Egypt's Attorney General's office: 'Samir Geagea' accused of financing plot to overthrow Mursi'

 'Geagea' & LBC's, Pierre Daher'

"...The citizen had reported to the attorney general that he was watching a religious satellite channel when it received a telephone call from political and human rights activist Mohamed Othman, who said he had confirmed that Abou Hamed had received funding from both internal and external sources to cause sectarian strife and overthrow the regime.According to Othman, the foreign funds come from Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, who Abou Hamed met while visiting Lebanon. He further alleged that the internal funding comes from an Egyptian businessman aiming to agitate public opinion against President Mohamed Morsy. ..."

'Frequent visitor to Riyadh'

"'Who are you training in that camp? Are you raising men to spill Muslims’ blood?’”

"... Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu slammed the government yesterday after a party delegation was not allowed to visit the Apaydın refugee camp near Hatay, which hosts defected Syrian soldiers. 
“I sent our deputies to check out the camp, which was said to be full of agents and spies,” Kılıçdaroğlu said while in the central Anatolian province of Afyonkarahisar. “But the authorities said you cannot enter this camp. Now I expect an answer from the government: ‘What is in that camp? Who are you training in that camp? Are you raising men to spill Muslims’ blood?’”
Kocaeli deputy Hurşit Güneş said they couldn’t get the required authorization from the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD). “There are claims over this camp that defected soldiers are being trained and given weapons and sent back to Syria,” Güneş said, adding that he will follow up the issue when he returns to Ankara. ..."

“Saudi Arabia is totally pragmatic”

"... A similar approach characterises its policy towards Syria. Riyadh fears (Whoa?) the civil war could lead to the replacement of President Bashar al-Assad with an Islamist – yet for almost a year it has been among the most vocal advocates of the opposition, and one of the few countries believed to be supplying rebels with money and weapons. It sees the toppling of Mr Assad as a way of weakening Iran, an ambitious regional rival with whom Mr Assad is allied.
Meanwhile the most urgent regional crisis – Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear programme and its perceived desire to dominate the Gulf – has intensified. The failure of Tehran’s negotiations with world powers has heightened the prospect of Israeli attacks that would further unsettle the region. As a result, Saudi Arabia today faces one of its most difficult periods since it was founded 80 years ago. The domestic situation compounds the problems..."

Rivals? Not really.

"... Mr. Morsi’s focus bisects Washington’s customary division of the region, between Western-friendly states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand and Iran on the other, said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo.But although it involves collaboration with American rivals, Mr. Morsi’s specific initiative, in particular, also appears largely harmonious with the stated Western objective of ending the Syrian bloodshed....Mr. Morsi has already called for Mr. Assad to leave power ........ “Obviously, you need channels to the Assad regime — people who are uncomfortable with the way things stand and would like to be seen as playing a more positive role,” said Peter Harling, a Syria researcher at the International Crisis Group, speaking of Iran. “And any effort to reach Iran can’t include the Western camp; it would be impossible if the U.S. was involved.”"

“There’s nothing good for us: there’s no work,... they don’t want to fight,”

"...“There’s nothing good for us: there’s no work, my family is away and some people died,” Abu Bera said. “Nothing that happened is good.”Over the past year, fighting has increased between Tripoli’s Alawite fighters, who support the Damascus-based regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Sunni militias that support Syria’s rebels.....
The latest round of fighting began on the weekend that marked the end of Ramadan..... someone opened fire. As usual, both sides blamed each other for beginning the battle. Since then, 16 people have died and more than 100 have been injured in the fighting, according to local media....
“They don’t want to fight,” he said of his fighters, with a heavy burst from an automatic weapon nearby belying his hopeful statement.
There are plenty of reasons to not to want to fight. During battles, families are often evacuated from homes near the front line. With no garbage collection, refuse piles in the streets. Basic supplies like water, food and cigarettes are quickly exhausted from the shops near the front line, meaning a perilous sprint across the sniper alleys for those in need.
The frequent battles never have a winner or loser......  Actual assaults — moving on territory held by the other side — are rare...... While all fighters share a hatred of the Syrian regime and its Lebanese allies, boredom seems to drive the urge to fight for some at times. While battles result when militia leaders decide to mobilize, it seems that many fighters often take matters into their own hands.
The mutual hatred between both sides, the lack of a final resolution to battles, combined with growing tensions over Syria – and occasional boredom – ensure that the clashes keep happening.
As the night progressed, Abu Bera slept and some Sunni fighters continued firing in Jebel Mohsen from concealed sniper positions. For hours, the steady staccato of Bab al-Tabbaneh’s snipers at work was unable to provoke a response...... It was only when his phone rang that he woke up. The caller had news that Khaled Baradei, a 28-year-old Salafi fighter and leader, had been killed in Riva, another neighborhood bordering Jebel Mohsen. The cease-fire was voided and the battle was back on .......
At first light, thick black smoke streamed from the front line in Jebel Mohsen down the street and the intensity of the battle increased. Several blocks away from Abu Bera’s fighters, another group of militants who said they were partisans loyal to Future Movement leader and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri were sidelined from the battle after they had exhausted most of their ammunition............
A few hours later, back where Abu Bera’s fighters were stationed, some of the Army’s armored personnel carriers belonging to the 12th Infantry Division began firing their .50-caliber machine guns at Jebel Mohsen.  After each long burst, the Sunni fighters would cheer and shout “Allahu Akbar!” The Sunni fighters used the involvement of the military to push their attack, beginning to ready rocket-propelled grenade tubes and using the Army’s fire as cover to duck down exposed alleys to the front.
The relationship that the Sunni fighters here have with the Lebanese Armed Forces is complicated and confusing....... In engagements earlier this year, Sunni fighters showed contempt for some Army units and admitted to opening fire on them at times.  In May, Abu Bera showed a video of an unidentified unit of the Lebanese Army opening fire on the buildings lining Syria Street.
This time around though, one group of Sunni fighters admitted to buying ammunition at a cut rate from a sympathetic Lebanese soldier stationed on the street....
On Thursday evening, the Lebanese government said that it had approved the “political cover” needed for the Army to go into Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jebel Mohsen and quell the fighting. On Friday night, the government said that arrest warrants had been issued for all fighting in the conflict. In Bab al-Tabbaneh, though, there appeared to be no effort at all to stop the Sunni fighters...."

Egypt investigates killing of a suspected militant

 "... EL-ARISH, Egypt – Egyptian authorities are investigating the death of a suspected militant near the country's border with Israel on Sunday, security officials said. Ibrahim Madhan was killed while riding a motorcycle in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula some 9 miles from the Israeli border. The security officials said scraps from a missile were found next to his body.Officials said they are considering several scenarios, including the possibility of an Israeli missile strike. That would raise questions about whether it was coordinated with Egyptian authorities...."

Egypt investigates killing of a suspected militant

 "... EL-ARISH, Egypt – Egyptian authorities are investigating the death of a suspected militant near the country's border with Israel on Sunday, security officials said. Ibrahim Madhan was killed while riding a motorcycle in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula some 9 miles from the Israeli border. The security officials said scraps from a missile were found next to his body.Officials said they are considering several scenarios, including the possibility of an Israeli missile strike. That would raise questions about whether it was coordinated with Egyptian authorities...."

Egypt investigates killing of a suspected militant

 "... EL-ARISH, Egypt – Egyptian authorities are investigating the death of a suspected militant near the country's border with Israel on Sunday, security officials said. Ibrahim Madhan was killed while riding a motorcycle in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula some 9 miles from the Israeli border. The security officials said scraps from a missile were found next to his body.Officials said they are considering several scenarios, including the possibility of an Israeli missile strike. That would raise questions about whether it was coordinated with Egyptian authorities...."

Egypt investigates killing of a suspected militant

 "... EL-ARISH, Egypt – Egyptian authorities are investigating the death of a suspected militant near the country's border with Israel on Sunday, security officials said. Ibrahim Madhan was killed while riding a motorcycle in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula some 9 miles from the Israeli border. The security officials said scraps from a missile were found next to his body.Officials said they are considering several scenarios, including the possibility of an Israeli missile strike. That would raise questions about whether it was coordinated with Egyptian authorities...."

Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority: 'We rejected a US demand to fire on an Iranian vessel!'

Al Mayadeen reported that yesterday.

"... Egyptian Naval Forces recently rejected a U.S. demand to fire on an Iranian vessel loaded with arms and heading to Syria, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority has told Al Arabiya.
Vice Admiral Mohab Mamish, also former commander of the Egyptian Navy, ruled out the possibility of any military operations in the Suez Canal, to guarantee the security of the international waterway...."

'What if Putin is right?'

 Russia knows Jihadis: 'Chechnya' Shamil Basayev before he got killed in 2006''

"...La Russie connait bien le monde musulmanPour autant, ce serait toutefois bien méconnaître la réalité de la Russie contemporaine que de s’arrêter là. On l’oublie trop souvent, la Russie connaît bien le monde musulman. Tout d’abord, rappelons qu’entre 15 et 20 millions de Russes ont l’islam pour religion, localisés essentiellement dans le Caucase du Nord ou encore au Tatarstan. Ensuite, une guerre en Afghanistan mais aussi quelque 70 ans de présence en Asie centrale ont créé une vraie connaissance du monde arabo-musulman que des alliances avec des régimes arabes dits alors progressistes – c’était dans les années 1960 et 1970 – ont largement confortée.
Vu de Moscou, en résumé, le bilan des révolutions arabes est accablant. Ces dernières ne conduisent pas à la démocratie, contrairement aux espoirs qu’elles avaient suscités initialement. En Tunisie, en Libye ou encore en Egypte, ce sont des régimes islamistes qui sont arrivés au pouvoir et qui, aujourd’hui, étouffent l’émergence d’une vraie liberté. Les minorités ethniques et religieuses ainsi que les femmes sont les premières à payer le prix de l’instauration, de fait, de la loi coranique et d’un ordre moral régressif.

Vu de Moscou, Qatar et Arabie saoudite sont les vrais éléments déstabilisateurs de la région. Ces deux pays, qui ne sont pas des parangons de démocratie, loin s’en faut, financent aujourd’hui tous les mouvements salafistes, wahhabites ou encore se réclamant d’Al Qaeda, qui n’ont qu’un objectif, faire refluer l’influence des valeurs occidentales et instaurer une espace islamiste le plus étendu possible. L’instabilité qui prévaut aujourd’hui, par exemple, au sud du Sahara, leur doit pour beaucoup…
L’Occident coupable de cécitéLa chute de Bachar al-Assad, surtout si elle est brutale, ne peut amener, pour Moscou, qu’à l’instauration d’un régime là encore islamiste. L’Occident, vu de Russie, est coupable de cécité et d’aveuglement tant il n’a de cesse de soutenir des groupes armés qui, une fois arrivés au pouvoir, lui tourneront le dos pour s’inscrire dans le projet de création d’un grand espace sunnite-islamiste, par définition anti-occidental, mais aussi anti-chiite, que domineront, pétro et gazo-dollars aidant, l’Arabie saoudite et le Qatar. En tout cas ces derniers l’espèrent-ils.
Au final, la position de la Russie n’a rien d’un entêtement de principe, ni ne s’inscrit dans des relents de guerre froide comme ont pu l’accréditer certaines déclarations récentes de dirigeants politiques français. Elle est au contraire raisonnée et réfléchie. Et si Poutine avait raison ? ..."

MUST Read: "How to set the Middle East on Fire!"

"...But she was not prepared a few years later in Bahrain when she encountered plans by high-ranking admirals to confront Iran, any one of which, she reckoned, could set the region on fire. It was 2007, and Todd, then 42, was a top political adviser to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
Previous 5th Fleet commanders had resisted various ploys by Bush administration hawks to threaten the Tehran regime. But in spring 2007, a new commander arrived with an ambitious program to show the Iranians who was boss in the Persian Gulf.
Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff had amassed an impressive résumé, rising through the ranks to command a cruiser and a warship group after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. .... backed by a powerful friend and boss, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) chief Adm. William J. “Fox” Fallon — was itching to push the Iranians, Todd and other present and former Navy officials say...................
According to Todd and another witness, Cosgriff’s idea, presented in a series of staff meetings, was to sail three “big decks,” as aircraft carriers are known, through the Strait of Hormuz — to put a virtual armada, unannounced, on Iran’s doorstep. No advance notice, even to Saudi Arabia and other gulf allies. Not only that, they said, Cosgriff ordered his staff to keep the State Department in the dark, too.
To Todd, it was like something straight out of “Seven Days in May,” the 1964 political thriller about a right-wing U.S. military coup. ........  If this maneuver were carried out, Todd and others feared, the Iranians would freak out. At the least, they’d cancel a critical diplomatic meeting coming up with U.S. officials. Todd suspected that was Cosgriff’s aim. She and others also speculated that Cosgriff wouldn’t propose such a brazen plan without Fallon’s support.
Retired Adm. David C. Nichols, deputy Centcom commander in 2007, recalled in an interview last year that Fallon “wanted to do a freedom-of-navigation exercise in what Iran calls its territorial waters that we hadn’t done in a long time.” Nothing wrong with that, per se, but the problem was that “we don’t understand Iran’s perception of what we’re doing, and we haven’t understood what they’re doing and why,” Nichols said. “It makes miscalculations possible.”
Todd feared that the Iranians would respond, possibly by launching fast-attack missile boats into the gulf or unleashing Hezbollah on Israel. Then anything could happen: a collision, a jittery exchange of gunfire — bad enough on its own, but also an incident that Washington hawks could seize on to justify an all-out response on Iran.
Preposterous? It had happened before, off North Vietnam in 1964. In the Tonkin Gulf incident, a Navy captain claimed a communist attack on his ship. President Lyndon Johnson swiftly ordered the bombing of North Vietnam, touching off a wider war that turned the country upside down and left more than 58,000 U.S. servicemen dead.
Don’t tell anybody? No way.
Todd picked up the phone and called a friend in Foggy Bottom. She had to get this thing stopped.... (Continue, here)

'There is time & space" for diplomacy

"...Israel believes that the IAEA report, due to be published this week, backs up claims that Tehran has accelerated its nuclear project. The White House, however, insists that the findings do nothing to alter the working assumption that there is still time to resolve the crisis diplomatically. ..."

Subtext of this concoction: 'Expect a major crackdown in the Eastern Provinces!'

"(Al Arabiya) - ...Saudi Arabia has busted two terror cells in Riyadh and Jeddah, foiling their plans for attacks on the two cities, the country’s interior ministry announced Sunday. .."

Syria VP al Sharaa' Dispels Defection Rumors

"...Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa has appeared in public for the first time in weeks, ending speculation that he had defected from President Bashar al-Assad's embattled government.The 73-year-old Sunni Muslim met Sunday with a visiting senior Iranian official in Damascus. Sharaa was last seen in public at a state funeral for security officials who died in a July 18 bomb blast. ..."

Turkey's Syria Conundrum

"...With this policy of direct confrontation, Ankara not only strove to obtain the moral high ground. It also sought to precipitate the fall of Assad while building a relationship with the future leadership of Syria by heavily investing in the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council.Today, this policy of forcefully pushing the regime change agenda in Syria is under criticism domestically as some of the risks of a post-Assad world are becoming clearer.
The fear in Turkey is of Syria’s disintegration into ethnically and religiously purer ministates, with a Kurdish entity in the north, an Alawite entity in the west and a Sunni entity in the rest. The Kurdish opposition’s recent unilateral power grab in northeastern Syria rekindled Turkish concerns about the emergence of an independent Kurdish entity linking the north of Iraq to the north of Syria.....
The failure to solve its own Kurdish problem therefore raises the stakes for Turkey should Syria implode along sectarian lines. ..."

Al Mayadeen Report: 'Tunisian Jihadis recruited by a Gulf country, filter through Turkey & Lebanon to fight in Syria'

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'Qatar & Turkey's participation in Iran's NAM summit'

"Forget the value of Ban Ki Moon’s participation at the NAM summit against Israel’s protests, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani will also likely attend, as well as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Mursi’s participation makes a lot more sense now. While this doesn’t necessarily indicate a policy shift, it does imply a growing realization on the part of some in the US/NATO/GCC axis that neither a military victory, nor a strategic one whereby Assad is toppled, are anywhere in sight. This is even more so the case considering that Iran will be presenting a proposal to resolve the Syrian crisis on the sidelines of the summit. The Syrian army’s military successes in Aleppo will surely not suffice to defeat the insurrection/civil war/proxy war, but they have strengthened the bargaining position of the Syrian government and its allies. Perhaps the summit will serve as a prelude to a wider regional “bargain” between the major powers, which ultimately, is the only way this conflict ever going to be resolved. More often than not, such deals are only struck after matters reach a tipping point."

Fayyad to Haniyeh: 'Don't go to Tehran!'

"... In response, Haniyeh spokesman Mohammed Awad published a statement saying that Haniyeh had no intention of responding to Fayyad.Iran hopes to earn diplomatic kudos by hosting a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement from August 29-31 at a time when the West is seeking to cripple its economy and isolate it diplomatically over its disputed nuclear program. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has already said he will attend, defying calls from the United States and Israel to boycott the event...."

PKK attacks continue in Turkey

"...Militants attacked the same battalion twice in the previous 24 hours, leaving one soldier dead and five soldiers injured. ..."