Putin Goes to Syria | Finger-Pointing, but Few Answers, After a Syria Solution Fails
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Putin Goes to Syria - The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST
- Finger-Pointing, but Few Answers, After a Syria Solution Fails
- U.S. Open to 'Tactical, Practical' Talks With Russia On Fighting IS
- Kremlin Says It Would Consider Sending Troops To Syria
- Bowe Bergdahl Had ‘Severe Mental Disease or Defect,’ Lawyer Says
- Russian Hacking Network Found Spying On U.S., Europe For Years
- Obama Admin Will Not Reveal Number of Americans Killed By Iran
- How Russia Invaded Ukraine
- Putin becomes a political punching bag
Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.
IRAQ and SYRIA
The White House is considering abandoning its effort to create a viable, sizeable Syrian force to fight ISIS, searching for alternatives after revelations of the failures in the US strategy in Syria. [Wall Street Journal’s Carol E. Lee and Dion Nissenbaum]
Despite a lot of “finger pointing” toward the Obama administration over the Syria crisis, there is “no consensus among critics” about what solutions might be viable, writes Peter Baker, outlining a number of proposed answers. [New York Times]
The New York Times editorial board comments on the war against the Islamic State, opining that many elements about the international coalition’s strategy remain “disturbingly elusive,” and calling on Congress to exercise its power to authorize the war, pulling back the “free rein” currently given to President Obama to escalate the campaign.
“Air power is the most agile of political lobbyists.” Simon Jenkins argues against the UK bombing of Syria, writing that because “a drone attack is so distant and so invulnerable, it regards itself as self-validating,” concluding that if Prime Minister David Cameron insists on Syrian intervention, then ground troops are the only way forward, at the Guardian.
Former US officials have called on the Obama administration to take in 100,000 Syrian refugees, a tenfold increase in the number committed to by the US last week, in a letter sent to President Obama and congressional leaders. [New York Times’ Michael R. Gordon]
Terrorist organizations will take advantage of the refugee situation and fighters from the Islamic State will likely try and gain access to the US in this way, wrote a group of senators in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday. [The Hill’s Jordain Carney]
The US should commit to taking in the 50,000 people who served as interpreters for American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, writes Dane Bowker, arguing that they “deserve our help much more” than the Syrian refugees President Obama has decided to admit. [Washington Post]
IRAN
A third attempt to pass legislation rejecting the Iran deal failed yesterday, when Senate Democrats blocked the bill; the vote ensures that Congress will not pass a resolution of disapproval that would prevent President Obama from waiving many sanctions. [Reuters’ Patricia Zengerle]
President Obama will issue US nuclear-sanctions related waivers on Oct 18, which won’t go into effect until “Implementation Day,” when the IAEA certifies Iran’s compliance with obligations under the agreement. [Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung]
Former US ambassador to Poland, Stephen Mull has been tapped by Secretary of State John Kerry as the lead in US efforts to implement the Iran nuclear accord; Mull will be charged with ensuring that Iran and other parties comply with the terms of the agreement. [Wall Street Journal’s Felicia Schwartz]
Nuclear security experts have urged the IAEA to release confidential details of how Parchin nuclear site will be inspected under the accord, suggesting that the nuclear watchdog’s failure to disclose was damaging to its credibility. [Reuters’ Louis Charbonneau and John Irish]
Iran released five senior members of al-Qaeda earlier this year as part of a prisoner swap in March with AQAP in Yemen, the group holding Iranian diplomat, Nour Ahmad Nikbakht, who was kidnapped in Sana’a in 2013. [New York Times’ Rukmini Callimachi and Eric Schmitt]
GUANTÁNAMO BAY
The US has sent home a long-cleared Moroccan prisoner from Guantánamo Bay, the Pentagon said yesterday. Younis Abdurrahman Chekkouri was returned to Morocco after almost 14 years at the detention facility at the US Naval base in Cuba. [AP]
The last remaining Kuwaiti prisoner has been cleared for release to a mental health facility in his home country, a national security parole board has decided. [Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg]
ISRAEL and PALESTINE
Israel has heightened security measures around the Old City of Jerusalem today, following calls for a “day of rage” from Palestinian leaders in protest of Israel’s response to tensions around the al-Aqsa mosque compound. [Reuters]
An Iron Dome battery was deployed in Ashdod yesterday in response to an assessment carried out by the IDF. [Haaretz]
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Pakistani Taliban fighters attacked an air base near Peshawar this morning, resulting in a firefight with security forces that killed at least 16 people, the Pakistani army has said. [Al Jazeera] The attackers stormed a mosque inside the compound, opening fire on worshippers during prayers. [AP]
Egypt has banned news coverage relating to last weekend’s attack by security forces on a group of tourists and guides that killed 12 people. [New York Times’ Jared Malsin]
Hillary Clinton’s personal attorney, David Kendall rejected the first State Department effort to erase newly classified emails from a thumb drive turned over to the agency, citing promises made to the House Benghazi committee to preserve copies of Clinton’s work related emails, newly released correspondence reveals. [Politico’s Josh Gerstein]
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon condemned the coup d’état in Burkina Faso and called for the immediate release of the country’s transitional leaders. [UN News Centre] The coup was allegedly led by allies of the country’s longtime leader, who was removed from power in October. [New York Times’ Hervé Taoko]
Army Sgt Bowe Bergdahl was suffering from a severe mental defect or disease when he left his base in Afghanistan, according to one of his attorneys, citing the conclusions of a board of psychiatrists during a preliminary hearing at which an Army officer will consider whether to court martial Bergdahl. [Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe]
Senior UN officials expressed outrage at allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between 2002 and 2011 by parties to the Sri Lankan conflict. The response follows the release of a UN human rights office report on the conflict in which the creation of a special court was recommended. [UN News Centre; OHCHR] The New York Times editorial board agrees with the human rights council proposal, saying that it is the “only way to ensure that those who committed war crimes are held accountable and victims get justice.”
China is “extremely concerned” about a suggestion from a US commander that American ships and aircraft could patrol close to artificial islands built in the South China Sea, challenging China’s claims to the area. [Reuters]
Unrest provoked by Boko Haram has resulted in the displacement of 1.4 million children over the past five months, according to a new report from UNICEF. [New York Times’ Rick Gladstone] And a small team of US Special Operations Forces are assisting Niger to quietly build a wall against Boko Haram incursions, reports Warren Strobel. [Reuters]
President Obama hosted three Americans who foiled a terrorist attack during a train journey en route to Paris last month; the president commended them for their “selfless actions and extraordinary bravery.” [New York Times’ Helene Cooper]
Read on Just Security »
WASHINGTON — By any measure, President Obama’s effort to train a Syrian opposition army to fight the Islamic State on the ground has been an abysmal failure. The military acknowledged this week that just four or five American-trained fighters are actually fighting.
But the White House says it is not to blame. The finger, it says, should be pointed not at Mr. Obama but at those who pressed him to attempt training Syrian rebels in the first place — a group that, in addition to congressional Republicans, happened to include former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
At briefings this week after the disclosure of the paltry results, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, repeatedly noted that Mr. Obama always had been a skeptic of training Syrian rebels. The military was correct in concluding that “this was a more difficult endeavor than we assumed and that we need to make some changes to that program,” Mr. Earnest said. “But I think it’s also time for our critics to ‘fess up in this regard as well. They were wrong.”
In effect, Mr. Obama is arguing that he reluctantly went along with those who said it was the way to combat the Islamic State, but that he never wanted to do it and has now has been vindicated in his original judgment. The I-told-you-so argument, of course, assumes that the idea of training rebels itself was flawed and not that it was started too late and executed ineffectively, as critics maintain.
Either way, it underscored White House sensitivities about the widening Syrian catastrophe. Withmore than 200,000 killed in the civil war, a wave of refugees flooding into Europe, and Russia nowflying in arms and troops, the president finds himself with a geopolitical and humanitarian mess that will most likely not be settled before he leaves office in 16 months.
Mr. Obama has long considered Syria a quagmire that defies American solutions, and aides are hoping to keep him from being held responsible for something that, they argue, he never really had the power to fix. But with images of drowned children and Russian tanks, the president has come under increasing fire from multiple directions.
The Russians accuse him of making the crisis worse by opposing the autocratic government of President Bashar al-Assad in its fight against terrorists like the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL. Republicans accuse him of passivity and fecklessness, of sitting back while the conflict spread across the region.
But there is no consensus among critics about what should be done. During back-to-back presidential debates on Wednesday night, Republican candidates were divided between those advocating more American involvement and those suggesting stepping back and letting the Syrians fight it out themselves.
“I openly and repeatedly warned that if we did not find moderate elements on the ground that we could equip and arm, that void would be filled by radical jihadists,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said. “Well, the president didn’t listen, the administration didn’t follow through and that’s exactly what happened. That is why ISIS grew.”
Donald J. Trump, the businessman, and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky went the other direction, embracing disengagement. “Syria’s a mess,” Mr. Trump said. “Why are we fighting ISIS in Syria? Let them fight each other and pick up the remnants.”
Mr. Paul added, “Sometimes both sides of the civil war are evil, and sometimes intervention makes us less safe.”
The idea of bolstering Syrian rebels was debated from the early days of the civil war, which started in 2011. Mrs. Clinton, along with David H. Petraeus, then the C.I.A. director, and Leon E. Panetta, then the defense secretary, supported arming opposition forces, but the president worried about deep entanglement in someone else’s war after the bloody experience in Iraq.
In 2014, however, after the Islamic State had swept through parts of Syria and Iraq, Mr. Obama reversed course and initiated a $500 million program to train and arm rebels who had been vetted and were told to fight the Islamic State, not Mr. Assad’s government.
The program was financed last December and started in May with the goal of training 5,400 in the first year, but military officials said only 100 to 120 had actually been trained. The first 54 graduates suffered a devastating attack by a Qaeda affiliate in July, forcing the Pentagon to draw up plans to revamp the program by dropping larger numbers of fighters into safer parts of Syria.
Appearing at a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, head of the United States Central Command, conceded that only four or five trained rebels were actually fighting now.
“We have to acknowledge that this is a total failure,” Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, said in response. “It’s just a failure. I wish it weren’t so, but that’s the fact. It’s time to — way past time to react to that failure.”
Military officials said the few trained rebels might still prove useful in specific roles, like calling in American airstrikes. But the military has had better results from working with Kurdish forces who have stepped up to fill the place of American-trained Syrians on the ground, first at Sinjar, then at Kobani and most recently in the stretch of Syria south of the Turkish border from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border.
The White House all but washed its hands of the training program after General Austin’s testimony.
“It is true that we have found this to be a difficult challenge,” Mr. Earnest said. “But it is also true that many of our critics had proposed this specific option as essentially the cure-all for all of the policy challenges that we’re facing in Syria right now. That is not something that this administration ever believed, but it is something that our critics will have to answer for.”
Some of those critics said the program failed because it was delayed and limited. “The White House plan is two-plus years late and fundamentally flawed because it restricts volunteers from fighting against Assad, which is their priority objective,” said Gen. Jack Keane, a retired Army vice chief of staff.
Some Syrian rebels who asked for American arms in 2011 and 2012 eventually gave up and allied themselves with more radical groups, analysts said, leaving fewer fighters who were friendly to the United States. “The reason it failed is because we got the politics wrong,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Ryan C. Crocker, a retired career diplomat who was an ambassador to Afghanistan under Mr. Obama, said the president was right to think a train-and-arm program would not work. But the president, Mr. Crocker added, should have either continued to resist it or at least taken ownership of it rather than blame others for its failure.
“How un-presidential that sounds — ‘We didn’t want to do it, we thought it was unsound but you made us do it,’ ” said Mr. Crocker, now dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. “It’s just indicative of their whole approach to Syria, which is not to have a policy. This is the worst thing they could say.”
Read the whole story
· · · · ·
WASHINGTON -- The United States says it is open to "tactical, practical" discussions with Russia about cooperating on military action against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria, but continues to insist that Russia should not try to prop up the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The comments by White House spokesman Josh Earnest came on September 17 as Russia, again, pushed for the U.S. administration to work with Assad's government in the fight against IS militants who have overrun wide swaths of Syria and Iraq.
Russia, a staunch ally of Assad, has built up a sizable military force in western Syria -- reportedly including T-90 tanks, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft missiles, and scores of naval infantry.
The buildup has worried Washington, which says it fears Moscow's goals are aimed at supporting Assad's regime rather than defeating IS fighters.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this week that there should be direct military-to-military talks to coordinate action in Syria.
Earnest told reporters at the White House that the U.S. administration welcomes "constructive contributions from the Russians" in the fight against IS militants, also known as ISIL.
"So that's why we'll remain to open to tactical, practical discussions with the Russians in order to further the goals of the anti-ISIL coalition and ensure the safe conduct of coalition operations," he said.
"We've made clear that Russia's military actions inside of Syria, if they are used to prop up the Assad regime, would be destabilizing and counterproductive," Earnest added. "That propping up a regime that's losing its grip on power, in many cases, only has the effect of driving more Syrians into the arms of extremists.
Earnest said that there is "no military solution to the turmoil that plagues Syria right now."
"The solution to this lies in advancing the kind of political agreement that would transfer Assad out of power and put in power a government inside of Syria that has the confidence and reflects the will of the Syrian people."
Washington and its NATO allies broke off military cooperation with Russia in early 2014 after the Kremlin's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and the outbreak of a bloody conflict between Kyiv's forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Russia, which has been a stalwart supplier of weapons to Syrian forces and maintains a strategic military presence at Syria's port city of Tartus, has stymied U.S. efforts to push Assad out.
In 2013, after sarin gas was used against civilians in the Syrian city of Ghouta, Washington threatened to hit Assad's forces with airstrikes before Russia stepped in and brokered a deal for Syria to relinquish its chemical weapons stockpile.
'No Conflict Of Interests'
In recent weeks, amid growing reports of Russia's military buildup near the Latakia airbase, the United States has sought to persuade nearby countries to forbid Russia to use their airspace to transport personnel and materiel into Syria.
The Pentagon said on September 14 that Russia is planning to use the Latakia location as a forward air operating base.
Speaking after talks with his Turkish counterpart in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, Lavrov on September 17 repeated Moscow's insistence that the U.S.-led coalition coordinate actions with Assad's government.
"Тhe Syrian president commands the most capable ground force fighting terrorism," Lavrov was quoted as saying by news agencies.
"Rejecting such a possibility, ignoring the capability of the Syrian Army as a partner and ally in the fight against [IS militants] means sacrificing the security of the entire region for political or geopolitical intentions and calculations," he said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed that Moscow is happy to talk to Washington about its military cooperation with Syria and provide any information the United States would like.
"We have repeatedly told our American colleagues that we are ready to provide any information they need through the existing channels of communication, so that military experts on both sides could discuss the relevant issues," she told a September 17 briefing in Moscow.
There "can be no talk about any contradiction or conflict of action or interests" between Russia and the United States in Syria if Washington's goal is to fight IS militants, Zakharova said.
With reporting from AP and Reuters
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· · ·
A Kremlin spokesman says Russia would consider sending troops to Syria if Damascus were to make such a request.
Quoted by Russian news agencies on September 18, Dmitry Peskov said that, if such a request is made, it will be "discussed and considered," but he insisted the question is purely hypothetical at this stage.
On September 17, Russia urged the United States and its allies to engage the Syrian government as a "partner" in the fight against the Islamic State extremist group amid concerns over an ongoing Russian military buildup there.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem denied reports on September 17 that Russian combat troops were fighting in Syria but said Syria would not hesitate to ask for Russia's help if needed.
However, a Syrian military source told Reuters the same day that the Syrian military, which has lost ground to rebels recently in a four-year-old civil war, had begun using new types of air and ground weapons supplied by Russia.
Russian Nationals Fighting For IS
In related news, a Russian official says some 2,400 Russian nationals are fighting alongside Islamic State militants.
Russia's First Deputy Director of Federal Security Sergei Smirnov also said that, in total, there are about 3,000 Central Asian nationals fighting within Islamic State extremist groups.
Smirnov said that the problem of migrants fleeing the Middle East to Europe is only likely to increase, potentially posing "great threat" to Russia.
"The assertion that Moscow's support negatively impacts the situation in Syria -- and the flow of refugees in particular -- is not true. This is due to the expansion of Islamic State in the region," he said.
Smirnov said that there are "some countries that try to evade" international cooperation on fighting terrorism.
"There is a cooperation but not at the right level -- especially with the United States," he said.
Smirnov was speaking to reporters in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on September 18 after a meeting on fighting terrorism of senior officials from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which brings together Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Based on reporting by Interfax, Reuters, AP, and TASS
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· ·
The government of Iran released five senior members of Al Qaeda earlier this year, including the man who stepped in to serve as the terrorist group’s interim leader immediately after Osama bin Laden’s death, and who is the subject of a $5 million bounty, according to an American official who had been briefed on the matter.
Iran’s release of the five men was part of a prisoner swap in March with Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen,the group holding an Iranian diplomat, Nour Ahmad Nikbakht. Mr. Nikbakht was kidnapped in the Yemeni capital of Sana in July 2013.
The Iranian government, in a statement on Thursday after the release was reported by Sky News earlier this week, denied that the five men had been freed. The American official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the matter, confirmed the release of Saif al-Adl, a senior member of Al Qaeda’s ruling body, known as the Shura Council, who oversaw the organization immediately after bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in Pakistan in 2011.
Analysts tracking Al Qaeda described the release as alarming, given the seniority of the five men. It comes at a time when much of the organization’s leadership has been lost in back-to-back airstrikes, including the death earlier this summer of Nasser al-Wuhayshi, considered to be the organization’s general manager. At the same time, the organization had been hemorrhaging members to the more brutal and media-savvy Islamic State.
The release of the men could re-energize the militant group, providing an influx of vetted leaders at a crucial time, terrorism experts say.
Of special concern is the release of Mr. Adl, a former colonel in the Egyptian military believed to be in his 50s, who is listed on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, and who was indicted in the 1998 United States Embassy bombings in East Africa. Qaeda operatives have described him as theorganization’s operational boss.
Cynthia Storer, who was the Central Intelligence Agency’s first full-time analyst dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, called him a “founding father.” She added, “If the organization is having internal issues, he is someone that could bring it together.”
A Qaeda analyst, Michael S. Smith II of Kronos Advisory, who has tracked Mr. Adl’s rise, describes him as “the biggest fish of the big fish” and argued that Al Qaeda’s future would rest on the shoulders of Saif al-Adl.
It remains unclear when exactly the swap occurred, with some saying it happened almost six months ago. The release of Mr. Adl will act like “a shot of energy” in the leadership arm of Al Qaeda, said Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who retired last year after heading the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“The collusion between Al Qaeda and Iran is something we have seen before and this trade, if known by the U.S., should have been included as part of the Iran deal negotiations,” General Flynn said.
According to the official briefed on the details of the transfer, the other four men released by Iran were Abdul Khayr al-Misri, an Egyptian who formerly headed Al Qaeda’s foreign relations council; Abul Qassam, a Jordanian who was a deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of the organization that later became the Islamic State; Sari Shibab, a Jordanian operative; and Abu Mohamed al-Misri, an Egyptian who helped orchestrate Al Qaeda’s major attacks before Sept. 11, 2001.
After those attacks, Mr. Smith, said, Al Qaeda decided to move several high-level leaders to Iran, believing that this would be one of the only places beyond America’s military reach.
Mr. Adl, for example, was dispatched alongside one of bin Laden’s wives and her children, and entrusted to organize their safe passage, he said.
It remains unclear when the men were detained by Iranian officials. They were held under house arrest, Mr. Smith said, and continued to communicate with Al Qaeda, according to intercepts and letters that were later recovered.
Read the whole story
· · ·
EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Johannes Hahn, right, talks with EU Ambassador to Macedonia Aivo Orav, left, before addressing lawmakers in the Macedonian Parliament, in the capital Skopje, Friday, Sept. 18, 2015. Hahn kicked off his two-day visit to Macedonia to talk with Macedonian political leaders on resolving the political crisis in the country and also planned to tour the Macedonian southern border area with Greece, where thousands of migrants and refugees are flowing toward Serbia and more prosperous EU countries. (Boris Grdanoski/Associated Press)
By Associated Press September 18 at 8:48 AM
ZAGREB, Croatia — The latest developments as European governments rush to cope with the huge number of people moving across Europe. All times local (CET):
2:45 p.m.
European Union Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn says the bloc will not leave Balkan countries to deal with the refugee crisis on their own.
Addressing the Macedonian parliament in Skopje Friday, he said all EU countries “have the task to protect the external borders.”
Macedonia has seen tens of thousands of migrants cross from its southern border with Greece to its northern border with Serbia as they head to the more prosperous EU countries of the north. Macedonian police said that more than 83,000 have transited through the small Balkan nation in the last three months.
“You are not a parking lot for refugees, you are also victims of the situation and we won’t leave you alone,” Hahn said.
The commissioner was to visit the southern border area with Greece Saturday.
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2:15 p.m.
The U.N. refugee agency is warning of a “buildup” of migrants in Serbia as its neighbors tighten their borders to the influx of people fleeing war and poverty.
Adrian Edwards of UNHCR says “the crisis is growing and being pushed from one country to another” as roughly 4,000 people pour into Greece each day and head north. He says stricter border controls by Hungary and Croatia threaten a bottleneck in Serbia, “which is not a country with a robust asylum system.”
Speaking Friday, Edwards said: “You aren’t going to solve these problems by closing borders.”
UNHCR says more than 442,440 people have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe this year, and 2,921 have died trying. The International Organization for Migration puts those figures at 473,887 and 2,812 respectively.
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1:45 p.m.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls says the European Union must take control of its borders or the European Schengen agreement for passport-free travel across the continent “will be challenged.”
Valls says it is urgent to find an agreement on permanently relocating refugees, saying Europe currently is facing “an unprecedented migration.”
Valls says the EU must also decide on a policy for returning people who left their home countries for economic reasons and don’t qualify for asylum.
He spoke Friday in Stockholm where he met his Swedish counterpart Stefan Lofven ahead of a meeting on migrants in Vienna.
Both called for a solution where “all countries in the EU share their responsibility,” Lofven said.
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1:35 p.m.
A spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency has called for a joint European response to the migrant crisis, saying countries cannot cope individually.
Babar Baloch, regional spokesman for Central Europe for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said Friday that his organization is capable of handling the humanitarian response to the migrant crisis, but “what’s missing is a collective EU action.”
Baloch says that “within three days we can put in place mechanism for refugee arrivals,” or “empty our warehouses in Dubai, Copenhagen and other places.”
He adds “we know how to do the job, but the responsibility, the moral and legal responsibility here is on the countries in the European Union.” Countries “need to do it together,” he says.
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1:20 p.m.
Hungary’s government spokesman says Croatia’s decision to redirect migrants entering the country toward Hungary and Slovenia is “totally unacceptable.”
Zoltan Kovacs told The Associated Press on Friday that although Croatia knew exactly what it would be confronted with, its “supply system collapsed in a single day. Hungary has been holding its own for the ninth consecutive month.”
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said earlier that Croatia’s capacities were full and the authorities could no longer register migrants in accordance with EU rules.
Kovacs said it was “totally unacceptable for a European country to not respect European rules just because it was unprepared,” predicting that Croatia would be “set back by many years” in its efforts to join the EU’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel.
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12:40 p.m.
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic says Croatia cannot and will not close its borders, but will redirect people toward Hungary and Slovenia and further toward Western Europe.
It wasn’t immediately clear how that would solve the situation because both Hungary and Slovenia are taking steps to keep migrants out.
Milanovic said that Croatia’s capacities are full and that the authorities no longer can register people in accordance with EU rules. He said the country will let them pass through and suggested it will transfer them to its borders, primarily the Hungarian border.
Milanovic said: “What else can we do? You are welcome in Croatia and you can pass through Croatia. But, go on. Not because we don’t like you but because this is not your final destination.”
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12:25 p.m.
German security officials say Islamic extremists are reaching out to migrants with the aim of recruiting them.
The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service said in an interview published Friday that “we can see that Salafists are presenting themselves as benefactors and helpers.”
Hans-Georg Maassen told the Rheinische Post daily that the Salafists are “specifically seeking contact, issuing invitations to visit notorious mosques, in order to recruit refugees for their cause.”
Security officials estimate that some 7,500 people in Germany subscribe to Salafism, a strict interpretation of Islam that rejects many modern democratic rights.
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12:00 p.m.
German officials say trains carrying migrants may be diverted past Munich in the coming days to prevent a clash with the city’s annual beer festival.
Some 6 million visitors are expected to come to Munich for the Oktoberfest, which starts Saturday and runs through Oct. 4.
A spokesman for Munich police says special trains bringing migrants from the border may also be taken to a separate train station, or police could escort migrants arriving at the city’s main station past the crowds of tourists.
Peter Beck told The Associated Press on Friday that he doesn’t expect migrants to go to the festival grounds themselves.
Some 1,600 migrants came to Munich on Thursday, and another 300 arrived in the city Friday morning.
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11:50 a.m.
Slovenia’s government has scheduled a meeting of its security council as the small Alpine nation braces for an influx of migrants from Croatia.
Authorities expect thousands of people will attempt to cross into Slovenia on Friday after more than 13,000 entered neighboring Croatia in little over two days.
Most migrants want to move on toward Western Europe. Slovenia’s Prime Minister Miro Cerar has ruled out creating a north-bound corridor for the migrants.
Slovenia has said it will return migrants coming in from Croatia. Dozens attempting to cross have already been held up by Slovenian police.
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11:10 a.m.
Czech police and military will conduct a joint drill to be ready to deal with a possible increased numbers of migrants.
The drill will be conducted along the country’s borders and will include hundreds of service members with planes and helicopters.
Interior Minister Milan Cjovanec says its goal is “to test the ability of the forces to cooperate in crisis situations.”
Friday’s announcement comes three days after Prime Minster Bohuslav Sobotka said his government is ready to deploy the armed forces to protect the country’s borders against migrants.
Czech police already boosted its presence on the Austrian-Czech border on Sunday in response to Germany’s decision to renew border controls along its border with Austria. But the Czechs haven’t renewed border checks yet.
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11:00 a.m.
Five German soccer clubs say they are boycotting a show of solidarity for refugees this weekend.
SC Freiburg, VfL Bochum, 1. FC Nuernberg and 1. FC Union Berlin said on their website that players won’t be wearing special patches promoted by German daily Bild.
Bochum and Nuernberg said they are distancing themselves from the event because of the newspaper’s criticism of another club’s refusal to take part.
FC St. Pauli, whose fans are traditionally left-wing, said earlier this week that it has long supported refugees and didn’t want to participate in Bild’s event.
The initiative was announced earlier this week and involved players carrying a patch on their left arm saying “We’re helping, (hashtag)refugeeswelcome.”
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10:50 a.m.
Germany’s foreign minister says it may be necessary to force Eastern European countries to accept quotas for migrants.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier says in a newspaper interview published Friday that Germany, Austria, Sweden and Italy can’t bear all the burden of migrants coming to Europe.
But some countries, mostly in Eastern Europe, have opposed consensus on the distribution of migrants according to pre-determined quotas.
Steinmeier told the Passauer Neue Presse daily that “if there is no other way we need to seriously consider using the instrument of a majority decision.”
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10:40 a.m.
Treading slowly through vast areas of cornfields, groups of migrants have been entering Croatia despite the move by authorities to shut down almost all official border crossings with neighboring Serbia.
Some 2,000 people have gathered in the eastern Croatian border town of Tovarnik waiting for bus or train rides to the refugee centers. One train with eleven carriages left Friday morning carrying hundreds to refugee centers in the capital Zagreb and elsewhere.
Those still in Tovarnik are sitting of lying on the ground. Some are sleeping, others standing in groups, chatting and discussing what to do next.
Croatian police have been taking the migrants to the asylum centers for registration, but most want to move on toward Western Europe. Hundreds of those fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have been converging near the train station in the capital, Zagreb.
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9:50 a.m.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban says that his country has started building a razor-wire fence along a stretch of its border with Croatia to keep migrants from entering the country in that area.
Orban says the first phase of the 41-kilometer (25 mile) barrier will be completed on Friday, with coils of razor wire in place before an actual fence goes up.
He said on state radio that he is deploying hundreds of soldiers and police to the border to prepare the fence and defend the border.
Earlier this week Hungary sealed off its southern border with Serbia with a 4-meter (13-foot) high razor-wire fence and began arresting migrants who try to enter the country. Baton-wielding riot police also used tear gas and water cannons on migrants after a group tried to break through a gate on the Hungary-Serbia border.
Since then, some migrants have tried to enter Hungary through sections of the border with Croatia, while many others have opted to take a longer route through Croatia and Slovenia toward Western Europe.
___
9:40 a.m.
Croatian police say some 13,300 migrants have entered the country from Serbia since the first groups started arriving more than two days ago.
Croatia on Friday closed all border crossings with Serbia except one in an effort to control the flow which has strained authorities.
Despite the move, migrants and refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have been coming into Croatia through the corn fields. Most of them want to move on toward Germany or the Scandinavian countries.
The migrants have turned to Croatia for a corridor to Western Europe after Hungary used force to push them away from its territory.
___
8:30 a.m.
Croatian authorities say they have closed all border crossings with Serbia but one after straining to cope with 11,000 migrants and refugees who have entered the country after Hungary closed off its border.
Serbian officials, fearing that the closure would block thousands of migrants inside the country, protested Zagreb’s move.
Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s social affairs minister, said Serbia will take Croatia to international courts if the international border crossings remain closed.
Meanwhile, Slovenia has been returning migrants to Croatia and has stopped all rail traffic between the two countries.
Croatian authorities say the situation is worst in the eastern Croatian town of Beli Manastir, where thousands of refugees have converged and caught local authorities unprepared.
___
8:15 a.m.
Activists say conditions at a refugee registration center in the southeast German city of Passau became untenable overnight.
A volunteer who has helped migrants arriving in the Bavarian city says more than 2,000 people were crammed into two large halls, with no medics or interpreters on site.
Dagmar Haase told The Associated Press on Friday that she and other volunteers spent the night at the site handing out food to migrants.
A spokesman for Germany’s federal police, which run the site, says some 4,000 migrants came across the border from Austria on Thursday.
Thomas Schweikl says that while medics aren’t on-site at all times, ambulances can be called when necessary. He wasn’t immediately able to comment on the number of refugees at the site overnight.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Pakistani commandos arrive at an air force base in Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday, Sept. 18, 2015. Militants in northwestern Pakistan attacked an air force base on the outskirts of Peshawar early Friday, triggering a shootout that left at least 20 wounded and six of the attackers dead, officials said. (Mohammad Sajjad/Associated Press)
By Riaz Khan and Munir Ahmed | AP September 18 at 8:07 AM
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A brazen Taliban attack on a Pakistani military base on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar killed 20 people on Friday, including 16 worshippers who were gunned down when the militants stormed a mosque inside the compound during prayers.
The attack triggered an hours-long firefight at the base and the Pakistani forces said they killed 13 of the attackers, though it was unclear how many were involved in the assault. Apart from 16 slain inside the mosque, three guards employed with the air force and an army captain were also killed, officials said.
The attack was a major blow for Pakistan’s military, which stepped up operations against the militants following a horrific Taliban attack last December at a Peshawar school that killed 150 people, mostly children. It also underscored the ability of the militants to stage spectacular attacks on targets linked to the country’s military and government.
In Friday’s assault, the attackers first stormed the guard room of the Badaber base, according to air force officials. The base was established in 1960s as an air force facility but has mostly been used as a residential place for air force employees and officers from Peshawar.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa said 13 attackers were killed by the security forces. He said the attack was quickly repulsed and that the bodies of the slain “terrorist” were lying on the ground in the base compound.
However, details about how the Taliban managed to make their way into the mosque, which is inside the compound walls, and gun down 16 people during prayers were sketchy.
Bajwa said the militants entered the base from different directions in a two-pronged assault — apparently one push targeted the mosque — but that security forces quickly responded.
It was also unclear if any of the attackers got away.
According to Bajwa and a statement released by the air force, along with those killed, 10 soldiers were wounded in the firefight with militants, along with an unspecified number of civilians. The dead and most the wounded were taken to a military hospital in the area, where access was barred to reporters.
Five wounded security personnel and two civilians were brought to the main government hospital in Peshawar. It was not immediately clear whether the army would allow media access to the base, once it has been cleared.
One of the wounded security officials, Mohammad Rizwan, said he was coming out of the mosque when he was hit by a bullet.
“I fell down and I saw some of the attackers, but I don’t know what happened later, I fell unconscious,” he said.
A wounded soldier, Akram Ullah, said from his hospital bed that he was inside the mosque and that he remembers seeing a gunman with a grenade come in.
Fayaz Hussain Chaudhry, father of the slain army Capt. Asfand Yar, told the Dunya news TV station that his son gave his life for his country. “He fought at the front of the battle today and he killed terrorists,” he said.
Shortly after the attack, a suspected U.S. drone strike hit a home in the South Waziristan tribal region, south of Peshawar, killing at least three militants and wounding five, according to two Pakistani security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the country’s powerful army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, rushed to Peshawar and attended some of the funerals of the victims. According to Muslim tradition, the deceased are buried as soon as possible.
Earlier, the army chief met with the security forces taking part in the clearing operation at the base and also visited a military hospital where doctors were treating soldiers wounded in the attack.
A rescue officer said his crew transported at least 20 wounded to hospitals in the area. The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, said there were no immediate reports of women or children among the wounded.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Mohamad Khurasani, claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement to the media, he said 14 Taliban fighters were involved in the assault. They offered “safe passage” to women and children after attacking the base, Khurasani said. He added that the Taliban “targeted” 50 security forces, without explaining what that meant.
Pakistani TV footage showed army helicopters hovering near the base, as police and troops surrounded the area.
Local police officer Shahid Khan Bangash said a large explosion was heard as the militants first tried to storm the base. “We are hearing that the attackers were armed with guns and rockets,” he said. Bangash said the attackers threw grenades at the guard room but were unable to enter the main area of the base.
Later in the morning, he said the firing had stopped and a search operation for the militants who might still be hiding in the area was under way.
Friday’s attack came a day after Pakistan reported the arrest a militant figure behind a recent failed attempt to target an air force facility in Kamra, also in the northwest of the country. Counter-terrorism officer Junaid Khan in the southern port city of Karachi, where the raid took place, identified the suspect as Umar Hayat and said he was being questioned.
On Thursday, the Pakistani police in Karachi also reported the arrest of another prominent suspect, Syed Sheaba Ahmad, a former air force pilot who allegedly helped finance al-Qaida’s newly formed South Asian affiliate.
The Pakistan air force has been playing an important role in the fight against militants since June 2014, when the army launched the much-awaited operation in North Waziristan, a restive tribal area along the Afghanistan border. Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders the tribal area. The air force frequently target militant hideouts in the tribal area and elsewhere.
The army says it has killed more than 3,000 militants so far in the North Waziristan offensive. The region was once considered to be the headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban who have been targeting security forces and public places in an effort to topple the elected government to enforce harsher version of Islam.
___
Ahmed reported from Islamabad.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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SAN ANTONIO — Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who faces a possible life sentence for endangering the soldiers who searched for him after he left his Afghanistan base in 2009, had a “severe mental disease or defect” at the time, one of his lawyers said Thursday.
The diagnosis was made later by an independent Army psychiatry board, said the defense lawyer, Lt. Col. Franklin D. Rosenblatt of the Army. Because of his psychological problems, Sergeant Bergdahl washed out of Coast Guard basic training three years earlier, Colonel Rosenblatt said, and had to obtain a waiver to join the Army.
The revelations came during the first day of a hearing in which Army prosecutors hope to persuade a hearing officer to recommend that Sergeant Bergdahl, 29, be court-martialed on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
Prosecutors say his decision to walk off his base prompted a seven-week manhunt involving thousands of troops who braved heat, improvised bombs, fatigue and filth as they conducted raids and other dangerous missions in a fruitless effort to find him.
Colonel Rosenblatt’s statements — during questioning of Sergeant Bergdahl’s former platoon leader, Capt. John P. Billings — appeared to foreshadow a crucial element of the defense team’s strategy: to argue that the military indirectly shares blame for Sergeant Bergdahl’s decision to leave his remote outpost in the middle of the night because officials should have known that he was mentally unfit for combat.
Colonel Rosenblatt also questioned a former company commander, Maj. Silvino Silvino, about whether he knew that some of Sergeant Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers had warned a senior sergeant that they “were concerned about his mental health.” Major Silvino testified that he had never been told that.
Sergeant Bergdahl disappeared in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and was held captive by the Taliban for nearly five years, until President Obama agreed to exchange him for five Taliban detainees in a deal that spurred criticism from Republicans.
Prosecutors hope to convince the hearing officer, Lt. Col. Mark Visger, an Army lawyer, that Sergeant Bergdahl, then a private first class, acted with what they termed “deliberate disregard” for the consequences of his actions when he left the base to seek out a senior commander.
A prosecutor, Maj. Margaret Kurz, sought to portray Sergeant Bergdahl as vain and selfish, arguing in her opening statement that he had walked off his base “to bring attention to himself so he could have a private audience with the general.”
“For 45 days, thousands of soldiers toiled in the heat” with little rest during the search, Major Kurz said, adding that the operation to find the missing soldier meant the military had to neglect its most significant tasks, partnering with and supporting Afghan security forces and ingratiating itself with Afghan civilians.
Defense lawyers have previously said that Sergeant Bergdahl left so he could hike to another base and report undisclosed “disturbing circumstances” at his unit to a high-ranking officer.
Captain Billings testified that he had been shocked and devastated when he realized that Sergeant Bergdahl was missing.
He said that he had been unaware of any problems with Sergeant Bergdahl, describing him as “a great soldier, by all accounts,” who “always did everything he was asked to do.”
But the captain awoke that morning to find that Sergeant Bergdahl had left his weapon and his night-vision goggles on his cot, with no sign of foul play or physical scuffle. (Major Kurz said Sergeant Bergdahl had taken a knife, a compass, snacks and local currency.)
Captain Billings said he had hoped his troops were just playing a trick on him when they said they could not find Sergeant Bergdahl, as he prepared to send a message telling his company commander what had happened. Then, he said, his heart sank when his platoon sergeant told him, “You should have sent that 10 minutes ago.”
He described a feeling of “internal franticness” and “absolute, utter disbelief.” Soon, though, those emotions gave way to a desperate search. He led a nine-member patrol looking for Sergeant Bergdahl, as company, battalion and division forces came to the tiny outpost to help.
His platoon searched nonstop for 20 days, all of it off-base and “outside the wire,” Captain Billings testified. His men were weary, frustrated and mentally exhausted.
“One day bled into the next,” Captain Billings testified. “At some point, the guys just looked at themselves and said, ‘When is this going to end?’”
Col. Clinton Baker, who was Sergeant Bergdahl’s battalion commander, said the conditions endured during the search were “much tougher” than even Ranger School, the Army’s grueling leadership course — partly because the soldiers had to dodge many enemy attacks, including ones using improvised bombs.
“There was no battle rhythm” during the search, Colonel Baker testified. “It was just ‘go’ all the time.”
The hearing continues Friday, when the defense is expected to call three witnesses, including Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, who conducted the Army’s investigation into the disappearance.
Sergeant Bergdahl’s lead lawyer, Eugene R. Fidell, made a one-sentence opening statement during Thursday’s session that seemed to reveal frustration that the Army continued to block the release of the unclassified transcript of the interview his client gave General Dahl.
“The government should make Sergeant Bergdahl’s statement available to the public, not just to you,” Mr. Fidell told the hearing officer.
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· · · ·
Russia has been cyberspying extensively on the United States and countries throughout Europe and Asia for seven years, Finnish data security firm F-Secure said in a report published September 17.
The report warns that a large and "well resourced" hacking group known as "the Dukes" is spying for the Russian government and outlines the wide-ranging attacks the group has made in the last seven years.
The hackers use a family of unique malware tools which steal information by infiltrating computer networks and sending the data back to the attackers, it said.
Some of the target organizations listed in the report include the former Georgian Information Center on NATO, Georgia's Defense Ministry, the foreign ministries of Turkey, Ukraine, and Poland, and other government institutions and political think tanks in the United States, Europe, and Central Asia.
"All the signs point back to Russian state sponsorship," said Artturi Lehtio, F-Secure's researcher heading the investigation.
Other reports have also found the Kremlin behind cyberespionage attacks in recent years.
A report by the U.S. security firm FireEye last year said a long-running effort to hack into U.S. defense contractors, Eastern European governments, and European security organizations was "likely sponsored by the Russian government."
U.S. security firm Symantec reported in 2014 the discovery of a highly sophisticated cyberspying tool called the Regin, which had been used since 2008 to steal information from governments and businesses.
The largest number of Regin infections -- 28 percent -- were discovered in Russia, with Saudi Arabia the next highest with 24 percent.
The Dukes hacking group is likely run by professional software developers, is based in Moscow, and works on behalf of the Russian Federation, F-Secure said.
Patrik Maldre, a junior research fellow with the International Center for Defense and Security in Estonia, said the report showed that Russia has invested "heavily" in cyber-capabilities and views those capabilities as "an important component in advancing its strategic interests."
"The connections identified in the report have significant international security implications, particularly for states in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus," he said.
“Smaller countries, such as Sweden and Finland, are particularly vulnerable to this kind of espionage," said Mika Aaltola, a program director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
"Nordic and Baltic countries are always trying to balance Russian and western interests, and Russia uses its cyberattack capabilities to find ways to tip the balance in its favor.”
With reporting by AFP, Computing, and <a href="http://ComputerWeekly.com" rel="nofollow">ComputerWeekly.com</a>
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· ·
John Kerry / AP
BY: Adam Kredo
The Obama administration is declining to inform Congress about the number of American citizens and troops killed by Iran and its terror proxies, according to a document provided to Congress and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The administration was repeatedly asked by Congress to release figures describing how many Americans and Israelis have been killed by Iran’s military and terror activities since the country’s 1979 revolution.
In a series of on-the-record responses obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon, and provided in written form to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Kerry sidestepped the questions on all of the three separate occasions he was asked to provide the figures.
The questions come as the United States prepares to unfreeze more than $100 billion in Iranian assets under the terms of the recently inked nuclear deal. Experts fear the Islamic Republic will funnel the cash windfall into its rogue terror operations and proxy groups.
Lawmakers and experts also have expressed concern about portions of the deal that will lift international sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s financial empire.
In the list of questions submitted to Kerry, Rubio asks: “How many U.S. citizens have been killed by Iran, including by Iran’s terrorist proxies, since 1979?”
The secretary of state declined to provide an answer, instead saying that the administration takes the murder of American citizens “very seriously.”
“The death of any U.S. citizen due to acts of terrorism is a tragedy that we take very seriously,” Kerry writes. “As the President said in his Aug. 5 speech, a nuclear-armed Iran is a danger to Israel, America and the world.”
“The central goal of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] is to eliminate the imminent threat of a nuclear-armed Iran,” Kerry continued.
When asked a second time by Rubio to specify “How many U.S. troops and soldiers were killed by Iranian-provided weapons or by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Kerry said, again sidestepping the question.
“We are extraordinarily grateful for the service of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, and we mourn the loss of every service member,” Kerry writes. “The JCPOA is not about a change in the broader U.S. relationship with Iran. It is about eliminating the biggest and most imminent threat—a nuclear-armed Iran.”
When separately asked to detail “how many Israelis have been killed by Iran, including by Iran’s terrorist proxies since 1979,” Kerry again declined to respond.
“The central goal of the JCPOA is to eliminate the imminent threat that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon,” Kerry said. “But the JCPOA cannot erase decades of Iranian anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric and actions.”
A State Department official told the Free Beacon that no further information on these questions could be provided beyond what Kerry wrote.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R., Texas) told the Free Beacon that the administration’s reluctance to provide information about Iran’s efforts to kill Americans is “unconscionable.”
“It is a fact that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and that they have killed and maimed thousands of upstanding military men and women at the hands of sheer hate,” said Gohmert, who has been a vocal critic of the Iran deal.
“It is unconscionable that the Obama administration is refusing to answer questions on just how many Americans have been killed or maimed by Iran,” the lawmaker said. “One thing we know— Iran says they will continue their efforts to destroy the United States and its people so one hundred billion dollars will allow Iran to kill and maim multiples of the numbers of Americans they already have killed and maimed, making the Obama administration knowing accessories.”
Michael Pregent, director of the advocacy organization Veterans Against the Deal, called it shocking that the administration would not release these figures.
“We find it absurd that the Obama administration and the State Department would deny information on Iran’s direct role in the deaths of Americans in Iraq from sitting U.S. senators,” said Pregent, whose organization has released several ads highlighting Iran’s terror operations against U.S. soldiers.
“For the State Department to protect Iran by keeping information detrimental to Iran’s Quds force and [IRGC Leader] Qasem Soleimani from the American people is an affront to veterans affected by this enemy and service members currently in harms way in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Pregent said.
Recent estimates by U.S. intelligence officials put the number of American soldiers killed by Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan at around 500.
The issue of Iran’s terror funding has emerged as a key concern among critics of the nuclear accord.
A Free Beacon report revealed that Iran has been spending billions of dollars to pay the salaries of terrorists.
This includes potentially millions of dollars in monthly payments to pro-government forces in Syria, more than $1 billion in military aid to fighters in Iraq, and about $20 million annually to Hamas terrorists, according to a private report commissioned by Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.).
The report was assembled following a request by Kirk for the Obama administration to disclose its estimates of “Iranian military spending, as well as Iranian assistance to Houthi rebels in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, the Assad government, Hezbollah, and Hamas,” according to a copy of that report.
Kerry additionally discloses in his responses to Rubio that Iran is permitted to test fire ballistic missiles under the nuclear accord.
“It would not be a violation of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] if Iran tested a conventional ballistic missile,” Kerry disclosed in the document.
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· · · · ·
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a cat as he inspects housing built for victims of wildfires in the village of Krasnopolye, in Khakassia, a region in southeastern Siberia, Russia / AP
BY: Daniel Wiser
Russia has deployed as many as 10,000 troops in eastern Ukraine for more than a year and has actively sought to hide the deaths of its soldiers, according to a new report that provides a comprehensive assessment of the Kremlin’s invasion of its neighbor.
The report was published Thursday by the Interpreter, a daily online journal that translates Russian media and reports on Russian affairs, also detailed the Kremlin’s provision of increasingly sophisticated weaponry and vehicles to separatists in Ukraine. Nearly 8,000 people have been killedin the Ukrainian conflict since April 2014.
The conflict originated in March 2014 when unmarked Russian soldiers seized the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine, an invasion that followed Ukraine’s ousting of a pro-Moscow leader. Despite denials from Russian President Vladimir Putin at the time that the troops belonged to Russia, he lateradmitted that he deployed them.
Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin escalated support to separatists in eastern Ukraine that resided in areas with a majority of ethnic Russians. Reserve officers in the Russian military, who also had ties to the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU, commanded the rebels in attacks. By June 2014, the Ukrainian military said that Russia had massed more than 40,000 troops on Ukraine’s border and deployed about 7,000 to 10,000 Russian soldiers inside Ukraine.
While Ukrainian forces achieved some victories early in the conflict, a profusion of Russian-supplied advanced weapons helped the separatists gain the upper hand by the summer of 2014. These included T-64 and T-72 battle tanks, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles known as MANPADS, and the Strela-10 armored vehicle with surface-to-air-missiles and machine guns.
Additionally, the separatists likely used the Russian-supplied Buk, a long-range anti-aircraft missile system, to shoot down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in July 2014, killing nearly 300 people. The rebels’ increased use of anti-aircraft weapons deterred the Ukrainian military from using its air power and further hampered its forces, the report said.
Satellite images and other evidence indicate that the separatists did not capture the weapons from Ukrainian forces, such as with the T-72 tank.
“Not only had the Ukrainian military never used this tank in the conflict, but multiple variants of the tank spotted in eastern Ukraine were never possessed by the Ukrainian military because they were modernized versions of a tank that Russia never exported,” the report said.
A string of defeats by Ukrainian forces, including at the southeastern border and at coastal towns near the strategic port of Mariupol, forced Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to negotiate a ceasefire in September 2014. According to the report, “evidence suggests that Russian military units were at the vanguard of every part of the battles that were occurring. Ten Russian military paratroopers were even captured on the battlefields in the area.”
After a brief cessation in fighting, the ceasefire, known as the Minsk agreement, crumbled. Russia continued to provide heavy weaponry to their proxy forces, which contributed to separatist victories at the Donetsk Airport and Debaltsevo in rebel-controlled territory.
“In November Russia supplied them with new military hardware like the 1RL232 ‘Leopard’ and the 1RL239 ‘Lynx’ ground-scan radar systems, and by January the BPM-97 armored vehicle and GAZ Vodnik armored infantry vehicle, weapons only used by the Russian military, had appeared in the hands of forces as well,” the report said.
A second ceasefire agreement in February also failed to stanch the fighting. Russian forces are now prepared to invade at any time, depending on the circumstances of the war, the report said.
“The Russian military is digging in, building forward operating bases between Mariupol and Donetsk, and turning temporary staging areas on the Russian side of the border into permanent installations for invasion preparations.”
Putin has instituted several measures to prevent the deaths of Russian soldiers in Ukraine from inciting a backlash at home, the report said. The troops are often young enlistees from disparate regions of Russia, and they are treated at clinics scattered across the country. Groups and news outlets that attempt to report the deaths of Russian soldiers are harassed or attacked by authorities and unknown assailants.
In May, Putin signed a measure that prohibits information about the deaths of Russian forces in peacetime, an attempt to further conceal details about Russia’s involvement in Ukraine.
The report estimates that about 600 Russian troops have died in Ukraine, while about 800 are missing.
Despite Poroshenko’s repeated requests for weapons from U.S. forces to help defeat the separatists, the Obama administration has refused to provide any substantial support. In a recent Washington Post interview, Poroshenko said Ukraine is in need of “defensive weapons.”
“We don’t talk about the lethal weapons,” he said. “Ukraine is an industrialized nation that can produce their own weapons. We’re talking about the defensive weapons, which help us just defensively.”
“And sorry for my pathos, but we here defend not just Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he continued. “We here defend freedom and democracy. And we are now fighting with the weapons of the 20th century against the weapons of the 21st century.”
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· · · · ·
Washington (CNN)Every good story needs a villain and in Vladimir Putin, candidates in the 2016 White House race have found the perfect foil.
The Russian President -- with his expansionist worldview, Cold War-style mindset, KGB roots, tough-guy stunts and implacable anti-Americanism -- makes the quintessential campaign trail scoundrel.
Putin's walk-on role in the 2016 campaign was on display at the CNN Republican presidential debates on Wednesday, perhaps inevitably, since echoes of the Cold War were everywhere. The back-to-back showdowns were hosted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, which honors a man who helped hasten the end of the Soviet Union by famously saying in Berlin, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Candidates, Republicans in particular, seem eager to drop his name and take a stance that makes them look strong, President Barack Obama look weak and that does not require much policy detail. But their harsh talk could end up further straining the U.S.-Russia relationship and handing the next president an even bigger foreign policy challenge.
Putin's name came up 18 times Wednesday night, recalling previous eras when Soviet bashing was a staple of U.S. presidential campaigns.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who touted his foreign policy credentials throughout the debate and says Putin is nothing more than a "gangster," warned that the Russian leader was trying to reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union and wanted to "destroy NATO."
And the breakout star of the debate, Carly Fiorina, took the Putin cold shoulder a step farther.
The former Hewlett-Packard CEO picked a fight with Russia to portray herself as a potential commander in chief.
"Having met Vladimir Putin, I wouldn't talk to him at all. We've talked way too much to him," she said.
"What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states," she continued. "I'd probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message."
Talk is one thing ...
If elected president, Fiorina would feel under pressure to live up to her threat to shun him, but not every vow made on the campaign trail ends up translating into administration policy.
And while ignoring Putin might make a strong statement at the start of a presidency, Russia's global influence, its position on the U.N. Security Council and its capacity to thwart U.S. foreign priorities would likely eventually force a President Fiorina to conduct a dialogue with the Russian leader.
Cult of Putin
Cult of Putin
Putin rides a Harley-Davidson to an international biker convention in southern Ukraine on July 14, 2010.
Cult of Putin
The Russian president aims at a whale with an arbalest (crossbow) to take a piece of its skin for analysis at Olga Bay on August 25, 2010.
Cult of Putin
A wetsuit-clad Putin embarks on a dive to an underwater archaeological site at Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula on August 10, 2011.
Cult of Putin
Famed for his love of martial arts, Putin throws a competitor in a judo session at an athletics school in St. Petersburg on December 18, 2009.
Cult of Putin
Putin during his vacation in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009.
Cult of Putin
Putin swims the butterfly during his vacation outside the town of Kyzyl in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009.
Cult of Putin
Assisted by a Russian scientist, Putin fixes a satellite transmitter to a tiger during his visit to the Ussuriysky forest reserve of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Far East on August 31, 2008.
Cult of Putin
Putin carries a hunting rifle in the Republic of Tuva on September 3, 2007.
Cult of Putin
A shirtless Putin fishing in the headwaters of the Yenisei River in the Republic of Tuva on August 13, 2007.
Cult of Putin
Putin in the cockpit of a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber jet at a military airport on August 16, 2005, before his supersonic flight.
Cult of Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a cat as he inspects housing built for victims of wildfires in the village of Krasnopolye, in a region in southeastern Siberia, Russia, on Friday, September 4. For years, Russia's leader has cultivated a populist image in the Russian media.
Cult of Putin
Putin, left, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev jokingly toast at a lunch during a meeting at the Black Sea resort in Sochi, Russia, on Sunday, August 30.
Cult of Putin
Putin exercises during his meeting with Medvedev on August 30.
Cult of Putin
Putin sits in a bathyscaphe as it plunges into the Black Sea along the coast of Sevastopol, Crimea, on Tuesday, August 18. Putin went underwater to see the wreckage of an ancient merchant ship that was found in the end of May.
Cult of Putin
Putin holds a Persian leopard cub in February 2014 at a breeding and rehabilitation center in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Perhaps the most important vote in Russia's public selection of a new Olympic mascot was cast when Putin said he wanted a funky leopard to represent the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
Cult of Putin
Putin holds a pike he caught in the Siberian Tuva region of Russia on July 20, 2013.
Cult of Putin
Putin enjoys some fishing during his vacation to the Tuva region on July 20, 2013.
Cult of Putin
Putin submerges on board Sea Explorer 5 bathyscaphe near the isle of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland on July 15, 2013.
Cult of Putin
Putin studies a crane during an experiment called Flight of Hope on September 5, 2012, in which he piloted a hang glider, aiming to lead the birds into flight. It's part of a project to save the rare species of crane.
Cult of Putin
Putin takes part in a training session for young ice hockey players before the "Golden Puck" youth tournament final in Moscow on April 15, 2011.
Cult of Putin
Putin rides a Harley-Davidson to an international biker convention in southern Ukraine on July 14, 2010.
Cult of Putin
The Russian president aims at a whale with an arbalest (crossbow) to take a piece of its skin for analysis at Olga Bay on August 25, 2010.
Cult of Putin
A wetsuit-clad Putin embarks on a dive to an underwater archaeological site at Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula on August 10, 2011.
Cult of Putin
Famed for his love of martial arts, Putin throws a competitor in a judo session at an athletics school in St. Petersburg on December 18, 2009.
Cult of Putin
Putin during his vacation in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009.
Cult of Putin
Putin swims the butterfly during his vacation outside the town of Kyzyl in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009.
Cult of Putin
Assisted by a Russian scientist, Putin fixes a satellite transmitter to a tiger during his visit to the Ussuriysky forest reserve of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Far East on August 31, 2008.
Cult of Putin
Putin carries a hunting rifle in the Republic of Tuva on September 3, 2007.
Cult of Putin
A shirtless Putin fishing in the headwaters of the Yenisei River in the Republic of Tuva on August 13, 2007.
Cult of Putin
Putin in the cockpit of a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber jet at a military airport on August 16, 2005, before his supersonic flight.
Cult of Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a cat as he inspects housing built for victims of wildfires in the village of Krasnopolye, in a region in southeastern Siberia, Russia, on Friday, September 4. For years, Russia's leader has cultivated a populist image in the Russian media.
Cult of Putin
Putin, left, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev jokingly toast at a lunch during a meeting at the Black Sea resort in Sochi, Russia, on Sunday, August 30.
Cult of Putin
Putin exercises during his meeting with Medvedev on August 30.
Cult of Putin
Putin sits in a bathyscaphe as it plunges into the Black Sea along the coast of Sevastopol, Crimea, on Tuesday, August 18. Putin went underwater to see the wreckage of an ancient merchant ship that was found in the end of May.
Cult of Putin
Putin holds a Persian leopard cub in February 2014 at a breeding and rehabilitation center in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Perhaps the most important vote in Russia's public selection of a new Olympic mascot was cast when Putin said he wanted a funky leopard to represent the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
Cult of Putin
Putin holds a pike he caught in the Siberian Tuva region of Russia on July 20, 2013.
Cult of Putin
Putin enjoys some fishing during his vacation to the Tuva region on July 20, 2013.
Cult of Putin
Putin submerges on board Sea Explorer 5 bathyscaphe near the isle of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland on July 15, 2013.
Cult of Putin
Putin studies a crane during an experiment called Flight of Hope on September 5, 2012, in which he piloted a hang glider, aiming to lead the birds into flight. It's part of a project to save the rare species of crane.
Cult of Putin
Putin takes part in a training session for young ice hockey players before the "Golden Puck" youth tournament final in Moscow on April 15, 2011.
Front-runner Donald Trump, meanwhile, sees the Putin problem as less of a geopolitical conundrum and more of a character issue, vowing that the Russian leader will change his tune once a strong personality is back in the Oval Office.
"I will get along with him," said Trump, with typical self-confidence.
But Trump's certainty appears to fly in the face of events. Putin has shown no affection for billionaire businessmen who disagree with him. Several in his country have been thrown in jail during his tenure. Others have fled abroad. Oligarchs close to Putin, on the other hand, benefit from the spoils of Russia's energy riches.
One of Trump's rivals, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, used the image of a Machiavellian Putin to cast doubt on Trump's qualifications to be president.
"Do we want someone with that kind of character, that kind of careless language, to be negotiating with Putin?" Paul asked.
In the debate for second-tier candidates, Sen. Lindsey Graham played the Reagan card.
"Do you think Putin would be in the Ukraine or Syria today if Ronald Reagan were president?" he asked. "No. This is what happens when you have a weak, unqualified commander in chief."
Graham's point, however, ignored the fact that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union when Reagan was in office, and that Moscow maintained a port in Tartus, Syria, for much of the Cold War.
Putin seems unlikely to blink
While Republican candidates play to the gallery of grassroots hawks nostalgic for the Reagan era, it's unclear just how effective their strategy of tougher talk and further isolation of the Russian leader would be.
The recent history of both Republican and Democratic administrations suggests Russia may believe threatening U.S. oratory is rarely backed up by action, and that Washington has no desire to raise military tensions with Moscow. That could change under a new U.S. administration, but it seems unlikely.
Republicans tend to skip over the fact that Russian troops invaded Georgia in 2008 under the watch of Republican President George W. Bush, who offered a less robust response than the sanctions imposed by Obama over Moscow's annexation of Crimea and incursions into Ukraine.
And Putin -- who has proven himself to be a ruthless operator atop a Russian state apparatus and who, experts say, often makes national security calculations based on a desire to thwart Washington -- is unlikely to be fazed by GOP threats.
After all, Putin puts muscle behind his tough-guy persona.
The State Department says the Russian government presides over harsh restrictions on freedom of expression, harassing and imprisoning dissidents, crushing media freedoms, suppressing gay rights and rigging elections and hassling NGOs. Russian security services are accused of murdering Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London by radioactive poisoning in 2006.
But while Republicans might be guilty of cheap talk on Russia, the Obama administration's record has hardly been stellar. Indeed, one of the reasons why Putin is such a useful adversary for GOP candidates is that his rule underscores the struggles of the current White House.
Obama, with Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, pursued a mixed "reset" strategy with Moscow starting in 2009.
It did initially yield some results -- including a nuclear arms reduction treaty, an agreement for Moscow to join international sanctions on Iran that lead to the recent nuclear deal with Tehran and talks opening a transit route for U.S. supplies into Afghanistan. But the progress came while Putin was behind the scenes as prime minister and Dmitry Medvedev served as president.
With Putin's return to the presidency in 2012, relations quickly dipped into the worst freeze since the Cold War, with the annexation of Crimea leading to U.S. sanctions and Russia being kicked out of the G8 club of wealthy nations.
Russian planes and ships are now testing the frontiers of NATO states, experts say espionage by Moscow is at Cold War levels and the Kremlin is sending troops and equipment to Syria, apparently seeking to shore up Middle Eastern ally President Bashar al-Assad, whom the United States has said must leave power.
Russian hackers have been accused of infiltrating Pentagon email systems and Moscow has granted refuge to Edward Snowden, the fugitive intelligence contractor blamed for one of the most stunning breaches of U.S. intelligence data.
Even Clinton -- perhaps wary of the failure of the "reset" on her own foreign policy reputation -- has taken to bashing Putin. She's compared him to Adolf Hitler and complained earlier this year that Europe was being too "wimpy" toward the Russian leader, according to London Mayor Boris Johnson.
'Echo chamber on the American side'
Some foreign policy professionals are becoming increasingly worried about the impact of the campaign debate on already fractious U.S.-Russia ties.
"The biggest problem we have is that there is only one side to this conversation," said Matthew Rojansky, a Russian scholar at the Wilson Center. "It is an echo chamber on the American side. It is not a serious foreign policy discussion."
Anti-Russian rhetoric on the campaign trail also risks handing Putin a propaganda coup -- and making the situation for the next president that much more fraught -- because it risks exacerbating anti-U.S. prejudice in Russia that the former KGB agent has stoked to shore up his own regime during tough economic times.
"The problem is that anything that is said that is hostile towards Russia on the campaign trail is viewed as confirmation of what Putin has said all along and that Russians believe ... that America wants to destroy Russia," said Rojansky. "That is what justifies the whole Putin system today."
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September 18, 2015: In Iraq the Shia militias, many of them with Iranian advisors, are increasingly being seen as a problem by the new Iraqi government and Iraqis in general. The previous Maliki government had long worked closely with Iran but lost power because Maliki and his allies would not do anything about the corruption that is largely seen as the main reason ISIL made such rapid advances in 2014. Iraqis are discovering, as the anti-corruption efforts now accelerate, that a lot of that corruption, especially in the military, was encouraged, and sometimes paid for, by Iran. This has caused public opinion among the majority Shia Arabs in Iraq to turn against Iran. Another reason for that is the Iran supported (and often armed and paid) Shia militiamen are seen as fanatics and undisciplined who are mainly loyal to Iran. These Shia militiamen are largely motivated by revenge (for years of Islamic terrorist attacks on Shia civilians) and their Iranian advisors encourage that. The Iran backed Shia militias are now seen as a potential threat to the Iraqi government. While the Shia militiamen have less training they are more fanatics and undisciplined. To the Americans the biggest risk is the Shia militiamen terrorizing (kidnapping, murdering, looting and so on) Sunni civilians in areas ISIL (al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant) is driven out of. The Americans realize that the key to regaining control of Anbar is gaining the support of the Sunnis (who comprise nearly all the Anbar population).
Iran is not happy with this new attitude. It got worse recently when Iraq got its first few F-16s into service. While being used mainly for attacking ISIL on the ground, the F-16s can also use air-to-air missiles and the Iraqi pilots can go after Iranian cargo aircraft transiting Iraqi airspace on their way to Syria and force them to land or turn back. Iraq could never do this before and Iran was able to pretty much use Iraqi air space for these flights without any fear of the transports being threatened. Iraq has always tolerated this Iranian use of Iraqi airspace to rapidly supply the Assad government in Syria. Iraq did this despite constant pressure from the United States to block the Assad aid. Now the Iraqis are paying more attention to their American allies than their Iranian neighbors.
The Iraqi Army and Shia militias continue advancing slowly against ISIL in central (towards Mosul) and western (Anbar Province) Iraq. The advance is so slow that there are doubts about any progress at all and some accusations that ISIL is actually in more areas now than at the beginning of the year, despite thousands of air strikes. The main problem is the difficulty in obtaining accurate data about what is happening on the ground. As the government gains access and then control of more territory more is revealed about what is going on there. Turns out that in late 2014 the government abandoned a lot more territory than ISIL took control of. This sort of chaos is common in Iraq and the region. A lot of it has to do with the culture of corruption. This highlights another problem. As ISIL has become less of a problem (stalemated or put on the defensive) this year another revolution has appeared. This uprising is about the endemic corruption that has long crippled Iraq (and the region). The popular anger about the corruption has been growing for decades and became a real threat once democracy was introduced in 2004. Now there are regular (usually Friday, the start of the “weekend” in Moslem majority nations) and the government has been forced to act. In addition to firing hundreds of corrupt officials the government has also rushed to be more frank, prompt and honest in reporting the state of the war with ISIL. That means admitting that problems exist. The military leadership is still a mess as is that portion of the military responsible for keeping the fighting troops supplied. The government never liked to admit that the military was corrupt and incompetent, but the Iraqi people can find detailed reports of this on the Internet and in a growing number of Iraqi media outlets. It is no longer forbidden to report the unpleasant truth. It can still be dangerous, especially if you talk about Iran backed Shia militia. The upshot of more information is the confirmation of what American advisors and trainers have been saying for over a decade; it takes time to find and train competent officers. An even more unpopular bit of advice was warnings about the impact of corruption. It is now generally accepted that once the Americans left in 2011 the unsurprisingly corrupt Iraqi politicians began replacing competent officers with more corrupt ones who were believed more concerned with politics than in running an effective army. That was the major reason why ISIL advanced so quickly in mid-2014. Most Iraqis now accept this rather than the usual “it’s all because of a foreign conspiracy” excuse that is so popular throughout the region. All this openness and honesty does not solve the leadership problems in the military and government, but does allow a fix to proceed more quickly. There is still some resistance to replacing incompetent officers, usually from politicians who sponsored those officers. There is still fear of another civil war between Shia political factions and politicians feel safer if they “own” a few senior commanders. That is an ancient tradition in this part of the world and such long-standing practices are not easily changed.
Meanwhile ISIL is also having leadership and morale problems. Popular resistance in ISIL occupied areas, especially Mosul and western Iraq, is growing despite ever more arrests and executions. In Mosul there are apparently dozens (at least) of executions each week. Some of the victims are ISIL members accused of failure, misbehavior, bad attitude or trying to desert. Sources in the city report that a growing number of ISIL men are fleeing the city, often semi-officially by claiming they are needed in Syria. Civilians can still get in and out of the city because ISIL needs trade with the outside to survive in this huge metropolis. Intelligence analysts can take large numbers of reports and sift through them to determine what is true and what is rumor or lies. This is easier to do with computerized databases and special software. In addition the Americans have brought back their aerial electronic monitoring capabilities, which adds more data to the pool and makes it even easier to separate fact from fiction. In 2011 the more astute Iraqi commanders tried to convince their political bosses that the loss of these intel capabilities (the Americans would take it all with them) would be dangerous. The politicians were not convinced then but most are now.
A lot of the results of this intel collection and analysis are not released. This is done to prevent the enemy from figuring out exactly where a lot of the intel is coming from and how it is analyzed. If you know that you can more effectively deceive the intel effort. Many of the ISIL leadership are former officers in the pre-2003 Iraqi military and know how this stuff works (often courtesy of Russian military schools).
The intel also shows that the same opportunities for destroying Sunni Islamic terrorists are available now as they were in 2007. Back then the Americans convinced the Shia controlled government to make deals with Sunni tribes to get Sunni support to crush Sunni Islamic terror groups. Many Shia opposed this (and many still do) but it worked then and after the Americans left the Shia politicians dismantled the rewards (jobs, political opportunity and money) that were part of the deal. History is repeating itself with most Sunnis now hostile to the Sunni Islamic terrorists (ISIL this time instead of al Qaeda in 2007). ISIL is even more unpopular with most Sunnis than al Qaeda was back in 2007. But the Sunnis feel trapped between ISIL savagery and Iran-backed Shia militias and politicians who feel they are engaged in a war between Shia and Sunni. While most Iraqi Shia want no part of this enough of them do, and belong to Iran supported militias, to give credence to Sunni fears. The American military advisors are trying to get American diplomacy behind an effort to persuade the Iraqi government to make a convincing offer to the Sunnis and get another 2007 going.
Meanwhile ISIL shows signs of collapsing from a combination of internal disputes and declining morale. In rural areas the locals are increasingly organizing armed militias and waging guerilla, or open warfare with ISIL. This may seem suicidal but the tribes have centuries of experience with this sort of thing and when they detect that the “occupier” is stretched thin and vulnerable, the tribal militia becomes a popular and effective option. ISIL understands this and informally grants autonomy in these situations. There is a downside as if ISIL makes another resurgence and becomes capable of suppressing the autonomous tribes the retribution can be brutal. This has already happened a few times in the last year in eastern Syria and western Iraq. But the tribes are always attuned to what is going on in their territory and more tribes are detecting a decline in the ISIL ability to crack down on disobedient tribes, especially heavily armed and determined one.
The Iraqi Army has about 10,000 troops in Anbar and nearly as many Shia militiamen. The main problem with this forces is the lack of good leaders and troop support (maintenance and logistics). These are the things the Kurds have taken care of but that the Arab Iraqis still have problems with. Thus the Iraqi Arabs are much less effective against ISIL than the Kurds or Western troops. The American advisors have convinced the Iraqi generals that an advance is possible but only if carried out slowly and methodically, using the few units with competent leaders (battalion and brigade commanders) to lead the way. There is still a shortage of reliable unit commanders.
The U.S. has about 2,000 troops in Anbar to train and advise Iraqi soldiers, police and pro-government tribal militias. Most of these troops were at al Asad airbase (in eastern Anbar) but more are being west, closer to ISIL occupied Ramadi and the main ISIL forces. Iraqis handle security for these bases but American troops take part in the fighting when needed. More American troops are being seen out in the countryside with Iraqi troops. There are about 5,000 ISIL gunmen in Anbar and most of them were originally recruited from local tribes. These constant defeats at al Asad and in the two major cities (Ramadi and Fallujah) have been bad for morale, and many, if not most of the local hires have deserted and taken with them useful information on where ISIL stores its weapons and other important stuff. More of these sites are being bombed even though they are, from the air, just another building with nothing special going on around it. The locally recruited tribesmen (especially those on the ISIL payroll) were also unhappy with the ISIL policy of kidnapping tribal elders and killing them or holding them for ransom (money or cooperation from tribal chiefs). A lot of the local tribesmen working for ISIL are related to some of the elders kidnapped or murdered by ISIL and that bad treatment is not appreciated. ISIL needs some victories in Anbar but is having a hard time making that happen. In the meantime ISIL makes what it can of the fact that they still occupy Ramadi and the Iraqi Army advance is not moving much at all. American officials say they believe Ramadai will be retaken by the end of the year. Such claims are often based on intel that is not available to the public. But sometimes these claims are just wishful thinking. There’s a lot of that going around.
In the north the Kurds continue to push south but are hampered by a shortage of troops. The problem is that protecting Kurdish controlled northern Iraq requires a lot trained and reliable people and takes priority. There is a long border and ISIL is always trying to get in or at least cause casualties among the border guards. One reason for the Kurdish success is that their military leaders look after their troops and don’t expose them to needless danger.
September 15, 2015: Iraqis are alarmed at recent media reports that Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani recently made a second visit to Moscow. This comes after Iran and Russia insisting that a July 24th visit by Soleimani to Moscow did not happen. During the July trip Soleimani was said to have met with Russian defense officials and left after two days. Since 2007 Soleimani has been under numerous sanctions, including ones that are not being lifted by the July 14th Iranian peace deal. Soleimani was not supposed to be able to travel to Russia and Russia knows it. But Russia and Iran simply deny the visits actually happened, the same way Iran denies that Soleimani has spent time in Iraq supervising the creation and use of pro-Iran Shia militias.
September 7, 2015: Several hundred Turkish troops entered northern Iraq in pursuit with some PKK Kurdish separatists believed involved in a roadside bomb attack in Turkey the day before that killed 16 soldiers. The Turks have been fighting the PKK again (after a ceasefire collapsed) since late July. So far about 200 people have been killed, nearly a hundred of them Turkish soldiers and police.
September 3, 2015: Iraqi F-16IQ fighter-bombers carried out their first combat missions against several ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) targets. This comes 16 months after the F-16IQ made its first flight. Four F-16IQs arrived in Iraq in July so that Iraqi pilots and maintainers could undertake final training in preparation for the first combat missions. The F-16IQ is a custom version of the single seat Block 52 F-16C and the two-seater F-16D. Iraq has 36 F-16IQs on order. The F-16IQ is similar to American Block 52 F-16s except they are not equipped to handle AMRAAM (radar guided air-to-air missiles) or JDAM (GPS guided bombs). The F-16IQ can handle laser guided bombs and older radar guided missiles like the AIM-7.
September 2, 2015: In Baghdad 17 Turkish construction workers and their Iraqi (Kurdish) translator were kidnapped by a Shia militia. The kidnappers demanded that Turkey stop the flow of ISIL recruits into Iraq, halt the flow of Kurdish oil via Turkey and do something to end the ISIL siege of several Shia villages in Syria (near the Turkish border) in exchange for the hostages. On the 11th the kidnappers released a video of the prisoners pleading for help from their government. On the 16thtwo of the Turks were released in Basra, near the Kuwait border. The Iraqis government says it is negotiating to get the rest of the Turks released. Meanwhile the two major Shia clerics in Iraq have condemned the kidnapping and apparently helped the government make contact with the previously unknown Shia group responsible. There are many radical Shia Iraqis who are hostile to Sunnis (for all the al Qaeda and ISIL violence against Shia) and Kurds (for not being Arab and for not obeying the Shia government).
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