Iraq: Dozens Die in Truck Bombs North of Baghdad (Ghazi/Arango)

First, at midday, a truck exploded near a municipal building in Taji, north of the Iraqi capital. As people rushed to help the injured, a second, larger explosion struck. Nearly three dozen were killed, and many more wounded.

In the afternoon at a nearby hospital in the Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya, a macabre scene unfolded, as women cried and shouted over the bodies of their husbands and sons, and the wounded, bloody and covered in dust, sought care. A list of the dead and wounded adorned a wall; the youngest victim was 3 years old.

Click to read more ...

Syria Snapshot: Who are the "New Opposition"? (Shadid)

An opposition drawing its strength from Syria’s restive streets has begun to emerge as a pivotal force in the country’s once-dormant politics, organizing across disparate regions through the Internet, reaching out to fearful religious minorities and earning the respect of more recognized, but long divided dissidents.

The Local Coordination Committees, as they call themselves, have become the wild cards in what is shaping up as a potentially decisive stage in Syria. The success of the young protesters may determine whether that change is incremental, as the government has suggested, or far more sweeping, as the protesters themselves have demanded.

Click to read more ...

Yemen Feature: The Looming Humanitarian Crisis (Kasinof)

While Yemen’s political crisis stagnates — a popular uprising has stalled and a wounded president has not been seen publicly for weeks — its economic crisis has only grown worse.

The breakdown of public services, shortage of fuel and rising prices for food and water have made life exceedingly difficult for most Yemenis, and threaten to become a humanitarian crisis that could overshadow the political one.

“I sat at home for four days because I couldn’t get gasoline for my car,” said Ahmed al-Dubae, a taxi driver. “Those who have money, they can still get around. But those who don’t have money, their only choice is to go home and sleep.”

Click to read more ...

Iraq Feature: When A Country's Leaders Refuse to Speak to Each Other.... (Schmidt/Arango)

Nuri al-Maliki & Ayad Allawi (Photo: Reuters)Fifteen months after an election that was supposed to lay the groundwork for Iraq’s future, the government remains virtually paralyzed by a clash between the country’s two most powerful politicians, who refuse to speak to each other.

The paralysis is contributing to a rise in violence, and it is severely complicating negotiations on the most difficult and divisive question hanging over the country: Whether to ask the United States to keep a contingency force here after the scheduled withdrawal of American troops at the end of the year. The longer the deadlock persists, the harder it becomes for the American military to reverse or slow the withdrawal of the roughly 48,000 troops, the pace of which will pick up over the next few months.

Click to read more ...

Libya Feature: Insurgent Victory in the Western Mountains? (Kirkpatrick)

Until a few weeks ago, the rebellious towns in the Nafusah Mountains were struggling to survive on dwindling supplies of barley, water and gas during a long siege by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s soldiers.

But after an improbable series of military victories over the past three weeks — with fewer than 100 rebel fighters killed, their military leaders say — residents of a broad area in this mountain region are celebrating virtual secession from Colonel Qaddafi’s Libya. While there have been defeats, and the Grad rockets of Colonel Qaddafi’s forces still menace the outskirts of Nalut near the Tunisian border and Yafran to the east, rebels point hopefully to the growing stability of the towns under their control as evidence of how tenuous Colonel Qaddafi’s grip may be.

Click to read more ...

Syria Feature: Regime Threatened by Economic Crisis? (Shadid)

Street Scene in HomsHotels that catered to sandal-wearing backpackers in the storied Syrian city of Aleppo stand empty. Capital from the Persian Gulf that underpinned Syrian ambitions of modernization has begun to dry up. The Syrian pound has faltered, exports have fallen and the government has promised respite with money it will not have for long.

In his first address to Syrians in two months, President Bashar al-Assad warned this week of “the collapse of the Syrian economy.” The words might have been hyperbole, aimed at rallying support for a leadership staggering from a three-month uprising. But the sentiments underlined the danger the economy there poses for a government that long promised its people better lives, even as it refused to surrender any real political power.

Click to read more ...

4-Point Guide to Obama and Afghanistan: "This is Not a Withdrawal, It is a Limit to Escalation"

1. This is not "a substantial withdrawal". It is a limit to the escalation in the US military presence begun by the Obama Administration soon after it took office.

2. This "withdrawal" is based on an Al Qa'eda puppet show.

3. This is not a Presidential victory over his military advisors, with a full US withdrawal as the eventual outcome.

4. This is a speech looking towards a domestic victory.

Click to read more ...

Afghanistan Feature: Obama to Announce Plans for Troop Withdrawal --- But How Many and How Fast? (Landler/Cooper)

President Obama plans to announce his decision on the scale and pace of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in a speech on Wednesday evening, an administration official said Monday.

As he closes in on a decision, another official said, Mr. Obama is considering options that range from a Pentagon-backed proposal to pull out only 5,000 troops this year to an aggressive plan to withdraw within 12 months all 30,000 troops the United States deployed to Afghanistan as part of the surge in December 2009.

Under another option, a third official said, Mr. Obama would announce a final date for the withdrawal of all the surge forces sometime in 2012, but leave the timetable for incremental reductions up to commanders in the field — much as he did in drawing down troops after the surge in Iraq.

Click to read more ...

Libya: How Obama Overruled His Lawyers on Intervention (Savage)

President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.

Click to read more ...

Protest and the Web: The US Government's Initiative for "Internet in a Suitcase" (New York Times and Al Jazeera English)

The New York Times and Al Jazeera English promote the efforts of the US Goverment and non-government organisations such as the New America Foundation to bypass restrictions on the Internet in other countries:

NEW YORK TIMES: The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

Click to read more ...