14—Cleveland Daily Banner—Tuesday, January 5, 2016
www.clevelandbanner.com
A look at where countries stand in Saudi Arabia-Iran dispute
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
(AP) — Diplomatic tensions
between Saudi Arabia and Iran,
which began with the kingdom’s
execution of a Shiite cleric and
later saw attacks on Saudi diplomatic posts in the Islamic
Republic, have seen countries
around the world respond.
Some nations have followed
the Saudis’ lead in severing or
downgrading ties with Iran, while
others have offered words of caution aimed at cooling the war of
words before it escalates further.
Here’s a look at where countries and other regional actors
stand at this point:
THE MAIN ACTORS:
SAUDI ARABIA — The kingdom severed ties to Iran after
attacks on two of its diplomatic
posts following its execution of a
Shiite cleric last weekend; it also
later cancelled all flights between
the two nations.
IRAN — Since the attack on
the diplomatic posts, Iran says it
has made arrests and has criticized the violent protesters.
However on Tuesday, President
Hassan Rouhani took a slightly
harder line, saying Saudi
Arabia’s move to sever ties with
his country couldn’t “cover its
crime” of executing Shiite cleric
Nimr al-Nimr.
COUNTRIES BACKING SAUDI
ARABIA:
BAHRAIN — The tiny, Shiitemajority island kingdom off the
Saudi coast, which long has
relied on Saudi Arabia for support of its Sunni rulers, was the
first to cut ties with Iran.
Bahraini officials repeatedly have
accused Iran of training militants
and attempting to smuggle arms
into the country, which hosts the
U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
SUDAN — The African nation
cut its diplomatic ties to Iran and
gave Iranian diplomats two
weeks to leave the country.
Sudan once tilted toward Iran,
but has been looking to Saudi
Arabia for aid since the secession
of oil-rich South Sudan in 2011.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES —
The oil-rich country of seven
emirates says it will reduce the
number of diplomats in Iran,
recall its ambassador and focus
only on business relations. While
backing Saudi Arabia, it may
have chosen to reduce — rather
than completely sever ties —
because of a long trading history
with Iran.
KUWAIT — The oil-rich country is recalling of its ambassador
from Tehran, but it isn’t immediately clear how Kuwaiti-Iranian
diplomatic ties will be affected.
Tiny Kuwait is home to both
Shiites and Sunnis living in
peace and has the most freewheeling political system among
all Gulf nations.
JORDAN:
Overwhelmingly
Sunni Jordan is a close ally of
Saudi Arabia in the region and a
beneficiary of Gulf aid. Jordan’s
government
spokesman,
Mohammed Momani, has condemned the attack on the Saudi
Embassy in Iran.
THE MEDIATOR:
OMAN — The sultanate has
long historical ties to Iran and
served as the base for secret
talks between Iranian and U.S.
officials that jump-started the
d eal reached between Iran and
world powers over the Islamic
Republic’s contested nuclear
program.
THOSE BACKING IRAN:
LEBANESE
HEZBOLLAH
MOVEMENT — Hezbollah was
founded in 1982 with the help of
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
after Israel invaded Lebanon. The
group is one the main Iranbacked factions in the region.
SYRIA’S EMBATTLED PRESI-
AP photo
In thIs Photo tAken
sundAy, Iranian demonstrators
burn representations of the U.S.
and Israeli flags during a
demonstration in front of the
Saudi Arabian Embassy in
Tehran, Iran. Diplomatic tensions between Saudi Arabia and
Iran, which began with the kingdom’s execution of Shiite Sheik
Nimr al-Nimr and later saw
attacks on Saudi diplomatic
posts in the Islamic Republic,
have seen countries around the
world respond.
DENT BASHAR ASSAD — Iran
has been one of the biggest supporters of Syria since the 1980s
and has stood by Assad’s government in his country’s grinding
civil war. Saudi Arabia has been
one of the biggest benefactors of
those trying to overthrow him.
IRAQ’S SHIITE-LED GOVERNMENT IN BAGHDAD — Even as
Iraq is embroiled in a major war
against the militant Islamic State
group, al-Nimr’s execution
sparked outrage among the
country’s majority Shiites who
have taken to the streets in
Baghdad and the south, calling
for an end to ties with Saudi
Arabia.
The Shiite-led government has
warmed Riyadh that such executions “would lead to nothing but
more destruction.”
OTHER REGIONAL ACTORS:
ISRAEL — Israel considers
Iran to be its greatest regional
threat because of its nuclear program, its arsenal of long-range
missiles, its support of antiIsrael militant groups and its
repeated threats to destroy it.
While Israel has no direct ties to
Saudi Arabia either, the countries have come closer because of
a shared concern over Iran’s
growing influence.
THE PALESTINIANS — The
Palestinian Authority issued a
statement after the execution of
al-Nimr saying that it stands
alongside the Saudis in their
fight against “terrorism.”
The Saudis are the largest
donor to the Palestinian
Authority in the Arab world, providing them some $200 million
annually. The PA, and the Fatah
faction that leads it, has had a
strained relationship with Iran
because of its support of its rival,
Hamas.
YEMEN — The Arab world’s
poorest country is torn by a civil
war pitting its internationally
recognized government, backed
by a Saudi-led coalition, against
Shiite rebels known as Houthis,
who are supported by Iran.
THOSE URGING CAUTION:
THE UNITED NATIONS — U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
has urged Saudi Arabia and Iran
to support peace efforts in Syria
and Yemen and avoid escalating
tensions.
EUROPEAN UNION: The 28nation bloc, which opposes the
death penalty, criticized Saudi
Arabia’s mass executions and
said al-Nimr’s case undermined
freedom of expression and basic
political rights in the kingdom.
Since tensions flared between
Iran and Saudi Arabia, the EU
foreign policy chief has had
phone contact with both sides,
fearing an escalation would further destabilize the whole region.
THE UNITED STATES — The
White House has urged Saudi
Arabia and Iran to not let their
dispute derail efforts to end the
Syrian civil war, while President
Barack Obama’s administration
also hopes to see the Iranian
nuclear deal through.
UNITED KINGDOM — Britain
and Iran reopened their respective embassies in 2015, four
years after hard-line protesters
stormed the British embassy in
Tehran. Saudi Arabia is a key
diplomatic and economic ally of
Britain, though Middle East
Minister Tobias Ellwood said
Britain told the kingdom about
its “disappointment at the mass
executions.”
TURKEY — Turkey has urged
both Saudi Arabia and Iran to
ease tensions, saying the Middle
East region is “already like a
powder keg” and cannot withstand a new crisis.
GERMANY — Berlin has called
on Saudi Arabia and Iran to work
to mend their diplomatic ties,
while condemning both the mass
executions in the kingdom and
the storming of the Saudi missions in Iran.
RUSSIA — State news agency
RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed
senior diplomat as saying
Moscow is ready to act as a mediator between Iran and Saudi
Arabia.
London mayor: Boy in extremist video should
be taken away if family returns to the country
AP photo
IndIAn defense MInIster Manohar Parrikar addresses the media at the Indian air force base in
Pathankot, India on Tuesday. Indian forces have killed the last of the six militants who attacked the air
force base near the Pakistan border over the weekend, the defense minister said Tuesday, though soldiers were still searching the base as a precaution.
India says all 6 militants killed in air base siege
PATHANKOT, India (AP) —
Indian forces have killed the last
of the six militants who attacked
an air force base near the
Pakistan border over the weekend, the defense minister said
Tuesday, though soldiers were
still searching the base as a precaution.
Manohar Parrikar stopped
short of saying the operation had
ended, but Indian officials have
said repeatedly that only six gunmen were involved.
Parrikar did not explain how
just a handful of gunmen managed to paralyze a large Indian
air base for almost four days,
insisting that security forces had
done “a commendable job.”
Seven Indian soldiers were killed
during the attack.
“I see some gaps (in intelligence) but we will be able to
understand only after the investigation. But I don’t think we compromised on security,” he told
reporters after touring the scene
of the fighting. He noted that the
base is large, and is wooded in
some places, making it difficult
to pin down the gunmen.
Indian officials had been
warned beforehand that an
attack could be imminent at the
Pathankot base, and had flown
commandoes there in case of
trouble. The warning came after
the gunmen kidnapped an offduty policeman near the base
two days before the attack began,
apparently to steal his vehicle.
The policeman was freed the next
day, and warned security forces
that a team of heavily armed militants was in the region.
Parrikar said the militants’
weapons included AK-47 assau lt
rifles with makeshift rocket
launchers attached, mortar
rounds that could be fired from
the launchers, pistols, and 50-60
kilograms (110-130 pounds) of
ammunition.
In the first known claim of
responsibility, the United Jehad
Council, an alliance of 13
Kashmir-based rebel groups,
claimed that its “highway squad,”
which normally attacks military
convoys, carried out the attack.
Alliance spokesman Syed
Sadaqat Hussain said in a statement to Current News Service,
which is based in the Indian portion of Kashmir, that the attack
was a message to India that its
security forces were not beyond
the militants’ reach.
The council is based in
Pakistan’s portion of Kashmir,
the Himalayan region divided
between the countries but
claimed in its entirety by both.
Sharad Kumar, chief of India’s
National Investigation Agency,
has said that telephone intercepts suggested the attackers
were from Pakistan.
He gave no details on those
intercepts in an interview
Tuesday with the television news
channel TimesNow.
Indian
Prime
Minister
Narendra Modi spoke to his
Pakistani counterpart, Modi’s
office said in a statement, saying
the Indian prime minister called
on Pakistan “to take firm and
immediate action” against those
linked to the attackers. “Specific
and actionable information in
this regard has been provided to
Pakistan,” the statement added.
Pakistani officials confirmed
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had
spoken to Modi, expressing his
sadness over the attack and saying Pakistan would investigate
any information that India provides.
Sharif also told Modi that the
militants wanted to derail the
Pakistan-India peace process,
according
to
Pakistani
Information Minister Pervaiz
Rashid.
The attack followed Modi’s
surprise recent visit to Pakistan
and came days before top foreign
ministry officials were to meet in
Islamabad to discuss a range of
outstanding issues, including
Kashmir.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training insurgents in its
portion of Kashmir. Pakistan
denies that and says it only provides moral and diplomatic support.
Beijing says pollution lessened in 2015 despite smog alerts
BEIJING (AP) — Environmental
authorities in Beijing say air
quality improved in 2015, a year
in which they issued the city’s
first two red smog alerts and
showed a greater willingness to
disrupt industry and ordinary
people in search of cleaner air.
China has been setting national and local targets to reduce its
notorious air pollution as citizens
have become increasingly aware
of the health dangers. Beijing’s
municipal government has been
replacing coal-fired boilers with
natural gas-powered facilities,
forcing older, more polluting vehi-
cles off the road, and closing or
moving factories that are heavy
polluters.
The city’s average concentration of PM2.5 — small, inhalable
particles that can penetrate deep
into the lungs and are considered
a reliable gauge of air quality —
was 81 micrograms per cubic
meter in 2015. That was a drop of
6 percent from 2014, and 10 percent lower than 2013, when
Beijing started publishing data
on PM2.5.
The “number of days of most
serious PM2.5 pollution is falling
each year,” the capital’s munici-
pal environmental protection
bureau said Monday.
It was, however, still more than
twice China’s own standard of 35
micrograms per cubic meter, and
seven times higher than an annual mean of 10 that the World
Health Organization gives as its
guideline for safe air.
Other pollutants also fell,
including sulfur dioxide by 38
percent and nitrogen dioxide by
12 percent. The environmental
protection bureau attributed the
lowering of sulfur dioxide to the
phasing out of coal-fired heating
systems.
LONDON (AP) — London’s
mayor says a small child shown
threatening non-Muslims in a
grisly Islamic State video should
be taken from his parents if the
family ever returns to Britain.
The boy, thought to be 4 or 5,
was identified by a man who told
Britain’s Channel 4 News that he
is his grandfather.
The man, whose daughter converted to Islam and moved to
Syria with her family, said the
boy doesn’t know what he is
doing and is being used for propaganda purposes.
The Associated Press isn’t
naming the grandfather to avoid
identifying the child, who is seen
on the video wearing camouflage
and saying: “Go kill the kuffar
(non-believer) over there!”
London Mayor Boris Johnson
said Tuesday that that boy
should be placed in foster care.
“This child is a victim of child
abuse and he is, as I understand
it, a British national,” Johnson
said. “I think we have a duty of
care.”
British intelligence officials
wouldn’t comment on what they
call a live anti-terrorism investigation.
Helen Bower, spokeswoman
for Prime Minister David
Cameron, said an initial assessment has been completed, but
that officials won’t comment on
the identities of the people
involved “at any stage of the
process.”
The video, posted Sunday, features a masked man who speaks
with a British accent before he
and four masked colleagues use
pistols to kill five purported spies
at close range.
The masked man appears to
have stepped into the role for-
merly played by British citizen
Mohammed Emwazi, who was
killed by a drone strike in
November after taking part in a
series of beheading videos that
earned him the nickname
“Jihadi John.”
British news media have said
the man might be a British citizen who was born a Hindu and
converted to Islam.
That man was arrested in
Britain in 2014 for suspected
links to banned extremist
groups, but fled to Syria after he
was freed on bail. People who
know him, including his sister,
couldn’t say for sure whether he
is the man in the video.
Home Secretary Theresa May
has agreed to brief Parliament
later Tuesday to explain how the
man was able to leave Britain for
Syria despite having been arrested for terrorism-related offenses.
Missing Hong Kong bookseller’s wife drops
police report after letter received from husband
HONG KONG (AP) — The mystery surrounding five missing
Hong Kong booksellers known
for titles banned in mainland
China deepened after one purportedly wrote a letter saying he
was fine and helping with an
investigation on the mainland,
prompting his wife to drop a
missing person’s report.
Hong Kong police said late
Monday that Lee Bo’s wife canceled the report, but that they
would continue investigating
the other cases. They didn’t say
whether Lee had been located.
Lee is among five people associated with publisher Mighty
Current, which specializes in
books critical of China’s
Communist Party leaders, who
have vanished in recent months.
One of the five is British, with
Hong Kong media reporting that
it is Lee.
Their disappearances have
prompted fears that Beijing is
eroding the “one country, two
systems” principle that’s been in
place since Britain ceded control of Hong Kong to China in
1997, granting the city civil liberties nonexistent on the mainland, including freedom of the
press.
When Lee vanished last
Wednesday, he reportedly did
not have his travel permit for
mainland China with him, triggering speculation that Chinese
security agents entered Hong
Kong to abduct and spirit him
there.
Four other people linked to
the publishing company went
missing in October, but they
were last seen either in mainland China or Thailand.
An image of Lee’s handwritten
letter was first published by
Taiwan’s government-affiliated
Central News Agency late
Monday. Hong Kong media have
also published the image, crediting the news agency.
The letter, faxed to an employee at the publishing company’s
Causeway Bay Bookstore in
Hong Kong, said: “Due to some
urgent matters that I need to
handle and that aren’t to be
revealed to the public, I have
made my own way back to the
mainland in order to cooperate
with the investigation by relevant parties.”
“It might take a bit of time,” it
said. “My current situation is
very well. All is normal.”
The letter gave no details
about what the investigation
was related to.
Britain’s
Foreign
Office
responded to inquiries about
media reports that Lee is British
by saying in an email Tuesday
that one of the people reported
missing is a British citizen,
without naming the individual.
It said it was “deeply concerned” about the case and has
“urgently requested” help from
authorities in Hong Kong and
mainland China to find out the
person’s location and condition.
Hong Kong media reported
that Lee’s wife, Choi Ka-ping,
asked police to drop the missing
person’s report after learning of
the letter, the authenticity of
which could not be independently confirmed.
Choi’s phone number was
written on the fax, but calls to
her by The Associated Press
went unanswered.
Choi told Hong Kong’s Apple
Daily newspaper that she found
his travel permit for mainland
China at home after he went
missing.
Hong Kong pro-democracy
lawmakers and human rights
activists were skeptical the letter proved Lee was safe.
“If he did indeed write the letter, it was almost certainly written under duress,” said William
Nee, Amnesty International’s
China researcher. “What we see
in mainland China all the time
is that police and state security
put enormous pressure on family members not to speak to
media and not to raise a fuss on
social media. If indeed it was
state security that detained Lee
Bo, one wonders whether the
same tactics are being used to
silence family members here in
Hong Kong.”
China’s nationalist newspaper
Global Times slammed the
bookshop in an editorial
Monday for “profiting on political rumors” and selling books
with “trumped-up content.”
“Although the Causeway Bay
Bookstore is located in Hong
Kong, it actually stays in business by disrupting mainland
society,” the paper said.
Hong Kong police still have
missing person’s files open for
three other staff members or
shareholders of the publisher or
the bookstore.
A fifth person, Gui Minhai, a
Swedish national who is one of
the publishing company’s owners, went missing in Thailand in
October, according to Hong
Kong media and human rights
groups.
Swedish Foreign Ministry
spokesman Joakim Edvardsson
said Monday that the government was “very concerned”
about the disappearance of one
of its citizens.