Shaath: No West Bank violence unless settlers start it

PLO official Nabil Shaath said Sunday that he does not see any risk of unrest in the West Bank unless settlers instigate it.

Speaking with Army Radio, Shaath said, "We are not going to allow any unrest in the West Bank, neither politically nor security wise." Politically, he said, "I think our people are quite satisfied not to go back to

violence and are going in this fight to continue their peaceful struggle for independence and for real peace and a two-state solution."

Addressing the risk of violence, Shaath added, "I don't see any risk of having unrest in the West Bank unless the Israeli settlers want to create that."

Asked why the Palestinian leadership refuses to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, Shaath responded that the Jewish people, on their own, decided "that they have really built their state that is not only for the Jewish people because 22 percent of Israelis are not Jewish."

Presented with statements attributed to the Palestinian Authority envoy to the United States last week that a Palestinian state would be without Jews, Shaath said that Maen Areikat "never said 'Jewish free,'" but rather "that at the beginning of our peace, we want to separate."

Asked whether settlers would be allowed to live in a future Palestinian state, he added, "If [settlers] decide to accept Palestinian citizenship and buy the territory that they have and live as individual citizens, then why not?"

Addressing the possibility to avert a vote in either the United Nations Security Council or General Assembly on recognition of Palestinian statehood and an immediate return to direct negotiations with Israel, the senior Palestinian official put forth one condition.

"Of course there is a chance to start direct negotiations," Shaath said, "you stop your settlement and we'll go tomorrow to direct negotiations."

Crackdown escalates in east Syria, protesters killed

Syrian forces shot dead two pro-democracy protesters on Thursday in eastern provincial capital Deir al-Zoran, residents said, as a crackdown escalated against dissent in the tribal region bordering Iraq's Sunni heartland.

Military intelligence agents also injured seven protesters who had gathered in the main square of the city on the Euphrates river to protest against President Bashar al-Assad whose family has ruled Syria with an iron fist since 1970.
Ultra-loyalist army units also expanded a campaign to crush dissent in the northwestern province of Idlib bordering Turkey and in the city of Homs, where residents said two civilians were killed when security forces stormed the Bab Sebaa neighborhood.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one soldier was also killed in the attack on the main residential district.
"A crowd of 1,500 had shown up for the usual noon demonstration despite the intense heat. Thousands more have descended on the square after the killings, and there are now around 10,000 people there," said one witness, a computer programer who declined to give his name for fear of arrest.
Despite being the center of Syria's modest oil production, Deir is among the poorest regions in the country of 20 million people.
The desert area has suffered water shortages for six years which experts say have been caused largely by mismanagement and corruption, and have decimated agricultural production.
Syrian authorities have allowed Sunni tribes in Deir al-Zor to carry arms against the threat seen posed by a Kurdish population further north.
MINORITY RULE
Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Islam, is struggling to put down spreading protests in rural and tribal regions, in suburbs of the capital and in cities such as Hama and Homs -- all demanding an end to his autocratic rule.
Mass arrests and the heavy deployment of security forces, including an irregular Alawite militia known as shabbiha, have prevented protests in central Damascus and the commercial hub of Aleppo.
Four villagers were killed on Wednesday in tank-backed assaults on at least four villages in the Jabal al-Zawya region in Idlib, activists said.
"We are seeing a military escalation following the regime's political escalation," said an activist in Idlib, referring to the thousands of arrests in a crackdown that has intensified in the last two weeks, according to human rights campaigners.
Among those arrested was physician Ahmad Tuma, a respected opposition leader from Deir, who was abducted from his clinic by Military Intelligence agents last week, his friends said.
Security forces arrested at least 30 people on Wednesday, including prominent film directors Nabil Maleh and Mohammad Malas, known for works chronicling malaise under Assad family rule, and actress May Skaf, during a pro-democracy protest in Damascus, rights organizations said.
They were among a group of artists who issued a declaration this week denouncing state violence against protesters and demanding accountability for the killings of civilians and the release of thousands of political prisoners held without trial.
International powers, including Turkey, have cautioned Assad against a repeat of massacres from the era of his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, who crushed leftist and Islamist challenges to his rule, culminating in the killing of up to 30,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982.
The U.S. and French ambassadors visited Hama in a show of support last Friday. Three days later their embassies were attacked by Assad loyalists. No one was killed in the attacks which were condemned by the United Nations Security Council.

White House, in Shift, Turns Against Syria Leader

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, after weeks of urging Syria to carry out democratic reforms and end a brutal crackdown, has now turned decisively against President Bashar al-Assad, saying that he has lost legitimacy and that it has no interest in Mr. Assad keeping his grip on power.

President Obama, in an interview Tuesday with the “CBS Evening News,” stopped short of demanding that Mr. Assad step down. But administration officials said the president may take that step in coming days, as he did with Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, much earlier in that country’s popular uprising.
Mr. Obama’s comments, and even stronger ones by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday, showed that the administration has now concluded that Mr. Assad is no more willing or capable than Colonel Qaddafi of opening a dialogue with protesters or overseeing a political transformation.
The turning point in the administration’s public posture came after angry crowds attacked and vandalized the United States Embassy in Damascus, and the residence of Ambassador Robert Ford, after his visit to Hama, the hub of the current protests and site of a bloody crackdown by Mr. Assad’s father in 1982.
But administration officials said the shift has been weeks in the making, as Mr. Assad’s government has continued to harass and jail demonstrators, quash peaceful protests, and clamp down attempts to organize a political opposition. The crackdown has also begun to threaten regional stability with thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing across the northern border into Turkey.
“You’re seeing President Assad lose legitimacy in the eyes of his people,” Mr. Obama said to the CBS anchor, Scott Pelley. “He has missed opportunity after opportunity to present a genuine reform agenda. And that’s why we’ve been working at an international level to make sure we keep the pressure up.”
On Monday, Mrs. Clinton said, “If anyone, including President Assad, thinks the United States is secretly hoping that the regime will emerge from the turmoil to continue its brutality and repression, they are wrong. President Assad is not indispensable, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power.”
Mrs. Clinton’s comments seemed calculated to answer critics who pointed to the striking difference in how the administration responded to Libya and Syria — and contended that it has acted too gingerly toward Mr. Assad, fearing that his downfall would destabilize other countries in its neighborhood.
Administration officials said they had no choice in Libya: Colonel Qaddafi is notoriously unpredictable, and had threatened to send his troops house-to-house in Benghazi, killing his opponents. In Syria’s case, there is no military remedy. NATO nations have no interest in acting in Syria, and there is no chance of a United Nations Security Council resolution equivalent to the one that NATO is enforcing in Libya. Russia has made clear it would reject any resolution condemning Mr. Assad.
Unlike Libya, Syria is a force in the region, one that the administration once thought could be drawn away from Iran’s orbit and play a part in an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Some critics, however, have always contended that it was naïve to assume that the Assad government could be a force for peace.
Still, until recently some American officials argued they were better off with Mr. Assad in power than with a power vacuum that could threaten the stability of Lebanon and security of Israel, and might be filled by Iran. But now that Mr. Assad “has shown definitively he has no interest in reform,” one senior official said, “the rationale for holding on to him has evaporated.”
The United States, officials said, is readying fresh sanctions against senior members of the Assad regime, and is weighing sanctions on Syria’s oil and gas industry. It is also watching a meeting of opposition groups set for this Saturday, which officials said could offer hope that the opposition — disorganized and lacking in leaders after decades of repression — is developing a viable transition plan.
Mr. Assad, officials cautioned, was far from being toppled. On any given day, they said, his government or the opposition holds the upper hand. But the upheaval has badly damaged Syria’s economy. For the first time, a senior official said, “the government has admitted that this is a crisis.”
“What led Washington, as well as the Turks and the Europeans to change their minds, was Assad’s complete lack of reliability,” said Andrew Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He promised not to use live fire against protesters, and the next day, he used live fire.”
While Mr. Tabler said the Assad regime was “degrading and disintegrating,” he added, “most people believe this is going to take a long time.”
Marshaling action against Syria’s oil and gas industry is complicated, Mr. Tabler said, because European and Canadian companies have investments there. The United States also has to worry about Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait trying to throw Mr. Assad a financial lifeline in the name of regional stability.
The United States has tried to bring other forms of pressure to bear. It leaned on the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer to the United Nations a finding that the Syrian government sought to build a secret nuclear reactor, which was destroyed by Israel in a nighttime raid in September 2007. Mr. Assad has denied the facility had any nuclear use; the atomic energy agency concluded differently. The reactor was built, intelligence officials say, with secret aid from North Korea.
The mob attack on the United States Embassy and residence, as well as a similar assault on the French Embassy, brought a statement of condemnation from the United Nations Security Council. But the unanimity required of the 15 council members has proved harder to muster for any stronger action.
Administration officials said Mr. Ford’s visit to Hama, where he was met by welcoming crowds, showed the value of sending an envoy to Syria — something members of Congress have criticized. While the officials said they could not prove Mr. Ford’s presence there averted a violent assault by security forces, one said: “It’s very possible. A lot of people were expecting Hama to be very ugly.”

New UN force in South Sudan will have 7,000 military and 900 police

UNITED NATIONS — A new U.N. peacekeeping mission for South Sudan will have up to 7,000 military personnel and 900 international police with a mandate to keep peace and help promote development in the world’s newest nation, according to the draft U.N. resolution obtained late Thursday by The Associated Press.

The U.N. Security Council held intensive discussions this week to reach agreement on a resolution that would authorize the new mission and ensure its adoption before South Sudan officially becomes independent from Sudan’s Khartoum-ruled north on Saturday.
The council scheduled a meeting Friday morning, when diplomats said the draft resolution is almost certain to be approved unanimously.
Russian concerns about authorizing a mission before South Sudan becomes independent were overcome by including the phrase: “Welcoming the establishment of the Republic of South Sudan on July 9, 2011 upon its proclamation as an independent state,” the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations were private.
The draft resolution would establish a new United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan on July 9 for an initial period of one year, with up to 7,000 military personnel and 900 civilian police as well as civilian staff including human rights experts. It calls for reviews after three months and six months to determine if conditions on the ground would allow the military contingent to be reduced from 7,000 to 6,000 troops.
It also gives the U.N. mission, to be known as UNMISS, a mandate “to consolidate peace and security, and to help establish the conditions for development ... with a view to strengthening the capacity of the government of the Republic of South Sudan to govern effectively and democratically and establish good relations with its neighbors.”
The draft resolution specifically authorizes the mission to support the new government on its political transition, issues of governance and establishing state authority throughout the country, and to advise it on “an inclusive constitutional process,” holding elections, and establishing an independent media.
It authorizes U.N. peacekeepers to support the government in preventing conflict and demobilizing combatants, to conduct patrols in areas at high risk of conflict, and to protect civilians “under imminent threat of physical violence.” It also authorizes the mission to cooperate with U.N. agencies in supporting the government in peacebuilding activities, including promoting development, the rule of law, security and justice.
Independence for South Sudan is the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war between Sudan’s Arab-dominated north and mainly ethnic African south, one of the longest and deadliest conflicts in Africa.
But there are fears that war could be re-ignited in the poverty-stricken nation because troops from the north and south are facing off in the contested oil-rich border region of Abyei and northern troops and forces loyal to the south are fighting in Southern Kordofan, a state just over the border in the north.
The U.N. has had a 10,400-strong peacekeeping force, known as UNMIS, monitoring implementation of the 2005 north-south agreement, which operates on both sides of the border. Its mandate expires Saturday and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proposed a three-month extension but the Khartoum government rejected any extension and said it wanted all U.N. troops out of the north.
Diplomats said the five permanent Security Council nations — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — jointly asked the Sudanese government earlier this week to allow a U.N. presence in the north after South Sudan breaks away.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, who will be leading the American delegation to South Sudan’s independence ceremonies, said Thursday in Washington that many council members are trying to persuade Sudan’s leaders “that it is not in their interest that the U.N. be compelled to leave abruptly or prematurely” while key issues from the 2005 agreement remain unresolved and “a volatile and grave humanitarian situation” exists in Southern Kordofan and possibly neighboring Blue Nile state.
“We will continue to do what we can to underscore to Khartoum that it is in their interests and the interests of the region that they not take this step,” Rice said. “But they seem thus far to be quite determined, and this poses a great deal of worry for the security of people in Southern Kordofan, for the common border, for humanitarian access and a number of other important issues.”
Haile Menkerios, the top U.N. envoy in Sudan, said Thursday in Juba that the “liquidation” of UNMIS will start on July 10. Diplomats said between 2,500-3,000 U.N. peacekeepers are currently based in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile where fighting continues.
“U.N. engagement in Sudan will, however, continue,” Menkerios said. “The United Nations will continue its support to the government of Sudan, the government of South Sudan and to the people of Sudan as a whole through its agencies, funds and programs, a new mission in South Sudan and a new mission in Abyei.”
Leaders from the north and south signed an agreement on June 20 to demilitarize Abyei and allow and Ethiopian peacekeeping force to move and a week later the Security Council authorized the deployment of 4,200 Ethiopian troops in Abyei for six months.
One unresolved issue is future responsibility for monitoring the north-south border.
The governments of both Sudans signed an agreement on border security on June 29 and the draft resolution calls on the parties to propose arrangements for border monitoring by July 20. If they fail to do so, the resolution requests the new U.N. mission in South Sudan “to observe and report on any flow of personnel, arms and related materiel across the border with Sudan.”

NATO bombs Tripoli, U.S. says time against Gaddafi

NATO warplanes hammered Tripoli on Tuesday with some of their heaviest air strikes yet after the United States said Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi would "inevitably" be forced from power.

At least 12 huge explosions rocked the capital in the early hours. Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said three people were killed and 150 wounded.

He said the strikes had targeted a compound of the Popular Guards, a tribally-based military detachment. But he said the compound had been emptied of people and "useful material" in anticipation of an attack, and the casualties were people living in the vicinity.

"This is another night of bombing and killing by NATO," Ibrahim told reporters.

Led by France, Britain and the United States, NATO warplanes have been bombing Libya for more than two months since the United Nations authorized "all necessary measures" to protect civilians from Gaddafi's forces in the country's civil war.

"We have degraded his war machine and prevented a humanitarian catastrophe. And we will continue to enforce the U.N. resolutions with our allies until they are completely complied with," President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote in The Times newspaper.

U.N. Security Council 1973, passed on March 17, established a no-fly zone and called for a ceasefire, an end to attacks on civilians, respect for human rights and efforts to meet Libyans' aspirations.

In upbeat comments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a news conference in London on Monday: "We do believe that time is working against Gaddafi, that he cannot re-establish control over the country."

She said the opposition had organized a legitimate and credible interim council that was committed to democracy.

"Their military forces are improving and when Gaddafi inevitably leaves, a new Libya stands ready to move forward," she said. "We have a lot of confidence in what our joint efforts are producing."

CONFLICT DEADLOCKED

Rebels trying to overthrow Gaddafi's 41-year rule control the east of the oil-producing country, but the conflict has been deadlocked for weeks.

In an escalation that could help break the stalemate, French officials said on Monday that France and Britain would deploy attack helicopters, a step aimed at targeting Gaddafi's forces more precisely.

"What we want is to better tailor our ability to strike on the ground with ways that allow more accurate hits," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.

But the use of helicopters carries risks for NATO, as they would fly lower than warplanes and be more exposed to ground fire. The downing of helicopters could draw ground forces into rescue efforts.

Reporters, whose movements are tightly controlled by the Libyan authorities, were taken to visit Tripoli's central hospital after the heavy night raids.

They were shown the corpses of three men with grave head injuries, their bodies laid out on gurneys.

A man who identified himself only as Hatim, who had deep gashes and abrasions on his arms and legs, said the force of the blasts had caved in part of his residence near the military compound.

"We were in the house and then, wham, the ceiling came down, right on me," he said.

Smaller blasts were heard intermittently for several minutes after the final round of strikes, which shook windows and brought plaster down from ceilings in the Tripoli hotel where foreign reporters are staying.