7/23/13 Al Qaeda growing, but less focused on US, study finds

Source:  The Christian Science Monitor

The number of Al Qaeda affiliates has expanded, as have their geographic scope, but the terror network has become more diffuse and decentralized, the RAND study found.

Al Qaeda not only remains a threat to the United States, but its capabilities and scope are expanding, a new analysis from a respected think tank has concluded.

“There has been a net expansion in the number and geographic scope of Al Qaeda affiliates and allies over the past decade, indicating that Al Qaeda and its brand are far from defeated,” argues Seth Jones, an analyst at theRAND Corporation and the study’s author.

Why, after a decade of wars – the longest in America’s history – is the terrorist organization that the US military set out to defeat still active and growing? And does it really have an impact on the everyday safety of most Americans?

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7/16/13 Syria pro-regime militia kills reconciliation team: NGO

Source: Fox News

BEIRUT (AFP) –  Members of a Syrian pro-regime militia gunned down seven Sunni men working on reconciliation in the central province of Homs overnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.

Clashes broke out, meanwhile, between Kurdish fighters and the radical Islamist Al-Nusra Front in northern Syria’s Ras al-Ain, said the group.

“Seven men belonging to a reconciliation committee, including two retired officers and the imam of a mosque in the town of Zara… were killed yesterday by members of the People’s Committee,” the group said, referring to a pro-regime armed group.

Regime-authorised reconciliation teams have sprung up across Syria, working on grassroots mediation and negotiated truces in various areas.
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7/16/13 UN says about 5,000 Syrians being killed every month and refugee flight worst in 20 years

Source: Fox News

UNITED NATIONS –  An estimated 5,000 Syrians are dying every month in the country’s civil war and refugees are fleeing at a rate not seen since the 1994 Rwanda genocide, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

“In Syria today, serious human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity are the rule,” said Ivan Simonovic, the assistant secretary-general for human rights, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

He added that “the extremely high rate of killings … demonstrates the drastic deterioration of this conflict.”
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7/16/13 Syria’s children deserve chance to be kids again

Source: CNN

By Lucy Liu, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: A UNICEF ambassador since 2004, Lucy Liu recently traveled to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon to visit children made homeless by the conflict in neighboring Syria. According to UNICEF, more than 4,000 Syrians flee into Lebanon each day, half of them children. The country hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, and although it has kept its borders open, it won’t permit formal refugee camps.

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (CNN) — In my nine years as a UNICEF ambassador, I’ve been to camps for people displaced by conflict. Though hardly luxurious, they usually have some kind of structure: a water source, latrines, even schools.

In Lebanon, even the most basic services are hard to come by as the small country staggers from the flow of refugees from its larger neighbor. The places I saw had no toilets, no clean water sources, no places to shower and no areas for cooking. Cases of painful scabies, lice and fleas are on the rise.

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7/16/13 From Benghazi to Boston: The state of the jihad

Source: CNN

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories and opinion pieces previewing the upcoming Aspen Security Forum. Security Clearance is a media sponsor of the event, which is taking place from July 17 to 20 in Aspen, Colorado. Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst and the author of “Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad.”

(CNN) — Every July in the lush, green mountains of Aspen, Colorado, many of the top present and former U.S. national security officials and other experts gather to discuss how the war against al Qaeda and its allies is going.

Ahead of last year’s Aspen conference, I wrote a piece for CNN provocatively titled “Time to declare victory: Al Qaeda is defeated.”And I then spoke on a panel at Aspen where I tried to make the case for this position.

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7/15/13 Egypt turmoil: US envoy Burns meets interim leaders

BBC News, July 15, 2013

US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns has held talks in Cairo with Egypt’s caretaker leaders.

He met interim President Adly Mansour and Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi, as well as the head of the armed forces, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

He said the US remained committed to an Egypt that was “stable, democratic, inclusive and tolerant”.

Large numbers of protesters from both sides again gathered in Cairo, to coincide with Mr Burns’ visit.

According to Reuters news agency, security forces fired tear gas after supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi scuffled with locals.

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7/15/13 Chill Cairo welcome for U.S. envoy as Mursi supporters gather

Source: Reuters

By Maggie Fick and Yasmine Saleh

CAIRO (Reuters) – The first senior U.S. official to visit Egypt since the army toppled its elected president was snubbed by both Islamists and their opponents on Monday, while huge crowds of supporters of the ousted leader demonstrated in the streets.

After meeting the interim head of state and the prime minister, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns insisted he was not in town “to lecture anyone”. But many on either side of Egypt’s divide suspect Washington of plotting against them.

A huge crowd of supporters of Islamist Mohamed Mursi poured into a square near a mosque in northeast Cairo carrying a giant Egyptian flag, banners and portraits of the detained leader.

Accusing the United States of backing a military coup, thousands of Mursi’s partisans have kept a vigil there since the days before the army toppled him on July 3, swelling to tens of thousands for mass protests every few days.

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7/12/13 Malala at U.N.: The Taliban failed to silence us

By Ashley Fantz, CNN

(CNN) — A Pakistani teenager nearly killed by Taliban gunmen for advocating that all girls should have the right to go to school gave her first formal public remarks Friday at the United Nations. It also happened to be Malala Yousafzai’s 16th birthday.

“Today, it is an honor for me to be speaking again after a long time,” she said. “Being here with such honorable people is a great moment in my life.”

She looked out at an audience of hundreds of children from around the world and U.N. members, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and told them that she was wearing a pink shawl that once belonged to Benazir Bhutto, the two-time prime minister of Pakistan who was killed in 2007 in a suicide attack at a political rally.

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7/9/13 Egypt unrest: Brotherhood rejects Mansour poll decree

BBC

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has rejected a timetable for new elections laid out by interim president Adly Mansour, saying it is illegitimate.

The Tamarod protest movement has said it was not consulted on the election plan and has asked to see Mr Mansour.

Meanwhile, ex-finance minister Hazem el-Beblawi has been named interim prime minister, and opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei vice president.

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7/9/13 Egypt showered with Gulf billions in show of support for army

(Reuters) – Gulf states showered Cairo with $8 billion in aid on Tuesday, showing their support for the Egyptian army’s move to push the Muslim Brotherhood from power, a day after troops killed dozens of the movement’s supporters.

Military-backed interim head of state Adli Mansour named a liberal economist as acting prime minister and announced a faster-than-expected timetable for elections in six months.

Mansour’s army backers are under pressure to plot a path back to democracy less than a week after they overthrew Egypt’s first freely elected president, the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi.

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