WAR 02-14-2015-to-02-20-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry folks, been dealing with the "meat world"........

(149) 01-17-2015-to-01-23-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...23-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(150) 01-24-2015-to-01-30-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...30-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(151) 01-31-2015-to-02-06-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...06-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(152) 02-07-2015-to-02-13-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...13-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Enemy in the Gates - Saturday, 02/14/2015
Started by Ragnarok‎, Yesterday 07:59 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?463859-Enemy-in-the-Gates-Saturday-02-14-2015

Main Islamic State (ISIS) thread
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?451597-Main-Islamic-State-(ISIS)-thread/page54

Two Terror attacks.... Copenhagen, 2 civilians dead; 5 police wounded; 2 suspects at large
Started by Lilbitsnana‎, Yesterday 07:54 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ad-5-police-wounded-2-suspects-at-large/page3

22 Islamic Terror Camps in US..
Started by China Connection‎, Today 03:20 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?463868-22-Islamic-Terror-Camps-in-US..

ISRAEL heating up again... update posts 335/338
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ating-up-again...-update-posts-335-338/page16

Let My People Go: Netanyahu Beckons European Jews to Immigrate 'Home'
Started by Possible Impact‎, Today 07:31 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nyahu-Beckons-European-Jews-to-Immigrate-Home

BREAKING NEWS: 2 large explosions in central Cairo, #Egypt. (sound bombs? = 2 IEDs)
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ntral-Cairo-Egypt.-(sound-bombs-2-IEDs)/page5

IRAN MOVES TO CONTROL SUEZ CANAL AND YEMEN 1-21-2015
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-CONTROL-SUEZ-CANAL-AND-YEMEN-1-21-2015/page4

The Iran game (all of it)
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?439024-The-Iran-game-(all-of-it)/page14

Russian Nuclear Missile Forces Conduct Large-Scale Exercises Across Country
Started by China Connection‎, Yesterday 10:55 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-Conduct-Large-Scale-Exercises-Across-Country

Main Russia/Ukraine invasion thread - NATO: Russian Tanks and Artillery Enter Ukraine
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ian-Tanks-and-Artillery-Enter-Ukraine/page380

The US' Suicidal Strategy On Ukraine by Chris Martenson
Started by BREWER‎, Yesterday 12:29 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...icidal-Strategy-On-Ukraine-by-Chris-Martenson

Russian Defense Minister hails ‘constructive’ development of Cuba ties in military sphere
Started by Possible Impact‎, Yesterday 04:40 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...’-development-of-Cuba-ties-in-military-sphere

Mexican Cartel War: Mexican Soldiers Kill Three Cartel Gunmen In Fierce Firefight Near Te
Started by Intestinal Fortitude‎, Today 10:11 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ree-Cartel-Gunmen-In-Fierce-Firefight-Near-Te

Halifax police say they've stopped a plot to kill people Saturday -
Started by mzkitty‎, 02-13-2015 03:44 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-stopped-a-plot-to-kill-people-Saturday/page2

MAIN EBOLA DISCUSSION THREAD February 2015
Started by BREWER‎, 02-05-2015 04:24 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?463396-MAIN-EBOLA-DISCUSSION-THREAD-February-2015
_____
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150214/ml--iran-rouhanis_deal-7e4497cd83.html

Political stakes high for Iran's president in nuclear talks

Feb 14, 2:07 AM (ET)
By ADAM SCHRECK

(AP) In this file photo taken Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015, U.S. Secretary of State...
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Throughout the long negotiations over the fate of Iran's nuclear program, President Hassan Rouhani has withstood scathing criticism from hard-liners at home by sticking to his case that a deal with his country's longtime enemies will bring peace and prosperity.

So the political stakes are high for the moderate president as talks enter their homestretch toward a June deadline.

If he succeeds in sealing an agreement, Iran could see much-hoped-for relief from withering sanctions that are dragging down the economy at a time when the OPEC producer is trying to ride out a severe slump in oil prices.

An improvement in the economy could translate into a broader boost in domestic support for Rouhani and strengthen the moderate camp gain in parliamentary elections next year. Moderates are pushing for a less confrontational relationship with the West — a break from the eight-year tenure of predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — and seek more freedoms at home, including greater freedom of expression and easing of social restrictions.

(AP) In this file photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, Iranian President Hassan...
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Failure, however, only will bolster his hard-line opponents who are against that entire agenda.

"Rouhani was elected on, promoted and supported the idea that he would help the Iranian economy recover. And of course the nuclear agreement is tied to that because of the sanctions," said Dubai-based political analyst Theodore Karasik. "If there is no nuclear deal, the presidency will go back to a more ultraconservative leader — under a nuclear Iran."

The U.S. and other world powers reached an interim deal with Iran in November 2013 that involved some sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran freezing its nuclear program. Talks have now been extended until the end of June, though negotiators aim to reach a framework for a deal by the end of next month.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sounded a hopeful tone earlier this week, saying a further extension of the talks wouldn't be in anyone's interest. President Barack Obama seems to agree, saying Monday that "we're at a point where they need to make a decision."

Zarif has borne the brunt of the hard-liners' most recent criticism, particularly over a walk he took with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during negotiations in Geneva last month.

(AP) In this file photo taken Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015, U.S. Secretary of State...
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Comments by Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the head of the Basij organization, the paramilitary wing of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, were typical of the outrage. He blasted the envoy for "showing intimacy with the enemy of humanity" and "trampling on the blood of martyrs."

Rouhani's team can afford to weather the criticism for now. They still have the crucial backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all major decisions in the Islamic Republic.

"Without Khamenei's consent, the negotiating team couldn't survive more than 10 minutes," said Tehran-based political analyst Saeed Leilaz.

Leilaz said many in the hard-line establishment are still struggling to accept what he called the "changing the tone of conversation" by Iran's leadership in its dealings with Washington. "It was a very severe and sudden change," he said.

Khamenei this week reiterated support for the negotiators, telling members of the air force in a speech that they are doing their best to "take away the option of sanctions from the enemy."

(AP) In this file photo taken Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, Iranian President Hassan...
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He chose his words carefully though.

"We think that no deal is better than a bad deal that is against our national interests," he said, adding pointedly that his country is not "desperate" on the nuclear issue.

Khamenei has kept his stance vague from the start. When talks began, he said he would not oppose them but did not expect success. Last month, he said the U.S. can't be trusted to lift sanctions and that Iran must develop an "economy of resistance."

"He basically wants credit if there is a deal, and doesn't want to be blamed if it doesn't work," said Michael Singh, managing director at The Washington Institute.

In an address Wednesday before thousands gathered in Tehran's Azadi Square to mark the 36th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Rouhani sought to minimize the role that sanctions played in driving the nuclear negotiations forward.

He said Iran instead came to the table "for the sake of logic and for creating peace and stability in the region and world."

Haleh Esfandiari, who directs the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said many Iranians will be disappointed if negotiators fail to reach a lasting deal.

"No deal means ratcheting up sanctions, more hardship," she said. "If there is no deal, it means Rouhani has lost and has lost big."

Leilaz, the Tehran analyst, agreed that Rouhani's political fortunes are ties to a deal.

"If Rouhani wants to win more seats in next parliamentary election ... then he really needs the deal," he said.

A lasting agreement would go a long way in improving Iran's relations with the United States, which along with Israel ranks as the hard-liners' top foe. But other points of contention remain.

Iran has detained Iranian-American Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian since July and he is expected to be tried soon before Iran's Revolutionary Court. The charges have not been publicly announced, but the court mostly hears cases involving security offenses.

A judge known for his tough sentencing, Abolghassem Salavati, has been assigned to hear the case, according to Rezaian's family. They called the selection "very disturbing" given European Union sanctions against the jurist, who has presided over several politically charged cases, including those of protesters arrested in connection with demonstrations that followed the 2009 presidential elections.

Key opposition leaders in those contentious elections, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, remain under house arrest — a reminder of the limits the establishment is willing to tolerate.

Analysts outside Iran say the journalist's detention could be the work of hard-liners who want to send a message.

"They're trying to undermine Rouhani," and tell him "while you're negotiating, we can do whatever we want," said Esfandiari, who was herself detained by Iranian security authorities in 2007.

---

Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed reporting.

---

Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150214/ml--iran-nuclear-7e1a4ab31f.html

Iran negotiator told to control temper in talks with Kerry

Feb 14, 11:05 AM (ET)
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's foreign minister has been told by the country's supreme leader to control his temper during nuclear talks with Western diplomats, Iranian media reported Saturday.

Mohammad Javad Zarif admitted that he has often raised his voice during meetings with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry - sometimes so much their bodyguards would enter the room to make sure everything was all right.

Zarif said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, told him to speak softly and with a smile - the same as he would in public.

Zarif said in comments published in the Shargh daily newspaper Saturday that Khamenei made the recommandations during a private meeting earlier this week.

"The exalted Supreme Leader told me not to quarrel ... he asked: 'Why do you scream? Smile and speak your mind,'" the newspaper quoted Zarif as telling a group of Tehran high school students.

Iran and the world powers - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - hope to reach a rough deal on Iran's disputed nuclear program by March and a final agreement by June 30.

Zarif and his team enjoy public support from Khamenei but Iran's top leader has also warned that no agreement is better than an agreement that doesn't meet Iran's interests.

Issues still being debated, according to Iranian officials, include the size of Iran's future enriched uranium output. The U.S. insists that it be cut in half; Tehran is ready for a reduction of only around 20 percent, according to the diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't allowed to brief the media.

Hard-liners in Iran's parliament remain highly suspicious of the negotiations and accuse Zarif of being too soft. Zarif was recently criticized by some parliamentarians for being photographed taking a friendly walk in Geneva with Kerry during a break in negotiations.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150214/ml-libya-e8329cda49.html

Islamic militants seize radio, TV stations in central Libya

Feb 14, 11:49 AM (ET)
By ESAM MOHAMED

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — A security official in the central Libyan city of Sirte says gunmen from an al-Qaida inspired militia have taken over radio and television stations there.

He says the seizure of the buildings happened on Thursday after militants from Ansar al-Sharia had warned the station to stop broadcasting music.

The group, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, is accused of being involved in a deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. mission and annex in Benghazi. Its branch in the city of Derna has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

The official said residents went about their business after the seizure and traffic flowed normally. A resident said that the radio station had begun playing religious songs and lessons. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150214/ml-yemen-097e98949d.html

Fighting in Yemen kills 16 Shiite rebels, 10 Sunni tribesmen

Feb 14, 10:31 AM (ET)
By AHMED AL-HAJ

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Heavy fighting between Shiite rebels and Sunni tribesmen in southern Yemen has left 26 dead, security and military officials said Saturday, as tens of thousands of people marched to protest the rebels' rule.

The violence was the latest to hit volatile Yemen, where the rebels have seized power but do not control all of the country and are being confronted by a powerful branch of al-Qaida. United Nations negotiations, headed by envoy Jamal Benomar, to resolve the deadlock have stalled.

The rebels, known as Houthis, were supported by army troops when they fought the tribesmen in Bayda province in clashes that began the night earlier. The Houthis lost 16 fighters and the tribesmen 10, the officials said.

Meanwhile tens of thousands marched in protest against the Houthis Saturday in the cities of Ibb, Taiz, Hodeida, Dhamar and the capital, Sanaa. In Ibb, protesters set a Houthi military vehicle ablaze before the rebels dispersed them, wounding at least three people.

Officials with Benomar's office said Saturday that talks between political groups were continuing and views were converging. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information otherwise.

Also Saturday, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Arab Emirates became the latest countries to shut down embassy operations in Sanaa, announcing they were evacuating diplomats. Saudi Arabia, Italy, Germany, the United States, France and Britain have taken similar measures amid the growing political uncertainty, threatening international isolation for the country.

Yemen's elected president resigned last month after a several-month power struggle with the rebels, who have controlled Sanaa since September. The rebels have since dissolved the parliament, and President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his Cabinet ministers remain under rebel house arrest.

The Houthis, whose stronghold is in northern Yemen, are members of the Shiite Zaydi sect, which composes nearly 30 percent of the Yemeni population. Their takeover has emboldened the militant Sunnis of Yemen's al-Qaida branch, which has stepped up attacks in southern and central Yemen, raising concerns of a widening sectarian conflict.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150214/ml--egypt-5daf1304d4.html

Police say they thwart 2 suicide car bomb attacks in Egypt

Feb 14, 3:25 AM (ET)
By ASHRAF SWEILAM

EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) — Police in Egypt say they have thwarted two Islamic militant suicide car bomb attacks on a police station in the restive northern Sinai.

Police officials said Saturday the attack in the town of Sheikh Zuweyid wounded two police officers.

Police say guards in the police station's towers fired at the cars, which exploded before reaching the building. They say the explosion shattered windows and damaged parts of the police station and some surrounding houses.

The officials say an investigation into the attack has begun. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief journalists.

Egyptian security forces increasingly have come under attack since the 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and the fierce crackdown on supporters of his banned Muslim Brotherhood that followed.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150214/af--boko_haram-b1fb576205.html

Nigerian military repels Boko Haram attack on northeast town

Feb 14, 12:32 PM (ET)
By HARUNA UMAR

(AP) This is a Monday May 12, 2014 file photo taken from video by Nigeria's Boko...
Full Image

BAUCHI, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's military Saturday repelled an attack on a northeastern town by Boko Haram Islamic extremists who, as they retreated, warned residents not to participate in the country's elections in March.

Two air force jets joined soldiers in attacking the rebels after they assaulted Gombe in the morning.

The Boko Haram fighters left in a convoy of vehicles carrying dozens of corpses, according to residents.

"They were heard telling our people in the villages leading to Gombe that they have not come to harm civilians but the security agents. They were also dropping copies of papers with messages written in Hausa warning people not to participate in the coming elections, lest they risk being killed," said resident Malam Hassan.

(AP) In this Thursday, Aug. 8, 2013 file photo, a Nigerian soldiers stand guard...
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The Associated Press obtained a copy of the message in which Boko Haram warned that its fighters will attack all polling stations in the March 28 elections. The Boko Haram paper also said residents should not assist the army and pledged not to attack those who stayed out of its fight against the government.

"We are calling on you all to come and join us in the Jihad and embrace Islamic Sharia jurisprudence," said the papers dropped by Boko Haram.

The fiercest fighting was about three kilometers (two miles) outside the town, resident Jummai Aliyu said.

Gombe has previously been attacked multiple times, including by a car bomb in December that killed at least 20 people.

Boko Haram's Islamic extremist insurgency killed 10,000 people last year compared to 2,000 in the four previous years, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. Fighting has forced some 157,000 people to seek refuge in Niger, while 40,000 others have gone to Cameroon and 17,000 are in Chad, according to the United Nations.

On Friday, the group staged its first attack on Chadian territory, bringing to three the number of neighboring countries roped into what had previously been an internal Nigerian conflict. The targeted village, Ngouboua, was already home to nearly 3,300 refugees who had fled Boko Haram-related violence in Nigeria, according to the U.N.

Cameroon and Niger have also been attacked. Along with Benin, all three have vowed to contribute to a regional force against Boko Haram that is expected to be launched in the coming weeks, though funding questions remain unsettled.

Boko Haram's media division on Saturday claimed on Twitter that "more than 48" soldiers had been killed in fighting in Diffa, Niger, and that "more than 24" Chadian soldiers were killed in recent fighting in Gamburu, Nigeria, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant forums. The numbers could not be verified. They were higher than casualty figures provided earlier by officials in Niger and Chad.

Nigeria announced Feb. 7 that it was pushing back planned presidential and legislative elections by six weeks, to March 28, because of insecurity.

The United Nations special representative for West Africa said Friday that Nigeria's military needs to show "greater resolve" in the widening fight against Boko Haram.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Th...Negotiation_Nuclear_Sanctions-150214-304.html

OpEdNews Op Eds 2/14/2015 at 13:12:38
The real problem of "getting to yes" with Iran
By Gareth Porter (about the author)

Talking to reporters Monday, President Obama asked rhetorically, "[D]oes Iran have the political will and desire to get a deal done?" Iran "should be able to get to yes," Obama said. "But we don't know if that is going to happen. They have their hard-liners, they have their politics...."
The idea that Iranian agreement to US negotiating demands is being held back by "politics" is a familiar theme in US public pronouncements on these negotiations. The only reason Iran has not accepted the deal offered by the United States, according to the standard official view, is that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is a hardliner who is constraining the more reasonable Iranian negotiating team from making the necessary compromises.

But that is a self-serving understanding of the problem, and it reflects a much more profoundly distorted view of US-Iran relations on the nuclear issue. The premise of Obama's remark was that US demands are purely rational and technical in nature, when nothing could be further from the truth. The US proposal on enrichment capacity is justified by the concept of "breakout," which experts acknowledge is based on a completely implausible scenario. But Iran has now had a "breakout" capability -- meaning the capability to enrich enough uranium at weapons-grade level for a single bomb -- for six years. So the US insistence on reducing its capability so that the breakout timeline is a few months longer clearly has nothing to do with denying a nuclear weapons capability.

But the official narrative clings to the idea that Iran is acting irrationally in refusing to accept that US demand. The clearest illustrations of this warped US understanding of the negotiations is a long essay last month by former US proliferation official Robert Einhorn. Analyzing the reason for the failure of the talks to date, he blames "deep divisions within the Iranian elite," and specifically the position of the supreme leader. Einhorn cites a speech by Khamenei in Qom on 7 January, where he quotes Khamenei as concluding, "y relying on the nation and domestic forces, we must act in such a way that even if the enemy does not lift the sanctions, no blow will be struck against the people's progress...."

Einhorn suggests that Khamenei believes "Iran can live without an agreement," implying that he is not really interested in an agreement. But a crucial point in the speech was Khamenei's statement about US intentions: "The Americans say with completely shamelessness, 'Even if Iran makes compromises on the nuclear issue, sanctions will not be lifted altogether and at the same time.'" And Khamenei concludes, "This shows that the enemy cannot be trusted."

Khamenei's point was clearly not that he was any less interested in an agreement that achieved the end of sanctions, but that he was doubtful about the willingness of the Americans to do so. But in an effort to force the speech to fit the US framework, Einhorn insists that it shows the supreme leader is "deeply sceptical of the value of an agreement."

What is missing from Einhorn's analysis -- and from the American approach to negotiating with Iran in general -- is any understanding that decades of aggressive US policy toward Iran have forced the Iranian national security elite to think very hard about its strategy for negotiating with the United States to achieve Iran's fundamental objective of getting the sanctions lifted.

Khamenei is not a simple-minded Ayatollah who likes the idea of going it alone, as Einhorn and others in the US national security elite like to believe. He has been deeply involved in every major national security policy decision Iran has made from the beginning. He was Ayatollah Khomeini's first representative to the Supreme National Security Council from 1980 to 1982, and was president of Iran from 1982 to 1990.

Khamenei has been criticised in the West and by his successor as President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani for having refused to support negotiations with the United States either in 1989 and again after President Mohammad Khatami was elected in 1997. What critics of those policy decision have failed to take into account, however, is that that Iran would have been trying to negotiate with the United States from a woefully weak position in both cases.

In her 2005 book, Persian Mirrors, New York Times reporter Elaine Sciolino quotes then Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, whom the Americans have never dismissed as a wild-eyed Islamic radical, providing a remarkably revealing explanation for the Iranian calculation in rejecting negotiations with the United States at that point:

"Look at it this way. The United States has most of the cards. We discarded our rhetorical card when Khatami reached out and called for a dialog among civilisations. The United States discarded its rhetorical card when it abandoned its negative tone toward us. Now the United States wants to keep the rest of its cards but want us to discard all of ours. It wants to open a dialog while it still is keeping a number of sanctions against us. We're saying, 'You can't keep all your cards. It's not in our interest and it's not in your interest.'"

Khamenei and Zarif both believed the United States was seeking to force Iran to accept an agreement on normalization under which Washington would continue to hold the sanctions over Iran's head. The Iranian analysis further implied that it needed to accumulate more negotiating cards in order to have successful talks with the United States.

That was the point at which Iran's nuclear program intersected with its strategy for negotiating with the United States. Iran was planning to build a uranium enrichment facility within a few years. The United States chose to interpret such a facility as evidence of a covert nuclear weapons program, but the evidence indicates that Khamenei and his advisers were actually counting on that enrichment program to provide it with stronger cards with which to negotiate with the United States.

Political scientist, Jalil Roshandel, who worked on a research project for the Iranian Foreign Ministry's think tank in 1997-1998, told me that influential figures he interviewed expressed the belief that having a uranium enrichment program would provide bargaining chips to be used in negotiating with the United States for the removal of the sanctions. Roshandel, who now teaches at East Carolina State University, recalled that those who made that connection in conversations with him included an adviser to Ali Akbar Velayati, who had been foreign minister for 16 years, and then deputy Revolutionary Guards commander Yahya Rahim Safavi, who become chief commander in 1997.

Khamenei knows very well that this is the opportunity to play Iran's nuclear cards in order to get the sanctions removed. But the United States appears to be using its sanctions card to force Iran to accept a reduction of roughly 75 percent in its enrichment capacity and not even offering to lift all sanctions in the short run even if Iran caves in. The second problem is that Iran's enrichment capabilities have taken on a new political significance in public opinion as symbols of Iranian technological advancement that limits how far they can go in dismantling it.

In the context of the history of the sanctions in US-Iran relations, Iran's determination to hold out for a better deal is hardly irrational. If the Obama administration fails to understand that fact the diplomatic stalemate is likely to continue.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/13/fort-carson-combat-troops-head-kuwait-4k-will-beco/

4K combat troops head to Kuwait, will become region’s largest U.S. ground force

By Douglas Ernst - The Washington Times - Friday, February 13, 2015

More than 4,000 soldiers from Fort Carson, Colorado’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team are headed to Kuwait. Once there, they will become the largest ground force in the region.

“We are absolutely ready for this mission,” the brigade’s commander, Col. Greg Sierra said at a deployment ceremony, The Colorado Springs Gazette reported Friday. “We are prepared for any contingency. […] In the end, if we do get into fights, we win decisively,” he added.

The 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s deployment ceremony comes just two days after President Obama sent his authorization for use of military force (AUMF) to members of Congress. The plan would grant U.S. presidents the ability to dispatch a range of military assets for the Islamic State fight until 2018.

SEE ALSO: 100K ground troops needed to defeat Islamic State, former CIA deputy director says

“If we had actionable intelligence about a gathering of ISIL leaders and our partners didn’t have the capacity to get them, I would be prepared to order our special forces to take action,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday.

The U.S. Army has kept a brigade in Kuwait since 2011 and recently began using those soldiers to help train allies for battles against the Islamic State group, the Gazette reported.

Soldiers with 3rd Brigade Combat Team will head to the region with tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.military.com/daily-news/...h-islamic-state.html?comp=700001075741&rank=1

Fort Carson Unit Headed to Possible Showdown with Islamic State
Stars and Stripes | Feb 14, 2015 | by Tom Roeder
Comments 13

As Congress mulls America's war with the Islamic State terror group, more than 4,000 Fort Carson soldiers prepared Thursday to leave Colorado for Kuwait, where they will take over as America's largest ground force in the troubled region.

The 3rd Brigade Combat Team bid farewell to the post in a ceremony and will head off soon to serve as U.S. Central Command's Reserve force in the Middle East - the first soldiers into battle if a major combat force is used to battle Islamic State fighters.

The unit is Fort Carson's heaviest force, armed with M1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. Many of its soldiers are veterans of one or more of the brigade's four combat tours in Iraq.

"We're no strangers to deployment," the brigade's commander, Col. Greg Sierra told a crowd gathered for the ceremony.

Sierra's soldiers have trained for more than a year for the Kuwait mission. They practiced skills that atrophied over more than a decade of counterinsurgency fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, re-learning the armored combat skills last used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"We are absolutely ready for this mission," Sierra said.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday asked Congress to authorize long-term combat operations against the Islamic state, but reinforced his pledge to not use the U.S. Army's big combat units in the fight.

"Local forces, rather than U.S. military forces, should be deployed to conduct such operations," Obama said in a letter to lawmakers. "The authorization I propose would provide the flexibility to conduct ground combat operations in other, more limited circumstances, such as rescue operations involving U.S. or coalition personnel or the use of special operations forces to take military action against (Islamic State) leadership."

The Army has kept a brigade in Kuwait since the end of the Iraq war in 2011. Those soldiers, including two units from Fort Carson, have worked to train local troops from throughout the Middle East. In its most recent deployment to Kuwait, Fort Carson's 2nd Brigade Combat team conducted training missions with allies including Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, which have joined the coalition against Islamic State fighters.

After the ceremony, Sierra said the brigade's training regimen readied soldiers for a range of missions from humanitarian relief to nonstop combat.

"We are prepared for any contingency," he said.

Sierra's soldiers are getting a long weekend with their families before they head out. The colonel gave the families reassurance that if his brigade tangles with Islamic State fighters, the outcome won't be in doubt.

"In the end, if we do get into fights, we win decisively," he said.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150215/eu--ukraine-3f1940d51c.html

Both sides claim violations after Ukraine cease-fire starts

Feb 14, 8:18 PM (ET)
By PETER LEONARD and BALINT SZLANKO

(AP) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, right, looks through a scope during his visit...
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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A cease-fire was declared in east Ukraine at a minute after midnight Sunday, kindling slender hopes of a reprieve from a conflict that has claimed more than 5,300 lives.

But within two hours of the cease-fire's scheduled start, the warring sides were already trading accusations of fresh attacks.

International attention will be focused in the coming days on the strategic railway hub of Debaltseve, where Ukrainian government forces have for weeks been fending off severe onslaughts from pro-Russian separatists.

The U.S. State Department said images from eastern Ukraine offer "credible pieces of evidence" that the Russian military has deployed larger amounts of artillery and multiple rocket launchers around Debaltseve to shell Ukrainian forces.

(AP) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, left, inspects military armored personnel...
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"We are confident that these are Russian military, not separatist systems," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement Saturday.

Ukrainian President Petro Porospleonhenko issued a cease-fire order in a live broadcast for all the country's armed forces to hold their fire from one minute after midnight Kiev time (2201 GMT, 5:01 p.m. EST).

Accusations of violations were quick to follow.

Ukrainian security services chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said one infringement was reported about 50 minutes after the deadline. Artillery salvoes were fired from an area that Nalyvaichenko said is under the control of a Cossack unit manned by Russian citizens.

Meanwhile, rebels accused the Ukrainians of deploying artillery shortly after midnight.

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Donetsk News Agency, a separatist mouthpiece, cited senior rebel defense official Eduard Basurin as saying the Ukrainian forces garrisoned in Debaltseve fired artillery and mortars at rebel positions.

"In the interests of preventing the death of the civilian population, precise fire is being deployed toward the enemy's positions," Basurin was cited as saying.

The hours before the cease-fire were marked by ferocious battles around Debaltseve, as Ukrainian armed forces undertook desperate attempts to gain control over a highway linking the town to their rearguard.

Speaking to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov by telephone Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed concern about what he called efforts by Russia and the separatists to cut off Debaltseve in advance of the cease-fire.

Separatist fighters insist they have fully encircled Debaltseve, which they say allows them to claim the territory as theirs. But Poroshenko said in his televised address that the road to the town remains open and that Ukrainian troops there had been resupplied with ammunition.

(AP) Ukrainian government soldiers ride on a vehicle on the road between the towns of...
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An undated satellite image issued by the Ukrainian government showed a five-kilometer- (three-mile-) long cloud of black smoke hovering above Debaltseve, evidence of what it said was the scale of rebel shelling in the hours before the scheduled start of the cease-fire.

Entire swathes of the war-stricken regions of Donetsk and Luhansk were caught up in artillery duels over the weekend.

Officials in the key government-held port city of Mariupol reported an array of rocket attacks hitting areas near the city Saturday morning.

Mariupol is on the Azov Sea and concerns are strong that the Russian-backed separatists aim to seize it to create a land corridor that runs between mainland Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed 11 months ago.

Towns distant from the front line were not spared.

(AP) A Ukrainian government soldier speaks on the phone while guarding a check point on...
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Projectiles rained down Saturday afternoon on the government-held town of Artemivsk, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Debaltseve, striking a school, which rapidly burned to the ground.

Russia has repeatedly denied Western claims that it has sent troops and equipment to aid the rebels. But on Saturday, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, posted on Twitter what he said were satellite photos showing Russian artillery systems near the town of Lomuvatka, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Debaltseve.

The images could not immediately be verified.

In a telephone call with Poroshenko hours before the start of the cease-fire period, President Barack Obama expressed his "deep concern about the ongoing violence, particularly in and around Debaltseve."

The White House said in a statement that the two leaders "emphasized the pressing need" for all parties to implement the cease-fire and agreed to remain in contact in the coming days. Obama also spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel who took a lead role in negotiating the cease-fire agreement.

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The deal was hammered out in a marathon talks this week between Merkel and her counterparts from Ukraine, Russia and France in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said failure to maintain the peace would cost the region and the people of eastern Ukraine "a high price."

"If we miss this opportunity, the chance to defuse the serious conflict in eastern Ukraine by way of negotiations will be gone for a long time," Steinmeier said.

Speaking in Kiev on Saturday afternoon, Poroshenko said his government would take urgent measures if the Minsk agreement collapsed.

"If there is no peace, we may have to take the decision to impose martial law," he said. "In this event, martial law will be imposed not only in the Donetsk and Luhansk (regions), but across the whole country."

(AP) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko speaks as he issues the order to start a...
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Cessation of hostilities is only the first in a series of planned steps agreed to in Minsk.

Withdrawals of heavy weaponry from the front line, creating a zone roughly 50-140 kilometers (30-85 miles) wide, depending on the caliber of the weapons, are to begin Monday and be completed in two weeks. No provisions are envisioned for the withdrawal of troops.

The peace plan also requires the Ukrainian government to resume paying pensions and state benefits to citizens in rebel-held territory. Ukraine's financial blockade against the rebels has led to a catastrophic collapse in living standards in eastern Ukraine, depriving the poorest of any immediate means of support.

The fighting started in April after armed pro-Russian separatists took control of towns and official buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The seizures began after Russia-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych was driven from power in the wake of months of protests in the capital, Kiev.

The separatists claim the new Ukrainian authorities are fascist-inspired and aim to suppress the heavily ethnic Russian population in the east.

---__

Szlanko reported from Artemivsk, Ukraine. Associated Press writers Matt Lee in Washington and Geir Moulson in Berlin also contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

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Clashes between Shi'ite Houthis and Sunnis in Yemen leave 26 dead

By Mohammed Ghobari
SANAA Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:29am GMT

(Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated in several cities on Saturday against the rule of the Shi'ite Muslim Houthi movement as clashes between Houthis and Sunnis in a southern mountainous region left 26 dead.

It was the second day of nationwide demonstrations against the Iranian-backed Houthis in less than a week after their dissolution of parliament this month unravelled security and sent Western and Arab embassies packing.

Houthi gunmen fired on protesters in the central town of Ibb and wounded four, medics said.

Activists said they were enraged by the death on Saturday of Saleh al-Bashiri, who they say was detained by gunmen as they broke up an anti-Houthi protest in Sanaa two weeks ago and was released to a hospital with signs of torture on his body on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the Houthis.

Yemen's upheaval has drawn international concern as it shares a long border with top world oil exporter Saudi Arabia. It is also fighting one of the most formidable branches of al Qaeda with the help of U.S. drone strikes.

Heavy clashes between Houthi fighters and Sunni Muslim tribesmen fighting alongside al Qaeda militants in the rugged southern province of al-Bayda on Saturday killed 16 Houthi rebels along with 10 Sunni tribesmen and militants, security officials and tribal sources told Reuters.

Two weeks after the Houthis took formal control of the capital and continued an armed push southward, Yemen appears to be barely functioning as a state.


INTERNATIONAL PULLOUT

The United States, Western European countries, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey have closed their missions in Sanaa and withdrawn staff, citing security concerns.

Yemen's rich Sunni Gulf Arab neighbours loathe the Houthi fighters and have called their rise to power a coup backed by Shi'ite Iran, Saudi Arabia's main rival for power in the Gulf region.

Gulf foreign ministers on Saturday urged the United Nations Security Council to pass a "Chapter 7" resolution authorising economic or military force to compel the Houthis to back down, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV said.

The Houthis say they are trying to drive out corrupt officials and avert economic ruin. They have dissolved parliament and set up their own ruling body earlier this month.

The Houthis' advance from the north towards well-armed tribal regions in the east and south has led locals to make common cause with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the deadliest arms of the global Sunni Muslim militant organisation.


(Additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Stephen Powell)

 

[Housecarl]

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Great powers unlikely to accept flawed nuclear deal with intransigent Iran

Date February 14, 2015

Nick O'Malley
US correspondent for Fairfax Media

Hopes of clinching a deal before a March 31 deadline are fading as Iran continues to resist efforts to prevent it rapidly acquiring nuclear weapons.

With hopes fading that nuclear negotiations between Western powers and Iran will succeed, talk in Washington is beginning to turn to how dangerous their failure may be.

The worst possible outcomes are horrifying – either Iran becomes nuclear capable within months, or American air strikes destroy its facilities, leading to unpredictable and perhaps even unimaginable further violence.

"Sometimes you would think the war was between the Hill [or Congress] and the White House, with Iran as an afterthought," says Albright, who is seen as something of an honest broker by both sides.

The best outcome could be a nervous stasis in which Iran pauses its program as America's armed forces stand by, and diplomats go about the delicate work of reviving negotiations.

According to analysts, representatives of six world powers, known as the P5+1 - the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany - on the one side and Iran on the other have been at loggerheads for weeks.

Western negotiators led by the US long ago gave up on ending Iran's nuclear program. Instead they seek to keep Iran at what is referred to as 12 months from "breakout". That is, to ensure that it remains impossible for Iran to develop 25 kilograms of enriched uranium - or enough to build a weapon - for a period of a year.

Should Iran enrich that amount of uranium it could still be months or years away from successfully weaponising it - building a warhead and installing it on a long-distance missile.

But by then it would be too late for an effective military response, says David Albright, a physicist and expert in secret nuclear weapons programs. The material could be moved and hidden, and as a result the US would need to bring Iran "to its knees" to end the threat, rather than rely on targeted air strikes on known facilities.

A year is the amount of time White House officials believe they would need to observe Iranian attempts to break out, ramp up international sanctions, and then strike to destroy the program if necessary, Albright says.

How this breakout time might be ensured is complicated and Western negotiators have been reluctant to discuss details of the talks, says Albright, president of the Washington non-profit Institute for Science and International Security.

Iran has about 19,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium, as many as 10,000 of which are already operating. Administration officials have told Albright they might accept Iran maintaining 4000. But other measures could be taken to extend the breakout period. The efficiency of the centrifuges could be restricted or stockpiles of low-enriched uranium surrendered.

So far, though, Iran appears to have opposed these measures and the March 31 deadline for the end of the talks - which has already been extended - is fast approaching.

On Monday, US President Barack Obama said: "I don't see a further extension being useful if they have not agreed to the basic formulation and the bottom line that the world requires to have confidence that they're not pursuing a nuclear weapon."

Both he and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have observed that no deal is better than a bad one.

But in Washington there are fears, particularly but not only among Republicans, that Obama appears to be too willing to make concessions to strike a deal.

Albright says that last year he was told in plain terms by an Obama official that the White House was determined to make a deal with Iran because if it did not, the President would end his term with no significant foreign policy successes.

Some hawks in Congress point to how Obama decided not to launch air strikes against the Syrian regime after it was proved it had used chemical weapons in its civil war.

Tensions have increased between congressional Republicans – and some Democrats – and the White House since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an invitation from Republican House Speaker John Boehner to address Congress next month.

"Sometimes you would think the war was between the Hill [or Congress] and the White House, with Iran as an afterthought," says Albright, who is seen as something of an honest broker by both sides.

"There's a delusion that somehow we're going to have an agreement with Iran . . . [and] that we'll all be working together," the Republican chairman of the Senate armed services committee, John McCain, said in a recent interview. "Iranians are on the march in the Mideast."

That sort of rhetoric is not the sole preserve of Obama's political opponents.

"We stand on the precipice of a tragic mistake relating to Iran that could have cataclysmic effects on world peace," said Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer and commentator who has backed Obama policy domestically, at a Paris conference.

"The deal that we have put on the table for Iran is a bad deal. It does not prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power ultimately and a nuclear threshold power very, very quickly.

"Iran and the mullahs are not rational calculators . . . This is a suicide nation controlled by suicidal leaders. As one leader recently said, if Iran develops nuclear weapons and bombs Tel Aviv, it will kill 3 million Israelis. [If] Israel retaliates, bombs Tehran and kills 20 million Muslims, then the trade-off will be worth it."

Even among those hard-headed enough to be already considering how a military strike might play out there is discord. Some officials favour a limited attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, leaving room for negotiation. Others believe that once the military is engaged it should obliterate all of Iran's facilities, along with its air defences and its military command and control infrastructure. War plans exist for both eventualities.

Albright remains measured in discussing the possible outcomes. He does not believe the administration is willing to "sell the farm" to secure a deal and so he does not believe a deal will be made. The most likely outcome in the foreseeable future is perhaps the best, he says - a tense, bleak standoff.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.omantribune.com/index.php?page=editorial_details&id=3296&heading=EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL Sunday, February 15, 2015

Dangerous strategy

The North Koreans and Kim Jong-un love to breathe fire. This is nothing new. Under Kim’s father and grandfather the fire-breathing exercise used to be regular. They conducted missile tests and nuclear weapons tests, shelled into the sea and showed off naval muscle and raised the level of tension in the area. At the same time, they have not shown any restraint in barking at the southerners. Perhaps these empty words and actions boosted their ego and made them feel important in a world in which they are isolated and treated like pariahs. The North Korean fire has rarely singed the southerners. Two rare cases of the South Koreans being scalded by the North Koreans occurred in 2010. One was when its torpedo sunk the South Korean navy warship Cheonan in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 sailors. Later that year, North Korean artillery attacks on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea killed two South Korean marines in what Yonhap news agency said was “the first direct artillery attack on South Korean territory since the Korean War ended in an armistice” in 1953. It is a fact that the North has growled and showed off its muscles mostly before any military exercise that South Korea has conducted with the United States. Tension is once again rising and this precedes US-S. Korean military drills scheduled for March. The North has conducted a number of missile tests in recent weeks. The other day, Pyongyang warned the South Koreans of a “miserable end” if they joined the United States in a “war of aggression” against it. The new warning may have come from the desire in the North Korean corridors of power to make the Americans and South Koreans look like aggressors and portray itself as a meek lamb facing slaughter. Next month’s US-South Korean military exercises are not the first. They have been held many times over the years without any attempt being made to invade the North.

The entire world is aware of this Pyongyang strategy to draw attention to itself. None of the Kims seem to love being ignored. And this strategy will surely continue as long as North Korea exists. It seems to be right out of the textbook prepared by the first Kim. After him, his successors meticulously followed this diabolical strategy. And there is no sign that this textbook will be thrown into the trash bin in the near future to ensure an end to regional tension that has kept South Korea and Japan, under the US umbrella, on tenterhooks. There is only one power that can force North Korea to throw Kim Il-sung’s textbook into the sea. And it is China. If China wants, it can even bring down the North Korean regime like a pack of cards. It is China alone that is keeping the North Koreans alive. Kim has to depend on China for almost everything.

The Chinese have a vested interest in ensuring that the North Korea’s heart continues to beat. This alone will ensure that the focus of the United States is diverted from itself to another area. This will also give China ample latitude to continue building up its military might and play expansionist games in its neighbourhood. Of course, this game is a dangerous one. The United States, South Korea and Japan should not be deceived by it.

OMAN TRIBUNE

 

[China Connection]

North Korea will be a central player in World War Three that is just around the corner.

 

[Housecarl]

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Yemen's neighbors warn of action if world fails to intervene

Feb 15, 12:46 PM (ET)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Yemen's Gulf Arab neighbors warned on Sunday that if the world fails to act against the Shiite rebels who have toppled the Yemeni government, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council will take whatever actions it deems necessary to maintain regional security and stability.

The foreign ministers of the GCC did not elaborate on what measures the group might take, but called specifically on the United Nations Security Council to intervene. The Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, control the capital, Sanaa, and recently forced the resignation of the president and dissolved the parliament.

The ministers said that if the Security Council fails to adopt a resolution that would allow for the use of military force "over the Houthis' illegitimate' seizure of power," then the GCC states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates might essentially intervene on their own.

"In the case of failure to reach an agreement... the GCC member states will take measures which enable them to maintain their vital interests in the security and stability of Yemen," the foreign ministers said in a joint statement following their emergency meeting late Saturday in Saudi Arabia.

They also demanded the implementation of a U.N. resolution that imposes sanctions against anyone "hampering the process of peaceful transition of power" and called for urgent action to ensure the safety of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who resigned last month after the Houthis put him under house arrest.

The GCC ministers met last month in a similar emergency meeting in Riyadh and condemned the Houthi takeover, calling it a "terrorist act" and a "coup against legitimacy." The council demanded the rebels withdraw from the presidential palace, fearing the Houthi offensive could fracture Yemen, bolster Shiite-led Iran in the region and threaten the Arabian Peninsula's stability.

Yemeni officials say Saudi Arabia, a staunch U.S. ally, was sending arms and funds to tribesmen in Yemen's Marib province to bolster them against the rebels. Saudi Arabia, which shares its southern border with Yemen, has not commented about the claims it is arming or funding tribesmen there to fight the Shiite rebels.

Egypt has set up a special rapid deployment force that could intervene if the Houthis threaten shipping lanes in the strategic Red Sea, according to Egyptian security officials. The Egyptians and Saudis are coordinating a joint military response to deal with any eventuality in Yemen, including the disruption of shipping through the corridor that runs past Yemen to Egypt's Suez Canal, the officials said. The officials in both Yemen and Egypt spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

 

[Housecarl]

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Report: Shiite militias escalate abuse of Sunnis in Iraq

Feb 15, 12:11 PM (ET)
By SAMEER N. YACOUB

BAGHDAD (AP) — An international rights group said Shiite militias allied with Iraqi security forces have escalated a campaign of abuse against Sunni residents in recent months, as gunmen assassinated a prominent Sunni tribal leader during an ambush in a Shiite district in Baghdad.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the militiamen, who are part of the fight against the Islamic State group, have begun driving Sunni families from their homes, kidnapping or summarily executing them in some cases.

The report said the abuses are taking place mainly in areas that were seized from the Islamic State group — which holds about a third of Iraq and Syria.

The militias — mainly volunteers who answered the call-to-arms from Shiite clerics — are growing more brutal, stoked by a desire for revenge against the Sunni extremists who have frequently butchered and attacked Shiites.

"Iraqi civilians are being hammered by ISIS and then by pro-government militias in areas they seize from ISIS," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group. "With the government responding to those they deem terrorists with arbitrary arrests and executions, residents have nowhere to turn for protection."

Meanwhile, police said Sunday that Qassim Sweidan al-Janabi, as well as his son and six bodyguards, were killed when their motorcade was attacked by gunmen in Baghdad's northern Shiite district of Shaab. The attack, which took place late Friday, could fuel the ongoing sectarian tensions in the country.

A group of prominent Sunni politicians met to discuss the attack and urged the government to issue a law that would incriminate the Shiite militias, said Sunni parliament speaker Salim al-Joubori in a statement issued on Sunday.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, a Shiite, said that the perpetrators are aiming to "distract the security forces in the confrontation against the real enemy...that is Daesh and to create a rift in the political process." Daesh is the IS group's Arabic acronym.

Meanwhile, Saad Maan, spokesman for Iraq's Ministry of Interior, told the Associated Press in a telephone interview that Iraqi security forces have arrested two relatives of IS group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Maan said al-Baghdadi's uncle Saleh Ibrahim and his niece's husband, Diaa Nouri Saadoun, were taken into custody in the Iraqi city of Samarra late Friday. He said both were found to have connections to the Sunni militant group and had intended to fight in Samarra, a Shiite holy city.

------------------__

Associated Press writers Vivian Salama in Kirkuk and Murtada Faraj in Baghdad contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

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Egypt security forces discover longest Gaza smuggling tunnel

Feb 15, 12:51 PM (ET)
By ASHRAF SWEILAM

EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) — Egyptian security officials say they have found a 2.5-kilometer (1.5-mile) smuggling tunnel leading into the Gaza Strip, the longest such passageway discovered in their crackdown on cross-border smuggling.

They say the tunnel was operated by the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas movement, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which Egypt says is a terrorist organization that played a role in recent attacks against Egyptian security forces.

Detonators and communications devices were among the devices found in the tunnel, which will be destroyed, officials say, speaking on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to brief reporters.

After a major attack in October, the Egyptian military began clearing a buffer zone along the border with Gaza in an attempt to stamp out a cross-border network of tunnels that Hamas considers a lifeline.

 

[Housecarl]

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Congo president slams UN withdrawal from anti-rebel mission

Feb 15, 11:14 AM (ET)
By SALEH MWANAMILONGO

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo's president on Sunday condemned a decision by the United Nations to withdraw its support from a joint military offensive against a rebel group because the military decided it should be directed by two generals who have links to human rights violations.

President Joseph Kabila denounced the move by the U.N. during a meeting with Western ambassadors in the capital of Kinshasa, noting that his country was "not under the supervision of the U.N.," said government spokesman Lambert Mende.

The U.N. announced its decision in letters that were sent over the weekend.

In his meeting with ambassadors, Kabila said his army "will fight the rebels alone as it has been for 15 years," Mende told The Associated Press.

The Congolese military and the U.N. peacekeeping mission successfully fought another rebel group known as the M23. However, the effort to fight the Rwandan Hutu rebels known as the FDLR has been complicated by the issue of the Congolese generals chosen by Kabila's government to lead the mission.

The United Nations had repeatedly warned Congo in recent days that Gen. Bruno Mundevu and Gen. Fall Sikabwe are known to have been heavily involved in "massive human rights violations" and should be replaced before the U.N. could support the offensive.

Congo has said it chose the people most familiar with the FDLR, which was formed by extremist Hutus who took part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and later fled to Congo where they have sowed unrest ever since.

The FDLR rebels are experienced guerrilla fighters and can easily blend into the population. Civilians fear they will be caught in crossfire.

The U.N., whose 19,500 troops in Congo make up the world body's largest peacekeeping force, has said it continues to support other Congolese military operations.

---

Associated Press writer Cara Anna at the United Nations contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

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Were the Paris Attacks the First Phase of Coming Urban Warfare in Europe?

By Thomas E. Ricks
February 13, 2015

By Col. Gary Anderson, USMC (Ret.)
Best Defense urban warfare bureau chief

Paris was spared the horrors of urban combat during the two World Wars, but it may well face the full fury of urban jihad in the years ahead. The City of Light is not alone in this. European cities with large Muslim populations are prime targets for urban insurgencies, but America is not immune. The recent French terror attacks have a depressing similarity to the random violence that began the urban insurgencies in Iraq in 2003. At that time, the insurgents were described as a few Baathist “dead enders”. By 2004, the insurgents controlled whole sections of Baghdad and other major cities, and the battles to retake Fallujah compared with any urban battles ever fought by the U.S. military.

More disturbing, the draconian measures that had to be employed to regain urban control in Iraq are alien to anything that democratic Europeans have had to contend with since World War II, or Americans have faced since the Civil War. Whole Iraqi neighborhoods, and even cities, were walled off; police and military checkpoints made the mere act of going to the grocery store an ordeal. Snipers and improvised explosives closed schools, and made families virtual prisoners in their own homes.

All insurgencies have three phases. What is happening in Paris, Marseilles, and other European cities show dangerous signs of the first phase of urban guerrilla warfare. The organization of cells for terror strikes is usually local. Internet recruiting has replaced clandestine neighborhood organization. Small-scale strikes are designed to undermine confidence in civil authority and foment distrust among ethnic and religious groups. In France, there are signs that distrust is being sewn toward the Muslim community and the rest of society.

In the second phase, insurgent cells set up shadow governments to parallel the community governance and policing functions. The jihadists, whether the Islamic State or al Qaeda-associated groups, clearly want to drive a wedge between Muslim communities and the majority of the citizens in the host nations. Radical Islamists need to halt assimilationist tendencies as they attempt to impose their view of Islam as the predominant, one-world-wide view of Islam. Muslims will be forced to submit to the jihadist view, or face dire consequences. In this phase, assassination or intimidation of moderate Muslim clerics and other religious leaders will be designed to lead to the third phase, which will be open jihad in the streets of the West.

The creation of jihadist ghettos and Sharia law is the third phase. To date, the “no go” zones for police in the Muslim quarters of some European cities is still largely journalistic fiction, but it is the reality the jihadists are looking to create. Turning Paris, London, or Minneapolis into cities resembling Baghdad and Fallujah circa 2004-2009 with blast walls cordoning off entire neighborhoods replete with IEDs, snipers, and sectarian murder, would be a radical Islamist dream come true. The possibility of hundreds or thousands of Muslim deaths in such conflicts does not faze the jihadists. Victims will be portrayed as martyrs, even if the martyrdom is unwilling.

What do international jihadists gain from this? They don’t seriously believe that the jihad insurgency will overrun the West in the near term. However, if we look at it from their perspective, it makes perfect sense. If you want the European and American crusaders out of the Middle East, and Muslim portions of Africa and west Asia, what better way than to threaten them than with jihad at home? We already have a crop of politicians in both parties who believe that an “America first” doctrine is needed. Fighting jihadists at home would be a great campaign theme for isolationists in Europe and the United States. For the jihadists, this is a win-win. They distract western attention from their efforts in the traditional Muslim homelands, while portraying themselves of defenders of Muslims worldwide. This is what strategists describe as a perfect economy-of-force approach.

This urban jihad strategy need not succeed. The best way to defeat an insurgency is to make sure it never starts. Good governance, proper intelligence and police work, combined with community involvement with moderate Muslim leaders, can stop an insurgency before it gets started seriously. When you have to resort to blast walls, checkpoints, and military counter IED patrols in your city center, you have failed at preemption.

France is the most vulnerable nation in the west, because its Muslims are the least assimilated of any in Europe. We Americans have generally done a better job, but no one should be complacent.

Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps Colonel who has conducted several studies of urban warfare. The research for this article comes from a book he is writing titled The Theory and Practice of Jihad. He lectures at George Washington University.

 

[Housecarl]

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Thousands rally against austerity across Greece

Feb 15, 5:05 PM (ET)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — About 20,000 people gathered in central Athens Sunday to support the newly elected government's push for a better deal on Greece's debt.

Protesters carried banners denouncing economic austerity and Greece's creditors.

Similar rallies took place in several Greek cities and about forty other solidarity gatherings were staged across Europe and in Australia, Brazil and the US.

The Greek government has enthusiastically welcomed these rallies while insisting that they are spontaneous affairs, organized through social media.

On Monday, a gathering of Eurozone finance ministers will consider Greece's proposal for short-term "bridge financing" without the onerous terms previously imposed on the country, until a longer-term solution to Greece's crushing debt is found.

So-called technical level talks with creditor representatives ended Saturday, Greek officials say.

 

[Housecarl]

Argentina likely to buy 20 Chinese-made FC-1 Xiaolong fighter aircraft
Started by JohnGaltfla‎, Today 01:48 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...0-Chinese-made-FC-1-Xiaolong-fighter-aircraft
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http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/faci...nas-cristina-fernandez-says-shes-tough-739889

Facing Cover-up Allegations, Argentina's Cristina Fernandez Says She's 'Tough'
World | Reuters | Updated: February 16, 2015 10:56 IST

Buenos Aires: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez struck a defiant note on Sunday in her first national address since a prosecutor announced he would continue to investigate allegations she tried to cover up a 1994 bombing, saying harsh Patagonian winters had taught her to be tough.

The accusations - first brought by a state investigator whose mysterious death last month threw the Fernandez administration into turmoil - were deemed credible on Friday by a newly-named prosecutor who said he would press on with the investigation.

In a televised speech, Fernandez did not refer to the probe. But she made it clear she would not bend under the mounting political pressure.

"Some are amazed at how I can endure all I have to endure," said Fernandez, speaking to a crowd at hospital she had just inaugurated in her adopted home province of Santa Cruz.

"I tell them it was here in Patagonia - with the wind, the cold and the snow - that I learned that I can endure anything," she said. "To live in southern Argentina you have to be tough."

Fernandez' image has taken a hit from allegations that she tried to whitewash the alleged involvement of a group of Iranians in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people died.

She denies the accusation, which was first leveled by state prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

Nisman's body was found on Jan. 18 in his Buenos Aires apartment, a bullet in his head and a pistol by his side. The following day he had been scheduled to appear before Congress to present his case that Fernandez conspired with Iran to clear the bombing suspects in order to clinch a deal to trade grains for Iranian oil.

No conclusive evidence of either murder or suicide has surfaced. Fernandez at first speculated that Nisman killed himself, and later said rogue intelligence agents were behind his death.

The saga is expected to strengthen opposition candidates in the October presidential election, in which Fernandez is constitutionally barred from running for a third consecutive term.

© Thomson Reuters 2015

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/15/pope-francis-don-t-spy-on-me-argentina.html

Hear No Evil
02.15.15

Pope Francis: Don’t Spy On Me, Argentina

Argentina’s powerful spooks used to wiretap supposed enemies of presidents Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. Among their targets: the man who is now the pontiff.

Hernan Dobry
Comments 3

BUENOS AIRES—Before his mysterious death last month, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman tried to shed light on one of the shadiest episodes in his nation’s history: the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center known as AMIA that killed 85 people.

Now, Nisman’s death (a suicide? a murder?) seems to be shedding light on something no less shady: Argentina’s underground government, a sinister unaccountable parallel state in which spooks operate with impunity.

And as if this scandalous affair were not shocking enough, a surprising name has now surfaced in connection with it: none other than Pope Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires.

“Bergoglio told me many times that his phones were tapped,” Gustavo Vera, a city council member and a close personal friend of the Pope, told The DailyBeast. “Even when I went to visit him, he used to turn the radio on to scramble our voices. He’d tell me, ‘There are microphones everywhere. Watch what you say because the line is tapped,’” Vera recalls.

Another Argentine source close to the pope and to the Vatican plays down the gravity of the claim, but does not rule out the possibility that Bergoglio, as Cardinal, “was intercepted by the Intelligence Service, though he never mentioned it.”

Argentina remains a profoundly Catholic country, in which senior church officials are well-known public figures and church ritual is inexorably intertwined with the exercise of power. Article 2 of the Argentine Constitution enshrines the connection, stating outright, “The Federal Government supports the Roman Catholic Church.” Although the Vatican nominates its bishops, it is within the purview of the president of Argentina to accept or reject all appointments to the national Catholic hierarchy.

Naturally, Bergoglio’s elevation to the papacy was cause for national celebration and, perhaps in some quarters, consternation.

Vera claims that from 2005 onwards, if not before, Bergoglio was under electronic surveillance. Presumably that ended in 2013 when he was elected to the papacy, but it covers a period of time that coincides with a sharp deterioration in relations between the government—first under President Néstor Kirchner and then his widow, the current President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner—and the Argentine Catholic Church.

In early 2005, Argentine Health Minister Ginés González García proposed decriminalizing abortion. The military chaplain, Monsignor Antonio Baseotto, responded by alluding to a verse from the Gospel: “And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” In reaction, then-President Nestor Kirchner dismissed the chaplain.

“There are microphones everywhere. Watch what you say because the line is tapped.”

A successor to the monsignor has never been appointed, leaving Argentina’s armed services without any religious figurehead, and this when the Catholic Church is the only faith permitted to provide spiritual guidance to members of the military. No other religious official can even gain access to the barracks, despite the presence of soldiers and officers professing other religions.

The situation got worse when later that same year, 2005, President Néstor Kirchner realized to his consternation that Bergoglio had been a close runner-up in the conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI.

Following on that revelation, Kirchner’s followers began a public campaign directed against Bergoglio. In particular journalist Horacio Verbitsky accused the cardinal of being an accomplice to the crimes committed under Argentina’s bloody dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, and even of having turned over to the military two fellow Jesuits. (Ironically and importantly, as one of those abducted Jesuits later acknowledged, they were the only two people who survived out of 6,000 abducted and “disappeared” by the same unit of the Argentine navy.)

In 2005, breaking with their predecessors, President Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Kirchner stopped attending the annual Te Deum mass held every May 25, Argentina’s national day, in the Cathedral of Buenos Aires.

It is difficult to overstate to what extent Argentina is—and possibly always has been—a police state. Journalists, academics and many others routinely assume their phones are tapped. It wouldn’t surprise a single Argentine to hear that Francis, when he was Cardinal Bergoglio, was placed under electronic surveillance. But the new question brought to the fore by Nisman’s death is who gave the spies their orders.

At the time of his death, Nisman was hours away from appearing before the Argentine congress, where he was scheduled to testify about the charges he planned to present against Kirchner, her foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, and several other high officials.

Nisman’s investigation relied to a great extent on intelligence material gathered by international agencies, including the CIA and the Mossad, that reached him via the desk of Antonio “Jaime” Stiuso, the legendary director of counterintelligence, whom Kirchner fired last December. She accused him, among other things, of being too closely allied with Nisman, who she suspected was building a case against her.

With very good reason: after Nisman died his specific accusations were made pubic, accusing Cristina Kirchner, who succeeded to the presidency in 2007, of participating in a massive cover-up of Iran’s hand in two acts of terror that rocked Buenos Aires in the early 1990, and left over 110 citizens dead, the AMIA bombing, and two years before that, an attack on the Israeli embassy.

On Friday, almost a month after Nisman’s death, Cristina Kirchner was formally charged. Administration officials responded by accusing the judicial authorities of being part of a “judiciary coup d’etat.”

It is now open season on Stiuso, who has long been feared as a shadowy J. Edgar-Hoover-like character. The pope’s friend Gustavo Vera claims Stiuso tapped all communications into and out of the offices and residence of then Cardinal Bergoglio on behalf of the Kirchners, who considered the cardinal hostile to their policies.

Stiuso, the intelligence agent, and Nisman, the prosecutor, knew one another as of early 1999, when they collaborated on another investigation. During the ten years Nisman spearheaded the AMIA case, his work was “nourished,” as he liked to say, by intelligence reports and wiretaps, some of which eventually served to incriminate President Cristina Kirchner.

For her part, the Argentine chief executive publicly declared her mistrust of Stiuso as darly as mid-2013, and began, for her own intelligence-gathering using Army Intelligence instead of the Intelligence Secretariat headed by Stiuso. Since then, she has shut down the Secretariat altogether.

Kirchner’s allies have been blunt about their motives. They are out to prove that the late Prosecutor Nisman was somehow suckered by the spooks generally and Stiuso specifically into making accusations against the president and the foreign minister. “We want to know what part of the mafia that still exists in Argentina led Nisman to his determination,” declared Julián Domínguez, a close Kirchner ally and the speaker of the House of Deputies, one day after Nisman’s death. “We are sure that there are some sectors of intelligence, the last redoubt of non-transparency, that exerts pressure on officers of the court.”

The Vatican has remained silent about the whole affair and about Vera’s revelations concerning the pope’s history being wiretapped. Presumably, Francis is praying for Argentina.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...servience-to-china-casts-wider-net-over-asia/

Putin, fearing Russia’s subservience to China, casts wider net over Asia

Bloomberg
Feb 16, 2015

HONG KONG – Boxed in by the U.S. and its allies, faced with an uneasy relationship with China and needing new friends and income, Russia is popping up everywhere in Asia.

A new strategic agreement with Pakistan. A visit by President Vladimir Putin to India. Helping search for a plane that crashed off Indonesia. Coaxing Kim Jong Un to venture out of North Korea. In a region where some governments may be less squeamish about events in Ukraine, Putin is surprisingly welcome.

Russia’s forays reflect a dual strategy: To find new markets as its economy is crushed by sanctions and last year’s tumble in oil prices, and to diversify from its one big ally in Asia — China. Putin is concerned that his relationship with President Xi Jinping is becoming increasingly tilted in China’s favor.

“The Russians are wary of becoming overleveraged to China and so they are very keen to try to diversify their portfolio and improve ties with a multitude of Asian powers,” said Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The Ukraine crisis has prompted them to try to accelerate their Asian pivot.”

While Russia cannot ignore China — it was Russia’s biggest trading partner in 2013, the two hold regular military drills and China is buying Russian gas — the government in Moscow is renewing efforts to find other nations in Asia to act as a hedge.

In recent months it has reached out to middle powers like India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Pakistan.

“Russia has changed the pace of looking east and what it sees is a complicated scenario,” said W.P.S. Sidhu, a senior fellow at Brookings India in New Delhi. “There is a sense of trying to balance China. Everybody is concerned about China’s growing capability and more importantly its intentions.”

Putin’s accelerated Asian focus is a mix of military engagement and efforts to promote trade, the latter starting from a low base. Russia is only the 14th largest trading partner of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with two-way trade worth $19.9 billion in 2013, up 10 percent on the prior year, according to ASEAN. Russia ranked as China’s ninth most important commercial relationship in 2013.

“Russia’s priority is relations with China, however it doesn’t want to put all of its eggs in that basket,” said James Brown, who specializes in ties between Russia and Japan at Temple University in Tokyo. “That is why it is also pursuing relations with India, Vietnam — two countries with difficult relations with China — and Japan can fit into that box as well.”

While Russia’s focus on Asia predates the Ukraine crisis, including hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Vladivostok in 2012, it took sanctions and an oil-price collapse to spur progress.

“Particular attention has been paid to Russia’s integration in the Asia-Pacific,” Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told lawmakers in Russia’s upper house on Jan. 26. “We have gradually developed our broad-spectrum ties with India, Vietnam and other Asia-Pacific states.”

In May, Putin will mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Moscow. Xi is signed up to go, along with North Korea’s Kim — which could set the stage for their first meeting. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye have also been invited.

While Russia faces pariah status in Europe, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Putin in December that India opposed sanctions. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has refrained from denouncing Russia for the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine, pending a final investigation.

“The local political elites of Asian nations and the populations don’t view Russia in the context of the crisis in Ukraine,” said Alexey Muraviev, a Russia defense specialist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. “Russia is seeking strategic alternatives in response to the deterioration of its relations with western nations.”

In November Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Beijing and met with his counterpart, Chang Wanquan. Russia and China arranged to hold joint naval drills in the Pacific and Mediterranean.

Shoigu’s next stop was Islamabad, the first visit by a Russian defense minister since the collapse of the Soviet Union and coming five months after Russia lifted an embargo on arms sales to Pakistan. There he signed a military cooperation agreement, another first.

The same month that Shoigu visited China and Pakistan, Putin met Vietnam Communist Party General-Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Sochi. Nguyen agreed to allow the Russian Navy coveted access to the Cam Ranh deep-water port.

Free passage will allow Russia to better protect OAO Gazprom’s exploration blocks off Vietnam’s coast and could irritate China, which last year fanned tensions by parking an exploration rig in waters also claimed by Vietnam and surrounding it with a flotilla of vessels.

Russia supplies Vietnam with aircraft and submarines — the third of six kilo-class submarines was delivered last month — and is helping build a nuclear power station.

Putin capped the year with a visit to New Delhi, where India and Russia pledged to develop their relationship to a “qualitatively new level.” Putin promised to supply oil, weapons and nuclear-power reactors to India. Modi asked Putin to build factories in the country and to supply spare parts and components for Russian military equipment.

Russia said it was ready to lease more nuclear-powered submarines to India, which would help India thwart China’s efforts to extend influence in the Indian Ocean. India inducted its first nuclear attack submarine from Russia for $1 billion in 2012 under a 10-year contract.

One of the biggest prizes for Putin would be detente with Japan to help as a hedge against China. Japan, a U.S. ally that also imposed sanctions on Moscow, is embroiled in territorial disputes with China, and would welcome better relations with Russia for the same reason, according to Kuchins of the CSIS.

Abe told the Diet on Thursday that he wants Putin to visit Japan this year to deepen economic ties and resolve a territorial dispute over islands east and north of Hokkaido that’s kept them from signing a peace treaty since the end of World War II. Deputy foreign ministers from each country met in Moscow the same day and discussed details of the visit, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

“The signal from Abe is ‘We are going to wait until Ukraine simmers down and then we are ready to do business,’ ” said Matthew Sussex, head of politics and international relations at the University of Tasmania.

For all of Russia’s efforts to break into Asia, its scope is limited in a competitive region, according to Robin Niblett, director of London’s Chatham House research institute. Its weapons compete with those of India, the U.S., Europe, China and Japan, and it is unable to provide security guarantees in the way that the U.S. can.

“The South Koreans will always look more to America or to China than they do to Russia,” he said in an interview in Hong Kong. “The Japanese as well.”

Last May’s $400 billion deal to supply China with natural gas from Russia’s as-yet-undeveloped gas fields in eastern Siberia appears to have stalled and little headway has been made on possible pipelines to Japan, South Korea or India.

“Russia’s geo-strategic eyes are bigger than its stomach,” said Brad Williams, a specialist in East Asia relations at the City University of Hong Kong. “Simply put, Russia doesn’t have the economy to support a sustained presence in Asia.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/02/the-foreign-policy-essay-a-nuclear-asia/

The Foreign Policy Essay: A Nuclear Asia?

By Elbridge Colby
Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 10:00 AM

Editor’s Note: Fears about nuclear weapons and concerns about East Asia typically reside in separate worlds. But one risk of a rising China that is usually ignored is how it affects the risk of nuclear war. Elbridge Colby of the Center for a New American Security contends that the changing military balance in East Asia has profound implications for the salience of nuclear weapons. The good news is that both the United States and China can at least mitigate—though not eliminate—the danger.

***

For all the focus on maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas, there is an even greater peril in Asia that deserves attention: the rising salience of nuclear weapons. China’s military buildup—in particular its growing capabilities to blunt America’s ability to project effective force in the western Pacific—is threatening to change the military balance in the region. This will lead to a cascade of strategic shifts that will make nuclear weapons more central in both American and Chinese national-security plans, while increasing the danger that other regional states will seek nuclear arsenals of their own. Like it or not, nuclear weapons in Asia are back.

This is true for four reasons.

First, the conventional military balance in the region is becoming more competitive in ways that will make the possibility of nuclear escalation in the event of conflict more likely. After three quarters of a century of unquestioned supremacy in maritime Asia, the U.S. military is now facing an increasingly severe challenge from China’s military buildup. No longer can U.S. forces in maritime Asia operate decisively and with impunity; rather, key U.S. facilities and assets, such as aircraft carriers and vital bases on Okinawa and Guam, are now increasingly vulnerable to China’s strike forces even as the United States’ own strike assets face a more and more capable Chinese air defense network. Because of this, U.S. forces attempting to operate in maritime Asia will now have to struggle for dominance rather than simply assume it.

A war in the region between the United States and China under such circumstances would be more susceptible to nuclear escalation. In any contingency in the region, the growing sophistication of China’s large military would mean that the United States would have a much more difficult time overcoming it, since Chinese systems that have longer range, are more accurate, are smarter, and are more effectively netted together require more work, creativity, and skill to defeat. Put more directly, the United States and its allies would have to fight harder, quicker, nastier, deeper, for longer, with less deliberation, and over a wider battlefield than was the case in the past in order to defeat Chinese forces in maritime Asia.

Even without anyone really wanting to introduce nuclear weapons into the equation, these trends raise classic “inadvertent escalation” risks. This line of analysis points to the dangers of escalation that can arise due to the way even a conventional war can unfold. In particular, if one needs to fight harder against an opponent in order to prevail, it also becomes harder to limit the war—including in ways that might entangle nuclear weapons.

Second, China’s nuclear arsenal is becoming somewhat larger and considerably more sophisticated. While China continues to exhibit restraint regarding the size of its nuclear arsenal and in how it appears to think about the role of nuclear weapons in its military strategy, China is nevertheless substantially modernizing its nuclear forces. It is fielding more modern road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) possibly capable of carrying multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) while also making progress on the development of a serious ballistic missile submarine capability. At the same time, its command and control systems and the professionalism of its nuclear warriors are also improving. Whether deliberately pursued or not, these advances will by necessity give Beijing more and better options for employing its nuclear weapons, especially in more limited and controlled ways. Instead of only, practically speaking, having the option of striking at a major American or Japanese city, China will increasingly gain the ability to employ its nuclear forces in more tailored fashion—for example, against military facilities or forces, including those in the region. This ability to use nuclear weapons in more limited and tailored ways will make China’s threats—explicit or implicit—to use nuclear forces more credible. The consequence of this is that China’s nuclear force will cast a darker shadow over Sino-American competition in the Pacific.

Third, the conventional balance is not fixed and the United States might actually lose the conventional advantage in the western Pacific—or important portions of it. A loss of U.S. conventional advantages in maritime Asia could come about because of a U.S. lack of resolve or inattention, because of the scale and effectiveness of China’s substantial and ongoing military buildup, or because of some malign combination of both. In this case, Washington might seek to rely more on its nuclear weapons to compensate for this conventional weakness in extending deterrence to its allies in the region. In particular, Washington would likely seek to exploit its superior ability to conduct a limited nuclear war to deter China from taking advantage of its conventional lead.

This course will seem unappealing to many, not least in the United States. But this disquiet points to the fourth and final reason: the prospect of further nuclear proliferation in the region. If, as China grows stronger and more assertive, its conventional military power begins to outweigh that of the United States in maritime Asia, and if that shift is not met by a greater U.S. reliance on its nuclear forces or some other effective countervailing steps, then those countries of Asia traditionally allied to Washington—countries that cannot hope to match China’s strength at the conventional level—may ultimately see getting their own nuclear weapons as essential to deterring China’s exploitation of its growing strength.

None of these four trends pushing toward the greater salience of nuclear weapons in the Asia-Pacific should—or will—be welcomed in Washington or in allied capitals. But hoping they will not materialize will not be sufficient to stave them off. Rather, the most effective step Washington—and, importantly, its Asian allies—can take is to strive relentlessly to maintain the U.S. and allied military edge in maritime Asia. As Clausewitz pithily put it, “The best strategy is always to be very strong.” But keeping this margin will require profound changes in how the United States invests its defense resources and in how it commits them. It means shifting away from the model of a “balanced force” designed to cover all bases and toward one concentrated first and foremost on prevailing in the most consequential forms of military conflict. And it means committing those forces less to elective interventions serving peripheral interests while husbanding them for use in deterring and, if necessary, defeating our most formidable potential adversaries, of which the most daunting is China.

But neither, it must be emphasized, should these trends be welcomed in Beijing. In fact, China stands to suffer as much and perhaps more than its neighbors should these trends fully unfold. Beijing should therefore be very careful lest its military buildup—conventional and nuclear—lead to a far more menacing, less stable, and more proliferated regional environment. Beijing is the player in the regional equation best positioned to prevent such a future from coming to be. Let us hope that this encourages Chinese decision-makers to look upon greater restraint in their military investments and deployments and modesty in their regional ambitions not as favors to Washington and other Asian capitals, but as serving China’s own vital interests.

***

Elbridge Colby is the Robert M. Gates Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. This piece is based on a longer article that appeared in the January/February 2015 issue of The National Interest.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/16/us-iran-nuclear-china-idUSKBN0LK05Q20150216

China's foreign minister pushes Iran on nuclear deal

BEIJING Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:19am EST

(Reuters) - A deal with Iran on its controversial nuclear program would help it escape from sanctions and allow more efforts to be spent on economic development, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a trip to Tehran.

The negotiations between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain face an initial deadline for a basic framework agreement at the end of March, and a June 30 deadline for a final settlement.

U.S. and Iranian officials suggest those deadlines are unlikely to change. U.S. President Barack Obama said last week extending the March deadline would not be useful if Iran did not agree to a framework assuring world powers it is not pursuing nuclear arms capability through its enrichment of uranium.

"Talks on the Iran nuclear issue face a historic opportunity, and striking a comprehensive deal on schedule is the trend of the times and the desire of the people," Wang told his Iranian counterpart, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement issued on Monday.

"Reaching comprehensive agreement is beneficial to Iran upholding its own legal rights, including the right to the peaceful use of nuclear power, and for the people of Iran to throw off the difficulties of sanctions as early as possible and focus on energetically developing the economy," Wang said.

While Iran denies having any nuclear weapons ambitions, it is subject to wide-ranging Western and United Nations sanctions.

Meeting later with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Wang said he appreciated Rouhani's pledge not to develop nuclear weapons and urged Iran to push the talks process forward.

"The Iran nuclear talks have reached a crucial stage," Wang was quoted as telling Rouhani.

The broad goal of the negotiations is to restrain Iran's nuclear capacity to remove any concerns it could be put to developing bombs in return for the lifting of sanctions that have ravaged the Iranian economy.

China and Iran have close economic, trade and energy ties.

China's crude oil imports from Iran jumped by nearly 30 percent last year to their highest average level since 2011, as Iran's largest oil client boosted shipments after an interim deal eased sanctions on Tehran.

Wang said there was still plenty of room for energy cooperation, adding that he also saw "enormous space for cooperation" on industrial projects.

"China is willing to encourage even more Chinese companies to invest in Iran and build factories via the joint development of industrial parks in accordance with Iran's development needs and China's ability," he said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Michael Perry)

 

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...is-iraq-foreignfighters-idUSKBN0LJ0LI20150215

Westerners join Iraqi Christian militia to fight Islamic State

By Isabel Coles
DUHOK, Iraq Sun Feb 15, 2015 5:06pm EST

(Reuters) - Saint Michael, the archangel of battle, is tattooed across the back of a U.S. army veteran who recently returned to Iraq and joined a Christian militia fighting Islamic State in what he sees as a biblical war between good and evil.

Brett, 28, carries the same thumb-worn pocket Bible he did whilst deployed to Iraq in 2006 – a picture of the Virgin Mary tucked inside its pages and his favorite verses highlighted.

“It's very different," he said, asked how the experiences compared. "Here I’m fighting for a people and for a faith, and the enemy is much bigger and more brutal."

Thousands of foreigners have flocked to Iraq and Syria in the past two years, mostly to join Islamic State, but a handful of idealistic Westerners are enlisting as well, citing frustration their governments are not doing more to combat the ultra-radical Islamists or prevent the suffering of innocents.

The militia they joined is called Dwekh Nawsha – meaning self-sacrifice in the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Christ and still used by Assyrian Christians, who consider themselves the indigenous people of Iraq.

A map on the wall in the office of the Assyrian political party affiliated with Dwekh Nawsha marks the Christian towns in northern Iraq, fanning out around the city of Mosul.

The majority are now under control of Islamic State, which overran Mosul last summer and issued am ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword. Most fled.

Dwekh Nawsha operates alongside Kurdish peshmerga forces to protect Christian villages on the frontline in Nineveh province.

“These are some of the only towns in Nineveh where church bells ring. In every other town the bells have gone silent, and that’s unacceptable,” said Brett, who has "The King of Nineveh" written in Arabic on the front of his army vest.

Brett, who like other foreign volunteers withheld his last name out of concern for his family's safety, is the only one to have engaged in fighting so far.

The others, who arrived just last week, were turned back from the frontline on Friday by Kurdish security services who said they needed official authorization.

"STOP SOME ATROCITIES"

Tim shut down his construction business in Britain last year, sold his house and bought two plane tickets to Iraq: one for himself and another for a 44-year-old American software engineer he met through the internet.

The men joined up at Dubai airport, flew to the Kurdish city of Suleimaniyah and took a taxi to Duhok, where they arrived last week.

“I’m here to make a difference and hopefully put a stop to some atrocities,” said 38-year-old Tim, who previously worked in the prison service. “I’m just an average guy from England really.”

Scott, the software engineer, served in the U.S. Army in the 1990s, but lately spent most of his time in front of a computer screen in North Carolina.

He was mesmerized by images of Islamic State militants hounding Iraq's Yazidi minority and became fixated on the struggle for the Syrian border town of Kobani -- the target of a relentless campaign by the jihadists, who were held off by the lightly armed Kurdish YPG militia, backed by U.S. air strikes.

Scott had planned to join the YPG, which has drawn a flurry of foreign recruits, but changed his mind four days before heading to the Middle East after growing suspicious of the group's ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

He and the other volunteers worried they would not be allowed home if they were associated with the PKK, which the United States and Europe consider a terrorist organization. They also said they disliked the group’s leftist ideology.

The only foreign woman in Dwekh Nawsha's ranks said she had been inspired by the role of women in the YPG, but identified more closely with the "traditional" values of the Christian militia.

Wearing a baseball cap over her balaclava, she said radical Islam was at the root of many conflicts and had to be contained.

All the volunteers said they were prepared to stay in Iraq indefinitely.

“Everyone dies,” said Brett, asked about the prospect of being killed. “One of my favorite verses in the Bible says: be faithful unto death, and I shall give you the crown of life.”

(Editing by Stephen Kalin and Stephen Powell)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/16/us-ukraine-crisis-shelling-idUSKBN0LK0LH20150216

Heavy shelling as rebels keep pressure on Ukraine's Debaltseve

VUHLEHIRSK, Ukraine Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:41am EST

(Reuters) - Separatists are keeping up attacks on the strategic railway junction of Debaltseve despite a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, a Kiev military spokesman said on Monday, and witnesses reported heavy shelling in the area.

"The illegal armed groups are not supporting the ceasefire," military spokesman Anatoly Stelmakh told reporters, adding that the Russian-backed rebels were using Grad rockets and tanks to attack government forces holding the town.

"The number of attacks on Debaltseve has even increased in comparison to previous days and they are using all types of weapons," he said. "The terrorists have been given the order to take Debaltseve at all cost."

A Reuters correspondent at Vuhlehirsk, about 10 km (some six miles) to the west of Debaltseve, reported heavy shelling from the direction of the town, with blasts around every 10 seconds.

Underscoring the fragility of the ceasefire, which was negotiated by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France last week and which came into force at midnight on Sunday, the Kiev military said government positions had been fired on 112 times by rebels in the past 24 hours.

Government forces had fired only when coming under attack, Stelmakh said.

 

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http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2015/02/15/too-many-most-wanted-men/#ixzz3RsflZGYb

Too many ‘most wanted men’
February 15th, 2015 - 5:55 am
by David P. Goldman

Danish authorities claim that they have killed the Copenhagen synagogue shooter; his name has not been released, but he was a person “known to the security services,” Der Spiegel reports this morning. The Danes declined to release more information. We may have a repeat of the Paris pattern: terrorists whom the security services monitored and perhaps used as informants suddenly turned active and perpetrated atrocities.

It appears that the methods employed by European security agencies to control jihadists have broken down. Some 9,000 French citizens are fighting for ISIS or other jihadist organizations, according to a French government estimate. After several hundred thousand deaths in Syria and Iraq and the disintegration of Libya and Yemen, a very large number of young Muslims are prepared to sacrifice their lives.

Security services control prospective terrorists by blackmailing petty criminals at the fringe of jihadist organizations and turning them into informants. Because the Muslim criminal milieu overlaps extensively with the terrorist organizations, this has been an effective strategy for the past decade and a half. The John le Carre novel and Philip Seymour Hoffman film “A Most Wanted Man” portrays this approach reasonably well.

Few young European Muslims jump directly into violence: they join gangs, they attend radical mosques, they frequent jihadist chat rooms, and they otherwise flag their presence to the authorities. Security services use the threat of jail, deportation of family members, and so forth to compel their cooperation. This approach works until it doesn’t, that is, until the subjects of scrutiny cease to care about the consequences. As John Schindler observed at the XX Committee blog, there was no “intelligence failure” in Paris: the problem is that the security services are overwhelmed. A pseudonymous European security official made the same point recently at Asia Times Online.

The lesson of Copenhagan is the same as the lesson of Paris: the fragile social peace that European governments have maintained with their Muslim immigrant communities requires a fundamental revision. In the past, European security services let jihadists blow of steam while quietly culling potential killers. That has failed. The alternative is to tighten the screws on Muslim communities. I argued last month in Asia Times:

The means by which France, or any other nation, could defeat the terrorists are obvious: to compel the majority of French Muslims to turn against the terrorists, the French authorities would have to make them fear the French state more than they fear the terrorists.

That is a nasty business involving large numbers of deportations, revocation of French citizenship, and other threats that inevitably would affect many individuals with no direct connection to terrorism. In the short term it would lead to more radicalization. The whole project of integration as an antidote to radicalism would go down the drain. The effort would be costly, but ultimately it would succeed: most French Muslims simply want to stay in France and earn a living.

It’s no longer enough to patrol the edge of the swamp and kill mosquitos with fly-swatters. There’s no alternative to draining the swamp.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/the-...ry-cooperation-agreement-another-perspective/

The Russian-Iranian Military Agreement: Another Perspective

Could oil price fears be driving Moscow to play the role of spoiler?

By Thomas Frear
February 16, 2015

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The signing of the Russian-Iranian Military Cooperation Agreement on January 20 has led to speculation, fuelled by rhetoric from Moscow and Tehran, that the two states are working to secure Iran from any future military intervention to stop its nuclear program whilst securing an economically hard-pressed Russia a lucrative market for its arms exports.

Specifically, the Cooperation Agreement includes expanded cooperation against terrorism, exchanges of military personnel for training purposes, and an understanding enabling each country’s navy to use the other’s ports more frequently. Further details are set to be agreed during a later visit by Vladimir Putin to Tehran.

This agreement is the latest in a recent flurry of Russo-Iranian bilateral accords, including a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the principles of trade and economic relations (signed on August 5, 2014) and a Joint Trade Commission meeting (September 7-11, 2014) at which both sides committed to increasing bilateral trade tenfold. This last factor is particularly important in supporting Russia’s efforts to diversify its imports in the face of Western sanctions. Finally, in November 2014 Russia and Iran signed an agreement regarding Russian participation in the construction of up to eight new nuclear power units throughout Iran.

Russia and Iran also have a number of shared geopolitical interests in the greater Middle East, including combating Sunni extremism in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and maintaining a stable governance regime in the Caspian Sea that excludes Western actors.

There is, however, another angle through which this latest Russian overture can be assessed. With the relatively successful P5+1 negotiations of late 2014 due to resume in late February 2015, Russia must begin planning for a time when Iran re-enters the energy market as a full participant. To regain market share lost during the decades long sanctions regime Iran will need to dramatically increase production and begin aggressively sourcing new markets, all at a time of already rock-bottom oil prices. This is not an idle concern, Iran holds the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves and the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves (behind Russia).

Russian energy exports are already under pressure over the short and medium terms from the shale gas revolution in the U.S. and the proliferation of LNG infrastructure across the EU, Russia’s most lucrative market. In reaction to this, Russia has followed up the decommissioning of the unaffordable South Stream project by putting in process a new “Turk Stream” pipeline. This will connect Russia gas producers to the southeast of Europe via an underwater link to a proposed pipeline corridor through Turkey. The pressure that Russia is putting on Turkey, Azerbaijan and the EU to make sure connecting infrastructure is in place by the time this pipeline is operational is indicative of the time pressure under which Moscow feels it is operating.

With dramatic departmental budget cuts already taking place to accommodate the loss of revenue from falling energy prices the thought of a major new exporter further driving down prices, and thus government revenue, is cause for serious concern in the Kremlin. It is possible therefore, as first suggested by Brian Whitmore in his Daily Vertical podcast, to view Russian actions in Iran not as a way of shoring up relations with a major regional power but as a way of forestalling the upcoming P5+1 negotiations.

Resuscitating the possibility that Russia may supply Iran with advanced air defense systems, primarily the S-300 or S-400 SAM systems, would represent a major impediment to the lifting of further sanctions on Iran. Whilst a Russian sale of these weapons would breach the sanctions regime agreed in 2010 the fact that Russia is now itself being targeted with Western sanctions may have altered the cost-benefit calculation in favor of going ahead with the deal.

Such a solution also represents a rare coalescence among some of the main internal drivers of Russian foreign policy, in this instance the energy lobby led by the state-owned giants Rosneft and Gazprom, and the arms manufacturing lobby, currently preeminent and flush with cash due to Russia’s ruinously expensive military modernization program.

This would form the latest in a recent trend of Russian “spoiler diplomacy,” whereby Russia acts through international institutions or negotiating formats to derail or block actions that are deemed detrimental to Russia’s national interest. This is the case in the UN Security Council over intervention in the Syrian civil war and in the east of Ukraine, where the strong Russian presence in the OSCE continually blocks the deployment of a meaningful international monitoring force.

Prolonging the Iranian negotiations is also an opportunity for Russia to continue to present itself as an indispensable power in international relations. Whilst the conflict in Ukraine has caused a deepening rift between Russia and the West in Europe, areas of cooperation outside of this theater – including the long-term sustainability of the Afghan state, managing the disposal of Syrian chemical and biological weapons, Russo-American nuclear disarmament talks, and finally Iran – continue to provide the Kremlin with the international platform it feels is Russia’s due. Continued exclusion from the wider global community may also serve to make Tehran more amenable to Russian overtures to seek membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an increasingly important regional security infrastructure dominated by Russia and China.

It may really be the case that Russia is simply trying to secure its post-sanctions relationship with Iran, but on a strategic level the normalization of Iranian international relations represents a serious threat to the Russian economic model and global diplomatic presence. Not for the first time, Russian overtures may not be quite what they seem.

Thomas Frear is a Researcher at the European Leadership Network.

 

[Housecarl]

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A look at the Islamic State group's reach into North Africa

Feb 16, 1:30 PM (ET)
By RYAN LUCAS

(AP) In this Jan. 19, 2013 file photo, Algerian special police unit officers guard...
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BEIRUT (AP) — The mass beheadings of Egyptian Christians by militants in Libya linked to the Islamic State group have thrown a spotlight on the threat the extremists pose beyond their heartland in Syria and Iraq, where they have established a self-declared proto-state. Militants in several countries — including Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia — have pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, although the degree of coordination and operational planning between IS leadership and the group's affiliates remains unclear.

Here's a look at the Islamic State group's reach across North Africa, and how the extremists' growing presence is viewed across the Mediterranean Sea in Europe:

LIBYA

— The country has been in free-fall since the end of the civil war that ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Libya's elected government has relocated to the far eastern part of the country, while a loose alliance of militias have set up a rival government in the capital, Tripoli. Fighting between government forces and Islamic militias rages in the second largest city of Benghazi. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, embassies have shuttered and diplomats have fled the country, along with hundreds of thousands of foreign laborers, many of them Egyptian.

(AP) In this image released by the Egyptian Presidency in the early hours of Monday, Feb....
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This chaos has proven fertile ground for IS, which has received pledges of allegiance from several extremist factions in Libya. IS-affiliated groups divide the vast, oil-rich country of 6 million people into three regions: Tripoli, Barqa or Cyrenaica in the east, and Fazzan in the south. The interior minister of Libya's elected government, Omar al-Sinki, has said that al-Baghdadi appointed a Tunisian named Abu Talha to lead the IS faction in Tripoli. Al-Sinki also has said that the bulk of IS militants in Libya are Tunisian and Yemeni.

According to postings on jihadi web forums, groups claiming allegiance to IS control the coastal cities of Sirte and Darna, and have a presence in at least three other locales, including Tripoli and Benghazi, the birthplace of Libya's 2011 uprising. Egyptian warplanes struck suspected IS targets in Darna on Monday, following the killing of the 21 Coptic Christians.

Militants claiming allegiance to IS have battled Libyan troops in Benghazi, often using suicide bombers. Last month, fighters loyal to IS claimed responsibility for a deadly and complex attack on a hotel in Tripoli.

EGYPT

— The Egyptian government is battling a burgeoning insurgency centered in the strategic Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip. North Sinai has seen a spike in militant attacks against security forces, particularly after the military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. The area has been under a dusk-to-dawn curfew since October.

(AP) In this Jan. 30, 2015 file photo, Egyptian military police stand guard at the...
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Some militants there have declared their allegiance to IS, with one such group calling itself Sinai Province of the Islamic State. It claimed responsibility for a sophisticated and multi-pronged set of attacks late last month on Egyptian military positions that killed 32 troops. Last October, another major attack killed more than 30 troops, and last month Sinai Province militants claimed responsibility for the capture and killing of a police captain.

Sinai Province, which grew out of the al-Qaida-inspired group known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, has not attacked civilians directly, although some have died as a result of its violence. Extremist groups in Sinai rely heavily on weapons smuggled across the porous desert border with Libya. Despite more than a year of massive military operations in northern Sinai, which have included home demolitions along the frontier, the government has not been able to stem a daily stream of militant attacks there.

ALGERIA AND TUNISIA

— The Islamic State group's successes in Syria have inspired a number of radical Islamist groups to splinter away from the dominant North African branch of al-Qaida, known as AQIM, and declare allegiance to al-Baghdadi. Most prominent has been the Algerian Soldiers of the Caliphate (Jund al-Khilafah) led by a veteran al-Qaida commander that kidnapped French hiker Herve Gourdel in September and then put out a video showing his beheading. Algeria unleashed a massive operation against the group last fall, and most of its known members have since been captured or killed.

In Tunisia, the radical Oqba ibn Nafaa brigade has long had good relations with AQIM, but has also issued statements in support of IS. More importantly, however, there has been a steady flow of Tunisian recruits to al-Baghdadi's group, most passing through Libya for training. Increasingly, they have stayed there and fought with an alliance of Islamist militias as well as the Islamic State, and report have emerged of several Tunisian "martyrs."

(AP) In this June 16, 2014 file photo, demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State...
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WHAT THREAT DOES THIS POSE TO EUROPE?

— European states have looked on with growing alarm as militants with links to IS have risen in prominence across North Africa. Italy, which is just 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the Libyan coast, has been perhaps the most concerned by the extremists' surge in Libya. Italian authorities fear that Islamic militants might slip into the country on Libya-based smuggling boats crowded with refugees and migrants from Syria, Africa and elsewhere. Italian Premier Matteo Renzi has even gone so far as to press for U.N. intervention to stem the violence in Libya. On Sunday, Italy repatriated by sea its personnel from its Tripoli embassy and advised other Italians, many of whom work in oil or construction businesses, to leave Libya.

Fears about the IS threat are also running high in France, which has seen more people join extremists in Syria and Iraq than any other European country. Some 1,400 French citizens or residents have been identified as linked to jihadi networks in recent years, hundreds of whom have traveled to Syria or Iraq, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said last week. French authorities are particularly concerned that IS-linked extremists will stage attacks at home, and are trying to toughen counterterrorism laws and tools to stop them.

A Frenchman who killed four people at a Paris kosher market last month, Amedy Coulibaly, claimed ties to IS, and the group said last week that Coulibaly's girlfriend has joined IS in Syria. Another Frenchman with ties to IS, Mehdi Nemmouche, is the chief suspect in a deadly attack on the Brussels Jewish Museum. IS in recent months has started a monthly online magazine in French and have released multiple online videos in French urging French Muslims to join jihad in the Mideast - and if they can't, to stage attacks at home.

---

Associated Press writers Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco; Brian Rohan and Maggie Michael in Cairo; Angela Charlton in Paris; Jill Lawless and Danica Kirka in London and Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

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Scores of Boko Haram militants killed in Cameroon clashes

Latest update : 2015-02-17
At least 86 Boko Haram militants and five soldiers were killed in clashes between the Cameroon army and the Islamist fighters in the country’s far north on Monday, authorities said.

The “series of clashes” took place in the Waza region near the border with Nigeria, said Colonel Didier Badjeck, a spokesman for the Cameroonian defence ministry.

The Cameroonian army had recovered one armoured vehicle from Boko Haram and damaged another, he added.

The five soldiers who were killed belonged to Cameroon’s elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), which is on the front line in the fight against the Nigeria-based Boko Haram group.

A Cameroonian soldier, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “an ambush by Boko Haram” led to a nearly three-hours gun battle.

More than 2,000 Cameroonian soldiers have been deployed in Cameroon’s Far North region since August.

Meanwhile, an army official announced on Monday that more than 1,000 people suspected of being affiliated with Boko Haram were being held in the town of Maroua, also in the country’s Far North region.

“At the moment, the prison of Maroua is holding more than 1,000 Boko Haram (suspects),” said Colonel Joseph Nouma, commander of a local operation to combat the Islamist militants.

Boko Haram has grown in power in the area, where Cameroon and Nigeria are linked by a bridge. Militants have carried out repeated massacres of civilians and attacks on villages there, but are now increasingly active against military targets.

Cameroon has joined a military alliance with Chad, Niger and Nigeria to combat the Islamist group, which has stepped up its cross-border attacks in response.

On Monday Niger arrested 160 suspected Boko Haram sympathisers.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Date created : 2015-02-16

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31495099

17 February 2015 Last updated at 00:22 ET
Ukraine crisis: Army and rebels stall heavy arms pullout

Ukraine's government and separatist rebels have failed to begin withdrawing heavy weapons from the front line, despite a Monday deadline.

The two sides were given until not more than two days after the latest truce came into effect to start the pullout.

The government said it would not pull back until fighting ended in the beleaguered town of Debaltseve.

Separatists say the agreement does not apply there because the town is surrounded.

They have offered Ukrainian troops encircled there a safe corridor to leave. France, Germany and the US expressed concern at the continued fighting.

The Ukrainian military command said pro-Russian rebels had attacked 112 times since early Sunday, mostly around Debaltseve.

A Ukrainian officer said there was also fighting near Mariupol, a port city.

The rebels accused Ukrainian forces of shelling Donetsk airport. Meanwhile, further EU sanctions against Russia have gone into effect.

The new sanctions list targets 19 officials - most of them in the pro-Russian separatist strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk, but also two Russian deputy defence ministers and a Russian celebrity singer and MP, Iosif Kobzon.

'Not an indicator'

Under the Minsk ceasefire agreed last week, the withdrawal of heavy weapons from front line areas was due to start no later than the second day after the truce came into effect and be completed within two weeks.

The withdrawal would create buffer zones 50-140km (30-85 miles) wide.

But a Ukrainian military spokesman quoted by Reuters news agency said there would be no withdrawal of heavy weapons yet because the rebels were violating the ceasefire.

"The pre-condition for withdrawal of heavy weapons is fulfilling Point One of the Minsk agreements - the ceasefire. One hundred and twelve attacks are not an indicator of a ceasefire," said Andriy Lysenko.

Rebel commanders also said there were no grounds yet to withdraw heavy weapons from the combat zone.

Rebel "defence minister" Vladimir Kononov said: "We will withdraw heavy weapons from the contact line if we get a definite sign that the Ukrainian side has started doing the same thing."

'Fragile situation'

Observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have been seeking to reach Debaltseve after being denied access by the rebels on Sunday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have called for the OSCE to be granted free access to eastern Ukraine.

"The situation is fragile," Mrs Merkel said. "It was always clear that much remains to be done. And I have always said that there are no guarantees that what we are trying to do succeeds. It will be an extremely difficult path."

Meanwhile, US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US was "gravely concerned by the deteriorating situation in and around Debaltseve" and called on "Russia and the separatists it backs to halt all attacks immediately".

Reuters reporters near Debaltseve said that it was being ceaselessly bombarded with artillery.

They said that at least six tanks as well as armoured personnel carriers and artillery were present in woods 10km (six miles) west of Debaltseve near Vuhlehirsk, which the rebels seized a week ago.

Elsewhere on the front line reports say the ceasefire has broadly been observed.

Under the agreement reached in Minsk last week, the ceasefire is only the first step.

Analysts point out that previous ceasefires initially appeared to be holding but eventually failed, and say the next 48 hours are critical.

Officials say more than 5,400 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine in April, but the UN believes the actual death toll to be much higher.

 

[Housecarl]

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Battle rages for town where Ukraine rebels reject ceasefire

By Anton Zverev
VUHLEHIRSK, Ukraine Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:31am EST

(Reuters) - Pro-Russian rebels pounded encircled Ukrainian government forces on Monday and Kiev said it would not pull back heavy guns while a truce was being violated, leaving a European-brokered peace deal on the verge of collapse.

The European Union kept pressure on Russia and the rebels by announcing a new list of separatists and Russians targeted with sanctions, to which Moscow promised an "adequate" response.

The United States said it was "gravely concerned" by the fighting in and around the town of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine after a ceasefire agreement that came into force on Sunday and said it was closely monitoring reports of a new column of Russian military equipment moving toward the region.

"These aggressive actions and statements by the Russia-backed separatists threaten the most recent ceasefire," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. "We call on Russia and the separatists it backs to halt all attacks immediately."

Fighting subsided in many parts of eastern Ukraine under a ceasefire deal reached last week in marathon talks involving the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.

But the truce appears to have been stillborn in Debaltseve, where the most intensive fighting has taken place in recent weeks.

"The situation is fragile," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the driving force behind the deal reached on Thursday after all-night talks in the Belarussian capital Minsk.

"It was always clear that much remains to be done. And I have always said that there are no guarantees that what we are trying to do succeeds. It will be an extremely difficult path," she told reporters in Berlin.

Merkel, along with the leaders of France and Ukraine, expressed concern about continued fighting in Debaltseve and said observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) must have "free access" for their work in eastern Ukraine.

Rebels said soon after the ceasefire came into effect they had no intention of observing it at Debaltseve, where they have been advancing since January and now have a Ukrainian unit all but encircled.

Washington says the rebel operation around the town, which sits on a strategic railway hub, is being assisted by the Russian armed forces, which Moscow denies.

The U.S. State Department spokeswoman called on Russia and the separatists to engage with the OSCE to facilitate the cease fire.

The OSCE said on Sunday that the rebels had refused to allow its monitors to reach Debaltseve after the ceasefire took effect.

Reuters reporters near the front said Debaltseve was being relentlessly bombarded with artillery. At least six tanks as well as armoured personnel carriers and artillery could be seen in woods near Vuhlehirsk, 10 km (six miles) west of Debaltseve, which the rebels captured a week ago.

Military trucks headed along the main road in the direction of the town to regular bursts of shelling and the firing of Grad rockets and machine guns.

"You can hear there is no ceasefire," said a rebel fighter with a black ski mask who gave his name as Scorpion, his nom de guerre, and blamed the fighting on Kiev's forces. "Debaltseve is our land. And we will take Debaltseve."

STALEMATE OVER WITHDRAWAL OF BIG GUNS

A rebel commander, Eduard Basurin, said Ukrainian troops had violated the ceasefire 27 times in the past 24 hours.

Kiev said its forces had been shelled more than 100 times in eastern Ukraine since the truce took effect, five of its servicemen had been killed and 25 wounded, and that it could not carry out an agreement to pull back big guns in such conditions.

"The pre-condition for withdrawal of heavy weapons is fulfilling Point One of the Minsk agreements - the ceasefire. One hundred and twelve attacks are not an indicator of a ceasefire," said a Kiev military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko.

A rebel leader, Denis Pushilin, responded by saying his forces were "only ready for a mutual withdrawal of equipment."

In another complication likely to set back hopes of peace, he and another separatist leader said the rebels would pull out of the Minsk agreements if Kiev made any further moves to abandon Ukraine's neutral status -- also a red line for Moscow, which fears Ukraine might seek to join the NATO alliance.

The separatists offered the Ukrainian forces a safe corridor out of Debaltseve if they gave up their weapons but a military spokesman for Kiev, Vladislav Seleznyov, ruled this out.

"There are the Minsk agreements, according to which Debaltseve is ours. We will not leave," he said.

ONLY A GLIMMER OF HOPE

Fighting began in east Ukraine after the overthrow of a Moscow-backed president in Ukraine last February and Russia's annexation of the Crimea peninsula a month later.

The West says Putin, who has called parts of Ukraine "New Russia," has sent troops and weapons to back the rebels. Moscow denies this and accuses the West of waging a proxy war in Ukraine to seek "regime change" in Russia.

Hopes that Thursday's deal will end a conflict that has killed more than 5,000 people have been dampened by the collapse of an earlier truce when rebels advanced last month.

Western countries say they reserve the option of expanding economic sanctions on Moscow over the crisis, hoping a growing financial crisis in Russia will persuade Putin to use his influence with the rebels to stop the fighting. But some fear he wants the conflict to fester for years so that Kiev cannot control east Ukraine and Russia can retain influence there.

The EU's new list of 19 people and nine organisations hit by asset freezes and travel bans was dominated by Ukrainian separatists but also targeted popular Russian singer Iosif Kobzon, sometimes dubbed Russia's equivalent of Frank Sinatra, and two Russian deputy defence ministers.

"One thing is clear -- the decision, which will be followed by an adequate response, runs contrary to common sense and will not help efforts to find a solution to the inter-Ukrainian conflict," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

(Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Richard Balmforth and Alessandra Prentice in Kiev, Adrian Croft in Brussels, Tsvetelia Tsolova in Sofia, Michael Nienaber in Berlin and Andy Sullivan and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Peter Graff. Giles Elgood and Chris Reese)

 

[Housecarl]

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Japan to give $15.5 million for anti-terror efforts

By - Associated Press - 12:45 a.m., Tuesday, February 17, 2015

TOKYO (AP) - Japan says it will provide $15.5 million in development aid to support anti-terrorism efforts in the Middle East and Africa.

The move comes after the recent beheadings of two Japanese hostages by militants from the Islamic State group.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday the contribution, about half of which Japan had already pledged, is intended to bolster counter-terrorism capacity in the regions affected by the group and other militants.

Earlier this year, before the hostage crisis, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced $200 million in non-military support for nations fighting against the Islamic State militants that control large parts of Iraq and Syria.

Vice-Foreign Minister Yasuhide Nakayama will announce the aid, to be paid through international organizations, at a conference Thursday in Washington.

 

[Housecarl]

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Kurdish militants demand progress from Turkey or say peace talks may end

ISTANBUL Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:06am EST

(Reuters) - Kurdish militants demanded concrete steps from Turkish authorities to advance a peace process on Tuesday, warning that otherwise its future was at risk.

"Our movement is at a stage of serious and critical thinking and of taking new decisions," the KCK, a political umbrella group linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, said in a statement published on a website close to the organisation.

"Concrete steps should be taken by the (ruling) AK Party. Otherwise the peace process is at a very critical and dangerous stage, and near ending."

The Turkish government launched talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is in jail on an island near Istanbul, in 2012, in a bid to end a three-decade armed struggle that has killed 40,000 people and stunted the development of the mainly Kurdish southeast.

The PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, subsequently declared a ceasefire and began withdrawing from Turkey to camps in northern Iraq where its fighters are based.

Failure to strike a deal could be a thorn in the side of President Tayyip Erdogan, who needs the AK Party which he founded to secure a large majority in a national election in June to push through plans for an executive presidency.

He has invested considerable political capital in the peace talks despite fierce nationalist opposition.

(Reporting by Daren Butler; Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Nick Tattersall and John Stonestreet)

 

[Housecarl]

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U.S. army to provide equipment, intelligence to fight Boko Haram

By Daniel Flynn
Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:05am EST

N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - The United States military will provide communications equipment and intelligence to help African nations in the fight against Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, the commander of U.S. Special Forces operations in Africa said.

West African military commanders have long complained that cross-border operations against Islamist groups, from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mali to Boko Haram in Nigeria, have been obstructed by lack of compatible communications equipment, making it hard to swap information and coordinate.

Brigadier General James Linder said that, as part of the annual U.S.-backed 'Flintlock' counter-terrorism exercises this year in Chad, the United States would provide technology allowing African partners to communicate between cellphones, radios and computers.

The system also incorporates a translation function that would allow commanders in francophone countries like Chad to communicate by message with English-speaking officers in Nigeria, a U.S. military officer said.

Boko Haram killed an estimated 10,000 people last year in its campaign to carve an Islamist emirate from northern Nigeria. Amid growing international alarm, the four nations of the Lake Chad region -- Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria -- plus neighboring Benin are preparing a joint task-force of 8,700 men to take on the Sunni jihadist group.

Chad's military, which played a leading role in a French-led campaign that ousted Islamist groups from northern Mali in 2013, has already led attacks against Boko Haram positions in Nigeria's border regions.

"The Lake Chad nations are battling Boko Haram and we have a vested interest in that group of nations' collective success ... What Boko Harm is doing is a murderous rampage, about brutality intolerance and subjugation," Linder said in an interview late on Monday.

"Our national leadership has been very clear that more was going to be done ... There is an ongoing discussion on how will we provide additional tools, techniques, and material to partner nations."

At the Flintlock exercises, the U.S. military will also be introducing a Cloud-based technology to allows African allies to quickly share intelligence across borders, such as mapping information the location of potential targets, Linder said.

The ninth edition of Flintlock, grouping 1,300 soldiers from 28 African and Western nations, will emphasize the importance of troops fostering strong relations with local communities to gain intelligence on insurgent groups.

Linder said that African armies were well placed to gather this kind of information, but the United States could share other kinds of intelligence to boost the success of operations against Boko Haram.

"It’s the things that we find from flying over a target and having an FMV, a full motion video, or being able to take pictures, or being able to do a different type of geo-spatial analysis or predictive analysis on the enemy," he said.

Washington's long-term goal was to enable African nations to be sufficiently trained and equipped to face their own security challenges, Linder said.

"By 2050, one-third of the global population will be on the African continent," he said. "The global economy and the global community need stable countries in Africa and that can only happen through African nation states themselves."

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Joe Bavier and Giles Elgood)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/17/us-afghanistan-blast-police-idUSKBN0LL0PY20150217

Afghan, Pakistan Taliban kill 28 in attacks on provincial police HQs

By Mirwais Harooni
KABUL Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:25am EST

(Reuters) - Four suicide attackers on Tuesday stormed a provincial police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan, killing 22 police, an official said. Taliban insurgents immediately claimed responsibility.

The attack in Logar province outside the capital, Kabul, was the latest to target Afghan security forces following the withdrawal of most foreign combat troops at the end of last year.

In neighbouring Pakistan, another Taliban suicide attack on a provincial police headquarters killed at least seven people in the eastern city of Lahore, in what militants called a revenge bid for the recent hangings of their colleagues.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are separate groups that share the goal of establishing hard-line Islamic rule.

In the Afghan assault, the four attackers rushed the gates of the police compound in early afternoon, with one detonating his explosives-filled vest at the main gate and killing one policeman, Logar government spokesman Din Mohammad Darwish said.

The attack triggered a 25-minute battle with police, he said.

Another of the militants reached the station's dining hall, killing 21 police and wounding seven when he detonated his vest, said Abdul Wali Toofan, Logar's deputy police chief. The other two attackers were killed with no further casualties.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, claimed responsibility on his official Twitter feed.

Earlier on Tuesday, a bomb attached to a vehicle wounded one person in Kabul, police said, breaking a recent lull in attacks in the Afghan capital.

Kabul had been rocked by a string of bombings by insurgents late last year in the run-up to the withdrawal of most foreign combat troops from Afghanistan after 13 years of war.

A suspected magnetic bomb attached to a 4-wheel-drive vehicle exploded in the east of the city, Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said.

One person was wounded in the blast, Rahimi said, but gave no details.

(Additional reporting by Mustafa Andalib in Ghazni; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)

 

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/17/us-libya-security-life-idUSKBN0LL0XO20150217

Fear and silence in Libya as divisions deepen

By Ulf Laessing
TRIPOLI Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:31am EST

(Reuters) - On the surface life looks normal in the Libyan capital. Cafes are bustling with customers sipping cappuccino, while well-stocked shops sell anything from Italian underwear to French cheese.

But as in the days of Muammar Gaddafi, many residents prefer to avoid talking politics in Tripoli, where a self-declared government has ruled since an armed faction called Libya Dawn seized the capital by expelling its rivals in August.

Across Libya to the east, where the internationally recognized government operates and a former general is battling Islamist militants, many Libyans are just as wary, fearing any criticism will see them branded as traitors or worse.

The oil-producing nation is now effectively split in two with the internationally recognized Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni confined to the east since losing control of Tripoli and a rival administration controlling the capital and its surroundings.

Both governments are backed by former rebel brigades who united to topple Gaddafi in 2011 but have since turned their guns on each other as Libya slides toward a wider civil war.

The heavily armed groups have been fighting on different fronts for territory and control of oil ports. Hundreds of civilians have been killed and 400,000 displaced inside Libya since the summer, according to the United Nations.

With the country polarized between the two rival factions who dismiss each other as traitors, terrorists or war criminals, many Libyans explain that, as in the Gaddafi era, it's best to say little and avoid trouble.

"I keep politics at home," said an entrepreneur who gave his name as Mahmoud. Like other Tripoli residents interviewed he preferred not to use his full name for fear of reprisals.

"You don't want to get into trouble criticizing the government or armed groups," he said, sitting with family members in the large reception room of their Tripoli home. "In Libya the political atmosphere is now you are with me or against me."

Diplomats and foreign companies have mostly pulled out of Tripoli since the summer when Dawn forces battled rival armed groups to drive them out of the city in weeks of rocket fire and shelling that destroyed the airport.

Human rights activists, journalists and supporters of Thinni or of an armed group from Zintan, which was expelled by Dawn, have fled the capital after facing threats or attacks, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said.

Rights groups have also documented similar cases in the east, where Thinni has allied himself with Khalifa Haftar, a former general who has used war planes to attack civil airports in his self-declared battle against Islamists.

Fearing for their security, supporters of Libya Dawn have escaped to Tripoli from Benghazi and other eastern cities where they say they faced persecution.

"I didn't feel comfortable any longer," said a journalist who was based in Benghazi until September. "You can't criticize Haftar or you get framed as an Islamist."

POLITICAL GRAFFITI

With people avoiding talking about politics, the debate in Tripoli has shifted to walls, where both sides attack each other with graffiti -- a legacy from the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi when scared residents sprayed slogans at night.

"No to Karama", is written on one wall, referring to Haftar's campaign against Islamists. Someone else has overwritten the "no" and added "yes". Yet another spray-can artist added "Libya Dawn" next to "Haftar".

Focus points for Karama graffiti are the central district of Fashlum and the Tajoura suburb, areas which revolted early against Gaddafi. But there is also no shortage of graffiti supporting Libya Dawn or Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Ansar al-Sharia, which is branded a terrorist organization by Washington.

Tripoli's new rulers are trying hard to show that life is normal, inviting foreign journalists to visit. Some African and Asian diplomats have returned though they avoid dealing in public with the non-recognized government.

Some foreign businessmen stayed, but there is little activity as money transfers out of Libya are very difficult. The central bank is trying to conserve its depleted dollar reserves due to a loss of oil revenues because of the fighting.

"I have little to do those days," said Mohamed, head of a company which helped foreign investors with their paperwork. Adding to a sense of isolation is the departure of foreign airlines -- the few foreign connections run by Libyan carriers are booked out for weeks.

More foreigners left last month after gunmen stormed the luxury Corinthia hotel, killing nine people including an American and a Frenchman. The hotel had been the main venue for delegations still visiting Tripoli.

The other main hotels, the Rixos and Radisson Blu, had already closed.

Police have shown a more robust presence in Tripoli since the attack, but many residents prefer to stay home at night with shops closing early and people staying off the streets.

"I don't go out much at night any more to visit my friends," said a Libyan government employee. "Either I sleep at a friend's place or I leave very early."

(Editing by Patrick Markey and Giles Elgood)

 

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/17/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUSKBN0LL0JQ20150217

Syrian army in swift advance near Aleppo, blocks road - monitor

By Sylvia Westall
BEIRUT Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:53am EST

(Reuters) - The Syrian army backed by allied militia has captured several villages north of Aleppo from insurgents and fighting has blocked a main supply route leading into the northern city, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.

A U.N. mediator has been struggling to broker a ceasefire in Aleppo and government forces had long been expected to try to encircle it completely, aiming to drive insurgents from Syria's second city and take control of their main supply road.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-government forces had blocked a road leading towards the Turkish border as heavy clashes continued there.

The army also took villages including Bashkuwi and Sifat, while battles raged in Hardatain and Ratain, said the Observatory, which tracks the Syrian conflict using sources on the ground. It added that at least 16 insurgents were killed.

Aleppo is at the heart of clashes between pro-government forces and a range of insurgents which include, Islamist brigades, al Qaeda's hardline Syria wing Nusra Front, foreign fighters in other groups and Western-backed rebels.

"It is very important, because if they continue like this they will completely cut the supply lines for the future. The Syrian regime is moving forward there," the Observatory's founder Rami Abdulrahman said.

More than 210,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict, which will enter its fifth year next month, the Observatory has estimated, with fighting between numerous factions regularly flaring across the country.

Villages and towns outside Aleppo have passed between pro-government and insurgent fighters before.

Insurgent-held districts in the divided city have come under heavy air force bombardment, while Syrian state television said on Tuesday that five people had been killed and 18 wounded in "terrorist" rocket attacks in Aleppo neighborhoods.

A television channel run by Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside pro-government units, reported that the Syrian army had taken control of areas north of Aleppo. The Observatory said Hezbollah was involved in the battle.

The pro-government al-Watan newspaper said on Monday that government forces aimed to completely surround the city this week in a major offensive against insurgent groups.

In December mainly Islamist insurgent factions in Aleppo grouped together to form Jabhat al-Shamiyya -- the Levant Front -- an attempt at unity among their fighters. Last month the Western-backed rebel group Hazzm movement joined the alliance after coming under pressure from Nusra Front.

Recent Syrian army progress in the area has reduced the chances of a truce between the government and disparate insurgent groups, diplomats say.

Since October U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has been working on a plan to broker "local freezes" in Syria.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Jon Boyle and Crispian Balmer)

 

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...k-the-epicenter-of-iraq-s-next-civil-war.html

The Daily Beast

Stringer/Reuters
Jesse Rosenfeld

A HARD PLACE
02.17.15

The Epicenter of Iraq’s Next Civil War
Fighting between Kurds and Shia militias threatens to erupt around Kirkuk and nearby oil fields. ISIS watches and waits.

KIRKUK, Iraq — Tensions in the ancient city of Kirkuk are threatening to boil over as Kurdish forces move to turn their battle lines with ISIS into the border for a Kurdish state.

The city traditionally has had a mix of Iraq’s main ethnic and confessional groups—Kurds, Turkmens (many of whom are Shia), Shia Arabs and Sunni Arabs. But the province is rich in oil and natural gas that the Kurds deem essential as they plan for economic independence, especially since the Kurdistan Regional Government signed a major oil deal with Turkey. They don’t intend to share it. And hostilities with Shia Arabs are growing increasingly dangerous.

Even though ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, is practically on the city’s doorstep, Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, has opposed arming the city’s Arab and Turkmen population since Kurdish forces took control of the region from the Iraqi government last summer. The Kurdish advance came after ISIS took the city of Tikrit, which lies to the south between Kirkuk and Baghdad.

In a recent interview with the London-based Arabic daily newspaper Al Hayat, Barzani said that “We will not allow any forces to enter Kirkuk,” in a message clearly directed at Iranian-backed Shia militias.

The increasing split that threatens to turn into open armed conflict between the Shia militias and Kurdish forces is just the kind of thing the shrewd jihadists of ISIS have exploited in the past, moving into vacuums of power created by corruption and infighting among their opponents to built their pop-up empire in Iraq and Syria. And Kirkuk, with its oil, would be a major prize.

Today, ISIS flags fly just a few hundred meters from Kurdish forces on the tense and active front line near the village of Matara on the Little Zab River, 20 kilometers from the entrance to Kirkuk. On the flat, dusty landscape punctuated by occasional green fields, a mix of Kurdish units in the Iraqi government forces, Peshmerga soldiers from the Kurdistan Regional Government, and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas (deemed terrorists in Turkey, but fighting alongside U.S. allies in Iraq and Syria) take up positions near the riverbanks. The road that follows this de facto border is well within range of ISIS sniper fire. Several of the villages along the highway proudly fly Shia flags and are dotted with billboards of the cleric Muqtada al Sadr and Hadi al Ameri, the commander of the Iranian-backed Badr Organization. Shia militias fly Iraqi and religious flags from their watchtowers at the entrance to the towns. Any conflict between Shia and Kurds here would be an invitation for an ISIS advance.

It’s a volatile enough situation that the local area commander for the PKK, Ageed Kalary, condemns in no uncertain terms Barzani’s assertion warning off the Shia. “This statement will only push separation and what we need is unity to fight Daesh [the Arabic acronym for ISIS],” says the grizzled guerrilla leader sitting next to a propped-up M16 under a yellow flag bearing the image of his movement’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

Kalary’s fighters share a base with a Kurdish unit of the Iraqi government forces only 500 meters from the Zab, and they have been key to holding back the bloody, repressive forces of ISIS for the last seven months. Kalary contends that the river separating his forces from ISIS is a good border to mark Kurdish control, sure, but he argues it is dangerous to pick a fight with Shia militias based on Kurdish ambitions for territory in the future. “Such statements won’t help the Kurds now,” he says unequivocally.

Inside the city of Kirkuk the sense of division and instability is everywhere. Kurdish forces have replaced the Iraqi government in many of the blast-wall-reinforced bases and police stations. At the checkpoints around the city, their soldiers appear on edge. ISIS bombings are a regular occurrence, and although Kirkuk is Iraq’s most diverse metropolis, it is also incredibly segregated and increasingly polarized.

When ISIS attacks hit, panic sweeps through the city’s Sunni Arab communities, where there is fear not only of the barbaric jihadists but of random retribution. Because ISIS claims it fights to defend Sunni Islam and seeks to exploit Arab-Kurdish national divisions, all Sunni Arabs are likely to fall under suspicion, and they commonly are targeted for individual acts of vengeance when civilians in Shia, Turkmen or Kurdish neighborhoods are hit by ISIS terror attacks. Unlike the Shia and Turkmen, the Sunnis don’t have community militias to protect them, nor do they have the same confidence in the official security forces that Kurds do, but some are finding increased acceptance in Kurdish neighborhoods.

Abu Bassem, a Sunni refugee from Tikrit who fled when ISIS took the city, has found refuge in the Kurdish quarter of Runaki along with his family. He declines to give his real name because he was a member of the Iraqi army and is concerned about jihadist reprisals. Although grateful to find a safe haven, he feels neglected by Kurdish authorities. “We haven’t received any support since we arrived here,” he complains, citing the difficulty of paying for food and shelter.

“We can’t live in Shia areas because of the tension,” says Abu Bassem, and yet he worries about those sympathetic to ISIS in the Sunni districts, so he doesn’t feel welcome among his own people.

As this war continues, it chips away at Kirkuk’s social cohesion, and if open clashes erupt between Kurdish and Shia forces it could crack the city wide open. That would provide the path for an ISIS advance that would brutally punish both groups.