Monday, 24 July 2017

UAE minister: no dialogue with Qatar until it revises policies

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates, one of four Arab countries that have imposed sanctions on Qatar, said on Saturday that Doha needed to change its policies before a dialogue could take place.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar and imposed an economic boycott last month, accusing it of financing extremist groups and supporting terrorism, charges Doha has repeatedly denied.
UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said a call for dialogue by Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad al-Thani was welcome, but this could only happen after Doha had made changes.
He did not specify these, but the four countries involved have issued more than a dozen demands, telling Qatar to close down Al Jazeera television, curb relations with Iran and shut down a Turkish military base.
“Dialogue is necessary and needed but its backbone has to be revision,” Gargash said on his Twitter account.
He expressed disappointment with a speech by Sheikh Tamim on Friday, the first the emir had given since the start of the crisis.
“I had hoped that the speech of Sheikh Tamim would be an initiative for revision,” Gargash said.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally of Qatar, will visit Saudia Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar during a two-day mediation trip that begins on Sunday. 

Palestinians die in new clashes over Jerusalem holy site

JERUSALEM: Two Palestinians died in clashes with Israeli forces Saturday as the army moved in to seal off an attacker’s home after violence over security measures at an ultra-sensitive holy site.
The UN Security Council will hold closed-door talks Monday about the spiralling violence after Egypt, France and Sweden sought a meeting to “urgently discuss how calls for de-escalation in Jerusalem can be supported.”
It came after another day of violence followed bloodshed on Friday, when a 19-year-old Palestinian killed three Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and three Palestinians died in clashes with Israeli forces.
On Saturday, Palestinian youths hurled stones and petrol bombs as the army used a bulldozer to close off the 19-year-old attacker’s West Bank village and prepare his house for probable demolition.
Israel frequently punishes the families of attackers by razing or sealing their homes as a deterrent, although rights groups say this amounts to collective punishment.
Clashes also flared in east Jerusalem and other Palestinian villages in the West Bank near Jerusalem, police said, adding that anti-riot measures were used against them.
At the Qalandiya crossing between the West Bank and Jerusalem, clashes wounded at least eight Palestinians, the Palestinian health ministry said.
A Palestinian died of wounds suffered in clashes east of Jerusalem, the ministry said.
It said 17-year-old Oday Nawajaa was hit by Israeli live fire at Al-Azariya.
Another Palestinian, 18, died nearby when a petrol bomb exploded prematurely.
The violence was triggered by security measures including metal detectors at the entrance to the Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, ahead of the main weekly Friday prayers.
Israel imposed the measures after a gun and knife attack killed two Israeli policemen on July 14.
The Palestinians reject the measures, viewing them as Israel asserting further control over the holy site.
The site in Jerusalem’s Old City that includes the revered Al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock has been a focal point for Palestinians.
In 2000, then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon’s visit to the compound helped ignite the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which lasted more than four years.
Israeli authorities say the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the site and emerged from it to shoot the policemen.
On Friday, clashes erupted around the Old City.
Three Palestinians aged between 17 and 20 were shot dead. The Red Crescent reported 450 people wounded in Jerusalem and the West Bank, including 170 from live or rubber bullets.
Later Friday, the 19-year-old Palestinian broke into a home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and stabbed four Israelis, killing three.
He was shot by a neighbour and taken to hospital.
The Israeli army said he had spoken in a Facebook post of the Jerusalem holy site and of dying as a martyr.
The Israelis killed in Neve Tsuf, north of Ramallah and also known as Halamish, were a grandfather in his 60s and his son and daughter in their 40s, officials said. The grandmother was wounded.
Israeli soldiers raided the Palestinian’s nearby village of Kobar overnight and arrested his brother, the army said.
Amid mounting pressure to respond to the dispute, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas announced late Friday he was freezing contacts with Israel.
There was no immediate public reaction from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced what he called the “excessive use of force” by the Israelis in Friday’s clashes.
The European Union called on Israel and Jordan, custodian of Haram Al-Sharif mosque compound, to work together to “ensure security for all” in the Old City.
“Violence is likely to worsen absent a major policy shift,” said Ofer Zalzberg, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“Netanyahu’s mistake was installing the metal detectors without a Muslim interlocutor. It is the coercive character more than the security measure itself that made this unacceptable for Palestinians.”
On Saturday, entrances to Jerusalem’s walled Old City were open amid heavy security.
The metal detectors also remained at the entrance to the mosque compound.
“Al-Aqsa – that’s for the Muslims, not for the Jewish,” said Mohammad Haroub, a 42-year-old shopkeeper.
Like hundreds of others, he prayed outside on Friday instead of passing through the metal detectors.
Sharon Kopel, a 46-year-old Israeli tour guide, said he felt the metal detectors were unnecessary and politically motivated, but also criticised Palestinians for “lies” about Israel trying to take over Al-Aqsa.
“I don’t think it’s really effective anyway,” he said of the new measures. “But on the other hand... they brought guns into a holy place.”
The Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It is in east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.
It is considered the third holiest site in Islam and the most sacred for Jews. 

Thanks to Malaysian, Syrian IS transferred a lot of money to Marawi

JAKARTA: The central command of the Islamic State in Syria has funnelled tens of thousands of dollars to militants in the Philippines over the last year, most likely aiding their spectacular seizure of the southern city of Marawi, a report said yesterday.
The report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, a research institute based here, describes how Dr Mahmud Ahmad, a high-level IS figure from Malaysia, who is based near Marawi, worked through the group’s chain of command to Syria to get money and international recruits to help local militants seize territory in the Philippines for the caliphate.
The report provides insight into a question that has bewildered policymakers since IS militants swept into Marawi two months ago: How were they able to seize an important city, and what role did the IS’s central command play in the seizure?
The city has remained largely under the control of the militants for nearly two months despite a government military campaign to retake it with ground forces and aerial bombardments.
Some senior politicians in the Philippines have dismissed the Maute group, the major militant group behind the seizure of Marawi, as “IS wannabes”, characterising it as a drug mafia with little in common with the ideologically-driven IS fighters.
But the report suggests that IS commanders in Syria took the Maute Group’s strategic ambitions seriously.
IS’s ability to support its Philippine offshoots appears limited mainly to periodic Western Union transfers of tens of thousands of dollars, the report found, suggesting that direct support from Syria was a relatively minor factor in the Maute Group’s ability to seize Marawi.
The report argues that local recruiting and fundraising among pious Muslims, who resented the central government, have probably played a significant role in the insurgents’ successes.
The institute’s research is based on field visits this year to Mindanao, the island where Marawi sits, interviews with people close to Indonesian militants in the Philippines, and militants’ messages o from Telegram, the highly-encrypted messaging service used by IS.
Intercepted chats show that IS has a sophisticated command structure in Southeast Asia, allowing for complex coordination among its supporters.
In one instance last year, two Indonesian militants were connected via a Malaysian contact to another militant based in Thailand, who helped them support a prison break in that country.
The goal was to free a group of Uighurs, members of a Muslim ethnic group from western China, who had been detained there.
Though the prison break was successful, the Uighurs were recaptured by Thai police.
Still, the report noted: “The story illustrates how well-connected the IS network has become, with an Indonesian connecting easily with contacts in Turkey, the Philippines and Thailand, as with his own friends in prison.”
It said international coordination of IS leaders with Southeast Asian militants might amplify the terrorism threat to neighbouring Indonesia.
The last 18 months have produced a steady trickle of low-casualty IS-inspired terrorist attacks in Indonesia, but, until now, the actions tended to be poorly planned and executed.
For example, two Indonesian suicide bombers struck in the Kampung Melayu neighbourhood in East Jakarta in May, but only three victims were killed.
A major concern for the Indonesian government is that some of the 20-odd Indonesian fighters who have joined IS groups in Mindanao will acquire the equipment and expertise to commit serious attacks at home.
The report called for Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to improve their security services’ coordination and intelligence sharing, so that the names of key suspects are passed along.
Still, the first step is ousting IS from Marawi.
When the city was seized in May, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pledged that the militants would be defeated quickly.
But, groups aligned with IS continue to maintain their grip on sections of the city, and it appears unlikely that Marawi will be fully liberated when Duterte delivers his annual address to the nation on Monday.

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