     
    This article describes the position and demands of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party of Egypt. The relationship of the youth protesters with the Egyptian Left was solidified when the Left provided the youth with the political power to make their revolution successful. The Socialist Popular Alliance demands a new constitution and a new government structure that is based on democracy, human rights, and freedoms. Their political position and ideal social structure are very similar to typical American ideals, especially those of the American left political parties. However, the Public Alliance seems very angered over Mubarak's previous friendly relations with Israel. This population feels as though they were forced to abandon the Arab people and support Israel instead of Palestine. This is interesting because Egypt's relations with Israel has garnered tremendous political and economic support from the United States. Having an Arab ally has been an advantageous point of negotiation for Israel and the US. With the Popular Alliance in severe opposition to this position of Israeli sympathy, it is a surprise that they seem to embrace "Americanized" ideas. In addition, it is worth noting that the youth finds a great identity with the Arab culture, although not so much with a specific religion.
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...factional-chaos-it-should-come

shared by wmulnea on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
  • Benghazi is again a battlefield.
  • The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
  • Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
  • the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
  • Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
  • In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
  • Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
  • he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
  • militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
  • The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
  • Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
  • The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
  • tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
  • The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
  • He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
  • which might have given militiamen jobs
  • Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
  • the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
  • In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
  • In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
  • The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
  • Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
  • Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
  • Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
  • Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
  • So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
  • The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
  • Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
  • General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
  • the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
  • Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
  • Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
  • threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
  • Yusuf Dawar
  • The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
  • And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
  • ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
  • Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
  • oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
  • The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
  • The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
  • Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
  • Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
  • Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
  • In Fashloum
  • residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
  • “No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
  • Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
  • Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
  • On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
  • The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
  • the Western powers
  • have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
  • Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
  • Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
  • Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
  • Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
  • The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
  • If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
  • Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
  • The old divisions still matter
  • the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
  • Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
  • July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
  • In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
  • Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
  • Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
  • opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
  • Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
  • In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
wmulnea

Strife in Libya Could Presage Long Civil War - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...libyan-unrest.html

shared by wmulnea on 21 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Salah Badi, an ultraconservative Islamist and former lawmaker from the coastal city of Misurata.
  • Mr. Badi’s assault on Libya’s main international airport has now drawn the country’s fractious militias, tribes and towns into a single national conflagration that threatens to become a prolonged civil war. Both sides see the fight as part of a larger regional struggle, fraught with the risks of a return to repressive authoritarianism or a slide toward Islamist extremism.
  • the violence threatens to turn Libya into a pocket of chaos destabilizing North Africa for years to come.
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • Ansar al-Shariah, the hard-line Islamist group involved in the assault on the American diplomatic Mission in Benghazi in 2012
  • Their opponents, including the militias stocked with former Qaddafi soldiers
  • The ideological differences are blurry at best: both sides publicly profess a similar conservative but democratic vision.
  • an escalating war among its patchwork of rival cities and tribes.
  • Motorists wait in lines stretching more than three miles at shuttered gas stations, waiting for them to open. Food prices are soaring, uncollected garbage is piling up in the streets and bicycles, once unheard-of, are increasingly common.
  • Tripoli, the capital and the main prize, has become a battleground
  • The fighting has destroyed the airport
  • Constant shelling between rival militias has leveled blocks
  • Storage tanks holding about 25 million gallons of fuel have burned unchecked for a month
  • with daily blackouts sometimes lasting more than 12 hours.
  • many Libyans despaired of any resolution
  • In Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, the fighting has closed both its airport and seaport, strangling the city.
  • the rush toward war is also lifting the fortunes of the Islamist extremists of Ansar al-Shariah, the Benghazi militant group.
  • The United Nations, the United States and the other Western powers have withdrawn their diplomats and closed their missions
  • “We cannot care more than you do,” the British ambassador, Michael Aron, wrote
  • Until now, a rough balance of power among local brigades had preserved a kind of equilibrium, if not stability
  • the transitional government scarcely existed outside of the luxury hotels where its officials gathered, no other force was strong enough to dominate. No single interest divided the competing cities and factions.
  • But that semblance of unity is now in tatters, and with it the hope that nonviolent negotiations might settle the competition for power and, implicitly, Libya’s oil.
  • In May, a renegade former general, Khalifa Hifter, declared that he would seize power by force to purge Libya of Islamists, beginning in Benghazi. He vowed to eradicate the hard-line Islamists of Ansar al-Shariah, blamed for a long series of bombings and assassinations.
  • General Hifter also pledged to close the Parliament and arrest moderate Islamist members
  • he has mustered a small fleet of helicopters and warplanes that have bombed rival bases around Benghazi, a steep escalation of the violence.
  • moderate Islamists and other brigades who had distanced themselves from Ansar al-Shariah began closing ranks, welcoming the group into a newly formed council of “revolutionary” militias
  • a broad alliance of Benghazi militias that now includes Ansar al-Shariah issued a defiant statement denouncing relative moderates like the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. “We will not accept the project of democracy, secular parties, nor the parties that falsely claim the Islamic cause,”
  • the general’s blitz has now stalled, it polarized the country, drawing alarms from some cities and tribes but applause from others.
  • the loudest applause came from the western mountain town of Zintan, where local militia leaders had recruited hundreds of former Qaddafi soldiers into special brigades
  • the rival coastal city of Misurata, where militias have allied with the Islamists in political battles and jostled with the Zintanis for influence in the capital
  • the Misurata and Islamist militias developed a reputation for besieging government buildings and kidnapping high officials to try to pressure the Parliament. But in recent months the Zintanis and their anti-Islamist allies have stormed the Parliament and kidnapped senior lawmakers as well.
  • the newly elected Parliament, led at first, on a seniority basis, by a member supportive of Mr. Hifter, announced plans to convene in Tobruk, an eastern city under the general’s control.
  • About 30 members, most of them Islamists or Misuratans, refused to attend,
  • Tripoli’s backup airport, under the control of an Islamist militia, has cut off flights to Tobruk, even blocking a trip by the prime minister.
  • a spokesman for the old disbanded Parliament, favored by the Islamists and Misuratans, declared that it would reconvene in Tripoli
  • In Tobruk, a spokesman for the new Parliament declared that the Islamist- and Misuratan-allied militias were terrorists, suggesting that Libya might soon have two legislatures with competing armies
  • Each side has the support of competing satellite television networks financed and, often, broadcast from abroad, typically from Qatar for the Islamists and from the United Arab Emirates for their foes.
  • Hassan Tatanaki, a Libyan-born business mogul who owns one of the anti-Islamist satellite networks, speaking in an interview from an office in the Emirates. “We are in a state of war and this is no time for compromise.”
  • Fighters and tribes who fought one another during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi are now coming together on the same side of the new fight, especially with the Zintanis against the Islamists. Some former Qaddafi officers who had fled Libya are even coming back to take up arms again.
  • “It is not pro- or anti-Qaddafi any more — it is about Libya,” said a former Qaddafi officer in a military uniform
  • Beneath the battle against “extremists,” he said, was an even deeper, ethnic struggle: the tribes of Arab descent, like the Zintanis, against those of Berber, Circassian or Turkish ancestry, like the Misuratis. “The victory will be for the Arab tribes,”
  • andrea_hoertz on 21 Sep 14
     
    Article explains the civil war that is erupting in Libya. Islamist extremists are trying to take over the country and towns and tribes of Libya are choosing sides. Tripoli has been the biggest battle ground and its airport was destroyed.
  • wmulnea on 11 Apr 15
     
    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
  • wmulnea on 11 Apr 15
     
    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
allieggg

Islamists Aren't the Obstacle | Foreign Affairs - 0 views

www.foreignaffairs.com/...islamists-arent-the-obstacle

middle east democracy Islamists institutions egypt politics tunisia

shared by allieggg on 28 Sep 14 - No Cached
micklethwait liked it
  • A minority of the population -- 26 percent of Tunisians and 28 percent of Egyptians -- believes that Islam should play a large role in government.
  • Both secularists and Islamists associate democracy with economic prosperity
  • Islamist parties received considerable support in both countries' recent elections -- not only because there is a broad ideological affinity for Islamism among the population but also because of Islamist parties' effective campaigning.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • When asked about the most important feature of a democracy, 69 percent of Egyptians and 32 percent of Tunisians put providing people with basic necessities or narrowing the gap between rich and poor at the top of their lists.
  • On a related note, Islamist parties have shown a remarkable ability to maintain their base.
  • Tunisia has fared better than Egypt so far in the post-Arab Spring transition, with less violence, fewer demonstrations, and greater political stability. This is in part because challenges are easier to confront in a country of only 11 million, 98 percent of whom are Sunni Muslim, compared to the more diverse and populous Egypt. But Tunisia's success is primarily a result of its stronger institutions, which provide a conduit for political debate.
  • Many onlookers claim that Egypt's more tumultuous post-revolution trajectory is because of the country's legacy of religiosity and Islamism.
  • Egyptians, in fact, are no more religious than Tunisians.
  • Egypt's institutions are weak and have been routinely undermined by entrenched interests. The countries' different geopolitical situations play a role here. Tunisia's minimal strategic importance means that foreign countries have less reason to intervene. But Egypt's proximity to Israel and the Palestinian territories, its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and its role as an intermediary between Israel and Hamas make its political developments important to Israel and the United States. Consequently, Egypt is vulnerable to foreign interference, particularly to attempts to prop up its military. Furthermore, beyond serving as a pillar to Egypt's authoritarian regimes, the Egyptian military has significant business interests and accounts for ten to 30 percent of Egypt's gross domestic product.
  • Egypt's judicial branch, which is also more powerful than Tunisia's, has at times undermined democratic processes.
  • Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that the Islamist-dominated parliament and the Constituent Assembly it elected were unconstitutional, because Islamist parties contested seats intended for independent candidates. The move polarized the country and pushed the executive branch to take extreme measures.
  • Egyptian democracy is undermined by the inability of institutions to address citizens' demands and the impulse of powerful actors to interfere, not by the divide between Islamists and secularists. Institutions in Egypt fail to provide a meaningful forum for debate. As a result, violent street protesters and extremist sheiks are gaining power.
  • U.S. policy must support institutions rather than actors, and processes rather than outcomes, in order to help Egypt and Tunisia achieve their democratic potential.
  • allieggg on 28 Sep 14
     
    The Council on Foreign Relations published an article about democratization in the middle east and the major obstacles that are present in the process. While most assume Islamists and Islamic embedded institutions are the root of the delayed democratic transition, the problems are much bigger than that. While Islamist regimes do indeed stunt the growth of democratic progress in terms of creating a stable government, Arab countries struggle with economic and social factors as well. The Arab Spring Revolutions have caused economic and social degradation across the region, resulting in a road block of political leadership. Without a reliable and capable government structure, the states are unable to progress economically. However, in order to have a stable government, social and economic institutions must be in place to create this capitalist economy that they strive for. Because most wealth resides in oil, the revenue that the states bring in isn't distributed properly throughout society and is concentrated within few business elites. The article stresses that instead of foreign aid going into the hands of an unstable leader or regime, it should be invested in institutions in order to spur economic growth and eliminate corruption. Rather than focusing on the Islamist-secularist divide, the world should be working towards the strengthening of institutions to create a stable foundation for governance. 
allieggg

Mapping Libya's armed groups - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...lained-201452293619773132.html

libya armed groups middle east Revolution recontruction war militias

shared by allieggg on 12 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Haftar accuses Congress of allowing "terrorists" to flourish in Libya and has vowed to "wipe them out", gaining support from much of the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. Other militias have lined up to oppose him, insisting his attacks amount to a "coup".
  • 1. National Army
  • National Army is a nationalist armed group controlled by Khalifa Haftar, rather than Libya’s national army.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • re-formed to help fight in the uprising against Gaddafi in 2011.
  • composed of non-Islamist fighters and former soldiers
  • Haftar used it to launch Operation Libyan Dignity on May 16, saying his mission was to dissolve the General National Congress, which he labelled Islamist, and to destroy "terrorists" he said Congress had allowed to establish bases in Libya.
  • 2. Regular forces
  • small army and air force have mostly defected to Haftar. Libya’s armed forces fought on both Gaddafi and the rebel side in the 2011 uprising. Since then, the army has been rebuilding, with most of its units in training.
  • fighting a tit-for-tat battle against Islamist militias for more than a year.
  • 3. Zintan
  • Zintan's militias are the second most powerful armed force in Libya, after Misrata, and based in the Nafusa mountains 144km southwest of Tripoli.
  • Zintan formed one of the three fronts in the uprising and by the end of that uprising, Zintan brigades surged into Tripoli, with several maintaining bases in the city and holding the international airport.
  • regard themselves as opponents of both Congress and Islamists.
  • On May 18, two days after Hiftar’s forces attacked Benghazi, two Zintan militias stormed the national congress building in Tripoli.
  • 1. LROR 
  • Libyan Revolutionary Operations Room was formed in 2013 as the headquarters of the Libya Shield, an alliance of pro-Congress militias.
  • accused by opponents of being Islamist,
  • LROR led a powerful Shield force to Tripoli last year to defend Congress.
  • 3. Misrata
  • With strong affiliations with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party, LROR will have much to lose if Haftar takes power.
  • dedicated to establishing a caliphate in Libya
  • The US blamed Ansar al-Sharia for the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi that saw the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in 2012.
  • 2. Ansar al-Sharia
  • Misrata’s 235 militia brigades are collectively the most powerful single force in Libya, fighting through a six-month siege during the uprising.
  • They are equipped with heavy weapons, tanks and truck-launched rockets and have the power to be a decisive force in any struggle between Haftar and Islamist forces.
  • Many Misratan leaders back the Islamists in Congress, and Misratan brigades once formed a key part of the Libya Shield force in Tripoli.
  • allieggg on 12 Nov 14
     
    After the ousting of the Gaddafi regime the country pivoted into civil chaos. Because of the deficiency of structure and state autonomy, armed militias have become the dominant force in determining Libya's future governmental system. While the UN has internationally recognized the NTC as the interim government to ultimately turn the country into a democratic one, militias have taken things into their own hands tipping the country towards the brink of civil war. General Khalifa Haftar launched his Operation Dignity campaign accusing congress of allowing terrorists flourish in Libya and vowed to wipe them out, gaining much support from the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. The opposition to Haftar insist that his attacks are aiming for a military coup. This article was helpful in highlighting the armed groups and dividing them by Pro-Haftar and Pro-Congress sections. 
cguybar

The many battles of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood - Al Jazeera English - 1 views

www.aljazeera.com/...otherhood-150604103022250.html

leadership muslim brotherhood battles

shared by cguybar on 01 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • cguybar on 01 Feb 16
     
    The internal power struggle present is causing, "the worst case of state oppression in modern Egyptian History, " according to analysts. This instability causes the other groups fighting against the regime to lose confidence in the Brotherhood. The lack of leadership also adds to the Muslim brotherhood having an uphill battle in the years to come.
allieggg

US weighs sanctions on Libyan factions to try to halt proxy war - 1 views

www.todayszaman.com/-to-halt-proxy-war_363768.html

UN libya militias armed groups war middle east proxy power vacuum sanctions US

shared by allieggg on 13 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • US sanctions would be separate from potential United Nations sanctions that aim to pressure Libyan factions and militias to take part in UN-backed political negotiations to be led by UN envoy Bernardino Leon.
  • The possibility of using UN sanctions to help bring about political talks has been aired publicly.
  • US officials declined to say who they might target with sanctions or why they felt it necessary to look at US. penalties separate from the United Nations. Nor would they detail what sanctions they would propose.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • If applied, the United Nations sanctions would target individuals or groups involved in the fighting, rather than their foreign backers, and would freeze their assets as well as impose travel bans.
  • struggling for power and control of its oil wealth.
  • two potential reasons for unilateral US action.
  • United Nations moves slowly or not at all, US penalties could be imposed whenever Washington wished.
  • US sanctions could be especially worrisome to Khalifa Haftar, a former Libyan army general who fled to the United States after breaking ranks with Gaddafi and returned to launch a campaign against the Islamists in Benghazi.
  • Western officials believe the involvement of outside powers such as Egypt and the UAE is exacerbating the conflict and that the two countries are arming and funding the more secular forces.
  • Haftar, according to Western officials, has become the major proxy in Libya for Egypt,
  • UAE sees Egypt's leadership as a firewall against militants and has given Cairo financial and military support
  • Saudi Arabia, a supporter of Sisi, is sympathetic to the Egyptian and Emirati involvement in Libya but is not believed to have played any direct role,
  • Qatar and Turkey. Qatar, officials said, has given arms and money to Islamist militias while Turkey has offered moral support.
  • allieggg on 13 Nov 14
     
    The UN is pushing for sanctions to put pressure on Libyan factions and militias to take part in political negotiations. These sanctions would target individual groups rather than the foreign backers involved in the proxy war and would freeze their assets and impose travel bans. US officials have introduced the possibility of using their own sanctions separate from the UN for a few reasons: UN sanctions move slowly if not at all, Washington could impose them whenever they wish. The US places more emphasis on the importance on external actors in the conflict than domestic groups, explaining that these countries are actually intensifying the conflict. 
hwilson3

Middle Eastern Women and the Struggle for a Public Voice - Centre for World Dialogue - 0 views

www.worlddialogue.org/content.php

#journalism #media #womeninmedia #selfexpression

shared by hwilson3 on 29 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • hwilson3 on 29 Mar 16
     
    This article discusses women and media in the Middle East, and how women can "gain power through self expression." I thought that this was a very important message, and found points that the article raised about women in film and journalism were very relevant.
wmulnea

The Isis economy: Meet the new boss - FT.com - 0 views

www.ft.com/...27-11e4-82c7-00144feabdc0.html

shared by wmulnea on 02 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Iraq’s second city of Mosul looks like a model of success for its new rulers from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • But in the back alleys, litter fills the streets. The lights stay on, but only because locals rigged up generators themselves. And under the blare of café televisions, old men grumble about life under Isis’s self-proclaimed caliphate.
  • “We’ve endured international sanctions, poverty, injustice. But it was never worse than it is now.”
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Abu Ahmed at first welcomed the takeover by Isis,
  • Sunni Muslims in both countries have long felt discriminated against by regimes dominated by rival sects
  • without an economy that gives people a chance to make a living, many say Isis has little more to offer
  • “Compared to past rulers, Isis is a lot easier to deal with. Just don’t piss them off and they leave you alone,” says Mohammed, a trader from Mosul. “If they could only maintain services — then people would support them until the last second.”
  • “They’re operating like something between a mafia, an insurgency and a terror group. Maybe they thought six months ago they were going to function as a state. But they don’t have the personnel or manpower.”
  • the FT found its attempt at state-building has so far failed to win over locals.
  • volunteers handing out sacks of wheat stamped with their black and white seal. They even announced plans to issue a currency,
  • In some cases they say Isis takes credit for systems in place before it seized power. In others, locals say it is stealing the resources of the region it seeks to rule
  • Travellers must stock up on Iraqi dinars to use in Iraq, US dollars for the road and Syrian pounds once they arrive.
  • “I’m against Isis with all my heart,” Mahmoud says. “But I can’t help but admire their cleverness.”
  • Isis struggles to balance its books,
  • services continue to function because of the money Baghdad still pays to former civil servants in Mosul. Isis taxes those employees at up to 50 per cent of their salaries.
  • It is as if Isis is financing itself partly through a pyramid scheme, and this has begun to falter.”
  • Though many now question Isis’s economic management, its military prowess and organisational skills are clear.
  • Isis allows easy movement through its territories to facilitate trade. Trucks passing through are taxed about 10 per cent of the value of their cargo.
  • “I may be a Salafi, but I’m not an idiot,” he jokes.
sheldonmer

Hard Evidence: how does false information spread online? - 0 views

theconversation.com/nformation-spread-online-25567

social media false information online news procon

shared by sheldonmer on 16 Nov 14 - No Cached
    • sheldonmer
      sheldonmer on 16 Nov 14
       
      This article is a great way to look at the negative effects of social media and the false information it can spread. After the Egyptian Revolution, many false reports were being spread through social media to create distrust between groups of people who were unhappy with the result of the uprising. The struggle for power is real in Egypt and other places around the world, and social media can be used as a tool for spreading important information fast, or can be used as a tool for spreading an agenda. This article discusses what the world thinks about social media and the problems of false information spreading and what people plan on doing about it.
agomez117

Egypt's powerful street art packs a punch - 2 views

www.bbc.com/...8-egypts-street-art-revolution

shared by agomez117 on 22 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • best examples
  • street art movement that has flourished since the protests against Mubarak began.
  • artists were forged in the fire
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • 8-day demonstrations against Mubarak in early 2011
  • mural
  • talk about the walls of Egypt being under an ‘art attack’.”
  • mural of a large tank aiming its cannon at a boy on a bicycle
  • painting slogans and murals
  • struggle for freedom.
  • panda bear
  • ongoing mayhem
  • pacifist rebuke to the violence
  • engulfed Egypt since 2011.
  • integrated part
  • esponse to events
  • . I must make people remember this culture, this history – because we can lose it. And we can’t know our future if we forget our past.”
    • mariebenavides
      mariebenavides on 30 Sep 14
       
      This is a crucial line to this article and to the artists main objective. By saying this, Awad is stating that he thinks the people of Egypt have begun to forget who they are in light of revolution and in change and wants to help them recall who they are.
  • klweber2 on 22 Sep 14
     
    This article from BBC showcases how Egyptian street art is a new voice among Egyptian protestors. In response to events, artists have filled the walls with murals and slogans in response to events such as the Maspero Massacre in 2011. Some of the reoccurring images are of a tank aiming its cannon at a boy on a bicycle carrying bread on his head as well as a melancholy panda. Other artists have integrated some of Egypt's history in their murals showcasing Egyptian pride amongst the rebellion.
  • agomez117 on 11 Nov 14
     
    More than two years after protesters toppled Hosni Mubarak, Cairo is still ablaze with fiery visual reminders of Egypt's revolution. On the edge of Tahrir Square - the nerve centre of dissent - the burned-out tower block that once housed the headquarters of Mubarak's National Democratic Party stands blackened and empty.
alarsso

Syria after Assad: Heading toward a Hard Fall? - The Washington Institute for Near East... - 0 views

www.washingtoninstitute.org/...sad-heading-toward-a-hard-fall

syria post-assad heading institute outcome

shared by alarsso on 16 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • To a certain extent, the nature of the transition will be i
  • nfluenced by how the Assad regime leaves the scene.
  • forces retain their cohesion
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • control
  • whether the opposition moves to purge regime employees
  • offices are trashed and looted
  • violent power struggle
  • unitary state with a strong central government is unlikely to emerge from the civil war.
  • great challenges exerting control over local leaders who fought the regime
  • ederation of warlords (probably former military and security chiefs) ruling over fiefdoms
  • unitary entity
  • Syrian army
  • opposition will have more time to set up rudimentary institutions
  • provide humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees
  • likely be accompanied by a new round of massacres and ethnic cleansing
  • Sunni extremist groups.
  • new opportunities for external actors, especially Iran and Hizballah, both of which would seek allies among the former regime's Alawite security elite
  • Iran's
  • remain a major player in the Levant
  • hostile to Iran and more closely aligned with Turkey, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia.
  • revolutionary Sunni government in Syria
  • Iran and Hizballah
  • support to former regime
  • Washington should continue with preparations to contain spillover from the conflict
  • enabling it to collect tariffs on imports
  • Washington will need to know as much as it can about the key players,
fcastro2

Main Syria-Jordan Crossing Under Insurgent Assault - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...g-under-insurgent-assault.html

crossing assault war ISIS jordan

shared by fcastro2 on 06 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • The main border crossing between Syria and Jordan remained closed and chaotic on Friday, with insurgents
  • wrangling for control two days after they seized and looted the crucial gateway.
  • he power struggle at the Nasib crossing, coupled with Syrian government airstrikes that hit nearby on Thursday, is the latest cross-border spillover from Syria’s four-year war, and it has led to new tensions between Jordan and Syria.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • witnesses said as many as 22 were being held either for ransom or as bargaining chips.
  • border would remain closed indefinitely until the authorities could guarantee security there.
  • The chaos on the border was a blow to Syria’s government, which lost the last crossing it had still controlled along the 230-mile border. But it could also be embarrassing for Jordan, the United States and other allies involved in a covert program to train insurgents who, they insist, are relatively nationalist and moderate.
  • admitted in an interview that some members of army-affiliated battalions had taken part in the looting, but he insisted that they had not coordinated with Nusra.
  • “I admit there was chaos and looting even by members of the Free Syrian Army, but we are working on returning some of the stolen goods and equipment,”
  • He said that factions linked to the Free Syrian Army had seized the border crossing without Nusra fighters, who rushed in later to take credit. Antigovernment activists in the area have said that a deal was made with Nusra to remain in the background.
  • Nusra and Free Syrian Army groups were controlling different parts of the complex, with a Free Syrian Army group called the Southern Falcons objecting to Nusra’s efforts to seize control of the crossing and its spoils. He said a Nusra fighter told him they were holding 22 drivers, not for ransom, but as a way to put pressure on the Free Syrian Army “to let Nusra run the whole place.
  • fcastro2 on 06 Apr 15
     
    A Syrian and Jordan border crossing has now been closed due to tensions between the "freedom fighters" and other similar groups. 
jherna2a

Yemen crisis: Who is fighting whom? - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-29319423

Yemen Houthi rebellion power struggle

shared by jherna2a on 21 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • mjumaia on 21 Apr 15
     
    Yemen has war between several different groups, and this article explains more in details.
  • cguybar on 21 Jan 16
     
    The main fight is between the beleaguered President and rebels known as Houthis. The threat of attacks in Yemen posses a threat on the West due to its instability. 
  • jherna2a on 27 Jan 16
     
    Article explains the conflict in Yemen between the Houthis and the state. The Houthis are a rebel group who adhere to Zaidism.
cguybar

Will Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood return to political violence? - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-africa-28524510

muslim brotherhood power struggle egypt Middle East

shared by cguybar on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • cguybar on 05 Apr 16
     
    Ties the brotherhood to various activities in the middle east that dealt primarily with rebellion against the current regime. Implies that going against the government is an ideal of the brotherhood (with little to no discrimination on those in charge of the regimes).
csherro2

Algerian War: 1954 to 1962 - 1 views

www.fsmitha.com/...ch23algeria.htm

shared by csherro2 on 05 Apr 16 - Cached
  • FLN headquarters in Nasser's Egypt calling on Muslims in Algeria to join in a national struggle for the "restoration of the Algerian state, sovereign, democratic, and social, within the framework of the principles of Islam."
  • the French relented and on 20 March 1956 gave Tunisia complete independence.
  • February 1956, Morocco acquired limited home rule, and on March 2nd France and Morocco signed an agreement giving Morocco complete independence.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • n March, Mollet received new authority to act against the rebellion in Algeria from parliament's Special Powers Law, passed in a 455 to 76 vote.
  • The FLN tightened its organization and began focusing on terrorism in the cities, mainly Algiers.
  • By 1 January 1957 the French had 308,000 soldiers in Algeria. On 28 January 1957 the UN was scheduled to debate the Algerian question, and for that day the FLN scheduled a one-week Muslim work stoppage in Algiers.
  • The French showed low ranking guerrillas they had captured documents describing other guerrillas as working for the French, and then they released these guerrillas. Some of those released fell for the trick, resulting in purging within the FLN.
  • The French military made itself dominant across much of Algeria.
  • To escape the military, thousands of Algerians fled to Tunisia or Morocco and joined the FLN there.
  • On July 3, Algeria became officially independent. Meanwhile another big migration was underway. Around 800,000 of those in Algeria of European descent – an overwhelming majority – were moving to Europe.
  • csherro2 on 05 Apr 16
     
    In the early morning hours of 1 November 1954, small units of Algeria Muslims, organized by the Front de Libération National (FLN) attacked police posts, warehouses, communications facilities, and public utilities military installations.
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