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Syria forces raid Hama, official resigns in protest – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Security forces raid homes in Hama for second night; Hama attorney-general resigns via online video in protest, says state killed 72 prisoners, buried them in mass graves.

By Reuters

Syrian forces raided houses in Hama for the second day on Thursday, residents said, hours after the city’s attorney general declared on YouTube he had resigned in protest against bloody repression of street demonstrations.

Five months of protests have failed to unseat President Bashar Assad, who inherited power from his father and retains the loyalty of the core of his armed forces comprised mostly of members of the Alawite minority, the same sect as the president.

	A photo from Syrian official news agency SANA, showing burnt police vehicles, following military assault aimed at rooting out “terrorists,” in Hama, August 10, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

But demonstrators have been encouraged by the fall of Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi and rising international pressure on Syria, including a planned European Union embargo on the oil industry which would disrupt a vital source if income.

Residents of Hama said security police and state militiamen, known as shabbiha, raided houses overnight in the al-Sabouniya and al-Marabet districts, after troops backed by tanks arrested dozens in two other neighborhoods of the city the night before.

“The inhabitants are responding by shouting ‘God is greatest’ from windows and rooftops. Tonight there are more random raids as opposed to what the army did yesterday, which is go into specific houses looking for suspected activists on a list,” Haidar, a local activist, told Reuters by phone.

Syrian forces mounted a 10-day operation in the city at the beginning of August and arrested hundreds of people.

The attorney-general of Hama said he had resigned because security forces killed 72 jailed protesters and activists at Hama’s central jail on the eve of the military assault on the city on July 31. He said at least another 420 people were killed in the operation and were buried in mass graves in public parks.

“I, Judge Adnan Mohammad al-Bakkour, Hama province Attorney-General, declare that I have resigned in protest of the savage regime’s practices against peaceful demonstrators,” Bakkour said in a YouTube video released by activists.

An independent lawyer said the person in the video was Bakkour, who also denied reports by state media that he had been kidnapped by armed groups this week.

If confirmed, Bakkour’s resignation would be the first high profile defection in the uprising against Assad. The United Nations says more than 2,000 civilians have been killed since protests began in March.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday that Assad had committed “irreparable” damage and that France and its partners would do everything possible to “help the Syrian people’s aspirations to freedom and democracy”.

Assad has repeatedly said he is fighting agents of what he calls a foreign plot to divide Syria. Authorities blame “armed terrorist groups” for most of the bloodshed and say more than 500 soldiers and police have been also killed.

Syrian authorities have expelled foreign media making it difficult to verify events in the country.

In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, local activists said a six year old girl, Rama Khilyawi, was killed and her mother wounded when shabbiha militiamen fired rifles in al-Joura neighborhood to prevent protests after evening prayers.

Several hundred women clad in black also marched in the southern city of Deraa, carrying placards calling for the downfall Of Assad.

The Arms Race-Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

Iran appears as keen as always to produce nuclear weapons, amid reports about increasing cooperation with North Korea.

By Yossi Melman

The unrest and uprisings in the Arab world are distracting the international community from Iran’s nuclear program. Iran is taking advantage of the situation to accelerate its efforts. The head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, announced this week that his country would continue to enrich uranium. He said enrichment would be done at both the country’s facilities: to 3.5 percent at Natanz to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would produce electricity, and to 20 percent at the fortified underground facility near Qom, intended for the research reactor in Tehran to produce isotopes for medicinal purposes.

The attempts to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program by the West’s leading intelligence agencies are diversifying. Alongside the diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions (which are not particularly effective ), several violent operations have been carried out against Iran in recent years. Shell companies and fronts set up by Western intelligence agencies have sold flawed material to Iran. In operations attributed to the Mossad and CIA, the Stuxnext worm has been planted in Natanz’s computers that operate uranium-enriching centrifuges, shutting down more than 1,000 of the machines.

	In a photo from 2009, Iranian technicians work at a facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor, just outside the city of Isfahan.
	Photo by: AP

Since 2007, there have been five assassination attempts on the lives of Iranian nuclear scientists. Four were killed and Abbasi Davani was wounded. Yet it seems Iran is as determined to carry on as its rivals are. The remarks by the atomic energy agency’s head are seen as a warning to the international community. His remarks come against the backdrop of worrisome reports about increasing cooperation between Iran and North Korea.

The German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, which has published several articles on these developments based on intelligence sources proven to be reliable, reported a few days ago that North Korea has supplied Iran with a highly precise computer to help simulate a nuclear explosion. According to the report, supported by “Western” intelligence agencies (a code word that could refer to Germany’s BND intelligence agency or even the Mossad ), the computer transfer is part of a larger $100 million deal between Tehran and Pyongyang. The broader deal also includes teaching and training Iranian experts in nuclear weapons and missiles.

There are various predictions about when Iran will be able to make its first nuclear bombs. The previous Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, estimated that it would happen in 2014-15, similar to the assessment by American intelligence. Others say Iran will prefer not to put together any bombs at all and keep the option open to easily assemble a bomb. In any case, even if Iran does build nuclear weapons, it will face a dilemma over whether to announce this or maintain a policy of “nuclear ambiguity” like Israel.