No smoking gun in hacked emails of UAE envoy in Washington

Yousef Al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the US, reportedly had his email account hacked. (Photo courtesy: UAE embassy)
Updated 05 June 2017
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No smoking gun in hacked emails of UAE envoy in Washington

JEDDAH: The publication of leaked emails belonging to Yousef Al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the US, by a website with links to Iran has been widely criticized and mocked on social media.
 
Al-Otaiba’s email account was apparently hacked, with the perpetrators offering the emails to a raft of news outlets. All but one website — The Intercept — apparently turned down a direct invitation to publish the content.
 
Commentators have pointed out that this is because there is no “smoking gun” in the emails — and that all they reveal is an envoy who has Arab interests at heart and is working hard to curb Tehran’s damaging influence in the region.
 
An Arabic hashtag that translates as “Al-Otaiba’s email speaks for me” was associated with the massive flood of tweets supportive of Al-Otaiba. Saudi users said that what was written in the hacked emails, such as the messages of support for the Kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 reform plan and criticism of countries that support extremism, was in fact a sign of honest and genuine brotherly feelings and concerns.
 
Mohammed Al-Sulami, head of the Riyadh-based Arabian Gulf Center of Iranian Studies, reiterated this in a tweet. He said he had attended several events in Washington where Al-Otaiba and his wife strongly defended the Kingdom and showed their support for it.
 
The UAE ambassador’s father, the renowned poet Mana Al-Otaiba, tweeted: “I’m a proud father.” He added in a screen-grabbed text: “Since his childhood I knew that he would be a great man… the son who works hard and aims high, has great respect and loyalty to his beloved country, the UAE, and to his family.”
 
A cursory look at what was revealed in the emails shows that there is nothing out of the ordinary, diplomatic sources said.
 
“The absence of a smoking gun… categorized as a matter of national interest is possibly why many US news outlets declined to run the story, apart from the fact that Otaiba’s email has been hacked,” an Arab diplomat in Washington, who opted not to be named, told Arab News.
 
According to various sources, the mysterious hackers had approached different news sites offering a sample of the emails, which allegedly show how the UAE is using influence to tarnish the image of other countries. Renowned news platform The Daily Beast ridiculed the contents of the leaks.
 
“Whatever the leak is meant to accomplish — a distraction, perhaps, from weightier issues involving President Donald Trump and Russia — its contents fall short of the explosive revelations hinted at in the cover letter… they include notes from an symposium on Islamic extremism, a proposed agenda for an upcoming meeting with the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and a note on the UAE’s move to impose a tax on sugary soft drinks,” elaborated The Daily Beast.
 
The Arab diplomat told Arab News: “What is interesting is how The Intercept, of all US websites, was the first to run the leaks and how quickly the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera carried them after that, distancing themselves and pretending to quote American sources.”
 
Qatar has been at the receiving end of massive international criticism for the past fortnight following what Doha insists are fake statements made in support of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah by the tiny Gulf state’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
 
The Intercept is little known among Arabic speakers and outside certain circles in the West. However, its editorial line and tactics have raised questions in the US since it was launched in February 2014.
 
It is owned by a company called First Look Media, funded by Iranian-American billionaire Pierre Omidyar, the founder of the eBay auction site. The news site was launched by journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras — best known for their roles in the series of reports concerning the documents disclosed by Edward Snowden — and Jeremy Scahill.
 
The Intercept claims to give “its journalists the editorial freedom and legal support they need to pursue investigations that expose corruption and injustice wherever they find it and hold the powerful accountable.”
 
Despite this professed agenda, it is nonetheless said to have a pro-Iranian stance based on its archive of stories, suggesting an uneven balance in terms of which powers it chooses to hold “accountable.”
 
While many of its stories are anti-Saudi, the same cannot be said with regard to its archive on Iran. In one lengthy story from 2016 entitled “US media condemns Iran’s ‘aggression’ in intercepting US naval ships — in Iranian waters,” Greenwald goes to great lengths to defend Tehran’s naval actions.
 
“It goes without saying that every country has the right to patrol and defend its territorial waters and to intercept other nations’ military boats that enter without permission,” he wrote. “But somehow, the US media instantly converted the invasion of Iranian waters by US ships into an act of aggression by Iran.”
 
Another article on Iran, from 2015, was headlined “Benjamin Netanyahu’s long history of crying wolf about Iran’s nuclear weapons.”
 
The Intercept’s questionable editorial agenda was grounds for the resignation of some journalists such as renowned Washington-based investigative reporter Ken Silverstein. After nearly 14 months working at The Intercept, Silverstein went on record to criticize his time at the Iranian-American businessman’s venture.
 
Silverstein announced his resignation from The Intercept in a series of Facebook posts in which he called his former employers a “pathetic joke.” Expressing anger and disillusionment with the company, Silverstein stated: “I am one of many employees who was hired under what were essentially false pretenses; we were told we would be given all the financial and other support we needed to do independent, important journalism, but instead found ourselves blocked at every step of the way by management’s incompetence and bad faith.”

15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces

Updated 6 sec ago
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15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces

BEIRUT: At least 15 Ankara-backed Syrian fighters were killed Sunday after Kurdish-led forces infiltrated their territory in the country’s north, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who controls swathes of the country’s northeast, “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” fighters in the Aleppo countryside, said the Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
“The two sides engaged in violent clashes” that killed 15 of the Ankara-backed fighters, the monitor said.
An AFP correspondent in Syria’s north said the clashes had taken place near the city of Al-Bab, where authorities said schools would be suspended on Monday due to the violence.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which claimed the attack on Ankara.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.


Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

Updated 16 min 2 sec ago
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Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

BEIRUT: Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon with the Hezbollah militant group, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X on Sunday, citing a senior Israeli official.
A separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan, citing an Israeli official, said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.

 


Russia plane evacuated in Turkiye as engine catches fire

Updated 25 min 13 sec ago
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Russia plane evacuated in Turkiye as engine catches fire

  • “Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries”

ISTANBUL: More than 90 passengers and crew were evacuated from a Russian plane Sunday after one of its engines caught fire while landing at an airport in southern Turkiye, the transport ministry said.
The incident involved a Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SU95) operated by Russia’s Azimuth Airlines.
They plane had just landed at Antalya airport on Turkiye’s Mediterranean coast when a fire broke out in one of its engines, a ministry statement said.
“A SU95 type and RA89085-registered aircraft of Azimuth Airlines traveling from Sochi airport in Russia to Antalya airport had an engine fire during landing,” it said.
“Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries.”
All further scheduled landings at the airport would be canceled until 3:00 am, it added, saying other planes waiting to depart would use the airport’s military runway for takeoff.
An airport official told Anadolou state news agency that the fire had affected its left engine but had been quickly extinguished.

 


War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area til end of December

Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
Updated 25 November 2024
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War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area til end of December

  • Education minister announced “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut
  • Suspension of in-person teaching also applies to parts of neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday

BEIRUT: Lebanon has suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the education ministry announced Sunday, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced in a statement “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.


Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

Updated 24 November 2024
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Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

  • The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal perils at home and abroad that point to a turbulent future for the Israeli leader and could influence the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, analysts and officials say. The International Criminal Court (ICC) stunned Israel on Thursday by issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month-old Gaza conflict. The bombshell came less than two weeks before Netanyahu is due to testify in a corruption trial that has dogged him for years and could end his political career if he is found guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing. While the domestic bribery trial has polarized public opinion, the prime minister has received widespread support from across the political spectrum following the ICC move, giving him a boost in troubled times.
Netanyahu has denounced the court’s decision as antisemitic and denied charges that he and Gallant targeted Gazan civilians and deliberately starved them.
“Israelis get really annoyed if they think the world is against them and rally around their leader, even if he has faced a lot of criticism,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“So anyone expecting that the ICC ruling will end this government, and what they see as a flawed (war) policy, is going to get the opposite,” he added.
A senior diplomat said one initial consequence was that Israel might be less likely to reach a rapid ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon or secure a deal to bring back hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This terrible decision has ... badly harmed the chances of a deal in Lebanon and future negotiations on the issue of the hostages,” said Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York.
“Terrible damage has been done because these organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas ... have received backing from the ICC and thus they are likely to make the price higher because they have the support of the ICC,” he told Reuters.
While Hamas welcomed the ICC decision, there has been no indication that either it or Hezbollah see this as a chance to put pressure on Israel, which has inflicted huge losses on both groups over the past year, as well as on civilian populations.

IN THE DOCK The ICC warrants highlight the disconnect between the way the war is viewed here and how it is seen by many abroad, with Israelis focused on their own losses and convinced the nation’s army has sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the ICC move would likely harden resolve and give the war cabinet license to hit Gaza and Lebanon harder still.
“There’s a strong strand of Israeli feeling that runs deep, which says ‘if we’re being condemned for what we are doing, we might just as well go full gas’,” he told Reuters.
While Netanyahu has received wide support at home over the ICC action, the same is not true of the domestic graft case, where he is accused of bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense.
He was due to give evidence last year but the date was put back because of the war. His critics have accused him of prolonging the Gaza conflict to delay judgment day and remain in power, which he denies. Always a divisive figure in Israel, public trust in Netanyahu fell sharply in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel that caught his government off guard, cost around 1,200 lives.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed more than 44,000 people and displaced nearly all Gaza’s population at least once, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Gaza officials.
The prime minister has refused advice from the state attorney general to set up an independent commission into what went wrong and Israel’s subsequent conduct of the war.
He is instead looking to establish an inquiry made up only of politicians, which critics say would not provide the sort of accountability demanded by the ICC.
Popular Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the failure to order an independent investigation had prodded the ICC into action. “Netanyahu preferred to take the risk of arrest warrants, just as long as he did not have to form such a commission,” it wrote on Friday.

ARREST THREAT The prime minister faces a difficult future living under the shadow of an ICC warrant, joining the ranks of only a few leaders to have suffered similar humiliation, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
It also means he risks arrest if he travels to any of the court’s 124 signatory states, including most of Europe.
One place he can safely visit is the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, and Israeli leaders hope US President-elect Donald Trump will bring pressure to bear by imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, has already promised tough action: “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X on Friday. In the meantime, Israeli officials are talking to their counterparts in Western capitals, urging them to ignore the arrest warrants, as Hungary has already promised to do.
However, the charges are not going to disappear soon, if at all, meaning fellow leaders will be increasingly reluctant to have relations with Netanyahu, said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
“In a very direct sense, there is going to be more isolation for the Israeli state going forward,” he told Reuters.