Conflicts in the Middle East & Northern Africa

[Big Bad Sven]

Gulf states pull observers out of Syria

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/24/gulf-states-pull-observers-out-of-syria/

looks like the gulf countries did not like the observers report. Turns out Assad isn't out in the streets cutting peoples heads off!

I feel sorry for Al-Qaeda and their supporters Saudi Arabia, Al-JJazeera and certain western nations. Their dream of spreading fanatical islam has been put on hold

Dont worry muslim brotherhood, you still have time to fabricate lies and stories about the syrian government and feed your bs stories to fanatical gulf arabs and the dumbos in america and australia

[Brian]

A bit late for Gadaffi but signs of countries stepping in his vission - dump the 'USA Oil Dollar'.
So far Russia, China, Japan, Iran and now India are dumping the USA dollar with Turkey teetering.

Gold for Oil: India and Iran 'Ditch Dollar'

http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/20174/52/

Tuesday, 24 January 2012
According to a new and yet unconfirmed report, India bought oil from Iran using gold. India certainly has the gold resources to fund the oil, while Iran is under pressure by the West, due the continuation of its nuclear program.

There were reports that officials have been floating this idea for some time, and now, as the EU finally decided upon an oil embargo on Iran, more details became available, yet still pend confirmation.

Oil is priced in US dollars, and bypassing the greenback posed challenges for both parties. Two banks are reportedly involved in this deal: India’s state owned UCO Bank and Turkey’s state owned Halkbank.

Rest of article in Link.

[Vangelovski]

Brian, you are such a pathetic worm. The only reason the Warfalla tribe oppose the central government is because they historically always have. In the last 40 years, they enjoyed special privileges under Gaddafi and that's why they temporarily accepted his rule. In fact, they turned against him in 1993 and these latest events are nothing more then the Warfalla acting our their instinctive drive for self-rule.

I guarantee you, if you had to live under the conditions of the Gaddafi regime for just one day, you would return crying in a snotty mess!

[Brian]

Just when you thought it was over Pro-Gadaffi supporters are still fighting it out. I don't like their chances unless they get extra help - good on them anyway. The current interim government is nothing more than Al Qaeda, which of course is a known CIA tool. Let's remember over half the Libyan population were not against Gadaffi.

Gaddafi supporters seize control of Libyan town

http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/20177/53/

Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Fighters loyal to Libya's overthrown leader Muammar Gaddafi took control of a town south-east of the capital on Monday, flying their green flags in defiance of the country's fragile new government.

The fightback by Gaddafi supporters defeated in Libya's NATO influenced war, though unlikely to spread elsewhere, added to the problems besetting a government which in the past week has been reeling from one crisis to another. Gaddafi himself was captured and killed in October after weeks on the run.

Accounts from the town of Bani Walid, about 200 km (120 miles) from Tripoli, described armed Gaddafi supporters attacking the barracks of the pro-government militia in the town and then forcing them to fall back.

"They control the town now. They are roaming the town," said a fighter with the 28th May militia, loyal to Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), which came under attack.

The fighter told Reuters the loyalists were flying "brand new green flags" from the centre of town. The flags were symbols of Gaddafi's 42-year rule.

A resident said four people were killed and 20 wounded in the fighting, during which the sides used heavy weapons.

Bani Walid, base of the powerful Warfallah tribe, was one of the last towns to surrender to the anti-Gaddafi rebellion last year. Many people there oppose the new leadership.

A Libyan air force official said war planes were being mobilized to fly to Bani Walid. A spokesman for the military council in Zawiyah, near Tripoli, said a 1,500-strong force, drawn from militias across western Libya, was on stand-by.

"If the situation in Bani Walid is still complicated , we will go there," the spokesman, Ayad Laaroussi, said.

But it was not immediately clear what the government in Tripoli could do. It has yet to demonstrate that it has an effective fighting force under its command and Bani Walid, protected behind a deep valley, is difficult to attack.

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/egyptian-voters-reject-salafi-hardliner-run-off-192750422.html

Egyptian voters reject Salafi hardliner in run-off

..CAIRO (Reuters) - The hardline Salafists surging in Egypt's first free elections suffered an unexpected setback on Wednesday when a prominent spokesman lost a run-off vote to an independent candidate backed by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abdel Moneim el-Shahat was one of the most outspoken candidates of the Salafist Al-Nour party, which stunned Egyptians by winning 24 percent of the first round of voting last week against 36 percent for the more pragmatic Brotherhood.

During the campaign, the bearded engineer outraged more moderate Egyptians with his clear calls for Salafi Islam - a strict interpretation inspired by Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi sect - to be made the law of the land in Egypt.

His defeat in the run-off in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria came because liberal, Christian and young voters rallied behind the independent Hosni Dewidar, who also had the Brotherhood's endorsement.

"The Brotherhood doesn't represent me, but they are better than the Salafis," Coptic law student Beshoy Gerges, 23, said in Alexandria. "I would rather die than have a Salafi represent me in parliament."

COMPARISONS WITH THE TALIBAN

Shahat, who is highly popular among Egypt's Salafis, aroused unpleasant memories of Afghanistan's hardline Taliban when it was reported he wanted priceless statues of Egypt's pharaohs to be covered or destroyed because they amounted to idolatry, which is strictly forbidden in Islam.

The Taliban blew up two ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan in 2001, also arguing that the pre-Islamic art was idolatrous.

Shahat denied the statues should be smashed, but the remarks raised questions about the lengths to which the Salafis would go to make Egypt conform to early Islam.

"If people want to see these statues and they bring income, and if it is proven that sharia does not allow them to remain as they are, then cover them with wax," he told Dream Television. "People would be able to see through wax."

During a television interview last week, Shahat also angered many intellectuals by trashing the novels of Nobel Literature Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz as books "inciting promiscuity, prostitution and atheism."

"We have not had a revolution so that the likes of Shahat come to smear our cultural symbols and call us atheists as soon as they start rising to power," novelist and critic Howeida Saleh told the daily Al Ahram.

Even though Al Nour appeared to have lost out in most of the run-offs it took part in over the past two days, its strong showing in the initial phase of voting looks certain to guarantee it a sizeable chunk of seats in the next parliament.

LAYING DOWN THE LAW

Shahat, spokesman for the Salafi Call umbrella group that includes the Al Nour party, told Reuters before the election that his party would be flexible in enforcing sharia, the Islamic moral and legal code. "We won't force it on you, so the country doesn't turn into a battlefield," he said in Alexandria.

But he made clear Al Nour took a narrow view of what should and should not be allowed in the new Egypt.

"In controversial issues, we are open to what early Muslims were open to and we refuse what they refused," he said, referring to the strict teachings of the early Muslims.

"For things that need a general law, religious doctrine ends the argument," he said, adding Islamic doctrine could be interpreted by an oversight board of senior Islamic scholars from Al Azhar, the famous seat of Sunni learning based in Cairo.

Shahat was blunt about second class status for the Copts, the Egyptian Christians who make up about 10 percent of the population and fear the Salafis will limit their rights strictly if they get into a position to shape future legislature.

"We are very clear about Copts in high posts," he said. "It is neither logical nor religiously or constitutionally valid that they can hold the post of presidency.

"A Copt shouldn't assume authority over Muslims."

[Big Bad Sven]

Just a bit of food for though, lets look at some of america's key allies in the middle east (and also those who are the most vocal against syria)

Yeman and Bahrain, the government is killing thousands of civilians/protestors, ruled by undecomocratic governments

Saudi Arabia - ruled by "kings", no democracy there. Also supporter of radical islam around the world.

Khazakstan - last week 16 protestors will killed protesting for pay rise, president has been in power for over 20 years, is trying to secure another 30 years of power and rule.

Bit rich to attack Syria when your friends are just as bad

[Big Bad Sven]

Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda

That is some very unfortuante news for the "democratic spreading" americans, the aussie diggers and Israel, who along with their allies the muslim Brotherhood and Al-Queda want to remove the current Syrian regime and introduce a fanatical muslim element that will no doubt at first have pro american agenda (but as history repeats, they will turn on the americans).

How is this democracy when the majority of Syrians want Basher Al-Assad in power, yet america and its friends Al-Queda want him removed? How is it democracy that a small minority of fanatical muslim kooks in one small part of the country have the power to change the regime when most want the current president to stay?
FYI, the "peacefull protestors" in Syria are suicide bombers and are attacking police with weapons, yeah real innocent and peacefull....

In some ways this situation reminds me how things started in Tetovo and how a small minority some how was able to control the country....

Oh well, hopefully the americans and their noble allies Al-Queda and the muslim brotherhood can introduce fanatical islam into Syria and we see the destruction of another great arab country

[Brian]

Well, DUHHH!!! The Olympics or going to be on.

Don't laugh, NWO games can't be disrupted by a NWO war.

EU Iran Oil Embargo Said Likely to Be Delayed by Six Months

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-18/eu-iran-oil-embargo-said-likely-to-be-delayed-by-six-months.html

January 18, 2012
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- A European Union embargo on imports of Iranian oil will probably be delayed for six months to allow countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain to find alternative supplies, an EU official with knowledge of the talks said.

The embargo, which would need to be agreed by the 27 nation-bloc’s foreign ministers on Jan. 23, is also likely to include an exemption for Italy, so crude can be sold to pay off debts to Rome-based Eni SpA, Italy’s largest oil company, according to the official, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. A ban on petrochemical products would start sooner, about three months after ministers agree to the measure, the official said. Oil prices fell as much as 1.9 percent on the news to $98.93 a barrel in New York.

“Work by experts from the 27 member states is in a very intensive phase,” Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, said by phone today from Brussels. “They are looking into different options for restrictive measures with a view to adoption on Jan. 23.” She declined to comment on possible phase-in periods or exemptions.

The phasing-in of the embargoes would satisfy the concerns of countries with the largest dependence on Iranian oil, including Italy, Greece and Spain, the official said. Those three countries accounted for 68.5 percent of EU imports from Iran in 2010, according to European Commission data.

The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment on the prospects for a delay in the EU embargo.

Three-Month Review

Iran, the second largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, pumped 3.58 million barrels of crude a day last month, according to Bloomberg estimates.

There will be a review every three months to assess the impact on EU economies, whether countries are managing to get alternate supply and to monitor the effect on oil prices, the official said.

France, Germany and the U.K. have been pushing for the embargo to increase pressure on Iran over its nuclear program and it has the support in principle of all 27 member states, the official said. Western countries allege that Iran’s nuclear- development plans are aimed at building atomic weapons. Iran says they are for civilian purposes and to generate electricity.

There are currently no plans for compensation to the affected European countries, the EU official said, and the current emphasis is on finding oil from alternative sources at similar prices.

Nuclear Scientists

The Iranian government said in a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon that a civilian nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan, who was killed by a bomb yesterday was the fourth victim of a foreign terror campaign. Iran has accused the U.S. and Israel of targeting Iranian nuclear scientists.

“We are very active in this branch of science,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani told journalists in Ankara today, referring to his country’s nuclear program. “If Israel thinks it can stop us with four acts of terror, their logic is flawed.”

Tensions over the ratcheting up of sanctions led Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi to threaten on Dec. 27 that Iran may block the Strait of Hormuz, the transit for about a fifth of the world’s oil, if the EU bans exports from the Islamic Republic. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey said on Jan. 9 that Iran can temporarily choke off the waterway, through which 17 million barrels of oil pass each day, the Energy Department estimates.

[Brian]

Off topic discussion. Please refer to the thread "Republican Presidential Candidates" See from Post076 onwards.

[Vangelovski]

Brian, you claim the Americans have some sort of evil imperialist agenda. If true, then the internet would be their most effective weapon - brainwashing the masses worldwide. But you also disputed the most important American achievements and the impact that they have had on your life personally, including American technological advances (yes, that includes the internet). So, you're actions betray your claims as its obvious that you cannot go one day without using the internet, one of those great American technological advances which you attempted to claim was worthless and in some warped logic that only you can understand, part of some larger conspiracy to spread evil throughout the world. If you sincerely believed that crap, then you really should take a moral stand and refrain from using the internet, which you claim is part of that useless American technology anyway. But, you can't do without it and yet you still claim that the US has had no good influence on your life - that just makes you a hypocrite in this instance.

[Brian]

Brian, are you even going to try to reconcile your abhorrence for American "imperialism" and your use of one of their most effective tools or achieving their "imperialistic" goals? Or are you just a straight up hypocrite?

I don't need to reconcile anything, it's your stupid definition - be against the USA, then don't use anything of theirs eg the Internet OR admit you're wrong and the USA are good and then eg use the Internet OR admit your a hypocrite.

See "Republican Presidential Candidates" Post097 (before and after posts as well).

Try to stay on topic. This line of discussion is in the other thread.

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6244&page=10

Are you too stupid to stay on topic?

[Vangelovski]

Brian, are you even going to try to reconcile your abhorrence for American "imperialism" and your use of one of their most effective tools or achieving their "imperialistic" goals? Or are you just a straight up hypocrite?

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/world/africa/in-libya-the-fighting-may-outlast-the-revolution.html?pagewanted=all

TRIPOLI, Libya — Many of the local militia leaders who helped topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi are abandoning a pledge to give up their weapons and now say they intend to preserve their autonomy and influence political decisions as “guardians of the revolution.”

The issue of the militias is one of the most urgent facing Libya’s new provisional government, the Transitional National Council. Scores of freewheeling brigades of armed volunteers sprang up around the country and often reported to local military councils, which became de facto local governments in cities like Misurata and Zintan, as well as the capital, Tripoli.

The provisional government’s departing prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, suggested in a news conference Sunday night that instead of expecting the local militias to disband, the Transitional National Council should try to incorporate them by expanding to include their representatives.

“Nobody wants to give up arms now, and many tribes and cities are accumulating arms ‘just in case,’ ” said Mahmoud Shammam, a spokesman for the council’s executive board.

Noting reports of sporadic clashes between militias as well as vigilante revenge killings, many civilian leaders, along with some fighters, say the militias’ shift from merely dragging their feet about surrendering weapons to actively asserting a continuing political role poses a stark challenge to the council’s fragile authority.

“This could lead to a mess, to conflict between the councils,” said Ramadan Zarmoh, 63, a leader of the Misurata military council, who argued that the city’s militia should dissolve itself almost immediately after a new defense ministry is formed. “If we want to have democracy, we can’t have this.”

His view, however, appears to be in the minority. Many members of military councils insist that they need to stay armed until a new constitution is ratified because they do not trust the weak provisional government to steer Libya to democracy on its own.

“We are the ones who are holding the power there — the people with the force on the ground — and we are not going to give that up until we have a legitimate government that will emerge from free and fair elections,” said Anwar Fekini, a French-Libyan lawyer who is a leader of the armed groups in the western mountains and is also close to top leaders of the transitional council.

“We will make sure we are going to bring the country to a civil constitution and democratic system,” he added, “and we will use all available means — first of all our might on the ground.”

Militia leaders have already demonstrated their resolve to step into the political process. Before the provisional government named a new prime minister Monday night, local leaders in Misurata — speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid an open fight with the national council — threatened that if it failed to agree on a candidate they deemed satisfactory, local military councils from cities in western Libya might intercede to decide the question.

The choice for prime minister, Abdel Rahim el-Keeb, a Tripoli engineer and businessman, pleased the Western cities and resolved the matter peacefully. But officials of the national council say the threat of intervention itself undermines the transition to civilian democracy, in which disputes are settled with ballots or gavels, not with weapons.

Mr. Shammam said that armed intervention “would be a disaster” and that adopting a new constitution should happen “under the umbrella of the law — police stations, judges — rather than military councils and the force of arms.”

He and others in the national council say they hope that as their next transitional government takes over and begins to build a national army, a goal that has so far remained elusive, local military councils will begin to stand down. Referring to the promised election of a governing body this year, he added, “If the military councils start to extend and expand themselves, they will be a replacement for a national assembly.”

Some point to neighboring Egypt, where the council of military officers that took power at the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak has delayed a transition to civilian control. Others say there is a danger Libya could resemble the chaos in Yemen or Syria because there are several autonomous militias poised to take on a political role — in Tripoli, in the western mountain towns like Zintan and its neighbors, in Misurata, and in the eastern city of Benghazi.

In the east and in Tripoli, some of the largest, best-equipped brigades are associated with Islamist groups now forming political parties. “They will keep their arms as long as they are not part of the power,” Mr. Shammam, who is a liberal, predicted.

There have already been clashes between armed groups. Two weeks ago, fighters from Zintan and Misurata fought briefly at the Tripoli international airport, leaving about three dead, said Abed Rzag al-Bakesh, 40, a military leader from Zintan. He said provocations by a Qaddafi loyalist in disguise were to blame.

Last week, a shootout erupted between two groups in the capital’s central Martyrs Square, which the local military council has now banned other fighters from entering.

After the conquest last month of Colonel Qaddafi’s last holdout, in Surt, fighters from Misurata and Benghazi clashed briefly over looting, Mr. Zarmoh, the Misurata commander, said, though he said none were injured.

And early Monday morning, a group of Zintan fighters attacked a Tripoli hospital, searching, they said, for a Qaddafi loyalist seeking treatment inside, according to reports on Tripoli radio.

“The N.T.C. appears to be helpless,” Abdurrahman K. Shater, a respected columnist in one of the dozens of new newspapers, The Nation, said of the transitional council, “like a deceived husband who does not know what’s going on behind his back, or who knows but goes along.”

The Transitional National Council has pledged in a “constitutional declaration” that within eight months after the selection of a new government, it will hold elections for a national assembly, which will oversee the writing of a constitution. (Mr. Jibril, in his news conference, appeared to suggest casting the “declaration” aside without much fuss, raising questions about how binding it is.)

With no history of electoral democracy, Libya’s provisional authorities must draw electoral districts and devise a voting system — decisions with inevitable winners and losers, politically and geographically.

During the uprising, officials of the Transitional National Council vowed to give equal voice to all Libyans, regardless of their location or political position.

But leaders in Misurata, a commercial center that withstood a long siege to emerge as the arsenal of Libyan revolt, say they are advocating a four-point set of criteria for representation that would increase their say, at the expense of smaller towns or those who stayed loyal to Colonel Qaddafi: population, size, economic output and “priority in liberation.”

Some in the eastern areas around Benghazi, neglected under Colonel Qaddafi in favor of the West, are now arguing for Libya to return to a loose federal structure that could protect them from domination by Tripoli and Misurata.

But Azza Kamel Maghur, a human rights lawyer who recently held a conference in Misurata to talk about the transition process, said she was particularly surprised by the open determination to introduce weapons to the political process. “They stood up and said, ‘We are not going to give up our arms until the constitution is drafted,’ ” she said. “You cannot have a civil democratic society with weapons — how can you make elections?”

[Brian]

Brian, its time you get off the crack pipe before you post on the MTO.

Whatever do you mean? All that I have posted are from reputable news media. Could you be more specific?

Have a look at Post207.
(extract)

When they saw the Syrian massacre continuing unabated this month, the Qatari and Saudi rulers approved a crash program for the Qatari chief of staff Maj.-Gen Hamas Ali al-Attiya to weld this mobile intervention Sunni Muslim force out of al Qaeda linked-operatives for rapid deployment on the Turkish-Syrian border.

A force of 2,500 has been recruited up until now, our sources report. The hard core is made up of 1,000 members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya-IFGL, which fought Qaddafi, and 1,000 operatives of the Ansar al-Sunna, the Iraqi Islamists which carried out 15 coordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad last Thursday killing 72 people and injuring 200.

Qatar has just had them airlifted from Libya and Iraq to the southern Turkish town of Antakya (Antioch) in the border province of Hatay.

and then

Russia warns of Syrian no-fly zone claim

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russia-warns-of-syrian-nofly-zone-claim-6288966.html

FRIDAY 13 JANUARY 2012
Russia has claimed that Nato is preparing to impose a no-fly zone in Syria to protect rebel fighters, a move that would dramatically escalate the 10-month uprising.

Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Kremlin's security council, said that he had received intelligence suggesting that the military alliance is planning a Libya-style intervention, a step that Moscow has repeatedly warned the international community against.

"We are getting information that Nato members and some Persian Gulf states intend... direct military intervention," the confidant of premier Vladimir Putin told Russia's Kommersant newspaper.

The claims, however, were immediately denied by Nato. Spokeswoman Carmen Romero told Bloomberg that there was, "no discussion of a Nato role with respect to Syria". A number of Nato members also denied Mr Patrushev's claims.

Russia, a major arms supplier to Syria, has emerged as one of the main stumbling blocks to Western efforts to curb President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown against the uprising.

Mr Patrushev said that any military action against Syria by Nato would most likely be led by Turkey, suggesting that Ankara was battling for hegemony with Iran, Syria's major backer.

"This time it is true that the main strike forces will not be provided by France, the UK or Italy, but possibly by neighbouring Turkey which was until recently on good terms with Syria and is a rival of Iran with immense ambitions," he said.

Maybe you missed these bits between reloading your crack pipe - however that's done.

[Vangelovski]

Brian, its time you get off the crack pipe before you post on the MTO.