EU foreign policy chief visits Libya rebel zone

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton pledged support for rebels in east Libya on Sunday, making the most senior visit to the area by a foreign official since the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi began.

European Union foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton gestures during her visit to the court house in Benghazi May 22, 2011. Ashton pledged support for rebels in east Libya on Sunday, making the most senior visit to the area by a foreign official since a revolt against Muammar Gaddafi began.

“We are here for the long term and what we can offer is support to Libyan institutions and the economy. We will be here to support you all the way,” Ashton said in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, where she opened an EU representative office.

France, Britain and other European states have backed Libya’s poorly trained and equipped rebels against a government that has held onto power for more than four decades.

French planes were the first to bomb Gaddafi’s forces in March after the United Nations voted to allow intervention to protect civilians. The air strikes, now led by NATO, were launched as Gaddafi’s troops advanced on Benghazi after the Libyan leader vowed “no mercy, no pity”.

“I’m very clear that protecting civilians and the people of Libya is fundamental,” said Ashton. “Too many people have died already it is important to realise that Gaddafi should leave.”

Ashton’s visit “shows the increased support of the European Union in supporting us to have a democratic and free state”, said the head of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil.

“The Libyan people appreciate this visit and appreciate the European Union for supporting the revolution,” he said.

Several Libyans surrounded her in the city where the revolt against Gaddafi began in mid-February, flashing “V-for-Victory” signs. One man said: “Every Libyan is very happy.”

MISRATA SCARRED

NATO airstrikes that began on March 31 have stopped Gaddafi’s tanks on their tracks, preventing them from overrunning rebel-held towns.

But an uneasy stalemate has since settled on the battle space with a nearly static frontline in the east in the desert between the towns of Ajdabiyah and Brega, and fighting in western Libya around the rebel controlled city of Misrata.

In Misrata, residents also hailed the West for intervening, their city scarred from weeks of street fighting and bombardment by shells and rockets and damaged shops spilling their meagre wares onto the streets.

Rebels say they have pushed Gaddafi’s forces 25 km (15 miles) from the centre of Misrata after weeks of street fighting and bombardment. Government forces shelled residential areas of Misrata on Saturday, according to rebels.

“If God hadn’t brought us NATO, they would have burned us all,” said Amran Zoufrey, 84. “Even in the Second World War, when I was young, we didn’t have this destruction. Now I wonder when the next rocket will come and kill me.”

Gutted restaurants were heaps of tables, chairs and shattered glass. A clock atop a tower in a central square had stopped at 7.45. The turret of a dismembered tank was leaning upright against the entrance to a watch shop.

“It’s a catastrophe but we have hope. We’ve liberated our city,” said Ali el-Houti, a 42-year-old civil servant, as he walked through the street.

The sound of battle rumbled far in the distance. Abdelsalam, a rebel spokesman in Misrata, said there was fighting in the Defniyah area 30 km west of Misrata, and in Kararim, about 35 km to the east.

He said Gaddafi’s forces are bombarding Defniyah from the nearby town of Zlitan, with one rebel killed and four others wounded in clashes between troops and rebel forces on Saturday.

CLASHES

In the east, Gaddafi’s forces ambushed a group of rebels east of the contested oil town of Brega, near al-Arbaeen, a desert outpost on the coast road from rebel-held Ajdabiyah.

“The rebels sent forces to check out the al-Arbaeen area, then Gaddafi forces surrounded them and started attacking with heavy weaponry,” said Baloun el-Ferjani. “Forces of the national (rebel) army intervened to help.”

A rebel fighter and an ambulance driver were killed, he said, and 12 insurgents were wounded.

In the capital, NATO planes hit a site near Gaddafi’s compound late on Saturday. Libyan officials said the alliance had attacked close to Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah complex. A column of smoke rose over Tripoli.

There was no immediate word on what the target of the attack was and reporters escorted by Libyan officials were unable to get close to the site.

Why attack Libya and not Syria?

Two countries, two cases of extreme violence committed against citizens by their own government.

In one case, the Obama administration responds with military force. In the other, it doesn’t.

Libyans in the besieged city of Misrata walk past a tank that belong to the forces of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. The U.S. and its allies have imposed a no-fly zone over Libya.

Why?

The question has been raised in response to the radically different U.S. reactions to the bloodshed in Libya and Syria. More than 400 people have been killed in Syria over the past several weeks as Damascus has cracked down on protesters seeking reform, according to the Syrian Human Rights Information Link, a prominent human rights group.

Why Syria is different for the U.S.

The United Nations says it has information that 76 people were killed in that country last Friday alone, apparently during peaceful marches. President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has described the protesters as “armed criminal groups,” and shows no sign of letting up.

President Barack Obama has condemned the violence “in the strongest possible terms” and is seeking ways to “increase the pressure on the regime … in a targeted way,” according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. So far, however, the response has amounted to little more than talk.

Rights group: More than 400 killed in Syria

Over in Libya, however, the U.S. reaction was entirely different when strongman Moammar Gadhafi promised to show “no mercy” to residents of the rebel-held city of Benghazi. Washington worked furiously behind the scenes at the United Nations to win an international mandate for a naval blockade, a no-fly zone and a license to take military action to protect civilians.

Obama promised no use of ground troops, but U.S. air power was used to devastating effect against elements of Gadhafi’s forces before control of the operation was handed over to NATO commanders.

The White House says the two situations can’t be compared.

Libya was “a unique situation,” Carney told reporters Monday. “We had large portions of the country that were out of the control of Moammar Gadhafi (and) we had an international consensus to act. We had the support of the Arab League to act in a multilateral fashion.”

But Washington is “pursuing a range of possible policy options” in Syria, he stressed. The administration is looking at “targeted sanctions to respond to the crackdown … and to make clear that this behavior is unacceptable.”

American “values and principles apply to all countries,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates added Tuesday. “Our response in each country will have to be tailored to that country, and the circumstances peculiar to that country.”

Part of the reason the Obama administration intervened militarily in Libya and not Syria is because “Libya happened first,” noted Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. “So the international community responded there first.”

Protests in Benghazi first broke out in mid-February. Protests in the Syrian city of Daraa started last month after a violent crackdown by security forces on peaceful demonstrators protesting the arrests of youths who scribbled anti-government graffiti.

Witnesses describe fighting in Misrata

Second, there is “nowhere near the consensus on Syria as there is on Libya,” Pletka told CNN. Syria, as opposed to Libya, stands at the heart of the Arab world. Assad has more friends and allies to call on.

“Assad is a dictator, a sponsor of terrorism, (and) a thug,” Pletka said. “You could argue he’s worse than Gadhafi.” But “on Syria, the Arab League is not going to be nearly as forward-leaning. (They’re) much closer to Assad.”

Among other things, Gadhafi has been accused of trying to have then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah assassinated in 2003. There’s a “personal antipathy” factor between Gadhafi and other Arab leaders, Pletka said.

At the same time, Israel may have a hostile relationship with its neighbor, but the Israeli leadership is “very comfortable with the devil it knows” in Damascus.

Obama, Pletka said, has shown an extreme reluctance to engage in unilateral military action. Ousting Assad would change the entire political dynamic in the Middle East to the benefit of the United States, she said, noting Syria’s close ties to Iran and organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But unless and until a firmer international consensus emerges, more concerted action is unlikely.

Military action in Libya may also have became a priority partly due to fears of al Qaeda, according to Rick Nelson, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, another Washington think tank.

Al Qaeda is “good at using countries in chaos to carve out safe havens,” Nelson said, noting that the second-highest number of foreign fighters for al Qaeda in Iraq came from Libya. As Libya became more unstable, it may have become a priority for Western powers to ensure the country doesn’t become more of a home for al Qaeda leaders.

Nelson echoed Pletka’s point about the lack of an international consensus on Syria.

“People don’t want to be on Assad’s bad side,” he said. If you attack Syria, “you’re crossing a line that is changing the whole strategic calculus in the region in one move,” he said. “The stakes are a lot higher.”

Pakistani Soldiers Rescue Turkish Ambassador In Ivory Coast

Pakistani embassy in Ankara alerted the commander of the Pakistani forces in Ivory Coast and informed him that the ambassador of Turkiye is stranded in a war zone. The soldiers rescued the envoy as well as a Turk businessman in a nearby hotel. The rescue coincided with President Zardari’s visit to Turkiye. And Turk leaders thanked him for the quick Pakistani response.

ANKARA, Pakistan-Pakistani peacekeeping forces on Monday, 11 April 2011, rescued the Turkish ambassador to Abidjan, who had become trapped in Ivory Coast amid the ongoing turmoil there.

Clashes around the hotel district in Abidjan trapped Ambassador Yalçın Kaya Erensoy in the embassy building, part of a hotel compound, and stranded a Turkish business leader in his hotel in a separate location.

The businessman, who was already in poor health, was rescued by the Pakistani forces, which are serving under a U.N. mandate, in the early hours Tuesday, the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review has learned.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry took the initiative at the level of the United Nations in New York, as well as with the Pakistani Embassy in Ankara, to rescue Ambassador Erensoy and the businessman identified as Ali Ateş because Turkey does not have a peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast.

“The ambassador was trapped when the clashes escalated,” a well-informed source said. The Turkish request to rescue the stranded Turks was conveyed to the Pakistani forces by the Pakistani Embassy in Ankara.

The rescue coincided with a visit to Turkey by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who arrived in Ankara late Monday and met Wednesday with President Abdullah Gül. The Turkish president thanked his counterpart during the meeting for Pakistan’s quick response to the crisis.

Turkish officials said the Pakistani move was a clear sign of the strong relationship and brotherly solidarity between the two countries. Turkey was one of the first countries to extend help to Pakistan during the catastrophic floods there last summer.

Ambassador secure now

Sources said the ambassador was currently in Abidjan and was secure, adding that the businessman was also secure and was likely receiving treatment.

An official at the Turkish Embassy in Ivory Coast told the Daily News that the ambassador was absent, but clarified that nobody was at work due to the extraordinary situation. The official said the ambassador had no security guard detailed to him.

News reports from Abidjan have revealed fresh outbreaks of gunfire on the streets. Fighting in the city has left streets littered with bodies and parts of Abidjan in the grip of looters, according to wire dispatches. The turmoil is expected to prevail in the cocoa-producing southwest, the main port and commercial center of Abidjan and the capital, Yamoussoukro, even after the capture of former President Laurent Gbagbo, reports said.

The United Nations, which has more than 9,000 troops and police officers in Ivory Coast, will continue with its mission of helping to restore law and order in the African country. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has offered help coping with a “critical” humanitarian emergency.

According to the United Nations, at least 800 people have been confirmed killed in the fighting in Ivory Coast.

Held Kashmir “assembly” has no authority to decide State’s future: Pakistan

UNITED NATIONS, Pakistan reminded the international community Monday that the Constituent Assembly of Indian-occupied Kashmir has no authority to decide the future of the disputed State, saying it’s final disposition must be made by the will of Kashmiri people. Reacting to statement made by a representative of India in the General Assembly’s Decolonization Committee, Pakistani delegate Tahir Andarabi, also said that Jammu and Kashmir is not an integral part of India, nor has it ever been.

He said the UN Security Council had recognized that region as a disputed territory. Earlier, speaking in the committee’s debate on decolonization matters, Indian representative Charan Das Mahant cliamed that Kashmir was an integral part of India, and that its people have regularly exercised their franchise in free and fair elections.
The Pakistan delegate challenged the Indian statement, citing several UN Security Council resolutions. “No electoral exercise conducted by Indian authorities in Jammu and Kashmir can substitute a free and impartial plebiscite mandated by these Security Council resolutions.”
“I would like to remind him (the Indian representative) that the Security Council in its resolution 91, denied the authority of the Constituent Assembly formed by India in occupied Kashmir, to decide the future of the State of Jammu and Kashmir and reminded the parties that final disposition of the State is to be made in accordance with the will of the people of Kashmir,” Andarabi said.
“Security Council resolution 122 of 24 January 1957 further reaffirmed that action taken by that Consituent Assembly would not constitute disposition of the State in accordance with will of the people expressed through free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the UN auspices.”

U.N. shuts Kandahar mission as security worsens

The United Nations said on Tuesday it had shut its mission in Kandahar and evacuated many foreign staff from the southern Afghan city, in a sign of worsening security before a major U.S. offensive.

A soldier from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Platoon, Centurion Company, 2-1 Infantry Battalion, 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team stands near a disabled armoured vehicle during an operation in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province.

Hours after the announcement, suspected Taliban infiltrators blew up tankers at a fuel depot outside the city, near the airfield that serves as the biggest NATO base in the province, killing four people and wounding at least 30.

A spokesman for Kandahar province Zalmai Ayoubi said there were several blasts and that one of them could have been caused by a suicide bomber.

Sher Mohammad Zazai, a senior Afghan army commander in the south, said 10 guards at the depot were among those wounded in the attack. NATO spokesman Major Marcin Walczak said the blast was a few thousand metres (yards) from the base. No NATO troops were hurt.

The U.N. pullout alarmed residents already anxious over a U.S. plan to launch the biggest operation of the nearly nine-year-old war in coming weeks with thousands of U.S. and Afghan troops.

U.N. spokeswoman Susan Manuel said all Afghan staff in Kandahar had been told to stay home, and some foreign staff had been moved to the capital Kabul for their safety a day earlier.

She would not say how many international staff had stayed behind, or whether a specific threat was behind the decision.

“The security situation has gotten to the point where we needed to withdraw them yesterday,” she said. “We hope people can go back and keep doing what they have been doing. We see it as a very temporary measure.”

“WE DON’T KNOW WHAT IS COMING”

NATO forces are planning what Washington calls a decisive campaign in coming months in Kandahar, the biggest city in the south and birthplace of the Taliban movement.

Karzai’s brother pledges support for NATO in Kandahar

he brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pledged to support NATO operations against the Taliban in the volatile southern province of Kandahar, in an interview published Tuesday.Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairman of the provincial legislative council, told the Financial Times he wanted to use his influence to help secure Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual heartland.Karzai also used the interview to deny Western media reports linking him to Afghanistan’s massive opium trade, saying reports of illegal activities are politically motivated.
“Let’s hope for a new beginning. Let’s work together, I want to serve my people,” he told the paper. “There were probably some mistakes from my side. I’m trying to clear these things, I’m trying to help.”Kandahar is seen as the key battleground in US-led efforts to end the Taliban insurgency after more than eight years of war, and foreign troops are increasingly focusing their attentions on the city and province of the same name.

“When the U.N. is moving out of Kandahar, it shows that there is no security here,” said shopkeeper Mohammad Achakzai. “We are very worried, we don’t know what is coming upon us.”

The offensive is the cornerstone of a “surge” strategy by U.S. President Barack Obama, employing the bulk of the 30,000 extra troops he is dispatching to Afghanistan this year to turn the tide against a mounting Taliban insurgency.

Under the plans, expected to begin unfolding in June, about 8,000 U.S. and Canadian troops will try to secure rural areas around the city while a brigade of 3,500 U.S. troops escorts 6,700 Afghan police into urban areas. In all, the offensive will involve 23,000 NATO ground troops, Afghan soldiers and police.

SURGE IN VIOLENCE

The last few weeks have seen a surge in attacks and assassinations in Kandahar, a city of about 500,000 people. Bomb strikes have occurred almost daily, insurgents have carried out several major suicide bombings and raids, and a deputy mayor was gunned down last week.

Kandahar’s provincial council chief, President Hamid Karzai’s half-brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, said the United Nations was over-reacting by withdrawing its staff.

“We strongly condemn this act by the U.N. to pull out of Kandahar. This is an irrational decision without consulting with local authorities,” he told a news conference.

“The situation is not as bad as the U.N. views it,” he said. “This move will leave a bad impression on citizens of Kandahar.”

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi denied the group had threatened the United Nations: “They haven’t done anything good for the people, so their presence or withdrawal does not make any difference. But we haven’t warned or threatened them,” he said by phone from an undisclosed location.

“The U.N. knows the coming operation is not going to be healthy for them, so they are making excuses to leave Kandahar.”

Bhutto probe: More than enough blame

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has suspended eight police officials following the release of a United Nations report into the assassination of former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, but no action has been taken against any members of the military or intelligence agencies, even though the report implicates the military in the events surrounding Bhutto’s death on December 27, 2007.

“The failure of the police to investigate effectively Ms Bhutto’s assassination was deliberate,” the report found.

There has also been no official response to the report’s suggestion that the Pakistan authorities should investigate the al-Qaeda connection in the assassination plot. The 70-page report, made public by an inquiry commission established by the UN last July, specifically mentions an article by Asia Times Online in making this suggestion. (See Al-Qaeda claims Bhutto killing December 29, 2007.)

Bhutto’s assassination after leaving a campaign rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi two weeks before general elections has been the subject of intense controversy, and while the report does not give any definitive answers it is most likely to intensify divisions between the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the military establishment, both of which are tainted by the report.
Current officials, the report says, were less than helpful. “The investigation was severely hampered by intelligence agencies and other government officials, which impeded the search for the truth,” Heraldo Munoz, chair of the Bhutto Commission of Inquiry and permanent representative of Chile to the UN, said. “These officials, in part fearing intelligence agencies’ involvement, were unsure of how vigorously they ought to pursue actions which they knew, as professionals, they should have taken,” he said.

The commission’s report, based on interviews with 250 people in and outside Pakistan as well as other evidence, says the official investigation focused on “low-level operatives and placed little or no focus on investigating those further up the hierarchy in the planning, financing and execution of the assassination”.

The report says the killing was carried out by one teenage suicide bomber who also fired shots. However, Pakistani investigators have always insisted that at least two people were involved – the bomber and the person who fired.

Bhutto – who had twice been premier (1988-1990 and 1993-1996) – had recently returned to Pakistan after living in exile for about eight years. The three-member commission’s report notes that Bhutto faced threats from a number of sources, including al-Qaeda, the Taliban, local jihadi groups and “potentially from elements in the Pakistani establishment”.

The PPP, which Bhutto led and which is now co-chaired by her widower, President Asif Ali Zardari, has threatened to take action against former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, who was president when Bhutto was killed. PPP leaders resolved in a statement to expose and bring to justice all those, including Musharraf, “who planned, abetted and indulged in the criminal act, screened off the offenders and destroyed the evidence”.

One of the officials removed includes a senior police officer, Saud Aziz, who ordered the scene of the murder to be hosed down and who the report says destroyed invaluable evidence. The report suggests Aziz was acting under the direction of the then head of the military intelligence agency, Major General Nadeem Ijaz Ahmad, who still has a senior job in the Pakistani army and who was known to be very close to Musharraf.

One of the PPP’s leaders, Senator Rahman Malik, who is Interior minister, comes under fire in the report. Malik has always claimed that at the time he was Bhutto’s national security advisor, not in charge of her physical safety, but the report found evidence that Malik did in fact oversee Bhutto’s entire security arrangements.

One of the most controversial characters to emerge from the report is the former military intelligence chief, Ijaz, who is now Log Area Commander Gujranwala. While the report refers to his close ties to Musharraf, it does not mention that at the time of the assassination Ijaz, by virtue of his designation and the hierarchy of the army, would have had lines of communication that went directly to the chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, who still holds the post.

Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj was at the time of Bhutto’s death the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, which also came out badly in the report. Taj is now Corps Commander Gujranwala.

The accusations against the military and the intelligence services, that they facilitated security loopholes or that they covered up evidence, reflect badly on these institutions as a whole and can be expected to cause fresh civil-military polarization in Pakistan.

An assassination unfolds
At the time of her death, Bhutto was vigorously campaigning around the country, following the November 20 announcement of general elections to be held on January 8. She had returned to Pakistan from exile in October, after a US-brokered deal with Musharraf gave her immunity from charges of corruption during her previous terms as prime minister. In return, her PPP supported Musharraf’s bid to be re-elected as president.

In election speeches Bhutto lambasted Islamic extremism and asked the people to stand against it. She also regularly spoke against al-Qaeda and had supported Musharraf’s bloody crackdown in July 2007 on the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad that had become a focal point for militants

After the Lal Masjid incident, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden assigned Abu Obaida al-Misiri as Amir-e-Khuruj (commander for revolt) and, when Bhutto started to hit the headlines, Misiri was assigned to take her out.

Among others, he set up a cell in Rawalpindi specifically tasked with killing Bhutto. Among its members were Aitzaz Shah, Hasnain Gul, Rifaqat, Sher Zaman and Abdul Rasheed, all of whom were subsequently arrested.

A senior Pakistani security official who interrogated all five, at least three times, told Asia Times Online that this cell was active in Rawalpindi for several months before Bhutto’s assassination, including an attack on a police check post in Golf Road that leads to military headquarters (GHQ Rawalpindi).

“These young men were a by-product of a time when the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP - Pakistani Taliban, formed in late 2007 and early 2008] was not around. They were zealous for jihad and they joined the [Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin] Haqqani network in North Waziristan [tribal area],” the security official said.

“While there, they interacted with different militant organizations and they finally landed in a group that was a nexus between Pakistani militant organizations [known as Punjabi fighters], al-Qaeda and Baitullah Mehsud [who was to become head of the TTP. They were assigned to go to Rawalpindi to support the cause of al-Qaeda.

"When the two suicide bombers, Ikramullah and Bilal, were sent from South Waziristan [to kill Bhutto], the cell facilitated them. They arranged their residence and helped them in the preparation of the attack. They [the cell members] were the backup of the attackers and if the attackers failed, they would have done so,” the official said.

Although in the narrow sense Baitullah Mehsud supplied the attackers, at the broader level it was an al-Qaeda plan that had been discussed at length by the al-Qaeda shura (council), which decided that there was a religious justification for killing Bhutto and that her death could deal a setback for the interests of the United States in the region.

The National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which came into effect in October 2007, was a deal brokered by London and Washington as a part of a broader plan to introduce a liberal, secular and democratic government in Pakistan that would faithfully support the “war on terror”.

The NRO, which was overturned this year, granted amnesty to politicians, political workers and bureaucrats who were accused of corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, murder and terrorism. Two of the main beneficiaries were Bhutto and her husband Zardari, who were cleared to return to Pakistan, with Bhutto earmarked to lead the new government.

Bhutto’s killing put an end to that plan, while Musharraf was also a loser as he lost control of the helm and eventually resigned in August 2008, paving the way for Zardari to take over a month later.

While al-Qaeda clearly orchestrated the killing of Bhutto, the UN’s report implies that the security forces did not prevent the attack (the report uses the term malafide) and that after the murder, the report implied, in order to cover this up, the security forces washed away all the evidence from the murder site.

Immediately after Bhutto’s assassination, a Musharraf government spokesperson came out with an intercept of a tape between Baitullah Mehsud and militants that inferred that the attack was carried out on the instructions or with the coordination of Baitullah Mehsud, and therefore everybody pointed a finger at him. The UN report also documents that the Pakistan Military Operations had given an advance warning on December 21 that bin Laden had given an order for Bhutto’s killing.