Qatar emir suggests sending Arab troops to Syria

 

1 of 11. Qatar's Amir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani speaks during celebrations marking the first year anniversary of the revolution in Tunis January 14, 2012. Tunisians on Saturday marked the first anniversary of the revolution that started the ''Arab Spring'' with celebrations. The sign reads ''Revolution of freedom and dignity''.

Credit: Reuters/Zoubeir Souissi

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Qatar has proposed sending Arab troops to halt the bloodshed in Syria, where violence has raged on despite the presence of Arab League monitors sent to check if an Arab peace plan is working.

Asked if he was in favor of Arab nations intervening in Syria, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani told the U.S. broadcaster CBS: "For such a situation to stop the killing ... some troops should go to stop the killing."

The emir, whose country backed last year's NATO campaign that helped Libyan rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi, is the first Arab leader to propose Arab military intervention in Syria where protesters are demanding President Bashar al-Assad stand down.

CBS said on its website that the interview would be broadcast in its "60 Minutes" program Sunday.

Qatar's prime minister heads the Arab League committee on Syria and has said killings have not stopped despite the presence of Arab monitors sent there last month.

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For graphic on Arab League link.reuters.com/pev65s

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In the preview of the interview on the website, the emir did not spell out how any Arab military intervention might work.

There is little appetite in the West for any Libya-style intervention in Syria, although France has talked of a need to set up zones to protect civilians there.

The United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad erupted in March. Syrian officials say 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed by armed "terrorists."

In the latest violence, Syrian tanks and troops renewed an assault on the rebel-held hill town of Zabadani near the border with Lebanon Saturday, causing about 40 casualties, an opposition leader said, citing residents reached by telephone.

Kamal al-Labwani said green buses had been brought to the town, suggesting preparations for mass arrests in the town, defended by army deserters and anti-Assad insurgents. It was not immediately clear if the 40 casualties included any dead.

The attack on Zabadani was the biggest against opponents of Assad since the Arab observers began work on December 26.

In the Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun, a resident said security forces killed 17-year old protester Abdel Bassaet Jubbeh when they fired at a night demonstration demanding the removal of Assad.

"He was hit in the chest." The (security police) took six other injured demonstrators from the ground and took them to the Airforce Intelligence complex in Harasta (a Damascus suburb)," said the resident, who gave his name as Sami.

Four civilians died elsewhere, including a 13-year-old boy and a man shot dead in the central city of Homs, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Syria's military held funerals for 16 soldiers killed by armed "terrorists" in the provinces of Homs, Damascus and Idlib in the northwest, the state news agency SANA said.

SANA also said a blast set off by insurgents in Idlib had derailed a freight train carrying fuel to a power station, setting several fuel tankers ablaze and wounding three people.

MORE OBSERVERS READY

There has been no let-up in the conflict despite the Arab observer mission, which has been castigated even by some of its own members for buying Assad more time to crush his foes.

"This is the last week in the month agreed between Syria and the Arab League and will witness a wide deployment of the monitors," said a source at the Cairo-based League, adding that 40 monitors were ready to join the team of about 165 whenever its leader, Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, requested them.

Plans to expand the team were delayed last week after 11 monitors were slightly hurt in an attack on their convoy by a pro-Assad crowd in the port of Latakia Monday. That incident also prompted the monitors to suspend work for two days.

Dabi is due to report to the Arab League Thursday and Arab foreign ministers will then decide whether to continue the mission, or possibly refer Syria to the U.N. Security Council.

The League chief, Nabil Elaraby, said Friday he feared the conflict could slide into civil war.

Armed clashes, now punctuating what began as a non-violent protest movement, have raised fears of a full-scale conflict in Syria, a Sunni Muslim-majority country of 23 million which also has Alawite, Druze, Christian and Kurdish minorities.

Syria, bordering Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel, is at the heart of the volatile Middle East, where its closest allies are Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu, whose country has become one of Assad's fiercest critics after previously courting him, held talks in Beirut with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and other politicians Saturday.

"The Syrian authorities must respond to the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Syrian people," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is also visiting Lebanon, was quoted as saying by the Beirut newspaper an-Nahar the previous day.

He also urged the Security Council, where Russia and China have blocked firm action on Syria, to speak with one voice.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir and Tom Perry in Cairo and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Matthew Jones)

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10:44 AM | 0 comments

Last US troops leave stop Iraq war

1 of 6. U.S. air force plane sitting on the last flight air force of Ali air base in the vicinity of Nasiriyah, on the way to Kuwait 17 December 2011.
By Patrick Markey and Joseph Logan
Baghdad (Reuters) - the last convoy of US soldiers moved the Iraq on Sunday, ending nearly nine years of war, costs almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and left a country is still grappling with the political uncertainty.
The war in March 2003 with missiles striking Baghdad dictator Saddam Hussein plunge in life launched concludes with a fragile democracy ahead of insurgent, sectarian tensions and the challenge of defining its place in the Arab region.
The last column of about 100 mostly U.S. military MRAP armored vehicles for the transport of 500 US troops then through the southern Iraq desert through the night on an empty Highway and the Kuwaiti border.
Their horns have the border honking, the last batch of around 25 of American military trucks and tractor trailers Bradley fighting vehicles crossed early on Sunday, their crews colleagues waving troops along the route.
"I just can't wait to call my wife and my kids and let them know that I am sure,", said Rodolfo Ruiz as the limit in sight. Soon after, he told his men, which was the mission, "made Hey guys, there."
For President Barack Obama the military withdrawal, is that the fulfillment of a campaign promise to home troops from a collision of its predecessor, the most unpopular war since Viet Nam and one inherited, America's worldwide are corrupted.
Preferred for Iraqis U.S. departure a sense brings the sovereignty but nagging fears, which again can push their country in the kind of sectarian violence that killed thousands of people at its peak in 2006-2007.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Shi 'Ite-led Government still agreement between Shi fights with a delicate power-sharing' ite, Kurdish and Sunni parties, so that Iraq exposed to interference by Sunni Arab Nations and Shi Shi'ite Iran.
The intensity of violence and suicide bombings subsided. But a stubborn Sunni Islamist uprising and rival Shi Shi'ite militias still a threat, carrying out almost daily attacks on Iraqi Government and security officials.
Iraq says its forces can contain the violence, but lack of skills in areas such as such as air defence and gather intelligence. A deal for several thousand US troops as a coach was to stay on the thorny issue of legal immunity.
For many Iraqis, security remains a custody but no longer as jobs and get access to its network power in a country of electricity per day despite massive oil potential in the OPEC countries contains only a few hours.
"We believe about America not..." We think about electricity, jobs, our oil, our daily problems, "said Abbas Jaber, an employee of the Government in Baghdad." "they left chaos."
AFTER HOME
After Obama in October as planned, the number of US military bases was announced that troops would be home by the end of the year down rapidly as hundreds of troops and trucks carrying equipment cut South of the Kuwaiti border.
US armed forces combat forces had finished in the year 2010, paid a $100,000 to secure month by tribal sheikhs extends South to reduce the risk of roadside bombings of leading highways and attacks on the last convoys.
At the height of the war, more than 170,000 U.S. troops in the Iraq were more than 500 bases. Saturday there were less than 3,000 troops and a base.
COB Adder as dusk before the departure of the last convoy, a group of soldiers fell to defeated barbecue sauce plates of ribs from Kuwait brought and put them to grills next to hot dogs and sausages.
The last troops to the lights, studding MRAP vehicles flicked and stacked flak jackets and helmets in neat piles, ready for the definitive departure for Kuwait and then home.
"A good piece of me is happy to leave." I spent 31 months in this country, "said Sgt. Steven Schirmer, 25, after three tours of Iraq since 2007."it seems almost, that I can now get a life, even though I know, I'll probably after Afghanistan in 2013."" "As soon as these wars I finish question me what I do at the end is."
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH
United States and foreign companies are already Iraq which help potential develop the world's fourth-largest oil reserves, but its economy requires investments in all sectors, hospitals, infrastructure.
Iran and Turkey, major investors in the Iraq is just with Gulf Nations to see how it its sectarian and ethnic tensions handles how the crisis in the neighbouring Syria threatens to spill beyond its borders.
The fall of Saddam allows the long oppressed to rise Shi Shi'ite majority to power. The Shiite-led Government drew the country of closer to neighbouring Iran and Syria's Bashar al-Assad, who struggles to a nine month uprising to put down.
Iraq's Sunni minority are chafing at what they see as the
increasingly authoritarian control Maliki Shi Shi'ite coalition. Some local leaders push already predominantly Sunni provinces to demand more autonomy from Baghdad.
The main Sunni political bloc, the Iraqiya on Saturday, said that it to the temporary his participation in the Parliament was suspended against what she said to protest was Maliki unwillingness to deliver on the power-sharing.
A dispute between the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and the Maliki government about oil and the area is also brewers and potential flash point is after the buffer of the US military presence has disappeared.
"There is before beating little, that the Government of Iraq verwalten-- or help-even from the present impasse ready will be", said Gala Riani, analyst at IHS global insight.
"The perennial divisive issues that are as part of the structure of Iraqi politics, such as departments with Kurdistan and Sunni suspicions of the Government, also probably continue."
(Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal, writing of Patrick Markey;) (Editing by Tim Pearce)

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2:37 AM | 0 comments

Troops, protesters clash in Cairo for third day

1 of 5. Protesters throw stones at army soldiers at a building next to cabinet offices near Tahrir Square in Cairo December 17, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih
By Yasmine Saleh and Alexander Dziadosz
CAIRO (Reuters) - Military police battled demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square Sunday, the third day of clashes that have killed 10 people and injured hundreds, casting a shadow over the first free election most Egyptians can remember.
Soldiers advanced from barriers around the square shortly before dawn, scuffling with protesters, activists said. A Reuters witness heard gunfire and saw protesters, brandishing big sticks, running from the scene of the latest flare-up.
"It's cat-and-mouse. The army raid and retreat," a protester in the square, Mostafa Fahmy, said by telephone.
Hundreds of protesters were in Tahrir in the early morning, some huddled round fires to keep warm in the chill air after troops burned down tents that had been erected by activists camped there since a protest against army rule on November 18.
The latest flare-up in violence has exposed divisions among Egyptians about the role of the army, which took over after the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
Activists have stayed out on the streets for weeks, angered by the army's seeming reluctance to give up power. But other Egyptians back the military as a force for badly needed stability during a difficult transition to democracy.
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For a graphic: link.reuters.com/tax45s
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Army vehicles and soldiers were deployed on several roads leading into the square. Protesters and troops have clashed repeatedly, throwing rocks at each other, and some protesters have lobbed petrol bombs at army lines.
In earlier clashes, troops in riot gear chased protesters into side streets, grabbed them, beat them to the ground and battered them, a Reuters journalist said. Shots were fired in the air.
Soldiers pulled down protester tents and set them on fire, local TV footage showed. Reuters footage showed one soldier in a line of charging troops firing a shot at fleeing protesters, though whether he was using blanks or live rounds was not known.
State media gave conflicting accounts of what sparked the violence. They quoted some people as saying a man went into the parliament compound to retrieve a mis-kicked football, but was harassed and beaten by police and guards. Others said the man had prompted scuffles by trying to set up camp in the compound.
The latest bloodshed follows unrest in which 42 people were killed in the week before November 28, the start of a phased parliamentary poll in which Islamist parties repressed during the 30-year Mubarak era have emerged as strong front-runners.
Voting in the second round of the election process, part of a promised transition from army to civilian rule by July, passed peacefully Wednesday and Thursday. The last run-off vote for the lower house takes place on January 11.
SKIRMISHES, DEATH, INJURIES
Health Minister Fouad el-Nawawy told local television 10 people had been killed, most of them Friday or early on Saturday, and 441 injured. State media said at least 200 people were taken to hospital.
Among the dead was Emad Effat, a senior official of Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, a religious authority that issues Islamic fatwas (edicts). His wife told Reuters Effat died from a gunshot wound. At his funeral Saturday, hundreds of mourners chanted "Down with military rule."
Army-appointed Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, 78, said 30 security guards outside parliament had been hurt, and blamed the violence on youths among the protesters. "What is happening in the streets today is not a revolution, rather it is an attack on the revolution," he said.
The army assault Saturday followed skirmishes between protesters and troops during which a fire destroyed archives, some more than 200 years old, in a building next to Tahrir.
An army official said troops had tackled thugs, not protesters, after shots were fired at soldiers and petrol bombs set the building ablaze, the state news agency MENA reported.
Tahrir protesters and some other Egyptians are infuriated by the perceived reluctance to quit power of the army, whose ruling council is headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defense minister for two decades.
Other Egyptians, desperate for order, voiced frustration about the unrest that has battered the economy.
"We can't work, we can't live, and because of what? Because of some thugs who have taken control of the square and destroyed our lives. Those are no revolutionaries," said Mohamed Abdel Halim, a 21-year-old who runs a store near Tahrir.
A new civilian advisory council to the generals said it would suspend its meetings until the violence stopped. It called for prosecution of those responsible and the release of all those detained in the unrest.
Islamist and liberal politicians decried the army's tactics.
The Muslim Brotherhood, whose party list is leading the election, said in a statement the military must make "a clear and quick apology for the crime that has been committed."
The army council is in charge until a presidential election in June, but parliament will have a popular mandate that the military will find hard to ignore as it oversees the transition.
(Additional reporting by Ashraf Fahim, Marwa Awad and Dina Zayed; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Tim Pearce)

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7:20 AM | 0 comments