Europeans Suspected of Killing Hamas Commander

Authorities in Dubai said they have identified several “European passport holders” as suspects in the killing of a Hamas military commander last week.
Preliminary investigations indicated Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was murdered by “a professional criminal gang” which followed him there, police was quoted as saying by BBC.
The suspects are thought to have fled the UAE.
Hamas claims Israel killed Mabhouh, a founder of the Izzedine Al-Qassam Brigades. Israel has not commented.
Earlier, thousands of people attended the funeral of the 50-year-old in the Syrian capital, Damascus, where he had lived since 1989.
Hamas political leader, Khaled Mashaal, said: “I say to you Zionists, do not rejoice. You killed him, but his sons will fight you.”
“God already took our leaders and loved ones, but resistance goes on. Palestine is a blessed land. It will not remain patient.”
A member of the Hamas political bureau in Damascus, Izzat Al-Rishq, told BBC that Mabhouh had been killed in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January, a day after arriving on a visit, and that an investigation was underway.
He did not give any details about how Mabhouh died, but his family said doctors who had examined his body determined that he had died after receiving a massive electric shock to the head. They also found evidence that he had been strangled, they added.
Blood samples sent to a French laboratory confirmed he was killed by electric shock, after which the body was sent to Syria, they said.
Mabhouh’s family also said he had survived two Israeli assassination attempts, including a poisoning six months ago in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, which left him unconscious for 30 hours.
Later, Dubai’s government said police had identified suspects in the murder, describing them as “mostly holders of European passports”, and saying that they were working with Interpol to apprehend them.

CIA in Secret Talks With Cairo, Tel Aviv

CIA Director Leon Panetta has held secret talks with Egyptian and Israeli officials over expanded US intervention in Yemen.
According to Debkafile, the CIA chief paid secret visits to the Egyptian capital Cairo and Beit-ul-Moqaddas on Thursday.
Panetta met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and Intelligence Minister Gen. Omar Suleiman to ask them to dispatch forces to Yemen to help the US troops.
Meanwhile, Washington has asked the Egyptian government to let the US use Egyptian airports for ferrying military equipment and launching air raids.
Panetta also met with Israeli officials in Beit-ul-Moqaddas on the same day to talk about the latest developments in Yemen.
A large US base is under construction near the Yemeni Red Sea port of Hodeira, according to the report.
Washington became involved in secret joint operations in Yemen after President Barack Obama approved US military and intelligence teams to be dispatched to the country.
According to the Washington Post, operations began six weeks ago, involving troops from the US military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected ‘terrorists’.
The US agents are helping the Yemeni Army develop tactics, while providing Sanaa forces with electronic and video surveillance, as well as three-dimensional terrain maps.
In addition to “highly sensitive intelligence”, the United States is sending weapons and munitions to be used against what the White House describes as an Al-Qaeda cell operating in the Arabian Peninsula, the article added.
Earlier in January, the White House pledged $121 million in aid to help the unpopular Yemeni government crush uprisings.

Voter Boycott Threat by Iraqi Sunni Leader

A prominent Iraqi politician and US ally is weighing whether to urge fellow Sunnis to boycott upcoming elections in protest to the government’s ballot purge of hundreds of candidates suspected of links to Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Such a call by Ahmed Abu Risha risks derailing the Obama administration’s hopes that the March 7 parliamentary elections will bring stronger reconciliation between Iraq’s majority Shiites and minority Sunnis who want to reclaim more political power, AP reported.
It would also set back the clock on Iraqi politics--using the same protest tactic that Sunnis used in the 2005 parliament voting that left them with only a few lawmakers and a weakened voice in key debates.
In an interview with AP, Abu Risha acknowledged that a boycott could throw Iraq into disarray. But the Awakening Council leader said the candidate blacklist likely will result in a low turnout among voters in Anbar, the mostly Sunni province that covers most of Iraq’s western desert.
“They will not care about the election--they will ignore it, maybe, if these decisions stand,” Abu Risha said in an interview this week at his sprawling compound just outside Ramadi, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad.
“I will make my decision later about encouraging people to go to vote or not,” he added.
Abu Risha leads the Anbar province Awakening Council, a Sunni tribal militia that joined the US-led fight against insurgents in 2006. Anbar was the birthplace of the uprising against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is seen as a critical turning point of the war.
Iraq’s government has banned about 450 candidates with suspected links to Saddam’s now-outlawed Baath Party. At stake in the March election is 325 seats and control of Iraq’s Parliament as the country prepares to stand alone when the US military leaves at the end of 2011.

Turkey Offers to Resume Israel-Syria Mediation

Turkey is ready to try again to broker a peace agreement between Israel and Syria if both countries agree to resume the stalled initiative, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday.
Davutoglu said Israel’s 2008 invasion of Gaza scuttled a potential peace deal after Turkey mediated in indirect talks between Israel and Syria, The Washington Post reported.
“Is it possible to restart it again? Yes, why not?” Davutoglu said in response to a question about the talks.
“If the two countries agree to restart it, we can do it. As Turkey, we are ready,” Davutoglu said at the International Institute of Strategic Studies think tank in London.
“The Syrian side already declared they want to continue from where we left (off). The Israeli side, they have different views. Some coalition members are against, some are in favor. We will see,” he said.
“If we see a strong political will, both in Israel and Syria, we will continue to support (peace efforts). We will support every attempt, step in the direction of peace.”
Israel and Syria held four indirect rounds of peace talks with Turkish mediation in 2008, but they were suspended following the resignation of then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in September that year.
Syria said at the time of the Israeli offensive in Gaza at the end of 2008 that it ruled out a resumption of indirect talks any time soon. But more recently, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has expressed interest in renewing negotiations with Israel.
Syria wants an Israeli commitment to withdraw from the whole of Golan Heights, the Syrian plateau that Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War.
Israel has said it was willing to resume the talks without preconditions.
George Mitchell, US President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy, discussed reviving peace talks between Israel and Syria last week with Assad, who said Israel had to “declare frankly” it wants peace.
Muslim but secular Turkey has a history of military cooperation with Israel and has acted as an intermediary for Israel with the Arab world.
But relations have soured recently as Turkey repeatedly criticized Israel’s offensive in Palestinian-ruled Gaza.
Syria has, meanwhile, improved ties with Turkey, making Israeli officials wary of Turkey resuming a mediation role.
Davutoglu repeated that the Israel-Syria peace talks had been making progress when Israel launched the Gaza offensive.
Turkey was “concerned with the policies of Israel because of Gaza”, he said, adding that criticizing one policy of an Israeli government does not mean the end of Turkish-Israel relations.

Saudis Attack Houthis Despite Ceasefire

The Saudi air force has reportedly launched 17 air raids on Houthi fighters in Yemen, despite the Houthi leader’s call for a ceasefire.
“Saudi jets launched 17 air raids on various parts of Yemen on Friday night,” the Houthi fighters said in a statement, Presstv reported.
“Saudi jets raided Jebel Razih 7 times, Safia 4 times, Tayban 3 times, Qafarah 2 times and Al-Malaheet once,” it added.
The statement went on to say that over 148 Saudi rockets were sent to Jazza, Al-Malaheet, Shada, Jebel Dhar Al-Hamar, Al-Minzala and Al-Hasamah.
For their part, the Houthi fighters targeted a tank that was trying to withdraw a destroyed tank in Harf Sufyan.
The conflict between the central government in Sana’a and the Houthis of northern Yemen began in 2004 and escalated in August 2009 when the Yemeni Army launched “Operation Scorched Earth”.
The government claims that the fighters, who are named after their leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, seek to restore the Shiite imamate system, which was overthrown in a 1962 military coup.
Yemen’s Houthi fighters have accused the Sanaa government of violating their people’s civil rights and undermining them due to pressure from Saudi-backed Wahhabi extremists. Shiites make up approximately half of the overall Yemeni population.
Saudi Arabia launched its ground and aerial attacks against the Houthi fighters after accusing them of killing a Saudi border guard and occupying two border villages on November 3.
The Saudi military says more than 130 of their soldiers have been killed in Yemen, with an unspecified number listed as “missing in action”.
The violence has left hundreds dead and thousands more homeless.
The Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross said humanitarian conditions in Yemen are at their worst after five months of fighting between the Saudi forces and Houthis.

Somalia Vows to Defeat Insurgents

Somalia’s president said government troops are ready to launch major military operations this year to expel insurgent groups from the war-torn country.
President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed spoke late Friday after insurgents launched multiple attacks on government bases and African Union peacekeeping troops, killing at least 19 people. His speech, however, was broadcast on state radio on Saturday because of the attacks.
The insurgents also bombed the presidential palace with mortars to disrupt a ceremony marking Ahmed’s first year in office.
“More than 30 people were wounded in the fighting,” said Ali Muse, the head of the ambulance service in Mogadishu.
Ahmed said the government would defeat Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabab, and restore peace and stability to the country.

Haniyeh Rejects Sinai Resettlement

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh rejected the new Israeli conspiracy of the resettlement of Palestinians in the Sinai under a land swap deal for a two-state solution.
Haniyeh’s remarks on the issue came at a Friday sermon at the Al-Omary Mosque in Jabaliya.
“The democratically-elected Palestinian government of Hamas does not accept the plan for the resettlement of Gaza in the Sinai or any other location as the alternative (Palestinian) homeland,” Haniyeh said.
He further criticized Egypt’s construction of an underground wall along the border with the besieged Gaza Strip, declaring that “the Zionist Regime (Israel) is regarded as the prime threat to the security of Egypt.”
“We were exposed to a three-dimensional war; economically, by imposing the siege on the people of Gaza, militarily, by attacking the people and committing crimes which are mostly represented in the war on Gaza, and politically as the occupation started to detain lawmakers and the representatives of the Palestinian people in order to undermine the Palestinian legitimacy and democracy,” he further explained.
“we were exposed to a three-dimensional conspiracy that firstly attempted to spread chaos, and secondly tried to make objections and not commit to the tasks, and thirdly by efforts to defame us through media incitement, dissemination of falsehoods and rumors, and fabricating facts that are not true.”
Haniyeh also insisted that the American hegemony in the region was defeated.
The Gaza Strip has been under a severe Israeli siege since June 2007, when the democratically-elected Palestinian government of Hamas took control of the sliver.
Along with the complete Israeli siege, which has plagued the economy of the already impoverished region, the Cairo government also refuses to open the Rafah border crossing.
The closure has disrupted the delivery of necessary aid cargos into the territory, where almost half of its 1.5-million population is dependent on aid handouts.
Amnesty International says both Israel and Egypt are to blame for “collectively punishing” the population of the Gaza Strip because of the the long-imposed siege of the coastal sliver.

Response to UN

Israel and West Bank Palestinians have responded to the UN’s Goldstone report that accused both of them of war crimes during Israel’s Gaza operation.