Mideast News Digest
Suicide Bombing in Riyad Residential Compound
Terrorists, driving a jeep filled with explosives, shot their way into a walled housing compound west of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, Nov. 8, and then, blew up the jeep, killing 13 people, and injuring as many as 200 others. The impact of the powerful bomb was felt miles away. Those killed, including four children, were from Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Lebanon, and Egypt. More bodies may be found under the rubble of the wealthy, 200-residence compound, which housed many nationalities, including many Arab expatriates, but also Americans, Canadians, Eastern Europeans, Asians, and Africans.
The incident came just after the U.S. closed its Saudi Embassy the same day, and closed consulates, after having received information of possible attacks. An Embassy spokesperson said that all Embassy personnel were accounted for, and that the Embassy would remain closed until further notice.
A Saudi official told AFP that the attack bore the hallmarks of the Osama bin Laden network. "The method in which the bombing was executed is similar to that used in the May 12 bombings" of three expatriate residential compounds, said the official, on conditions of anonymity. "This confirms that those who carried out the bombing belong to the al-Qaeda movement," he said.
Two Istanbul Synagogues Bombed
Two Jewish synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey were bombed on Nov. 15, within minutes of each other, killing at least 20 and wounding more than 257 people. An official of the Jewish community in Istanbul told Reuters that six of the dead, and up to 80 of the wounded were Jews, the rest being passers-by or nearby residents. Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said police were still investigating whether the attacks were suicide bombings, or set off by a timer or remote control.
A group calling itself the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front claimed responsibility for the attack, but police reportedly said that the attack was too sophisticated to have been carried out by that group. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said, "It is obvious that this terrorist attack has some international connections," meaning, of course, al-Qaeda.
New Government To Take Control of Iraq by June
All 24 members of the Iraq Governing Council have accepted a plan presented to them by U.S. proconsul Paul Bremer, that will have the U.S. occupation authority turning over sovereignty to a transitional government by next June. The Council's acceptance of the plan was announced in a press conference in Baghdad, on Saturday, Nov. 15, after Bremer met with the full Council. Ahmed Chalabi, Donald Rumsfeld's boy on the council, said that the selection of the transitional government will be completed by May, and that it will be "internationally recognized" and will have "full sovereignty." IGC President Jalal Talabani said the new government will then negotiate a role for U.S. troops in the country after the hand-over of power. The transitional government would also then begin the process of choosing delegates to a constitutional convention.
The plan came about amidst panic in the Bush Administration over the deteriorating situation in Iraq, and the impact it might have on the 2004 Presidential election. When Bremer returned to Iraq from Washington on Nov. 14, he outlined the plan to the nine presidents of the IGC, who expressed strong support for it. Adel Abdel-Mehdi, the director of the political bureau of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said he met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of Iraq's most influential Shi'ite leaders, who gave his blessing to the plan, in spite of his disagreement with Bremer over the selection of delegates to a future constitutional convention. Sistani issued an edict, earlier this year, insisting that delegates be chosen by a national election, rather than by the town hall meetings favored by Bremer and the U.S. Administration.
U.S. Casualties in Iraq Exceed 9,000
UPI reporter Mark Benjamin, who earlier broke the story of the warehousing of reservists at Fort Stewart, Ga., has calculated the total number of American casualties in the Iraq war, including non-combat evacuations, to exceed 9,200. According to figures provided by the Army Surgeon General's office, 6,861 troops were evacuated from Iraq for non-combat medical conditions between March 19 and Oct. 30. This compares to a figure of 3,915 released in early October. The new total represents a 57% increase in only a few weeks, but the Army offered no explanation.
Abizaid To Hold Strategy Meeting
The New York Times reported Nov. 14 that U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid has summoned all of his senior commanders, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, to Centcom headquarters in Tampa, for a one- or two-day meeting this week, to discuss strategy in Iraq. Pentagon officials insisted that the meeting was scheduled some time ago, but it comes at a time when the insurgency in Iraq is becoming increasingly intractable.
Abizaid's summoning of his top commanders also follows an order he issued recently, moving hundreds of his staff to Centcom's forward headquarters in Qatar. This shift reportedly reflects the military's view that large-scale operations in Iraq are expected to continue for some time. The shift also comes at the beginning of the phase of turnover of forces in Iraq. Over the next few months, 85,000 Marines and regular Army troops, plus 43,000 reservists, are to replace the troops currently in Iraq. During this turnover, the number of U.S. troops in the country could reach 180,000 to 200,000 before declining.
Congressional sources warn that this major buildup of U.S. forces, under the cover of the troop rotation, signals plans for a significant counterinsurgency programto bring the rapidly deteriorating situation under some American control, before major force reductions, being promised by the White House begin in spring 2004.
Shi'ite Leader in Baghdad Assassinated by U.S. GIs
The top municipal official of the Shi'ite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad, Mohammad Ghazi al Kaabi, died, after being shot Nov. 9 by U.S. troops, when he supposedly refused to follow security procedures as he tried to enter his municipal offices. Al Kaabi was fluent in English, and had been appointed to his post by the U.S. occupation forces. U.S. troops broke up a brief demonstration of 200 Shi'ites protesting his killing in Sadr City Nov. 11, but the reverberations from this atrocity have only just started, and could draw the large Shi'ite majority of Iraqis into the resistance.
Four Retired Shin Beth Heads Denounce Sharon
Four former heads of Shin Beth, the Israeli security service, warned that there will be a "catastrophe" if a peace deal is not reached with the Palestinians. This comes just after the swearing in of a new Palestinian government, and after Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon accused the Sharon government of bringing down the former Palestinian government of Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas). The daily paper Ha'aretz called this Nov. 11 joint statement, made to the Hebrew-language Yedioth Arahanoth, an "unusually brazen criticism" of the government.
Excerpts from the statements of the four:
Yaakov Perry, Shin Beth chief, 1987-93: "If ... we go on living by the sword, we will continue to wallow in the mud and destroy ourselves.... We need ... to leave Gaza ... and to dismantle the illegal settlements."
Ami Ayalon, Shin Beth, 1996-2000, called for unilateral withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza, saying, "We are taking sure, steady steps ... where the State of Israel will no longer be a democracy." Ayalon has organized a peace letter with Palestinian intellectual, Sari Nusseibeh, and the two of them recently toured the United States.
Avraham Shalom, Shin Beth, 1980-86, said, "We must admit ... we are behaving disgracefully," and that the violence is "the result of the occupation."
Carmi Gillon, Shin Beth chief at the time of the Rabin assassination, till 1996, said the government is "short-sighted" and ignores the question of "getting out of this mess."
All four said that Israel also has to withdraw from the West Bank, even if it means a clash with settlers.
Geneva Initiative Peace Drive Accelerates
With ads in the leading newspapers of Israel Nov. 14, the Yossi Beilin-Abed Rabbo proposal for a mutual peace agreement between Israel and Palestine, known as the Geneva Initiative, is announcing that, in the next few days, every Israeli household will be mailed the full text of the initiative's memorandum.
The memorandum will be distributed in 1.7 million copies in Hebrew, plus another 200,000 each, in Russian and Arabic. An official signing ceremony is scheduled in Geneva on Nov. 20, and is expected to be attended by representatives of the Quartet (United Nations, European Union, Russia, and the U.S.) possibly excluding the U.S.and by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
One-hundred Thousand Israelis March for Peace on Rabin Anniversary
Israel saw its largest pro-peace demonstration since Ariel Sharon came to power and the current Intifada began, when on Nov. 4, more than 100,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv to honor former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the eighth anniversary of his assassination. Picket signs at the non-partisan rally, which reflected the increasing despair at Sharon's war policy, read, "Leave the Territories" and "Sharon Go Home!"
Israelis, Palestinians Rally Against 'The Wall'
Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians demonstrated against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "apartheid wall" on the 14th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nov. 9. The demonstrations, organized by "Citizens of Israel Against the Fence," were held in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the West Bank.
What the Israeli government describes as a "fence," "is actually a system of cement walls, electric and barbed wire fences, trenches, patrol roads, trace paths, guard towers, lookouts and cameras. The average width is 60 meters and the length is 590 kilometers, with an estimated building cost of 7 billion Israeli shekels [$1.5 billion]," stated the leaflet distributed by the marchers. The wall "dissects the West Bank and puts the Palestinians in a pressure cooker: without agriculture, without trade, without water sources, without freedom of movement and without educational, health and welfare services."
One of the organizers of the march, Khulood Badawi from Taayush, the Arab-Jewish Partnership, said that they marched to show the world that "unlike what the Israeli government claims, there is no general consensus in Israel about the wall."
Qureia Sworn In as Prime Minister of PA
Ahmed Qureia, aka Abu Ala, who has been the long-standing Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was approved by the Parliament as Prime Minister, and his Cabinet was accepted. After some disputes over control of security forces, Qureia formed a Cabinet that puts security under a National Security Council that the President chairs. Qureia also said, in his opening speech as Prime Minister, that the Palestinian Authority would hold elections by June 2004, a development that is called for in the Road Map. Some commentators said that this is an effort to force some movement in Washington to implement the Road Map, over Sharon government objections.
Qureia Seeks Ceasefire From Hamas, Islamic Jihad
Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told reporters, on Nov. 15, that his group is willing to talk to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's government about a possible ceasefire. "We have no objection to dialogue, and we are ready to listen to what he has got," Yassin said. "But under present circumstances, we have no room for a truce. We have given a cease-fire in the past, but it failed because Israel did not want peace or security for the Palestinian people."
Qureia has also reached out to other Palestinian militant groups, including Islamic Jihad, which he said has also welcomed an offer to talk, but no date has been set, yet. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said that Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has played a crucial role in previous attempts to mediate a truce, will arrive in the West Bank on Nov. 17 to meet with Arafat and Qureia. "We welcome any dialogue" between the militant factions "and us," Arafat said. He added that Suleiman "will come with many ideas."
Likud Defense Minister Threatens Iran and Syria
On Nov. 12, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Washington. Mofaz reportedly focussed on the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. Mofaz insisted that, within one year, Iran will have nuclear weapons that would threaten Israel. Mofaz also told Rumsfeld that Israel would attack Syria again, if they don't shut down Hizbollah camps.
Gulf Council Project Echoes LaRouche Eurasian Land-Bridge
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates) have launched a project for a regional transport network, coherent with Lyndon LaRouche's Eurasian Land-Bridge idea. According to Arab sources in Dubai, the nations' ministers made a decision in October to go ahead with linking existing rail networks, and building new ones, across the GCC. The plan fits LaRouche's proposals to link the region's railways with the Eurasian Land-Bridge. In May 2002, LaRouche laid out his idea of the Mideast as a crossroads and transportation hub of Eurasia and Africa in a speech at the Zayed Centre in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
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