NATO strikes Tripoli, rebels refuse polls

  NATO planes resumed bombardments of Tripoli after Muammar Gaddafi's son said the Libyan leader was willing to hold elections and step aside if he lost, an offer rejected by rebels and the United States.


Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam told an Italian newspaper that the elections could be held within three months and transparency could be guaranteed through international observers.

He said his father would be ready to cede power if he lost the election, though he would not go into exile.

But Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi appeared to throw the potential concession into question, saying on Thursday that the leader of the revolution was not concerned by "any referendum."

A visiting Russian envoy said the Libyan leadership had reiterated that Gaddafi's departure was a "red line."

The rebel leadership in the eastern stronghold of Benghazi rejected Gaddafi's son's election offer.

"We tell him (Saif al-Islam) that the time has passed because our rebels are at the outskirts of Tripoli, and they will join our people and rebels there to uproot the symbol of corruption and tyranny in Libya," rebel spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga told .

A U.S. State Department official also dismissed the election idea, saying it was "a little late for that."

The proposal -- which follows a series of moves the Libyan leader's officials portray as concessions but Western powers dismiss as ploys -- comes at a time when frustration is mounting in some NATO states at slow military progress.

Rebel advances towards Tripoli have been slow, while weeks of NATO strikes pounding Gaddafi's compound and other targets have failed to end his 41-year-old rule.

In the latest raids, eight loud explosions were heard in southeast and southwest Tripoli late on Thursday and planes could be heard overhead. Libyan state television said NATO had hit targets in the Al-Ferjan district of the city.

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Pakistan tells CIA chief no US boots on the ground

CIA Director Leon Panetta told Pakistan's army and intelligence chiefs that he was concerned about a reduction of US troops allowed in the country.

ISLAMABAD: CIA Director Leon Panetta told Pakistan’s army and intelligence chiefs that he was concerned about a reduction of US troops allowed in the country, but was bluntly told no American boots would be allowed on the ground, Pakistani military officials.
Panetta, nominated to take over as defence secretary next month, arrived in Pakistan on Friday in an unannounced visit, his first trip since a secret US raid that killed Osama bin Laden and severely damaged ties between the allies.
The army said on Thursday it had drastically cut down on the number of US troops allowed in the country and set clear limits on intelligence sharing with the United States.
“He (Panetta) expressed concerns over the reduction of trainers and operatives. We told him very clearly ‘no boots on our soil is acceptable’,” said the Pakistani military official.
Panetta held talks with army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of military intelligence.
The military released a statement saying: “Both sides discussed the framework for future intelligence sharing.”
A US embassy spokesman said he had no information on the talks.
“We told him that we are clear. We don’t want their people. Intelligence sharing is fine and we are ready for that,” said another military official.
Washington was angered by the fact that Bin Laden had apparently been living for years in a Pakistani town about a two-hour drive from the intelligence headquarters.
On Friday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, also a US ally, arrived in Islamabad and asked Pakistan to help end the Taliban insurgency.
Pakistan, which supported the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until its ouster in 2001 by US-backed forces, will be crucial to any attempts to stabilize its western neighbor.
But Pakistan has often been accused of playing a “double game,” promising the United States it will go after militants, while supporting some groups such as the Haqqani network, an allegation it denies.
US commanders say the military effort in Afghanistan is being undermined partly by Pakistan-based militants.
The Haqqanis use safe havens in North Waziristan region to stage cross-border attacks against American troops in Afghanistan, and US officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of ties to the group. Pakistan denies the allegations.

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Over 10,000 flee clashes in Sudan border state: UN

 More than 10,000 people displaced by fighting in Sudan's Southern Kordofan were staying near a U.N. compound on Thursday, the country mission spokesman said, after nearly a week of clashes in the tense border state.

Fighting between government forces and armed groups erupted in the state capital of Kadugli and elsewhere after a police station was attacked on Saturday, adding to tensions as the country's south prepares to secede in about a month.

Southern Kordofan, an oil-producing state which lies in northern territory, has long been seen as a flashpoint because it is home to thousands of fighters who fought alongside the south against Khartoum during the last civil war.

In statements carried by the state news agency SUNA, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said north Sudan's armed forces were in control of Southern Kordofan on Thursday and were combing it for "remnants of the rebellion."

Southern Kordofan is important to the north because it has the most productive oil fields that will remain under Khartoum's control after the split. The south could take as much as 75 percent of Sudan's 500,000 barrels per day of oil output.

It also borders the disputed Abyei territory and Darfur, a western region that is the scene of a separate insurgency.

Analysts have predicted fighting could break out in Southern Kordofan ahead of the split, especially after an official of the ruling northern party was named the winner in a gubernatorial election last month.

The south said the vote was rigged, which Khartoum denied.

Southern Sudan voted to secede in a January referendum, the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between the north and south. The split is scheduled for July 9.

CLASHES CONTINUE

The number of people staying near the local U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) compound after fleeing the state capital of Kadugli and nearby villages had risen to an estimated 10,000 by Thursday, UNMIS spokesman Kouider Zerrouk said.

Clashes took place in Kadugli and other areas into Thursday, he added.

Bashir's ruling National Congress Party had earlier accused southern-aligned armed groups in Southern Kordofan of fighting with the support of "foreign powers" and some domestic opposition.

"The armed forces will carry out their national duty and deal with all rebel forces," the statement cited presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie as saying.

Officials with the south's dominant party, the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, have said the clashes started when the north tried to disarm armed groups in the area.

The northern army has blamed the southern-aligned groups for starting the fighting.

The militias are still referred to as members of the Southern Peoples' Liberation Army -- the southern military -- although Juba says they are no longer part of their army and cannot ask them to withdraw south because they are northern.

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Al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri planned new death squad to avenge bin Laden

Al-Qaeda's chief military commander was plotting a new terrorist group called Lashkar-e-Osama to launch a wave of revenge suicide attacks when he was reportedly killed in a drone strike last week, Pakistani officials have claimed.

Ilyas Kashmiri Photo: REUTERS

 

 

Ilyas Kashmiri had convened a meeting of militant leaders to discuss hitting foreign embassies and also trying to poison Nato food supplies en route to Afghanistan to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden.

The plans were disclosed as distrust between Washington and Islamabad still surrounded Kashmiri's reported death on June 3.

US officials said their working assumption was that he remained alive despite assurances from Pakistan.

His new squad had plans to target the American, Saudi and Emirati embassies in Pakistan, according to reports.

Kashmiri called Pakistani Taliban commanders, including Asmatullah Maavia, Amjad Farooqui and Badar Mansoor to the meeting in North Waziristan a few days before he was reportedly killed.

They discussed blowing up the American embassy, assassinating visiting Chinese dignitaries and targeting the country's biggest munitions factory in Wah.
Auto rickshaws laden with explosives were suggested as one means of carrying out the attacks.
Large quantities of poison would also be procured to contaminate Nato food supplies passing through Pakistan on their way to troops in Afghanistan, the 
Kashmiri had a $5 million (£3 million) bounty on his head and been leader of Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islam (HUJI) before forming the feared 313 militant brigade.
He was thought to take his orders directly from bin Laden.
Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, said he could confirm "100 per cent", that Kashmiri had died when a Predator drone fired three missiles into a house in South Waziristan as he and associates drank tea in the garden.
However, US officials have been unable to confirm the death.
One said: "It wouldn't be the first time that reports of his death have been wrong. We're simply unable at this time to confirm reports of Kashmiri's demise. Our working assumption is that he's still walking around."

 

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US presses Saleh to hand over power in Yemen as British military assets deployed

 

Anti-government protestors celebrate President Ali Abdullah Saleh's departure to Saudi Arabia, in Sana'a. (File photo)

The White House called late Monday for an “immediate transition” of power in Yemen, where the United States fears Al Qaeda could exploit political turmoil and strengthen its presence, as Britain confirmed the deployment of military assets near the embattled nation.

After four months of deadly unrest, Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year-old regime was teetering even before the president was wounded in an attack on his palace and flown late Saturday to neighboring Saudi Arabia for treatment.

“We believe that an immediate transition is in the best interests of the people and the best interest of maintaining stability in obviously a very unstable situation,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of the United States, speaking alongside French counterpart Alain Juppe at a Washington press conference, made it clear President Saleh should leave power but stopped short of expressly ordering him to do so, according to Agence-France Presse.

“The civilian government remains in power in Yemen. The vice president is currently serving as the acting president,” said Mrs. Clinton, adding that US embassy staff were meeting with “a broad cross-section of Yemeni officials as well as civil society to try to better assess what this means to the country.”

“Obviously, I can’t speculate on what President Saleh is going to do or say, but we do want to emphasize we're calling for a peaceful and orderly transition, a non-violent transition that is consistent with Yemen’s own constitution,” she said.

“We think an immediate transition is in the best interest of the Yemeni people, because the instability and lack of security currently afflicting Yemen cannot be addressed until there is some process that everyone knows is going to lead to the sort of economic and political reforms that they are seeking,” she said.

Washington supports a deal, brokered by the regional Gulf Cooperation Council bloc that would see Mr. Saleh cede power to an interim administration within 30 days, in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Mr. Saleh, a wily operator who since 1978 has bought off tribal loyalties and stitched them together into a governable framework, has refused to sign the accord and warned that his ouster would only serve to boost Al Qaeda.

“Our position is that we support the agreement that President Saleh had talked about signing several times and didn't,” Mr. Carney said.

“We want a peaceful and orderly transition that’s consistent with the Yemeni constitutional process. Our position hasn’t changed.”

A top aide said Monday that 65-year-old Saleh, who was recuperating in a Riyadh military hospital, planned to return within days, a move likely to set off another round of unrest in the violence-plagued nation of 24 million people.
Saudi officials insist they will not interfere with Mr. Saleh’s decision to return to Yemen or stay in the kingdom, but behind the scenes the United States and Europe are likely to be pressing the Saudis to ensure President Saleh’s stay becomes permanent, according to Reuters.

“The Saudis will seize the opportunity ... to extend his medical recovery into a political rest,” said Yemen expert Khaled Fattah. The risk of Yemen descending into Somalia-style anarchy was “a nightmare for Saudi national security.”

In Sana’a, a fragile truce held despite a deadly sniper attack on loyalists of a powerful tribal chief blamed for Friday’s bomb attack which wounded Mr. Saleh as he prayed inside a mosque in his compound, according to AFP.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Yemen’s capital on Sunday to cheer what they said was the end of Saleh’s regime.

There was fresh fighting in the southern city of Taez, and also in the southern province of Abyan, where armed men killed seven soldiers and wounded 12 others in clashes in Zinjibar on Monday, a local official and witnesses said, according to Reuters.

An army force had tried to storm the town of 20,000. Last month, dozens of armed men believed to be from Al Qaeda stormed into Zinjibar, chasing out security forces.

The situation presents US partner Saudi Arabia and Washington with a conundrum as President Saleh has been a key ally in the fight against Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based franchise, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

AQAP has claimed several attacks against the United States and other Western interests.

The group was linked to the “underwear bomber”—a young Nigerian who allegedly tried to blow up a packed transatlantic airliner as it landed in Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

It was also blamed for the more recent parcel bomb plot, involving sophisticated explosive devices hidden in printer inkjet cartridges and sent via air freight to Jewish addresses in the United States.
Britain on Monday confirmed the deployment of military assets near Yemen but did not verify reports that ships were on standby in the Gulf to evacuate its nationals.

“As part of routine deployment UK military assets are in the region, although we are not prepared to comment further on their exact operational tasking,” a Ministry of Defense (MoD) spokesman said.

Around 80 marines were on board naval support ship RFA Fort Victoria, according to the BBC, while Sky News reported that the RFA Argus was also in the area.

The MoD would not confirm whether an evacuation was planned and repeated Foreign Secretary William Hague’s plea for all British nationals to leave Yemen immediately by commercial means.

In a statement delivered on Friday, Mr. Hague said it was “extremely unlikely” the British government would be able to evacuate its nationals given the volatile situation, AFP reported.

Britain first advised nationals to leave on March 12, and a dramatic escalation of hostilities led Mr. Hague to issue Friday’s strongly-worded warning.

In a joint statement on Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, and the Prime Ministers of Britain, Spain and Italy, thanked Saudi Arabia for receiving Mr. Saleh for treatment, and called on all parties in Yemen to “find a means of reconciliation on the basis of the GCC initiative,” according to Reuters.

Yemen, which relies on oil for 60 percent of its economy, has been dealt a heavy blow by the closure of an oil pipeline that trade sources said has caused a fuel shortages.

But the future of Yemen, dominated by rivalries among tribal leaders, generals and politicians, remains uncertain.

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Pakistan Leaders Must Make Choice After Clinton’s Warning: View

Illustration by Bloomberg View

By the Editors Jun 2, 2011 6:29 AM GMT+0600 0 Comments

• 
  

When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Pakistan last week, she noted that U.S.- Pakistani relations were at a turning point after the killing of Osama bin Laden. It was up to the Pakistanis, she said, to decide “what kind of country they wish to live in.”
The brutalized body of investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, which turned up outside of Islamabad on May 31, may provide a clue to the answer.
Shahzad disappeared after publishing the first of two promised articles linking elements of the Pakistan navy to al- Qaeda following a deadly May 22 attack on a Karachi naval station. Last fall, after being questioned about a different story by Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Shahzad wrote that he was threatened by the spy agency.
Alternatively, it could be that foul play like Shahzad’s murder will become a thing of the past in Pakistan. While in Islamabad May 27, Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen demanded authorities take “decisive steps” to crush the violent extremists the government has long supported, which would end the need to intimidate journalists who expose that support. Whichever way the Pakistan government goes, the May warnings by the U.S. ought to be the last.
The U.S. administration has continued to insist, as President Barack Obama did in a May 22 interview with the BBC, that the Pakistanis have “generally been significant and serious partners against the terrorist threat to the West.” This simply isn’t the case.

Victim, Sponsor

For much of the past decade, Pakistan has been both a victim and a sponsor of Islamic militants. Its soldiers are fighting bravely against homegrown terrorists seeking to install an Islamic government. In 20 attacks in May, these radicals killed some 150 people.
At the same time, the Pakistani army, led by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is a longstanding patron of violent groups targeting Afghanistan and India. Guided by excessive fear bordering on paranoia about India, Pakistan’s military and intelligence services believe that nurturing those extremists is an effective way to frustrate India’s regional ambitions. The ISI largely created and continues to support the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, the principal groups battling U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the fledgling government in Kabul. It also backs Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people.

Double-Dealing

President George W. Bush’s administration tried to end this double-dealing by giving Pakistan billions in economic and military assistance. Yet Bush didn’t make the aid contingent on a crackdown on extremists. The Pakistanis cooperated somewhat with U.S. efforts to dismantle al-Qaeda but refused to act against other groups, including the Afghan Taliban, which was given refuge inside Pakistan’s borders.
The Obama administration accelerated the failed Bush policy, substantially increasing military and economic assistance, again without imposing rigorous conditions. And Pakistan continued to ignore administration warnings about continued support for extremists.
In one incident reported by the Washington Post, Obama’s first national security adviser, James Jones, warned officials in Islamabad that there would be “consequences” if a terrorist attack directed at the U.S. was traced to Pakistan. Yet when a man who had trained at a terrorist camp in that country attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010, the U.S. administration did nothing. Shortly thereafter, Obama watered down Jones’s words, telling Kayani that a “successful” attack would have consequences.

Meaning Business

So when U.S. authorities learned that Osama bin Laden might be housed in a villa in a Pakistani garrison town, they dispatched Navy Seals to capture or kill him without so much as notifying the Pakistanis in advance. The raid provoked great outrage from officials in Pakistan. Since then, emotions have cooled. Clinton and Mullen have delivered their warnings, public and private. And this time, the Americans may mean business.
Will the Pakistanis respond?
Shahzad’s murder is a bad sign. On the other hand, reports from Pakistani tribal leaders suggest that the Pakistani army may be preparing a serious campaign in North Waziristan, where the leaders of the Haqqani Network and other extremist groups live.
It will soon be clear whether Clinton’s latest message got through. If not, the administration must consider new ways to persuade Pakistan to change course, recognizing that the country is behaving more like an adversary than a partner

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