Beirut (AFP) - The extremist Islamic State group Tuesday executed at least 30 civilians, including two children, in a raid on a regime-held village in Syria's central province of Hama, a monitor said.

IS "executed at least 30 people, including women and children, by burning, beheading, and firing on them" in the village of Mabujeh, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syrian state television said government forces had "blocked a terrorist attack" on the village, but did not report any casualties.

Mabujeh, east of the provincial capital Hama, has a population of Sunni Muslims as well as Alawites and Ismailis, minority sects that are offshoots of Shiite Islam.

IS has regularly targeted minority sects in Syria, especially Shiite Muslims it accuses of apostasy, as well as Sunnis who it alleges have violated its interpretation of the religion.

Mabujeh lies near a vital road that serves as the regime's only link between the central province of Homs and the northern province of Aleppo.

IS militants have repeatedly tried to sever the route.

In late March, the extremist group killed 83 regime soldiers in the region in a bid to gain control over the road.

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Sanaa (AFP) - Regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran traded accusations Tuesday over the escalating conflict in Yemen, which the UN rights chief warned was on the brink of "total collapse".

Explosions lit up the skies over the Yemeni capital overnight in the heaviest bombing raids yet of a six-day air war led by Riyadh against Shiite rebels.

The Huthi rebels and their ally, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, "decided with the support of Iran to destabilise Yemen," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said.

"We are not warmongers, but when they beat the drums of war we are ready," Saud told the Shura Council advisory body.

Tehran hit back, accusing Saudi Arabia of putting the entire Middle East in jeopardy.

"The fire of war in the region from any side... will drag the whole region to play with fire," Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said.

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Yemenis pack their belongings into the back of a truck in Sanaa on March 31, 2015 as they flee the c …

"We believe that the Saudi military attack against Yemen is a strategic mistake," he told reporters in Kuwait, calling for the air campaign to "stop immediately".

Iranian state media rejected as "utter lies" claims Tehran had sent arms to Yemen, but said it had dispatched non-military aid, including food and medicine, on Tuesday.

The coalition has vowed to keep up the strikes until the Huthi rebels end their uprising against President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Saudi Arabia.

Kuwait's Al-Watan newspaper launched a vitriolic attack against Tehran, describing the air strikes as "the biggest blow to Iran in decades".

The coalition campaign "raises hopes of a historic success for the Arabs and a rout of one of their worst enemies: the Persian state," added the daily.

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Smoke and flames rise from an alleged weapons storage depot at a Shiite Huthi rebel camp after an ai …

The war of words pitting Shiite Iran against its Sunni Arab neighbours came as marathon nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers entered a crucial phase in Switzerland.

- 'Day of terror' -

Huge blasts were heard overnight in Sanaa when coalition forces hit a missile depot belonging to the renegade Republican Guard, which is loyal to Saleh.

"Sanaa lived through a day of terror due to the continuous bombing from early Monday until this morning," said Assem al-Sabri, a 28-year-old resident.

"We couldn't sleep from the sounds of explosions," he told AFP.

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Yemeni women hold a portrait of Shiite Huthi rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Huthi at a rally in Sanaa, o …

The missile depot blast rocked a southwestern district of Sanaa, and flames billowing from the site were seen across most of the city.

"The bombing was the heaviest I have ever heard in my life. The explosions lit up the skies of Sanaa," said another resident, 30-year-old Amr al-Amrani.

Early Tuesday, air strikes targeted two camps held by Huthi rebels and Republican Guard soldiers in the southern town of Daleh.

Columns of smoke rose from the area, witnesses said.

Coalition warplanes also raided a Republican Guard air base in the southwestern city of Taez, witnesses there said.

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Yemenis gather near the rubble of houses near Sanaa Airport on March 31, 2015 which were destroyed i …

For the first time since the operation began, warplanes also bombed renegade troops in the Shiite-populated city of Dhammar, a Huthi stronghold south of Sanaa.

They also hit another arms depot north of the capital, according to witnesses.

- UN voices alarm -

The Red Cross said Tuesday a local aid worker had been shot dead in southern Yemen while evacuating wounded.

It said it could not fly in desperately needed aid due to a lack of security.

"The situation in Yemen is extremely alarming, with dozens of civilians killed over the past four days," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement.

"The country seems to be on the verge of total collapse."

He denounced reported attacks by Huthi-linked fighters on three hospitals in the southern town of Daleh that caused an unknown number of casualties.

"I roundly condemn all attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities, which have a special protected status under international law," he said.

After an air strike killed dozens at a camp for displaced people in northwest Yemen on Monday, the two sides blamed each other.

"The coalition was targeted by militiamen from a residential area and coalition planes had to respond" to the fire, spokesman Ahmed Assiri told reporters in Riyadh.

"The Huthis are seeking to place their forces among the people and the coalition is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties."

The rebel-controlled health ministry condemned "the Saudi aggression on Yemen that left many innocent victims, children, women, and civilians".

Reuters Videos
Indiana governor says the state will "correct" religious freedom law this week

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said Tuesday that he wants legislation on his desk by the end of the week to clarify that the state's new religious-freedom law does not allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Pence defended the measure as a vehicle to protect religious liberty but said he has been meeting with lawmakers "around the clock" to address concerns that it would allow businesses to deny services to gay customers.

The governor said he does not believe "for a minute" that lawmakers intended "to create a license to discriminate."

"It certainly wasn't my intent," said Pence, who signed the law last week.

But, he said, he "can appreciate that that's become the perception, not just here in Indiana but all across the country. We need to confront that."

The law prohibits state laws that "substantially burden" a person's ability to follow his or her religious beliefs. The definition of "person" includes religious institutions, businesses and associations.

Ind. Lawmakers Address Religious Objections LawPlay video

Although the legal language does not specifically mention gays and lesbians, critics say the law is designed to protect businesses and individuals who do not want to serve gays and lesbians, such as florists or caterers who might be hired for a same-sex wedding.

Businesses and organizations including Apple and the NCAA have voiced concern over the effect of the law, and some states have barred government-funded travel to Indiana.

Also Tuesday, the Indianapolis Star urged Indiana lawmakers in a front-page editorial to respond to widespread criticism of the law by protecting the rights of gays and lesbians.

The Star's editorial, headlined "FIX THIS NOW," covered the newspaper's entire front page. It called for lawmakers to enact a law that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

The newspaper says the uproar sparked by the law has "done enormous harm" to the state and potentially to its economic future.

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Rep. Warwick Sabin, D-Little Rock, center, cheers with protesters outside of the House chamber at th …

Meanwhile, Arkansas was poised to follow Indiana in enacting a law despite increasing criticism from businesses and gay-rights advocates.

The Arkansas House could vote as early as Tuesday on a proposal that would prohibit state and local governments from infringing on a person's religious beliefs without a "compelling" reason. And unlike in Indiana, Arkansas lawmakers said they won't modify their measure.

"There's not really any place to make any changes now," Republican Rep. Bob Ballinger of Hindsville said about his proposal. "If there are questions in two years, we can fix it."

Hundreds of protesters filled Arkansas' Capitol to oppose the measure, holding signs that read "Discrimination is not a Christian Value" and "Discrimination is a Disease," and chanting "Shame on You" at Ballinger after the measure was endorsed by a House committee.

"I believe that many people will want to flee the state, and many people will want to avoid our state," said Rita Jernigan, a protester and one of the lead plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging Arkansas' gay marriage ban.

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Rep. Bob Ballinger, R-Hindsville, presents an amendment to a bill that critics say would sanction di …

Similar proposals have been introduced in more than a dozen states, patterned after the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Nineteen other states have similar laws on the books.

Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who had expressed reservations about unintended consequences of an earlier version of the bill, has said he will sign the current measure into law.

"If this bill reaches my desk in similar form as to what has been passed in 20 other states, then I will sign it, but I am pleased that the Legislature is continuing to look at ways to assure balance and fairness in the legislation," Hutchinson said Monday in a statement.

In a letter released Tuesday, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola urged Hutchinson to veto the proposal, which he said would hurt the state's economic-development efforts because it "sends the message that some members of our community will have fewer protections than others. Our city and our state cannot be limited to only certain segments of society."

Sexual orientation and gender identity are not included in Arkansas' anti-discrimination protections. Last month, Hutchinson allowed a measure to go into law that prevented local governments from including such protections in their anti-discrimination ordinances.

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Indiana Senate Democratic Leader Tim Lanane, left, D-Anderson, and Indiana House Democratic Leader S …

Opponents of the bill hoped to target Hutchinson's promise to be a "jobs governor" made during his successful bid last year for the state's top office. The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights group, has run ads in Silicon Valley aimed at the same technology firms Hutchinson has said he wants to lure to Arkansas.

Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post over the weekend opposing the Arkansas and Indiana measures, while retail giant Wal-Mart has said the proposal sends the wrong message about its home state. Little Rock-based data services company Acxiom also urged Hutchinson to veto the bill, saying the measure would enable discrimination and open the state up to ridicule.

"This bill is at direct odds with your position that 'Arkansas is open for business,'" CEO Scott Howe and Executive Vice President Jerry C. Jones wrote Monday in a letter to the governor.

In Indiana, the fallout has ranged from the public-employee union known as AFSCME canceling a planned women's conference in Indianapolis this year because of the law to the band Wilco canceling a May performance.

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DeMillo reported from Little Rock, Arkansas.

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Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo .

New battleground in fight over 'religious freedom'

Arkansas could be the next state to pass a law that critics call a license to discriminate against gays and lesbians.
Gov. vows to sign it

McCain Joins Bolton, Invites Israel to Bomb Iran

Say what, John McCain?

Senator John McCain took to the Senate floor last week to rail against peace talks with Iran. No surprises there. But McCain went beyond blasting the deal. He suggested a surprising and disturbing method of blowing up the talks.

The Israelis will need to chart their own path of resistance. On the Iranian nuclear deal, they may have to go rogue. Let's hope their warnings have not been mere bluffs. Israel survived its first 19 years without meaningful U.S. patronage. For now, all it has to do is get through the next 22, admittedly long, months.

Go rogue? This saber rattling it is not just a momentary fit of John McCain's signature pique. McCain, and his allies like Senators Lindsey Graham and Robert Menendez, have repeatedly slipped language into bills calling for the U.S. to support Israel if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities. One such bill, Senate Res. 65, nicknamed the "Backdoor to War" bill read in part:

[Congress] urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.

While that language was later watered down, McCain's war talk is part of an effort to normalize the idea of military attacks on Iran as Plan B if Congress torpedoes diplomacy. Legislation like the soon-to-be debated Corker-Menendez bill could create a Congressional veto of nuclear negotiations with Iran. It is anyone's guess what comes after such a veto. But a good indication of Senate hawks' future plans is always what neoconservative think tanks are saying in the nation's leading papers today.

Lo and behold, Former UN Ambassador John Bolton, just wrote a piece in the New York Times bluntly titled, "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran." Bolton, was one of the main cheerleaders for the war in Iraq and assured the public that: "We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq."

Now Bolton counsels us to embark on another preventative war:

The inconvenient truth is that only military action like Israel's 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.

Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor would be priorities. So, too, would be the little-noticed but critical uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan. An attack need not destroy all of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years. The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what's necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran's opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.

So Bolton leaves open both the Israeli and U.S. attack options. He then slyly slips in the goal of regime change. This is the tell that reveals why these folks are so opposed to the current negotiations. While a diplomatic agreement can ensure Iran's nuclear programs are peaceful, they won't bring down the regime.

Old-school conservatives of the non-"neo" variety think the military option is foolish.Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called the notion of a military attack on Iran a "catastrophe." Gates argued that neither the U.S. nor Israel could obliterate Iran's nuclear facilities. Instead, he says that attacks "would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable. They would just bury the program deeper and make it more covert."

In fact, one of the many arguments against a military attack is that any damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure is temporary. Iran could quickly rebuild whatever is destroyed and decide to build a nuclear weapon as a defense against future attacks.

In a recent Washington Post opinion piece titled "War with Iran is probably our best option", neoconservative Joshua Muravchik acknowledged this dynamic and gave another shocking response:

Wouldn't destroying much of Iran's nuclear infrastructure merely delay its progress? Perhaps, but we can strike as often as necessary. Of course, Iran would try to conceal and defend the elements of its nuclear program, so we might have to find new ways to discover and attack them. Surely the United States could best Iran in such a technological race.

So the failure of diplomacy wouldn't just pave a path to a military attack. It would pave the way for waves and waves of military offensives couched as a "technological race."

Say what?

Yep, the hawks' vision for Iran sure sounds ludicrous. But their vision of Americans being greeted as liberators by cheering Iraqis with sweets and flowers was equally ludicrous. A decade later we're still dealing with the tragic fall-out of chasing after that particular pipe-dream. That's why Congress needs to resist the tough-on-Iran rhetoric and give diplomacy a chance.

(The Huffington Post)

Wochit
Hostage Drama in Turkish Court: Marxist Group Threatens to Kill Prosecutor

ISTANBUL (AP) — Two members of a banned leftist group and a prosecutor they held hostage inside a courthouse in Istanbul died Tuesday after a shootout between the hostage takers and police, officials said.

Istanbul's police chief, Selami Altinok said police had negotiated with the gunmen for six hours before the violent end of the hostage situation.

The prosecutor, identified by the state-run Anadolu Agency and state television TRT as Mehmet Selim Kiraz, was shot in the head during the standoff and rushed to hospital where doctors tried to save his life, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier Tuesday.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and hospital officials later announced he had died.

Speaking in Ankara, Davutolgu said the hostage takers have been identified and had dressed up as lawyers in order to sneak in arms inside courthouse. He did not give any other new information.

Kiraz was the prosecutor investigating the death of a teenager who was hit by a police gas canister fired during nationwide anti-government protests in 2013.

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A gunman poses with Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz with a gun on his head after he was taken hostage …

A website close to the left-wing DHKP-C group said that militants from the banned organization had taken the prosecutor hostage at midday and had given authorities three hours to meet five demands, including forcing policemen held responsible for the teenager's killing to confess to the death.

The group also demanded that the policemen be tried by "peoples' courts" and for court officials to drop prosecutions or investigations against people who took part in protests denouncing the boy's death. The website showed a picture of someone holding a gun to a man's head with posters from the group in the background.

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Orhan Kapici confirmed that the incident was related to Kiraz's investigation into the boy's death.

The DHKP-C, which seeks a socialist state, is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.

The group has carried out sporadic attacks, including a suicide bombing on the U.S. Embassy in 2013 that killed a security guard. The group was more active in the 1970s.

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Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara.