As with the two households of fair Verona, where from ancient grudge breaks new mutiny, the fate of Hassan Nasrallah is tied with his raison d’
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Syria calls measures the equivalent to ‘war’ while promising to turn country into model democracy Syria has lashed out at international “meddling” in its internal affairs and lambasted new EU sanctions that also target the commander of the al-Quds force of Iran’s revolutionary guards, accused by the west of helping crush the unprecedented unrest. Walid al-Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, called the sanctions the equivalent to “war”, while promising to turn the country into a model democracy. He accused EU states of trying to “plant strife and chaos” after they agreed to extend punitive measures against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in response to the repression of protests that has cost 1,400 lives in three months. The Guardian has learned that the sanctions target General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the elite al-Quds, who is already subject to US sanctions. Moallem denied that Tehran or Syria’s Lebanese protege Hezbollah had been involved. He singled out France for harbouring ambitions derived from its history as Syria’s colonial ruler and urged Turkey to “reconsider” its increasinglyown hostile stance. Moallem blamed al-Qaida for killings of security personnel. Around 300 soldiers and other members of the security forces have been killed, alongside civilian casualties, in this bloody chapter of the Arab spring. The minister’s comments showed the Syrian regime flexing its muscles amid the overwhelmingly negative reaction to reform proposals Assad made in his speech on Monday. The US called for “action, not words” in response to that address – only Assad’s third since the crisis began. “We will forget that Europe is on the map and we will look east, south and towards every hand that is extended to us,” Moallem said in a televised speech. Russia and China are continuing to block western attempts to pass a UN security council resolution condemning Syria. British officials dismissed his remarks. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “It is the regime’s own brutal repression of peaceful protest that is harming the Syrian people and the Syrian economy. We will continue to increase the pressure on President Assad and those around him until they recognise that the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people must be met with reform not repression.” The new EU sanctions target individuals and companies in Syria’s business community to increase economic pressure on the regime, as well as on Soleimani and two other Iranians accused of “providing military equipment and support”. Syria is no stranger to international isolation. During the 2003 Iraq war many in Washington regarded it as an easy target for criticism. Tensions were heightened in 2005 when Lebanon’s ex-prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri was assassinated – though Damascus always denied responsibility. “Most Syrians would be horrified at the thought of reliving the isolation endured by Syria in the 80s and part of the 90s,” said Rime Allaf, a Syrian analyst at the Chatham House thinktank in London. “While the idea of foreign intervention is overwhelmingly rejected by regime fans and critics alike, diplomatic pressure is to be expected from Europe.” But analysts believe the regime still thinks it can contain this crisis through a mixture of repression and reform. Moallem promised reforms that would allow Syria to “give lessons for others in democracy”. A draft law to regulate new political parties, potentially ending Ba’athist dominance, has been published. After Assad’s speech, state media announced a presidential decree granting amnesty to prisoners, excluding political detainees. But domestic opposition, which appears to be slowly growing, rejected the pledges as insincere and too little, too late. “The parties law is not bad,” said one opposition analyst who asked for anonymity. “But no one really believes that the regime will allow true power-sharing because it will ultimately lead to its downfall.” It is equally unclear who will take part in a national dialogue. The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), a group of grassroots opposition activists, rejected calls for dialogue as a way to “gain more time” for the regime. Veteran opposition figures who had been meeting the government, including Louay Hussein and Michel Kilo, have refused to continue. Meanwhile, the LCC said security forces had raided Damascus University dormitories on Tuesday night and again on Wednesday morning making arrests, smashing computers and leaving one student dead. The raid came after at least people were shot dead by pro-government forces in Homs, Hama and Deir Ezzor on Tuesday amid rising tensions as pro-regime rallies and anti-regime demonstrations poured onto the streets. Nida Hassan is the pseudonym of a journalist working in Damascus Syria European Union Iran US foreign policy Middle East Europe Ian Black Nidaa Hassan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …*Conservatives from The Weekly Standard and The Daily Caller admit to host of The Big Picture, Thom Hartmann, that closing the gun show loophole would be a good idea. Somehow, between breathless fanboy posts alerting his readers to the every movement of Rick Perry (he sure is dreamy!), The National Review’s Kevin Williamson found time to prostrate himself (not once , but twice ) before National Rifle Association (NRA) talking points, support the interests of al-Qaeda, and fit multiple lies all into one little screed. Pretty impressive work, especially when you factor in his limited availability. I mean, those Rick Perry posters aren’t going to just stare at themselves. In these pieces, al-Qaeda Tool Williamson did what gun fetishists and NRA apologists always do when inconvenient truths about the blood already on their hands, or yet to come, are presented to them: He threw out random vituperation (even attacking one of his colleagues at NRO who happens to have more common sense than he could ever possess–he must be an absolute joy to work with!), and some misdirection that would make Houdini proud. My problem, of course, is that I don’t much like wannabe-bullies. Especially those who view the NRA like David Vitter does a lady-of-the-night with extra Huggies in hand, even more so when they lie and attack my friends at Media Matters on an issue I work on and care about, with Bachmannian reasoning to boot. So I thought I might respond, you know, for fun. The crux of our story is that Adam Gadahn, the American-born al-Qaeda spokesman, made a statement that was 90% correct about the easy availability of firearms for terrorists in the US (because of people like Williamson and the NRA), so this al-Qaeda Tool, of course, chose to focus on the 10% that wasn’t accurate. Here is our own David Neiwert’s explanation of what set off this jack-in-the-box originally: That popping sound you hear is the heads of NRA loyalists exploding from massive cognitive dissonance, all because of the release this week of a video showing a spokesman for al-Qaeda, Adam Gadahn, urging would-be jihadis to go out and stock up on as many guns as they can get their hands on — through the gun-show loophole So what do you do when you’re a shill for the NRA and have to explain why you don’t support the simple common sense of 69% of NRA members and 85% of Americans , (in a poll conducted by known liberal Frank Luntz for Mayors Against Illegal Guns) all of whom want to close the Gun Show Loophole? The one that Al Qaeda thug Gadahn spoke about. The one that has allowed everyone from Hezbollah to Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell to the Columbine killers to arm themselves–and provided a nice source of income for Timothy McVeigh. The one that sadly, as the thug Gadahn points out, would allow any Ayman al-Zwahiri to walk into a gun show in the 33 states that have not closed it, and buy a gun from “private sellers” without any kind of background check. What you do is lie of course, and portray private sales of firearms as “Uncle Bubba,” deciding “to swap his deer rifle to Otis for $100 and a case of Bud.” Here, I’d like to take a moment to thank Mr. NRA-talking-points dispenser for the oh-so-clever and folksy narrative, but in the real world where guns are used in mass murders, “Uncle Bubba” sometimes sells 348 guns in less than a year using that very loophole in our law for which our favorite al-Qaeda Tool has donned his usually-reserved-for-Rick-Perry knee pads. Perhaps more hysterically, useful idiot that Williamson is, he compares the private sale of guns to the private sale of automobiles. You know, those things that require licenses to drive and registration, all that crazy regulation that would obviously place us squarely on the road to serfdom if even mentioned in the same breath as his beloved firearms. Nicely played, Kev. So let’s quickly point out to our “drooling and comtemptible” readers here (his words regarding liberal blog readers at Media Matters–don’t be jealous, he likely thinks of you the same way), the myriad lies Williamson committed to blog when defending the NRA and the rights of al-Qaeda adherents across this vast land to arm themselves with as little hassle as possible. He engaged this little game of obfuscation when attacking Chris Brown of Media Matters , whose cardinal sin was to point out what all the falsehoods in Williamson’s original digital reach-around to the NRA. Not surprisingly al-Qaeda’s man with the plan gets the facts wrong again and again and again: 1. Media Matters said conversation kits are available at gun shows, not that they are perfectly legal. The GAO and any number of individual accounts, like Mark Potok’s , tell the simple truth that conversion kits are available at gun shows. No points on that one, Williamson. 2. Media Matters didn’t cite al-Qaeda as a source on gun laws. They pointed out that al-Qaeda was instructing terrorists to carry out mass murder by exploiting a well known loophole in US gun laws. Strike two, tough guy. 3. Media Matters said that conversion manuals, not kits as you claimed, are easily obtained online. Third time’s most definitely not a charm, Kev-o. So it would seem Williamson is either a dunderhead who lacks basic reading comprehension or a professional prevaricator who simply makes stuff up when his arguments fail on their merits. Likely, our hero is some combination of the two. I am sure Williamson will soon once again inform us of his warped views on this subject among his published pablum–he may even say mean things about me! After all, Rick Perry might take a day off for vacation, or perhaps due to self-inflicted visual impairment at the hands of a sticky LA Looks nozzle, and then what will Williamson be left with but NRA talking points tattooed on his biceps and a whole lot of excess stupid. I can be followed on Twitter @cliffschecter – Come on by, and I’d love to hear from you
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Assad’s forces use scorched earth policy to round up hundreds they claim to be in armed gangs in area north of Jisr al-Shughour Syrian troops have moved closer to the Turkish border as they sweep through villages north of Jisr al-Shughour, rounding up hundreds of people they claim are linked to armed gangs. Turkey was on Monday assembling a fifth refugee camp in its southern border towns, but with the number of Syrians who have crossed the boundary topping 7,000, these camps may not be sufficient to deal with the fast-increasing number of people in need of help. “There are 7,000 people across the border, more and more women and children are coming towards the barbed wires,” said Abu Ali, one of those who left Jisr al-Shughour. “Jisr is finished, it is razed,” he told Associated Press. Several thousand more Syrians remain within sight of the Turkish border fence but appear to be trying to wait out the crisis in the hope that they can return to their properties in their home town. Many have brought with them livestock and worldly possessions that they would have to leave behind if they crossed the frontier. Residents who fled the army onslaught on Jisr al-Shughour said soldiers were pursuing a scorched-earth policy, pouring petrol on farmlands and setting them alight. All men who had stayed behind aged between 18-40 were being arrested, reports said. Strident international criticism over the Jisr al-Shughour operation, which appears to have been sparked by a large mutiny of soldiers on 5 June, has done nothing to quell the violence in the north. Damascus continues to claim it is fighting armed gangs backed by foreign powers who ambushed regime forces, killing 120 of them, then stayed behind to fight the advance by thousands of troops and up to 200 tanks and artillery pieces. The Turkish prime minister, Recap Tayyip Erdogan, has joined the condemnation of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, but has not moved to change the historically close ties between the countries. Analysts in Beirut said a turning point for Ankara may come if the uprising in northern Syria spreads to Kurds in the country’s north-west, who share a border with south-east Turkey, where Kurdish rebels have fought a protracted insurgency against the government. Assad has not accepted Erdogan’s calls over the past week, according to reports from the Turkish capital. Nor has he been prepared to deal with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. However, Assad did find time to congratulate the Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, and the prime minister-elect, Najib Miqati, for forming a cabinet after five months of wrangling within Lebanon’s feuding political groups. The mooted new government got off to a bad start, with several key players including a Druze leader and a Hezbollah official, suggesting Lebanon faces more troubled days alongside its dominant neighbour to the east. Britain says it is moving ahead with plans to seek a UN resolution condemning Syria, but is not confident about winning over Russia, a long term ally of Damascus, which has said it would veto any such move. Syria Bashar Al-Assad Turkey Arab and Middle East unrest Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
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Dozens injured as an estimated 1,000 Syrians and Palestinians gathered at border village of Majd al-Shams Israeli troops have clashed with protesters on the Syrian border for the second time in less than a month, with several dozen reported injured and claims that up to 20 had been killed. The violence had been widely predicted after organisers called for a symbolic March on Israel to mark 44 years since the beginning of the six day war in 1967. However, the clashes were smaller in scale than the last time pro-Palestinian activists confronted Israeli soldiers along borders with Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. The Syrian village of Majd al-Shams was again the focal point with an estimated 1,000 Syrians and Palestinians surging to within 20 metres of the fenced off border over six hours. They threw stones and molotov cocktails at Israeli troops as snipers fired rubber-coated bullets and live rounds at some activists. Israel acknowledged that at least 12 had been wounded on the Syrian side, but disputed claims by state television in Damascus that 20 demonstrators were killed. Television footage shown live from the scene on Syrian and Lebanese television showed scores of people being carried to waiting ambulances, however there has been no confirmation of the deaths. As night fell there were reports that anti-tank mines may have detonated near the Syrian border town of Quinetra, accounting for some deaths. The Lebanese army kept demonstrators away from flash-point areas in the south of the country, while Palestinian organisers called off their protests on Friday after pressure from the army. The village of Maroun al-Ras was the scene of widespread violence on 15 May when up to 10 demonstrators were shot dead as they rallied near the fence that separates Lebanon and Israel. Up to 1,000 demonstrators arrived at the area in buses to mark “Nakba day”, the Palestinian name for the day Israel was formed in 1948. One demonstrator who was wounded that day told the Guardian the Lebanese militia Hezbollah had given him $50 to turn up at the border and $900 to have his gunshot wounds treated by physicians. He said he had been planning to return to Maroun al-Ras yesterday until the rally was cancelled. At the Qalandia crossing between Jerusalem and the West Bank around 50 demonstrators were forced back by Israeli border police who fired teargas and rubber bullets. The protesters walked for about 200 metres before being dispersed with rounds of teargas. At the same time youths threw rocks at Israeli soldiers and police but were never close enough to cause harm. A small group appeared with placards next to the Israeli soldiers but were dispersed with percussion grenades. The same group lay in front of a police truck used to spray “skunk”, a noxious liquid used for crowd control, and stayed for a few minutes despite being doused in the liquid. The injured were hit by rubber bullets and gas canisters, and overcome by teargas and pepper spray. In Gaza, Israeli police prevented hundreds of demonstrators from approaching the Erez checkpoint and confronting the army. Until Nakba day, when hundreds of protesters from Syria and Lebanon breached the northern Israeli border, the frontier with Syria had remained trouble-free for almost four decades. But as the Syrian government’s brutal crackdown on protests show, protesters are only allowed to gather when the state allows them. The Golan area of Syria is off-limits without state permission. Analysts in Damascus say that while Israel may be culpable for opening fire, they view events on both days as deliberate antagonism of Israel by the Syrian regime. Rami Makhlouf, the president’s cousin and a member of the regime’s inner circle, last month told the New York Times: “If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel.” “There is no question the regime organised this to say it’s us or chaos,” Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian human rights activist in exile in the US, said. One Syrian activist tweeted: “So Bashar sends army and tanks to crush peaceful protests, and sends a few dozen Palestinian refugees to liberate the Golan?” After breaching the border on May 15, one man, Hassan Hijazi, made it all the way to Jaffa in search of his family’s former house. Nidaa Hassan is a pseudonym for a journalist in Damascus Israel Syria Palestinian territories Gaza Lebanon Protest Middle East Conal Urquhart Nidaa Hassan Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Fareed Zakaria: Netanyahu Should Have Thanked Obama For His Middle East Proposal
May 29, 2011 No Comment
Just how in bed with Barack Obama is Fareed Zakaria? On the Sunday CNN program bearing his name, the host began the show by saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have thanked the President for his Middle East peace proposal given earlier this month (video follows with transcript and commentary): FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: We've just gone through an arcane debate about whether Barack Obama said anything new when he called for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement based on 1967 borders with mutually agreed upon land swaps. In fact, that has been the working assumption of all negotiating parties — America, Israel and the Palestinian authority — for over 20 years. It is what the Camp David talks of 2000 were based on, it's what former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's talks with the Palestinians was based on. The newsworthy and real shift in U.S. policy was President Obama publicly condemning the Palestinian strategy to seek recognition as a state from the U.N. General Assembly in September. Instead of thanking Obama for this, Prime Minister Netanyahu chose to stage, in the words of the former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas, quote, “nothing less than a bizarre tirade at the White House on Friday, educating the president about the plight (ph) and the pogroms of Jews throughout history,” end quote. So why did Netanyahu do this? Does it help Israel's security or strengthen it otherwise to stoke tensions with its strongest ally and largest benefactor, Washington? Does such behavior further the resolution of Israel's problems? No, but it helps Netanyahu stir up support at home and maintain his fragile coalition. The real revelation, which has been picked up by many in the Israeli press, is that it shows finally that Netanyahu simply doesn't want a deal. He always has a new objection, a new problem, a new delaying tactic because, at core, he has never believed that the Palestinians should have a state. Fascinating. So the man that has admitted to giving foreign policy advice to the President is now blaming tensions between the White House and Israel on Netanyahu while claiming the Prime Minister really doesn't want a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians. This is precisely why Zakaria should recuse himself from reporting on such matters as NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell requested on May 16. Unfortunately, this unrestrained shill was just warming up, for he next cherry-picked statements Netanyahu made 33 years ago: Here is the young Bibi, 33 years ago, at a forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I think the United States should oppose the creation of a Palestinian state for several reasons, the first one being that it is unjust to demand the creation of a 22nd Arab state and a second Palestinian state at the expense of the only Jewish state. There is no right to establish the second one on my doorstep, which will threaten my existence. There is no right whatsoever. (END VIDEO CLIP) It might have been nice if Zakaria had offered viewers some context concerning these remarks. The video of Netanyahu's entire testimony at that 1978 Cambridge forum is available at Right Scoop. At minute 2:30, Netanyahu said the following: NETANYAHU: The Palestinians themselves, in the Palestinian National Covenant, the very first article, say that the people of Palestine quote “are part of the Arab nation.” Well, let’s look at the Arab nation. It has 21 states, and area roughly the size of the United States, and one sixth of the entire world’s wealth. Now add to that the fact that there already exists a Palestinian state, and that is Jordan, 60 percent of whose population is Palestinian. I think it’s quite interesting that Yasser Arafat and King Hussein who are bitter enemies agree on one thing: that Jordan is a Palestinian state. So what we’re talking about is a demand for a 22nd Arab state and a second Palestinian state. As such, and contrary to what Zakaria presented, Netanyahu didn't say he was opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. He said that he was for the creation of such a state in Jordan whose population at that time was 60 percent Palestinian and which was already recognized as a Palestinian state by much of the Arab world. Not surprisingly, the CNN host that advises Obama didn't share that with his viewers: ZAKARIA: Prime Minister Netanyahu's references to the indefensible borders of 1967 last week also reveal him to be mired in a world that has really gone away. The chief threat to Israel today is not from a Palestinian army. Israel has the region's strongest economy and military by far, complete with an arsenal of nuclear weapons. The chief threats to Israel are from new technologies — rockets, biological weapons and from demography. Its physical existence is less in doubt than its democratic existence as it continues to rule millions of Palestinians who are entitled to neither a vote nor a country. Ironically, the young Bibi understood that it was impossible to keep the Palestinians in such serf-like conditions forever. Listen to him advocating that Palestinians should be given citizenship, either in Jordan or in Israel. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NETANYAHU: In the event that this negotiation process will continue, I am sure that what we're talking about is, in fact, eventual citizenship of some kind, either Jordanian or Israeli or in any other arrangement. (END VIDEO CLIP) ZAKARIA: If the Palestinians were smart, they'd take Prime Minister Netanyahu up on that offer of citizenship in Israel, and then Bibi would wish he had been for a two-state solution all along. Yes, Fareed, they should take Netanyahu up on something he said 33 years ago in a completely different world where Iran and its leader were strong allies of America and neither Hezbollah nor Hamas yet existed. And Zakaria has the gall to accuse Netanyahu of being “mired in a world that has really gone away.”
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Finala, Locul 3 la concursul “Romanii Au Talent” Valentin Dinu Finala, Primul Loc la concursul “Romanii Au Talent” Adrian Tutu No Sharia in India-8 ISI Defense Analyst Zaid Hamid FUNNY Video – Must Watch Leaked Files Show US Considers Pakistan's ISI Intelligence Agency … Recommendations to interrogators at Guantánamo Bay rank the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate ( ISI ) alongside al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon as threats. Being linked to any of these groups is an indication of terrorist … Guantanamo Bay files: Pakistan's ISI spy service listed as … US authorities describe the main Pakistani intelligence service as a terrorist organisation in secret files obtained by the Guardian. Recommendations to. Guantanamo documents name Pakistan ISI as al Qaeda associate (Yahoo) ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military classified Pakistan’s top spy agency as a terrorist support entity in 2007 and used association with it as a justification to detain prisoners in… EBC Radio | Blog | U.S. Guantanamo documents name Pakistan ISI as … ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military classified Pakistan’s top spy agency as a terrorist support entity in 2007 and used association with it as a justification to detain prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, according to leaked documents … Guantanamo documents name Pakistan ISI as al Qaeda associate … Thе ISI , along wіth al Qaeda, Hamas аnd Hezbollah аnd Iranian intelligence, аrе аmοng 32 groups οn thе list οf “associated forces,” whісh аlѕο includes Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, headed bу al Qaeda emissary Ayman al-Zawahiri. … rehannews says: U.S. listed ISI as terror group with Hamas, Hezbollah, latest trove of Wikileaks documents show…
Continue reading …The US military has considered Pakistan’s spy agency an al-Qaeda support group since 2007—and has used association with it to justify imprisoning people in Guantanamo Bay, the latest crop of WikiLeaks documents reveals. The ISI is listed alongside the likes of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian intelligence, and dozens of…
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The Guardian, with others, has received access to a cache of more than 700 leaked files on Guantánamo Bay detainees. The files reveal that innocent people were interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts, and that children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held. Follow live coverage here 8.32am: On Comment is free, the Guardian’s Julian Glover writes that “what is given new prominence by these latest Guantánamo files is the cold, incompetent stupidity of the system: a system that tangled up the old and the young, the sick and the innocent. A system in which to say you were not a terrorist might be taken as evidence of your cunning.” “If you could only know what we can know, you would understand that what we are doing is right,” our leaders used to assure us. Well now we really do know – we have the documents, we have the transcripts of interviews with former prisoners, we have everything it takes to understand the nasty story of Guantánamo, exposed today in 759 leaked documents containing the words of the people who ran the place. And it is obvious that we should have seen through the evasions from the start. The clinical idiocy of this dreadful place is the most chilling thing of all, since it strips away even the cynical but persuasive defence: it was harsh but it worked and it kept the world safe. It didn’t work, much of the time. These files show that some of the information collected was garbage and that many of those held knew nothing that could be of use to the people demanding answers from them. Far from securing the fight against terror, the people running the camp faced an absurdist battle to educate a 14-year-old peasant boy kidnapped by an Afghan tribe and treat the dementia, depression and osteoarthritis of an 89-year-old man caught up in a raid on his son’s house. Other cases are just as pathetic. Jamal al-Harith, born Ronald Fiddler in Manchester in 1966, was imprisoned by the Taliban as a possible spy, after being found wandering through Afghanistan as a Muslim convert. In a movement of Kafkaesque horror the Americans held him in Camp X-Ray simply because he had been a prisoner of its enemy. “He was expected to have knowledge of Taliban treatment of prisoners and interrogation tactics,” the files record. 8am: This morning the Guardian and others have published a cache of files on Guantánamo Bay detainees , which lift the lid on life inside the controversial prison camp in Cuba. The Guantánamo files reveal… • A number of British nationals and residents were held for years despite US authorities being aware they were not Taliban or al-Qaida members. One Briton, Jamal al-Harith was rendered to Guantánamo simply because he had been held in a Taliban prison and was thought to have knowledge of their interrogation techniques. • US authorities relied heavily on information obtained from a small number of detainees under torture. They continued to maintain this testimony was reliable even after admitting that the prisoners who provided it had been mistreated. • US authorities listed the main Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), as a terrorist organisation alongside groups like al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence. Some of the most shocking aspects of the leaked files relate to individuals’ stories. The 89-year-old Afghan villager who was detained at Guantanamo Bay despite suffering from dementia, depression and sickness. The 14-year-old boy , who had been an innocent kidnap victim, but was still imprisoned. Other files reveal that almost 100 of the inmates who passed through Guantanamo are listed by their captors as having had depressive or psychotic illness. The Guantánamo files are among hundreds of thousands of documents US soldier Bradley Manning is accused of having turned over to the Wikileaks website more than a year ago. They were obtained by the New York Times, who shared them with the Guardian, which is publishing extracts today, having redacted information which might identify informants. The New York Times says the files were made available to it not by Wikileaks, but “by another source on the condition of anonymity”. Separately a different collaboration of European and US newspapers received the cache from Wikileaks, and has also published on the Guantánamo files today. You can browse the files and visit the Guardian’s Today we’ll follow all the latest reaction to the revelations as it happens. The Guantánamo files Guantánamo Bay United States Afghanistan Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk
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• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts • Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held • 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America’s controversial prison camp in Cuba. The US military dossiers, obtained by the New York Times and the Guardian, reveal how, alongside the so-called “worst of the worst”, many prisoners were flown to the Guantánamo cages and held captive for years on the flimsiest grounds, or on the basis of lurid confessions extracted by maltreatment. The 759 Guantánamo files, classified “secret”, cover almost every inmate since the camp was opened in 2002. More than two years after President Obama ordered the closure of the prison, 172 are still held there. The files depict a system often focused less on containing dangerous terrorists or enemy fighters, than on extracting intelligence. Among inmates who proved harmless were an 89-year-old Afghan villager, suffering from senile dementia, and a 14-year-old boy who had been an innocent kidnap victim . The old man was transported to Cuba to interrogate him about “suspicious phone numbers” found in his compound. The 14-year-old was shipped out merely because of “his possible knowledge of Taliban…local leaders” The documents also reveal: • US authorities listed the main Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), as a terrorist organisation alongside groups such as al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence. Interrogators were told to regard links to any of these as an indication of terrorist or insurgent activity. • Almost 100 of the inmates who passed through Guantánamo are listed by their captors as having had depressive or psychotic illnesses . Many went on hunger strike or attempted suicide. • A number of British nationals and residents were held for years even though US authorities knew they were not Taliban or al-Qaida members. One Briton, Jamal al-Harith , was rendered to Guantánamo simply because he had been held in a Taliban prison and was thought to have knowledge of their interrogation techniques. The US military tried to hang on to another Briton, Binyam Mohamed , even after charges had been dropped and evidence emerged he had been tortured. • US authorities relied heavily on information obtained from a small number of detainees under torture. They continued to maintain this testimony was reliable even after admitting that the prisoners who provided it had been mistreated. The leaked files include guidance for US interrogators on how to decide whether to hold or release detainees, and how to spot al-Qaida cover stories. One warns interrogators: “Travel to Afghanistan for any reason after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 is likely a total fabrication with the true intentions being to support Usama Bin Laden through direct hostilities against the US forces.” Another 17-page file, titled “GTMO matrix of threat indicators for enemy combatants”, advises interrogators to look out for signs of terrorist activity ranging from links to a number of mosques around the world, including two in London, to ownership of a particular model of Casio watch. “The Casio was known to be given to the students at al-Qaida bombmaking training courses in Afghanistan,” it states. The inclusion of association with the ISI as a “threat indicator” in this document is likely to pour fuel on the flames of Washington’s already strained relationship with its key regional ally.A number of the detainee files also contain references, apparently based on intelligence reporting, to the ISI supporting, co-ordinating and protecting insurgents fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan, or even assisting al-Qaida. Obama’s inability to shut Guantánamo has been one of the White House’s most internationally embarrassing policy failures. The files offer an insight into why the administration has been unable to transfer many of the 172 existing prisoners from the island prison where they remain outside the protection of the US courts or the prisoner-of-war provisions of the Geneva conventions. The range of those still held captive includes detainees who have been admittedly tortured so badly they can never be successfully tried, informers who must be protected from reprisals, and a group of Chinese Muslims from the Uighur minority who have nowhere to go. One of those officially admitted to have been so maltreated that it amounted to torture is prisoner No 63, Maad al-Qahtani . He was captured more than nine years ago, fleeing from the site of Osama bin Laden’s last stand in the mountain caves of Tora Bora in 2001. The report says Qahtani, allegedly one of the “Dirty 30″ who were Bin Laden’s bodyguards, must not be released: “HIGH risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” The report’s military authors admit his admissions were obtained by what they call “harsh interrogation techniques in the early stages of detention”. At the other end of the spectrum the files detail many innocents or marginal figures swept up by the Guantánamo dragnet because US forces considered they might be of some intelligence value. One man was transferred to the facility “because he was a mullah, who led prayers at Manu mosque in Kandahar province, Afghanistan … which placed him in a position to have special knowledge of the Taliban”. US authorities eventually released him after more than a year’s captivity, deciding he had no intelligence value. Another prisoner was shipped to the base “because of his general knowledge of activities in the areas of Khowst and Kabul based as a result of his frequent travels through the region as a taxi driver”. The files also reveal that an al-Jazeera journalist was held at Guantánamo for six years, partly in order to be interrogated about the Arabic news network. His dossier states that one of the reasons was “to provide information on … the al-Jazeera news network’s training programme, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the network’s acquisition of a video of UBL [Osama bin Laden] and a subsequent interview with UBL”. The Guantánamo files are among hundreds of thousands of documents US soldier Bradley Manning is accused of having turned over to the WikiLeaks website more than a year ago. The documents were obtained by the New York Times and shared with the Guardian and National Public Radio, which is publishing extracts, having redacted information which might identify informants. A Pentagon spokesperson said: “Naturally we would prefer that no legitimately classified information be released into the public domain, as by definition it can be expected to cause damage to US national security. The situation with the Guantánamo detention facility is exceptionally complex and releasing any records will further complicate ongoing actions.” The Guantánamo files Guantánamo Bay David Leigh James Ball Ian Cobain Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
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