Headlines:

• Free Syrian Army Rebels Defect to Jabhat al-Nusra
• Karzai: America Wants to Keep Nine Bases in Afghanistan
• Pakistani Court: US Drone Strikes Illegal, Government Should Stop Them
• Burma Government Accused of Participating in Genocide

Details:

Free Syrian Army Rebels Defect to Jabhat al-Nusra:

Syria's main armed opposition group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), is losing fighters and capabilities to Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist organisation that is emerging as the best-equipped, financed and motivated force fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime. Evidence of the growing strength of al-Nusra, gathered from Guardian interviews with FSA commanders across Syria, underlines the dilemma for the US, Britain and other governments as they ponder the question of arming anti-Assad rebels. John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, said that if negotiations went ahead between the Syrian government and the opposition - as the US and Russia proposed on Tuesday - "then hopefully [arming the Syrian rebels] would not be necessary". Illustrating their plight, FSA commanders say that entire units have gone over to al-Nusra while others have lost a quarter or more of their strength to them recently. "Fighters feel proud to join al-Nusra because that means power and influence," said Abu Ahmed, a former teacher from Deir Hafer who now commands an FSA brigade in the countryside near Aleppo. "Al-Nusra fighters rarely withdraw for shortage of ammunition or fighters and they leave their target only after liberating it," he added. "They compete to carry out martyrdom [suicide] operations." Abu Ahmed and others say the FSA has lost fighters to al-Nusra in Aleppo, Hama, Idlib and Deir al-Zor and the Damascus region. Ala'a al-Basha, commander of the Sayyida Aisha Brigade, warned the FSA Chief of Staff General Salim Idriss about the issue last month. Basha said 3,000 FSA men have joined al-Nusra in the last few months, mainly because of a lack of weapons and ammunition. FSA fighters in the Banyas area were threatening to leave because they did not have the firepower to stop the massacre in Bayda, he said.

Karzai: America Wants to Keep Nine Bases in Afghanistan:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed on Thursday to wring concessions from the United States in negotiations to sign a security pact, saying Washington wanted to retain nine military bases in the country. After more than 11 years of US-led military intervention in Afghanistan, the two countries are hammering out a deal to allow a limited US troop presence to remain after the international coalition leaves next year. The size of the "residual" force has not been agreed, with numbers ranging from 2,500 to 12,000, according to US officials, as Washington winds down a war that has become deeply unpopular at home. "We are in very serious and delicate negotiations with America," Karzai said. "America has got its demands, Afghanistan too has its own demands, and its own interests... They want nine bases across Afghanistan. "Our conditions are that the US intensify efforts in the peace process, strengthen Afghanistan's security forces, provide concrete support to the economy - power, roads and dams - and provide assistance in governance. "If these are met, we are ready to sign the security pact," he told the audience during a speech at Kabul University. US officials have reportedly said that if 6,000 troops were kept in Afghanistan after 2014, only two bases, in the capital Kabul and at Bagram airfield, would be maintained. The US has avoided revealing details about its plans in Afghanistan after 2014 and Karzai's claim that a total of nine US bases may be kept open are likely to intensify pressure on President Barack Obama. Immunity from Afghan law for the remaining US troops is likely to be a key demand from Obama, and Karzai has previously said the issue may have to be decided by a gathering of tribal elders. Karzai said he would allow bases in Kabul, Bagram, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad, Gardez, Kandahar, Helmand, Shindand and Herat if Afghanistan's security and economic conditions were met. "We agree to give you the bases. We see their staying in Afghanistan beyond 2014 in the interests of Afghanistan as well as NATO," he said.

Pakistani Court: US Drone Strikes Illegal, Government Should Stop Them:

A high court in Pakistan has ruled that US drone strikes in the country's tribal belt should be considered war crimes and directed the government to use force to "protect the right to life" of its citizens. The Peshawar High Court has recommended the Pakistani government advance a resolution against the attacks in the United Nations. The court issued its verdict on the CIA-run air strikes in response to four petitions charging the attacks killed civilians and caused "collateral damage." Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan heard the petitions, and ruled that drone strikes on sovereign Pakistani territory were illegal, inhumane and a violation of the UN charter on human rights. "The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future," the court said on Thursday, according to the Press Trust of India. Khan also asked Pakistan's foreign ministry to file a resolution against the attacks in the UN. The court also recommended that if the US rejects these findings in the UN, Pakistan should break off relations with Washington: "If the US vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the US." The Pakistani case was filed last year by the Foundation for Fundamental Rights, a charity based in Islamabad, on behalf of the families of victims killed in a drone attack on a tribal Jirga, including more than 50 tribal elders and a number of government officials. According to a report submitted by political officials of North Waziristan Agency, 896 Pakistani residents of the region were killed in the last five years ending December 2012, and 209 were seriously injured. A report by the South Waziristan Agency showed that 70 drone strikes were carried out in the last five years ending June 2012, in which 553 people were killed and 126 injured. "In view of the established facts, undeniable in nature, under the UN Charter and Conventions, the people of Pakistan have every right to ask the security forces either to prevent such strikes by force or to shoot down intruding drones," the court verdict said.

Burma Government Accused of Participating in Genocide:

The Burmese government is conducting a concerted campaign of genocide against its Muslim minorities. Buddhist monks and the state are collaborating in violent attacks on Burma's Muslims, the academic and activist Maung Zarni said during a discussion on the recent violence against Muslims in Burma at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand in Bangkok on Thursday. "It's nothing short of genocide," he said. "Genocide is a process that unfolds; it's a virus that spreads quickly into a contagion that cannot be stopped. What has happened in Burma in the last two years is evil, vile and depraved," he said. The genocide in Burma is now on the scale of Pol Pot's Cambodia, he added. "And it won't stop until all the country's Muslims and Rohingyas are eliminated." These are challenging times, Burmese Muslim leader Myo Win said. He runs an education NGO called Smile in Rangoon, and came from Burma especially to attend the seminar to provide first-hand testimony of the situation facing Muslims in Burma. "It's not a communal or sectarian conflict, it's a one-sided, targeted and often deadly attack against Muslims, under the purview of state authorities," he said. "Community leaders are spreading hostility and hate against Muslims, through the distribution of pamphlets and propaganda ...verbal abuse, harassment and violence," he explained. Inside Burma there is a state of fear among the country's Muslims, he said. The violence against the Rohingyas in Arakan last year and then the attacks on Muslims in central Burma have left most Muslim communities feeling vulnerable and scared.

Abu Hashim