WAR 03-12-2016-to-03-18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(206) 02-20-2016-to-02-26-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...26-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(207) 02-27-2016-to-03-04-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...04-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(208) 03-05-2016-to-03-11-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...11-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
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N.Korea publishes pictures of ‘miniaturized’ nuclear device
Started by Possible Impact‎, 03-08-2016 07:51 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...hes-pictures-of-‘miniaturized’-nuclear-device

North Korea threatens pre-emptive nuclear strikes against U.S., South Korea
Started by China Connection‎, 03-07-2016 04:55 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...uclear-strikes-against-U.S.-South-Korea/page3

Turkey Says "Massive Escalation" In Syria Imminent *update #280, Saudis launch strikes
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nent-*update-280-Saudis-launch-strikes/page35
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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://38north.org/2016/03/jlewis031116/

Five Things You Need to Know about Kim Jong Un’s Photo Op with the Bomb

By Jeffrey Lewis
11 March 2016

On March 9, KCNA and Rodong Sinmun announced that Kim Jong Un had visited a facility where he learned about North Korea’s progress in mating nuclear weapons to ballistic missiles. A subsequent television broadcast included more than dozen still images from the visit. Not only did Kim Jong Un pose with a number of missiles, including the KN-08, but he also posed with a model of compact nuclear weapon and modern reentry body.

Here are the five things you need to know about Kim’s visit.

1.Kim might have been visiting the Chamjin Missile Factory outside of Pyongyang.

North Korea did not announce the location of the visit, but a likely location is the North’s main missile production facility outside of Pyongyang, the Tae-sung Machine Factory (also known as the Chamjin Missile Factory). Michael Madden has matched the ceiling lights to the lone picture believed to have been taken at the site. The Tae-sung Machine Factory is located at: 38.951517°N, 125.568482°E.

2.The room is filled with a number of North Korean ballistic missiles.

Although attention has understandably focused on the nuclear weapon sitting in front of Kim, the factory room contains two known modifications of the KN-08, unpainted Nodong missiles and what may be Musudan missiles. While most of the press reporting has focused on North Korea’s ICBM, the official announcement said that the North’s nuclear warheads “have been standardized to be fit for ballistic rockets by miniaturizing them.” That, along with the variety of missiles in the room, suggests North Korea plans to arm several types of missiles with nuclear warheads.

3.We know a lot more about the KN-08, including that it uses two Nodong engines.

Since North Korea displayed the KN-08 ICBM during parades in 2012 and 2013, followed by a substantially modified version in 2015, analysts have attempted to estimate the missile’s design and performance. In 2013, John Schilling argued that the first stage of the KN-08 was most likely a pair of Nodong engines. Although the images do not provide quite enough detail to determine the type of engine, for the first time we can confirm that the first stage of the KN-08 Mod 1 comprises two engines. That increases our confidence in our estimates of the KN-08’s range and payload. The fact that both missiles are displayed, along with an analysis of the serial numbers, suggests that North Korea intends to deploy both variants of the KN-08.

4.North Korea has a more plausible reentry body.

One of the big questions about North Korea’s nuclear program is whether or not North Korea can design a reentry vehicle that will protect the warhead during its journey from launch to target. The KN-08 missiles that North Korea paraded in 2012 and 2013 were almost certainly mock-ups. Although the quality of the mock-ups improved between parades, the nosecones were particularly unconvincing. North Korea has now shown a reentry body that looks like early US and Soviet ones. The reentry body still hasn’t been tested, but this is the first credible reentry vehicle design that North Korea has displayed.

5.The nuclear weapon—a compact fission device—would be small enough for a missile.

There has long been a debate about whether to take the DPRK’s claims to have “miniaturized” its nuclear weapons seriously. As I have argued previously, there is enough open source evidence to take seriously the possibility that North Korea has developed a compact fission device that is approximately 60 cm in diameter and weighs between 200-300 kilograms. It is hard to make precise measurements at this size, but we assume the warheads fit inside the reentry body next to it. This would be similar to a Pakistani nuclear design that surfaced in Switzerland after the break-up of the A.Q. Khan network. The size of the object is consistent with these expectations. The device is not a classical two-stage thermonuclear weapon, but North Korean designers may use deuterium-tritium gas to “boost” the yield of the nuclear explosion. The object is probably a mockup, since nuclear weapons are filled with conventional explosives and would be very dangerous. Some US experts are skeptical—they don’t think the object looks right. It does not look like US devices, to be sure, but it is hard to know if aspects of the model are truly implausible or simply that North Korean nuclear weapons look different than their Soviet and American cousins. The size, however, is consistent with my expectations for North Korea. And it is hard to believe that, after four nuclear tests, the North Koreans can’t make a plausible mock-up.

Kim Jong Un’s decision to pose with a nuclear weapon is not surprising. For several years now, North Korean officials have asserted that they have the capability to strike targets in the United States. North Korea has paraded variants of the KN-08 ICBM on three occasions, announced that previous nuclear tests were for the purpose of “miniaturizing” the North’s nuclear weapons, and published a map of the targets in the United States including Washington, DC. In response to these threats, US officials have consistently stated that North Korea has yet to demonstrate the full range of technologies necessary to target the United States. The images released on March 9 are intended to bolster the North’s deterrent in the face of such skepticism.


Jeffrey Lewis is Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and a frequent contributor to 38 North.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.just-international.org/articles/will-the-dprk-be-recognised-as-a-nuclear-state/

Will the DPRK be Recognised as a Nuclear State?

March 12, 2016
By Nile Bowie

Inter-Korean relations have reached their nadir. Following the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and subsequent long-range rocket launch that placed a satellite in orbit, Seoul has closed the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Pyongyang has cut military communication lines with the South and shut down the liaison office at Panmunjeom.

This means that all inter-Korean cooperation and exchange, as well as the channels for emergency communication between North and South Korea have been suspended. Meanwhile, the Security Council has passed Resolution 2270, noted for the introduction of severe sectoral sanctions against Pyongyang.

US and South Korean soldiers are currently taking part in annual large-scale military exercises, which reportedly feature training and simulations of preemptive strikes on Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile sites, amphibious landings on North Korean shores, and a “beheading operation” aimed at assassinating Kim Jong-un and toppling his government in the event of war.

Rather than achieving the goal of pressuring North Korea to the negotiating table to dismantle its nuclear program (which the spokespersons of the international community claim is their objective), the latest developments continue to push Pyongyang into a corner and serve to further diminish opportunities to stabilise the situation.

While it is true that the regular exchange of severe threats and bellicose rhetoric between the warring Korean states has not translated into an armed exchange since 2010, the shifting nuances of the regional security landscape and the current strain on Sino-DPRK relations have the potential to make the situation less predictable.

The Changing Sino-DPRK Relationship

Beijing has long attempted to dissuade North Korea from pursuing nuclear weapons, encouraging it to instead focus on pursuing wider economic reforms. China has put remarkable pressure on North Korea to no avail, and its deep frustration with Pyongyang is evident by the absence of high-level diplomacy between the two countries.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have not met face-to-face. Beijing has opted for maintaining a minimum degree of stability in its relations with Pyongyang, and has instead placed great priority on improving ties with South Korea, despite the pro-US strategic orientation of the Park Geun-hye government in Seoul.

China is South Korea’s largest trading partner, with economic activity between the two exceeding the latter’s combined trade with Japan and the US. Despite this deep economic cooperation between Beijing and Seoul, the potential deployment of an American missile defense system *in South Korea has threatened to undermine strategic bilateral ties.

Lockheed Martin’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense – or THAAD – has long been considered for use in South Korea as a counter to North Korea’s nuclear deterrent. Washington has expedited its intention to deploy the THAAD system following Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test and satellite launch, a move met with staunch opposition in Beijing.

The issue has proven so contentious that Qiu Guohong, China’s ambassador to South Korea, warned that the two countries’ relationship could be “destroyed in an instant” if Seoul allowed the American missile defense system to be deployed on its soil, arguing that the THAAD system would impede China’s security interests.

Beijing views THAAD as a means of reducing the effectiveness of its own strategic nuclear deterrent, giving the US the ability to track, monitor, and terminate Chinese missiles from South Korean soil, thus securing its own security interests against the backdrop of the Sino-US rivalry in the South China Sea and the Asia-Pacific region more generally.

North Korea serves as an ideal pretext to bolster further American military presence in the region, which is precisely why China is opposed to Pyongyang’s brinkmanship. Under the guise of the North Korean threat, Washington is solidifying its network of alliances and increasing its strategic military capabilities throughout the region.

The annual military exercises conducted by the US-South Korea, which boast the participation of over three-hundred thousand soldiers, are a source of concern in Beijing as much as in Pyongyang. These exercises are carried out in the neighborhood of China’s busiest Yellow Sea ports – at Tangshan, Tianjin, Qingdao and Dalian – and feature drills and maneuvers that can be used against the Chinese military.

Sino-US Cooperation on DPRK Sanctions

The international response to the DPRK’s latest nuclear test and satellite launch has been notable for the closer cooperation between the United States and China. Beijing’s approach to dealing with North Korea has been fundamentally different from that of the United States or South Korea: it has always opposed sanctions that would push Pyongyang toward domestic instability or a humanitarian crisis.

This time around, Beijing has conceded to measures it previously opposed, such as new sectoral sanctions that limit imports on North Korean coal and iron ore when it can be demonstrated that earnings are channeled toward nuclear and missile development. In addition, Pyongyang is barred from exporting gold, titanium and rare earth minerals, all of which constitute over half the country’s exports.

Moreover, the sanctions call for a ban on the sale of aviation fuel and harsh restrictions on North Korean financial operations and shipping, including obligatory inspections of the country’s vessels at foreign ports. US unilateral sanctions will target banks and companies in third countries that engage in transactions with North Korea, which will further isolate the country from the global financial system.

China has sternly opposed US proposals to sanction energy supplies tied to the welfare of ordinary North Korean civilians, while Russia has called for legitimate relationships between North Korea and foreign partners in the private-sector economy to be exempt for sanctions. More than 90% of North Korea’s foreign trade is with China, and thus the implementation and impact of key measures regarding trade and shipping will depend largely on China.

Beijing is keenly aware that biting sanctions which have the effect of destabilising Pyongyang will serve to push Sino-DPRK relations into unstable territory. It should be noted that China has agreed to introducing tougher measures on North Korea primarily as a measure intended to dissuade the US from deploying THAAD at Beijing’s doorstep.

DPRK and the Nuclear Question

China has rightly called on the United States to negotiate a peace treaty with North Korea as part of any agreement for the latter to denuclearise, ending the technical state of war that has endured following the 1953 armistice agreement between the two Koreas.

Washington has maintained that it will only engage in negotiations with the DPRK on a peace treaty if denuclearisation is an objective of the talks. This position is a complete non-starter for Pyongyang. An insistence on pre-conditions that effectively demands the DPRK’s surrender in exchange for negotiations should not be seen as a serious proposal.

It is rather a tactical maneuver to force Pyongyang onto a permanent war-footing to justify an increasing US military presence in Asia-Pacific. Regardless of our opinions about North Korea’s political and social system, Pyongyang’s argument for a nuclear deterrent *is no less valid than those of other designated nuclear weapon states.

It should be acknowledged that the United States has historically refused to rule out a first-use deployment of nuclear arms in a conflict with North Korea. The New York Times reported that a modernised precision-guided warhead currently in the late stages of development was “designed with problems like North Korea in mind.”

Pyongyang faces considerable threat to its national security from the United States, which is currently pursuing an atomic revitalization program estimated to cost up to $1 trillion over three decades. The large-scale troop movements and overflights of B-52 bombers during the annual US-South Korea military exercises only reinforce the North’s desire to possess a strategic nuclear deterrent.

For North Koreans, the nuclear question is one of ensuring a basic political existence – they believe their nuclear program has staved off an Iraq-style invasion and prevents limited strikes on their military assets. The window has closed on North Korea dismantling its program, especially against the backdrop of foes and even allies who are increasingly hostile to it.

While the latest sanctions will further impede the modest growth North Korea has achieved in the last five years and pose an obstacle to the country’s wider development objectives if stringently implemented, Pyongyang is more likely to accept heavier sanctions as the cost maintaining a nuclear deterrent, the ultimate guarantor of national security.

It will eventually become clear that Pyongyang will not yield to being sanctioned or threatened into dismantling its nuclear program. At some point, the United States will have to concede to what it cannot change: that North Korea is a nuclear state irrespective of whether it has achieved a certain means of delivery.

How the United States and South Korea approach this turning point remains to be seen. Washington can choose to acknowledge Pyongyang’s nuclear status, establishing official liaison offices and a direct communication mechanism in each other’s capitals as a means of defusing potential nuclear brinkmanship when tension occurs. This outcome can be negotiated in the context of a peace treaty.

Based the views gaining currency in the ruling Saenuri Party and the hard-line approach of the Park administration, which has advocated an absorption scenario based on the German unification model, the South Korean establishment would sooner opt for withdrawing from the NPT in pursuit of its own nuclear program before any move to recognize the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state.

In such a scenario, the United States may opt to redeploy American nuclear warheads to South Korea to deter Seoul from launching a nuclear program, raising tensions with Beijing and Pyongyang, pushing the two allies into the same corner and potentially encouraging China to drop its opposition to the North’s nuclear program. A wider arms race in the Asia-Pacific becomes entirely conceivable.

What is certain is that constructive and stabilising measures cannot be realised with inter-Korean communication suspended. A sanctions regime that will exacerbate hardship and potentially destabilise the domestic situation in North Korea makes the region less stable and more prone to conflict. A new approach is sorely needed.

Nile Bowie is a Singapore-based political commentator and columnist for the Malaysian Reserve newspaper. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

11 March 2016

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....."Regime Change" anyone? After all, Beijing has a couple of spare Kim brothers in stock.... Never mind the quid pro quo "bill"....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160312000087

China vows specific plans for peace treaty, denuclearization of Korean Peninsula

Published : 2016-03-12 15:17
Updated : 2016-03-12 15:17

BEIJING (Yonhap) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has vowed to put forward specific plans in Beijing's proposal for pursuing peace treaty talks with North Korea in tandem with denuclearization negotiations.

Wang made the remarks during a press conference on Friday after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, according to a transcript of Wang's remarks posted on the Chinese foreign ministry's website.

Wang said the "parallel track" approach of pursuing both a peace treaty and denuclearization at the same time is an "equitable, reasonable and workable solution."

Wang said China will "put forward specific plans" to help materialize the Chinese proposal.

In the wake of North Korea's fourth nuclear test and rocket launch this year, China has proposed to pursue peace treaty talks with the North in tandem with denuclearization negotiations as a way to defuse heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Signing a peace treaty, which would replace the armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War, has been one of Pyongyang's long-running goals, but the U.S. and South Korea have demanded the North abandon its nuclear program first.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://asiancorrespondent.com/2016...-pre-emptively-attack-and-liberate-the-south/

North Korea warns it may pre-emptively attack and “liberate” the South

by AP News | 12th March 2016

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea says its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and “liberate” the South in its latest outburst against the annual joint military drills by the United States and South Korea.

The General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army said Saturday in a statement that its frontline units are prepared to strike first if they see signs that American and South Korean troops involved in the drills were attempting to invade the North.

The statement comes after the North warned of pre-emptive nuclear strikes at the start of the drills on Monday.

North Korea has condemned the annual military drills staged by Seoul and Washington, calling them preparations for an invasion. The allies say the drills, which this year are described as the biggest ever, are defensive and routine.

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Longer version of the AP article....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific...re-emptive-strikes-against-the-south-1.398906

North Korea warns of pre-emptive strikes against the South

By Kim Tong-Hyung
Associated Press
Published: March 12, 2016

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and "liberate" the South if it sees signs that American and South Korean troops involved in annual joint military drills are attempting to invade the North.

The declaration from General Staff of the North's Korean People's Army on state media is the latest outburst over the drills that the U.S. and South Korea say are defensive and routine. At the start of the drills on Monday, the North warned of an indiscriminate "pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice" on Washington and Seoul.

The KPA said it will counter the drills by the United States and South Korea it says are aimed at advancing into Pyongyang with plans to "liberate the whole of South Korea including Seoul" and also that it is capable of executing "ultra-precision blitzkrieg" strikes against enemy targets.

In response to North's statement, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff called for North Korea to stop its threats and "rash behavior" and warned that a provocation from the North would result in the destruction of its highest leadership.

A pre-emptive large-scale strike by North Korea against the South is highly unlikely when that would almost certainly bring to an end the authoritarian rule of leader Kim Jong Un given the likely military response of the U.S. and South Korea.

Analysts say the North's bellicose rhetoric is also intended for its domestic audience to display government strength ahead of a major meeting of the ruling party in May. It is expected that Kim will use the Workers' Party convention, the party's first since 1980, to announce important state goals and shake up the country's political elite to further consolidate his power.

North Korea has condemned the annual military drills staged by Seoul and Washington in South Korea, calling them preparations for an invasion. This year, the drills follow the North's recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.


Related

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North Korea's making a lot of threats. How worried should we be?
N. Korea to liquidate S. Korean assets, fires missiles into sea
Experts doubt N. Korea's claim of having miniaturized nukes
South Korea announces unilateral sanctions on North Korea
In exercises, US, South Korea practice striking North's nuclear plants

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/report-turkish-airstrikes-in-iraq-kill-67-pkk-militants-1.398942

37 minutes ago

Report: Turkish airstrikes in Iraq kill 67 PKK militants

Associated Press
Published: March 12, 2016

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's state-run news agency says the military has carried out air strikes against Kurdish rebel targets across the border in northern Iraq, killing at least 67 militants.

Anadolu Agency, citing unnamed security sources, said Saturday that 14 F-16 and F-4 jets were involved in the March 9 strikes which allegedly destroyed ammunition depots, bunkers and shelters belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

The agency said the offensive targeted five areas in northern Iraq, including the Qandil mountains on the Iraq-Iraq border where the PKK's leadership is based.

Turkey's jets have frequently bombed PKK sites in northern Iraq since July, when a fragile peace process between the government and rebels collapsed.

The PKK, which is fighting for autonomy for Kurds in Turkey's southeast, is listed as a terrorist organization.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/201...sile-defense-needs-boost/126575/?oref=d-river

US Ballistic Missile Defense Needs A Boost

March 10, 2016 By Richard Weitz

Amid ominous tests by Iran and North Korea, why is the Missile Defense Agency’s budget shrinking?

Commentary / Technology

As potential missile threats surge, why is our nation’s missile defense budget not growing accordingly?

In recent days, Iran has test-fired several missiles of ranges up to 1,250 miles, some inscribed with the words “Israel should be wiped off the Earth.” Meanwhile, North Korean leaders have bragged that they had developed a key component of a nuclear warhead – a claim that Western experts say just might be true this time.

That’s only the recent news; earlier this year saw North Korea test another nuclear weapon plus a long-range rocket that could one day lead to an ICBM capable of reaching the United States. Furthermore, Iran’s plans to continue developing missiles that can reach Israel, Europe, and perhaps eventually the United States scuttle hopes that the recent nuclear deal might have reduced this threat. And evidence persists that these Iran and North Korea are sharing missile-technology insights with each other and, perhaps, spreading them to other states and non-state actors.

And these are just the things we know about. Unexpected geopolitical shifts, technological developments, or other developments could generate other unanticipated threats.

Last month, the Obama administration unveiled its 2017 request for the Missile Defense Agency: about $7.5 billion, down from $8.1 billion the previous year. This is too little, and it risks being too little, too late.

True, the United States has been building a global ballistic missile defense, or BMD, architecture in cooperation with regional partners and allies. Recent years have brought new systems to East Asia, the Middle East, and especially Europe: U.S. BMD-capable Aegis ships and their new land-based variants, mobile land-based interceptors like Patriot and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), portable radars and additional sensors, and other regional systems designed to defend U.S. allies, friends, and forward-deployed U.S. forces. But U.S. combatant commanders say they need more.

Meanwhile, back home, we need to shore up our own defenses against expected threats and hedge against the unexpected. The focus should be on the Ground-Based Interceptor, a policy supported by the current Democratic and previous Republican administrations. Recent tests have confirmed the potential of its underlying “hit-to-kill” technologies, which destroy incoming warheads and missiles by ramming them at high speeds far above the earth. In particular, we should stick with the decision to add 14 GBIs to the existing 30 in Alaska and California by the end of next year, an effort that will improve the chances of interception for only $1 billion less than 0.2 percent of the proposed 2017 defense budget?

Executing the planned upgrades to the current network of sensors, command-and-control mechanisms, cyber defenses, and other critical support systems will also make the current GBI fleet more effective without requiring revolutionary technological breakthroughs or massive expenditures. For example, the long-range radar under construction in Alaska, should by 2020 help discriminate between incoming warheads, decoys, and debris.

For the future, we should pursue the Redesigned Kill Vehicle, which for a relatively modest cost of $2.2 billion over five years will simplify the assembly, improve the reliability, and reduce the costs of each GBI in only a few years—and provide a better foundation for new types of kill vehicles and interceptors later.

Finally, we should increase the frequency with which we test the GBI network; some years have seen one or even no tests, constraining the system’s development. Conducting more tests and in more challenging scenarios would rapidly increase the interceptors’ reliability.

Of course, there is always hope that technological innovations in coming decades will revolutionize U.S. BMD. Lasers and other directed-energy systems, kill vehicles that can take multiple shots, or space-based weapons might transform the missile defense battlefield. For the next few years, however, we will rely on the defense technologies that we are now deploying rather than the visionary shield that we desire to create.

Missile defenses can already, in conjunction with nuclear and conventional defenses, as well as non-kinetic tools like diplomacy and cyber weapons, deter and defeat major threats to the United States and our allies. For this reason, there has been strong bicameral and bipartisan backing for such capabilities.

Unfortunately, the Missile Defense Agency is constrained by outdated U.S. defense spending limits. Whatever the dubious merits of the sequestration mechanism in the Budget Control Act of 2011, the world has changed tremendously during the last few years, and not for the better. Boosting BMD is a prudent, cost-effective response.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/201...g-cold-war-chokepoint/126428/?oref=d-mostread

Russian Subs Are Reheating a Cold War Chokepoint

March 4, 2016 By Magnus Nordenman

As the GIUK gap returns to importance, NATO must look to regenerate its anti-submarine forces.
Commentary / Russia / Navy

The recent U.S. promise to fund upgrades to Iceland’s military airfield at Keflavik is no diplomatic bone thrown to a small ally. The improvements will allow the U.S. Navy’s new P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to keep an eye on Russia’s increasingly active and capable submarine force in a region whose importance is rising with the tensions between Moscow and the West. In short, the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap is back.

During the Cold War, the maritime choke points between Greenland, Iceland, and the UK were key to the defense of Europe. This “GIUK gap” represented the line that Soviet naval forces had to cross in order to reach the Atlantic and stop U.S. forces heading across the sea to reinforce America’s European allies. It was also the area that the Soviet Union’s submarine-based nuclear forces would have to pass as they deployed for their nuclear strike missions. In response, the United States and its northern NATO allies spent considerable time, money, and effort on bolstering anti-submarine warfare capabilities and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in the region. Maritime patrol aircraft from the UK, Norway, and the U.S.(Navy P-3s, flying from Keflavik) covered the area from above, while nuclear and conventional submarines lurked below the surface. The choke points were also monitored by an advanced network of underwater sensors installed to detect and track Soviet submarines.

But after the Cold War ended, the GIUK gap disappeared from NATO’s maritime mind. U.S. forces left Iceland in 2006, and the UK, facing budget pressures, retired its fleet of maritime patrol aircraft fleet in 2010. (The Netherlands did the same in 2003.) Anti-submarine warfare and the North Atlantic were hardly priorities for an Alliance embroiled in peacekeeping, counter-insurgency, and fighting pirates in far-flung Bosnia, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa.

http://www.govexec.com/media/gbc/docs/pdfs_edit/giuk_gap2.png

But the term “GIUK gap” is now heard again in NATO circles (and sometimes as GIUK-N gap, to signify the inclusion of the maritime domain around Norway), as it becomes increasingly apparent that Russia is pouring money into its naval forces in general, and its submarine fleet in particular. Moscow is introducing new classes of conventional and nuclear attack submarines, among them the Yasen class and the Kalina class, the latter of which is thought to include air-independent propulsion. AIP, which considerably reduces the noise level of conventional submarines, was until recently seen only in Western navies’ most capable conventional subs. Much of Russia’s investment in its submarine force has been focused on its Northern Fleet, which is based in Murmansk and intended for operations in and around the Arctic, as well as the Atlantic. The Northern Fleet is also the home of Russia’s submarine-based nuclear deterrent.

Russia is believed to be putting these new sub-surface capabilities to the test. The UK, Sweden, and Finland have all launched recent hunts for suspected Russian submarines deep in their territorial waters. Russia has also showed off its new ability to launch land-attack cruise missiles from its submarines; late last year, a sub in the Mediterranean fired Kalibr missiles against targets in Syria.

Russia’s growing sub-surface capabilities are coupled with an apparent political will to use them. Its recently revised maritime strategy emphasizes operations in the Arctic, along with the need for Russian maritime forces to have access to the broader Atlantic Ocean. And that access will have to be, just as during the Cold War, through the GIUK gap.

Now the United States is pivoting back to the region; witness the Obama administration’s recent announcement that it intends to spend part of the proposed 2017 European Reassurance Initiative budget on upgrading facilities at Keflavik.

And the U.S. is not alone. Britain recently announced that it will seek to rebuild its maritime patrol aircraft fleet, probably by buying P-8s from Boeing. Norway is also considering its options for the future of its maritime patrol aircraft, and is also looking to buy a new class of submarines. Norway also recently upgraded its signal intelligence ship with new U.S. sensors, and the ship is primarily intended for operations in the vast maritime spaces of the High North.

The emerging challenge in the North Atlantic should also drive NATO and its members to look hard at regenerating the ability to conduct anti-submarine warfare against a potent adversary. European nations should also take a hard look at its aging maritime patrol aircraft fleet and think about its future. The UK and the Netherlands are not the only countries who let their MPA fleets slip after the end of the Cold War.

While current U.S. and NATO efforts at deterring further Russian aggression may be most visible through ground force deployments, exercises, and pre-positioned equipment in Europe’s east, a mostly unseen contest is also emerging in the North Atlantic. The GIUK gap is back.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/shaping-a-presidential-legacy/

Reality Check

Shaping a Presidential Legacy

The limits of Obama’s office played a significant role in creating his ‘doctrine.’
March 11, 2016
By Kamran Bokhari

In an article published yesterday in The Atlantic titled “The Obama Doctrine,” U.S. President Barack Obama called on Saudi Arabia and Iran to establish a form of “cold peace” in order to manage the growing chaos in the Middle East. In the extensive interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama warned that the region cannot see an end to anarchy unless the Salafist kingdom and the Islamic republic can come to terms with one another on how to “share the neighborhood.” The interview clearly shows that the president is more frustrated with traditional U.S. ally Saudi Arabia than with Iran, which for nearly two generations has been a foe of the United States. In the article, Obama criticized the Saudis for the kingdom’s role in spreading violent extremism in the wider Muslim world and for oppressing women at home.

The phrase “The Obama Doctrine” is just a way of describing the decisions Obama had to make in the past seven years. The driving force behind the doctrine was ultimately not Obama’s personal ambitions or ideals, but rather the U.S. moving toward a balance of power strategy. It’s a retrospective designation, trying to make sense of eight years of decisions, rather than an orienting principle through which Obama directed U.S. policy. Policy is what someone wants to happen – geopolitics is what does.

The article and the debate it has generated in the news and on social media is focused on Obama’s personality and the popular assumption that individual presidents have a great degree of latitude in making policy decisions. Geopolitics, however, teaches us that individual presidents are highly constrained in their ability to effect change. All leaders – more or less – inherit the same narrow menu of options that was available to their predecessors. Indeed, constraints upon political actors (individuals, groups and states) remain highly under-appreciated.

Leaders are criticized by their opponents either for a decision they made or for one they did not. A good chunk of the Goldberg article focuses on the domestic and international criticism of Obama’s policy toward Syria. The view of these critics is that, had Obama come to the aide of the Syrian rebels early on, the battlespace would today not have been dominated by the Islamic State, al-Qaida’s Syrian branch called Jabhat al-Nusra and most of the other rebel groups that subscribe to one form of Salafist-jihadism or another. Among the most vocal in this criticism are some key American allies in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia and other Sunni powers.

The Saudis have long been upset with Obama for what they consider his reckless foreign policy that seeks to upend the U.S.-Saudi alliance (which dates back to the FDR administration) by reaching out to Iran. What the Saudis easily forget is that their bitterness towards their historical great power patron goes back to the days of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. It was the Bush administration, in complex cooperation with Iran, that toppled the Sunni-dominated Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, leading to the rise of a Shiite-dominated polity closely aligned with Iran. It was the same Bush administration that began the negotiations with Tehran on the nuclear issue, which Obama was able to build upon after the current Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, came to power.

The point is that no individual president is able to radically alter course. The Republican debate for the 2016 election is saturated with vows by different candidates, especially Donald Trump, on how they will be markedly different from Obama, especially in dealing with with foreign policy issues. Indeed, the American president, as per the founders’ intent, has more room to maneuver on the foreign policy front than on the domestic one. However, there is no escaping constraints, and therefore whoever becomes the 45th president, even if it is Trump, will not be able to deliver on many of the campaign promises – as has been the case with Obama and all those who have come before.

Obama came into office in 2009 with the optimism that outreach to the Arab/Muslim world would make a difference. Hence his famous June 2009 speech in Cairo titled “A New Beginning,” in which he sought to repair relations with the Islamic world. It did not take long for him to realize how hard it would be to change U.S. relations with the Muslim world. As Goldberg notes, “the rise of the Islamic State deepened Obama’s conviction that the Middle East could not be fixed – not on his watch, and not for a generation to come.”

Goldberg’s interview with Obama is highly instructive in that it highlights the limits of presidential – and with it American – power to shape events around the world. In fact, Obama openly acknowledges this when talking about his resistance to intervening in Syria. He goes into considerable detail about the U.S. strategy to let regional players (Turkey as well as Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states) take the lead in managing the Mideast turmoil – as we have consistently pointed out in our assessments. Obama’s call on the Saudis and the Iranians to reach an understanding underscores our analysis that the United States has for some time now been pursuing a balance of power strategy.

In many ways, this strategy predates the Obama administration, however, it has emerged more clearly during his term in office given the way in which pandemonium has engulfed the Middle East. This is not just a two-way balance of power involving the Saudis and the Iranians, but rather a more complex one involving the strongest regional player, Turkey. We have been making the argument that the United States is relying on Turkey to play a lead role in dealing with the situation in the Middle East. Obama expressed dismay over Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan’s refusal to use Turkish military power to stabilize the situation in Syria.

The Turks do not want to be left doing the heavy lifting in Syria and the wider region for decades to come. However, eventually they will have no choice but to intervene in Syria – and not because Obama wants them to. The impersonal objective forces of geopolitics will force them to act. At that time, the subjective preferences of Erdogan, or whoever will be at the helm in Ankara, will not matter.

Obama’s interview in The Atlantic was motivated by the president’s desire to shape his legacy by explaining his various foreign policy decisions. It is unlikely that the president intended it to shed light on the nature of geopolitics and the position of the American president and all world leaders. However, it certainly has been instrumental in showing how personalities only matter so much and emphasizing the serious limits presidents must deal with when making decisions.

Presidents and individuals can exert power at particular moments, but the moments are not often of their choosing. Obama opposed the Iraq War and wanted to withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, but his presidency is going to end with American forces still on the ground in both countries. He realized very quickly that he had to play the hand he was dealt, even if it was not the hand he may have wanted.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/artic...n_cold_peace_possible_in_the_middle_east.html

March 11, 2016

Is Cold Peace Possible in the Middle East?

By Kevin Sullivan

Saudi Arabia's recent decision to suspend billions in military aid to Lebanon has put the tiny Mediterranean nation on the edge of economic crisis, and has also left more than a few Saudi watchers scratching their heads. Why, if it is so intent on maintaining its foothold across the Middle East, would the Saudis seemingly surrender Lebanon to Iran?

Lebanon's Sunni-backed Future Movement has historically enjoyed strong ties with the Saudi monarchy, but the Lebanese government's recent failure to unequivocally condemn the January attack on Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran rubbed the Saudi royals the wrong way, prompting it to take more punitive steps against Beirut. Hezbollah, the Iran proxy-***-political party that maintains a significant grip on Lebanon's fractious confessional government, enjoys sizeable support from the country's Shiite community, much to Riyadh's chagrin.

All of this leaves Lebanon in a rather tenuous position. Without the military hardware and training Saudi Arabia pledged to purchase for them, Lebanon's Future Movement has little hope of balancing out Hezbollah's -- and by default Iran's -- influence in their country's affairs. Hezbollah has virtual veto power over Lebanese politics, and the group's involvement in the civil war in neighboring Syria has only compounded the sectarian tensions in the country.

All geopolitics is local

These disciplinary measures against Lebanon demonstrate just how interconnected the increasing number of Mideast crises have become. As Iran and Saudi Arabia continue to escalate their cold war, parochial conflicts have adopted a more geopolitical complexion.

"Hezbollah has longstanding ties to the Houthi rebels in Yemen and has provided advisers to their forces," explains Al-Monitor's Bruce Riedel. "For its part, Hezbollah is now calling for the Lebanese government to accept Iranian aid to fill the gap left by the Saudis."

That Hezbollah's involvement in Saudi Arabia's costly campaign in Yemen -- in addition to its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad -- would compel the kingdom to punish Lebanon suggests that a kind of butterfly effect is now occurring across much of the Middle East, one that is unpredictable, dangerous, and touches the lives of millions.

The Saudis are of course not alone in their efforts to exacerbate regional frustrations for their own gain. Iran too has worked to untether the Saudi monarchy from its traditionally reliable allies. The Islamic Republic's announcement that it would financially compensate the families of Palestinians killed in the recent wave of attacks against Israelis has ruffled the feathers of Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah, in particular the body's aging president, Saudi ally Mahmoud Abbas.

Such gestures suggest that both Iran and Saudi Arabia, after years of propping up and paying out to a variety of proxies, are now coming to collect on their investments. Both regimes, however, are starting brush fires that they mightn't be able to so easily put out -- fires that just might engulf their own restive communities.

"The fact that dissatisfied minorities populate the oil-rich regions of Iran and Saudi Arabia creates an ironic parallel in which in the rivalry between two of the Middle East's larger powers often amounts to the pot calling the kettle black," writes James Dorsey of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, alluding to the Ahwazi Arab region of Khuzestan in Iran and Saudi Arabia's majority Shiite Eastern Province. And while speculation about possible insurrection in either of these territories remains, for now, predominantly the province of overzealous op-ed pages, neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia can assume that their territorial integrity will remain sacrosanct; not as a number of other once-immutable Mideast regimes crumble before their very eyes.

If, however, the Saudis and Iranians find the notion of turning their cold war into a cold peace an unattractive one, then it remains up to the parties actually fighting and dying to withdraw from the two powers' regional jostle. Reports that Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels have asked their allies in Tehran to stay out of Yemeni affairs are encouraging, and indicate that geography often trumps sect and ideology. Both Tehran and Riyadh, moreover, will need to learn to coexist and respect each other's spheres of influence for there to be any semblance of stability in the region moving forward.

It's a difficult lesson that neither seems fully prepared to learn just yet, but it is one that will only grow in importance as world powers work to end the bloodshed in Syria and attempt to stitch the Middle East back together again.

More on this:

When Elephants Battle -- The Economist

Saudi Arabia Has a Shiite Problem -- Foreign Policy

Khuzestan Tells Story of Persia's Rise, Fall -- Al-Monitor

Saudis Turn Screws on Lebanon's Economy -- Financial Times

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...st-Fear-Dead-and-Buried-Like-the-Soviet-Union

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nationalinterest.org/blog/chinas-greatest-fear-dead-buried-the-soviet-union-15477

The Buzz

China's Greatest Fear: Dead and Buried Like the Soviet Union

Harry J. Kazianis
March 11, 2016
Comments 63

Twenty-five years ago, the mighty Soviet Union was finally thrown onto the ash heap of history [4]¡ªnever to rise again. And yet, the fall of one of the most powerful empires in human history, we often forget, was never a sure thing. Indeed, looking back just ten years¡¯ time, to 1981, very few people foresaw the demise of the USSR. In fact, many made predictions that it was America who was in for a rough patch in the years to come. Even a cursory survey of history from that era depicts an America still struggling to overcome a deeply ingrained malaise [5]: the Soviets seemed on the march almost everywhere [6], the U.S. economy was in shambles [7], the nation was still reeling from the emotional scars of the Vietnam War as well as the resignation of a sitting president. The hits just kept on coming¡ªa seemingly never-ending crisis, and what must have felt like a true ¡°crisis of confidence [8].¡±

But here we are. The USSR is no more. The Warsaw Pact is gone. Gorbachev is doing Pizza Hut commercials [9]. America clearly prevailed in one of the most spectacular geopolitical contests of our time¡ªall without the burning embers of a nuclear fire that could have killed billions.

And while American¡¯s today might make light of the past Soviet threat and its subsequent rapid collapse, one nation and its leadership is still very much interested in the death of the Soviet Empire: The People¡¯s Republic of China.

Indeed, one could make a compelling argument that Beijing¡¯s leaders¡ªcertainly burning the midnight oil over the state of their economy and America¡¯s pivot to Asia¡ªwhen pressed, clearly fears ending up like the old Soviet state. In my travels throughout Asia in the last several years as well as at the sidelines of various conferences and gatherings it seems the Soviet collapse ends up being something Chinese officials make clear they will avoid. They fear the power they hold today could be swept away tomorrow¡ªcast aside by corruption, overspending on the military, political paralysis, divisions in society and so on.

So what does Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party think really brought down the USSR? And what can they do to prevent it?

While a complete review of the literature would be simply too large for a mere blog post, one place to start is former Center for the National Interest Senior Fellow A. Greer Meisels article for the Diplomat [10] in 2012. While debate in China has certainly advanced in the last four years, Meisels neatly lays out three possible reasons Chinese scholars see as the most likely cause of the collapse¡ªand the most important areas to address:

The ¡°Blame the Man¡± Concept

Was it simply all Gorbachev¡¯s fault?

¡°For many in China in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and even until today, assessing blame for the Soviet Union¡¯s collapse begins and ends with a single individual, Mikhail Gorbachev. This view seems to resonate most strongly with China¡¯s more conservative leftists. During the height of Gorbachev¡¯s reform efforts, there were people who argued that ¡°within the CCP and within China intense ¡®ideological struggle¡¯ would be waged against Gorbachev¡¯s ¡®revisionism.¡¯¡± Of course, since the Communist Revolution of 1949 few, if any, labels are more dreaded than ¡°revisionist.¡± Even as recently as last year, the ¡°Blame the Man¡± school of thought was en vogue. On March 1, 2011, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) released a new book, Preparing for Danger in Times of Safety: Recollections on the 20-Year Anniversary of the Collapse of the Russian Communist Party (¾Ó°²Ë¼Î£: ËÕÁªÍöµ³¶þÊ®ÄêµÄ˼¿¼), which concludes that the root cause of the collapse of the CPSU was not the Russian socialist system itself, but rather the corruption of the Russian Communists led by then-President Gorbachev.

¡°The debilitating effects of corruption are manifesting themselves in China today, so it¡¯s no wonder that the CCP certainly in word, if not always in deed, seems desperate to wage war against this dreaded foe.¡±

The ¡°Blame the System¡± Theory

While the core foundations of today¡¯s Chinese and old Soviet economies and governments are vastly different, one can see through the lens of this school of thought why economic restructuring is so important to Beijing today:

¡°A second influential camp comprised of more liberal or reform-minded individuals saw the impetus of the collapse as being systemic ¨C not a flaw in the socialist model itself, but rather in how it was executed in the Soviet Union. These people blamed domestic causes such as economic stagnation, mismanagement, excessive dogmatism and bureaucratic ossification for the Soviet Union¡¯s collapse. These problems were certainly not solely the result of Gorbachev-era policies, but like a cancer that had been allowed to metastasize, spread over time throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

¡°One could see why this ¡°Blame the System¡± idea would gain traction with reform-minded Party members in China. After all, many of Deng Xiaoping¡¯s reforms were an effort to combat just this sort of stale, stagnant thinking. . .¡±

¡°Blame The West¡±

Was the fall of the Soviet Union simply all America¡¯s fault? Some in China think so¡ªand might explain Beijing¡¯s quest to rid Asia of its large U.S. presence:

¡°The ¡°Blame the West¡± camp differentiates itself from the other two because it seems particularly consumed by fear of the United States¡¯ policies and influence in the region [11]. In fact one of this camp¡¯s overriding concerns is that Washington would use its power to step up pressure on China to initiate regime change. Articles appeared in places like the People¡¯s Daily and Hong Kong¡¯s Wen Wei Po stating that the CCP was fearful of growing influence by ¡°aggressive¡± Western powers as well as of outward signs of Party disunity. . . . These sentiments are still echoed and diatribes against American hegemony often find their way onto many a Chinese Op-Ed page.¡±

China Is Not the USSR (But It Should be Worried)

Seeing the Soviet collapse from Chinese eyes is important, especially as Beijing¡¯s leaders look to reinvigorate their economy and polity in an effort to hang on to power. However, it seems clear that what China has evolved into at present is very different from where the Soviet Union was when it started its march towards terminal decline. Beijing¡¯s markets and industries are a huge part of the global economy and supply chain. China does not have countless allies and partners to support around the world with expensive arms and endless subsidies. And best of all: Beijing is not pitted in a global contest with the U.S. for power and influence.

But whatever the differences, Beijing does have reasons to worry. Economic growth has slowed dramatically¡ªor is possibly non-existent. China may grow old [12] before it grows rich. In East Asia, Chinese moves over roughly the last decade have rattled the region, with nations around the wider Indo-Pacific slowly lining up to challenge Beijing¡¯s quest for greater power and influence.

In the end, if history tells us anything is that the only constant is change. Perhaps it would be wise for U.S. Asia watchers to consider all futures when it comes to the Middle Kingdom¡ªincluding what today might seem like the unthinkable [13].

Harry Kazianis (@grecianformula [14]) is a non-resident Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest [15], a non-resident Senior Fellow at the China Policy Institute [16] as well as a fellow for National Security affairs at the Potomac Foundation [17]. He is the former Executive Editor of The National Interest and former editor-in-chief of the Diplomat [18]. The views expressed are his own.

Image [19]: Flickr/ Ana Paula [20]Hirama.

Tags
China [21]Soviet Union [22]Security [23]defense [24]Collapse [25]
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Security [26] [3]

Links:
[1] http://www.nationalinterest.org/blog/chinas-greatest-fear-dead-buried-the-soviet-union-15477
[2] http://www.nationalinterest.org/profile/harry-j-kazianis
[3] http://twitter.com/share
[4] http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-parliament.htm
[5] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106508243
[6] http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/08/the-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-1979-1989/100786/
[7] http://www.federalreservehistory.org/Events/DetailView/44
[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/08/09/jimmy-carters-malaise-speech-was-popular/
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKkoRd8uRsQ
[10] http://thediplomat.com/2012/07/what-china-learned-from-the-soviet-unions-fall/
[11] http://thediplomat.com/china-power/for-china-its-all-about-america/
[12] http://thediplomat.com/2013/01/has-china-become-an-entitlement-society-too/
[13] http://thediplomat.com/2012/11/planning-for-chinas-fall/
[14] https://twitter.com/grecianformula
[15] http://cftni.org/
[16] http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cpi/
[17] http://www.thepotomacfoundation.org/
[18] http://thediplomat.com/
[19] https://www.flickr.com/photos/anapa...ro92P-8mdwFd-7wX3fv-dgaXq1-a89ATe-9f9M9-6m3Dc
[20] https://www.flickr.com/photos/anapaulahrm/
[21] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/china
[22] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/soviet-union
[23] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/security
[24] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/defense
[25] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/collapse
[26] http://www.nationalinterest.org/topic/security

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-gathering-storm-of-the-chinese-military/

Editorials

The Gathering Storm Of The Chinese Military

6:15 PM EST

Pacific Theater: Communist China is completing infrastructure in the South China Sea with which it can project military aggression. The Obama U.S. power vacuum brings “change” to yet another region of the globe.

You’ve got to wonder if President Obama’s own national security personnel are crying out for help for America.

His Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, in a Feb. 23 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., made public last week, said, “Based on the extent of land reclamation and construction activity” in the Spratly Islands, “we assess that China has established the necessary infrastructure to project military capabilities in the South China Sea beyond that which is required for point defense of its outposts. These capabilities could include the deployment of modern fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and coastal defense cruise missiles, as well as increased presence of People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surface combatants and China Coast Guard (CCG) large patrol ships.”

This extensive military expansion is being made possible by China’s recent construction of more than a half-dozen artificial islands in the area: thousands of acres of new land for military activity. Beijing deployed various military vessels at its island outposts and “has installed military radars, most likely air-surveillance/early warning radars.”

China also “has constructed facilities to support the deployment of high-end military capabilities, including modern fighter aircraft” on the islands. Clapper believes “China will continue to pursue construction and infrastructure development at its expanded outposts in the South China Sea,” which will allow it to “be able to deploy a range of offensive and defensive military capabilities” so that “by the end of 2016 or early 2017, China will have significant capacity to quickly project substantial offensive military power to the region.”

As the New York Times reported last week, “American officials are increasingly worried that the buildup, if unchecked, will give China de facto control of an expanse of sea the size of Mexico and military superiority over neighbors with competing claims to the waters.”

Meanwhile, “analysts say the buildup will make it more difficult for the United States Navy to quickly defend allies with weaker militaries, like the Philippines,” said the Times. “The deployment of fighter jets, antiship missiles and more powerful radar in particular could embolden the Chinese Navy while giving American commanders pause, they said.”

U.S. Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris last month told McCain’s panel that China was “changing the operational landscape in the South China Sea.”

We don’t have to guess at the intentions of the country that for more than four decades has boasted the world’s largest armed forces. A Beijing white paper on the purpose of China’s long-term military strategy last May said, “Building a strong national defense and powerful armed forces is a strategic task of China’s modernization drive and a security guarantee for China’s peaceful development. Subordinate to and serving the national strategic goal, China’s military strategy is an overarching guidance for blueprinting and directing the building and employment of the country’s armed forces.”

The ultimate aim: “Realizing the Chinese dream of achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

What does “the Chinese dream” mean for the nationalist Chinese in Taiwan, which enjoys Western-style free representative government and economic freedom? The Beijing document says, “reunification is an inevitable trend in the course of national rejuvenation.” “Reunification” most certainly does not refer to Beijing ditching its authoritarian model for Taiwan’s system, which gives power to the people.

China is taking avail of an opportunity: the flabbiness of the world’s lone superpower under Obama. It can see that if we can’t finish wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we certainly aren’t going to do much against aggression from Asia’s nuclear-armed giant.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-taiz-idUSKCN0WE0H6

World | Sat Mar 12, 2016 8:20am EST
Related: World, United Nations, Yemen

President's troops partially break siege of Yemen's third city

ADEN

Troops loyal to Yemen's president have captured the western entrance to the strategic city of Taiz, partially breaking a siege by Houthi fighters allied with Iran, medical and military sources said on Saturday.

At least 48 people have been killed in heavy clashes in Yemen's third biggest city, the medics and local fighters said, and at least 120 people have been wounded. Witnesses said there were bodies scattered in the streets.

Supporters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition, have been trying for months to lift the siege of the southwestern city and open up key supply routes.

The struggle is part of coalition efforts since March last year to roll back Houthi gains and restore Hadi, who is currently in Saudi Arabia, to power. The war has devastated the country, killed more than 6,000 people and displaced millions.

The reported capture of the western entrance to Taiz, where nearly half of the 250,000 residents had been trapped since May, was hailed by the government-run sabanew.net news agency as a major breakthrough. It said Hadi and his deputy, Khaled Bahah, had telephoned the local military commander to congratulate him on the victory.

Meanwhile sabanews.net, another news agency controlled by Houthis, said fighters from the group killed 27 Hadi supporters.

Bahah, who is also the prime minister, told a news conference in the southern port city of Aden that the Yemeni government was preparing an aid convoy to Taiz to leave soon but gave no further details.

Bahah told journalists that the government had prepared 1,000 men to take charge of security in Taiz immediately to avoid a repetition of the lawlessness and chaos that happened in Aden after government forces captured the city from the Houthis in July last year.

Aden, where the Yemeni government is currently based, has been gripped by bomb and gun attacks targeting senior government officials and security personnel since last year.

The United Nations had accused the Houthis of obstructing the delivery of humanitarian supplies to civilians in Taiz, saying residents had been living under "virtual siege".

The Houthis and troops loyal to their ally, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, remain entrenched in much of the northern half of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. Islamist militants have exploited the chaos to widen their influence.

On Wednesday the Saudi-led coalition said it had exchanged prisoners with its Houthi opponents, and welcomed a pause in combat on the border. A delegation from the Houthi group is currently in Saudi Arabia, in what two officials said was an attempt to end the year-old war.


(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Cairo and Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden, writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Clelia Oziel)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....I wonder how much IRGC backing he's got?....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-sadr-idUSKCN0WE0G4

World | Sat Mar 12, 2016 8:11am EST
Related: World, Iraq

Iraqi cleric Sadr calls sit-in, urges action against corruption

BAGHDAD

Iraq's powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a sit-at the gates of Baghdad's heavily fortified government district, stepping up pressure on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to deliver on promised anti-corruption reforms.

The protest, that Sadr said would start on Friday, threatened to escalate tensions over a long-awaited economic overhaul in the strife-torn oil producer.

Graft is eating away at Baghdad's resources even as it struggles with falling revenue due to rock-bottom oil prices and high spending due to the costs of the war against Islamic State militants."I address this historic call to every reform-loving Iraqi ... so that he rises up to begin a new phase," read the statement posted online on Saturday from Sadr, heir to a Shi'ite clerical dynasty persecuted under Saddam Hussein.

A year and a half into his four-year term, Abadi is trying to challenge a system of patronage which has become entrenched in Iraq over the last decade, paralyzing politics and allowing corruption to flourish.

But he is facing pressure from two sides as some of the country's powerful political factions resist any reduction of their influence, while Sadr is threatening to escalate protests to bring down his government should he not press ahead faster.

On Friday, Abadi signaled willingness to agree that the political parties have a say in appointing members of a cabinet he plans to form to fight corruption and optimize state spending to better cope with the sharp decline in oil revenue.

The Sadrist bloc in parliament, called al-Ahrar, accounts for only 34 of parliament’s 328 members and may not be able to vote down Abadi should the other political parties approve a new cabinet.

The political system adopted after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was initially meant to allow the nation's Sunni Arab, Kurdish and other minorities to have ministers and take part in the government alongside parties that represent the Shi'ite majority, to which Abadi belongs.


(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-rouhani-idUSKCN0WE0NV

World | Sat Mar 12, 2016 9:35am EST
Related: World, Davos

Iran's Rouhani criticizes 'revolutionary' opponents as rift widens

DUBAI | By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin


Iran's President Hassan Rouhani defended his nuclear deal with world powers and his policy of detente with the West, saying on Saturday that his "revolutionary" opponents sought their own interests, not those of the people.

The remarks showed a widening rift between Rouhani and hardliners, especially the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has called himself a proud revolutionary in recent months.

"What's the use of saying I am a revolutionary ... Why don't we seek people's comfort and our country's glory?" Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on the state television.

Rouhani has championed the nuclear deal with six major powers that put an end to international sanctions on Tehran in January, and has been since trying to revive Iran's business and political ties with the West.

Moderates and reformers also saw big gains in February elections for parliament and for the Assembly of Experts - a body that will choose the next supreme leader.

Hardline allies of Khamenei have accused him of betraying the anti-Western values of the 1979 revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.

But Rouhani said the election results were new vote of confidence for his policies and promised to push for more political and social reforms.

"We had a revolution to promote morality, national unity, and brotherhood... You are a revolutionary when people feel safe from your words and actions," Rouhani said.

Criticizing hardline newspapers that have increased their pressure on Rouhani's allies in recent months, he said: "Some newspapers are bulletins of insult. You open them anxiously to see how they have insulted you again. Is this Islam, is this Islamic society?"

Last week Khamenei told Assembly members to choose a "revolutionary" successor to him when the time saying, saying the next supreme leader should not compromise on Iran's stance against the United States.

Khamenei said Iran's economy had not yet benefited from the Western delegations visiting Iran after the lifting of sanctions as they had failed to deliver on their promises. He added he saw some of the visits as suspicious as the West was trying to send "infiltrators" in disguise.

During the nuclear talks led by the United States, Khamenei repeatedly told his supporters that he did not trust the West and that he was "still a revolutionary, not a diplomat".


(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, editing by Sami Aboudi)

 

[Housecarl]

Poland In Crisis?
Started by Plain Janeý, 12-29-2015 04:29 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?481486-Poland-In-Crisis/page2


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-poland-constitution-idUSKCN0WE0JK

World | Sat Mar 12, 2016 10:03am EST
Related: World

Thousands rally against Polish govt as constitutional crisis deepens

WARSAW | By Wiktor Szary


Tens of thousands of Poles marched through Warsaw on Saturday demanding their government respect the constitution, in an escalation of a confrontation pitting the opposition, the country's top court and the EU against the ruling conservatives.

Waving Polish and EU flags and chanting "constitution", the crowds on the opposition rally called on the government to recognize a court ruling against divisive legal reforms.

The eurosceptic Law and Justice (PiS) party has faced growing criticism from the European Union, the United States and rights groups since it swept to power in October and increased controls on media and other institutions.

Poland's constitutional court said on Wednesday that the government's decision to increase the number of its judges needed to make rulings was illegal, deepening a crisis that has stirred concerns about democracy and the rule of law in the EU's largest eastern member.

Critics say the reforms, which also change the order in which cases are heard at the top court, have made it difficult for judges to review, let alone challenge, the government's legislation.

But the government on Saturday repeated its refusal to publish the constitutional court's ruling in an official journal, saying the ruling itself was illegal and effectively leaving the court order in legal limbo.

It has argued the constitutional court is too powerful, allied to the last administration and determined to block reforms the party was elected to push through - charges dismissed by the court and rights groups.


RULING "NOT BASED ON LAW"

Large crowds gathered in front of a large banner reading "bring back the constitutional order" at the top court building, then marched toward the presidential palace in Warsaw's old town, filling a large part of the 3-km (2-mile) route.

In a Twitter entry, a city official put the number of protesters at more than 50,000, though that figure could not be confirmed independently.

"Years ago, Poles protested to change the political system," former World Bank economist Ryszard Petru, leader of the liberal opposition Modern party, told the crowds, referring to Poland's anti-communist Solidarity movement.

"Now we're protesting to make sure they don't suddenly change it."

Government spokesman Rafal Bochenek told a news conference earlier on Saturday it would not recognize the top court's verdict, saying the judges had broken the very regulations that they were ruling on when they made their statement.

"We uphold the position that Poland's government cannot publish the statement of some of the constitutional court judges, which is not based on law," Bochenek said.

He added that parliament would debate a separate statement by the Venice Commission, the rights body the Council of Europe's advisory panel, which called on the government to recognize the top court's verdict on the reforms.

The Venice Commission on Friday had said Poland's overhaul of the court would endanger "not only the rule of law but also the functioning of the democratic system."


(Reporting by Wiktor Szary; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-idUSKCN0WE0KA

World | Sat Mar 12, 2016 7:48am EST
Related: World

Merkel defends migrant stance in last push before 'Super Sunday'

BERLIN | By Paul Carrel


With a passionate defense of her migrant policy, Chancellor Angela Merkel threw herself into one last campaign push on the eve of "Super Sunday" elections in three German states that risk weakening her.

Migration is the touchstone issue in the three votes - two in western states, and one in the east - with many people worried how Germany can cope with a refugee crisis that saw over 1 million migrants arrive in the country last year.

Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) have been losing support to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has profited from popular angst about migrants after her high-risk decision last year to open Germany's borders to refugees fleeing war in Syria.

"There are situations in life - and this was the case last autumn - when you can't hold a long debate on principles," Merkel said, defending her decision. "People are suddenly there and need protection," she told a CDU rally in Baden-Wuerttemberg, one of the three states voting on Sunday.

Already represented in five of Germany's 16 regional parliaments, the AfD looks set to burst into three more on Sunday, campaigning on slogans such as "Secure the borders! Stop the asylum chaos!"

Now Merkel, in power since 2005 and facing a federal election next year, is trying to secure a Europe-wide solution to stem the flow of refugees. She alarmed many European Union leaders at a summit this week by gambling on a last-minute draft deal with Turkey to stop the migrant flow, and demanding their support.


WINE QUEEN

At the rally in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where the CDU candidate is trailing the incumbent Greens state premier in polls, she said European leaders were spending too long talking about the Turkey deal and that it was a sensible, cost-effective solution.

"That's why I think this is absolutely right," she said to applause.

Merkel must still seal the Turkey deal with EU leaders at their next summit on March 17-18. She will go into that meeting weakened if her party performs poorly in the state elections.

In Baden-Wuerttemberg, a CDU stronghold for over 50 years before turning to a Green-led coalition with the Social Democrats after Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, the Greens' state premier is poised to pip his CDU rival.

In Saxony-Anhalt in the east, the CDU is poised to remain the largest party but polls put the AfD on as much as 19 percent support, and ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel's coalition partner in Berlin.

Rhineland-Palatinate, a wine-growing region, is shaping up as the pivotal swing state.

There, Julia Kloeckner, a 43-year-old former German "wine queen" who has positioned herself as a candidate to succeed Merkel one day, has seen her lead shrink and one poll this week showed her narrowly behind SPD incumbent Malu Dreyer.

Asked how she would prepare for the election results, Merkel told Saturday's rally: "I will cross my fingers."


(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-peru-election-protests-idUSKCN0WE05B

World | Sat Mar 12, 2016 5:14am EST
Related: World

Peruvians march against Fujimori after rivals barred from elections

LIMA


Thousands of Peruvians marched in downtown Lima on Friday to demand the electoral board bar presidential frontrunner Keiko Fujimori from next month's vote after it disqualified two of her rivals in an unprecedented move that has shaken the race.

Protesters said the center-right politician should be thrown from the race because pictures and video show her and a running mate handing out gifts and prizes at rallies in possible violation of a new law against vote-buying.

Electoral authorities are investigating the accusations.

Fujimori, the 40-year-old daughter of imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori, has dismissed the accusations as "absurd." Her press officer did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular working hours.

One of Fujimori's rivals was thrown out of the race on Wednesday for giving cash to poor voters while campaigning. Her biggest obstacle to winning, Julio Guzman, was disqualified because his party did not comply with electoral procedures - a decision he called "fraud" that threatens to tarnish the legacy of the next president.

The electoral board has denied wrongdoing or political bias.

The U.S. Department of State said it was closely following Peru's electoral process and that the ambassador to Peru had spoken with Guzman, a spokesperson told Reuters Friday.

Protesters chanted "Stop Keiko!" at the headquarters of the National Jury of Elections, which issued a statement urging the news media to "contribute to a climate of peace."

"People are rising up to say enough of these irregularities and the Fujimori ambition of returning to power," said Jorge Rodriguez, an organizer of a group called Fujimori Never Again.

Fujimori, who narrowly lost her first presidential bid in 2011, has long been the favorite for this year's race.

She inherited a solid stock of support from her father, whom many credit with ending a bloody insurgency and fixing the economy in the 1990s. But many Peruvians despise her for her links to his authoritarian government, even after she has softened her once staunch defense of him.

Alberto Fujimori, who made Keiko Fujimori his first lady at 19 when he divorced her mother, is carrying out a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption.

A Reuters witness put the number of protesters, most of them young, at between 2,000 and 3,000. The rally largely peaceful and followed similar demonstrations against Fujimori in the Andean city of Cusco that upended her campaign event Thursday.

Elections are scheduled for April 10. A run-off would be held June 5.


(Reporting By Mitra Taj and Reuters TV; Editing by Robert Birsel)

 

[Housecarl]

Iran preparing to conduct new space launch this weekend (3/12/16)
Started by Housecarl‎, Today 07:28 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...onduct-new-space-launch-this-weekend-(3-12-16)

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/03/12/iran-preparing-to-conduct-new-space-launch-this-weekend.html

Iran

Iran preparing to conduct new space launch this weekend

By Lucas Tomlinson
·Published March 12, 2016
· FoxNews.com
Comments 321

Iran is preparing to launch a new long-range rocket into outer space as soon as this weekend, U.S. officials told Fox News.

The missile is known as a Simorgh and officials are watching the missile on the launch pad as it is being fueled at an undisclosed location inside Iran.

Officials told Fox they have not seen this specific type of rocket launched in the past. AllThingsNuclear.org has reported that Iran's earlier space launches used a smaller rocket, a variant of the Shahab-3.

Any test of a new ballistic missile would be an apparent violation of a UN resolution forbidding Iran from working on its rocket program.

A Simorgh rocket is designed to carry a satellite into space. Officials are concerned that any space launch uses the same technology needed to launch a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM.

All Things Nuclear reported that the rocket was first unveiled in 2010.

This week, Iran launched multiple ballistic missiles on one day for the first time since 2012, according to defense officials.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231 says Iran is “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

Thursday, a senior Revolutionary Guard commander said that Iran's ballistic missile program will continue to move forward, despite threats of international sanctions.

The U.S. State Department says the launches this week were not in violation of the nuclear deal, but “inconsistent” with UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which was tied to the nuclear deal when it went into effect.

Secretary of State John Kerry raised concerns about Iran’s recent missile launches in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Thursday, including reports that Iran scribbled “Israel must be wiped off the Earth” according to State Department spokesman John Kirby.

Both short and medium-range ballistic missiles tested recently by Iran are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

“Iran should face sanctions for these activities,” Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.

"The latest missiles launches are further evidence of Iran's aggression and of how its leaders intend to use the money it is receiving under the Obama nuclear deal." said House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas.

Kirby said earlier this week that reports of Iran’s recent ballistic missile launches would be brought to the attention of the UN Security Council.

The launches would not violate the landmark nuclear deal implemented in January, according to Kirby.

Vice President Joseph Biden, while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Wednesday did not acknowledge the missile launch directly, but he issued a strong warning to the Iranians.

"A nuclear-armed Iran is an absolutely unacceptable threat to Israel, to the region and the United States. And I want to reiterate which I know people still doubt here: if in fact they break the deal, we will act," he said.

Despite reports of Iran repeatedly violating the UN resolution by launching ballistic missiles, the State Department is confident additional sanctions could be called upon unilaterally if needed.

“We always have those tools available to us,” said Kirby this week.

In January, the Obama administration sanctioned nearly a dozen individuals and companies tied to Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Appearing in front of the Senate Armed Services committee in Washington, the outgoing head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Lloyd Austin said Tuesday, “Some of the behavior we've seen from Iran of late is certainly not the behavior you'd expect from a nation that wants to be taken seriously.”

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies says the Obama administration’s policy toward Iran is muddled.

“I don't think we've sent clear signals. We seem to be dealing with the nuclear agreement as if it’s some kind of legacy. It won't be a legacy if Iran acts out in other ways,” he said.


Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

__________

Iran Threatens to Walk Away From Nuke Deal After New Missile Test
Started by Jonas Parker‎, 03-08-2016 10:39 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...lk-Away-From-Nuke-Deal-After-New-Missile-Test

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ith-Iran-has-kickstarted-a-new-arms-race.html

Barack Obama's ill-advised nuclear deal with Iran has kickstarted a new arms race

There is now a genuine risk that Saudi Arabia and its allies will become involved in a dangerous military confrontation with Iran

By Con Coughlin, Defence Editor, Dubai
1:32PM GMT 12 Mar 2016
Comments 9


Iran’s decision to test-fire two ballistic missiles emblazoned with the legend “Israel must be wiped out” in Hebrew is not the sort of reassuring conduct one would expect from a country that claims it wants better relations with the outside world.

Timed to coincide with US Vice President Joe Biden’s tour of the Gulf states and Israel, the missile launches will not only be seen as an unnecessarily provocative act of aggression by countries like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

They are also deeply embarrassing for the Obama administration, which is still trying to reassure its allies in the Gulf and Israel that its controversial nuclear deal with Tehran has ended Iranian attempts to build nuclear weapons – for the time being, at least.

Only a few weeks ago naive enthusiasts of President Obama’s nuclear deal claimed that gains made by so-called moderates in Iran’s recent elections for the majlis, or parliament, as well as the Assembly of Experts, demonstrated Iran was well on the way to reform and a more transparent system of government.

What these modern-day fellow travellers – and they include many leading lights in our own Foreign Office – fail to appreciate is that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s uncompromising Supreme Leader and guardian of Iran’s Islamic revolution, personally vetted all of the candidates. Thus only those with impeccable revolutionary credentials were allowed to stand. So much for Iran’s new spirit of reform.

Video

For, despite the modest gains made by these so-called reformers, the fact remains that the real power in Iran lies with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), whose duty is both to defend and export Iran’s revolutionary values throughout the Muslim world – with special focus on neighbouring Arab states.

Not only do the Revolutionary Guards control a significant percentage of the Iranian economy – including the country’s vast oil reserves. They are also responsible for Iran’s defence and security policy which, contrary to Washington’s confident predictions in the wake of the nuclear deal, has led to a significant upsurge in Iranian meddling in neighbouring Arab states.

The fear now among pro-Western Arab leaders is that Iran will embark on a military build-up funded by the estimated $150 billion Tehran is set to receive as a result of the sanctions being lifted.

The missile tests will certainly be seen by many regional leaders in that context, particularly as many Western intelligence experts are convinced the missiles are being designed specifically to carry nuclear warheads. In addition to continuing to develop its ballistic missile programme, Tehran last month also concluded a deal with Russia to improve its missile defences.

One of the more obvious failings of Mr Obama’s nuclear deal is that it allows Iran, a country which the CIA says once had an illicit nuclear weapons programme, to continue development work on its ballistic missiles.

Washington no doubt believes there is no harm in Tehran building missiles that can strike at the heart of Europe when it does not have the means to fit them with nuclear warheads.

But that is not how things are viewed in the Gulf. According to senior security officials I have spoken to recently in the region, there is no guarantee that Mr Obama’s deal will prevent Iran from continuing work on its nuclear weapons programme. As one senior defence official commented: “We know the Iranians well, and we know they have no intention of giving up their ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons.”

Video

Not surprisingly, the Gulf states have now embarked on developing a multi-billion pound anti-missile shield of their own. If nothing else, Mr Obama’s legacy to the Middle East will have been to initiate a new arms race.

In Israel, too, intelligence officials take the same view about Iran’s long-term nuclear ambitions, which no doubt explains Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent decision to cancel his proposed visit to Washington later this month.

The problem now is that if Washington is not prepared to take Iran’s continued acts of bellicosity seriously, there are plenty of Arab leaders who will.

For the past two weeks Saudi Arabia has been hosting the Middle East's biggest-ever military exercise – Operation Desert Thunder. An estimated 20 Muslim nations have taken part in the exercise which is aimed at strengthening the ability of the Saudi-led coalition to defend itself against the growing threat posed by Islamist-inspired terror groups, such as Daesh.

But the possibility should not be ruled out that one day these same forces could be used to defend Sunni Arab regimes from the threat posed by Shia Iran. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia is already fighting a proxy war against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, while Riyadh has made no secret of its determination to secure the overthrow of the pro-Iranian regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Obama administration continues to hail the merits of its nuclear deal with Iran, which it insists will form the centrepiece of Mr Obama’s legacy when his presidency concludes later this year.

Yet if Iran continues with unprovoked acts of aggression, such as its latest test-firing of ballistic missiles, then there is a genuine risk that Saudi Arabia and its allies will become involved in a direct, and far more dangerous, military confrontation with Iran. And that is most certainly not the kind of legacy Mr Obama had in mind when he concluded his ill-advised deal with the ayatollahs.

 

[vestige]

Barack Obama's ill-advised nuclear deal with Iran has kickstarted a new arms race

There is now a genuine risk that Saudi Arabia and its allies will become involved in a dangerous military confrontation with Iran

The country is presently watching only the actions associated with Trump's rallies but it cannot be forgotten that there are multiple ****storms brewing around the world.

Will we be blindsided while distracted by the campaign activities???

The timing would be excellent as the country descends further into chaos.

vbump

 

[almost ready]

Is there any venue that Obama has touched that hasn't turned into a failure or outright shit storm? I was amazed when he tried to blame Libya on Cameron yesterday, using the words "shit show". He was adamant he was NOT responsible for the problem. (don't say it....)

Just gobsmacked, as they say over there.

edited to add: That is NOT a rhetorical question. Have actually thought on this quite some time.

 

[China Connection]

So all is well and normal?

 

[Housecarl]

Turkey Says "Massive Escalation" In Syria Imminent *update #280, Saudis launch strikes
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nent-*update-280-Saudis-launch-strikes/page35

"Democracy Ends In Turkey": Prominent Anti-Erdogan Newspaper Seized In Midnight Raid
Started by Possible Impact‎, 03-05-2016 06:28 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nti-Erdogan-Newspaper-Seized-In-Midnight-Raid

___

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.spiegel.de/international...emerges-as-victor-in-eu-crisis-a-1081809.html

Opinion: Dangerous Liaisons

By Mathieu von Rohr
March 11, 2016 – 06:10 PM

Unable to reach an internal agreement, the EU has turned to Turkey in an effort to solve the refugee crisis. But by doing so, Europe is strengthening President Erdogan's position as he transforms his country into a Putin-style autocracy.

Europe has a new best friend. His name is Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish president, of all people, the very man who is doing everything in his power right now to transform his country into autocracy modelled after Vladimir Putin's Russia emerged as the victor at this week's special EU-Turkey summit in Brussels. This is bad, even alarming, news.

Because the European Union apparently sees Erdogan as a potential miracle solution to the refugee crisis, he will likely get almost everything he wants: billions of euros for refugee support, accelerated EU membership talks and visa-free travel for Turkish citizens who want to visit Europe. On top of that, he gets the EU's failure to criticize the president's undemocratic behavior.

A few days before the summit, Erdogan dealt another heavy blow to press freedom, as if wanting to show Europe he can get away with anything. He had the country's largest newspaper, Zaman, be placed under mandatory government administration as anti-terror police occupied the opposition publication's editorial offices. The same thing happened this week to the news agency Cihan.

Prior to that, Can Dündar, the editor in chief of the daily Cumhuriyet, which is critical of the government, was arrested. The country's constitutional court ultimately ordered his release, but the president made clear that he wouldn't accept the verdict. In the last 18 months, close to 2,000 people have come under investigation for "insulting the president" in Turkey. And now the government wants to suspend parliamentary immunity for lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish HDP party.

Neither Angela Merkel, nor EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini nor European Council President Donald Tusk has dared to explicitly criticize the Turkish president. Instead, they proffered only the mildest of condemnations. But when Europe tiptoes on eggshells like that, it jeopardizes its credibility. What right will it still have to criticize limits to the freedom of the press in countries like Hungary -- or in Putin's "managed democracy"?

Unsavory Deals

So-called realpolitik is often cited to justify these kinds of unsavory deals -- the idea that you sometimes have to do morally disagreeable things for the sake of a higher cause. But there are some real-world consequences. For Turkey, this means weakening an opposition that is resisting Erdogan's aspirations to omnipotence. The EU is now paving the way for the president to change his country's constitution and weaken Turkey's democratic institutions. Erdogan has also reignited the conflict with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The army, in its battle against Kurdish militants, has put entire cities in the southeast under curfew and left many homes in ruins. The president is destabilizing his own country and the broader region.

Europe intends to surrender itself to a volatile autocrat who soon may have additional demands. This is not what a sustainable solution looks like. Besides, no one even knows if the proposed refugee deal will work the way people are hoping. Will the threat of swift deportation to Turkey truly be enough to prevent refugees from crossing the Aegean Sea? Is it even possible for Europe to conduct mass deportations that violate the terms of the Geneva Convention on Refugees? Will the acceptance of Syrian refugees by European countries from Turkey ultimately work? And isn't it also possible that refugees will simply take the route via Libya and across the Mediterranean in the future?

The agreement with Turkey may provide temporary relief to EU leaders like Angela Merkel, who are under domestic political pressure to reduce the number of refugees. It is, however, degrading for Europe to come across as a desperate supplicant. This is purely the product of EU discord. The Europeans only have to rely on Turkey because they are unable to agree on solutions that they themselves could implement -- such as the distribution of refugees across Europe.

The fact is that the EU doesn't have many levers left with which to pressure Turkey. The EU was never truly serious about accepting Turkey as a member, and Erdogan today is no longer seriously seeking that either. For the Turkish president, the reopening of accession negotiations is mainly important because of the domestic prestige factor.

Despite all this, the EU still has one trump left in its hand: the prospect of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens it is now considering, which would be an enormous success for Erdogan domestically. It must be attached to strict conditions, including respect for human rights and freedom of the press. Such a victory cannot just be handed to Erdogan. A price should be demanded for it at the next summit this coming week. If the EU is to open its borders to Turkish citizens, then it also has to dare to criticize Erdogan and exercise all the influence that it still has.


Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
New Fences on the Old Continent: Refugee Crisis Pushes Europe to the Brink (03/04/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...pell-refugee-back-up-in-greece-a-1080643.html
Putin vs. Erdogan: NATO Concerned over Possible Russia-Turkey Hostilities (02/19/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...ible-turkey-russia-hostilities-a-1078349.html
Turkish-German Pact: EU Split by Merkel's Refugee Plan (02/12/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...istance-in-brussels-and-ankara-a-1077131.html
Children of the PKK: The Growing Intensity of Turkey's Civil War (02/12/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...r-sees-young-fighters-on-front-a-1076663.html
Unintended Consequences: Merkel's Reliance on Turkey Makes Life Worse for Refugees (01/31/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...of-german-dependence-on-turkey-a-1074643.html
Striking the Heart of Europe: Turkey's Failed Anti-Extremism Strategy (01/15/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...-failed-strategy-for-extremism-a-1072287.html

 

[Housecarl]

Check out the comments on this article....HC

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/syria-war-us-officials-five-years-failure.html

TIMELINE: Key players reflect on US policy in Syria

President Barack Obama's legacy in Syria is one of undelivered promises and red lines crossed, according to Al-Monitor interviews with more than a dozen US decision-makers.

Author: Julian Pecquet
Posted: March 1, 2016
Comments 57

On the eve of the five-year anniversary of the 2011 uprising, lawmakers and former administration officials shared their reflections on the key moments that have shaped recent US policy in Syria. They paint a picture of a president who hoped to guide events on the ground but was never willing to commit the full weight of America's military and diplomatic arsenal to get his way.

A timeline of US policy in Syria. Click here for a full screen (best viewed on desktop or tablet).

The bitter fruits of the world's failure to end the Syrian slaughter — more than 250,000 dead and the worst refugee crisis since World War II — are well known. To mark the anniversary, Al-Monitor is releasing an interactive timeline featuring exclusive audio interviews with 14 key players that shed light on the main US policy inflexion points, from the half-hearted support for the Syrian opposition to last month's cease-fire agreement with Russia. The timeline, interspersed with key pronouncements from Obama and other top officials, runs for a little more than 30 minutes.

At the root of the Obama policy's failure, argues former Ambassador Ryan Crocker, was the mistaken impression that Bashar al-Assad would be as easy to dislodge as other dictators felled by the Arab Spring. As ambassador to Syria, Crocker had formed firsthand impressions of the Syrian regime's "near-perfect police state" in one-on-one discussions with the future Syrian leader in the late 1990s, but no one in the administration asked for his opinion before announcing that Assad had to go.

"It's Diplomacy 101: Never set a policy if you don't have the means to achieve it," Crocker told Al-Monitor. "That was a policy based on hope, which we all know is a fairly idiotic concept."

The Aug. 18, 2011, pronouncement was followed by a series of efforts to train, equip and later arm Syrian opposition forces in a gambit to strengthen their hand in negotiations over a political settlement. But the effort was hamstrung from the beginning by the absence of a safe zone where they could be trained in bulk instead of piecemeal, and Assad refused to make any concessions.

"Help to the opposition has always been kind of half-hearted," said Robert Ford, who was ambassador to Damascus from 2011 to 2014. "And, by contrast, the Iranians and Russians have not been so half-hearted."

Then came Obama's red line on chemical weapons, and his threat to finally bomb Assad. While the president has earned kudos for getting Assad to turn over most if not all of his arsenal, lawmakers and administration officials alike argue that failing to go through with the strike sent an unmistakable signal that Obama was keen to avoid military confrontation.

Now the United States and Russia are negotiating a cease-fire that critics say will keep Assad in power for the foreseeable future while moderate rebels continue to lose ground to the Islamic State and other radical groups.

"The strong backing of Russia and Iran have allowed him to hang on to power," House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., told Al-Monitor, "and the administration has drawn so many red lines and backed away that it no longer has the leverage — or the will — to make him go."

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraqi-officials-isis-chemical-weapons-attacks-kill-child-wound-600/

CBS/AP/ March 12, 2016, 4:35 PM

​Iraqi officials: ISIS chemical weapons attacks kill child, wound 600

BAGHDAD -- The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has launched two chemical attacks near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing a 3-year-old girl, wounding some 600 people and causing hundreds more to flee, Iraqi officials said Saturday.

"What the Daesh terrorist gangs did in the city of Taza will not go unpunished," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said, using an alternative name for ISIS during a meeting with village elders in the small town of Taza on Saturday. "The perpetrators will pay dearly."

Security and hospital officials say the latest attack took place early Saturday in Taza, which was also struck by a barrage of rockets carrying chemicals three days earlier.

Sameer Wais, whose daughter Fatima was killed in the attack, is a member of a Shiite militia fighting ISIS in Kirkuk province. He said he was on duty at the frontline when the attack occurred early in the morning, quickly ran home and said he could still smell the chemicals in the rocket.

"We took her to the clinic and they said that she needed to go to a hospital in Kirkuk. And that's what we did, we brought her here to the hospital in Kirkuk," he said.

Wais said his daughter appeared to be doing better the next day so they took her home. "But by midnight she started to get worse. Her face puffed up and her eyes bulged. Then she turned black and pieces of her skin started to come off," he said.

By the next morning, Fatima had died, Wais said.

The hundreds of wounded are suffering from infected burns, suffocation and dehydration, said Helmi Hamdi, a nurse at the Taza hospital. He said eight people were transferred to Baghdad for treatment.

"There is fear and panic among the women and children," said Adel Hussein, a local official in Taza. "They're calling for the central government to save them." Hussein said a German and an American forensics team arrived in the area to test for the presence of chemical agents.

U.S. and Iraqi officials said U.S. special forces captured the head of the ISIS unit trying to develop chemical weapons in a raid last month in northern Iraq.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported Delta Force commandos captured the Iraqi who had once worked for the regime of Saddam Hussein. After interrogating him, U.S. intelligence was able to identify a building in Mosul where mustard agent was manufactured and loaded into artillery shells.

Video released by the British Defense Ministry shows a building described as an ISIS weapons factory being destroyed by an airstrike last weekend.

By the Pentagon's count, ISIS has mounted a dozen chemical weapons attacks in Iraq and Syria, a fact confirmed by CIA Director John Brennan in a "60 Minutes" interview.

"We have a number of instances where ISIL has used chemical munitions on the battlefield," Brennan said.

CBS' Scott Pelley asked Brennan if ISIS has access to chemical artillery shells.

"There are reports that ISIS has access to chemical precursors and munitions that they can use," Brennan said.

The day before the strike on the chemical weapons building, U.S. aircraft targeted a top ISIS commander, known by the alias Omar the Chechen, who the Pentagon considered to be the equivalent of the group's Secretary of Defense.

U.S. intelligence was trying to confirm if he was in fact killed.

The U.S.-led coalition said the chemicals ISIS has so far used include chlorine and a low-grade sulfur mustard which is not very potent. "It's a legitimate threat. It's not a high threat. We're not, frankly, losing too much sleep over it," U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters Friday.

Experts also say the extremist group appears incapable of launching a large-scale chemical weapons' attack, which requires not only expertise, but also the proper equipment, materials and a supply-chain to produce enough of the chemical agent to pose a significant threat.

The coalition began targeting ISIS' chemical weapons infrastructure with airstrikes and special operations raids two months ago, Iraqi intelligence officials and a Western security official in Baghdad told the AP.

Airstrikes are targeting laboratories and equipment, and further special forces raids targeting chemical weapons experts are planned, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

The extremist group is believed to have set up a special unit for chemical weapons research made up of Iraqi scientists who worked on weapons programs under Saddam Hussein as well as foreign experts.

The group is believed to have created limited amounts of mustard gas. Tests confirmed mustard gas was used in a town in Syria when ISIS was launching attacks there in August 2015. There have been other unverified reports of ISIS using chemical agents on battlefields in Syria and Iraq.

Separately, attacks across Baghdad Saturday killed 13 and wounded 27. The attacks were mostly carried out with homemade bombs placed along roads in the capital's southern and eastern neighborhoods. There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but ISIS often claims responsibility for bomb attacks in the Iraq capital targeting civilians.

As the group has endured territorial losses in Iraq -- most recently the city of Ramadi which was declared "fully liberated" by Iraqi and U.S. officials last month -- they have stepped up insurgent style attacks in Baghdad and other areas far from the front lines.

Hamish De Bretton Gordon, a former British army officer and chemical weapons expert, says the use of chemical weapons by ISIS also appears to be linked to losses on the battlefield.

"As they get more and more pushed, we're seeing them use it more and more often," he said. "They are trying to prevent defeat."

The mustard agent that ISIS is using is not very toxic, Gordon says, but "it has a huge physiological impact that far outweighs its physical impacts."

Fatima's father Wais said he was planning to return to the frontline with ISIS as soon as possible. "Now I will fight Daesh more than before, for Fatima."

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-security-idUSKCN0WF072

World | Sun Mar 13, 2016 6:15am EDT
Related: World, Tunisia

Border attack feeds Tunisia fears of Libya jihadist spillover

TUNIS/ALGIERS | By Tarek Amara and Patrick Markey


The signal to attack came from the mosque, sending dozens of Islamist fighters storming through the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdan to hit army and police posts in street battles that lit the dawn sky with tracer bullets.

Militants used a megaphone to chant "God is Great," and reassure residents they were Islamic State, there to save the town near the Libyan border from the "tyrant" army. Most were Tunisians themselves, with local accents, and even some familiar faces, officials and witnesses to Monday's attack said.

Hours later, 36 militants were dead, along with 12 soldiers and seven civilians, in an assault authorities described as an attempt by Islamic State to carve out terrain in Tunisia.

Whether Islamic State aimed to hold territory as they have in Iraq, Syria and Libya, or intended only to dent Tunisia's already battered security, is unclear and the group has yet to officially claim the attack.

But as fuller details of the Ben Guerdan fighting emerge, the incident highlights the risk Tunisia faces from home-grown jihadists drawn to Iraq, Syria and Libya, and who have threatened to bring their war back home.

Despite Tunisian forces' preparations to confront returning fighters, and their defeat of militants in Ben Guerdan, Monday's assault shows how the country is vulnerable to violence spilling over from Libya as Islamic State expands there.

Authorities are still investigating the Ben Guerdan attack. But most of the militants appear to have been already in the town, with a few brought in from Libya. Arms caches were deposited around the city before the assault.

"Most of them were from Ben Guerdan, we know their faces. They knew where to find the house of the counter-terrorist police chief," one witness, Sabri Ben Saleh, told Reuters. "They were driving round in a car filled with weapons, my neighbors said they knew some of them."

Troops have killed 14 more militants around Ben Guerdan since Monday. Others have been arrested and more weapons seized.


ISLAMIC STATE

Officials say they are still determining if the militants had been in Libya before or had returned from fighting with Islamic State overseas. But that such a large number of militants and arms were in Tunisia is no surprise.

After its revolt in 2011 to topple Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has struggled with growing Islamic militancy.

More than 3,000 Tunisians have left to fight with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to government estimates. Tunisian security sources say many are with Islamic State in Libya.

Gunmen trained in Libya were blamed for attacks on tourists at the Bardo Museum in Tunis a year ago and at a beach hotel in Sousse in June.

Tunisians also play a major role in Islamic State in Libya where they run training camps, according to Tunisian security sources.

But the scale of Monday's attack was unprecedented. The militants were well-organized, handing out weapons to their fighters from a vehicle moving through the city, with knowledge of the town and its military barracks.

"We came across a group of terrorists with their Kalashnikovs, and they told us: 'Don't worry we are not here to target you. We are the Islamic State and we are here for the tyrants in the army,'" said Hassein Taba, a local resident.

The attack tests Tunisia at a difficult time. After Islamic State violence last year, the tourism industry that represents 7 percent of the economy is struggling to tempt visitors to return.

With its new constitution, free elections and secular history, Tunisia is a target for jihadists looking to upset a young democracy just five years after the overthrow of dictator Ben Ali.

"The battle of Ben Guerdane in Tunisia, 20 miles from the Libyan border ... is proof enough that the Islamic State has cells far and wide," said Geoff Porter, at North Africa Risk Consulting. "But what these cells can reliably do ... and how they are directed by Islamic State leadership in Sirte, let alone in Iraq and Syria, is not known."


AIR STRIKES

Islamic State has grown in Libya over the past year and half, coopting local fighters, battling with rivals and taking over the town of Sirte, now its main base.

That has worried Tunisian authorities, who have built a border trench and tightened controls along nearly 200-km (125 miles) of the frontier with Libya.

Western military experts are training Tunisians to protect a porous border where smuggling has been a long tradition. Ben Guerdan is well-known as a smuggling town.

"There are still some blind spots in intelligence, but they are advancing with the cooperation of neighboring countries and with the West," said Ali Zarmdini, a Tunisian military analyst.

But Tunisia's North African neighbors worry about the spill over impact of any further Western air strikes and military action against Islamic State in Libya.

After a U.S. air strike killed 40 mostly Tunisian militants in the Libyan town of Sabratha last month, Tunisian forces went on alert for any cross-border incursions.

Just days before the Ben Guerdan attack, Tunisian troops killed five militants who tried to cross from Libya.

But the fact that even after that setback, militants mustered a force of 50 fighters to strike the town shows the group's ability to keep testing the Tunisian military.


(Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Giles Elgood)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-blast-idUSKCN0WF0PP

Sun Mar 13, 2016 2:19pm EDT
Related: World, Davos

At least 27 dead in Ankara attack: CNN Turk, citing governor

ANKARA

At least 27 people were killed and 75 more wounded in a blast in the Turkish capital Ankara on Sunday evening, broadcaster CNN Turk said, citing the local governor.

CNN Turk had earlier said 25 had been killed. Later it said that two more people had died en route to hospital. A senior security official told Reuters the blast was believed to have been caused by a suicide car bombing.

Last month, a car bombing a few blocks away killed 29 people.


(Reporting by Ece Toksabay, Ayla Jean Yackley and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

 

[Housecarl]

With this latest spin on the "intifada" good luck with that.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-usa-idUSKCN0WF0M3

World | Sun Mar 13, 2016 11:44am EDT
Related: World, Israel

U.S. says looking for way to move forward on Israel, Palestinian peace

PARIS

The United States is looking for a way to break the deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday, acknowledging that by itself it could not find a solution.

Having twice failed to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, the Obama administration is discussing ways to help preserve the prospect of an increasingly threatened two-state solution, U.S. officials have told Reuters.

At the same time, France is seeking support for an initiative to relaunch talks between the two sides this summer and prevent what one French diplomat has called the risk of a "powder keg" exploding.

Last year France failed to get the United States on board for a U.N. Security Council resolution to set parameters for talks between the two sides and a deadline for a deal. Since then, the stance of former foreign minister Laurent Fabius, to recognize a Palestinian state automatically if the new initiative fails, has been toned down.

"Obviously we're all looking for a way forward. The United States and myself remain deeply committed to a two state solution. It is absolutely essential," Kerry said when asked whether the U.S. was ready to cooperate with Paris' efforts.

"There's not any one country or one person who can resolve this. This is going to require the global community, it will require international support," he said speaking alongside European foreign ministers in Paris.

A former ambassador to Washington, Pierre Vimont, is heading France's diplomatic push and will be in Israel, the Palestinian territories and the United States this week to discuss the French initiative.

With U.S. efforts to broker a two-state solution in tatters since in April 2014 and Washington focused on this year's election, Paris is lobbying countries to commit to a conference before May that would outline incentives and give guarantees for Israelis and Palestinians, seeking face-to-face talks before August.

"The conflict is getting worse and the status quo cannot continue," France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said.

U.S. officials have no expectation peace talks will resume before the end of U.S. President Barack Obama's term in January 2017 and have played down the odds of any quick decision on how the White House might help preserve a two-state solution.

"We're talking about any number of different ways to try to change the situation on the ground in an effort to try to generate some confidence," Kerry said. "So we are listening carefully to the French proposal.

"At the moment it's a difficult one, because of the violence that has been taking place, and there are not many people in Israel or in the region itself right now that believe in the possibilities of peace because of those levels of violence."


(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

 

[Housecarl]

Al Qaeda affiliate claims Ivory Coast beach resort attack
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...iliate-claims-Ivory-Coast-beach-resort-attack


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ivorycoast-attack-idUSKCN0WF0L9

World | Sun Mar 13, 2016 2:12pm EDT
Related: World, Ivory Coast, Africa

Twelve dead in Ivory Coast resort town attack, police source says

GRAND BASSAM, Ivory Coast


At least 12 people including four Europeans were killed on Sunday when gunmen opened fire on beachgoers at a resort town in Ivory Coast, a officer from the national police said.

"For the moment, we have a total of 12 dead, including four Europeans ... We don't know yet if there are others. We are doing clean-up operations right now," the officer told security forces during a briefing attended by a Reuters reporter.


Related Coverage
› Ivory Coast security forces 'neutralize six terrorists', minister says

(Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN0WF0QM

World | Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:49pm EDT
Related: World, Syria

Syria talks set to struggle despite foreign pressure

BEIRUT/GENEVA | By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi


Syria peace talks due to begin in Geneva this week look set to struggle with the sides showing no sign of compromise over the issue at the heart of the five-year-long conflict: the future of President Bashar al-Assad.

The U.N.-led talks getting underway on Monday with U.S. and Russian support are part of the first serious diplomatic effort toward ending the conflict since Moscow intervened last September with air strikes that have tipped the war Assad's way.

With the crisis approaching its fifth anniversary this week, Western states seem more determined than ever to bring an end to a war that has driven hundreds of thousands of refugees toward Europe and helped the rise of Islamic State.

But while recent cooperation between the United States and Russia has helped to reduce the level of violence and brought the parties to Geneva, the positions of the government and opposition reveal little ground for a negotiated settlement.

Pointing to a possible escalation in the war if there is no progress, the Russian defense ministry said rebels had used an anti-aircraft missile to shoot down a Syrian warplane on Saturday.

Rebels said it was shot down with anti-aircraft guns, rather than a missile, a weapon fighters have sought but Western countries want to keep out of their hands because of the potential threat to civil aviation if militants acquire them.

Reflecting the Damascus government's confidence, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem warned the opposition on Saturday it was deluded if it believed it would be able to take power at the negotiating table, and ruled out any talks on the presidency.

The opposition meanwhile appears to be holding out little hope that Geneva will bring them nearer to their goal of toppling Assad. Announcing its decision to attend the Geneva talks, the main opposition umbrella group said the government was preparing for more war.

Rebels say they are ready to fight on despite their recent defeats. They hope foreign backers - notably Saudi Arabia - will send them more powerful weapons including anti-aircraft missiles if the political process collapses.

"I expect that if in this round the regime is stubborn, and doesn't offer anything real, it will be the end of the talks and we will go back to the military solution," said Bashar al-Zoubi, a prominent rebel.

The peace talks aim to build on a "cessation of hostilities" agreement brokered by the United States and Russia that has brought about a considerable reduction in fighting since it came into effect on Feb. 27.

It marks the most serious effort yet toward de-escalating the conflict, surprising many and allowing for aid deliveries to besieged areas, though the opposition says the deliveries to rebel-held territory fall well short of needs.

The sides have however accused each other of violations, and Saturday was one of the most violent days since it came into force, with rebels and government forces clashing in Hama province and insurgents shooting down the warplane.

The Russian defense ministry said a portable air-defense system was used to bring down the Syrian MiG-21.

"Russia wants to accuse the friends of the Syrian people of supplying it with missiles and this did not happen," said Mohamad Alloush, head of the politburo of the Jaish al-Islam group. All groups were requesting the means to defend civilians from war planes and barrel bombs, he added, referring to oil drums filled with explosives that the opposition says the army uses to cause indiscriminate damage in rebel areas.


OPPOSITION WEAKER

The main opposition alliance, known as the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), comes to the talks with the balance of forces stacked against it after Russia's intervention and an increase in military support to Assad from Iran, his other main ally.



Related Video


Video

Kerry cautions Syria against 'disrupting' peace talks

The HNC has also voiced concerns about what it sees as a softening of the U.S. stance on Syria, saying Washington has given ground to Moscow. HNC official George Sabra, speaking in Geneva, said the "American position is ambiguous, even for its allies".

The HNC says the talks must focus on setting up a transitional governing body with full executive powers, and says Assad must leave power at the start of the transition.

But Foreign Minister Moualem on Saturday set out a very different vision of a transition, indicating the most the government would offer was a national unity government with opposition participation, and a new or amended constitution.

He also said the government delegation would resist any attempt to put the question of presidential elections on the agenda, and criticized U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura for last week outlining an agenda that includes elections.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that Moualem's comments aimed "to disrupt" the political process.

Kerry also said the Syrian government and its backers were mistaken if they thought they could continue to test the boundaries of the fragile truce. Accusing Damascus of carrying out the most violations, Kerry said Russian President Vladimir Putin needed to look at how Assad was acting.

"President Assad is singing on a completely different song sheet and sent his foreign minister out yesterday to try to act as a spoiler and take off the table what President Putin and the Iranians have agreed to," Kerry said.

Attempts to get the diplomatic process moving have already faced big obstacles, including a row over who should be invited to negotiate with the Syrian government. The HNC groups political and armed opponents of Assad.


"DISASTROUS FOR EVERYONE"

Russia reiterated its view that the Kurdish PYD party, which wields wide influence in northern Syria, should be at the talks. The PYD has been excluded in line with the wishes of Turkey, which views it as an extension of the PKK group that is waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had evidence that Turkish armed forces were on Syrian territory, calling Turkey's actions "creeping expansion". There was no immediate Turkish reply to that accusation, but Ankara has repeated denied in the past it was planning an incursion.

Though not invited, PYD leader Saleh Muslim told Reuters he hoped the talks would not fail, adding "if they do, the results will be disastrous for everyone".

Some opposition officials say their best hope for the political track is for Russia to force out Assad, though one source close to Damascus ruled out that idea.

Sharif Shehadeh, a Damascus-based commentator, said the government was "carrying serious steps toward a solution". But if the opposition came "with a foreign agenda", the government would quit talks within 24 hours.


(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans in Beirut, Alexander Winning in Moscow, and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Peter Graff)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://abc7news.com/news/6-armed-men-shoot-beachgoers-at-3-ivory-coast-hotels/1244036/

6 armed men shoot beachgoers at 3 Ivory Coast hotels

AP-Updated 8 mins ago


ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- At least six armed men attacked beachgoers outside three hotels Sunday in Grand-Bassam, sending tourists fleeing through the historic Ivory Coast resort town. Bloody bodies were sprawled on the beach in photos apparently taken at the scene and posted on social media.

Ivory Coast's government said security forces have "neutralized" the six attackers on three hotels, and said that security sweeps are being carried out.

Officials did not say immediately how many were killed or injured.

"A detailed toll will be communicated in the coming hours," State Minister Hamed Bakayoko said in the statement. "We urge the public to remain calm."

The bursts of gunfire sent people running from the beach at Grand-Bassam, a UNESCO World Heritage site and popular destination for Ivorians and foreigners about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Abidjan, Ivory Coast's commercial center. It was the third major attack on a tourism center in a West African country since November.

"We don't know where they came from, and we don't know where they've gone," said a receptionist at the Etoile de Sud hotel in Grand-Bassam. Everyone in the hotel was safe, and gendarmerie were present, he said. He would not give his name.

Beachgoers could be seen lining up with their hands above their heads as they filed out of the area. Residents who heard the gunfire hid in their homes, said Josiane Sekongo, 25, who lives across from one of the many beachfront hotels.

An American embassy delegation was in Grand-Bassam on Sunday, but the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan said it is monitoring the situation and has no evidence U.S. citizens were targeted, nor confirmed reports that any were harmed.

Dozens of people were killed in the earlier attacks on West African tourist sites, starting with a siege at a Malian hotel in November and then an assault on a hotel and cafe in Burkina Faso in January. Analysts have warned for months that Ivory Coast, which shares a border with both of those affected countries, could be hit by jihadists as well. The West African attacks indicate that extremist attacks are spreading from North Africa, where a beach attack in June killed 38 people in Tunisia.

"I have always said that Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Dakar (Senegal) are the next targets for jihadist groups because these two countries represent windows of France in Africa," said Lemine Ould M. Salem, an expert on al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and author of a book "The Bin Laden of the Sahara."

He said the attackers could be from Moktar Belmoktar's al-Mourabitoun, but that Boko Haram should not be ruled out. The Nigeria-based Boko Haram pledged to the Islamic State last year

The Latest on the beach attack in Ivory Coast (all times local):

7:07 p.m.

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara confirms that two special forces were killed in the attacks, in addition to the 14 civilians and six assailants.

6:58 p.m.

Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara says that 14 civilians and six assailants have been killed when the armed men attacked beachgoers and three hotels in Grand-Bassam.

Ouattara is in the town and says he is visiting the different hotels to express condolences and salute security forces for their quick responses.

___

6:45 p.m.


A hotel owner says at least one person was killed at his hotel, and a reporter saw four dead bodies on a beach in Ivory Coast's historic southeastern town of Grand-Bassam.

The four bodies were sprawled out on the beach next to the popular hotel Etoile du Sud after gunmen attacked beachgoers outside three hotels Sunday in Grand-Bassam. Security forces and members of the Ivorian Red Cross were clearing the bodies.

Jacques Able, who identified himself as the owner of Etoile du Sud said one person had been killed at the hotel.

Marcel Guy said he saw at least four gunmen with Kalashnikov rifles on the beach. He said one approached two children, and spoke in Arabic. One child knelt and prayed, the other was shot dead.

The government said security forces had "neutralized" at least six attackers.

President Alassane Ouattara expected to arrive at the scene.

___

6 p.m.

Ivory Coast's government says that security forces have neutralized six armed men who staged attacks on three hotels in the historic town of Grand-Bassam.

State Minister Hamed Bakayoko said in a statement posted to the government Twitter that security sweeps are underway and a toll of people killed and injured will be announced in the coming hours. He said he urges the public to remain calm.

___

4:44 p.m.

Witnesses say bursts of gunfire have been heard in a southeastern Ivory Coast beach town about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Ivory Coast's economic center, Abidjan.

Josiane Sekongo, 25, said shots rang out Sunday afternoon in Grand-Bassam, a popular weekend destination for Ivorians and foreigners.

Sekongo, who lives across from one of the town's many beachfront hotels, said she ran outside when she heard the gunfire and saw people running away from the beach. She said residents were hiding in their homes as security forces responded.

It was unclear how many assailants were involved. Casualty information was not immediately available.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...way-eye-joint-submarine-procurement/81652056/

Germany, Norway Eye Joint Submarine Procurement

By Lars Hoffman 3:59 p.m. EST March 11, 2016

GÖTTINGEN, Germany — Norway plans to complete the definition phase for the procurement of new submarines in the first half of this year and may consider a joint purchase with another country.

The Norwegian Ministry of Defense is negotiating with several different shipyards but has not yet chosen a supplier for new submarines, it stated in a press release.

Norway has to replace its six Ula-class submarines, which will gradually reach their end of life in the 2020s. According to the release, Norway is also in discussions with several nations to establish the basis for submarine cooperation.

Last year, Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide suggested a joint procurement with Poland during her visit to the MSPO exhibition in Kielce. Another potential partner is Germany.

According to sources familiar with the subject, beside Germany, South Korea, Italy, Sweden, France and Spain qualify as supplier countries. Germany has had traditionally close military links with Norway and a track record of decades-long cooperation in naval construction. Norway's Ula submarines go back to a German design, while the first four German class-212 A submarines were equipped with a Norwegian battle management system.

Germany is also home to ThyssenKrupp Marine systems, which is considered a global leader in building non-nuclear submarines.

“Germany is therefore a nation which it is natural for Norway to discuss a potential future submarine cooperation with,” the Norwegian MoD writes. Industry also will play an important part in future submarine cooperation, the ministry stressed.

These topics were discussed in early February with German partners in Berlin during a visit of a Norwegian delegation led by Defense State Secretary Øystein Bø and National Armaments Director Morten Tiller.

The German MoD is interested in cooperating with the Nordic country because the German Navy plans to purchase two to four submarines in the second half of the 2020s. Since the ministry has classified submarine construction as a key technology, which is to be kept in Germany, shipyard capacity utilization is a necessity. Therefore, the proposal is on the table to combine the Norwegian and German procurement projects.

To save costs, the German MoD wants to employ a single design for both nation's boats. The Norwegian side submitted a draft with its submarine specifications for review to Germany last year.

In case of a joint procurement, Germany wants to function as lead nation and assume project responsibility, stated the German MoD. To reduce the life-cycle costs, maintenance and operation also should be managed in cooperation.

And as Gundbert Scherf, responsible for armaments cooperation with foreign countries in the MoD, said several months ago, the German Navy could imagine a common military submarine command with the Norwegians.

One major hurdle remains: The Norwegians want to open the German defense procurement market to companies from the Scandinavian country. According to Torbjørn Svensgård, the president of the Norwegian Defence and Security Industry Association, it is easier for its member companies to have success in the US market than in the closed European armament markets.

"Norway wants market access in the country, from which we obtain the submarines," he stressed.

Svensgård advised the competing yards not to rely solely on their technical expertise and thus to feel too safe. He pointed to the procurement of the Fridtjof Nansen-class frigates several years ago. While German and British shipyards would have expected to get a contract, the order was finally given to Spain.

“If the prospective suppliers don't listen carefully to the customer and provide a comprehensive response to all requirements, including those related to industrial cooperation, it could end similar when it comes to submarines,” he warned.

Katrin Suder, German secretary of state for armament, said that a procurement of the naval strike missile and the battle management system, both produced by Norway's Kongsberg, is "conceivable." The condition for such a deal, however, is a previous tender process. In case of a jointly developed product between Norway and Germany, this could be obtained without competition, the secretary of state said. It remains to be seen whether this German approach fits the requirements of the Norwegians.

In terms of shaping industrial cooperation, the Norwegian state has better options than does the German Defense Ministry, as Norway holds a majority stake in the publicly listed technology and armaments group Kongsberg, Norway's defense industry leader.

In contrast, the entire German armaments industry is privately organized, which leaves the German MoD with little direct influence.

Although Norway plans to procure more boats than Germany, the position of Germany as a lead nation in this program seems to be acceptable. Svensgård said he sees no fundamental problems.

“With such arrangements, we've had good experiences at US-led projects,” he said. Norway participates in the construction and development program for the American F-35 fighter aircraft.

“In the past, it had rather been a problem with European armaments projects, that no one was taking the leadership role,” Svensgård said. However, it is important for a lead nation that it is prepared to listen to and accept suggestions, he says. “And of course, the long-term obligations have to be met.”

Email: lhoffman@defensenews.com

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...militaries-eye-post-conflict-future/81727184/

US, Colombian Militaries Eye a Post-Conflict Future

Agence France-Presse 11:12 a.m. EDT March 13, 2016

BOGOTA, Columbia — Now that a historic peace accord with leftist FARC guerrillas could be signed within weeks, Colombia’s government is eager to ensure ties to the US military endure in a post-conflict future.

President Juan Manuel Santos this week rolled out the red carpet for the Pentagon’s top officer, Gen. Joe Dunford, honoring him with three ceremonies during a brief visit to Bogota.

The question looming over the fanfare is how the relationship between Colombia and its top military partner will evolve after Bogota and the FARC finally strike a deal ending five decades of conflict.

Since 1999, a US program called Plan Colombia has seen about $10 billion in military aid flow to Colombia’s security services, fortifying the state against well-armed and well-funded drug cartels and rebel groups, chief among them the FARC.

US military academies have trained Colombian troops, and major arms deals have ensured the Colombian military is a well-equipped, modern fighting force.

Speaking to reporters after his trip Thursday, Dunford said Colombia’s leaders stressed the importance of military ties.

“Their main message today was, ‘Hey look, you can’t look past us, it’s not over,’” Dunford said on a flight from Colombia to the US military’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Florida.

“Please don’t think now you can take your eye off of Colombia, the most important part of the campaign is winning the peace, and that starts with the accord, it doesn’t end,” Dunford recounted his Colombian partners as saying.

‘Peace Colombia’

US President Barack Obama last month announced a $450 million plan to fund Colombia’s peace process, highlighting a new focus on post-conflict realities.

A March 23 deadline had been set for the peace talks to conclude, designed to bring to an end a five-decade conflict that has killed more than 260,000 people and displaced 6.6 million others. But Santos on Thursday said more time was needed.

Hailed in Washington as a bipartisan success story, Plan Colombia was launched by president Bill Clinton and continued by his Republican successor George W. Bush.

Colombia had been so plagued by drug violence and corruption that officials say it was almost a failed state, and they credit Plan Colombia with an instrumental role in its turnaround.

“If you look at where Colombia was in the mid-1990s and you look at where they are today ... they are a solid democracy in South America, they are a force for stability in the region and they are now also contributing broadly in the international community ... so yes, it was worth it,” Dunford said.

But the policy has also been fiercely criticized inside Colombia and by rights groups, who say it made internecine conflict bloodier and left a trail of abuses.

Obama wants to recast Plan Colombia as “Peace Colombia.”

Cash would still be available for the military and counternarcotics, but the focus will shift to demobilizing rebels and reintegrating them into society, as well as clearing mines from vast tracts of remote land and boosting humanitarian assistance.

Colombia plans on increasing from 14 to 196 the number of military platoons — each with about 40 troops — dedicated to removing mines from an area the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined.

SOUTHCOM expert William Clark said the mines are hard to find because they are not usually made of metal.

“These are improvised mines, these are plastic bottles with chemicals — with a syringe and a pressure plate — so when you step on it, the chemicals mix and explode,” Clark said.

The United States is also casting a wary eye over recent increases in cocaine production, and the fate of some 7,000 FARC fighters after peace takes hold.

Some will join drug trafficking groups, but Colombia has developed a reintegration program in which FARC fighters — many of whom were kidnapped as children and know only guerrilla life — receive an education and job training.

“Quite frankly, they don’t know how to operate in a modern society. But they do know how to kill for what they want and they are extremely efficient at it,” SOUTHCOM spokesman Master Sgt. Joshua Hobson said.

“That’s why building partner capacity is so important to us.”

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...azil-impeachment-chorus-in-threat-to-rousseff

Millions Join Brazil Impeachment Chorus in Threat to Rousseff

by Anna Edgerton, Raymond Colitt
March 13, 2016 — 7:00 PM PDT

- Some estimates counted more than 3 million protesters Sunday
- Marches were show of support for judge leading corruption case

Dilma Rousseff’s future as president of Brazil was cast into further doubt as millions of protesters, wearied by scandal and recession, staged some of the largest rallies in the country’s modern history.

Brazilians demonstrated peacefully for Rousseff’s ouster in cities throughout the country on Sunday, with some estimates counting more than 3 million people on the streets. Sao Paulo recorded its largest political rally on record, according to polling firm Datafolha. In the capital Brasilia, some 100,000 people marched toward Congress, expressing their support for the anti-corruption blitz that has put several high-profile executives and politicians behind bars.

Many Brazilians say they have had enough of corruption revealed by the two-year investigation known as Lava Jato, or Carwash in English, that has paralyzed Congress and deepened the worst recession in over a century. Sunday’s protests could prompt more legislators to abandon the ruling coalition and vote for Rousseff’s ouster, according to Paulo Calmon, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia.

“We’re walking in the middle of a perfect storm, with a high level of uncertainty,” Calmon said. “The feeling is that we’re going to have some kind of definition in coming months or even weeks, which could be removing Rousseff from office or some other political arrangement. That’s what makes 2016 different from 2015.”

Impeachment Process

After being stalled in Congress for months, the impeachment proceedings are expected to resume in coming days when the Supreme Court decides on guidelines for the lower house to follow.

Some allies have already begun to distance themselves from Rousseff, as her party gets drawn deeper into the corruption scandal. The March 12 national convention of her largest allied party, known as the PMDB, ended with the threat to fully break from the ruling coalition next month. Earlier in March, the smaller Brazilian Socialist Party joined the opposition.

Rousseff, who on Friday said she hadn’t given up and wouldn’t resign, made no public appearances on Sunday. Instead, she issued a statement in which she said that the peaceful nature of protests shows “the maturity of a country that knows how to live with diverging opinions."

Financial markets in recent weeks welcomed the possibility that Brazil’s political turmoil could usher in a new government that’s better equipped to revive the economy, which is expected to sink 3.3 percent in 2016 after contracting 3.8 percent last year. The real is up 12 percent this month, the best performance among world currencies, and the Ibovespa climbed to the highest level in seven months.

Political Drama

Brazil’s political drama is playing out less than five months before the 2016 Olympic Games are due to start in Rio de Janeiro.

Pressure on Rousseff started building in February with the arrest of her campaign strategist and a news report of allegations that she tried to interfere with corruption investigations. The political crisis hit a new high with former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s brief detention for questioning on March 4.

Adding to Rousseff’s woes, the country’s top electoral court is investigating whether she illegally funded her re-election campaign in 2014.

Both Rousseff and Lula have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Deep Distrust

With distrust of much of Brazil’s ruling class running deep and many leading politicians linked to the corruption scandal, a possible Rousseff exit could be messy. Some opposition leaders, including Senator Aecio Neves, who narrowly lost to Rousseff in the 2014 presidential election, were criticized during the demonstration as “opportunist.”

“We’re seeking a way out of this impasse in accordance with the constitution,” Neves wrote on Twitter.

It’s not just government critics taking to the streets. Supporters of Rousseff’s Workers’ Party held some small rallies on Sunday and plan demonstrations this month against the impeachment process. They also will show support for Lula, the party’s co-founder and Rousseff’s predecessor, who was charged last week with money laundering and providing false testimony.

One of the big winners coming out of Sunday’s protest was Sergio Moro, the federal judge from the southern state of Parana who’s overseeing the Carwash investigation, said Carlos Pio, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia.

Throughout the country, protesters hailed Moro as a national hero. Some wore t-shirts saying “In Moro We Trust” and others laid out a sign before Congress that read "We Are Moro."

"The protests were a loud call from Brazilians: ‘Clean up our country,´" Pio said.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/14/world/middleeast/yemen-saudi-us.html?_r=0

Middle East

Quiet Support for Saudis Entangles U.S. in Yemen

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
MARCH 13, 2016

WASHINGTON — Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s urbane, well-connected ambassador to Washington, arrived at the White House last March with the urgent hope of getting President Obama’s support for a new war in the Middle East.

Iran had moved into Saudi Arabia’s backyard, Mr. Jubeir told Mr. Obama’s senior advisers, and was aiding rebels in Yemen who had overrun the country’s capital and were trying to set up ballistic missile sites in range of Saudi cities. Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf neighbors were poised to begin a campaign in support of Yemen’s impotent government — an offensive Mr. Jubeir said could be relatively swift.

Two days of discussions in the West Wing followed, but there was little real debate. Among other reasons, the White House needed to placate the Saudis as the administration completed a nuclear deal with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s archenemy. That fact alone eclipsed concerns among many of the president’s advisers that the Saudi-led offensive would be long, bloody and indecisive.

Mr. Obama soon gave his approval for the Pentagon to support the impending military campaign.

A year later, the war has been a humanitarian disaster for Yemen and a study in the perils of the Obama administration’s push to get Middle Eastern countries to take on bigger military roles in their neighborhood. Thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed, many by Saudi jets flying too high to accurately deliver the bombs to their targets. Peace talks have been stalled for months. American spy agencies have concluded that Yemen’s branch of Al Qaeda has only grown more powerful in the chaos.

The Obama administration has in the meantime been whipsawed by criticism from all sides. Although the United States has provided the Saudi-led coalition with intelligence, airborne fuel tankers and thousands of advanced munitions, Arab allies have at times complained that the support is halfhearted and freighted with too many restrictions.

Critics of the American involvement argue that the White House should not be giving any military assistance at all to what they call a reckless, incoherent war.

“As I read the conflict in Yemen, I have a hard time figuring out what the U.S. national security interests are,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said during a congressional hearing this year.

He added that “the result of the coalition campaign has been to kill a lot of civilians, has been to sow the seeds of humanitarian crisis, and to create space for these groups — these very extremist groups that we claim to be our priority in the region — to grow.”

Responding to the senator’s remarks, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had given its support to Saudi Arabia — a close American ally — because the kingdom was threatened “very directly” by the takeover of neighboring Yemen by the rebels, known as Houthis. But he said the United States would not reflexively support all of Saudi Arabia’s proxy wars against Iran throughout the Middle East.

Mr. Kerry met with senior leaders in Saudi Arabia on Saturday and said they were pushing for a political settlement.

Robert Malley, the top White House official in charge of Middle East policy, said in an interview that the United States was right to support its longtime ally, but put distance between the Obama administration and the conflict’s messy outcomes.

“This is not our war,” he said.

Troubles From the Outset

By the time Mr. Jubeir arrived at the White House last year, Saudi officials had already been engaged in informal talks with the Pentagon about the prospect of American military aid for a Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, according to several officials who, like more than a dozen other American and Arab officials, were interviewed on the record or who spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

Houthi rebels had overrun Yemen’s capital, Sana, and the Yemeni government had asked Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries for help beating them back, Mr. Jubeir told Mr. Obama’s advisers. Mr. Jubeir, who has since become the Saudi foreign minister, also spoke of his fears of an Iranian takeover of the Middle East that carried echoes of the “domino theory” articulated by American officials during the Cold War.

He said that in recent years Iran had effectively gained control of Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. If the Houthis — a Shiite group that had received some financial and military support from Shiite Iran — established control over Yemen, he said, then Iran for the first time would have a strategic foothold on the Arabian Peninsula.

American intelligence officials had long thought that the Saudis overstated the extent of Iranian support for the Houthis, and that Iran had never seen its ties to the rebel group as more than a useful annoyance to the Saudis. But Mr. Obama’s aides believed that the Saudis saw a military campaign in Yemen as a tough message to Iran.

“Their main objective was to give Iran a bloody nose,” said Philip H. Gordon, a top White House official at the time and now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Several American officials said that in the two days of White House discussions that followed Mr. Jubeir’s visit, Mr. Kerry was the most forceful advocate in arguing that the United States had an obligation to help the Saudis at a time when the Iran talks had left the kingdom questioning America’s priorities in the region. Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said American military support might mean fewer civilian casualties.

After Mr. Obama authorized the assistance, trouble soon followed.

The first problem was the ability of Saudi pilots, who were inexperienced in flying missions over Yemen and fearful of enemy ground fire. As a result, they flew at high altitudes to avoid the threat below. But flying high also reduced the accuracy of their bombing and increased civilian casualties, American officials said.

American advisers suggested how the pilots could safely fly lower, among other tactics. But the airstrikes still landed on markets, homes, hospitals, factories and ports, and are responsible for the majority of the 3,000 civilian deaths during the yearlong war, according to the United Nations.

The United Nations said more than 6,000 people over all had been killed in nearly a year of fighting.

The American advice and assistance to the campaign, which has included intelligence gathered from reconnaissance drones flying over Yemen, has limits. The help is coordinated by a 45-person American military planning group with personnel in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and overseen by Maj. Gen. Carl E. Mundy III, the deputy commander of Marines in the Middle East.

“We offer them coaching, but ultimately it’s their operation,” General Mundy said in a telephone interview.

In any case, the Saudis and others determined soon after the bombing campaign began last spring that airstrikes alone would not win the war. The United Arab Emirates, another country that had joined the offensive, began preparing for amphibious landing in Aden, the strategically important city in southern Yemen.

The Emiratis turned to a group of American Special Operations troops stationed in Abu Dhabi for assistance in the planning. White House officials, fearful that the American military might get further dragged into the conflict and end up involved in a botched operation, ordered the American troops to stand down.

The Emiratis continued to plan the operation on their own, and in July they asked the Pentagon for American naval landing craft and other assistance to help carry out what had become a major Aden offensive. Pentagon officials balked at the request, believing that an operation involving thousands of troops — as well as tanks, artillery and attack helicopters — was too risky and beyond the ability of the Emirati military.

Their requests rebuffed, the Emiratis went ahead with the operation without American military help and succeeded.

Yousef Al Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador to the United States, said the Americans and the Emiratis were in agreement about the need for intervention in Yemen — and more specifically about having a military presence in Aden. But, he said, “the view in Washington was, ‘We don’t think you can pull it off.’ But we did. And that surprised people.”

Grim Prospects

Still, other troubles developed. Two months after the Aden operation, 45 Emirati soldiers — and several fighters from other Arab nations — were killed in a Houthi rocket attack in Yemen’s Marib Province.

Within hours of the September attack, United Arab Emirates warplanes were pounding Houthi military positions, and Emirati officials asked the Pentagon for additional refueling planes. The requests initially went unanswered.

American military officials said it was a mistake, quickly corrected, in scheduling the refueling flights. But Arab officials interpreted the delay as Americans’ slow-rolling a battlefield decision to prevent heavy airstrikes on Sana, the Houthi-controlled capital.

A series of phone calls between Mr. Obama and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, seemed to patch up the frayed relations — helped this past fall by 6,000 additional munitions from the United States to the United Arab Emiriates and State Department approval of $1.29 billion worth of precision bombs to Saudi Arabia.

By then, security in Aden was breaking down. Emirati troops stopped regularly patrolling the streets and were replaced by soldiers from Sudan, another country that had joined the Saudi-led coalition.

Now, even the Sudanese troops have pulled back to a large military camp outside Aden. Today the city is a chaotic stew of Yemeni militia groups and increasingly a Qaeda stronghold.

“Aden at the moment is a city divided down the lines of a pretty worrying number of armed factions,” said Peter Salisbury, a Yemen expert who recently visited Aden and is an associate fellow at Chatham House, a British research organization.

“There is no single dominant center of power, and the concern is that some of the different factions in Aden will fight each other and that it will create a perfect opportunity for Al Qaeda to expand,” he said. “Unless someone gets a firm hand on things, there is every chance that things could spiral out of control very quickly.”

Analysts see a similar future for the rest of the country, even if the various sides grow tired from the war and are able to settle on an uneasy peace.

Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s deposed president, whom the Obama administration once championed for his leadership, is unlikely to play a significant role in the country under any power-sharing deal with the Houthis. The man he replaced, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ran Yemen as president for decades before remaking himself as a leader of the Houthis, has thus far shown no desire to remove himself from Yemen’s political future.

“Over all, the outlook for Yemen remains grim,” said Mohammed Albasha, a Middle East analyst at the Navanti Group in Virginia and a former spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington. “A post-conflict Yemen will be plagued by thousands of casualties, a fractious army, a divided society, a hodgepodge of armed political factions and a cash-strapped central bank.”

There also appears to be little clarity about how the campaign might conclude even among those who began it a year ago, as Saudi Arabia’s minister of information candidly admitted during a recent trip to Washington.

“We hoped at the beginning it would be a quick thing, and that the Houthis would come to their senses that attacking Saudi Arabia has no purposes for Yemenis,” the minister, Adel al-Toraifi, said during a discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Now, he said, “there is no endgame.”


Related Coverage

World Briefing: Yemen: Houthi Rebels Enter Peace Talks With Saudi Arabia
MARCH 8, 2016

Gunmen Kill 16 at Nursing Home in Yemen Started by Mother Teresa
MARCH 4, 2016

Yemeni Civilians Killed by Airstrike on Market, Witnesses Say
FEB. 27, 2016

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news...cle_0d74dfba-b4ef-52e3-9859-823214654bd1.html

9 suspected cartel members killed in Mexico border city

Posted: Sunday, March 13, 2016 9:36 pm | Updated: 11:06 pm, Sun Mar 13, 2016.

Associated Press | CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — At least nine suspected criminals died in gunbattles with government forces Sunday during an anti-cartel operation in the city of Reynosa, which sits across the U.S. border from McAllen, Texas, Mexican authorities said.

The Tamaulipas state government had earlier reported 10 dead in violence that it said erupted early Sunday after soldiers, marines and police began the operation aimed at a drug cartel that operates in Reynosa.

A state police official who insisted on anonymity told The Associated Press that the operation was aimed at arresting the Gulf Cartel's leader in Reynosa. The official would not say if Juan Manuel Loza, also known as "El Comandante Toro," was caught.

The state government said at least three armed clashes occurred over several hours, and gang members also set vehicles on fire and blocked roads. Four soldiers were injured when their vehicle overturned, officials said.

Similar events happened in April 2015 when authorities launched an offensive against another local leader of the Gulf Cartel.

Tamaulipas has suffered through several waves of violence in recent years tied to the drug trade. The Gulf Cartel battled with its former allies in the Zetas cartel for a number of years, but officials say that violence since 2015 has often resulted from a dispute between rival factions of the Gulf Cartel.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted by Northern Watch over on the Turkey/Syria/Saudi thread.....

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...0-Saudis-launch-strikes&p=5985310#post5985310

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://abcnews.go.com/International...eizes-weapons-bases-us-backed-syrian-37612542

Al-Qaida Seizes Weapons, Bases From US-Backed Syrian Rebels

By The Associated Press · BEIRUT — Mar 14, 2016, 2:22 AM ET

Al-Qaida militants swept through a rebel-held town in northern Syria in a display of dominance Sunday, arresting U.S.-backed fighters and looting weapons stores belonging to the Free Syrian Army.

The militants belonging to the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front along with allied jihadists have been moving to exert their authority over rebel-held areas in Idlib province since a partial ceasefire to the country's five-year conflict took effect two weeks ago, extinguishing patriotic demonstrations and sidelining nationalist militias.

The FSA's 13th Division said on Twitter Sunday that Nusra fighters were going door to door in the town of Maarat Numan and arresting its cadres after Nusra, alongside fighters from the Jund al-Aqsa faction, seized Division 13 posts the night before.

Seven Division 13 fighters died in the clashes.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said Nusra seized anti-tank missiles, armored vehicles, a tank, and other arms from the division, which has received weapons, training, and money from the U.S. government. It said Nusra and Jund al-Aqsa detained 40 fighters from the division.

Maarat Numan had a prewar population approaching 60,000 and saw some of the liveliest demonstrations calling for President Bashar Assad's fall in rebel-held areas over the last two weeks as the partial ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia brought relative peace to many beleaguered areas.

But jihadist militants have repeatedly tried to suppress the demonstrations in Idlib province, where they maintain a strong presence. The challenges have threatened to fracture the array of forces allied to prevent Syrian government forces from retaking north Syria.

The Nusra Front and Jund al-Aqsa suppressed a demonstration in Idlib city last week, arresting several demonstrators and allegedly replacing the tricolored flag of the Syrian uprising with the black flag of the al-Qaida movement, according to opposition accounts. Another hard-line Jihadist group, Ahrar al-Sham, sided publicly with the demonstrators in a carefully worded statement that did not name any responsible parties.

Nusra supporters stormed another demonstration in Maarat Numan Friday, again carrying black banners, but were drowned out by the protesters. Rumors circulated Saturday that Division 13, which maintained a presence in the town, then tried to push Nusra out. By Sunday morning, it was clear that Nusra had overpowered their rivals, instead.

The Nusra Front arrested U.S.-supplied fighters belonging to FSA's 30th division last summer and seized their weapons in a major embarrassment to the U.S. government's train-and-equip program which was meant to support carefully vetted "moderate" rebels.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://abcnews.go.com/International...al-weapons-attacks-syrias-war-report-37624560

161 Chemical Weapons Attacks in Syria's War, New Report Says

By The Associated Press · NEW YORK — Mar 14, 2016, 2:46 AM ET

As Syria marks five full years of civil war this month, a new report claims that chemical weapons have been used at least 161 times through the end of 2015 and caused 1,491 deaths. It says such attacks are increasing, with a high of at least 69 attacks last year, and 14,581 people have been injured in all.

The Syrian American Medical Society says its report released Monday is the most comprehensive listing of chemical weapons attacks in Syria so far. The U.S.-based nonprofit, which supports more than 1,700 workers at over 100 medical centers in Syria, says the list is based primarily on the reports of medical personnel who have treated victims, aided by NGOs and other local sources.

The organization is asking the 15-member U.N. Security Council and the international community to quickly identify perpetrators and hold them accountable through the International Criminal Court or other means. Much of the report's documentation has been shared with the global chemical watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Syria's government has been repeatedly accused by the United States and other Western countries of using chemical weapons on its own people, even after the Security Council in 2013 ordered the elimination of its chemical weapons program following an attack on a Damascus suburb that killed hundreds of civilians.

The council last year also condemned the use of toxic chemicals like chlorine after growing reports of barrel bombs filled with chlorine gas being dropped on opposition-held areas. Chlorine is widely available and not officially considered a warfare agent, but its use as a weapon is illegal. The new report notes at least 60 deaths from chlorine attacks.

The report also says 77 percent of the chemical weapons attacks it documented occurred after the Security Council's order in 2013, and 36 percent occurred after the council condemned the use of chlorine last year.

Syria's government denies using chemical weapons or toxic chemicals on its people. Reports also have surfaced in recent months that the Islamic State group has used toxic chemicals in Syria.

The new report does not assign blame for each chemical weapons attack. That task is for the Joint Investigative Mechanism established last year by the United Nations and the OPCW. It was expected to begin in-depth investigations of a handful of potential cases in Syria this month.

Houssam Alnahhas, a co-author of the report who documented attacks in Syria and now pursues medical studies in Turkey, told The Associated Press that he and fellow Syrians are losing hope as the Security Council does nothing in response to repeated violations of its own resolutions.

He now saves documentation of any suspected attacks "for history, you know, so next generations will know that chemical agents were used against civilians and the world just watched people die."

Both Alnahhas and Zaher Sahloul, the senior adviser and past president of the Syrian American Medical Society, said they've seen no indication that the current fragile cease-fire negotiated by the United States and Russia has stopped reports of possible chemical weapons attacks.

The report says SAMS has compiled an additional 133 reported chemical attacks during Syria's civil war "that could not be fully substantiated."

 

[Housecarl]

March 13, 2016 German State Elections May Determine Future Of Merkel (3 States only)
Started by Plain Jane‎, 03-12-2016 12:27 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...May-Determine-Future-Of-Merkel-(3-States-only)


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...lines-in-state-votes-swayed-by-refugee-crisis

German Divisions Over Merkel’s Refugee Policy Laid Bare in Votes

by Patrick Donahue, Rainer Buergin, Arne Delfs

March 13, 2016 — 10:12 AM PDT
Updated on March 14, 2016 — 12:11 AM PDT

- Anti-immigration AfD party surges to record in three elections
- Bavarian CSU's Michelbach calls for `change of course'

Chancellor Angela Merkel faces an increasingly splintered political landscape after voters punished her party and lifted the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany to its best showing yet in three state elections dominated by the refugee crisis.

Support for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union tumbled across the board Sunday as her candidates failed to capture two western states including Baden-Wuerttemberg, home to carmaker Daimler AG. Her party hung on to win the most votes in Saxony-Anhalt in the formerly communist east, though Alternative for Germany, or AfD, upended the coalition math there by winning 24.2 percent support in its first attempt in the state.

While Merkel didn’t make the rounds of evening talk shows, CDU party officials signaled she won’t renounce her stance of fighting for open travel and commerce within the European Union and a deal with Turkey to stanch the flow of refugees from war-torn Syria. Merkel will chair a meeting of her party’s national leadership on Monday to assess the election results and plans to hold a news conference at 1:15 p.m. in Berlin.

The election outcome will add to the unease within Merkel’s party about her migration policies “but even this protest vote is unlikely to put her job as chancellor at risk,” said Holger Schmieding, Berlin-based chief economist at Berenberg Bank. “Whereas the debate about migration in Germany could get more noisy near-term, by far the most likely scenario remains that Merkel stays in office until the next federal election in September 2017 –- and probably beyond.”

http://assets.bwbx.io/images/i69asBdg3YKo/v2/-1x-1.jpg

The triple contest, dubbed Super Sunday by some German media, was the biggest of Merkel’s third term and the broadest electoral test before the next federal ballot in 18 months’ time. Though voters cast their ballots for regional legislatures, surveys showed the biggest concern to be Europe’s refugee crisis and its impact on Germany after about 1 million asylum seekers, the most since World War II, arrived last year.

That fueled the expansion of the AfD, which won 15.1 percent in Baden-Wuerttemberg and 12.6 percent in Rhineland-Palatinate, the third state voting Sunday, according to preliminary official results.

“None of the established parties with seats in the Bundestag had a particularly good night,” Michael Grosse-Broemer, parliamentary whip for Merkel’s party bloc in the federal parliament, said on ARD television, dismissing the AfD as a “protest party.” Peter Tauber, the CDU’s secretary general, said “I don’t see” the need for Merkel to change course.

The CDU fell to its worst result of the postwar era in Baden-Wuerttemberg, compounding the party’s shock at its loss to the Greens in 2011 after more than half a century governing the state. The chancellor’s problem is that polls suggested her party had a lock on all three states as recently as last fall, before the impact of the refugee crisis on Germany upended the contest.

Hans Michelbach, a deputy parliamentary leader of Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, said the outcome showed a shifting party landscape “with unpredictable consequences” and the only logical conclusion was “a clear change of course in refugee policy.”

http://assets.bwbx.io/images/izfrFbxsa3VI/v2/-1x-1.png

‘No Alternative’

While “particularly disappointing” for the CDU, the results allow Merkel to blame regional party leaders who criticized her migration policy and lost, while affording her some ammunition against her internal critics, said Carsten Nickel, Brussels-based analyst at researcher Teneo Intelligence.

“Certainly it’s going to put her under increasing pressure,” Nickel said by phone. At the same time, “she’s not going to step down,” he said. “It does look counterintuitive after these results, but there’s simply no alternative to her within her party.”

The euro edged down 0.2 percent to $1.1138 as of 8:52 a.m. in Auckland on Monday after the German results came in. It climbed 1.4 percent last week.

European Crises

The refugee issue is reverberating around the European Union, replacing the euro-area’s debt woes as the most significant in a series of crises chipping away at the EU’s political and economic cohesion. Bitter disagreements between capitals are stoking fears that border-free travel and commerce -- one of the EU’s signature achievements along with the single currency -- will be suspended. An associated rise in populism is eroding support for established parties across the bloc, making coalition-building increasingly difficult from Spain to Ireland.

The AfD, which has now won seats in eight of the country’s 16 regional assemblies, shows that Germany is no longer immune to the allure of right-wing populism.

“We have fundamental problems in Germany that led to this outcome,” Frauke Petry, the party’s co-leader, told ARD television in an interview. “Now we want to force the other parties into a substantive debate.”

Influx Waning

Merkel closed her campaign in Baden-Wuerttemberg on Saturday with a defense of her refugee policy, saying she was pleased that the refugee influx to Germany is decreasing. With EU leaders due in Brussels on Thursday for their second meeting in two weeks on an aid accord with Turkey, she said the 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) requested by the government in Ankara is worth the price to help dissuade refugees from making the dangerous crossing over the Aegean to Greece.

http://assets.bwbx.io/images/ij3XVb.okkvs/v2/-1x-1.png

Sunday’s elections “will not predict the results of the 2017 federal elections, but they signal the extent to which establishment parties are struggling to maintain unity under the strain of the refugee crisis,” Emily Hruban of the Washington-based Bertelsmann Foundation, said in a research note before the voting. “Until other EU states take on responsibility and show solidarity on the issue, Merkel will continue to face a fragmented and volatile political landscape at home.”

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35785416

Can Saudi Arabia fight two wars at once?

By Frank Gardner
BBC security correspondent, Hafr Al-Batin Base, Saudi Arabia
7 hours ago
From the section Middle East

In the vast deserts of northern Saudi Arabia, close to the borders of Iraq and Kuwait, Exercise Northern Thunder has just concluded.

For nearly a month, the kingdom has been hosting forces from 20 allied nations, its first chance to practise integrating the Saudi-led Islamic Coalition announced last year to combat terrorism. This, say the Saudis, is the largest concentration of military forces in the region since the Desert Storm campaign of 1991 drove Iraq's army out of Kuwait.

Local media reports quoting figures of 350,000 troops looked to have been somewhat exaggerated.

There was little sign of massed formations of infantry and the Saudi general in charge declined to give me a total figure - "the numbers are not important" - suggesting that the actual turnout may have been lower than expected.

But the air force component was significant. At King Saud Airbase, near the town on Hafr Al-Batin, I watched squadrons of Egyptian, Jordanian and Bahraini F16 warplanes, along with Qatari Mirage jets, training alongside Saudi Typhoons and F15s.

Nearby, Kuwaiti artillery was dug in under camouflage netting, tanks from the UAE rumbled across a sandy valley while Saudi Apache helicopters hovered overhead.

"We are testing our infrastructures, our airports, our seaports, our airbases, to make sure we can host such a coalition," Brig Gen Ahmad al-Assiri, Saudi Arabia's chief military spokesman, told me, adding that forces of the Islamic Coalition need to be able to shift from fighting a conventional war to fighting a guerrilla insurgency.

Sense of encirclement

Many of the countries participating are already having to do just that, such as Mali with al-Qaeda in the north, and Pakistan coping with attacks by the Taliban.

But the country feeling most threatened of all is Saudi Arabia.

Its forces are fighting a war in Yemen on its southern border, while its air force is deployed to the north attacking the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria, the group that has already carried out several bombings inside Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis are also starting to feel encircled by proxy militias of their arch rival, Iran, with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Shia militias in Iraq and the Iranian-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen.

So can Saudi Arabia fight on two fronts, in Yemen and in Syria? I put the question to Gen al-Assiri.

"I know it is exhausting in a matter of resources, in a matter of people," he says. "Today we face challenges in the south and our forces are stretched in the north and deployed since 2014. This is why - because we feel that our national security is in danger."

Air strikes criticism

This twin campaign has come at a difficult time for the world's second biggest oil producer and exporter.

Oil prices have dropped by more than 60% from their highs, resulting in budget shortfalls and a nationwide cutback in contracts and hiring.

The Yemen war is draining Saudi coffers at an alarming rate, but there is another factor the leadership in Riyadh must contend with: the mounting international opposition to its air strikes in Yemen, where an estimated 6,000 people have been killed by the past 12 months of war.

Air strikes have reportedly caused about half the fatalities, although the Saudis dispute this.

Whereas few people aside from IS and their supporters object to Saudi air strikes on the jihadists in Syria, the air strikes in Yemen are highly controversial.

In February, the European Parliament voted by a large majority for an EU-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia, blaming its air strikes for what it called the "disastrous humanitarian situation" in Yemen.

For the past 12 months, the US has been helping the Saudi-led campaign with refuelling, satellite and other intelligence, while both the US and UK have sold both aircraft and high-precision missiles to Saudi Arabia.

According to the London-based Campaign Against Arms Trade, the UK has licensed £2.8bn ($4bn) of arms to Saudi Arabia since the air strikes began there in March 2015.

"Thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed and injured in devastating and indiscriminate Saudi coalition airstrikes," says Amnesty International, "and there's strong evidence that further weapons sales to Saudi Arabia are not just ill-advised but actually illegal."

The Saudis strongly reject this, pointing out that Yemen's Houthi rebels started the war by overrunning the capital and ousting the UN-recognised government and that the Houthis, backed by ousted former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, are committing daily abuses on the civilian population.

'No Strike List'

Stung by this international condemnation, the Saudis agreed to let me into their Air Operations Centre (AOC) inside the King Salman Airbase in Riyadh.

This is where Saudi intelligence officers, alongside their coalition partners, mostly from allied Arab countries, select their targets and generate the Air Tasking Orders (ATOs) to squadrons based around the country to carry out the air strikes.

In the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) cell, officers insisted that every single target was triple checked that it complied with International Humanitarian Law and the Law of Armed Conflict.

As part of what the Saudis call collateral damage mitigation (CDM), they told me they normally avoid hitting anything within 500m of civilians, an assertion likely to be challenged by Yemenis on the ground.

In some circumstances, said the Saudi officers, this safety margin is reduced to 200m when they use a high-precision laser-guided bomb.

They denied that their warplanes have ever deliberately targeted civilians, though they admitted there have been mistakes.

Upon the wall was a large digital map of Yemen with locations highlighted in green and red. This, I was told, is their No Strike List, a map of all the buildings they said are off-limits.

"The overall picture as you see on the map represents the theatre of operations," said Lt Col Turki al-Maliki, of the Royal Saudi Air Force.

Zooming into a close-up of the streets of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, he added: "This gives the restriction of those targets which go along with the Law of Armed Conflict like the medical places, historical places, schools, diplomatic quarters."

I pointed out that, to quote just one example alone, the humanitarian aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) complain their hospitals have been hit by air strikes three times in under three months.

Gen al-Assiri replied that world audiences have been deceived about the true situation in Yemen.

"No single accident happens without investigation," he told me. "And when we investigate, we publish the result. We make sure that we have a very clear intelligence… We regret any single injury, but this is a war."

'Time needed'

When I interviewed Gen al-Assiri in Riyadh almost exactly a year ago, at the start of the Saudi-led air campaign, I sensed an expectation that the overwhelming firepower deployed against the Houthi rebels would soon force them to sue for peace.

That has not happened, although a Houthi delegation did visit Riyadh this month.

The Saudis say they will not tolerate an armed militia on their borders, especially one supported by Iran.

"We need time to achieve stability in Yemen," said Gen al-Assiri, pointing out that the US-led Nato force was in Afghanistan for 11 years and only achieved a partial success.

The question now is whether the Saudis have the money and the patience to be deeply involved in two coalitions on two fronts as the civilian casualty toll in Yemen grows ever higher.