1. ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2011
MIDEAST
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Drone crash unmasks US spying in Iran
ISIS says explosion near Isfahan, not a nuclear site
WA S H I N G T O N ,
Dec 10, (RTRS): The
crash of a CIA drone
in Iran has brought
into the open what
US intelligence agencies would prefer
kept secret: intense
spying efforts in a
country where the
United States has no
official presence.
Palestinian mourners carry the body of Ramadan alZaalan, 12, during his funeral in Gaza City on Dec 10.
Zaalan was killed with his father Bahjat in an Israeli air
strike on a civilain house in Gaza, medics said. (AFP)
See Page 9
Secularists reassured
‘No Islamic dress
code for women’
RABAT, Dec 10, (RTRS): The man set to become
Morocco’s first Islamist prime minister said on
Friday his government would not try to make women
dress more modestly.
Abdelilah Benkirane is to lead a coalition government after his Justice and Development Party (PJD)
became the latest Islamist movement in the Middle
East to win an election in the wake of the “Arab
Spring” revolutions.
The party is anxious to reassure powerful secularists
in the Moroccan establishment, foreign investors, and
the tourists who provide much of the country’s revenue,
that it will not try to impose a strict Muslim moral code.
“We are proud that our point of reference is
Islamist,” Benkirane, the PJD’s secretary general and
prime minister designate, told a small group of
reporters invited to a briefing.
“I will never be interested in the private life of people, Allah created mankind free. I will never ask if a
woman is wearing a short skirt or a long skirt.”
“But there are things forbidden by the law. I think
even in some European countries, people cannot be
naked in public places,” he said.
On relations with countries in Europe, Morocco’s
biggest trading partner, Benkirane said: “They are
our friends and we need them and they will need us
... Morocco not only has historical ties to Europe but
philosophical ones.”
Concert
The most high profile test of Moroccan Islamists’
stance on moral issues came last year, when PJD
politicians said they were opposed to gay singer
Elton John giving a concert in the country. He went
ahead and performed anyway.
Benkirane declined to answer questions on what
economic policies his government would pursue.
Economists say Morocco needs to tame its budget
deficit, stimulate growth and tackle the poverty and
unemployment that are fuelling unrest.
Morocco’s monarch, who has the final say on all
issues of defence, national security and religion, this
week named a bitter opponent of the PJD, Fouad Ali
el-Himma as a royal adviser.
That appointment could signal an attempt by the
palace to rein in the Islamist-led coalition.
Asked about el-Himma, Benkirane said it was customary in Morocco not to comment on decisions
made by the monarch.
“I am forming the new government in a country
whose head of state is King Mohamed VI, he is my
boss. It is not my business how the head of state, who
is my boss, manages his royal court,” said Benkirane.
News in Brief
Chemical weapons use denied: The Turkish military denied on Thursday it was using chemical weapons in
its fight against the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
and said it did not even possess such arms.
“There have been no chemical weapons or ammunition
registered in the inventory of the Turkish Armed Forces,”
said the General Staff, which presides over the armed
forces, according to the Anatolia news agency.
“The fight against the separatist terrorist organisation
continues in compliance with national and universal rules
of law,” it added.
The military was responding to claims published in some
media at home and abroad that the army was using chemical weapons in its operations against Kurdish rebels.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)
also accused the army several times of using such weapons.
The claims are “baseless, biased and aimed at slandering
the Turkish armed forces,” the General Staff said.
Listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of
the international community, the PKK took up arms for
Kurdish independence in southeastern Turkey in 1984,
sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.
(AFP)
Iran on Thursday aired
with great flourish
footage of the captured
drone, which appeared
largely intact. Pentagon
and CIA spokesmen
would not comment on
whether it was the missing US RQ-170 Sentinel
unmanned aircraft.
A person familiar with the
situation confirmed that the
drone that crashed was on a
surveillance mission over
Iran.
It is believed to have
crashed because of a malfunction and not from being
shot down or computerhacked by the Iranians, a US
official said on condition of
anonymity.
Although there are risks
that Iran could attempt to
reverse engineer the technology, or sell it to other
countries, like China, US
officials believe that Iran
will not be able to mine the
drone’s computer systems to
Iraqis shop at Shorja market in Baghdad on Dec 10. The withdrawal of US troops from Iraq more than eight years after
the invasion leaves a country grappling with political deadlock and vulnerable to regional inteference and a domestic
insurgency. (AFP)
learn details of the US surveillance mission.
US surveillance of Iran
through various means has
been going on for years, US
officials and others with
direct knowledge of the situ-
ation say.
A private US defense
expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
that when he visited the
command center at a US
military base in the Gulf
region in 2008, it was clear
that the installation was
receiving multiple feeds of
electronic
surveillance
information from inside
Iran.
Some of the information
appeared to be transmitted
from high-altitude aircraft
and some from electronic
sensors which the United
States
had
somehow
installed on the ground in
Iran, the expert said.
The United States has no
official presence in Iran so it
is difficult to determine
exactly what is going on
inside its borders. One
recent incident has yet to be
fully unraveled.
On Nov 28, there were
contradictory reports out of
Iran on whether an explosion had occurred in the city
of Isfahan, which is also
home to a major nuclear
site.
David Albright, president
of the Institute for Science
and International Security,
said he has been studying
imagery of that area and no
damage was detected at the
Isfahan nuclear site. But, he
said, “it is credible there was
an explosion, but not at the
nuclear site.”
He said it was puzzling
that Iranians clearly said
an explosion at a missile
depot two weeks earlier
had been an accident, but
did not provide similar
clarity about Isfahan.
“We’re trying to figure out
what actually happened,”
he said.
“Explosions are happening in Iran, and Iran is not
making a big deal out of
them. They are either calling
them accidents or saying
they didn’t happen, and
therefore when these things
continue to happen it could
be because intelligence
agencies are actually now
playing sabotage,” Albright
said.