Middle East mega thread (WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES.)

iraniam · Nov 11, 2011

There is a lot happening in the Middle East Region, and much of it ends up with all the Iran news.

The administrators of the site are exceptionally busy, and work very hard, and I was just looking for a way to separate the Middle East news from Iran - it should make it easier to find.

So whilst this is still in the News & Event section of the Iran Forum, it's an attempt to keep it slightly separate so please post any new news from the rest of the region in this thread - at least in the mean time.

Thanks

John Doe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/nov/11/syria-middle-east-unrest-live-updates

iraniam · Nov 28, 2011

The Guardian-Syrian security forces have committed “crimes against humanity” since widespread anti-government protests began in March, according to a damning UN report (pdf) that will add to the mounting pressure on the president, Bashar al-Assad.

It said that least 256 children had been killed by government forces.

The investigation by the UN’s independent international commission found patterns of summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance and torture, including sexual violence and abuse, some of it directed against children.

The UN report was published on a day that saw Syria lambast the Arab League for imposing unprecedented economic sanctions because of the refusal by Damascus to accept observers to protect civilians.

Further pressure came from France’s foreign minister, Alain Juppe, who said Assad’s days were “numbered”. Britain condemned the “horrific and shocking actions carried out by the Assad regime against its own civilian population”.

The 39-page document includes testimony from defectors from the security forces, who described indiscriminate shooting at unarmed protesters and snipers targeting those using loudspeakers or carrying cameras and mobile phones. A defector described the shooting of a two-year-old girl by an officer who said he did not want her to grow up to be a demonstrator. The figure of 256 children killed up to 9 November was attributed only to unspecified “reliable sources”.

The report was based on interviews with 223 victims and witnesses, but investigators were denied access to the country, despite repeated requests.

According to UN figures issued this month, at least 3,500 people have been killed in Syria since March. The regime gives a figure of around 600. It says many of those were security personnel who were the victims of “armed terrorist gangs”.

The report says: “State forces shot indiscriminately at unarmed protestors. Most were shot in the upper body, including in the head.” Defectors told the commission that they had received orders to shoot at unarmed protesters without warning.

“In some instances, however, commanders ordered protesters to disperse and issued warnings prior to opening fire. In some cases, non-lethal means were used prior to or at the same time as live ammunition.”

Snipers, it says, were responsible for many casualties, including people who were trying to rescue the wounded and collect the bodies of demonstrators. Defectors witnessed the killing of comrades who refused to fire at civilians.

Torture and killings reportedly took place in the Homs military hospital by security personnnel dressed as doctors and allegedly acting with the complicity of medical staff. Torture was described as “rampant” at the detention facilities of the notorious air force intelligence branch at the Mazzeh airport near Damascus.

The commission said it was “particularly disturbed over the extensive reports of sexual violence, principally against men and boys, in places of detention”. A 40-year-old man saw the rape of an 11-year-old boy by three security officers.

The report recommends “prompt, independent and impartial investigations under both domestic and international law to end impunity, ensure accountability and bring perpetrators to justice”.

Diplomats said the Arab League could ask the UN security council to debate the abuses, though any referral to the international criminal court would require the support of Russia and China which is unlikely to be forthcoming.

The three members of the UN commission were Brazilian, Turkish and American.

Syria’s embattled government seems unlikely to respond. The official media attacked the Arab League measures as a “conspiracy” and warned they would hurt ordinary people. The foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said: “The Arabs don’t want to admit the presence in Syria of groups of armed terrorists who are committing these crimes, abductions and attacks on public places.”

Most Syrian assets had already been withdrawn from Arab countries in anticipation of the league’s move, he said.

Analysts say that even without the full co-operation of Iraq and Lebanon, which did not back the measures, the sanctions are likely to have a severe impact on Syria’s economy, especially in conjunction with EU ban on Syrian oil exports which came into force earlier in November. Turkey – not a member of the Arab League – is expected to announce its own sanctions.

“Despite diplomatic assertions that the sanctions are designed to avert recourse to overt foreign intervention in Syria, if they do not have an impact on the regime’s behaviour, talk of more direct – perhaps military – measures is likely to increase,” said David Hartwell of the IHS consultancy in London.

http://www.freedomessenger.com/archives/43430

Demented LRH · Nov 30, 2011

Finally the spineless Arab League imposed economic sanctions on Syria. Now there is a possibility of fast disintegration of the Syrian Army who are likely to go unpaid for a long time. Already Army deserters are doing everything they can to protect civilians from Army attacks. Silly French Foreign Minister is afraid of civil war in Syria, but this is the only way to liberate the country from the oppressive Socialist regime (the Baath Party)

iraniam · Dec 19, 2011

Egyptian soldiers beating and dragging a young woman during clashes in Tahrir Square. Her image has become the latest icon of the revolution. Photograph: Reuters

The woman is young, and slim, and fair. She lies on her back surrounded by four soldiers, two of whom are dragging her by the arms raised above her head. She's unresisting – maybe she's fainted; we can't tell because we can't see her face. She's wearing blue jeans and trainers. But her top half is bare: we can see her torso, her tummy, her blue bra, her bare delicate arms.

Surrounding this top half, forming a kind of black halo around it, is the abaya, the robe she was wearing that has been ripped off and that tells us that she was wearing a hijab.

Six years ago, when popular protests started to hit the streets of Egypt as Hosni Mubarak's gang worked at rigging the 2005 parliamentary elections, the regime hit back – not just with the traditional Central Security conscripts – but with an innovation: militias of strong, trained, thugs. They beat up men, but they grabbed women, tore their clothes off and beat them, groping them at the same time. The idea was to insinuate that females who took part in street protests wanted to be groped.

Women developed deterrent techniques: layers of light clothing, no buttons, drawstring pants double-knotted – and carried right on protesting. Many of the smaller civil initiatives that grew into the protest movement: "We See You", "Against Corruption", "The Streets are Ours" were women-led.

But, a symbiotic relationship springs up between behaviours. Mubarak and Omar Suleiman turn Egypt into the US's favourite location for the torture of "terror suspects" and torture becomes endemic in police stations. The regime's thugs molest women as a form of political bullying – and harassment of women in the streets rises to epidemic levels.

Until 25 January. The Revolution happened and with it came the Age of Chivalry. One of the most noted aspects of behaviour in the streets and squares of the 18 days of the Egyptian Revolution was the total absence of harassment. Women were suddenly free; free to walk alone, to talk to strangers, to cover or uncover, to smoke to laugh to cry to sleep. And the job of every single male present was to facilitate, to protect, to help. The Ethics of the Square, we called it.

Now our revolution is in an endgame struggle with the old regime and the military.

The young woman is part of this.
Since Friday the military has openly engaged with civilian protesters in the heart of the capital. The protesters have been peacefully conducting a sit-in in Ministries' Street to signal their rejection of the military's appointment of Kamal Ganzouri as prime minister.

Ganzouri announced that no violence would be used to break up the Cabinet Office sit-in. Moments later the military took on the protesters. For a week Military Police and paratroopers had kidnapped activists from the streets, driven them off in unmarked vehicles, interrogated them and beaten them. On Friday they kidnapped Aboudi – one of the "Ultras" of the Ahli Football Club. They gave him back with his face so beaten and burned that you couldn't see features – and started the street war that's been raging round Ministries' Street for the last three days.

The protesters have thrown rocks at the military. The military has shot protesters, and thrown rocks, Molotov cocktails, china embossed with official parliament insignia, chairs, cupboards, filing-cabinets, glass panes and fireworks. They've dragged people into parliament and into the Cabinet Office and beaten and electrocuted them – my two nieces were beaten like this.

They beat up a newly elected young member of parliament, jeering: "Let parliament protect you, you son of … ". They took a distinguished older lady who's become known for giving food to the protesters and slapped her repeatedly about the face till she had to beg and apologise. They killed 10 people, injured more than 200, and they dragged the unconscious young woman in the blue jeans – with her upper half stripped – through the streets.

The message is: everything you rose up against is here, is worse. Don't put your hopes in the revolution or parliament. We are the regime and we're back.

What they are not taking into account is that everybody's grown up – the weapon of shame can no longer be used against women. When they subjected young women to virginity tests one of them got up and sued them. Every young woman they've brutalized recently has given video testimony and is totally committed to continuing the struggle against them.

The young woman in the blue jeans has chosen so far to retain her privacy. But her image has already become icon. As the tortured face of Khaled Said broke any credibility the ministry of the interior might have had, so the young woman in the blue jeans has destroyed the military's reputation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...litary-beating-female-protester-tahrir-square

Jacky Blue Note · Dec 19, 2011

Cryptome has a very extensive collection of photos of this atrocity:

http://cryptome.org/info/women-protest10/women-protest10.htm

iraniam · Dec 19, 2011

Where is the humanity???

Anonymous · Dec 19, 2011

iraniam said: ↑

Where is the humanity???

You seem to be confusing police with humans.

JohnDoe · Dec 19, 2011

When I saw this picture yesterday I was so upset, but so glad they have been caught on camera and published. (The top one was on the front page of one of our newspapers today).
The whole thing is shocking beyond words.

Jacky Blue Note · Dec 19, 2011

JohnDoe said: ↑

When I saw this picture yesterday I was so upset, but so glad they have been caught on camera and published. (The top one was on the front page of one of our newspapers today).
The whole thing is shocking beyond words.

Justice is coming. Patience is all that is required.

Boofby · Dec 19, 2011

Jacky Blue Note said: ↑

Justice is coming. Patience is all that is required.

iraniam · Dec 20, 2011

Egyptians rally to protest treatment of women by security forces

AP reports:

Around 10,000 women marched through central Cairo demanding Egypt's ruling military step down Tuesday in an unprecedented show of outrage over soldiers who dragged women by the hair and stomped on them, and stripped one half-naked in the street during a fierce crackdown on activists the past week.

Amr Nabil / AP

Hundreds of Egyptian women march at Cairo streets during a protest as they angered by the recent violence used against them in clashes between police and protesters in Cairo, Egypt Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011.

Egypt's ruling generals are coming under mounting criticism at home and abroad for the military's use of excessive force against unarmed protesters, including women, as they try to crush the pro-democracy movement calling for their ouster. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

The dramatic protest, which grew as the women marched from Tahrir Square through downtown, was fueled by the widely circulated images of abuses of women. Many of the marchers touted the photo of the young woman whose clothes were partially pulled off by troops, baring her down to her blue bra, as she struggled on the ground.

"Tantawi stripped your women naked, come join us," the crowd chanted to passers-by, referring to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the military council that has ruled Egypt since the Feb. 11 fall of Hosni Mubarak. "The daughters of Egypt are a red line," they chanted.

Khaled Desouki / AFP - Getty Images

An Egyptian woman holds the widespread picture of a woman who was stripped and beaten by riot police during clashes last week as Egyptians gather for a protest in downtown Cairo to denounce the military's attacks on women and to call for an immediate end to the violence against protesters on Tuesday.

Even before the protest was over, the military council issued an unusually strong statement of regret for what it called "violations" against women — a quick turnaround after days of dismissing the significance of the abuse.

The council expressed "deep regret to the great women of Egypt" and affirmed "its respect and total appreciation" for women and their right to protest and take part in political life. It promised it was taking measures to punish those responsible for violations.

The statement suggested the military's fear that attacks on women could wreck its prestige at home and abroad, which has already been heavily eroded by its fierce, five-day-old crackdown on pro-democracy protesters demanding it surrender power.

The ruling generals have campaigned to keep the public on its side in the confrontation, depicting the activists as hooligans and themselves as the honorable protectors of the nation, above reproach.

Khaled Desouki / AFP - Getty Images

Egyptians gather for a protest in downtown Cairo to denounce the military's attacks on women and to call for an immediate end to the violence against protesters on Tuesday.

In unusually harsh words, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday accused the Egyptian security forces and extremists of specifically targeting women.

"This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform, and is not worthy of a great people," she said.

In a possibly significant hint of new flexibility, the council also said in its statement Tuesday that it was prepared to discuss any initiatives to help the security of the country.

In recent days, a number of political factions have pressed the military to hand over power by February, rather than June, when it promised to hold presidential elections.

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_new...protest-treatment-of-women-by-security-forces

iraniam · Dec 22, 2011

by Fred
22-Dec-2011

After vacillating to the mass murdering Bashar Al-Assad’s content, to “monitor” the situation, his no-good fellow Arab League members are to send “monitoring observers” into Syria.

What a crock, while the men, woman and children murdering Syrian Battists, their Islamist Rapist Republic (IRR) allies fortified with their Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist houseboy are killing in the hundreds, Arab League is sending in “monitoring observers.”

The kicker is, since this nonsensical decision by the wet-rag Arab leaders of the Arab league, the Battist murderers and their IRR allies have ramped up their killings. The numbers are staggering; it is way past 5000, more than 200 in less than 48 hours, 150 here, 111 over there and on and on.

The brave Syrian activists have correctly dismissed this Arab League “monitoring observer” nonsense as a “ploy” buying time for the mass murderers to snuff out all opposition to the children mutilating Battists and their allies.

The first group of “monitors” is to arrive in Syria today. However, it is only a logistic mission to work out accommodation for the “observers” who will be arriving sometimes in the future. Up you feckless Arab leaders at the Arab League!

BTW, number of Homs based IRR “technicians” have been taken into custody by the Syrian opposition.

http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/fred/yours-arab-leaders

Political Traveler · Dec 24, 2011

This is a joke. As if they need evidence and need to send observers there. And then, its as if those observers will be allowed to go in the middle of the protests or killings.

We have to all come to the realization that we need to forget the notion that anyone else (any other government) is going to help

Demented LRH · Dec 27, 2011

Latest news: The Arab League observers have arrived to Damascus. Opposition leaders are asking western countries to impose no-flight zone over Syria.

Demented LRH · Dec 27, 2011

News Update from BBC: Arab League observers have arrived to the city of Holms where they were greeted with angry protests and gunfire (Homs is the craddle of Syrian revolution)

lulzgasm · Dec 27, 2011

Demented LRH said: ↑

News Update from BBC: Arab League observers have arrived to the city of Holms where they were greeted with angry protests and gunfire (Homs is the craddle of Syrian revolution)

"Hey! We're from the A.L.! We're here to--holy shit! Stop shooting! Stop shooting!"

Man, if folk in my country greeted DHS agents the same way, I'd be one happy camper.

Anonymous · Dec 27, 2011

250 children?

Meh. US/UK troops directly killed around 25,000 children in Iraq, and that number will continue to increase as the victims inhale the fallout of the atomic weapons, namely depleted uranium shells and the carbonized dust caused.

Let's not allow anyone to act all hurt and outraged by Syrian troops until we know who sold them their guns.

Demented LRH · Dec 28, 2011

It does not matter who sells the guns. I wish the rebels were having more guns, too, to protect the civilian population.

Anonymous · Dec 28, 2011

I'll believe a report from the UN right after they admit responsibity for importing cholera into Haiti.

Anonymous · Dec 28, 2011

Anonymous said: ↑

250 children?

Meh. US/UK troops directly killed around 25,000 children in Iraq, and that number will continue to increase as the victims inhale the fallout of the atomic weapons, namely depleted uranium shells and the carbonized dust caused.

Let's not allow anyone to act all hurt and outraged by Syrian troops until we know who sold them their guns.

It's not who sold them the guns that matters. It's who pulled the trigger. Not to mention that some of the children were kidnapped and tortured to death, as CNN reports showed.

Anonymous · Dec 28, 2011

Anonymous said: ↑

I'll believe a report from the UN right after they admit responsibity for importing cholera into Haiti.

LOL. As if that's going to happen. UN peacekeepers are mostly from poor developing countries, because for them it's a great job. So it appears that the Nepalese peacekeepers brought cholera to Haiti. I don't really know if the UN is investigating it. The only self-critical UN report to ever be issued was the one against the actions of the Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica, Bosnia.

JohnDoe · Dec 28, 2011

There is a lot happening in the Middle East Region, and much of it ends up with all the Iran news. The administrators of the site are exceptionally busy, and work very hard, and I was just looking for a way to separate the Middle East news from Iran - it should make it easier to find.
So whilst this is still in the News & Event section of the Iran Forum, it's an attempt to keep it slightly separate so please post any new news from the rest of the region in this thread - at least in the mean time.

Thanks

Jacky Blue Note · Dec 28, 2011

Thank you, JohnDoe! An excellent development in the Iran Forum!

iraniam · Dec 28, 2011

Thank You my friend. Well Done.

iraniam · Dec 28, 2011

Who Is Observing What, and What Will Happen When They Finish?

I don't need to sugar coat this: there are a lot of people who have no faith in the Arab League mission in Syria.

For starters, we already know what they will find. International observers, though limited in both numbers and opportunities to investigate independently, have given us conclusions.

According to US Ambassador Robert Ford, or the UN delegation that visited in August, or the few reporters brave enough to smuggle themselves into Syria, President Assad is killing a lot of people and torturing many. And there is only one way to end this mess, with Assad giving up power.

Few of these facts are in question. Much of the counter-narrative provided by the Syrian regime has either been proven false or is a weak defense --- "some individuals are guilty of crimes" --- for the scale of the regime's carnage. If only half the claims of the activists are true, then the number of people who have died from violence in Syria this year is four times greater than in Egypt.

So why are there observers present, who are they, what will they see, and what will they do about it? Let's work backwards.

The Arab League could easily claim that the Syrian regime is cooperating, that more incentives need to be given, that more diplomatic steps should be taken.... In other words, the Arab League could do little to end the crisis in Syria. This would embolden the regime, as anything short of an outright condemnation of the crisis will serve as proof that President Assad is safe from international intervention (more on this later).

On the other hand, the Arab League could respond to any potential report as a justification for involvement, using this collection of evidence as the preparation for steps which have already been determined.

The mission is only a day old and the observers already have seen tanks in the Baba Amr section in Homs. They have seen shell casings littering the city, filled with blood and trash, and gunfire being used against unseen targets (presumably activists trying to reach the observers). The few activists who have spoken to the observers seem to tell a unified tale of a brutal attack on civilians by Assad loyalists and the Syrian military.

At the last count, 42 people died yesterday alone, according to the opposition, 17 of them perished in Homs, most of them killed while the observers were somewhere in the city.

In other words, there is already evidence that the Arab League observers have witnessed some very bad things, provided their movements were not blocked by the Syrian authorities.

Were they restricted? Not according to the head of the observer team:

Adnan Khedair, who heads the mission's operation room at league headquarters in Cairo, said about a dozen observers took part in the trip to Homs and met with the provincial governor. Syrian authorities did not interfere with their work, he said.

So we get to the most important questions: who are the observers, and why were they sent? It is perhaps too early to judge. However, there are already serious concerns.

Three "What is EA Reading?" stories are the basis for the worries. The first, written by David Kenner of Foreign Policy Magazine, offers a conclusion in its title: "The World's Worst Human Rights Observer".

For the first time in Syria's nine-month-old uprising, there are witnesses to President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown, which according to the United Nations has claimed more than 5,000 lives. Arab League observers arrived in the country on Dec. 26, and traveled to the city of Homs -- the epicenter of the revolt, where the daily death toll regularly runs into the dozens, according to activist groups -- on Dec. 27. Thousands of people took to the streets to protest against Assad upon the observers' arrival, while activists said Syrian tanks withdrew from the streets only hours before the Arab League team entered the city.

"I am going to Homs," insisted Sudanese Gen. Mohammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, the head of the Arab League observer mission, telling reporters that so far the Assad regime had been "very cooperative."

But Dabi may be the unlikeliest leader of a humanitarian mission the world has ever seen. He is a staunch loyalist of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity for his government's policies in Darfur. And Dabi's own record in the restive Sudanese region, where he stands accused of presiding over the creation of the feared Arab militias known as the "janjaweed," is enough to make any human rights activist blanch.

Read the
entire article

http://www.enduringamerica.com/home...-observing-what-and-what-will-happen-whe.html

telomere · Dec 28, 2011

Bozuri said: ↑

It's not who sold them the guns that matters. It's who pulled the trigger.

Both matter.

Demented LRH · Dec 29, 2011

The protestors put the body of a slain boy on the hood of the Arab League observers’ car. The boy was killed by the Army personnel shooting at the civilian crowd. This happened in the city of Homs.
The Syrian Army desertion rate is increasing; the defectors are fighting the regular Army. It appears that the country is on the brink of civil war, which is good from my perspective -- the regime cannot evolve peacefully, someone must overthrow Bashar Assad.

Demented LRH · Dec 29, 2011

Let's keep this thread on track -- Haiti is not a Middle Eastern country.

iraniam · Dec 29, 2011

Syria: Arab League observers head to Hama - live updates:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blo...ab-league-observers-head-to-hama-live-updates

JohnDoe · Dec 29, 2011

FREEDOM_REY · Dec 30, 2011

Hi Anonymous I came here because i love u guys and i´m one of millions who just want peace on earth.

I want to tell you something what comes from my heart:

Yesterday in Turkey, 35 civilians were killed at the age of 15-20. Apparently they were confused with Pkk fighters, but that can not be because Turkey knows there are many civilians on the border to smuggle the goods in order to live it because there's nothing else.

Turkish fighter jets have bombed more than one hour the teenagers. For years, Kurds are oppressed and treated like animals. Therefore I beg to you all, HELP U.S please !! We were very grateful to you ... peace friends... i love you all and sry for my english its not the best

Ada Fucking Lovelace · Dec 30, 2011

"FREEDOM_REY said: ↑

Hi Anonymous I came here because i love u guys and i´m one of millions who just want peace on earth.

I want to tell you something what comes from my heart:

Yesterday in Turkey, 35 civilians were killed at the age of 15-20. Apparently they were confused with Pkk fighters, but that can not be because Turkey knows there are many civilians on the border to smuggle the goods in order to live it because there's nothing else.

Turkish fighter jets have bombed more than one hour the teenagers. For years, Kurds are oppressed and treated like animals. Therefore I beg to you all, HELP U.S please !! We were very grateful to you ... peace friends... i love you all and sry for my english its not the best

BBC News confirms:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16352388

Turkey admits 35 civilian deaths near Kurdish village

The BBC's David O'Byrne says the Turkish army claims PKK rebels were the intended target

Related Stories

Turkish forces 'kill 49 rebels'

Rebels kill 26 Turkish soldiers

A senior Turkish official has acknowledged that 35 civilians were killed in an air strike near a Kurdish village close to the border with Iraq.

Turkey's military said earlier it had targeted suspected Kurdish militants.

But the victims of Wednesday night's attack are believed to have been villagers involved in smuggling cigarettes into Turkey from Iraq.

Governing party vice-president Huseyin Celik said an investigation was looking into possible intelligence failures.
The attack, on Wednesday night, took place near the village of Uludere in Sirnak province in south-eastern Turkey.

In a statement, Turkey's general staff said the area attacked on Wednesday night was inside northern Iraq and had no civilian population. It added that the raid was launched following information that suspected militants were planning to attack Turkish security bases.

But Mr Celik was quoted by AFP news agency as saying later that "if it turns out to have been a mistake, a blunder, rest assured that this will not be covered up".

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party condemned the air strike as a "massacre", saying that all the victims were civilians aged between 16 and 20.

"Those killed were young people who made a living from smuggling. There were people studying for university exams among them," said party leader Selahattin Demirtas.

Mr Celik added that some of the victims were sons of village guards who had helped Turkish troops in their fight against the rebels.

The opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) urged the military to exercise greater care. While smuggling was against the law, "being killed in an aerial bombardment was not what they deserved", a leading CHP official told the Hurriyet website.

Protesters angry at the deaths threw stones at police close to Taksim Square in Istanbul early on Thursday evening, Turkish agencies report.

Diesel explosions

Provincial governor Vahdettin Ozkan said initially that more than 20 people had lost their lives but his office later clarified that 35 had been killed and one injured.

"A crisis centre is being formed at the scene and prosecutors and security officers were sent there," he told Anatolia news agency.

The mayor of Uludere was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that all the victims had suffered from burns.

Local officials said drums of diesel carried by the group had exploded.

Many of the victims were said to have been related.

Those killed had been using mules to cross the border when the incident happened, they said.

"We were on our way back when the jets began to bomb us," a survivor, Servet Encu, told the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency.

The group had been waiting on the Iraqi side of the border for some time about 3km (2 miles) from their village, because they had been told that the route was blocked by the military, Turkish media report.

Pictures from the scene showed bodies on a hillside covered in blankets. The bodies were later taken away to a local hospital.

Smuggling of fuel and cigarettes is said to be commonplace between villages along the Iraqi border. But rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have crossed the border into Turkey to stage attacks on Turkish forces.
After 24 Turkish soldiers were killed in PKK raids in October, Turkish forces responded with a series of air and ground attacks.

Ada Fucking Lovelace · Dec 30, 2011

Turkish media:
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-267119-error-or-provocation-or-massacre-or-propaganda.html

BÜLENT KENEŞ
b.kenes@todayszaman.com

Error or provocation or massacre or propaganda?

The news from the southeast has shaken us one more time as we teeter on the brink of a new year. At least 35 people, who were allegedly civilian villagers, were killed by F-16 warplanes and soldiers at a military outpost who apparently mistook them for Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists after unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) identified a group of people trying to cross the border near Ortasu village in the Uludere district of Şırnak province. The people who died in the attacks were reportedly from this village, near northern Iraq, and would smuggle fuel.

Relying on these claims and starting with the least scandalous one, I can say that if this massacre was the result of an error stemming from an erroneous piece of intelligence, then it is a fault that cannot be tolerated. If this is a massacre meant to provocate, it is a serious one that would smash to smithereens the popular perception that counterterrorism is now being conducted in a proper manner. It would also undermine the recent process in which security forces are working in coordination, treating even PKK terrorists humanly, conducting military operations when all options are exhausted and the serious progress being made in eliminating terrorism.

I cannot bring myself to say it, but another possibility is that this is a deliberate attempt, as mass slaughters abound in this country’s recent past.I really want to be able to say, “No, this can’t be the case,” but the tragic developments we have faced in our recent past whenever good things started to happen are denying us the opportunity to be optimistic. Obviously, all the possibilities I listed above are worse than each other. It does not matter if it was an error or a provocation or a deliberate massacre, the authorities must take swift and drastic action. The incident must be investigated thoroughly. Those who are found to be at fault and who conducted the massacre on purpose must be charged and punished so as to relieve the collective conscience.

It is claimed that about 50 villagers, who would smuggle fuel in a region near Turkey’s common border with the regional Kurdish government in northern Iraq, were bombarded by warplanes toward midnight as they returned to their village with their animals loaded with smuggled fuel. Reportedly, the security force opened fire on this crowded group, thinking that they were terrorists trying to enter Turkey illegally. Then, F-16s shelled the region. At least 35 people died and 13 are missing. Arriving in the village after the incident, Erşet Ediş, the deputy head of Şırnak’s provincial council, from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), said the villagers’ dead bodies had turned to charcoal. Experts say that the villagers might have been burned when the fuel they carried caught fire.
No official explanation came in regards to this scandalous incident until noon on Thursday, but contradictory claims abounded. Some of these claims were voiced by BDP deputy Hasip Kaplan. On his Twitter page, Kaplan wrote at 4:12 a.m. Thursday, “The incidents in Uludere, Şırnak, and the reports about them are horrible. Villagers say that soldiers intercepted the group and warplanes shelled them. No state will shell and kill civilians, unarmed and innocent citizens, on charges of smuggling goods. Why don’t officials make a statement about the incident?”

I had written the beginning part of my article before the General Staff issued a statement around 12:00 a.m. Despite this statement, I didn’t feel the need to revise my article. This is because, given its record of misleading the general public in numerous cases in the past, I find it hard to accept the General Staff statements as true and reliable. Still, I cannot rule out the possibility that the General Staff statement may be true -- which I heartily want to believe. In sum, the General Staff statement claims the incident occurred in northern Iraq and those killed were PKK terrorists.

“The military recently received intelligence suggesting that senior PKK leaders ordered the group to retaliate for recent military operations and that they had sent a large number of terrorists to the Sinat-Haftanin region as reinforcements for this purpose. As a result of intelligence received from various sources and technical analyses carried out, we understood that terrorist groups, which also included senior leaders, gathered in the region and that they were readying to stage attacks on our outposts and bases along the border; the relevant troops were warned. It is known from the testimonies of terrorists who surrendered to authorities that in attacks conducted by the separatist terrorist organization in the past, terrorists would carry heavy weapons, ammunition and explosives using pack animals from Iraq and enter the country secretly from the border. The military had stepped up aerial surveillance of the region after more intelligence came about possible attacks on military targets from separatist terrorist organization members who would come from northern Iraq. In this scope, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) detected a group heading toward the Turkish border with northern Iraq at 6:39 p.m. on Dec. 28, 2011. Considering that the area where the group was spotted was a region frequently used by terrorists and that there was overnight activity toward our borders, we decided the group should be fired upon and the target was hit between 9:37 p.m. and 10:24 p.m. The area struck was the Sinat-Haftanin region of northern Iraq, where the separatist terrorist organization’s main bases are located and which has no civilian inhabitants. Administrative and judicial investigations are under way, and procedures are being followed with respect to the incident,” the statement said.

In the light of this statement, we should now add a new possibility to our list. Are we targeted by a dirty propaganda war waged by some groups before the facts are fully discovered about the incident? Are some pro-PKK media organizations and political groups trying to market a successful operation against terrorists as a civilian massacre? Or is the Turkish military, known in the past to not show much sensitivity toward civilian casualties, trying in vain to ward off criticisms about the alleged civilian deaths?

In such dirty wars where the truth cannot be understood until the dust settles, someone other than parties involved should shed light on the incident. Judicial bodies and Parliament face the task of finding out what really happened and if it was an error or a provocation or a deliberate massacre or a dirty propaganda effort to defame a successful anti-terror operation. Despite the incredible claims raised by pro-PKK groups and the statement made by the General Staff, there is still the need for hearing a reliable and satisfactory statement as to who these 35 people were and why they were killed.

Ada Fucking Lovelace · Dec 30, 2011

Izula said: ↑

You should post a new thread (unless there's already one) about the civilians who were killed, here it's only to introduce yourself

I've already requested mods split that off into its own thread.

Demented LRH · Dec 30, 2011

The Syrian security forces opened fire at a group of demonstrators in a Damascus suburb. 150 were killed in various cities since the arrival of the Arab League observers. The head of the observer team is a Sudanese General accused of being one of the instigators of atrocities in Darfur region.

iraniam · Dec 30, 2011

PKK urges Kurds to rise against Turkish attacks

One day after a Turkish air attack killed dozens of civilians in the Kurdish region of Sirnak, the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) called on the people of Turkish Kurdistan to rise against the government.

AFP reports that Bahoz Edal, a PKK commander, issued a statement condemning the attacks, saying: “We call on the people of Kurdistan, especially those in Hakari and Sirnak, to react against the massacre carried out by the Turkish army by rising up and bringing the perpetrators of this massacre to justice.”

Yesterday, the Forat News Agency, which regularly covers news about Turkish Kurds, reported that at least 35 civilian Kurds were killed in aerial bombardments by Turkish forces.

The PKK has been active in the region for years, and some local officials have said the Turkish forces probably hit civilians by mistake.

However, Bahoz Erdal said: “This massacre was not an unwanted event; it was a planned and organized massacre.”
Turkish regional officials said the victims of the aerial attacks were Kurdish porters who transport smuggled cigarettes from the Iraqi border.

The Turkish army announced that the aerial attacks had targeted insurgents who were trying to enter Turkish territory, and were carried out in a region where “there are no civilians and where terrorist military bases are located.”

Erdal says, however, that “the porters carry out their border trade under the supervision of military officials in the region, and it is impossible to have been mistaken about these civilians.”

He said people are moving almost every day along the border, and Turkish authorities are familiar with their movements.
Turkish authorities have expressed regret over the incident and announced that a special committee will investigate.

The PKK was founded in 1984 and claims to fight for the rights of the Kurdish minority in Turkey. In recent decades, clashes between Turkey and the PKK have claimed the lives of 45,000 people.

http://radiozamaneh.com/english/content/pkk-urges-kurds-rise-against-turkish-attacks

iraniam · Dec 30, 2011

Will 2012 bring the leaders the world needs?

As if to remind us of its propensity to send shivers down the world’s collective spine, Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, the most vital chokepoint in the oil supply network. This ultimatum is probably bluster, or it could signal an escalation of the slow-burning confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Either way, threats of this kind remind us of what are likely to be the central themes of the world in 2012: the vulnerability of an inter-connected globe to sudden crises, the stagnation of the West and the continued – if far from inevitable – flow of wealth and power to Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

Some of the leaders who wrestle with these challenges today will be gone before the dawn of 2013. President Hu Jintao of China will step down in October, when the Communist Party will elect a new leadership during its 18th Congress. Devoid of the certainty offered by autocracy, France may have a new president after the second round of its election on May 6, with Nicolas Sarkozy looking vulnerable to his socialist challenger, François Hollande.

Falling into the Chinese category of certainty is the Russian election on March 4, when Vladimir Putin will return to the presidency that he relinquished in 2008, although recent protests suggest this will not be a celebrated restoration. The most important battle will peak on November 6 when President Barack Obama faces re-election against a Republican challenger who will emerge during the next three months. Despite everything, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, will probably win the right to take on the President, with the performance of the American economy likely to decide his success or failure.

And therein lies the rub: 2012 will probably be another year when the big economies of the West will count themselves lucky to stagnate, rather than decline, as Europe seeks to emerge from its euro-induced debt woes and the US grapples with the overhang of the financial crisis. The rest of the world is not having things easy, either. China’s economy has slowed markedly, thanks to its perilous dependence on Western markets. But this means growth in the 8‑9 per cent range, rather than 10-12 per cent. In all likelihood, the average Western citizen will finish the year a little poorer and a little weaker, compared with the rest of the world. With little fanfare, Brazil is becoming the southern hemisphere powerhouse, already the sixth-biggest economy in the world and soon to be a major oil producer.

Yet history teaches a thunderous lesson: nothing is inevitable. Trends that appeared to solidify into facts can be upset with remarkable speed. The US remains the epicentre of global innovation in fields as diverse as biotechnology and energy extraction. About half of all the research and development in the world – a leading indicator of economic success – is happening within its borders.

China’s leaders will never admit that their economic miracle was based on marrying cheap labour with Western technology. Their scientists are now churning out research papers in ever greater numbers and seeking to generate their own ideas. But can genuine innovation take place within an autocracy? Here, the West has an inherent cultural advantage: free societies are natural incubators for new ideas. If the West can keep its innovative edge, it will retain its pre‑eminence in a multi-polar world.

First, however, we must navigate the inevitable crises of 2012. Where will they be? This time last year, very few predicted the upheavals in the Arab world, even if their beginnings were already evident in Tunisia. However, it is safe to say that once again the key theatre will be the Middle East, where the stand-off with Iran could explode into regional war and the Arab Spring may spread to the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf, starting with Bahrain, where an abortive Shia uprising was crushed. Egypt’s long-running revolution will continue to convulse the country, and Syria, torn by ethnic and religious rivalry, may dissolve into sectarian civil war. As they manage these possible events, however, we trust that the West’s leaders will remember that decline is not inevitable and that our fate lies in our own hands.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...l-2012-bring-the-leaders-the-world-needs.html

FREEDOM_REY · Dec 30, 2011

Thx for the links my friends

JohnDoe · Dec 30, 2011

FREEDOM_REY said: ↑

Hi Anonymous I came here because i love u guys and i´m one of millions who just want peace on earth.

I want to tell you something what comes from my heart:

Yesterday in Turkey, 35 civilians were killed at the age of 15-20. Apparently they were confused with Pkk fighters, but that can not be because Turkey knows there are many civilians on the border to smuggle the goods in order to live it because there's nothing else.

Turkish fighter jets have bombed more than one hour the teenagers. For years, Kurds are oppressed and treated like animals. Therefore I beg to you all, HELP U.S please !! We were very grateful to you ... peace friends... i love you all and sry for my english its not the best

First of all Freedom_Rey - thanks for posting this, even if it is dreadful to read.

Getting and keep the news in the public arena is the best thing you and we can do, and in many ways that's what this site does and the greater the awareness of the public, the more pressure is on governments to take action.
So keep on posting here, and in the mean time this is probably the right thread for it.

Your English is excellant - so please be confident about what you say - your message is coming over loud and clear.

Demented LRH · Dec 30, 2011

BBC World News reported that the smugglers and PKK insurgents use the same routs to cross the Turkey- Iraq border.

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