Assad regime has lost humanity – UN

Secretary general says Syrian people 'are bleeding' and that crimes against humanity may have been committed 

The Syrian regime has "lost its fundamental humanity" and no longer has any legitimacy, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said on Thursday as he described a massacre of around 90 villagers as "shocking and sickening" and demanded that the killers be brought to account.
Using some of the strongest language yet to condemn the government of Bashar al-Assad, Ban said UN monitors were shot at trying to get to the scene of the massacre on Wednesday.
He said the situation in Syria was close to breaking point and the danger of civil war was imminent and real.
The recent mass killings were "indicative of a pattern that may amount to crimes against humanity," he added. "The Syrian people are bleeding. They are angry. They want peace and dignity. Above all, they all want action."
The latest massacre, in the hamlet of al-Qubair, near Syria's fourth city of Hama, comes less than three weeks after more than 100 people were killed in Houla – an event that has sharply increased sectarian tensions and appears to be sending the country sliding towards civil war.
A loyalist civilian militia known as the Shabiha was widely accused of carrying out the Houla killings. Witnesses to the massacre in al-Qubair insisted that the Shabiha, whose members are largely from the ruling Alawite sect, had again been responsible.
Ban said the village had apparently been surrounded by Syrian forces. "The bodies of innocent civilians lying where they were, shot. Some were allegedly burned or slashed with knives," he said, adding that "each day seems to bring new additions to the grim catalogue of atrocities". Ban said it has been evident for many months that President Assad and his government "have lost all legitimacy", and added that "any regime or leader that tolerates such killing of innocents has lost its fundamental humanity".
Soon after Ban's address to the UN general assembly, Kofi Annan, the envoy he dispatched to Syria, conceded that his battered peace plan was faltering.
UN diplomats said Annan is urging the divided security council to unite and act immediately to press the Syrian government to implement his peace plan. The diplomats said Annan told council members that there must be consequences – usually a term for sanctions – for opponents of his six-point plan.
Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, warned that the Annan peace plan was in serious trouble, and said Syria was on the edge of a worse and more bloody phase than seen so far. Hague said: "The Annan plan won't last indefinitely. Syria is clearly on the edge … of deeper violence, of deep, sectarian violence, village against village, pro-government militias against opposition areas, and of looking more like Bosnia in the 1990s than Libya last year.
"The Annan plan has clearly failed so far, but it is not dead, all hope is not lost."

Afghanistan suffers day of bloodshed at hands of Nato

Thirty civilians killed by suicide bombers in market and air strike that wiped out village wedding party, say officials

Afghan villagers gather at a house destroyed in a Nato raid in Logar province. Photograph: Ihsanullah  Majroh/AP

                                                                                                                                                    On a day of deadly violence that underlined the vulnerability of Afghans, , more than 30 civilians were killed by Taliban suicide attackers and a Nato air strike on Wednesday.
Civilians are regular victims of the fighting that now affects most of Afghanistan, and last year a record number of innocent people were killed, according to UN data, but it is unusual for both parties in the conflict to exact such a toll within the span of a few hours.
In the southern city of Kandahar, a bomber struck in a market near the gates of a large military airbase. As crowds gathered at the site of the attack, a second man drove up on a motorbike and detonated another suicide vest. Together they killed 21 civilians and injured at least 50, the provincial police chief, Abdul Razzaq, said.
In Logar province, which lies south of Kabul but near the eastern border with Pakistan, a Nato air attack on a village home killed up to 18 civilians who had gathered to celebrate a wedding, local government and security officials said.
The attack targeted Taliban fighters who had taken shelter in the house, but among the bodies that angry villagers brought to the provincial capital were at least five women and seven children, according to a photographer from the Associated Press who saw the dead.
It is not clear whether the insurgents sought permission to enter the house, or forced their way in at gunpoint. There were also at least half a dozen militants among those killed, the police and intelligence services said, but villagers were only mourning their own dead.
"Last night in Baraki Barak district there was fighting between the Taliban and foreigners and the Taliban hid themselves in the house of a man called Basir Akhunzada, an elder of the people," said Abdul Wali, the chief of the Logar provincial council, who discussed the bombing by phone from Logar.
"Akhundzada was killed, his brother Qayoum Akhunzada, Qayoum's wife. Altogether 18 civilians from his family were killed."
An official from the provincial governor's office confirmed that 18 civilians died. "Not all the people were from his immediate family, because there was a wedding ceremony going on, so there were many relatives staying there," said adviser Mirwais Mir Zakhwal.
Nato forces said they had requested an air strike in Baraki Barak after troops were attacked with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but listed "multiple insurgents" as the only dead. A spokesman said the Nato-led coalition was looking into allegations of civilian casualties.
"We are still looking into the circumstances to try and understand what took place there, and the nature of the casualties," said Lieutenant Commander Brian Badura.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in Kandahar but said it was aimed at the base, Nato's largest headquarters in the south, and claimed they killed only foreigners. But the bombers targeted an area with a bazaar and bus station where there are few foreigners. Afghan security and health officials said the dead and injured were all Afghans.
"I was sitting in my shop, close to this gate, and heard a small explosion, then I saw people were left killed and wounded on the ground," said Shamsullah, a young shopkeeper injured in the blast. "After a few minutes a motorbike came and I just heard a very big explosion and when I opened my eyes I was in a hospital."
The use of a second bomb to increase the toll – by targeting security forces, medical services and bystanders gathered around victims of a first blast – is unusual in Afghanistan. A spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, Jawed Faisal, said he could remember only two other attacks in the city, which is a regular insurgent target, that used secondary bombs. One was in 2007 and one in 2010.
The attack, which happened as four provincial governors were meeting at the base, was condemned by Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, the US embassy and by the Nato-led coalition.
Karzai has long criticised Nato for not doing enough to prevent the killings of innocent civilians, which have become a major irritant in relations with his foreign partners.
He warned earlier this month that the deaths could undermine a deal laying the framework for ties with the US after 2014, when most foreign combat forces will have left Afghanistan.
His critics in turn say the Afghan president should be stronger in his condemnation of the Taliban's role in pushing up the country's civilian casualty toll. Insurgents are now responsible for more than three-quarters of these deaths, according to UN figures.

US says drone killed al-Qaeda commander

Abu Yahya al-Libi, targeted in Pakistan's tribal region, described as group's second-in-command by US officials.

Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaeda second-in-command, has been killed in a US drone attack in Pakistan, US administration sources said.
US officials said on Tuesday that the Libyan-born al-Libi had recently been considered by US counterterrorism experts as the No 2 in the core al-Qaeda group led by Ayman al-Zawahiri.
It is difficult to independently confirm the reports of al-Libi's death. However, if the US claims are true, then al-Libi would be the latest of more than a dozen high-ranking al-Qaeda commanders killed during the past year.
The US state department had set a $1m reward for information leading to al-Libi.
US and Pakistan sources said on Monday that al-Libi was the target of a deadly drone attack in Pakistan's North Waziristan region. However, the US sources could not confirm whether he was killed in that raid.
Zawahiri has headed the group since al-Qaeda's founder, Osama bin Laden, was killed last year in a US commando raid on his hideout in Pakistan.
'Versatile leader'
A US official described al-Libi as "among al-Qaeda's most experienced and versatile leaders", saying that he "played a critical role in the group's planning against the West, providing oversight of the external operations efforts".
The drone raid that targeted al-Libi killed 15 people, according to Pakistani officials, who said more than half of the victims were "foreigners", most of them Arabs.
It was the third drone attack in as many days in Pakistan's tribal regions. A bombing on Saturday killed four people, and another on Sunday killed 10 more.
The Pakistani foreign ministry summoned Richard Hoagland, the US charge d'affaires in Islamabad, on Tuesday to convey the "government's serious concern regarding drone strikes in Pakistani territory".
A commander in North Waziristan closely associated with foreign fighters insisted that al-Libi was alive.
"He has not been killed," he told Reuters news agency. "This is not the first time claims have been made about his death. The Americans are suffering heavy losses in Afghanistan so they have resorted to making false claims."
Another local Taliban commander said the attack killed al-Libi's bodyguard and his driver, but not the al-Qaeda commander himself, according to the Associated Press news agency.
Bagram base detainee
Al-Libi reportedly travelled to Afghanistan in the 1990s. He was captured in 2002 and detained at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
But he escaped in 2005, along with three other detainees, and was never recaptured. He is the only one of the four still at large; the rest have either been captured or killed.
Al-Libi was elevated to al-Qaeda's number-two position last year, after the US raid in Pakistan which killed Osama bin Laden.
He was not considered a skilled military commander - his value to the group was mostly as a propagandist. He appeared frequently in the group's recruitment videos.
This is not the first time the US has reported him dead: al-Libi was initially believed to be the target of a drone attack in December 2009, but the actual victim was Saleh al-Somali, dubbed al-Qaeda's "external operations" chief.

Iran warns Israel of 'lightning' reply to any attack

Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has threatened a "lightning response" to any Israeli attack and warned that sanctions would fail to curb his country's nuclear programme and only deepen its "hatred of the west".
The angry rhetoric is routine for Iran's clerical leadership but had particular significance as it came between rounds of negotiations between Tehran and the world's major powers over Iranian nuclear aspirations.
Western officials were hoping to hear conciliatory notes in the supreme leader's speech, delivered on the anniversary of the death of his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, which is often the occasion of policy announcements by the Tehran leadership.
Mildly positive language towards Barack Obama in a Khamenei speech delivered in March raised hopes for a diplomatic way out of the nuclear impasse, but with a third round of talks due in Moscow later this month, there was no encouragement for reconciliation in today's address.
"The obstacles enemies are creating in our path won't have any effect. Sanctions are ineffective. Sanctions can't stop the Iranian nation from moving forward," Khamenei said at Khomeini's mausoleum south of Tehran. "The only effect these unilateral and multilateral sanctions have on the Iranian nation is that they deepen hatred and animosity toward the west in the heart of our people."
Turning towards the threat of an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear sites, the ayatollah warned: "Should they take any wrong step, any inappropriate move, it will fall on their heads like lightning."
Khamenei's comments come a week after the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, declared there was no need for Iran to stop production of 20% enriched uranium, something that had been sought by international negotiators at the last round of discussions in Baghdad last month.
The Baghdad talks ended without significant progress. A six-nation group of negotiators from the US, China, UK, France, Germany, and Russia, offered reactor fuel, nuclear safety support and parts for commercial airliners in return for a suspension of 20% enriched uranium. The Iranians said Tehran was willing to discuss 20% uranium, but made no mention of suspension and demanded international recognition of its right to enrich uranium.
Western officials say the six UN security council resolutions calling for Iran to suspend enrichment – which can produce fuel for both power stations and nuclear weapons – could be reversed, but only as part of a final settlement under which Iran agrees to undergo sufficiently thorough monitoring to convince the international community it does not have a military programme.
Officials from the six-nation negotiating group are considering how to prevent a collapse of the diplomatic process in Moscow on 18 June, which would increase the likelihood of an Israeli strike. So far western officials have ruled out the offer of a relaxation in sanctions in return for the end of 20% enrichment.
"The Iranians have given nothing, no concessions since 2006. Why reward that with further concessions from our side?," a senior European diplomat said.
Further US banking sanctions are due to take effect this month, followed by an EU oil embargo on 1 July.
Western determination to impose sanctions has been buoyed by the unexpectedly sharp rise in Iraqi oil production, which is likely to dampen the effect of sanctions and tensions with Iran on the global oil price.

Mubarak sentenced to life in jail

  Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life imprisonment on Saturday, the Cairo Criminal Court said.
Presiding Judge Ahmed Refaat announced that after 49 times of trial, the Cairo Criminal Court decided to sentence Mubarak and former interior minister Habib Adli to life terms for charges of killing protesters in the massive demonstration last year.
Adli's six assistants were acquitted, said Refaat.
"The communications among the defendants during the revolution for the order of killing protesters weren't proved, some evidences were corrupted before reaching the hands of the court," Refaat said.
The presiding judge made a brief speech before announcing the verdict, reminding people of the uprising that had ousted the corrupted regime and defended protestors who called for basic human rights.
The demonstrators called for a place to shelter after they lived in slums drinking dirty water, and a job to afford their family, Refaat added.
The uprising that toppled those who made Egypt live in darkness without hope or aspiration was peaceful, and it turned the country to the bright side, he noted.
Egypt's General Prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmoud decided last Saturday to transfer Mubarak from the International Medical Center on Cairo-Ismailia road, where he spent the whole period of imprisonment since the trial started in last August, to the Torah prison.
Charges of corruption and exploiting public money against Mubarak's sons, Alaa and Gamal, and fugitive businessman Hussein Salem were dropped due to the expiry of a statute of limitations.
Mubarak and his sons were charged of purchasing villas owned by Hussein Salem at very low prices against offering him facilities to possess huge pieces of land in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el- Sheikh.
Also, Mubarak was acquitted in one of the cases related to using his power to achieve gains.
After the verdict, Mubarak was transferred by plane to Torah prison to serve his life sentence. His health reportedly worsened after a few minutes of his arrival. His two sons, Adli and the former interior minister's six aids were moved on another helicopter to the same prison as a precautious measure.
Clashes erupted between lawyers and families of those killed in the demonstration after the verdict in the courtroom, leaving some injuries.
The families of victims chanted "people want the judiciary cleansed," describing the verdict as "void, void." Security forces deployed in the court calmed the clashes and managed to regain order.
In front of the court, some Egyptians fired fireworks, singing and dancing in an expression of their excitement for a fair verdict, while others wished to sentence Mubarak and his aids to death.
Mubarak's supporters threw rocks at riot police standing guard outside the court and were chased by security forces.
Some of martyrs' families flocked Tahrir Square to protest on the verdict and express their dissatisfaction. They also called for executing the defendants.
"Acquitting the seniors of Adli is out of expectations," said Ahmad Khalil, 28, who was among those waiting outside the court.
In Suez, feelings of angry overwhelmed the families of the murdered protestors. Karim Essam, 56, whose son was killed in the early days of the uprising, said that "The trial acquitted the interior ministry's senior officials and sons of Mubarak so they can go out and resume their crimes."
Sairah Murad, a 37-year-old physician who had received injured protesters in a governmental hospital during the unrest, said that "Mubarak was not the problem. He is going to die anyway. But how couldn't the court proved his sons are guilty in the killings acts? "
Arafat Amin, secretary general of Al-Karamah party in Sinia, told Xinhua," I think the verdict is fair, it touched the head of the snake, Adli's assistants were just taking orders from their chief."
Emad Al-bake, a political activist, condemned the court decision, saying "the six senior officials didn't deserve to be acquitted."
Akram Hossam, a political researcher in the Middle East Center for political studies, said "the verdict is more than my expectations. I expected for Mubarak less years." "I think both Mubarak and Adli will appeal on the verdict, and their sentence will be mitigated," added Hossam.
According to the state TV, the defendants could appeal on the verdict in 60 days after its announcement.

Colombia remains #1 cocaine producer: US

The U.S. State Department says that Colombia is still the world's largest producer and exporter of cocaine, and warns of the "major" challenge posed by the paramilitary successor groups.
The State Department's annual report on the "War on Drugs" says that 90% of the drugs seized in the U.S. originate in Colombia.
However, Colombia has continued its "aggressive interdiction and eradication program" of drug crops and has maintained a strong collaboration in the extradition of persons accused of crimes in the U.S., according to the report. In 2010 Colombia seized over 225 metric tons of cocaine and cocaine base and eradicated approximately 360 acres of illicit coca crops, thereby eliminating hundreds of tons of additional potential cocaine production, the State Department says.
The report also commended the "pressure" that the Colombian government has put on the guerrilla organizations FARC and ELN, who still "retain considerable control" over the areas with high concentration of coca and opium cultivation.
However, it warned of the "major law enforcement challenge" posed by new criminal gangs, "some of which" have members who used to be in paramilitary groups. It said that these gangs are active throughout the country, "competing and sometimes cooperating" in the drug trade with the FARC.
According the State Department's report, Peru is the world's second largest cocaine producer, followed by Bolivia and Ecuador.
The International Narcotics Control Board recently removed Colombia from its watch list of countries with a drug trafficking problem due to its success fighting against the trade.
The U.S. report comes soon after the news that several neo-paramilitary leaders have been indicted in the U.S., while the U.N. also made a special mention of the rising neo-paramilitary threat in the country.

UN rights chief warns Syria in 'grave danger'

Navi Pillay warns of descent into civil war that could endanger the entire region, as UN body discusses Houla massacre.

The United Nation's top human rights official has warned that Syria could descend into civil war unless the international community supports a peace plan and an investigation into the killing of more than 100 civilians in Houla last week.
Navi Pillay said on Friday that Syria and the entire region were in danger if a full-fledged conflict erupted in the country, as government forces opened fire on protesters in the Douma area near the capital Damascus, activists said.
UN monitors reported that at least 13 people were killed in violence during protests that broke out in towns and cities across Syria to condemn the May 25 killings.
The UN's Human Rights Council is meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss the massacre in Houla, a cluster of villages in the centre of the country, that left 108 people dead, many of them children.
The incident was one of the deadliest incidents since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime started in March last year, and has drawn global condemnation.
Countries including the US, Britain, Australia, and France expelled Syrian diplomats in protest.
Pillay urged an investigation into the Houla massacre, after the council put initial blame on government bombardment and gunmen loyal to Assad.
"Otherwise, the situation in Syria might descend into a full-fledged conflict and the future of the country, as well as the region as a whole could be in grave danger," she said in a statement read to the council.
Annan frustration
Pillay urged world leaders to support the six-point peace plan negotiated by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, which calls on both the opposition and government forces to cease hostilities.
Annan on Friday said he is frustrated at the situation in the Security Council and repeated his calls for a unified approach, adding that it is up to the council to decide what new measures could be used to put an end to the violence.
"This is a decision that the Security Council will have to take ... What is important is that we continue our efforts to find a solution that leads to a transition in Syria," Annan told journalists after talks in Beirut with Najib Mikati, Lebanon's prime minister.
"A democratic transition that fulfills the aspirations of the Syrian people."
A draft resolution, circulated within the Human Rights Council late on Thursday, condemns the "killings confirmed by UN observers" in attacks that involved "the wanton killings of civilians by shooting at close range and by severe physical abuse by pro-regime elements and a series of government artillery and tank shellings of a residential neighbourhood".
The rights committee, which has repeatedly condemned Syria for its crackdown on dissent, is likely to adopt the resolution by a wide margin, even if countries including China, Cuba and Russia may vote against it as in the past, diplomats said.
'Summary executions'
Pillay's office said on Tuesday that most victims of the Houla massacre were civilians and entire families were shot in their homes.
Witnesses told UN investigators that most died in summary executions carried out by militiamen loyal to Assad, known as shabiha.
But Syria said its preliminary investigation had shown that up to 800 anti-government gunmen carried out the massacre with the aim of igniting sectarian strife and encouraging foreign military intervention.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, dismissed the Syrian investigation's conclusion as "another blatant lie", telling reporters in New York "there is no factual evidence ... that would substantiate that rendition of events".

UN observers deployed to Syria traveled to Houla the day after the attack and confirmed the massacre

Damascus has announced that special prayers for the victims would be held at mosques across the country on Friday.
At a news conference on Thursday, Qassem Jamal Suleiman, who headed the Syrian government's investigation into the massacre, categorically denied any regime role.
He said hundreds of rebel gunmen carried out the slaughter after launching a co-ordinated attack on five security checkpoints.
"Government forces did not enter the area where the massacre occurred; not before the massacre and not after it," he said, adding that the victims were families who refused to oppose the government or carry arms.
Opposition activists have confirmed that checkpoints were attacked by rebels, but say it happened after security forces opened fire on a demonstration.
The area is still under attack, according to activists who said government forces focused shelling on Thursday on the Houla village of al-Tibeh.
'Systematic' violations
The UN council draft text condemns the killings as violating Security Council resolutions and accuses Syrian forces of "repeated and systematic violations of human rights".

It calls for an existing team of UN rights investigators to "conduct a comprehensive, independent and unfettered special inquiry consistent with international standards into the events in Houla, to publicly identify those responsible for these atrocities and hold them to account".
But the EU is seeking stronger language on accountability, including a possible call for action by the Security Council, and has proposed amendments, according to diplomats.

"The question is whether to try to keep the Russians on board or sacrifice some of the stronger language. Some would like to create a more pragmatic approach with an eye to New York, ultimately," a Western diplomat said, referring to Russia's veto in the UN Security Council.
Moscow is a staunch ally of the Assad government and one of its main weapons suppliers.
A Russian cargo ship that Western officials say was laden with weapons for the government of Syria reportedly docked at the Syrian port of Tartous last weekend.
President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia does not support any side in the Syrian conflict and denied it was shipping weapons to Damascus.
"Russia does not provide weapons that could be used in a civil conflict," Putin said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.