LVHS IR/GSI Blog: The Middle East and North Africa (1st)
Mr. Bailey's 1st Block IR-GSI Class blog focused on the current events of the Middle East and North Africa
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Hundreds of anti-govt protesters break into Baghdad 'Green Zone'
Hundreds of supporters of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday stormed Baghdad's Green Zone and some entered the parliament building after lawmakers failed to convene for a vote on overhauling the government.
There were no reports of clashes with security forces. But an army special forces unit was dispatched with armoured vehicles to protect sensitive sites, two security officials said. No curfew has been imposed, they said.
Saudi Binladin Group, founded by Osama bin Laden's father, is a giant of Saudi Arabia's construction industry. But with reports it has laid off 50,000 workers as it struggles under a mountain of debt, the once mighty company appears to be in turmoil.
In a video posted on YouTube Saturday, flames rise high from a row of blazing buses and light up the night sky. The footage reportedly shows the result of a protest by disgruntled workers of the Binladin Group, angered by months of unpaid wages and the layoff of tens of thousands of staff.
Local media said that a total of seven company buses were set on fire by the protesting workers. Major Nayef al-Sharif, the spokesman for the Civil Defense in the city of Mecca, told the Associated Press late Saturday that firefighters put out the blaze without any injuries reported.
The protests came a day after news broke that the company has let go some 50,000 workers – totaling a quarter of its workforce going by the 200,000 employees the firm claims to have on its LinkedIn page.
VIDEO PURPORTEDLY SHOWING BUSSES SET ON FIRE BY PROTESTING BINLADIN GROUP WORKERS
The sacked workers, apparently all foreigners, were given permanent exit visas to leave the kingdom, Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported, citing unnamed sources.
Protests are rare in authoritarian Saudi. But workers at the Binladin Group have been demonstrating outside Binladin's offices in the country almost daily over unpaid wages, the paper said. It said some had not received wages for more than four months.
The Binladin Group has not issued any statement about the lay-offs nor the allegations of unpaid wages. An emailed request for comment from FRANCE 24 went unanswered.
Tough times
It is the latest sign that all is far from well at the company – one of the biggest construction firms in the Middle East – as it struggles to deal with a major downturn in government spending on infrastructure along with falling out of favour with Saudi's powerful royal family.
Founded in 1931 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Laden, the Binladin Group has grown into a vast construction conglomerate but one that firmly remains a family-run business.
Its current chairman, Bakr bin Laden, is one of Mohammed's more than 50 sons. Several of his brothers sit on the company's board of directors.
Osama bin Laden owned shares in the company until 1993, when the former Al Qaeda leader was disowned by the family.
Despite the negative connotations of the Bin Laden name in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the Binladin Group prospered along with the petroleum-fuelled economies of Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern states.
Its close ties with the Saudi royal family helped it win contracts for some of the Gulf kingdom's biggest infrastructure contracts. It is one of the main contractors working on the Jeddah Tower in Jeddah, which when completed will be the world's tallest skyscraper at just over 1,000 metres high.
But the Binladin Group, like many of the region's construction companies, has been hit by a dive in oil prices, which has seen the Saudi government significantly rein in its infrastructure spending as it looks to fill a near-$100 billion (87 billion euros) budget deficit.
The group suffered another setback in September last year when one of its cranes collapsed during construction work at Mecca's Grand Mosque, killing 111 people days before the start of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
The Saudi government blamed the group for the accident and, despite their previously close ties, barred the firm from acquiring new contracts.
$30 billion in debt
The extent to which this downturn in fortune has impacted on the firm's finances is uncertain as the tight-lipped company issues no public financial statements.
But a report in March in the Wall Street Journal claimed that the Saudi Binladin Group was loaded with debt totalling more than $30 billion, citing regional and international bankers.
An unnamed executive at one of the group's subsidiaries told the newspaper that the parent company hadn’t provided any funding to the unit for more than six months.
Meanwhile, the job cuts at the Binladin Group and Saudi's wider economic woes are another blow to Saudis legion of foreign workers.
International Monetary Fund figures show 56 percent of the kingdom's workforce were expats as of 2013, the vast majority in low-skilled, low-wage jobs. But not only has Saudi frequently been accused of human rights abuses in its treatment of migrant workers, but the government has recently introduced measures to reduce its reliance on overseas labour and boost employment among Saudi Nationals.
Syrian opposition fighters on Tuesday shelled government-held parts of Aleppo, killing at least 12 people, as the army claimed it was repelling a wide offensive by the rebels in the country's largest city.
Activists, meanwhile, said government forces were also shelling rebel-held parts of the city, killing two people and wounding several.
The escalation came as the diplomatic focus moved to Moscow where the U.N. envoy for Syria started talks in efforts to restore a piecemeal cease-fire that would also include the contested northern city.
Staffan de Mistura is expected to push that the truce also cover Aleppo, which has seen an escalation in violence in recent weeks. De Mistura's meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came a day after he met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva.
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In opening remarks in Moscow, de Mistura said "we need to make sure the cessation of hostilities is brought back on track."
Aleppo has been the center of violence over the past 12 days that left more than 250 civilians dead in the contested city. The city was excluded from a truce declared unilaterally by the Syrian military last week for the capital, Damascus, and its suburbs and the coastal province of Latakia.
Syrian state TV said shells hit a government-held area during morning rush hour, killing seven people and wounding at least 35, while activists reported two dead in a rebel neighborhood. Hours later, some rockets hit a hospital killing and wounding dozens of people, the TV said.
The TV said one of the rockets hit the Dubeet hospital in the central neighborhood of Muhafaza. The TV did not give a breakdown of the casualties.
"Shells and mortar rounds are raining down on every neighborhood [of] Aleppo," said Aleppo-based health official Mohammad Hazouri, speaking from Al-Razi hospital. He said four people were killed and more than 30 wounded in Dubeet hospital alone, adding that half the casualties at the hospital were women and children.
He said the rebel bombardment of government-held parts of Aleppo on Tuesday killed a total of 12 people and wounded more than 70.
The Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen TV that has reporters in the government-held parts of Aleppo showed damage on both sides of the street in front of the hospital, which also appeared heavily damaged.
Cars in the street were scorched and some were turned over. The shops on the other side of the street showed moderate damage as smoke still climbed out of the wreckage.
The Syrian military said in a statement it is repelling a wide scale attack on Aleppo launched by "terrorists" - a government term that includes all armed groups fighting President Bashar Assad's forces.
Tuesday's statement said the attack was preceded by heavy shelling of residential areas of the city, which caused civilian casualties, including at a hospital that was hit. The army said the multi-pronged attack on Aleppo was launched by armed terrorist groups, including al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham and the Army of Islam.
"Our armed forces are currently working on repelling the attack and appropriately returning fire," it said.
Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi warned militants they will face harsh retaliation for the shelling of civilian areas, saying the government's "patience is running out and if they don't stop targeting civilians in the coming hours ... they will pay a high price."
The activist Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the shelling of government-held parts of the city, and also said that seven were killed, including a child. The Observatory said more than 50 were wounded, including some who were in critical condition, which could raise the death toll.
The Observatory and another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said government forces also shelled rebel-held parts of the city on Tuesday, killing two people and wounding several.
Also in northern Syria, warplanes carried out intense airstrikes on the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the extremist Islamic State group, in the early hours Tuesday. Activist groups said it was not clear if the warplanes were Russian or those of the U.S.-led coalition.
The Observatory, which has a network of activists around the country, said there were more than 35 air raids and that 18 people were killed, including five members of the Islamic State group. It said dozens were wounded.
The anti-IS group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently said the airstrikes killed 10 and wounded dozens - but different casualty figures are common in the chaos of Syria's civil war. The group said there were calls from mosque loudspeakers for the residents to donate blood.
IS suffered major setbacks over the past months in Syria against government forces and U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters including the loss of the central historic city of Palmyra.
Egypt's journalists' union has demanded the dismissal of the interior minister after two journalists were arrested at its headquarters in Cairo overnight.
The union also called for a sit-in to protest against the security forces' "blatant barbarism and aggression on the dignity of the press".
The interior ministry has denied the union was raided, but confirmed the arrests of the journalists.
Amr Badr and Mahmoud al-Sakka are accused of inciting protests.
The two men work for the website Bawabet Yanayer (January Gate), which is critical of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi's government.
'Unprecedented move'
In a statement issued on Monday morning, the journalists' union condemned what it called a "raid by security forces whose blatant barbarism and aggression on the dignity of the press and journalists and their syndicate has surprised the journalistic community and the Egyptian people".
It called for an "open-ended" sit-in outside the union's headquarters running at least until a general assembly meeting on Wednesday.
Dozens of people gathered on the steps of the building, chanting "journalists are not terrorists", the Associated Press reported.
Image copyrightAPImage captionThe union's headquarters was the rallying point for an anti-government protest on 15 April
Members of the union said dozens of police officers had been involved in Sunday night's operation to arrest Mr Badr and Mr Sakka, and that a security guard had been injured in the eye.
The opposition Egyptian Social Democratic Party denounced what it called "the storming of the press syndicate", which it said was "an unprecedented move".
But the interior ministry insisted that it had not been a raid, that only eight officers had been involved, and that there they had not used any force.
Later on Monday, the official Mena news agency quoted state prosecutors as saying the two journalists and seven others working for Bawabet Yanayer were being investigated on suspicion of "using fake news" to incite protesters to "clash with police forces and storm public and vital establishments" last Monday.
The union's headquarters were sealed off by police that day after being named as a rallying point for protests against President Sisi's decision to hand back control to Saudi Arabia of two islands in the Red Sea - a move critics have condemned as unconstitutional and lacking in transparency.
Image copyrightReutersImage captionAleppo was Syria's largest city before the civil war erupted in 2011
Dozens of people are reported to have been killed in fierce clashes between rebel groups and government forces in the divided Syrian city of Aleppo.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels advanced into government-held western districts overnight but were pushed back by Wednesday morning.
The battle was the most intense in Aleppo for more than a year, it added.
Russia later said attacks by jihadist militants allied to the rebels had disrupted a plan for a temporary truce.
Defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that a "regime of calm" in Aleppo lasting 24 hours had been due to take effect on Tuesday.
But, he added, the plan was shelved following deadly ground and rocket attacks on government-controlled areas by al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate.
Meanwhile, activists reported that government warplanes had carried out more than 20 air strikes in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta outside Damascus, after the regime of calm declared by the government around the capital on Saturday expired.
A surge in fighting in Aleppo in the past two weeks has killed almost 300 people and left the nationwide cessation of hostilities brokered in late February by the US and Russia, which back opposing sides in the war, close to collapse.
A coalition of rebel groups fighting under the name "Fatah Halab" (Aleppo Conquest) launched the assault on the government's defensive lines in the west of the city on Tuesday by exploding a tunnel bomb, the AFP news agency reported.
There were intense gun battles, air strikes and artillery attacks throughout the night, and clashes were still going on intermittently on Wednesday.
There were conflicting accounts of the outcome of the battle.
Image copyrightReutersImage captionCivilians have borne the brunt of government air strikes in rebel-held Aleppo
The Syrian Observatory, a UK-based monitoring group, reported that the rebels initially made gains, but were eventually driven back by government troops, backed by fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.
A rebel fighter told the Reuters news agency that some ground had been captured from the government side, while a military source said the attack was repelled.
The rebel said about 40 pro-government fighters and 10 rebels had been killed, according to Reuters. The military source denied there were heavy army casualties, but said dozens of civilians and many rebels had been killed.
Image copyrightReutersImage captionRebel rocket attacks have left many civilians dead in government-controlled areas
The state news agency, Sana, meanwhile reported that three civilians had been killed by rockets fired at two government-held districts by al-Nusra militants.
Al-Nusra, which is allied to a number of rebel groups, is excluded from the cessation of hostilities along with the rival jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
The government and its ally Russia say only al-Nusra positions in Aleppo are being targeted, but the opposition and the US accuse them of indiscriminately attacking civilians and rebels abiding by the cessation of hostilities.
Aid agencies say Aleppo is on the brink of humanitarian disaster. Large parts of the city have been destroyed and its infrastructure has been severely damaged, leaving civilians without water and electricity.
The UN Security Council will discuss the violence in Aleppo later on Wednesday.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, will also meet UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura and Syrian opposition leader Riad Hijab in Berlin to discuss efforts to end the five-year war, which has left more than 270,000 people dead.
Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, in protest at a months-long political crisis and lack of reform.
Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has asked his supporters to march towards the Green Zone, where the government is based.
He wants Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to press ahead with his plan to replace ministers appointed on the basis of political affiliation with technocrats.
Powerful parties in parliament have so far refused to approve the reshuffle.
Systemic political patronage has aided corruption in Iraq, depleting the government's resources as it struggles to cope with declining oil revenue and the cost of the war against the jihadist group Islamic State.
'Radical change needed'
The BBC's Ahmed Maher in Baghdad says this is one of the country's worst political crises since the US-led invasion and downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Image copyrightReutersImage captionMembers of Iraq's parliament have been unable to agree on a new cabinet line-up
For the past three weeks, MPs have been unable to agree on a new line-up of non-partisan ministers proposed by the embattled prime minister as a key element of programme to tackle corruption.
More than 100 MPs have been staging a sit-in in parliament since mid-April to express their frustration at others who have blocked votes on the reshuffle.
They even voted to sack the speaker of parliament, Salim al-Jabouri.
The political fight turned violent last week as rival MPs kicked and threw bottles of water at one another, our correspondent adds.
On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of Mr Sadr's supporters heeded his call to "frighten" MPs from the main political parties, which rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds, and "compel" them to agree to the prime minister's reforms.
They marched from Tahrir Square in central Baghdad towards the entrance of the heavily-fortified Green Zone, where parliament was expected to convene in a fresh attempt to vote on the reshuffle.
Image copyrightReutersImage captionMoqtada al-Sadr wants protesters to "compel" MPs to agree to the prime minister's proposals
"Our participation in the demonstration aims to reject this government for being sectarian," protester Abu Ali al-Zaidi told the AFP news agency.
The government "did not bring the country and Iraqis anything but poverty and killing", the taxi driver from the southern province of Maysan added.
The MP and former national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, acknowledged the political system was "not working" and that "radical change" was necessary.
But he told the BBC that Tuesday's protests were "not terribly helpful".
"We need a calm political atmosphere to sit down and hammer out some political middle-of-the-way solutions for this stalemate," he added.
American warships may join European Union vessels off the coast of Libya by the summer in a Nato-led attempt to slow the flow of refugees from Africa into Europe, it emerged at a meeting of the G5 world leaders in Hanover.
Until now, the EU, through Operation Sophia, has been entirely responsible for policing the international waters off Libya and Nato has been patrolling the much narrower Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece.
Officials at the G5 meeting said it was now being proposed that the EU and Nato work together off Libya sharing intelligence and assets to close down the smugglers’ networks. EU leaders, especially Italian ministers, are deeply concerned by a potential surge in the number of refugees reaching Europe from Africa, even though there has not yet been a spike in the figures this year.
The wider Libya mission is likely to be approved by alliance leaders at a Warsaw summit on 7 July, according to the Italian defence minister, Roberta Pinotti.
“At the Nato level, we have asked for Operation Active Endeavour to be recalibrated from an anti-terrorist operation in the eastern Mediterranean to one which oversees the Libyan coast,” said Pinotti.
Asked if she expected a green light at the Warsaw summit, Pinotti said: “Yes, certainly for the coordination of missions in the Mediterranean. At this summit, the proposal should become an effective decision.”
In a statement after the meeting, Downing Street said David Cameron “made the case for seeking to work with the new Libyan government to build the capacity of the Libyan coastguard to help stem the flow of illegal migration across the Mediterranean into Europe”.
Operation Sophia, stretchingfrom the territorial waters of Greece, south of Crete, to the Egyptian coast, is limited to gathering intelligence on smugglers’ networks and helping vessels in distress. The expansion of Nato’s role would be a further sign of US president Barack Obama’s recognition that the migration crisis is destabilising European politics and, as a result, US interests.
More than 350,000 migrants from all over the world have reached Italy on boats from Libya since the start of 2014.
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It was being stressed that, in the short term, no naval blockade against Libyan refugees would be possible in Libyan sovereign waters unless and until there was a request from the Libyan government, and possibly a UN security council resolution.
The new UN-recognised Libyan government, headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, is struggling to gain political authority after years of civil war. It cannot be seen to be too dependent on the west and is not keen to accede to western demands such as allowing Nato warships interdicting vessels off the coast of Libya.
The Italian media reported that the Libyan government was likely first to ask for western help on Libyan soil to be focused on protecting Libyan oilfields from attacks by Islamic State fighters. The intervention could be seen as an effort to protect Libyan resources from fighters in Islamic State.
At the relatively brief G5 meeting, Cameron and Obama were joined by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, and the French president, François Hollande.
For historical and geographical reasons, Italy has been leading the coordination of a force capable of operating off the Libyan coast and also on land to help train a Libyan national army. Nato is now likely to take over some of this planning including the building of reception centres for Africans who have been turned back from Europe.
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Richard Lindsey, head of security policy at the Foreign Office, recently admitted to parliament that Operation Sophia had been working to date without a significant partner in Libya. He said: “If that changes, it changes the whole dynamic of what Operation Sophia can achieve. There has been to date a gap in our comprehensive strategy and that has been in Libya.”
Obama briefed the four EU leaders on his plan to send a further 250 special forces to help train Kurdish forces mainly in the north of Syria.
He said: “They are not going to be leading the fight on the ground but they will be essential in providing the training and assisting local forces as they continue to drive Isil [Islamic State] back.”
Obama sent 50 US special operations forces to Syria last year in what officials described as a counter-terrorism mission rather than an effort to tip the scales in the war. He said: “These terrorists will learn the same lessons that others before them have, which is: your hatred is no match for our nations, united in defence of our way of life.”
The insertion of further US troops is hardly a counter balance to the large-scale Russian and Iranian presence in Syria and does not represent a total abandonment of a negotiated settlement. Talks in Geneva broke down last week over breaches of the cessation of hostilities and Obama again said he was pressing the Syrian regime’s chief ally, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to reinstate the ceasefire.
Obama’s use of the word reinstate is taken as a clear sign that the White House believes the ceasefire has all but disintegrated; regime and rebel bombardments claimed 26 lives on Sunday.
Eight weeks into the declared truce between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and non-jihadi rebels, violence has escalated around Aleppo, with dozens of people killed by government airstrikes and rebel rockets.
