DTN News - SPECIAL REPORT: Israeli Forces Deploy For Protests At Borders

Defense News: DTN News - SPECIAL REPORT: Israeli Forces Deploy For Protests At Borders
*Israeli security forces in riot gear Friday confronted Palestinian demonstrators after deploying in high numbers along Israel's frontiers on an annual protest day
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources The Telegraph UK
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 30, 2012: By midday, minor skirmishes had broken out between thousands of protesters and security forces in the Jerusalem area. Palestinians threw rocks and Israeli troops responded with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber pellets. No serious injuries were reported.

In Gaza, Palestinians said Israeli forces shot and wounded two men who approached the border during a demonstration by about 15,000 people, organized by Gaza's Hamas rulers. The Israeli military said soldiers shot and wounded one protester Elsewhere, it were calm.
The "Land Day" rallies are an annual event marked by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who protest what they say are discriminatory Israeli land policies.

Supporters in neighboring Arab countries also planned marches near the Israeli frontier, but organizers said they would keep protesters away from the borders.

Last year, demonstrators from Lebanon and Syria tried twice to break across the borders into Israel, setting off clashes with Israeli troops in which at least 38 people were killed.

In southern Lebanon Friday, more than 3,000 Lebanese and Palestinians gathered outside the Crusader-built Beaufort castle 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Israel. Lebanese security forces kept them from moving any closer to the border.

Sobhiyeh Mizari, 70, said she always taught her 12 children "never to forget Palestine."

"We will liberate our land against the will of Israel and its backers," said Mizari, who said her husband was killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon in 1978.

Security forces were preparing for demonstrations in northern Israel, where a large portion of Israel's Arab minority lives.

Several dozen Palestinians who live in east Jerusalem waved their national flag outside Jerusalem's walled Old City. "One, one homeland!" they chanted.

Palestinians were banned from entering from the West Bank except for medical emergencies, and police barred Palestinian men under 40 from praying at a volatile Jerusalem holy site, citing security concerns.

The demonstrators performed their communal Muslim Friday prayers where they stood, praying on their flags instead of traditional mats.

They were surrounded by what appeared to be an equal number of Israeli security forces.

"Israel has no trouble with peaceful protest and respects the rights of people to demonstrate peacefully," said government spokesman Mark Regev.

Many Palestinians, energised by Arab Spring uprisings that have overturned decades-old authoritarian regimes, see massive, coordinated marches as one of the most effective strategies to draw attention to their cause.

"After the Arab revolutions, there's awareness of the importance of popular participation," said Arab activist Jafar Farah. "This has rattled the Arab regimes, and now it's frightening the Israeli government."

 


*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources The Telegraph UK
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DTN News - KOREAN PENINSULA NEWS: Pyongyang Fires Short-Range Missiles

Defense News: DTN News - KOREAN PENINSULA NEWS: Pyongyang Fires Short-Range Missiles
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources SMH / AFP
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 30, 2012: North Korea has fired two short-range missiles off its west coast amid international alarm at its planned long-range rocket launch, South Korean newspapers say.

The North fired what appeared to be two KN-01 ground-to-ship missiles with a range of up to 120 kilometres from a missile base near the western port of Nampo, Chosun Ilbo newspaper said.

It quoted an unidentified Seoul government official as saying the launch on Thursday was apparently aimed at improving the performance of the projectile and was unrelated to the rocket launch scheduled for next month.

South Korea's defence ministry declined to confirm the reports.

The Stalinist North frequently conducts such short-range tests but the timing sometimes coincides with periods of tension.

Analysts say new leader Kim Jong-un has been trying to burnish his military credentials by conducting short-range missile tests since the death of his father.

The North reportedly test-fired two short-range missiles off its east coast on December 19, the same day it announced the death of leader Kim Jong-il.

On January 13 South Korean officials said that the North fired three short-range missiles off its east coast in an apparently routine exercise.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources SMH / AFP
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DTN News - AL QAEDA NEWS: French Police Arrest 20 Suspected Islamists

Defense News: DTN News - AL QAEDA NEWS: French Police Arrest 20 Suspected Islamists
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources AFP
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 30, 2012: French police arrested about 20 suspected Islamists in dawn raids on Friday, most of them in the hometown of an extremist who was shot dead by police last week after a killing spree.

Agents from France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency swooped in to carry out the arrests, most of them in the southern city of Toulouse a day after Al-Qaeda-inspired gunman Mohamed Merah was buried there, sources close to the investigation said.

The arrests were "not directly linked" to the Merah investigation, but were aimed at dismantling Islamist networks, one source said.

Some of the arrests also targetted people in the western city of Nantes.

The arrests came a day after Merah, who was shot dead by a police sniper on March 22 at the end of a 32-hour siege at his flat in Toulouse, was buried in the city under heavy police watch.

The 23-year-old had shot dead three soldiers, and three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in a killing spree that shocked the country.

The man branded a "monster" by French leaders was laid to rest in Toulouse's Cornebarrieu cemetery after his family's homeland Algeria refused to accept the body, citing security concerns.

French authorities have charged Merah's brother Abdelkader with complicity in the attacks and said they were looking for other accomplices.

Abdelkader Merah was charged with helping his sibling steal the powerful Yamaha scooter used in the shootings and police have said they were seeking a third person who may have been involved in the theft.

Merah recorded his killings with a camera strapped to his body and police have said an accomplice may have been involved in mailing a montage of the videos to Al-Jazeera.

The video was reportedly sent to the channel's Paris bureau from outside Toulouse while Merah was already besieged in his flat by police.

President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday that France was shaken by the shootings, likening the trauma from the murders to that of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

"What must be understood is that the trauma of Montauban and Toulouse is profound for our country, a little -- I don't want to compare the horrors -- a little like the trauma that followed in the United States and in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks," he told Europe 1 radio.

On Thursday France banned four Muslim preachers from entering the country to attend an Islamic conference, saying their "calls for hatred and violence" were a threat to public order.

Saudi clerics Ayed Bin Abdallah al-Qarni and Abdallah Basfar, Egyptian cleric Safwat al-Hijazi and a former mufti of Jerusalem Akrama Sabri are banned from entering France, a statement said.

"These people's positions and statements calling for hatred and violence seriously damage republican principles and, in the current context, represent a serious threat to public order," said the statement from Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and Interior Minister Claude Gueant.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources AFP
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