Excerpts: Putin pledges support for Syria's Assad. ISIS plotting terrible UK
attacks. Palestinian hunger striker to be freed.IS kills 3.000 in Syria in
year.Israel stops Gaza bound vessel. Lebanon/Israel maritime border June 29,
2015

+++SOURCE:Al Arabiya News 29 June’15:”Putin pledges support for Syria’s
Assad”, Associated Press

SUBJECT: Putin pledges support for Syria’s Assad

FULL TEXT:Russian President Vladimir Putin in a surprise meeting with the
Syrian foreign minister has pledged his support for Syrian President Bashar
Assad.

Syria's crisis, which began in March 2011, has killed more than 220,000
people. Russia has been seen as a key to a peaceful solution.

Russia has previously rebuffed suggestions that Assad's resignation could
help put an end to the war.

Russian news agencies on Monday[29 June] quoted Putin as telling Syrian
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem that Russia's support for "Syria, the
Syrian leadership and the Syrian people remains unchanged."

Putin also called on other countries in the Middle East to help Syria fight
armed Islamic factions that now control parts of the Syrian capital and
large parts of the city's suburbs.

+++SOURCE:AlArabya News 29 June’15:”Cameron:ISIS Plotting ‘Terrible UK
Attacks, Reuters

SUBJECT:ISIS plotting ’terrible’ UK attacks

QUOTE:”Cameron:’We must be more intolerant of intolerance - rejecting anyone
whose views condone the Islamist extremist narrative’ “

FULL TEXT: Prime Minister David Cameron warned on Monday[29 June] that
Islamic State militants based in Syria and Iraq were planning specific
attacks against Britain and posed an existential threat to the West.

Cameron was speaking after an Islamist gunman killed up to 30 British
tourists in an attack last Friday[26 June] that British politicians have
described as the single worst assault on their nationals since the bombing
of the London underground in 2005.

“It is an existential threat because what is happening here is the
perversion of a great religion and the creation of this poisonous death cult
is seducing too many young minds,” Cameron told BBC radio.

“There are people in Iraq and Syria who are plotting to carry out terrible
acts in Britain and elsewhere and as long as ISIL (Islamic State) exists in
those two countries we are at threat,” said Cameron.

Britain’s international terror threat is currently set at “severe,” its
second highest level, and a rung which means an attack is “highly likely.”

Police say they have launched one of their largest counter-terrorism
operations in a decade after the murders in Tunisia.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Cameron signaled he wanted
authorities to take a tougher line against Muslim extremists in Britain to
do more to challenge what he said were their unacceptable views.

“We must be more intolerant of intolerance - rejecting anyone whose views
condone the Islamist extremist narrative

+++SOURCE:Naharnet (Lebanon) 29 June ’15:”Lawyer: Israel to Free Palestinian
Hunger Strike Detainee”,Agence FrancePresse
SUBJECT:Palestinian hunger striker to be freed
FULL TEXT:Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan ended a 56-day hunger strike on
Sunday[29 June after Israel agreed to release him, his lawyer and the
Palestinian Prisoners Club announced.Adnan, 37, has been in prison for a
year under administrative detention, which allows imprisonment without
charge for renewable periods of six months indefinitely, and his case had
been at the heart of concerns in the occupied Palestinian
territories.Officials and activists had recently sounded the alarm, warning
that he could die "at any moment".

"Khader Adnan ended his hunger strike last night, after an agreement was
reached to release him on July 12," his lawyer Jawad Boulos said, adding
that doctors at the Israeli hospital he was transferred to were considered
ways to start feeding him.In a statement, the Palestinian Prisoners Club
also confirmed that Mr Adnan had broken his hunger strike.

Adnan was arrested a year ago, shortly after the kidnapping and murder of
three young Israelis, which led to a wave of arrests of hundreds of
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

He had previously carried out a hunger strike that lasted 66 days in 2012 to
protest against his detention. He was released at the end of the strike,
during which he had ingested vitamins and salt.

This time, he refused to swallow anything except water.

The Palestinian government had warned it held Israel responsible for his
fate, while the Israeli government in mid June relaunched the process of
instating a law that would allow prisoners to be force-fed when their lives
are in danger.

The Palestinian leadership submitted a report to the International Criminal
Court last week that included the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in
Israeli jails.





+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon)29 June ’15:”IS Executes over 3.000 inSyria in
Year-Long Caliphate’ “, Agence France Presse
SUBJECT:IS kills 3,000 in Syria in year
FULL TEXT”:The Islamic State group has executed more than 3,000 people in
Syria, including hundreds of civilians, in the year since it declared its
self-described "caliphate," a monitor said on Sunday[29 June].

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring
Syria's conflict, said it had documented 3,027 executions by IS since June
29, 2014.

Among those executed are 1,787 civilians, including 74 children, said the
Observatory.

Members of Sunni Shaitat tribe account for around half of the civilians
murdered.

IS killed 930 members of the clan in Deir Ezzor last year after they rose up
against the extremist Sunni Muslim group.

The toll also includes recent mass killings by IS in the Syrian Kurdish town
of Kobane, which the jihadist group re-entered briefly this week after being
expelled in January.

The monitor said it had counted at least 223 executions in the border town
this week.

The Observatory also documented 216 IS executions of rival rebel factions
and Kurdish fighters, as well as the executions of nearly 900 regime forces.

IS has also executed 143 of its own members it accused of crimes including
spying, many of them captured as they were trying to desert the group, the
Observatory said.

And at least 8,000 IS militants have been killed in battles and U.S.-led air
strikes, added the monitor.

IS emerged in Syria in 2013, growing from al-Qaida's one-time Iraq affiliate
and initially seeking to merge with al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate al-Nusra
Front.

When al-Nusra refused the merger, the two groups become rivals, and IS went
on to announce its "caliphate" in territory in Syria and Iraq last year,
proclaiming its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "Caliph Ibrahim".



+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 29 June ’15:”Army:”Israel Navy Seizes ship
Seeking to Break Gaza Blockade”, Agence France Presse
SUBJECT: Israel stops activist Gaza bound vessel

QUOTE:” the navy did not use force”

FULL TEXT:Israeli naval forces boarded and took over an activist vessel
seeking to break the Gaza blockade, and were escorting it to an Israeli port
early Monday, the military said, saying that the navy did not use force.

"In accordance with international law, the Israeli Navy advised the vessel
several times to change course," it said in a statement. "Following their
refusal the Navy visited and searched the vessel in international waters in
order to prevent their intended breach of the maritime blockade of the Gaza
Strip."

"The forces have reported that use of force was unnecessary, and that the
process was uneventful," it added. "The vessel is currently being escorted
to Ashdod Port and is expected to arrive within 12-24 hours."

A military spokeswoman confirmed to AFP that the vessel was the
Swedish-flagged Marianne of Gothenburg, part of the so-called Freedom
Flotilla III -- a convoy of four ships carrying pro-Palestinian activists
including Arab-Israeli lawmaker Basel Ghattas, Tunisia's former president
Moncef Marzouki and at least one European lawmaker.

There was no immediate word on the other three ships, which a reporter on
the Marianne had said on Sunday[28 June] were sailing some way behind it.

"This flotilla is nothing but a demonstration of hypocrisy and lies that is
only assisting the Hamas terrorist organisation and ignores all of the
horrors in our region," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday[29
June] in a statement congratulating the Israeli forces involved.

"Preventing entry by sea was done in accordance with international law and
even received backing from a committee of the U.N. Secretary General," he
said.



+++SOURCE:Naharnet (Lebanon) 29 June ’15:”U.S.Energy Envoy to Visit Beirut
after Joint Stance on Maratime Dispute with Israel”, Naharnet Newsdesk

SUBJECT:Lebanon/Israel maritime border

QUOTE:”The U.S. ha offered to mediate between the sides”

FULL TEXT:A top U.S. official is expected to visit Beirut to discuss with
top Lebanese officials the demarcation of the maritime border with Israel,
an issue which was thoroughly discussed by Prime Minister Tammam Salam and
Speaker Nabih Berri over the weekend.

Amos Hochstein, who serves as the Special Envoy and Coordinator for
International Energy Affairs leading the Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR) at
the U.S. Department of State, will travel to Beirut this week.

His visit would come against the backdrop of talks that Berri has held with
Salam, al-Mustaqbal bloc leader MP Fouad Saniora and Foreign Minister Jebran
Bassil.

The officials have agreed to form a committee of experts which informed
Washington and the United Nations that Lebanon holds onto the demarcation of
its maritime border under the supervision of the U.N.

They also rejected any Israeli aggression on Lebanon's maritime and oil
rights.

Lebanon and Israel are bickering over a maritime zone that consists of about
854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves there could generate
billions of dollars.

Lebanese officials have continuously warned that Israel's exploration of new
offshore gas fields near Lebanese territorial waters means the Jewish state
is siphoning some of Lebanon's crude oil.

The U.S. had offered to mediate between the sides in an attempt to reach a
solution.

Beirut argues that a maritime map it submitted to the U.N. is in line with
an armistice accord drawn up in 1949, an agreement which is not contested by
Israel.
==================
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA