MS Risk Blog

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Al Nusra Front Pledge Compliance to Ayman Al-Zawahiri

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the leader of the Sahel-based terrorist group Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade (aka: Masked Brigade, aka: Signatories in Blood), has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. Belmokhtar was believed to have been killed in fighting  in Mali in 2013. However in late April, intelligence sources revealed that he had moved from Mali to a base in southern Libya.

Belmokhtar’s statement, released on Islamist websites, said, “We declare our faith in the policies of our emir, Cheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri… because we are convinced of the fairness of his approach,” Mokhtar Belmokhtar said in a statement posted Wednesday on Islamist websites.

Belmokhtar was key member of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) until political infighting lead to a fallout with AQIM leader Abou Zeid. Belmokhtar split from the group and formed his own organization. In 2013, Belmokhtar was known to be working with Islamist group MUJAO to drive the Taureg separatist group, out of Gao in Mali and to expand his land base and increase the numbers in his brigade.

In the statement, Belmokhtar specifically mentions al-Zawahiri’s latest comments on in-fighting between rebels in Syria that has killed hundreds since January.

In related news, Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, has also issued a statement saying it will comply with Ayman al Zawahiri’s orders with respect to the jihadist infighting in Syria. Al Nusrah has been in combat with Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS, also known as ISIL), which has been disowned by al Qaeda’s general command.

In recently released audio messages, Zawahiri addressed Abu Muhammad al Julani, the emir of Al Nusrah, and demanded that Julani and Al Nusrah “immediately stop any fighting” as it is an act of aggression against “their jihadist brothers.” Zawahiri reiterated his call for the establishment of an independent sharia (Islamic law) court capable of settle the ongoing dispute. He also said the jihadists should stop criticizing each other in the media.

In reply to the message, Al Nusrah announced its “commitment” to comply with Zawahiri’s orders to stop attacking Isis, but added that they are prepared to respond defensively to any act of aggression. The group also says it is willing to submit to a sharia court, and will stop insulting its rivals on social media.

Al Nusrah blames ISIS for the death of Abu Khalid al Suri, Zawahiri’s chief representative in Syria until he was killed in February. Al Suri was a founding member and senior leader in Ahrar al Sham, which is allied with Al Nusrah and is a prominent part of the Islamic Front, a coalition of several rebel groups. Al Nusrah also blames ISIS for the death of Abu Muhammad al Fateh, a leader in the group who was killed along with other members of his family in Syria’s Idlib province.

The pledged to Zawahiri show a renewed unity among various branches of Al Qaeda, and a willingness to work more closely AQ main office. This may signal strengthening ties, and unity of messages and actions coming from AQ affiliates throughout the Middle East.

Gunmen Storm Libyan Parliament during vote for Prime Minister

30 April- Unidentified gunmen stormed the Libyan parliament on Tuesday during an evening session held to elect a new prime minister. The gunmen fired shots, and “forced MPs to abandon the session to select a new prime minister,” according to parliament spokesman Omar Humeidan.

Early reports indicated that a number of people had been injured in the attack, however those reports remain unconfirmed. The attackers are suspected to be supporters of Mohamed Boukar, one of seven candidates chosen for the prime-ministerial ballot, but who was among the losing candidates in the first round of voting on Tuesday morning.

The election is being held to find a replacement for former Prime Minister Abdallah Al-Thani, who resigned two weeks ago after less than a month in office following an attack on his family. His predecessor, Ali Zeidan received a vote of no-confidence in March.

During the first vote on Tuesday morning, businessman Ahmed Maitiq led the seven candidates, winning 67 votes. The evening vote put Maitiq against Omar Al-Hasi, the second place candidate who won 34 votes. Speaker Humeidan said that it would be “difficult for any candidate to win the support of 120 members of parliament, the quorum specified by the parliament’s internal regulations that were recently amended.” If the parliament fails to reach an agreement, the members will ask Thani to continue his role as prime minister until a new parliament is elected in four months.

Since the overthrow of Muammar Gadhafi in 2011, the Libyan government has been unable to control the heavily armed militias who were instrumental in his removal. Militias seeking their own aims in the relatively lawless nation have refused to lay down their weapons. The parliament building and members of the government have been targeted numerous times. Government officials, including foreign envoys, have been kidnapped or attacked, and the national congress building has been stormed dozens of times over the past 18 months.

The second round of voting has been postponed, and will take place on 4 May.

Second mass death-sentencing in Egypt sparks international outcry

In the latest government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian court in Minya has sentenced 683 defendants to death. The new verdict, issued by the same court, surpasses last month’s sentencing of 529 defendants to death, becoming the largest mass-death sentencing in living memory. The judge will confirm the verdict on June 21.

In both cases, the defendants are accused of association with the Muslim Brotherhood and involvement in the death of two police officers on 14 August 2013. The 529 defendants tried in March were accused of lynching a policeman in the town of Matay, in Minya province. In Monday’s trial, 683 others – including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie – are said to have killed another officer in the nearby town of Adwa.

Since the overthrow of Morsi, and particularly since the clearings of pro-Morsi protest camps at Raba’a and el Nahda squares on 14 August of last year, at least 16,000 people have been arrested and more than 2,500 killed since the ousting of Morsi.

Defence lawyers boycotted the last two brief sessions of the hearing, branding it “farcical” after the mass death sentencing. As in the previous case, the trial was fraught with irregularities. The majority of the defendants were tried in absentia; only 73 are in custody, and the others have a right to a retrial if they hand themselves in. The hearing lasted only 10 minutes. Earlier this month, the judge commuted 492 of the 529 death sentences to life in prison. Many family members claimed that their relatives had been unjustly convicted or put on trial, in some cases because of personal disputes with police officers. In many cases, the defendants have evidence proving they were not involved, and in fact, not in the province at the time of the events.

The court, presided over by judge Said Youssef Sabry, has sparked international outcry with its sentencings. The defence lawyers claim that Judge Sabry could not have had time to read the thousands of pages of court documents relating to the case. Families have alleged that some defendants are not even mentioned in the documents.

The United States urged Egypt to reverse the court decision. A statement from the White House read, “Today’s verdict, like the one last month, defies even the most basic standards of international justice. This verdict cannot be reconciled with Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was “alarmed” by the death sentences and feared it could impact the entire region. Ban’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said, “Verdicts that clearly appear not to meet basic fair trial standards, particularly those which impose the death penalty, are likely to undermine prospects for long-term stability.” The UN chief will discuss his concerns with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy later this week.

Amnesty International also condemned the ruling, saying, “Egypt’s judiciary risks becoming just another part of the authorities’ repressive machinery, issuing sentences of death and life imprisonment on an industrial scale.”

However, the government has defended the rulings, insisting that the case was carefully studied, and the verdict was “subject to appeal. In the media, many see the sentences as a fitting penalty to the Muslim Brotherhood, who are blamed for an increase in militancy and violence in Egypt since August. A newspaper commentator said, “The outrage over the conviction of 529 terrorists is in itself an outrage.”

Under Egyptian law, death sentences are referred to the country’s Grand Mufti (top Islamic scholar) for an advisory opinion before being ratified. The court may choose to commute the sentences, which can later be challenged at an appeals court.

Meanwhile, a separate court in Cairo has banned the April 6 Movement, a youth movement that was in large part responsible for  spearheading the 2011 revolt which toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak. The group was accused of defaming Egypt and colluding with foreign parties. At the UN, Ban Ki-moon expressed concern at that decision and the jailing of three “emblematic figures” of the uprising, including two founders of the youth movement.

MERS virus Cases on the Rise in the Middle East

28 April: A  potentially fatal virus is spreading throughout the Middle East and could become a global threat. The Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has health officials on high alert. The virus causes severe respiratory difficulties in humans. Symptoms of an infection include coughing, fever, pneumonia and shortness of breath.

The virus was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012, and health care officials have observed a rise in cases of infection during March and April for the past three years. In the past month, over 120 cases of MERS-CoV have been reported in the country, with over 10 reported cases each day, up from two or three daily in previous years. In 2014, there have been more cases detected than in 2012 and 2013 combined. On Thursday alone, the Saudi Arabian health ministry confirmed 36 new cases and four deaths.

The epicentre of the outbreak appears to be in Jedda, where seven cases of MERS have been confirmed in April. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), most of the infections were secondary cases in which healthcare workers or other hospital patients have been infected by someone who already has the virus.

The virus appears to be spreading. Over the weekend, Egypt confirmed its first-ever case of MERS. The Egyptian patient had been working in Riyadh before returning to the country. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), seven new cases have been confirmed, including a 4-year-old boy from Abu Dhabi, believed to have been infected by his mother who recently returned from  Saudi Arabia. Cases of MERS infections have also been reported in Qatar, Jordan, Yemen, Oman, and Kuwait, the UK, Tunisia, France, Italy, Germany, Malaysia, the Philippines and Greece. In the U.S., the Center for Disease Control “has been preparing for the possibility that a MERS case could walk off an airplane onto American soil.”

The WHO has confirmed 254 cases of MERS since the virus first appeared in April 2012. Of those cases, 93 have resulted in the patient’s death (36% fatality rate).

Saudi Arabia has been accused of obscuring information about the outbreak, making it that much harder for the international health community to answer important questions. The WHO has suggested that “inadequate” infection prevention may have contributed to the outbreak, but health professionals know very little about the virus or its means of transmission. Scientists first linked MERS-CoV to bats; however recent tests have found that signs of the disease are also widespread in camels, as it often appeared in patients who worked with camels, or consumed camel meat or milk. However, it appears that the virus has evolved, making it easier to transmit the disease between humans. Currently, the virus appears to stop after the second person, yet scientists fear that the disease may evolve again, potentially cause a pandemic.

Because of the upswing in the number of cases during March and April, many scientists have considered that MERS may be a seasonal virus. However if cases continue to rise beyond April, the biggest fears may come to fruition in October, when over one million Muslims will travel to Saudi Arabia for Hajj, creating an opportunity for a spike in global infection.

Egypt’s Presidential Election Commission Announces Candidates, Voting Process

27 April – In a press conference on Sunday, Egypt’s Presidential Election Commission (PEC) has announced that the final contenders for Egypt’s presidential election are Hamdeen Sabahi and Abdel-Fattah El Sisi. The documents of both candidates meet the eligibility requirements set by the commission.

The PEC also revealed details of the presidential election process, and has announced approvals for six international election monitoring organisations, as well as 79 domestic ones. A total of 116 Egyptian-based organisations applied to monitor the process. The PEC may allow the eliminated domestic organisations to participate by granting them “guest status”, the same status granted to the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) and the National Council for Women.

Forty four international media institutions applied to cover the elections. Thirty six were granted approval, along with 13 out of 18 satellite channels.

The two candidates have until 4 May to select their voting symbols; however both have already selected and are pending approval from the PEC. Election symbols are placed on ballots so that those in the population who are illiterate can associate the symbol with the candidate. El-Sisi, who was given priority in choosing his symbol because he submitted his papers first, plans to use a star. The star, long used by Arabs as a guide, is intended to suggest that Sisi will “lead the country to the right path.” Sabahi has requested the eagle, the symbol of Egypt’s national flag, and the symbol he was granted during his 2012 candidacy.

Election campaigning will run from 3 May until midnight on 23 May. A committee of representatives from the ministries of endowment, media, education, the police’s general investigation department, and the Egyptian Anti-Corruption Agency will monitor for violations of the no-campaigning policy after 23 May.

For Egyptian expats, voting will occur from 15 to 18 May. The PEC has announced that pre-registration is cancelled; any Egyptian who is outside of Egypt on the days of the election can vote at Egyptian embassies. There are 144 embassies and consulates in 124 countries that will serve as polling stations; however these do not include Libya, Syria, or Somalia, due to security concerns. Expatriates in those regions are encouraged to travel to nearby countries where polling stations are located.

Domestically, elections will begin on 26 May at 9 am, and end at 9 pm on the first day. On 27 May, polling stations will open at 9am and will not close until the last person standing casts his/her ballot.

The presidential elections are part of a three-step transitional roadmap adopted by the army upon Morsi’s ouster in July of 2013.

Shortly after the PECs announcement, the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy, a group led by the Muslim Brotherhood movement, announced that they will boycott the election, calling it “a comic play”. In the statement made on their website and their Facebook page, they described the vote as “a farce” meant to appoint “the coup orchestrator” president, and that they would not recognise election monitoring conducted by “Western supporters of the coup.”

The group, which boycotted the referendum for the Egyptian constitution in January, believe that the existing government body have “committed crimes that exceed those committed by the Zionist Gang in Palestine.” On Saturday, supporters of the group held protests against El-Sisi, who authorised the removal of Morsi last year and has risen to popularity, expected to be the winner of the elections. Sisi has urged all Egyptians to vote in unprecedented numbers.