Syrian rebels say they receive more weapons for Aleppo battle - Reuters
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Syrian rebels say they receive more weapons for Aleppo battle
Reuters BEIRUT/AMMAN Rebels battling the Syrian army and its allies near Aleppo said on Monday they had received new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad since the start of a major government offensive last ... 'Assad must go': These 3 little words are huge obstacle for Obama on SyriaWashington Post Putin's Syria Adventure May Backfire at HomeNewsweek Russian Airstrikes Bring 'Massive Destruction,' Syrians SayNBCNews.com Bloomberg -New York Times -VICE News all 1,399 news articles » |
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Britain Unveils Plans to Fight Extremism in Young Muslims
New York Times LONDON — Britain on Monday announced new measures intended to prevent the radicalization of young Muslims, stoking a debate about how aggressively the government can confront extremist ideology without alienating the moderate voices best placed ... Mosques May Be Closed To Prevent Extremism In The UKDaily Caller Anti-radicalism drive puts British values at risk, says police chiefThe Guardian David Cameron unveils new anti-terrorism measures allowing parents to block ...ABC Online all 432 news articles » |
David Cameron has pledged to take 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next four-and-a-half years, but 84 bishops has said UK should accept 50,000
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(JERUSALEM) — The death of an Eritrean migrant who was shot and beaten by a mob that mistakenly believed he was a Palestinian attacker set off a round of soul-searching Monday amid the jittery atmosphere sweeping Israel in a wave of unrest.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the vigilantism. Some critics accused Israel’s leaders of fostering the charged climate, while others called for the swift prosecution of the crazed mob.
“It is a disgrace to Israeli society, and those that carried out this lynching need to be found and brought to justice,” said Yaakov Amidror, Netanyahu’s former national security adviser.
“Even if it was the terrorist himself, by the way, after he was shot, after he was neutralized and lying on the floor, you need to be an animal to torment him,” he told Israel Radio.
Nine Israelis have been killed in the past month in the attacks, mostly stabbings, on city streets. At least 41 Palestinians have been killed — including 20 identified by Israeli authorities as attackers; the rest were slain in clashes with Israeli forces.
Amid the seemingly random attacks, Israelis have stocked up on mace and pepper spray, and some public officials are openly carrying personal weapons and encouraging the public to do the same. Security has been increased, and especially in Jerusalem.
The violence has led to fear and sometimes outright panic.
Following an attack at Jerusalem’s bus station last week, a swarm of security forces and armed civilians ran along a central road in search of a second assailant following a false alarm. Elsewhere, an Israeli man stabbed a fellow Jew after mistaking his dark-skinned victim for an Arab. Palestinians in Jerusalem say they are afraid of being shot if perceived to be a threat.
But Sunday night’s mob scene at the bus station in the southern city of Beersheba took things to a new level.
The violence began when an Arab with a knife and gun killed a soldier, stole his weapon and opened fire, wounding nine people before being killed by police.
In the mayhem, Habtom Zerhom, an Eritrean migrant in his late 20s, ran into the station to seek cover, police said. A security guard, mistaking Zerhom for an attacker, shot him.
As the young man lay on the floor, a mob cursed him, kicked him and hit him with objects. Security camera video showed Zerhom in a pool of blood as he was rammed with a bench and kicked in the head by passers-by, while an Israeli officer and a few bystanders tried to protect him. Zerhom later died at a hospital.
“It doesn’t matter if it was a terrorist or not. It was a man lying on the ground that couldn’t move. I couldn’t sleep at night from seeing him, his blood,” Meir Saka, a passer-by who tried to protect the Eritrean, tearfully told Channel 10 TV.
An Israeli identified only by the first name Dudu told Israeli Army Radio that he regretted participating in the attack.
“If I would have known he wasn’t a terrorist, believe me, I would have protected him like I protect myself,” he said. “I didn’t sleep well at night. I feel disgusted.”
Meeting lawmakers from his Likud Party, Netanyahu condemned the vigilante violence and sent his condolences to Zerhom’s family.
“We are a law-abiding country,” he said. “No one should take the law into their own hands.”
Police said they were reviewing the security video to identify the mob. As of late Monday, no arrests had been announced.
Critics said the shooting was the result of the charged atmosphere. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, for instance, has openly called on all licensed gun owners, like himself, to carry their weapons to help back up overstretched security forces.
“The death of an asylum seeker at the hands of security guards and an angry mob is a tragic but foreseeable outgrowth of a climate in which some Israeli politicians encourage citizens to take the law into their own hands,” said Sari Bashi, director for Israel and the Palestinian areas of Human Rights Watch.
Hanan Ashrawi, a top Palestinian official, accused Israeli leaders of whipping up the public.
“They are creating a mentality of lynch mobs and of course feeding the culture of hate and racism,” she said.
Others questioned whether Zerhom’s ethnicity had been a factor. “Just because of his skin color,” said a headline in the Yediot Ahronot daily.
There are about 34,000 Eritrean migrants in Israel. They say they are fleeing persecution and conflict in their homeland, one of the world’s worst violators of human rights.
Israel says they are merely economic migrants looking for work, and it refuses to give them refugee status. But it does not deport them because of the danger they face at home.
Many Israelis fear the influx threatens their country’s Jewish character, with one right-wing lawmaker famously calling migrants a “cancer.” Africans frequently complain of racial discrimination in Israel.
“The young Eritrean man is clear testimony to foreignness. He sustained critical injuries in a war not his own. Alone,” Danny Adino Ababa, an Israeli journalist of Ethiopian origin, wrote in Yediot.
Zerhom worked at a plant nursery in southern Israel and had been in Beersheba to renew a work visa, said his employer, Sagi Malachi.
“He was a modest man, quiet, and he tried to do his job as best as he could,” Malachi told The Associated Press. “It is heart-breaking. All in all, I think that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
A friend, Goitom Haile, said Zerhom had worked in various farming jobs for four years. He had saved his money and dreamed of returning to Eritrea to reunite with his family in the next few months, Haile said.
“He was a good man, like a brother,” he said.
The current unrest began last month with clashes at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, a hilltop compound revered by both Jews and Muslims. The spot is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, home to the biblical Temples, and today is the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site and an important symbol for Palestinians.
The clashes were fueled by rumors among Palestinians that Israel is trying to change a longstanding status quo that allows Jews to visit but not pray on the mount. Israel denies the allegations and has accused Palestinian leaders and social media of incitement.
Palestinians say the violence stems from anger over the Jerusalem holy site and nearly 50 years of occupation, as well as a lack of hope.
Jibril Rajoub, a top Palestinian official, praised the Palestinian attackers.
“These are individual heroic acts. I appreciate them. I salute everyone that has done this. We bow in front of them,” he told Palestine TV.
At the same time, he called for passive resistance. “Do you know what the meaning of having tens of thousands sitting in the streets without throwing a stone? We want the world to hear our voice,” Rajoub said.
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This story has been corrected to show the transliteration of the Eritrean migrant’s first name is Habtom, not Haptom.
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Associated Press writers Yaniv Zohar in Ein Habesor, Israel, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah contributed to this report.
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China’s president Xi Jinping arrives at London’s Heathrow airport on Monday, as he embarks on a four-day visit. Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, are greeted by the foreign secretary Philip Hammond upon arrival. Hailed in some quarters as the beginning of a ‘golden era’ in Sino-British relations, the visit has also been criticised by human rights activists who accuse David Cameron of turning a blind eye to China’s record on human rights
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Under intense pressure to stem the flow of refugees into Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a weekend trip to Istanbul, where she pledged to push forward Turkey’s long-delayed bid to join the European Union in return for cooperation in dealing with the worst refugee crisis the international community has seen since the end of the Second World War.
Merkel’s trip followed a Oct. 15 summit in Brussels, where—for the fourth time in six months—European leaders grappled with the wave of migration headed toward the continent. This time, rather than arguing over refugee quotas or funding for search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean, they turned their attention to the newest gateway of the exodus: Turkey.
Turkey is now the main transit country for Syrian refugees and other migrants: nearly four-fifths of the more than 615,000 people who arrived in Europe by sea this year left from Turkey’s west coast to reach nearby Greece via the Aegean Sea. The migrants come from Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and elsewhere, but the vast majority are Syrians. With the Syrian civil war approaching its fifth year, the U.N. refugee agency noted large numbers of Syrian refugees in camps are sinking deeper into abject poverty due to a shortfall in aid from the international community. Various factors have brought about the surge in migrants this year, but rapidly deteriorating conditions in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey have played a major part in driving the exodus of people risking their lives to reach Europe.
Turkey alone is hosting more refugees than any other country in the world, including some 2.2 million Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war. Unlike Syria’s much smaller Middle Eastern neighbors, it is the only country in the region with enough resources to do more to help—as Europe has belatedly realized.
“Turkey plays a key role in this situation,” Merkel told the German parliament on Oct. 15. Germany expects to take in 1 million refugees in 2015 alone, compared to a total of 200,000 for the whole of 2014. Merkel, hailed as a hero for welcoming far more refugees than any other European country, is increasingly coming under pressure from her own conservative base to slow the pace of refugees arriving. At an Oct.14 meeting of her party, local officials called Merkel’s strategy a failure and called for her ‘dethroning.’ Among the broader public, she faces a growing backlash over the refugee crisis: her personal approval ratings have dropped to a four-year low. Meanwhile a rising tide of anti-migration sentiment is becoming harder to quell: on Saturday, Henriette Reker, a German city official was stabbed in the neck over her work with refugees.
Facing the hard reality of how to deal with the newcomers, Merkel introduced temporary border controls in September, but resisted demands to turn away migrants arriving from Hungary and Austria or to seal the border. In a bind, she is looking to Turkey to help reinforce the E.U.’s external frontiers.
Merkel’s offer on Sunday to jumpstart Ankara’s protracted E.U. membership talks highlight just how crucial Turkey is for this new strategy. Formal discussions over admission to the bloc began in 2005 but stalled in the wake of human rights concerns. Merkel was a long-standing opponent of Turkey joining the E.U., on the grounds of its refusal to open up its ports to E.U. member Cyprus. In 2013, she blocked new accession talks in the wake of Ankara’s crackdown on protestors and Merkel evenreiterated her opposition to Turkey joining the E.U. earlier this month. Now, however, she has also agreed to help Turkey in its long demands to get easier visas for Turkish citizens who wish to enter the borderless Schengen zone of Europe. (Turkey is the only formally-accepted candidate for E.U. membership whose citizens are yet to qualify for this.)
At Thursday’s summit, E.U. officials reached agreement on an action plan for Turkey to cope with the emergency, offering the country a significant increase in financial aid. The European Commission had previously said on Oct.6 that it would mobilize up to €1 billion ($1.1 bn) but Turkey has asked for at least €3 billion ($3.4bn) in an initial phase – suggesting the overall total could be much higher. Merkel has given her support for increased aid but officials have yet to decide on a fixed sum.
Speaking on Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu called the E.U.’s proposed financial package “unacceptable,” pointing out that Turkey has already spent $8 billion so far taking care of Syrian refugees and noting the vast difference in the size of their economies: Turkey’s GDP is about $820 billion, less than 5% of the E.U.’s $18 trillion economic size. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu echoed those sentiments when speaking to reporters on Sunday. “The sharing of the refugee burden should be fair,” he said. “Turkey has been left alone in recent years.”
The E.U. action plan comes after weeks of a behind-the-scenes push from Germany, France and Italy to secure a deal with Ankara. Turkish officials have been keen to stress that the plan is far from finalized but analysts say the mere fact that E.U. leaders have agreed on a plan marks a notable shift in approach from the summer, when they struggled to reach a consensus on the relocation of 160,000 migrants, a tiny proportion of those who have arrived in Europe this year.
“It’s the first step in the right direction,” says Demetrios Papademetriou, president of Migration Policy Institute Europe. “The European Commission so far has not focused on the crisis itself, it has focused on the politics of relocation. Now it seems we are at the very beginning of a process in which Europe is beginning to act as a sovereign state and reconsidering whether resources would be better spent in the region rather than in emergency measures to absorb hundreds of thousands of people.”
As the frontline state on the issue— Turkey decided to adopt an open-door policy for Syrians after the civil war broke out in 2011—Ankara now has the leverage to push for other concessions. Cooperation with the E.U. would mark a political victory for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has become a near pariah: he has reignited conflict with the country’s Kurdish minority, arrested critical journalists and other opponents, all while his country has experienced the worst levels of violence since he came into power in 2002—with a deadly terrorist attack in Ankara on Oct.10 killing at least 97 people. But the toxic leader is keen to make headway with Europe, with pro-government newspapers hailing Thursday’s E.U. action plan as a victory—one headline announced “U-turn from Merkel, Turkey is getting what it wants.”
The timing of Merkel’s visit to Turkey, less than two weeks before snap elections in which Erdogan’s party hopes to regain a parliamentary majority after losing a vote in June, has therefore raised eyebrows among activists, who accuse European leaders of trying to buy off Turkey in order to relieve the migrant flow. Desperate to engage with Ankara over the migrant crisis, Brussels has evendelayed the European Commission’s annual report on Turkey’s E.U. membership application until after the November elections – a report that was expected to contain heavy criticism of Erdogan’s autocratic rule and disregard for E.U. principles of freedom of expression. Delaying the report’s publication was one of Turkey’s demands in the migration negotiations.
French President François Hollande said in September that Europe must work with Turkey to ensure the refugees “can stay there, find a job, and wait for the situation in Syria to improve.” Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International’s Turkey researcher, disagrees with such an approach, saying in a statement: “A deal premised on keeping refugees in Turkey fundamentally ignores both the challenges they face there and the obvious need for the E.U. to offer protection to a greater share of the world’s burgeoning refugee population.”
Analysts say that even if Turkey receives a lot more financial aid, it won’t be able to act as a permanent buffer zone unless a political solution to the Syrian conflict is eventually reached—which is looking ever less likely. And as countless border control measures have shown in the past, placing restrictions on one migration pathway will simply shift the bulge to other, riskier routes—notably the long Mediterranean sea crossing from Libya to Italy, which has claimed 2,800 lives already this year, despite the fact that the number of people using that route has actually dropped since 2014.
“The only way people will be persuaded not to go to the Aegean Islands or Italy or Spain is if there’s a realistic chance that they can get humanitarian aid, feed themselves, have their kids educated and work elsewhere,” says Papademetriou. “They need to be persuaded that they will be resettled in massive numbers—at least half a million people a year—as part of a global program with Europe leading the way.”
A scheme of that ambition remains far off: since 2013 countries around the world have pledged to resettle fewer than 100,000 Syrian refugees of the more than 4 million living in desperately underfunded camps in the region. It’s more likely that European leaders, including Merkel, will now continue to look toward Turkey for quid pro quo arrangements that ease political pressure on them at home. Aware that his country is now indispensable to Europe, Erdogan appears to be holding all the cards in negotiations. That could be the boon he needs to secure victory in November.
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U.S. and Iraq Pursuing ISIS on Several Frontsby MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT
Iraqi forces and the American-led coalition are putting pressure on Islamic State fighters to force them into the open so they can be targeted by airstrikes, officials said.
US authorities are investigating reports that a high school student accessed the personal email of John Brennan, the CIA Director
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A new investigation has found links between Donald Trump's campaign and big financiers, despite the billionaire's claim to be funding his own presidential race
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Germany, Turkey and Italy are planning to keep their deployments at current levels, NATO officials said.
An individual who to claims to have hacked into the personal email of top U.S. security officials has spoken to CNN producer Wes Bruer. CNN's Evan Perez reports.
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Video uploaded to a social media website purports to show Russian jets flying over Aleppo and the bombing of a rebel-held area of Damascus by the Syrian government, according to activists. Diane Hodges reports.
Reuters tells the world's stories like no one else. As the largest international multimedia news provider, Reuters provides coverage around the globe and across topics including business, financial, national, and international news. For over 160 years, Reuters has maintained its reputation for speed, accuracy, and impact while providing exclusives, incisive commentary and forward-looking analysis.
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Oct. 16 -- A group of Russian hackers infiltrated the servers of Dow Jones & Co. Inc., owner of the Wall Street Journal and several other news publications, and stole information to trade on before it became public, according to four people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg's David Gura and Keri Geiger report on "Bloomberg Markets." (Corrects to remove erroneous information in introduction of previous version.)
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Russian foreign policy took an unexpected turn and suffered a serious setback last week when President Vladimir Putin suggested sending to Washington a delegation headed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, which was firmly turned down by the United States government. The initiative was poorly prepared, and the fruits of Putin’s recent meeting with US President Barack Obama after their respective addresses to the United Nations General Assembly turned out to be quite sour; thus, it was hard to see any point in resuming this bilateral dialogue (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 16). Nevertheless, Putin declared he could not understand this refusal to talk, while Medvedev announced he was deeply offended and called the US’s position “weak” and “stupid” (RIA Novosti, October 16). The assumption that Washington would not dare reject Putin’s proposal betrays the Kremlin’s misunderstanding of the United States’ stance on the Syrian war—and also a delusion that Russia has regained a position of strength.
The point of departure for Putin’s intervention in Syria was the conclusion that Western policies for managing this disaster were in total confusion: as the US failed to defeat the Islamic State (IS) by its air campaign, while the European Union is overwhelmed by the inflow of refugees. Exploiting this confusion appeared easy because the moderate opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was in disarray, so close air support provided by a few squadrons of Russian jets should have made an offensive by government forces toward Aleppo swift and decisive (Gazeta.ru, October 14). However, Moscow apparently did not take into proper account the anger that such joint military operations undertaken by Russia and Iran would inspire within the Arab world. Therefore, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Mohammad bin Salman took time last week to explain these consequences to Putin (Newsru.com, October 12). Moscow also seemingly underestimated the anxiety and anger in Turkey about its bold intervention, and certainly did not expect that it could prompt Turkey and the EU to try to reach an agreement on the refugee problem (Kommersant, October 16).
The US and the EU still do not have anything resembling a plan for bringing the civil war in Syria to an end, but every new day of Russian bombing strengthens the West’s conviction that rebuilding this devastated country can only start with the removal of the al-Assad regime. Putin has failed to convince the US and the EU to accept that the Russian intervention has turned the Syrian dictator into a necessary part of the solution for the catastrophe, for which al-Assad is ultimately responsible (Ezhednevny Zhurnal, October 12). The Russian leader has also failed, more broadly, to turn the Syrian intervention into a lever that would reverse the West’s position on the Ukraine conflict and make it accept the current ceasefire as a solution to this deadlocked problem (Slon.ru, October 16). Russia’s role in the Ukraine conflict was illuminated yet again last week: As the Dutch-led investigation of the downing of the MH17 flight on July 17, 2014, released its official report, on October 13, confirming the plane was struck by a Russian BUK surface-to-air missile, the Almaz-Antey corporation (the producer of the BUK system) attempted to counter the conclusions by presenting its own report. Yet, the Almaz-Antey presentation did nothing to help Russia escape international accusations of responsibility for that tragedy (Forbes.ru, October 15).
Meanwhile, Putin’s geopolitical maneuvering is undercut by the deepening recession in Russia’s economy, which he tries to talk away by asserting that the “peak of the crisis” has already passed (Novaya Gazeta, October 16). The government has revised downwards its forecast for the contraction six times this year, and will likely have to continue this search for the bottom as the decline continues into next year (Rbc.ru, October 16). Manipulations of macro-statistics can camouflage the dynamics of the downfall, but there is no way around the fact that the state budget is shrinking fast, and the social programs suffer the most (Moscow Echo, October 16). The hopes for a strong recovery of oil prices are fading and giving way to fears that Saudi Arabia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are pushing Russia away from its traditional European market (Meduza.io, October 16). Even the politically privileged Gazprom has sunk deep enough into inefficiency and negative profitability that the government appears ready to consider a plan for splitting up this unhealthy monopoly (Newsru.com, October 16).
This sustained economic decline has done nothing to diminish the predatory appetites of Putin’s “particular friends,” even as their shady financial schemes for laundering money in respectable European banks are increasingly targeted by US investigations (Rbc.ru, October 16). Alexei Navalny, the defiant blogger and opposition leader, has boldly used these facts as extra ammunition in his relentless anti-corruption campaign, which has chipped away at the reputation of such heavy-weights in Putin’s inner circle as Vladimir Yakunin, the former boss of Russian Railroads (Navalny.com, October 16). The public’s response to this exposure of dirty fortunes remains muted, but it is increasingly mixed with popular worries about falling incomes. According to opinion polls, 70 percent believe the economic crisis will last more than a year; and of those, 23 percent think that it could continue for many years (Levada.ru, October 12). Passive acceptance, rather than discontent, is the typical reaction to this gloomy perspective, but the authorities are driven by the need to pre-empt protests by delivering propaganda-amplified “victories” (Gazeta.ru, October 13).
Syria is presently the main source of good news about the “spectacular” feats of the Russian Air Force, since Ukraine has been reduced to a stale propaganda show. But telegenic bombings can sustain mass enthusiasm for only so long, while the risk of accidents and casualties is high and growing. The task of rescuing the al-Assad regime is open-ended, and there is no plan to escape the quagmire of this intervention in order to project military power to another conflict zone and score a fresh “victory” (Carnegie.ru, October 16). Each of the Kremlin’s “proactive” moves since the annexation of Crimea has gradually turned into a heavy-maintenance blunder, and Putin cannot break out of this latest entanglement by raising the stakes or by showing readiness to take the kinds of risks that his opponents would consider unacceptable. The sinking economy compels him to experiment with the military instruments of politics, but a fast-shrinking resource base turns his smart strikes into bluffs, which are now being called. High-level dialogue makes little sense because Putin cannot be talked out of this conflict-exploitation pattern, but not talking involves the risk of intensifying his desperation.
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On October 11, in an interview with Russia’s Rossiya 1TV channel, President Vladimir Putin reassured his audience that he did not intend to send Russian ground troops to Syria. The interviewer asked Putin about it twice, and twice the Russian president denied such plans. “Are you considering the possibility of using the Russian armed forces in the ground operation in Syria?” he was asked. “No, it is out of the question,” he answered. “Whatever happens?” “No. We do not intend to do that and our Syrian friends know about that,” he answered (Vesti.ru, October 11).
Since the Russian government started conducting air strikes in Syria on September 30, many Russians have wondered about Syria turning into the “second Afghanistan.” The Soviet government invaded Afghanistan in 1979, but was forced to leave the country after a brutal ten-year military campaign. The war in Afghanistan not only destroyed the myth of the omnipotent Soviet army, but also contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. In Syria, Moscow’s plan appears to be to use Syrian, Iranian and Lebanese forces on the ground to turn the tide in the Syrian war. On October 15, the ground forces supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched an offensive on the key city of Aleppo. However, despite claims of success from Syrian officials, the actual results have been fairly modest (Gazeta.ru, October 16).
Few people take Putin’s reassurances about not sending ground troops to Syria seriously. Putin famously promised numerous times not to snatch Crimea from Ukraine but did exactly that in early 2014. He also promised not to interfere in eastern Ukraine, but he went on to do that as well. In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes program, in September, Putin said “Russia will not participate in any military operations on the territory of Syria or in other countries; in any case, we do not plan to do it as of now.” At the same time, Putin defended Russia’s right to “help” Bashar al-Assad’s government (BBC–Russian service, September 28). Two days later, Russia began conducting airstrikes in Syria. Given that there is little correlation between what Putin says and does, it is not surprising that his opponents regard his words as empty, while his supporters regard them as a legitimate tactical ploy to overpower his adversaries.
Some evidence suggests Putin’s promise not to send troops to Syria may be one such ploy. Russian social media sites have become rife with pages on which volunteers can sign up to fight in the Syrian war: the VKontakte social media platform alone has over 1,000 pages requesting volunteers for Syria (Lenta.ru, October 14).
A military recruiter for the mercenaries’ website Dobrovolec.org, calling himself Vadim, told Lenta.ru that they receive 30 to 50 applications a day, but only about one out of these turns out to be “real.” The primary criterion for selecting volunteers to fight in Syria is previous combat experience. People who have fought either in Chechnya or eastern Ukraine on the Russian side have a good chance to be selected and are briefly trained at a camp at an undisclosed location in southern Russia. According to Vadim, hundreds of Russians are already fighting in Syria, and his organization alone has trained and supplied dozens of volunteers. Vadim asserted that the Russians in Syria only deal with “high tech” arms and take part in “selective special operations” (“tochechnye spetsoperatsii”), not the daily fighting. Vadim said his organization has temporarily stopped signing up volunteers because all the available positions have been filled (Lenta.ru, October 14).
The organization’s website, indeed, says that the recruitment for Syria has been suspended, but still has a large and detailed section on recruitment for fighting in eastern Ukraine. The candidate should be at least 23 years old, preferably have previous combat experience, be free of alcohol and drug addiction, healthy, and prepared to spend at least one month in eastern Ukraine. The website claims that since mercenaries are outlawed, only volunteers prepared to fight for “ideological” reasons can apply (Dobrovolec.org, accessed October 19). Would-be Russian volunteers to Syria, however, regard the war in the Middle East as a way to improve their material situation. Many of the volunteers also appear to come from the ranks of Russians who fought in eastern Ukraine, where a truce has been declared and has held for the past weeks (Onkavkaz.com, October 15).
According to the Fontanka.ru website, the recruitment process takes place in the village of Molkino in Krasnodar region. The recruiters promise to pay about $1,300 a month during the training period, up to $2,000 while in Syria and up to $4,000 during “intensive fighting” there. Some sources allege that Russians contracted by private Russian firms already took part in the fighting in Syria back in 2013, but were withdrawn due to heavy losses (Fontanka.ru, October 16). Molkino is a small remote village on the administrative border between Krasnodar region and Adygea that hosts the special forces of Russia’s military intelligence body, the GRU (Voinskayachast.ru, accessed October 19). If the recruits are indeed trained in Molkino, the Russian government is likely behind the recruitment process.
Even if the Russian government has decided to rely on volunteers in the Syrian conflict, it is unlikely to win the war just with volunteers. In the war in eastern Ukraine, volunteers were primarily used for propaganda and to cover up the participation of regular Russian military forces in the war against Kyiv. Volunteers may end up playing the same role in Syria.
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The separatist leader of South Ossetia has proposed holding a referendum on whether the Georgian breakaway region should join Russia.
It should be a strategic priority to nurture and strengthen the group of regional powers directly affected by Chinese behaviour
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The Australian Financial Review |
Russia retreats to self-sufficiency
The Australian Financial Review The three big rating agencies have all issued alerts, warning that the country's public finances are deteriorating fast. AP. by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. Russia is running out of money. President Vladimir Putin is depleting the Kremlin's last reserve ... Russia retreats to autarky as poverty loomsTelegraph.co.uk all 6 news articles » |
 The Guardian |
Swiss fighter check on jet inflames Russian-French tensions
Reuters Russia initially summoned the French ambassador in Moscow to protest, alleging a French military jet had come into "dangerous proximity" with the Tupolev, whose passengers included the Speaker of its lower house en route to Geneva. Moscow, which had ... France denies its fighter jet had 'near-miss' with Russia delegation's airlinerThe Guardian Russia: Official's plane in near-miss with fighter jet over EuropeEyewitness News Russia Says French Jet Flew Dangerously Close to Official PlaneMilitary.com all 76 news articles » |
The guns have been silent for six weeks now, no small matter in a region where 8,000 people have died and two million have been displaced over 18 months.
Today's Headlines and Commentaryby Elina Saxena, Quinta Jurecic
Violence continues in Israel as tensions rise throughout the region. A Bedouin Arab Israeli gunmanattacked a central bus station in Beersheba, killing a soldier and injuring another eleven other Israelis. Following the attack, an Eritrean asylum seeker was shot by a security guard who suspected the man was a second attacker. The man later died after being assaulted by a mob, the Postreported. The death count in the recent spat of violence continues to rise, leaving some forty-one Palestinians and nine Israelis dead.
Such lone-wolf attacks continue throughout the country. The Post tells us that four Palestinians wielding knives were killed by security forces on Saturday. In response to the uptick of lone-wolf attacks over the last month, Israeli military personnel have been deployed in city centers, and Israeli forces have erected a shallow cement wall between two neighborhoods in Jerusalem, sparking controversy and criticism. AP highlights the clash of narratives which divides Israelis and Palestinians.The Huffington Post has more.
Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas later this week. For his part, Kerry denounced the violence and suggested that “this is a human catastrophe unfolding before our eyes and it is a catastrophe that now threatens the integrity of a whole group of countries throughout the region.”The Times writes that Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also met with Netanyahu to discuss different issues. The two leaders expressed cooperation in dealing “with malign Iranian activities in the region,” as concerns about Tehran’s involvement in Syria grow.
In Syria, a top commander for the Khorasan Group, an al Qaeda off-shoot focused on perpetuating attacks against the West, was killed in a drone strike in the northwest part of the country. The Pentagon reported that it had killed Sanafi al Nasr, a Saudi citizen and highest-ranking leader of the group. Nasr is the fifth senior member of the group to be killed in the past four months. Nasr was described by the Pentagon as “a financial specialist who funneled money from donors in the Persian Gulf” to various al Qaeda networks, a logistics organizer for new recruits traveling from Pakistan, and “an active propagandist on Twitter.”
Syrian government forces are advancing on Aleppo, bolstered by their assortment of allies. A spokesman for a moderate Islamist rebel group said that “the offensive is being led by regime-alliedIranian fighters.” In response to the renewed vigor of Assad’s forces, U.S.-backed rebel forces have reportedly received “new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles.” The missiles are a critical component of their arsenal in their fight against Syrian forces, yet rebel commanders told Reuters that the supplies did not match the scale of the assault. Meanwhile, the Guardian suggests that this battle for Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, will trigger a new wave of refugees. Already, the BBCreports that thousands of Syrians have fled the city without adequate shelter or medical care.
Could Russia’s intervention into Syria already be prompting blowback? According to Russian intelligence agents, the country has arrested a man plotting to blow up a train station in the southern part of the country. This is their second announcement of a foiled terror plot in two weeks.
Al Jazeera reports that dozens of ISIS fighters were killed in Hama by airstrikes from unidentified planes. Based on the location of the strikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights notes that the planes were likely Russian or Syrian.
Cold War-Coalition? In addition to his other allies which have enabled his latest advances, Bashar al Assad might have a new ally in Cuba. The Daily Beast reports that Cuban paramilitary and Special Forces units are on the ground in Syria, highlighting Russia’s historic ties with Cuba.
Finally, the Times outlines the overlapping and confusing conflicts driving Syria’s civil war.
Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces are on the advance against the Islamic State on three different fronts. The AFP carries the story, confirming that Iraqi security forces are clearing pockets of resistance in Baiji, and slowing closing in on Ramadi and Hawijah.
According to Reuters, despite Russian reassurances to the contrary, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu maintains that the drone struck down by Turkish forces was Russian-made. Davutoğlu expressed hope that Russia “will adopt a more careful stance and Turkish-Russian relations will not be negatively affected.”
Elsewhere, in a sweep targeting those with suspected connections to last week’s bombings in Ankara, Turkey has detained dozens of suspected ISIS recruits bound for Syria and Iraq.
The Times reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has “explicitly linked accelerating Turkey’s effort to join the European Union to Turkish cooperation in clamping down on the flow of refugees from Turkey to Europe,” highlighting the importance of Turkey’s cooperation as Europe attempts to mitigate the crisis. Though no agreement has been formalized, the current proposal would provide some $3.4 billion from Europe to help Turkey deal with around 2.2 million refugees.
Meanwhile, the closure and strict control of the Balkan borders has left thousands of refugees stranded without access to basic necessities. Following Hungary’s move to close its border with Croatia and reinstate its border controls with Slovenia, Croatia has begun diverting refugees into Slovenia, which itself then began suspending population movement in order to institute "’complete control’ over the flow.” According to the Times, Slovenia plans to use its army to help manage the flow of refugees to the Austrian border. As the crisis continues, al Jazeera highlights another refugee crisis in Italy where refugees hail primarily from a number of north African countries. Some activists are accusing Italian authorities of altering their decisions regarding refugee status by the nationality of the asylum-seeker.
Sudanese troops arrived in Yemen this weekend to fight alongside the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthi-rebels. A Sudanese spokesman claimed that “Sudan is committed to restore legitimacy in Yemen.” The move comes as Saudi Arabia is expected to increase aid to Sudan from $11 billion in 2015 to $15 billion in 2016.
In Afghanistan, the Afghan defense minister claimed that Taliban fighters and Pakistani operatives had used Doctors Without Borders’ Kunduz hospital as safe haven, adding that a Taliban flag had been painted on one of the hospital’s walls. Doctors Without Borders immediately denied the allegations.
Greg Miller of the Washington Post responds to the latest conspiracy theory raising questions about the circumstances of Osama bin Laden’s death, this time featured in the New York Times Magazine. Miller writes that, contrary to the Times' piece, a lot actually is known about bin Laden’s death, remarking on the broad consensus “that bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. Special Operations forces conducted without the cooperation or awareness of the Pakistani government after a decade-long CIA manhunt.”
The Telegraph reports on British Prime Minister David Cameron’s new initiative to find extremists who have infiltrated British institutions. As Muslim leaders in the U.K. express concerns that new counter-extremist measures could risk alienating Muslim populations, the BBC outlines some of the measures within the counter-extremism strategy. British Home Secretary Theresa May expressed that “non-violent extremism could not go ‘uncontested’ as it [leads] to the erosion of women's rights, the spread of intolerance and bigotry, and the separation of some communities ‘from the mainstream.’”
On Sunday, U.S. and E.U. partners began preparations to lift sanctions against Iran, setting in place legal mechanism that will allow the countries to release funds to Tehran on the Iran Deal’s “Adoption Day,” the Post tells us. The sanctions will be lifted “only when all the agreed-upon steps are verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency — which will be called ‘Implementation Day.’” Reutersadds that sanctions pertaining to issues not related to Iran’s nuclear program will remain in place.
Sunday also marked the first phase of Egypt’s parliamentary election, which Egyptians greeted with a voter turnout of 10%. Reuters writes that the low turnout may point to growing discontent toward the rule of President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, as many younger Egyptians boycotted the vote in protest of what they see as a sham election. The government has closed public offices for half the day on Monday in order to encourage public employees to vote.
In northeast Nigeria, two female suicide bombers killed 12 people on Saturday. The style of attack was characteristic of Boko Haram.
Last month, the United States and China agreed to abstain from cyber-espionage aimed at securing economic advantage. But now, the Times tells us, a cybersecurity firm has accused Chinese hackers of continuing to attack a number of technology and pharmaceutical companies in the weeks following the agreement. The question, the firm suggests, is whether “the parties to the agreement discussed a time frame for implementation”--in which case the hacking might not violate the accord--“or, instead, expected it to be immediate.”
The Hill writes that the European Commission and the United States have “three months to come up with an alternative to an invalidated legal framework that allowed companies to shuttle personal data across the Atlantic" following the ECJ's ruling against the Safe-Harbor agreement.
After 18 months of delay, the 9/11 trial is once again moving forward… or is it? This morning, the presiding military judge was set to decide whether the trial could go on despite a completed FBI investigation into possible legal and ethical breaches by a member of one of the defense teams. Butthe proceedings came to a screeching halt when one of the defendants, Walid Bin Attash, unexpectedly asked the court whether he could fire his lawyer and represent himself instead. Bin Attash’s co-defendant, Ramzi bin al Shibh, also asked the judge about his right to waive attendance and decline to attend the trial proceedings. The Miami Herald has the story.
On Friday, the chief suspect in the Benghazi attacks appeared in federal court for the first time since January, CBS News reports. Ahmed Abu Khatallah requested that the court dismiss certain charges against him, though the presiding judge is unlikely to do so. The Justice Department is set to decide whether it will seek the death penalty against Khatallah by spring of 2016 and will likely set a trial date for some time in 2017.
A German civil rights group has filed a criminal complaint against a CIA officer alleged to have been involved in the torture of a German citizen. The group, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, submitted the complaint to a German court on behalf of Khalid El-Masri, whom the European Court of Human Rights found to have been mistreated by the CIA while he was interrogated in Afghanistan. The International Business Times writes that the Center is seeking an investigation against Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, the CIA official reportedly responsible for El-Masri’s mistreatment.
The Washington Post reports that federal regulators will require recreational drone owners to register their aircraft with the government. According to the Department of Transportation, a task force has until November 20th to present recommendations for the registry. The Department hopes to have the registry functioning by Christmas. The move comes as federal regulators look to create some form of mechanism to enforce FAA regulations regarding drone and aviation safety. The FAA previously reported that pilots are reporting more than 100 close calls with drones each month. Lawfare’s Herb Lin also discussed the latest developments in drone registration plans.
Parting shot: Speaking of drone regulations: ever wondered what would happen if you attached a Grim Reaper costume to a commercial drone and chased people around a park? With Halloween approaching, perhaps it’s time to revisit this one-of-a-kind spooky prank.
ICYMI:This Weekend, on Lawfare
Jeffrey Kahn shed light on the legal history behind the case of Colonel Abel, featured in Steven Spielberg’s latest film Bridge of Spies.
Cody posted this week’s Lawfare Podcast, which features a discussion about the future of surveillance reform in a post-Snowden world.
Carol R. Saivetz wrote this week’s Foreign Policy Essay, which looks at Russia’s support of Assad in Syria.
Herb Lin talked about the U.S. Department of Transportation’s plans to require drone registration from all drone purchasers.
Quinta read the Intercept’s “Drone Papers” and outlined what may have been missed in the initial frenzy of reporting.
Mirko Hohman discussed the new data retention law passed by Germany's Bundestag.
Zack Bluestone highlighted the latest verbal salvos between the United States and China over planned U.S. patrols in the South China Sea in the newest edition of Water Wars.
Herb Lin suggested that the U.S. military should to learn how to operate without electronic and cyber systems.
Charlie Dunlap wrote about President Obama’s War Powers legacy as it relates to drones.
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