Greek Protesters Clash With Police In Backlash Against Syriza

ATHENS, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Dozens of black-clad protesters clashed with riot police in central Athens on Thursday, smashing shop windows, throwing petrol bombs and burning cars after an anti-government march, the first since the leftist Syriza party took power a month ago. Around 450 far-left protesters took to the streets of Athens against the newly elected left-right coalition government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which agreed a deal with EU partners last week to extend an aid program to Athens. The deal has triggered dissent within Tsipras' own party and accusations by some on the hard left that the government is going back on pre-election promises, including to end a much-hated 240 billion euro EU/IMF bailout program. After the march, about 50 anti-establishment protesters wearing hoods hurled petrol bombs and stones at police in Athens' central Exarchia district, a Bohemian quarter known as a haunt for artists and left-wing intellectuals. A small number of shop windows and bus stops were also smashed or damaged during the violence. The incidents, albeit on a small scale, mark the first public disorder against the leftist government, which was elected on Jan 25 on a promise to write off a chunk of the country's debt and end painful austerity which has helped push one in four Greeks out of work. (Reporting By Vasillis Triandafyllou, writing by Costas Pitas, editing by Andrew Heavens)

Unexploded World War II Bomb Found Near Borussia Dortmund Soccer Stadium In Germany

DORTMUND, Germany (AP) — Authorities have defused an unexploded World War II bomb close to Borussia Dortmund's stadium after evacuating the area. Dortmund's city government said the 250-kilogram (550-pound) British bomb was defused Thursday afternoon. The bomb had been unearthed after authorities evaluated aerial photos ahead of planned construction work, and a 250-meter (820-foot) radius around the site was evacuated. Because the stadium was inside the evacuated area, the club relocated the news conference of coach Juergen Klopp ahead of the Ruhr derby against Schalke to another facility. Unexploded ordnance from WWII is still frequently found in Germany, and that regularly results in temporary evacuations such as Thursday's.

All It Takes To Cross From Turkey To ISIS-Held Syria Is $25

KARKEMISH, Turkey -- If the three Brooklyn men arrested Wednesday on charges of aiding and plotting to join the Islamic State had boarded flights to Turkey, they likely would have made it to Syria with ease. For a wannabe foreign fighter, the last step of the journey is simple: All it takes to cross from Turkey into Syria these days is a smuggler and about $25. As the international community rallies to crack down on the Islamic State group and bumps up security at home in the wake of deadly terrorist attacks, Turkey's "jihadi highway" is still as porous as ever. Just last week, three London schoolgirls traveled to Turkey and disappeared into Syria after allegedly messaging a female Islamic State recruiter on Twitter. Despite Turkey's insistence that it's doing all it can to secure the 500-mile-long border, smugglers, fighters and refugees say that Turkish criminal gangs and bribed Turkish paramilitary police have created an environment where anyone can cross into Syria, for a price. Refugees and smugglers cross the Syria-Turkey border on April 23, 2013. "When [the Turks] close one area, they open up another," Jasim Qalthim, a 30-year-old smuggler in this Turkish border town of Karkemish, told The WorldPost. "They could make it harder if they wanted." The devoted father has lost count of how many people he's smuggled into Islamic State territory. Their faces blur together. But he'll always be haunted by one instance in particular, when he smuggled a young Saudi man into ISIS-held Jarabulus, only to have the man's father show up in Turkey, begging Qalthim to cross the border and bring back his son. Some smugglers "buy" a particular section of the border for a half an hour at a time from an Islamic State "emir," or prince, who controls the border guards, he says. "He's originally Turkish -- Abu Ali," Qalthim explained, sitting in his dilapidated home as his children watched Batman on a flickering screen with Arabic subtitles. "All the soldiers are afraid of him. One time, he closed the border for 10 days, just because he was angry. He controls everything. He makes huge money and buys weapons and ammunition for ISIS." A man who smuggles people into Islamic State territory in Syria stands in front of the window in his home in Karkemish, Turkey. Qalthim hates the extremist group that has claimed large swaths of Iraq and Syria. But times are tough, and he says his family would go hungry if he didn't work as a smuggler. Plus, the border is so close, and the work so easy. Turkey insists it has tightened the border and ramped up security, and now checkpoints are commonplace on key roads in southeast Turkey, where armed security personnel stop cars and check trunks for smuggled goods like oil and cigarettes. But attempting to to reel in human smuggling is like cleaning up debris after a nuclear strike, says Turkey expert Aaron Stein, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. Turkey actively facilitated the passage of rebels between September 2011 and March 2014 in order to bolster the fight against Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad, he explains, but things changed last spring. The United States got more deeply involved, calling out Turkey on its porous border, and the Islamic State became an unmanageable problem. "I think [Turkey knows] about the smuggling, but cleaning this mess up may not be possible," Stein said. "As for the military, if the true extent of the corruption on the border was made public, it would be incredibly embarrassing. You have bent officers taking bribes to let people through a border the whole world is asking Turkey to close. You have ambitious middle men who are profiting on the killing of Syrians." Security camera footage shows Hayat Boumeddiene and a male travel companion arriving at Istanbul Sabhia Gokcen airport on Jan. 2. Turkey for years has asked for more international assistance in dealing with the mass displacement of Syrians on its soil -- they number more than 1,622,000, according to government and U.N. numbers. Extremist fighters are often interspersed in refugee populations. The country blames a lack of intelligence-sharing between countries for why so many foreign fighters and Islamic State supporters slip through the cracks. After Hayat Boumeddiene, the wife of one of the Paris gunmen in last month's attacks, escaped easily from Turkey into Syria, Turkey ardently defended itself from criticism. "Turkey's only fault is to have a border with Syria," Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on an official trip to Berlin in early January. "We need intelligence telling us who is a suspect so Turkey can take precautions." Turkey's Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Hardline fighters take advantage of the porous border and easily bribed guards. Anas, 20, says he crosses to and from Syria through Turkey's official border crossings with ease, despite not having a passport. Walking from Turkey's Bab al-Salam border gate in the border town of Kilis, his shoulder-length hair and thick, long beard -- a style often worn by Islamist fighters -- stands out in the crowd of refugees. The young man claims to have fought with the Free Syrian Army, then the Islamic State, and now fights "freelance" for groups like Jabhat al Nusra, also known as Al Qaeda in Syria. An armed man walks in the Islamic State-controlled Syrian town of Tal Abyad, just across from the Turkish Akcakale border gate, on Jan. 31. "I bribe the Turkish border guards," he said nonchalantly, without elaborating. Rami Zaid, a 23-year-old activist in Aleppo, says he crosses once or twice a month, usually east of the Bab al-Salam border gate because, as he says, there isn't much security. He doesn't have a passport either, and unlike Anas, he says, he can't get through official border without one -- so he pays Turkish and Syrian smugglers $25-50 every trip to help him across. For Abu Hawrain, a 24-year-old Syrian lamb trader turned smuggler, paying off Turkish border guards at the Bab al-Salam crossing is part of the daily routine. The Idlib native says he smuggles roughly 100 people a month to territory on the other side controlled by Free Syrian Army-affiliated fighters and more hardline jihadist groups. "They don't care about the law," he said of the guards at the border. "They let anyone cross if they have money." But the official Turkish forces at the gate aren't really the ones controlling the border, Abu Hawrain said. A group of four to five rich and widely fear Turkish "gang" leaders run things in Kilis, according to the young smuggler who says he sees them every day. "The police are afraid of the powerful men," he continued. "The smugglers pay them directly." Hawrain says he makes 75 Turkish lira, or $30, per person he smuggles, but he has to shell out the equivalent of $20 to pay off the Turkish gangsters and border guards. Most of what he makes, he doesn't get to keep. When asked what would happen if he kept all of his earnings, Hawrain shook his head: "They're mafia -- they can do anything." Zaher Said contributed reporting from the Turkey-Syria border.

How The World's Largest Hot Desert Fertilizes The Amazon

The world's largest hot desert fertilizes the world's largest rainforest. That's according to a study published Tuesday in "Geophysical Research Letters," which examined the quantity and chemical composition of dust swept by strong winds from the Sahara to the Amazon every year. Researchers found that much of the rainforest's phosphorous -- a critical element in plant growth -- originates in Chad. Using data provided by NASA's "CALIPSO" satellite, researchers determined 27.7 million tons (or 104,980 semi trucks worth) of Saharan dust lands in the Amazon on a yearly basis, making it the largest transport of dust on the planet. Lead author Hongbin Yu, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told NASA phosphorus comprises 22,000 tons of that dust, which, coincidentally, is similar to the amount of phosphorus leached from the soil every year by rain and flooding. The study authors speculate African dust has thus played an important role in feeding the Amazon critical nutrients "on time scales of decades to centuries." "This is a small world," Yu told NASA, "and we're all connected together."

Argentine Judge Defends President Over Alleged Role In Bombing

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 26 (Reuters) - There is no evidence that President Cristina Fernandez tried to whitewash Iran's purported involvement in a deadly 1994 bombing, an Argentine judge told Reuters in an interview on Thursday after dismissing the case. On the contrary, the evidence suggested "the government exhausted all possibilities to enable the investigation into the AMIA (Jewish community center) attack to advance," said Judge Daniel Rafecas, who showed Reuters copies of the evidence. Rafecas on Thursday discontinued the case brought by prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found dead in mysterious circumstances in January the day before he was to appear in Congress to discuss his criminal complaint. Many Argentines expressed dismay at his decision and said the government may have had a hand in it - a suspicion Rafecas firmly rejected. "There is simply no evidence revealing that the Argentine government had any intention to disturb, impact or cover up the work of the Argentine justice, on the contrary," Rafecas said, sitting behind his desk in his downtown office, in front of a bookcases stacked full of legal books. In January, Nisman had accused Fernandez of seeking to whitewash the investigation into the 1994 AMIA attack that killed 85. Four days later he was found dead with a bullet to the head, spawning a torrent of conspiracy theories. The inquiry into the alleged cover-up was given this month to prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita, who submitted the complaint. Rafecas said the evidence presented "was exactly the opposite of what Nisman claimed. In these conditions, what I decided today was that it was not possible in any circumstance to open a criminal investigation," he said. President Fernandez called Nisman's cover-up claims "absurd" and said he had been duped by rogue security agents. She said she believed the agents then killed the prosecutor after using him to smear her. Some government officials said they believed Nisman had not even written the report himself - a claim Rafecas also refuted. "I have no doubt (it) was written by the prosecutor. There is an eloquence and a way of writing that does not make me suspect in any way that someone else might have written this." While the case has raised long-festering questions over interference and intimidation in the justice system, Rafecas said he had not been subject to any pressure. "I started studying the case two weeks ago. In these two weeks, I worked with utmost tranquility, and no-one, from either side, has approached me to make suggestions or exert pressure," he said. (Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Diane Craft)

South Korea Shooting Leaves Several Dead

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A gunman shot and killed three people Friday before he was found dead at a home in a city near the capital Seoul in the second such incident in two days, police officials said. Shooting incidents are rare in South Korea, which tightly controls gun possession, and the two deadly shootings this week will likely trigger a debate on whether the country should tighten its control on hunting weapons that can be legally owned. A police official from Hwaseong City, who didn't want to be named, citing office rules, said the victims included a policeman who was one of the first officers to arrive at the scene. The official said the suspect is believed to be the brother of one of the victims, whose wife was also dead. Police said the murder weapon was believed to be a hunting gun. The gunman had retreived the gun from a nearby police station about an hour before the morning shooting, the police official said. South Koreans can obtain licenses for shotguns and air rifles for the purpose of hunting animals, but they are required to keep the weapons at police stations and use them only during legal hunting periods. It wasn't immediately clear whether the suspect owned the gun or had a proper license for it. The incident follows another shooting on Wednesday when a gunman shot and killed three people in Sejong City in the central part of the country before apparently killing himself. The gunman appeared to have used two shotguns he owned and had licenses for. According to figures from the National Police Agency, South Koreans legally owned about 160,000 guns as of January, a figure that included hunting weapons and self-defense tools such as gas-emitting guns.

US and Gulf Confusion in Yemen and Iraq

The return of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to bloodily shaping the country's history has not come overnight, on the eve of the house arrest imposed by the Houthis on current President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi before they allowed him to flee to Aden -- the capital of South Yemen before reunification. Ali Abdullah Saleh, since he agreed to step down three years ago, has been planning to return to power either on the Houthi bandwagon or through elements in the military establishment, not to mention deploying his huge influence and financial assets to buy loyalty and empower his party, family, and son to retake power at any cost. Another man in the Arab region preparing behind the scenes and plotting in secret to return to his devastating role in Iraq's history is former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The common denominator between Yemen's strongman and Iraq's strongman is that they both left power as a result of regional and international pressures and bargains in which the United States and the GCC countries, as well as Iran, played important roles. The difference is that the Iraqi event attested that Tehran had to sacrifice Nouri al-Maliki in what appeared as signs of strategic accords between Iran and key Gulf powers, especially Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States. By contrast, the event in Yemen is a clear indication of the absence of accords and reconciliatory strategies. The Iranian role backing the Houthis in Yemen emerged in parallel with the Iraqi event, in tandem with the determination of Ali Abdullah Saleh to enter into an alliance with the Houthis and Iran to settle scores with Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries, which had helped remove him from power. The two men have an ugly agenda for Iraq and Yemen. If the Gulf leaders are serious and vigilant, they must develop a comprehensive strategy for both Iraq and Yemen, two majorly important countries for the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf. Otherwise, the GCC countries will pay a heavy price, and not just Iraq and Yemen. This week, a UN Security council expert team said in a report that Ali Abdullah Saleh had amassed close to $60 billion in 30 years as Yemen's president, through corruption, embezzlement, and commissions imposed on oil companies. According to the experts, he has stashed away these funds across 20 countries using other figures and companies as fronts. The experts who report to the UN Yemen sanctions panel told the Security Council that Saleh facilitated it for the Houthis and Al-Qaeda to expand their control in northern and southern Yemen, and that he continues to run a broad network of financial, security, military, and political interests in Yemen that allowed him effectively to avoid the effects of the sanctions imposed on him under UN Security Council resolution 2140. The panel's report said, "It is also alleged that Ali Abdullah Saleh, his friends, his family and his associates stole money from the fuel subsidy program, which uses up to 10 per cent of Yemen's gross domestic product, as well as other ventures involving abuse of power, extortion and embezzlement." "The result of these illegal activities for private gain is estimated to have amounted to nearly $2 billion a year over the last three decades," it adds. These funds were instrumental in changing the partisan loyalties to the extent of forming "unexpected alliances between former enemies, such as the Houthis and former President Saleh; the weakening of dominant political parties like the Islah party; the departure of leading political and influential figures like Hamid al-Ahmar and Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar from Yemen; an increase in Al-Qaeda activities in the south and Hadramaut; and an increased call for separation by the south," the report argues. So how did a panel of experts with a specific mission manage to understand the equations and developments in Yemen, while Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia were not able to ascertain and prepare for what was obvious in Yemen? The question is important to identify whether the flaw is fundamental, or whether it was an exception, and as it is being said related to the health of the late King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and the transition in the kingdom. Either way, what happened is extremely dangerous, not only for Yemen, but also for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. However, if the events in Yemen are the result of a deliberate policy based on mutual attrition, then this is an unwise policy similar to the unwise policy on Syria. Its risks would be twofold for Yemen and the Gulf region, led by Saudi Arabia. Indeed, mutual attrition or destruction has failed in Syria, and has helped destroy the present, future, and even past of Syria -- if we consider the archaeological and cultural heritage of the country now in ruins -- at the hands of the regime and the terrorists like ISIS and al-Nusra, with local, regional, and international enablement that no one is innocent of. Attrition is a foolish policy because it helped terrorism grow, and created an opportunity for ISIS to proliferate until it drew attention away from what is happening in Syria. If an international team was able to obtain detailed information and produce a logical and realistic analysis of the Yemeni situation, while the Gulf countries -- as it is claimed -- were taken by surprise by the events in Yemen and are still unable to develop a strategy to deal with them, then this is a frightening testimony of the utter lack of intelligence and analysis capabilities in the Gulf region. The international report to the UN Security Council stated that according to a confidential source, Al-Qaeda is taking advantage of such sensitivities and is recruiting Sunni tribesmen to fight on its side against the Houthis. The report also states, "The geographical proximity of Eritrea to Yemen lends itself to licit and illicit activities, and several trusted interlocutors mentioned confidentially the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) training of Houthi forces on a small island off the Eritrean coast." According to the same report as well, there is a close relationship between Ali Abdullah Saleh, his family and Al-Qaeda. The report quotes sources as saying that Mohammad Nasser Ahmed, the former Minister of Defence, saw Al-Qaeda leader Sami Dayan in then President Saleh's office with the President, in 2012. This is in addition to the quasi-alliance between Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthis. That's right. The paragraph may need to be read two or three times to comprehend the strange alliances in Yemen today, with a central role played by a former president who wants to return to power. He is completely disregarding the sanctions imposed on him under a UN Security Council resolution, moving ahead with a clear strategy and goals, with a calculated cost. If the Gulf countries have a deliberate strategy to address the agendas of Saleh, the Houthis, and Al-Qaeda -- the three are enemies and not allies -- then this strategy requires elucidation. The GCC countries appear today in a state of loss, denial, and dithering. This carries a bad message on multiple levels. Today, Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, and tomorrow Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq: They both intend to return to power. Both have partners or allies in Iran. In Yemen, there is a transitional alliance between the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Al-Qaeda for transient mutual interests, and a structural alliance between Tehran and the Houthis. The Houthis can claim to be the party that defeated a major regional power like Saudi Arabia, and that it can threaten it at its border. The Houthis are the group that toppled a legitimate government and put Yemen on the road to secession and fragmentation. Yet this is not the sin of the Houthis alone, because the Gulf and US absence and failure in Yemen contributed greatly in stoking its internal tragedies and exacerbating geopolitical risks beyond its borders. US and Gulf policies are faltering in both Yemen and Iraq. Iranian policies in Iraq and Yemen will either produce strategic advantages with huge benefits for the regime in Tehran, or could implicate Iran in one quagmire after the other, from Yemen to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The pace of the coming shifts in the balance of achievements vs. implication will be dictated to some degree by the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries (the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China). No one knows accurately if these negotiations are on the brink of collapse or are on the eve of making history. If they produce an agreement, this would be the first time both the West and the East agree to give a non-nuclear state the right to possess military nuclear capabilities in return for postponing the manufacturing date of said capabilities. In turn, this will give Iran the euphoria of belonging to the nuclear club, which will increase its confidence in fulfilling its regional ambitions most likely, However, there is a small possibility that reining in the regional ambitions would be part of the nuclear accords. However, if the nuclear deal fails, the United States will lay a trap after trap to implicate Iran in regional quagmires, to create Iran's own version of Vietnam in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The region is entering a critical phase soon, during which men addicted to power are aligning with tribes taking advantage of alliance in the absence of strategies. Translated from Arabic by Karim Traboulsi RaghidaDergham.Com

Pope Francis' Finance Czar Cardinal George Pell Comes Under Intense Scrutiny Over Spending

Pope Francis' finance czar is coming under intense scrutiny after ruffling feathers at the Vatican as he seeks to impose order on its unruly finances. Italian weekly L'Espresso reported in its Friday editions that Cardinal George Pell's economy secretariat had run up a half-million euros (dollars) in expenses in the first six months of its existence. The total includes seemingly legitimate expenses, including computers and printers, but also a 2,508 euro bill from the famed Gamarelli clergy tailor. The expenditures are notable given that Pell has instituted a spending review across the Vatican to ensure any excess money is spent on the poor, L'Espresso noted. Resistance to the Australian Pell from the largely Italian Vatican bureaucracy has been growing steadily but spiked in December after he boasted that he had "discovered" hundreds of millions of euros that had been "tucked away" in sectional accounts off the Vatican balance sheet. In fact, the money was well-known and was purposefully kept off the books, much of it set aside for use as reserves for funding shortfalls. The leak of Pell's receipts to L'Espresso — as well as other documents detailing cardinals' complaints about his efforts — was clearly aimed at discrediting him and harked back to the Vatileaks affair that badly tarnished the final year of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI's papacy. In that scandal, which some say prompted Benedict's resignation, the pope's butler leaked reams of papal documents to an Italian journalist that were aimed at discrediting Benedict's No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. The documents also laid bare the dysfunctions and political intrigue that afflict the Vatican bureaucracy — problems that were central to Francis' election as pope with a mandate for reform. The Vatican spokesman declined to comment late Thursday.

Egyptian spectator ban: flashpoint for conflict and statement of weakness

Egyptian spectator ban: flashpoint for conflict and statement of weakness Feb 27th 2015, 04:40, by James Dorsey By James M. Dorsey An Egyptian Cabinet decision to end the suspension of professional soccer in late March but reinstitute the ban on spectators attending matches could spark renewed clashes between militant fans and security forces. The decision against the backdrop of mounting evidence that Egyptian general-turned-President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has no apparent intention of easing repression implicitly acknowledges the role of fans in continued widespread opposition to his rule. Professional soccer was suspended in early February after some 20 members of Ultras White Knights (UWK), the militant support group of Al Zamalek SC, were killed in a stampede at a Cairo stadium. The incident was likely the result of supporters seeking to gain access to a match in the absence of available tickets rather than a deliberate and planned assault by security forces. UWK is nevertheless convinced that it was targeted by security forces much like militant supports of Zamalek arch rival Al Ahli were three years ago. Soccer has been suspended for much of the last four years since mass anti-government protests erupted in 2011 that forced President Hosni Mubarak from office. Spectators have been banned from matches that were played since 74 supporters of Al Ahli were killed in 2012 in a politically loaded brawl in Port Said. The stampede in Cairo was after Port Said, the worst sporting incident in recent Egyptian sporting history. Militant, highly politicized, street battle-hardened supporters of both clubs played a key role in the demonstrations that removed Mr. Mubarak from power and in protests against all subsequent governments, including that of Mr. Al Sisi. The fans have long called for an end to bans on spectators and have repeatedly clashed with security forces in protest against it. The renewed ban is as a matter of principle unlikely to go down well with the fans. UWK said earlier that it has no faith in a government investigation of the Cairo stampede or the Egyptian justice system and would prevent matches from being played until justice had been served for its martyrs. The fans' no-confidence vote came in response to a pledge by Mr. Al Sisi in a televised speech that those responsible for the UWK deaths would be held accountable. Overall, the president appeared to suggest in his address that there would be some easing of brutal repression that has cost the lives of at least 1,400 protesters in the last 20 months and put thousands more behind bars. Speaking a day before the verdict in a trial against prominent bloggers and activists, Mr. Al Sisi said that "I am sure there are many innocent people inside prisons. Soon many of them will be released according to the available permissions." Mr. Al Sisi's remarks regarding the stampede came in the wake of reports in state-run media that unlike Zamalek, with its confrontational approach to its militant fan base, Al Ahli has succeeded in reducing tensions by engaging with Ultras Ahlawy, the club's hard line support group. The reports appeared to suggest that Mr. Al Sisi might be backing away from earlier tacit support for a war against UWK by Zamalek president Mortada Mansour, a larger than life character and long-standing ally of Messrs. Mubarak and Al Sisi. Mr. Mortada has prided himself on asking the security forces to intervene to prevent fans from entering the Cairo stadium without tickets, charging that UWK had been paid to confront the security forces. In response to a journalist's question about how fans of his club had died, Mr. Mortada, who asserts that UWK tried to assassinate him, said, "ask the Muslim Brotherhood," the group of Mohammed Morsi, the president toppled by Mr. Al Sisi in a military coup in June 2013 that has since been outlawed as a terrorist organization and that has suffered the brunt of security force brutality in the last 20 months. Mr. Mansour has charged that UWK tried to assassinate him. His petition that the group be banned as a terrorist organizations has however been rejected by two Egyptian courts who argued that they were not the competent authority. "There is a major difference between the approach of Ahli and Zamalek. Taher was smart; he knew that it's unnecessary to create any rifts with that section of the supporters as long as the channel of communication operates perfectly," Ahram Online quoted sports journalist Sherif Hassan as saying. Mr. Hassan was referring to Al Ahli president Mahmoud Taher, who in December persuaded Ahlawy ultras to voluntarily leave an empty stadium they had stormed hours before an African Confederation Cup final. Any hope the fans and other Egyptians may have had that change was at hand was dashed a day later when a court sentenced prominent activist and blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah to five years in prison and 24 others to three years for violating Egypt's draconic anti-protests law. At about the same time, UWK's convictions that it was targeted were reinforced by an audio recording obtained by Al Jazeera that appeared to reveal Egyptian interior minister Mohamed Ismail discussing how the government can crack down on protesters. In a meeting with senior officers of Egypt's notorious Central Security Force (CSF), Mr. Ibrahim is heard discussing a strategy for dealing with demonstrations, including ways to shoot protesters without turning them into martyrs. He suggested that the CSF using anything ""permitted by law without hesitation from water to machine guns." The meeting was held in advance of a major anti-government protest on November 28 in which at least four protesters were killed. Potentially deepening animosity between the security forces and fans, Mr. Ibrahim went on to say that no attempt at political change in Egypt would succeed without the support of the military and the police, in his words, "the strongest institutions in the state." Mr. Ibrahim, who served in the Morsi government, played an important behind-the-scenes role in exploiting widespread criticism of Mr. Morsi and instigating mass protests against his government in late June 2013 that persuaded the military to remove Egypt's first and only democratically elected president from office. Militant fans were divided in their evaluation of the Morsi government but united in their frustration that the hopes for greater freedoms and social and economic justice after the overthrow of Mr. Mubarak had not been achieved. In the absence of security sector reform, Mr. Ibrahim's remarks are likely to reinforce hostility between his ministry and fans who have proven to be a constant thorn in the government's side. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Wurzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer and a forthcoming book with the same title.

American Blogger Avijit Roy Killed In Bangladesh; Wife Also Injured In Cleaver Attack

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A prominent U.S. blogger, known for his writing against religious fundamentalism, has been hacked to death by unidentified attackers in Bangladesh's capital, police said Friday. The attack on Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen, took place late Thursday when he and his wife Rafida Ahmed, who was seriously injured in the attack, were returning from a book fair at Dhaka University. It was not known who was behind the attack, but Roy's family and friends say he was a prominent voice against religious fanatics and received threats in the past. No groups have claimed the responsibility. The local police chief, Sirajul Islam, told The Associated Press that the assailants used cleavers to attack Roy and his wife, who is also a blogger. "Several attackers took part in the attack and at least two assailants hit them directly," Islam said, adding that two blood-stained cleavers were found after the attack. Roy had founded a popular Bengali-language blog — Mukto-mona, or Free Mind — in which articles on scientific reasoning and religious extremism featured prominently. Anujit Roy, his younger brother, said Roy had returned to the country earlier this month from the U.S. and was planning to return there next month. Similar attacks have taken place in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people but ruled by secular laws, in the past. Investigators have said religious fanatics were behind those attacks. In 2013, another blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, who also spoke out against religious fanatics, was killed by unidentified assailants near his home in Dhaka. And in 2004, Humayun Azad, a prominent writer and a teacher of Dhaka University, was seriously injured in an attack when he was returning from the same book fair, which is an annual event. Baki Billah, a friend of Roy and a blogger, told Independent TV station that Roy had been threatened earlier by people upset at his writing. "He was a free thinker. He was a Hindu but he was not only a strong voice against Islamic fanatics but also equally against other religious fanatics," Billah said. "We are saddened. We don't know what the government will do to find the killers. We want justice," he said.