ISRAEL: ZERO HOUR APPROACHES
Iran is rapidly closing in on the ability to build and field a nuclear weapon, a new assessment from Israel’s intelligence community has warned. According to the report, issued by the country’s military intelligence branch, the Islamic Republic is now expected to cross the “technological threshold” necessary to independently build nuclear weapons within six months to a year. Thereafter, the assessment warns, Iran will be able to “attain nuclear capability” – ostensibly, the development of a nuclear bomb – by as early as mid-2009. The threat warning also takes the view that such a capability will allow Iran’s support for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah to become even more extensive and overt. (Tel Aviv Ha’aretz, July 11, 2007)
CURBING THE VIRTUE COMMITTEE
Saudi Arabia’s feared morals police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Vice, has come under fire from the Kingdom’s Interior Ministry after a series of complaints against harsh tactics that resulted in the recent deaths of two men. The Committee’s enforcers, who patrol the Saudi streets to ensure that Wahhabi rules and customs are followed to the letter, have been under fire from human rights groups and the public for their brutal enforcement of Islamic prohibitions, from bans on drugs, alcohol and prostitution to the prohibition on unrelated men and women mingling in public. In an effort to allay the public discontent, the Interior Ministry has issued a decree banning the Committee from detaining suspects and extracting confessions, and insisting it will conduct “inspections of morality police offices to ensure no one is being held there.” (Reuters, July 15, 2007)
WEB FEARS IN DAMASCUS
Taking a page from the censorship playbook perfected by its strategic ally, Iran, the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is moving toward a major government crackdown on Internet usage. While media freedoms have been under tight governmental control for decades, the world’s last remaining Ba’athist regime is said to have begun taking extra precautions in recent months. The new curbs include a ban on web-based email accounts through such services as Hotmail, and restrictions on access to online news outlets such as the influential London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper. (Agence France Presse, July 7, 2007)
RIYADH’S DUPLICITOUS ROLE
Who’s responsible for the Iraqi insurgency? According to new statistics released by the U.S. military, a large measure of blame for the ongoing unrest in the former Ba’athist state lies with America’s friend and ally, Saudi Arabia. A new military report has identified Saudi nationals as comprising fully 45 percent of Iraq’s foreign jihadist contingent. Between 60 and 80 Saudi fighters cross Iraq’s borders every month, the study says. The results have been devastating; in the past six months alone, Saudi suicide bombers – the largest perpetrators of such attacks in Iraq – have claimed 4,000 casualties. Some Iraqi lawmakers see Saudi complicity as part of a larger turf war between the Kingdom and the Islamic Republic of Iran, with Riyadh attempting to undermine and counter Tehran’s support for Iraq’s Shiites. (Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2007)
AL-QAEDA: BACK IN ACTION
Nearly six years after its ouster from Afghanistan, the bin Laden terror network is rapidly reconstituting its capabilities. According to a new, controversial report from the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, al-Qaeda is now “gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks.” The assessment tracks with the findings of the U.S. intelligence community; in its latest National Intelligence Estimate, the organization “is considerably operationally stronger than a year ago,” and has “regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001.” (Washington Post, July 11, 2007; Associated Press, July 13, 2007)
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