Headlines:

• U.N. Wants to Use Drones for Peacekeeping Missions
• Israel's New Barrier with Syria: Another Brick in the ‘Apartheid' Wall?
• Shia-Sunni Conflicts Plotted by Islam Enemies
• U.S., Afghanistan Discuss "Last Chapter" in War Aims - Panetta
• 6 Strikes, 8 Days, 35 Dead: The U.S. Drone War in Pakistan is Back

Details:

U.N. Wants to Use Drones for Peacekeeping Missions:

The United Nations, looking to modernize its peacekeeping operations, is planning for the first time to deploy a fleet of its own surveillance drones in missions in Central and West Africa. The U.N. Department of Peacekeeping has notified Congo, Rwanda and Uganda that it intends to deploy a unit of at least three unarmed surveillance drones in the eastern region of Congo. The action is the first step in a broader bid to integrate unmanned aerial surveillance systems, which have become a standard feature of Western military operations, into the United Nations' far-flung peacekeeping empire.

Israel's New Barrier with Syria: Another Brick in the ‘Apartheid' Wall?

The walls around Israel are growing as the country's army builds a new physical barrier, this time on its border with Syria. The wall will reportedly begin in the southern part of the occupied Golan Heights, extending north from there. Israel says the move is designed to safeguard its citizens from fallout from the conflict in war-torn Syria. Others say the wall is just a new installment in one of Israel's most recognizable tools of injustice. "It's a wall of oppression. It's a wall of segregation. It's a wall of stealing the land of the people," Jamal Juma of the Stop the Wall movement told Russia Today. Juma says the wall will end up only remaining in place temporarily, as those who oppose it will stand up for their rights. "Walls around the world that have been built to suffocate and oppress people have fallen down. Why would the Israeli wall stay? We are not going to settle for it. We are not going to accept the system they are imposing on us," he said.

Shia-Sunni Conflicts Plotted by Islam Enemies:

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi says the so-called issue of divide between Shia and Sunni Muslims is a plot hatched by the enemies of Islam. In a meeting with the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Ahmed Al-Tayeb in Cairo on Thursday, Salehi also called on Muslims to avoid conflicts and rely on commonalties instead. "Enemies have made great efforts during recent years to cause a rift among Muslims and also to intensify it," he added. Salehi invited the Sheikh of Al-Azhar to visit Iran to hold talks with Iranian clerics and observe the peaceful coexistence of Shia and Sunni Muslims in the Islamic Republic. Al-Tayeb, for his part, urged Muslims to foster unity and said enemies should not be allowed to achieve their objectives to create conflicts in the Muslim world.

U.S., Afghanistan Discuss "Last Chapter" in War Aims - Panetta:

Panetta said he and Karzai made "very good progress" on the issues they discussed, but he declined to say whether they had agreed on the size of any residual U.S. force that would remain in Afghanistan to do counterterrorism operations and training once combat troops withdraw. The Obama administration has been considering a residual force of between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in Afghanistan to conduct counterterrorism operations while providing training and assistance for Afghan forces. But the administration said this week it did not rule out a complete withdrawal after 2014. While Karzai has been critical of U.S. troop activity in Afghanistan, it is unclear how Afghan forces would perform without U.S. helicopters, medical facilities, intelligence and other military support, of which Afghanistan has very little. "After a long and difficult past, we finally are, I believe, at the last chapter of establishing ... a sovereign Afghanistan that can govern and secure itself for the future," Panetta told Karzai after a welcoming ceremony at the Pentagon that included an honour guard and 21-gun salute. Panetta said 2013 would mark an important step in the war, with Afghans due to take over the lead role for security across the country. "We've come a long way towards a shared goal of establishing a nation that you and we can be proud of, one that never again becomes a safe haven for terrorism," Panetta said. "Our partnership, forged ... through almost 11 years of shared sacrifice, is a key to our ability to achieve the final mission."

6 Strikes, 8 Days, 35 Dead: The U.S. Drone War in Pakistan is Back:

The sixth U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2013 has killed at least eight people, as if to announce the impending arrival at the CIA of the drone campaign's chief advocate. About 19 miles east of Mirin Shah, the main city in the tribal province of North Waziristan, at least one missile fired by a U.S. Predator or Reaper hit a compound Monday night, killing an alleged, unnamed "foreign tactical trainer" for al-Qaida, according to Pakistani intelligence sources talking to Reuters. Another strike hit the nearby village of Eissu Khel, the Long War Journal reports. In addition to the alleged al-Qaida member, at least seven others were killed and three more were injured. While the statistical sample is small, it's starting to sound like the drone campaign over Pakistan is ticking back up after a recent decline. A trio of drone-fired missile strikes between Wednesday and Thursday killed a Pakistani Taliban commander and at least 19 others. Another on Sunday reportedly killed another 17 people, bringing the estimated death toll in this young year to 35. The U.S. launched 43 drone strikes in Pakistan in 2012, according to the tally kept by the New America Foundation, reflecting a two-year downward trend from 2010′s high of 122 strikes. The average time in between strikes last year was 7.7 days. But eight days into 2013, there have already been six deadly drone strikes, for reasons that remain unclear. It's worth noting that senior Obama administration officials recently reversed their earlier rhetoric that the U.S. was on the verge of defeating al-Qaida and have returned to describing a protracted shadow campaign. The drone strikes are likely to play a central role in the Senate confirmation hearing of John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism official whom President Obama nominated Monday to lead the CIA. Brennan, a CIA veteran, has been at the center of the drone campaign in Obama's first term, even providing Obama with the names of suspected militants marked for a robotic death.

Abu Hashim