What does it take to sustain a militant group/ terrorist group ?

What does it take to sustain a militant group/ terrorist group ?

This featured video aired on RT bring in an expert on the subject and she goes over many details and information that people need to know, if they are concerned with ending terrorism.

In many ways terrorism works just like a business, and a costly one - the organization needs arms, supplies, and each recruit needs to be fed and equipped; it all costs money. But where do terrorists get their money? How are the atrocities financed? Is jihad even possible when you have no-one to back it with a hefty sum? And can a terror group become independent? We ask these questions to economist and expert of the terrorist financial world, Loretta Napoleoni, on Sophie&Co today.



If the video is not functioning properly click here https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/214403-terrorism-business-money-jihad/#.VkdKFV363H4.facebook

Money is always needed to sustain any orginization and the better funded a group is, the longer and more powerful it will be. Cut the money and it will end that organization.

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Alqaeda leader calls Isis Khalifa a Mossad Agent Fraud.

In the News Alqaeda chief comes with very strong ( something obvious to the truthers ) accusations that the head of the Ismaic State ( ISIS ) is indeed a double agent who is working on distabilizing the region to create tensions and instability which will eventually lead and help Israel reach it's ultimate goal of creating the greater israel ( which God destroyed because of their injustices ).. The article states

In a telephone conversation with the Pakistan Voice, al-Zawahiri says that ISIS were created by Washington and Israel, branding them “fake” and part of a zionist agenda.

“Al-Qaeda is the only terrorist organization that truly encompasses the values of Islam […] ISIS are brainwashed mercenaries […] they are funded by the Zionists in Washington and Tel Aviv” he said.

The al-Qaeda leader also accused the CIA of funding ISIS forces through heroin trafficking in Afghanistan.

“ISIS is funded by the CIA’s heroin trafficking in Afghanistan. There is none of this money that is going to al-Qaeda, it is all lies by the Zionist press” he acknowledged. “Saudi Arabia is also hand in hand with the US, Israel and ISIS, which it buy’s its oil from at ridiculous prices” he continued.

“Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States all have common goals in the region” he added. “They want to destabilize the region and take Bashar al-Assad out of the way, so they can control the whole Middle east” he concluded.

A Mossad agent in disguise

The al-Qaeda leader also claims that ISIS Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is none other than a Mossad agent.

“Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a Zionist pig” he explained. “We know his background, he has been in the Mossad for over 18 years” he acknowledged. “He is subverting Islam to destroy Islam in the hearts of Muslims” he pleaded. “Muslims must not be fooled by this Zionist project to take control of the resources of the Middle East. We must not let these traitors take over the region or true Islam will disappear and we will become soulless slaves of the Zionist leaders of this world” he pleaded.

Former Israel Prime Minister, Shimon Peres also emitted similar comments last year in a controversial statement where he told reporters that “Israel should not support ISIS forces […]” and that “such alliances will backlash against Israel”, although most mainstream papers at the time dismissed his “unexpected” comments to failing mental conditions due to his advanced age, turning 92 years old this year.

In June 2013, Zawahiri called for the radical Islamist group Islamic State (IS) to leave Syria and instead focus on Iraq, and in February 2014 al-Qaeda severed all ties with the group altogether.

Check out the Source here : http://yournewswire.com/al-qaeda-leader-reveals-isis-chief-is-mossad-agent-in-disguise/

Alqaeda itself was created and formed also with the help of the united states of America. when Brzezinski met with the mujaheddin ( fighters ) in afghanistan, he openly declared their victory is promised cause they fight a just cause. Watch the video below



War is lies and deceptions, all the time one day it's a friend, next day it's an enemy and sometimes a friend helping another friend defeat an enemy they work for, it makes no sense at all. What just jihad is there ? not much, more manipulations by the war machines the make money off the death of millions at the hands of the ignorant.

May Allah have mercy of the innocence lost and oppressed.

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Putin and Netanyahu meet over Syrian Opperations.

Putin and Netanyahu meet over Syrian Opperations.

Netanyahu meets with putin to discuss over the military presence of Russia in the region in the aid of the Syrian government.

The story details the info below

Recent Russian reinforcements for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which regional sources say include warplanes and anti-aircraft systems, worry Israel, whose jets have on occasion bombed the neighboring Arab country to foil suspected handovers of advanced arms to Assad's Lebanese guerrilla ally Hezbollah.

Briefing Israeli reporters after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu said he had come with the goal of "prevent(ing) misunderstandings between IDF (Israel Defense Force) units and Russian forces" in Syria, where Assad is fighting Islamist-dominated insurgents in a civil war.

Netanyahu added that he and Putin "agreed on a mechanism to prevent such misunderstandings". He did not elaborate. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.

In earlier remarks as he welcomed Netanyahu to the presidential residence of Novo-Ogaryovo, outside Moscow, Putin said Russian actions in the Middle East would always be "responsible".

Underlining the importance of Netanyahu's one-day visit to Moscow, Israel's premier took along the chief of its armed forces and the general in charge of Israeli military intelligence.

Putin, who shares Western concern about the spread of Islamic State influence, has pledged to continue military support for Assad, assistance that Russia says is in line with international law. Russia has been focusing forces on Syria's coast, where Moscow keeps a big Mediterranean naval base.

The United States, which along with its allies has been flying missions against Islamic State insurgents in Syria, has also been holding so-called "deconfliction" talks with Russia.

KEEPING U.S. INFORMED

Netanyahu told Israeli reporters that he had informed the Americans "on each and every detail" of his Moscow visit, adding: "Everyone has an interest in avoiding an unnecessary clash" over Syria.

A U.S. official told Reuters that U.S.-Israeli coordination allowed the allies to share classified technologies for identifying Russian aircraft over Syria: "We know how to spot them clearly and quickly," the official said.

Separately, U.S. officials said Russia had started flying surveillance missions with drone aircraft in Syria in what appeared to be Moscow's first air operations there since beginning its build-up. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, could not say how many aircraft were involved.

A former Netanyahu adviser said Israel was concerned that Russia's help for Assad in battling an insurgency now in its fifth year could create a de facto axis between Moscow, Iran and Hezbollah. Get the full post here : http://news.yahoo.com/israels-netanyahu-says-moscow-talks-aimed-preventing-clashes-105827470.html

I can't stand politics. It seems all they care about is themselves, their interest and their pockets and bank accounts.

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Mass Funeral to be Held for the victims of Kuwait Shia Masjid Attack

A recent attack on a shia masjid in Kuwait has brought the country to an extreme position to take a stand against radical ideologies. The mostly sunni population does not support the actions done to their shia brothers. Aljazera reports on this

Thousands of people in Kuwait have taken part in a mass funeral procession for 27 people killed in a suicide bombing that targeted a Shia mosque on Friday.

A day of mourning was declared in Kuwait on Saturday following the attack on the Imam Sadiq mosque in the district of Sawaber, in the eastern part of Kuwait City.

Police said they were questioning a number of suspects with possible links to the suicide bombing.

The owner of the car that drove the bomber has been arrested and a search is under way for the driver, Kuwait's state news agency reported on Saturday.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the bombing, which was Kuwait's worst attack in years and the first on a Shia mosque.
Documenting life under ISIL

In a message posted on a Twitter account known to belong to the group, ISIL claimed the blast was the work of a bomber wearing an explosive vest.

On Saturday, thousands of Sunnis and Shia from across the country took part in the victims' funeral procession and prayer at Kuwait's Grand Mosque.

Many carried the Kuwaiti flag; others a simple black flag to signify mourning.

Friday's attack prompted the Kuwaiti cabinet to announce after an emergency meeting that all security agencies and police had been placed on alert to confront what it called "black terror".

"The cabinet stresses that it will take whatever measures necessary to root out this scourge, and declares a relentless all-out confrontation with these terrorists," it said in a statement.

Kuwait's Emir Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah visited the mosque, located just a few buildings away from the country's interior ministry, following the attack.

He said the bombing violated the sanctity of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as well as Islamic law forbidding the shedding of the blood of innocents.

"National unity is a protective fence for the security of the nation," Sabah said.

ISIL targeted Shia mosques in neighbouring Saudi Arabia on two consecutive Fridays in May. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/kuwait-hold-mass-funeral-mosque-attack-victims-150627090813135.html

Muslims must stand firm together against extremist who are fueling fire in an ummah that need hands of help, not bombs or flames to burn masjids and kill worshippers.

How do you feel about ISIS ? Comment below

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Assad Is loosing Legitimacy According to Susan Rice

The middle east over-overwhelmingly has been under war conditions that escalated greatly after Operation Iraqi Liberation. Bush and their forces attacked the so called axis of evil ( iraq) and regime change was implemented and Saddam was executed. In Africa Qaddafi was executed at the hands of the so called rebels who were handed Qadafie on a silver platter by the U.N, but that’s a different story.

Came across an article discussing the measures that were taken to remove Bashar al Assad from power in Syria

The United States is poised to shift its position on Syria by calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down because of the violence he has inflicted on his own people and his failure to implement meaningful reforms for the last five months.

Barack Obama could issue the demand as early as Thursday in a speech that will mark a dramatic departure in the Syrian crisis. Until now US policy — echoed by Britain and its EU partners — has been that Assad must lead a transition or get out of the way. Now, for the first time, the US president will tell him bluntly to go.

In previous statements Washington has described Assad as “illegitimate” or “part of the past”. The White House on Wednesday decried Assad’s “heinous actions”, and spokesman Jay Carney said: “We are all watching with horror what he is doing to his own people.”

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday that Washington had evidence of “crimes” in Syria and was ready to use it to step up pressure on Assad.

"He has lost his legitimacy … and Syria would be a better place without him,” Rice said. “We are looking … to lend support to the people of Syria who have the same aspirations for freedom and democracy that we have seen in so many other parts of the world.”

Syrian opposition sources and western diplomats predicted that an unconditional call for his departure would have far-reaching implications, though it would likely be couched in terms of US support for the aspirations of the Syrian people.

The precise timing and content of a presidential statement was still under discussion — partly because the US wants a full account of Assad’s six hours of talks on Tuesday with Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmed Davotoglu, officials said.

The British and French governments are considering their response amid doubts in Whitehall about the wisdom of the US move. It was unclear whether the US would also recognise a Syrian opposition government. Unlike in Libya, where the opposition is based in Benghazi, the Syrian rebels have no base inside the country and are divided on key issues.

US media have reported in recent days that the White House is more eager to make the announcement while the state department is more cautious about the ramifications in the likely event that Assad ignores Obama’s call.

In continuing violence on Wednesday, 17 people were killed in raids in Homs, al-Jazeera reported. New attacks by security forces were also reported from the north-eastern city of Deir Ez-Zor. Citizen journalists working for Avaaz said there had been nine fatalities there and two near Deraa.

The Turkish ambassador to Syria visited Hama, scene of recent heavy civilian casualties, where his presence reportedly led to the cessation of attacks by security forces. The envoy reported that tanks and heavy weapons were being moved out, Davutoglu said in Ankara.

Saudi residents in Syria were reported to have been arrested in apparent retaliation for Riyadh’s criticism of Assad, who King Abdullah described earlier this week as presiding over a “killing machine”.

Read More Here http://www.madavar.com/far-reaching-implications-of-removing-assad-from-power/

Watch this Interview with President Assad with Charlie Rose

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Iran names street after Rachel Corrie Tehran pays tribute to US activist crushed to death by bulldozer while trying stop the demolition of Palestinian homes

Tehran city council has named a street after an American activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003, a local newspaper has reported.

The report in the Hamshahri, a daily affiliated with Tehran's authorities, said the council has named the street Rachel Aliene Corrie. It said the sign would be placed in the city centre, but did not say when it would be displayed.

Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist from Washington, was trying to prevent what she and other campaigners believed was a push by the Israeli military to demolish nearby Palestinian homes. She was 23 at the time of her death.

Iran does not recognise Israel and supports the Palestinians.

The decision marked the first time an Iranian street has been named after a US national since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the pro-west shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi.

Before the revolution, at least three high streets in the Iranian capital were named after former US presidents: Dwight Eisenhower, John F Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt.

Iran and the US have not had diplomatic ties since militant students occupied the US embassy in Tehran, holding American diplomats hostage for 444 days from 1979 to 1981.

There are a few streets in the city named after western nationals, including Bobby Sands, a member of the IRA who died on hunger strike in a British prison in 1981, and Edward Brown, a British Orientalist known for his work on Iranian history.

Washington and its allies say Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, and have imposed sanctions on the country. Tehran maintains its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

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Robert Fisk in Manama: Bahrain – an uprising on the verge of revolution

B

ahrain is not Egypt. Bahrain is not Tunisia. And Bahrain is not Libya or Algeria or Yemen. True, the tens of thousands gathering again yesterday at the Pearl roundabout – most of them Shia but some of them Sunni Muslims – dressed themselves in Bahraini flags, just as the Cairo millions wore Egyptian flags in Tahrir Square.

But this miniature sultanist kingdom is not yet experiencing a revolution. The uprising of the country's 70 per cent – or is it 80 per cent? – Shia population is more a civil rights movement than a mass of republican rebels, but Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa had better meet their demands quickly if he doesn't want an insurrection.

Indeed, the calls for an end to the entire 200-year-old Khalifa family rule in Bahrain are growing way ahead of the original aims of this explosion of anger: an elected prime minister, a constitutional monarchy, an end to discrimination. The cries of disgust at the Khalifas are much louder, the slogans more incendiary; and the vast array of supposedly opposition personalities talking to the Crown Prince is far behind the mood of the crowds who were yesterday erecting makeshift homes – tented, fully carpeted, complete with tea stalls and portable lavatories – in the very centre of Manama. The royal family would like them to leave but they have no intention of doing so. Yesterday, thousands of employees of the huge Alba aluminium plant marched to the roundabout to remind King Hamad and the Crown Prince that a powerful industrial and trade union movement now lies behind this sea of largely Shia protesters.

Yet Crown Prince Salman talks more about stability, calm, security and "national cohesion" than serious electoral and constitutional reform. Is he trying to "do a Mubarak" and make promises – genuine ones for the moment, perhaps, but kingly pledges do tend to fade with "stability" and time – which will not be met?

In an interview with CNN, he acknowledged the Belfast parallels, exclaiming that "what we don't want to do, like in Northern Ireland, is to descend into militia warfare or sectarianism". But the crazed shooting of the Bahraini army on Thursday evening – 50 wounded, three critically, one already pronounced brain dead – was a small-size Bloody Sunday and it didn't take long for the original civil rights movement in Northern Ireland to be outrun by a new IRA. Clearly, the royal family has been shocked at the events of the last week. Sultan al-Khalifa's admission that "this is not the Bahrain I know, I never thought I would see the day that something like this would happen" proves as much. But his words suggest that this huge manifestation of public fury was merely provoked by television pictures of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. For the record, the Shia rebellion against the country's Sunni rulers has been going on for years, with hundreds of political prisoners tortured in four prisons in and around Manama, their tormentors often from the Jordanian army – just as many Bahraini soldiers come from the Punjab and Baluchistan in Pakistan. Yesterday, there were repeated demands for the release of political prisoners, banners carrying photographs of young men who are still in jail years after their original sentencing: they run into the hundreds.

Then there are the disturbing stories of the refrigerated trucks which reportedly took dozens of corpses for secret burial, perhaps in Saudi Arabia. These could be part of the carapace of rumour that has settled over the events of the past few days, but now some of the names of the disappeared – men who were present at the shootings near the Pearl roundabout last week – are known.

Twelve of their names have just been released. So where is 14-year-old Ahmed Salah Issa, Hossein Hassan Ali, aged 18, Ahmed Ali Mohsen, 25 and Badria Abda Ali, a woman of unknown age? And where is Hani Mohamed Ali, 27, Mahdi al-Mahousi, 24, Mohamed Abdullah, 18, Hamed Abdullah al-Faraj, 21, Fadel Jassem, 45, and Hossein Salman, 48? English residents of a nearby apartment block were warned before the shooting that if they took photographs of the soldiers, they would be shot.

Matar Ibrahim, one of 18 Bahrain Shia MPs, agrees that there is an increasing gap now between demonstrators and the official political opposition that is being sought out by Crown Prince Salman.

"We are waiting for an initiative from the Crown Prince," he told me. "He has not mentioned reform or constitutional monarchy and a fully elected parliament. If people have a properly elected government, including the prime minister, they will blame their representatives if things go wrong. Now, they blame the King.

"What we are suggesting is a removal of the barriers between the people and the ruling family. When Hillary Clinton came to Bahrain, I told her that we don't want to see the US 5th Fleet in Bahrain [its military headquarters] as an obstacle to change, but currently, Bahrain is the worst strategic ally for the US."

The head of the Alba factory trade union, Ali Bin Ali – who is a Sunni – warned that his members could go on strike if they wanted to. "Now that people have been shot down on the roads, we will be political," he said.

Which, of course, is not what the Crown Prince wants to hear.

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Cairo protesters: 'we're not Muslim Brotherhood'

The Telegraph reports from Tahrir Square in Cairo where, despite the violence this week, Egyptian demonstrators are determined to continue their protest until they see the back of President Hosni Mubarak.



Adrian Bloomfield talks to the demonstrators about the motivations behind their protests to end President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-rule why they are prepared to put their lives on the line to bring change to their country.

Egypt has now faced from 11 days of unrest and protests, with more than 100,000 anti-government demonstrators filling Cairo's giant Tahrir Square chanting after Friday prayers "today is the last day" for President Hosni Mubarak.

Source

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Palestine: The Arrival of Zionism

Palestine: The Arrival of Zionism

Zionism arrived in Palestine in the late 19th as a colonialist movement motivated by national impulses.

The colonization of Palestine fitted well the interests and policies of the British Empire on the eve of the First World War.

With the backing of Britain, the colonization project expanded, and became a solid presence on the land after the war and with the establishment of the British mandate in Palestine (which lasted between 1918 and 1948).

While this consolidation took place, the indigenous society underwent, like other societies in the rest of the Arab world, a steady process of establishing a national identity.

But with one difference. While the rest of the Arab world was shaping its political identity through the struggle against European colonialism, in Palestine nationalism meant asserting your collective identity against both an exploitative British colonialism and expansionist Zionism.

Thus, the conflict with Zionism was an additional burden. The pro-Zionist policy of the British mandate there naturally strained the relationship between Britain and the local Palestinian society.

This climaxed in a revolt in 1936 against both London and the expanding Zionist colonization project.

The revolt, which lasted for three years, failed to sway the British mandate from a policy it had already decided upon in 1917. The British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, had promised the Zionist leaders that Britain would help the movement to build a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

The number of Jews coming into the country increased by the day - although even at that point, during the 1930s, the Jews were just a quarter of the population, possessing 4 percent of the land.

As resistance to colonialism strengthened, the Zionist leadership became convinced that only through a total expulsion of the Palestinians would they be able to create a state of their own.

From its early inception and up to the 1930s, Zionist thinkers propagated the need to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population of Palestine if the dream of a Jewish state were to come true.

The preparation for implementing these two goals of statehood and ethnic supremacy accelerated after the Second World War.

The Zionist leadership defined 80 percent of Palestine (Israel today without the West Bank) as the space for the future state.

This was an area in which one million Palestinians lived next to 600,000 Jews.

The idea was to uproot as many Palestinians as possible. From March 1948 until the end of that year the plan was implemented despite the attempt by some Arab states to oppose it, which failed. Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled, 531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighbourhoods demolished.

Half of Palestine’s population was uprooted and half of its villages destroyed. The state of Israel was established in over 80 percent of Palestine, turning Palestinian villages into Jewish settlements and recreation parks, but allowing a small number of Palestinian to remain citizens in it.

The June 1967 war allowed Israel to take the remaining 20 percent of Palestine.

This seizure defeated in a way the ethnic ideology of the Zionist movement. Israel encompassed 100 percent of Palestine, but the state incorporated a large number of Palestinians, the people who Zionists made such an effort to expel in 1948.

The fact that Israel was let off easily in 1948, and not condemned for the ethnic cleansing it committed, encouraged it to ethnically cleanse a further 300,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

Source

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Bouazizi has become a Tunisian protest 'symbol'

SIDI BOUZID, TUNISIA // The day started normally for Mohamed Bouazizi, 26, an impoverished vegetable-seller in this rural Tunisian town: shower, prayer and his pushcart. By midday he had doused himself in petrol outside the regional governor's office and set himself alight.

"He was my soul, my life, my heart," said his mother, Mannoubia Bouazizi. "Now he's a symbol."

Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation on December 17 after authorities confiscated his produce triggered a wave of protests over unemployment that is still shaking Tunisia, the worst unrest facing the president, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali since he took power in 1987.

Yesterday Mr Ben Ali fired the interior minister, Rafik Belhaj Kacem, and ordered the release of people arrested so far during protests, save those proven guilty. An evening a curfew was imposed in Tunis, the capital, as soldiers were deployed there and in other areas that have seen clashes between protesters and police.

Tunisia has a growing economy and living standards often on par with western Europe, but has failed to curb 14 per cent official unemployment that is believed to approach double that number among young people.

Jobs are also most scarce in rural towns such as Sidi Bouzid, a strip of low houses and a handful of government offices along a high road in the country's agricultural heartland.

The region lacks key industrial infrastructure, while corrupt officials have long siphoned off state funding meant for development, said Rachid Fetini, a leading businessman in Sidi Bouzid and president of the orientation council at the Centre d'Affaire, a state agency supporting local entrepreneurs.

"For example, milk produced here must be sterilised in Tunis; a local milk factory would double our production," Mr Fetini said. "As for corruption, it's been particularly bad in Sidi Bouzid."

Regional officials could not be reached for comment. Yesterday the prime minister, Mohamed Ghannouchi, said the government would investigate claims of official corruption.

Mohamed Bouazizi grew up in a white stuccoed house down a dirt road near the edge of Sidi Bouzid, one of seven siblings. From the age of 10, he worked selling vegetables in the street to help support his family.

"Mohamed hoped most to buy his own van," said his sister, Samia Bouazizi, 19. "But he wanted it for work, not for himself. Even his private dream was to help his family."

The family was drinking tea at home on Tuesday.

Sidi Bouzid has been under heightened security since the day last month when authorities confiscated Mohamed Bouazizi's vegetables, slapping his face in the process, according to the lawyer, Lotfi Tlili, who is representing the Bouazizi family.

Authorities have said that Mohamed Bouazizi lacked a required permit. However, no permit is needed to sell from a cart, said Hamdi Lazhar, the head of Sidi Bouzid's state office for employment and independent work. Siblings Salem and Samia Bouazizi accused authorities of trying to extort cash from their brother.

After the run-in, Mohamed Bouazizi apparently snapped: he quickly acquired petrol, drenched himself in it, and set himself alight in the town's main street before shocked observers.

"An ambulance took him away, and people starting gathering," said Mr Tlili, who was at the scene. "By the afternoon it was a demonstration, and the police intervened with clubs and tear gas."

Mohamed Bouazizi was later transferred to a hospital in Tunis, where he died last week from his burns. His family has filed a complaint against the Sidi Bouzid municipality for the alleged assault on him by authorities, Mr Tlili said.

Meanwhile, protests have rippled across Tunisia, captivating a generation that is following news of unrest via online networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

While few openly blame Mr Ben Ali for Tunisia's woes, the internet has buzzed with anonymous support for the Tunisian rapper, Hamada Ben-Amor, briefly arrested this month after releasing a song seen as an affront to the president.

Authorities say that 23 people have been killed so far as protesters have clashed with police, whom they say have only used force in self-defence or to protect lives and public property. Union officials quoted by wire services have put the death toll as high as 46.

The National

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Police join protests in Tunisia

Thousands of demonstrators, including police officers, lawyers and students, have taken to the streets of Tunisia's capital, Tunis, in another day of unrest in the North African country.

At least 2,000 police officers participated in Saturday's demonstrations, according to the Associated Press news agency. They were joined by members of the national guard and fire departments.

Crowds gathered in front of the office of Mohamed Ghannouchi, the interim prime minister, and on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the main street of Tunis.

The rally was the latest in a month of turmoil that toppled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia's longstanding ruler, sending him into exile in Saudi Arabia on January 14.

While many demonstrators are continuing to demand the dissolution of the interim government, the police officers who have joined the protests are seeking better working conditions and an improvement in what they call unfair media portrayal.

Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Tunis, said that the police officers marched with protesters, wearing red armbands in solidarity with the marching crowds.

"They said they want to be with people now, they want to be part of the revolution," she said.

"They no longer want to be persecuted - they say, 'Please don't blame us for the deaths of the protesters'."

Indeed, the protesters have changed tactics.

At the prime minister's office, Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra reported, protesters broke through barricades but no violence occurred.

He reported that the anti-riot squad pleaded with the crowd, saying: 'Do whatever you want to do but please don't storm the office of the prime minister. That is a red line."

But protesters were already starting to break the barricades by late afternoon.

Masoud Romdhani, a trade union activist who was at the demonstration, told Al Jazeera that the protests must continue in order to oust the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), the former ruling party, entirely.

Many Tunisians are angry over the inclusion of several prominent members of Ben Ali's cabinet in the new interim government.

Romdhani said labour activists feel that "nothing is done" until the RCD is removed from the cabinet entirely.

Countering such criticism, Sami Zaoui, the Tunisian secretary for communication technologies, told Al Jazeera that "civil society" and opposition parties account for more than two-thirds of the transitional government.

He also rejected the view that Ghannouchi was "in a difficult situation" and played down the ongoing protests as "very local demonstrations".

"We cannot say that the entire country is currently demonstrating," Zaoui said.

Dissolution demanded

A day earlier, hundreds of protesters took to the streets seeking the dissolution of the interim administration.

In an effort to dampen the anger, interim prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, who is a former ally of Ben Ali, pledged to quit politics after elections that he says will be held as soon as possible.

In an interview on Tunisian television on Friday, Ghannouchi said he would leave power after a transition phase that leads to legislative and presidential elections "in the shortest possible timeframe".

Despite resigning his RCD membership, he has been struggling to restore calm under a new multiparty government that the opposition complains retains too many members of the party.

"My role is to bring my country out of this temporary phase and even if I am nominated I will refuse it and leave politics," Ghannouchi said.

He did not say why he was leaving politics or specify when the elections would be held. He said the elections must be a success "to show the world that our country has a civilisation".

Ghannouchi also said that all of the assets held abroad by Ben Ali's regime had been frozen and would be returned to Tunisia after an investigation.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Tunis, said that Ghannouchi also announced that the state would provide compensation to those who died during the uprising, as well as their families.

The army and the justice department have been ordered to preserve any documents and evidence that can be gathered so the old government can be implicated throughout the investigation, our correspondent said.

The transitional government has also said that it would lift a ban on political groups, including the Ennahda (Renaissance) party.

The leader of the formerly banned party, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that Ennahda is democratic and should not be feared, and he rejected any comparison between him and Iran's late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

"We are a moderate Islamic movement, a democratic movement based on democratic ideals in ... Islamic culture. Some people pull Khomeini's robe over me, while I am no Khomeini nor a Shia," he said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/2011122133816146515.html

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BP was there from the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Democracy in Iran, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Catastrophe and Deaths

If you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there.

But the fourth largest company in the world wasn't always called BP. It used to be owned by the British Government (remember the navy armada in need of oil). It was named the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company when the CIA teamed up with the British because the Western style Iranian leader Mossadeq wanted to nationalize Britain's 100% owned and run giant oil concession in Iran, and the West would have none of that. So Eisenhower authorized "Operation Ajax," and the Shah of Iran was placed in power -- ruling with an iron fist and the dreaded SAVAK, all the time fully backed by the U.S. -- leading to the radical theocratic revolution that we still confront today. All the time BP, which formally adopted its current name in 1954, was there.

BP was there throughout the de facto colonization of the Middle East to provide oil to the West, the British and the U.S. remaining strong partners in keeping any recalcitrant nations in line. Which leads to the Iraq War and why many Americans and Brits were puzzled by Tony Blair's eagerness to go along with Cheney's secret oil committee plan to seize Iraq oil fields and Bush's belief that the war was Biblically justified. BP is the largest corporation in the UK and the third largest energy company. Do you have any more questions?

BP and its American counterparts are part of the corporate oligarchy that run governments when it comes to energy policy. They don't take orders from sovereign nations; they give them. They are unelected, but because of their hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and profit, they run the show when it comes to oil policy, and profit comes first: forget about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oil is their gold; we are just consumers who can be replaced at any time by more consumers, vassals to the oil company Masters of the Universe. There is no brake on their malfeasance, greed and criminal behavior, nor their ability to get nations to go to war, overthrow democratically elected leaders, and to get away with pollution of proportions beyond the imagination.

For over a century, whenever American and British GIs have died for oil, whenever pollution and toxicity have been let loose to ravage our shores, whenever residents have died of cancer caused by the oil refining process and spills, whenever Congress and White Houses have loosened regulations to allow reckless and massively damaging behavior, BP was there, along with their American counterparts: companies so large that they are above the law and governmental control.

Most American presidencies and Congress -- and particularly the Bush/Cheney Presidency -- have regarded oil companies and the control of oil resources as essential to the survival of the American economy. As a result oil companies and the secondary businesses that support them -- such as Halliburton and Transocean -- are indeed able to call the shots and get the U.S. and the UK to do their bidding. In the UK, BP is the power behind 10 Downing Street when it comes to foreign policy, drilling, and all things oil; that is why Tony Blair could not refuse to join the Bush/Cheney (and Rumsfeld) attack on Iraq.

Which leads us to the catastrophe in the Gulf. Of course, BP was off drilling in waters too deep for them to have developed a plan in case the well blew. Of course, they had memos indicating that they valued profits over lives and the environment. Of course, they have lied about the size of the oil pollution and their ability to fix it from the moment that more then 10 men died as the well exploded. That is their job. It has been since 1901, when their predecessor company began exploration in Iran. During her "reign," the iron maiden, Margaret Thatcher, allowed BP to be privatized, and it quickly -- Pac Man style -- gobbled up several other oil companies, including AMOCO.

For more than a century, we -- citizens of a nation founded on democratic principles of citizens deciding their nation's destiny -- have been nothing but pawns in the war over access to oil, wherever it is or might be found.

And the forecast in any shift of power from oil governance to governance by the people is looking bleaker every day.

Source

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Holocaust Museum built by Arab Lawyer

As the sirens wail for Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Israeli diplomatic corps urges the world to remember and never permit such atrocities to happen again, one Arab lawyer takes history lessons about the Holocaust out to the Palestinian people. Khaled Kasab Mahameed faces opposition from Holocaust deniers, but still he persists with his quixotic mission: traveling to the West Bank to educate Palestinians about the Shoah, the final solution, the Holocaust.

Many Palestinians have never heard that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during Word War II — it doesn't rate a mention in their school history books. Others deny that the Holocaust ever happened. According to this blinkered reasoning, the Jews are fighting Palestinians over their homeland, and they cannot afford to have sympathy for their enemy. Mahameed sees this view as tragically misguided. He says:

The key to the Palestinians achieving their own goals is to understand the Holocaust, and the place it holds in the Israeli psyche and its obsession with security.

Mahameed passes around a death-camp photo of a Jewish inmate standing over a mass grave full of naked corpses. The room of Palestinians falls silent. "That man, that survivor, in the photograph came to Israel. Can you imagine the nightmares, the horrors that he brought with him? It's a suffering that nobody, even us Palestinians, can begin to comprehend," he says with quiet, lawyerly persistence. The photo moves around the room, again and again, in silence. Finally, a retired Palestinian general, Abdul Latah Solimia, once captive in an Israeli military prison in Lebanon says: "As a militant, I know the cost of war and hatred. For 60 years, we have tried to eliminate each other, and neither has won. We Israelis and Palestinians should share this land."

Mahameed's obsesison with teaching Arabs about the Holocaust occurred four years ago, when he took his two children to see the massive 20-foot high concrete wall that Israel has erected around parts of Jerusalem to keep out Palestinians. It is so high in places that it seems to sever half the blue sky. "I told my son to break off a piece of the wall as a souvenir. It was very difficult, and while he was trying, I asked myself, what would drive the Israelis to do such a thing to us, build such a monstrosity as this wall?" He gathered his son and daughter and drove them to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. "It was very moving. I couldn't breathe. Six million. It's like something off another planet," he recalls.

Touring the somber museum, it occurred to Mahameed that "we Palestinians are the victims of the terrible things that were inflicted on the Jews by the Holocaust." The images of the crimes perpetrated against the Jews of Europe also made him understand international support for Israel. "If an Israeli child dies from a Gaza rocket, the Israelis can take a photo of that child to America and them about 1.5 million Jewish children who died in the death camps, and Israelis will be given more money and weapons to use against us," he says. Most Israelis experience the same images of a Gaza rocket attack in the exterminationist frame of Auschwitz, not simply as a product of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over land.
Using photos donated by Yad Vashem and images from the Naqba — the "Catastrophe," which is how Palestinians refer to the events surrounding Israel's independence, which left thousands of Palestinians in exile and in refugee camps — the lawyer set up a one-room museum in his hometown of Nazareth, called the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education. Every week, he travels to towns, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank trying to enlighten his fellow Palestinians. Says Mahameed, "Even with the militants, when I explain to them that Israel's brutal policies in the Palestinian territories stem from the Holocaust, they tell me 'You're bringing us an atomic bomb. We need to think about this.'"
Sometimes, his message is greeted with hostility — even in his own family. Mahameed has been ostracized by his brothers, who say that his obsession with the Holocaust is tantamount to sympathizing with Israel. False rumors that he is secretly on Israeli payroll dog him.
On the Israeli side, there is incomprehension, too. Yad Vashem staffers question his agenda." Replies Mahameed: "They don't want us Palestinians to have pity on them. They only want to show us how mighty they are."

Mahameed is an avid believer in Mahatma Gandhi's dictum that truth leads to non-violence, and he sees himself practicing a kind of ju-jitsu, using Israel's own moral superiority over the Holocaust as a way to shame the Israeli 'occupiers' in the West Bank into more humane treatment for the Palestinians. "If the Israelis believe that the Holocaust justifies this kind of brutal discrimination, then they're wrong."

He travels through army checkpoints showing his ID card and a photo from Auschwitz. At first he's met with suspicion. "I tell the soldiers that this could be a photo of their grandfather, and that I understand that they, as Jews, are unique victims. But the paradox is that we Palestinians have the Holocaust on our shoulders, too."

Source : israelity bites: Shoah and Tell - an Arab's Holocaust Museum



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