Well-placed contacts within jihadi circles confirm to Asia Times Online that the attackers were in all probability from the North Caucasus, but add that they could have been trained in Pakistan as part of a broad plan that al-Qaeda has been working on for many years - to stir unrest across Central Asia. The insiders who spoke to Asia Times Online point out that Monday's attack could signal a new salvo in this battle. The last metro attacks in Moscow were in 2004, when 40 people were killed in two separate incidents.

The al-Qaeda vision is to use the separatist struggle in Chechnya as a rallying point for a broader fight against Russia and its allies in Central Asia. In this new war it is envisaged that Chechens will be joined by, among others, ethnic communities of Uzbeks, Uyghurs and Tajiks under one front to establish an Islamic emirate of Khurasan.

As top al-Qaeda ideologues see it, the map of ancient Khurasan (comprising the present Central Asian republics, parts of Afghanistan, parts of Iran and parts of Pakistan) would be revived. Victory here would then lead to the"end-of-time battles" in the Middle East.

It appears that the training may have been done in Pakistan:

Asia Times Online has written how control of all foreign fighters in North Waziristan and South Waziristan was generally in the hands of Arabs, who are astute and trained commanders. (See The Pakistani road to German terror) For example, Abu Nasir commands the Uyghurs and Pakistanis; Abu Akash looks after the Uzbeks and Tajiks while Abu Hanifah takes care of Turkish Kurds, Bosnians and Chechens.

After 2007, foreign fighters began to arrive in Pakistan in increasing numbers as al-Qaeda had consolidated its position in the tribal border areas. Most of the jihadis came from Turkey, where there are large Chechen and Uzbek communities.

After mid-2009, the fighters were able to travel through Iran as al-Qaeda struck a deal with the Iranian Jundallah militant group to allow them transit through restive Sistan-Balochistan province in the southwest. The fighters were also able to return via the same route.

Conceivably, this was the route taken by Monday's suicide bombers after receiving training in the al-Qaeda camps that dot the border areas.

So, neither poverty nor emptying part of Jerusalem of Jews would make any difference. Jihadists have their own agenda and the sooner the rest of the world to come to terms with that fact the better.

Iran: Wife of late dissident cleric, Ayatollah Montazeri, passes away

Their (she stood at his side) supporters used the funeral to raise their voices -

The result?

30 Iranian mourners arrested in Qom

MSM will not tell you but Iran emerged as the top journalist jailer in the world and her journalist deserve that name unlike Western ones that tow the administration line.

Journalists have become a prime target in an Iranian government crackdown on the opposition following last June's disputed presidential election, with 52 of them currently held — making Iran the top jailer of journalists in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The wave of arrests, which has only accelerated recently, has sent a chill through journalists in Iran at a time when the opposition is struggling to maintain its challenge against the government in the face of a heavy crackdown on pro-reform figures.

In response, a sort of"underground" journalism has emerged, said Reza Valizadeh, 32, who used to work for the state-run radio and television but who fled the country amid the postelection crackdown.

"We have a kind of guerrilla journalists, who wear masks, have no names, write under pseudonyms and send e-mails without mentioning their real names to news outlets outside Iran, or publish in weblogs with pseudonyms," said Valizadeh, who now lives in Paris."A very, very bitter and black period awaits journalists," he told The Associated Press.

The at least 52 journalists now in Iranian jails range from freelance reporters to writers for opposition blogs and newspapers and even several for government-owned media, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists wrote in a report released Tuesday. Seven of them were imprisoned before the June election.

Eleven of those in prison were arrested in February, according to CPJ — and the total number does not include 50 other journalists who were arrested since the election and were since released on bail.

At least a hundred journalists have fled the country, at least 80 of them are in neighboring Turkey.

Charges against the detainees have been vague in most cases, CPJ said, such as"propagation against the regime," insulting authorities, and disrupting public order, while many other cases are shrouded in secrecy, without even formal charges being disclosed.

Some have received prison sentences of up to six years, lashes, internal exile and lifetime bans on writing and other social and political activities. At least two face heresy charges that, upon conviction, would bring the death penalty.

"I understand the price I have to pay," one of the journalists on the CPJ list, Kouhyar Goodarzi, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press shortly before he was picked up by Iranian security forces in December.

He said in the e-mail that he was willing to risk"imprisonment, torture, pressures of interrogation and solitary confinement ... in pursuit of my precious goals."

Although no formal charges have been laid against Goodarzi, he has since told his family that interrogators have mentioned"moharebeh," a vague charge that literally means"waging war" against God and normally carries a death sentence under Iranian law, as well as propaganda against the system through interviews with foreign media and participation in illegal gatherings. "Iran is entering a state of permanent media repression, a situation that is not only appalling but also untenable," said a statement by CPJ quoting its Executive Director Joel Simon."The Iranian government will eventually lose the war against information, but we are saddened every day that our colleagues are paying such a terrible price."

The crackdown is an extension of the wave of arrests that Iran has carried out in a bid to crush the opposition movement, which carried out widespread protests claiming that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in the June election was fraudulent. Hundreds have been detained

Part of the aim appears to be to shut down information about the opposition movement. A number of protesters and activists have been jailed in part for talking to foreign press. Several pro-reform newspapers have been shut down — including the Etemaad daily and Irandokht weekly in March, as well as a business journal critical of government policies.

Currently, China is the world's second largest jailer of journalists, with 24 in prison, followed by Cuba, with 22. The number of jailed journalists is the highest CPJ has recorded in a single country since December 1996, when it documented 78 imprisonments in Turkey.

Another of those on the CPJ list is Shiva Nazar Ahari, who has been jailed twice in the last nine months. The second time, she and Goodarzi were detained as they were on their way to the holy city of Qom on a bus to attend the funeral of dissident cleric Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri in late December.

"We don't know what the charges against her are," her mother, Shahrzad Kariman, said in a telephone interview from Tehran."I haven't been able to speak to anyone, not to the judge. We don't know anything right now. Her lawyer hasn't had access to her files either."

She said when she last saw her daughter in a prison visit two weeks ago, she told her interrogators had said she faces 19 charges but did not say what they were. Ahari spent the first 60 days of her detention in solitary confinement but was moved to another ward about two weeks ago where she shares a cell with another prisoner, Kariman said.

With the coming of the Iranian New Year on March 20,"the family will be together. We would like to celebrate with her," Kariman said.

Fariborz Soroush, 37, who worked for the U.S.-sponsored Radio Farda and was jailed twice for his work, said reporters who write on sports, the economy, social and cultural issues are not spared either these days. They are being summoned to the Intelligence Ministry, interrogated and even jailed.

He left Iran in September, six days after being released. He's now in France.

Valizadeh, the former state TV journalist in exile as well, says the increase in arrests likely indicates interrogators are trying to get information on reporters now working anonymously and underground.

"The detainees may give away information about friends and colleagues under torture," said Valizadeh."This is what the authorities are looking for."

SOME REMEMBER

GEORGE MITCHELL: … So what we got was a moratorium, ten months, far less than what was requested, but more significant than any action taken by any previous government of Israel for the 40 years that settlement enterprise has existed. …

CHARLIE ROSE: And you and Secretary Clinton praised Prime Minister Netanyahu for agreeing to that.

MITCHELL: Yes.

ROSE: It does not include East Jerusalem. There’ve been announcement in the last 48 hours of new settlement construction in East Jerusalem where the Palestinians want to make their capital.

MITCHELL: Yes.

ROSE: And it’s in the midst of Palestinians.

MITCHELL: … But for the Israelis, what they’re building in is in part of Israel.

Now, the others don’t see it that way. So you have these widely divergent perspectives on the subject. Our view is let’s get into negotiations. Let’s deal with the issues and come up with the solution to all of them including Jerusalem which will be exceedingly difficult but, in my judgment, possible.

The Israelis are not going to stop settlements in, or construction in East Jerusalem. They don’t regard that as a settlement because they think it’s part of Israel. …

ROSE: So you’re going to let them go ahead even though no one recognizes the annexation?

MITCHELL: You say “Let them go ahead.” It’s what they regard as their country. They don’t say they’re letting us go ahead when we build in Manhattan.

Please do not believe he is beating up on Israel in order to garner Arab support for taking on Iran. The opposite is true. The Sunni Arab states first priority is stopping a nuclear Shia Iran, a preoccupation Obama administration's mouth piece, Tom Friedman, characterizes as"obsessive." Indeed, nothing would delight the Arabs more than Israel taking out Iran's nuclear weapons. Israel is used as a scapegoat to atone for doing nothing nothing about Iran.

The most ridiculous aspect of this policy is that it is self defeating. As the Russians have more pull in Iran, Arab states have a good reason to down grade their relations with the US in favor of Russia.

Recent Russians opinion polls reveal that the American frantic efforts to appease Russia failed miserably. Not only does Putin do his best to sabotage US foreign policy goals but more and more Russians dislike and dismiss the West in general and Obama's America. So much for reset buttons and"smart" diplomacy.

The ever useful Johnson's Russia List includes this eye opening article from the March 26, issue of Vremya Novostei by Natalia Rozhkova:

MORE AND MORE RUSSIANS DISTRUST THE WEST AND PARTICULARLY THE UNITED STATES

Opinion polls conducted by the Levada-Center show that the Russians become increasingly less susceptible to criticism from the West. Instead, most respondents believe that Russia has to defend itself from NATO. Figures compiled over the years and finally published by sociologists indicate that Russians' trust in Western partners is ebbing.

Number of the respondents confident that Russia should heed Western criticism of its foreign and domestic policy dropped from 46% in February 2007 to 42% in February this year. On the contrary, the respondents claiming that this criticism ought to be ignored numbered 38% then and 45% this year. Considering that the respondents who did not know what to say to the question numbered 16% then and 13% earlier this year, it stands to reason to assume that some of them opted to join the"ignore'em" group.

Attitude toward NATO underwent even greater changes. Forty- three percent respondents in January 2003 thought that Russia ought to cooperate with the Alliance in the interests of common security. In February 2010, this group numbered only 26%. The group confident that Russia must concentrate on prevention of NATO's expansion and form alliances of its own increased from 14% to 25%. Faith in neutrality and non-alignment meanwhile increased from 22% to 37%. Number of the respondents assuming that Russia should join NATO has remained unchanged (3-5%).

Neither are the Russians particularly endeared to the United States. The reload presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama seems to be frustrating Russian general public to an ever greater degree. In February 2010, 73% Russians called the United States world's number one aggressor and Russia's likeliest potential enemy. (Three years ago, they numbered 75%.) In the meantime, faith in rapprochement with the United States dropped from 24% three years ago to 14% this February. Thirty-six percent actually said that Russia should stay away from the United States.

In other words, most Russians regard the United States as an enemy, a country Russia should remain politely neutral to and stay away from. Mostly pro-American are men aged 25-29 whose mentality was shaped by the years of the perestroika. Noticeably less friendly toward the United States are the Russians aged 55 and more who grew up during the Cold War.

It is fair to add that the West is mostly dismissed by the Russians aged 40-55 (49%), with college or university diplomas (52%), impressive income (50%), and residents of Moscow and other major cities (51% and 52%). Respondents with technical education (47%), the poor (47%), and villagers (48%) are more likely to heed criticism from abroad. These figures show that the social strata where representatives of the Russian middle class might be found are considerably less supportive of Western values than domestic democrats like to pretend. As for the Russians who are wealthy, their respect for the opinion of foreign countries keeps dwindling.

Ralph Peters, Bam's triple-diplo-whammy day

Barry Rubin, White House Ignores Iran's Help to al-Qaida in Its Passion over Jerusalem Apartments

Melanie Phillips, Moral Blindness – and Truth and Justice

Jackson Diehl, Obama and Netanyahu pointless poison

Nile Gardiner, Obama's Humiliation of Israel is a disgrace

Alex Grobman, Enabling Arabs

Eytan Gilboa, Obama's Pressure Will Backfire

Jonathan Spyer, A reality too terrible to admit

Joel C. Rosenberg, Netanyahu stands his ground

William A. Jacobson, We are all Bibi Netanyahu Now

Thank G-d!

The following is less of a satire than I would have liked. I googled it. Here is Gerald Steinberg's take on it. Try to smile:

This year, in reciting the Passover story and Exodus from Egypt, I suggest extending the discussion to include stories that might have been featured in newspapers, blogs, and nightly news broadcasts of 4,000 years ago (give or take a few centuries).

In this not-so-imaginary world, the headlines and video clips highlight stark images of blood flowing in the Nile and the devastation from frogs, boils, locusts and other plagues. The BBC sends a team of reporters to document the devastation in Egypt for a 10-part series – one for each plague. Editorials attack pro-Israelite conspirators, and NPR features moving interviews with carefully chosen Egyptian victims, reached in their suddenly servant-less Cairo villas.

These media stories are accompanied by United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions condemning the Israelites for brutal violations of international law and the disproportionate use of force. (European diplomats, are seen squirming awkwardly in their seats and wagging their fingers at the Israelite delegation.) In parallel, the leaders of non-governmental superpowers and allegedly moral watchdogs, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, hold press conferences and give sage-sounding interviews to voice their condemnations, while demanding independent investigations and prosecution of Moses.

HRW’s Middle East division publishes glossy research reports filled with Egyptian eyewitness testimony and characterizing each of the 10 plagues as collective punishment, a war crime on an unprecedented scale. Ken Roth's ancestor helps his good buddy (an early Richard Goldstone) in getting appointed to head a committee that collects all of these NGO claims into a United Nations report for use in the case against Moses, Aaron and the 70 Israelite leaders.

Nowhere in these reports is there any mention of the almost 400 years of slavery and brutal treatment that preceded the plagues and march to freedom, with little more than hard crackers for food. And Pharoah's order to drown the firstborn boys is patronizingly excused as the exercise of a"right of resistance" by victims of colonialism. Instead, in this narrative, the Israelites are presented as foreign occupiers who conspired with Joseph to steal the land of Goshen from the natives. The record of failed negotiations, which could have ended the conflict peacefully, is completely erased, as are Pharoah’s trail of broken promises (peace breakthroughs of the time) to let the Israelites go.

On university campuses, NGO activists mark Israelite Apartheid Week (actually two weeks, but who pays attention to such details?). Frogs and red water are brought in to simulate the suffering caused by the plagues, and mock trials are held, which start with the conclusion that Moses is guilty. Speakers at conferences and mass rallies call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions to punish and isolate the Israelites.

Then, as now, these condemnations and activities are supported by a small but noisy group of apologetic Israelites with an exaggerated sense of self-importance and the belief that a right-wing conspiracy led by Moses is responsible for all of the problems. Through grants provided by donors to the New Israelite Fund, these “independent voices” join the demands that the Israelites return to Egypt immediately, apologize and provide compensation for damages.

And these problems did not end with the parting of the Red Sea, or Sea of Reeds, and the drowning of Pharoah’s army (another war crime) in hot pursuit of the runaway slaves.

Later, in the desert, as the Israelites prepared for returning to their homeland in the Land of Israel, first Moses and then, 39 years later, Joshua dispatched groups of spies. The biblical text provides many details of these complex intelligence operations, including the role of double agents, but it doesn’t describe the nature of the passports they used. Today, this action would have led to self-righteous denunciations about the invasion of Jericho’s sovereignty, and calls for more investigations.

Thus, as our generation struggles for justice, like our ancestors, the Passover story and the Exodus remain very relevant. The names and details may change, but the overall situation has a great deal to teach us, 4,000 years later.

Chag sameach v'kasher,

Gerald Steinberg, NGO Monitor and Bar Ilan University

Seven fat years followed by seven lean is the biblical standard for booms and busts. It might be tempting then to ask what sort of famine lies ahead for the US. One of the more remarkable facts about recent history is that, for all the exuberance of stock and property markets, the last seven years were a rather thin time for the American economy.

From the trough of the 2002 recession – as measured by the National Bureau of Economic Research – to that in 2009, real US gross domestic product grew on average only 1.7 per cent a year. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta calculates that only straight after the second world war, when the economy shrank in real terms, has growth been weaker in any trough-to-trough period since 1933.

More concerning for the prospects of recovery, however, is the recent gap between real consumption and income growth, also the second worst on record. For seven years, real spending grew by an average 2 per cent a year, while incomes grew at half that pace. A steady decline in the personal savings rate to a sub-1 per cent low in 2008 helped to keep shoppers busy. Now, however, saving is again rising while high unemployment is keeping wages in check.

Furthermore, during the 1991 to 2001 period, when real economic growth was almost twice as fast, US inflation declined from 6 per cent to almost 1. As studies suggest a fall in inflation can permanently boost output, the great moderation itself helped to keep economic growth ticking over. Unfortunately, with inflation now conquered and falling prices the great worry instead, this trick cannot be repeated.

So even if the US does see a “V”-shaped recovery, sustaining growth will require a top-notch performance. But for the past seven years, American consumers and businesses had the benefit of tax cuts, expanding credit, low interest rates and inflation and massive stimulus spending. There may not be much milk left in the cow.

This is hardly news for Americans. 79% tell pollsters that U.S. Economy Could Collapse under the combined weight of the debt and big government.

The latest Fox News poll finds that 79 percent of voters think it’s possible the economy could collapse, including large majorities of Democrats (72 percent), Republicans (84 percent) and independents (80 percent).

Just 18 percent think the economy is"so big and strong it could never collapse."

Moreover, 78 percent of voters believe the federal government is"larger and more costly" than it has ever been before, and by nearly three-to-one more voters think the national debt (65 percent) is a greater potential threat to the country’s future than terrorism (23 percent). At the same time the number saying the White House doesn’t have a plan for the economy has increased from 53 percent in July to 62 percent in the new poll. That includes almost all Republicans (88 percent), two-thirds of independents (67 percent), as well as a third of Democrats (33 percent).

Even fewer people think Democrats in Congress (24 percent) and Republicans in Congress (16 percent) have clear plans to fix the economy.

Recovery depends on Main Street writes Obama supporter, Robert Reich. But main street is spooked by unknowable health care costs and the prospect of new taxes and all Obama does is print money and give it to the rich:

Optimists also point to rising stock prices that supposedly make consumers feel wealthier. But the net worth of most Americans is tied up in their homes, which are worth less than in 2007. The “wealth effect” is relevant to the richest 10 per cent of Americans whose net worth is mostly in stocks and bonds. The top 10 per cent accounted for about half of total national income in 2007, but they represent only 40 per cent of total spending. A sustainable recovery cannot be based on the top 10 per cent.

Unemployment or fear of it continues to haunt the population. That is a major reason consumer confidence is still dropping. There is also the extra need to save as boomers face retirement. Given all this, it is sensible for Americans to continue holding back from the malls, but this means a painfully slow recovery. American consumers account for 70 per cent of the total demand for goods and services in the US economy, and a sizeable chunk of world demand.

The economy shows signs of improvement largely because the government is spending huge sums and the Fed is essentially printing even more money. But where will demand come from when the stimulus is over and the Fed tightens? That question hangs over the economy like a dense cloud. Until there is an answer, a sustainable recovery for any other than America’s largest corporations, Wall Street and the wealthy is a mirage.

In other words, Atlas is shrugging with predictable consequences.