Threats to Syrian and Jordanian Regimes

Jordan's regime is teetering on the brink, according to local experts, as others question what Syria would be like without President Bashar al-Assad. Demonstrations in the region have gained pace, with both governments struggling to rapidly respond to protesters' demands.

"The King must intervene and come up with a political initiative accepting the demands of the protesters, including constitutional reform," Fahed Al-Khitan, a political columnist with Jordan's Al-Arab Al-Yawm, told The Media Line. "If reform does not take place, the sense of animosity could lead to clashes between citizens."

Jordanian reformists were disappointed by Sunday's parliamentary vote, which rejected limiting the king's constitutional authorities. "The king is strong in the constitution," an official statement read, and we will see to it that he remains strong to safeguard Jordanian identity."

The Jordanian government response has been decidedly more peaceful than other Arab revolutions, despite the tension. "The freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are constitutional rights as long as they are peaceful, civilised and do not harm people," Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit said in a statement on the state-run Petra news agency.

"Carrying firearms, bats, stones and sharp tools as well as attempts to prevent peaceful demonstrations are condemned. They harm Jordan's image and reform drive," Bakhit said in response to government loyalists bearing arms against reformist protestors on Saturday. The day before, one bystander was killed when security forces attempted to break up violent clashes between pro and anti-government rallies.

Syria has been far more aggressive, brutally reacting to demonstrations that took shape on March 16^th, deploying soldiers at rallies and opening fire on protesters in cities such as Latakia and Daraa. However, Assad also freed mostly Islamist political prisoner and agreed to lift the nation's emergency law, which has been in place since March 1963.

Serious instability may not be that far away, as residents in the heterogeneous city of Latakia took up arms and manned checkpoints in the city following the crackdown. Violence may not immediately collapse the regime, but it "will embolden the majority-Sunni population and Kurdish minority, who deeply resent the political dominance of the Alawi minority, to protest," said Barak Seener, a research fellow with the Royal United Services Institute in London.

An unnamed Lebanese political commentator told the Christian Science Monitor that the rise of a Sunni-dominated state, as opposed to the current regime's Alawi Shiite leadership, "would represent a clear and severe blow to Hezbollah, Iran, and to some degree Hamas."

Other commentators argue that Syria's links to terror would not disappear overnight. "A new regime in Syria definitely will have an effect [on the region], but it depends on the nature of the new regime," said Ahmad Moussalli, a professor of politics at the American University of Beirut. "Syria holds the cards of Iran, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas, and whatever regime rules in Syria, it will not want to throw away those cards for nothing."

Hamas Cracks Down on Media

Hamas has raided offices of CNN and Reuters in Gaza, confiscating equipment and documents, the Jerusalem Post reports. The move is a part of a series of steps aimed at suppressing coverage of "provocative" rallies, following an online call by Palestinian activists for Hamas and Fatah to set aside differences and form a unity government.

"Several armed men entered Reuters' office in Gaza on Saturday, threatened employees with guns and took away a video camera, apparently after they spotted a reporter filming a demonstration from the building," reported Reuters on March 19. "The men struck one Reuters journalist on the arm with a metal bar and threatened to throw another out of the window of the high-rise block."

CNN reports that the office of Japanese outlet NHK was raided, too, and that a Reuters employee "was beaten with an iron rod and another was threatened with being thrown out the window."

Several of the Hamas attacks concentrated on female journalists. Samah Ahmed, a journalist covering a pro-unity strike, was stabbed in the back by uniformed Hamas police officer. She and another journalist were arrested and severely beaten with clubs by the group's security forces. Journalist Jihan al-Sirsawi also complained of electric shock torture by the group, while two more female news agents were beaten, one with an iron chair.

At first, Hamas denied responsibility for the incident. "Initial information shows these men were not from the government. We have arrested some of them and we are going to interrogate them and see who they were acting for," Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad told reporters.

Later, after pressure from NGOs and local journalists over intimidation tactics, the group issued an apology and pledged to conduct an investigation. Reporters Without Borders stated that "such behavior is unacceptable" and called on the group to refrain from inhibiting coverage of local events. "Clear and precise instructions should be given to the security forces to avoid any recurrence of such violence and to ensure that journalists are free to work," they said.

Arab Revolutionary Wave Targets Assad

The revolutionary trend sweeping the Arab world in recent months has now reached Syria. A hospital official said 37 people have been killed since Wednesday, apparently by government security forces, in Dara'a, located in southern Syria near the Jordanian border.

As uprisings in spread in Egypt and Tunisia, eventually driving the ruling autocrats from power, children in Dara'a wrote slogans on walls calling for the ouster of President Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than 40 years. About 15 children under age 14 were recently arrested in connection with the graffiti.

Last Friday, protesters who took to the streets in Dara'a and neighboring towns to demand the children's release were met with water cannons, tear gas, and eventually bullets from security forces, killing several people. But instead of deterring the protests, the government's action seemed to spur them on. On Wednesday, security forces reportedly killed six people at Dara'a's central mosque, including a doctor who was treating the wounded.

On Friday, tens of thousands of Syrians reportedly took to the streets after prayers to denounce Assad's government and reject a series of concessions announced by the regime one day earlier. Those concessions included salary increases for government workers and greater freedom for political parties and the news media.

Hundreds of people demonstrated Friday in Damascus denouncing the regime and vowing to "sacrifice our blood, our soul, for you Dara'a."

White House spokesman Jay Carney condemned the Assad regime's crackdown, specifically "the Syrian government's brutal repression of demonstrations, in particular the violence and killings of civilians at the hands of security forces." Watch video of the crackdown here.

Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who lived in Syria for a decade, said that six days of protests this large were unknown in Syria since 1982, when then-ruler Hafez Assad killed upwards of 10,000 people in the Hama Massacre. On Friday, Reuters reported that people marched through the streets of Hama after Friday prayers chanting "Freedom is ringing out" in solidarity with the anti-government protests.

CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds, who was stationed in the Middle East for nine years, points out that a weakened Assad regime could undercut the alliance between Tehran and Damascus. "A destabilized Syria has big implications for Lebanon and for Hezbollah. Syria has been the Lebanese overlord for decades and Hezbollah has been Iran's meddlesome pet," Reynolds writes. "Iran has been helpful to Hamas, although Hamas is a Sunni Muslim movement. All of those relationships could be in jeopardy."

That is why "you are seeing Bashar Assad shooting at his own people now, Sure he has promised increased freedoms for discontented citizens and increased pay and benefits for state workers, but his military action suggests he knows the protesters will not be bought off by such benefits."

Muslim Radicalization Study Marred By "Sheer Incoherence"

A federally-funded study of Muslim-American attitudes toward terrorism "reads more like an advocacy brief than academic research drawing sweeping conclusions from insufficient evidence," writes Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Writing in Middle East Quarterly, Gartenstein-Ross, director of FDD's Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization, points to serious flaws in Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans, a report by researchers at Duke and the University of North Carolina.

One problem is that study, funded by the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice, relies on contradictory sets of data. One consists of 120 interviews conducted in Houston, Buffalo, Raleigh-Durham and Seattle about American Muslims' anti-radicalization efforts and their attitudes about terrorism. Authors David Schanzer, Ebrahim Moosa, and Charles Kurzman concluded from those interviews that "Muslim-Americans do not support terrorism directed at the United States and innocent civilians."

The authors admitted that "some of our interviewees were less quick to condemn other acts of violence outside of the United States." But because the project was focused on domestic terrorism, they "did not attempt to gauge the extent of this support or probe interviewees on these issues."

The other set includes data on American Muslims who since 9/11 have either perpetrated a terrorist act or have been convicted, sought, or arrested in connection with a terror-related offense involving violence. But the study's appendix of "Muslim American Terrorism Offenders" includes perpetrators whose acts were solely related to violence outside the United States, such as 20 individuals involved with al-Shabaab's jihadist recruiting network.

"The failure to probe interviewees on attitudes directly related to the data set on terrorist offenses amounts to sheer incoherence," Gartenstein-Ross writes.

He points to numerous other flaws in the report which serve to downplay the radicalization threat. It cites the condemnation of the 9/11 attacks by Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi without mentioning his support for suicide bombings or his praise for Muslims who die "in a military operation aimed at expelling American occupation forces in the Gulf." It favorably cites a report by the Muslim American Society denouncing the July 7, 2005 London transit bombings without mentioning that the group's curriculum includes the works of Islamists who have advocated violence against the West such as Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb.

"Likewise, the authors uncritically quote a condemnation of terrorism issued by the Council on American-Islamic Relations without noting the group's many ties to terrorism and extremism more broadly," Gartenstein-Ross writes.

Read the article here. Many of the criticisms echo problems we identified in a related story by the same research team a year earlier.

In Libya, "No Drive Zone" Might Be More Useful

There is good news and bad news about the effectiveness of allied airstrikes against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

On the plus side, U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe and Africa, said Tuesday that cruise missile strikes and air strikes have rendered Gaddafi's air force and long-range air defenses ineffective.

But it is unclear whether the no-fly zone the allies are establishing will be very useful in stopping the pro-Gaddafi forces from wiping out the Libyan opposition. During the same Pentagon briefing, Locklear confirmed that Gaddafi loyalists continued to attack Libyan civilians in Misrata.

A doctor at a hospital in Misrata (located about 130 miles east of the Libyan capital Tripoli) said Tuesday that about 80 people had been killed in the city since the Security Council on March 17 adopted a resolution calling for a halt to attacks on civilians. The dead included a family of six killed Tuesday when their car was struck by a tank shell.

The doctor told the Washington Post he had stopped counting the injured and that the hospital is running out of virtually all supplies and medicines."This no-fly zone doesn't mean anything to us because Gaddafi only had a few planes and they were doing nothing," said the doctor, who fears Libyan regime forces will retake the city. "We need a no-drive zone because it is tanks and snipers that are killing us."

Snipers killed at least 16 more people in the town Wednesday and government tanks approached a hospital there.

Allied forces continued to fire missiles from submarines and B-2 bombers at government targets throughout northern Libya. Gaddafi's surface-to-air missiles and mechanized forces also came under attack. Gaddafi's forces withdrew tanks from Misrata and Zintan (75 miles south of Tripoli), but the war remained a stalemate between Gaddafi allies who have been pushed out of eastern Libya and disorganized rebels who have failed to take advantage of the allied attacks against Gaddafi's forces.

A spokeswoman for the opposition said the leader of their new governing body would be Mahmoud Jibril, an American-educated planning expert who recently defected from the Gaddafi regime.

"At the beginning, we thought it would just take a week or two weeks" to oust Gaddafi, she said. "Now we know it will take time. We need a government to liberate the eastern territories." The progress that opposition had made "was just because there was a vacuum. We don't have political experience. We are learning as days go by."

Wednesday's New York Daily News profiles the anti-Gaddafi forces as "a motley collection of secular merchants, Islamic fundamentalists, longtime dissidents, tribal leaders, civil servants, monarchists and angry young men." The anti-Gaddafi coalition includes members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an al-Qaida affiliate. In the past, the Gaddafi regime made controversial claims that it persuaded LIFG militants to renounce jihad.

OC Register Gives CAIR Rep Free Pass

The Orange County Register let Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Los Angeles Director Hussam Ayloush off the hook Tuesday when it readily accepted his condemnation of controversial comments made by a Muslim leader in 2006, film producer David Stein writes.

During the week-long event, entitled "Holocaust in the Holy Land," Imam Abdel Malik-Ali suggested that if Jews are willing to be martyrs, then Muslims should be ready to do the same. "They (Jews) know this is a new day…What do we do? Might be another 9/11," said Ali.

Ayloush did not condemn the comments when asked about them shortly after they were made, Rather, he dismissed the Muslim Student Union (MSU) UC-Irvine's pick of controversial speakers for one of its 2006 events. "If you haven't been through a bit of radicalism in college, you've missed out," he said. "They're very harmless, nonviolent kids, but they're very vocal."

He struck a dramatically different tone after a Register columnist challenged Ayloush to condemn the remarks as a sign of fairness after the CAIR director had condemned remarks by a local politician.

"CAIR and the Muslim community unequivocally reject what appears in the 2006 video to be the speaker's support for targeting Israeli buses and cafes. The targeting of civilians is a crime that can never be justified, no matter what just cause it claims to serve," Ayloush wrote to a Register columnist.

Columnist Frank Mickadeit lauded Ayloush's quick response time and the condemnation of Malik-Ali's speech. Stein was agog at that, pointing out that Ayloush's 2006 statement ignored the fact that Ali's message made civilians legitimate targets and"went so far as to claim that Malik-Ali's words were not anti-Semitic."

Stein likens Mickadeit to Shakespeare's Richard the Third, in which King Edward's brother essentially cons the king into believing he has no ill intent.

"We must not be as naïve as King Edward," Stein writes. "Trying to turn enemies into friends and hatred into love is a noble goal. But if one side is unwilling to be honest and truthful, it can also be a foolish and futile one."

Judge Keeps Al-Arian Case in Deep Freeze

It has been two years since defense attorneys for Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian moved to dismiss a criminal contempt case against him. But nothing has happened in the ensuing 24 months because U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has opted not to rule, either dismissing the case or letting it proceed to trial.

At issue is Al-Arian's claim that his 2006 guilty plea for conspiring to provide goods and services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was based on his understanding that it would end all his dealings with the government, including what he calls cooperation. In their motion, defense attorneys argue there is "uncontroverted evidence that the government induced" the plea, then reneged on its promise.

In earlier hearings, Brinkema expressed significant concern over that prospect.

But a grand jury subpoena is compelled testimony, not voluntary cooperation. And prosecutors point out that, for such a vital element in his plea decision, the government pledge to allow him to evade such testimony is never mentioned in his plea agreement and never was mentioned in the hearing in which he entered that plea.

Defense attorneys have failed to identify any individual who made the pledge or offer any tangible evidence of its existence. "The absence of any mention in April 2006 of this alleged promise - - now claimed to be so central to Al-Arian's decision to plead guilty - - is far more consistent with it never having been made than with it simply having slipped the minds of all of the people involved," prosecutors wrote in April 2009.

As we reported one year ago, if Brinkema believed the defense argument – that the prosecution violates an earlier agreement – it's a safe bet that she would have granted the motion. But she hasn't. Yet, she hasn't allowed the government to proceed, either. The case is frozen.

Brinkema's judicial inactivism has allowed Al-Arian to remain on house arrest at one of his children's homes.

Prosecutors tried to force the issue, asking for a new hearing on the pending motion in August. Due to a scheduling conflict, it was set for Oct. 29, records show. No further notices were filed from Sept. 8 until the eve of the hearing. Then, Brinkema canceled it, writing that a hearing was not necessary and that "the Court is working on an opinion which addresses all relevant issues."

Nearly four months have passed since then.

According to the American Bar Association, the judge is like an umpire in baseball: "Like the ump, they call 'em as they see 'em, according to the facts and law—without regard to which side is popular (no home field advantage), without regard to who is "favored," without regard for what the spectators want, and without regard to whether the judge agrees with the law."

How does the judge explain her refusal to make the call?

Breaking: Jerusalem Bombing Injures Dozens

Update: One woman has died and the injury count grown to 39 in Wednesday's bombing in Jerusalem.

As many as two dozen people were injured in a bombing attack in Jerusalem Wednesday. Initial reports indicate it was not a suicide bombing and that the explosion took place on or near a bus in front of the Jerusalem Conference Center.

So far, no one has died from the attack, but the Jerusalem Post reports four of the wounded are severely injured. Security officials are searching to make sure no other bombs have been planted in the area, Haaretz reports.

The attack comes as Israel retaliates against Hamas for increased rocket fire coming into Israel from Gaza. Israel bombed a rocket launcher after it fired a missile at Ashdod. Palestinian officials say the Israeli response killed eight people, including four civilians.

Viva Palestina to Sit Out Next Flotilla

Viva Palestina (VP), a British-based group with a history of Hamas support, has announced that it will not be a part of a planned aid flotilla to Gaza in May. British participation in the Freedom Flotilla II is being organized by a group called "Britain 2 Gaza."

While VP is formally taking a pass, many of those working with Britain 2 Gaza have ties to Viva Palestina, and have supported the group in the past.

The first flotilla ended in a deadly confrontation between Israeli commandos and IHH activists in the Mediterranean Sea. It resulted in an international outcry as well increased tensions between Israel and Turkey. Kevin Ovenden, a VP trustee and a close aide of VP's brainchild George Galloway, was on the Mavi Marmara ship where the violence took place.

In an email announcement sent out earlier this month, VP explained it would sit out the second flotilla after "trustees have decided that VP cannot be a sponsor the second flotilla [sic] given our charitable status, though we are, of course, entirely supportive of the aim of breaking the siege."

Among those working on the next flotilla:

The British Muslim Initiative (BMI) has ties to the UK Muslim Brotherhood and is headed by Mohammed Sawalha, a senior Hamas commander in the West Bank until he relocated to London. Sawalha, who still supports Hamas, played an active role in organizing last year's flotilla. An article that ran on IHH's website prior to last year's flotilla described Sawalha as the person who "coordinates the [flotilla] campaign in Europe." Sawalha also plays an active role in Viva Palestina's convoys to Gaza.

Friends of Al-Aqsa is headed by Ismail Patel, who was on the Mavi Marmara last May and is a Hamas supporter. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has previously partnered with Viva Palestina and both PSC and the Stop the War Coalition are supporters of George Galloway and VP. The Stop War Coalition website lists Galloway as "a vice-president" of the organization. Finally, the Palestinian Forum of Britain's spokesperson Zaher Birawi also serves a spokesman for Viva Palestina during their convoys to Gaza. Birawi is a Hamas activist who sought refuge in the UK.

Birawi said that Britain 2 Gaza will hire a cruise ship for flotilla participants, who would be joined by 15 other ships. Birawi also "stated that Israel does not respect international law and commits serious violations against the Palestinians day and night, so it is likely to repeat its crime," according to an article published in the London based AhlulBayt News Agency.

Jihadists, Narcoterrorists and the Chavez Connection

President Obama's visit to South America could help focus attention on Iranian-Venezuelan terror collaboration, according to Roger Noriega, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs under President George W. Bush.

Noriega (who also served as U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States) writes in the Washington Post that both regimes "are conspiring to sow Tehran's brand of proxy terrorism in the Western Hemisphere."

Last August, Noriega writes, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hosted senior leaders of Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) at a secret summit in Caracas. Those present included Hamas Supreme Leader Khaled Meshaal; PIJ Secretary-General Ramadan Abdullah Shallah; and Hizballah's chief of operations, whose name is kept secret.

The idea for the summit came from a meeting last May in Damascus between the Iranian and Venezuelan ambassadors to Syria. The number two Venezuelan diplomat in Syria, Ghazi Nassereddine Atef Salame, "is a naturalized Venezuelan of Lebanese origin who runs Hizballah's growing network in South America - which includes terrorist operatives and drug traffickers," Noriega writes.

Nassereddine allegedly does business with four companies run by Walid Makled, an accused cocaine smuggler indicted in the United States who is currently in jail in Colombia. Makled reportedly claims to have evidence showing the complicity of top Chavez cronies including his military commander in cocaine smuggling.

But the Colombian government wants to extradite Makled to Venezuela rather than sending him to New York to face drug charges, and Washington seems prepared to acquiesce. The fact that Makled has evidence that could shed light on Nassereddine's Hizballah network "should spur U.S. diplomats to renew their push for Makled's extradition to the United States," according to Noriega.

The former U.S. diplomat says that two Iranian terrorist trainers are on Margarita Island in Venezuela instructing operatives from around the region. Radical Muslims from Colombia and Venezuela receive spiritual training at a cultural center in Caracas named after the Ayatollah Khomeini and 19^th-century South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar. Some "are dispatched to Qom, Iran, for Islamic studies," Noriega writes. The most fervent recruits in Qom "are given weapons and explosives training and are returned home as 'sleeper' agents."

Read the full article here. Read more about Chavez and his connections with Iran here and here.

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