organization:al-qaeda

“Watergatiser” Scandalgate grâce à Benghazi ?
http://www.dedefensa.org/article-_watergatiser_scandalgate_gr_ce_benghazi__20_05_2013.html

• Des scandales washingtoniens, Benghazi est le plus fécond. • Poussée pour créer une commission type-Watergate.

EU decision to lift Syrian oil sanctions boosts jihadist groups - Julian Borger and Mona Mahmood
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 May 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/19/eu-syria-oil-jihadist-al-qaida

La décision de l’UE de lever les sanctions pétrolières syriennes pour aider l’opposition a accéléré une lutte pour le contrôle de puits et de pipelines dans les zones tenues par les rebelles et a contribué à consolider l’emprise des groupes djihadistes sur les principales ressources du pays.

Déplaçant les tribus sunnites locales, parfois par la force, Jabhat al-Nusra, affilié à al-Qaida, et d’autres groupes islamistes extrémistes, contrôlent la majorité des puits de pétrole dans la province de Deir Ezzor. Ils ont également pris le contrôle d’autres champs aux dépens de groupes kurdes plus au nord-est, dans le gouvernorat d’al-Hasakah.

Les groupes d’opposition ayant tourné leurs armes les uns contre les autres dans la bataille pour le pétrole, l’eau et les terres agricoles, la pression militaire sur le gouvernement de Bachar al-Assad s’est atténuée dans le nord et l’est. Dans certaines régions, al-Nusra a conclu des accords avec les forces gouvernementales pour permettre le transfert de pétrole brut à travers les lignes de front vers la côte méditerranéenne.

(...)

Une figure de proue de l’opposition a déclaré : « Le front nord a ne s’est pas seulement endormi, le front nord est passé au commerce. »

L’UE avait annoncé qu’elle levait son embargo sur le pétrole en Avril pour aider l’opposition modérée. Les règles d’application doivent encore être émises et de ce fait la décision n’a pas pris effet, mais les experts régionaux disent que l’annonce a intensifié la course au pétrole - une course que les modérés soutenus par l’Occident ont perdu.

Joshua Landis, (...), a déclaré que la décision de l’UE sur le pétrole « a envoyé comme message que le pétrole pourrait revenir en ligne plus rapidement qu’on ne le pensait ».

« Celui qui tient le pétrole, l’eau et l’agriculture, tient la Syrie sunnite à la gorge. Pour le moment, c’est al-Nusra », a déclaré Landis. « L’ouverture par l’Europe du marché du pétrole a forcé une telle évolution. Donc, la conclusion logique de cette folie est que l’Europe financera al-Qaida. »

(...)

Obama speech to address counterterrorism measures - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-speech-to-address-counterterrorism-measures/2013/05/18/32ddac80-bff1-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_story.html?hpid=z1

“He will review the state of the threats we face, particularly as the al-Qaeda core has weakened but new dangers have emerged,” the official said. “He will discuss the policy and legal framework under which we take action against terrorist threats, including the use of drones. And he will review our detention policy and efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.”

In his State of the Union address earlier this year, Obama said he would “continue to engage Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.” The speech Thursday is meant to be his first step in fulfilling that pledge.

Amesys et la surveillance de masse : du fantasme à la dure réalité
►http://reflets.info/amesys-et-la-surveillance-de-masse-du-fantasme-a-la-dure-realite

Suite à une conversation sur Twitter, je me suis rendu compte que beaucoup de gens nous prenaient encore pour des illuminés quand nous évoquions les questions de surveillance globale des réseaux. Il y a plusieurs raisons à cela. Elles sont à la fois techniques, économiques et juridiques. Nous allons donc tenter d’en faire brièvement le [...]

☠ Bluetouff’s blog - Tout ce que vous cliquerez pourra être retenu contre vous.
http://bluetouff.com/2013/05/18/amesys-et-la-surveillance-de-masse-du-fantasme-a-la-dure-realite

Suite à une conversation sur Twitter, je me suis rendu compte que beaucoup de gens nous prenaient encore pour des illuminés quand nous évoquions les questions de surveillance globale des réseaux. Il y a plusieurs raisons à cela. Elles sont à la fois techniques, économiques et juridiques. Nous allons donc tenter d’en faire brièvement le tour, pour ensuite vous dresser un scénario fiction, que nous comparerons enfin avec des faits, eux, bien réels.

Les métadonnées comptent : comment l’enregistrement des conversations téléphoniques et les lois obsolètes nuisent à la liberté de la presse et à la vie privée - Verge
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/16/4336994/metadata-matters-how-phone-records-and-obsolete-laws-harm-privacy

Le gouvernement américain via son service fiscal a espionné les lignes téléphoniques des journalistes d’Associated Press. Sans avoir accès au contenu, l’administration fiscale a eu accès aux numéros, aux durées des appelles, au localisations (pas au contenu) : voir cet article du Monde pour les explications : http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2013/05/14/benghazi-irs-ap-les-affaires-qui-fragilisent-barack-obama_3200459_3222.html. Mais rappelle The Verge, il y a des catégories entières (...)

#vieprivee #surveillance #libertés

Anciens cybercombattants : ces gens qui ont fait le Net (enfin, celui qu’on aime) sont maintenant sur @seenthis.
Ma contre-histoire de l’internet : Reflets
►http://reflets.info/ma-contre-histoire-de-linternet

Je me demandais d’où le Akhbar avait tiré une phrase délirante de Benjamin Netanyahu. Il s’agit d’une interview de Glenn Beck du 17 novembre 2006.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0611/17/gb.01.html

NETANYAHU: Iran is Germany, and it’s 1938, except that this Nazi regime that is in Iran, that’s a religious kind of fanaticism, but it wants to dominate the world, annihilate the Jews, but also annihilate America. Remember, we’re the small Satan. You’re the big Satan.

BECK: Right.

NETANYAHU: We’re just the first way station en route to you. So there is this fundament fanaticism that is there. It’s a messianic cult. It’s a religious messianic cult that believes in the Apocalypse, and they believe they have to expedite the Apocalypse to bring the collapse of the West.

BECK: See, nobody is saying — why isn’t George Bush saying this? Why is it nut jobs like me who is saying this? Why isn’t the media bringing this stuff out?

Dirty Wars, Filthy Hands: 5 Unsavory Ways America Conducts Its Global War on Terror | Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/world/dirty-wars-filthy-hands-5-unsavory-ways-america-conducts-its-global-war-te

America’s allies are terrorists, warlords, and corrupt officials, plied with bounty payments and quid-pro-quo assassinations.

The recent revelation that the Central Intelligence Agency has handed tens of millions of dollars over to the offices of the president of Afghanistan should come as no surprise. The CIA has a long history of this sort of activity. And most importantly, it’s the latest reminder of how America’s global “war on terror” has been forged through backroom deals, cold hard cash and the fostering of corruption.

From Yemen to Afghanistan to Somalia, America has prosecuted its perpetual war the usual way U.S. foreign policy is conducted: partnerships with unsavory leaders who are corrupt and commit abuses. ...

America’s hidden agenda in Syria’s war - The National
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/americas-hidden-agenda-in-syrias-war

Then, by the rebel commander’s account, the discussion took an unexpected turn.

The Americans began discussing the possibility of drone strikes on Al Nusra camps inside Syria and tried to enlist the rebels to fight their fellow insurgents.

“The US intelligence officer said, ’We can train 30 of your fighters a month, and we want you to fight Al Nusra’,” the rebel commander recalled.

Opposition forces should be uniting against Mr Al Assad’s more powerful and better-equipped army, not waging war among themselves, the rebel commander replied. The response from a senior US intelligence officer was blunt.

“I’m not going to lie to you. We’d prefer you fight Al Nusra now, and then fight Assad’s army. You should kill these Nusra people. We’ll do it if you don’t,” the rebel leader quoted the officer as saying.

Les USA et la Syrie : phase dépressive...
http://www.dedefensa.org/article-les_usa_et_la_syrie_n_phase_d_pressive_11_05_2013.html

• Biden et l’arme chimique en Syrie : “nous ne savons rien”. •Brzezinski et la Syrie : “ne faisons rien”...

Talking in Circles - By Micah Zenko | Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/09/targeted_killings_koh_policy_obama?page=full

Harold Koh, ancien intermédiaire US auprès de l’ONU sur la légalité des frappes de drones, fait semblant d’être préoccupé par les assassinats de Obama pour mieux les faire accepter,

Comme beaucoup d’anciens hauts fonctionnaires de l’administration Obama, Harold Koh a exprimé ses préoccupations sur les politiques de frappe des drones étasuniens. En tant qu’ancien conseiller juridique du département d’Etat, il a joué un rôle essentiel dans la formulation et la défense des principes juridiques internationaux qui soutenaient « les pratiques de frappes étasuniennes, y compris les opérations létales menées par l’utilisation de véhicules aériens sans pilote, » comme il l’a énoncé dans un discours en mars 2010. Koh était également responsable de la coordination de la réponse officielle du gouvernement américain à des questions posées par les rapporteurs spéciaux de l’ONU et au sein du Conseil des droits de l’homme. Comme Koh l’a proclamé l’été dernier : « Je n’ai pas intégré le gouvernement pour tuer des gens. »

Malheureusement pour lui, parce que le président Barack Obama a autorisé plus de 375 frappes de drones tuant plus de 3.000 personnes pendant que Koh était l’avocat principal du Département d’Etat, il a été contraint de consacrer beaucoup de temps à tuer des gens.

Malheureusement, dans un discours prononcé il y a deux jours à l’Oxford Union, Koh a démontré qu’il avait l’intention de maintenir le mythe fondamental du programme d’assassinat ciblé de l’administration Obama : que toute personne tuée est un haut responsable ou un membre d’Al-Qaïda qui présente une menace imminente d’attaque sur le territoire américain.

Pour Paul Woodward les Micah ZenKo doivent aller encore plus loin dans leur critique et notamment renoncer à adopter le vocabulaire des Obama,

The ongoing campaign to cover up Obama’s indiscriminate killing program — War in Context
http://warincontext.org/2013/05/10/the-ongoing-campaign-to-cover-up-obamas-indiscriminate-killing-program

Micah Zenko poursuit son effort sans relâche pour attirer l’attention sur l’utilisation inexcusable de drones de guerre par l’administration Obama , mais il y a un point de formulation que lui et d’autres pourraient aider à changer concernant la façon dont nous parlons de cette question : abandonner l’utilisation du terme « assassinat ciblé . »

Les attentats du 11/9 étaient eux-mêmes très ciblés. Les pirates de l’air ont été très précis quant aux bâtiments qu’ils voulaient frapper et ils ont frappé leurs cibles sélectionnées, mais la plupart des gens trouveraient profondément choquant de décrire ces attaques comme des formes d’assassinat ciblé.

Pourquoi ? Parce que ciblé implique que le tueur a identifié ses victimes et que l’assassinat n’est pas aveugle.

Mais tenez compte de ce fait. Alors qu’un mémorial a été créé et qu’un musée mémorial sera bientôt ouvert à la mémoire de chaque victime innocente du 11/9 dont toutes les identités sont connues, la majorité des personnes tuées dans la guerre par drones d’Obama sont des personnes dont les noms étaient inconnues du gouvernement américain au moment où elles ont été tuées. Certains ont été identifiés seulement comme étant des hommes en âge de combattre et d’autres n’ont pas été du tout identifiés, de la même manière que les immeubles ont été détruits sans le moindre moyen de savoir qui ou combien de personnes pouvaient résider à l’intérieur.

La précision du système de guidage d’un missile ne doit pas être utilisée pour dissimuler son rôle dans les massacres aveugles.

Will Obama keep Yemeni journalist in jail ? | Index on Censorship
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2013/05/will-obama-block-release-of-yemeni-journalist-again

The president of Yemen says journalist Abdul-Elah Haidar Shaye should be released from jail. Will Barack Obama stand between the reporter and freedom? Iona Craig reports

(Le journaliste yéménite Abdallah Shayi’ a été arrêté au Yémen en Août 2010 sur ordre étasunien, sous prétexte qu’il avait interviewé un militant d’AQ, en réalité parce qu’il rapportait les victimes civiles des frappes de drones.)

Seven months after the al-Majala bombing and following his criticism of both the Yemeni and US Governments, Shaye was abducted by Political Security Organisation [PSO] gunmen. Beaten and threatened before being released, in response Shaye went back on television. A month later, in August 2010, his house was raided by Yemen’s elite US-trained and funded Counter Terrorism troops. Shaye was once again beaten and tortured, according to the Yemeni human rights organisation HOOD, during 34 days in solitary confinement with no access to a lawyer or family members.

Les arrestations de jeunes responsables de jet de Molotovs semblent se multiplier récemment

http://gitm.kcorp.net/index.php?id=647115

The Peninsula - 08 May, 2013

Bahraini security forces have arrested four people suspected of attacking a police checkpoint with petrol bombs south of Manama at the weekend, the interior ministry said.

“Four of the terrorists who attacked police checkpoint on Sunday evening with petrol bombs have been arrested,” the ministry said late Monday.

It said the attack took place in the district of Jari Al Sheikh, south of the capital, adding the identity of others suspected of being involved was being probed.

The alleged attack came amid frequent clashes between security forces and protesters in villages inhabited by the Shia majority of the kingdom ruled by the Al Khalifa dynasty.

US Asked Moderate Syrian Rebels to Fight Al-Nusra « Antiwar.com Blog
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/05/08/us-asked-moderate-syrian-rebels-to-fight-al-nusra

US foreign policy is constantly remedying the catastrophes it has previously wrought. Bush’s war for regime change in Iraq gave rise to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Obama’s meddling (and that of his allies in the Gulf) in Syria’s civil conflict prompted AQI to move to Syria and fight Assad as Jabhat al-Nusra. Now the meddling continues to try and eliminate al-Nusra, which has quickly become the foremost element in Syria’s rebellion. It is an endless trail of failures, leading to more interventions, which lead to more failures.

Outsourcing Lethality - By Micah Zenko | Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/07/outsourcing_lethality?page=full

En matière de (non-)respect des vies civiles, le problème de l’administration Obama n’est pas seulement son refus de clarifier les critères qui guident ses frappes de #drones, mais aussi son emploi de l’"#outsourcing",

Quand il y a un doigt étranger sur ​​la gâchette , Washington reste-t-il le responsable lorsque des innocents meurent ?

(...)

… si vous êtes préoccupés par les politiques d’assassinat ciblé de l’administration Obama, ne négligez pas les attaques similaires menées par les alliés et les partenaires qui reçoivent de l’argent, des armes ou des renseignements américains.

Lorsque les États-Unis fournissent à d’autres États ou à des acteurs non-étatiques des capacités qui permettent des opérations meurtrières - sans lesquelles elles ne pourraient avoir lieu - ils sont les premiers responsables du résultat. Quelle que soit la réforme sur les frappes de drones qu’offrirait la Maison Blanche, ou les audiences supplémentaires du Congrès qui pourraient être tenues, elles doivent prendre en compte le rôle troublant de l’Amérique dans les assassinats ciblés des états-client. Songez à certains des exemples récents les plus flagrants que les États-Unis ont directement encouragés :

Somalie . À partir de 2002, un petit nombre d’agents de la CIA et de forces du Commandement des opérations spéciales (JSOC) met en place un groupe de travail qui a tenté de capturer ou de tuer environ 20 agents de la cellule d’Al-Qaïda en Afrique de l’Est. La stratégie pour atteindre cet objectif à court terme a été le "recours à des « partenaires de liaison non-traditionnels » (c.-à-d., des chefs de milice), comme un câble diplomatique divulgué de l’ambassade américaine à Nairobi, au Kenya, l’a décrit plus tard. Pour son incomparable histoire des opérations antiterroristes américaines, « Dirty Wars : The World Is a Battlefield », Jeremy Scahill a interviewé un de ces partenaires de liaison, le chef de guerre Mohamed Afrah Qanyare. Comme l’écrit Scahill, en échange de 100.000 $ à 150.000 $ par mois offerts par ses contacts de la CIA, « Qanyare et ses camarades se sont engagés dans une campagne tous azimuts de meurtre et de capture contre n’importe qui - Somaliens ou étrangers - qu’ils soupçonnaient d’êtreun partisan du n’importe quel mouvement islamique. » Une source du renseignement a dit plus tard au journaliste Sean Naylor que les seigneurs de la guerre ont aidé la CIA à capturer peut-être « sept ou huit » figures d’Al-Qaïda en Somalie.

...

#terrorisme

L’agence de presse iranienne Fars News Agency commente longuement la cybe-rattaque syrienne contre Israël.

Fars News Agency :: Syrian Electronic Army Hacks Israel’s Main Infrastructure (SCADA)
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107168206

The SEA said it has hacked into the Haifa infrastructural system at around 22:00 (local time) Monday night, underlining that the hacking was done in retaliation for the recent Israeli strike on a research center in suburban Damascus.

“We would like to announce that in response to the unfair and illegal attacks of Israel on DATE, the SEA has penetrated one of the main infrastructural systems (SCADA) in Haifa and managed to gain access to some sensitive data,” SEA said in a message left for the Israeli operators of Haifa SCADA system.

“Also, the SEA is now able to cause irrecoverable damage to the Israelis’ infrastructural systems,” it added.

Israel staged an airstrike on Syria on Sunday, hitting the Jamraya research center in the vicinity of the Syrian capital, Damascus. Syria said the Israeli regime had carried out the airstrike - the third in the last few months - after heavy losses were inflicted on al-Qaeda-affiliated groups by the Syrian army.

The SEA warned that it could cause a major blast by continuing the attack on the servers of the Haifa infrastructural systems, but avoided further move due to inescapable human casualties as it did not want a story like the recent accident in Texas which claimed the lives of dozens of the people.

“This message carries a serious warning to the Israeli statesmen. They should know that not receiving a quick reaction to such childish ventures does not show the Syrian inability in doing so, but it is based on wisdom and humanity considerations. We do not approve of killing civilians and innocent people as this is an Israeli type of solution,” added the message.

“Also an advice to those who left their homelands for many years, dreaming a happy and safe life, deceived by politicians whose deed is much far from their slogans; Do the best to express your objection to Israeli policies, since we do not like to see innocent people getting killed like in Texas, US, but this time in Haifa.”

The SEA has recently gathered a name for itself in the hacking market by successful attacks on a wide range of the western media, most notably the hacking of AP Twitter accounts and sending of bogus messages which wreaked havoc on stock exchanges. The hackers tweeted that President Obama had been injured in a bomb attack at the White House, causing a temporary 143-point drop on the Dow Jones industrial average.

In an apparent effort to cause disruption and embarrassment in the West and to spread support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the SEA has so far hacked the Guardian, the BBC (including BBC weather, BBC Arabic Online and BBC Radio Ulster), France 24 TV, the National Public Radio in the United States, al-Jazeera, the government of Qatar, E!, and Sepp Blatter, the president of football’s governing body Fifa, whose Twitter account was hacked.

Cybersecurity experts told the Guardian that the SEA attacks are designed to disrupt and embarrass the West and pro-Israeli lobbies, states and entities.

In the BBC case, the SEA, which emerged two years ago, hacked into the Twitter accounts of the British broadcaster and sent nine bogus tweets in an hour, including some with anti-Israeli sentiments, and others saying “Long Live Syria”, and the “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here”.

Guardian itself believes that the SEA attack was a reprisal for a number of leaked emails from the Assads and their inner circle that it had published.

Hours after the cyber-attack began, the SEA said it has targeted the Guardian for spreading “lies and slander about Syria” and said it was in a “state of war with the security team of Twitter”.

But this last cyberattack is certainly a boost in the platform of SEA operations as it required much more sophisticated knowledge and capabilities compared with the previous hackings; giving the Syrian Electronic Army the opportunity to rise to a different level of fame.

SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) is a type of industrial control system (ICS). Industrial control systems are computer controlled systems that monitor and control industrial processes that exist in the physical world. SCADA systems historically distinguish themselves from other ICS systems by being large scale processes that can include multiple sites, and large distances. These processes include industrial, infrastructure, and facility-based processes.

Industrial processes include those of manufacturing, production, power generation, fabrication, and refining, and may run in continuous, batch, repetitive, or discrete modes.

Infrastructure processes may be public or private, and include water treatment and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, oil and gas pipelines, electrical power transmission and distribution, wind farms, civil defense siren systems, and large communication systems.

Facility processes occur both in public facilities and private ones, including buildings, airports, ships, and space stations. They monitor and control heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC), access, and energy consumption.

Hackers usually leave a couple of files for their colleagues to prove that their allegations are true. The SEA has left the following files on its website to show others in the hacking industry that it has had a successful security breach and hacking into the Haifa SCADA system.

Fars News Agency :: Former Egyptian Envoy : Israel’s Attack to Increase Arabs’ Political Support for Syria
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107168128

Former Egyptian Ambassador to Damascus Mahmoud Shokri said that the Israeli attack on Syria had a positive outcome as it has increased Arab support for the Syrian government.

Syrie : la peur des armes chimiques dans le chaos
http://www.argotheme.com/organecyberpresse/spip.php?article1753

Al Qaeda a des armes chimiques et les a utilisés en Syrie, la chose que redoutaient les américains. Les islamo-terroristes soient mieux armés, est la pire des choses pour les Etats-Unis. Et les israéliens ont prétexté, pour mener un assaut sur des bases militaires syriennes, le transfert d’autres équipements au Hizbollah libanais. La question de l’utilisation des armes chimiques en Syrie date de plusieurs mois... Et Jabat al Nusra, désigné par le Département d’Etat américain comme un groupe (...) (...)

#Monde,informations,_actualité,_international,_politique,_relations,_diplomatie,_affaires_étrangères, #Syrie,_opposition,_commandement,_Turquie,_réunion,_Idriss_Salim,_armée,_Alep,_Damas,_Basar_Al-Assad, #Terrorisme,islamisme,_Al-Qaeda,_politique,_Monde_Arabe, #Afrique,_Monde_Arabe,_islam,_Maghreb,_Proche-Orient,

Major salafi faction [Ahrar al-Sham] criticizes Jabhat al-Nosra - Syria Comment
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/major-salafi-faction-criticizes-jabhat-al-nosra

Par Aron Lund,

...

While frank and critical, the Ahrar al-Sham statement is not really hostile to Jabhat al-Nosra or al-Qaida. Rather it is written in the tone of honest advise for an ally who has committed a damaging mistake. In fact, the statement expresses disappointment in Jabhat al-Nosra, since Ahrar al-Sham says it had previously only seen good deeds from the group and had expected better.

Ahrar al-Sham also takes care to point out that they agree in principle with the al-Qaida goal of establishing an transnational Islamic state, but asks for a bit of realism and patience given the current situation. (...)

Previously, the Jabhat al-Nosra and ISI declarations had been criticized in similarly nuanced statements by the FSA-aligned SILF Islamist alliance and several other opposition factions, including the mainstream pro-Western and pro-GCC leaderships.

But it took Ahrar al-Sham almost a month to respond. The group has recently grown a lot, incorporating smaller SIF factions, so they probably had to go through some internal consultations before producing a statement on a sensitive matter like this. The SIF as an alliance has still not taken a public position on the Jabhat al-Nosra/al-Qaida affair, but I expect it will follow. And Ahrar al-Sham is by now so dominant within the SIF that their word could almost be taken to represent the SIF.

This dispute illustrates the subtle but real distinction between al-Qaida’s radically internationalist salafi-jihadism and the more locally rooted, Syria-focused and somewhat pragmatic salafi program of Ahrar al-Sham and the SIF. For more on that, see my recent report on the SIF and its member factions.

Arabie Saoudite : des centres pour réinsérer les anciens islamistes - France Info
►http://www.franceinfo.fr/monde/arabie-saoudite-prison-5-etoiles-978073-2013-05-06

L’Arabie Saoudite tente de réinsérer les anciens islamistes proches d’Al-Qaïda. Une réinsertion qui passe par des centres de réhabilitation. Des établissements très confortables que France Info a pu visiter en exclusivité. Notre correspondante Clarence Rodriguez a pu recueillir les confessions d’un ancien terroriste d’Al-Qaïda passé par ce centre. Exceptionnellement, il a accepté de se confier à une journaliste femme.

Dexter Filkins : What Should Obama Do About Syria ? : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/13/130513fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all

Ce (très long) texte prend pour acquis que le régime syrien a utilisé des armes chimiques.

In May, the senior American official who is involved in Syria policy met me at his office in Washington. When I asked him to predict Syria’s future, he got up from his desk and walked over to a large map of the country which was tacked to his wall. (...)

“What does that sound like? Lebanon. But it’s Lebanon on steroids.” He walked back to his desk and sat down. “The Syria I have just drawn for you—I call it the Sinkhole,’’ he said. “I think there is an appreciation, even at the highest levels, of how this is getting steadily worse. This is the discomfort you see with the President, and it’s not just the President. It’s everybody.” No matter how well intentioned the advocates of military intervention are, he suggested, getting involved in a situation as complex and dynamic as the Syrian civil war could be a foolish risk. The cost of saving lives may simply be too high. “Whereas we had a crisis in Iraq that was contained—it was very awful for us and the Iraqis—this time it will be harder to contain,” he said. “Four million refugees going into Lebanon and Jordan is not the kind of problem we had going into Iraq.” In a year, he estimated, Lebanon alone could have four million refugees, doubling the population of the country. “Jordan will close its borders, and then you will have tens of thousands of refugees huddling down close to that border for safety.”

The rapid growth of Al Qaeda in Syria is deeply troubling, he said. “In February, 2012, they were tiny. No more than a few dozen. Now, fast-forward fourteen months. They are in Aleppo. They are in Damascus. They are in Homs.” In Iraq, he said, “They didn’t grow so fast and they didn’t cover all the big cities. In Syria, they do.” Also, he pointed out, there were no chemical weapons in Iraq, as there are in Syria. “We will have a greater risk, the longer this goes on, that the bad guys—they are all bad guys, but I mean terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Islamist extremist groups—will acquire some of these weapons. How do you plan for that? The longer the war goes on, the more the extremists will gain.” Indeed, the longer the war goes on, the greater the threat that it will engulf the entire region.

The official said that the United States’ quandary was clear enough: “...I know there is a debate on military intervention. I cannot recommend it to the President unless there is a very clearly defined political way back out. People on the Hill ask me, ‘Why can’t we do a no-fly zone? Why can’t we do military strikes?’ Of course we can do these things. The issue is, where does it stop?” ♦

Reported Israeli airstrikes in Syria could accelerate U.S. decision process - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/reported-israeli-airstrikes-in-syria-could-accelerate-us-decision-making/2013/05/05/72c6eafc-b5c2-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_print.html

Israel’s reported airstrikes in Syria — and the threat of a retaliatory strike by the Syrian government — are likely to accelerate the decision-making of the Obama administration, which was already moving toward a sharp escalation of U.S. involvement in the two-year-old crisis.

Senior officials said the deployment of U.S. troops to Syria remains unlikely, but they have indicated that a decision will come within weeks on options ranging from the supply of weapons to the Syrian rebels to the use of U.S. aircraft and missiles to ground President Bashar al-Assad’s air power by destroying planes, runways and missile sites inside Syria.

Neither Israeli nor U.S. officials confirmed an attack Sunday morning that reportedly hit a weapons shipment in Syria — including sophisticated missiles and air defense equipment — about to be transferred to Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

But President Obama, in an interview broadcast just hours later Sunday, said Israel is justified in preventing the provision of weapons to Hezbollah.

“We coordinate very closely with the Israelis, recognizing that . . . they are very close to Syria, they’re very close to Lebanon,” Obama said in the interview, recorded Saturday with the Spanish-language Telemundo, after an earlier Israeli attack reported late Friday.

Throughout the Syrian crisis, the administration has repeatedly voiced the belief that Syria is already awash in weapons and that sending more will not tip the balance in favor of the rebels.

Now, in part because of growing confidence in the rebel Free Syrian Army, “the national security team and the diplomatic team around the president” favor increased involvement, and their views are gaining momentum despite the caution expressed by Obama’s political advisers, according to a senior Western official whose government has closely coordinated its Syria policy with Washington and who spoke before the reported Israeli strikes. The official discussed sensitive diplomatic assessments on the condition of anonymity.

Even U.S. lawmakers who have expressed reservations about stepped-up U.S. involvement appeared to now see it as inevitable.

...

The impunity with which the Israelis apparently struck targets in Damascus, McCain said on “Fox News Sunday,” undercut the argument of the U.S. military that Syrian air defenses would pose a formidable impediment to imposition of a no-fly zone over rebel-held areas of Syria.

“The Israelis seem to be able to penetrate it rather easily,” Mc­Cain said. The “red line” Obama drew, promising consequences for Assad if he used chemical weapons, “was apparently written in disappearing ink,” he said.

...

The administration has long exercised caution out of fears that U.S. involvement could worsen the situation. But Obama’s reservations have been challenged by U.S. allies and partners who have urged the United States to take more of a leadership role over their disparate efforts to help the Syrian opposition. At the same time, U.S. confidence has been growing in the cohesiveness of the Free Syrian Army led by Gen. Salim Idris.

Idris, who met with Secretary of State John F. Kerry in Istanbul two weeks ago, pledged that no U.S.-supplied arms would go to Islamist extremist groups fighting for the same cause as the U.S.-backed rebels and said that all weapons would be carefully supervised and returned to donors at the end of the conflict.

...

166 ‘reformed’ militants freed | ArabNews
http://www.arabnews.com/news/450607

L’objectif des wahabo/saoud est l’adoption d’une « voie modérée de l’islam. » #Hallucinant

http://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/galleryformatter_slide/homecoming.jpg

Do the Israeli Airstrikes Play Into Assad’s Hands ? - Al-Monitor : the Pulse of the Middle East
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/the-damascus-bombings-play-into-assads-hands.html

Do the Israeli Airstrikes Play
Into Assad’s Hands?

Un certain Kais Firro, spécialiste israélien de la Syrie. Son entretien souligne l’impact sur l’opinion des bombardements israéliens qui « dévoilent » les acteurs de la crise syrienne. Confirmation, dans ce point de vue israélien, des progrès militaires du régime, et de l’absence de fin du conflit, à court terme en tout cas...

Islamophobic ‘Foreign Policy’ article compares Boston bombing and Palestinian resistance to occupation

Shamir attempts to disengage all incidents of violence from the influences of time period, geography, culture, national interest and socioeconomic disparities. To Shamir, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been battered, beaten, occupied, oppressed, starved, shot or colonized—your only purpose for resistance or violence, which are the same to Shamir, is Islam. Whether you are acting alone or as part of a group, whether you seek to harm or kill civilians, or occupying soldiers, in Shamir’s world, your goal is the same : to eliminate the West.
(...)
“In the West, we can understand a person who fights with every breath against tyranny and oppression. We were raised on the heroic struggles against Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. However, we cannot understand someone whose goal is to maim and murder innocents in the name of their religion,” Shamir says.

Apparently, Shamir does not understand that Palestinians, as well as others who have resisted in the name of attaining freedom from an occupying force, fight not to main and murder in the name of religion, but to achieve independence from an occupying force, such as Israel. And individuals who murder and maim independent of any terrorist group act as themselves, and numerous factors contribute to such heinous actions.

Parallèle à faire - alors que Damas aurait été attaquée par Israël cette nuit - avec un propos d’Alain Gresh, qui se demandait sur Oumma TV pourquoi les médias soutiennent les opposants Syriens - y compris en appelant à les armer - et pas les Palestiniens (déjà posté http://oummatv.tv/14868/alain-gresh-france-une-alliance-de-plus-plus-strategiq)

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/05/islamophobic-palestinian-occupation.html