Mideast Turmoil Increases After Arab League Suspends Syria

* Iran blames Israel’s Mossad for massive explosion on Saturday
* Syria’s Assad sanctions mob attacks on embassies of Turkey and Qatar
* Jordan’s King Abdullah says that Assad must step down
* Furious Turkey demands apology for attacks against its embassy
* Syrian athletes will boycott Arab games in Qatar
* Spain appears next in line to be attacked in bond market
* China claims new territory in the South China Sea
* Germany shocked by a new form of Neo-Nazi terrorism

Iran blames Israel’s Mossad for massive explosion on Saturday

Iranians carry honorary coffins and pictures of Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam in a funeral procession (Reuters)

Seventeen personnel of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed by two huge explosions that occurred on Saturday at an IRGC munitions depot about 30 kilometers west of Tehran, as we reported two days ago. Among the victims was Major General Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam, considered to be an architect of Iran’s missile program, a man so important that the funeral was attended by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran has officially declared that the explosions were an accident, but some investigators now believe that they were deliberate sabotage by agents of Israel, aimed at halting Iran’s missile program.Guardian

Syria’s Assad sanctions mob attacks on embassies of Turkey and Qatar

When the Arab League “suspended” Syria on Saturday, it seemed like a relatively empty gesture — they were suspending unnamed Syrian “activities,” and the suspension wouldn’t take effect until Wednesday. However, this has been the League’s most dramatic move since it expelled Egypt in 1979 for signing a peace treaty with Israel, though it was readmitted a decade later. And the new suspension is dramatic enough to be causing a great deal of turmoil among the Arab states. The regime of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad expressed fury at the suspension by sanctioning mob attacks on the Damascus and Latakia embassies of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and France.Day Press (Syria)

Jordan’s King Abdullah says that Assad must step down

Abdullah became Jordan’s leader when his father died, at about the same time that Bashar al-Assad became Syria’s leader when his own father died. So the two leaders have had a close relationship. So it was a surprise on Monday when Jordan’s King Abdullah told the BBC that “If Bashar has the interest of his country [at heart] he would step down.” However, Abdullah expressed concern about the stability of Syria after Assad. “If I were in his shoes, I would step down. I would step down and make sure whoever comes behind me has the ability to change the status quo that we’re seeing.” BBC

Furious Turkey demands apology for attacks against its embassy

After condemning the bloody attacks on protesters in Syria as “state terror [that] the whole world is following with feelings of hatred,” Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arinç said, “Turkey is expecting a formal apology through diplomatic channels,” for the embassy attacks. The statement made Syria the third country after Israel and Armenia that Turkey is expecting an apology from over tensions in bilateral ties. However, Turkey is not planning any immediate unilateral sanctions against Syria in the absence of a U.N. Security Council resolution. Hurriyet

Syrian athletes will boycott Arab games in Qatar

In further retaliation for the Arab League suspension, the Syrian Olympic Committee announced that Syria will boycott the upcoming Arab Games, to take place in Qatar in December. The statement said that the Arab League’s decision to suspend the membership of Syria which founded and supported the organization marks a dark spot in its history, stressing that the conspiracy against Syria aims at subjugating it to the United States and undermining its unity and stability. Day Press News

Spain appears next in line to be attacked in bond market

Spain 10 year bond yield at 6.106% on 14-Nov

EU officials had hoped that new “technocrat” governments in Greece and Italy would restore investor confidence in euro, but there was little sign of that on Monday. Bond yields (interest rates) for Italy initially went down, but they rose again to unsustainable levels. And Spain appears to be next in line to be pressured in the bond market, as its 10-year bond yields also reach unsustainable levels at 6.106%. Spain’s bond yields had reached 6.3% just before the July 21 bailout of Greece, after which they fell sharply to 5%. But now they’re increasing again. Many analysts are saying that the only thing that can save Spain (and the euro) is for the European Central Bank (ECB) to “print money” and use it to purchase massive amounts of Spanish bonds. This step is under consideration, but the Germans oppose it and it apparently violates the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty. Reuters

China claims new territory in the South China Sea

China has claimed new territory less than 50 miles (80 kilometers) from a Philippine province, boosting tensions over potentially resource-rich areas of the South China Sea, but the Philippines has dismissed the claim. Beijing has been asserting its territorial claims more aggressively as its economic and diplomatic muscle has grown. Its new claims are likely to bolster Philippine resolve to seek a U.N. ruling on the long-simmering disputes, which involve China, the Philippines and four other claimants. Among the areas being contested are the Spratlys, a chain of up to 190 islands, reefs, coral outcrops and banks believed to be sitting atop large deposits of oil and natural gas, which many fear could be Asia’s next flash point for conflict. AP

Germany shocked by a new form of Neo-Nazi terrorism

36-year-old female neo-Nazi Beate Zschäpe is alleged to have set fire to her apartment building to destroy evidence (Spiegel)

German police have stumbled across evidence of a case that is unprecedented in the history of postwar Germany: a series of murders apparently committed by neo-Nazi killers, stemming from a white-hot rage against foreigners, and yet committed with such ice-cold precision that it took investigators an entire decade to finally track down the group. During the decade they murdered and injured dozens of Turks and Greeks, and funded their activities through bank robberies. There is no precedent in German postwar history for an underground right-wing combat group that funds itself through bank robberies and plans and commits deadly attacks, defying the authorities’ attempts to stop them using manhunts, informants and state-of-the-art surveillance technology. In fact, this sort of terrorism has until now only been associated with a group operating on the other side of the political spectrum, the Red Army Faction (RAF)

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