Double suicide bombings brings war back to Damascus streets

Twin suicide bombings that hit a downtown market square in Damascus were the first since Assad regime forces retook the city of Qusayr.

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A pair of suicide bombs exploded today in a downtown Damascus square, killing at least 14 people and injuring scores of others.

These bombings come just days after US news outlets reported that the US could approve military assistance for Syria’s rebels as early as this week. With similar past attacks claimed by Al Qaeda-linked, rebel-allied militant groups, today's bombings highlight the difficulty the international community will face as it tries to handpick which rebel groups will receive arms.

The attack took place in or near a police building on Marjeh Square, according to state media and activist groups. The square, also known as Martyrs Square, has witnessed multiple bombings since the outbreak of violence in 2011, including one just six weeks ago, reports Reuters. State TV showed footage of destroyed storefronts and normally bustling streetsfilled with glass and debris, reports the BBC.

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Syrian state media blamed terrorists, the term they commonly use when referring to antiregime rebels. The Al Qaeda-linked faction Jabhat al-Nusra has claimed responsibility for past suicide attacks and car bombs. For international powers debating the merits of arming rebels, Jabhat al-Nusra is emblematic of a central challenge: how to arm rebels without empowering and arming terrorist groups.

In April, The New York Times examined the increase in the use of car bombs in Syria’s fight, and how Jabhat al-Nusra’s presence created a marked shift in how the battle in Syria was being fought.

In December 2011, when car bombs began hitting government security buildings — and killing civilians nearby — government supporters and opponents alike viewed the explosions as an ominous turn in the conflict.

Until then, the fighting had largely pitted rebels with small arms and roadside bombs against the army and security forces. But suddenly, the Syrian capital was witnessing scenes reminiscent of the Iraqi insurgency. Checkpoints and blast walls went up everywhere.

Some in the opposition said they suspected the government of setting the bombs to tarnish the uprising. But one rebel group, the extremist Nusra Front, began claiming responsibility for many of those attacks. That led to one of the first signs of the split in the armed opposition, between those who said they were defending themselves against a violent government crackdown and a minority who called for an Islamic state. And it repulsed some civilian activists who then distanced themselves from the movement.

Now, the Nusra Front has become a major force on the battlefield, leading other rebel groups in more conventional fights. That poses a quandary for the United States, which supports the opposition but rejects the Nusra Front and accuses it of ties to Al Qaeda.

Some countries, like France, are looking into ways to "safely" arm rebels via weapons technology that could deactivate a weapon from afar if it falls into the wrong hands or include GPS tracking.

The Associate Press reported this week that the US – motivated by recent gains by the Assad regime in reclaiming strategic towns like Qusayr on the Lebanese border and aims to retake Homs, which could cut off rebel access to the south of Syria – could send arms to “vetted, moderate rebel units.”The US has long been hesitant to send weapons into Syria for fear that they could fall into the wrong hands.

Obama already has ruled out any intervention that would require US military boots on the ground. Other options such as deploying American air power to ground the regime's jets, gunships and other aerial assets are now being more seriously debated, the officials said, while cautioning that a no-fly zone or any other action involving US military deployments in Syria were far less likely right now….

Any intervention could have wide-reaching ramifications for the United States and the region. It would bring the US closer to a conflict that has killed almost 80,000 people since Assad cracked down on protesters inspired by the Arab Spring in March 2011 and sparked a war that has since been increasingly defined by sectarian clashes between the Sunni-led rebellion and Assad's Alawite-dominated regime.

IN PICTURES: Crisis Continues in Syria

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ECB crisis backstop faces German legal challenge

Germany court hears challenge to ECB's bond purchase program credited with calming crisis

Associated Press -

KARLSRUHE, Germany (AP) -- A key European Central Bank program that has been credited with calming the 3 1/2 year-old euro debt crisis faced a legal challenge Tuesday in Germany's highest court.

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe is considering arguments against the ECB's offer to buy government bonds and lower borrowing costs for indebted countries.

Opponents of the bond-buying program say the program oversteps the ECB's mandate, which forbids it from financing governments.

The arguments against the program, known as Outright Monetary Transactions, or OMTs, have been added to another challenge against Germany's backing of the emergency bailout fund for the 17 European Union countries that use the euro.

The current challenges — brought by a disparate group of Germans including conservative lawmaker Peter Gauweiler, a team of professors, a citizens' organization and Germany's Left Party — claim both measures are unlawful as both EU laws and the German constitution say that only the elected national parliament can decide how taxpayer money is spent.

Dietrich Murswiek, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, argued that the bond purchase program exposed taxpayers to hundreds of billions of euros in potential losses if the bonds are not repaid — without any democratic authorization from national parliaments.

"The ECB is turning the currency union into a liability union, without asking member states and their parliaments," he said.

In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled that she's confident the outcome will be favorable.

She noted that every eurozone rescue measure so far has been discussed and approved by the supreme court. Some have come with conditions, such as a strengthening of parliamentary powers in Germany.

"We will argue today that the ESM is important and that the European Central Bank is doing everything necessary to secure price stability," Merkel said at a conference organized by Germany's main industry lobby group.

EU efforts to rescue financially troubled countries have run into popular opposition in Germany, the biggest financial backer of any bailout or financial backstop due to its status as the largest eurozone economy.

A sweeping ruling against the OMT would likely effectively torpedo the OMT. Analysts say that an outright rejection is highly unlikely but markets are watching to see if the judges attach any conditions that might raise doubts about its effectiveness. It's also possible that some issues could be referred to the EU's own court. Karlsruhe judges will hear oral arguments Tuesday and Wednesday; a decision might not come for several months.

The OMT program was created after ECB President Mario Draghi dramatically vowed last July 26 to "do whatever it takes" to save the euro. The ECB hasn't bought any bonds. But the program's mere existence has helped lower countries' borrowing costs in bond markets and eased fears the euro union might break apart. To take part in the scheme, a country would have to commit to reduce its debts and deficits, as well as accept a bailout loan or credit line from the European Union's financial rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism.

By buying up a country's bonds, the ECB program would help drive up the bonds' price, lowering the interest yield demanded by investors. Lower yields would mean lower interest costs for governments the next time they borrow money by selling new bonds.

A key aspect behind the program's success so far is the ECB's statement that there wouldn't be any limit on the amount of bonds it could buy. That has kept markets wary of going against the central bank and its financial firepower.

The ECB sent Joerg Asmussen, a former German finance ministry official who has since been appointed to the ECB's six-member executive board, to defend the program.

Also testifying is OMT critic Jens Weidmann, the head of Germany's national central bank, the Bundesbank. Weidmann, who sits on the 23-member ECB rate-setting council by virtue of his job as Bundesbank head, was the only member to vote against setting up the OMT program on Sept. 6 last year.

Michael Wohlgemuth, an economist with the Open Europe Berlin think tank, said Asmussen would face a balancing act, needing to both argue that the program remained within legal limits while taking care not to give the impression such limits would undermine its potential effectiveness.

"That is the trade-off that has to be made somehow — appease the constitutional court without getting financial markets in a panic," said Wohlgemuth.

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Russian parliament to vote on anti-gay bill

MOSCOW (AP) — More than two dozen activists were detained in Moscow on Tuesday as they were protesting a bill that stigmatizes the gay community and bans the giving of information abouthomosexuality to children.

The protesters attempted to rally outside the Russian State Dumabefore what is expected to be a final vote on the bill banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations."

Police moved in after supporters of the bill started showering the protesters with eggs and water. Some of the protesters who were not detained were viciously attacked by masked men on a central street a mile away.

The Kremlin-backed legislation imposes hefty fines for providing information about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to minors or holding gay pride rallies.

Russia is also considering banning citizens of countries that allow same-sex marriage from adoptingRussian children.

Lawmakers changed the wording of "homosexual propaganda" to "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations," which backers of the bill define as "relations which are not conducive to procreation."

Breaching the law carries a fine of up to 5,000 rubles ($156) for an individual and up to 1 million rubles ($31,000) for media.

Earlier Tuesday a dozen anti-gay activists picketed the Duma. One of them held a poster that read: "Lawmakers, protect the people from perverts!"

The bill has been seen as Putin's attempt to consolidate his support base which includes many conservative Russian Orthodox voters.

Russian and foreign rights activists have decried the bill as violating basic rights. Human Rights Watch on Monday said the bill would "infringe Russian citizens' freedom of expression and information, and discriminate against Russia's LGBT community."

Russian officials have rejected criticism. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended the bill in February, saying that Russia does not have any international or European commitment to "allow propaganda of homosexuality."

Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1993 but anti-gay sentiment is still high.

Mali manual suggests al-Qaida has feared weapon

TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) — The photocopies of the manual lay in heaps on the floor, in stacks that scaled one wall, like Xeroxed, stapled handouts for a class.

Except that the students in this case were al-Qaida fighters in Mali. And the manual was a detailed guide, with diagrams and photographs, on how to use a weapon that particularly concerns the United States: A surface-to-air missile capable of taking down a commercial airplane.

The 26-page document in Arabic, recovered by The Associated Press in a building that had been occupied by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Timbuktu, strongly suggests the group now possesses the SA-7 surface-to-air missile, known to the Pentagon as the Grail, according to terrorism specialists. And it confirms that the al-Qaida cell is actively training its fighters to use these weapons, also called man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS, which likely came from the arms depots of ex-Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — This is the fourth story in an occasional series based on thousands of pages of internal al-Qaida documents recovered by The Associated Press earlier this year in Timbuktu, Mali.

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"The existence of what apparently constitutes a 'Dummies Guide to MANPADS' is strong circumstantial evidence of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb having the missiles," said Atlantic Council analyst Peter Pham, a former adviser to the United States' military command in Africa and an instructor to U.S. Special Forces. "Why else bother to write the guide if you don't have the weapons? ... If AQIM not only has the MANPADS, but also fighters who know how to use them effectively," he added, "then the impact is significant, not only on the current conflict, but on security throughout North and West Africa, and possibly beyond."

The United States was so worried about this particular weapon ending up in the hands of terrorists that the State Department set up a task force to track and destroy it as far back as 2006. In the spring of 2011, before the fighting in Tripoli had even stopped, a U.S. team flew to Libya to secure Gadhafi's stockpile of thousands of heat-seeking, shoulder-fired missiles.

By the time they got there, many had already been looted.

"The MANPADS were specifically being sought out," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, who catalogued missing weapons at dozens of munitions depots and often found nothing in the boxes labeled with the code for surface-to-air missiles.

The manual is believed to be an excerpt from a terrorist encyclopedia edited by Osama bin Laden. It adds to evidence for the weapon found by French forces during their land assault in Mali earlier this year, including the discovery of the SA-7's battery pack and launch tube, according to military statements and an aviation official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment.

The knowledge that the terrorists have the weapon has already changed the way the French are carrying out their five-month-old offensive in Mali. They are using more fighter jets rather than helicopters to fly above its range of 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometers) from the ground, even though that makes it harder to attack the jihadists. They are also making cargo planes land and take off more steeply to limit how long they are exposed, in line with similar practices in Iraq after an SA-14 hit the wing of a DHL cargo plane in 2003.

And they have added their own surveillance at Mali's international airport in Bamako, according to two French aviation officials and an officer in the Operation Serval force. All three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.

"There are patrols every day," said the French officer. "It's one of the things we have not entrusted to the Malians, because the stakes are too high."

First introduced in the 1960s in the Soviet Union, the SA-7 was designed to be portable. Not much larger than a poster tube, it can be packed into a duffel bag and easily carried. It's also affordable, with some SA-7s selling for as little as $5,000.

Since 1975, at least 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by different types of MANPADS, causing about 28 crashes and more than 800 deaths around the world, according to the U.S. Department of State.

The SA-7 is an old generation model, which means most military planes now come equipped with a built-in protection mechanism against it. But that's not the case for commercial planes, and the threat is greatest to civilian aviation.

In Kenya in 2002, suspected Islamic extremists fired two SA-7s at a Boeing 757 carrying 271 vacationers back to Israel, but missed. Insurgents in Iraq used the weapons, and YouTube videos abound purporting to show Syrian rebels using the SA-7 to shoot down regime planes.

An SA-7 tracks a plane by directing itself toward the source of the heat, the engine. It takes time and practice, however, to fire it within range. The failure of the jihadists in Mali so far to hit a plane could mean that they cannot position themselves near airports with commercial flights, or that they are not yet fully trained to use the missile.

"This is not a 'Fire and forget' weapon," said Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. "There's a paradox here. One the one hand it's not easy to use, but against any commercial aircraft there would be no defenses against them. It's impossible to protect against it. ... If terrorists start training and learn how to use them, we'll be in a lot of trouble."

In Timbuktu, SA-7 training was likely part of the curriculum at the 'Jihad Academy' housed in a former police station, said Jean-Paul Rouiller, director of the Geneva Center for Training and Analysis of Terrorism, one of three experts who reviewed the manual for AP. It's located less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the Ministry of Finance's Budget Division building where the manual was found.

Neighbors say they saw foreign fighters running laps each day, carrying out target practice and inhaling and holding their breath with a pipe-like object on their shoulder. The drill is standard practice for shoulder-held missiles, including the SA-7.

As the jihadists fled ahead of the arrival of French troops who liberated Timbuktu on Jan. 28, they left the manual behind, along with other instructional material, including a spiral-bound pamphlet showing how to use the KPV-14.5 anti-aircraft machine gun and another on how to make a bomb out of ammonium nitrate, among other documents retrieved by the AP. Residents said the jihadists grabbed reams of paper from inside the building, doused them in fuel and set them alight. The black, feathery ash lay on top of the sand in a ditch just outside the building's gate.

However, numerous buildings were still full of scattered papers.

"They just couldn't destroy everything," said neighbor Mohamed Alassane. "They appeared to be in a panic when the French came. They left in a state of disorder."

The manual is illustrated with grainy images of Soviet-looking soldiers firing the weapon. Point-by-point instructions explain how to insert the battery, focus on the target and fire.

The manual also explains that the missile will malfunction above 45 degrees Celsius, the temperature in the deserts north of Timbuktu. And it advises the shooter to change immediately into a second set of clothes after firing to avoid detection.

Its pages are numbered 313 through 338, suggesting they came from elsewhere. Mathieu Guidere, an expert on Islamic extremists at the University of Toulouse, believes the excerpts are lifted from the Encyclopedia of Jihad, an 11-volume survey on the craft of war first compiled by the Taliban in the 1990s and later codified by Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, who led a contingent of Arab fighters in Afghanistan at the time, paid to have the encyclopedia translated into Arabic, according to Guidere, author of a book on al-Qaida's North African branch.

However, the cover page of the manual boasts the name of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

"It's a way to make it their own," said Guidere. "It's like putting a logo on something. ... It shows the historic as well as the present link between al-Qaida core and AQIM."

Bin Laden later assembled a team of editors to update the manual, put it on CD-ROMs and eventually place it on the Internet, in a move that lay the groundwork for the globalization of jihad, according to terrorism expert Jarret Brachman, who was the director of research at the Combating Terrorism Center when the al-Qaida encyclopedia was first found.

N.R. Jenzen-Jones, an arms expert in Australia, confirmed that the information in the manual in Timbuktu on the missile's engagement range, altitude and weight appeared largely correct. He cautions though that the history of the SA-7 is one of near-misses, specifically because it takes training to use.

"Even if you get your hands on an SA-7, it's no guarantee of success," he said. "However, if someone manages to take down a civilian aircraft, it's hundreds of dead instantly. It's a high impact, low-frequency event, and it sows a lot of fear."

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Associated Press writer Lori Hinnant contributed to this report from Paris, and AP journalist Amir Bibawy translated the document. Callimachi reported this article in Timbuktu, Mali and in Dakar, Senegal.

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The document from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Arabic and English can be seen at http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/_pdfs/al-qaida-papers-dangerous-weapon.pdf

Leaker faces hard choices while in hiding

HONG KONG (AP) — Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about U.S. surveillance programs, has few options to stay one step ahead of the authorities while in apparent hiding.

One possibility is to seek asylum in a place that does not have an extradition pact with the United States -- there are a few in Asia a short flight away from Hong Kong where he was last spotted, but none where he is guaranteed refuge.

On Tuesday the 29-year-old Snowden's whereabouts were unknown, a day after he checked out of a trendy hotel in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong. But large photos of his face were splashed on most Hong Kong newspapers with headlines such as "Deep Throat Hides in HK," and "World's Most Wanted Man Breaks Cover in Hong Kong."

The coverage is likely to increase the chances of him being recognized although he could still blend with the city's tens of thousands of expatriates from the United States, Britain, Australia and Europe.

If and when the Justice Department charges him — and it's not certain when that will be — its next step will likely be to ask the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, for a provisional request to arrest him pending extradition to the United States.

Assuming that Snowden is still in Hong Kong, the judicial proceedings for an extradition request could take a year, and once completed it would be up to Hong Kong's leader, known as the chief executive, to decide on handing over Snowden, said Michael Blanchflower, a Hong Kong lawyer with three decades of experience in extradition cases.

"Ultimately it is his decision," he said.

But even if the chief executive allows the extradition, the fugitive can request a judicial review and those decisions could be appealed up through three court levels, Blanchflower said.

Although a semiautonomous part of China, the former British colony has an independent justice system based on the British legal structure.

One option for Snowden would be to claim he is the object of political persecution, and fight the issue in the courts to avoid extradition. He could argue that he would be subject to cruel and humiliating treatment in the United States. Hong Kong changed its regulations six months ago to require that a court consider cruel and humiliating treatment and not simply torture when considering extradition requests.

It's up to "the Chief Executive to determine whether the offence is one that's of a political character, in which case the extradition is blocked," said Hong Kong-based lawyer, Tim Parker.

However, the strategy carries considerable risk because the U.S. could simply provide diplomatic assurances that he would not be subject to cruel or humiliating treatment.

"At that point it would be difficult for Hong Kong to resist deporting him," said Patricia Ho, a Hong Kong lawyer who specializes in asylum and refugee claims.

But as things stand now, there is nothing to prevent Snowden from traveling to a destination of his choice -- to one of the handful of nearby jurisdictions or countries that do not have extradition treaties with the United States.

One of the Asian countries without an American treaty is China, though there is no guarantee Beijing would want to risk a confrontation with the United States by taking Snowden in, even if it gained a windfall of sensitive American intelligence information in the process. Snowden himself has given no indication that he is prepared to cooperate with any foreign intelligence service, including China's.

China's state media has confined its coverage of the Snowden affair to factual reports, and on online social media, China's relatively unfettered venue for public discourse, comments have been largely muted.

"People in China are used to not having security and privacy on the internet, so this does not come as a big surprise," Peking University journalism professor Hu Yong said in an interview. Official media, Hu said, would "try not to focus too much on how wrong the practice is, or whether the leaker is right or wrong. They will use the news to highlight that China is not the only country with such practices."

Another Asian flight possibility for Snowden is the self-governing island of Taiwan, which split from China in 1949 after a protracted civil war, and since 1979, has not had formal diplomatic relations with the U.S.

In lieu of a formal extradition treaty, American extraction requests to Taiwan are examined on a case by case basis.

An official at the de facto U.S. Embassy in Taipei — the American Institute in Taiwan — said Taiwan has generally been cooperative on the extradition issue.

"Taipei has so far been pretty good on responding to our requests," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Also, any attempt by Snowden to come to Taiwan could prove extremely embarrassing to the government of Ma Ying-jeou, which while doing its best to improve relations with China, also seeks to maintain close ties with the United States, its major security backer. An official at the Justice Ministry said Tuesday there were no indications at all that Snowden would make any attempt to land on the island.

Aside from numerous flights from Hong Kong's busy international airport, Snowden could take an hour-long high speed ferry ride to Macau, also a semiautonomous region of China. From Macau he could hop over to Guangdong province in mainland China.

Beyond Taiwan and China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and North Korea are also theoretical destinations for Snowden, because they lack extradition treaties with the U.S. But the communist or authoritarian systems they share make them unlikely destinations for a man who has gone to considerable lengths to portray his decision to reveal National Security Agency surveillance programs as an act of conscience.

Outside of Asia, Snowden might also consider seeking asylum in countries like Iceland and Russia. According to the Kommersant Daily, Moscow has said it might provide asylum. But Russia is also an authoritarian nation, so there is no guarantee that Snowden would accept any offer that Moscow rendered.

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