CIA killed Omar Suleiman and Saudi’s prince Nayef: Fareed Zakaria

PressTV

Egypt’s former vice president and spy chief, Omar Suleiman,
left and Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz,

A prominent US-based Journalist, Fareed Zakaria says the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is behind the death of former Egyptian vice president and the country's long-time spy chief Omar Suleiman, and Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.

Speaking in a TV program called Al-Haghigheh in an Arabic satellite channel, Zakaria said that Omar Suleiman made a phone call to him few minutes prior to his death claiming that his life was in danger and the CIA had targeted him with a laser radiation.

Zakaria added that Suleiman revealed to him in the same telephone conversation that the Saudi crown prince was also assassinated with a similar laser radiation by the US spy agency.

Several days before Egypt’s former dictator, Hosni Mubarak ouster, Suleiman was appointed vice president in January 2011 when the revolution gained momentum. He was directly involved in the killing of protesters.

Suleiman later left Egypt and went to Abu Dhabi with his relatives. He died in the US where he was undergoing medical tests at the age of 76.

The 79-year-old Nayef, who was also the long-serving interior minister of Saudi Arabia, traveled for medical reasons to a few countries including Algeria and the United States this year before he was announced dead on June 16.

Nayef was announced the new heir to the Saudi throne after the death of his full brother, former Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, at a New York hospital on October 22, 2011.

Row over Egypt's new constitution reflects wider tensions

CNN

(CNN) -- Egypt's administrative court has suspended the country's 100-member constitutional assembly, tasked with drafting a new national constitution. But what does that say about the country's progress toward political reform?

More than a year since President Hosni Mubarak was forced to stand down, the outcome of Egypt's "revolution" remains unclear.

The suspension of the constitutional assembly is significant, says Khaled Elgindy, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, because the document it draws up is supposed to be the "fundamental institution of the new Egypt" -- and this throws up questions over its legitimacy.

The row also highlights growing tensions between secular and Islamist groups and the ruling military council, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has not yet handed power to a civilian government.

It had been hoped the new constitution would be ready before presidential elections due in late May, with a run-off vote in June.

Read more about the disbanding of the constitutional group

But that time frame now seems unlikely, analysts say, opening up the prospect that a new president is elected without a clear constitutional framework by which to govern, or checks on his powers.

That said, whether the assembly as it stood could have produced a consensus draft that would have convincingly won the nation's backing in a referendum is a moot point.

The move by the administrative court in Cairo followed weeks of street protests and objections from many political and civic society groups.

They argued the assembly was dominated by the Islamists -- the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist Nour party, who hold a majority in parliament -- and that as a result it would not draft a constitution that was representative of the country's diverse society, and that Islamic rules would have too much sway.

Several liberal and secular members of the assembly had already withdrawn because of the criticism, as well as the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church and Al-Azhar Institution, one of the most influential Islamic entities.

Mubarak Resigns - Al Jazeera

Did the Egyptian army weigh in? Does Omar Suleiman remain? What will happen with the investigation of Habib El-Adly?

ElBaradei criticizes U.S. approach to Egypt

Reuters

It would be a "major setback" if the United States were to support either Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak or Vice President Omar Suleiman to lead a transitional government, Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday.

ElBaradei, a veteran diplomat and leading opposition activist, was asked about reports that Washington could support Suleiman or Mubarak to lead a transitional government. "If that were true ... that would be a major setback, I can tell you that," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Cairo.
"If things that I hear today (are true), that would come down like lead on the people who have been demonstrating," he said.

The United States signaled on Saturday that it wanted an orderly transition of power in Egypt that could see Mubarak remaining president until September, an apparent policy shift likely to anger protesters demanding he resign now.

"To hear ... that Mubarak should stay and lead the process of change, and that the process of change should essentially be led by his closest military adviser, who's not the most popular person in Egypt, without the sharing of power with civilians, it would be very, very disappointing," ElBaradei said.
The adviser he was referring to was Suleiman, a leading figure in the security apparatus.
ElBaradei said he did not think the demonstrations were running out of steam, though he worried the situation could get even bloodier.

"There is of course a little fatigue everywhere," he said, adding that there was a "hard core" of demonstrators who would not give up as long as Mubarak held onto power.

"It might not be every day but what I hear is that they might stage demonstrations every other day," ElBaradei said. "The difference is that it would become more angry and more vicious. And I do not want to see it turning from a beautiful, peaceful revolution into a bloody revolution."

ElBaradei suggested that the United States did not appear to have a clear policy on Egypt.
"It would appear that you (the United States) are just responding to who is more powerful for each day rather than a principled position, which would be for me personally disappointing and for all the people who are demonstrating," he said.

Mubarak's deputy linked to secret CIA program

Poor Richard's Blog

Reputation of Omar Suleiman – Mubarak's first VP – marred by allegations of torture, extracting false confessions

By Dan De Luce at .middle-east-online.com

The man named by President Hosni Mubarak as his first ever deputy, Egyptian spy chief Omar Suleiman, reportedly orchestrated the brutal interrogation of terror suspects abducted by the CIA in a secret program condemned by rights groups.

His role in the shadows of the "war on terror" illustrates the ties that bind the United States and the Egyptian regime, as an unprecedented wave of protests against Mubarak present Washington with a difficult dilemma.

With Mubarak's rule in jeopardy, Suleiman was anointed vice president last week and is now offering wide ranging talks with the opposition in a bid to defuse the crisis.

Suleiman is a sophisticated operator who carried out sensitive truce negotiations with Israel and the Palestinians as well as talks among rival Palestinian factions, winning the praise of American diplomats.

For US intelligence officials, he has been a trusted partner willing to go after Islamist militants without hesitation, targeting homegrown radical groups after they carried out a string of attacks on foreigners.

A product of the US-Egyptian relationship, Suleiman underwent training in the 1980s at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

As spy chief, Suleiman reportedly embraced the CIA's controversial "extraordinary rendition" program under ex-president George W. Bush, in which terror suspects snatched by the Americans were taken to Egypt and other countries without legal proceedings and subjected to harsh interrogations.

He "was the CIA’s point man in Egypt for rendition," Jane Mayer, author of "The Dark Side," wrote on the New Yorker's website.

After taking over as spy director, Suleiman oversaw an agreement with the United States in 1995 - during Bill Clinton's presidency -- that allowed suspected militants to be secretly transferred to Egypt for questioning.

Human rights groups charge the detainees have often faced torture and mistreatment in Egypt and elsewhere, accusing the US government of violating its own legal obligations by handing over suspects to regimes known for abuse.

In the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the CIA relied on Suleiman to accept the transfer of a detainee known as Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who US officials hoped could prove a link between Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

The suspect was bound and blindfolded and flown to Cairo, where the CIA believed their longtime ally Suleiman would ensure a successful interrogation, according to "The One Percent Doctrine" by author Ron Suskind.

A US Senate report in 2006 describes how the detainee was locked in a cage for hours and beaten, with Egyptian authorities pushing him to confirm alleged connections between Al-Qaeda and Saddam.

Libi eventually told his interrogators that the then Iraqi regime was moving to provide Al-Qaeda with biological and chemical weapons.

When the then US secretary of state Colin Powell made the case for war before the United Nations, he referred to details of Libi's confession.

The detainee eventually recanted his confession.

In "Ghost Plane," a book about the rendition program, journalist Stephen Grey writes that Egypt faced regular public criticism from lawmakers in Congress about its rights record.

"But in secret, men like Omar Suleiman, the country's most powerful spy and secret policeman, did our work, the sort of work that Western countries have no appetite to do themselves," he wrote.

Egyptian Police Have Opened Fire on Thousands of Egyptians Outside the Interior Ministry

Dead Protester is carried through
the crowd.

Business Insider
Gus Lubin

It is nighttime in Egypt and the riots continue for the fifth day. More than 100 people have been killed in the protests, according to Al-Jazeera. There is also extensive looting and destruction.

President Hosni Mubarak has announced some changes to his cabinet, but no one is impressed.

Previously at 11:59 ET: Clashes between police and protesters at a Cairo prison have left 8 dead, according to Reuters. No prisoners escaped.

Also looters have destroyed several ancient mummies at a Cairo museum, according to Al-Jazeera.

11:00 ET: Mubarak has appointed his first vice-president in decades and a new prime minister. The VP is former spy chief Omar Suleiman and the prime minister is former airforce chief Ahmed Shafiq.

10:37 ET: Protesters are trying to storm the Interior Ministry again.

9:40 ET: At least three protesters have been killed today in Tahrir Square, Al Jazeera reports. Videos show the bloody body of one protester being carried through the crowd. Reporters say this is actually one of the calmest protests in the country.

9:00 ET: It's 4 PM in Cairo and the curfew has just started. Everyone is ignoring it.

CairoPreviously: Police have opened fire on a crowd of thousands that were trying to storm Egypt's Interior Ministry, Al Jazeera reports.

The protesters are gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square. The army is there too with tanks.

Al-Jazeera correspondents say the horizon is filled with burning buildings from yesterday.

Apparently the protesters were not satisfied by Mubarak's offer to change his cabinet. The president may need to offer more concrete reform.