Southwest Asia News Digest
Gitmo 'Muslim Spy Ring' Cases Evaporate
The dropping of all charges on Sept. 22 against Syrian-born Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, who had been working as a translator for the U.S. Army at the Guantanamo prison camp "gulag," again puts the spotlight on the senior officials responsible for the tortures at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A year ago, the news media were full of stories about the discovery of a Muslim "spy ring" that had infiltrated the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon announced that it had launched an investigation into an "alleged Syrian-linked spy ring among Muslim-Americans working at the detention camp." Later reports indicated that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller (who later gained infamy for his visit to Iraq to "gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib) was the instigator of the "spy ring" arrests. As EIR previously reported, Miller's anti-Muslim paranoia was linked by a number of sources to his close association with the anti-Muslim crusader, Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin.
Now, another leg of the "Muslim spy ring" story has crumbled, with the dropping of all espionage charges against al-Halabi, who at one time, had faced 30 counts of espionage and a possible death sentence.
In March 2004, all charges were dropped against a Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo, Capt. James Yee, who had been charged with espionage and sedition, and who also faced a possible death sentence. And last month, the Army dropped charges against Reserve Col. Jackie Duane Farr, an intelligence officer accused of trying to take classified documents from the base.
Halabi's lawyers say that Halabi and Yee were targetted after they had complained about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo.
Sistani Warns Against U.S. Fixing of Elections
Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most-respected leader, warned against any stall in elections, tentatively scheduled for January 2005, but also threatened a boycott if elections are unfair. Sistani's aides contacted Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations representative to Iraq, encouraging him to return to Iraq to deal with their concerns. The New York Times on Sept. 22 quoted sources close to Sistani, saying that one concern is that the parties that were in exile and returned with the U.S. troops, making up the initial coalition of parties under U.S. control, are now banding together into a single ticket for the election, in a way that prevents other parties from a fair chance. The January election ballot will list parties, not individual candidates, and the merged larger parties (all approved, if not run, by the occupation forces) would potentially drown any smaller parties which are formed. One source told the Times, "If [Sistani] sees that what this is leading to is unfair and unfree elections, then he will not take part in it."
In late 2003, all religious and ethnic groups of Iraq joined with al-Sistani's peaceful protest against the U.S. occupation, forcing the occupation to come up with a schedule for general elections. Now top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sept. 24, have announced they might exclude major Sunni areas from the elections because they are too violent.
British General Admits Iraq Is a Full-Scale War
In sharp contrast to the fantasy world of George W. Bush's view of Iraq, Gen. Sir Michael Jackson, the head of the British Army, became the "first authoritative figure to concede that war is still being waged in Iraq," the Daily Telegraph reported Sept. 19, referring to Jackson's statement that the current situation in Iraq is a "counter-insurgency war." Jackson also said that there are many terrorists entering the country, many from Syria. The suicide bombers are foreign, he said, since "suicide is not their [the Iraqis'] way."
The same day, the London Observer's chief reporter Jason Burke wrote that "the British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country." This contradicts the line out of Washington that the British should increase their troop strength in order to help the overstretched U.S. military. But, like the other members of the so-called "coalition of the willing," the British are withdrawing from Bush's Iraq disaster.
The main British combat force, about 5,000 strong (out of 8,000 total British troops), will be reduced by about one-third by the end of October, Burke stated. The reduction will be part of an otherwise routine rotation of troops in Basra over the next few weeks. Burke says the reports came from both military sources and Whitehall, and were confirmed by a military spokesman in Basra.
Avnery Warns of Plot To Bomb Temple Mount
Uri Avnery, founder of the Israeli peace organization Gush Shalom, has written an op-ed, carried on his organization's website Sept. 17, warning that Israel's Security Services have a great fear "that a Jewish terror group will bomb the mosques on the Temple Mount," and that this is an even bigger danger than the much-publicized threats against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from right-wing rabbis based in the settlements.
Avnery writes that "The Security Service believes that this action is intended to put an end to Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. Bombing the al-Aqsa Mosque and/or the Dome of the Rock would inflame the whole Arab and Muslim world. It would cause profound upheavals, bring down Arab regimes, perhaps ignite a fundamentalist revolution throughout the region. In such a situation, who would think about evacuating settlements?"
But even more than its effects on the region says Avnery, "The bombing of the Haram al-Sharif mosques is an enterprise that goes well beyond topical issuesit is a revolutionary act that would change the Jewish religion itself. From the point of view of the potential bombers, that is the main thing."
Ironically, Sharon has been the "godfather" of the right-wing rabbis and their army of Jewish terrorists, as documented in the EIR Special Report, "Who's Sparking A Religious War in the Middle East," which details the history of several such Jewish terrorist plots against the Haram Al-Sharif mosque that Avnery also references.
Two Leading Sunni Clerics Killed in Iraq
Muslim Scholars' Association member Sheikh Hazem Zeidi was shot dead at an isolated Sunni mosque in the Shi'a Baghdad suburb of Sadr City on the night of Sept. 19. Sheikh Muhammad Jadu was gunned down on his way to noon prayers in the mixed al-Baya neighborhood on Sept. 20. "After performing the night prayers at al-Sajjad Mosque, in Sadr City, [Sheikh Hazem] left in his car with two bodyguards. A group of masked gunmen followed him in a private car and opened fire," said a spokesmen for the association. Zeidi's role was to coordinate among Sunni clerics and other religious movements in Iraq, the association said. He was also the imam at one of the 10 Sunni mosques located in Sadr City. Jadu was unarmed and had no security guards, said a mosque official.
"We hope it is not an organized campaign to assassinate the association's clerics," a source in the Muslim Scholars' Association is quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. The association is a conservative group that opposes the U.S. military presence in Iraq, but has worked for the release of foreign hostages. It has contacts with the Sunni resistance groups.
The deaths followed the arrest of Sheikh Hazim al-Araji, a senior aide to Muqtadar al-Sadr, who was detained by U.S. forces and the Iraqi National Guard. A group then abducted 18 members of the National Guard, and demanded the release of al-Araji.
Then came the killings of the Sunni clerics.
While the common explanation put out in the Western press is to play up the "conflict" between the Sunnis and the Shi'a, the investigation should take into account the charges that the Allawi government could be involved in phony terrorist gangs that are carrying out kidnappings, as described in this week's InDepth.
U.S. Delegation in Damascus Discusses 'Cooperation'
Washington based intelligence sources told EIR that a Sept. 11 meeting in Damascus between the Syrian government and a U.S. team headed by the U.S. State Dept.'s William Burns was almost entirely on Iraq, and confirmed details reported in the Washington Post on Sept. 21.
While both sides repeated the current complaints (the issues of the Syria Accountability Act rammed through the Congress by the neo-cons, demanding Syria withdraw from Lebanon, stop supporting Hezbollah, etc.), the talks were more interested in finding ways to close the border with Iraq and other mutual concerns. Syria's Ambassador to the U.S. Imad Moustapha said that the meeting, which ended 15 months of little or no contact, "was driven by one thing and one thing only: Iraq."
It was also announced that the U.S. Treasury will send a team, at Syria's request, to examine the banking practices, and clear up the charge of money laundering for terrorism. Ambassador Moustapha said that the trip may dispel any concerns, and the sanctions (which have had little impact in any case) could be lifted.
Mossad Director Warns of Iran Nuclear Threat
Meir Dagan, the director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and well-known flunky of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, claimed that Iran could have nuclear weapons by 2005, the Jerusalem Post reported Sept. 18. Dagan was speaking to the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Relations Committeethe first time a Mossad chief has briefed them in 18 years. Dagan also claimed that Iran's missile capability threatens not only Israel, but Europe as well.
The Mossad briefing, which has received mass media coverage in the U.S., is designed to gather momentum for the Dick Cheney-backed plan for an lone Israeli, or U.S.-Israeli military attack on Iran, as early as this October, before the U.S. elections.
The public outing of the year-long FBI investigation of the right-wing lobby group AIPAC, for passing classified information to Israeli government officials, was a deliberate leak to gum up a Cheney-AIPAC-Israel drive to "give Iran the Saddam Hussein treatment," said one well-informed Washington source to EIR. Because of the scandal, AIPAC allegedly cancelled a massive anti-Iran propaganda campaignfor the time being.
Now the Israeli Likudniks are picking up the disinformation campaign. Dagan also claimed that Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant was too large for producing electricity, and was being built also to enrich uranium, along with a project at Kashan. Such a project, Dagan claimed, could produce enough enriched uranium to make 10 bombs a year.
But a veteran U.S. military intelligence official, who had worked closely in an official capacity with the Mossad, told EIR that the Israelis know that Bushehr is not the site of nuclear weapons research. However, this source claimed, it is a site that the Israelis could reach by plane without having to get explicit overflight permission from the U.S.
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