WarSclerotic

Ashton: Nuclear talks with Iran … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

(Feels like a “last chance” offer is being made. – JW)

    VIENNA – Major powers are willing to meet with Iran within weeks if Tehran is prepared to “engage seriously in meaningful discussions” on its disputed nuclear program, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said in a letter to Tehran on Friday.

“When moving to continuation of our talks, it is crucial to look for concrete results,” Catherine Ashton said in the letter addressed to Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

“We have to ensure that when we meet again we can make real progress on the nuclear issue so that both sides can draw concrete benefits,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

Ashton has been handling contacts with Iran on behalf of six powers, which include the United States, Britain, France and Germany as well as non-Western states Russia and China.

In September Jalili sent a letter to Ashton saying that Iran was ready to hold fresh talks “for cooperation on common issues.” In the letter, he also made it clear that Tehran has no intention of backing down on its “rights” in the nuclear row with the West.

Jalili spoke of the “necessity of achieving a comprehensive, long-term and negotiated solution for both sides.”

But he also stated that any “measures that would lead to the deprivation” of countries’ rights under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty “including the noble nation of Iran is unacceptable.”

Arab World: A cold war re-em… JPost – Features – Week in review.

    Winston Churchill, speaking in the British House of Commons in 1922, discussed the transformative effect of the 1914-18 war on Europe. “Great empires have been overturned,” he said. “The whole map has changed, the modes of thought of men, the whole outlook on affairs.” But, he continued, “as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short, we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again.” Churchill was referring to the durability of the Irish question.

A sense of the weary re-emergence of previous patterns is apparent also in the revelations of the Iranian plot to kill Saudi ambassador Adel Jubair in Washington. The plot’s revelation casts the spotlight on a crucial fact underlying the upheavals that have shaken the Arab world this year: Namely, for all the sound and fury that the ‘Arab Spring’ has wrought, the underlying strategic contours of the Middle East remain largely unchanged. As the wave of popular discontent begins to draw back, so these structures are once again becoming apparent.

The contest between Iran and Saudi Arabia formed the central dynamic in the larger regional cold war which has defined the Middle East in recent years. Iran has sought very publicly in recent years to build its regional popularity through enmity toward Israel. But the primary strategic ambitions of the Islamic Republic are directed not westward toward the Mediterranean – but rather southward, toward the Persian Gulf. Iran is the most populous country of the Gulf region, with the largest army. It sees domination of this area as a matter of manifest destiny. Tehran seeks to replace the United States as the guarantor of the security of Gulf energy routes. This ambition by its very nature brings it into a situation of conflict with the main beneficiary of that American guarantee – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This core geo-strategic basis to Iranian-Saudi enmity is reinforced and deepened by the stark sectarian and ideological divide between the two countries. Saudi Arabia holds to an ultra-conservative interpretation of Sunni Islam which demonizes Shia Muslims.

Riyadh has long scorned the Iranian regime as a purveyor of fitna (discord) in the Muslim world.

Ayatollah Khomeini, meanwhile, described the Saudi monarchy unambiguously as “heretics” and “vile and ungodly Wahhabis.”

Saudi-Iranian rivalries have underlain a number of recent central events in the region – some related to the so-called “Arab Spring,” some clearly separate.

When the Shia majority in Bahrain proved restive, the Saudis discerned Iranian fingerprints. A new regime in Bahrain aligned with Tehran would mean Iranian control of the western littoral of the Persian Gulf. The uprising was also interpreted as the beginning of an Iranian attempt to spread Shia sedition southwards toward the majority Shia Saudi eastern province. The Saudis led a military expedition to crush the revolt in its infancy.

In Syria, the Saudis see the uprising as an attempt by a Sunni Arab people to throw off the yoke of an Iran-backed, heretical regime.

Through his maternal line, Saudi King Abdullah has close kinship ties with Sunni clans in Syria.

Riyadh discerns a strategic opportunity in Assad’s current travails.

The Iranians too understand the disastrous implications for them of the danger to the Assad regime, and are consequently making every effort to preserve it. The Saudis were the first Arab country to remove their ambassador from Syria, and to denounce Assad.

There are reports of Saudi links to radical Sunni preachers in Syria.

In Lebanon, of course, members of the Iranian client Hezbollah organization are wanted by the tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Saudi citizen and former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al- Hariri. The Saudi-backed March 14 movement in the country was eclipsed by the pro-Iranian forces after a brief clash in May/June 2008. Yet, by backing the opposition to the Assad regime in Syria, Riyadh hopes to cut Hezbollah off from its hinterland and source of weaponry, leaving it dangerously isolated on the Mediterranean.

In Iraq, with the US set to leave, the Saudis and the Iranians are once again set to face each other.

The Shia-led government in Baghdad already enjoys close relations with Tehran. Iran also sponsors powerful Shia militia groups.

Riyadh, meanwhile, has actively funded Sunni insurgents. The presence of US troops in Iraq was a disincentive to more overt support.

With an increasingly pro-Iranian Shia government in Baghdad this disincentive will no longer apply.

The Iranians are by far the stronger of the two rivals. They have compromised their ‘brand’ in the Arab world through their support for the Assad regime in Syria. This, however, could be rapidly reversed in the wake of new confrontations with the US or Israel. Their nuclear program is proceeding apace. The Tehran regime looks safe in its seat at home. It still possesses powerful assets across the region.

The Saudis, by contrast, can offer a credible barrier to Iranian ambitions only as part of a larger, de facto alliance including the US and Israel.

The Saudi-Iranian cold war was one of the factors defining the Middle East prior to the upheavals of 2011. It has been a significant element in determining the course of those upheavals so far. In Bahrain and in Syria, the Saudis are winning. Iranian anger and frustration at Riyadh and a desire to strike at it should therefore come as no surprise. As the deluge subsides, the dreary minarets of Riyadh and Tehran are emerging once again.

Gadhafi’s killing fuels Syria’s Friday protests – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

At least 13 anti-Assad protesters killed by Syrian security forces, mostly in Homs and Hama; demonstrators chant ‘Gadhafi is finished. It is your turn now Bashar!’

By Reuters

The killing of Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi fuelled demonstrations across Syria after Friday prayers that called for the ouster of President Bashar Assad, braving a heavier than normal security presence, activists and residents said.

Syrian forces shot dead on Friday at least 13 anti-Assad protesters, according to activists and residents.

	Bashar Assad and Muammar Gadhafi, March 2005.
	Photo by: AP

Most of the killings were in the central city of Homs and in Hama to the north, scene of some of the largest military operations in a crackdown on the seven month uprising, where a nascent insurgent movement has also emerged, they said.

“Gadhafi is finished. It is your turn now Bashar!” shouted demonstrators in the town of Maaret al-Numaan in the northwestern province of Idlib, according to one witness.

“Prepare yourself Assad!” chanted protesters in the town of Tayyana in the tribal province of Deir al-Zor, on the border with Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland.

Assad, an ophthalmologist who inherited power from his late father in 2000, strengthened ties with Gadhafi months before the Arab Spring wave of popular unrest against repressive ruling elites erupted in Tunisia in December.

The two countries struck a series of cooperation deals and Assad later allowing a Syrian-based satellite station to broadcast messages from Gadhafi while he was on the run. He was killed in unclear circumstances after his capture on Thursday.

In the town of Houla northwest of Homs, a crowd of several thousands held shoulders and waved old Syrian flags dating to before Assad’s Baath party took power in a coup 48 years ago.

“Doctor, you are next!” read banners carried by the villagers, according to live video footage.

Demonstrations also broke out in Homs, the provincial capital 140 km (85 miles) north of Damascus, where three members of same family were also shot dead at an army road block in Bab Sbaa district on their way to prayers, local activists said.

Syrian authorities say they are fighting “armed terrorist groups” in Homs who have been killing civilians, prominent figures and troops. The authorities have banned most foreign media, making verification of events on the ground difficult.

FrontPage Magazine » Second Cyber Attack on Iran?

The Stuxnet cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear program was a defining moment in the history of war, and now, the “Son of Stuxnet” has been discovered. Cyber security experts say the creator of the original worm, widely believed to be Israel and probably the U.S., also designed this one and “there is nothing out there available to stop it.”

The Stuxnet cyber attack rendered thousands of Iran’s centrifuges, around a fifth of all of them, useless. Over 1,000 damaged units were replaced at the Natanz centrifuge farm, and damaged the steam turbine at the Bushehr nuclear reactor. In 2009, only half of Iran’s centrifuges were being used and some of those operating were only enriching half as much uranium as they should. The Iranians have to replace all of the computers at Natanz, and it may take up to two years. It was later found out that Israel tested Stuxnet on centrifuges identical to those used by Iran at its nuclear site in Dimona.

The Iranians later announced in April 2011 that a second cyber attack was discovered, which they called “Stars.” All that the regime said was that it was found on government computers and caused little damage. Iran soon replaced its centrifuges at Natanz and began manufacturing more sophisticated centrifuges that can significantly speed up the nuclear program. The centrifuges were moved to an underground site in the mountains near Qom. In February, experts determined that Iran had recovered from the damage wrought by Stuxnet. And now, the “Son of Stuxnet” has emerged.

The new virus, also called Stuxnet 2.0 and Duqu, is broader in scope. It opens up a back door in the compromised computer systems for 36 days, and then disappears. It has been doing this as far back as last December, though the victims have not been publicly identified. The virus allows the creator to hijack the controlling computer systems, permitting the attacker to direct their operations or to even self-destruct. It also records keystrokes and sends back critical information about system vulnerabilities. The back doors have not been exploited, leading experts to conclude that a cyber attack is on its way.

“The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility,” Symanetec said in its announcement of the discovery. It called it a “precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack.”

“It’s my personal belief that the guys who wrote Stuxnet knew exactly what they were doing, and if you thought they were good guys then, you probably don’t have anything more to worry about now. But if you didn’t, you probably have a lot to worry about,” said Vikrum Thakur of Symantec.

At the same time, sanctions and other likely covert operations are taking a heavy toll on the Iranian nuclear program. One issue still confronting Iran is faulty equipment. This may be connected to CIA-Mossad operations that began as early as 1998 to sell Iran booby-trapped equipment. Nuclear-related tools that the Iranians admitted were “manipulated” caused the destruction of 50 centrifuges in 2006, and the director of the Atomic Energy Organization was sacked in 2009 after a similar explosion happened at Natanz.

The creation of enriched uranium is still decreasing despite Iran’s use of newly-made centrifuges to replace the old and damaged ones. This is being attributed to the type of metal used in them, but covert operations cannot be ruled out given the history. The Institute for Science and International Security and U.N. inspectors say that Iran is producing more uranium than it did before the Stuxnet attack, but U.N. inspectors say this amount is declining as centrifuges break.

Iran must also overcome a critical shortage of raw uranium, a problem that has forced it to look to foreign suppliers such as Venezuela, Zimbabwe and North Korea. The black market equipment at the Isfahan uranium conversion site, which turns the raw uranium into gas so it can go into the centrifuges, has also suffered from technical errors. The facility must remove impurities from the uranium before it can be safely inserted into the units without damaging them. In a problem possibly related to covert operations, the equipment failed to do so.

There are a number of other mysterious incidents that have undermined Iran’s nuclear efforts. In the past two years, four Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. In October 2010, a Revolutionary Guards base that housed Shahab-3 missiles suffered a massive explosion at an ammunition depot. There have been repeated explosions at important gas pipelines over the past year.

The problems that Iran is encountering are encouraging, but there is still not much room for comfort. It is still believed that Iran could make a nuclear weapon within 6 months if it tried. The scale of the Iranian nuclear program shows that the regime wants the ability to quickly produce multiple nuclear weapons, and does not want to build one and call it quits.

The “Son of Stuxnet” is almost certainly Israel’s answer to this continued threat. For once, it is Iran that is sitting, feeling helpless as it awaits the next attack.

‘Iran to soon move nuclear mater… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    VIENNA – Iran plans to soon start moving nuclear material to an underground site for the pursuit of sensitive atomic activities, diplomatic sources say, a move likely to add to Western fears about Tehran’s intentions.

They said a first batch of uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) — material which is fed into machines used to refine uranium — would be transferred to the Fordow site near the holy city of Qom in preparation for launching enrichment work there.

Enriched uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, Iran’s stated aim, or provide material for bombs if processed to a higher degree, which the West suspects is its ultimate goal.

Iran’s main enrichment plant is located near the central town of Natanz. But the country announced in June it would move its higher-grade activity to Fordow, a subterranean facility offering better protection against any military attacks.

“For the first time they will have nuclear material in Fordow,” one diplomatic source said. The step to bring a first cylinder of UF6 to a site is usually taken as part of the final preparatory work before starting production, the source said.

Iranian diplomats were not immediately available for comment on this information.

It would be a further sign of the Islamic Republic’s determination to press ahead with a nuclear program the West fears is geared towards developing atomic weapons but which Iran says is for peaceful purposes only.

It comes at a time of heightened tension over an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, a US charge that Tehran rejects as a cynical attempt by its arch foe to further isolate the Islamic Republic.

Next month the UN nuclear watchdog is expected to publish a report that is likely to heighten suspicions that Iran has been carrying out nuclear work with possible military aspects.

Analysts say the findings in the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could bolster the West’s case for imposing additional sanctions on the major oil producer.

“The IAEA has a lot of information that would allow the agency to come to clear findings on the issue of possible military dimensions,” one Western official said.

Iran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment and answer IAEA questions about allegations over the nature of its nuclear work has drawn four rounds of UN sanctions as well as separate US and European punitive measures.

Israel and the United States have not ruled out pre-emptive strikes to prevent Iran producing nuclear weapons.

Iran only disclosed the existence of Fordow — tucked deep inside a mountain on a former military base — to the IAEA in September 2009 after learning that Western intelligence agencies had detected it.

Four months ago, Iran said it would shift its operation to enrich to a fissile purity of 20 percent from Natanz to Fordow and triple production capacity of the material — an announcement that was condemned by its Western adversaries.

In its last report on Iran’s nuclear program, in early September, the IAEA said Iran had installed one of two planned cascades, or interlinked networks, of 174 centrifuges each at Fordow. Such machines spin at supersonic speeds to increase the fissile isotope ratio.

Iran’s decision in early 2010 to raise the level of some enrichment from the 3.5 percent purity needed for normal power plant fuel to 20 percent worried Western states that saw this as bringing it closer to the 90 percent needed for bombs.

“That’s a significant step closer to making an atomic bomb because it takes only a few months to turn that into weapons-grade material,” former IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen told Der Spiegel magazine.

Tehran says it will use 20 percent uranium to convert into fuel for a research reactor making isotopes to treat cancer patients, but Western officials say they doubt that the country has the technical capability to do that.

Some analysts believe Iran is still a few years away from being able to build a nuclear-armed missile, if it decided to.

Nasrallah: ‘Next time, we’ll begin with at… JPost – Middle East.

    Should Israel enter into another war with Lebanon, Hezbollah will start by attacking Tel Aviv and not north of the country, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah threatened on Friday, according to Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar.

The Hezbollah strongman also addressed recent reports of foreign agents operating within the Lebanese terror organization. In a meeting with Hezbollah leaders, Nasrallah admitted that information passed to the CIA and Mossad by three of Hezbollah’s members hurt the organization.

However, Hezbollah will be able to recover from the incident, he asserted, saying that the organization has the courage necessary to fix mistakes.

A month ago Hezbollah detained four of its own members on charges of spying for Israel while a fifth fled, the London-based daily Asharq Alawsat reported.

Quoting “well-informed Lebanese sources,” the paper said the fifth operative had gone missing amid suspicions he too had collaborated with Israel. The operative, named only as M.S., disappeared from his home in southern Beirut last week. Little is known about him other than that he is said to have testified in the UN Special Tribunal on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Computer virus poses threat to key installations – The National.

Tom Arnold and Gareth Van Zyl

A computer virus, dubbed Duqu, designed for espionage has emerged in the Middle East. E J vanHannen

 

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A computer virus designed for espionage has emerged in the Middle East, prompting fears of attacks on key energy installations and utilities in the region.

Security experts warn that the new virus, dubbed Duqu, could be used to steal information about power plants, water treatment facilities and chemical plants.

The stolen information could potentially be used to carry out cyber attacks or even physical assaults to disable facilities.

Designed for high-level espionage, the virus is said to be the successor to the Stuxnet cyber attack that targeted Iranian nuclear plants last year.

“We’re not only talking about a cyber war,” said Bulent Teksoz, the chief security strategist for emerging markets at Symantec. “The sky is the limit, if they know how a nationwide [electricity] grid system works, [how] a water system works.”

Security experts say the people behind Stuxnet, which cost an estimated US$1 million (Dh3.6m) to create, also coded the Duqu virus.

The Middle East, which has infrastructure such as oil and gas installations that supply much of the world’s energy needs, is among the regions where the virus is present, according to IT security companies.

Energy experts voiced alarm about the presence of the cyber threat in the region.

“It’s definitely a concern,” said Mohammed Al Zuhair, the general manager for global supply chain management at Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of chemicals, fertilisers, plastics and metals.

“As a company, you have to mitigate all the time against the risk of fire, loss of power and loss of connection. The question is what impact there will be on the company if you shut down for one day or one month,” Mr Al Zuhair said.

Duqu had already been found in a north-eastern African country after the virus first emerged in Europe this week, said Tarek Kuzbari, the managing director in the Middle East and Turkey for Kaspersky Lab.

He was unwilling to disclose the name of the country, company or the type of infrastructure that was targeted, but he said the virus was found on a user’s computer two days ago.

The Stuxnet virus – called a “worm” because it can self-replicate – was designed to sabotage Siemens management systems, which are most commonly used in industrial manufacturing facilities and utilities plants.

Officials in Iran last year said the virus infected 30,000 personal computers in the country.

“Stuxnet was clearly the most sophisticated computer attack that we had ever seen in the history of mankind,” said Mr Teksoz.

Iranian officials last year accused the US and Israel of creating Stuxnet. The West accuses Iran of enriching uranium to build weapons, but officials in the country say their nuclear technology is used only to generate energy.

Duqu could pave the way for another Stuxnet-style attack, with the potential to disable key infrastructure. Or it could even be the precursor of an attack that is not of the digital kind.

The virus is configured to run for 36 days, after which the threat automatically removes itself from a system. This is unlike the original Stuxnet version, which could multiply itself.

Duqu, given that name because it creates files with a .DQ extension, targets not just Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, as Stuxnet did last year, but also any custom-made operating system.

This means there is little that companies can do to combat the virus. Even anti-virus companies cannot offer protection to those organisations that are being spied on.

“With this kind of system, it is very rare to find such kind of solutions to protect [against] that,” said Mr Kuzbari.

New ‘Stuxnet-related’ virus m… JPost – Environment & Technology.

    A new powerful computer virus has been detected, which gathers information on industrial systems ahead of a potentially crippling cyber-attack, a US Internet security company announced this week, according to a Reuters report.

The Symantec Corporation said the virus, named “Duqu,” “must either have been created by the same group that authored Stuxnet, or by a group that somehow managed to obtain Stuxnet’s source code,” an MSNBC report added.

Stuxnet is the name of a computer worm that was detected last year, which reportedly caused significant damage to Iran’s uranium-enrichment program. It targeted Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA), used by Iran to enrich uranium through spinning centrifuges. Foreign media reports speculated that Israel or the US, or both, were behind the attack.

Unlike Stuxnet, however, Duqu does not directly attack SCADA systems, but rather, sends back information that would help attackers prepare a future strike, Symantec said.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Gabi Siboni, director of the Neubauer Program on Cyber Warfare at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, said, “Without relating at all to its origin and target, the Reuters report on Duqu shows a deepening of the attempt to find ways to penetrate industrial systems and to stay in them in order to collect information that could, in the future, allow an attack on a target, and disrupt command and control processes operated by the system.”

Siboni noted that SCADA forms the basis of most industrial control systems, adding that the controls receive information “from a range of sensors, for example: Pressure sensors, temperature, rate of flow and dozens of additional procedural parameters.”

“A cybernetic strike on these systems could damage the reading of the sensors, thereby significantly harming the control process – and in certain cases, could also cause real physical damage alongside environmental and health damages. For example, a cybernetic disruption of pressure readings in a large tank containing chemicals can cause it to explode,” Siboni explained.

Siboni said that in the past, industrial-control centers had been exposed to cyber-attacks, causing some plants to take protective measures, such as isolating them from external networks and installing programs that search for suspicious signs of infection.

Symantec said that “the attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility.”

Systems infected with Duqu are connected to a command computer that is in an unknown location in India, MSNBC added, quoting Symantec’s Vikrum Thakur.

“No marching orders have yet been given… But those who control the machines could do virtually anything they wanted,” he said.

Gaddafi dead: Obama warns Syrian President Bashar al-Assad | Mail Online.

Three down, two to go: Obama warns other Middle Eastern dictators as Libyan fighters set their sights on the the ‘germ of Syria’

By Rick Dewsbury

President Barack Obama hailed Muammar Gaddafi’s death yesterday as a warning to dictators across the Middle East that iron-fisted rule ‘inevitably comes to an end.

Obama said the fall of Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya in revolutions dubbed the Arab Spring proved that the leaders of Syria and Yemen should be fearful of similar endings.

Protests broke out in March in Syria and more than 3,000 people have been killed after a violent military response from the leadership.

Washington has demanded that Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad halt his crackdown on democracy protests in Syria and step down. The White House is also pressing Yemen’s longtime president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to leave office in the face of political upheaval.

Deposed dictators: Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, left, speaks with Gaddafi at the Kubba Palace in Cairo in 1999. Little did they know then that their days were numbered

Obama has also condemned Iran’s human rights record and is seeking further sanctions against Tehran over an alleged foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

‘For the region, today’s events prove once more that the rule of an iron fist inevitably comes to an end,’ Obama said.

Obama stressed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had lost his legitimacy to rule.

The leader said the United States would be a partner to Libya’s interim government and urged a swift transition to democracy but made no specific promises of aid.

The warnings from Washington were backed up by Libyan revolutionaires themselves, who vowed to help their ‘brothers and sisters in Syria’ fight for freedom.

‘This is the fate of a leader who destroyed the lives of his people for decades and opened fire on them before his demise,’ said Mohamed Beltagy, senior member of Egypt’s influential Muslim Brotherhood.   

How it all began: Demonstrators throws stones at police during clashes in Tunisia in January as the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions started in the Middle East

Jubilant: Egyptians carry a flag through Tahrir Square earlier this year as it becomes clear that Mubarak’s reign had come to an end

‘Gaddafi’s fate should be a lesson for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and Yemen’s (Ali Abdullah) Saleh,’ he said.

The warnings were welcomed by Syrian dissidents who have continued their struggles.

‘If I were a member of the regime, Bashar or [his brother] Maher, I would start to feel rather concerned,’ said Amr al-Azm, a Syrian dissident in the United States and member of the opposition, told the Independent.

The presidents of Tunisia and then Egypt were the first to be ousted in the ‘Arab Spring’ that has brought ordinary people onto the streets to demand political change where many kings and presidents have ruled for decades.    

But Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak were driven out by protests with relatively little violence. Gaddafi, whose bloodied body was shown in footage carried by Arabic television channels, was ousted after months of fighting during which he turned the full might of his army against rebels, firing missiles, artillery and other heavy weapons at them.    

‘Hell awaits Gaddafi. I hate to rejoice in anyone’s death, but what he did to his people was atrocious,’ said Nancy El Kassab, an Egyptian television executive producer.   

 

In the firing lines: Defiant Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, left, and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, right, are being condemned for their violent crackdowns on people protests

Unrest: A dissident Yemeni soldier stands guard as protesters march in Sanaa, Yemen, during an anti-regime rally earlier this month

‘Gaddafi’s death will scare Arab dictators like Assad and Saleh, and make other Arab leaders more careful with their people after they recover from the shock of the news,’ said Alia Askalany, 27, an Egyptian marketing manager.    

In Libya, many could hardly contain their joy.    

‘Thank God … With the rebels will this was achieved and we thank everyone who helped us and we are so happy,’ said Khaled Al-Asoud, a 35-year-old Libyan fighter.    

In Jordan, Abdullah al-Khatib, former UN special envoy to Libya and one-time Jordanian foreign minister, said: ‘Other somehow similar systems in the region should draw their conclusions and listen to the voice of the people and should create the conditions whereby people of the region can freely and openly determine their future and destiny.’

Stark warning: U.S. President Barack Obama added pressure to Syria and Yemen

Activists in Syria’s central city of Homs told Avaaz, a campaigning rights organisation, that people celebrated Gaddafi’s death in the streets. Some held placards saying: ‘The rat of Libya has been caught, next is the germ of Syria.’

But some questioned how much of a domino effect Gaddafi’s demise might have elsewhere in a region, including Yemen where President Saleh has clung on to power in a nation riven by tribal conflicts even after he was wounded in an attack that prompted him to seek treatment in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.    

‘(Gaddafi) deserves it, he killed a lot of people. I don’t believe this will happen in Yemen because there are a lot of divisions there,’ said Omran Ahmed, a Yemeni living in Egypt.    

Saleh already has backed down three times from signing a Gulf initiative for a transfer of power, saying he would only hand over power to ‘safe hands.’    

Lebanon’s former prime minister, Saad al-Hariri, said in a statement that Gaddafi’s death should be a lesson to leaders who ‘have adopted oppression as a method to dominate their people.’    

‘Any Arab citizen, watching the course of events in Libya, cannot but think of the popular revolutionary movement that is taking place in Syria,’ he said.

The balance of power shifted dramatically against Gaddafi in March after his troops swept across rebel-held territory and threatened to launch a devastating attack on the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

A U.N. resolution was passed at the time that prompted NATO to launch air strikes.

Emad Gad from Egypt’s Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies said Gaddafi’s death could encourage the international community to be more proactive in other places.    

He said: ‘It will lead to more pressure by the international community to resolve the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

‘It shows that resisting reform will lead to escalating demands from reforms to overthrowing the regime.’    

Ahmed Montasser, a construction worker watching the news of Gaddafi’s death at a café in downtown Cairo, echoed those sentiments. His former president, Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years, is now on trial over the killing of protesters.    

‘This is the end of every tyrant. The message is that ruling people isn’t through force … It would have been better if he was prosecuted but it was out of the rebels’ hands as he was shot dead,’ Montasser said.

Turkey seeks Iran’s support against Kurdish rebels – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Turkish, Iranian foreign ministers met in Ankara to discuss closer cooperation against autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels.

By The Associated Press

Turkey is seeking Iran’s support for its fight against Kurdish rebels, as thousands of troops have launched an operation against militants in northern Iraq.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Ankara on Friday to discuss closer cooperation against the autonomy-seeking rebels, who have also fought Iran.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran, Iran, Monday, May 17, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

In the past, Turkey and Iran have staged coordinated attacks against the main rebel base on Qandil Mountain which sits on the Iraqi-Iranian border deep inside northern Iraq.

About 10,000 Turkish troops are going after Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey and across the border in Iraq since Wednesday after 24 soldiers were killed in suspected rebel attacks.