ARAB TIMES, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015
9MIDEAST/INTERNATIONAL
In this Oct 6, 2015 file photo, migrants wait to be registered at a campset up for migrants from Afghanistan near Moria on the island ofLesbos, Greece. As tens of thousands of Afghans flee war and pover-ty for a better life in Europe, some are resorting to forged threat let-ters from the Taleban to strengthen their applications for asylum. (AP)
Abu Zeid’s motive not clear
Jordanian killer was on ajourney to paradise or hellAMMAN, Nov 12, (RTRS):Days before he shot dead fivepeople in a canteen during hislunch break, Jordanian policeofficer Anwar Abu Zeid senta message to friends saying hewas going on a journey to“paradise or hell”, friends andsecurity sources said.
The message, on theWhatsApp mobile messagingapplication, may hold cluesfor police seeking a motivefor Monday’s shooting spreein which two Americans, twoJordanians and a SouthAfrican were killed at a policetraining facility.
Relatives described the 29-year-old police captain aspious but not an extremist”,though he would wake atdawn each day to worship inthe mosque in his village inrural northern Jordan.
But two officials close tosecurity matters and relativessaid evidence was growing ofradical Islamist influences onAbu Zeid, and a securitysource, who asked not to beidentified, suggested the mes-sage to closefriends sup-ported thisnotion.
“When weprepare ourluggage for ajourney ...we fear wemay forgetsomething,however small, and the longerthe journey, the stronger theconcern that we won’t forgetanything,” the source quotedhim as saying.
“So what if we are going toa residence ... in paradise orhell,” the source added, butdid not say on which day themessage was sent.
The killings took place atthe US-funded King AbdullahTraining Centre near Ammanon the 10th anniversary of al-Qaeda suicide bombings thattargeted three luxury hotels inthe capital and killed 57 peo-ple.
No group has claimedresponsibility for Monday’sattack.
The Americans killed wereformer members of the USmilitary and were contractedto train police from regionalallies such as Iraq and thePalestinian territories. TheSouth African killed wasalso a trainer and the twoslain Jordanians were trans-lators.
Several accounts from offi-cials with contacts in the
security forces said Abu Zeidhad smuggled an assault rifleand two handguns into thecompound in his car. As anofficer, he was not searched ashe entered.
Security sources said thatshortly after noon prayers hecharged into a canteen on thecompound, shouted AllahuAkbar (God is the greatest)and fired at least 50 bullets.
He then went outside and apolice sniper shot him in thehead near the outer gates ofthe compound after he defiedcalls to surrender, they said.
Investigators have not con-cluded yet whether Abu Zeidwas acting alone or was partof a wider sleeper cell ofjihadists, one official close tointelligence matters said.
As a graduate of Jordan’stop military academy, AbuZeid, who had two youngchildren, had a secure job andperks that many Jordaniansdream of.
But he had sought an hon-orary early discharge for whathe said were “private rea-sons”, only to find his wayblocked because he had notcompleted 10 years service,the security sources said.
A close confidant of theattacker, speaking on condi-tion of anonymity, said AbuZeid had felt increasinglyhumiliated and angry at work-ing in a job where US trainersseen as “enemies of Islamwere defiling his country.”
Some relatives are alreadyreferring to him as a “mar-tyr”.
The fact that the attackercame from one of the nativetribes in Jordan that form thebackbone of the securityforces is a particular blowfor the kingdom’sHashemite dynasty, securityexperts say.
Some tribes have becomeincreasingly disgruntled overperceived corruption andfeel they are being margin-alised economically, posingwhat security experts see asan additional threat to acountry long worried aboutpossible attacks by militantIslamists inspired by al-Qaeda.
“It is an attack from withinthe loyalist establishment andit compounds the complexinternal risks beyond the con-ventional jihadi threat thatcomes from a suicide bomberblowing himself up, which isa more obvious risk, “said oneofficial familiar with intelli-gence matters.
Welayti was fired 5 years ago: Dubai police
UAE police officer held in Libya of spyingBENGHAZI, Libya, Nov 12, (AP): Authorities in Libya’smilitia-held capital say they arrested an Emirati police offi-cer on suspicion of being a spy, though Dubai police onThursday said the man in question was fired five years ago.
The arrest comes as US officials last year said the UnitedArab Emirates carried out airstrikes against Islamist militiasin Libya, still torn between armed rivals after its 2011 civilwar and the killing of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. TheEmirati’s arrest also follows detention last year of severalLibyans in the Emirates who human rights activists say havebeen tortured and held incommunicado ever since.
Tripoli prosecutors released a passport and a national IDcard for the detained Emirati, which identified him as YousufSaqer Ahmed Mubarak Welayti.
The Tripoli authorities detained Welayti, identified as acorporal with the Dubai police, after receiving a tip andfound 30 minutes of video footage purportedly from “one ofthe foreign embassies” in the Libyan capital, prosecutionspokesman Sadik al-Sour said. He did not identify whichembassy it was, though the UAE mission there has beenclosed for more than a year.
Al-Sour said investigators also were offered $10 millionby another person he did not identify to release Welayti.
“This is just the initial investigation,” al-Sour said. “Wecan’t say he’s a spy yet, but we are still looking into it.”
In a statement Thursday, Dubai police chief KhamisMattar Al Mazeina said Welayti had been stripped of hiscommission as a police officer and as a soldier in 2010 over
“moral” issues, without elaborating. Al Mazeina said Dubaipolice had nothing more to do with him. Emirati state mediadid not immediately report on Welayti’s arrest.
The Emirati’s detention is not surprising, given that anIslamist militia-backed government controls the capital.Libya’s internationally recognized government, which theUAE backs, is based in the far eastern city of Tobruk.
The instability plaguing Libya since 2011 has allowed
Islamic State militants to expand across the country and alsohelped make it a major transit point for migrants andrefugees trying to reach Europe.
In the chaos, the United States says the UAE carried outairstrikes last year targeting Islamist militias in Libya, withEgypt providing logistical support. The Emirates has refusedto comment on the allegations, and Egyptian officials repeat-edly denied the claims.
Police detain 11 in raids
Turkey nabs French IS jihadist after hair transplantISTANBUL, Nov 12, (Agencies): Turkish police arresteda Frenchman suspected of being an Islamic State fight-er on Wednesday after he had a hair transplant proce-dure at a beauty salon, local media reported.
The Dogan news agency quoted police sources say-ing the man, identified as Mehdibend Said, was undersurveillance after entering the country from Syria,where he was plotting a terrorist attack on Turkish soil.
He was arrested at dawn after local intelligence serv-ices in the town of Izmir, on the Aegean coast, followedhim to a clinic where he had the hair transplant.
Said told investigators he had also hoped to have asecond cosmetic procedure to make him “look better”.
Turkish security forces have clamped down hard onsuspected jihadists since 102 people were killed in asuicide bombing outside the central station in Ankara, inan attack blamed on IS militants.
Turkish police detained 11 suspects in helicopter-backed raids targeting Islamic State militants acrossIstanbul, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported onThursday, just days ahead of a G20 summit being heldin the country.
The raids were part of a series of operations againstsuspected militants in Turkey, where security is beingtightened ahead of the world leaders’ summit beingstaged this weekend.
Undercover Israeli troops raidhospital and ‘kill’ Palestinian
Netanyahu invokes memory of Nazi past over EU labelling
HEBRON, West Bank, Nov 12, (Agencies): Israeli undercover forcesraided a hospital in the West Bank on Thursday, shooting dead aPalestinian during an attempt to detain another man suspected of car-rying out a stabbing, the Palestinian health ministry and doctors said.
The Israeli army confirmed the raid and shooting but did not have details of theman’s condition. It said the raid was carried out to detain Azzam al-Shalalda, 27,who was suspected of stabbing an Israeli settler two weeks ago in the West Bank.
The director of Hebron’s al-Ahly hospital, Jehad Shawar, told Palestine radio 20-30 men
arrived at the clinic in two mini vans at around three o’clock in the morning. They enteredwith someone in a wheelchair pretending to be pregnant.
CCTV footage from inside the hospital showed a large group of men armed with pistolsand rifles, some with beards and others with keffiyeh scarves on their heads, walking throughthe corridors telling hospital workers to get out of the way.
“They held the staff at gunpoint and stormed the room of Shalalda,” Shawar said.Shalalda’s brother Bilal, who was asleep in the room, said he was tied to the bed by the
Israeli forces.A cousin, Abdallah, who was in the bathroom, was shot dead when he suddenly entered
the room, Shawar said.“As his cousin exited the bath-
room, which was inside theroom, they fired five bullets, onebullet in the head, one in thechest and three in his body,”Shawar told the radio station.
“They took Azzam and placedhim in the wheelchair theybrought the woman in and theyexited the room preventing any-one from giving medical aid tothe young man lying on thefloor.”
Palestinian Health MinisterJawad Awad accused Israelisecurity forces of “executing”Abdallah al-Shalalda, who hesaid was escorting a relativeinside the hospital.
“The international communitymust intervene to protect ourpeople from the Israeli killingmachine,” he said.
Meanwhile, Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu comparedthe European Union’s decisionto label goods from Israeli settle-ments to the Nazi boycott ofJewish businesses.
“The labelling of products ofthe Jewish state by the Europeanunion brings back dark memo-ries, Europe should be ashamedof itself,” he said as he wrappedup a visit to Washington.
“It took an immoral decision...this will not advance peace, itwill certainly not advance truthand justice. It’s wrong,” he saidin an English-language videoclip posted on Facebook.
He drew the same comparisonin September when he said thatIsraelis “remember history andwe remember what happenedwhen the products of Jews werelabelled in Europe.”
After the Nazis came to powerin Germany in 1933, they imposedan economic boycott against thecountry’s Jews, issuing orders andposting signs telling the public notto buy from them.
The EU move is a set of guide-lines for labelling products fromJewish settlements in thePalestinian territories andannexed east Jerusalem as well asthe Golan Heights, all occupiedby Israel in the 1967 Six-DayWar.
The settlements are deemedillegal under international lawand are considered a major stum-bling block to peace efforts sincethose in the West Bank and eastJerusalem are built on landPalestinians see as part of theirfuture state.
Palestinian stone throwers shield themselves behind a board during clashes with Israeli security forces (unseen) following a demonstrationto demand Israeli authorities the return of the bodies of Palestinians who have been killed during attacks on Israelis, on Nov 10 in the West
Bank town of Hebron. (AFP)
Kenyan forces spokesman deny allegations
Kenya army involved in sugar smuggling racket NAIROBI, Nov 12, (AFP): Kenya’s army isinvolved in a $400-million sugar smugglingracket in Somalia that also funds the al-Qaedamilitants it is supposed to be fighting, a reportalleged Thursday.
Far from fighting the Shebab, al-Qaeda’s EastAfrica affiliate, the Kenya Defence Forces(KDF) are, “in garrison mode, sitting in baseswhile senior commanders are engaged in cor-rupt business practices,” said the investigationby Nairobi’s Journalists for Justice rights group.
The report is based on months of researchconducted in Somalia and Kenya, includinginterviews with serving Kenyan officers,United Nations officials, Western intelligencesources, sugar traders, porters and drivers.
The report also accused Kenyan troops of“widespread” human rights abuses — includ-ing rape, torture and abduction — and con-ducting air strikes “targeting crowds of peopleand animals” rather than the militant trainingcamps it claims to bomb.
Kenyan army spokesman, Colonel DavidObonyo, denied the allegations, insistingKenyan soldiers were fighting hard as part ofthe 22,000-strong African Union Mission inSomalia (AMISOM).
“We are not involved in sugar or charcoalbusiness,” said Obonyo. “How can you sitdown with Shebab one minute, and the nextyou are killing each other?”
Kenya’s army has denied repeated allega-tions of war profiteering since invadingSomalia in 2011 after a string of kidnappings oftourists and aid workers blamed on the Shebab.
In the years since, Shebab attacks in Kenyahave grown in number and scale — includingthe killing of at least 67 people at Nairobi’sWestgate Mall in 2013 and the massacre of 148people at a university in Garissa in April —with the militants saying the attacks are retali-ation for the Kenyan military presence inSomalia and “war crimes” committed byKenyan troops.
Persistent allegations of Kenyan militaryinvolvement in illegal business dealings inSomalia first emerged soon after the armyoccupied the southern port town of Kismayo in2012, where it took control of a stockpile ofmillions of sacks of charcoal.
Successive reports by the UN MonitoringGroup — which investigates terrorist financ-ing and infringements of an arms embargo —have detailed the joint role of KDF, the Shebaband the local Jubaland administration in theillegal export of charcoal.
The most recent annual report, publishedlast month, also referred to KDF involvementin the illegal sugar trade.
Journalists for Justice estimates the totalvalue of illegal sugar smuggling to Kenya atbetween $200 million and $400 million.
Its investigators found that KDF taxes everysack of charcoal that leaves and every sack ofsugar that arrives at Kismayo, earning an esti-mated $50 million (46 million euros) a year.
Right-wing Christian Phalange Party supporters carry a symboliccoffin and Lebanese flags during a protest near the parliament build-ing in downtown Beirut, Lebanon on Nov 12. Supporters of thePhalange Party protested Thursday outside the parliament buildingdemanding that the legislature elect a new president rather than
draft new laws. (AP)
Militants clash with army
25 dead in Boko Haram raid in Niger NIAMEY, Nov 12, (RTRS):Around 25 people were killed onWednesday in a Boko Haram attackon a village in southern Niger andsubsequent clashes between theIslamist militants and the army,Niger military officials said.
Fighters from the Nigerian mili-tant group killed five civilians intheir initial attack on the villagelocated in the West African nation’sBosso district. Niger soldiers droveback the militants, killing around20 of them, the officers said.
“Reactingly quickly, the govern-ment’s forces were able to pushthem back. Most of the BokoHaram elements have been neu-tralised,” said one of the officers,
based in the Diffa border region.“The situation is under control
and we are carrying out clean-upoperations,” he added.
Boko Haram has ramped upcross-border attacks into Niger,Chad and Cameroon from itsstrongholds in northeastern Nigeriain recent months.
Almost a third of Diffa’s nearly600,000 inhabitants have been dis-placed by the violence.
A long-awaited 8,700-troop-strong regional task force is set tobegin joint operations soon againstthe Islamist fighters when theregion’s rainy season ends, a topUnited Nations official said latelast month.
UN force turns over‘Lebanese staffer’BEIRUT, Nov 12, (AFP): TheUnited Nations peacekeepingforce in south Lebanon UNIFILsaid Wednesday it has turnedover a longtime local staffer toLebanese authorities who accusehim of spying for Israel.
The Lebanese man who hadworked in the UNIFIL adminis-tration for over 20 years is amongthree people accused by authori-ties of spying for the Jewish state.
On Sunday, Lebanese authori-ties said they had arrested the 3 sus-pects, a Syrian man, his Lebanesewife and a Lebanese man.
But the man “was in theUNIFIL compound when author-ities requested him”, UNIFILspokesman Andrea told AFP.
News in Brief
Parliament to tackle:Lebanon’s parliament convenedon Thursday for its first legisla-tive session in more than a yearto pass financial laws the paral-ysed state urgently needs to stayafloat.
Lawmakers are due to discussdevelopment loans, debtissuance and banks at the two-day session, which began short-ly after 0900 GMT. Thornypolitical issues have been leftoff the agenda, however.
Lebanon’s main politicalblocks had previously beenunable to agree on an agendafor the session, obstructingefforts to convene the chamber.Some parties were still threaten-ing a boycott until late onWednesday.
The political deadlock meansLebanon risks missing out onWorld Bank loans that parlia-ment needs to approve by year-end. The session is the firstsince parliament extended itsown term in November lastyear. (RTRS)
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‘Sr. Taleban leader killed’:An Afghan police official says asenior figure of a breakawayTaleban faction has been killed inbattle between rival insurgentgroups in southeasternAfghanistan.
Gulam Jelani Farahi, deputypolice chief of Zabul province,said Thursday that MullahMansoor Dadullah was luredinto a trap and killed by mem-
bers of the main Taleban groupin the province’s Khakar-e-Afghan district.
Farahi says Dadullah — whoacted as a deputy to the splinterfaction’s leader MullahMohammad Rasool — waskilled late Wednesday.
Farahi’s claim couldn’t beindependently confirmed andthe breakaway faction did notreport it. The area of inter-Taleban fighting is inaccessibleto reporters.
Rasool’s faction had disputedthe legitimacy of Mullah AkhtarMansoor, who became Talebanleader after the announcementin July that founder MullahMohammad Omar was dead.(AP)
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Protests across Kabul:Protests calling for better securi-ty in Afghanistan broke out inseveral cities on Thursday, a dayafter an estimated crowd of10,000 descended on the presi-dential palace in Kabul inresponse to the brutal killings ofseven people from the minorityHazara ethnic group.
Hundreds of demonstratorsmarched through the streets ofmajor cities in Balkh provincein the north, Herat in the westand Nangarhar in the east,holding aloft banners with pho-tos of the Hazaras who werefound beheaded on Saturday inrural southern Afghanistan.The protesters demanded forbetter security for all Afghans.(AP)
Abu Zeid
