Tag Archives: Persian Gulf

Kerry pushes $2.1 billion Raytheon deal in Oman

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is talking with officials in Oman about their plans to buy a $2.1 billion air defense system from American manufacturer Raytheon.

Kerry was meeting Wednesday with the Arab country’s defense minister, a day after discussions with Oman‘s sultan.

Kerry thanked them for their decision to buy a ground-based air defense system from the Massachusetts company.

Omani Defense Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi said his country was still in talks with Raytheon. He called Raytheon’s system the most effective of its kind.

The U.S. has pushed Persian Gulf countries to create an integrated defense network against the threat posed by Iran.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Saudi Arabia appoints new deputy defense minister

The Saudi monarch has appointed a retired army general as the kingdom’s new deputy defense minister in a shakeup just days before a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The official Saudi Press Agency said Saturday that former navy commander Prince Fahad bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Abdul-Rahman was named to the post.

The report gave no reason for the departure of Prince Khaled bin Sultan, the previous deputy.

Khaled headed Arab coalition forces during the U.S.-led Gulf War that drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991. He owns Al Hayat daily, which is published in London.

Hagel is due in Riyadh on Tuesday as part of a Mideast trip that is expected to include discussions about arms sales to U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/Oz2CHEBNHKI/

Congress OK Sought to Sell Boeing C-17 Globemaster to Kuwait

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency — the outfit responsible for coordinating military sales contracts between the U.S. and its allies, and getting Congress’ OK on such sales before they can proceed — notified Congress of no fewer than five such upcoming “foreign military sales” contracts Wednesday. The biggest of the sales involving actual arms was a proposed sale [link opens in PDF] to Kuwait of a single Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft.

The aircraft, equipped with F117-PW-100 engines from United Technologies subsidiary Pratt & Whitney, is expected to cost approximately $371 million all-in. DSCA told Congress that in addition to securing the revenues for Boeing and UTC, selling this plane to Kuwait is a good idea because “Kuwait continues to be a key ally and strong supporter of U.S. foreign policy and national security goals in the Persian Gulf region. The proposed sale will enhance the United States foreign policy and national security objectives by increasing interoperability among the Kuwait Air Force (KAF), the United States Air Force, Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and other coalition forces.”

Additionally, noted DSCA, adding a second C-17 to Kuwait‘s Air Force “will allow the KAF to better participate in humanitarian support operations.”

link

The article Congress OK Sought to Sell Boeing C-17 Globemaster to Kuwait originally appeared on Fool.com.

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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/18/congress-ok-sought-to-sell-boeing-c-17-globemaster/

Iran's president slams 'foreign presence' in Gulf

Iran‘s president has slammed “foreign presence” in the Persian Gulf, claiming it’s the source of insecurity in the region.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran has “always guarded peace and security” in the Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.

Ahmadinejad says that “foreign presence has been main reason of insecurity in the region” — an apparent reference to Western nations and the U.S. 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain.

Iran sees the large American-led naval presence as foreign military meddling in the Mideast.

Ahmadinejad’s remarks — typical rhetoric from the president — came ahead of a military parade in Tehran on Thursday as Iran marks National Army Day.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/TpqUK_d0IpE/

6.1 magnitude earthquake strikes town near Iranian nuclear plant

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake that struck near the town of Iran‘s first nuclear power plant has left at least 4 dead, state TV reported on Tuesday, but operations at the plant are unaffected.

The report said the earthquake struck the town of Kaki some 60 miles southeast of Bushehr, a town on the Persian Gulf.

The Russian company that built the nuclear plant said the earthquake was felt there, but it didn’t impact operations, Sky News reports.

“Personnel continue to work in the normal regime and radiation levels are fully within the norm,” an Atomstroyexport official told Russian state news agency RIA.

Shahpour Rostami, the deputy governor of Bushehr province told state TV that rescue teams have been deployed to Shomneh, the most damaged district in the region.

Kaki resident Mondani Hosseini told the Associated Press that people had run out into the streets out of fear.

Two helicopters were sent to survey the damaged area before sunset, Mohammad Mozaffar, the head of the province’s rescue department said.

The quake was felt across the Gulf in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, where workers were evacuated from high-rise buildings as a precaution.

Earlier on Sunday a lighter earthquake jolted the nearby area. Iran is located on seismic faults and it experiences daily light earthquakes.

In 2003, some 26,000 people were killed by a 6.6 magnitude quake that flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

US fighter crashes in Gulf; crew rescued

The U.S. Navy says a fighter jet has crashed into the Persian Gulf near the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, but both crew members were rescued safely by divers.

The Navy cited engine failure on the F/A-18F Super Hornet as the reason for Monday’s crash. An investigation is underway.

The Eisenhower is on a scheduled deployment in the Gulf region under the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain.

The U.S. has expanded naval maneuvers and drone surveillance in the region to counter growing Iranian military activity.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Jordan aid to rebels raises tensions with Syria

Jordan tightened security along its border with Syria, doubling the number of soldiers as President Bashar Assad‘s regime warned Thursday the kingdom is “playing with fire” by allowing the U.S and other countries to train and arm Syrian rebels on its territory.

The warning, coinciding with significant rebel advances near the border, plays into Jordanian fears that its larger neighbor might try to retaliate for its support of the opposition fighters.

The stepped up security also reflects the kingdom’s fears that the chaos from Syria‘s 2-year-old civil war could lead to a failed state on its doorstep where Islamic militants have a free hand.

The Syrian warnings followed statements from U.S. and other Western and Arab officials that Jordan has been facilitating arms shipments and hosting training camps for Syrian rebels since last October.

A front-page editorial in the government daily al-Thawra accused Amman of adopting a policy of “ambiguity” by training the rebels while at the same time publicly insisting on a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

Jordan is “playing with fire,” state radio said.

Jordan‘s attempt to put out the flame from the leaked information will not help as it continues with its mysterious policy, which brings it closer to the volcanic crater,” al-Thawra said.

Over the years, Syria has accused Jordan of being America’s “puppet” because of its strong alliance with the United States and a “spy” for Israel, with which Amman maintains cordial ties under a peace treaty signed in 1994.

A Jordanian security official said the kingdom had tightened security along its 230-mile (370-kilometer) border with Syria, including doubling the number of soldiers in the last two days, though he declined to disclose the size of the force.

He said Jordan was also hoping to receive one or two Patriot missile batteries, which the U.S. might temporarily pull out of the Persian Gulf to station on Jordan‘s northern border. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements to the media.

Jordan‘s chief of staff, Gen. Mishaal Zaben, said Jordan was installing more cameras, radar and sophisticated early detection equipment to help prevent smuggling and infiltrations across the border and assist Syrian refugees as they cross into Jordan. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

US still making payments to relatives of Civil War veterans, analysis finds

If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.

An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans — 148 years after the conflict ended.

At the 10 year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, more than $40 billion a year are going to compensate veterans and survivors from the Spanish-American War from 1898, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two Iraq campaigns and the Afghanistan conflict. And those costs are rising rapidly.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said such expenses should remind the nation about war’s long-lasting financial toll.

“When we decide to go to war, we have to consciously be also thinking about the cost,” said Murray, D-Wash., adding that her WWII-veteran father’s disability benefits helped feed their family.

Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator and veteran who co-chaired President Barack Obama‘s deficit committee in 2010, said government leaders working to limit the national debt should make sure that survivors of veterans need the money they are receiving.

“Without question, I would affluence-test all of those people,” Simpson said.

With greater numbers of troops surviving combat injuries because of improvements in battlefield medicine and technology, the costs of disability payments are set to rise much higher.

The AP identified the disability and survivor benefits during an analysis of millions of federal payment records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

To gauge the post-war costs of each conflict, AP looked at four compensation programs that identify recipients by war: disabled veterans; survivors of those who died on active duty or from a service-related disability; low-income wartime vets over age 65 or disabled; and low-income survivors of wartime veterans or their disabled children.

—The Iraq wars and Afghanistan

So far, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the first Persian Gulf conflict in the early 1990s are costing about $12 billion a year to compensate those who have left military service or family members of those who have died.

Those post-service compensation costs have totaled more than $50 billion since 2003, not including expenses of medical care and other benefits provided to veterans, and are poised to grow for many years to come.

The new veterans are filing for disabilities at historic rates, with about 45 percent of those from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking compensation for injuries. Many are seeking compensation for a variety of ailments at once.

Experts see a variety of factors driving that surge, including a bad economy that’s led more jobless veterans to seek the financial benefits they’ve earned, troops who survive wounds of war and more awareness about head trauma and mental health.

Vietnam War

It’s been 40 years since the U.S. ended its involvement in the Vietnam War, and yet payments for the conflict are still rising.

Now above $22 billion annually, Vietnam compensation costs are roughly twice the size of the FBI‘s annual budget. And …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Video: Will Obama Be An Accessory To Murder?

By Kris Zane

Obama went on his apocalyptic sequester “road show” proclaiming the sky would be falling if Congress wouldn’t cancel the “draconian” cuts to the budget.

Everyone except the “low information voters,” as Rush Limbaugh calls them, knew the “draconian” cuts amounted to about one percent of the budget for 2013 and was actually an increase in spending from the year before.

Everyone knew the sequestration was Obama’s idea.

Everyone knew that it was another one of Obama’s manufactured crises to get Congress to cave to his demands—this time for another tax hike on the “fat cat millionaires and billionaires.”

But Congress wasn’t listening.

Obama, as expected, pulled out the big guns:

Big Sis Janet Napolitano was dispatched to tell America we would be waiting in long lines at the airport.

That our border would be less safe.

That we’d be less safe against terrorists.

Obama even pulled the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Truman out of commission, citing his phony sequestration cuts. The U.S.S. Harry S. Truman was scheduled to deploy to the Persian Gulf, probably the most unstable area on the planet, and no doubt is contributing to emboldening our enemies.

If this isn’t grounds for treason, I don’t know what is.

But Congress wasn’t going to cave to Obama’s phony prediction of doom and gloom, so Obama did what he does best—manufacture a crisis.

Two weeks before the sequestration cuts went into effect, Obama released hundreds of jailed illegal aliens—criminals—citing the “draconian” cuts that would go into effect on March 1.

Barack Hussein Obama opened the jail cells of the criminals, letting them roam the streets to rape and maim and kill.

But this was only the beginning. Obama is scheduled to release ten thousand jailed illegal aliens before he’s done.

Whistleblowers have indicated a significant number have been identified as having committed felonies, including child abuse, robbery, aggravated assault on a police officer, weapons violations, and manslaughter.

Nixon despatched his Plumbers to the Watergate Democratic Headquarters to do his dirty work. But Obama, as payback for not playing along with his manufactured sequestration crisis, has dispatched a legion of illegal alien criminals to wreak havoc in this country.

When one of these illegal aliens commits murder—and make no bones about it, they will—the blood will be on Obama’s hands.

And Barack Hussein Obama will be an accessory to murder.

Impeachment should not be discussed. It should begin today. Now. Immediately.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Iran Plane Pursued U.S. Spy Drone, Pentagon Says

By The Huffington Post News Editors

WASHINGTON — An Iranian fighter jet approached a U.S. surveillance drone over the Persian Gulf but broke off its pursuit after the pilot of a U.S. escort plane radioed a verbal warning, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Pentagon press secretary George Little said the incident occurred Tuesday and that the unarmed MQ-1 Predator surveillance drone as well as two U.S. military escort planes remained over international waters at all times.

Read More…
More on Drones

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Al-Qaida's most wanted

Name, nationality and status of some major al-Qaida figures:

OSAMA BIN LADEN, Saudi, supreme leader: Killed by U.S. Navy SEALs May 2, 2011.

MOHAMMED ATEF, Egyptian, military chief: Killed in U.S. airstrike.

AYMAN AL-ZAWAHRI, Egyptian, bin Laden’s doctor and spiritual adviser: At large.

KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED, Kuwaiti-Pakistani, suspected mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks: Captured.

ABU ZUBAYDAH, Palestinian-Saudi, “terrorist coordinator”: Captured.

SAIF AL-ADIL, Egyptian, bin Laden security chief: At large.

SHAIKH SAIID AL-SHARIF, Saudi, bin Laden’s brother-in-law and Sept. 11 financier: At large.

ABD AL-RAHIM AL-NASHIRI, Saudi, Persian Gulf operations chief: Captured.

TAWFIQ ATTASH KHALLAD, Yemeni, operational leader, suspected mastermind of USS Cole bombing in October 2000: Arrested.

QAED SALIM SINAN AL-HARETHI, Yemeni, Yemen operations chief: Killed in U.S. airstrike.

IBN AL-SHAYKH AL-LIBI, Libyan, training camp commander: Reported suicide.

SAAD BIN LADEN, Saudi, bin Laden’s son: Intelligence officials believe he was killed in a drone airstrike

ABU MOHAMMAD AL-MASRI, Egyptian, training camp commander: At large.

TARIQ ANWAR AL-SAYYID AHMAD, Egyptian, operational planner: Killed in U.S. airstrike.

MOHAMMED SALAH, Egyptian, operational planner: Killed in U.S. airstrike.

ABD AL-HADI AL-IRAQI, training camp commander: Captured.

ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI, Jordanian, operational planner: Killed in U.S. airstrike.

ABU ZUBAIR AL-HAILI, Saudi, operational planner: Arrested.

ABU HAFS THE MAURITANIAN, operational and spiritual leader: At large.

SULAIMAN ABU GHAITH, Kuwaiti, al-Qaida spokesman: Captured.

MIDHAT MURSI, Egyptian, responsible for research on weapons of mass destruction: Killed.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Middle East is new global travel crossroads

It’s 1 a.m. and the sprawling airport in this desert city is bustling. Enough languages fill the air to make a United Nations translator’s head spin.

Thousands of fliers arrive every hour from China, Australia, India and nearly everywhere else on the planet. Few venture outside the terminal, which spans the length of 24 football fields. They come instead to catch connecting flights to somewhere else.

If it weren’t for three ambitious and rapidly expanding government-owned airlines — Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways — they might have never come to the Middle East.

For generations, international fliers have stopped over in London, Paris and Amsterdam. Now, they increasingly switch planes in Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, making this region the new crossroads of global travel. The switch is driven by both the airports and airlines, all backed by governments that see aviation as the way to make their countries bigger players in the global economy.

Passengers are won over by their fancy new planes and top-notch service. But the real key to the airlines’ incredible growth is geography. Their hubs in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are an eight-hour flight away from two-thirds of the world’s population, including a growing middle class in India, China and Southeast Asia that is eager to travel.

In the past five years, the annual number of passengers traveling through Dubai International Airport — home to Emirates — has jumped from 28.8 million to 51 million, a 77 percent increase. The airport now sees more passengers than New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

“Everybody accepts that the balance of global economic power is shifting to the east. The geographic position of the Gulf hubs makes them much more relevant today,” says Willie Walsh, CEO of International Airlines Group, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia.

Persian Gulf carriers are already chipping away at some U.S. and European airlines’ most lucrative business: long-haul international flights. But it’s what’s ahead that really has other airlines worried.

Gulf carriers hold one-third of the orders for the Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 — two of the world’s largest and farthest-flying jets. That’s enough planes to put 70,000 passengers in the air at any given moment.

“They’re being very …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Iran imports luxury cars by way of disputed island

An Iranian newspaper says at least 500 Porsche cars have been imported by way of a Persian Gulf island that is also claimed by the United Arab Emirates.

Thursday’s report by the Javan daily quotes lawmaker Amir Khojasteh as saying it’s unclear who the importer was or why the island of Abu Musa was used as the route to bring the vehicles into Iran.

Khojasteh is demanding that Industry Minister Mahdi Ghazanfari elaborate on the case.

Abu Musa is one of three Iranian-controlled islands close to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.

Tehran says they have been part of states that existed on the Iranian mainland from antiquity until the British occupied them in the early 20th century.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

President Obama: Automatic Budget Cuts Will Hurt Economy, Slow Recovery, and Put People Out of Work

By <a href="/author-detail/3699933">Megan Slack</a>

Watch this video on YouTube

Just 10 days from now, Congress might allow a series of severe and automatic budget cuts to take place that will hurt our economic growth, add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls, and threaten military readiness.

But, as President Obama said this morning, these cuts don’t have to happen — Congress has the power to stop them.

In 2011, President Obama explained today, Congress passed a law saying that if they couldn’t agree on a plan to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion – including the $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction lawmakers in both parties have already accomplished over the last few years – about $1 trillion in automatic, arbitrary cuts would start to take effect this year.

“The whole design of these arbitrary cuts was to make them so unattractive and unappealing that Democrats and Republicans would actually get together and find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes and so forth,” President Obama said. “And so this was all designed to say we can't do these bad cuts; let’s do something smarter. That was the whole point of this so-called sequestration.”

Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t compromised, these cuts are now poised to take effect next Friday, President Obama said:

Now, if Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research. It won’t consider whether we’re cutting some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or a vital service that Americans depend on every single day. It doesn’t make those distinctions.

Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off. Tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find childcare for their kids. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.

And already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf. And as our military leaders have made clear, changes like this — not well thought through, not phased in properly — changes like this affect our ability to respond to threats in unstable parts of the world.

read more

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House

Pakistani clerics to boycott peace conference

Pakistani clerics upset with anti-Taliban comments coming out of Afghanistan said Monday they will boycott a conference of religious leaders being held to denounce violence and press for a peaceful end to the 11-year-old Afghan war.

The head of the Pakistani clerics, Mufti Abu Huraira Mohiuddin sent a letter to his Afghan counterpart on Sunday announcing the move. In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, Mohiuddin accused some Afghan clerics of using “unsavory language” against the Taliban and said the conference was shaping up to be a one-sided attack on the Taliban rather than a conference to press for peace.

The letter appeared to put an end to an initiative that began last November when Kabul and Islamabad announced the plan to hold a peace conference.

The ambitious initiative called for 500 clerics from Afghanistan and Pakistan to gather in Kabul in March to present a united front opposing violence, denouncing suicide bombings and urging all sides in the protracted conflict to pursue peace. At the time, the plan was touted as a sign of improving relations between Kabul and Islamabad. But the latest dispute highlights the difficulty of getting the squabbling neighbors to sit together.

Still, Pakistan is seen as key to any peace agreement with Taliban insurgents ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of NATO and U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and it’s believed that Islamabad is the best hope of getting the Taliban to enter into serious negotiations.

The Taliban were given office space in Persian Gulf state of Qatar last year when the U.S. and Taliban opened secret talks. But those discussions stalled after the U.S. refused to release five Taliban from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Yet the Taliban have participated in at least two international conferences and U.S. and European officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the fragility of the talks, say the Taliban are in touch with representatives of 30 to 40 countries. The proliferation of interlocutors has angered Afghan President Hamid Karzai who wants all peace negotiations channeled through his government even though the Taliban are steadfastly refusing to talk to his government.

Some members of the Afghan High Peace Council had hoped that 500 clerics from Afghanistan and Pakistan would have had the clout to propel the Taliban into direct talks with the government.

But the dispute among the clerics began last week …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

China takes control of strategic Pakistani port

China has taken operational control of a strategic deep-water Pakistani seaport that could serve as a vital economic hub for Beijing.

Control of Gwadar port on Pakistan‘s southwest coast was transferred to a state-owned Chinese company in a signing ceremony Monday in Islamabad that was broadcast on TV.

China paid much of the $250 million originally needed to construct the port, which was previously run by a Singaporean company. It has been a commercial failure since it opened in 2007 because Pakistan never completed the road network to link Gwadar to the rest of the country.

China‘s interest is driven by concerns about energy security as it seeks to fuel its booming economy. It wants a place to anchor pipelines to secure oil and gas supplies from the Persian Gulf.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Iran plans to establish new navy base

Iran‘s official news agency says the country’s navy plans to establish a new base near Pakistan‘s border in the Sea of Oman.

The plans are part of Iranian ambitions to exert its naval power outside the Persian Gulf, including sending warships to the Mediterranean and claiming it might someday have ships in the Atlantic.

The IRNA report on Sunday quotes Adm. Habibollah Sayyari as saying that the base will be built in Pasabandar, about 30 kilometers (100 miles) west of Pakistani major port of Gwadar.

Iran has conducted numerous naval drills in past years as it increases its presence in regional waterways.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Bahrain crisis talks to begin amid mistrust

After nearly two years of nonstop unrest, opposing factions in Bahrain are set to open talks to ease an Arab Spring conflict that has run longer than Syria‘s rebellion and is playing out on the doorstep of the U.S. military’s main naval base in the Persian Gulf.

But mistrust runs so deep on all sides that even the prelude to Sunday’s planned start of negotiations has been a study in the kingdom’s divisions and suspicions, and suggests a difficult route toward any possible accords.

The country’s Sunni rulers — supported by the West and other Gulf allies — seek to bring the main Shiite factions back into the political fold in hopes of starting a gradual reconciliation on the strategic island, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Envoys from the Shiite groups, however, remain wary of opening a process that they believe has no chance of reaching their goals: forcing the ruling monarchy to give up its monopoly on power and allow an elected government that would certainly include the majority Shiites.

Meanwhile, hard-line Shiite protesters demand nothing short of toppling the two-century-old dynasty. Such a showdown would likely prompt another round of military action from neighbors such Saudi Arabia, which sent in troops to aid Bahrain‘s Sunni leaders after the uprising began in February 2011.

Washington, which has supported the efforts for negotiations, has stood by Bahrain‘s monarchy because of its critical military ties and worries about fallout among other Gulf Arab states. However, U.S. officials have criticized harsh measures by Bahrain, including stripping 31 Shiite activists of citizenship, and faces mounting pressures to further trim military sales to Bahrain‘s government.

Bahrain‘s Shiites account for about 70 percent of the kingdom’s more than 550,000 native-born citizens. While they are the majority, they claim they face systematic discrimination and are effectively shut out of top-level government and military roles. Shiites protests for a greater political voice have flared during the past decades, but the current unrest is the longest and most threatening to the ruling system.

More than 55 people have been killed in the clashes. Some Bahrain-based rights activists place the death toll far higher. Dozens of top Shiite political leaders remain in jail, including some sentenced to life terms.

Tensions also appear to be on the rise heading toward the second anniversary of the uprising on Thursday. Early Saturday, Shiite …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News