Morocco's referendum on reform: Model for Arab Spring? (The Christian Science Monitor)

Rabat, Morocco – Moroccans voted Friday in a referendum on constitutional reforms, amid deep disagreement over whether it represented a new path for reform in a troubled region or another autocrat's hollow bid to diffuse popular discontent.

"I voted yes because this new constitution introduces good changes in the society, without the use of violence," said Marwan Akroum, a company manager who had just emerged from a polling station in the popular Rabat neighborhood of Yacoub Mansour. "I believe this reform is a unique model in the Muslim Arab world."

The proposed changes give more executive power to the prime minister, strengthen the judiciary, stress the importance of gender equality, and recognize Berber as a national language. Yet, critics point out, the changes fall far short of transforming Morocco into a European-style constitutional monarchy, as the opposition wanted.

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"This reform is partial," says Elabadila Chbihna, one of the coordinators of the February 20 protest movement, which boycotted the referendum. "We are not at the vegetable market, negotiating prices. The king cannot propose an 80 percent democracy."

With the new constitution, King Mohammed VI – whose family has reigned for three centuries – looses his "sacred" status. Yet he remains the Amir al Mu'minin, the Commander of the Faithful, thus maintaining power over the religious establishment. He also retains control over the defense and security forces. He can still impose emergency laws. While the prime minister can appoint all ministers, the king has veto power on those appointments and all new laws need to be confirmed by him.

"The power remains concentrated in the hands of the monarch," says Othmane Baqa, member of the Conference democratique du Travail, a workers' union with the February 20 movement. He supported the boycott, he said, because the king did not take into consideration proposals submitted by the opposition.

"The reforms were imposed by the monarchy, there was not a constitutional assembly composed by members of the civil society," he said, sitting in the headquarters of the union in central Rabat.

Praise for king's 'clear commitment to democracy'King Mohammed VI announced the reforms, meant to curb the power of the 300-year-old dynasty, in an historic March 9 speech as protests were sweeping his country and the broader Arab world.

Some see the proposed reforms as opening a new chapter of the Arab Spring in which the regime, with no bullets or teargas, introduces changes itself.

The European Union said the reform initiative "signals a clear commitment to democracy." Prominent Western analysts have hailed the changes as a new beginning.

"What's so important about what the Moroccan king has done is that he is forging a different model of change in the Arab world," wrote Kenneth M. Pollack recently for the Washington-based Brookings Institution, where he is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Mohammed Ziane, the founder of the Moroccan Liberal Party, supported the reforms with enthusiasm, linking the changes in Morocco with regional events. "This is a beginning," he says on the phone from Casablanca. "Moroccans and the populations of the region finally started thinking about democracy, asking to have more control on their governments."

Why some opposition leaders boycotted the voteBut some opposition leaders were not impressed by the proposed changes, and urged the population to boycott Friday's vote.

Those calling for a boycott came together under the umbrella of the February 20 movement - named for the day of the first anti-regime demonstration.

Similar to the loose-knit coalitions that have led protests in other Arab countries, the movement is made up of young Moroccans, bloggers, Internet activists, small labor unions, some ultra-leftist groups and the Justice and Spirituality Organization, an illegal but tolerated Islamist movement. It has been campaigning against the referendum and organizing protests.

The efforts of the opposition parties were out-muscled though by the campaign for a "yes" vote, which were more organized and widespread.

In every Rabat neighborhood, big posters urged voters to go to the polls; in popular markets banners declared shopkeepers' support for the king; imams in the mosques last Friday urged devotees to go to the polls and the king's smiling face was on the front page of every national magazine. Opposition activists claimed that local and regional associations, under pressure from the government, shuttled people by bus to attend pro-referendum demonstrations in many cities.

There is little doubt in Morocco about the outcome of the referendum: most analysts expect a resounding "yes," thanks at least partly to the monarch's long history of coopting political rivals into alliances with the regime.

So the success of the king's move will be measured not by the result but by voter turnout. The national press agency, MAP, said on Friday afternoon that 60 percent of 13 million registered voters cast ballots, a percentage difficult to confirm independently.

Implementation will be keyThe real challenge for king Mohammed VI starts with the closing of the ballot stations.

"This constitution has potential, it strips the king of a lot of power," said Maati Monjib, a professor of politcal history at Rabat University. "The changes introduced in 1996 in a previous constitutional referendum were never implemented. The future of the reform depends now on the pressure the street can still exert."

The opposition of February 20 has announced it will hold demonstrations every Sunday in the main Moroccan cities.

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Why Greek Tumult Signals the Coming of Europe's Own 'Arab Spring' (Time.com)

Are the youth-led protests rocking Greece and other European countries a sign Arab Spring uprisings have jumped the Mediterranean? Kinda-sorta, say experts watching these movements. They warn that even if democratic systems in Europe can't be compared with the brutally authoritarian regimes under fire in the Arab world, the angry youth on both sides of the Mediterranean share a conviction that existing social structures - and the leaders responsible for them - are simply unable to deliver on their people's aspirations. Getting ahead through playing by the system's rules has become an increasingly remote possibility for many young Europeans, and the result is a growing risk that the explosion of anger on Greece's streets this week will be repeated and with greater intensity, both there and elsewhere.

"This movement is very representative of the tensions all European youth is experiencing," Dominique ReyniE, a political scientist and general secretary of the Paris think tank Foundation for Political Innovation, said in an interview this week with the daily le Parisien. "(Young) Spaniards denounce a society in which they can't get a foothold, and show total defiance for all its institutions. Their reaction breaks with traditional political models, and has no doctrine or platform. The Greeks were already protesting in the same manner. Other very vigorous protest movements will also take place in Europe. This new generation is more combative in political and democratic terms. The current crisis has set these young people to a boil." (See why the Grek government is struggling.)

Of course, the differences in political realities mean Arab autocracies and European democracies can't be fairly compared. And the economic stagnation afflicting many European still represent a level of affluence and opportunity beyond the grasp of under-developed Arab countries - one reason why many still migrate to Europe. Nor is the brutal response to protest in Syria or Libya conceivable in Greece, Spain, or the UK - where recent demonstrations have at times turned violent. Still, despite the difference in circumstances, there's a strong shared feeling among the mobilized publics on both continents that the system fails them. And with their elected leaders incapable of changing the situation, young Europeans are figuring it's time to change the rules of the game.

"We don't have the dictatorships, but it is, in a European context, the Arab Spring moment of people saying they are no longer getting their part of the deal, and telling leaders failing to deliver that things are going to change," says Denis Muzet, president of the Institut MEdiascopie public research organization. "This can be in the form of demonstration - even violent protest in some cases - or in how people vote. In France, we're hearing people not only often say they're planning to vote against ruling conservatives, but then hold whomever wins fully accountable for their actions,and their results. This isn't just about political alternation any more - meaning the left is going to find itself under considerable pressure on clarity and performance if it manages to win elections here next year."

Alienation from the social contract in Europe increases the further one descends the age scale, particularly when it comes to patience with the ballot box as an instrument of change. The recent nearly two-week sit-in by protestors in Madrid wasn't just protesting government austerity measures; young Spaniards were demanding an entirely new political and economic system. That sentiment spread to Portugal, is loudly echoed in Greece, and periodically crops up in elsewhere in Europe. (See photos of Greek protestors clashing with police.)

That radical perspective among younger people on how society is organized may not dissipate once Europe's economies begin to turn around, because a growing portions of young Europeans feel their societies no longer offer them the same prospects for prosperity that their parents had. This despair at having a career - or even an independent life as commonly understood - is not entirely new, and pre-dates the Arab uprisings. But it's both spreading and deepening, prompting younger Europeans to follow the example of their Arab peers and taking to the streets to press for changes in a post-World War II social order that can't accommodate their aspirations. Like the Arab uprisings, unrest among European youths isn't uniform in its expression or duration. ReyniE says the level of despondency and lack of faith in current social systems varies greatly across Europe - higher in southern and eastern European nations, lower in northern countries that began altering their societies and economies years ago in anticipation of changes on the way. But findings in his foundation's recent global study, "2011, World Youths" shows that some commonalities exist across Europe. And those may well gel to create new waves of protest in Europe's near future.

For example, the study showed that while European youths generally felt optimistic about their own individual outlook for the future (a view characteristic of young Americans), they were decidedly more pessimistic about the future of their respective countries (an attitude popular among young Greeks). (See "Germany and France Reach Greece Deal, But Problems Remain.")

Meanwhile, with many European youths having little hope for getting a good, well-paid, career-promising job within what's currently a blocked economic and business set-up, a large portion of them want their country's social models to change. In an unprecedented shift, the survey found that young people no longer want to support social programs and retirement systems for older generations viewed as having sucked all the cream away. Expect more clashes on how Europe's shrinking economic pie is divvied up. Says ReyniE in le Parisien:

The conflict between the generations is going to be very hard. The aging of the population means that older people will mechanically absorb more and more of the collective wealth. Young people will have to pay for that. Just as they'll have to repay the debts that were taken on to finance our social models and current standard of living - a standard they aren't benefiting from themselves. On top of that, older people continue to be assigned the responsibility of leaving little (employment) room for younger people.

Those grievances are quite different from those of the Arab Spring, of course, except in the failure of politicians to offer credible solutions.

"The politicians aren't interested in young people, because they don't understand them," ReyniE says in le Parisien. "But also, from an electoral point of view, young people aren't bothered with because they don't vote. In the last European elections, 80% of the 18 to 24 year-olds abstained".

Be that as it may, with 18 to 24 year-olds on the planet now numbering 1.1 billion - the largest youth population ever since global demographic records have been kept - European politicians may soon find themselves having to deal with "uninteresting" young people decide to step up efforts to make their political differences in protests and street clashes with cops, rather that in the ballot boxes their parents favor.

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Turkey's Role in Arab Spring: Can Erdogan Influence Assad? (Time.com)

On Oct. 13, 2009, the Oncupinar border gate between Turkey and Syria played a starring role in a diplomatic photo op. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Moualem, shook hands, smiled for the cameras and - en route to signing an agreement to end visa requirements between the two countries later that day - lifted the border barrier. The symbolism was lost on no one. Only 11 years earlier, thousands of Turkish troops had massed along the same border, awaiting orders to deploy. Throughout the 1990s, the Syrian government had sheltered Turkey's public enemy No. 1, Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the PKK, the Kurdish terrorist group. If Syria refused to expel him, the Turkish leadership made clear in 1998, then the Turks would march on Damascus. The Syrians flinched. Ocalan was sent packing.

In the years that followed the standoff, Syria and Turkey became close allies. Long-running land and water disputes were either settled or shelved. Trade boomed, from $773 million in 2002 to $2.5 billion in 2010. In April 2009, the two countries held joint military exercises. Just last year, together with Jordan and Lebanon, they signed a free-trade agreement that many Turkish commentators hailed as the dawn of a Middle East Union. (See pictures of the protests in Syria.)

In reaching out to the Syrian regime, Turkey managed to inspire its confidence, says Khaled Khoja, a Turkish-based member of the Damascus Declaration committee, a Syrian opposition group. In 2005, Khoja recalls, Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose government had been accused of orchestrating the assassination of Lebanese President Rafiq Hariri, found himself in a major bind. But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused calls by the U.S. and others to isolate the Syrian regime. Instead, says Khoja, he helped bring Assad's regime in from the cold: "He made Turkey a bridge to Syria." What Turkey got out of all this, more than anything else, says Khoja, was Syria's trust - the kind of trust that allowed it to mediate between Syria and Israel in 2008. This, says Khoja, "was a very good approach."

But, he adds, it was not enough. "Turkey should have pushed Bashar to make reforms in past years," says Khoja. "You cannot have an attitude, an active role, unless you are brave enough to step behind the reforms. You have to say this strongly." Turkey did not. Over the past few years, in the face of Syria's dismal human-rights record and its legacy of authoritarian rule, the government in Ankara has remained silent. If autocrats like Assad were to be prodded into changing course, Turkish officials argued, it would be through diplomacy, not pressure. "We tell our counterparts the importance of being respectful of human rights," Davutoglu once said. "But we don't do it in public." (See "How Syria and Libya Got to Be Turkey's Headaches.")

Turkish officials were wrong to assume that a policy of behind-the-scenes prodding could yield tangible results in Syria, says Walid Saffour, president of the London-based Syrian Human Rights Committee. "All the time they were hearing that the Syrians were going to do so and so," he says. "The Turkish government believed what Bashar and his advisers told [them]. That was a game of deception on the part of the Syrian government."

In recent weeks, with the turmoil across its southern border showing no signs of coming to an end - threatening not only its rapprochement with Syria but also the stability of the entire region - Turkey has gone into emergency mode, with Erdogan regularly on the phone with Assad and top officials, including Davutoglu and an intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, who was dispatched to Damascus. As a senior Western diplomat in Damascus tells TIME, Turkey's backdoor diplomacy might now be the outside world's last remaining chance to persuade Assad to introduce new reforms and avoid more bloodshed. "The Turkish approach allows the Syrians to listen to the outside world's concerns without feeling as if they are being lectured," the diplomat tells TIME, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It allows them to make changes without giving the impression that someone is forcing their hand." (See pictures of tempers flaring across the Middle East.)

Oppositionists like Saffour would prefer for the Turks to align themselves squarely with the demonstrators. "Today Erdogan condemns the killing, the detentions and the repeated massacres," says Saffour, "but he is not blaming Bashar for this." As much as the Turkish leader might want to ensure Assad's survival, he adds, he will soon have to choose between the leadership and the protesters. "The people inside Syria are now calling for a change of regime altogether," says Saffour. "The Turkish stand shouldn't be [opposed to] the stand of the people. If they want to do something, they should support the people, not the regime."

Reached by phone during a visit to Turkey, Riad al-Shaqfa, secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, says he believes Assad can step back from the brink. "The doors of reform always remain open if Bashar is serious in this matter and if the people feel that he is serious about it," al-Shaqfa says through a translator. "To make the reforms does not take much. It took them 15 minutes to amend the constitution so that Bashar could inherit the country from his father. They can issue orders to withdraw the security forces and the tanks from the streets and to the stop bombardment of the people in a matter of hours." However, the outlook is getting bleaker by the day, says al-Shaqfa, who adds, "There can be many initiatives and the Turks are demanding this, but nobody is listening." Khoja sees no room for optimism. "If Bashar is not listening to Turkey," he says, "then he is not listening to anyone."

Piotr Zalewski is the Turkey correspondent for the Polish newsmagazine Polityka. He has contributed to Foreign Policy, the Atlantic.com and the National.

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'Nakba' clashes: Iran, Syria trying to turn Arab Spring fury into attacks on Israel? (The Christian Science Monitor)

Tel Aviv – During nearly four months of turmoil around the Arab world, Israel has tried its best to say little lest the revolutionary fervor morph into anger toward the Jewish state.

But deadly clashes Sunday with Arab demonstrators who challenged Israeli forces at the Lebanese, Syrian, Gazan, and West Bank borders showed it may be difficult for Israel to remain above the fray.

Israeli officials have warned in recent weeks that "radical" Islamist groups and Iran are trying to leverage the unrest in the Middle East to expand their influence and pull Israel into the conflict.

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Now, the unprecedented breadth of Sunday's border protests, which marked the anniversary of Israel’s independence in 1948 – known to Palestinians as the "nakba’’ or "catastrophe" – are likely to strengthen Israel’s anxiety that the so-called Arab Spring will destabilize its neighborhood. And that will make the Jewish state less likely offer concessions for peace, security and political analysts say.

"For decades, the Arab leaders used Israel as an alternative focus. In my view, this is a return to the era of trying to divert internal dissent into attacks against Israel," says Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University. "It is possible that if Egypt and Syria were replaced by more open, pluralist regimes, they would be more focused on dealing with the internal issues, and less capable of diverting the population to targeting Israel, but this is still a long way off.’’

Destabilization ahead of Netanyahu's US visit

The clashes come on the eve of a trip by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US to meet with President Obama and address a joint session of Congress, where he is expected to lay out Israel’s vision of the peace process and how the Jewish state sees the turmoil engulfing its neighbors.

Although there were dozens injured when demonstrators marched toward Israeli positions on the Gaza and the West Bank borders, the Lebanese and Syrian border clashes – which, together, killed at least 10 protesters – risk a destabilization.

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Dozens of Palestinians infiltrated the cease-fire border with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Sunday in the most serious border incident with Syria since a 1974 disengagement agreement monitored by the United Nations.

Did Iran and Syria play a role?

Israeli analysts speculated the incident occurred with the blessing of the Syrian government, but was actually a sign of the weakness of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which has maintained a quiet border for decades.

On Sunday, the chief spokesman of Israel’s military, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, argued that the border protests in Lebanon and Syria bore the "fingerprints of Iranian provocation."

"[Israeli officials] are going to see this as a plot to pull Israel in as a scapegoat. This will not be the first time that many countries have tried to blame things on Israel,’’ says Meir Javedanfar, a Middle East analyst based in Tel Aviv. "Israel needs to be careful in terms of protecting its security, but it has to be careful in how it reacts, because it could hurt its diplomatic position.’’

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Palestinian Border Protests: The Arab Spring Model for Confronting Israel (Time.com)

After more than 100 Palestinians breached Israel's border with Syria on Sunday, knocking down a fence and striding into a village in the Golan Heights, overmatched Israeli security forces scrambled to glean what they could from the protesters who had just, without so much as a sidearm, penetrated farther into the country than any army in a generation.

Under close questioning, the infiltrators closed the intelligence gap with a shrug and one word: Facebook. The operation that had caught Israel's vaunted military and intelligence complex flat-footed was announced, nursed and triggered on the social networking site that has figured in every uprising around the Arab World - and is helping young Palestinians change the terms of their fight against Israel. (See pictures of tempers flaring across the Middle East.)

The headlines Sunday were all about the violence of the day: at least four people were shot dead by Israeli forces on the Syrian fence line, and as many as 10 were killed either by Israeli or Lebanese army gunfire at a similar demonstration on the nearby frontier with southern Lebanon. The death toll, along with the accounts of stone-throwing and tear gas, comport with the familiar narrative of the conflict, one constructed over years of Israel describing efforts to defend itself. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged that narrative on Sunday, arguing that the protesters were undermining the very existence of the State of Israel.

But those closer to events found in the day the makings of a new narrative. The Palestinians in Syria, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian enclaves of Gaza and the West Bank approached Israeli gun positions on Sunday without arms of their own. If some teenagers threw rocks, a protest leader said they had apparently failed to attend the workshops on nonviolence the organizers arranged in what they call a new paradigm for the conflict. The aim, which appears to be building support, aims to re-cast the Palestinian-Israel conflict on the same terms that brought down dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia.

Massive non-violent protests are aimed at winning international sympathy for the Palestinian perspective, and as a result, forcing Israel to pull out of territories its army has occupied since 1967. As the dust settled Sunday, senior Israeli officers acknowledged their vulnerability to the approach, which dovetails with the strategy of Palestinian leaders to ask the UN General Assembly to recognize a Palestininian state in September. (See "A New Palestinian Movement: Young, Networked, Nonviolent.")

"What we saw today was the promo for what we might see in September on the day the United Nations declares a state: Thousands of Palestinians marching toward Israeli checkpoints, Israeli settlements and the fence along the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians coming with their bare hands to demonstrate," a senior Israeli officer tells TIME. "This is a huge problem. Well have to study what happened today to do better."

Sundays protests marked the anniversary of Israels 1948 declaration of statehood, a day known as Nakba, or the catastrophe, to Palestinians who lost their land to the Jewish state. The day is routinely occasion for protests, and Israel had prepared for unrest. But in the Golan Heights, high ground Israel took from Syria in 1967, only 30 to 40 soldiers were on duty where hundreds of Palestinians began arriving by bus and marching toward the fence. Troops were ordered to shoot to maim. Four protesters were killed, and at least 100 scrambled into Majdal Shams, a Druze village so close to the Syrian frontier it's known for the shouting hill where families separated by the fence gather to exchange news by hollering across no-mans land.

Less clear was how the protesters navigated the Syrian security which usually maintains strict control over the border area. Israeli officials interpreted protesters' apparent ease of access to a military zone as evidence of sponsorship by the battered government of President Bashar al-Assad. With street protests threatening his regime in cities across Syria, the reasoning goes, al-Assad found in the Nakba protests a perfect opportunity to shift the focus to Israel.

But Fadi Quran, a Ramallah organizer in the Palestinian youth movement that promoted the marches, says his contacts in Syria were actually terrified of the Bashar government, which took steps to prevent some from traveling to the protests from refugee camps near Damascus where they have lived since fleeing their homes in what is now northern Israel. (See pictures of young Palestinians in the age of the wall.)

Governments of other neighboring states that host large Palestinian populations, apparently were aware of the protest plans, and responded according to their own interests. Egypt and Jordan, which have treaties with Israel, impeded the demonstrations. Those who are hostile, including Lebanon, eased their way into military zones. But Damascus appeared to be pre-occupied with its own domestic unrest, according to Quran. "I honestly think to a very large extent they took the Syrian government by surprise," he tells TIME.

Demonstrators also gathered in Gaza and on the West Bank. Even there, on a march toward the Qalandia check-point near Ramallah, Quran insists no stones were thrown until Israeli troops fired tear gas, and then only by adolescents. But the overall make-up of the crowd, featuring older women and men as well as students, was a change from previous years, according to Shawan Jabarin of the human rights advocacy group Al Haq.

"They say the Arab Spring gives people encouragement and makes people feel they can make a difference," says Jabarin. "The consciousness of the people, you feel it's something different." (See "Palestinians Mark Nakba with Violent Protests.")

Also encouraging people into the streets: The complete breakdown of peace talks with Israel. If Palestinians needed any additional reminder, the resignation of former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell as President Obamas special envoy for peace was announced two days before Nakba Day.

"We have to come up with an improvement in non-lethal weapons, no doubt," says an aide to an Israeli cabinet minister. "But if we have a new approach to peace talks then we won't have to deal with non-lethal weapons in September."

For their part, Palestinian protesters feel they've found a winning formula. The main political factions, Hamas and Fatah, were forced into their embrace by the same non-violent youth movement that now summons ordinary Palestinians to unite in shaming Israel into concessions.

"They understand the path to freedom is going to be long," Quran says "but were going to continue training in nonviolence, and were going to continue marching in nonviolence until it is very clear in the international media who is violating human rights."

- With reporting by Aaron J. Klein

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Taliban announce beginning of spring offensive

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban on Saturday announced the beginning of their spring military offensive against the U.S.-led coalition, a day after a new Pentagon report claimed that the militants' fighting spirit was low after sustaining heavy losses on the battlefield.

In a two-page statement, the Taliban said that beginning Sunday they would launch attacks on military bases, convoys and Afghan officials, including members of the government's peace council, who are working to reconcile with top insurgent leaders.

"The war in our country will not come to an end unless and until the foreign invading forces pull out of Afghanistan," said the announcement released by the leadership council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which is what the Taliban calls itself.

Senior officers with the U.S.-led coalition said on Friday that the Taliban ? aided by the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network ? have plans to conduct a brief series of high-profile attacks, such as suicide bombings, across the country in a display of power as fighting gears up with the warmer weather. The senior officers spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss recent intelligence that lead to the assessment.

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said the Taliban planned to use the spate of violence as a "propaganda ploy" to try to demonstrate their relevance and create the perception of momentum despite recent setbacks.

The Pentagon report said the insurgents' momentum had been "broadly arrested" and their morale had begun to erode. Hundreds of insurgent leaders have been killed or captured and since last July 700 former Taliban have officially reintegrated into Afghan society and another 2,000 insurgents are in various stages of the process, the report said.

The Taliban, known for their resiliency, said insurgents will target "foreign invading forces, members of their spy networks and other spies, high-ranking officials of the Kabul puppet administration ? and heads of foreign and local companies working for the enemy and contractors."

The Taliban ordered its fighters to pay "strict attention" to protecting civilians during the spring offensive. A recent U.N. report said about three-quarters of the estimated 2,777 civilians killed in Afghanistan last year died at the hands of insurgents, not international forces.

Also on Saturday, the coalition released initial findings of the April 27 attack at the Kabul airport where a veteran Afghan military pilot opened fire, killing eight U.S. troops and an American civilian contractor who had been training the nascent Afghan air force.

The shooting was the deadliest attack by a member of the Afghan security forces, or an insurgent impersonating them, on coalition troops or Afghan soldiers or policemen. Seven of the eight U.S. airmen killed were commissioned officers.

The gunman was severely wounded by gunfire and was bleeding heavily when he left the room where most, but not all, of the trainers were killed, according to a senior NATO official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is not complete. The gunman was found dead in another part of the building, he said.

The attack occurred at an Afghan facility, the air force headquarters, so the usual coalition weapons procedures would not have been in place and the trainers would have had their weapons ? with magazines in place ? in their possession, the official said.

The trainers would not have had to load their guns to defend themselves, he said. All the NATO trainers killed were armed at the time of the attack, he said.

According to the initial findings, the gunman appeared to be carrying two handguns.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but the coalition said it has uncovered no evidence to suggest that the insurgency was behind it.

"At this point in the investigation, it appears that the gunman was acting alone," the coalition said. "Beyond that, no Taliban connection with the gunman has been discovered. However, the investigation is still ongoing and we have not conclusively ruled out that possibility."

Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi declined comment Saturday, saying the joint investigation by the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and the Afghan government was still under way.

In a statement issued late Friday, the U.S. Defense Department identified those killed as:

•Lt. Col. Frank D. Bryant Jr., 37, of Knoxville, Tennessee.

•Maj. Philip D. Ambard, 44, of Edmonds, Washington.

•Maj. Jeffrey O. Ausborn, 41, of Gadsden, Alabama.

•Maj. David L. Brodeur, 34, of Auburn, Massachusetts.

•Maj. Raymond G. Estelle II, 40, of New Haven, Connecticut.

•Capt. Nathan J. Nylander, 35, of Hockley, Texas.

•Capt. Charles A. Ransom, 31, of Midlothian, Virginia.

•Master Sgt. Tara R. Brown, 33, of Deltona, Florida.

The civilian contractor was James McLaughlin Jr., 55, of Santa Rosa, California. McLaughlin was a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft pilot who spent 32 years in the Army before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2007. In recent years, he trained Afghan helicopter pilots as an employee of L-3 MPRI, a consulting company based in Alexandria, Virginia.

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Taliban announce beginning of spring offensive

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban on Saturday announced the beginning of their spring military offensive against the U.S.-led coalition, a day after a new Pentagon report claimed that the militants' fighting spirit was low after sustaining heavy losses on the battlefield.

In a two-page statement, the Taliban said that beginning Sunday they would launch attacks on military bases, convoys and Afghan officials, including members of the government's peace council, who are working to reconcile with top insurgent leaders.

"The war in our country will not come to an end unless and until the foreign invading forces pull out of Afghanistan," said the announcement released by the leadership council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which is what the Taliban calls itself.

Senior officers with the U.S.-led coalition said on Friday that the Taliban ? aided by the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network ? have plans to conduct a brief series of high-profile attacks, such as suicide bombings, across the country in a display of power as fighting gears up with the warmer weather. The senior officers spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss recent intelligence that lead to the assessment.

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said the Taliban planned to use the spate of violence as a "propaganda ploy" to try to demonstrate their relevance and create the perception of momentum despite recent setbacks.

The Pentagon report said the insurgents' momentum had been "broadly arrested" and their morale had begun to erode. Hundreds of insurgent leaders have been killed or captured and since last July 700 former Taliban have officially reintegrated into Afghan society and another 2,000 insurgents are in various stages of the process, the report said.

The Taliban, known for their resiliency, said insurgents will target "foreign invading forces, members of their spy networks and other spies, high-ranking officials of the Kabul puppet administration ? and heads of foreign and local companies working for the enemy and contractors."

The Taliban ordered its fighters to pay "strict attention" to protecting civilians during the spring offensive. A recent U.N. report said about three-quarters of the estimated 2,777 civilians killed in Afghanistan last year died at the hands of insurgents, not international forces.

Also on Saturday, the coalition released initial findings of the April 27 attack at the Kabul airport where a veteran Afghan military pilot opened fire, killing eight U.S. troops and an American civilian contractor who had been training the nascent Afghan air force.

The shooting was the deadliest attack by a member of the Afghan security forces, or an insurgent impersonating them, on coalition troops or Afghan soldiers or policemen. Seven of the eight U.S. airmen killed were commissioned officers.

The gunman was severely wounded by gunfire and was bleeding heavily when he left the room where most, but not all, of the trainers were killed, according to a senior NATO official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is not complete. The gunman was found dead in another part of the building, he said.

The attack occurred at an Afghan facility, the air force headquarters, so the usual coalition weapons procedures would not have been in place and the trainers would have had their weapons ? with magazines in place ? in their possession, the official said.

The trainers would not have had to load their guns to defend themselves, he said. All the NATO trainers killed were armed at the time of the attack, he said.

According to the initial findings, the gunman appeared to be carrying two handguns.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but the coalition said it has uncovered no evidence to suggest that the insurgency was behind it.

"At this point in the investigation, it appears that the gunman was acting alone," the coalition said. "Beyond that, no Taliban connection with the gunman has been discovered. However, the investigation is still ongoing and we have not conclusively ruled out that possibility."

Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi declined comment Saturday, saying the joint investigation by the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and the Afghan government was still under way.

In a statement issued late Friday, the U.S. Defense Department identified those killed as:

•Lt. Col. Frank D. Bryant Jr., 37, of Knoxville, Tennessee.

•Maj. Philip D. Ambard, 44, of Edmonds, Washington.

•Maj. Jeffrey O. Ausborn, 41, of Gadsden, Alabama.

•Maj. David L. Brodeur, 34, of Auburn, Massachusetts.

•Maj. Raymond G. Estelle II, 40, of New Haven, Connecticut.

•Capt. Nathan J. Nylander, 35, of Hockley, Texas.

•Capt. Charles A. Ransom, 31, of Midlothian, Virginia.

•Master Sgt. Tara R. Brown, 33, of Deltona, Florida.

The civilian contractor was James McLaughlin Jr., 55, of Santa Rosa, California. McLaughlin was a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft pilot who spent 32 years in the Army before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2007. In recent years, he trained Afghan helicopter pilots as an employee of L-3 MPRI, a consulting company based in Alexandria, Virginia.

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Taliban announces spring offensive

The Taliban statement warns civilians to stay away from "centers of the enemy"An ISAF official says insurgents are expected to launch new attacks "in the coming days"Meanwhile, a Pentagon report says security can begin to be transferred to Afghans

Washington (CNN) -- The Taliban said Saturday it is launching a new offensive against foreign troops and Afghan security forces and will focus on military bases and convoys.

The Taliban statement, declaring its spring military operations, warned Afghans to stay away from "centers of the enemy."

The announcement comes a day after a NATO official told CNN that the alliance anticipates insurgents to begin an extensive new round of attacks against U.S. and coalition forces "in the coming days."

The officer with the International Security Assistance Force noted that the alliance has seen similar surges at this time in recent years.

"What basically they are trying to do is start their spring offensive, and they think by surging their forces and having a concentrated series of attacks that they can demonstrate their power and relevance and influence over the Afghan population."

ISAF feels the increased coalition attacks on insurgents have had an impact, and new attacks by insurgents signal their effort to recoup their losses.

"Over the past several months insurgents have suffered a number of setbacks, having been pushed out of key sanctuaries. They have lost more weapons caches than any previous year, and they have lost hundreds of insurgent commanders and thousands of fighters," the officer said.

In the 90 days ending April 22, coalition special forces conducted 1,393 operations, capturing or killing 468 insurgent commanders, and capturing or killing 2,637 lower-level insurgents.

In response to the latest intelligence, ISAF has "increased" measures to protect its forces as well as shared the intelligence with the Afghan government, the officer said.

The expectation is new attacks would continue to focus on the latest Taliban tactics of assassinations, small arms attacks and going after so-called "soft" targets of Afghan civilians. The officer also said the alliance is watching for more of the "impersonation and infiltration-type attacks that you have seen in the last several days."

He noted that the alliance remains uncertain if recent attacks by Afghans in military uniforms really are the work of impersonators loyal to the Taliban. ISAF is currently helping train 450 counterintelligence experts in the Afghan forces to help watch for such activity, a doubling of the current counterintelligence force.

This all comes as the Pentagon released its latest report to Congress on the progress in Afghanistan. The military says gains made in Afghanistan over the last half year has created the "necessary conditions" to begin transferring control of security to the Afghanistan government in seven areas of the country inhabited by approximately 20% to 25% of the population.

The latest semi-annual report concludes insurgent momentum has been halted in much of the country, though the gains are "fragile and reversible." However, the report notes that efforts to fortify government and development was "slower than security gains" over the last six months.

The total number of security incidents were higher from October 2010 through March 2011 compared to the same period of the winter of 2009-2010 the report said. The report says this is mainly due to increased ISAF and Afghan troop presence, which allowed for a higher pace of operations against insurgents safe havens.

CNN's Adam Levine contributed to this report.

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Trump’s Spring Fever More Dangerous for Obama than GOP

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The broad presumption in Washington is that Donald Trump’s quasi candidacy will be a disaster for Republicans.

Part of this Trump talk is merely Democratic hope in the guise of analysis. It fits their narrative that the GOP field is so impossibly weak that even he can lead the pack. What could President Obama have to fear from such a bunch?

Another part of the conventional wisdom is the assumption that anything as weird as the Trump infatuation has to be bad for the party involved. If a politically minded celebrity

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