Living in Terror Under a Drone-Filled Sky in Yemen

Children fear “planes that shoot” as communities grieve lost loved ones.

VIVIAN SALAMA

APR 29 2013

THE ATLANTIC 

A small house, once made of large cement blocks, is reduced to rubble in a sea of untouched homes and shops in Jaar, a town in South Yemen’s Abyaan governorate. There are no signs of life where that house once stood — no photos, furniture, and certainly no people left behind. In May 2011, the house was struck by a drone — American, the locals say. Some believe the sole occupant, a man named Anwar Al-Arshani, may have been linked to Al Qaeda, although he kept to himself, so no one knows for sure. As Al-Arshani’s house smoldered from the powerful blow, townspeople frantically rushed to inspect the damage and look for survivors. And then, just as the crowd swelled, a second missile fired. Locals say 24 people were killed that day, all of them allegedly innocent civilians.

Eighteen-year-old Muneer Al-Asy was among them. His mother Loul says she knows nothing about America — not of its democracy or politics or people or values. All she knows is that it killed her son. She cannot read and does not own a television. Like many in her village, she says Al-Qaeda is “very bad,” but the thought of her youngest son being killed by an American missile haunts her dreams at night. She screams in fury at the people who took her son: “criminals!” She rocks anxiously back and forth on her sole piece of furniture — a long cushion in her single-room home — recalling the day her son was “martyred” by a U.S. drone. “I am like a blind person now,” says Loul. “Muneer was my eyes.”

Anwar Al-Arshani’s home/Photo by Vivian Salama

Thousands of miles from Washington, where the debate rages on over the moral and legal implications of using unmanned aerial vehicles for lethal targeting, the names and faces of many of the victims paints a somber picture. Some are fathers who can no longer buy food and medicine for their children. Some are kids whose only crime in life was skipping out on studies to play soccer with friends. Some are expectant mothers who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the U.S. focuses attention on the successful targeting of names on the notorious “kill list,” the number of innocent civilians killed by U.S. drones on the rise — threatening to destroy families, spark resentment, and fuel Al-Qaeda recruitment.

While strikes in Pakistan have been recorded since at least June 2004, drones have become more common in Yemen in recent years, used to weed out and eliminate members of Al Qaeda’s notorious Arabian Peninsula network (AQAP). AQAP has been linked to recent schemes including the foiled 2012 underwear bomb plot, as well as for parcel bombs intercepted before reaching synagogues in Chicago in 2010. The drone program has seen some successes, including strikes on high-profile targets like Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi citizen who co-founded AQAP, and senior operatives Samir Khan and Anwar al-Awlaki. The latter was a preacher who often delivered his provocative sermons in English and, like Khan, was at one time an American citizen.

However, with the growing use of so-called “signature strikes” — attacks against suspected but unidentified targets — there have been increasingly troubling signs that many victims are deemed guilty by association. Having committed no crime, their names not part of any list and in some cases, not even known. (click here to read more….)

Saudi Arabia: The Internet’s Enemy Cracks Down on Skype, Whatsapp, and Viber

by Vivian Salama

Mar 29, 2013

The Daily Beast 

Infamous for the severe measures it uses to crack down on alleged security threats, Saudi Arabia is now picking on web-based communication apps, which teens rely on heavily for daily contact. Vivian Salama reports.

Skype, Whatsapp and Viber are subject to a ban in Saudi Arabia, as it demands the rights to monitor all communications via these web-based communications apps.

Despite a medley of applications now available to help Internet users avert such a ban, the kingdom declared that it would block the services within its borders unless the operators grant the government surveillance rights. The companies have until Saturday—the start of the Saudi workweek— to respond to Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), local news reports said.

While Saudi Arabia is infamous for taking authoritarian measures to crack down on perceived security threats, it has increasingly shifted its attention toward the telecommunications sector in recent months. The CITC announced in September that all pre-paid SIM card users must enter a personal identification number when recharging their accounts and the number must match the one registered with their mobile operator when the SIM is purchased. The country’s second-largest telecom company, known as Mobily, was temporarily banned from selling its pay-as-you-go SIM cards after it failed to comply with the new regulations.

“A proposal for a ban would be driven by political and security concerns as opposed to economic concerns,” said Aiyah Saihati, a Saudi businesswoman and writer. “The Saudi government is refraining from taking an extremely authoritarian style dealing with its critical youth population. Saudi may try, without censorship, to find ways to monitor communications.”

As revolution gripped much of the Arab world in 2011, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, spearheaded a counterrevolution—working to appease its critics with monetary and political concessions, while suppressing protests via brutal crackdowns. Reporters Without Borders lists Saudi Arabia as an “Enemy of the Internet,” saying last year that “its rigid opposition to the simmering unrest on the Web caused it to tighten its Internet stranglehold even more to stifle all political and social protests.” (click here to read more…)

 

The Dashed Revolution: The Cost of the Arab Spring

Vivian Salama

Newsweek Magazine (click here for original link)

January 25, 2013

Ismail Ahmed passes much of the day sitting on a small wooden chair outside his grocery–cum–souvenir shop in Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo, watching the cars drive by while smoking Cleopatra cigarettes, which crackle loudly with each drag. Gone are the days when busloads of tourists would pour into his shop near the Pyramids to pick up bottled water and $3 statues of the Sphinx. Since his fellow countrymen rose up against President Hosni Mubarak in January 2011, Ahmed’s business has dwindled. Gone are his hopeful expansion plans for the tiny shop, and his son Mohammed, who used to work alongside him, is looking for other jobs, because income from the store has become but a trickle. “Now if I see two tourists in a day, it means it’s a good day,” Ahmed says as he lights another cigarette. “The tourists are too scared to come to Egypt now. My store is not receiving enough income to support the family.”

Two years after revolutions unsettled and redrew the political map of the Arab world, the hope that inspired so many has not brought the desired change. Across the region, economies are unraveling, opposition groups splintering, and promises for establishing democratic secular governments now seem like a pipe dream.

War rages on in Syria, with more than 60,000 people killed so far. On one single day recently, more than 100 people were shot, killed, stabbed, or burned to death by the brutal security forces taking orders from President Bashar al-Assad. Many Syrians lucky enough to have survived the fighting are on the run, and with no end in sight, the 22-month-old conflict threatens to reshape the region. Some 2 million people—more than half of them children—have already fled Syria for Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and beyond. Already there has been trouble in Lebanon, which has its own bloody history, easily recalled and ignited, and regional observers fear political and sectarian grievances will follow the flow of refugees.

Gomaa, a 35-year-old restaurant owner who prefers to go by one name for security reasons, believes his country was better off before the uprising, and certainly his family was. His hometown of Idlib, an opposition stronghold, has been battered hard by the government, and after snipers moved into his apartment building, his family’s life turned into a nightmare punctuated by volleys of gunshots. Fleeing to Egypt with his wife and two young boys, he found that work was scarce and impossible to come by for a foreigner, though eventually he found a lead on a job as a restaurant busboy in Morocco, where he’ll be living with a large group of men in an apartment in Rabat. With little money to his name, he has arranged for his wife and kids to stay for free with family friends in Algeria. “Of course, I wish to be with my family, but I thank Allah that we are alive.”

In Tunisia, where, in despair over government injustice, vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself, inspiring the wave of protests that came to be known as the Arab Spring, demonstrators flooded into the streets earlier this month. Marking the two-year anniversary of the ouster of former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, this was no celebratory gathering, but rather a show of frustration by people who fear their new government is corrupt, religious, and self-serving. “Where is the constitution? Where is democracy?” they chanted, as police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds. Tunisia has recently been rocked by a scandal dubbed Sheratongate, which centers on allegations that Tunisia’s foreign minister, Rafik Abdessalem, abused public funds to pay for rooms at the five-star Sheraton hotel in Tunis, where he would meet his mistress for illicit trysts. “There are fewer jobs, and corruption and crime is worse than before,” complained Yazid Ouerfelli, 19, a university student from Tunis. “The country is also more divided now because of religion—it didn’t used to be like that.” (click here to read more…)

Americans Kidnapped as Islamist Violence in Mali Spills Into Algeria

Jan 16, 2013

By Vivian Salama

The Daily Beast (click here for original link)

An offshoot of al Qaeda in the Islamist Maghreb is claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of 41 foreign nationals at a gas field Wednesday, as the violence in northern Mali spread across the border. Vivian Salama reports.

As French troops step up their air campaign against Islamist rebels in Mali, a new kidnapping is intensifying fears that jihadists affiliated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have already penetrated parts of the vast Sahara Desert.

At least seven Americans were among the 41 foreign nationals taken hostage Wednesday at the In Amenas gas field in the remote province of Illizi, Algerian state media reported, citing unnamed rebel leaders. A group known as Katibat Moulathamine—or the Masked Brigade, an offshoot of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb—reportedly contacted the Mauritanian news outlet ANI and claimed responsibility for the attack.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed on Wednesday that Americans are among the captives but declined to give further details in an effort to protect their lives. “By all indications, this is a terrorist act,” said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at a meeting with Italian government officials in Rome.

Algerian officials said the attackers threatened to blow up the site and kill the foreigners if their demands were not met. Japanese, British, Norwegian, and French nationals were among the kidnapped, and at least one Briton has been killed, according to state media. Some 300 Algerian workers also were captured but have since been released, according to the state-run Algérie Presse Service.

Algeria “will not meet the demands of terrorists and refuses any negotiation,” Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said in a nationally televised address.

Just over Algeria’s southern border, French and Malian troops have been targeting Islamist positions in northern Mali since Jan. 11, attempting to win back territory seized by rebels in April. Turmoil in Mali has intensified in recent years, after a handful of militant groups linking themselves to the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, an ethnic nationalist group linked to the Tuareg tribe, made considerable gains against the government following a short-lived coup. Amid the confusion and chaos, the MNLA declared the independence of three of Mali’s northern regions, considered the Tuareg homeland, and declared sharia the official law of the land.

According to local reports, the militants have sent child soldiers to reinforce their positions in northern Mali, as well as using the local population as human shields from the French-Malian raids.

“The situation in Mali is in part driven by poverty and extremism, but also by weapons flows from Libya,” said Paul Sullivan, a North Africa expert and professor at the National Defense University. “The Tuareg and others who fought in Libya and then moved back to Mali are a hardened bunch and fairly well-trained. The Algerian government warned the French that it may spill over. It has.”

While Algeria has refused to take part in military action against Mali or any other foreign nation, it has taken precautions to protect its vast border with Mali, sending troops to guard against any cross-border incursions. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of the terrorist network, initially emerged as a radical opposition group in the days of the Algerian civil war of the 1990s but has since expanded its foothold in Mali’s vast ungoverned northern region. Its initial goal was to overthrow Algeria’s government and establish an Islamic state, but experts say its regional ambitions have since expanded to target much of North Africa, as well as Europe and the United States.

“AQIM exists in Algeria and in Libya,” said Sullivan. “They are looking for a safe zone. Mali looks most likely. Libya is pretty much the Wild West in the desert regions. Huge swaths of Algeria are open desert. The borders are porous.”

“The Obama administration needs to have a clear and focused policy on eliminating the threats that diverse, al Qaeda-affiliated groups pose to the United States and to Americans working abroad off of the usual battlefields,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The report in Mauritania’s ANI links Wednesday’s attack to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the Algerian-born radical jihadist who has been linked to some of the most dramatic and high-profile kidnappings of the past decade. In 2002, French intelligence called him “uncatchable.” In 2008, Algerian media reported that Belmokhtar and 15 of his men had surrendered to authorities, a claim later disputed by the group. Belmokhtar, who lost an eye in combat, also has been reported dead on more than one occasion. Experts on jihad note that Belmokhtar maintains allies in the Malian government and has won the support of various extremist elements in the region.

“Algeria is also home to Tuaregs, and any fire erupting in one corner of the Sahara involving a Tuareg tribe could ignite a reaction elsewhere,” said Arezki Daoud, an Algerian political analyst and editor of the North Africa Journal. “This is dream come true for al Qaeda. They want that regional instability.”

The In Amenas field is a joint venture of the Algerian national oil company Sonatrach, BP, and Statoil. In a statement on its website Wednesday, BP said that “contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site,” adding that there is no confirmed information available on the status of the workers.

—With reporting from Eli Lake

 

Riot After Anti-Islam Film: U.S. Ambassador to Libya Killed

Only two months ago, Chris Stevens wrote about how the atmosphere in Libya had changed for the better. People were smiling. Vivian Salama reports on the career diplomat killed in Benghazi.

by Vivian Salama  | September 12, 2012

The Daily Beast (click here for original link)

America’s ambassador to Libya, a career diplomat who dedicated much of his life to the Middle East, has died in a rocket attack on the embassy amid violent protests over a U.S.-produced film deemed insulting to Islam. President Obama confirmed the “outrageous” deaths.

United States ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other consulate personnel were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

Chris Stevens, who was appointed ambassador to Libya in May this year, was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack near the consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi late Tuesday night, as were three of his State Department colleagues, according to witnesses and various news reports. In one account, Libya security forces allegedly attacked protesters gathered outside the consulate Tuesday, causing them to clash violently.

Stevens, 52, was a native of Northern California, graduate of the University of California in Berkley, served in the Peace Corps, and taught English for two years in Morocco before joining the State Department. Prior to his tour in Libya, he was the director of the Office of Multilateral Nuclear and Security Affairs. From 2007 to 2009 he served as deputy chief of mission in Tripoli, Libya. He also served as special representative to the Libyan Transitional National Council from March 2011 to November 2011. As a member of the Foreign Service, he served in Jerusalem, Damascus, and Riyadh.

The New York Times reports a letter from Stevens to his friends, written only two months ago, after a reception in Tripoli. “Somehow our clever staff located a Libyan band that specializes in 1980s soft rock,” he wrote, “so I felt very much at home.”

He also wrote that the atmosphere in Libya had changed for the better. “People smile more and are much more open with foreigners,” he wrote in a later email. “Let’s hope it lasts!”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it “vicious behavior,” in a statement.  “We are heartbroken by this terrible loss,” Clinton said. A number of Libyans were also reportedly killed in the attacks.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Benghazi and Cairo Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, enraged over a little-known film reportedly produced by Israeli-American Sam Bacile. It is allegedly backed by a handful of ultraconservative Egyptian Christians and Florida Pastor Terry Jones, the controversial preacher whose threats to burn the Quran in 2010 sparked deadly riots in Afghanistan. The film’s trailer, available on YouTube in English and Arabic-dubbed versions, depicts a deranged, womanizing Prophet Muhammad facing a hypothetical trial. Any depiction of the prophet is a violation of Islamic beliefs. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Bacile is in hiding following the backlash to his film, but remained defiant that Islam is a “cancer.” (click here for more…)

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Woos Washington

Look who’s visiting Washington!!

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Woos Washington

By Vivian Salama

The Daily Beast

Click here for original story

There was once a time when U.S. officials shunned Arab Islamist parties, frowned on their election victories, and denied them U.S. visas. But times are changing.

Delegates from Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party, a group affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, are in   Washington for their first official visit since Hosni Mubarak was toppled last year. Only days after announcing their party’s candidate in the first presidential election since the revolution, the visiting delegates have met with members of Congress and White House officials and held public discussions at Georgetown University and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Outlawed under the Mubarak regime, members of the Muslim Brotherhood and more hard-line Salafist parties have emerged, not surprisingly, as a powerful force in the Egyptian elections, thwarting the secular groups that are believed to have been the drivers of last year’s revolution. As a group that founded itself on the principles of grassroots activism, the Muslim Brotherhood has long resonated with the people of Egypt, where at many as 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the United Nations.

The delegates sent to Washington were all articulate English speakers, two of whom hold doctorates from U.S. institutions. They were non-evasive, answering impassioned questions from the Georgetown audience about religious persecution and Sharia law. The message was not specifically linked to Islam. They did not criticize—or even mention—Israel. They stressed that Egypt is open for business and encouraged free trade and foreign direct investment. (more…)

Al-Qaeda’s American-Born Agent Al-Awlaki Killed in Yemen

The bad guys are dropping like flies this year…!!

By Mohammed Hatem and Vivian Salama

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) — Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamic cleric who masterminded the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airplane in 2009 with explosives hidden in underwear, has been killed in Yemen, the Defense Ministry said.

A U.S. government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed al-Awlaki’s death. Al-Awlaki was targeted and killed 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the town of Khashef in the province of Jawf, the Yemeni foreign press office said in an e-mailed statement today. Intelligence services say he inspired a shooting rampage that killed 13 people last year at an army base in Fort Hood, Texas.

Al-Awlaki is identified by the Office of Foreign Assets Control list of “specially designated nationals” as a 40-year- old native of Las Cruces, New Mexico, with dual U.S. and Yemeni citizenship. Last year, President Barack Obama approved an order making him the first American ever to be placed on the Central Intelligence Agency’s hit list.

“He is an excellent role model for what al-Qaeda wants its recruits to be in terms of English language, having exposure to the United States or the West, and adhering to the doctrine of al-Qaeda,” said Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

Yemen’s government is under considerable strain following almost nine months of anti-government protests aimed at toppling President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Karasik said.

‘International Fame’

Al-Awlaki reportedly survived an attack by a U.S. drone in Yemen in May, according to Arabiya television, which cited a member of his tribe. He was an avid blogger and used the Internet to communicate with followers around the world, something that “propelled him to international fame,” IHS Global Insight analysts Gala Riani and Jeremy Binnie said today.

Obama, speaking at the start of a swearing-in ceremony for the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Martin Dempsey, in Fort Meyer, Virginia, called al-Awlaki’s death a “major blow” against al-Qaeda that “marks another significant milestone in the effort to defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said in an e-mailed statement that countries must “keep up the pressure on Al-Qaeda and its allies and remain vigilant to the threat we face.”

Boost for Obama

Al-Awlaki’s death follows that of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, killed on May 2 in a U.S. raid on an Islamabad, Pakistan suburb.

“If an unmanned vehicle killed the militant, it will have offered an immediate return on Obama’s recent decision to increase the use of UAV’s in Yemen,” Riani and Binnie wrote in an e-mailed report. “These foreign and security credentials are likely to boost Obama’s bid of re-election next year.”

Pakistani-American Samir Khan, an al-Qaeda militant living in Yemen, died in the same attack that killed al-Awlaki, Yemeni state-run Saba news agency reported, citing an unidentified security official.

Yemen, bin Laden’s ancestral home, was the site of a 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors. Since the start of anti-government protests inspired by uprisings that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia this year, concerns about the deterioration of security in Yemen have grown. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in April that he saw Saleh’s possible fall as a “real problem.”

Al-Qaeda Offshoots

In the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. that killed almost 3,000 people at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon just outside Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, al-Qaeda offshoots have sprung up around the Islamic world, from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa to Iraq and the Arabian peninsula.

An Obama administration official said al-Awlaki directed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to blow up a U.S. jetliner in December 2009 with explosives hidden in his underpants. Al-Awlaki instructed Abdulmutallab to detonate the device over U.S. airspace to maximize casualties, the official said. He also sought to use weapons of mass destruction, including cyanide and ricin, to attack Westerners, the U.S. official said.

The threat posed by al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch was further highlighted last October when two parcel bombs sent from the country to U.S. synagogues were seized in the U.K. and Dubai. The bombing attempts, in which devices were concealed in printer cartridges, prompted the U.S. and European countries to bar flights or cargo from Yemen.

Body Bombs

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based group, has been examining how to develop body bombs stitched into a terrorist’s belly, breasts or buttocks, Seth Jones, a senior political scientist for the RAND Corp., a Santa Monica, California-based policy research organization, said in a July 18 interview.

Yemen, which gets about $300 million a year in security and humanitarian assistance from the U.S., stepped up operations against al-Qaeda after the parcel-bomb attempts, including air strikes targeting the group’s camps. Military aid to Yemen includes Huey helicopters, Hummer vehicles and night-vision goggles, the Pentagon said in August 2010.

Given al-Awlaki’s popularity, revenge attacks may be carried out in the U.S. and Yemen, IHS analysts Riani and Binnie wrote. “His death will likely be considered a victory for both governments,” they said.

–With assistance from Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut, Lebanon, and Margaret Talev and Roger Runningen in Washington. Editors: Jennifer M. Freedman, Karl Maier

Back in Pakistan

Hey everyone. I’m back in Lahore after several weeks of trotting in the Gulf. For as good as it was to get back to my stompin’ ground in the Arab world, it is equally great to be back in Pakistan with all that is going on. I have a radio report coming out in the next day on the escalating violence in the country. In the meantime, this report was released yesterday by Reuters. I found it very interesting because i am a firm believer that at the core of Pakistan’s militant problem is a growing economic crisis.  So many are pushed into lives of extremism based on a lack of opportunity in the country. While I was in Doha I attended a talk at the Brookings Doha Center where one of the speakers actually described the militants as predominantly mercenaries — hired killers involved in the so-called Jihad NOT for religious motivations, but rather, because their families financially benefit from their participation.  It is a fascinating topic.  While in the Gulf, I met Lahore native Saleem Ali, a Brookings visiting fellow. He recently wrote a book called Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistan’s Madrassas.  In it he argued that the problematic madrassas that tend to foster a climate of militancy are not the hardline religious schools, but rather some of the more secular madrassas where economic hardship and social disenfranchisement are an everyday reality. This report, detailed below, discusses how Pakistan biggest security threat is its economic deterioration.  I wholeheartedly agree. 

By Claudia Parsons
NEW YORK, April 2 (Reuters) – Pakistan must be central to U.S. policy on Afghanistan and needs up to $50 billion over the next five years to avoid an economic meltdown that risks turning the country over to Islamic extremists, said a report released on Thursday.

The report by a think tank with close ties to the Obama administration said Washington must also act to strengthen civilian government in Pakistan and persuade Islamabad to stop using militant groups as an instrument of foreign policy.

The Asia Society, whose chairman was Richard Holbrooke until he was appointed U.S. special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan in January, convened a task force to compile the report: “Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan.”

The report, made public on Thursday, was provided to President Barack Obama’s administration before he unveiled his strategy on Afghanistan last week. It closely mirrors Obama’s policy, while focusing more on politics than military issues.

The report said the global economic crisis risked further weakening Pakistan’s civilian government, which has little control over tribal areas that have become safe havens for al Qaeda, and which struggles to match the sway of the military.

“Perhaps the most urgent priority is to prevent economic collapse which could undermine state authority even in major urban areas in the next few months,” the report said.

It cited estimates that halting the economic decline in Pakistan might require a five-year package of $40 billion to $50 billion, a sum that dwarfs Pakistan’s existing $7.6 billion International Monetary Fund bailout.

It said 1 million workers joined the ranks of the urban unemployed in the past six months — a volatile source of tension in a country where 40 percent of the population live on an income of under $1.25 a day.

The report urged Washington to work with a “Friends of Pakistan” group at the United Nations to mobilize donors to provide an urgent rescue package that could involve direct budget support and or a World Bank-administered trust fund.

CENTER OF GRAVITY IS PAKISTAN

Task force co-chair Barnett Rubin said the United States and its allies had for too long focused on Afghanistan while allowing problems to fester in Pakistan.

“The regional center of gravity of the problem is not in Afghanistan,” Rubin said. The report argues that there are no al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, but many in Pakistan, where a variety of other militant groups have long thrived on covert backing from the military and intelligence apparatus.

“Because it faces India, which it sees as an enemy … Pakistan has adopted formally the use of Jihadi groups as instruments of their foreign policy,” Rubin said at a panel discussion in New York on the report.

“One of the aims of our regional diplomacy should be to use all the resources we can to encourage, cajole, force, persuade Pakistan to change its policy away from using those Jihadis.”

Essential to that would be meeting Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns, the report said, and easing tensions with India. Relations between the nuclear-armed rivals were strained further by November’s attacks in Mumbai, which India says were conducted with the involvement of Pakistani state agencies. (The full report can be seen here ) (Editing by Peter Cooney)

The Future of the Muslim Brotherhood

PART II

The youngest members of Egypt’s largest – but banned – party talk politics and more

 The Daily Star Egypt continues its talk with the youngest members of Egypt’s largest, but banned, party about politics, jihad, and life in general in the second and final part of this series. 

Click here to read Part I. 

(to read the PDF version of this story, click here-pdf-ikhwan-youth-part-2.pdf) By Vivian Salama 

CAIRO – With a presence in 70 countries, and a following soon to outnumber any religion, – some 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide today – the Egyptian based Muslim Brotherhood (El-Ikhwan El-Muslimeen) – outlawed; feared; followed; the root of dozens of Islamic organizations – faces a dilemma.  Famed for its orthodox disciplines and fierce stance on a number of issues, both political and religious, the group has recently revealed a tamer, more tolerant and more political side as it looks to hop on the bandwagon of reform.  The question remains, in the face off between politics and Islam, can the group maintain its overwhelming global influence?  

               “If you go to the street and you ask people their political views, without even mentioning Muslim Brotherhood, you will find people saying the exact views as us and agreeing with our position on most issues,” says Asmaa Gamal, 20, studying commerce at Cairo University.  “Once you bring up the Muslim Brotherhood’s name, you will find that the people get scared.  The word alone scares people – it’s outlawed by the government.”“There is a big problem facing the Islamic movements,” insists Ibrahim El-Houdaiby, 22, a senior at the American University in Cairo (AUC) studying political science.  “People in the West teach from their understanding – especially when talking about fundamentalism – the root of the word.  The meaning in the West differs completely from the meaning here.”

              So when discussing Jihad, Islamic holy war, members of the Muslim Brotherhood agree that there is a stark difference in the way it is interpreted versus the way it is taught.  In an interview with the Daily Star Egypt last June, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Madhi Akef explained, “Jihad for Muslims starts with a personal jihad,” he said.  “Jihad is against the enemy.  The infidels, when they come after our land, we must jihad against them.  When the Americans come into Iraq, I must jihad against them.  When the Americans go into Afghanistan I go after them.  To invade another’s land is a crime.”

“This doesn’t mean we’ll say, ‘America, do what you want and we’ll keep quiet,’” adds Ibrahim.  “We will not hit cities when it is haram to hit them.  It is haram to kill civilians to have nothing to do with the situation.”

            

             This group, which underpinned Hamas, planted the root for Al-Qaida and now publicly endorses ideologies of peaceful reform and democracy, has combated negative publicity in this era of a global war on terrorism.  In Egypt, a series of deadly bombings – in Sinai, the Khan El-Khalili market and most recently, in Sharm El-Sheikh has instilled fears in the minds of Egyptian authorities of a revived Islamic Movement.  Even prior to that,  a report released by the United States commission investigating the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11^th 2001 revealed that the architect of the attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, confessed to ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.  

           

              “As for whether jihad is understood by those abroad, my opinion is it is our role to make them understand,” explains Ahmed Ibrahim, 24, a medical student at Cairo University.  “We should at least clear the picture, although the fact that it is misunderstood is not a mistake of Muslims.”

     “There is a difference between jihad and war,” says Lubna Mohamed, 20, a political-science major at Cairo University.  “Violence is different than jihad.  If someone hits a place, you want to do something about it, think of strategies.  But I can’t say its purpose is violence or its purpose is terrorism.  Our lives aren’t about that.”

           

                       The young men and women gave details of different situations where they felt the deadly acts of a small group bared negative impact on the image of Islam worldwide.  Incidents such as the July bombings on the London Underground and last year, bombings to the Madrid Metro – all acts, the group insists, which were violations against the core teachings of Islam. 

           

                    “If they were Muslims, should their actions speak for all Muslims?” asks Osama Ghobish, 21, who studies electrical engineering at Cairo University.  “We are Muslims trying to promote the message of Islam in the correct light.”

                  

                   The group generally supports the actions of Arabs in Palestine and Iraq who are – in their words – defending their roots and homeland, not instigating violence and hatred as in the attacks on New York and Washington or to London and Madrid, or even to Sharm El-Sheikh last month.  This week, as the world watched the last of 8,500 Israeli settlers withdraw from Gaza, many of them by force, these young members of the Muslim Brotherhood shake their heads in pity, calling it merely a song and dance by Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.

                    “The history of this issue is as if we are all just running around after one another,” says Lubna, the others agreeing.  “In a few years you’ll see, [Sharon] will reenter Gaza.  I am sure of this.  This is the pattern throughout the history of Israel.  He wants to give them something to make them drop their guard a little bit.”

                     “This is the biggest change and the biggest steps taken in our region so far, is that the Jews withdraw from Gaza,” says Mahmoud Moustafa, 19, a commerce student at Cairo University, optimistically. 

                    “Sharon did this withdrawal but from start to finish, he’s doing this for his own benefit,” rebuttals Ibrahim.  “People shouldn’t believe that this is done for the benefit of the Palestinians – Sharon killed the roots of the Palestinians.  This is known.  Sharon is the opposite of peace.”           

                   “The photos of Israelis crying and clinging to each other, and the image of the Palestinians celebrating, it is sending to the foreigners an incorrect picture of what is happening,” Ahmed adds. 

                    The group is more moderate in their criticism of America, admitting that just as Americans view the Arabs in a certain light, the Arabs too will view them in their own perspective.  Still, where politics is concerned, there is skepticism among the youngsters toward the unadulterated actions of US President George W. Bush and his motives for intervening in Arab affairs.  With no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and a maintained affirmed ties with Israel, anti-American sentiment will only continue to grow, says the group. 

                  “America wants to take over Iraq for their own benefits, whether it be oil or reasons yet to surface,” exclaims Ibrahim.  “[Bush] wants to take over Syria. In Jordan as well, he’s got King Abdullah in his pocket.  He wants to keep Israel close as well.”            Osama jumps in.  “There is one aspect we don’t focus on, and it’s an important one.  Is [Bush] really moving in on the basis of true information or intelligence?  Maybe they have convinced Americans that he has a point or that he knows what he is doing.”            “Of course it needs to be pointed out that our views on American politics will likely differ completely from the views of the American citizens on their own domestic and foreign relations,” says Ahmed. 

               Politics isn’t the only area of varying perspectives.  Even among Egyptian citizens, the degree to which Islam should play in government affairs is an issue of sharp debate.  In a country which has remained comparatively liberal, critics of the Muslim Brotherhood fear that should they come to power, adoption of Islamic rule will result in the backward motion of society.  It’s no secret – since the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s, a new ideology spread.  Egypt became considerably more conservative, many Muslims abandoning their European fashions for a more modest and traditional garb.  Young men began to grow their beards in a show of unpretentiousness; more women began veiling their hair.  Is it because people have become more religious, or has religion becoming more open? 

                 “I think it is a simple progression of time,” speculates Ahmed.  “The ideas [of Islam] spread.  The ideas were always there, but we repeated its teachings and we spread its blessings to people, and the people in turn adopted the message.  Islam does not focus on an external or outer image, for example the tarha or beard.”           

               “The details of religion that have begun to surface,” adds Lubna.  “People might say bad things about mohagabat (veiled women), but your image should reflect on the way you think.”           

             “Islam says a young person should educate himself well, respectful in his life, and pray,” adds Osama.           

             “A lot of people were afraid at firsts but when the idea was spread a little bit then the people really started to be interested and respect the idea,” says Mahmoud.  “And it is a personal thing before anything.  Just as a man would hope for a woman to wear higab and stay modest, he too should make sure to take care of himself and make sure he looks good.  This is the idea of Islam.”           

           The message this group is communicating is that they are no different than anyone else.  They have very set political and religious beliefs, but in their words, it makes them no greater or lesser threat than a communist, for example.  The young men are witty and mischievous; they talk of football.  The women are intelligent and polite; they discuss clothes and gossip quietly about boys.  They all share dreams of having a family and living a productive life in which they might one day make a difference.

            “You won’t find our dreams different from other people’s dreams,” concludes Ibrahim.  “In our movement, we dream to move the people.  We need to get them involved.  We shouldn’t wait for someone to change things.  We need to change it ourselves first to create a real difference.”