Belgium Grants Permits to 10 New Mosques to Fight Extremist Ideology

Abdallah Mustapha, Majed al-Khatib

Brussels, Cologne – The Ministry of Justice in Belgium confirmed that it is arranging to grant permits for establishing a number of mosques, a measure taken in line with the governmental plan for confronting extremist ideology.

The Muslim Executive of Belgium states that there are 64 Mosques located in Brussels, among which only 14 have been given permits. The unauthorized mosques conduct their services in secret.

The Ministry of Justice stepped in to resolve the present situation by deciding on granting ten new mosque permits for practice.

After the new certification is put in effect, Muslim places for worship in the country would reach 24.

As for Germany, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (a division belonging to the Federal Ministry of the Interior) on Tuesday announced that its department currently monitors over 90 mosques spread across the country. Head of the office Hans-Georg Maassen expressed his deep concerns regarding the increasing number of mosques which require monitoring.

He clarified that concerns are mainly provoked when confronting what he dubbed “backyard mosques”, in reference to societies and unlicensed worship centers which practice their preaching and rites in old abandoned buildings.

On the other hand, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said that the government has, since the end of 2015, and over the past four months, dedicated 500 million Euros for bolstering security. In his statements to the Dutch broadcasting channel VTM, he said that the former government had never come forth with a similar step to prevent security breaches.

The official had been responding to criticism conveyed by the opposition – represented by the Socialistische Partij Anders (a Flemish socialist party in Belgium) – on the government’s failure to allocate funds to bolster security.

Socialist party leader John Crombez, on the event of Labor Day, gave a roasting speech in which he directly suggested that the funds spent on fighter jets could be otherwise invested in the security of local citizens.

Deputy PM De Croo responded to Crombez’s commentary by underscoring the importance of maintaining aboth internal and foreign security, given that the role performed for homeland security is being attended just as devotedly as the regional role played by the country.

Belgium Grants Permits to 10 New Mosques to Fight Extremist Ideology

Solar Plane Arrives in Arizona on Round-the-World Flight

A solar-powered Swiss-made airplane midway through a historic bid to circle the globe completed the tenth leg of its journey on Monday, landing in suburban Arizona after a daylong flight from California.

The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, where the journey began in March last year.

The zero-fuel aircraft dubbed Solar Impulse 2 arrived in the suburb of Goodyear, just to the southwest of Phoenix, shortly before 9 p.m., following a flight from San Francisco that took it over the Mojave Desert.

Occupying the tiny cockpit for the trip was project co-founder Andre Borschberg, who alternates with fellow pilot Bertrand Piccard at the controls for each segment of what they hope will be the first round-the-world solar-powered flight.

Borschberg called the 16-hour California-Arizona trip “a beautiful flight,” after stepping from the cockpit.

“It was a special flight; not a long flight,” he said.

Borschberg was the pilot for the Japan-to-Hawaii trip over the Pacific last July, staying airborne for nearly 118 hours.

That shattered the 76-hour world duration record for a non-stop, solo flight set in 2006 by the late American adventurer Steve Fossett in his Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer. It also set new duration and distance records for solar-powered flight.

The feat, however, dealt a setback to the plane, which suffered severe battery damage, requiring repairs and testing that grounded it in Hawaii for nine months.

Piccard, also of Switzerland, completed the trans-Pacific crossing last month, reaching San Francisco after a flight of nearly three days, more than three times the 18 hours Amelia Earhart took to fly solo from Hawaii to California in the 1930s.

The biggest difference is that the propeller-driven single-seat Solar Impulse flies without a drop of fuel, its four engines powered solely by energy collected from more than 17,000 solar cells built into its wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747.

In a precursor of their globe-circling quest, the two men completed a multi-flight crossing of the United States with an earlier version of the solar plane in 2013.

The team’s campaign is called “the future is clean.”

Solar Plane Arrives in Arizona on Round-the-World Flight

Israeli Police Hide Footage Showing the Murder of 2 Palestinians

Israeli police are refusing to release footage that shows Maram Ismail, a 23-year- old Palestinian mother, and her 16-year-old brother Ibrahim Taha being killed on Wednesday, at the Qalandia checkpoint outside Jerusalem. The police are claiming that Ismail and Taha were trying to stab Israelis.

This has increased suspicions that the footage shows that the young mother and her brother did not intend to stab Israeli soldiers with knives, and that their murder was a result of a hasty decision or was an intentional murder.

The young woman’s relatives confirmed that she was not involved in any political activity and that there was no way that she could have carried out a suicide bombing. However, Israeli police denied this and claim that Maram and her brother refused to obey orders to stop, and that Maram had a knife with her which alerted police, and that she and her brother were killed thereafter.

In contrast, Palestinian eyewitnesses gave a different account and said that “Maram and her brother did not pose a threat, were at a far distance from the border guards and did not understand what the police said to them in Hebrew.”

The police in this case are required to release footage of everything that takes place at that checkpoint in detail, as it is the largest border crossing between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and tens of thousands of people cross it daily to travel between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Jerusalem police claimed that they cannot release the footage showing the incident because it is considered to be evidence for the investigation.

Israeli Police Hide Footage Showing the Murder of 2 Palestinians

Kerry Sees Hope of Extending Truce to Syria's Aleppo

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday talks were closer to extending a Syrian truce to Aleppo with ‘several proposals’ being discussed.

Kerry highlighted the intensified violence divided northern city has witnessed in recent weeks, which led to torpedoing peace talks.

Kerry was in Geneva for talks with other dignitaries to try to revive the first major ceasefire of the five-year Syrian war, which was put in place in February with U.S. and Russian backing but has since all but collapsed.

Kerry met with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and with the U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. “We’re getting closer to a place of understanding, but we have some work to do, and that’s why we’re here,” Kerry said at the start of the meeting.

He said progress was being made toward an understanding on how to reduce the violence in Aleppo but that more work was needed.

Kerry hoped for more clarity in the next day or so on restoring the nationwide ceasefire. The United States and Russia had agreed to keep extra staff in Geneva to work on it.

“There are several proposals that are now going back to key players to sign off,” Kerry said after meeting de Mistura. We are hopeful but we are not there yet… we are going to work very hard in the next 24 hours, 48 hours to get there.”

Syria announced temporary local truces in other areas last week but has so far failed to extend the lull in fighting to Aleppo as well, where government air strikes and rebel shelling have killed hundreds of civilians in the past week, including more than 50 people in a hospital that rebels say was deliberately targeted.

The Aleppo fighting threatens to shatter the first peace talks involving the warring parties, which are due to resume at an unspecified date after breaking up in April when the opposition delegation walked out in anger.

“Both sides, the opposition and the regime, have contributed to this chaos, and we are working over the next hours intensely in order to try to restore the cessation of hostilities,” Kerry said. De Mistura said he would travel to Moscow for talks.

The civil war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and provided a base for ISIS militants who have launched attacks elsewhere.

The fighting has drawn in global powers and regional states, while all diplomatic efforts to resolve it have foundered over the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, who refuses to accept opposition demands that he leave power.

The United States and Russia have taken the leading roles in the latest diplomatic initiative, which began after Moscow joined the war last year with an air campaign that tipped the balance of power in favor of Assad, its ally.

So far, Syria has announced a “regime of calm” — a temporary local truce — in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus and the countryside of northern Latakia province, from Saturday morning. The Latakia truce was for three days and the Ghouta truce, initially for 24 hours, was also extended by another 48.

Both areas have witnessed heavy fighting, but Aleppo remains the biggest prize for Assad’s forces, who are hoping to take full control of the city, Syria’s largest before the war.

A Russian military official, General Sergei Kuralenko, said talks were under way on extending the regime of calm to Aleppo.

Kerry Sees Hope of Extending Truce to Syria's Aleppo

Obama Speaks at Fifth Anniversary of Bin Laden Raid

At the fifth anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama said that he hopes the terror mastermind understood in his final moments that the ‘American people hadn’t forgotten’ and wanted revenge for the atrocities of September 11, 2001.

Obama spoke to CNN’s Peter Bergen about the raid that killed the Al-Qaeda leader on May 2, 2011, almost 10 years after the terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Bergen’s exclusive interview marked the first time Obama has sat down with a journalist in the Situation Room.

During the interview titled as “We Got Him: President Obama, Bin Laden and the Future of the War on Terror”, Bergen said that “the last person bin Laden saw on Earth was an American.”

Obama replied:“And hopefully, at that moment, he understood that the American people hadn’t forgotten the some 3,000 people whom he killed.”

Obama’s administration said the raid is evidence that despite the President’s caution about foreign engagement, he isn’t loathe to act forcefully on behalf of American interests and pursue aggressive action against terrorists.

In 2015th celebration, Obama inaugurated a memorial in Pennsylvania, where the fourth hijacked airplane, which was thought to be heading towards the congress or the White House, was crashed.

Obama participated in the prayers for the souls of the victims at the memorial place close to the towers that collapsed after the attack.

Back then, Barack Obama started his day at the White House where he stood one minute of silence at 8:40 a.m., the time when the first tower was hit in 2001. The U.S. President was surrounded by the First Lady Michelle Obama and the White House Staff.

Later on, he headed to Fort Meade military base in Maryland, where he delivered a speech and praised the efforts made by the armed forces in their war against terrorism. Obama, then, travelled to Pennsylvania to inaugurate the fourth plane’s memorial.

For his part, Jean-Pierre Filiu, a Paris-based expert on Islam and jihadist groups, said ISIS has been especially effective at using new technology to surpass its less tech-savvy rival.

“Al-Qaeda propaganda has become invisible on social networks thanks to the media war machine that ISIS has managed to successfully create,” Filiu said.

“Al-Qaeda has lost everywhere to ISIS, except in the Sahel desert region of northern Africa,” he said.

On the other hand, William McCants, of the Brookings Institution in Washington, agreed that Al-Qaeda had lost some ground to ISIS, but said the organization has recovered.

“Al-Qaeda has a strong showing in Syria and in Yemen,” he said.

In Syria the group’s local affiliate, Al-Nusra Front, is one of the strongest forces fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, holding large parts of the northern province of Idlib.

The local branch in Yemen, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has meanwhile seized significant territory in the south and southeast as the government struggles against Iran-backed Shiite insurgents who have taken the capital Sanaa and other areas.

However, AQAP remains the key jihadist force in Yemen with thousands of members compared with only several hundred affiliated with ISIS, McCants added.

Obama Speaks at Fifth Anniversary of Bin Laden Raid

Masum Bears Al-Abadi Responsible for Losing Security Control

Baghdad-The Iraqi government decided on Sunday to hire Peshmerga forces in order to protect the Green Zone after the Iraqi forces failed in securing the zone with a political crisis in Iraq heading towards a dangerous detour.

An Iraqi source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the government was planning to change the security forces, who have been responsible for years for protecting the Green Zone and are affiliated with Baghdad’s Operation Command and Joint Operations Command, after the latter failed in protecting and securing the zone from Sadrist protesters who broke through and occupied the parliament’s headquarter.

The source added that the meeting among the three leaderships and leaders of Iraqi political blocs, headed by President Fuad Masum, bore Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi responsible for what had happened being the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Therefore, according to the leaders, the power that protects the Green Zone is either weak, proven from the first challenge it faced, or is complicit with the protesters and in both cases the PM is the first to take responsibility.

The source also noted that the statement issued following the meeting did not include much of the candid talks among them, especially that many leaders have several indications that the attack was organized between al-Sadr and al-Abadi so that the latter would appear like “the tough man who is supported by Sadrist movement to face strong rivals like Nouri al-Maliki.”

The meeting was held at President Masum’s house on Sunday to assess political situation after the demonstrators broke into the Parliament building and sat-in to meet their requests.

The statement issued following the meeting condemned the break into the Parliament and attacking a number of its members, considering it a dangerous encroachment of the government’s prestige.

It also urged security forces to carry out their tasks in the maintenance of public security and the protection of state institutions from any abuse, and adopt constitutional contexts in imposing the law.

The source also said that when al-Sadr decided to withdraw his bloc’s MPs from the parliament members’ protests, he left the parliament confused between the legitimacy of its ousted President Salim al-Jabouri and the legitimacy of the protesters, who chose Adnan al-Janabi to be their temporary President being the oldest among them.

He further added that al-Sadr wanted to overturn the balances by allowing the rampaging masses to break into the Green Zone as long as the only person to benefit from this action is Haider al-Abadi, taking advantage of the US silence. Thus, al-Abadi seems to be the benefiting party at the end, not the targeted one.

In a common matter, the former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki criticized attempts to force reform “under threat of weapons and by preventing the representatives of the people to enter the parliament.”

Masum Bears Al-Abadi Responsible for Losing Security Control

Yemen Officials Suspend Peace Talks after Houthis Seize Base

The Yemeni government suspended its participation in peace talks to end the country’s civil war on Sunday after the Houthi movement and its armed allies seized a military base north of the capital Sanaa, two members of the official delegation to the talks said.

U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement that the Yemeni government stopped attending plenary sessions held in Kuwait because of developments in the governorate of Amran following the Houthi attack.

The statement says he has received assurances from the warring parties that they are committed to resolving difference without participating in joint sessions, and that the U.N. hopes to resume the talks.

The Houthi assault killed several of the soldiers defending the Umaliqa base. Unlike most of Yemen’s soldiers, those at Umaliqa had refused to take sides in the Yemeni civil war.

The Houthis had accepted this neutrality until they launched a surprise push into the facility in Amran province and seized its large reserve of weapons at dawn, local officials said.

“We have suspended the sessions indefinitely to protest these military actions and continued violations of the truce,” Reuters cited one member of the government delegation to the Yemen peace talks in Kuwait as saying.

The delegate declined to be named, citing rules on media commentary at the U.N.-sponsored peace talks.

Representatives from the Houthi movement and the allied party of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh were not immediately available to comment.

Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi, Yemen’s foreign minister and the government’s top delegate to the negotiations in Kuwait, said in the immediate aftermath of the Houthi assault that it had “torpedoed” the talks.

“We will take the appropriate position in response to the Houthi crime at the Umaliqa base in Amran for the sake of our people and country,” he wrote on his official Twitter account, without elaborating.

The talks in Kuwait, which have been propped up by a truce largely holding since April 10, had been inching ahead in recent days and the Houthis said Saudi Arabia had released 40 Yemeni prisoners it had been holding on Saturday.

The war in the Arab impoverished country has killed at least 6,200 people and unleashed a humanitarian crisis in the most Yemeni areas. Yemen’s army has split and military bases and commanders have mostly either taken the Houthi or the government side.

Yemen Officials Suspend Peace Talks after Houthis Seize Base