Bombs and battles hit northern Iraq, 70 dead

BAGHDAD | Mon Jun 10, 2013 4:35pm EDT

(Reuters) - Insurgents struck cities across Iraq on Monday with car bombs, suicide attacks and gun battles, killing more than 70 people in worsening sectarian violence.
No group claimed responsibility for the day-long attacks, most of them in northern Iraq, but officials blame much of the violence that has killed nearly 2,000 people since April on Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda's local wing.
The bloodshed has accompanied rising political tensions between Iraq's majority Shi'ite leaders and the Sunni community, who believe they have been marginalized since the fall of Saddam Hussein after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
 
Monday's attacks earlier targeted markets in two northern Iraqi towns. But later insurgents hit at security forces, including an assault involving suicide bombers and rockets on police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul that killed 24, many of them police and soldiers.
The recent monthly death tolls have been the worst since inter-communal bloodletting five years ago that killed tens of thousands, partitioned Baghdad into districts based on religious sect and drove Iraq to the edge of wide scale civil war.
The increasingly sectarian conflict in neighboring Syria, where Shi'ite Iran and the region's Sunni Gulf powers are backing opposing sides, has also put pressure on Iraq's own fragile inter-communal and ethnic balance.
Invigorated by Syria's mostly Sunni revolt and Iraqi Sunni discontent, al Qaeda's local wing, Islamic State of Iraq, is recruiting and regaining ground lost during its war with U.S. troops who left Iraq in December 2011.
(Reporting by Reuters correspondents in Baquba and Mosul, Gazwan Hassan and Mustafa Mahmoud, Suadad al-Salhy and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

U.S. holds high-level meetings on Syria, including on arming rebels

By Arshad Mohammed and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON | Mon Jun 10, 2013 4:47pm EDT

(Reuters) - The United States could decide as early as this week whether to arm Syrian rebels, U.S. officials said on Monday, as Secretary of State John Kerry put off a Middle East trip to attend meetings on the subject.
The meetings are taking place as the battlefield has tilted against the rebels in the Syrian civil war as Lebanese Hezbollah has entered the fray on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, helping his forces retake the strategic town of Qusair last week.
However, the White House has debated for months whether to give arms to the rebels and a U.S. official stressed that while a decision was possible as early as this week, deliberations on the issue could easily take longer.
U.S. officials say they will not put "boots on the ground," code for deploying ground troops.
Fredrick Hof, a former senior U.S. official who worked on Syria policy and is now at a think tank, said the administration might decide to take charge of the distribution of weapons to the rebels but not necessarily to provide U.S. arms.
Having withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq and working to wind up the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama has sought to avoid getting more deeply involved in the Syrian civil war.
The shift in the military momentum toward Assad has made it less likely that a U.S. and Russian planned peace conference to bring the rebels and the government to the table would yield a negotiated political transition to remove Assad from power.
With Assad's forces, backed by Hezbollah and Iran, gaining the upper hand, he has little incentive to give up power.
The renewed focus on Syria comes two years into the uprising against Assad that has seen at least 80,000 people killed and has sent hundreds of thousands of refugees into Turkey and Jordan and displaced millions within Syria.
CONSENSUS ELUSIVE
Kerry put off plans to travel to Israel and the Palestinian Territories early this week in order to attend what the State Department described as "routine" meetings, including on the topic of Syria.
The United States and other governments are also weighing evidence that Assad's forces may have used chemical weapons, something Obama has said would cross a "red line."
This week's high-level Syria meetings are not a sign that the Obama administration has received conclusive proof of chemical weapons use by Assad's forces and is ready to decide on a response, one U.S. official said.
Obama has set no timetable for a chemical weapons assessment from the U.S. Intelligence community and the investigation is continuing, the official said.
A consensus on whether or not to arm the rebels remains elusive, with U.S. policymakers still wrestling with concerns that any American weapons could fall into the wrong hands.
Also, growing controversy at home over the government's sweeping surveillance programs are expected to occupy much of Obama and his national security team's time.
Hof, an analyst at the Atlantic Council think tank, said the White House might decide to take charge of the distribution of weapons to the rebels but not necessarily to provide U.S. arms.
"If the president is going to make that decision this week ... I suspect it would be a decision for the United States to take charge of the process by which carefully vetted units of the Free Syrian Army get what they need, both in terms of lethal and in terms of non-lethal (aid)," Hof said.
He also suggested such aid could be funneled through General Salim Idriss of the Supreme Military Council, the military wing of the main civilian opposition group, helping the former Syrian military officer gain credibility with other fighters and perhaps greater control over the fractious anti-Assad fighters.
'AMERICAN LEADERSHIP'
Obama this year shifted policy by giving U.S. medical kits and military rations to the rebels. Arms, however, have been left to Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar to provide.
"What's been needed here is American leadership and management of a process which, if left in the hands of local actors, simply results in the accumulation of clients and a very uneven supply system in terms of effectiveness," Hof said.
By centralizing the delivery of arms - whatever their origin - it might become easier to get the rebels to work under a single command authority rather than as multiple militias with allegiances to various external powers.
A possible move by the United States to arm the rebels was first reported by The Associated Press late on Sunday.
Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Washington was looking at what more it can do to help the opposition, including assisting it to keep ground it has seized and retake ground from the government.
"We are taking a closer look at what we can do to help the opposition," she said, without providing details.
Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said the Obama administration was continually looking at ways to strengthen the opposition but had nothing new to announce.
"We have prepared a wide range of options for the president's consideration, and internal meetings to discuss the situation in Syria are routine," Meehan said.
"The United States will continue to look for ways to strengthen the capabilities of the Syrian opposition, though we have no new announcements at this time," she added.
(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton and by Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Xavier Briand)

Syria troops 'preparing for Aleppo assault'

 

Aleppo has been carved up into areas controlled by rebels and the government

Syrian government forces are reported to be preparing for a major offensive on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo and its surroundings.

A Syrian security source said it would start "in the coming hours or days".
Opposition activists in the city told the BBC that military reinforcements, including Hezbollah fighters, had been sent to parts of Aleppo.
Government forces backed by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia Islamist group, last week recaptured the town of Qusair.
On Sunday, they retook the last remaining rebel-held villages in the strategically important area, which lies between the Lebanese border and the central city of Homs.

Brig Gen Mustafa al-Sheikh Rebel commander

In view of the Syrian regime's rapid advance, Washington could decide this week at meetings involving top security officials to start arming the rebels, US officials say.

A State Department spokeswoman said on Monday that the US would "continue to look for ways to help the opposition and increase aid... The president has talked about how boots on the ground is not an option - so all options short of that".
'Northern Storm' Much of northern Syria has been controlled by rebel groups since last year, and the front lines inside Aleppo have been largely static for months.
However, the fall of Qusair last Wednesday has reportedly been seized on by the military leadership in Damascus as a decisive victory.
On Monday, opposition activists in Aleppo told the BBC that military reinforcements and weapons had been sent to militias loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in north-western parts of the city.
The army would be trying, they said, to recapture towns in the northern and southern countryside of the city to control vital supply lines from Turkey.
The activists added that the ultimate goal was to fully control the heart of Aleppo.
An article in the pro-government Syrian newspaper, al-Watan, said earlier that the army was now "deploying heavily in the countryside near Aleppo in preparation for a battle that will be fought inside the city and on its outskirts".
"Besieged areas will be freed in the first stages and troops which have been on the defensive will go on the offensive."

The city of Aleppo

 

 

One of world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, mentioned in texts from 20th Century BC

• Became a key trading post and has been repeatedly fought over through the centuries
• Population was about 2.3 million by 2005, mostly Sunni Muslims
• Has largest Christian population in Syria as well as Shia and Alawite communities
• Latest fighting began with bomb attacks on February 2012
• Old City is a World Heritage Site but several ancient monuments have been destroyed in fighting

• Profile: Aleppo, Syria's second city

It added: "The Syrian army will take advantage of its experience in Qusair and Eastern Ghouta [near Damascus] to advance in the provinces of Hama and Homs."

Meanwhile, the Syrian security source also said the government's next target was Aleppo.
"It is likely the battle for Aleppo will start in the coming hours or days, and its aim is to reclaim the towns and villages in the province," the source told AFP news agency.
The planned offensive is reportedly named Operation Northern Storm.
On Sunday, fierce fighting was reported in Nubbul and Zahra, two villages on the outskirts of the city that are predominantly Shia Muslim.
A rebel commander and former senior military officer, Brig Gen Mustafa al-Sheikh, said the government had been using helicopters to reinforce its positions with loyalists, including Hezbollah fighters and Shia from Iraq.
"The [army's] aim is to use the two villages as forward bases to make advances in Aleppo and its countryside," he told Reuters news agency.
"The regime considers that it has received a shot in the arm after the Qusair battle, but they will find that it will not be easy to advance in Aleppo."
Local activist Abu Mujahid said troops backed by Hezbollah militants had attempted to break a rebel siege of a military airport in the town of Minnig, near Zahra and Nubbul, and that the rebels were monitoring activity at the nearby Salamiya army base.
Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, declared at the end of May that the group had sent fighters to Syria to assist forces loyal to President Assad, and vowed to fight to the end to defeat the rebellion and defend Lebanon from jihadist extremists.

Rebels are said to be monitoring troop movements in government-held areas and military bases

'Public execution' In a separate development on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that Islamist rebels in Aleppo had executed a 15-year-old boy in front of his parents as punishment for what they regarded as a blasphemous comment.
The UK-based activist group said Mohammed Qataa was shot in the face and neck a day after being seized by the rebels, who allegedly overheard the teenager tell someone: "Even if the Prophet Muhammad comes down [from heaven], I will not become a believer."
Before executing the boy, one of the rebels reportedly told onlookers: "Disbelieving in God is polytheism and cursing the Prophet is polytheism. Whoever curses even once will be punished like this."
The SOHR published a photograph of what it said was the boy's face, which bore gunshot wounds to the mouth and neck. Its director, Rami Abdul Rahman, said it could not "ignore these crimes, which only serve the enemies of the revolution and the enemies of humanity".
The main opposition body, the Syrian National Coalition, said that if the reports were true, it "would constitute a crime against humanity and those responsible must be brought to justice".
"The Syrian Coalition expects those taking part in the revolution to abide by the ideals and principles of international covenants and treaties," it said in a statement.
It blamed the alleged killing on "extremist factions" and urged people to support the main rebel group, the Free Syrian Army, saying it had "committed to adhering to human rights laws".

Mbusii Leaves Ghetto Radio For Radio Jambo

Mbusii

It is now confirmed that radio presenter and  stand-up comedian Mbusiih has left Ghetto radio to join Radio Jambo. Mbusii has beome a household name and is synonymous with Ghetto radio that is why his departure sent mixed reactions on social media. He is mostly famous for his ‘sheng’ and is  the man behind phrases like hakuna mbrrrrcha and other popular catch phrases he has coined . He confirmed that he was moving with his manager and friend LionDeh when he shared the following post  with his social media fans;

on my way troding to my new office with my co-host @liondeh to start our new assignment of Jah works @HakunaMbrrrrcha

Mbusiih story is one of  ‘Started from the bottom’ and the street hustler turned top radio presenter has won many awards with his drive show making him one of the most sought after radio personalities in the country at the moment. Kenya’s media scene is one that is ever changing with the media personalities shifting form one station to another mostly headed for greener pastures. Such is the case for Mbusii who is looking to grow his career and become even better at his job. We will still be  hearing more and more of Mbusii only that it will not be from Ghetto Radio but on 97.5 Radio Jambo  everyday from 3PM-7PM. The Niaje team wishes Mbusii all the best in his career.

Mandela health updates difficult, says expert

Journalists and members of the public stand outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria eagerly awaiting updates on the health of former president, Nelson Mandela. Madiba is currently receiving medical treatment for a recurrent lung infection. Picture: AFP

Johannesburg - The media must understand the difficulties the presidency faces in keeping the public informed about former president Nelson Mandela's health, media strategist Chris Vick said on Monday.
"When the presidency issues a statement, every word is analysed for some form of hidden meaning, or compared to the substance of previous statements when Madiba was in hospital," Vick, a former spokesman for politician Tokyo Sexwale, said.
"Yet, when no statement is issued for some time, the lack of comment is itself analysed for some form of hidden meaning, or compared to previous statements."
It became a vicious circle where government was damned if it did, and damned if it did not.
The presidency announced on Saturday morning that Mandela was in a "serious but stable" condition after being admitted to a Pretoria hospital in the early hours of that morning.
On Monday it issued a statement saying Mandela's condition was "unchanged".
This was the first update in more than 48 hours since the initial announcement on Saturday.
SPECULATION
Newspapers speculated on the ailing icon's health on Monday morning amid the silence from the presidency.
Vick said that although the presidency was dealing with a high-profile world leader it also had to respect the privacy and feelings of Mandela's family as well as the practicalities of the medical team treating him.

"One way the presidency could take the pressure off itself, while keeping the public informed, would be to commit to issuing statements at a particular time of the day... and if there is no update at the time, to just say so.
"That may go some way to easing the clamour for updates, and managing the speculation that develops when no statement is issued for some time," he said.
Media have been camping outside the hospital where Mandela is believed to be admitted and outside his Houghton home in Johannesburg since the news broke.
Mandela has been in and out of hospital in the past few years. At the end of March and in April this year he spent nine days in hospital receiving treatment for recurring lung problems.
Earlier in March, he was admitted to a Pretoria hospital for a scheduled check-up and was discharged the following day.
In December last year, Mandela underwent an operation to remove gallstones and treat the recurring lung infection. He was discharged after an 18-day stay and placed under home-based high-care at his Houghton home.
In January, the presidency said Mandela had made a full recovery from the surgery and continued to improve. In February last year he was admitted to hospital for a stomach ailment.
In January 2011, a virtual void of information marked Mandela's admission to Johannesburg specialist care Milpark Hospital. With very little information to go on at that time, speculation was rife and reports of his death started running on social networks.
Finally, on January 28, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and Surgeon General Vejaynand Ramlakan addressed a media briefing on his health.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, which customarily managed publicity for Mandela, only broke its silence on Monday, January 31, 2011.
This was after then Sunday Independent editor Makhudu Sefara wrote an item called "The making of an unnecessary crisis".