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Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Volume 12 Number 54
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Southwestern Asia And The Middle East
U.S. MARINES START DEPLOYING IN SOUTHERN AFGHANISTANFollowing a call from Canada for more troops, some of the 3,200 U.S. Marines scheduled for a seven-month deployment in the south of Afghanistan began arriving at the largest base in the region, AP reported on March 18. The Marines will conduct a "full spectrum of operations" to take advantage of the recent gains by NATO and Afghan forces, said Brigadier General Carlos Branco, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). "I believe that the arrival of the Marines simply reinforces what is proving to be a successful strategy. It also demonstrates the commitment of the United States to Afghanistan over the long-term," U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood said on March 18. AT NATO DENIES CIVILIANS KILLED IN AIR STRIKES IN SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN NATO air raids against Taliban insurgents in the southern Helmand Province killed 50 people, including 18 rebels, a parliamentarian from Helmand said on March 18, news agencies reported. However, provincial police chief General Mohammad Hussein Andiwal told AFP that he has no such information. ISAF spokesman Branco also rejected the claim by legislator Amir Dad Mohammad as groundless. However, he added that ISAF did conduct an operation close to the Malmandcina area in Ghorak district of Kandahar Province on March 17, destroying a vehicle driven by insurgents and killing 12 armed militants. He added that the operation was 2 kilometers away from residential areas and there were no civilians among the dead. AT JAPAN TO GIVE $29 MILLION TO AFGHANISTAN Under an agreement signed on March 17 in Kabul, the Japanese government agreed to provide a fresh grant of 3 billion yen ($29 million) to the war-torn country, Xinhua news agency reported the same day. The Japanese ambassador to Afghanistan, Hideo Sato, and Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Kabir Farahi signed the agreement on behalf of their governments. The grant, according to a statement by the Afghan Foreign Ministry, will be used to improve economic-structure and poverty-alleviation projects. Japan, with contributions more than $1 billion, is the second-largest aid contributor to Afghanistan after the United States. AT INMATES RIOT IN AFGHAN PRISON After several days of disturbances, Afghan security forces have sealed off the country's main high-security prison outside Kabul, Reuters reported on March 19. Gunfire was heard from Pul-e Charkhi prison, and at least nine prisoners have been wounded. According to the BBC, the standoff between prisoners and security forces started on March 16. Inmates took control of parts of the building, and prisoners contacted by mobile phone said that two National Army soldiers have been captured and will be killed unless mediators are sent to resolve the dispute. Although there has been no official response from the government, a Defense Ministry official told parliament an operation is being planned to take control of the prison. AT IRANIANS TO VOTE AGAIN FOR SOME PARLIAMENTARY SEATS Iranian officials have announced definitive results for 223 of the 290 seats in parliament following elections on March 14, while 67 seats in 51 constituencies are to go to a second round of voting, Radio Farda reported on March 18, citing Iranian media. More than 110 candidates are to compete in the runoff in April or May. Results announced by the authorities for the first round give conservatives from various groupings 166 seats, reformists 32 seats, and independent deputies 25 seats, Radio Farda reported. The broadcaster reported that 19 conservatives have been announced as having won seats in Tehran: they include the present speaker of parliament, Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, as the top vote winner, followed by Morteza Aqatehrani, Ali Mottahari, Ahmad Tavakkoli, and Hasan Ghafurifard, respectively. They were members of the list of the United Front of Fundamentalists or Principle-ists, which backs the government of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Others who have won seats in Tehran are the deputy speaker of parliament, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, right-wing cleric Ruhollah Hosseinian, and two women conservatives, Fatemeh Rahbar and Fatemeh Alia. VS U.S. DISPLEASED WITH SWISS GAS DEAL WITH IRAN The United States said on March 17 it is "disappointed" with the gas-exportation deal Switzerland signed with Iran the same day and that this sends "precisely the wrong message" amid international efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program, AFP reported on March 17 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," March 17 and 18, 2008). The U.S. Embassy in Bern issued a statement observing that "we have conveyed to the Swiss that major new oil and gas deals with Iran send precisely the wrong message" when Iran continues to defy UN Security Council demands that it halt sensitive nuclear fuel-making activities; the statement added the deal "violates the spirit of the sanctions" imposed on Iran. VS COURT IN TEHRAN REVIEWS FATAL INTERROGATION CASE A Tehran provincial court examined in camera on March 17 the case of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist detained in Tehran in 2003 who died under suspicious circumstances, apparently as a result of forceful interrogation, Radio Farda and ISNA reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," December 12, 2007, and February 12, 2008). Iran failed to convict anyone for her death, and her family, lawyers, and rights activists have asked for a review of the case. The dispute has damaged relations between Iran and Canada. The court examined the case with Kazemi family lawyers Shirin Ebadi and Mohammad Seifzadeh, and decided that the judiciary's legal affairs office will ask Kazemi's son Stephane Hashemi, who lives in Canada, to lodge a complaint, ISNA reported. It was not immediately clear if this will be against the judiciary or against individual suspects. The court is to renew its inquiry in mid to late April 2008, ISNA reported. Separately, the judiciary has effectively pardoned and ordered released a woman sentenced earlier to be stoned for adultery, Radio Farda and ISNA reported on March 18. Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, a mother of two, was given a death sentence after being convicted for extramarital sex with Jafar Kiani 11 years ago. Kiani was stoned in mid-2007, provoking protests from the European Union (see "RFE/RL Newsline," July 11, 2007). VS WELL-KNOWN COMMUNIST'S WIFE QUIETLY BURIED IN TEHRAN Mariam Firuz, an aristocrat who married Nureddin Kianuri, a leader of the banned Tudeh communist party, died on March 13 at the age of 94, and was quietly buried the next day in the Behesht-i Zahra cemetery outside Tehran, Radio Farda reported on March 14. She was buried under the supervision of Intelligence Ministry officials, and relatives reportedly did not attend the burial. Former communist activist Mohammad Ali Amui told Radio Farda on March 14 that Intelligence Ministry agents organized her burial before some of her friends even knew she was dead, and made sure she was buried without publicity or attention. Her life, as well as that of her husband's, was punctuated by court convictions, spells in prison, torture, and exile, as the couple ran afoul of authorities under the monarchy and the postrevolutionary regime after 1979. Firuz was a member of the Farmanfarmaian-Firuz clan, a branch of Iran's former royal family, the Qajars. She spent many years in communist East Germany in the 1960s and 70s, but returned to Iran following the revolution with other exiled members of the Tudeh party. However, many Tudeh members, including Firuz and her husband, were arrested in February 1983 or later, and accused of spying for the Soviets and plotting a communist coup. Some of the detained were later shown on television confessing to the alleged crimes and renouncing their communist opinions; many, including Firuz, had apparently been tortured. She remained in solitary confinement for some years, until released on medical grounds in the late 1980s, and the couple then lived in downtown Tehran under state surveillance. Kianuri died in 1999. "Sometimes intelligence agents went [to their home] and warned them" not to have any contact with Tudeh activists, Amui told Radio Farda. He said the state loosened its surveillance slightly during the 1997-2005 reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami. VS LOOTING OF IRAQI ANTIQUITIES FUNDS INSURGENCY The trafficking of stolen antiquities is helping to fund both Sunni and Shi'ite militias in Iraq, according to the lead investigator in a probe on the looting of the National Museum, AP reported on March 19. "The Taliban are using opium to finance their activities in Afghanistan. Well, they don't have opium in Iraq," he said. "What they have is an almost limitless supply of...antiquities. And so they're using antiquities." U.S. Marine Reserve Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, a New York assistant district attorney, said on the sidelines of a UNESCO conference in Athens on the return of antiquities to their country of origin. Bogdanos said it is nearly impossible to put a value on the looted antiquities, but he gave the example of a missing eighth-century B.C. Assyrian ivory carving of a lioness attacking a Nubian boy, overlaid with gold and inlaid with lapis lazuli, saying it could sell for $100 million. "That would be cheap, I really believe," he said. Bogdanos said looted goods are either plundered from museums or illegally excavated and driven overland either to Jordan or Syria. They are then usually sent to one of three cities: Beirut, Dubai, or Geneva. There, documentation is provided and they "surface," after which they can be sold to private collectors or auction houses. He said his sources say an underground tariff system is even in place, under which Lebanon's Hizballah taxes antiquities. Baha' Mayah, and adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, told AP that Iraq is facing "tremendous difficulties" in recovering objects now in Europe, because countries are not cooperating and returning trafficked goods. KR IRAQI TRIBAL LEADER REPORTEDLY DETAINED IN NORTHERN IRAQ Rashid al-Zaydan, who heads the Ninawah-based National Front of Iraqi Tribes, was reportedly detained during a U.S. military raid in Mosul on March 18, the "Aswat Al-Iraq" website reported. Al-Zaydan is also the chief of the Al-Lahib tribe. The National Front of Iraqi Tribes was established in March 2004 and brings together tribal leaders, academics, and former military leaders. Since then, several members of the movement have been detained due to alleged links to terrorists. The Al-Lahib tribe in Ninawah and Diyala governorates was listed among hundreds of other tribes as having pledged "allegiance to the Supreme Command for Jihad and Liberation" in an online jihadist statement by the Army of the Men of the Naqshabandi Order. The tribes aligned with the insurgency pledged the "readiness of their sons to fight for the victory of Islam and liberation of the country from any foreign occupation," the statement said. KR NUMBER OF IRAQI ASYLUM SEEKERS RISES IN 2007 A study by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on asylum seekers in the industrialized world found that the number of asylum applications in industrialized countries grew by 10 percent in 2007 compared to a year earlier, mainly because of an increase in Iraqi applications. Some 338,000 new applications for refugee status were submitted in 43 industrialized countries, with the main applicants from Iraq (45,200), the Russian Federation (18,800), China (17,100), Serbia (15,400), and Pakistan (14,300). The number of Iraqis submitting asylum claims nearly doubled compared to 2006, from 22,900 to 45,200. Forty-one percent of those applications were submitted in Sweden, which has a large Iraqi refugee community. The UNHCR cited Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development statistics stating that Iraqis are now the third-largest foreign-born population in Sweden. The UNHCR said Iraqi asylum seekers in industrialized countries represent only 1 percent of the estimated 4.5 million Iraqis uprooted by the current conflict. The top receiving countries for asylum seekers in 2007 were the United States, Sweden, and France, followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, Greece, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Belgium. KR JORDAN CALLS FOR MORE INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT FOR COUNTRIES HOSTING IRAQIS Jordanian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nasir Shraidah told a conference in Amman on March 18 that the international community needs to do more to aid countries hosting Iraqi refugees, the Petra news agency reported the same day. "We appreciate the contributions of the donor countries and organizations, but the challenges Jordan is facing because of hosting Iraqis are great, the thing that demands more aid and support for Jordan by the international community," Shraidah said. He told the conference that Jordan has changed a number of rules applying to Iraqis living in the kingdom so that Iraqi children can now attend public school regardless of their residency status. Iraqis will now be charged the same rate as Jordanians for medical treatment, and they will be exempt from residency fines if they decide to return home willingly. Shraidah said the government will also sign an agreement with a private firm to provide visas to Iraqis wishing to travel to the kingdom. The conference hosted representatives from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, the main Arab countries hosting Iraqi refugees. Representatives of the Group of Eight, the United Nations, and the Arab League also attended the one-day conference. KR
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