Gulf states must tackle Muslim Brotherhood threat: UAE

Reuters/Reuters - Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood wave flags during a sit-in protest against the military council at Tahrir Square in Cairo June 23, 2012. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Gulf Arab countries should work together to stop Islamist group theMuslim Brotherhood plotting to undermine governments in the region, the United Arab Emirates' foreign minister said on Monday.

The UAE, a major oil exporter and business hub, has arrested around 60 local Islamists this year, accusing them of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood - which is banned in the country - and conspiring to overthrow the government.

Thanks to cradle-to-grave welfare systems, the UAE and other Gulf Arab monarchies have largely avoided Arab Spring unrest that has unseated rulers elsewhere.

But they fear the rise of the Brotherhood in Egypt - and of other Islamist groups in other states - in the wake of the revolutions could embolden dissent on their own turf.

"The Muslim Brotherhood does not believe in the nation state. It does not believe in the sovereignty of the state," Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan said at joint press conference with the Ukrainian foreign minister.

He said there were individuals within the Muslim Brotherhood who would be able to use their "prestige and capabilities to violate the sovereignty, laws and rules of other states".

"We need to communicate to see if there were individuals or organizations who were using these countries," he said, without naming the countries he was referring to.

The organization, which rose to power in Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, has consistently sought to reassure Gulf Arab states it has no plan to push for political change beyond Egypt's borders.

President Mohamed Mursi, propelled to power by the Brotherhood, says there is no plan to "export the revolution".

"Members of the Muslim Brotherhood respect their hosting countries and do not call for bringing down any system of governance in the countries they live in," Mahmoud Hussein, the Brotherhood's secretary-general, said.

The Muslim Brotherhood organization, founded in Egypt in 1928, is seen as a mentor for Islamist groups in the region.

The group of around 60 men arrested in the UAE this year belonged to the local Islamist group Al Islah.

Last month, local media reported that some of those detained had confessed that their organization was running an armed wing and had been plotting to take power and establish an Islamist state. Al-Islah has since denied this.

The reports said the group was coordinating with Brotherhood organizations in three other Gulf Arab countries, and that they had received up to 10 million dirhams ($3.67 million) from a counterpart in another Gulf Arab country.

Al Islah says it shares a similar ideology with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt but has no direct links and is pushing for only peaceful reforms.

Dubai's police chief Dhahi Khalfan said in March there was an "international plot" againstGulf states by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Syrian TV: bomb explodes near security compound

Associated Press/Edlib News Network ENN - In this Sunday October 7, 2012 citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Free Syrian Army fighters sit on top of a military truck that was captured from the Syrian Army in the village off Khirbet al-Jouz, in the northern province of Idlib, Syria. The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency said Sunday that the rebels had regained full control of Khirbet al-Jouz. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

In this Sunday October 7, 2012 citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Free Syrian Army fighters on top of armored vehicles that were captured from the Syrian Army in the village off Khirbet al-Jouz, in the northern province of Idlib, Syria. The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency said Sunday that the rebels had regained full control of Khirbet al-Jouz. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

BEIRUT (AP) — A Syrian TV station says a bomb has exploded near a security compound in a suburb of the nation's capital.

The pro-government Al-Ikhbariya channel says the sound of Monday's blast could be heard across Damascus. It says the explosion was followed by armed clashes, but did not elaborate

There was no immediate word on casualties, but the station says ambulances and fire trucks were seen driving to the site in the suburb of Harasta.

Syrian rebels trying to topple President Bashar Assad are increasingly targeting security compounds and symbols of the regime in Damascus. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday's blast.

Syrian cross-border salvos send message to Turkey

Associated Press/Edlib News Network ENN - In this Sunday October 7, 2012 citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Free Syrian Army fighters sit on top of a military truck that was captured from the Syrian Army in the village off Khirbet al-Jouz, in the northern province of Idlib, Syria. The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency said Sunday that the rebels had regained full control of Khirbet al-Jouz. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

In this Sunday October 7, 2012 citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Free Syrian Army fighters check a tank that was captured from the Syrian Army in Khirbet al-Jouz, in the northern province of Idlib, Syria. The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency said Sunday that the rebels had regained full control of Khirbet al-Jouz. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's cross-border attacks on Turkey in the past week look increasingly like they could be an intentional escalation meant to send a clear message to Ankara and beyond, that the crisis is simply too explosive to risk foreign military intervention.

With Turkey eager to defuse the crisis, the spillover of fighting is giving new life to a longshot political solution, with the Turks floating the idea of making President Bashar Assad's longtime vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, interim leader if the president steps aside.

A military option — which would involve foreign powers that already have expressed a deep reluctance to getting involved in the crisis — is still not on the table, analysts say, despite six consecutive days of Turkish retaliation against bombardment from inside Syria.

"Syria is aware that Turkey cannot go a step further," said Ali Tekin, assistant professor of International Relations at Ankara's Bilkent University. "The Turkish people don't want a war and there are no vital national interests at stake to warrant a war. Syria sees this."

The Syrian conflict has taken a prominent role in the U.S. presidential election at a time when the U.S. and its allies have shown little appetite for getting involved.

On Monday, Republican candidate Mitt Romney said the U.S. should work with other countries to arm the Syrian rebels, allowing the rebels to drive Assad from power themselves. Romney did not call for the U.S. to directly arm the Syrian rebels.

The most recent flare-up between Syria and Turkey started Wednesday, when a shell fired from Syria slammed into a house in the Turkish border village of Akcakale, killing two women and three children. That set off the most serious and prolonged eruption of violence along the frontier since the uprising began nearly 19 months ago.

Although it was not clear whether Wednesday's shelling was intentional, Turkey responded swiftly by firing back and convening parliament for a vote that authorized further cross-border military operations if necessary.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cautioned Damascus not to test Turkey's "limits and determination." But the Syrian shelling has continued every day — leading many observers to conclude the acts are intentional provocation.

"It's not an accident. You can't send shells across the border by mistake five days in a row," said Mustafa Alani, a Middle East analyst of the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center, just hours before Syrian shelling struck Turkey for a sixth day.

There have been no other reports of casualties from the shelling since Wednesday's deaths.

An activist group said Monday the number of people killed in the conflict crossed the threshold of 32,000 over the weekend, and the pace is accelerating.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it counted 32,079 dead as of Sunday — among them 22,980 civilians and civilians-turned fighters, 7,884 members of the Syrian military and 1,215 army defectors fighting alongside the rebels.

In the past week alone, more than 1,200 people were killed, according to the head of the Observatory, Rami Abdul-Rahman, who said he only counts named victims or those whose death is verified by other means, such as amateur video.

Also Monday, a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a compound of the Syrian intelligence service on the outskirts of Damascus, a Syrian official said. There was no immediate word on casualties, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The pro-government Al-Ikhbariya channel said the explosion in the Harasta suburb was followed by armed clashes. Syrian rebels are increasingly targeting security compounds in Damascus, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday's blast.

According to Alani, the analyst, escalating the crisis serves as a reminder to NATO, Turkey and the West that Syria's civil war can inflame the region with lightning speed. The threat of a spillover is likely to pressure Western powers into drafting a political solution, part of which could involve Assad's exit from power, rather than his being toppled by force.

A political solution, Alani said, could prevent Assad "ending up like Gadhafi."

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed by rebels on the outskirts of his hometown of Sirte last year, and his corpse was put on public display in a refrigerated locker for several days.

While Ankara maintains that the shells are coming from the regular Syrian army, Paul Salem of the Carnegie Middle East Center, a Beirut-based think tank, did not exclude the possibility of "other sources, a rebel unit, firing across the border, trying to create conditions for Turkey to intervene in Syria."

As the border skirmishes intensified over the weekend and the world began to consider whether Turkey would respond more forcefully, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglutried to redirect attention away from the military developments.

On Saturday, Davutoglu said Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa was a figure "whose hands are not contaminated in blood" and therefore was a possible figure to head a transitional administration.

Abdulbaset Sieda, the head of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, said Monday his group is willing to consider Ankara's proposal.

Sieda's comments appear to be a softening of the opposition's stance that it will accept nothing less than the ouster of the Assad regime and the president's inner circle. But this apparent change in heart could be a way for the opposition to appease its Turkish allies rather than a major shift toward a political settlement of the conflict.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi scoffed at Davutoglu's proposal, saying it reflects "obvious political and diplomatic confusion and blundering."

"Turkey isn't the Ottoman Sultanate; the Turkish Foreign Ministry doesn't name custodians in Damascus, Mecca, Cairo and Jerusalem," al-Zoubi said Monday.

Turkey, which shares a 566-mile (911-kilometer) frontier with Syria, nearly went to war with its neighbor over Syrian support for Turkish Kurdish rebels in the 1990s. The relationship improved dramatically since Assad came to power in 2000, and the two countries reached out to build economic ties. But now, Turkey has become one of the most vocal critics of the Assad regime, accusing it of savagery.

The rebels who are trying to bring down Assad have used Turkey as their base, enraging the regime.

Turkey, NATO's biggest Muslim member, became a regional power in the past decade, backed by a growing economy, emerging democratic credentials and historical and cultural links to neighbors. It pursued pragmatic links with authoritarian leaders, but shifted to a pro-democracy position as uprisings swept the Middle East and North Africa.

From the outset of the Syrian crisis, Turkey has tried to position itself as a major player and power-broker — something some observers say was a miscalculation based on overconfidence in Ankara's influence over Damascus. As recently as April, Davutoglu told Parliament that Turkey "will continue to guide the wave of change in the Middle East."

On Monday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul pushed for a Syrian transition, warning that "the worst-case scenario we have all been dreading" is unfolding in Syria and along its borders.

"Sooner rather than later there will be change, a transition," he told reporters in Ankara. "Our only hope is that this happens before more blood is shed, and before Syria self-destructs more than it already has."

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AP writers Barbara Surk and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Albert Aji in Damascus and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

Turkish president says "worst case" unfolding in Syria

Turkish soldiers take their position at the Akcakale border gate in southern Sanliurfa province October 7, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

GUVECCI, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish President Abdullah Gulsaid on Monday the "worst-case scenarios" were now playing out in Syria and Turkey would do everything necessary to protect itself, as its army fired back for a sixth day after a shell from Syria flew over the border.

Gul said the violence in Turkey's southern neighbor, where a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad has evolved into a civil war that threatens to draw in regional powers, could not go on indefinitely and Assad's fall was inevitable.

"The worst-case scenarios are taking place right now in Syria ... Our government is in constant consultation with the Turkish military. Whatever is needed is being done immediately as you see, and it will continue to be done," Gul said.

"There will be a change, a transition sooner or later ... It is a must for the international community to take effective action before Syria turns into a bigger wreck and further blood is shed, that is our main wish," he told reporters in Ankara.

Turkey's armed forces have bolstered their presence along the 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria in recent days and have been responding in kind to gunfire and shelling spilling across from the south, where Assad's forces have been battling rebels who control swathes of territory.

Turkey's Chief of Staff, General Necdet Ozel, travelled to the southern city of Adana to inspect the region patrolled by Turkey's 2nd Army, which protects the border with Syria, the military said on its website.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the escalation of the conflict along the Turkey-Syria border, as well as the impact of the crisis on Lebanon, were "extremely dangerous".

"The situation in Syria has dramatically worsened. It is posing serious risks to the stability of Syria's neighbors and the entire region," he told a conference in Strasbourg, France.

Ban said U.N. and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi would be heading back to the region this week.

MILITARY MOVEMENTS

The exchanges with Turkey mark the most serious cross-border violence in Syria's revolt against Assad, which began in March last year with peaceful protests for reform and has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones.

"From now on, every attack on us will be responded to immediately. Every attack that targets our sovereignty, our security of life and property will find its response," Turkish government spokesman Bulent Arinc said after a cabinet meeting.

Parliament last week authorized the deployment of Turkish troops beyond its borders although government officials said the move was meant as a deterrent rather than a "war mandate".

"Turkey will decide itself when the situation necessitates acts mentioned in the motion the parliament passed last week. Nobody should think war will follow a parliament approval ... but we are more sensitive about our independence and sovereignty than most countries," Arinc said.

Turkey's Dogan news agency said some 25 warplanes had been sent to a military base in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the southeast, and reported military sources as saying this was in connection with Syria and cross-border anti-terror operations.

It said a large number of F-16 fighter planes landed at the base on Monday afternoon. Local sources confirmed there was heightened activity at the base but said this was related to operations against Kurdish militant bases in northern Iraq, not Syria.

Separately, a convoy of military vehicles, including tanks loaded on trucks, travelled to the town of Akcakale on Monday to be deployed on the border, Dogan reported.

Fighting further inside Syria also intensified on Monday.

Syrian government forces advanced for the first time in months into the rebel-held Khalidiya district in the besieged central city of Homs.

"They have occupied buildings that we were stationed in and we had to evacuate," a rebel fighter told Reuters by Skype.

Skirmishes on the Syrian side of the border have been escalating and it is unclear who fired the shells that have crossed into Turkey.

Damascus has said it fired into Turkey accidentally, but has failed to live up to pledges made last week, after a Syrian shell killed five civilians in Akcakale, to ensure no more ordnance flies across the border.

Turkey launched its latest retaliatory strike on Monday after a mortar bomb fired from Syria landed in countryside in the Turkish province of Hatay some 150-200 m (yards) inside the district of Hacipasa, a Turkish official told Reuters.

TRUCKS PATROLLING

Further east, Syrian rebel sources in Raqqa province, which borders Akcakale, said they had seen five Turkish army trucks full of soldiers patrolling the border.

NATO member Turkey was once an ally of Assad's but turned against him after his violent response to the uprising, in which activists say 30,000 people have died.

Turkey has nearly 100,000 Syrian refugees in camps on its territory, has given sanctuary to rebel leaders and has led calls for Assad to quit. Its armed forces are far larger than Syria's.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at the weekend that a potential leader in an interim Syrian government could be Vice-President Farouq al-Shara.

Reports in August said Shara, a former foreign minister who was appointed vice president six years ago, had tried to defect to neighboring Jordan, but Syrian state media subsequently said he had never considered leaving.

"The opposition is inclined to accept these names. Farouq al-Shara has the ability to understand the system of the last 20 to 30 years," Davutoglu told the state broadcaster TRT.

"Farouq al-Shara did not get involved in the recent incidents, the massacre, in a very wise and conscientious attitude. But perhaps there is nobody who knows the system better than al-Shara."

(Reporting by John Irish in Paris, Mert Ozkan in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul and Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Michael Roddy)

NKorea says South, US are within its missile range

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Tuesday warned that the U.S. mainland is within range of its missiles and said that Washington's recent agreement to let Seoul possess missiles capable of hitting all of the North shows the allies are plotting to invade the country.

South Korea announced Sunday that it reached a deal with Washington that would allow it to nearly triple the range of its missiles to better cope with North Korean missile and nuclear threats. On Tuesday, North Korea called the deal a "product of another conspiracy of the master and the stooge" to "ignite a war" against the North.

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, an unidentified spokesman at the powerful National Defense Commission said the North will bolster its military preparedness.

"We do not hide ... the strategic rocket forces are keeping within the scope of strike not only the bases of the puppet forces and the U.S. imperialist aggression forces' bases in the inviolable land of Korea but also Japan, Guam and the U.S. mainland," the spokesman said.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday it had no official comment on the North's statement, but Seoul and Washington have repeatedly said they have no intention of attacking North Korea.

North Korean long-range rockets are believed to have a range of up to about 6,700 kilometers (4,160 miles), putting parts of Alaska within reach, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry.

But the North's spotty record in test launches raises doubts about whether it is truly capable of an attack.

Pyongyang shocked Japan in 1998 when it sent a rocket over Japan's main island and into the Pacific. That also alarmed Washington because about 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Japan and their bases could be within the North's range. Tokyo and Washington have since intensified their ballistic missile defenses.

But the North's most recent rocket launch, in April, ended in humiliating failure shortly after liftoff. North Korea said it was trying to launch a satellite with that launch, but the U.S. and other countries said it was actually a test of long-range missile technology. The failure suggests that Pyongyang has yet to master the technology it needs to control multistage rockets — a key capability if it is to threaten the United States with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

And although North Korea is believed to have a small nuclear arsenal, experts do not believe it has mastered the miniaturization technology required to mount a nuclear weapon on a long-range rocket.

It's unusual for the North to say its missiles are capable of striking the U.S., but Pyongyang has often threatened to attack South Korea and the U.S. in times of tension. It often does not follow through, but its deadly 2010 artillery strikes on a South Korean island came after it issued a threat to retaliate against South Korean military drills.

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korean studies professor based in Seoul, said that in the latest case, the North had no choice but to respond to South Korea's extended missile range but is unlikely to launch a provocation, as it is waiting for the results of U.S. and South Korean presidential elections.

Under the new deal with the U.S., South Korea will be able to possess ballistic missiles with a range of up to 800 kilometers (500 miles). South Korea will continue to limit the payload to 500 kilograms for ballistic missiles with an 800-kilometer range, but it will be able to use heavier payloads for missiles with shorter ranges.

A previous 2001 accord with Washington had barred South Korea from deploying ballistic missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) and a payload of more than 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) because of concerns about a regional arms race.

The Korean Peninsula remains officially at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea as deterrence against possible aggression from North Korea.

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