Israel has been left reeling by reports Israeli shipping company has been actively doing business with Iran. | |||||
| Middle East Online | |||||
By Jean-Luc Renaudie - JERUSALEM After years of pushing for tough sanctions against Iran, Israel has been left reeling by reports that an Israeli shipping company has been actively doing business with the Islamic republic. The scandal erupted last week, when the US State Department announced it was sanctioning Israel's Ofer Brothers Group and its Singapore-based subsidiary Tanker Pacific. The announcement caused a media storm in Israel, which has been a key proponent of tough international sanctions against Iran aimed at reining in its nuclear programme. Israel and much of the international community suspect the programme is a cover for a drive for a nuclear weapons capability, something Iran strongly denies. In a statement released on May 24, the US State Department said it was imposing sanctions on Ofer Brothers, Tanker Pacific and a third firm, Associated Shipbroking of Monaco, over the September 2010 sale of a tanker. The $8.65 million tanker was sold to Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), an entity designated by the United States and the European Union as supporting Iranian "proliferation activities." The State Department said Ofer and Tanker Pacific "failed to exercise due diligence and did not heed publicly available and easily obtainable information" that would have shown they were dealing with IRISL. Ofer Brothers has roundly denied selling the tanker, claiming the sanctions arose from a "misunderstanding." "We never sold ships to Iran, and the state of Israel's official and authorised bodies will confirm our statement," the firm told the Israeli daily Haaretz. The president of Iran's chamber of commerce Mohammad Nahavandian has also denied any Iranian purchases tied to an Israeli firm. But investigations by Israeli media showed that seven boats belonging to Ofer docked in Iranian ports on 13 separate occasions over the past decade. Citing documents from Equasis, a maritime transport database, media said Ofer-linked fuel tankers docked in two Iranian ports, Bandar Abbas and Kharg island. Sources close to Ofer told Israeli media that the company had authorisation from the Israeli prime minister's office for its tankers to dock at the ports. But a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied that claim, saying "no authorisation of that sort has been given." Writing in Haaretz, journalist Yossi Melman alluded to suggestions that Ofer would justify docking its boats in Iran by claiming it was undertaking "intelligence missions." Speaking on Israeli army radio, right-wing minister Arye Eldad said there were serious questions about the motives of the firm. "Israelis have the right to know if the Ofer brothers are heroes or bastards, whether they acted for their personal profits or the presence of the tankers enabled listening and the taking of photos," he said. The Israeli parliament has ordered an emergency meeting of its economic committee on Tuesday to discuss the case, and the chairman of the committee said it would immediately investigate the alleged transaction. "It is inconceivable that Israeli companies would have commercial ties with Iran, our number one enemy, while we campaign to convince the international community to impose very strong sanctions and force Tehran to renounce its nuclear programme," Carmel Shama-Cohen told Israeli radio. The case has raised questions about Israeli compliance with sanctions on Iran, with Ometz, a local group that lobbies for better governance, saying Ofer is "far from" the only Israeli firm doing business with Iran. Ometz and Eldad have called on Israel's state comptroller and attorney general to open a wide-ranging inquiry into the issue, but compliance with Israeli laws on the issue remains a problem. According to Israeli media, while legislation barring local firms from doing business with Iran is on the books, no single Israeli ministry has so far taken responsibility for applying the restrictions. |
Monday, 30 May 2011
Iran Gate II: Israel firm accused of trade with Iran
Two killed in Afghan blast in Kabul as NATO apologizes for civilian deaths
Monday, 30 May 2011
An Afghan man (R) holds the hand of a casualty after a blast near a foreign base in Herat. (File Photo)
Two people were killed and 26 wounded in twin suicide attacks in the Afghan city of Herat Monday, including at a compound where an Italian-led reconstruction team is based, as foreign forces in Afghanistan apologized for the deaths of nine Afghan civilians.
“There was a suicide attack at the gate of Herat PRT and a second in the city centre. Two people were killed and another 26 were wounded,” said Farooq Kohistani, Heart’s criminal investigation chief.
Gunshots were still being heard near the PRT, Agence-France Presse said, while local television pictures showed extensive damage at the scene.
An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman for the western region of Afghanistan earlier said there had been an explosion in Herat but could not give more details.
Local television pictures showed at least two blown-up cars in front of the PRT and car alarms going off amid chaotic scenes.
The attack was claimed by the Taliban. Its spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP: “Our mujahideen are working on the operation in Herat.”
“There have been explosions inside the compound as well as outside the PRT,” he said.
Historic Herat, close to the Afghan border with Iran, is seen as one of the safest areas in Afghanistan and is among the first wave of seven places due to pass from foreign to Afghan security control from around July.
PRTs are typically joint military and civilian operations that work on trying to help build up Afghan government capacity in a province. There are 28 of them in total working in provinces across Afghanistan.
There are nearly 4,000 Italian troops serving in Afghanistan as part of a strong international force fighting a Taliban-led insurgency.
The war in Afghanistan has been running for nearly 10 years.
It started when a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks for harboring Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who was killed by US forces in Pakistan this month.
Foreign forces in Afghanistan, meanwhile, issued an apology Monday for the deaths of nine Afghan civilians in Helmand province after President Hamid Karzai criticized an air strike which he said killed 14.
A statement from Major General John Toolan, ISAF commander for the southwest region of Afghanistan, said: “On behalf of the coalition, I offer our heartfelt apologies to the families and friends of those killed.”
The apology came after Karzai’s office issued what it said was a “last warning” to US and NATO-led troops over civilian casualties following Saturday’s incident.
Provincial officials also said that 14 people were killed in the strike, among them five girls, seven boys and two women.
The statement from Toolan said: “On behalf of the coalition, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force General (David) Petraeus... I want to offer my sincere apologies for the nine civilians who were killed during the incident in Now Zad District, Helmand province, that occurred on 28 May.”
He said that the incident had happened after a coalition patrol was attacked by insurgents, resulting in the death of a marine.
“Subsequently, the five insurgents occupied and continued to attack again from a compound and in the ensuing battle an airstrike was called to neutralize the threat,” he added.
He said a full investigation was ongoing and that ISAF would “ensure that we make amends with the families in accordance with Afghan culture.”
The mistaken killing of civilians by foreign forces, usually during air strikes or night-time raids, is a major source of friction between President Karzai and his Western backers, according to Reuters.
It has complicated efforts to win support from ordinary Afghans for an increasingly unpopular war.
The governor of Helmand province, where the air strike was called in, said the bomb killed 14 civilians, two of them women and the remainder children. Bereaved relatives brought the bodies of young children to the provincial capital to protest.
The Helmand governor said in a statement that seven boys and five girls were among the dead and three other children wounded.
Bereaved male relatives cradled the bodies of several young children wrapped in bloody sheets and placed side to side, and brought them in the back of a truck to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, Reuters television pictures showed.
“My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed ... the Taliban were far away from my home, why was my house bombed?” relative Noor Agha told Reuters.
On Saturday, Mr. Karzai ordered the Defense Ministry to take control of night raids, saying Afghan troops should be carrying out the sensitive operations themselves.
Under a plan agreed by NATO leaders, foreign troops will begin handing over security responsibilities to Afghan troops from July, with a plan to withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Despite the presence of some 150,000 foreign troops, violence in Afghanistan last year reached its deadliest phase since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.
The Taliban this month announced the start of their “spring offensive,” vowing to attack foreign and Afghan troops and government officials.
(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
‘Mubarak wealth no more than $1 million. He is sad and sorry,’ says lawyer
Monday, 30 May 2011
Former president Hosni Mubarak was ordered last week to stand trial for killing protesters and for corruption and wasting public funds. (File photo)
The wealth of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is no more than $1 million and he has no assets overseas, his lawyer said on Sunday.
Farid al-Deeb also told CNN in an interview that Mr. Mubarak denied charges of graft and killing protesters during the uprising that forced him to step down in February.
“He was very sad and sorry because he did not imagine such accusations,” Mr. Deeb said.
“His entire fortune amounts to around 6 million Egyptian pounds which he saved from working for 62 years. He does not own anything else in Egypt or outside of Egypt.
“He does not own a single dollar abroad,” he said according to Reuters.
Mr. Deeb said the 83-year-old president needed help to go to the bathroom in the hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh where he is detained.
“The president has serious heart problems,” Mr. Deeb said. “He does not watch TV or anything else. They ban him from doing so to avoid more psychological pain.”
“He speaks very little and suppresses a lot of his feelings.”
Mr. Mubarak was ordered last week to stand trial for killing protesters and for corruption and wasting public funds.
More than 840 people were killed during 18 days of protests that toppled Mr. Mubarak. Twenty-six policemen were also killed.
The former president and two former officials was fined 540 million pounds ($90 millon) by a court on Saturday for cutting mobile and Internet services during the protests.
Some media reports have suggested the Mubarak family’s fortune may total billions of dollars.
The president has serious heart problems. He does not watch TV or anything else. They ban him from doing so to avoid more psychological pain. He speaks very little and suppresses a lot of his feelings 
The conspicuous wealth of senior officials was a major popular grievance in a country where around 40 percent of its 85 million population lives on less than $2 per day.
Mr. Mubarak had been interrogated about his ownership of a Sharm al-Sheikh villa estimated to be worth more than 36 million Egyptian pounds ($6.1 million) and about alleged personal use of a bank account owned by the Library of Alexandria, according to state media.
The former president was first detained on April 13 and his detention has been repeatedly extended.
Mr. Mubarak’s two sons, Mr. Alaa and Mr. Gamal, along with dozens of officials and businessmen associated with the former regime, are being detained in Cairo’s notorious Tora Prison that housed political dissidents during the Mubarak era. The former president will be reportedly incarcerated there once he’s fit to travel to Cairo.
(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at: Abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
French lawyers plan to defend Qaddafi as South Africa’s Zuma in Libya for ‘exit’ talks
Monday, 30 May 2011
Former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas speaks during a news conference in Tripoli. (File Photo)
Former French foreign minister Roland Dumas visited Libya as a lawyer to prepare a legal case on behalf of victims of NATO bombing and said he was prepared to defend leader Muammar Qaddafi if he is sent to The Hague, as South Africa President was expected in Tripoli Monday for talks on an “exit strategy.”
Mr. Dumas, who served as foreign minister under socialist President Francois Mitterrand, said he had seen several civilian victims of NATO bombing in a hospital and had been told by a doctor there that there were as many as 20,000 more, according to Reuters.
NATO says it has struck only military targets. Despite repeated promises by Mr. Qaddafi’s media officials, Western journalists based in Tripoli have been shown no evidence of large numbers of civilians killed or injured by NATO bombing.
At the moment we have been retained, we have a mandate on behalf of the victims of the military bombardment of NATO, who carried out their military action against civilians with the artificial—very artificial—cover of the United Nations “This is brutal, brutal aggression against a sovereign country,” Mr. Dumas told a news conference in a Tripoli luxury hotel on Sunday, attended by people introduced as family members and supporters of relatives of civilian casualties.
“At the moment we have been retained, we have a mandate on behalf of the victims of the military bombardment of NATO, who carried out their military action against civilians with the artificial—very artificial—cover of the United Nations,” Mr. Dumas said.
“Following an approach by the government of Libya, we have decided to make this trip to see for ourselves the condition of the victims and the situation,” he said.
"Unmasking those assassins"
Mr. Dumas was accompanied by prominent French defense lawyer Jacques Verges, who said his goal was to “unmask those assassins” responsible for NATO air strikes. Verges said he had wept in hospital upon meeting civilians wounded “solely because they are Libyans.”
Mr. Verges—whose clients have included Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie—and Mr. Dumas had been among lawyers expected to defend ousted Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who is being investigated for alleged human rights abuses during the conflict sparked by the disputed 2010 presidential election.
Their names were dropped from the most recent list of Gbagbo’s lawyers.
Mr. Dumas was not able to describe the exact nature of the case he intended to launch on behalf of the wounded victims, but told Reuters he would make a more detailed announcement after returning to France and studying the case in more depth.
The Western alliance is leading an air campaign against Libya under a United Nations resolution permitting force to prevent Mr. Qaddafi’s forces from killing civilians.
Human rights groups say scores of people were killed by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces cracking down on demonstrators before the air strikes began, and hundreds have since died as a result of government troops’ siege of the revolt-held city of Misrata.
Mr. Dumas, long an opponent of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said he would be prepared to defend the 68-year-old colonel if the Libyan leader were forced to appear before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, although he described such a scenario as unlikely.
“If he asked me, yes, of course. Yes of course. (But) I don’t think it is going to happen,” he told Reuters.
The court’s prosecutor has called for indictments against Mr. Qaddafi, one of his sons and the head of Libyan intelligence, for killing civilians and other offenses in the country of six-million people.
Libyan officials said Mr. Dumas and Mr. Verges had offered their services “as volunteers” to represent the civilian victims of NATO bombing. Mr. Dumas declined to say whether they planned to accept payment from Mr. Qaddafi’s government for their services.
Asked if he had received money from Mr. Qaddafi’s government, Mr. Dumas told Reuters: “No, no. Nothing for the moment.”
Asked if that implied he would accept money from Colonel Qaddafi’s government in the future, he said: “We are working as a lawyer. Like the English lawyer or the American lawyer. Okay?”
South Africa’s mediation
President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, meanwhile, was expected in Tripoli Monday for talks that officials said will focus on an “exit strategy” for Colonel Qaddafi, as Libyan protesters applauded a G8 call for the strongman to go.
A source in Mr. Zuma’s office, on condition of anonymity, has said that “the purpose (of the visit) is to discuss an exit strategy for Kadhafi,” while another said South Africa was working with Turkey on the exit plan.
Mr. Zuma’s spokesman Zizi Kodwa insisted however that discussion of an exit strategy was “misleading,” saying the visit was taking place within African Union efforts for Libya to adopt the political reforms needed to end the crisis.
“The entire world has reached a consensus that Colonel Qaddafi and his regime have not only lost their legitimacy but also their credibility,” rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said meanwhile from the protesters’ Benghazi bastion.
“I would like to welcome the position taken... by the G8 where members emphasized the necessity of Colonel Qaddafi’s departure,” he said in a message marking 100 days since the outbreak of the anti-regime revolt.
“The position taken by the G8 is reflective of the will of the international community as well as the demands and aspirations of the Libyan people.”
On Friday, G8 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States called for Mr. Qaddafi to step down after more than 40 years in the face of pro-democracy protests turned full-fledged armed revolt.
Russia at the same time finally joined explicit calls for Colonel Qaddafi to go.
The Libyan regime responded by saying any initiative to resolve the crisis would have to go through the African Union.
“The G8 is an economic summit. We are not concerned by its decisions,” said Tripoli’s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaaim.
“We are an African country. Any initiative outside the AU framework will be rejected,” he said.
Mr. Kaaim, who confirmed President Zuma’s visit Monday, did not indicate whether Mr. Qaddafi’s departure would be discussed.
Turkey last month gave the international community, including the African Union, a proposed “roadmap” to end the Libyan turmoil by removing Mr. Qaddafi and opening the way for a comprehensive political transition.
On the humanitarian front, Italian coastguards rescued 210 refugees from the Libya conflict whose vessel was drifting aimlessly in the Mediterranean south of Lampedusa, prompting Rome to accuse Malta of inaction.
(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at: abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
Eleven protesters killed and scores wounded in wider military push into central Syria
Monday, 30 May 2011
A Syrian boy living in Jordan protests against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad outside the UN office in Amman. (File Photo)
Syrian forces killed at least 11 civilians and wounded scores on Sunday, a prominent human rights campaigner said, in a widening military push into central Syria to quell protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
Tanks, supported by troops, fired heavy machineguns in the towns of Talbiseh and Rastan and several villages near the city of Homs, residents told Reuters.
They are the latest population centers to come under army assault since a military crackdown to crush dissent against President Assad’s autocratic rule began at the end of last month in southern Syria, the cradle of the 10-week uprising in the 23-million-people country.
The killings occurred in and around the towns of Talbiseh and Rastan in rural Homs, human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouna said by telephone from Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain, said earlier it had the names of eight civilians killed.
“Soldiers are now all over Talbiseh. They are breaking into houses and arresting people,” one resident in the town of 60,000 said in a telephone interview. The sound of bullets echoed in the background.
The official state news agency said four members of the security forces were killed in Talbiseh “while chasing armed terrorist groups... to detain them and present them to justice.”
Talbiseh is 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Homs, Syria’s third largest city, where tanks shelled a main neighborhood earlier this month.
Troops have been occupying the main square in Homs to prevent scenes similar to when tens of thousands demonstrated in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen to press for reform.
Witness reports of violence in Syria, as well as official accounts, are difficult to verify independently because the government barred most international media from the country not long after the start of the unrest in March.
Another witness in Rastan, further to the north, said the town’s main clinic was full of wounded people and there was no way to get them to a hospital because of heavy tank fire.
“This is pure revenge,” said the witness, a lawyer who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.
Thousands of protesters in Rastan on Friday demanded the removal of Assad in one of the largest demonstrations in the region since the uprising against the government erupted in southern Syria on March 18.
Among those killed at Rastan were “a little girl called Hajar al-Khatib,” an activist told Agence-France Presse.
Another activist, contacted by telephone from Nicosia, said several people were wounded as security forces unleashed “intense gunfire” in Rastan and Talbisa, after tanks sealed off both towns.
“Dozens of tanks at dawn encircled the towns of Rastan and Talbisa,” the activist told AFP.
Rastan, a relatively prosperous town in an agricultural region, is on the main northern highway from Damascus to Syria’s second city Aleppo.
The lawyer said Internet, water, electricity, land lines and most mobile telephone links had been cut, a step commonly used by the military before they storm urban centers, according to Reuters.
Protests in Syria have continued despite the increasing force used to crush demonstrations that began with calls for political freedom and an end to corruption but are now urging the removal of Assad.
The president has responded to the growing protests, the biggest challenge to his rule, by intensifying a military crackdown that has killed hundreds.
The 45-year old leader has lifted emergency law and promised reforms but the opponents say there has been no change in Syria where the ruling Baath Party has banned all opposition and political freedoms since 1963.
Rights groups estimate at least 1,000 civilians have been killed by security forces, the army and gunmen loyal to Assad in the past 10 weeks. They said 10,000 people have been arrested, with beatings and torture commonplace.
Authorities blame armed groups, Islamists and foreign agents for the violence and say at least 120 soldiers and police officers have been killed. Activists say secret police killed scores of soldiers for refusing to fire at civilians.
In the eastern town of Deir al-Zor, protesters staged a night-time rally on Sunday, a day after at least one man was hurt when security forces opened fired to disperse a demonstration that had went through the night, witnesses said.
“I was hearing the bullets and the protesters chanting ‘the people want the overthrow of the regime’ at the same time,” one witness, a resident of the city, said by telephone on Saturday.
Demonstrations have been held nightly in Deir al-Zor and other cities and towns to circumvent heavy security which has intensified in recent weeks after street demonstrations grew in numbers and tanks were deployed in and around urban centers.
Human rights campaigners said a night-time rally took place on Saturday in the town of Binish in the northwestern province of Idlib in protest against arrests on Friday, when the biggest demonstrations typically occur after weekly prayers.
The Syrian National Organization for Human Rights said security forces shot dead 12 demonstrators on Friday during protests in 91 locations across Syria.
“The authorities are still pursuing the calculated course of using excessive violence and live ammunition to confront mass demonstrations,” the organization said in a statement.
(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at: abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
Yemen forces kill 20 protesters in Taez as air force bombs Al Qaeda in Zinjibar
Monday, 30 May 2011
An anti-government protester carries a wounded fellow protester during clashes with police in the soutnern Yemeni city of Taiz. (File Photo)
At least twenty people have been killed and up to 150 others have been wounded when Yemeni forces entered Freedom Square in Taez on Monday, as Yemen’s air force bombed the positions of Al Qaeda in Zinjibar
The government forces used bulldozers and live rounds in Taez, Al Arabiya reported citing its correspondent.
Yemen’s security forces have been launching a crackdown campaign against anti-regime protesters in the southern city of Taez. Thousands of demonstrators have been camped out at the square to demand the ouster of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Al Arabiya photographer, Mahmoud Taha, was among those arrested by the Yemeni forces.
According to Reuters, police fired live ammunition, tear gas and used water cannons to disperse more than 3,000 demonstrators protesting outside a municipal building near Freedom Square to demand the release of a fellow protester who was arrested on Saturday.
Al Qaeda-held Zinjibar
Yemen’s air force has, meanwhile, bombed the positions of Al Qaeda and Islamist militants who have taken control of the southern coastal city of Zinjibar, residents said on Monday.
They also said the army is shelling the city with artillery.
Four Yemeni soldiers were earlier killed and dozens injured in what appeared to be an ambush as they were travelling to Al Qaeda-held city of Zinjibar, a security official said on Monday.
Several hundred Al Qaeada and Islamist militants took over the Gulf of Aden city a few days ago and have been battling locals and government soldiers who are trying to regain control.
Fighting in Sana'a
In the capital Sana’a, seven explosions were heard on Sunday night in the district of Hasaba, the scene of week-long fighting between President Saleh’s forces and a rival tribe in which 115 people were killed, residents said.
There were no immediate details on the explosions, which appeared to have partially breached a truce between Mr. Saleh’s forces and the powerful Hashed tribe led by Sadeq al-Ahmar in the bloodiest fighting since unrest erupted in January.
Mr. Ahmar condemned what he described as Mr. Saleh’s “new massacre” against civilians in Taez. Earlier on Sunday, his men handed back control of a government building to mediators as part of a ceasefire deal.
A breakaway military group called for other army units to join them in the fight to bring down the 65-year-old president, piling pressure on him to end his three-decade rule over the destitute country of 24 million.
Despite global and regional powers demanding he step down, Mr. Saleh has refused to sign a deal, mediated by Gulf States, to start a transition of power aimed at averting civil war that could shake the region that supplies the world with oil.
“We call on you not to follow orders to confront other army units or the people,” the breakaway units said in a statement read by General Abdullah Ali Aleiwa, a former defense minister.
Opposition leaders separately accused Mr. Saleh of allowing the city of Zinjibar, on the Gulf of Aden, to fall to Al Qaeda and Islamists militants in order to raise alarm in the region that would in turn translate to support for the president.
Residents in Zinjibar, about 270 kilometers (170 miles) southeast of the capital, said armed men likely from Al Qaeda had control of the city in the flashpoint province of Abyan.
“About 300 Islamist militants and Al Qaeda men came into Zinjibar and took over everything on Friday,” a resident told Reuters.
Three militant gunmen and three civilians have been killed in fighting against locals, who have been joined by a few government soldiers, trying to take the city back from the Al Qaeda group and Islamists, medical sources said.
Nearly 300 Yemenis have been killed over the past few months as the president has tried to stop pro-reform protests by force.
Generals and government officials began to abandon President Saleh after deadly crackdowns on protesters started in force in March. There have been no major clashes yet between the breakaway military units and troops loyal to Mr. Saleh.
Opposition groups and diplomats have accused Mr. Saleh of using Al Qaeda threat to win aid and support from regional powers seeking his government’s help in battling the militants.
Fears are growing that Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) will exploit such instability, analysts said. The United States and Saudi Arabia, both targets of attacks by AQAP, are worried that growing chaos is emboldening the group.
Yemen borders Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, and sits along a shipping lane through which about 3 million barrels of oil pass daily.
(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at: abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
US group says Sudan army committed war crimes
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| New satellite images cited as proof that one-third of all civilian buildings in Abyei were burned out during takeover. Last Modified: 30 May 2011 02:27 | ||
New satellite images provide evidence that northern Sudanese troops have committed war crimes, including ethnic cleansing, in the contested border town of Abyei where the forces took over more than a week ago, according to an advocacy group. The Satellite Sentinel Project said in a statement on Sunday that satellite images by DigitalGlobe show that the Sudanese army burned about one-third of all civilian buildings in the north-south border town, used disproportionate force and indiscriminately targeted civilians. "The totality of evidence from satellites and ground sources points to state-sponsored ethnic cleansing of much of the contested Abyei region,'' the group said. The Satellite Sentinel Project said the evidence is being sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN Security Council for assessment. Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president, is already wanted by the ICC for war crimes in the Darfur region. Northern Sudanese tanks rolled into the town of Abyei on May 21, scattering southern troops that were there as part of a joint security unit. Thousands displaced The seizure of Abyei followed an attack on a convoy of northern soldiers by southern forces on May 19 and two days of aerial bombardment of the area by the north. The northern takeover has displaced tens of thousands of civilians who now live in squalid conditions in southern villages. On Sunday, Save The Children's UK office warned that a new wave of violent conflict has displaced up to 35,000 children. The group said in a statement on Sunday that children who have been separated from their families since fighting broke out are at "grave risk'' of being targeted for sexual and physical abuse or recruited into the armed conflict. Save the Children said it is "desperately worried about those children currently beyond the reach of humanitarian assistance". George Clooney, the Hollywood actor, urged the UN to protect civilians in Abyei, saying the north's takeover was meant to disrupt the south's upcoming independence in July. "We now have undeniable proof of the Khartoum regime's war crimes in Abyei. We've captured visual evidence of the Sudan Armed Forces ransacking and razing Abyei town," Clooney said. Clooney initiated the Satellite Sentinel Project along with John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, after they travelled to Southern Sudan in October 2010. Visual evidence The Satellite Sentinel Project was established to use satellite images and on-the-ground reports to help deter the resumption of full-scale civil war between Sudan's north and south. In its statement, the group said the new visual evidence shows that the government of Sudan has committed grave violations of the Geneva Conventions and other war crimes, some of which may also constitute crimes against humanity. North and south Sudan ended more than two decades of civil war in 2005 with a peace deal that promised both Abyei and the south a self-determination vote. The south voted overwhelmingly in January to secede and will become an independent nation July 9. Abyei's vote never happened, so its future is being negotiated by the north and south. Prendergast on Sunday urged Obama administration to punish Sudan by isolating it diplomatically and denying it debt relief. He also asked the Abyei matter to be referred to the ICC. "What is happening in Abyei is what the international community feared would happen in Benghazi, Libya," he said. "We're not advocating military intervention, but we do think the Responsibility to Protect doctrine requires more assertive action in support of ongoing emergency diplomacy." | ||
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| Source: AP |
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