WAR 03-26-2016-to-04-01-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(208) 03-05-2016-to-03-11-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...11-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(209) 03-12-2016-to-03-18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(210) 03-19-2016-to-03-25-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...25-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/radically-rethinking-nato-and-the-future-of-european-security/

Radically Rethinking NATO and the Future of European Security

Job C. Henning and Douglas A. Ollivant
March 24, 2016

As the future of Europe becomes less certain, NATO now needs a new strategic concept that places less focus on new membership, and more attention on honoring the Article 5 guarantees it has already extended. This initiative should occur together with a formal recognition that the U.S. “reset” policy with Russia, whatever its possible merits at the time, has failed and of the need for a new sustainable pan-European security architecture. As NATO prepares for the Warsaw Summit in July, it has an important opportunity to lay the groundwork for these changes.

NATO faced the first major setback to its “Open Door” policy with the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, this in the immediate aftermath of a NATO summit in Bucharest that declined to extend a Membership Action Plan to Georgia. While the immediate catalyst for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014 was the prospect of a closer association between Ukraine and the European Union, the invasion had the effect of ending any serious possibility of Ukraine joining NATO. Later in 2015, Russian destabilization activities against the Baltic states and a wide range of provocative actions against other NATO members signaled a broader rejection of the Alliance’s ambition of a “Europe, whole and free.”

Meanwhile, NATO continues the charade of inexorable eastward expansion, even though it exhibits no serious intention of admitting qualified strategically relevant applicants, like Georgia. While the recent admission of Montenegro marked an important and useful step forward towards the long project of consolidating the Balkans, the addition of this lovely seaside country nestled across from Italy over 2,000 miles west of the eastern border of NATO does not represent a difficult decision by the Alliance. NATO has also struggled to reassure newer members that any Russian hybrid warfare they face will be met with a meaningful response. An alliance with security guarantees that suffer from any doubt or misperception is much more dangerous than no alliance at all.

At the Munich Security Conference last month, there was a pervasive sense of drift in the transatlantic community, with a wide divergence on how the Alliance should respond to these events and on the future of the alliance. The Russian intervention in Syria was, in part, a skillful way for Putin to change the narrative away from Ukraine, but this deft act should not distract the United States and Europe from the big decisions they face. The Warsaw Summit should be used to get the alliance back to the basics: collective security and territorial defense in Europe and a new stable security system for the region. While this is no new Cold War — and it is counterproductive to think in those grand historic terms and exaggerate the challenge — the alliance should recognize that at least for now, the most significant
and capable threat to its core interests is a resurgent and revanchist Russia that is intent on destabilizing Europe and dividing the transatlantic community.

President Putin is certainly central to these Russian policies. He masterminded the invasion of Georgia as prime minister, saw to the annexation of Crimea, and ordered the invasion and destabilization of eastern Ukraine. He has adroitly exaggerated the overlap of United States and Russian interests in Syria, while exploiting American frustrations with Turkey, a NATO ally. He has been plain about his disdain for liberal Europe and has actively sought to build support for European right wing movements and political parties. Whether his intervention in Syria was in part intended to generate more refugees is impossible to determine, but he has demonstrated no concern for the effect of these refugees on an increasingly fragile Turkey and mainstream political leaders in Europe.

But the dynamics are larger than Putin. There is large and sustained Russian support for pushing back against NATO and its perceived infiltration of Russia’s “near abroad.” Economic factors in Russia make much of the population easy prey for any form of nationalism that blames problems on external foes, real or imagined. Russian elites, too, tend to share in the resentment of their country’s decline and decade of weakness. While Russia is a much weaker version of its former self, it is a capable nuclear-armed actor that is strong enough to resist and foil any further expansion of the transatlantic community.

This is a problem for those who believe in the transatlantic community, but some of this is self-inflicted. For too long, NATO has been permitted to continue to operate as if it were still in the “holiday from history” of the 1990s. NATO is burdened with a set of unresolved ideas at the heart of post-Cold War NATO expansion. The eastern boundaries of the alliance were never defined and the strategic identity and interests of Russia were never seriously contemplated nor allowed for. Even the name of the alliance was unchanged — a name that will always be implacably associated by Russians with the Cold War — and their defeat in it. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq temporarily postponed the need to deal with these issues, as the Alliance was repurposed for providing forces for “out of area operations.”

None of this is to say that the United States and Europe cannot cooperate with Russia where it might make sense to do so. But such cooperation should be focused on situations where Russian capabilities truly matter for the resolution of pressing international problems. If the transatlantic community was more effective at deterring, or at least not inviting, subversive Russian behavior in the first place, Russia would have fewer opportunities to create crises it later promises to try to solve in exchange for otherwise needless compromise and accommodation.

The following steps comprise an agenda for the Warsaw Summit, the preparation and messaging for which should begin immediately.

Step Up Deterrence

First, the alliance should double down on deterrence. The United States has announced a “quadrupling” of military spending on Europe, bringing the total to $3.4 billion in new operational & maintenance funding. While a welcome initiative, the relatively small size and temporary nature of the funding risk undercutting the impression of commitment it is otherwise intended to give.

Using these funds to maintain continuous rotational presence of a brigade combat team will create a new tripwire (as if one was really necessary?) but will not be viewed by Moscow as a credible form of deterrence. Depending on the geography of the rotational deployment, the brigade could actually be unnecessarily provocative. A brigade combat team does not have any obvious uniquely defensive characteristic. Russian air defense systems and ground-to-ground systems are also already being deployed to Russia’s western boundaries to minimize or negate the real utility of a NATO brigade.

Instead, the United States and NATO should invest in new permanent and explicitly defensive forces, reinvigorate and modernize their nuclear capabilities, and renew attention to theater missile defense, with an explicit focus on not just Iranian missiles, but any non-strategic missiles that could threaten the region. Notably, tactical nuclear weapons were excluded from New START and should be addressed by a new NATO defense posture.

All of this should be done with baselined budgets that mark a long-term commitment to deterrence of aggression in the region. Some of these things are already being done to different degrees. It is just a matter of advertising them correctly and giving them greater strategic purpose.

Get Real with Georgia and Reform the Membership Process

The pretense of Georgia’s alliance application should be discarded in favor of a process towards a negotiated non-member relationship that is clear and viable. Seeking security through political-military integration with the West over the past 20 years, Georgia was again rejected by the alliance when the December 2015 NATO Ministerial meeting declined to initiate with Georgia a Membership Action Plan (MAP) and declined to permit direct accession talks.

The Alliance should use the occasion to discard the MAP process entirely — for Georgia and for all future aspirants. Defense specialists widely agree that Georgia has already accomplished more defense reforms than many other successful NATO applicants and that another intermediate step would likely be an invitation for new Russian aggression.

MAP may have been a useful tool in extracting and cajoling reforms in a permissive, uncontested security environment. But that environment is gone. All membership applications should now proceed through a negotiated bilateral process that is less bureaucratic and more transparently reflective of strategic interests of the Alliance. As part of that change, the Alliance should reframe its ‘Open Door Policy’ not as inevitable expansion, but as a highly selective tool that the Alliance will only seek to use to narrowly advance its security.

It is extremely unlikely NATO would take any steps towards the integration of Georgia into the alliance, given that Russian forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia would implicate Article 5 guarantees immediately upon admission. The continued pretense that NATO might extend MAP and that it “remains committed to the Bucharest protocol” is sowing confusion, squandering scarce resources and attention, and causing needless risks. Fortunately, however, there are other ways the Alliance can engage with Georgia.

Support for Territorial Defense

NATO has many other highly effective ways it can work with non-NATO allies to advance shared interests against Russian military adventurism. U.S. and NATO support to Georgia should move away from counterinsurgency training and constabulary force development and immediately begin to focus exclusively on making the country harder for Russia to invade, occupy, or digest. NATO military assistance to countries like Georgia is unlikely to be able to deter Russian aggression. But it could easily make it a lot more expensive and risky, changing Russian decision calculus.

Anti-air and anti-armor systems, coupled with new investments in command-and-control as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for Georgia — and for Moldova, and maybe one day, Ukraine or even Belarus, and any other country in between NATO and Russia — would help create a zone of countries that were neither part of Europe or NATO nor subject to constant Russian coercion, subversion, and intrigue.

Consider it a pragmatic modern approach to the enduring strategic problem of Mitteleuropa, a fragmented region suspended between larger powers by virtue of geography, language, and culture. As it emerged from the last age of empire, Woodrow Wilson sought to re-anchor the region through self determination, a short experiment as weak states were preyed upon by more capable neighbors. A perpetual source of instability at best, Tim Snyder described it as the “Bloodlands” at its worst. Robert Kaplan, quoting Josef Pilsudski, founder of the second Polish Republic, refers to the need for an “Intermarium” group of unaffiliated democratic states between the Baltic and Black Seas.

While it is obviously desirable if these countries are also democracies, it would mark an important step towards a sustainable security system if they had a reasonable ability to defend themselves and were at least not constantly in play between larger alliances. At a minimum, this could buy time, giving Russian strategic culture an opportunity to mellow, grow beyond its post-imperial ambitions, and learn to live within the boundaries of a modern nation state.

Obviously, any such comprehensive military assistance strategy would need to be accompanied by constitutional stability, a high degree of transparency, and by civil-military and command-and-control reforms, to ensure the capabilities were responsibly managed in support of uniquely defensive postures.

Back to the Drawing Board on European Security

The alliance should use these initiatives to highlight the need for a new pan-European security architecture that is stable, sustainable, and realistic. As attractive and inspiring as many find the motto “Europe, whole and free,” NATO’s “Open Door Policy” did not ultimately provide a sufficient avenue towards achieving and retaining that goal. The only other pan-European security agreement, the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), died in 2015 when Russia unilaterally withdrew.

The Warsaw Summit could be used to pose the question about what succeeds the CFE Treaty, as well as wrap the question of tactical nuclear weapons together with conventional weapons into a broader question about the balance of forces in Europe. The Alliance could also take this opportunity to investigate how collective security guarantees need to be reformed to operate in an environment of asymmetric threat and hybrid warfare.

As part of this, the Alliance could even suggest the need to rename itself. It would be foolish to diminish or discard the extraordinarily valuable political-military system of the alliance, with its value based decision-making and technical interoperability. However, NATO does not need to gratuitously aggravate Russia — and the Russian population — by continuing to impress on them their defeat. Imagine what it would be like to live in Europe, surrounded by a Warsaw Pact!

Looking Ahead

While Putin has repeatedly proven himself to be a risk taker, he takes calculated risks. Lest we blunder into new conflicts that no one intends, NATO should take this opportunity to proactively shape the agenda for a transformational Summit in Warsaw that announces bold new willingness to think about the future, while doubling down on deterrence, increasing transparency, reducing confusion and opportunities for misperception, and arming allies that are ready and willing to defend themselves.

By helping Georgia focus on its territorial defense rather than placating it with reiteration of theoretical openness to Georgian membership in the alliance, NATO would both reduce the incentive for Russia to engage in renewed aggression in the near term, as well as restore in Russian minds the sense of cohesion and solidarity within the Alliance.



Job C. Henning (@jobchenning) has worked for the Pentagon and intelligence community on European security and strategic planning. He was a co-director of the Congressional Commission the Project on National Security Reform and is a Truman Fellow and CEO of Grid Energy.

Douglas Ollivant (@DouglasOllivant), a retired Army infantry officer, is an ASU Senior Fellow in the Future of War project at New America, a managing partner of Mantid International, and a national security contributor to Al Jazeera America.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-south-china-seas-‘white-hull’-warfare-15604

The South China Sea's ‘White-Hull’ Warfare

Southeast Asia's coast guards are on the front lines of conflict.

Koh Swee Lean Collin
March 26, 2016
Comments 57

Coast guard–type forces, commonly called “white hulls,” ought to constitute a stabilizing presence compared to regular navy forces (or “grey hulls”), as sea-power theorist Harold Kearsley wrote in Maritime Power and the Twenty-First Century in 1992. “White hulls” do not convey the same overtly militaristic, war-fighting impression as regular naval forces employed for this purpose.

But theory can only go so far when the parties concerned have a different, or even revisionist, interpretation. China, for one, has quashed Kearsley’s idea. The recurring South China Sea incidents are illustrative: no longer are “white hulls” more dovish than their naval counterparts. In some cases, the coast guard can prove to be aggressive while the navy is relatively docile.

Outside Asia, the last notable instance of a coast guard exhibiting unusually aggressive behavior was Iceland’s coast guard, the Landhelgisgæslan, which not only relentlessly chased after foreign trawlers in the North Atlantic, even cutting their fishing nets, but also challenged more heavily armed foreign navies during the infamous Cod Wars. One such notable confrontation took place in June 1973, when the seventy-meter ICGV Ægir rammed into British frigate HMS Scylla, which is 113 meters long and has more than twice the Landhelgisgæslan gunboat’s nearly 1,200-ton displacement, at 2,500 tonnes.

White Hulls in Southeast Asia

The contemporary China Coast Guard (CCG) is perhaps a more aggressive rendition of the Cod War–era Landhelgisgæslan. One major difference is that the CCG and its two predecessor agencies—China Marine Surveillance and Fishery Law Enforcement Command—are dealing with comparatively weaker Southeast Asian rivals in the South China Sea.

Southeast Asian governments have generally devoted limited resources to navies and paid even less attention to “white hulls.” This first changed during the early 2000s, when the region witnessed a scourge of piracy, sea robberies and other transnational maritime crimes, leading to the emergence of new or expanded coast guard–type agencies. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) was formed in 2005. Indonesia renamed its existing coordinating agency BAKAMLA in 2014. The newly formed Vietnam Fisheries Resource Surveillance joined the Vietnam Coast Guard in 2013.

These coast guard agencies are meant to alleviate navies’ peacetime constabulary burden and facilitate a legal approach in enforcing maritime sovereignty and jurisdictional rights, as granted by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Compared to the 326-vessel CCG (including one hundred offshore-capable assets), these agencies were much smaller in size by the end of 2015, according to the latest Military Balance 2016. Their assets are also mostly ill-equipped inshore and coastal craft, which may suffice against criminals at sea, but are essentially helpless against a larger, better-equipped coast guard adversary in an offshore environment. The recent Sino-Indonesian standoff in waters off the Natuna Islands is just one incident that amply illustrates the severe limitations of Southeast Asian coast guards.

Persistent Capacity Shortfalls

Indeed, Indonesia's BAKAMLA musters over one hundred vessels under various subordinate agencies. But the overwhelming majority are suited for inshore and coastal duties, like the fishery patrol craft HIU-011, which was involved in the latest incident. Fewer than ten are offshore patrol vessels (OPVs). While the navy remains keen to perform constabulary duties, its offshore assets are disproportionately too few for the colossal Indonesian archipelago. In any case, only three of the navy’s seven ships are stationed at the islands, the bulk of enforcement work being left to the under-equipped BAKAMLA assets.

Of Malaysia’s 190-strong MMEA fleet, only two vessels are OPVs capable of enforcing Kuala Lumpur’s offshore claims. They are about thirty years old, and simply too few in number. The navy first responded to China’s intrusion off the South Luconia Shoals in September 2013. According to the hansard of a parliament Senate session in December 2015, the navy and MMEA conducted 191 and seventy-eight patrols, respectively, to monitor the Chinese off the shoals in 2014; in 2015, they each conducted 241 and 104. The MMEA clearly needs more offshore-capable assets, but the seven recently approved OPVs will take time to enter service, and may not suffice for Malaysia's vast maritime zone.

The seventy-two-strong Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) fleet counts only five offshore-capable assets. The navy therefore bears the brunt of South China Sea enforcement duties, and the ensuing humiliations too. Reminiscent of the Icelandic coast guard face-off with Royal Navy during the Cod Wars, smaller Chinese coast guard vessels thwarted attempts by the Philippine Navy ship, BRP Gregorio del Pilar, from apprehending Chinese fishermen at the Scarborough Shoal in April 2012. Since then, Chinese coast guards maintained vigil at the shoal while Manila kept its navy away. But the PCG is obviously outmatched by its Chinese counterpart, thereby ceding de facto administration of the shoal to Beijing.

Finally, Vietnam is in a better position, since its fewer than fifty coast guard vessels include slightly more than ten offshore-capable assets. Yet this shortfall was acutely felt during the oil rig standoff with China between May and July 2014. In the first place, because of their small physical sizes, Vietnam’s coast guard vessels lack the necessary endurance, and so need to be constantly rotated in order to sustain a Vietnamese presence. To illustrate, one Chinese OPV possesses the same endurance equivalent to two smaller Vietnamese craft deployed in rotation. Essentially, Vietnam's coast guard capacity was “maxed out,” imposing strains on existing assets given the high operational tempo, compromising normal maintenance routines.

Out-Deployed, Out-Maneuvered and Out-Built by China?

Knowing this, China appears confident of success in the South China Sea. Its calculations paid off; not only are its Southeast Asian rivals incapable of fielding any coast guard that can match it in numbers and quality, but they also avoid deploying navies. Even when they do send in the grey hulls, these forces behave cautiously. In any case, they are well aware that the Chinese navy is too superior to trifle with. When Admiral Scott Swift, chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, warned of a “palpable sense” in the region that "might makes right" has taken root as a philosophy, he was correct.

Remember one of James Cable’s astute observations in the seminal work Gunboat Diplomacy: sheer size matters. The side with the larger fleet and superior vessels prevails. This is a sobering reality played out in the South China Sea incidents: larger coast guard ships can furnish Beijing a “stabilizing” and “defensive” veneer to justify its own strategic narrative of being “victimized” in the disputes.

But the recent South China Sea incidents symbolize the common issues Southeast Asia faces when building maritime security capacities: insufficient funding, occasional lack of political will and, for some, endemic corruption. China has a larger baseline capacity to begin with, not to mention the requisite resources and shipbuilding capability to expand its coast guard, including more offshore-capable assets that displace three thousand tons and more. Nonetheless, if Southeast Asian governments wish to enforce their maritime sovereignty and jurisdictional rights, the least they can do to beat the odds is to focus on more cost-effective, offshore coast guard capabilities instead of expensive toys for the militaries.

Koh Swee Lean Collin is associate research fellow at the Institute of Strategic and Defence Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Collin primarily researches on naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific, focusing on Southeast Asia (see here). He can be reached at iscollinkoh@ntu.edu.sg.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/03/26/bosnia_kosovo_and_brussels_111781.html

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/bosnia-kosovo-and-brussels/

Bosnia, Kosovo and Brussels

March 25, 2016 This week’s attacks in Belgium are a continuation of Muslim-Christian confrontations that began when the Soviet Union fell.

By George Friedman

Summary There is a deep connection between the end of the Cold War, the Yugoslav wars and the attacks in Brussels. They may appear separate but are deeply interconnected. The release of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union triggered a seismic shift along the fault line of U.S. containment strategy that runs through the Middle East. These tremors are still playing out today.

Radovan Karadžiæ, former president of Republika Srpska, a Serbian enclave in Bosnia, was found guilty of genocide by a United Nations tribunal yesterday. He was accused of the deaths of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s. The date of his conviction, March 24, is also the 17th anniversary of the beginning of the NATO bombing campaign in Serbia that led to separation and independence of Kosovo from Serbia. It is also the week in which members of the Islamic State carried out an assault on Brussels. The three events are intimately connected.

The American strategy during the Cold War was to contain the Soviet Union. One part of the containment line ran through Europe. Another part, after the Sino-Soviet split, ran along the northern Chinese border. The third line ran from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan – through the Islamic world, with predominantly Muslim countries on each side of the line. The tremendous force of the Western alliance, China and the Soviet Union had frozen these boundaries into place. With the exception of Afghanistan later in the Cold War, this created a tense but coherent region. Various countries were in different alliances, and some in none, but on the whole the Cold War brought a relative stability to the region. The shifts that took place were managed by the great powers to limit their destabilizing effect along the line of confrontation.

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/wp-...goslavia-soviet-union-islamic-faultine-v2.jpg

When the Soviet Union collapsed and the line disappeared, three things happened. In Europe, Western-style democracies emerged in the former Warsaw Pact countries. In China, the People’s Liberation Army and the Communist Party shifted their focus to economic development. And the line from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan destabilized. It did not destabilize all at once, or even quickly. But as the force field between the U.S. and the Soviets disappeared, the region regained its autonomy and destabilized. Put another way, the Muslim world destabilized, and Muslims confronted the Christian world that had shaped their map.

This began in Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was a country invented after World War II, containing Muslims and Christians, with a wide range of bad memories about each other and therefore hostility. After World War II, Yugoslavia was frozen into place by two forces. One was the communist government of Josip Broz Tito, which submerged ethnic and religious difference under its government apparatus and security structure. The other force freezing Yugoslavia into place was the fact that, having come to power independent of the Soviets, Tito did not want to become a Soviet satellite. Therefore, Yugoslavia maintained a neutrality tilted mildly to the West. That stance froze Yugoslavia, as neither the U.S. nor the Soviets wanted to take the risk of shifting its orientation, and Tito did not want do anything to trigger a change in policy.

Tito died in 1980, and Yugoslavia became increasingly fractious. But it was not until after the fall of the Soviet Union that a fragmented Yugoslavia unfroze and went to war. This was not a Muslim-Christian war, as it was also a war against Croatian Catholics and Serbian Christian Orthodox, along with numerous other confrontations. But it was the Serbian-Bosnian confrontation that became the bloodiest and the Serbian-Albanian confrontation that triggered NATO’s air attacks. Both were confrontations between Christians and Muslims and one was what today’s verdict was about.

The depth of the hatred can be seen in the Bosnian genocide, but it must be remembered that all sides carried out brutal actions. By 1999, the mere fear that something might happen in Kosovo – it had not yet – triggered an air campaign in Kosovo and in Serbia (then still called Yugoslavia) that lasted more than two months. One way to look at this war is that it was the first warning to the Europeans that Europe was still capable of atrocity. But the Europeans always had an odd view of the Balkans as a place in Europe but not of Europe. They took home few lessons from there.

The second and more useful way to look at the war in Yugoslavia is that this was the first violent post-Cold War confrontation between Muslims and Christians. Most view Yugoslavia’s horrors as neither European nor connected to other events. I regard this as the first part of the collapse of the confrontation line of the Cold War, and the first open warfare between Christians and Muslims. It was not unique or separate. It was an opening event that spread throughout the Islamic region that had been frozen in place by the Cold War.

The 1990s were a decade of destabilization and redefinition. One of the most important parts of the redefinition was the decline of the Soviet-supported secular Arab groups like the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and the rise of a consciously Islamist movement in the Muslim world. In a way, it meant the decline of Fatah and the rise of Hamas. But it also meant that secular regimes, like those of Egypt, Syria and Libya, were losing their international foundations.

As the artificial strength of the Cold War diminished, what emerged was an extension of what happened in Yugoslavia. Under the many forces let loose, the most lasting was the re-emergence of Islam as a significant political force, and a force that at least in parts, saw itself as confronting Europe and Christianity. In Yugoslavia we saw both the Christians and Muslims rising against each other.

Geopolitical earthquakes may take a generation or more to play out. Today, we see Moammar Gadhafi dead, Bashar al-Assad embattled and the Egyptian secularists struggling to hold on, but the common denominator is the religious confronting the insufficiently religious. But there is another dimension, which is the Muslim facing the Christian and vice versa. And it should be remembered that for the Islamist, Christianity has been a historical enemy since well before the Crusades. This view and force was suppressed but never eliminated during the Cold War.

You can see its return in Brussels, where one of the factions generated after the end of the Cold War, the Islamic State, struck randomly at Europeans regardless of who they were or what they believed. And obviously this is stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment, as is inevitable. The Muslim question, whether a matter of terrorism or immigration, has become the core European problem, just as the Christians are a core Muslim question.

And all of this can be glimpsed in Yugoslavia, where this cycle of endless cycles began. The events in Bosnia and Kosovo were both the settling of Yugoslav scores flowing from the European creation of Yugoslavia and the opening of the chapter in Christian-Muslim confrontation that we are living through now. The trial of Ratko Mladić ended one phase, 20 years after the deed was done. But while the Serbs may have been the bloodiest, they were far from alone. And now they have many more joining in the fray. As Europe sits on the edge of action – of what sort is unknown – and the Muslim world boils, we can look back to Yugoslavia as the preface few of us saw.

 

[Housecarl]

Main Russia/Ukraine invasion thread - NATO: Russian Tanks and Artillery Enter Ukraine
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ian-Tanks-and-Artillery-Enter-Ukraine/page439

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-military-idUSKCN0WS0EV

World | Sat Mar 26, 2016 8:57am EDT
Related: World

Kremlin: No Russian troops in Ukraine's Donbass, but there are Russian 'citizens' - RIA

MOSCOW

There are no Russian troops in the Moscow-leaning Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, and there have never been, but there are Russian citizens who stand by local residents, RIA news agency quoted the Kremlin as saying on Saturday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was referring to repeated accusations to Moscow by Kiev and the West of its direct military involvement in the conflict between Ukrainian security forces and pro-Russian separatists in the region.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Alison Williams)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-media-erdogan-idUSKCN0WS0D5

World | Sat Mar 26, 2016 8:01am EDT
Related: World, Turkey

Turkey's Erdogan criticizes foreign diplomats for attending journalists' trial

ISTANBUL

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday harshly criticized foreign diplomats in Turkey for attending the trial of two prominent journalists charged with espionage, saying their behavior was not in line with diplomatic protocol.

The first hearing of Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, 49, head of the newspaper's Ankara bureau, took place on Friday in a courtroom packed with journalists, academics, and half a dozen foreign diplomats, mainly European, in a case that drew international criticism.

The two journalists are accused of trying to topple the government with publication last May of a video purporting to show Turkey's state intelligence agency helping to ferry weapons into Syria by truck in 2014.

"The consul-generals in Istanbul attended the trial. Who are you? What business do you have there? Diplomacy has a certain propriety and manners. This is not your country. This is Turkey," he told a meeting of businessmen in Istanbul.

"You can move inside the Consulate building and within the boundaries of the Consulate. But elsewhere is subject to permission," he said.

Turkey's pro-government papers portrayed the attendance of foreign diplomats as an 'invasion' of the courtroom. "Crusader unity in trucks betrayal," the Star daily said on its front page while Turkiye newspaper described it as 'siege of consuls'.

Erdogan, who has cast Cumhuriyet's coverage as part of an attempt to undermine Turkey's global standing, has vowed Dundar will "pay a heavy price". The two journalists could face life in prison if convicted.

On Friday, the court accepted the prosecutor's request for Erdogan to be one of the complainants and ruled the trial should be heard behind closed doors, decisions that drew anger from journalists' supporters.

The trial comes as Turkey deflects criticism from the European Union and rights groups that say it is bridling a once-vibrant press. EU enlargement chief Johannes Hahn described the trial on his Twitter account as a "test case for press freedom and rule of law in Turkey".

Dundar and Gul spent 92 days in jail, almost half of it in solitary confinement, before the constitutional court ruled last month that their pre-trial detention was unfounded since the charges stemmed from their journalist work.


(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/...-5-5-ton-cocaine-bust-on-mini-submarine.html/

The Scoop Blog

Corpus Christi air crew helps make 5.5-ton cocaine bust on mini-submarine

Tom Steele ¤yFollow tomsteele ¤|Email tsteele@dallasnews.com
Published: March 25, 2016 5:53 pm

From The Associated Press:

CORPUS CHRISTI ¡ª A Customs and Border Protection air crew from Corpus Christi was involved in the arrest of four people aboard a mini-submarine headed for the U.S. that authorities say was carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine worth nearly $200 million.

The crew aboard a long-range surveillance aircraft detected the vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean while working with a federal and military task force March 2.

With the long-range Lockheed P-3 providing visual contact, a Coast Guard vessel was summoned and its crew made the arrests.

The drug vessel, described by officials this week as self-propelled and semi-submersible, became unstable and sank ¡ª as did the cocaine.

CPB has a National Air Security Operations Center at Corpus Christi. Its crews patrol 42 million square miles that include the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/...arfare_in_the_former_soviet_union_111780.html

New Missiles, Old Trains: The Future of Warfare in the Former Soviet Union

Posted by Samuel Bendett on March 26, 2016

In the near future, Ukraine plans to conduct test launches of domestically produced ballistic missiles built without the involvement of foreign companies, said National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchinov in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine news agency. According to Turchinov, resuscitating the domestic missile industry is a priority for Ukrainian authorities. "We need to develop as a space-faring nation, producing high-tech spacecraft, but we also need to restore the necessary production line of combat missiles that will protect the country," added the secretary. "We will soon carry out test launches of missiles of indigenous production, created by exclusively Ukrainian enterprises."

Turchinov noted that the domestic rocket industry has struggled since the loss of close cooperation with Russian enterprises after 2014. Turchinov would not specify the missile types, citing the interests of strategic partners, but he stressed that Ukraine has strengthened its defense without violating any of its international obligations. This development follows plans laid out in 2014 by the newly elected pro-Western Ukrainian President Poroshenko -- his "Strategy 2020" plan called for major overhaul of the nation's armed forces, a plan that involved increasing domestic development of the armaments industry and decreasing reliance on certain exporters, such as Russia, which drove domestic military production without leaving much for Ukrainian forces.

In Soviet times, Ukraine produced numerous rockets, satellites, and missiles, most notably at its Yuzhmash factory, which Kiev inherited after 1991 and which sold much of its production line to Moscow until Russia's actions in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

Back to the Future

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry is once again considering reviving a century-old military concept - the use of armored trains. Last year, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu decided to overturn an order by his predecessor, Anatoly Serdyukov, to eliminate the four armored trains still in country's service. During Russian military operations in the North Caucasus and Chechnya from 2002 to 2009, the Russian military created an entire group of armored trains. However, once military operations in Chechnya wound down, the Defense Ministry has decided that a modern army no longer needed such trains.

According to Russian daily Izvestia, the decision to save these special armored trains was made personally by Minister Shoigu. When Serdyukov unexpectedly resigned in late 2012, many of his orders on the reorganization of various units of the Ministry of Defense were not fulfilled, explains Izvestia. After Shoigu audited all military assets, he overruled his predecessor's orders on the reduction of military educational institutions, refused to disband mobile and airborne units, and decided to keep armored trains in the nation's Southern Military District. "When he was the head of the Emergencies Ministry (the Russian equivalent of FEMA), Shoigu, while in Chechnya during the counter-terrorist operation, saw these special trains working and found them useful for the Armed Forces," Izvestia explains.

Russian military officers emphasized that these armored trains proved themselves ably in Chechnya, where it was necessary to protect military cargo and personnel transported via rail from Chechen insurgents. Such armored trains were also essential to protect combat engineers who cleared the railway tracks of improvised explosive devices. Each of the trains included repair teams capable of restoring damaged tracks within hours. The four trains, built in the middle of the last century, were on duty in the Soviet Far East until the 1980s -- there they guarded bridges and railways along the Soviet-Chinese border.

Such armored trains have near-legendary status in Russia. When mobility and concentrated firepower were scarce during the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Civil War that raged across long stretches of today's Russia and Ukraine between 1917 and 1921, trains equipped with cannon and other weapons allowed Bolshevik forces to gain an upper hand over their opponents, at times deploying more than a dozen such trains in a single battle. By the end of the conflict, the newly formed Russian Red Army had 121 such trains in service, which were also used in World War Two and were immortalized on propaganda posters and numerous Soviet and Russian films. However, in the following decades, advances in artillery, missile guidance, aviation, and other technologies made such trains easy targets and therefore virtually irrelevant in large-scale military operations.

Today, Russian military experts have differing opinions on using such old technology for future operations. According to retired Col. Victor Litovkin, a military expert, it is still too early to retire such trains. "Of course, during a modern war with NATO, such armored trains don't carry any defensive or offensive advantage. However, in local conflicts -- such as the ones in the North Caucasus -- armored trains proved indispensable." According to Litovkin, the armored trains were ideal for the destruction of militant formations that operated near railways, as well as for the evacuation of the wounded and during demining operations. In addition, special trains housed modern Russian offensive weapons, such as the MSTA long-range howitzer or Tornado multiple launch rocket systems. However, Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Studies, considers it archaic to use World War One-era technology in a modern military: "Now, in the 21st century, an armored train is a relic of the past, which is useless in modern warfare."

Whether right or wrong, the experts may be debating the use of old military technology in modern warfare for a long time: For instance, the American B-52 strategic bomber may fly for up to 100 years after its initial use in the early 1950s, given its versatility as a diverse platform for a variety of weapons and the absence of a viable replacement for at least two more decades.

 

[Housecarl]

3/22/16: Reported explosions at Brussels airport in Belgium
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...losions-at-Brussels-airport-in-Belgium/page13

Brussels Suicide Bombers Planted Hidden Camera At Home Of Top Belgium Nuclear Official
Started by alchemikeý, 03-24-2016 09:26 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...amera-At-Home-Of-Top-Belgium-Nuclear-Official

Belgium turns on immigrants after Brussels bloodbath as membership of far-right...
Started by Millwrightý, Today 05:21 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...Brussels-bloodbath-as-membership-of-far-right...

____

Hummm.....Anyone buy this?.....


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-belgium-blast-nuclear-idUSKCN0WS09E

World | Sat Mar 26, 2016 9:56am EDT
Related: World

Belgian nuclear guard shot, prosecutor rules out militant link

BRUSSELS


Two days after bomb attacks at Brussels airport and on a packed metro killed 31 people and injured hundreds, a security guard who worked at a Belgian nuclear site was killed but the local prosecutor on Saturday ruled out any militant link.

The Charleroi prosecutor's office also denied media reports that his security pass had been stolen and been de-activated as soon as investigators raised the alarm, public broadcaster VTM said.

The office declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Le Soir newspaper said the man was a guard at Belgium's national radioactive elements institute at Fleurus, to the south of Brussels.

A police spokeswoman said she could not comment because an investigation was ongoing.

In a nation on high alert following this week's attacks, the media reports tap into fears about the possibility militants are seeking to get hold of nuclear material or planning to attack a nuclear site.

On Thursday, DH had reported the suicide bombers who blew themselves up on Tuesday originally considered targeting a nuclear site, but a series of arrests of suspect militants forced them to speed up their plans and instead switch focus to the Belgian capital.

Late last year, investigators found a video tracking the movements of a man linked to the country's nuclear industry during a search of a flat as part of investigations into the Islamist militant attack on Paris on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people.

The video, lasting several hours, showed footage of the entrance to a home in northern Belgium and the arrival and departure of the director of Belgium's nuclear research program.


(Reporting by Barbara Lewis, Foo Yun Chee and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Alison Williams)

 

[vestige]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/...-5-5-ton-cocaine-bust-on-mini-submarine.html/

The Scoop Blog

Corpus Christi air crew helps make 5.5-ton cocaine bust on mini-submarine

Tom Steele ¤yFollow tomsteele ¤|Email tsteele@dallasnews.com
Published: March 25, 2016 5:53 pm

From The Associated Press:

CORPUS CHRISTI ¡ª A Customs and Border Protection air crew from Corpus Christi was involved in the arrest of four people aboard a mini-submarine headed for the U.S. that authorities say was carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine worth nearly $200 million.

The crew aboard a long-range surveillance aircraft detected the vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean while working with a federal and military task force March 2.

With the long-range Lockheed P-3 providing visual contact, a Coast Guard vessel was summoned and its crew made the arrests.

The drug vessel, described by officials this week as self-propelled and semi-submersible, became unstable and sank ¡ª as did the cocaine.

CPB has a National Air Security Operations Center at Corpus Christi. Its crews patrol 42 million square miles that include the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

Good riddance

 

[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/page41

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://in.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-syria-palmyra-idINKCN0WS08T

Sat Mar 26, 2016 5:17pm IST
Related: Top News, World, Syria

Syrian army pushes into Palmyra amid heavy bombardment

BEIRUT | By Dominic Evans


Syrian government forces advanced into Palmyra on several fronts on Saturday with support from air strikes and artillery bombardment, state media and a monitoring group said, and live television showed waves of explosions inside the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described it as the heaviest assault yet in a three-week campaign by the Syrian army and allied militia fighters to recapture the desert city from Islamic State fighters.

Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said Syrian soldiers and allied militias had taken control of one-third of Palmyra, mainly in the west and north, including parts of its ancient Roman-era ruins. Soldiers were also fighting on a southern front, he said.

State-run television also said the army was advancing inside Palmyra, recapturing several neighbourhoods.

Television footage from the slopes of the medieval citadel, which was seized by the army on Friday and overlooks the city, showed tanks and armoured vehicles firing into Palmyra.

Waves of explosions hit buildings, and smoke could be seen rising from many locations. Earlier, the Observatory said that Islamic State militants had launched counter-attacks - including car bombings - against advancing soldiers.

The recapture of Palmyra, which the Islamist group seized in May 2015, would mark the biggest reversal for Islamic State in Syria since Russia's intervention turned the tide of the five-year conflict in President Bashar al-Assad's favour.


Related Coverage
› Islamic State under siege in Palmyra, militant leader killed

The group, and al Qaeda's Syrian branch the Nusra Front, is excluded from a month-long cessation of hostilities agreement that has brought a lull in fighting between the government and rebels battling Assad in western Syria.

The limited truce has allowed peace talks to resume in Geneva. But progress has been slow, with the government and its opponents disagreeing fundamentally on the terms of such a transition, including whether Assad must leave power.


RUSSIAN SUPPORT

Russia has reduced its military presence in Syria but has strongly supported the Palmyra offensive, carrying out dozens of air strikes this week and acknowledging that a Russian special forces officer was killed in combat near the city.

Palmyra had a population of 50,000 according to a census more than 10 years ago. Those numbers were swelled hugely by an influx of people displaced by Syria's conflict, which has raged since 2011, but most fled when Islamic State took over.

Recapturing the city would open up eastern Syria, where Islamic State controls most of the Euphrates Valley provinces of Deir al-Zor and Raqqa, to the army.

"Our heroic forces are continuing to advance until we liberate every inch of this pure land," a soldier told state-run television in a broadcast from slopes of the citadel, which overlooks the city's monumental ruins.

In August, Islamic State fighters dynamited two ancient buildings, the temples of Bel and Baal Shamin, which had stood as cultural landmarks in Palmyra for nearly two millennia. The United Nations described their destruction as a war crime.

Television footage in the last 24 hours from the edge of Palmyra has shown some of the city's structures and famed colonnades still standing, although the extent of any damage was impossible to assess.

Syrian officials said last year they had moved hundreds of ancient statues to safe locations before the city was overrun by Islamic State.


(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/content/paki...or-curbing-tactical-nuke-weapons/3256025.html

Pakistan Rejects US Calls for Curbing Tactical Nuke Weapons

Ayaz Gul
March 26, 2016 9:13 AM

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s top nuclear security advisor has rejected growing U.S. pressure and safety concerns about its production and deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons.

“We are not apologetic about the development of the TNWs [tactical nuclear weapons] and they are here to stay,” said Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, an advisor to the so-called National Command Authority (NCA) and a longtime custodian of the country’s nuclear arsenal.

The institutions responsible for planning storage and operational deployments do make sure that “it is so balanced on ground in time and space that it is ready to react at the point where it must react and at the same time it is not sucked into the battle too early and remains safe," Kidwai told a seminar at Islamabad’s Institute of Strategic Studies.

Response to US

He was apparently responding to last week’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller, where she praised the “excellent” steps Pakistan has undertaken to secure its nuclear arsenal, but said Washington is troubled by the development of battlefield nuclear weapons.

She insisted that battlefield nuclear weapons, by their very nature, pose security threats because their security cannot be guaranteed when they are taken to the field.

“So, we are really quite concerned about this and we have made our concerns known and we will continue to press them about what we consider to be the destabilizing aspects of their battlefield nuclear weapons program,” Gottemoeller said.

Nuclear Security Summit

The tensions come ahead of next week’s Nuclear Security Summit in Washington (March 31 - April 1), where President Barack Obama and other global leaders will discuss terrorism threats related to radiological weapons and review proposed safety measures. Leaders of Pakistan and its nuclear-armed archival India will also attend.

Islamabad’s tactical nuclear weapons have been straining its traditionally rollercoaster ties with Washington since 2011, when Pakistan first tested and began producing its nuclear-capable "Nasr" ballistic missile, which has a range of 60 kilometers (36 miles).

Pakistani officials justify their development of tactical nuclear weapons by citing India’s so-called "Cold Start" doctrine, which they say is aimed at undertaking a quick, punitive, conventional military strike inside Pakistan.

While Pakistan’s long-range ballistic missiles can hit anywhere in India, Kidwai insisted the tactical nuclear weapons have been developed to keep the neighboring country’s conventionally huge military from imposing a limited conflict on his country for achieving “political objectives.”

“It compelled us to plug the gap that existed at the tactical level within the nuclear system,” the Pakistani advisor asserted. He reiterated Islamabad’s “full spectrum” nuclear weapons program is “India-specific” and described the neighboring country as “Pakistan’s only enemy.”

Pakistan-India rivalry

He criticized decades of U.S.-led international moves to penalize Pakistan for developing the nuclear program while “ignoring” Indian advancements.

Kidwai insisted that the punitive actions might have caused political and diplomatic setbacks to his country but said it has not impacted its efforts to defend the country against another Indian aggression.

“Pakistan would not cap or curb its nuclear weapons program or accept any restrictions. All attempts in this regard… are bound to end up nowhere,” he added.

The Pakistani advisor particularly criticized the American media for being "completely negative, hostile and biased" towards Islamabad's nuclear program, accusing it of publishing misleading reports and claims that Pakistan possesses the world's fastest growing nuclear program.

"I think it is politically-motivated because the developments that are taking place in Pakistan are of a very modest level, very much in line with the concept of credible minimum deterrence, and they are always a reaction to an action that takes place in India. So, Pakistan does not have the fastest growing nuclear program," he said.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/...-5-5-ton-cocaine-bust-on-mini-submarine.html/

The Scoop Blog

Corpus Christi air crew helps make 5.5-ton cocaine bust on mini-submarine

Tom Steele ¤yFollow tomsteele ¤|Email tsteele@dallasnews.com
Published: March 25, 2016 5:53 pm

From The Associated Press:

CORPUS CHRISTI ¡ª A Customs and Border Protection air crew from Corpus Christi was involved in the arrest of four people aboard a mini-submarine headed for the U.S. that authorities say was carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine worth nearly $200 million.

The crew aboard a long-range surveillance aircraft detected the vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean while working with a federal and military task force March 2.

With the long-range Lockheed P-3 providing visual contact, a Coast Guard vessel was summoned and its crew made the arrests.

The drug vessel, described by officials this week as self-propelled and semi-submersible, became unstable and sank ¡ª as did the cocaine.

CPB has a National Air Security Operations Center at Corpus Christi. Its crews patrol 42 million square miles that include the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

Good riddance

Questions I have are how many are we missing and what besides cocaine are they bringing into CONUS?

 

[vestige]

Questions I have are how many are we missing and what besides cocaine are they bringing into CONUS?

Others have had similar questions.

Like how far up the Mississippi River could they or a "surface pleasure boat" go without being checked in any way by any person.

The surface boats could be carrying dope, SCUD type primitive missiles with nuclear devices or just drunken fishermen.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/26/fighting-mexico-s-new-super-cartel.html

CARTEL WATCH
03.25.16 9:15 PM ET

Fighting Mexico’s New Super Cartel

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is known for its hyper-aggressive, paramilitary tactics—now it’s bringing the terror to America’s doorstep.

Jeremy Kryt

TIERRA CALIENTE, Mexico — This is what a cartel-besieged town looks like: shuttered storefronts, crumbling buildings, and streets that empty each day at dusk.

Welcome to Tepalcatepec, where the average local temperature is 95 degrees and the chief local export is crystal meth. According to the regional press, this ramshackle pueblo is the number one drug distribution center for the entire state of Michoacán.

Like a growing number of other cities and towns across western Mexico, Tepalcatepec is in danger of succumbing to the nation’s newest mega-mafia: the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

The CJNG isn’t just super-sized. It’s also ruthless and hyper-violent, even by Mexican cartel standards. Back in 2011 the group slaughtered 35 members of a rival gang, including 12 women, and dumped the bodies on an interstate highway at rush hour. And that was just a warm-up act.

Over the last year, the CJNG has become known for taking the fight to law enforcement—launching guerrilla-like assaults against authorities that have claimed dozens of officers’ lives, including shooting down an army helicopter and killing everyone aboard.

Situated on the border between the states of Jalisco and Michoacán and at the crossroads of two major highways, Tepalcatapec offers a vital control point for the CJNG. From here they can launch attacks against competing crime networks in Michoacán, as well as packing and processing drugs to send them north.

“The cartel is trying to penetrate the community and take over the whole town,” says Juventino Cisneros, the state police chief of Tepeque (as locals call the town), when we meet in his command bunker—a squat, thick-walled building that also houses the precinct armory.

“The [CJNG] wants to control the black market here—to cook drugs, extort business owners, kidnap and kill people,” says Cisneros, 56, a former vigilante whose eldest son was murdered during a botched abduction attempt a few years ago.

Tepeque sits at the head of the long, cactus-covered valley called Tierra Caliente, which acts like a funnel for drugs flowing down from the mountains on both sides. Tierra Caliente was once under the control of the gruesome Knights Templar cartel—but since the Knights’ defeat by vigilantes like Cisneros, in 2014, the CJNG has moved in to fill the vacuum.

“We still outnumber them—for now,” Chief Cisneros says. “But we don’t know how much longer we can keep them out.”

Keeping the CJNG at bay also poses a stiff challenge for American law enforcement.

In an email to The Daily Beast, DEA agent Russ Baer calls the CJNG “one of the most powerful [cartels] in Mexico” that also “operate cells within the U.S.”

The U.S. Treasury Department has designated the super cartel’s leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (alias “El Mencho,” or “Blondie”), a “Narcotics Kingpin”—and the State Department is offering up to $5 million for information leading to his capture and conviction.

The de facto successor to the Sinaloa Cartel’s Chapo Guzmán, El Mencho, who is in his mid to late forties, has been trafficking narcotics across the U.S.-Mexico border for more than two decades.

He was convicted of selling heroin by the U.S. District Court of Northern California in 1994, says Baer, but was released after serving almost three years in prison.

Founded by El Mencho in 2009, “the CJNG [has] rapidly expanded their criminal empire in recent years through the use of violence and corruption,” Baer says. That growth pattern includes stepped up incursions onto American soil, “with [U.S.] law enforcement increasingly reporting CJNG members and associates as sources of supply for drugs.”

As part of their expansion efforts, the Jalisco Cartel is now making forays into Tijuana on the California border. The CJNG’s attempted takeover has already sparked a bloody turf war with the Sinaloa Cartel for control of the city and access to cross-border smuggling routes.

As a result, the murder rate in Baja California has nearly doubled since this time last year, with more than 70 murders occurring in Tijuana in the month of January alone.

Alejandro Hope, a Mexican security analyst with the Washington-based Wilson Center, describes the Tijuana market as “very profitable” for both cartel rivals.
“It’s the best entry point into the West Coast of the U.S.,” says Hope, in an interview with The Daily Beast.

Data provided by DEA agent Baer illustrates just how much drug-based wealth is at stake for the cartels in Tijuana. Narcotics seized in the San Diego smuggling corridor in 2014 (the last year for which statistics are available) amounted to 71,414 kilos and were worth about $230 million.

That quantity likely represents just a fraction of the overall drug shipments flowing in from Tijuana—which is why the desert city less than an hour’s drive from San Diego is being so hotly contested by the two crime families.

The CJNG was once a regional faction of the Sinaloan cartel—but Chapo’s capture in early January weakened that crime group. As their rivals’ power was on the wane, the Jalisco Cartel has been “growing by leaps and bounds over the last five years,” says Hope, who attributes much of the group’s success to El Mencho Osegueras’s “bold” style of leadership.

Growth isn’t the only difference between the two syndicates, according to Raúl Benitez, an organized crime expert at the National Autonomous University (UNAM).
“The Jalisco Cartel is notoriously violent,” Benitez tells The Daily Beast, whereas “the Sinaloans are more negotiators” who rely on bribes and coercion to maintain influence. The disparity in tactics could lead to the CJNG “winning Tijuana,” Benitez says.

“The only thing worse than a border town’s criminality under the firm control of an organized crime group, is a [border town] in dispute between two or more organized crime groups,” Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America writes The Daily Beast in an email.

“Homicides spike upward. People flee. Businesses shut down. U.S. citizens stop visiting. And the amount of smuggled drugs and migrants doesn’t appear to change.”

Even if violence doesn’t spill over the border, says Isacson, “life on the U.S. side is still altered by the fear and economic depression on the Mexican side.”

Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty
Members of the Self-Protection Police march to celebrate the first anniversary of the groups of civilians who took arms to fight the drug cartels in Tepalcatepec community, Michoacan state, Mexico, on February 24, 2014.

Back in Tepeque, in El Mencho’s home state of Michoacán, there’s plenty of fear and economic depression to go around.

Claims that the state government is on the CJNG’s payroll abound in Michoacán, where politicians have a long history of taking crime lords as their bedfellows—and many observers, including sources in the criminal underworld, say such alliances are still the norm.

Whether it’s bureaucratic incompetence, or something more sinister, there’s no question that the local government has done very little to stem CJNG’s infiltration into Michoacán.

“The government in [the state capital of] Morelia has no idea what we’re up against here,” says Tepeque Police Chief Cisneros, who was an early leader of the vigilante movement that ousted the previous alpha-dog cartel.

“If the politicians let us, we could do to the Jalisco Cartel what we did to the Templarios [Templars] in a matter of months,” Cisneros says. The main obstacle for local law enforcement, according to the former rancher turned crime fighter, is a lack of funding from the state.

“We have to buy our own vehicles, gasoline, uniforms, even bullets,” says Cisneros. And the salaries allocated for officers are to “next to nothing.”

“It’s the government’s responsibility to protect the community—but they don’t do a thing,” the chief says, as he reaches for a pack of Marlboro reds in his shirt pocket.

“The cartel has all their illicit funds to spend on high-tech weapons. So how are we supposed to fight them off when we’re broke?”

YouTube
Still image from a 2015 video posted by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel showing armed masked members with prisoners from a rival gang accused of kidnappings in Michoacan, Mexico.

Mexican authorities have learned the hard way about the CJNG’s flair for military-grade hardware and tactics.

A series of cartel attacks last spring claimed the lives of 21 police officers in just 20 days.

Then, in May 2015, when Mexican forces tried to push into CJNG territory, the crime group responded by mounting a vicious counterstrike: burning gas stations, blocking roads with flaming semi-trucks, and using an RPG to blow a twin-engine Cougar attack chopper out of the sky, killing eight soldiers and a member of the federal police.

“The cartel uses such displays in order to shock the authorities,” says criminologist Benitez, when asked about El Mencho’s strong-arm tactics. “It’s a way of warning government to back off, and to show them who’s the boss.”

As for high-powered weapons like the shoulder-fired rocket launcher used by cartel gunmen to take down the chopper, Benitez says it was “probably bought on the black market in the U.S.”

There’s “almost no control over arms flowing south from the border,” says UNAM’s Benitez.

And the CJNG has plenty of manpower to go with the easy-to-find firepower. Earlier this month authorities in Jalisco stumbled on to a gutsy scheme in which El Mencho’s outfit used a phony security company as a front to bolster its ranks.
“The cartel’s recruiting tactics show how they’re gaining strength, despite how the state government has tried to portray events,” says analyst Hope, who calls the security scam “a very brazen demonstration of impunity” that demonstrates just how easily the CJNG “can operate in the open.”

In another sign of impunity, the Jalisco cartel is alleged to have slain five police officers during two separate attacks in Jalisco state in late February. Those incidents, along with another attempted assassination of a local mayor, prompted some critics to claim the government had lost control of some western portions of the state.

As Hope sees it, the slaying of selected officers is part of the CJNG’s larger struggle to “control police forces in the cartel’s home state.”

Local police, Hope says, “are often a source of cartel muscle.”

“They use the police as an enforcement tool, to collect extortion payments, or carry out abductions and assassinations,” Hope explains. “That way they don’t have to hire so many henchmen.”

The police murdered last month, he theorizes, might well have refused to go along with El Mencho’s marching orders.

“You either accept the cartel’s money,” says Hope, “or you take the bullet.”

The CJNG’s fierce MO has allowed it to gain ground at a time when many other Mexican crime groups are in decline, says security advisor Hope.

Chapo’s capture sapped the Sinaloans. The once-mighty Gulf Cartel has been crippled by factional in-fighting. Even the fearsome Zetas are in disarray.

The CJNG, on the other hand, is the only Mexican cartel “that has a growth trajectory,” Hope says.

DEA agent Baer agrees.

“CJNG has also further developed its ties to other criminal organizations around the world, including in the U.S., Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia,” Baer says. “With additional territory, CJNG has been able to increase its drug trafficking, wealth, and influence.”

For Tepeque Police Chief Cisneros, who lives and works on the front lines of Mexico’s narco war, the stakes of resisting the CJNG couldn’t be higher.

“We’ll do whatever it takes to fight the cartel,” says the chief, who admits he often thinks about the CJNG’s penchant for gunning down officers who won’t go on the drug cartel dole.

“If they come for me,” Cisneros says, invoking the old vigilante oath, “at least I’ll die fighting.

 

[vestige]

As for high-powered weapons like the shoulder-fired rocket launcher used by cartel gunmen to take down the chopper, Benitez says it was “probably bought on the black market in the U.S.”

There’s “almost no control over arms flowing south from the border,” says UNAM’s Benitez.

Pure unadulterated BS.... this guy must work for Obama on the side.

I wonder if he was in on the "Fast and Furious" BS in which Obama and Holder were attempting to push their anti gun agenda by smuggling weapons (not available to U.S. civilians) to the Tacos?

Otherwise... article is probably accurate.

 

[Housecarl]

Pure unadulterated BS.... this guy must work for Obama on the side.

I wonder if he was in on the "Fast and Furious" BS in which Obama and Holder were attempting to push their anti gun agenda by smuggling weapons (not available to U.S. civilians) to the Tacos?

Otherwise... article is probably accurate.

Yeah. IIRC they've found that most of the arms the Cartels have were gotten from Central and South American national stocks going out the back door. The "Fast and Furious" weapons and the smuggled arms out of the US are a small fraction of the Cartels stock.

 

[Nowski]

Others have had similar questions.

Like how far up the Mississippi River could they or a "surface pleasure boat" go without being checked in any way by any person.

The surface boats could be carrying dope, SCUD type primitive missiles with nuclear devices or just drunken fishermen.

With the USA now having no Southern border, or the means to even fully protect it,
if it did exist, anything imaginable could be already inside this nation.

Something big is coming this summer, I have seen it in numerous nightmares over
the past few weeks.

Paris, Brussels, they are nothing compared to what is coming to the ole USA.

The USA has set the entire Middle East on fire, starting way back with Gulf War I,
and now we are going to pay, and pay dearly.

We are so screwed.

Great thread.

Regards to all,
Nowski

 

[mzkitty]

42m
Russia says its warplanes have made 40 sorties around the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in past 24 hours, with 158 Islamic State targets hit, more than 100 militants killed - Reuters

http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/...-449248?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

[mzkitty]

2m
Islamic State claims responsibility for suicide bombing at soccer stadium which killed at least 33 in Iskandariyah, Iraq; 78 others wounded - CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/26/middleeast/iraq-violence/index.html

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/...ers-storm-army-base-iraq-160326120309877.html

Middle East

ISIL suicide attackers storm army base in Iraq

At least eight ISIL fighters killed in blasts and clashes as Ain al-Assad base attacked.

26 Mar 2016 12:34 GMT | Middle East, Iraq, Anbar

At least 10 suicide attackers from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attempted to storm one of the largest army bases in Iraq, according to the country's military.

A Iraqi defence ministry spokesman told Al Jazeera that eight of the fighters were killed by soldiers at Ein el-Assad base on Saturday.

The source said that the two remaining fighters managed to blow themselves up, and added that further casualties were unconfirmed.

A separate source told Al Jazeera that at least 18 soldiers had been killed.

Ain al-Assad was the largest coalition base in western Iraq after the US invasion. Hundreds of US military advisors and trainers now use the base to support Iraqi troops.

Iraqi forces launched an offensive last week to retake Anbar province. Sixty to 70 percent of the province remains under the control of ISIL.

Football blast

The attack came a day after suicide bomber blew himself up at a football stadium in Iskandariya, south of the capital Baghdad, killing at least 30 people and injuring 95 others.

ISIL later claimed responsibility for the attack.

Al Jazeera’s Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said there has been an escalation of suicide bombings in areas outside ISIL's control.

“According to Iraqi and US military sources, as ISIL loses the ability to launch large-scale attacks to gain territory, they are focusing on small attacks,” she said.

At least 60 people were killed earlier this month in an attack claimed by the group 80km further south of Baghdad, in Hilla, when an explosives-laden fuel tanker slammed into a government checkpoint.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art..._special_forces_to_syria_and_iraq_109186.html

March 26, 2016

Iran deploys Army Special Forces to Syria and Iraq

By Amir Toumaj

A senior commander in Iran’s Army told reporters on Mar. 23 that Special Forces would be deployed as “advisors” to Syria and Iraq. This would mark the first time that Army forces – in this case, commandos and snipers of the Rapid Response Battalions – will have operated outside Iranian borders since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) military presence in the country is well-documented, but the announcement denotes the first time Iran’s Army has formally contributed to military operations in Syria, which has been an IRGC-led campaign since Tehran first began sending significant resources to the country four years ago.

Iran’s decision to integrate Army special forces into major foreign operations underscore its commitment to hone its expeditionary capabilities. In fact, the Army’s involvement in Syria may have begun several months ago, as the head of its ground forces did not deny a report of an Army helicopter spotted flying from Iraq to Syria in December.

The Army was Iran’s primary military force prior to the 1979 revolution. The IRGC, on the other hand, was established after the revolution as a praetorian guard charged with protecting the revolution and balancing against a coup by the Army, which the clerics viewed with suspicion for its prior ties to the monarchy. The two institutions have been rivals ever since. The Army is a traditional military organization, while the Guard pursues asymmetric and “revolutionary” warfare. Each has its own ground, navy, and air branches.

Since 1979, however, the clerics have marginalized the Army in favor of the IRGC. The Guard receives better equipment and funding, even though it is only one-third in size (150,000 men compared to 350,000). It now dominates Iran’s military affairs, producing almost all of the senior officers in the General Staff. Still, the Army is not totally irrelevant.

The Army, for example, appears to be responsible for securing Iran’s western border with Iraq. The army’s ground forces commander announced in mid-March that his team and intelligence apparatus had neutralized two Islamic State infiltration cells and suicide vests at the border. The ground forces also reportedly deployed troops, helicopters, and drones to border crossings to provide security for 800,000 Iranian pilgrims to Iraq in December 2015.

The newly announced Army deployment to Syria and Iraq represents a departure from its constitutional mission to protect Iran’s territorial integrity. And while there have been no reported sightings – or casualties – of Army troops yet in Syria or Iraq, the deployment announcement came after the warring parties in Syria agreed to a cessation of hostilities last month.

February’s cessation of hostilities agreement means Iran no longer needs the 2,500 troops with which itlaunched last month’s offensive in northern Aleppo to cut off the main rebel supply route from Turkey. Iran has reportedly kept 700 military “advisers” in Syria. Announcements of IRGC fatalities in Syria havecontinued since the ceasefire announcement. Despite reports that Iran is drawing back its deployment in Syria, therefore, this week’s announcement is merely a reflection of Tehran reconfiguring its forces in the country to reflect changing conditions on the ground.


Long War Journal contributor Amir Toumaj is an Iran research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

This article originally appeared at The Long War Journal.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-politics-idUSKCN0WS0NZ

World | Sat Mar 26, 2016 4:32pm EDT
Related: World, United Nations, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Tens of thousands of Yemenis mark a year of war, denounce Saudi-led offensive

SANAA

Tens of thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of the capital Sanaa on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of the war between a coalition led by Saudi Arabia against Iran-allied fighters who had overthrown the government.

More than 6,200 people have been killed since the coalition joined the war to try to stop the Houthis from taking control of Yemen the country and to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power.

Hadi had been ousted after Houthi forces took over the capital Sanaa in September 2014. Saudi-led foreign forces intervened on the side of fighters loyal to Hadi six months later.

The demonstration, one of the biggest in Yemen since mass protests in 2011 forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down, took place ahead of a ceasefire and U.N.-sponsored peace talks next month.

Saleh, an ally of the Houthis, made a rare appearance at the demonstration, his first since the war began, offering an olive branch to the Saudi-led coalition.

"We extend a hand of peace, the peace of the brave, for the direct talks with the Saudi regime without a return to the (U.N.) Security Council, which is incapable of resolving anything," Saleh told flag-waving supporters who also held up large posters of the former president.

The United Nations says the war has displaced some 2.3 million people and precipitated a humanitarian disaster across large parts of the Arab world's poorest country.

"We came out today to tell the world, that the Yemeni people remain steadfast, that we have endured a whole year despite the siege and the hunger and the airstrikes and the planes," said one participant, named Kamel al-Khodani.

The United Nations envoy announced this week that the warring parties had agreed to a cessation of hostilities starting at midnight on April 10 followed by peace talks in Kuwait from April 18 as part of a fresh push to end the crisis following two rounds of failed talks last year.

Later on Saturday, Houthi supporters also held a separate protest to mark the anniversary.

"Today, all Yemenis, from all different sects, and regardless of their political affiliations, came out today in the masses to show the world that the Yemeni people can never be shaken nor defeated," said Houthi leader Ibrahim al Ubaidi.

The leader of Yemen's Houthi rebel movement said on Friday he wanted efforts to end a year-long war to succeed but his group was ready to confront its enemies if violence persisted.

"We hope that efforts to end the aggression will be successful, it is in the interest, and a demand, of our people" Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said in a televised speech.

"If those efforts do not succeed, we are ready to make sacrifices...it is important to confront aggression if it continues."

The coalition is trying to prevent the Houthis and forces loyal to Saleh from taking full control of Yemen. Despite a year of conflict, the Houthis maintain control of the capital Sanaa, while Hadi loyalists are based in the southern port of Aden.


(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Cairo and Reuters TV in Dubai, Editing by Sami Aboudi)

 

[Housecarl]

North Korea threatens pre-emptive nuclear strikes against U.S., South Korea
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...uclear-strikes-against-U.S.-South-Korea/page6


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...s-Washington-DC-nuclear-attack/9431459009259/

North Korea propaganda video depicts Washington D.C. nuclear attack

By Daniel Uria | March 26, 2016 at 1:31 PM

PYONGYANG, North Korea, March 26 (UPI) -- North Korea's newest propaganda video, "Last Chance," shows a nuclear strike on Washington, D.C., and warns the United States against provoking an attack.

The four-minute video, uploaded Saturday to the North's propaganda website DPRK, includes a computer-generated scene of a submarine-launched nuclear missile striking the capitol building in Washington, D.C.

As the weapon is shown exploding somewhere near the Lincoln Memorial, Korean subtitles appear on the screen.

"If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike," the message said

The video also shows images from the Korean war and the 1968 capture of the U.S. Navy spy ship, the Pueblo. It includes other "humiliating defeats" in the history of U.S.-North Korea relations.

North Korea has increased its provocative rhetoric as the nation has lashed out against heavier security sanctions and joint training exercises between the U.S. and South Korea.

Tokyo's National Institute for Defense Studies also reported on Friday North Korea has been ramping up submarine-launched ballistic missile development and may have miniaturized nuclear weapons.

Video

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://news.vice.com/article/belgi...bombing-suspect-and-two-others-with-terrorism

Europe

Belgium Charges Airport Bombing Suspect and Two Others With Terrorism

By Reuters and VICE News
March 26, 2016 | 1:45 pm

Belgian prosecutors have charged three men with terrorist offenses, including a suspect who local media said appeared on security footage with two suicide bombers at Brussels airport shortly before they detonated their bombs.

Prosecutors named the airport suspect as Faycal C. Belgian media identified him as Faycal Cheffou, and said he was the man wearing a hat and a light-colored jacket in last Tuesday's airport picture that showed three men pushing baggage trolleys bearing luggage.

Prosecutors said he had been charged with taking part in the activities of a terrorist group, and actual and attempted terrorist murder. His home had been searched, though no weapons or explosives had been found.

Two other men, identified as Aboubakar A. and Rabah N., were also charged with terrorist activities and membership of a terrorist group. Rabah N. was wanted in connection with a related raid in France this week that authorities say foiled an apparent attack plot.

Related: Security Guard's Murder Fuels Fears That Nuclear Plants in Belgium Could Be Attacked

A total of 31 people were killed, including three attackers, and scores wounded in attacks on the Brussels airport and a metro train in the city's center. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the bombings.

The attacks in Brussels, home to the headquarters of NATO and the European Union, took place four months after IS militants killed 130 people in Paris and sent shockwaves around Europe and across the world.

With increasing signs that the Brussels and Paris attacks were carried out by members of the same network, police across Europe arrested nine people in raids in Belgium and two in Germany before the weekend.

Three men were arrested in Brussels on Friday, including one suspect shot in the leg at a tram stop in the district of Schaerbeek. He was subsequently identified as Abderamane A. and Belgian authorities said on Saturday they were holding him for a further 24 hours.

Another person, Tawfik A., who was taken in for questioning on Friday, had been released.

Watch the VICE News documentary Brussels Under Attack: Aftermath for the Muslim Community:

Friday's police operation was linked to the arrest in Paris the previous day of an Islamist convicted in Belgium last year and suspected of plotting a new attack, Belgian prosecutors said.

Cheffou, whom media said was a freelance journalist, was identified by a taxi driver who drove the attackers to the airport on March 22, Le Soir newspaper said. Earlier, police and government sources said it was highly likely he was the third man seen at the airport.

Brussels mayor Yvan Mayeur told Le Soir that Cheffou had been detained a number of times at a park where he sought to encourage asylum seekers camped there to turn to radical extremism.


Related: Finger Pointing Begins Over Security Failures Leading to Brussels Attacks

The self-styled freelance journalist was "dangerous," the mayor said, adding that he had been banned from visiting the park.

Speaking at a separate briefing in Brussels, police said 24 victims of nine different nationalities had been identified so far from the Brussels bombs. Four people are unidentified.

Two of the three Brussels suicide bombers were brothers, one of whom died at the airport while the other took part in the attack on the metro train near Maelbeek station in Brussels.

Follow VICE News on Twitter: @vicenews

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/wo...-washington/pnR6PepjsSFRvvWpXaQK1K/story.html

North Korea threatens to attack Seoul; video shows nuclear strike on Washington

By Choe Sang-Hun New York Times March 26, 2016
Comments 1

SEOUL — North Korea threatened Saturday to attack Seoul’s presidential palace unless South Korean President Park Geun-hye apologizes for ‘‘treason’’ and publicly executes officials responsible for what Pyongyang says are plans to attack its leadership.

The warning said the South Korean presidential palace is within striking range of the North’s artillery units, and that if an order to attack is made it is ‘‘just a click away.’’

North Korea aslo released a propaganda video that depicts a nuclear strike on Washington.

The 4-minute video clip, titled “Last Chance,” uses computer animation to show what looks like an intercontinental ballistic missile flying through the earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Washington, near what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial. A nuclear explosion follows.

“If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike,” read the Korean subtitles in the video, which was uploaded to the YouTube channel of DPRK Today, a North Korean website. “The United States must choose! It’s up to you whether the nation called the United States exists on this planet or not.”

Such remarks are in line with recent threats and assertions from North Korea about its nuclear and missile capabilities.

The North recently threatened a nuclear strike against Washington in retaliation for new U.N. sanctions, which were imposed this month to punish North Korea for its most recent tests of a nuclear device and a long-range rocket.

The new video mostly chronicles what it calls “humiliating defeats” suffered by the United States at North Korea’s hands over the years, including the North’s capture in 1968 of a US ship, the Pueblo, and the shooting down of a US helicopter in 1994.

It goes on to depict a barrage of artillery, rockets and missiles — including a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which North Korea recently claimed to have successfully tested — and it ends with the US flag in flames.

Hatred for America has long been a prominent theme in North Korean propaganda, and as the North’s nuclear and missile programs have advanced in recent years, a sense of empowerment through those weapons has become another key element of the messaging.

The video released Saturday is not the first of its kind. North Korea released one in 2013 that showed Lower Manhattan being bombed, and another soon afterward that showed President Obama and US troops in flames.

The Saturday statement threatening to attack Seoul was issued by state media in the name of a unit of the Korean People’s Army. It was the latest in a barrage of threats against Washington and Seoul over joint military drills now underway that the North sees as a rehearsal for invasion.

The joint military exercises are held annually, but tensions are particularly high this year because the drills are bigger than ever and follow North Korea’s recent nuclear test and rocket launch.

Further angering Pyongyang have been reports in South Korean media that this year’s exercises include simulated training for a ‘‘decapitation strike’’ targeting North Korea’s top leaders.

North Korea is believed to have artillery capable of striking Seoul with little or no warning and causing severe damage and casualties in the city of 10 million. A strike on Seoul, however, is highly unlikely, and Pyongyang has previously issued similar threats without following through.

There were few signs Saturday of the heightened tensions in Pyongyang, where residents went about their daily routines as usual.

North Korea has been developing its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, but is not believed to have perfected either enough to pose a credible threat to major US cities.

Under Kim’s regime, North Korea also has been clamping down on the use of smuggled-in mobile phones, which North Koreans use to gain access to China’s mobile networks.

The China phone links have been an important bridge between the North and the outside world. They connect North Koreans to relatives who have defected abroad, mostly to South Korea.

 

[Housecarl]

Man this could go dumb so easily.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/w...st-a-click-away-unless-officials-are-executed

North Korea warns attack on Seoul’s presidential palace ‘just a click away’ unless officials are executed

The Associated Press | March 26, 2016 4:53 PM ET
More from The Associated Press
Comments 3

PYONGYANG, Korea, Democratic People’s Republic Of — North Korea warned Saturday that its military is ready to attack Seoul’s presidential palace unless South Korean President Park Geun-hye apologizes for “treason” and publicly executes officials responsible for what Pyongyang says are plans to attack its leadership.

The warning, issued by state media in the name of a unit of the Korean People’s Army, is the latest in a barrage of threats against Washington and Seoul over joint military drills now underway that the North sees as a dress rehearsal for invasion. It also came shortly after a North Korean propaganda outlet posted a video depicting a nuclear attack on Washington, D.C.

Video

The joint military exercises are held annually, but tensions are particularly high this year because the drills are bigger than ever and come on the heels of North Korea’s recent nuclear test and rocket launch. Further angering Pyongyang have been reports in South Korean media that this year’s exercises include simulated training for a “decapitation strike” targeting North Korea’s top leaders.

The warning Saturday said the South Korean presidential palace is within striking range of the North’s artillery units, and that if an order to attack is made it is “just a click away.”

North Korea is believed to have artillery capable of striking Seoul with little or no warning and causing severe damage and casualties in the city of 10 million. A strike on Seoul, however, is highly unlikely, and Pyongyang has previously issued similar threats without following through.

There were few signs Saturday of the heightened tensions in Pyongyang, where residents went about their daily routines as usual.

Earlier on Saturday, the North Korean propaganda website DPRK Today posted a video depicting a nuclear attack on Washington.

The four-minute video, titled “Last Chance,” showed a digitally created scene of a missile fired from a submerged vessel in the sea soaring through the clouds, darting back to Earth, and crashing into the streets near Washington’s Lincoln Memorial before the explosion wipes out the city.

“Choose, United States. Whether the country called United States continues to exist in this planet depends on your choice,” read a message that flashed on the screen to the background of a burning U.S. Capitol building and American flag. The video also warned that the North would “not hesitate” to attack the United States with its nuclear weapons if “American imperialists even make the slightest move against us.”

A similar video got a great deal of attention in 2013, when North Korea also conducted a nuclear test and satellite launch.

North Korea has been developing its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, but is not believed to have perfected either enough to pose a credible threat to major U.S. cities.

 

[Housecarl]

Well this should get interesting.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-iran-pipeline-idUSKCN0WS0LA

Sat Mar 26, 2016 1:43pm EDT
Related: World, Davos, Global Energy News

Iran's Rouhani says can provide Pakistan gas through pipeline within months

ISLAMABAD | By Mehreen Zahra-Malik


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that Iran had completed work on its side of a much-delayed pipeline pumping natural gas to Pakistan and would be in a position to provide gas to its energy-starved neighbor in a few months.

Rouhani spoke at a news conference while in Pakistan for two days of talks focused on increasing Pakistan's electricity imports from Iran, boosting trade relations and reviving plans for a pipeline between the two countries.

"Iran has constructed this gas pipeline up to the border of Pakistan and we are ready to deliver the gas to Pakistan at our borders. We have almost completed our share," Rouhani said. "It is now up to Pakistan to initiate work on its side."

Dubbed the "peace pipeline", the $7 billion gas project has faced repeated delays since it was conceived in the 1990s to connect Iran's giant South Pars gas field to India via Pakistan.

India quit the project in 2009, citing costs and security issues, a year after it signed a nuclear deal with Washington.

The United States had opposed Pakistani and Indian involvement, saying the project could violate sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear activities.

Most of the sanctions were lifted in January in return for Iran complying with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions.


BOOSTING TRADE


At Saturday's news conference, the Iranian president said Iran was also interested in connectivity between Pakistan's southern port of Gawadar and the Chabahar port in southeast Iran through roads and shipping lines.

He said Iran was already selling 1,000 MW of electricity to Pakistan and would increase this up to 3,000 MW.

Speaking at a business conference with Rouhani earlier in the day, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan and Iran had signed an agreement to increase annual trade volumes between the two countries to $5 billion by 2021.

On Friday, the Pakistani premier said Pakistan would open two new crossing points on its border with Iran, helping to encourage trade hampered by years of Western sanctions against Tehran.

Trade between Pakistan and Iran fell to $432 million in 2010-11 from $1.32 billion in 2008-09, according to the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan.

Energy-starved Pakistan suffers about 12 hours of power cuts per day and is keen to import Iranian oil, gas, iron and steel.

Iran is interested in Pakistani textiles, surgical goods, sports goods and agricultural products.

Pakistan also plans to set up industrial sites in the impoverished border area, especially for petrochemicals storage, and link the infrastructure to a $46 billion project with China dubbed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.


(Writing by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Editing by Digby Lidstone)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl.../articles+(The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles)

Wladimir van Wilgenburg
FALLBACK POSITIONS?
03.26.16 4:25 AM ET

Iraqi Soldiers Flee Again in Iraq Army’s First Mosul Operation

After a U.S. Marine was killed defending a position abandoned by Iraqi troops, they were supposed to have toughened up. … Nope.

TEL REEM, Iraq – At first, Iraqi soldiers involved in an operation to capture villages close to Mosul on Friday were in good spirits. “Allah Akbar,” Arabic for “God is Great,” they shouted after they hit an alleged Islamic State (ISIS) suicide bomber with US-provided mortars. But just one hour later many of them fled, fearing ISIS would strike back.

Early in the day, there were already signs of trouble. A sergeant named Hussein from the artillery battalion told The Daily Beast, “There has been some delays in what we expected, but it’s mostly because of their heavy use of sniper fire and of IEDS. We have not been really advancing today, but that is not part of our plan as of yet, but in coming hours, we are planning to move forward.”

The first challenge was to capture the strategic little village of Nasr that would open the road for the Iraqi military to take the rest of the area. The ultimate short-term aim is to cross the Tigris River and take Qayarrah. This would open the road to the city of Mosul for future operations.

But the combat around Nasr did not go well. ISIS “left the village, and came back after a few hours,” said one tired Shia Arab fighter named Mohammed who is part of the Shia-led Hashid Shaabi militia forces. He was angry at the Iraqi army, and the lack of U.S. air support after returning from the fight. “There were no airstrikes, where are the airstrikes?” he complained.

The cloudy weather and the lack of U.S. forward air controllers apparently prevented U.S. aircraft from carrying out strikes on Friday, while on Thursday, when the operation began, airstrikes could be seen hitting ISIS positions.

“The operation continues according to the plan. Only the weather conditions are not good,” said an Iraqi colonel, who refused to talk on the record. “If God wills it, everything will go to plan. The ISIS fighters are just depending on IEDs, and booby-trapped houses, there is no real confrontation. We are just dealing with bombs and snipers.

Iraqi soldiers gather during a military operation on the outskirts of Makhmour, south of Mosul, Iraq, March 25, 2016.

“There are no civilians, in the area,” he added.

It was stunning to see how quickly the mood changed on the battlefield.
Early in the day, Iraqi soldiers led by the commander of the Nineveh operations, Lieutenant General Najim al-Jibouri, seemed to be in high spirits, dancing traditional dances, and preparing to move out with Humvees into the village of Nasr.

“Our morale is very high, we are just waiting for the order from the commander. We have weapons. We are fighting terrorists. They have no morals, and no goals,” Iraqi soldier Hussein Samij from Diwaniyah province told The Daily Beast. “As soon we get orders to really advance, we can get there in two days to Qayarrah,” he added.

When their artillery struck something that created a huge explosion inside Nasr, Jibouri and his men shouted with joy. They thought maybe they’d hit an ISIS suicide bomber. General Jibouri looked with his binoculars over the trench to see the result of the artillery, and it seemed he already thought he achieved victory over ISIS militants in the village.

Yet one hour later, his men were not so joyful, when most soldiers ran in panic, fleeing in their Humvees, fearing ISIS mortar attacks. Just a few of his men, including the artillery officers, stood their ground.

This seems to be exactly the biggest problem for the Iraqi army: the lack of morale. One week ago Iraqi soldiers abandoned their base, which forced the United States to send in more Marines in support, and one of them was killed. Again this time, Iraqi army soldiers almost completely deserted their positions, fearing an ISIS response to their artillery when, in reality, not one mortar shell or bullet hit close to their positions.

The lack of courage of Iraqi soldiers led to laughter among the Kurdish Peshmerga forces stationed nearby in a supporting role. Unlike the Iraqi soldiers, the Peshmergas did not move one inch, kept on smoking, and were surprised when they saw suddenly all the soldiers fled.

“Did you film that?” one Peshmerga soldier asked me, with evident disgust.

“This is not the first time the Iraqi army ran away,” said Peshmerga soldier Ali Ahmed, making the case that the Kurds should get more backing. “Unfortunately the world does not appreciate us,” he said. “We have not received much in terms of salaries, weapons or support.

“If this huge force you see here were Peshmerga forces, we would have taken the village easily,” he added. “We are not afraid.”

In the beginning it was difficult to take the criticism by the Kurdish Peshmerga seriously due to ongoing the ongoing rivalry between the Kurds and the Iraqi military over disputed territories. And it’s worth noting that the Peshmerga had difficulties defending their front lines in August 2014 when ISIS attacked them and quickly overran many positions, including the Yazidi town of Sinjar, leading to the genocide of the Yazidi minority.

Since then, however, Peshmergas have recovered with the help of U.S. airstrikes, Western coalition training, and German advanced anti-tank rockets and weapons. While the Peshmerga only have two brigades equipped with U.S. weapons, the Iraqi Army is fully equipped with weapons, armored vehicles, and artillery. Many of the Kurdish Peshmerga have only their self-armored trucks and their old Kalashnikovs. And, still, they advance more quickly than Iraqi government forces.

Commander Zeyran Sheikh Hossani, the deputy commander of the Peshmerga troops here, who closely coordinates with the Iraqi commanders on the front, was shocked.

“The Iraqi army is not moving as strongly as it should be,” he told The Daily Beast. “Taking back Sinjar for us Peshmerga was very difficult near the Syrian borders, but we are not like the Iraqi army, and we took it in two days.”

“We fight for our own blood, but the Iraqi army cannot take one village in one day,” he added.

“If they don’t change their military tactics, they will not reach Qayarra, they will not even reach the river,” he said. “The main problem is they don’t fight for their beliefs, if we had the same equipment and weapons, we would have already cleared the area in a few days.”

“As you can see they have much better weapons and vehicles than us, at the current pace, I wonder how long it will take for them to take Mosul, if they cannot take even one village in two days,” he said.

Later in the afternoon two ISIS mortars hit close to the Iraqi army positions that had been deserted earlier.

The lack of morale among Iraqi soldiers indicates that maybe more U.S. boots on the ground are needed, or more support for the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, in order to make the Mosul operation more feasible. Another option would be involving the Iraqi Special Operation forces that played a major role in clearing out Ramadi.

 

[Housecarl]

Now things get interesting.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-palmyra-idUSKCN0WT04R

World | Sun Mar 27, 2016 8:43am EDT
Related: World, Russia, Syria

Islamic State driven out of Syria's ancient Palmyra city

BEIRUT | By Dominic Evans

Syrian government forces backed by heavy Russian air support drove Islamic State out of Palmyra on Sunday, inflicting what the army called a "mortal blow" to militants who seized the city last year and dynamited its ancient temples.

The loss of Palmyra represents one of the biggest setbacks for the ultra-hardline Islamist group since it declared a caliphate in 2014 across large parts of Syria and Iraq.

The army general command said that its forces took over the city with support from Russian and Syrian air strikes, opening up the huge expanse of desert leading east to the Islamic State strongholds of Raqqa and Deir al-Zor.

Palmyra would become "a launchpad to expand military operations" against the group in those two provinces, it said, promising to "tighten the noose on the terrorist group and cut supply routes ... ahead of their complete recapture".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were still clashes on the eastern edge of Palmyra on Sunday morning, around the prison and inside the airport, but the bulk of the Islamic State force had withdrawn and retreated east, leaving the city under President Bashar al-Assad's control.

Amaq, a news agency close to Islamic State, said its fighters launched a twin suicide attack against government forces in west Palmyra, without giving details.

Syrian state-run television broadcast from inside the city on Sunday morning, showing largely deserted streets and several badly damaged buildings.


Related Coverage
› Assad says Palmyra shows army's success against terrorism: TV

It quoted a military source saying Syrian and Russian jets were targeting Islamic State fighters as they fled, hitting dozens of vehicles on the roads leading east from the city.

Russia's intervention in September turned the tide of Syria's five-year conflict in Assad's favor. Despite its declared withdrawal of most military forces two weeks ago, Russian jets and helicopters carried out dozens of strikes daily over Palmyra as the army pushed into the city.

"This achievement represents a mortal blow to the terrorist organization and lays the foundation for a great collapse in the morale of its mercenaries and the beginning of its defeat," the army command statement said.

In a pointed message to the United States, which has led a separate Western and Arab coalition against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq since 2014, the military command said its gains showed that the army "and its friends" were the only force able to uproot terrorism.


BIGGEST DEFEAT

Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said 400 Islamic State fighters died in the battle for Palmyra, which he described as the biggest single defeat for the group since it announced its cross-border caliphate nearly two years ago.

The loss of Palmyra comes three months after Islamic State fighters were driven out of the city of Ramadi in neighboring Iraq, the first major victory for Iraq's army since it collapsed in the face of an assault by the militants in June 2014.


Related Coverage
› U.S., allies conduct 21 strikes against Islamic State: U.S. military

Islamic State has lost ground elsewhere, including the Iraqi city of Tikrit last year and the Syrian town of al-Shadadi in February. The United States said the fall of Shadadi was part of efforts to cut Islamic State's links between its two main power centers of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

The Observatory said around 180 government soldiers and allied fighters were killed in the campaign to retake Palmyra, which is home to some of the most extensive ruins of the Roman empire.

Islamic State militants dynamited several monuments last year, and Syrian television broadcast footage from inside Palmyra museum on Sunday showing toppled and damaged statues, as well as several smashed display cases.

Syria's antiquities chief said other ancient landmarks were still standing and pledged to restore the damaged monuments.

"Palmyra has been liberated. This is the end of the destruction in Palmyra," Mamoun Abdelkarim told Reuters on Sunday. "How many times did we cry for Palmyra? How many times did we feel despair? But we did not lose hope."


(Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus; Editing by Alison Williams)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?fromval=2&cid=19&frid=21&seccatid=19&eid=262822


Landmine Blast Kills Five Soldiers in Eastern Egypt

Local Editor

Five soldiers were killed and another seven injured Saturday when their vehicle struck a landmine in Egypt’s southeastern Red Sea governorate, according to a local medical source.

The source, who works at the Safaga Central Hospital, said the incident had occurred along the road linking the Red Sea towns of Safaga and Hurghada.

Local media quoted an unnamed security source as saying that the slain soldiers belonged to Egypt’s 166th infantry brigade.

The same source went on to point out that the incident had occurred in an area known to contain numerous landmines.

According to the source, the Safaga Central Hospital was currently treating some of the injured, while the rest had been taken to an army hospital in the nearby Hurghada governorate.

The Egyptian authorities, for their part, have yet to issue any official statements on the incident, which occurred in a region where attacks on security personnel are relatively uncommon.


Source: Websites
27-03-2016 - 14:38 Last updated 27-03-2016 - 14:38 | 149 View

 

[mzkitty]

1m
Update: At least 65 people killed, more than 280 injured in suicide bombing at a park in Lahore, Pakistan - Reuters


1h
Police: Most of the dead in Lahore, Pakistan, bombing attack are women and children - Reuters


James McHale ‏@JamesMcHaleUK 28s28 seconds ago

Saddened by the attacks in #Lahore. Deaths confirmed risen to 60 with 300 injured. I've got friends with relatives there. #PrayForPakistan


Owen J Watson ‏@ojazeera 2m2 minutes ago Al Rayyan, Qatar

#pakistan - Scores killed in #Lahore suicide attack.#Christians enjoying #EasterWeekend http://aje.io/f4gj

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-...ng&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central


TreeDrTodd ‏@treemantodd 28s28 seconds ago

Very sorry to hear about Lahore. That place was, in my opinion, the last bastion for inter-religious acceptance. #Lahore

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html

In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA

http://www.trbimg.com/img-56f75ca0/turbine/la-g-na-cia-pentagon-isis-20160324/750/750x422

Nabih Bulos , W.J. Hennigan and Brian BennettContact Reporters

Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.

The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.

In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east.

“Any faction that attacks us, regardless from where it gets its support, we will fight it,” Maj. Fares Bayoush, a leader of Fursan al Haq, said in an interview.

Rebel fighters described similar clashes in the town of Azaz, a key transit point for fighters and supplies between Aleppo and the Turkish border, and on March 3 in the Aleppo neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsud.

The attacks by one U.S.-backed group against another come amid continued heavy fighting in Syria and illustrate the difficulty facing U.S. efforts to coordinate among dozens of armed groups that are trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad, fight the Islamic State militant group and battle one another all at the same time.


Syrian government forces drove Islamic State militants out of the ancient city of Palmyra on Sunday, dealing a blow to the extremist group that could effectively end its presence in central and eastern parts of the country.
President Bashar Assad's army had imposed "total control" over Palmyra,...
(Nabih Bulos)

“It is an enormous challenge,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who described the clashes between U.S.-supported groups as “a fairly new phenomenon.”

“It is part of the three-dimensional chess that is the Syrian battlefield,” he said.

The area in northern Syria around Aleppo, the country's second-largest city, features not only a war between the Assad government and its opponents, but also periodic battles against Islamic State militants, who control much of eastern Syria and also some territory to the northwest of the city, and long-standing tensions among the ethnic groups that inhabit the area, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen.

“This is a complicated, multi-sided war where our options are severely limited,” said a U.S. official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “We know we need a partner on the ground. We can't defeat ISIL without that part of the equation, so we keep trying to forge those relationships.” ISIL is an acronym for Islamic State.

President Obama this month authorized a new Pentagon plan to train and arm Syrian rebel fighters, relaunching a program that was suspended in the fall after a string of embarrassing setbacks which included recruits being ambushed and handing over much of their U.S.-issued ammunition and trucks to an Al Qaeda affiliate.

Amid the setbacks, the Pentagon late last year deployed about 50 special operations forces to Kurdish-held areas in northeastern Syria to better coordinate with local militias and help ensure U.S.-backed rebel groups aren't fighting one another. But such skirmishes have become routine.

Last year, the Pentagon helped create a new military coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces. The goal was to arm the group and prepare it to take territory away from the Islamic State in eastern Syria and to provide information for U.S. airstrikes.



Syrian pro-government forces battled their way Friday into the outer areas of the city of Palmyra, the archaeological metropolis held by Islamic StateSyrian pro-government forces battled their way Friday into the outer areas of the city of Palmyra, the archaeological metropolis held by Islamic State militants since May of last year, as part of a punishing month-long drive to wrest control of the city and surrounding areas from the extremist...
(Nabih Bulos)

The group is dominated by Kurdish outfits known as People's Protection Units or YPG. A few Arab units have joined the force in order to prevent it from looking like an invading Kurdish army, and it has received air-drops of weapons and supplies and assistance from U.S. Special Forces.

Gen. Joseph Votel, now commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and the incoming head of Central Command, said this month that about 80% of the fighters in the Syrian Democratic Forces were Kurdish. The U.S. backing for a heavily Kurdish armed force has been a point of tension with the Turkish government, which has a long history of crushing Kurdish rebellions and doesn't want to see Kurdish units control more of its southern border.

The CIA, meanwhile, has its own operations center inside Turkey from which it has been directing aid to rebel groups in Syria, providing them with TOW antitank missiles from Saudi Arabian weapons stockpiles.

While the Pentagon's actions are part of an overt effort by the U.S. and its allies against Islamic State, the CIA's backing of militias is part of a separate covert U.S. effort aimed at keeping pressure on the Assad government in hopes of prodding the Syrian leader to the negotiating table.


It was oddly tranquil up there on the roof of an obliterated commercial center in the Old City of Homs, once ground zero of Syria’s sanguinary conflict. A panorama of ruin spread in all directions, the ghost of a vibrant community, blown apart in body and spirit.
Empty streets sliced through rubble...
(Patrick J. McDonnell)

At first, the two different sets of fighters were primarily operating in widely separated areas of Syria — the Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeastern part of the country and the CIA-backed groups farther west. But over the last several months, Russian airstrikes against anti-Assad fighters in northwestern Syria have weakened them. That created an opening which allowed the Kurdish-led groups to expand their zone of control to the outskirts of Aleppo, bringing them into more frequent conflict with the CIA-backed outfits.

“Fighting over territory in Aleppo demonstrates how difficult it is for the U.S. to manage these really localized and in some cases entrenched conflicts,” said Nicholas A. Heras, an expert on the Syrian civil war at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington. “Preventing clashes is one of the constant topics in the joint operations room with Turkey.”

Over the course of the Syrian civil war, the town of Marea has been on the front line of Islamic State's attempts to advance across Aleppo province toward the rest of northern Syria.

On Feb. 18, the Syrian Democratic Forces attacked the town. A fighter with the Suqour Al-Jabal brigade, a group with links to the CIA, said intelligence officers of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State know their group has clashed with the Pentagon-trained militias.

“The MOM knows we fight them,” he said, referring to the joint operations center in southern Turkey, using an abbreviation for its name in Turkish, Musterek Operasyon Merkezi. “We'll fight all who aim to divide Syria or harm its people.” The fighter spoke on condition of anonymity.

Marea is home to many of the original Islamist fighters who took up arms against Assad during the Arab Spring in 2011. It has long been a crucial way station for supplies and fighters coming from Turkey into Aleppo.

“Attempts by Syrian Democratic Forces to take Marea was a great betrayal and was viewed as a further example of a Kurdish conspiracy to force them from Arab and Turkmen lands,” Heras said.

The clashes brought the U.S. and Turkish officials to “loggerheads,” he added. After diplomatic pressure from the U.S., the militia withdrew to the outskirts of the town as a sign of good faith, he said.

But continued fighting among different U.S.-backed groups may be inevitable, experts on the region said.

“Once they cross the border into Syria, you lose a substantial amount of control or ability to control their actions,” Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, said in a telephone interview. “You certainly have the potential for it becoming a larger problem as people fight for territory and control of the northern border area in Aleppo.”

Bulos is a special correspondent.
For more on U.S. national security, follow @WJHenn and @ByBrianBennett

ALSO
Islamic State's No. 2 leader killed in U.S. raid, officials say
As Belgian police investigate attacks, John Kerry vows to destroy Islamic State
Video of a dead city: This is what Syria's devastation looks like

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...The-Joint-Responsibility-for-the-ISIS-Scourge

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raghida-dergham/the-joint-responsibility_b_9552262.html

The Joint Responsibility for the ISIS Scourge

03/27/2016 03:18 am ET | Updated 12 hours ago
Raghida Dergham
Columnist and Senior Diplomatic Correspondent, Al Hayat

It will be said that it is not now the right time for talking about the root causes and responsibility for the growth and expansion of ISIS into Europe, especially if it carries blame for international parties and policies, including those of the US, Europe, and Russia. In the beginning, it must be said loudly and with shame that the appalling terrorism linked to ISIS is mostly Arab and Muslim in origin, and that this scourge is principally our scourge. However, pretending that Western and Eastern powers have nothing to do with the making of this terrorism is evasive, and is helping make not only the Middle East a more dangerous place, but also Europe, the US, and Russia too. To have a real chance to eliminate this spreading scourge, it is healthy and worthwhile to admit to some facts that contributed to the rise of fundamentalist terrorism, in order to pre-empt threats coming from hotspots created by international policies, interventions, as well as neglect, led by Libya.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry should remember what his predecessor once said: if you break it, you own it. Successive US policies in more than one part of the world have long avoided owning what they break, avoiding both responsibility and cost. Then the terror attacks of 9/11 struck, the world changed. President George W. Bush decided to hand out lessons out of revenge, and took this to a new level, pursuing his signature doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. The doctrine of the current President Barack Obama, meanwhile, denies the radical US role in destruction overseas under his term and its repercussions. The various European leaders played a key role in tearing countries apart, like Britain did in Iraq together with the US under Bush, and France did in Libya before dodging its responsibility for state- and institution-building there after helping topple its regime.

The case in point of the manufacturing of Sunni fundamentalism was Afghanistan, where a US-Saudi-Pakistani political and intelligence joint partnership sought to defeat communism and the Soviet Union. As a result, the CIA oversaw the mobilization of thousands of Muslim volunteers from around the world, especially North Africa. The Soviet Union collapsed following the Afghan war, as the rise of Sunni fundamentalism coincided with the rise of Shiite fundamentalism with the Mullahs in Iran taking power in the 1979 revolution that brought back Ayatollah Khomeini to Tehran.

In Afghanistan, the jihadists thought they were permanent partners of the US, but soon became its enemies when Washington abandoned them. They thought they would be going to Bosnia with US blessing, but they were banished from there. Now an army without a war, they turned to a systematic campaign of terror aimed especially at the US; in Afghanistan, the US refused to own what it broke, until al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks came and forced it to.

Bush’s war in Iraq was planned in advance, and 9/11 helped activate the plans. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were intent to dismantle Iraq, and 9/11 gave them the pretext, before other justifications were summoned, from the need to spread democracy to supporting the defense industry. The US president then further said the goal of the Iraq war was to invite terrorists there to be fought away from American cities and streets.

George W. Bush accomplished what he set out to do. Fundamentalists and terrorists flocked to Iraq to fight and defeat the US there, in their view, fulfilling the prophecies of Bush’s pre-emptive wars. Bush carried out his promise and kept terrorism away from US cities. But there in Iraq, “you break it you own it” was again neglected. George W. Bush summoned jihadists and terrorists, and dismantled the Iraqi army, radically contributing to the rise of ISIS that is terrorizing Europe today.

President Obama decided to avoid involvement in others’ wars directly, and dissociated the US from the Syrian war. This policy allowed Russia to paralyze any measures in the Security Council to stop the regime in Damascus from turning a civil war to a war on terror. The regime thus systematically sought to allow terrorist groups to grow and thrive in Syria.

Eventually, ISIS grew in Syria in the shadow of Russian obstructionism, US absenteeism, arbitrary Gulf support for rebels, Turkish miscalculations, a destructive partnership between Iraq’s former PM Nouri al-Maliki and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and direct and proxy intervention by Iran in the Syrian war.

Libya, meanwhile, is a European mess more than it is an American mess. France in particular is to be held responsible, thanks to former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who sought to involve NATO in a military intervention there. The guise was to stop Muammar Gaddafi from staging a bloodbath in Benghazi as he vowed amid the muddled march of the Arab Spring, but what happened in the end was the fulfilment of narcissistic and oil-related agendas, foiling the Libyan experience. Libya is NATO’s “you break it, you own it”, and Europe could now reap what it sowed in Libya.

The horrific terror that struck in Brussels this week must set off all alarm bells in Europe, and draw attention to the misguided policies Europe has pursued in Libya and Syria. It is time to rectify these mistake; Europe and the US must stop pretending to have the high moral ground while turning a blind eye to the tragedies of innocent people in Syria and Libya.

The first places where Western policies should be rectified in North Africa should be Tunisia, whose democracy must be protected, and Libya, which must be rescued from becoming a spawning ground for terrorism.

Syria, meanwhile, is an international responsibility. If recent Russian policies meant to support political efforts and pressure Damascus continue, there could be some positive developments in the horizon. But if Russia’s policies are just a maneuver as Moscow and its ally Tehran seek to gain the upper hand on the battlefield in support of the Assad regime, Syria will become Russia’s version of “you break it, you own it”, bringing harm to the Russian homeland just like it is doing in European cities now.

If ISIS and similar groups strike in US cities, Obama’s historic legacy and doctrine of denial will receive a fatal blow, and Donald Trump could well become the next president of the USA.

The Arab responsibility is on par with others’. The ISIS scourge will haunt generations to come, not only because the Arabs will pay the price for the terrorism being exported from their cities to Europe, the US, Russia, and elsewhere, but also because the terrorism equally targets Arab aspirations to join modernity. Allowing ISIS and similar groups to grow further also entails “owning” what ISIS is “breaking”.

Perhaps the madness called ISIS will become - as it should become - an impetus for an international consensus for a serious and practical tackling of the roots of this scourge, beginning with acknowledging all parties’ roles in creating it and not ending with the policies needed to be implemented it to fully eliminating it.

Translated from Arabic by Karim Traboulsi

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...uropean-crises-and-no-threads-to-connect-them

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/three-european-crises-no-connecting-dots/article29384864/

Three European crises, and no threads to connect them

DOUG SAUNDERS
The Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Mar. 26, 2016 8:00AM EDT
Last updated Saturday, Mar. 26, 2016 3:37PM EDT
Comments 111

We tend to notice Europe when it explodes. Our understanding of this continent of 500 million is built on a sequence of pinhole visions lit by flashes of violence, not on the slow-developing trends that shape it between them.

At the moment, Europe faces three crises. One is a crisis of security and extremism, as we witnessed on Tuesday in the horrors inflicted on Brussels. The second is a crisis of human movement – hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees entering the continent from the south – and a debate over the means by which to manage them. And the third is a political crisis in many countries, in which the conventional parties of centre-left and centre-right are being challenged by more extreme and intolerant parties.

Viewed through bloodied lenses, this appears to be a single, unified crisis. The terrorism, the migrants and the politics all become one, caused by and feeding off one another. But they are not connected.

First, the extremism crisis is not the migration crisis.

None of the extremists behind the Belgian attacks have been refugees, migrants or recent immigrants; as with almost all perpetrators of major attacks in Paris and London during the past decade, they are Europeans, raised in Europe by generally secular families and generally quite well integrated into the cultural and social life of the continent.

What has always struck me in Molenbeek, the Brussels neighbourhood that has produced most of Europe’s jihadists since 2014, has been how little knowledge or interest these violent men have in the Moroccan culture of their grandparents: They are a fully European phenomenon, petty criminals with little education who are drawn to extremism through prison, not through culture. Not only are Syrian refugees highly unlikely to be attracted to extremism, but the extremists are not connected to, and in fact are deeply opposed to, the refugees.

Second, the terrorism crisis is not generally a product of any political or cultural trends within Europe.

It’s worth studying the period, from about 2006 to 2012, when jihadi terrorism in Western countries dropped to historically low levels, with zero incidents in most countries during each of those years. Terrorism was a significant Western phenomenon from the beginning of the Iraq war, in 2003, through 2005, then largely vanished. Then it exploded again, especially after 2014.

What this tells us is that the terrorism is not being propelled or motivated by forces or demographics within Europe. It occurs when a foreign extremist movement – al-Qaeda or the Islamic State or their affiliates – views Western countries as obstacles to its territorial ambitions abroad, and recruits violent and vulnerable people to try to terrorize those countries into withdrawing.

As the terrorism analyst Will McCants wrote this week: “As long as Western nations are involved in wars fought by jihadists, jihadists will be warring in Western nations. That’s not a reason to change policy so much as it is a grim recognition that the halcyon days of Western Europe as a subprime target are long gone.”

It’s worth trying to remove the barriers to inclusion that cause young men to become extremists. But it’s also worth recognizing that the motive forces that drive them are not to be found within Europe or its cultural communities.

Third, the political crisis is not a reflection or plausible response to any of these developments in Europe.

Far-right, anti-immigration parties have become third-place fixtures in many countries. They feed on fears that the continent is being overrun with Muslims, Jews, Slavs and other groups they see as civilizational threats, and feed on violent events such as this week’s attacks.

Yet they are untethered from any actual population developments. Their voters live almost entirely in districts that have few immigrants, Muslims or foreigners; people who live among these populations don’t vote for them. Their popularity has slowly risen over 40 years, unrelated to any actual developments other than the decline of big centrist parties.

And their founding myth is based on an illusion. Europe’s Muslim population, of 19 million, is small and not growing very fast (the refugee and migrant waves are too small to make a statistical difference), but because they are urban and thus visible, and their crime and extremism problems make headlines, voters believe that Muslims are five times more populous than they are. The bright flashes are obscuring voters’ vision, like ours, and allowing them to see a picture of connectedness that doesn’t exist.



More Related to this Story

• Brussels tragedy strikes at the heart of an already fragile European Union

• Doug Saunders The Brussels attack: A blow to the heart of the EU

• IS has trained 400 fighters to attack Europe, officials say

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...st-in-brussels-after-attacks/article29398427/

Belgian police break up street protests as attack investigation widens

Barbara Lewis
BRUSSELS — Reuters
Published Sunday, Mar. 27, 2016 11:14AM EDT
Last updated Sunday, Mar. 27, 2016 12:38PM EDT
Comments 132

Belgian police briefly used water cannon to control several hundred rowdy protesters in central Brussels on Sunday after they ignored an official call for marches to be postponed following Tuesday’s bombings.

Amid fears of further attacks, officials wanted to give police the scope to focus on investigations which have widened to other countries, leading to the arrest of an Algerian in Italy and intelligence cooperation with Germany. Police carried out 13 new raids in Belgium itself.

Hundreds nevertheless gathered at the Bourse to express solidarity with the victims of the suicide bomb attacks at Brussels airport and on a rush-hour metro train. Thirty one people were killed, including three attackers, and hundreds more injured. Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

Most of the protests were peaceful but white-helmeted riot police used the water cannon against a group of protesters, many of whom local media described as right-wing nationalists, who burst onto the square chanting and carrying banners denouncing Islamic State.

“It is highly inappropriate that protesters have disrupted the peaceful reflection at the Bourse (stock exchange). I strongly condemn these disturbances,” Prime Minister Charles Michel said according to Belga news agency.

Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur said the group were “scoundrels”.

In and around Brussels and Antwerp, police carried out 13 new raids in connection with the attacks, with nine people questioned and five later released, the prosecutor’s office said.

With links to the Paris attacks in November becoming clearer, and amid criticism that Europe has not done enough to share intelligence about suspected Islamist militants, cooperation appeared to be deepening.

Belgian press agency Belga said on Sunday prosecutors had charged a man in connection with a raid in Paris on Thursday that authorities say foiled an apparent attack plot.

Belga named him as Abderamane A. who prosecutors had said on Saturday was being held after being shot in a raid in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek.

After a series of raids in Belgium and Germany, Italian police also arrested Algerian Djamal Eddine Ouali who is suspected of making documents for militants linked to the bombings, Italian media said on Saturday.

His name was found in documents in a raid on an apartment near Brussels last October, including some with photos of militants involved in the attacks in Paris and in Brussels and the aliases they used.

WEB OF LINKS

As the web of links between the suspects and attacks emerges, German lawmakers said Europe urgently needed to improve the way its security agencies shared information.

But Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office was among the European security agencies still hunting for at least eight mostly French or Belgian suspects, Die Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported. They are thought to be on the run in Syria or Europe.

Belgian prosecutors also charged three men on Saturday including Faycal C., whom Belgian media identified as Faycal Cheffou and said he was “the man in the hat”, as he has become known, in last Tuesday’s airport CCTV footage that showed three men pushing baggage trolleys.

However, investigators have not confirmed that Cheffou is that man, a person close to the investigation told Reuters.

A video posted on social media outlets used by Islamic State on Saturday showed a Belgian militant in the group’s de facto capital Raqqa, Syria, taunting his home country in Flemish.

“You learned nothing from the lessons of Paris, because you continued fighting Islam and the Muslims. For this I want to tell you that the attack in Brussels is reaping what you had sown with your own hands,” Hicham Chaib, whose nom de guerre was given as Abu Hanifa al-Beljiki, said.

“Just as you bomb the Muslims with your F-16s, we will fight your people.”

The authenticity of the video could not immediately be verified by Reuters.

Officials said 24 victims from nine different nationalities had been identified so far from the attacks in Brussels, where the European Union and NATO have their headquarters. Fourteen were identified at the airport and 10 on the metro. A further four people remain unidentified.

In addition, 340 people were wounded, according to the latest official toll on Saturday, of whom 101 are still in hospital, 62 of them in intensive care, many with severe burns.

Away from the protests on the Bourse square, Brussels was largely quiet on Sunday, with many celebrating Easter but Monseigneur Jozef De Kesel, archbishop of Brussels, told Reuters it would be difficult to celebrate as usual.

“The foundations of our society, freedom, respect for others, have been hit, attacked,” he said.


More Related to this Story

• Algerian arrested in Italy as Belgium attack investigation widens

• Brussels Terror Attacks The clues Belgium missed ahead of Brussels terror attacks

• Brussels Terror Attacks Belgium charges three men with terrorism after Brussels bombings

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-china-eastchinasea-idUSKCN0WT0QZ

World | Sun Mar 27, 2016 7:06pm EDT
Related: World, China, Japan, East China Sea

Japan opens radar station close to disputed East China Sea islands

TOKYO | By Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo


Japan on Monday will switch on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to Taiwan and a group of disputed islands claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing.

The new Self Defence Force base on Yonaguni is at the western extreme of a string of Japanese islands in the East China Sea, 150 km (93 miles) south of the disputed islands known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

"This radar station is going to irritate China," said Nozomu Yoshitomi, a professor at Nihon University and a former major general in the Self Defence Force.

In addition to being a listening post, the facility could be used a base for military operations in the region, he added.

The deployment fits into a wider military build up along the island chain, which stretches 1,400 km (870 miles) from the Japanese mainland.

Policy makers last year told Reuters it was part of a strategy to keep China at bay in the Western Pacific as Beijing gains control of the neighboring South China Sea.

Toshi Yoshihara, a U.S. Naval War College professor, said Yonaguni sits next to two potential flash points in Asia - Taiwan and the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.

"A network of overlapping radar sites along the island chain would boost Japan's ability to monitor the East China Sea," he added.

Yonaguni is only around 100 km (62 miles) east of Taiwan, near the edge of a controversial air defense identification zone set up by China in 2013.

Over the next five years, Japan will increase its Self-Defense Forces in the East China Sea by about a fifth to almost 10,000 personnel, including missile batteries that will help Japan draw a defensive curtain along the island chain.

Chinese ships sailing from their eastern seaboard must pass through this barrier to reach the Western Pacific, access to which Beijing needs both as a supply line to the rest of the world's oceans and for naval power projection.

To mark the start of operations, Japan's military will hold an opening ceremony on Monday. The 30 sq km (11 sq mile) outcrop is home to 1,500 people, who mostly raise cattle and grow sugar cane. The SDF contingent and their families will increase the population by a fifth.


(Editing by Lincoln Feast)

 

[Housecarl]

Well this is guaranteed to stir up the policy wonk talking heads on the cable news networks....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-idUSKCN0WT0MZ

Politics | Sun Mar 27, 2016 2:40pm EDT
Related: Election 2016, Politics

Trump questions NATO, Asia nuclear weapons ahead of Washington summit

WASHINGTON | By Toni Clarke

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his criticism of NATO, a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for decades, and called for the alliance's overhaul days before world leaders convene in Washington.

President Barack Obama will host the Nuclear Security Summit on Thursday and Friday with 56 delegations in attendance. While preventing nuclear terrorism will headline the discussions, Trump's views could be a topic as well, particularly behind the scenes.

In another sharp departure from historic U.S. policy, Trump said in an interview published on Sunday by The New York Times that he would consider letting Japan and South Korea build their own nuclear weapons, rather than rely on America for protection against North Korea and China.

The billionaire businessman, vying to win his party's nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election, also said he might halt U.S. purchases of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies unless they commit ground troops to fight Islamic State or pay the United States to do so.

"NATO is obsolete," Trump said on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

The 28-country North Atlantic Treaty Organization was set up in a different era, Trump said, when the main threat to the West was the Soviet Union. It is ill-suited to fighting terrorism and costs the United States too much, he added.

"We should readjust NATO ... it can be trimmed up and it can be, uh, it can be reconfigured and you can call it NATO, but it's going to be changed," he said.

On March 21, Trump said the United States should slash its financial support for NATO, which was formed in 1949 after World War Two and became a bulwark against Soviet expansionism.

Russia will not attend the upcoming nuclear summit, but China's President Xi Jinping will.

Obama said the United States will review international efforts to combat Islamic State militants during the summit in the wake of the Brussels attacks.

Trump's chief rival for the Republican nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz called the real estate mogul's views on NATO "catastrophically foolish." Speaking on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Cruz said Trump is "out of his depth."

"Abandoning Europe, withdrawing from the most successful military alliance of modern times, it makes no sense at all," Cruz said. "It would hand a massive victory to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, a massive victory to ISIS," the militant group also known as Islamic State.

Cruz said if he were elected president, his approach to Islamic State would be to "carpet bomb them into oblivion."


(Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Mary Milliken)

 

[vestige]

From#34:

Second, the terrorism crisis is not generally a product of any political or cultural trends within Europe.

BS.... no muslims.... no islamic terrorism...

What about that is hard to understand?

bump

 

[Housecarl]

From#34:



BS.... no muslims.... no islamic terrorism...

What about that is hard to understand?

bump

When reality slams into pre-conceived conditioned ideological notions some people just can't adapt, no matter how many degrees they have on their wall. In fact arguably, the more they have the harder it is for them to "come in out of the rain".

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm..........

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/an-american-perspective-on-europe

March 25, 2016

An American Perspective on Europe

By Marten van Heuven

This approach comes in the form of a thought experiment designed to illuminate, but not predict, possible outcomes. It sketches three scenarios and asks whether they would serve US interests.

In scenario one, Europe achieves all it wants: A robust economy, security, an orderly flow of immigrants, the harmonious evolution of new political parties, and a collegial spirit within the European Union. Europe thinks of itself as a model of global governance. Relations with Russia have turned the corner. The EU accession process is on track. The Balkans are peaceful. NATO has achieved its objective in Afghanistan. The position of the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy has gained respect. Europe feels good about itself.

Much in this scenario supports US interests. A vibrant Europe can partner with the United States in tackling common tasks. But there is a downside. This Europe may well have a significantly different appreciation than Washington of the challenges and possible ways to address them. An EU such as the one sketched above could want its own way and be headstrong about it.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has exercised leadership with Europeans who, often willingly, have been content to be in the rumble seat. The condition of Europe described above would require a substantial adjustment in US attitudes, which could result in a discordant transatlantic environment.

In scenario two, Europe is stuck. A sluggish economy has triggered beggar-thy-neighbor practices. Joblessness creates a sour mood. Eastern Europe does not feel secure. Western Europe suffers from the threat of terrorism. Nonetheless, migrants continue to flock to Europe and their assimilation remains a societal problem. Distrust permeates the EU project. Public confidence in the EU—never high in this top-down structure—is at an all-time low.

Domestic politics have become unsettled by voter preference for new parties which, though they appear as if out of nowhere, nonetheless attract substantial support from voters tired of the old political order. Governments are losing their legitimacy in the eyes of the electorate. Governance has become a problem.

EU enlargement has halted, leaving some disillusioned outsiders. Relations with Russia are uneven, given the resentful signals emanating from Moscow. The war in Afghanistan has left a bitter aftertaste. European NATO members have concluded that the Alliance should not be caught again in hostilities far away from home.

It does not take deep research to conclude that the state of affairs described in this scenario would be deeply troublesome for the United States. Washington would find itself without an effective civilian, diplomatic or military partner. Given the intimate interconnection between the United States and Europe, Washington would be bound to safeguard its interests in Europe. However, the US public might not take kindly to the prospect of devoting—once again—US resources to help out Europe. So the greater the failures of Europe, the greater will be the challenge to the United States to help keep Europe together as a viable global partner.

The two scenarios described above are hypothetical. They sketch extreme conditions that are unlikely to occur, but they serve to make one point: both scenarios would negatively affect US interests.

More likely is a third scenario—a situation between scenarios one and two. It is hard to describe what this scenario would look like since it would come about as a result of a mix of infinite variables that could combine in random fashion. Grosso modo, however, it would serve US interests better than the situations described in scenarios one and two.

The EU road is littered with attempts to describe this third scenario, and to offer prescriptions for action. One noteworthy attempt to sketch a US-EU partnership was contained in Shoulder to Shoulder: Forging a Strategic US-EU Partnership, published in 2009 by Daniel S. Hamilton and Frances Burwell. [Burwell is the Vice President of European Union and Special Initiatives at the Atlantic Council.] This comprehensive overview of transatlantic relations recognized many challenges, but on the whole sketched a positive picture, of a glass more than half full.

Now, however, the glass is mostly empty. Europe is in trouble. The list of problems is daunting: a spluttering economy, security threats emanating from Russia, an avalanche of migrants, an unraveling EU, the rise of populism, homegrown terrorism, and a weakened German Chancellor.

It is a key US interest that Europe remain in a position to partner with the United States to deal with European and global issues. The record has been good, though there is a feeling in Europe that Washington no longer cares. Nonetheless, the United States appears ready to support its European partners and allies where it can.

However much the United States might support the goal of a Europe whole, free, prosperous and at peace, it does not follow that Washington should give unqualified support to the EU, which is the political, social, and economic edifice the Europeans have laboriously built to pull the parts of the continent closer together. European publics are turning away from the EU, which many regard as sluggish, undynamic, unwieldy, and meddlesome.

Many of the problems facing the EU can be dealt with only by Europeans, at times with sympathetic US support. There are a few issues, however, where an active US role now is necessary.

On the calendar, most acute is the June 23 referendum on whether the United Kingdom should leave the EU. Overt US calls for this not to happen would be out of place. However, Washington would be well within its rights to point out the US interest in the United Kingdom staying in the EU.

Another issue where a US role is essential is Russia policy. The Minsk process, in which Germany and France have dealt with Russia about Ukraine, needs strong US participation.

US leadership in NATO is also essential in building up the West’s military posture in defense of the Baltic countries, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Washington also needs to revisit the issue of providing arms to Ukraine.

US persistence in seeking a political outcome in Syria is a crucial ingredient in stemming the flow of migrants, the sheer volume of whom threaten to tear apart the European social and political fabric.

Finally, continued support of European integration remains a matter of US self interest. This does not mean unqualified support for the EU in its present form. Europe will not reach the point described in scenario one for a long time, if ever. Even so, the possible downside of facing an assertive EU is a better alternative than to have to mount another effort to prop up a faltering Europe.

Marten van Heuven is a lifetime member of the Atlantic Council’s board.