Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Failure to Suppress

2030 GMT: Hundreds & possibly thousands of protesters marched after Friday Prayers in Oman's southern port of Salalah, calling for democratic reform and an end to corruption.

Residents said between 300 and 400 people took part in the protest, but some activists claimed several thousand were present.

2015 GMT: Facing claims that more than 40 medical personnel are missing or detained in Bahrain, the regime is trying a new tactic tonight.

As State TV denounces doctors for lying about their treatment of injured protesters, the Bahrain News Agency has put out this request for people to add their criticisms:

The Health Ministry has called on people in Bahrain who may experience any problem or inconvenience at any medical centre or by any Health Ministry employee to lodge their complaints, supported with their personal information, on the ministry’s e-mail: Report2MoH@gmail.com so that all necessary measures could be taken.

The ministry has asserted that everything is functioning naturally, including Salmaniya Medical Complex and medical centres, after return of life back to normal in Bahrain thanks to the wisdom of the leadership.

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The Latest from Iran (6 May): "The Government Has Lifted Up Its Hands to Pray"

1955 GMT: Media Watch. The Guardian of London has picked up on the story with which we began today (see 0445 GMT), "Iran's Supreme Leader tells Ahmadinejad: Accept Minister [of Intelligence] or Quit", quoting the President's ally, Morteza Agha-Tehrani.

And Robert Tait of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has a thorough overview of the crisis --- with an appearance by EA --- "Ahmadinejad Floored By Bugs, Spirits, And Djinns":

Whenever cornered, Mahmud Ahmadinejad always seems to come out swinging. But Iran's notoriously abrasive president appears in danger of suffering a knockout blow over his political attachment to Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, a man widely seen as a threat to the country's clerical-based political system.

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Today's Worst Iran Analysis: It's all about (the) US

Esfandiar Rahim-MashaiDavid Ignatius of The Washington Post pronounces on the current crisis between the Supreme Leader and President Ahmadinejad, "When there’s political upheaval in Tehran, it’s often interwoven with the explosive question of possible outreach to the United States."

In other words, the dispute is all because "[Ahmadinejad right-hand man] Esfandiar Rahim] Mashaei is said to have initiated a series of contacts attempting to open a dialogue with the United States".

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Iran Caption Competition: What is the Supreme Leader Thinking?

Bin Laden Follow-Up: Reflections on the Killing of a Terrorist...and Our Celebration of It (Jackson)

The killing of bin Laden, and the obvious delight and celebrations it provoked, should make us question what kind of society we really are that we openly rejoice in killing and violence --- do we consider an eye for an eye, a life for a life, blood for blood, as "justice"? What kind of people are we that we can exult without a thought for the hundreds of thousands of victims of that "justice"?  And what kind of a society are we that we shrug off and excuse the fact that a man was officially killed without trial and his body thrown into the sea, that international law was flouted, that we have denied the victims of 9/11 the opportunity to confront their attacker in a court of law, and that we have made an exception to our deepest values and rules?

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Libya Snapshot: The Hidden Workshops of Misurata (Chivers)

When the bloody siege of this isolated city began, the rebels who rose against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s conventional army had almost no firearms. Many of them relied on hands, knives and stones.

Now they roam the streets as a paramilitary force built around hastily armored trucks that have been fitted with captured machine guns set on crude turrets and mounts.

The transformation, evident in an offensive late last month that chased many of Colonel Qaddafi’s forces from Misurata’s center to its outskirts, is in part the result of a hidden side of this lopsided ground war: a clandestine network of rebel workshops, where these makeshift weapons have been designed, assembled and pushed out.

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Palestine Special: Fatah & Hamas Make a Deal --- What Will Israel Do?

With smaller Palestinian factions’ signatures, Fatah and Hamas formally ended a four-year conflict on Wednesday. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’s Syria-based leader Khaled Mashaal were present in Cairo, and Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank celebrated by raising Palestinian, Hamas, Fatah and Egyptian flags.

The Ramallah-based website, Palestine Monitor, claimed to have the text of the reconciliation deal....

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"Terrorism" & Academia Special: Britain's University of Nottingham Claims Another Victim

Hicham YezzaIn 2008-2009 --- first on our predcecessor, Libertas, and then on EA --- we covered an unusual case at Britain's University of Nottingham: research on a Master's thesis in International Security and Terrorism had led to the lengthy imprisonment of an Algerian-born administrator, Hicham Yezza, and the detention of a postgraduate student, Rizwaan Sabir.

Now a new chapter in the story: Dr Rod Thornton, a lecturer at Nottingham and Sabir's former supervisor, has been suspended by the University.

His offence? He wrote a lengthy paper, "Radicalisation at Universities or Radicalisation by Universities?", for the annual conference of the British International Studies Association.

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: What to Do With the Opposition?

2000 GMT: The head of the United Nation's World Food Programme has warned that Libya's food supplies could be exhausted soon unless plans are put in place.

WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said Supply concerns are particularly acute in the oppsoition-held east: "The challenge in Libya is that this is a centrally controlled food system that was run by the government, and it's not being restocked now. That whole system could run out of food in six to eight weeks."

"If we do not address the larger gaps in the food system in Libya -- particularly eastern Libya -- we'll have to envision a fairly massive humanitarian operation."

1940 GMT: Video of destruction in the southern Syrian town of Daraa, recorded after the withdrawal of military forces earlier today:

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Bin Laden Follow-Up: Scott Lucas on the BBC "Politics and Obama at Ground Zero"

Obama at Ground Zero, 2008I spoke this morning with BBC World Service about the US domestic politics around the killing of Osama bin Laden, specifically President Obama's decision to go to the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

The item begins at 26:40, with a Republican operative condemning Obama. My contribution begin about 28:00.