Headlines:

• Egypt Strikes Tunnels to Gaza
• Pentagon Knew in 2012 that It would Take 75,000 GROUND TROOPS to Secure Syria's Chemical Weapons Facilities
• The US Is Doing an Awful Lot of Spying on Pakistan
• Indonesian Muslims Hold Anti-Miss World Protest

Details:

Egypt Strikes Tunnels to Gaza

Egyptian forces struck tunnels that connect Gaza and Egypt, according to local residents in Rafah. Reuters video showed explosions in the area followed by smoke clouds in Rafah on the border between Gaza and Egypt. The strike explosion took place at around sunset. About 80 percent of tunnels used to smuggle goods and arms into the Gaza Strip from Egypt are no longer functioning due to a crackdown by the Egyptian military after it ousted President Mohamed Morsi, a United Nations official said in July. Cairo moved to destroy the tunnels after militants in the Egyptian Sinai desert killed 16 of its soldiers a year ago. Egypt said some of the gunmen had slipped into Sinai from nearby Gaza, an accusation denied by Hamas, who controls the strip. Gaza relies on the network of tunnels for vital goods including fuel, cement and food. Hamas, which taxes much of the traffic through the underground passages, has been hit hard by the losses. Ordinary Palestinians, many of them dependent on U.N. aid handouts, have seen prices for staple goods skyrocket. Israel still maintains strict control of all imports into Gaza to prevent arms reaching Hamas, which refuses to recognize the Jewish state and has often clashed with it. Under international accords, merchandise cannot be imported via Egypt. [Source: Voice of America]

 

Pentagon Knew in 2012 that It would Take 75,000 GROUND TROOPS to Secure Syria's Chemical Weapons Facilities

Securing Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles and the facilities that produced them would likely require the U.S. to send more than 75,000 ground troops into the Middle Eastern country, MailOnline learned Wednesday. That estimate comes from a secret memorandum the U.S. Department of Defense prepared for President Obama in early 2012. U.S. Central Command arrived at the figure of 75,000 ground troops as part of a written series of military options for dealing with Bashar al-Assad more than 18 months ago, long before the U.S. confirmed internally that the Syrian dictator was using the weapons against rebel factions within his borders. ‘The report exists, and it was prepared at the request of the National Security Advisor's staff,' a Department of Defense official with knowledge of the inquiry told MailOnline Wednesday on condition of anonymity. [Source: UK Daily Mail]

 

The US Is Doing an Awful Lot of Spying on Pakistan

The $52.6 billion U.S. intelligence arsenal is aimed mainly at unambiguous adversaries, including al-Qaeda, North Korea and Iran. But top-secret budget documents reveal an equally intense focus on one purported ally: Pakistan. No other nation draws as much scrutiny across so many categories of national security concern. A 178-page summary of the U.S. intelligence community's "black budget" shows that the United States has ramped up its surveillance of Pakistan's nuclear arms, cites previously undisclosed concerns about biological and chemical sites there, and details efforts to assess the loyalties of counter­terrorism sources recruited by the CIA. Pakistan appears at the top of charts listing critical U.S. intelligence gaps. It is named as a target of newly formed analytic cells. And fears about the security of its nuclear program are so pervasive that a budget section on containing the spread of illicit weapons divides the world into two categories: Pakistan and everybody else. The disclosures - based on documents provided to the Washington Post by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden - expose broad new levels of U.S. distrust in an already unsteady security partnership with Pakistan, a politically unstable country that faces rising Islamist militancy. They also reveal a more expansive effort to gather intelligence on Pakistan than U.S. officials have disclosed. The United States has delivered nearly $26 billion in aid to Pakistan over the past 12 years, aimed at stabilizing the country and ensuring its cooperation in counterterrorism efforts. But with Osama bin Laden dead and al-Qaeda degraded, U.S. spy agencies appear to be shifting their attention to dangers that have emerged beyond the patch of Pakistani territory patrolled by CIA drones. "If the Americans are expanding their surveillance capabilities, it can only mean one thing," said Husain Haqqani, who until 2011 served as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States. "The mistrust now exceeds the trust." [Source: Washington Post]

 

Indonesian Muslims Hold Anti-Miss World Protest

Indonesian Muslim hard-liners staged a protest on Tuesday in the country's capital to try to stop the holding of the Miss World pageant this weekend on the resort island of Bali. More than 200 members of several Muslim hard-line groups organised by the Islamic Society Forum staged a rally and march to the MNC Tower, the building that houses the local organiser of the contest. They held up banners with "Reject Miss World that exploits women" and "Go to hell Miss World" on them, and shouted "Allah Akbar," outside the building, which was guarded by 300 police. "This is an insult and humiliation of women," Muhammad Al Khathath, an Islamic Society Forum leader, told the crowd. "Muslims should reject the Miss World contest," he said. The demonstration was peaceful and broke up after protest leaders met with the pageant organisers. Last week, the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country's most influential clerics group, urged the government to cancel the event, saying the exposure of skin by women in such a competition violates Islamic teachings, even after organisers agreed to cut the bikini competition and instead outfit contestants in more conservative sarongs. The chairwoman of the Miss World Organisation, Julia Morley, earlier confirmed that none of the contestants would wear a bikini. [Source: South China Morning Post]