US and Pakistan alliance feels strain over scope of militant crackdown

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By Associated Press, Saturday, April 16, 2:14 PM

ISLAMABAD — When U.S. President Barack Obama inherited Washington’s partnership with Pakistan, he kept the money flowing in hopes that stronger ties would help end the Afghan war and give Pakistan more tools to keep its nuclear arsenal from falling into extremists’ hands.

What Washington has gotten for its billions, however, is limited progress on clearing militant strongholds on the Afghan-Pakistan border and a souring relationship that included threats this month to limit CIA drone strikes and require Pakistani clearance for Washington spy operations.

Adding to the complications is the narrow nature of the relationship. America’s interests in Pakistan — transformed by the 9-11 attacks — are built almost entirely around high-stakes security issues and the bonds between the CIA and Pakistan’s spy agency.

Washington expects its massive aid to Pakistan should buy it broad cooperation and wide latitude to strike at Islamic militants, including those backing the Taliban in Afghanistan. But in Pakistan, there are growing calls to rein in U.S. operations, particularly in the wake of a bitter diplomatic dispute after a CIA contractor fatally shot two Pakistanis in January.

Pakistan also sees the U.S. alliance in practical terms: a way to keep pace with rival India and prop up its flagging economy.

“Ultimately, both sides will suffer an unhappy relationship because we oddly need each other,” said Christine Fair, assistant professor at the Center for Peace and Strategic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, who closely follows Pakistan’s military and intelligence affairs.

“They need our money and our weapons to keep up with India and to maintain their rentier state economy,” she added. “We need them because we are scared about their nuclear weapons, the militants and the intersection of the two.”

Both sides make no secret of their gripes.

Pakistan is frustrated by stepped up drone attacks and accusations it is weak against Islamic militants despite nearly 3,000 dead soldiers, a five-year war in its tribal areas and dozens of arrests of suspected al-Qaida operatives or affiliates.

Washington grumbles that Taliban-backed groups still find sanctuaries in Pakistan and other jihadi factions — some with links to al-Qaida — are growing in strength.

Obama’s policies also are on the line. He abandoned the U.S. protocol of engaging almost solely with Pakistan’s military. He chose instead to embrace a costly program of support for Pakistan’s civilian political system, expecting it would lead to efforts to wipe out domestic extremists. They include Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks and has suspected links to the Pakistan’s intelligence service.

In Pakistan, newspapers express near daily outrage over an “arrogant” America allowed to kill Pakistanis with impunity and pulling the strings of the weak government of President Asif Ali Zardari. They also claim Pakistan is being made the scapegoat for U.S. and NATO military shortcomings in Afghanistan.

But it was the arrest of CIA contractor Raymond Davis that exposed the fissures in the critical relationship between CIA and Pakistan’s intelligence agency, known by the acronym ISI.

Davis claimed the shootings were in self defense and was freed last month after blood money was paid to the dead mens’ families.

Western officials familiar with the events said there were heated exchanges between the CIA and ISI when Pakistan refused to consider him covered by diplomatic immunity and release him immediately.

ISI Director Gen. Shuja Pasha even temporarily severed communications with the CIA, according to a Western diplomat who asked not to be identified because it would compromise his relationship with the ISI.

The fallout, however, may not be over.

The ISI has warned it could expel dozens of suspected CIA operatives, whose missions may include assessing the security of Pakistan’s nuclear program. Other punishments could be halting direct U.S. contacts in the tribal areas along the Afghan border, where Americans have handed out hundreds of thousands of dollars for tips, said an ISI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity according to standing rules at the spy agency.

Both Pakistan’s government and military also want fewer drone strikes, say ISI and government officials. A March 17 attack — the day after Davis was released — drew a rare public condemnation from Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani. Dozens of tribesmen died in the strike along with a handful of insurgents, said U.S. and Pakistani officials.

“Now the onus is on America to do more to build this relationship on the basis of trust and equality. Treat us as allies that you say we are,” said the ISI official.

Pasha’s meeting this week with CIA chief Leon Panetta was about setting new rules, said Georgetown analyst Fair.

“For the first time, (Pasha) laid down the red lines. He reckoned that in this game of chicken (America) will blink because we are freaked out by the nukes and we won’t do anything that will keep us from having some eyes on,” she said.

Still, Washington officials say they are reducing their dependence on Pakistan by rerouting supplies to its troops in Afghanistan through Central Asia after relentless attacks by insurgents in Pakistan. Although nearly half of all supplies still transit Pakistan.

“The two sides distrust each other as they should, but it’s about managing that distrust,” said a U.S. official in Washington on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While U.S. officials have expressed a deepening sense of frustration over the growth of jihadi groups that could threaten the United States and the continued sanctuaries in the tribal regions, none have publicly or privately advocated Washington cut and run.

Marc Grossman, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told a U.S. audience this week that the Obama administration was committed to building an enduring partnership with Pakistan.

“There’s always been tensions in the relationship. There’s been tensions with the military, the defense, and even on development aid.I think we have to work through it and continue to support the civilian government,” said U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the U.S. State Department and foreign operations.

“It’s in the interest of the national security of the United States that we continue to work with them. They are an important ally.

Yet some say Washington’s support for Pakistan’s transition to democracy has taken a back seat to security concerns.

Samina Ahmed, who heads the International Crisis Group in Pakistan and Afghanistan, said the Pakistani military still appears to seek to appease some militant groups and differentiate between “good and bad militants.”

“If indeed it is a partnership then you (Pakistan) have to deliver on your side of the bargain,” said Samina Ahmed, who heads the International Crisis Group in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Fair said both countries are studying how to move forward in a relationship with “starkly divergent strategic interests.”

“Both sides wonder if the other is a pain-in-the-ass ally or an outright foe,” she said. “This conversation is happening on both sides.”

___

Kathy Gannon is special regional correspondent for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Adam Goldman, Bradley Klapper, and Donna Cassata in Washington contributed to this report.

U.S. and Allies Seek Possible Refuge for Qaddafi

By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has begun seeking a country, most likely in Africa, that might be willing to provide shelter to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi if he were forced out of Libya, even as a new wave of intelligence reports suggest that no rebel leader has emerged as a credible successor to the Libyan dictator.

The intense search for a country to accept Colonel Qaddafi has been conducted quietly by the United States and its allies, even though the Libyan leader has shown defiance in recent days, parading through Tripoli’s streets and declaring that he has no intention of yielding to demands that he leave his country.

The effort is complicated by the likelihood that he would be indicted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988, and atrocities inside Libya.

One possibility, according to three administration officials, is to find a country that is not a signatory to the treaty that requires countries to turn over anyone under indictment for trial by the court, perhaps giving Colonel Qaddafi an incentive to abandon his stronghold in Tripoli.

The move by the United States to find a haven for Colonel Qaddafi may help explain how the White House is attempting to enforce President Obama’s declaration that the Libyan leader must leave the country but without violating Mr. Obama’s refusal to put troops on the ground.

The United Nations Security Council has authorized military strikes to protect the Libyan population, but not to oust the country’s leadership. But Mr. Obama and the leaders of Britain and France, among others, have declared that to be their goals, apart from the military campaign.

“We learned some lessons from Iraq, and one of the biggest is that Libyans have to be responsible for regime change, not us,” one senior administration official said on Saturday. “What we’re simply trying to do is find some peaceful way to organize an exit, if the opportunity arises.”

About half of the countries in Africa have not signed or ratified the Rome Statute, which requires nations to abide by commands from the international court. (The United States has also not ratified the statute, because of concerns about the potential indictment of its soldiers or intelligence agents.) Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, suggested late last month that several African countries could offer Colonel Qaddafi a haven, but he did not identify them.

As the drama over Colonel Qaddafi’s future has intensified, new details are emerging of the monthlong NATO bombing campaign, which, in the minds of many world leaders, has expanded into a campaign to press the Libyan military and Colonel Qaddafi’s aides to turn against him.

That effort has gone more slowly than some expected; after the defection of the former intelligence chief and foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, no other senior officials have broken with the man who has ruled Libya for 42 years.

Six countries — Britain, Norway, Denmark, France, Canada and Belgium — have provided more than 60 aircraft that are conducting airstrikes against Libyan targets that attack civilians. But NATO commanders say they are still struggling to come up with at least eight more warplanes to ensure the alliance can sustain a longer-term operation and relieve strain on pilots now flying repeated combat missions.

The United States, which carried out the largest share of strike missions before handing off control of the operation to NATO on April 4, has promised additional fighter-bombers and ground-attack planes if NATO requests them. While some European officials have privately complained that the United States should resume a leading role in the attack missions, American officials say they have not received any formal requests for additional aircraft.

Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, asserted that in a month’s time the coalition has accomplished three major objectives: saving the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi from becoming the site of a civilian atrocity, setting up an international command to protect civilians and clear the skies of Libyan aircraft, and providing modest amounts of humanitarian assistance.

Still, the NATO countries flying ground-attack missions operate under different degrees of caution when striking targets that could hurt civilians or damage mosques, schools or hospitals, complicating the campaign, a senior American military official said. Some pilots have refused to drop their bombs for this reason, the official said, but allied air-war planners cannot predict which pilots will be matched against particular targets.

“Without a doubt, it is frustrating working through all this to get maximum effect for our efforts and dealing with all these variants,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting coalition partners.

American officials concede that the rebel leaders have not settled on who might succeed Colonel Qaddafi if he is ousted, and some fear that tribal warfare could break out if there is no consensus figure who could bind the country together.

White House officials say that while they would have liked to see Colonel Qaddafi depart already, they believe that pressure is building.

“There are aspects of the passage of time that work against Qaddafi, if we can cut him off from weapons, material and cash,” Mr. Rhodes said. He added that “it affects the calculations of the people around him. But it will take time for the opposition group to gel.”

Earlier this month, an American envoy, Chris Stevens, was sent to Benghazi to learn more about the Transitional National Council. The group has pledged to work toward new presidential and parliamentary elections after Colonel Qaddafi’s ouster, uphold human rights, draft a national constitution and encourage the formation of political parties. Mr. Stevens is expected to stay as long as a month, security permitting, State Department officials said.

The United Nations special envoy to Libya, Abdelilah al-Khatib, a former Jordanian foreign minister, is also meeting with opposition figures, as well as with members of Colonel Qaddafi’s government to explore possible diplomatic settlement.

Perhaps the most prominent member of the government in waiting is Mahmoud Jibril, a planning expert who defected from Colonel Qaddafi’s government. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has met twice with Mr. Jibril, who American diplomats say is the group’s most polished and savvy public figure. He also spoke to several NATO, Arab and African ministers who gathered in Doha, Qatar, last Wednesday to discuss the Libya crisis.

Another leading council member is Ali Tarhouni, who was appointed finance minister of the rebels’ shadow government. Mr. Tarhouni, who teaches economics at the University of Washington, returned to Libya in February after more than 35 years in exile to advise the opposition on economic matters.

“With respect to the opposition, we are learning more all the time,” Mrs. Clinton said in Berlin on Friday. “We are pooling our information. There are a number of countries that have significant ties to members of the oppositions, who have a presence in Benghazi that enables them to collect information. Our envoy is still in Benghazi and meeting with a broad cross-section of people.”

Mrs. Clinton told NATO ministers that the coalition had acknowledged the transitional council was “a legitimate and important interlocutor for the Libyan people.” She added: “We all need to deepen our engagement with and increase our support for the opposition.”

Kazakh president holds fast as Arab revolutions topple others

By Kathy Lally, Wednesday, April 13, 11:25 PM

ASTANA, Kazakhstan — The tempests that have whirled through other authoritarian states dissipated well before reaching this Muslim country, where last week citizens effusively thanked their president for his 20 years in power by awarding him five more.

In January, when Tunisians forced their president of 23 years to flee, Kazakhs considered extending President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s term to 2020. Instead, they settled on having the presidential election more than a year early and last week gave the 70-year-old leader 95.5 percent of their vote.

“I think the president is going to run the country for 10 years more,” said Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, the president’s pugnacious political adviser, “and if someone in the West doesn’t like it, they’ll have to get used to it.”

Although the West criticizes human rights violations — international observers found fault with the election, and last week an annual State Department human rights report noted a long list of problems — Kazakhstan’s relative serenity in strategic Central Asia is appreciated. U.S. oil companies have invested billions here, and the U.S. government desires friendship, unwilling to cede influence to Russia and China, which loom large and near.

“Nazarbayev won’t leave until he dies,” said Serikbai Alibaev, a leader of a democratic opposition group that is not permitted to operate legally.

Nazarbayev has ruled since 1989, when Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union and he was its party secretary. He is the country’s only directly elected official. His domination has been so complete that no serious political competition has emerged and so adroit that much of the population reveres him.

“He’s more than the leader of our country,” said Erlan Karin, secretary of Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party. “People see him as a symbol of Kazakhstan’s development, independence and success.”

Local officials, all appointed by Nazarbayev, compete to get out the vote and get it right. “Here, 99 percent voted for the president,” said a triumphant Turkbenuli Musabayev, mayor of the small, depressed southwestern town of Aralsk. “He has visited us, and people know he cares.”

Kazakhstan’s 16 million people live on a landscape the size of Western Europe. Corruption is high, but oil and gas reserves have helped Nazarbayev bring the per-capita gross domestic product from $700 in 1994 to $9,000 now. The country has five billionaires, according to Forbes, including a Nazarbayev daughter and son-in-law.

Reminiscent of Peter the Great in Russia, Nazarbayev built his own capital in Astana and ordered the government to move here from Almaty at the end of 1997. He presides from a marble, blue-domed presidential palace over a city of glass towers rising from the wind-swept steppe, where horses and camels graze. A large shopping mall, designed to evoke a nomad’s tent, has tier upon tier of stores and restaurants, with a swimming pool on top set off by sandy beaches, thatched umbrellas and tropical-shirt-clad servers. Visitors ascend the 340-foot Bayterek Tower in the center of the city to place their right hand on a gilded impression of Nazarbayev’s own hand.

“The regime is unchallenged,” said Grigory Golosov, a St. Petersburg political scientist. “Almost everything is closely controlled, so controlled that most people can’t even think of an alternative to Nazarbayev.”

A desire for stability

In the days before the election, Nazarbayev’s presence hovered over city avenues and small-town lanes, his billboards emblazoned with the message “We vote for the leader,” his face rising out of a gently curving blue horizon.

“This is the image of a person who solves the problems of the universe,” said Alexei Vlasov, a Moscow political scientist. “And that’s how people treat Nazarbayev.”

Vlasov, who is director of the Information and Analytical Center for Post-Soviet Studies, calls Nazarbayev a powerful, pragmatic and tactical politician. “He knows when to make decisions,” he said, and he has benefited from the Kazakh desire for stability.

Rather than envy the revolutions of the Arab world, people are grateful that they have avoided the turmoil besetting neighboring countries. Tajikistan endured a costly civil war, and Uzbekistan, where the president is as long-serving but far more ruthless, has suffered civil strife.

“Russia, the U.S. and China are interested in a stable Kazakhstan,” Vlasov said. “That is why during the last 10 to 15 years they have never played against Nazarbayev, and they have always recognized him as a legitimate leader despite the lack of freedom of the press and speech and suppression of the opposition.”

This does not sit so well with the opposition, which is largely excluded from the political process.

“Kazakhstan keeps promising to hold free and fair elections,” said Alibaev, head of the Astana branch of the unregistered National Social Democratic Party, “but it doesn’t happen. Why do the United States and Europe believe this propaganda? It seems Kazakhstan’s wealth makes the world ignore what they don’t want to see.”

Nazarbayev and his Nur Otan party deftly change the constitution to suit their needs. One amendment last year made him “Leader of the Nation,” giving him and his relatives lifelong immunity from prosecution and allowing him to make government decisions even after retirement.

“The constitution has been changed seven times,” Alibaev said, “the last time Feb. 2, when they changed it in a few minutes so they could move up the elections.”

Printers can’t keep up — an exasperated Alibaev has taken to updating his copy of the constitution by pasting in newspaper notices of the changes.

Golosov, project director at the Center for Democracy and Human Rights Helix in St. Petersburg, said Kazakhstan has adopted the Russian system of what he calls electoral authoritarianism.

Elections give the impression of democracy, he said, even as the authorities make it difficult for candidates to run and parties to organize. Parties must win at least 7 percent of the vote to enter parliament, and Nur Otan holds every single seat. Western leaders and investors, however, find the trappings of democracy comforting, he said.

“Nobody wants to have any dealings with a dictator,” Golosov wrote recently, “but an imperfect democrat is quite a different matter.”

Yertysbayev, the political adviser, is contemptuous of the opposition that the president has made so weak, saying its members are forever calling, asking for ministry or embassy jobs. “Politics is a fight for power,” he said. “In Georgia, they brought people to the square and grabbed it. Here, they ask for favors.”

Squabble they may, but Nazarbayev holds steady, balancing the political forces around him.

“During these 20 years they have recognized Nazarbayev as the moderator of political dialogue,” Vlasov said, “and those who did not want to accept that now live in London.”



lallyk@washpost.com

Top White House aide delivers Obama letter to Saudi king

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By Karen DeYoung, Tuesday, April 12, 9:35 PM

A top White House aide delivered a personal letter from President Obama to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on Tuesday, as the administration moved to calm tensions between the two countries over how to respond to upheaval in the Arab world and deal with their mutual adversary in Iran.

The hastily arranged visit to the kingdom by national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon came less than a week after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made the same trip. While administration officials confirmed the delivery of Obama’s missive, they declined to specify its contents.

Neither government denies that there has been a divergence of views between the entrenched, conservative monarchy and the administration, which is struggling to balance its substantial interests and alliances in the region with its desire to see democratic reforms.

The stakes are high for both sides, perhaps higher for Obama.

Saudi Arabia, in addition to being the world’s largest oil exporter and the site of the Muslim world’s holiest sites, is the leading U.S. regional partner on counterterrorism matters. An extensive bilateral intelligence and law enforcement infrastructure has been established over the past decade. A pending $60 billion arms deal with the Saudis is the largest in U.S. history.

A senior Saudi official said the back-to-back U.S. trips were less “fence-mending” than consultations on “how do we move forward . . . given all the things that are happening, in ways that best protect our interests.”

While the administration sees democratic potential in the Arab spring, the Saudis are feeling an ominous chill from all points of the compass — Bahrain to the east, Yemen to the south, Egypt to the west and Iraq to the north. They have also seen signs of internal unrest, with minor Shiite demonstrations in the eastern part of the kingdom in recent weeks.

Saudi leaders were furious last month when the administration criticized their deployment of troops to Bahrain, the small island nation in the Persian Gulf whose Shiite majority has taken to the streets to demand more political representation from Sunni rulers. U.S. calls for political dialogue were interpreted as a naive response to what the Saudis see as a clear case of interference by Iran’s Shiite theocracy.

Bahrain is the “reddest of red lines” for the Saudis, said a member of the Majlis al-Shura, the consultative council that advises Abdullah on a range of foreign and domestic issues.

Beyond Bahrain, the Saudis were stunned at Obama’s rapid abandonment of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, a decades-long ally. They have been dismayed by what they see as Obama’s failure to seize the initiative in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. They also consider Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki little more than a stooge for Iranian interests, and were disappointed in the administration’s support for his second term in office against Saudi advice.

“I don’t want to pretend we haven’t had some differences,” said a senior U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the situation on the record. “There are some things we need to work on.”

While the administration shares the Saudi concern about Iranian expansionism, it also believes that the Saudis have developed a dangerous fixation on Iran’s role.

“It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” the administration official said. “If you see every Shiite as an Iranian agent, that could very well turn out eventually to be the case.”

Underlying the current tensions is Saudi Arabia’s long-standing concern that it “has been taken for granted by the United States,” said another member of the Shura, part of a group that visited Washington last week.

The Saudis consider themselves “the voice for moderation and stabilization in the Middle East,” he said, and resent the U.S. implication that the administration is more attuned to threats such as Iran, or that the Saudi monarchy needs to move toward its own reforms at a faster pace than it believes is wise or necessary.

Some foreign policy experts in this country agree that Obama needs to pay more attention to the relationship. The Saudi king needs to know “that the president will provide a secure safety net of support, rather than undermine him” in the event of trouble in the kingdom, Martin Indyk, the director of the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy program, wrote in The Washington Post early this week.

Saudi uncertainty was reflected in a visit to Pakistan last month by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the head of the Saudi National Security Council.

Until the mid-1990s, Pakistan maintained a division of troops in Saudi Arabia, and it has long been a recruiting ground for Persian Gulf security forces. Although Bandar made no official request, he was assured of help if needed, a senior Pakistani official said. “We hold the Saudis so close,” the official said, “we have to really help them if there is a need.”

But others are more dismissive of Saudi concerns. “Our friends are mad at us because we said Mubarak had to go,” Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said Tuesday at the U.S.-Islamic Forum, a conference in Washington jointly sponsored by Brookings and the government of Qatar. “We didn’t say that . . . the Egyptian people did,” Kerry said. “We acknowledged a reality.”

“For leaders worried about their regimes, royal families and governments,” Kerry said, “this is an opportunity to adjust to how they stay in power.”

deyoungk@washpost.com

U.N. report: Palestinian Authority ready for statehood

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By Joel Greenberg, Tuesday, April 12, 7:05 PM

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Authority is ready for statehood, according to six key criteria, although urgent action is needed to bolster its progress in state-building, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The declaration, contained in a report prepared for a meeting Wednesday in Brussels of donors to the authority, is an important boost to Palestinian efforts to obtain international recognition of a Palestinian state in September.

The U.N. study echoed findings by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, who in separate reports prepared for the donors conference said last week that the authority was well-positioned to run an independent state.

“In six areas where the U.N. is most engaged, governmental functions are now sufficient for a functioning government of a state,” said the report from the Office of the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. It defined those areas as: governance, rule of law and human rights; livelihoods and productive sectors; education and culture; health; social protection; and infrastructure and water.

The Palestinian Authority has improved its ability to plan and budget effectively and has upheld transparency, media freedom and mitigation of corruption, while drafting laws to ensure compliance with international human rights norms, the report said.

The report noted improvements in security and the economy in the West Bank, with an estimated 8 percent growth in gross domestic product in 2010. It said that the area’s health-care system was well-developed and that government spending on social services had created a “comprehensive social safety net.”

But the report cautioned that the continuing Israeli occupation, the unresolved conflict with Israel and the persistent divide between the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the West Bank means that “the institutional achievements of the Palestinian state-building agenda are approaching their limits within the political and physical space currently available.”

Robert Serry, the U.N. special coordinator for Mideast peace, said that “further steps on the ground” are urgently needed. Israel has to “roll back measures of occupation” to match Palestinian progress in state-building, he said, and stalled peace negotiations should resume “if the state-building and political tracks are to come together by September.”

Israeli-Palestinian talks were relaunched last September with the aim of reaching a framework agreement for a Palestinian state within a year. The talks later broke off in a dispute over continued Israeli settlement building in the West Bank.

In a government plan initiated in August 2009, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad set a two-year target date for Palestinian institutional readiness for statehood. In his report for Wednesday’s donors meeting, Fayyad asserts that the Palestinian Authority is now prepared “to assume all the responsibilities that will come with full sovereignty on the entire Palestinian occupied territory.”

Palestinian leaders say that if there is no progress in peace efforts, they will ask the U.N. General Assembly in September to grant membership to a Palestinian state whose territory would include all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has argued that unilateral moves cannot be a substitute for peace talks. “Palestinians seek to go to an international forum and avoid peace negotiations,” he told European Union diplomats Monday. “It pushes peace farther back.”


greenbergj@washpost.com

Daughter of Prominent Bahraini Activist Challenges Obama

Cecily Hilleary April 12, 2011

Photo: Photo: courtesy - Zainab Alkhawaja

A screen shot of Zainab Alkhawaja's Twitter feed the night of her father's and other relatives' arrests. On Twitter and in the blogosphere Zainab is known as AngryArabiya.

Zainab Alkhawaja, the daughter of a prominent Bahraini human rights activist, has written a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama calling upon him to stand up for freedom and speak up on behalf of her father, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja. He, along with other relatives, was arrested Saturday by security forces.

Zainab, who has been sharing her story on her blog and via Twitter, where she is known as “AngryArabiya,” has also started a hunger strike to draw attention to her cause.

Contacted by phone, Zainab read for us some passages from her letter to Obama.
“Mr. President,… when you were sworn in as President of the United States, I had high hopes.  I thought, ‘Here is a person who would never have become president if it were not for the African-American fight for civil liberties. He will understand our fight for freedom.’

courtesy - Zainab Alkhawaja

Zainab Alkhawaja

What was it you meant, Mr. President? YES WE CAN…support dictators? YES WE CAN…help oppress pro-democracy protesters? YES WE CAN…turn a blind eye to a people suffering?”

Zinaib also recounted for us in her own words the events surrounding the arrest of her father and other relatives Saturday.

“I have a one-year-old daughter. When I heard that they were going to come for my father, I took her out and left her with some friends. Just in case something would happen, I didn’t want her to be part of this, I didn’t want her to get scared.

At about 2 a.m., they did arrive. The first thing that we heard, knowing that they had arrived, was the banging with a sledgehammer on the building door. They were breaking it. Then we heard them running up to the apartment, and in about 30 seconds, they broke the door to the apartment as well.

Five minutes before they had arrived, my father was telling all of us to be calm and to be patient, and if they do come, he did not want to see anyone crying or shouting. He said he would go with them voluntarily, and he said, “Let’s keep our dignity and respect.”  And just as he was going to speak with them, and I expected he was going to say, “Calm down, I will come with you, please don’t hurt my family,” just as he opened his mouth to speak, the man started saying, “Down on the ground” in very broken Arabic - he was not an Arab - and then he held my father from his neck, from his throat. And he started pulling him away. He pulled him on the stairs, he was dragging him on the stairs while other security forces were hitting him and kicking him and punching him.

courtesy - Zainab Alkhawaja

Abdulhadi Alkhawaja

They were all wearing black uniforms and they were all masked and they were all armed. And they were beating him. And I heard him gasping for air and saying, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”

And that’s when I decided that was enough. I wasn’t just going to stand and watch this happen. I ran down the stairs and I was telling them, “Please don’t hurt him, don’t beat him, he’s willing to go with you voluntarily, why are you hitting him?”

One of them started saying, “Beat her up too and arrest her, we’ll take her as well.”

But instead of that, one of the masked men, he grabbed me from my shirt and he started dragging me up the stairs… I saw my father fallen on the stairs as they were dragging him, but he wasn’t moving at all.

And then I saw them take my husband and my two brothers-in-law. They were taking them away like they were two prisoners of war, with their heads forced down. And I saw drops of blood on the stairs. And I knew that my father had been really hurt. Even though my father was unconscious, they were still beating him and kicking him and cursing him and saying that they were going to kill him.

We have no idea where they are. We haven’t even gotten a phone call from them saying that they’re okay.

And that’s why the last thing that I could think of doing is to just go on hunger strike. I don’t like the feeling of being helpless, of sitting here wondering how they are torturing my father, my husband, my brother-in-law and my uncle. This is my way of trying to do something, of trying to help them, of trying to get the world to realize what’s happening here and what’s happening to my people, what’s happening to my family.”

After sharing her story, Zinaib ended with another passage to her letter to President Obama.

“I ask of you to look into your beautiful daughters' eyes tonight and think to yourself what you are personally willing to sacrifice in order to make sure they can sleep safe at night, that they can grow up with hope rather than fear and heartache, that they can have their father and grandfather's embrace to run to when they are hurt or in need of support. Last night my one-year-old daughter went knocking on our bedroom door calling for her father, the first word she ever learnt. It tore my heart to pieces. How do you explain to a one-year-old that her father is imprisoned? I need to look into my daughter's eyes tomorrow, next week, in the years to come, and tell her I did all that I could to protect her family and future.

For my daughter's sake, for her future, for my father's life, for the life of my husband, to unite my family again, I will begin my hunger strike," writes Zinaib.

Bahraini officials have rejected claims of a targeted campaign against opposition activists, insisting authorities are only doing what was necessary to ensure law and order.

Critics suspect many countries have been reluctant to take a firm stance on Bahrain because of the emirate’s strategic importance as a Western ally in the oil-producing Persian Gulf region. Bahrain is also home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

More Horn of Africa immigrants in Yemen despite unrest

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

Ethiopian immigrants sitting outside the offices of the Charitable Society for Social Welfare in Haradh, Yemen

SANAA, 13 April 2011 (IRIN) - The number of immigrants arriving in Yemen from the Horn of Africa since the beginning of 2011 has increased despite the current political turmoil, raising fears that the government may find it hard to provide for them.

Some 21,577 arrivals were recorded by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in the first quarter of 2011, compared to 9,439 during the same period in 2010, and 16,932 in 2009. This year's figures are the highest since 2008.

Yemen has, since February, been in the grip of nationwide protests against long-serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and more than 100 people have been killed.

"I don't know how the government can provide protection for this increasing number of illegal immigrants and refugees coming from the Horn of Africa while it is struggling to protect its own citizens," said Mohammed al-Fuqmi, rapporteur for the government-run National Committee for Refugee Affairs.

The data shows that while the number of Somalis has decreased, the number of Ethiopians has increased.

Unlike the Somalis, who tend to take the perilous 35-hour voyage from the northern Somali port of Bosasso to Yemen's southern coast, most Ethiopians reach Yemen via Djibouti - a much shorter journey of up to 10 hours, according to Ahmad Akam, a Yemeni coastguard official at the port city of Mukha.

"Their sea voyages are less risky, compared to the more adventurous voyages made by those coming from Bosasso," he told IRIN said.

Why the influx?

Ame Abdu Shabo, chairman of the Oromo Refugee Community in Yemen, attributed the increasing influx of Ethiopians to conflict in the Oromo region. Some of the new arrivals, he added, had been harassed by armed Yemenis demanding money in Dabab village near the southwestern coast in Taiz Governorate.

“We found out that four Oromo women and a man [were] being held captive for more than one week by armed men in Dabab,” he said. “Each one of them was asked to pay a ransom of US$300. The four complained of being tortured and beaten by their captors daily because they couldn’t pay.”

Jamal al-Najjar, an information assistant with UNHCR, said the agency was following up the matter with the authorities in Taiz.

Official Yemeni government estimates put the total number of African refugees and illegal immigrants in the country at more than 700,000.

ay/cb

Timeline of key events in Syria since mid-March

Photo: Hugh Macleod/IRIN

Syrians at a previous protest. About 200 people have died in recent clashes between security forces and protestors (file photo)

DUBAI, 13 April 2011 (IRIN) - Syria has been under emergency law since the Ba’ath Party seized power in 1963 and banned all opposition parties. Since early March 2011, there have been regular protests in a number of towns and cities, with the southern town of Dera’a a focal point. About 200 people have died in recent clashes. Below is a timeline of some key developments since 16 March:

16 March - “Silent” protest in Damascus by 150 members of imprisoned families and friends. Four protesters killed and dozens wounded by security forces in Dera’a, near the border with Jordan.

18 March - Demonstrations in Dera’a demanding political freedom and an end to corruption in Syria.

20 March - People continue to demand an end to Syria’s long-running emergency law banning political opposition. Crowds set fire to headquarters of the Ba’ath Party in Dera’a.

21 March - Hundreds of security forces line the streets of Dera’a, but do not confront thousands of mourners marching at the funeral of a protester killed in the town.

22 March - In a fifth consecutive day of demonstrations against the government, hundreds of people march in the southern cities of Dera’a and Nawa.

23 March - Reports of Syrian forces killing six people in an attack on protesters in Dera’a, and later the same day opening fire on hundreds of youths marching in solidarity. Faysal Kalthum, regional governor of Dera’a, sacked by President Assad.

24 March - President Assad’s advisers say the president has ordered the formation of a committee to raise living standards and study scrapping the emergency law.

25 March - At least 200 people march in Damascus and hundreds also on the streets of Hama. Amnesty International says at least 55 people have been killed in Dera’a in the last week and there are reports of at least 23 dead around the country, including for the first time in Damascus. Thousands march in funerals for some of the dead; witnesses say protesters in Dera’a toppled a statue of Assad's father, former President Hafez al-Assad. Security forces open fire from buildings. According to Syrian human rights organizations, there are indications that almost all of those who had been arrested in and around Dera'a since 18 March have been released.

26 March - Clashes between security forces and protesters in the coastal city of Latakia kill another 12, according to Syria's state news agency. President Assad deploys the army there the next day. In an attempt to placate protesters, Assad frees 260 prisoners, and 16 more the next day.

27 March - Army increases its presence in Dera’a.

28 March - Security forces fire into the air to disperse hundreds of protesters in Dera’a. Reports of pro-government rallies taking place across the country. Amnesty International cites unconfirmed reports saying 37 more people had been killed since 25 March in protests in Damascus, Latakia, Dera’a and elsewhere.

29 March - Resignation of government following weeks of protests. President Assad appoints former government head Naji al-Otari as the new caretaker prime minister.

30 March - President Assad delivers a speech for the first time since the protests began, but does not announce any major reforms.

31 March - Assad orders an investigation into protest deaths in Dera’a and Latakia. The Syrian state news agency says a panel will study and prepare "legislation, including protecting the nation's security and the citizen's dignity… paving the way for lifting the emergency law" by 25 April.

1 April - Up to eight people are killed after government forces use live ammunition against protesters in the Damascus suburb of Douma.

3 April - President Assad appoints Adel Safar, minister of agriculture in the last cabinet, to form a new government.

4 April - Mohammad Khaled al-Hannus appointed governor of Dera’a.

8 April - Security forces open fire on protesters across Syria killing as many as 26 people, mostly in Dera’a.

10 April - Reports of shooting, many injuries and 200 arrests in the coastal town of Baniyas, 300km northwest of Damascus, following clashes in the area.

11 April - Some 500 Damascus university students call for more political freedom. According to the Syrian Human Rights League, opposition figure, writer and journalist Fayez Sara, was arrested, as well as bloggers, activists and young opposition supporters. According to Human Rights Watch, there are reports of beatings and torture inside prisons.

Sources: Alertnet, Al-Jazeera, Amnesty International, BBC, Montreal Gazette, Reuters, Syrian news agency SANA

In Algeria, a chill in the Arab spring

Image via Wikipedia
By Anthony Faiola, Friday, April , 8:10 PM

ALGIERS — Only a few weeks ago, Algeria seemed on the brink of revolution, with thousands taking to the streets to demand the ouster of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. But much like the crowd gawking at the few lonely activists who recently showed up for a political protest at a busy roundabout here, this North African country is now watching from the sidelines as the Arab spring tries to bloom.

Popular revolts are upending authoritarian systems across the region, spreading deeper into Arab countries with some of the harshest regimes, including Syria. But while there are democracy-fervent nations such as Tunisia, where the uprisings started and where sustained protests rapidly ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, there are many others, such as neighboring Algeria, where change is a moving target.

Instead of a clamor for democracy, doctors and teachers, auxiliary police officers and transportation workers are taking to the streets of this energy-rich nation with demands for higher wages, while pointedly sidestepping calls for political change.

Much as Saudi Arabia did to quell protests there, the Algerian government is literally trying to buy time, doling out economic concessions that include promises to double salaries for everyone from police officers to court clerks and pledges to give millions of Algerians free land and cheap loans.

In the face of gilded promises, the Algerian public, weary after a long history of violence, seems to be weighing the cost of change. Lacking broad support and crippled by infighting, those directly calling for Bouteflika to step down have diminished in number, with the pool of die-hard protesters still rallying every Saturday outnumbered by riot police nearly 50 to 1.

“Why am I not protesting?” laughed Nouider Bakhi, 45, a school administrator gazing at the small pro-democracy rally last Saturday from the cooling shade of a cigarette stand. “Because what works in Tunisia and Egypt may not work in Algeria. . . . Of course we want change, but what will it take to reach that goal? Look at Libya. It is tearing apart and people are dying. You think we don’t watch that violence and wonder which way it would happen here?”

Algeria’s retreat from full-scale revolt is key to calculations of just how broadly the historic uprisings sweeping the Arab world might ultimately transform the region. In many ways, Algeria and its far smaller neighbor, Tunisia, present a tale of two countries.

This nation, sprawling from the blistering Sahara to the Mediterranean Sea, became the region’s first after Tunisia to see the outbreak of unrest, with riots over high food prices erupting in January inside the dense French colonial slums towering above the glistening Bay of Algiers.

In Tunisia, similar riots triggered a movement soon joined by unions, opposition leaders and members of the middle class to drive out Ben Ali, who fled the country Jan. 14. But here, the Algerian government has managed to check public rage through a combination of measured tolerance for social protests, food subsidies and pay raises, as well as minor political concessions.

It may not work for long. With youth unemployment at 30 percent and millions of workers laboring in a precarious black market, Algeria could still explode, observers say. But for millions of Algerians — ruled since 1999 by the authoritarian Bouteflika, who fronts a hidden power structure of intelligence officers and military generals — the uprisings pose a particularly tough choice.

Memories of past wars

An Arab spring of sorts budded here in 1988, with a revolt against a one-party system that led to a much-heralded political opening. But within four years, the nation descended into civil war with Islamist extremists, ushering in more than a decade of terror that claimed upwards of 160,000 lives. That came only three decades after the end of a war for independence from France in which the death toll topped 1 million.

Fear of another cycle of violence is holding back Algerian society now. Standing near a faded belle epoque building in Bab el-Oued — a teeming slum where riots over food prices, poor housing and the lack of jobs broke out in January — Medhi Fadlane, 25, is one of the angry Algerians restless for change. But even he, like many others in the neighborhood, sounds a note of caution about pressing for it too fast.

“I remember the bombs that went off when I was younger, and I don’t want to go back to that,” said Fadlane, a physics major. He later continued, “I feel troubled in my heart about having no future, and I blame the government. We want them out, but I think it might take a little while. We don’t want chaos, either.”

In addition, uncertainty over Bouteflika’s real power — it remains unclear whether he runs the feared intelligence services or their chiefs run him — has thus far prevented him from becoming the obvious single target of street protests.

“If Bouteflika were ousted it would make no difference,” said Karim Tabbou, secretary general of the opposition FFS party. “This is not Libya. Algeria is a country with a thousand Gaddafis.”

Impatience over economy

To be sure, Algerians enjoy somewhat more freedom than, say, Tunisians did under Ben Ali. State television is strictly controlled here, and Bouteflika won his third term in 2009 with 90 percent of the vote. But newspapers are able to openly criticize the government in ways that would bring jail time in some Arab countries. And the government has mostly employed batons and cattle prods against demonstrators, not guns.

Though most here doubt his word, Bouteflika has promised unspecified political reforms. He has lifted a 19-year-old state of emergency, but the move had little real impact because most of the government’s police-state powers are enshrined elsewhere in Algerian law.

Yet Algeria’s opposition is weak and divided. Though as many as 3,000 to 5,000 rallied for democracy on Feb. 12 in what was meant to be a sustained show of force, the movement has not drawn mainstream support.

But the force of the historic uprisings across the region is without doubt fanning social unrest here that could still turn political. Over the past four weeks, more than 70 unions and trade groups have challenged bans on demonstrations in Algiers by rallying for higher wages and better contracts from the government.

But many, such as Ain Defla, 43, are clear about the scope of their demands. Protesting with other teachers recently, she said: “I don’t care who the president is. We just need our economic demands met.”

To ease the pressure, the government is making extraordinary promises. A plan is being launched to offer virtually any Algerian 21 / 2 acres of land and cheap loans to farm it. Towns and cities are allowing the young and unemployed to set up unlicensed fruit and clothing stalls. Massive sums are being pledged to aid many more in establishing businesses.

But opposition leaders say even the oil-rich government cannot possibly make good on all its promises and is only prolonging a broader social uprising. It may come down to whether the government can indeed satisfy the likes of Youcff Meskine, an unemployed 30-year-old in Bordj Menaiel, a town 50 miles east of Algiers where angry youths have torched the tax office and vandalized a government job center.

Like many in town, he was promised a loan by government officials, which he planned to use to start a house-painting business.

But “that was two weeks ago, and I haven’t seen any of the money yet,” Meskine said. “But trust me, if they don’t keep their promises this time, Algeria is going to blow up.”

faiolaa@washpost.com

Deadly Blast at Moscow’s Main Airport Seen as Terror Attack

By ELLEN BARRY and ANDREW E. KRAMER

MOSCOW — A bomber strode into the arrivals hall at Moscow’s busiest airport on Monday afternoon and set off an enormous explosion, witnesses and Russian officials said, leaving bodies strewn in a smoke-filled terminal while bystanders scrambled to get the wounded out on baggage carts.

Russian authorities said at least 31 people were killed and 150 injured in the attack. The Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said in televised remarks that the blast was an act of terrorism and ordered the police to track down the perpetrators.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said the attack was probably carried out by a male suicide bomber, and that authorities were trying to identify him.

In the moments after the blast, the smoke was so thick that it was difficult to count the dead, eyewitnesses said. Arriving passengers stepped into the hall to the sight of blood on the floor and bodies being loaded onto stretchers. Ambulances sped away crowded with three or four patients apiece, bleeding heavily from shrapnel wounds to their arms and legs.

The blast hit Domodedovo Airport, a facility that is a showcase for modern Russia, just as Mr. Medvedev prepared to woo foreign investors at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Mr. Medvedev promptly postponed his departure to manage the aftermath of the attack.

It is bound to further shake a country already on edge after a nationalist demonstration turned violent in mid-December, inflaming relations between ethnic Russians and migrants from the north Caucasus, a predominately Muslim region on Russia’s southern border.

Though there was no indication Monday evening of who was behind the blast, Moscow’s recurrent terror attacks have nearly always been traced to militants in the North Caucasus. The most recent came in March, when two women from Dagestan strapped on explosive belts and detonated themselves on the city’s subway, killing more than 40 people.

Doku Umarov, a rebel leader, took responsibility for that attack, posting a video in which he warned Russians that “the war will come to your streets, and you will feel it in your own lives and on your own skin.” Such attacks have typically strengthened the influence of Russian security forces and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin by firmly establishing security as the country’s top priority.

Mr. Putin appeared on television on Monday night, ordering the health minister to provide aid to all the bombing victims, visiting clinics one by one, if necessary, he said.

The bomber apparently entered the international arrivals terminal from outside, a witness said, advancing to the blue tape where taxi drivers and relatives wait to greet arriving passengers and setting off the explosion at 4:32 p.m. local time. The area is open to the general public, said Yelena Galanova, an airport spokesman, according to the Interfax news service.

Artyom Zhilenkov, who was in that crowd, said he was standing about 10 yards away from a short, dark-complexioned man with a suitcase — the bomber, he believes. They were awaiting flights from Italy, Tajikistan and Germany. Mr. Zhilenkov, a taxi driver, spoke to reporters several hours after the blast, wearing a track suit dotted with blood and small ragged holes.

“How did I manage to save myself? I don’t know,” he said. “The people behind me on my left and right were blown apart. Maybe because of that.”

Among the wounded were French and Italian citizens, according to the Health and Social Development Ministry.

Yuri, another witness, told Russia’s state-run First Channel TV that the shock wave was strong enough to throw him to the floor and blow his hat away. After that the hall filled with thick smoke and part of the ceiling collapsed, said Aleksei Spiridonov, who works at an auto rental booth. He said most of the victims were waiting to greet passengers.

“They pushed them away on baggage carts,” Mr. Spiridonov said. “They were wheeling them out on whatever they could find.”

Many of the victims suffered terrible wounds to their faces, limbs and bodies, witnesses said.

“One person came out and fell,” Olga Yaholnikova told RenTV television. “And there was a man with half of his body torn away.”

Investigators were working on Monday evening to determine the power and type of explosive used in the attack. Nikolai Sintsov, a spokesman for the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, said there are shrapnel holes in the arrival hall, but no shrapnel has yet been retrieved.

In televised remarks, Mr. Medvedev said that although Russia has imposed waves of new security procedures in the wake of terror attacks, they are not always implemented. He ordered police to boost security at all airports and on public transportation.

The airport, southeast of the capital, is Russia’s largest airline hub, with more than 20 million passengers passing through last year. Domodedovo was the site of a previous terror attack in August of 2004, when two Chechen suicide bombers boarded separate planes there, killing themselves and 88 others in midair. The attack exposed holes in security, since the two bombers, both women, had been detained shortly before boarding, but were released by a police supervisor. The authorities have since worked to tighten security there.

The airport remained open on Monday evening, and passengers continued to flow through the hall where the bomb had exploded. Gerald Zapf, who landed shortly after the blast, said his airplane circled the airport several times before landing, and passengers were forced to wait on board for some time before they were allowed to disembark.

When they finally made it into the airport, he said, he saw nothing of the carnage that had taken place, because it was hidden by large sheets of blue plastic. Monday’s explosion in Moscow pointed to the continuing fascination with air travel for militants, as well as the difficulty of carrying out an attack aboard a jet, said Stephen A. Baker, a former official with the Department of Homeland Security. “They’d like to be bombing planes and they can’t, so they’re bombing airports,” he said, adding that the attack “validates the focus that the U.S. has had on security at airports.”


Michael Schwirtz and Andrew Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow, and J. David Goodman from New York.

Abyei, Sudan's potential tinderbox

By Rebecca Hamilton
Monday, January 24, 2011; A06

IN ABYEI, SUDAN Southern Sudan brimmed with optimism after a largely peaceful referendum this month that almost certainly will lead to the creation of a new nation. But in the contested border town of Abyei, the mood was somber.

In a mud-walled hut, Achol Deng Ngok stacked layers of kissera, a sorghum pancake, she had prepared to send to men north of town. Two weeks ago, clashes in the area left at least 36 people dead.

"We are scared, that's why we're sending our men food - so they stay in the villages north of here to protect us," she said.

But Ngok said she has an even bigger fear: "We don't want to be left behind when the south gets its independence."

That fear is pushing the Ngok Dinka, the town's dominant ethnic group, to consider declaring Abyei part of the south, even though they know that move might provoke the north to try to take Abyei by force.

Sudan's predominantly Muslim and Arab north and the largely Christian and animist south fought a 22-year war that led to the deaths of 2 million people. If Abyei's status is left unresolved, the area will be caught between two nations, possibly triggering a return to conflict in Sudan.

A 2005 peace agreement, which ended the war, promised the people of Abyei their own referendum on whether to be part of the north or south. The Abyei referendum was supposed to be held simultaneously with the main southern referendum, but the two sides failed to agree on who was eligible to vote.

Results of the main referendum are expected next month, but the Abyei referendum has been postponed indefinitely.

"If Abyei remains unresolved and the south secedes," said Jon Temin, director of Sudan programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, "the people of Abyei will be left in a very ambiguous and vulnerable position."

The agreement that ended the first Sudanese civil war in 1972 gave people here the opportunity to claim Abyei as a southern area, reversing a decree made during British colonial rule that had put it under northern administration.

But after oil was discovered in Abyei, the Sudanese government refused to let the referendum go forward.

This time, the Ngok Dinka have decided to issue their own declaration.

"We want to be clear that Abyei is part of the south and we want to belong to the south," said Kuol Deng Kuol, paramount chief of the Ngok Dinka. Nomadic grazing


While the Ngok Dinka say Abyei belongs to the south, another group is equally adamant that it belongs to the north.

Each year the Misseriya, a northern nomadic group, migrate southward to graze their cattle near a river south of Abyei. The River Kiir, as the Ngok Dinka call it, or Bahr al-Arab, as the Misseriya term it, is a lifeline during the harsh dry season.

Historically, the two groups managed a relatively peaceful coexistence. But during the war years, that relationship frayed as governments in Khartoum armed the Misseriya to fight against the southern population.

The 2005 peace agreement promised the Misseriya continued grazing rights in Abyei regardless of whether the land ended up in the north or the south. The Ngok Dinka say they support that provision.

But in a phone interview, Misseriya leader Sadig Babo Nimir said grazing rights will mean nothing if Abyei goes to the south.

If the Ngok Dinka want to go to the south, he said, "let them go with pleasure. If they want to stay, let them stay with pleasure. But the land is part of the north."

These conflicting views are reflected at the national level, partly due to rumors about oil. While the one remaining oilfield in Abyei is in decline, U.S. oil exploration here in the early 1980s still prompts speculation that there are untapped reserves.

On the southern side, the secretary general of the ruling party, the Southern People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), Pagan Amum, has said that if the Abyei referendum is not conducted, the only remaining option is for Abyei to be transferred to the south by presidential decree. On the northern side, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said he will not accept Abyei being part of the south.

The Ngok Dinka say they fear that if they do not make their declaration before the votes are counted in the southern referendum, they will miss their chance to join the south.

"There is still time to find a political solution if President Bashir wishes to do so," said Rou Manyiel, chairman of civil society organizations in Abyei.

But with the referendum commission expected to announce the results by Feb. 14, the clock is ticking.

The Ngok Dinka were ready to make their declaration before voting started on Jan. 9. But two high-level officials from the SPLM persuaded them to hold off.

The officials said a declaration before the referendum would give the north "an excuse to disrupt" the vote, said Juac Agok, deputy chairman of the SPLM in Abyei.

The SPLM is now asking them to wait until after July 9, when southern independence would formally begin.

But Agok said, "I don't think it will be possible for me to convince the people of Abyei to wait." Peacekeeping challenge


Politicians in both north and south have accused each other of sending troops to the area around Abyei. Experts worry that violence in the contested borderland would be difficult to rein in.

"If unresolved, Abyei will continue to be a source of instability, risking broader escalation," said Zach Vertin, Sudan analyst at the International Crisis Group.

The Ngok Dinka leaders are preparing their people for the possibility of a Khartoum-backed attempt by the Misseriya to take Abyei.

"We are appealing to all the sons of Abyei to be aware of this, and telling them they should defend their family and property," said Kuol, the Ngok Dinka chief.

Misseriya leader Nimir denied that the group has any plan for a takeover, and said that far from feeling supported by Bashir, the Misseriya feel betrayed by the government for having agreed to an Abyei referendum in the first place.

But Nimir also said that if the Ngok Dinka declare that Abyei belongs to the south, "then we will defend our land by force."

Hamilton is a special correspondent in Sudan on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Related articles

• A border region caught in the middle as Sudan prepares to split (independent.co.uk)
• Living on the frontline (bbc.co.uk)

Hearings on Muslims trigger panic

By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 24, 2011; A01

WESTBURY, N.Y. - They called it a summit to teach Muslims how to fight prejudice and fear. But all day long, fear was inescapable in the fluorescent-lit meeting hall of the Long Island mosque.

The top issue on everyone's mind this month at the Islamic Center of Long Island was this: What could be done to stop planned congressional hearings on alleged hidden radicalism among American Muslims and mosques?

The House hearings, scheduled to begin next month, have touched off a wave of panic throughout the U.S. Muslim community, which has spent much of the past year battling what it sees as a rising tide of Islamophobia. Conference calls, strategy sessions and letter-writing campaigns have been launched. Angry op-eds have compared the congressional inquiry to McCarthyism and the World War II persecution of Japanese Americans.

But for those who gathered at the Long Island mosque, the coming hearings represented not just a political issue, but a personal one. For the man organizing the hearings was the very lawmaker who was supposed to represent them in Washington - Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). Long before he had become their enemy, he had been one of their community's closest friends.

"He used to come to our weddings. He ate dinner in our homes," said the mosque's chairman, Habeeb Ahmed, a short medical technologist with graying hair sitting near the front. "Everything just changed suddenly after 9/11, and now he's holding hearings to say that people like us are radical extremists. I don't understand it."

At the meeting that day, Ahmed, a 55-year-old immigrant from India, was surrounded by more than a hundred Muslim leaders from New York and beyond.

There were Sunnis and Shiites. There were doctors, engineers and pharmacists who had left Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh to remake their lives in the United States. There were African Americans who had embraced Islam decades ago and new converts who were learning what it meant to be Muslim in America.

Some had flown in from as far away as Chicago. But most were regulars at the local Islamic center, including Ghazi Khankan, who had been one of its earliest members and had defended it for years against King's scorn.

"We have nothing to hide," Khankan said. "No matter what King says, others know that we are a peaceful community."

Although no member of the Islamic Center has ever been accused of terrorism, King has singled out the mosque as a hotbed of "radical Islam" and called its leaders extremists who should be put under surveillance. He maintains that most Muslim leaders in the United States aren't cooperating with authorities, even as arrests of homegrown terrorists are rising.

Now, as the new chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, King said he is finally in a position to do something about it.

"My first goal is just to have people even acknowledge this as a real issue," King said. "This politically correct nonsense has kept us from debating and discussing what is one of this country's most vital issues. We are under siege by Muslim terrorists."

For years, such statements by King have provoked anger among Muslims in his district, but with the hearings looming, there is also a sense of shame and regret. Long Island Muslims worry that what began long ago as a broken relationship between them and their congressman could soon pose a threat to the entire U.S. Muslim community. Friend, then foe


The Islamic Center of Long Island sits just beyond the boundaries of New York's 3rd District. It is an imposing green-domed building nestled amid suburban split-levels and cul-de-sacs.

Muslims were once a rarity here, but a wave of immigration in the 1980s changed that. Today, 70,000 Muslims are estimated to live on Long Island, worshiping at about 22 mosques.

With 400 members, the Islamic Center is one of the largest and most prominent of the mosques. It took the lead in hosting the recent all-day summit for Muslim leaders, at which the discussion often devolved into anguished debate over how to deal with King.

We should pray for him, some said. We should try to vote him out of office, others said. One man proposed organizing protests outside King's congressional office. Another said that kind of reaction would play into the congressman's hands.

The concern has plagued the Westbury mosque for nine years. But it was not always so.

During King's earliest days as a congressman, he gave speeches at the Islamic Center and held book signings in the prayer hall. He took in Muslim interns and was one of the few Republicans who supported U.S. intervention in the 1990s to help Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

In return, the Westbury mosque presented him with an award for his work in the Balkans. Many of its leaders regularly contributed to his campaigns, often paying $500 a person to attend his fundraisers.

King was even the main guest of honor on the day of greatest pride for the community: the 1993 opening of its long-awaited $3 million prayer hall, which many proudly note was built completely with locally raised funds. For years, a picture of King cutting the ceremonial ribbon hung on the bulletin board by the mosque's entrance.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001. A breach of faith


In the weeks after the twin towers crumbled and the Pentagon burned, local reporters swarmed Long Island's mosques looking for reaction.

On Oct. 18, Khankan and another Westbury mosque leader were quoted in the local paper, repeating conspiracy theories that it wasn't Muslims who had orchestrated the attacks.

"Who really benefits from such a horrible tragedy that is blamed on Muslims and Arabs?" asked Khankan, the mosque's interfaith director at the time. "Definitely Muslims and Arabs do not benefit. It must be the enemy of Muslims and Arabs. An independent investigation must take place."

Safdar Chadda, a dentist from Pakistan who was then co-president of the mosque, speculated that "the Israeli government would benefit from this tragedy by now branding Palestinians as terrorists and crushing them by force."

Their statements infuriated King, who had lost friends in the attacks, as had many in his district, which lies 30 miles east of Manhattan.

"At this key moment for our country, the worst attack on us in history, these people who I thought were my friends were talking about Zionists and conspiracies," he said. "They were trying to look the other way while friends of mine were being murdered."

The day after the newspaper article appeared, the mosque's founder, Faroque Khan, went to a neighboring synagogue in a largely unsuccessful attempt to retract and explain what members of his mosque had said.

In the weeks that followed, Khan and others issued progressively stronger statements condemning al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for the attacks. They forwarded these to King's office, but the damage was already done.

To King, the fact that those words were ever uttered branded the mosque's leaders as radicals.

When told that King had specifically cited his statements after Sept. 11 as the turning point, a pained look spread across Khankan's face.

"You have to understand the confusion and shock at the time," said Khankan, who is 76, with a shuffling walk and a shock of white hair.

Tapes of bin Laden had just been released in which he praised but was not yet openly taking responsibility for the attacks. Many at the mosque recalled that Muslims had been immediately and falsely blamed for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

After Sept. 11, Muslim children were being bullied at school, and someone had shot a pellet into the Islamic Center's window.

Khankan said he had spent most of his life working for Muslim groups, trying to create a bridge between outsiders and his community. That his words may have helped plant the seed for King's hearings, he said, is a heavy burden.

"I just wish I could talk to Pete today," he said. "I want to say to him: 'Tell me what I said or did so I can explain it. Give me a chance to clarify.' "

Targeting extremists




Since then, King has not set foot in the Islamic Center. Over the past decade, he has become one of the country's loudest voices on the dangers of Islamic extremism.

He has called for ethnic and religious-based profiling of air passengers and told Politico that there are "too many mosques in this country." He later tried to clarify that remark, saying he meant that "too many mosques in this country are not cooperating with law enforcement and too many have been taken over or are heavily influenced by extremists."

Of late, he has repeatedly alleged that 85 percent of U.S. mosques are run by radical extremists - an assertion he attributes to a 1999 statement by Sufi leader Hisham Kabbani at a State Department forum. It was rejected at the time by every major Muslim organization in the country.

But for some of King's Muslim constituents, his most hurtful words came in the form of his 2004 novel, "Vale of Tears." The story revolves around a fictional congressman who stumbles across a plan by terrorists - who are associated with a Long Island mosque and work with al-Qaeda and remnants of the Irish Republican Army - that could kill hundreds.

King dedicated the novel to "those who were murdered on September 11" and explained his purpose in the preface: "It describes how vulnerable we can become if we lower our guard - for even the slightest moment - and if we fail to recognize that our terrorist foes comprise a worldwide network with operatives active within our borders." Homegrown terrorism


Few take issue with King's assertion that homegrown terrorism is rising greatly.

In the past two years, according to Justice Department statistics, nearly 50 U.S. citizens have been charged with major terrorism counts - all of them allegedly motivated by radical Islamic beliefs.

But many law enforcement leaders disagree with King's allegation that most Muslim leaders do not cooperate with authorities. In the past, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has praised the community. And in a speech last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said: "The cooperation of Muslim and Arab American communities has been absolutely essential in identifying, and preventing, terrorist threats. We must never lose sight of this."

Experts also point to a string of recent terrorism cases that were foiled or reported by Muslim leaders.

Within King's district, Nassau County Lt. Kevin Smith said he couldn't recall the last time police received a tip from local mosques. But the detective said: "It's hard for us to judge what that means - whether that's because they're not reporting something or if there's just nothing to report. On the whole, though, I think we have a good relationship with the mosques in our county." Working with King


Many Muslim leaders say that after years of reaching out, they've given up on changing King's mind. At the Islamophobia summit, one man compared it to hitting his head against a brick wall: "If nothing changes, why keep beating yourself up?"

But one leader stood up and urged the crowd to keep trying. His name was Mohammed Saleh, and to the surprise of many, he called King a reasonable man.

"I have met King recently and talked to him," said Saleh, 63, a balding, bespectacled immigrant from Bangladesh. "In many ways, he is a good man."

Their relationship, Saleh said later, began as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks. As one of King's constituents, Saleh asked for help because someone with his name was on the government's airport watch list and he was being detained on international flights.

King helped devise a system by which Saleh could call authorities a few days in advance when he flies. Since then, Saleh has organized fundraisers for King and arranged for him to meet others in his circle of Bangladeshi Muslims.

Some Muslims question why Saleh would raise money for a man who regularly attacks their community. But as a pharmacist who has spent his life weighing dosages and prescriptions, Saleh said he has scrutinized the political makeup of King's district - a conservative strip amid a largely Democratic state. King won 72 percent of the vote in last year's election, he notes.

"I am a pragmatist, and it's clear we have to learn to work with Mr. King," Saleh said.

Saleh also says that as one of King's Muslim constituents, he bears a responsibility for King's views on Muslims. "If it was a broken relationship that sent King on his path now," Saleh said, "perhaps a new relationship will lead him back."

So, he spent most of last week trying to meet with King to express his concerns about the hearings and ask King to make sure they are fair.

In response, King said he is willing to listen but plans to push ahead with the hearings no matter how uncomfortable they may be for Muslims in his district or nationwide.

"This was not a fight I was looking for," King said. "I originally came into this as a supporter and friend of the Muslim community. But now we are facing a danger from within. And we need to see it and recognize it, because it's not something we can ignore anymore."

Staff researchers Jennifer Jenkins and Julie Tate contributed to this report.