Hueys over Yemen: How to arm a dictator - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Hueys over Yemen: How to arm a dictator - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

US military aid to the Yemeni government is being used to suppress the demonstrations there [EPA]

In recent weeks, Yemeni protesters calling for an immediate end to the 32-year reign of US-backed president Ali Abdullah Saleh have been met with increasing violence at the hands of state security forces.

A recent pledge by Saleh to step down, one of many that haven't met demonstrators' demands, has yet to halt the protests or violence by the troops backing his regime.

During a demonstration earlier this month in the city of Taiz, protesters marching down a central street were confronted by security forces and Saleh supporters, while government helicopters flew overhead.

"The thugs and the security forces fired on us with live gunfire," Mahmud al-Shaobi, one of the protesters told the New York Times. "Many people were shot."

In the days since, more demonstrators have been attacked by government forces – with the death toll now estimated to exceed 130.

Witnesses have also been reporting the increased use of military helicopters in the crackdown. Some of those aircraft may be recent additions to Saleh's arsenal, provided courtesy of the Obama administration as part of an US$83million military aviation aid package.

Since the beginning of 2011, under a program run by the US Department of Defence[PDF], the United States has overseen the delivery of several new Bell UH-1Hs, or "Huey II" helicopters, current models of the iconic Huey that served as the US' primary gunship and troop transport during the Vietnam War.

Although these helicopters are only the latest additions to a sizable arsenal that the Pentagon has provided to Yemen in recent years, they call attention to how US weapons and assistance support regimes actively suppress democratic uprisings across the Middle East.

How to arm a dictator

Last December, 26-year-old Tunisian fruit-seller Mohamed Bou'azizi set himself on fire in front of a local municipal office, touching off popular protests that continue to sweep across the Middle East and North Africa.

By the end of January 2011, the country's US-backed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had fled and demonstrations, which would eventually also topple corrupt autocrat and long-time US ally Hosni Mubarak, had broken out in Egypt.

In Yemen, as is the case elsewhere in the region, anger at government corruption, rampant poverty (40 per cent of all Yemenis live on less than $2 a day), high unemployment (also running at 40 per cent), and decades of harsh rule by an authoritarian strongman brought tens of thousands into the streets.

In January, as freedom struggles were spreading across the region, president Barack Obama publicly avowed support for "certain core values that we believe in as Americans, that we believe are universal: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, people being able to use social networking or any other mechanisms to communicate with each other and express their concerns".

Just days earlier, however, his government had transferred military equipment to the security forces of Yemen's "president for life".

Under the terms of a $27million contract between the Pentagon and Bell Helicopter, Yemen received four Huey IIs.

Prior to this, 12 Yemeni Air Force pilots and 20 maintenance personnel were trained to fly and service the aircraft at Bell's flight instruction facility in Alliance, Texas.

"The swift execution of the Yemen Huey II program demonstrates that the military departments – in this case the US Army – can quickly deliver defence articles and services to US partners with the cooperation of US industry," said Brandon Denecke of the Defence Security Cooperation Agency, the branch of the Pentagon that coordinates sales and transfers of military equipment to allies.

The recent helicopter deal is just the latest example of Pentagon support for the forces of the Yemeni dictator through its so-called "1206 programme", a Congressionally-authorised arrangement that "allows the executive branch to rapidly provide foreign partners with military equipment and training".

Named for section 1206 of the 2006 National Defence Authorisation Act, the program allows the Pentagon to enhance the capabilities of foreign military forces for "counter-terrorism and stability operations".

Since 2006, more than $1.3billion worth of equipment has been allocated under the 1206 program and Yemen has been the largest recipient worldwide, benefiting from about one-fifth of the funding or approximately $253million through 2010.

This assistance, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, has provided Yemeni security forces with light airplanes, helicopters, small arms, ammunition, light tactical vehicles, trucks, radios, surveillance cameras, computers, body armour, patrol boats, and helicopter parts, among other matériel.

Since 2000, the Pentagon has also transferred weapons and equipment directly from US stockpiles to Yemen's security forces.

These items include armoured personnel carriers, M-60 machine guns, 2.5-ton military trucks, radios, and motorboats, according to an analysis of Defence Department documents by TomDispatch.

The Defence Security Cooperation Agency did not respond to repeated requests for further information.

All told, over the past five years, the US has provided more than $300million in aid to Yemen's security forces, with the dollars escalating under the Obama administration.

In 2008, under President George W Bush, Yemen received $17.2million in baseline military assistance (which does not include counter-terrorism or humanitarian funding).

In 2010, that number had risen to $72.3million - while Yemen received $155.3million in total US aid that year, including a "$34.5million special operations force counter-terrorism enhancement package".

These funds have provided Yemen's security forces with helicopters, Humvees, weapons, ammunition, radio systems, and night-vision goggles.

Additionally, US special operations troops - along with British and Saudi military personnel - have been supporting, advising, and conducting training missions with some of Yemen's elite forces – including the Republican Guard, Special Operations Forces, and the National Security Bureau – which are commanded and staffed by Saleh's sons and other close relatives.

As his part of the bargain, Saleh allowed the US to launch missile strikes against suspected al-Qaeda camps in Yemen while instructing his government to take credit for the attacks (for fear that if their US origins were made clear, there might be an anti-American backlash in Yemen and the larger Arab world), according to classified State Department documents released last year by the whistleblower group WikiLeaks.

"We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," Saleh told then-CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus following strikes in December 2009.

The Yemeni government also came up with a cover story for, and even excused, the deaths of civilians in those strikes.

Rashad al-Alimi, a deputy prime minister, claimed that the Yemeni citizens killed in an attack were "acting in collusion with the terrorists and benefiting financially" when, in reality, they were likely Bedouin families involved in little more than peddling food.

Not so tough talk

As Yemen's security forces have escalated their violence against demonstrators this spring, the Obama administration has offered mixed signals regarding Saleh, but has yet to issue an outright condemnation of the dictator, no less sever ties with a leader seen as crucial to the fight against al-Qaeda.

"We have had a good working relationship with president Saleh. He's been an important ally in the counter-terrorism arena," said US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates on March 23rd. "But clearly, there's a lot of unhappiness inside Yemen. And I think we will basically just continue to watch the situation. We haven't done any post-Saleh planning, if you will."

On April 5th, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney came out more forcefully.

"The United States strongly condemns the use of violence by Yemeni government forces against demonstrators in Sanaa, Taiz, and Hodeida in the past several days," he said. "The Yemeni people have a right to demonstrate peacefully, and we remind president Ali Abdullah Saleh of his responsibility to ensure the safety and security of Yemenis who are exercising their universal right to engage in political expression."

That same day, however, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell was more equivocal, justifying enduring US support for Yemen's strongman as a "prudent course of action", while including the protesters as the equals of the security forces in his condemnation of the use of force: "The protests, the demonstrations need to be nonviolent. Obviously, the government needs to respond to them in a nonviolent manner. So we are – we condemn the violence all around."

Morrell also sought to distance the Pentagon's aid for the country's security forces from the violence being meted out in Yemen's streets.

He told reporters: "To suggest that the aid to Yemen has somehow been used against protesters I think is a leap of faith for which there is no evidence to support."

Recent reports, however, suggest that Yemen's elite US-trained counter-terrorism troops have now been deployed in the capital, Sanaa, to deal with the massive ongoing protests.

Late last year, the Pentagon floated a new proposal to pump up to $1.2billion more into Yemen's security forces over the next five years.

However, with protesters in the streets, week after week, in vast numbers and significant elements of the military defecting from the regime, the Obama administration failed to write Saleh a cheque and began quietly urging him, through back-channel communications, to hand over power – assumedly to a successor likely to favour US interests.

Finally, on April 23rd, after Saleh seemingly agreed to an arrangement brokered by Arab mediators that would grant immunity from prosecution to him and his family, and eventually shift power to his deputy for an interim period, the Obama administration threw its support behind the plan.

A spokesman characterised it as "responsive to the aspirations of the Yemeni people".

Not only have many opposition protesters rejected the deal, while Saleh's troops continue to attack them, but the dictator has slowly backed away from it as well.

And yet, despite weeks of violence that have left hundreds dead or wounded, Obama has yet to publicly and unequivocally call for Saleh to step down as he did, albeit belatedly, with former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and, more recently, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Sending a message

Earlier this month, Tawakul Karman, a Yemeni human rights activist and anti-government protest leader, told the New York Times of her anger at Obama for his failure to issue such a call.

''We feel that we have been betrayed,'' she said. Hamza Alkamaly, another prominent youth leader, echoed the sentiment: ''We students lost our trust in the United States.''

After watching two allied autocrats fall in Tunisia and Egypt, the United States has focused on its periodic enemy, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and has done little of substance to advocate for, let alone facilitate, demands for democracy and social change by protesters in allied states that are more integral to its military plans in the region, including Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan - and Saudi Arabia.

Instead, Washington has continued to support repressive governments to which it has provided training, weapons, and other military equipment that has already been used or could be used to suppress grassroots democratic movements.

In the case of Bahrain, the US has provided millions of rounds of live ammunition, helicopters and tanks. For Saudi Arabia, it was a weapons deal worth tens of billions of dollars that will have Saudi pilots training in the US.

In Iraq, the US is aiding the very units of the security forces implicated in crackdowns on the free press. And these are only a few examples of recent US efforts in the Middle East.

A survey[PDF] of Yemeni adults conducted in January and February by the US-based polling firm Glevum Associates found exceptional hostility to the United States.

Ninety-nine per cent of those surveyed viewed the US government's relations with the Islamic world unfavourably, 82 per cent considered US military influence in the world "somewhat bad" or "bad", 66 per cent believed that the US hardly ever or never took into account the interests of countries like Yemen, and just four per cent "somewhat" or "strongly approved" of Saleh's cooperation with the United States.

The numbers could hardly get more dismal, but anger and resentment can deepen and become even more entrenched.

When protesters look to the skies over Sanaa in the days and weeks ahead, they may notice new US-built, US taxpayer-financed helicopters hovering above them.

Unless the Hueys are seen ferrying the dictator away in a scene reminiscent of Saigon in 1975, Yemenis – more than two-thirds under the age of 24 – are likely to remember for a very long time which side the United States took in their freedom struggle.

Nick Turse is an historian, essayist, investigative journalist, the associate editor of TomDispatch.com, and currently a fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute. His latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books). He is also the author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.

A version of this article first appeared on TomDispatch.com.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

India's nuclear conundrum - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

India's nuclear conundrum - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh has pledged to review safety standards for nuclear facilities in India due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but India has more than 20 nuclear facilities planned for construction [GALLO/GETTY]

Japan's nuclear disaster has fuelled fear and uncertainty among the world's producers of nuclear power. For India, an energy-starved country, much is at stake.

That fear factor has two main causes. Although nuclear power ranks as a "clean" source of energy, it is accompanied by the terrible shadow of nuclear war, which emerged from Japan's last reckoning with nuclear catastrophe, 65 years ago at Hiroshima and Nagasaki - and which lends it an automatic association with mass destruction and death. Moreover, the secrecy that attends all things "nuclear" has left people not knowing enough to feel confident.

The fear inspired by the Fukushima Daiichi disaster will be reflected in soaring costs for nuclear power worldwide, largely owing to demands for improved safety and the need to pay more to insure against potential risks.

Indeed, nuclear plants are prone to a form of "panic transference". Should a reactor of one design go wrong, all reactors of that type will be shut down instantly around the world.

India's dilemma is this: it has 20 nuclear plants in operation, with an additional 23 on order. With the country desperately short of power, and requiring energy to grow, concerned citizens are asking if nuclear is still the answer for India.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh has cautiously announced that a "special safety review" of all plants will be undertaken.

"Not enough," say roughly 50 eminent Indians, who at the end of March demanded a "radical review" of the country's entire nuclear-power policy for "appropriateness, safety, costs, and public acceptance".

The group also called for an "independent, transparent safety audit" of all nuclear facilities, to be undertaken with the "involvement of civil-society organisations and experts outside the Department of Atomic Energy".

Until then, there should be "a moratorium on all… nuclear activity" and "revocation of recent clearances". This is as explicit as opposition can get.

How have other countries reacted? France, which is around 80 per cent dependent on nuclear energy, and is a big exporter of nuclear-plant technology, initially avoided most of the global anti-nuclear concerns.

But now it, too, is promising to draw the necessary lessons from the Japanese experience and upgrade its safety procedures, including a reassessment of the potential effects of natural disasters on nuclear-plant operations, conceding that the occurrence of more than one natural disaster simultaneously had not been considered previously.

China, which has 77 nuclear reactors at various stages of construction, planning, and discussion, has said that it will "review its program".

Though Russia has formally announced that it will go ahead with its program, former president Mikhail Gorbachev – on whose watch the Chernobyl meltdown occurred 25 years ago – is not so sanguine.

While the US is the principal exporter of reactors, it currently has just two under construction on its own territory. Denmark, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal are strongly anti-nuclear, and Switzerland has stopped all nuclear-power projects.

All of this will lead to cost evaluation and escalation. According to a study conducted by the former Indian government minister Arun Shourie, the price of uranium could rise to US$140 per pound, close to its record high.

A change of much greater consequence concerns the price of reactors. Pre-Fukushima, a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "The Future of Nuclear Power (2003)", as well as a study by researchers at the University of Chicago, established that nuclear energy was 50-100 per cent more expensive than energy from coal or gas.

The report of the Working Group on Power of the Planning Commission of India puts the cost of energy from the country's coal-based plants at about one-third lower than nuclear power, with gas 50 per cent cheaper.

Energy security and public safety should be of equal importance in determining future policy on nuclear power. Indeed, experts like C M A Nayar have said that the Fukushima accident "could have happened even if there was no tsunami".

Nayar suggests that it has long been known that the reactor's design contained basic flaws, though only the Japanese authorities can verify this.

So, what is to be done? Clean energy at a time of global warming is obviously necessary.

But so is the safety and security of humans, animals, and plants. India has set itself on a path of virtually doubling its nuclear-power output.

This is deeply troubling, for India's supply of nuclear fuel, technology, and reactors is almost entirely dependent on imports from manufacturers who refuse liability for any malfunction.

There is, of course, no single correct response that would simultaneously and uniformly deal with resource scarcity, fossil-fuel depletion, climate change, and the risks of nuclear power. A choice will ultimately need to be made about how to meet India's energy demands.

At a minimum, a thorough reexamination and full public debate must precede the construction of any new nuclear plant.

But the current emphasis on nuclear power must be objectively reassessed, and dependence on it thereafter reduced.

With nuclear safety suddenly becoming a global imperative, the costs are simply too high to do otherwise.

Jaswant Singh, a former Indian finance minister, foreign minister, and defence minister, is the author of Jinnah: India – Partition – Independence.

The article was first published by Project Syndicate.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Science in the Middle East: A key investment - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Science in the Middle East: A key investment - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

In the New Scientist, the Nobel laureate and US Science Envoy Ahmed Zewali writes about the prospects for research in the Middle East. He identifies three steps that countries in the region can take and sketches the terms on which the West should provide assistance. The three steps are:

Increase participation by promoting literacy and female emancipation.

Institute reforms "to allow freedom of thought, reduce bureaucracy, minimise bureaucracy, reward merit, and create credible - and enforceable - legal codes".

Create centres of excellence to show that "Muslims can compete in today's globalised economy and to instill in the youth the desire for learning".

The West should assist, first and foremost by creating partnerships. Aid is also a possibility, "but only under certain circumstances". Rather than funding individual projects, "better results can be achieved by directing a significant fraction of the assistance to programmes of excellence selected to build up both infrastructure and human resources". The West should also avoid giving support to undemocratic regimes; "in the long run it is far better to be on the side of the people, not on the side of a dictator".

Zawali concludes his article by pointing out that "knowledge-based societies are better equipped to be part of the world economy. They will also contribute to progress and enlightenment, and hence peaceful coexistence and a more civilised and truly global humanity".

There are indeed glittering prospects for science in the Middle East. The revolutionary mobilisation in Egypt and elsewhere looks very much like an attempt to describe the world accurately in societies that have been forced to pretend that two plus two is five decades. Dictatorship and science do not sit well together.

But science will only take off in any country now if the desire to know, to understand, and to improve our conditions in the here and now, is freed from the bonds of both state and corporate power. The assumptions and procedures of science in the West have long been shaped by military and commercial imperatives. The scientific establishment has accepted these shaping constraints, reluctantly or enthusiastically, but they have had little choice in the matter.

But it is now possible to sketch the outlines of a more thoroughly participatory science, in which the objectives of research, if not the details of method, are discussed openly by an interested public. I've described such a system here, in the New Scientist. In Europe and the United States, an oligarchy of experts has managed science and governed the distribution of funds in accordance with the needs of powerful institutions. Science has delivered great public benefits - but it has been forced to concentrate on creating goods that can be sold for profit or weapons of ever more astonishing lethality.

Middle East potential

The Middle East has in its power to make science anew, as the conscious and rational means by which our desires for a safe and prosperous world can be realised. Learn from the West, certainly - but note that science here is silting up, becoming removed from any defensible account of what we need and want. The commodity and the crime of war engross our brightest minds and distract them from important business. There is another way, that takes decisions about the ends of science away from politicians and bureaucrats and gives them to the people as a whole.

If science is to serve the public then the public must take the power to determine its objectives. People will complain that the public do not know what they need. But does the Pentagon know? Does Pfizer know? And besides, power is a great teacher.

The aim of science should not be to create things that are expensive, but that people can be persuaded to buy. And science should not be the plaything of generals. Science must now seek to make the necessities of life as cheap as possible, to make them free, even, so that we can devote more of our time to the importance business of learning and having fun and being free. The alternative is a world of ever more opulence that fewer and fewer of us can afford, a nightmare of fictitious scarcity and very real violence.

The peoples of the Middle East are on the brink of a new era of discovery and intellectual excitement, perhaps. I hope very much that they are. There is youth there, and hope and the incipient genius that comes from the knowledge that they are right - that their regimes will have to change, that the truth will triumph at last over lies.

If that spirit takes them forward then it will do more than enable their countries "to compete in today's globalised economy". That spirit, the spirit we saw in Tahrir Square, that has said no dictatorship and no lies, may yet save the world.

Dan Hind has worked in publishing since 1998 and is the author of two well-acclaimed books: The Return of the Public and The Threat to Reason. He is also a regular contributor to The Guardian.

Follow him on Twitter: @danhind

Hind's 'The Return of the Public' was first published by Verso, the UK publishing house.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Shia in Bahrain: Repression and regression - Features - Al Jazeera English

Shia in Bahrain: Repression and regression - Features - Al Jazeera English

Shia professors have been removed from their positions in universities, Shia deputies in the parliament were forced to resign, and many activists have been tortured and imprisoned [EPA]

Bahrain's decision in recent days to demolish dozens of Shia mosques is just the latest move in a dangerous gambit to head off the unrest gripping much of the Arab world, by playing directly to widespread fears of Shia political power and - by extension - of regional power, Iran.

Here, Bahrain stands alone. While other countries have seen an easing of sectarian and ethnic tensions as whole swathes of Arab societies have come together - at least for now - to protest authoritarian regimes, the government in Manama has set out deliberately to fan Sunni-Shia tensions.

The strategy of Bahrain's ruling Sunni elite seems to be as follows: blame the demonstrations on the majority Shia, and by extension, on Iran; and justify the violent crackdown and accompanying violence as necessary to avert a Shia takeover which might encourage Iran's direct intervention.

Bahrain has then sought to use these arguments to persuade its close ally and patron the United States that the Saudi invasion was in fact an appropriate response to the uprising. US officials tried to broker a compromise between the opposition, the ruling al-Khalifa family and Saudi Arabia in March, but failed. Moreover, the US appears to be more open to Bahrain's stated fears of Iranian meddling than it was just weeks ago.

Sunni-Shia split

During a recent trip to Bahrain, after a two-year absence, it was clear to me that the sectarian divide now being fueled by the government has profoundly affected society. As part of the government repression, Shia professors have been removed from their positions in universities, Shia deputies in the parliament were forced to resign, and many activists have been tortured, imprisoned, placed on death row, or even killed.

Just this week, the government announced that four Bahrainis would be executed for their political activity. The country, once considered a land of relative tolerance, is now a republic of fear.

"People now see the Shia as provocateurs, even in families where there are mixed marriages," one lawyer said, sitting in her office that she locks out of fear of being arrested at any moment. Ironically, Bahrain, its Saudi backers - and their bitter rival, Iran, are all playing the same game - for the Islamic Republic of Iran is clearly doing its part to exacerbate the tiny monarchy's sectarian divide.

Iran undoubtedly harbours pragmatic political and strategic hopes that Bahrain's ruling al-Khalifa dynasty will be overthrown in favour of a government more friendly to Tehran. It also makes no effort to disguise its anticipation that such a strategic boon would also lead to a major setback for regional rival, Saudi Arabia, in the form of a "Shia uprising" in the oil-rich eastern part of the kingdom.

Realpolitik aside, however, dozens of articles in the Iranian media reveal that significant anger over the repression against the Shia in Bahrain is building among religious Iranians of all political factions, from traditional clerics to armed members of the Basij militia.

On April 26, brigadier general and commander of the Basij, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, proclaimed that Iranians should unite out of solidarity with their Shia brethren. "If the current conditions do not allow us to get directly involved in the battlefield, we should change the conditions and play a direct role on this scene." Naqdi's comments were published on Fars News, a semi-official site with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The brigadier general's encouragement of "direct involvement" is particularly noteworthy inasmuch as war between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council alliance would prove extremely costly for all nations in the Persian Gulf. Strategically, Iran would gain little through overt combat and stands to lose a great number of lives and endanger its already teetering economy. Thus, while war is highly unlikely, the very fact that one of Iran's senior commanders publicly urged direct action is a testament to the power of the sentiments of spiritual affinity with Bahrain's Shia among some key elements of Iran's establishment.

Meanwhile, many Shia opposition activists expressed frustration that Iran is making a link with their cause - a development they see as unhelpful and even downright dangerous. "Bahrainis have always been put to the test," said one human rights advocate. "Arabic culture or Persian culture. And we have never failed the test; we are Arabs."

Shifting ground

At first glance, the capital Manama shows few signs that life has changed, aside perhaps from the prominent police check points and the closure of the main road from the airport to the town centre from midnight to 5am. But underneath the surface, the society is more polarised than it was - even in the 1990s, when four years of unrest sparked severe government repression.

As in most authoritarian states, citizens here rarely have a clue of what is forbidden and what is permitted. For example, in March the Shia editors of the only independent newspaper, Al Wasat, were charged with publishing "fabricated news"and "harming public safety". They were fired from their positions and they are due to face trial, although no court date has yet been set.

The charges against the three, including chief editor Mansoor al Jamri, reflect the new era of repression: The newspaper and al Jamri, in particular, were never viewed as a mouthpieces for Shia views in Bahrain. In fact, al Jamri was asked a decade ago to return to Bahrain, from Great Britain - by the Crown Prince.

The prince even offered him a cabinet post because the monarchy wanted to appear to be reforming the political system. Al Jamri, a member of Bahrain's elite who was Western-educated and has a Sunni wife, founded al Wasat, which until March had the backing of the government.

The charges against al Jamri have shocked the political elites, who believe his case shows no one is safe or beyond persecution. Perhaps this is the reason the government has singled him out – to intimidate the Shia population.

The Shia of Bahrain experienced similar repression, though not to this degree, in the 1990s. In fact, in 1995 it was al Jamri's father, Sheikh Abd al Amir al Jamri, who had emerged as the most powerful spokesman of the Shia protest movement. He served time in jail and the government crushed the protests without making significant concessions. And just as now, the Bahraini government accused Iran of instigating years of social and political unrest.

Geneive Abdo is an author, analyst, and the liaison for the United Nation’s Alliance of Civilizations. She has just completed a new book, which will be published in late August: Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11 (Oxford University Press).

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Relatives fearful over Bahrain trials - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Relatives fearful over Bahrain trials - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

In Bahrain, human-rights workers say at least 50 medical staff are still missing after a crackdown on hospital care for injured anti-government demonstrators.

There are fears that some of the detained staff could face stiff sentences for treating protesters. Among them is Dr al-Dallal, a prominent physician arrested on March 17 during a military raid at Salmaniyah hospital in Manama.

His wife, Fareeda al-Dallal, was also arrested and beaten under custody last Tuesday. Al Jazeera spoke to her about her arrest and the fears she has about the safety of her husband.

Syrians urge fresh protests amid crackdown - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Syrians urge fresh protests amid crackdown - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Hundreds of dissidents have been arrested across Syria, including in the flashpoint town of Deraa and a besieged Damascus suburb, after dozens were killed in weekend protests, activists say.

Anti-government activists called for fresh protests on Sunday in a bid to break the week-long siege of the capital's Douma suburb and of Deraa, as well as in solidarity with other towns faced with deadly crackdowns.

Six civilians were killed in Deraa on Saturday, a day after massive protests rocked the country. Rights groups said the civilian death toll from unprecedented demonstrations that erupted on March 15 has topped 580.

David Cameron, the British prime minister, denounced Syria's "disgraceful" crackdown and urged more global pressure against Damascus, although Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, warned against foreign military intervention.

The United States has blocked assets of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher, who commands the feared Fourth Armoured Division, as well as top officials and Syria's intelligence services.

The European Union is preparing a raft of sanctions, including an arms embargo.

Prominent lawyer arrested

Despite the international condemnation, reports of arrests continued.

"At least 356 people were arrested today across Syria, including in Deraa, Douma, Latakia and Qamishli," an activist told AFP by telephone.

He said demonstrations took place in the central city of Homs, where protesters chanted "the people demand the fall of the regime" in the Khaldiyeh area near Nur mosque.

Syrian forces also arrested a prominent human rights lawyers in the city of Raqqa after he criticised

the authorities' reaction to the anti-government protests, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Observatory said Abdallah Khalil was arrested on Sunday by military intelligence agents at the Place of Justice in his home city of Raqqa in eastern Syria, which has been hit hard by a water crisis in the last six years. Experts say the crisis has been largely caused by mismanagement of resources and corruption.

Khalil challenged president Assad in 2007 for running unopposed in a referendum that gave him a second term as president. He made the comments on Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, a protest was also held in the coastal city of Latakia and a candlelit vigil in Baniyas.

In Deraa, troops in tanks backed by other armoured vehicles cruised the streets on Sunday, shooting to keep residents indoors and arresting men aged 15 and over, an activist from the town said.

Quoting a source in Deraa, Al Jazeera's Rula Amin said the situation in the city remained tense though tank shelling had ceased.

"Security forces are intensifying their house to house searches and (there have been) many many random arrests.

"He says hundreds of people have been arrested ... government says it's forces arrested 149 people in Deraa. Old city and the Karak neighbourhood are bearing the brunt of the operation today."

Douma under siege

In Douma, "the army has tightened the siege and has a list of 200 names of people it wants to arrest", another activist said.

A young man told AFP how he escaped on Sunday from Douma at "great risk" using back roads. "It was very difficult and very dangerous. I had to avoid all the checkpoints."

"People are afraid to leave their homes but they are beginning to feel the pinch. There are shortages of food, baby milk and other basic stuff," he said.

In Deraa, "nothing is coming in. People there grow a lot of tomatoes and zucchini and they are making do with what they have. The situation is critical but there is no famine."

The Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page, a driving force behind the protests, vowed in a statement that "we will only kneel before God," and gave a daily schedule of protests for the week in solidarity with Deraa and Douma.

The army said it entered Deraa on April 25 at the request of residents to rid them of "terrorist gangs" responsible for a spate of killings and vandalism.

"The manhunt for terrorist groups has led to the death of six of them and the arrest of 149 wanted people as well as the seizing of a quantity of arms," according to a military spokesman.

He said one soldier was killed and seven others wounded on Saturday in Deraa, where water and power have been cut since between 3,000 and 5,000 troops backed by tanks stormed the town at dawn last Monday.

Doubt cast on Gaddafi son death claim - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Doubt cast on Gaddafi son death claim - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Libyan state television has shown what it called footage of the body of Muammar Gaddafi's son who was allegedly killed in a NATO air raid.

Moussa Ibrahim, the Libyan government spokesman, said on Sunday the Libyan leader and his wife were in the house of his 29-year-old son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, in Tripoli when it was hit by at least one missile fired by a NATO fighter jet late on Saturday.

Al-Arab's compound in the city's Garghour neighbourhood was attacked "with full power" in a "direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country", Ibrahim said, calling the strike a violation of international law.

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"What we have now is the law of the jungle," he said.

"We think now it is clear to everyone that what is happening in Libya has nothing to do with the protection of civilians."

Ibrahim had earlier taken journalists to the remnants of a house in Tripoli, which Libyan officials said had been hit by at least three missiles.

It appeared unlikely anyone inside could have survived.

Rifle fire and car horns rang out in Benghazi, the rebel stronghold in Libya's east, as news of the attack spread. Cars whizzed by the sea-front beeping their horns and shouting "God is greatest" as the night sky was lit up by red tracer fire.

But opposition fighters who control the region said they could not trust Gaddafi.

Lot of suggestions

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, reporting from Benghazi on Sunday, said there were "an awful lot" of suggestions in Libya that the news of the deaths could be fabricated.

"One of the main spokesmen for the Transitional National Council, Abdul Hafez Goga, is saying he thinks it could all be fabrication, that it may well be Gaddafi is trying to garner some sympathy," she said.

"Back in 1986, Gaddafi once claimed that Ronald Reagan, then US president, had launched a strike on his compound in Tripoli and killed his daughter.

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"Many journalists since then dug around and found out that the actual child that had died had nothing to do with Gaddafi, that he sort of adopted her posthumously."

Saif al-Arab Gaddafi is the most unknown of the Libyan leader's children, Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from the Tunisia-Libya border, said.

"He's one of the low-profile of his children and has been largely invisible since the conflict began," she said.

"He hasn't been visible in any significant form. He hasn't appeared on TV or made any speeches, he hasn't been on any crowd-rallying marches."

Even as the claims about the deaths were being debated, she said fighting continued on the western border near Tunisia, where a number of Gaddafi's troops tried to break through the border crossing into Tunisia.

"Rebel forces seem to know the territory very well here, and as long as they occupy the higher ground, they appear to have the upper hand," McNaught said, adding that she could hear Grad rockets whizzing past.

Separately, pro-democracy forces reported fighting near the opposition-held city of Zintan, where they said NATO air strikes hit pro-Gaddafi troops.

There were also reports of fierce fighting in the western city of Misurata, as opposition fighters tried to seize the city's airport from Gaddafi forces.

Raid criticised

The NATO air raid in Tripoli drew criticism from Russia on Sunday, which accused the military alliance of going beyond its UN mandate to protect civilians.

"More and more facts indicate that the aim of the anti-Libyan coalition is the physical destruction of Gaddafi,'' Konstantin Kosachyov, a Russian politician who often serves as a spokesman for the Kremlin's views on foreign affairs, said.

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NATO said it had continued air attacks against military installations in Tripoli, including one on a known command-and-control building in the Bab al-Aziziya neighbourhood, but it could not confirm the news of the deaths of Gaddafi's family members.

"NATO targets do not include individuals, as they are military in nature and clearly linked to the regime's systematic attacks on Libyans," Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO's Operation Unified Protector, said earlier on Sunday in a statement.

"This was a military target and we cannot confirm who was there."

Bouchard dismissed questions over the target site being a family home.

David Cameron, the British prime minister, echoed NATO's stance on the Western coalition forces' targeting policy, and refused to comment on what he called an "unconfirmed report".

'Embassies vandalised'

The exchange of accusations came amid reports that the British and Italian embassies in Tripoli had been vandalised.

In a swift response, the UK expelled on Sunday the Libyan ambassador, giving him 24 hours to leave the country.

"The Vienna Convention requires the Gaddafi regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli. By failing to do so that regime has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations," William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said in a statement, referring to Gaddafi.

"I condemn the attacks on the British embassy premises in Tripoli as well as the diplomatic missions of other countries."

Separately, the UN announced it had evacuated its international staff from Tripoli on account of the unrest.

Stephanie Bunker, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that 12 staffers had left Libya and were now in neighbouring Tunisia.