UnrepentantLiberal
UnrepentantLiberal's JournalTwo years on, Benghazi threatens "another revolution" in Libya
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - As night fell over Benghazi, a familiar sound echoed across the eastern Libyan city - an explosion, and then gunfire. A bomb had just been thrown at a police car on patrol, injuring an officer.
It was the latest of many attacks on local security forces. Two months before, the man whose job it was to ensure Benghazi was safe, the police chief, was shot dead outside his home.
Two years after Libya's second city kindled the uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, it epitomises a popular revolution gone awry - rival militias and Islamist gunmen more powerful than the police, moving residents to ask: where is the state?
"Imagine a city taken over by militias when all you want is to support the state," activist Mohammed Buganah said. "People feel insecure. They are very upset and annoyed about this."
More: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/01/us-libya-benghazi-idUSBRE91002N20130201
Iran plans nuclear complex upgrade
Source: The Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Iran has told the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency that it plans to add 3,000 faster centrifuges to its main uranium enrichment facility, a step that could shorten the time needed if Tehran decides to build a nuclear bomb.
Officials with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday that Iranian authorities had informed them in a letter that Tehran would add IR-2m centrifuges, which spin three to five times faster than the current IR-1 model, to the enrichment hall at the Natanz nuclear complex.
Although Iran often has boasted of technological capabilities it doesn't have, Western governments are taking the announcement seriously. Diplomats said the disclosure deepened their concern that Tehran wasn't serious about resuming negotiations over demands to curb its nuclear program.
Diplomats from six world powers have been discussing holding new talks with Iran since November, but have yet to set a time and place.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-nuclear-20130201,0,7566630.story
Al-Qaeda affiliate in North Africa said to have sights on other Western targets
Source: The Washington Post
New intelligence on al-Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa indicates that the militant group is seeking to carry out attacks on other Western targets in the region after its deadly assault on a natural gas complex in Algeria, senior U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday.
The push to mount follow-on strikes is seen as evidence that al-Qaeda was emboldened by the Jan. 16 raid and subsequent battle with Algerian security services that killed dozens of hostages and militants.
A senior U.S. intelligence official said that new streams of information have surfaced in the weeks since the assault and that “what we have seen is intelligence suggesting a desire to carry out more attacks.”
The official and others stressed that U.S. spy agencies have not seen evidence that a specific plot has been set in motion, instead describing the al-Qaeda planning as broad and “aspirational.”
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/al-qaeda-affiliate-sets-sights-on-additional-attacks-in-north-africa-intelligence-officials-say/2013/01/31/406c8638-6bd1-11e2-bd36-c0fe61a205f6_story.html
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