How Saudi Arabia and Qatar won the election in Tunisia!

With the US in the mid­dle, Rashid Ghan­nouchi, leader of the Islamist Al-Nahda Party, who is backed by the inter­na­tional Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Move­ment, led by Qatar based cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. Qatar pomped mil­lions of dol­lar allow­ing Al-Nahda to win the Tunisian election.

Al-Nahda’s rival Hachimi Al Hamidi leader of the “Al-Aridha Chaabia” who is backed by Saudi Ara­bia orches­trated demon­stra­tions against the Qatari role in the Tunisian election.

Qatar answered the demon­stra­tion through Al-Qaradawi who has sent a let­ter to the Saudi Ara­bian king express­ing his hope that Saudi Ara­bia give per­mis­sion for women to drive cars. This let­ter angered the Saudi Islamic cler­ics call­ing it “an imported Fatwa”.

To answer back the Saudis, Qatar’s ally in Tunisia Al-Nahda Party invited the Emir of Qatar to the first Al-Nahda con­fer­ence in Tunisia.

An agree­ment to bal­ance the influ­ence between the two Gulf-States is reached by allow­ing Al-Nahda Party to loss two seats and Al-Aridha Chaabia to win seven seats.

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

The geography behind the US apology to Iraq’s Shiites

Wash­ing­ton started to offer Tehran some priv­i­leges and reas­sur­ances after see­ing that the Shi­ite cres­cent is already started to mate­ri­alise, not in only words but geo­graph­i­cally also.

Since the US under­stands that Iran is the largest Shi­ite ref­er­ence state in the Arab and Islamic world, The US offered its apol­ogy to Shi­ite is an indi­ca­tion that the Amer­i­cans started to favor the Shi­ite at the costs of the Sun­nis, recog­nis­ing Iran’s admin­is­tra­tion in Iraq [and other parts in the region] after the with­drawal [read, Iran’s role in Iraq’s 1991 upris­ing], while Israel and its Arab allies refuse to acknowl­edge and adjust them­selves with Iran’s new role.

Geo­graph­i­cally and polit­i­cally, the Shi­ite expan­sion extends to Syria and Lebanon, and Bahrain, which encir­cles the Oil rich Sunni Gulf States [add to this the rev­o­lu­tion in Yemen, Al-Qaeda in Soma­lia and the Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in power] who will find them­selves in dire need of the Amer­i­can pro­tec­tion directly through agree­ments that give priv­i­leges to Washington.

Notice that the Amer­i­cans accepted Iran’s role in post-withdrawal Iraq, even that the US is able to change the equa­tion [or at least part of it, through the bal­anc­ing of power with the most promi­nent oppo­nents of Tehran such as Saudi Ara­bia, who funded the occu­pa­tion of Iraq].

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Libya: Tinker, Tailor, NATO-Rebels, US Spy

Once cel­e­brated by the media as a hero, the Libyan-Irish Islamist Mahdi Al-Harati joined the rebels to oust Gaddafi, but the truth emerged that Al-Harati is on the US CIA pay­roll receiv­ing 200K from the CIA spooks.

At the same time, Bernard-Henri Lévy com­plains about imple­ment­ing Islamic Sharia, threat­ens to use NATO-force against the Islamists in Libya and to iso­late the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil.

Too late for Lévy to com­plain, oth­ers ask the ques­tion “are the rebel ‘good guys’ turn­ing bad?”. Here is the answer:

Libyan NATO-rebels, Islamists and Al-Qaeda mem­bers call­ing them­selves “the com­mit­tee of the destruc­tion of the  idols” des­e­crated the graves of Gaddafi’s mother and fam­ily burn­ing the remains [as you see in the image, and read the graphity].

The Islamic NATO-rebels ter­ror in Libya also reached those who died 7 cen­turies ago, accord­ing to Alger­ian news­pa­per:

In cities like Jan­zour, Tripoli and Azizia, dozens of Salafi fight­ers affil­i­ates with the rebels started the bomb­ing and the destruc­tion of the mosques, shrines and graves where Sufi Malik­ism schol­ars who lived and died in Libya [and North Africa] dur­ing the 6th and 7th century.

The news­pa­per named many other Sufi shrines, some of them are 700 years old such as the case of “Sidi-Salim Shrine” vis­ited reg­u­larly by Sufi stu­dents, schol­ars and believers.

Rus­sia Today reported that the vio­la­tion against the Sufis who are glob­ally known with their peace­ful prop­a­ga­tion of Islam reached such a level with the destruc­tion of their holi­est Shrine of “Sheikh Ahmad Al-Zawi” and the des­e­cra­tion of the grave of “Sheikh Nasir” that the Sufis Sects in Libya started to revolt against the Wahabis and Salafis [sup­ported by the Gulf States and the NATO] accus­ing of com­mit­ting the atrocities.

Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that the Islamists infil­trated Tripoli Gov­ern­ing Coun­cil and estab­lished “the Pro­mo­tion of Virtue and the Pre­ven­tion of Vice” [a reli­gious Police Com­mit­tee sim­i­lar to the reli­gious police body in Saudi Ara­bia] issu­ing Fat­was forc­ing veils on women, pro­hibit­ing women from going out to work and attack any TV shows girls and women.

The ter­ror of the NAto-rebels and Al-Qaeda Islamists right now is beyond the Libyan bor­der reached its neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. This video shows Islamists rebels promise to take the Islamic “rev­o­lu­tion” to Alge­ria, promis­ing to sup­port Al-Qaeda groups in Alge­ria with arms and money.

Mid­dle East Online reported that the famous Al-Qaeda leader Abd-al-Hakim Bil­haj who is right now the com­man­der of the Libyan mil­i­tary force is form­ing his own mili­tia cop­ing Hezbol­lah mili­tia in Lebanon.

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No immunity for the US Embassy delegation in Baghdad

The not very sur­prise visit of the U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent Joseph Biden’s [already reported on Al-Hayat since 18-10-2011] is post­poned. Both the Iraqi and Amer­i­can sides are not giv­ing the rea­sons explain this delay, but accord­ing to sources Maliki’s gov­ern­ment refused to give the US Embassy in Bagh­dad “a diplo­matic immunity”.

The source added that the US wants [and Biden’s visit about] is to add a Mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing to SOFA which includes the immu­nity and the pro­tec­tion of the diplo­matic del­e­ga­tion and busi­ness­men who wish to open their offices in Bagh­dad or other provinces.

Maliki’s gov­ern­ment delays all the nego­ti­a­tions with the US say­ing that these issues need an agree­ment the oppo­nents of the Iraqi polit­i­cal process, and could be con­sid­ered after the with­drawal. In other words, in his visit to Bagh­dad, US Vice Pres­i­dent Joseph Biden can add noth­ing new to the negotiations.

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Qatar’s dirty role in Libya, East-West proxy conflict

Libyan for­mer ambas­sador to UN “Abdul­Rah­man Shal­gham” accuses Qatar of seek­ing to dom­i­nate Libya [Video on DW-World in Ara­bic]. FP trans­lated parts of the inter­view con­cern Qatar [some impor­tant parts are left by FP, I will try to trans­late in related posts] and Mid­dle East Online added the following:

Many groups asso­ci­ated with the Libyan tribes threaten to use vio­lence against the [Qatari] pres­ence and inter­ven­tion in the Libyan soil.

The harsh crit­i­cism of Shal­gam against Qatar reflects the strug­gle among those Libyans who are loyal to the “West” against Libyans who are loyal to the “East”.

Those who are pro­tect­ing the West­ern coun­tries inter­ests in Libya are rep­re­sented by three men: Abdul­Rah­man Shal­gam, Mah­moud Jib­ril and Mah­moud Alsham­mam. On the other hand, the other three who are pro­tect­ing the inter­ests of the ‘East’ and espe­cially Qatar, Mustafa Abdul Jalil and the reli­gious leader Al-Salaabi, and the for­mer Al-Qaeda fighter Abdul Hakim Belhadj.

Shal­gam attack against Qatar reveals that there are things and deci­sions which may upset Shal­gam made behind the scenes. But the ques­tion is: What are these decisions?

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Syria agreement: How an alliance of Algeria-Iraq (and Iran) defeated the Qatar-Turkey plot?

After con­flict­ing reports, Syria agrees to Arab League plan, but the cir­cum­stances that led Syria to accept the agree­ment is more interesting.

It is no secret that the Iraqi gov­ern­ment is sup­port­ing the Syr­ian regime, but an alliance of Iraq-Algeria-Iran saved Syria against Qatar-Turkey plot of allow­ing the cre­ation of a safe pas­sage for the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood fight­ers to take over Syria and then the whole Mid­dle East [if you read Ara­bic, then watch this video of the Syr­ian demon­stra­tors hold­ing ban­ners say “We want an Islamic Caliphate State”].

Accord­ing to Ara­bic newspapers:

A source in the For­eign Min­istry said that Iraq and Alge­ria rejected a pro­posal made by Qatar to cre­ate a safe cor­ri­dor bor­der between Syria and Turkey to trans­port the wounded Syr­i­ans. Iraq and Alge­ria rejected this pro­posal because it cre­ates a safe cor­ri­dor for the insur­gents cross­ing into Syr­ian territory.

Lebanese news­pa­per Al-Mustaqbal reported the sur­prise visit of the Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ali Akbar Salehi to Iraq in which he said: “Bright days ahead for Syr­i­ans” as:

The recent visit of the Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ali Akbar Salehi to Iraq resulted a com­mon under­stand­ing to sup­port the Syr­ian regime of Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad, .. Bagh­dad and Tehran offered to trans­fer arms sup­plies by land to Syria, and Bagh­dad, to allow the Iraqi sky for the Iran­ian planes crossing.

More US Administration’s dis­ap­point­ment with Iraq’s Maliki 2nd term government.

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Libya, “Al-Qaeda was here”

We already reported the story of Al-Qaeda mem­bers with their Al-Qaeda flag fight­ing side-by-side the British [and for sure the Amer­i­can] forces in Sirt — Libya. Thanks to MOA who linked to an image show­ing the flag. But I have more, a video shows graphi­tis says “Al-Qaeda was here” [watch below] left by Al-Qaeda on the cor­ners of Sirt-City. Accord­ing to Alger­ian news­pa­per three Al-Qaeda bat­tal­ions (names are: Tal­iban Bat­tal­ion, Abu Salim Mar­tyrs and the infa­mous “Al-Qaeda in North Africa” aka “AQIM”) fought against Gaddafi’s forces in Sirt. Al-Qaeda mem­bers used var­i­ous arms, Russ­ian machine guns and Bel­gian sniper-riffles, in addi­tion to knives of swords they used against the wounded among mem­bers of Gaddafi forces.

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Linking topics: Iraq’s arrests and Federalism, US media false story and why Libya created its own Sistani?

If the autonomous deci­sion made by the Salah-Al-Din Province right or wrong con­sti­tu­tion­ally, the big sur­prise which shocked Maliki and his gov­ern­ment is the huge pub­lic turn out to demon­strate for the sup­port of this deci­sion, unex­pected even by the Salah-Al-Din Rul­ing Coun­cil and other Sunni Provinces.

The truth is that there is no con­nec­tion between the Libya’s interim Prime Min­is­ter “Mah­moud Jib­ril” visit to Bagh­dad and the recent wave of Baathists arrests in Iraq. The NYTimes story is based on an Iraqi Inter­net web­site pub­lished this on 25-10-2011 [image above].

The main rea­son behind Jibril’s visit is to learn Iraq’s “expe­ri­ence” with the Gov­ern­ing Coun­cil, fed­er­al­ism, regions and decen­tral­iza­tion, and how to estab­lish mili­tias and inte­grate them into the army and secu­rity organ­i­sa­tions, how to import mer­ce­nar­ies under the slo­gan of secu­rity ser­vices, media and elec­toral com­mis­sion con­trol … and other Paul Bremer’s rules. Other sub­jects such as how to use of reli­gion as weapon to pro­tect politicians.

The first thing Jib­ril did when he returned to Libya is the cre­ation of the supreme reli­gious post called “The Mufti of Libya” appoint­ing a cleric “Sheikh Sadiq Al-Ghariani” to be a “Sistani-like” fig­ure. The first fatwa released by the “Libyan Sis­tani” is: The prayer on Gaddafi body is reli­giously ille­git­i­mate, and must be buried in an unknown loca­tion so that his grave not to be a shrine” [video of Al-Ghariani’s fatwa] .

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Islamic Democratic Republic: Tunisia, the Islamists “Springboard” to dominate the Arab countries

Try­ing to soften its lan­guage using words like “mod­er­ate Islamists”, what is cen­sored by the West­ern media regard­ing the Tunisian revolts after the offi­cial declar­ion of the Al-Nahdha [wrongly writ­ten as Ennahda in West­ern media] Islamists Party [yet another Mus­lim Broth­er­hood party] as awin­ner in the elec­tion is that the demon­stra­tors accused Qatar for sup­port­ing the Islamists financially.

Demon­stra­tors raised ban­ners denounc­ing the Qatari money, which set­tled the elec­tion in Tunisia”, in an implicit accu­sa­tion that the Islamic Move­ment of Tunisia received money from Qatar.

The effects of the results of the Tunisian elec­tion will boost the results of Egypt­ian Islamists in the com­ing Egypt­ian elec­tions and cer­tain vic­tory of the Libyan Islamists, the same goes for Alge­ria, Morocco and Mau­ri­ta­nia. The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader — cleric Al-Qaradawi [based in Qatar], said:

Every State and men hae their own time .. The lib­er­als and sec­u­lar­ists took their time and this is our time the Islamists .. The Islamists will teach the Inter­na­tional com­mu­nity how to rule the world ..

It is expected that the win the Tunisian Islamists will lead to fur­ther esca­la­tion and ten­sions among major pow­ers led by the United States to take advan­tage of its implications:

- Tunisian Islamists and Libyan Islamists will try build a close alliance, to use their polit­i­cal coali­tion in the Arab polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment and Islamic countries.

- It is expected that Islamic Tunisians to increase their links with Turkey, and coop­er­ate with the Turk­ish pol­i­tics in other issues in the Mid­dle East­ern countries.

- The tri­an­gle of Wash­ing­ton, Paris, Lon­don will use the Libyan and Tunisian Islamists tar­get­ing the Alger­ian regime,

- Based on the rise of the Islamists in Tunisia, the most likely is the emer­gence of Tunisian-Libyan-Egyptian coali­tion [The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader — cleric Al-Qaradawi, called for unity among Libyan, Tunisian and Egypt­ian Islamists to form the “Islamic Demo­c­ra­tic Repub­lic”] will seek — using all means – to sup­port the rise of polit­i­cal Islam in other Mid­dle East­ern coun­tries, but what wor­ries Wash­ing­ton is the rise of Islamists in Jor­dan, who will join the Pales­tin­ian Hamas Move­ment in a coalition.

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The US plot after Iraq withdrawal: wave of arrests and assassinations

A wave of arrest of the for­mer Baath Party mem­bers and mil­i­tary offi­cers (despite many of them are given immu­nity after sev­eral rec­on­cil­i­a­tion con­fer­ences). While the Maliki’s gov­ern­ment claims that these peo­ple are plot­ting a coup to seize power after U.S. troops with­draw, and the whole cam­paign is part of a plan put by the Iraqi army com­man­ders in coor­di­na­tion with the US forces, sources told Iraqi news­pa­per that this is the first phase of the U.S. plan to blow up the sit­u­a­tion in Iraq.

The source said that the cam­paign is selec­tive, tar­geted for­mer Baathists with no violent-history but they rep­re­sent the a tribal-weight tribal in their areas. The source added: that the Iraqiya List, received a threat from the U.S. admin­is­tra­tion not to inter­vene now, and wait for the results of this cam­paign, which will ben­e­fit Al-Iraqiya List in the near future.

Two things make the mat­ter inter­est­ing are:

1– Al-Iraqya List issued a state­ment demand­ing the release of the detainees, but that is Saleh al-Mutlag who speaks for List with total silence of Al-Iraqiya Leader Allawi and his polit­i­cal bloc.

2– What is pub­lished on Lebanese news­pa­pers today quot­ing for­mer min­is­ter Michael Samaha: CIA direc­tor David Petraeus, ordered an assas­si­na­tions wave in the com­ing months in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine.

One thing is sure and clear, the US with­drawal from Iraq is an illu­sion.

Posted in POLITICS | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment