Flotilla Leaders Defiant as Israel Seeks to Avoid Conflict

Turkey said Thursday it rebuffed an Israeli request to help stop activists from sailing in a flotilla that aims to break the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza next month.

"We listened to the message given by the Israeli side and told them this is an initiative by civil society," a Turkish foreign ministry official told Reuters.

Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to help stop the flotilla. "We are aware that there is an attempted provocation in May, possibly early June, of another so-called flotilla, not a peace flotilla but a provocation, a deliberate provocation to seek to ignite this part of the Middle East," Netanyahu told European Union heads of mission in Jerusalem on Monday.

"I think it's in your and our common interest, and I think it's something that you should…transmit to your governments, that this flotilla must be stopped," he added.

Freedom Flotilla II organizers released a statement on Monday saying "we will not be intimidated," following a meeting held in Athens to continue preparations for the flotilla. The press release also called "on all our governments, the international community and the United Nations not to succumb to Israel's intimidation."

The first Freedom Flotilla last May led to a deadly confrontation between Israeli commandos and passengers on the Mavi Marmara, a ship sponsored by the Turkish group IHH. The Hamas-tied group deliberately planned for a violent encounter with Israel under the leadership of IHH head Bulent Yildirim. Islamists on the ship used clubs, knives, chains, axes and other weapons against Israeli commandos who boarded the ship after issuing a series of warnings that it needed to stop.

IHH will join Freedom Flotilla II, which will include approximately 15 ships with participants from 50 countries in May. IHH also plans to send its own flotilla to Gaza led by the Mavi Marmara following the Turkish general elections on June 12.

At an event held in Southern Turkey last week, Yildirim told to an audience of over 1,000 people that "The Mediterranean does not belong to Israel... Just because we have had shahids [martyrs], we are not fearful... We will not step back... Let all know this: Until the blockade on Gaza is lifted... and until our march to al-Aqsa is completed, this sea intifada and land intifada will continue!"

Yildirim continued: "We say this with no hesitation: Our problem is Zionism – which, like a virus, has infected all humanity!"

Yildirim's fiery speech echo his words he said in January at a ceremony in Beirut honoring the Mavi Marmara; the flotilla is not about helping Palestinians in Gaza, but defeating Israel with violence and martyrdom.

Germany Tries Eight Internet Jihadist Suspects

Seven men and a woman are on trial in Munich, charged with inciting terrorism by posting videos of bombings and decapitations.

German federal prosecutors claim the accused are members of a group called the Global Islamic Media Front and published German translations of al-Qaida propaganda as well as their own jihadist material on the Internet between August 2006 and March 2008.

A prosecutor cited the recent murders of U.S. Air Force personnel at the Frankfurt airport by an alleged Muslim terrorist who was suspected of having been radicalized at least in part via the Internet. "We see Islamist Internet propaganda as the most dangerous tool currently in the hands of Jihadi international terrorism," said prosecutor Michael Burns, "and that's why we want to set a clear line in the sand."

The defendants face a maximum of 15 years in prison and the trial is expected to last through May 19. Four other people have entered guilty pleas to related charges.

Shiites in Gaza, Sunnis in Iran

The Shiite population of the Sunni-dominated Gaza Strip is increasing, while Shiite Iran is experiencing Sunni growth, according to Egyptian news agency Al-Arabiya English. The religious switching has the potential to create serious tension between Hamas and its patron Iran, as these minorities vie for political power and further converts.

Gaza is controlled by Hamas, a Sunni terrorist organization supported by Iran. This religious difference creates a fragile balance, where Hamas struggles between controlling Iran's proselytizing campaign in Gaza while not alienating it. Hamas also wants to rule through a conservative form of Sunni Islamic law, and has put pressure on local Christians, Shiites, and even more conservative Sunni groups like the Salafis.

Increasing numbers of Shiite converts are demanding political rights and even political power. Al-Arabiyah cites and Agence France Presse report about Abdul Rahim Hamad, a converted Shiite who lives in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, who said the growth of Shia Islam was "due to the influence of Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah in the region."

"We are now hundreds in Gaza. We will start our political activities soon. Palestinian Shiites will play an important role in controlling this region in the future," Hamad said.

It's not a problem Hamas feels comfortable addressing. Ahmed Youssef, an advisor of Hama's Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, denied the growth of Shiites in Gaza and said Palestinians "love Iran and Hezbollah." However, last Thursday the group's security forces shut down an Iranian funded, Shiite organization called al-Baqeyat al-Salehat.

The same tensions exist in reverse in Iran. "While Sunnis are accorded "full respect" in the Iranian constitution, in practice and through social exclusion, Iranian Sunnis suffer discrimination," according to the University of Maryland's Minorities at Risk Project. "The Iranian government has barred the construction of a Sunni mosque in Tehran, and has moderately restricted public displays of the Sunni religion and culture."

The rise of Sunni Islam has been noticeable among Arabs, found mostly in the Iranian province of Khuzestan. They believe that the move will severe their links with Iran, which has alienated them by trying to impose Persian language and culture in the region.

Sunni extremists have tried to capitalize on the tension. Al-Qaida recruiter Hamid bin Abdullah Al-Ali, whose assets were frozen by the United Nations Security Council, recently called for "An Intifada of the Occupied Spaces" in Iran. The call was direct at the Iranian "powers of the occupation, who declared a state of emergency in the areas, shut down schools and companies," and implemented other restrictive measures.

The Sunni issue has caused alarm in Iran and was hinted at by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a 2010 visit to Khuzestan. It was also reinforced by Iranian cleric Mohammed Jawad Adel, who called the Sunni explosion in the border regions a "very serious issue." He urged Iranian authorities to deal with what he called the "Sunni missionary."

Jihadists Hang Activist; Hamas Blames Israel

Hamas officials say the body of kidnapped International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Victor Arrigoni was found early Friday by police in Gaza. He had been hanged.

An al Qaida-inspired terrorist organization called Tawhid and Jihad announced Thursday that it had kidnapped "Victor, an Italian journalist." The group said it would kill him unless the Hamas regime in Gaza released imprisoned jihadists including Sheikh Abu Walid al-Maqdasi, arrested by Hamas police in Gaza last month.

Tawhid and Jihad released a video showing Arrigoni blindfolded and being held by the hair. He had a large bruise or blood beneath his right eye. An Arabic-language message accompanying the footage of Arrigoni said "the Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption" and denounced Italy as "the infidel state."

The group subsequently denied involvement with Arrigoni's abduction and murder.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum claimed Israel was behind the slaying in hopes of stopping the next aid flotilla aimed at ending the Israeli naval blockade imposed to prevent weapons smuggling to terrorists in Gaza.

The ISM announced that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were holding rallies commemorating Arrigoni's anti-Israel activism. It said that for the past two and a half years, Arrigoni was in Gaza monitoring Israeli "human rights violations" for ISM, that he was arrested numerous times by Israel, and that he was an advocate of sanctions against the Jewish State.

Inge Neefs of ISM Gaza said most Palestinians do not support the extremists who kidnapped Arrigoni and should not be blamed for the crime.

"It's unbelievable," said ISM co-founder Huwaida Arraf. Arrigoni "was more Palestinian than the criminals that killed him."

Hizballah Exploiting Wikileaks Cables

U.S. cooperation with pro-Western Lebanese politicians is actually a conspiracy against Hizballah, according to identical reports on the terror organization's news website and in Iranian media. The stories cite U.S. diplomatic cables released by the website Wikileaks and say the United States backed a compromise Lebanese presidential candidate in order to "embarrass" Hizballah and harm its political allies.

From Hizballah's perspective, the documents show the subservience of Saad Hariri's pro-Western bloc to the United States and their Saudi allies. "They [the Wikileaks releases] confirmed that the 'battle' against Hezbollah was the essence of all challenges in the country in the eyes of the Hariri bloc," the article said. The Wikileaks cables, which show an embattled politician playing power politics against Hizballah, are characterized by Hizballah to try to show pro-Western forces as Saudi and American puppets.

The piece also declares that Hariri supported presidential candidate Michel Suleiman, an independent that he supposedly thought could be manipulated, to offset Hizballah. A November 2007 cable shows that the United States was wary of Hariri's "plan B" option, despite his assurances that "Suleiman was not responsible for Hezbollah's smuggling of arms into Lebanon."

Another Wikileaks document from Nov. 3, 2007, quoted Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Abdul Aziz Khoja's conversations with Lebanese politicians. Hizballah's article noted that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah had told Saad Hariri to wait until after the parliamentary elections to be named prime minister. "The leaked cable said that 'Yes Sir' is Hariri's only reply to any Saudi proposal," Hizballah's article said, portraying him as a Saudi agent.

The article is meant to put pressure Hariri's political bloc, which has tried to steer a course between positive relations with the West and preserving Lebanese independence. His bloc, made up of Sunni and Christian groups, is at odds with Shiite militias and their Christian and Druze allies.

Egyptian Radicals Vying for Greater Political Power

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, announced Wednesday that his group has the ability to win 75% of parliamentary seats in the country's planned September elections. This statement comes in spite of earlier assertions by Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie that the Brotherhood has more modest political aspirations.

Speaking to the state-run news agency MENA, Badie revealed his group's initial intentions to compete for only one-third of parliamentary seats in the post-revolution elections. Badie also denied that the Brotherhood had negotiated any deals with the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) about the country's political future.

Commenting on a meeting between the leader and the SCAF, Badie said that he only extolled the military's role in aiding the revolution and urged the council to uphold its agreements to transfer power to civilian authority at the end of the transitional period."We cannot let the relationship between the people and the army spoil," Badie cautioned.

Despite Badie's claim that the Brotherhood is only aiming for a small share of Egypt's newly forming government, Islamists stand to gain a great deal of political power in September, especially if they run on the same ticket. Unlike the Islamist groups that are generally well-funded and organized, traditional opposition parties were crippled under the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak. Now these parties, along with the liberal youths who orchestrated the widespread protests, are scrambling to organize in time for elections.

Though the Muslim Brotherhood has a long history within the Egyptian government, other fundamentalist groups are now showing interest in politics and raising concerns about Egypt's future. Of particular note are the Salafis and Gamaa Islamiya. Both these groups are more radical than the Brotherhood and threaten to turn Egypt into an Islamist state based on Sharia law. While acknowledging that these groups must be allowed to partake in elections if Egypt is to be a real democracy, the liberals and leftists behind the protests worry whether the Islamists will preserve the revolutionary ideals should they seize power.

"Egypt will not turn into Gaza or Iran," said the ruling military council in response to these concerns and the rising confidence within the ranks of Egypt's hard-liners.

Yemeni Military Factions Clash

Army units of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh clashed in the capital city of Sana'a for the first time with forces still loyal to former General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who defected weeks ago to the side of the protesters.

"We pray that there will be no more clashes with our fellow countrymen. However, if attacked again, we are committed to defending ourselves," rebel Col. Abdul Salaam al-Aliyani said Wednesday, after the factions exchanged RPG and AK-47 fire for an hour.

"The 1st armored brigade is postured to take both the airport and Yemen TV. Ali Mohsen sees these two strategic points as valuable bargaining chips," Yemeni political analyst Yemeni Iryani told the Washington Post. "The two military factions do not want to fight each other, but at this point there is no way to prevent further clashes between them."

Rebel security forces were manning a checkpoint outside of Sana'a, when members of two government security forces seized control. Al-Ahmar had announced last month that his more than 10,000 soldiers would be joining and protecting the protesters, who are pushing for an ouster of the long-reigning president.

The clash has the potential to ignite more conflict and even civil war, with the headquarters of forces loyal to the president and the ex-general on the same road in the capital. Al-Ahmar's forces have also set up a series of checkpoints along the central street leading to the capital's airport and offices of state media.

More than 100 have been killed in protests since protests began on February 11^th. The fractured Sunni nation is also facing a Shiite insurgency in the north and pressure from separatists in the south, along with stress on government institutions from the large Somali refugee population. The United States is also pushing for the president to reign in the local branch of al-Qaida, which has been taking advantage of the nation's chaos.

Top U.S. Admiral Warns of Lashkar's "Expanding Reach"

A top U.S. commander has warned of the "expanding reach" of the Pakistan-based terrorist group Laskar-e-Tayyiba (LeT). The group has declared "jihad" on America and its activities are no longer confined to South Asia and India, Adm. Robert Willard, head of the Pacific Command, told a Senate hearing April 12. LeT has been blamed by Indian authorities for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

Willard claimed the United States had evidence of LeT's presence in Europe and the broader Asia-Pacific region. Willard also said the group was active in Canada and the United States.

Willard also noted the relationship of the Pakistani government to the LeT was "very sensitive." The LeT is alleged to be a creation of Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI, as part of its efforts to use Kashmiri fighters to wage a low-intensity proxy war against rival India. The group has been banned in Pakistan but Indian authorities maintain the ISI continues to have ties to Lashar militants.

Willard's remarks come at a time of heightened interest in Lashkar in the United States, particularly since the arrest of Chicago resident David Headley whose reconnaissance trips to India on behalf of Lashkar played a key role in the Mumbai attacks.

Syrian Unrest Grows

The Syrian government is executing soldiers who refuse to fire on protestors and preventing doctors from reaching wounded demonstrators, according to local opposition figures. It's the strongest crackdown on simmering discontent among pro-democracy activists and ethnic minorities, with more than 200 killed by government forces since clashes picked up in early March.

Last Friday's protests were the largest among recent disturbances, and sparked Syrian security forces to kill 27 people in the southern city of Deraa and one in Damascus. The most recent crackdown saw troops storm the city of Banias and "open fire haphazardly," before dragging young men from their homes into the streets to be arrested.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also accused Syrian troops of preventing demonstrators from reaching hospitals or of letting medical care coming to them. "To deprive wounded people of critical and perhaps life-saving medical treatment is both inhumane and illegal," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director. "Syria's leaders talk about political reform, but they meet their people's legitimate demands for reform with bullets."

The Damascus Declaration, Syria's leading pro-democracy movement and coalition of Islamist and liberal opposition members, called for the Arab League to impose sanctions on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. "Syria's uprising is screaming with 200 martyrs, hundreds of injured and a similar number of arrests," the Damascus Declaration group said in a letter, calling for the Arab League to impose "political, diplomatic, and economic" sanctions. "The regime unleashes its forces to besiege cities and terrorize civilians, while protesters across Syria thunder with the same chant 'peaceful, peaceful'," it added.

Continued strife and the harsh reaction of the government have also underlined divisions in the society and preventing the government from enacting an ambitious economic plan to combat rampant poverty. A Shiite minority from the Alawi sect rules the country, employing army forces and gangs on the majority Sunni nation. Christians and Druze populations maintain a fragile reliance on the government to control Islamist sentiments, while the Kurdish ethnic minority is clamoring for citizenship and more rights.

L.A. Police Fear American Mumbai-style Attack

Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michael Downing told The Washington Times that his police force is using a combination of community cooperation and aggressive monitoring of jihadists, to counter the threat of a Mumbai-style terror attack. The dual strategy is meant to isolate would-be terrorists and extremists badgering mainstream mosques, and to build a better sense of cooperation between nervous community leaders and law enforcement.

"You need good intelligence. Do we have an idea of all the cells here? Do we know all the players? Do we know their associates? Does al Qaeda have good access to [weapons of mass destruction]? And how sophisticated can they get? That worries me," Downing told the Times, as he expounded on the "very real" threat of terror in American cities. One likely scenario is a "multitarget, synchronized assault by teams armed with smaller weapons," similar to the attacks that killed 174 in Mumbai, India. "The biggest fear I have is just what I don't know."

Real-time intelligence work has been aided by the police department's outreach to local Muslims. Officers observe prayer, show up at community events, and explain to Muslims that they have key constitutional rights that American is interested in protecting. It's about "supporting our Constitution and creating a bigger gap between the hard-core radicals and the critical mass of people," Chief Downing said. "And then we can weed out the hard-core radicals through our hunt-and-pursue model."

There is "a type of [al-Qaida] in the United States," Downing said. American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has "a lot of cyberconnections" to help recruit homegrown radicals. And there have been efforts to bribe mosques into replacing their imams with extremists. When that doesn't work, some mosque leaders report being shaken-down by threats targeting relatives overseas.

One mosque official was told "we know where your niece is, how she walks to school in Pakistan, you want her to get to school, don't you?' That's the kind of stuff that we're dealing with here," Downing told the Times.

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