Tributes, condemnation pour in for Al Jazeera journalists assassinated by Israel in Gaza

Al Jazeera

 

Israel's killing of five Al Jazeera staff in Gaza prompts global outrage and calls for accountability.

An outpouring of grief and condemnation has followed the Israeli assassination of five Al Jazeera staff in Gaza, including prominent correspondent Anas al-Sharif.

The drone attack late on Sunday hit a tent for journalists positioned outside the main gate of Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital, killing seven people. Among the dead were Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal.

A sixth journalist, Mohammad al-Khaldi, a local freelance reporter, was also reported killed in the air attack. Reporters Without Borders said three more journalists were wounded in the same strike.
 

Just hours earlier, al-Sharif, 28, had posted on X about Israel's "intense, concentrated bombardment" on eastern and southern Gaza City. Known for his fearless reporting from northern Gaza, he had become one of the most recognisable voices documenting the ongoing Israeli genocide in the enclave.

The Al Jazeera Media Network has condemned what it called a "targeted assassination" of its journalists.

Below are some of the responses to the killing of Al Jazeera staff:

 

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Court releases memo justifying drone killings of Americans

The US on Monday released the secretive memo outlining the Obama administration's legal justifications for targeted-killings of American citizens by drone strike. Used to justify the killing of American born Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011, a federal judge ordered the declassification of the memo after the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times brought a lawsuit against the government. RT's Manila Chan has more on the long-sought release of the document. 

Israeli Murdered in Brussels Worked for Mossad

Richard Silverstein

An Israeli source confirms a rumor that has circulated in Israeli media circles, that one of the Israelis murdered at the Jewish museum in Brussels worked for the Mossad.  Emanuel and Miriam Riva were both accountants.  He worked for an Israeli government agency called Nativ.  It works among Jews from the eastern bloc and encourages them to make aliyah.  During the Cold War, when Israel worked clandestinely to bring Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel, Nativ had a direct pipeline to Israeli intelligence.  Miriam Riva worked for the Mossad.  As far as my source knows, neither of them was an agent.  So it appears that they were not targeted because of her involvement with the Mossad (though that still remains a possibility).

Channel 10 news earlier reported that they worked in government service in Germany for six years.  The phrase “government service” in Hebrew can sometimes be a euphemism for spy work.  In her case, the phrase fits, but only in the sense that she most likely worked for Israel’s overseas spy service in a capacity.

There is no news yet about the identity of the attacker.  Neither neo-Nazis or Islamists have taken responsibility.  Though clearly that has not stopped Bibi Netanyahu from getting on his high horse and blaming European Israel-haters for the crime.  Bibi’s response is typically nasty, mean-spirited and ideologically-motivated, when it should be thoughtful and out-reaching:

Mr Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, seized on the arrival of Pope Francis in the Holy Land to criticise European reaction as too muted – while blaming the incident on “constant incitement” against Israel by “elements in the Middle East and Europe”.
Speaking on his arrival in Israel, the Pope referred to the attack as “this criminal act of anti-Semitic hatred.”
…”There are elements in Europe that rush to condemn the construction of a flat in Jerusalem but do not rush to condemn – or offer only weak condemnations of – the murder of Jews here or in Europe itself and, even worse, welcome unity with a terrorist element such as Hamas, which calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. We oppose such hypocrisy, we protest against it.”
…”I am very disturbed by the growing anti-Semitism in Europe. There must be zero tolerance for anti-Semitism toward Jews and their state.”

In a typical conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Israelism, he makes those who condemn Israel’s illegal policies of Occupation and land theft into accessories to Jew-murder.  We must not let him get away with such nonsense.

The truth is that (and I say this without knowing the particulars of the killings) there are people out there who are just deranged enough and just outraged enough to perpetrate murder as a response to Israel’s bloodletting in the Middle East.  Killings of Diaspora Jews (or even Israeli Jewish civilians) are no more justified than Israel’s killings.  But hatred breeds hatred and killing breeds killing.  No matter what any Israel supporter may say about this, Bibi clearly hates Arabs (as his father did before him) and his policies led to the deaths of several thousand Palestinian civilians.  All the killings have to stop, not just those of Jews.

Obama Administration Desperate to Censor Assassination Memo

All Gov.

After announcing it would comply with a federal court order, the Obama administration has decided that it wants to conceal more portions of a controversial memo authorizing the assassination of Americans overseas. 

Last week, officials with the U.S. Department of Justice said they would make public parts of the internal document written in July 2010 by then-federal lawyer David Barron that justified the use of drones or other means to kill U.S. citizens accused of terrorist involvement. 

The declaration came as the U.S. Senate was considering Barron’s confirmation as a judicial appointee to the First Circuit Court of Appeals—a move that helped convince at least one Democratic senator, Mark Udall of Colorado, to support the nomination. 

Now, with Barron’s place on the federal bench secure, the Justice Department says it needs to censor some sections of the memo dealing with national secrets, not legal reasoning for the assassinations. 

“Some of the information appears to have been ordered disclosed based on inadvertence or mistake, or is subject to distinct exemption claims or other legal protections that have never been judicially considered,” Sarah Normand, an assistant U.S. attorney, told The New York Times. 

The 41-page memo led the way for a drone strike in Yemen three years ago that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric suspected of plotting terrorist attacks.

The judicial order calling for the document’s partial disclosure came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Times and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seeking to obtain a copy.

In seeking to keep additional redactions to the memo, the Justice Department asked the court to keep its request a secret—that next month’s hearing concerning the requested redactions be held privately, barring the presence of attorneys for the Times and the ACLU. But the judge denied that request.

Sen. Udall found it significant that the Obama administration gave its assurance that Barron’s legal reasoning for the drone assassinations would not be among the redacted portions of the memo.

“I intend to hold the White House to its word,” he said in a statement.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

U.S. Seeks to Censor More of Memo That Approved Drone Strike on American (by Charlie Savage, New York Times)

Feds Want to Censor More of the Drone Memo (by Adam Klasfeld, Courthouse News Service)

New York Times Company, et al v. United States Department of Justice, et al (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) (pdf)

Senate Gives Initial Judicial Confirmation to Legal Author of Secret Memos Authorizing Drone Assassinations of U.S. Citizens (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Federal Judges Order Obama Administration to Release Memo Justifying Assassination of Americans (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Human skull inscribed with ‘death to paedophiles’ found in French Riviera

The Independent

The French police have launched a murder investigation after the discovery of the bones of at least four individuals near the foot of a cliff at Cap d’Antibes, near Cannes. Amongst the bones is the humerus, or upper arm bone, of Stéphane Hirson, the 17-year-old who has been missing since 1994.

The skull, discovered by a diver whilst he was searching for urchins, bears a handwritten inscription in indelible marker, which reads: ‘Mort aux pédophiles’ (‘Death to paedophiles’). Alongside the inscription a mark has been drawn, believed to depict a shooting target.

The diver made his unpleasant discovery just six meters below the surface of the water and approximately a hundred metres from a popular coastal path. Police divers subsequently combed the area and retrieved a further four bones; a femur (thigh bone), two humerus bones, and a piece of a jaw bone.

DNA results have shown that the bones belong to at least four separate victims; two men and two women. One of these individuals has been identified as Stéphane Hirson, the teenager who went missing days before his 18 birthday almost twenty years ago. The identity of the other victims remains unknown, but it is clear that both female bones are those of women under 30. The second man, to whom the skull belongs, has been shown to be under the age of 50. DNA tests on the piece of jawbone have been inconclusive, meaning there could be a fifth victim in the case. Although the bones are in good condition, investigators believe they have been under water for over a decade.

Georges Gutierrez, the prosecutor in neighbouring Gasse, announced the opening of the police inquiry on Wednesday. He stated that there are many enigmas to be solved. For example, "Why was there only one bone per individual and not more parts of the skeleton?"  

Hirson went missing in 1994 after being released from a short stay in a psychiatric hospital. A family member has pointed out that he had no reason to be anywhere near Cap d’Antibes, as he was on his way to Spain. An attempt to link known paedophiles to the inscribed skull has not yet yielded any results.

Further DNA tests are ongoing, and additional dives in the area are being considered.

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality

Salon

It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki. No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was "considering" indicting him). Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even had any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt. When Awlaki's father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were "state secrets" and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts. He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner.

When Awlaki's inclusion on President Obama's hit list was confirmed, The New York Times noted that "it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing."

After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.). It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its. The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world. The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced.

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The Destabilization of Pakistan

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, December 30, 2007

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The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has created conditions which contribute to the ongoing destabilization and fragmentation of Pakistan as a Nation. 

The process of US sponsored "regime change", which normally consists in the re-formation of a fresh proxy government under new leaders has been broken. Discredited in the eyes of Pakistani public opinion, General Pervez Musharaf cannot remain in the seat of political power. But at the same time, the fake elections supported by the "international community" scheduled for January 2008, even if they were to be carried out, would not be accepted as legitimate, thereby creating a political impasse. 

There are indications that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was anticipated by US officials: 

"It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. 

Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan's military... 

The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of “chatter” among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto, well before the actual attempts took place. (Larry Chin, Global Research, 29 December 2007)

Political Impasse

"Regime change" with a view to ensuring continuity under military rule is no longer the main thrust of US foreign policy. The regime of Pervez Musharraf cannot prevail. Washington's foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation. 

A new political leadership is anticipated but in all likelihood it will take on a very different shape, in relation to previous US sponsored regimes. One can expect that Washington will push for a compliant political leadership, with no commitment to the national interest, a leadership which will serve US imperial interests, while concurrently contributing under the disguise of "decentralization", to the weakening of the central government and the fracture of Pakistan's fragile federal structure. 

The political impasse is deliberate. It is part of an evolving US foreign policy agenda, which favors disruption and disarray in the structures of the Pakistani State. Indirect rule by the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus is to be replaced by more direct forms of US interference, including an expanded US military presence inside Pakistan.

This expanded military presence is also dictated by the Middle East-Central Asia geopolitical situation and Washington's ongoing plans to extend the Middle East war to a much broader area. 

The US has several military bases in Pakistan. It controls the country's air space. According to a recent report: "U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units" (William Arkin, Washington Post, December 2007). 

The official justification and pretext for an increased military presence in Pakistan is to extend the "war on terrorism". Concurrently, to justify its counterrorism program, Washington is also beefing up its covert support to the "terrorists." 
 

The Balkanization of Pakistan

Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan." (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005). According to the NIC-CIA,  Pakistan is slated to become a "failed state" by 2015, "as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons". (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005): 

"Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government's control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi," the former diplomat quoted the NIC-CIA report as saying.

Expressing apprehension, Hasan asked, "are our military rulers working on a similar agenda or something that has been laid out for them in the various assessment reports over the years by the National Intelligence Council in joint collaboration with CIA?" (Ibid)

Continuity, characterized by the dominant role of the Pakistani military and intelligence has been scrapped in favor of political breakup and balkanization.

According to the NIC-CIA scenario, which Washington intends to carry out: "Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive policies, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction," (Ibid) .  

The US course consists in  fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan. This course of action is also dictated by US war plans in relation to both Afghanistan and Iran. 

This US agenda for Pakistan is similar to that applied throughout the broader Middle East Central Asian region. US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government. 

The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State and redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Pakistan's Oil and Gas reserves

Pakistan's extensive oil and gas reserves, largely located in Balochistan province, as well as its pipeline corridors are considered strategic by the Anglo-American alliance, requiring the concurrent militarization of Pakistani territory. 

Balochistan comprises more than 40 percent of Pakistan's land mass, possesses important reserves of oil and natural gas as well as extensive mineral resources. 

The Iran-India pipeline corridor is slated to transit through Balochistan. Balochistan also possesses a deap sea port largely financed by China located at Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea, not far from the Straits of Hormuz where 30 % of the world's daily oil supply moves by ship or pipeline. (Asia News.it, 29 December 2007) 

Pakistan has an estimated 25.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven gas reserves of which 19 trillion are located in Balochistan. Among foreign oil and gas contractors in Balochistan are BP, Italy's ENI, Austria's OMV, and Australia's BHP. It is worth noting that Pakistan's State oil and gas companies, including PPL which has the largest stake in the Sui oil fields of Balochistan are up for privatization under IMF-World Bank supervision. 

According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Pakistan had proven oil reserves of 300 million barrels, most of which are located in Balochistan. Other estimates place Balochistan oil reserves at an estimated six trillion barrels of oil reserves both on-shore and off-shore (Environment News Service, 27 October 2006) .

Covert Support to Balochistan Separatists

Balochistan's strategic energy reserves have a bearing on the separatist agenda. Following a familiar pattern, there are indications that the Baloch insurgency is being supported and abetted by Britain and the US.

The Baloch national resistance movement dates back to the late 1940s, when Balochistan was invaded by Pakistan. In the current geopolitical context, the separatist movement is in the process of being hijacked by foreign powers. 

British intelligence is allegedly providing covert support to Balochistan separatists (which from the outset have been repressed by Pakistan's military). In June 2006, Pakistan's Senate Committee on Defence accused British intelligence of "abetting the insurgency in the province bordering Iran" [Balochistan]..(Press Trust of India, 9 August 2006). Ten British MPs were involved in a closed door session of the Senate Committee on  Defence regarding the alleged support of Britain's Secret Service to Baloch separatists  (Ibid). Also of relevance are reports of  CIA and Mossad support to Baloch rebels in Iran and Southern Afghanistan.

It would appear that Britain and the US are supporting both sides. The US is providing American F-16 jets to the Pakistani military, which are being used to bomb Baloch villages in Balochistan. Meanwhile, British alleged covert support to the separatist movement (according to the Pakistani Senate Committee) contributes to weakening the central government.

The stated purpose of US counter-terrorism is to provide covert support as well as as training to "Liberation Armies" ultimately with a view to destabilizing sovereign governments. In Kosovo, the training of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the 1990s had been entrusted to a private mercenary company, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), on contract to the Pentagon.

The BLA bears a canny resemblance to Kosovo's KLA, which was financed by the drug trade and supported by the CIA and Germany's Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND).

The BLA emerged shortly after the 1999 military coup. It has no tangible links to the Baloch resistance movement, which developed since the late 1940s. An aura of mystery surrounds the leadership of the BLA.
 

Baloch population in Pink: In Iran, Pakistan and Southern Afghanistan

Washington favors the creation of a "Greater Balochistan" which would integrate the Baloch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran and possibly the Southern tip of Afghanistan (See Map above), thereby leading to a process of political fracturing in both Iran and Pakistan. 

"The US is using Balochi nationalism for staging an insurgency inside Iran's Sistan-Balochistan province. The 'war on terror' in Afghanistan gives a useful political backdrop for the ascendancy of Balochi militancy" (See Global Research, 6 March 2007). 

Military scholar Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters writing in the June 2006 issue of The Armed Forces Journal, suggests, in no uncertain terms that Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of  a separate country: "Greater Balochistan" or "Free Balochistan" (see Map below). The latter would incorporate the Pakistani and Iranian Baloch  provinces into a single political entity. 

In turn, according to Peters, Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) should be incorporated into Afghanistan "because of its linguistic and ethnic affinity". This proposed fragmentation, which broadly reflects US foreign policy, would reduce Pakistani territory to approximately 50 percent of its present land area. (See map). Pakistan would also loose a large part of its coastline on the Arabian Sea.      

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, have  most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles. (See Mahdi D. Nazemroaya, Global Research, 18 November 2006) 

"Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted, before he retired to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy." (Ibid)

It is worth noting that secessionist tendencies are not limited to Balochistan. There are separatist groups in Sindh province, which are largely based on opposition to the Punjabi-dominated military regime of General Pervez Musharraf (For Further details see Selig Harrisson, Le Monde diplomatique, October 2006)

"Strong Economic Medicine": Weakening Pakistan's Central Government

Pakistan has a federal structure based on federal provincial transfers. Under a federal fiscal structure, the central government transfers financial resources to the provinces, with a view to supporting provincial based programs. When these transfers are frozen as occurred in Yugoslavia in January 1990, on orders of the IMF, the federal fiscal structure collapses:

"State revenues that should have gone as transfer payments to the republics [of the Yugoslav federation] went instead to service Belgrade's debt ... . The republics were largely left to their own devices. ... The budget cuts requiring the redirection of federal revenues towards debt servicing, were conducive to the suspension of transfer payments by Belgrade to the governments of the Republics and Autonomous Provinces.

In one fell swoop, the reformers had engineered the final collapse of Yugoslavia's federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, Global Research, Montreal, 2003, Chapter 17.)

It is by no means accidental that the 2005 National Intelligence Council- CIA report had predicted a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan pointing to the impacts of "economic mismanagement" as one of the causes of political break-up and balkanization.

"Economic mismanagement" is a term used by the Washington based international financial institutions to describe the chaos which results from not fully abiding by the IMF's Structural Adjustment Program. In actual fact, the "economic mismanagement" and chaos is the outcome of IMF-World Bank prescriptions, which invariably trigger hyperinflation and precipitate indebted countries into extreme poverty.  

Pakistan has been subjected to the same deadly IMF "economic medicine" as Yugoslavia: In 1999, in the immediate wake of the coup d'Etat which brought General Pervez Musharaf to the helm of the military government, an IMF economic package, which included currency devaluation and drastic austerity measures, was imposed on Pakistan. Pakistan's external debt is of the order of US$40 billion. The IMF's  "debt reduction" under the package was conditional upon the sell-off to foreign capital of the most profitable State owned enterprises (including the oil and gas facilities in Balochistan) at rockbottom prices . 

Musharaf's Finance Minister was chosen by Wall Street, which is not an unusual practice. The military rulers appointed at Wall Street's behest, a vice-president of Citigroup, Shaukat Aziz, who at the time was head of CitiGroup's Global Private Banking. (See WSWS.org, 30 October 1999). CitiGroup is among the largest commercial foreign banking institutions in Pakistan.

There are obvious similarities in the nature of US covert intelligence operations applied in country after country in different parts of the so-called "developing World".  These covert operation, including the organisation of military coups, are often synchronized with the imposition of IMF-World Bank macro-economic reforms. In this regard, Yugoslavia's federal fiscal structure collapsed in 1990 leading to mass poverty and heightened ethnic and social divisions. The US and NATO sponsored "civil war" launched in mid-1991 consisted in coveting Islamic groups as well as channeling covert support to separatist paramilitary armies in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

A similar "civil war" scenario has been envisaged for Pakistan by the National Intelligence Council and the CIA:  From the point of view of US intelligence, which has a longstanding experience in abetting separatist "liberation armies", "Greater Albania" is to Kosovo what "Greater Balochistan" is to Pakistan's Southeastern Balochistan province. Similarly, the KLA is Washington's chosen model, to be replicated in Balochistan province. 

The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, no ordinary city. Rawalpindi is a military city host to the headquarters of the Pakistani Armed Forces and Military Intelligence (ISI). Ironically Bhutto was assassinated in an urban area tightly controlled and guarded by the military police and the country's elite forces. Rawalpindi  is swarming with ISI intelligence officials, which invariably infiltrate political rallies. Her assassination was not a haphazard event. 

Without evidence, quoting Pakistan government sources, the Western media in chorus has highlighted the role of Al-Qaeda, while also focusing on the the possible involvement of the ISI.  

What these interpretations do not mention is that the ISI continues to play a key role in overseeing Al Qaeda on behalf of US intelligence. The press reports fail to mention two important and well documented facts: 

1) the ISI maintains close ties to the CIA. The ISI  is virtually an appendage of the CIA. 

2) Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA. The ISI provides covert support to Al Qaeda, acting on behalf of US intelligence.  

The involvement of either Al Qaeda and/or the ISI would suggest that US intelligence was cognizant and/or implicated in the assassination plot.