WAR 07-01-2017-to-07-07-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry folks I was only able to get this started now, between working 6 days this week and having to be out of here in two weeks...well you get the idea....

(275) 06-10-2017-to-06-16-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...16-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(276) 06-17-2017-to-06-23-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...23-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(277) 06-24-2017-to-06-30-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...30-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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France: Gunmen open fire at mosque
Started by*hoss‎,*Yesterday*05:07 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?519948-France-Gunmen-open-fire-at-mosque

Ongoing Cyber Attack Spreading Through Ukraine, Russia and Now Western Europe 6/27/2017
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...Russia-and-Now-Western-Europe-6-27-2017/page4

Qatar given 13 pt list of demands by GCC and 10 days to comply Update - Qatar Rejects
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-10-days-to-comply-Update-Qatar-Rejects/page2

19 Cartel Gunmen Killed in Firefight near Mexican Beach Resort Town
Started by*Millwright‎,*Yesterday*12:15 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...d-in-Firefight-near-Mexican-Beach-Resort-Town

Three cops reported shot in Malmo, Sweden
Started by*mzkitty‎,*Yesterday*11:56 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?519936-Three-cops-reported-shot-in-Malmo-Sweden

China 'outraged' by $1.42 billion planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan
Started by*Pinecone‎,*07-01-2017*08:33 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show....42-billion-planned-U.S.-arms-sales-to-Taiwan

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...he-muslim-brotherhood-and-turkey-s-in-the-way

Saudis Are After the Muslim Brotherhood, and Turkey's In the Way

By Onur Ant and Ghaith Shennib
July 2, 2017 11:46 PM PDT

- Gulf feud brings Turkey, Qatar closer as Brotherhood backers
- Trump wanted clarity in Middle East conflict. He hasn’t got it

To listen to Donald Trump, speaking during his recent trip there, the Middle East splits neatly into opposing camps and it’s obvious which one harbors the good guys.

It didn’t take long for that notion to be publicly debunked. Within a couple of weeks of the president’s departure, a crisis over the Gulf state of Qatar had U.S. allies at loggerheads. More than that, it showed that there aren’t just two power blocs in the region. There are at least three.

An alliance led by Saudi Arabia apparently enjoys Trump’s full support. Iran heads a coalition of America’s enemies. But a third bloc, looser and harder to classify, is at the heart of the dispute in the world’s oil repository. It includes Qatar, which hosts a major U.S. military base; Turkey, a NATO member; and the stateless, beleaguered yet resilient group that both nations support: the Muslim Brotherhood.

The 90-year-old Islamist movement has been in the crosshairs of the Saudis and other Gulf monarchies since the Arab revolts at the start of this decade, when it briefly held power after winning elections in Egypt, and seemed set to repeat the feat elsewhere.

View a map showing the Brotherhood’s regional reach

“They see the Brotherhood as the only organized, transnational movement that offers a different model of political activity and legitimacy,” said Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked at the think-tank’s Doha center. “They see that as a threat. That’s why the Muslim Brotherhood is so divisive. Because it captures this fundamental divide over the Arab Spring.”

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iBVbEj9KJT4A/v0/800x-1.png

‘Disrespectful’

That agenda was apparent in the demands presented to Qatar. Placed under a partial* blockade, the small, gas-rich nation was told to cut back ties with Iran and end its alleged support for al-Qaeda and Islamic State, the groups that top most Western terror lists.

But it was also ordered to stop supporting the Brotherhood, which Western countries don’t classify as terrorist; to shut down the Brotherhood-friendly broadcaster Al Jazeera; and to kick Turkish troops out of their new base in Qatar.

Read more on why the Qatar crisis is so hard to resolve

Qatar has rejected the ultimatum but will still deliver a formal response on Monday after the Saudi-led coalition agreed to a two-day extension of its deadline for Qatar to meet its demands. Turkey promised support for the embattled emirate and rushed through a bill allowing deployment of a token number of soldiers, and held a joint military exercise near the Qatari capital Doha. The demands are an attack on Qatar’s sovereignty, and talk of evicting Turkish troops is “disrespectful,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Qatar, like its Gulf allies-turned-antagonists Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, is an autocratic monarchy. It doesn’t allow political groups like the Brotherhood a say in its own affairs, even as it sponsors them elsewhere. But Erdogan, as an elected Islamist leader, claims a deeper affinity. His ruling party sees itself as the product of the same demographic forces that brought the Brotherhood to power in Egypt at the peak of the Arab Spring.

Turkey Vulnerable

That’s one reason why Amr Darrag now lives in Istanbul.

He was minister for planning in Egypt’s short-lived Brotherhood government. After its president, Mohammed Mursi, was ousted by the army in 2013 amid large-scale protests against his rule, many Brotherhood leaders found themselves in jail. Darrag left -- for Qatar. And then he moved to Turkey, where he heads the Egyptian Institute for Political and Strategic Studies in Yenibosna, an Istanbul suburb newly thriving on an influx of Arab entrepreneurs.

Darrag says he got a warm welcome from the Turkish government, which strongly opposed the coup in Egypt -- just as Saudi Arabia welcomed it. When Qatar came under pressure to sever ties with the Brotherhood in 2014, the year that the Saudis and Emiratis labeled it a terrorist group, the Gulf nation had Turkish backing. As it does now.

“Turkey is standing with Qatar because there’s a belief that if Qatar surrenders or falls, then Turkey becomes vulnerable,” Darrag said. If both countries were to change course, “it would be probably the end of moderate Islamist movements in the area for some time.”

It’s clear who would take their place, according to Yasin Aktay, a lawmaker from Erdogan’s party who was its point-person in dealings with the Brotherhood. The group “represents Islamic democracy,” he said in an interview. “And if you push it out the realm of democracy, then you’d have to deal with groups like Islamic State.’

‘Where Next?’

Of course, the Saudis and their allies don’t agree that the Brotherhood is moderate. A Saudi interior minister once called it the “source of all evil” in the kingdom. The U.A.E. has jailed dozens of people it accuses of working on the group’s behalf to seize power.

The Brotherhood*is “seen as an organization that’s meddling in other countries’ affairs through secret cells and terrorism,” said Ghanem Nuseibeh, London-based founder of Cornerstone Global Associates.

In its first weeks, the Trump administration weighed the idea of following the Saudi lead and designating the Brotherhood a terrorist group. It hasn’t done so. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last month that elements of the organization have joined governments in some countries and “have done so by renouncing violence.”

The group has shown signs of fragmenting since the coup in Egypt, which followed a year of often chaotic Brotherhood rule. Analysts say that some breakaway members have carried out attacks on Egyptian security forces.

Darrag says that if there are splits, they’re not over the use of force but the question of how things could have been done differently when the 2011 uprising opened the way to power. There was an opportunity to sweep away the old, corrupt security state and establish a civilian democracy, he said. “Millions of people went to the streets, they wanted change.” But, “ because the Brotherhood is not a revolutionary movement but a gradualist and a reformist movement, it went along with the agenda of the military” -- and paid a steep price.

Such questions are familiar to Erdogan, who’s battled Turkey’s traditionally secular army ever since he came to power in 2003. He survived a coup attempt a year ago. Mithat al-Haddad, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s governing council and another Egyptian exile in Istanbul, recalls the night of July 15, 2016 very well. When power hung in the balance and Erdogan disappeared from sight for several hours, he said, “we were thinking, the Egyptian community and Arabs in general, where to go next.”

‘Not My Level’

Ideological sympathies aren’t the only reason for Turkey’s ties to Qatar, the world’s richest country on a per-capita basis. Qatar was the second-biggest foreign investor in Turkey in the first four months of this year; its companies have acquired stakes in the banking, broadcasting and defense industries.

When it comes to commerce, though, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. loom larger. They bought $8.6 billion of Turkish exports last year, almost 20 times as much as Qatar.

Perhaps that’s why Erdogan’s support for Qatar hasn’t been accompanied by any harsh rhetoric toward the Saudis. He’s well capable of railing against fellow Muslim leaders who get on his wrong side. “You are not my interlocutor, you are not at my level,” he thundered at Iraqi premier Haider al-Abadi last year amid a dispute about the presence of Turkish troops in the neighboring country. “You are not of the same quality as me.”

By contrast, even when criticizing the treatment of Qatar in recent weeks, the Turkish president referred respectfully to Saudi King Salman as “the servant of Islam’s two Holy Cities,’’ a title used by Ottoman caliphs for four centuries.

Turkey is important to the U.S. in all kinds of ways, from hosting a key airbase near the Syrian border to joining NATO missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Erdogan has shown little desire to join any anti-Saudi bloc. Nor does he want to take sides with the kingdom and cut Qatar, and the Brotherhood, loose.

And that shows how the Saudi campaign against Qatar, egged on by Trump, may have blurred the dividing lines in the Middle East still further -- instead of creating the united front the president was seeking.

When the Saudis closed Qatar’s only land border, blocking a main route for food imports, Turkey was one of two regional powers that offered to step in and keep the supermarket shelves stocked during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The other one was Iran.

 

[Housecarl]

China dispatches military vessels & fighter jets to warn off US warship sailing near disp
Started by*CGTech‎,*Yesterday*10:43 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...jets-to-warn-off-US-warship-sailing-near-disp


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...769fa1d5691_story.html?utm_term=.8e89ee1c8b7d

China accuses U.S. of ‘serious provocation’ as warship sails near disputed island

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Simon Denyer July 2 at 11:05 PM

China has accused the United States of staging a “serious political and military provocation” after an American warship sailed near a disputed island in the South China Sea.

The USS Stethem, an American guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, a small landmass in the Paracel Islands chain, on Sunday, a U.S. defense official said, marking the second such operation since President Trump took office.

But China, which has enjoyed de facto control of the Paracels since expelling Vietnam in a military engagement in 1974, said the islands, which it calls the Xisha, are an “inherent part of Chinese territory.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Stethem had “trespassed” there, entering the waters “without China’s approval.”

“Its behavior has violated the Chinese law and relevant international law, infringed upon China's sovereignty, disrupted peace, security and order of the relevant waters and put in jeopardy the facilities and personnel on the Chinese islands, and thus constitutes a serious political and military provocation,” spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement.

“The Chinese side is dissatisfied with and opposed to the relevant behavior of the U.S. side.”

The incident is the latest flare-up in relations in just a few days, and came only hours before Trump spoke by telephone to Chinese President Xi Jinping, on Sunday night in Washington and Monday morning in Beijing.

China’s state media said the two men discussed “brewing issues,” but gave no further information — except to say that North Korea was expected to top their agenda, while also noting the call came soon after an arms deal with Taiwan was announced.

Last week, China’s Foreign Ministry expressed outrage over twin American announcements: of a major package of arms sales to Taiwan, and fresh sanctions on North Korea that target a Chinese bank. Lu said then that the “wrong moves go against the consensus achieved at Mar-a-Lago,” when Trump and Xi met in Florida in April.

U.S. officials said the navy’s action, known as a freedom-of-navigation operation, or FONOP, was planned in advance, and was not targeted at any one country or aimed at making a political statement.*

But China accused the United States of deliberately stirring up trouble in the South China Sea and staging “provocative operations” that violate China's sovereignty and threaten its security. “The Chinese side will continue to take all necessary means to defend national sovereignty and security,” Lu said.

Triton Island is claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan. In May, a U.S. destroyer sailed well within 12 miles of Mischief Reef, a man-made island in the Spratly Islands to the south of the Paracels.

Fox News, which first*reported on Sunday’s incident, said a Chinese warship tailed the Stethem as it sailed past the island, although it is unclear how close the ship came to the American vessel.

[New satellite images show reinforced Chinese surface-to-air missile sites near disputed islands]

The 12-mile line is the internationally recognized distance that separates the shores of a sovereign nation from international waters. The United States has routinely conducted voyages within this 12-mile limit around islands in the South China Sea as a message to countries such as China, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.
*
Many of these nations have laid claim to islands in the South China Sea, some of which are no more than tiny strips of sand and reef. The last time the U.S. Navy sailed near Triton Island was in January 2016, when the USS Curtis Wilbur came within 12 miles of its shores. The Pentagon did not notify any of the island’s claimants before that operation.

Capt. Charlie Brown, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet, did not confirm the Sunday operation but said in an emailed statement that the Navy routinely conducts FONOPs, and that the operations are not “about any one country, nor are they about making political statements.”

“U.S. forces operate in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region on a daily basis, including in the South China Sea,” Brown said. “All operations are conducted in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows. That is true in the South China Sea as in other places around the globe.”

In the Paracels and Spratlys, China has built up a number of small islands into fully functional military facilities complete with airfields and antiaircraft defenses. The White House, in both the Obama and Trump administrations, has seen the militarization of the South China Sea as a threat to stability in the resource-rich region, where ships from numerous countries have long fished.

U.S.-China relations appeared to be on an upswing after Trump said he and Xi had enjoyed “great chemistry” in Florida, and expressed confidence in China’s efforts to apply pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear and missile defense program.

But officials say frustration has grown in the White House with China’s reluctance to tighten the screws on North Korea as much as Washington would have liked.

The Stethem, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, is based in Japan.

Read more:
Taiwan arms sale, NKorea sanctions outrage Beijing in test of U.S.-China ties under Trump

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

100 Comments

Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a staff writer and a former Marine infantryman. Follow @Tmgneff
Simon Denyer is The Post’s bureau chief in China. He served previously as bureau chief in India and as a Reuters bureau chief in Washington, India and Pakistan. Follow @simondenyer

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...il&utm_term=0_02cbee778d-4ab2425c35-122455129

Best Of: The War Against ISIS Has Just Begun

July 2, 2017 | Bennett Seftel

Nearly three years ago, the Islamic State (ISIS) catapulted to the top of the news worldwide after the group seized vast swaths of Syria and Iraq, used Mosul’s revered Great Mosque of al-Nuri to announce the creation of an Islamic caliphate, executed tens of thousands of civilians, and committed genocide against Iraq’s ethnic Yazidi minority.

Today, though the fight against ISIS remains a top priority for the Trump Administration, the organization’s days in the limelight appear to be declining as U.S. and coalition forces deal it critical losses on the battlefield.

In fact, ISIS may lose its two main strongholds – Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria – before summer turns to fall.

Earlier this week, Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, told the Associated Press that the campaign to retake Mosul, controlled by ISIS since June 2014, was in its “final stages.”

“The enemy is on the brink of total defeat in Mosul,” U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, the spokesman for U.S.-led anti-ISIS mission known as Operation Inherent Resolve, announced during a news conference in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Ousting ISIS from its de facto capital of Raqqa may not be too far behind. Last month, Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, said that he hoped the assault on Raqqa would be “underway by this summer” and would be surprised if it continued into next year.

Townsend also stated that he had “no clue” where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hiding, but if he were in Mosul, then “we have got him trapped.”

Territorial losses have weakened ISIS’ international prestige and have shrunk the number of foreign fighters traveling to Syria and Iraq to join the group. At the peak of its international recruiting efforts, an estimated 40,000 individuals from more than 120 countries were fighting on behalf of ISIS.

“ISIS pushed the idea that it was a ‘winner’ in its propaganda, and now even its own propaganda admits that it is losing,” Daniel Byman, Senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, told The Cipher Brief. “As a result, it is less attractive to many potential recruits and funders.”

Nonetheless, Dr. Michael W.S. Ryan of the Jamestown Foundation anticipates that ISIS won’t vanish but instead morph into an insurgent group that will continue to threaten regional stability.

“We must consider ISIS, or perhaps its replacement, as a permanent terrorist threat in Syria and Iraq, unless sectarian divisions can be healed and its apocalyptic brand of Jihadi Salafist ideology is thoroughly discredited,” Ryan told The Cipher Brief.

ISIS also maintains a sizeable network of foreign fighters who have returned to their homelands and may seek to carry out local attacks in ISIS’ name. The next frontier in the battle against ISIS could shift to the West as the organization tries to demonstrate its strength and resolve by doubling down on its operations in Europe and the U.S.

“Even as ISIS loses territory and its insurgency is eventually defeated in both Iraq and Syria, it will still be able to*pose a formidable challenge*to international security,” writes Colin Clarke, counterterrorism expert at the RAND Corporation.

“ISIS will retain the ability to successfully conduct major terrorist attacks in Europe, perhaps on the scale of the March 2016 Brussels attack, as well as the ability to commit less sophisticated terrorist attacks with regular frequency, as evidenced by the steady occurrence of lower-level plots and attacks in France and elsewhere in Europe,” Clarke continues. *

ISIS-inspired attacks carried out by “lone wolves” or small bands of homegrown violent extremists continue to represent the primary terrorist threat for the U.S. and its allies. While individuals who pledge allegiance to ISIS are not necessarily sold on the group’s jihadist ideology, ISIS’ message attracts people from a multitude of backgrounds who feel disenfranchised and seek a sense of belonging.

“Here in the United States, homegrown extremists present the most immediate unpredictable threat that we face,” remarked Nicholas Rasmussen, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, during a speech earlier this month at the Center for New American Security. “Today, many homegrown violent extremists gravitate towards the violence and adventure of fighting rather than absorbing the nuances of jihadist ideology as a rationale for violence.”

In many ways, while the battles against ISIS in Mosul and Raqqa may soon reach their conclusions, the war against the terrorist organization has really just begun. Law enforcement bodies, intelligence services, and national security establishments must remain vigilant to prevent terrorist acts from occurring on their soil.*

Ultimately, according to Rasmussen, triumphing over ISIS on the battlefield is “necessary but insufficient in the process of eliminating the ISIS threat.”

“One doesn’t have to look very far or very hard to see how the ISIS threat is manifesting itself in almost every Western nation,” he stated. “The global reach of ISIS is largely intact despite the extremely effective work that has been done to degrade ISIS in its caliphate.”

Bennett Seftel is deputy director of analysis at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @BennettSeftel.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://ctc.usma.edu/posts/crossing-the-canal-why-egypt-faces-a-creeping-insurgency

Crossing the Canal: Why Egypt Faces a Creeping Insurgency
June 27, 2017
Author(s): Michael Horton

Abstract:*The Islamic State affiliate Wilayat Sinai has proved to be a determined enemy that is increasingly capable of attacking targets within mainland Egypt. This is despite the fact that in 2013 the Egyptian government launched its largest ongoing military operation in the Sinai since the 1973 war with Israel, against the group. Rather than defeating or even weakening Wilayat Sinai, however, many of the tactics being employed by the Egyptian government risks ensuring that organizations like Wilayat Sinai and more moderate militant groups are able to continue to expand their operations within Egypt.

Egypt-based Islamic State affiliate Wilayat Sinai is one of the most formidable of the Islamic State franchises. Despite the organization’s relatively small size—it is estimated to have fewer than 1,000 operatives—Wilayat Sinai has fought the Egyptian army, one of the region’s more capable armies, to a standstill.1 Egypt has deployed in excess of 20,000 mainline troops to the northern half of the Sinai Peninsula in addition to an equal or larger number of police and paramilitary forces.2 These forces, especially troops from the relatively well-trained Second and Third Field Armies, benefit from dedicated air support and access to a range of sophisticated weapons systems. Yet despite Egypt having launched what is its largest military operation in the Sinai since the 1973 war with Israel, Wilayat Sinai is, as yet, undefeated. In fact, both the tempo and sophistication of its attacks have increased. It launches attacks on soft and hard targets across northern Sinai almost daily.3 Wilayat Sinai has also carried out an attack in southern Sinai, and most significantly, it is increasingly able to operate in mainland Egypt.

On April 9, Wilayat Sinai carried out improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria. The attacks killed 45 people.4 On April 18, the group attacked a guard post near St. Catherine’s Monastery,5 which is visited by thousands of tourists and pilgrims annually, in southern Sinai where Wilayat Sinai had previously struggled to expand its reach.a Most recently, Wilayat Sinai attacked Coptic Christians who were on their way to visit a monastery located in Minya, 150 miles south of Cairo, killing 28.6 These three attacks demonstrate the Islamic State’s two-pronged strategy in Egypt: inflame Muslim-Christian tensions and damage the country’s fragile economy by targeting its already beleaguered tourist industry. In response to the attacks, the Egyptian government, led by President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, declared a new and more sweeping state of emergency that further increases the scope of police detentions, suspends many constitutional rights, and further limits the right to assembly.7*b However, the state of emergency will do little, if anything, to hamper Wilayat Sinai’s growth in Egypt. In fact, the government’s heavy-handed and often punitive tactics in the Sinai particularly are partly responsible for creating an ideal operational environment for groups like Wilayat Sinai.....(long HC)

 

[Lilbitsnana]

Strategic Sentinel‏ @StratSentinel 7m7 minutes ago

Strategic Sentinel Retweeted The Japan Times

#Russia may be deploying troops to the #Syrian buffer zones soon

Strategic Sentinel added,
The Japan TimesVerified account @japantimes
Russia may deploy military in Syrian buffer zones within weeks http://jtim.es/4VVA30dlaIo

 

[Housecarl]

North Korea launches ballistic missile
Started by*danielbooný,*07-03-2017*06:17 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?520011-North-Korea-launches-ballistic-missile/page7

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Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/co...kalter_icbm_milestone_leaves_us_little_leeway

Kalter: ICBM Milestone leaves U.S. little leeway

Lindsay Kalter Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Credit: AP photo
A NEW ERA: People watch a TV showing what was said to be the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

1 comments

North Korea’s first successful test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile crossed a long-standing line in the sand drawn by the international community, and leaves the United States with few long-term military or diplomatic options, experts say.

“Nobody wants a Korean War II against a nuclear-armed North Korea,” said Joshua Pollack, a senior research scientist at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California. “We could certainly do demonstrations like flying bombers over North Korea. But you can’t stop them from developing missiles.”

The missile launched early yesterday morning, a Hwasong-14, is capable of reaching Alaska, analysts say, and represented a major step forward for the virulently anti-American rogue state.

The launch, experts said, is intended to send a clear message to the United States: no amount of sanctions can or will topple North Korea’s regime.

“North Korea is crossing a really important milestone,” said Ankit Panda, senior editor for The Diplomat, an online magazine based in Japan. “In their mind, this is an iron-clad guarantee of regime survival.”

And yesterday’s success is just the beginning, Panda said.

“They’re going to be looking to go further,” he said. “We’re just entering a new era where these kind of tests will be more common.”

The missile, which was launched as Americans were preparing to celebrate the Fourth of July, traveled 580 miles and reached an altitude of 1,741 miles over a span of 39 minutes, officials said.

Although experts say North Korea is still years away from having an ICBM capable of carrying a nuclear payload, they admit stopping the regime, which has been under draconian sanctions for years, is proving maddeningly complex.

Targeting Chinese banks and companies that do business with North Korea would “certainly irritate the Chinese,” Pollack said, though he cautioned “I don’t know how far that will go.” Joint military exercises with South Korea, like the one conducted yesterday in response to the launch, don’t seem to be a deterrent.

The only option left, Pollack said, is to negotiate — which puts the U.S. at risk of offering concessions without reciprocation.

“There’s a lot of aversion to that,” Pollack said. “The general view is they never keep their word ... I think that’s overstated.”

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The last time the U.S. tried negotiation — the so-called “Leap Day Deal” announced in February 2012 — it generated short-lived progress. Under the agreement, North Korea promised to halt nuclear tests and long-range missile launches in exchange for increased humanitarian aid.

But the deal ended a little more than two weeks later, when North Korea announced it would be launching another satellite.

“They are known to be impossible people,” Pollack said. “The Leap Day deal still represents an interesting model. But to nail it down, we’ll need to give more than we did before.”


More On:
North Korea
ICBM
Joshua Pollack

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/mosul-raqqa-fall-isil-looks-deir-ezzor-last-stand/

As Mosul and Raqqa fall, ISIL looks to Deir Ezzor for their last stand

By Leith Fadel - 5 July 2017

BEIRUT, LEBANON (3:25 A.M.) – This summer has been incredibly rough for the Islamic State (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria, as both Mosul and Raqqa are set to fall to the Iraqi Army and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the coming days.

With some small pockets in northwest Nineveh and approximately a 100km long stretch of highway near the Euphrates River, the Islamic State’s forces will likely fall back to the border-city of Al-Qa’im, where they will attempt make their last stand in Iraq.

Meanwhile, in Syria, the Islamic State is on the verge of losing Raqqa City and several important villages in the eastern countrysides of the Hama and Homs governorates.

According to a Syrian Army source in Deir Ezzor, the military has seen a large influx of Islamic State militants to this eastern province following the terrorist group’s setbacks in Mosul and Raqqa.

As a result of this influx in Islamic State fighters in Deir Ezzor, the Syrian and Russian air forces have increased their activity over this province in order to weaken their resolve.

In addition to Russian and Syrian airstrikes, the U.S. Coalition has also increased their air activity over the Deir Ezzor Governorate, with their warplanes mostly concentrating on the border-city of Albukamal.

Since ISIL will no longer control a large portion of land in both Syria and Iraq come August, the terrorist group will have to consolidate their defenses in Deir Ezzor, as they will find themselves wedged between several forces from all sides.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art..._reson_for_afghanistans_stalemate_111716.html

DoD Report: Pakistan is Reason for Afghanistan Stalemate

By Robert Cassidy
July 03, 2017

“The exploitation of ungoverned sanctuaries outside of Afghanistan by terrorists and*Afghan insurgents is the single greatest external factor that could cause failure of the coalition campaign.”* June 2017 U.S. DoD Report on Afghanistan

The latest U.S. Department of Defense Report on “Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan” reiterates that Pakistan’s sanctuary, support, and employment of insurgents and terrorists is a strategic impediment to ending that war well, or to ending it at all.* The Pentagon is now preparing to send about four thousands more troops.* A number of Coalition partners will probably send a commensurate number of additional troops.* More troops and more actions will build advisory capacity and thus improve the Afghan security forces capacity.* More capacity will, in turn, gain some tactical and operational momentum vis-à-vis the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and other Islamist militants that benefit from Pakistan’s support and sanctuary.*

But more action and more troops in and of themselves will not gain strategic momentum.** Strategic momentum requires a marked change in Pakistan’s strategic behavior.** That requires a strategy which includes more regional cooperation and a much more coercive strategic approach to curb Pakistan’s machinations.* This requires a sea change in strategic thinking to shock, compel, and instill fear in Pakistan’s security establishment to break it out of its ingrained strategic-cultural pathologies.* Pakistan’s duplicitous incubation and export of proxy terrorists and insurgents is the most significant obstacle to peace in Afghanistan and South Asia.

Pakistan has nurtured and relied on a host of Islamist insurgents and terrorists for decades. *The Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) has maintained links between Al Qaeda, its longtime Taliban allies, and a host of other extremists inside Pakistan. It is only possible for Pakistan to become a non-pariah state among the community of states and a helpful partner to the Coalition and the U.S. if it significantly modifies its regional conduct and ceases its support of proxy terrorists and insurgents.* America has doled out more than $33 billion in carrots to Pakistan in exchange for Pakistan’s treachery since 9/11.* This miscarriage of trust and reliability is abhorrent.

Yet, these sad truths about Pakistan’s malice have been in plain view in U.S. Government and NATO reports for years.* This most recent report from June 2017 highlights this same strategic impasse and forecasts the grave consequences of failing to address Pakistan’s odious collusion with the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba.* A finding that appears in this report, and the many reports that preceded it, is that “Afghanistan continues to face an externally enabled and resilient insurgency.” *This particular wording lacks specificity, most likely to avoid offending Pakistani sensitivities, but it does illumine the crux of the stalemate.* Other sections of this latest 2017 report offer a bit more clarity about the sources of support for the “externally enabled” insurgents.

For example, the section in the report on relations with Pakistan states, “Afghan oriented militant groups, including the Taliban and Haqqani Network, retain freedom of action inside Pakistani territory and benefit from support from elements of the Pakistani Government.” It explains that Pakistan is the most influential external actor affecting Afghan stability. *This relates directly to the theater commander’s assessment of the main threat to success and stability in Afghanistan.* The most significant external factor that poses strategic risk and precludes a successful end to the war is “the exploitation of ungoverned sanctuaries outside of Afghanistan by terrorists and Afghan insurgents.”

When the commander’s assessment of the threat refers to the external sanctuary that impedes efforts to bring the Taliban leadership to the negotiating table, it is referring to Pakistan’s support of its proxy, the Taliban.* When the report states that external sanctuary affords terrorist groups like the Haqqani Network the time and space to plan coordinated operations against U.S. forces, Coalition forces, the Afghan forces, and civilians, this is referring to Pakistan as the only sponsor and employer of that group. *And, when the theater commander assesses that “external sanctuary allows the Afghan Taliban to rest, refit, and regenerate, thereby perpetuating the cycle of violence,” Pakistan is that external sanctuary.

Readers need not explore the entire report to discern the raison d'être for the stalemate. The executive summary alone aptly identifies the sources of instability and violence: “Afghanistan faces a continuing threat from as many as 20 insurgent and terrorist networks present or operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, including the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, ISIS-K, and al Qaeda, in what is the highest concentration of extremist and terrorist groups in the world.”* Right up front, the report’s executive summary clearly states, “attacks in Afghanistan attributed to Pakistan-based militant networks continue to erode the Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship.”* For anyone interested in reading it, the document reports that Islamist militant groups, including the Taliban and Haqqani Network, continue to benefit from sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

In his March testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), General Joseph Votel (U.S. Central Command), stated that the malign influence of external actors providing sanctuary and support to violent extremist groups operating along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region was a particular problem that threatened any gains. *General John Nicholson’s (U.S. Forces Afghanistan) testimony in February of this year, provided a candid perspective when said that he believed that the war in Afghanistan was a stalemate. Indeed, it has essentially been a strategic stalemate since at least 2003 because Pakistan continued its double game when it had pledged to end its support of terrorists.* According to Nicholson’s statement, “the primary factor that will enable our success is the elimination of external sanctuary and support to the insurgents.” *This external sanctuary and support, to be sure, originates in Pakistan.

After almost 16 years, the war in Afghanistan remains a strategic stalemate because defeating an enemy requires taking away capacity and will.* And although the Coalition and the Afghan forces have hit the enemy’s capacity year after year, the Taliban’s will - their senior leaders, support, resources, rest, regeneration, and arms - continue to reside in Pakistan’s sanctuary and to benefit from Pakistan’s sponsorship. The Afghan security forces have grown in quantity and improved in quality. *Coalition and Afghan forces have undertaken many actions and operations that have disrupted and displaced the Taliban and the Haqqani infrastructure.

But these gains at the tactical and operational level have lacked permanence in the face of the most significant impediment to strategic success - Pakistan’s sanctuary and support for the enemy. *Killing, capturing, disrupting, and displacing insurgent and terrorist enemies, absent strategic momentum against the external sanctuary, have made this a groundhog war where fulfilling the purpose remains elusive. *Without a policy-strategy match that compels Pakistan to stop the sanctuary and support, this war will continue in perpetuity, with or without more troops.

Before the SASC early this year, General Nicholson’s testified that “multiple witnesses have appeared before this body and testified that insurgents cannot be defeated while they enjoy external sanctuary and support from outside of the national boundaries of the conflict area.” *Pakistan’s failure to alter its strategic calculus, its sponsorship, its provision of physical and ideological support, and its regeneration of murderous Islamist armed groups, poses a grave risk to a successful outcome for the war in Afghanistan.* This war will not end, or it will end badly unless the West and its regional partners bring the full weight of their national power to compel and break Pakistan of its pathological strategic behavior.* Pakistan’s actions have long been harmful to itself, to its purported friends, and to stability in South Asia.

Conclusion

To break the stalemate by 2020, the General Nicholson’s operational idea is to invest in those forces that have demonstrated the best capacity to outmatch the Taliban in most actions - the Afghan Special Security Forces and the Afghan Air Force.* In his testimony, he explained his operational idea to grow these relatively capable forces toward building an overmatch in offensive capacity vis-à-vis the Taliban to ultimately create favorable tactical and operational momentum. Creating offensive overmatch in the best and tested Afghan security forces will, in fact, create a tactical and operational capacity to hit the Taliban, disrupting and displacing their leaders and infrastructure. Offensive tactical overmatch will indeed disrupt the enemy, but without strategic change in reducing the sanctuary in Pakistan, these gains will be fleeting.

The U.S. and the Coalition must desist in the illusion that Pakistan, one of the foremost ideological and physical breeders of Islamist terrorists, can be an ally or a friend. It is neither.* Pretending that Pakistan was an ally in the war against Islamist militants, one that would act in ways to help defeat Islamist networks in the tribal areas, made the West partly complicit in Pakistan’s perfidy.* In September 2001, imagining that the only country on the planet with its capital named after Islam, and the foremost state sponsor of Islamist terrorists, would be a reliable partner in a war to defeat the very Islamists groups that Pakistan created, was a huge failure of imagination.****

Since this war began, the U.S. has stipulated that Pakistan must curb all domestic expression of support for terrorism against the U.S. and its allies; demonstrate a sustained commitment towards combating terrorist groups; cease support, including by any elements within the Pakistan military or its intelligence agency, to extremist and terrorist groups; and dismantle terrorist bases of operations in other parts of the country.* Clearly, Pakistan has not complied with these demands and continues to serve as a significant supporter and employer of Islamist insurgents and terrorists.**

Investing in and increasing the Afghan Special Security Forces and the Afghan Air Force to create overmatching offensive capacity, to then build tactical and operational momentum, will help assert influence over key population areas and take away Taliban capacity but it will be short-lived if not coupled with strategic momentum.* To break the strategic stalemate, the Coalition should cast off its anxieties and illusions about Pakistan’s potential fragility or comity. *After almost 16 years of Pakistan’s duplicity, it is essential to go heavy on sticks and light on carrots with Pakistan. *With the support of other major regional actors, sticks will work where carrots, cash, and cajoling have not.*

The*following steps and demands, escalating from modest to severe, are suggested to break Pakistan of its pathologies and to break the stalemate: 1) stop paying for malice; 2) stop major non-NATO ally status; 3) state intention to make the line of control in Kashmir permanent; 4) shut down ground lines of communications via Pakistan; 5) declare Pakistan the state-sponsor of*terrorism that it is; 6) issue one final ultimatum to Pakistan to end the sanctuary and to stop supporting the Taliban; 7) invite Indian Armed Forces into Afghanistan for security operations in the Pashtun east and south; and 8) reciprocate Pakistan’s malice using lethal coercion, both indirectly and directly.**

The United States has not devised a Pakistan strategy that uses its substantial resources to modify Pakistan’s loathsome strategic malfeasance. *A strategy that does not address that malign influence is no strategy at all. *A realizable strategy needs to bring the full weight of the U.S. and regional actors to compel Pakistan to cease supporting the Taliban.* The Taliban would have been diminished to a marginal nuisance without the full support that Pakistan rendered to the group in pursuit of its quixotic notion of strategic depth to assert control over Afghanistan.* Sanctuary remains the biggest obstacle to the defeat of the Taliban, and it is the reason for the stalemate. **
*
Robert Cassidy, Ph.D., is a retired U.S. Army officer who has written a number of books and articles about irregular war and Afghanistan. He has served in Afghanistan four times, in Iraq, and elsewhere in the Central Command area.* The views herein are from the author’s studies and service in the region and do not reflect the views of any of the institutions with which he affiliates.

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[Housecarl]

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https://ctc.usma.edu/posts/crossing-the-canal-why-egypt-faces-a-creeping-insurgency

Crossing the Canal: Why Egypt Faces a Creeping Insurgency
June 27, 2017
Author(s): Michael Horton

Abstract:*The Islamic State affiliate Wilayat Sinai has proved to be a determined enemy that is increasingly capable of attacking targets within mainland Egypt. This is despite the fact that in 2013 the Egyptian government launched its largest ongoing military operation in the Sinai since the 1973 war with Israel, against the group. Rather than defeating or even weakening Wilayat Sinai, however, many of the tactics being employed by the Egyptian government risks ensuring that organizations like Wilayat Sinai and more moderate militant groups are able to continue to expand their operations within Egypt.

Egypt-based Islamic State affiliate Wilayat Sinai is one of the most formidable of the Islamic State franchises. Despite the organization’s relatively small size—it is estimated to have fewer than 1,000 operatives—Wilayat Sinai has fought the Egyptian army, one of the region’s more capable armies, to a standstill.1 Egypt has deployed in excess of 20,000 mainline troops to the northern half of the Sinai Peninsula in addition to an equal or larger number of police and paramilitary forces.2 These forces, especially troops from the relatively well-trained Second and Third Field Armies, benefit from dedicated air support and access to a range of sophisticated weapons systems. Yet despite Egypt having launched what is its largest military operation in the Sinai since the 1973 war with Israel, Wilayat Sinai is, as yet, undefeated. In fact, both the tempo and sophistication of its attacks have increased. It launches attacks on soft and hard targets across northern Sinai almost daily.3 Wilayat Sinai has also carried out an attack in southern Sinai, and most significantly, it is increasingly able to operate in mainland Egypt.

On April 9, Wilayat Sinai carried out improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria. The attacks killed 45 people.4 On April 18, the group attacked a guard post near St. Catherine’s Monastery,5 which is visited by thousands of tourists and pilgrims annually, in southern Sinai where Wilayat Sinai had previously struggled to expand its reach.a Most recently, Wilayat Sinai attacked Coptic Christians who were on their way to visit a monastery located in Minya, 150 miles south of Cairo, killing 28.6 These three attacks demonstrate the Islamic State’s two-pronged strategy in Egypt: inflame Muslim-Christian tensions and damage the country’s fragile economy by targeting its already beleaguered tourist industry. In response to the attacks, the Egyptian government, led by President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, declared a new and more sweeping state of emergency that further increases the scope of police detentions, suspends many constitutional rights, and further limits the right to assembly.7*b However, the state of emergency will do little, if anything, to hamper Wilayat Sinai’s growth in Egypt. In fact, the government’s heavy-handed and often punitive tactics in the Sinai particularly are partly responsible for creating an ideal operational environment for groups like Wilayat Sinai.....(long HC)

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Muslim Brotherhood Splinter Groups Emerging in Egypt?

By Joseph Hammond
July 05, 2017

A series of attacks by two little known terrorist groups may signal that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is re-embracing violence, American analysts warn.

The two groups which only emerged last year, Liwa al-Thawra and Hassm, are believed to be responsible for a recent wave of terror, including the assassination of a Brigadier General, the bombing of a police facility in Tanta and the shooting of Egyptian police officers in Cairo.

The area of operations and ideology suggest the groups are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the Muslim Brotherhood officially renounced violence in the 1970s.

If the central Muslim Brotherhood is directing these groups, it would be the clearest example yet that the organization has changed its policy and a worrying sign for Egypt’s stability.

“Overtly there are no direct links between these groups and the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Oded Berkowitz, a Middle East & Africa expert at Max Security, “but the two groups share a broad ideology, and there are definitely at least some covert direct links between Liwaa and the Muslim Brotherhood, though the extent is not entirely clear.”

Berkowitz said at very least it means that there is an internal struggle within the organization between an “old guard” that favors maintaining the “peaceful approach” and a new guard that believes this method is obsolete and is contemplating the development of an armed wing.

Overtly there are no direct links but, analysts point to threads of evidence that suggest ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and these new groups.

Liwaa’ Al-Thawra first emerged on social media in August 2016. At first, even the name of the group was unclear. *The group’s name has two possible meanings in Arabic -- either the revolutionary brigade or revolutionary banner. The group’s official logo appears to play on both definitions. The image shows the silhouette bearded guerrilla fighter Kalashnikov in one hand and a flag in the other.**In its statements on social media, the group has stated that “tyrants have to be resisted” and committed itself “to protect the Egyptian people.”

However, Liwaa’ Al-Thawra’s involvement in the assassination of Brigadier General Adel, a high-ranking Egyptian military officer, marked the emergence of the group.

According to media reports, Regai was leaving his home around*6 a.m.*on*October 22nd*in Obour City, a suburb of Cairo, when he was cut down by a burst of automatic weapons fire. Regai was the commander of the Ninth Armored Division in Dahshur. Analysts believe the targeting of Regai suggests ties between the group and the Muslim Brotherhood because he was best-known for flooding tunnels in Gaza used to supply Hamas, a key ally of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, experts disagree on the extent of the ties of between the groups. Adel was the highest ranking Egyptian government official killed in a terrorist incident since the 2013 coup that deposed President Morsi, a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader.
*
“Liwaa al-Thawra (and the “sister organization”- Hasam) have an ideology that is akin to the Muslim Brotherhood, meaning that they still want to control the state but not to completely destabilize … ISIS wants to deter tourism and foreign companies because it serves their strategy and correlates with their ideology. Liwaa al-Thwara needs tourism and foreign investments to continue to sustain their rule when they seize it, according to their strategy” said Berkowitz.

Liwaa al-Thawra propaganda also suggests ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The group eulogized the death of senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Kamal last year. ISIS and other Salafi jihadists would not have done so. ISIS statements have criticized the Muslim Brotherhood leaders for trying to work within the political system and participating in elections.

While ISIS has attacked civilians, tourists, and security forces alike, the two new groups have focused their attacks on the Egyptian government.

Egypt has accused Qatar funding armed groups in Egypt. Egypt has claims to have submitted information to the United Nations Security Council. However, a call to the United Nations Security Council’s terrorism unit revealed no new information had been shared with the unit from the Egyptian delegation.*

“I have reviewed the press statements regarding Egypt submitting new information, and I am unaware any new information provided to United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC),” said Mattias Sundholm, a communications advisor with the CTC. Sundholm said that Egypt might have provided such information to another United Nations institution or directly to another member state.

Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood have long been supported directly and indirectly by Qatar.*

Al-Hissim and Thawara appear to be the latest in a series of Muslim Brotherhood-inspired cells which have emerged in Egypt since the 2013 military coup in Egypt led by then General Sissi. Other such cells include such colorfully named groups as Popular Resistance of Giza, “Deterrence in Alexandria,”*“Revolutionary Punishment,” “Molotov Movement,” and Ajnad Misr or “Soldiers of Egypt.”

Last month an Egyptian court passed judgment against Ajnad Misr members in a mass trial which revealed ties between the group and the Muslim Brotherhood.**Each time the Egyptian state has quashed one these groups another has emerged. Hissm and Liwaa' El Thawara are unique in that they have carried out more brazen and complex attacks than similar groups.

Ironically, Egypt’s quick response to such groups could be fueling the growth of new terrorist groups. Egypt has imprisoned thousands of prisoners since the 2013 coup. Some have been found guilty of inciting violence against others for such innocuous activity as flashing the Rabaa’ sign, a four-fingered salute associated with a massacre of pro-Morsi demonstrators in 2013.**Egypt has built at least 16 prisons since the 2013 coup to accommodate its rising prison population.

If Egyptian history is any guide, simply throwing more young men in prison is unlikely to solve Egypt’s security*problem. Ayman Zawahiri, the current leader of Al-Qaeda, offers a cautionary tale. As a young man Zawahiri flirted ideologically with both leftist groups and the Muslim Brotherhood. However, he emerged from his time in an Egyptian jail cell not only a committed jihadist but to find many other former prisoners with a similar world view. This core group of Egyptian ex-convicts remains an influential group in Al-Qaeda central down to the present day.
*
Joseph Hammond is a senior contributor with the American Media Institute. As a former Cairo correspondent for Radio Free Europe during the 2011 Arab uprisings, he has also reported from four continents on issues ranging from stability in Somalia to the M23 rebellion in the Eastern Congo.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2017/07/counter-wmd/

Secrecy News

Army Issues New Counter-WMD Doctrine

Posted on Jul.05, 2017 in Military Doctrine, WMD by Steven Aftergood

Countering weapons of mass destruction is “an enduring mission of the U.S. Armed forces,” the US Army said last week in a new doctrinal publication.

Counter-WMD operations are defined as actions taken “against actors of concern to curtail the research, development, possession, proliferation, use, and effects of WMD, related expertise, materials, technologies, and means of delivery.”
See Combined Arms Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, ATP 3-90.40, June 29, 2017.

The Army document does not refer to any specific countries such as North Korea.

Instead, it says generally that “Conventional forces and SOF [special operations forces] capabilities may be necessary to stop the movement of CBRN materials, WMD components and means of delivery, WMD-related personnel, or functional weapons into or out of specified areas or nations. Such actions may require boarding vessels and using search and detection capabilities to secure and seize shipments.”

Counter-WMD activities are directed not only at the weapons themselves but at the networks that produce, sponsor, fund and utilize them.

“Interacting with and engaging networks requires the use of lethal and nonlethal means to support, influence, or neutralize network members, cells, or an entire network. As part of this effort, commanders select, prioritize, and match effective means of interacting with friendly networks, influencing the neutral network, and neutralizing threat networks,” the new Army publication said.

“Commanders and staff utilize the targeting process to identify targets, determine the desired effects on those targets, predict secondary and tertiary effects, and plan lethal and nonlethal effects. This process enables the prosecution of targets to capitalize on and exploit targets of opportunity.”

 

[Housecarl]

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Govt supporters storm Venezuela congress, injuring lawmakers

Associated Press
By JOSHUA GOODMAN, Associated Press
30 mins ago

CARACAS, Venezuela — Pro-government militias wielding wooden sticks and metal bars stormed congress on Wednesday and began attacking opposition lawmakers during a special session coinciding with Venezuela's independence day.

Four lawmakers were injured and blood was splattered on the neoclassical legislature's white walls. One of them, Americo de Grazia, had to be taken in a stretcher to an ambulance suffering from convulsions, said a fellow congressman.

"This doesn't hurt as much as watching how every day how we lose a little bit more of our country," Armando Arias said from inside an ambulance as he was being treated for head wounds that spilled blood across his clothes.

The attack, in plain view of national guardsmen assigned to protect the legislature, comes amid three months of often-violent confrontations between security forces and protesters who accuse the government of trying to establish a dictatorship by jailing foes, pushing aside the opposition-controlled legislature and rewriting the constitution to avoid fair elections.

Tensions were already high after Vice President Tareck El Aissami made an unannounced morning visit to the National Assembly, accompanied by top government and military officials, for an event celebrating independence day.

The short appearance at the congress by top officials who have repeatedly dismissed the legislators as a band of U.S.-backed conspirators was seen by many as a provocation.

Standing next to a display case holding the founding charter, El Aissami said global powers are once again trying to subjugate Venezuela.

"We still haven't finished definitively breaking the chains of the empire," he said, adding that President Nicolas Maduro's plans to rewrite the constitution — a move the opposition sees as a power-grab — offers Venezuela the best chance to be truly independent.

After he left, dozens of government supporters set up a picket outside the building, heckling lawmakers with menacing chants and eventually invading the legislature themselves.

Despite the violence, lawmakers approved a plan by the opposition to hold a symbolic referendum on July 16 that would give voters the chance to reject Maduro's plans to draft a new political charter.

Later Maduro condemned the violence, but complained that the opposition doesn't do enough to control "terrorist attacks" committed against security forces by anti-government protesters.

"I will never be an accomplice to acts of violence," said Maduro during a speech at a military parade.

The clash followed Tuesday's appearance of a 5-minute video posted by a former police inspector who allegedly stole a helicopter and fired on two government buildings last week.

Oscar Perez, repeating a call for rebellion among the security forces, said that he was in Caracas after abandoning the helicopter along the Caribbean coast and was ready for the "second phase" of his campaign to free his homeland from what he called the corrupt rule of President Nicolas Maduro and his "assassin" allies.

Perez gave no other details but pledged to join youth who have been protesting on the streets the past three months against Maduro.

"Stop talking. Get on the streets. Take action. Fight," he said in the video, sitting before a Venezuelan flag and with what looks like an assault rifle by his side. He also denounced Maduro's plan to rewrite the constitution.

"If this constitutional assembly goes through, Venezuela will cease to exist because we'll have given away the country to the Cubans," he said.

The bold though largely harmless June 27 attack shocked Venezuelans who had grown accustomed to almost-daily clashes since April between often-violent youth protesters and security forces that have left more than 90 people dead and hundreds injured.

Perez apparently piloted the stolen police helicopter that sprayed 15 bullets toward the Interior Ministry and dropped at least two grenades over the supreme court building.

While Maduro claimed Perez had stolen the helicopter on a U.S.-backed mission to oust him from power, many in the opposition questioned whether the incident was a staged by the government to distract attention from the president's increasingly authoritarian rule.

Adding to the intrigue is Perez's colorful past.

In 2015, he produced and starred in a film called "Suspended Death," and several photos show him in fatigues, scuba diving while toting an assault rifle, skydiving and standing in action poses with a German shepherd by his side. In his political debut, he read a manifesto in which he claimed to be part of a group of disgruntled members of Venezuela's security forces determined to save the country's democracy.

Perez said in the video that the strike produced no casualties because he had taken care to avoid them. Neither of the buildings he attacked suffered damage. The helicopter he stole was found 24 hours later, abandoned in a verdant valley near the Caribbean coastline outside Caracas.

 

[Housecarl]

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11,155 Dead: Mexico's Violent Drug War Is Roaring Back

The Wall Street Journal.
Robbie Whelan
3 hrs ago

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — On the morning of March 23, gunmen here fired eight shots into a cherry-red Renault Duster SUV, killing newspaper reporter Miroslava Breach as she waited outside her home to drive her 14-year-old son, Carlos, to school.

A hand-painted sign at the scene said the journalist — known for her investigations into ties between drug gangs and local political machines — was murdered “for having a loose tongue.”

After a few years of declining violence under Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, the drug war has come roaring back to life.

Ms. Breach was one of 11,155 people murdered in Mexico in the first five months of 2017, according to government statistics. The pace of murders — about one every 20 minutes — represents a 31% jump compared with the same period last year, and, by year-end, could rival 2011’s 27,213 homicides for the worst body count in Mexico’s peacetime history.

“The momentum of reducing violence in recent years has clearly broken down,” said Earl Anthony Wayne, who served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2011 to 2015. “It’s hardly in the interest of the U.S. to have this violence going on near our borders, both for the effect it could have on U.S. citizens in those areas and for the effect it could have on commerce.”

Many of the causes of the resurgence are long standing, including the growing market for opioids in the U.S. and a bloody competition among rival trafficking groups touched off by the death or arrest of senior leaders.

There is also a counterintuitive dynamic at work, say scholars of the drug trade: In recent months, voters have thrown out of office allegedly corrupt state and local leaders of President Peña Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. That, in turn, led to the breakdown of unofficial alliances between drug gangs and politicians — what some are calling a pax mafiosa — that had kept the killings in check.

“The local and state governments of the PRI controlled the violence and crime using informal rules,’” said Jorge Chabat, a professor who focuses on security issues and international relations at Mexico City’s nonpartisan CIDE research center. “They would say, ‘You can traffic drugs, as long as you don’t kill too many people.’ ”

Mexico’s earlier peak in violence started in 2006, when then-President Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party, or PAN, launched a gruesome war on cartels that resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Mexicans. He deployed the armed forces against powerful drug cartels that had grown influential enough to challenge government power and control large swaths of the country.

The troops managed to cut some cartels down to size, but homicides continued to rise, and the military drew accusations of human-rights abuses, including the killing of innocent civilians and summary execution of suspected gang associates.

Six years later, Mr. Peña Nieto’s PRI returned to power by branding itself as the party of efficiency. Rather than emphasizing drugs — and risking the parade of horrific headlines that swamped his predecessor — Mr. Peña Nieto focused instead on revamping education policy and the energy and telecommunications industries.

At a dinner with reporters during the 2012 campaign, Aurelio Nuño, who would go on to become Mr. Peña Nieto’s chief of staff and education minister, said that the new government would “change the narrative.”

One of Mr. Peña Nieto’s first acts as president was to eliminate Mexico’s Public Security Ministry, an agency founded in 2000 by a PAN president to create a more professional federal police force to crack down on drug-related crime. Mr. Peña Nieto folded its responsibilities into the Interior Ministry.

The PRI has been plagued by corruption scandals since Mr. Peña Nieto took office. Nearly a dozen former PRI governors in Mexico are under investigation, serving time or being prosecuted for corruption, and three fled the country to escape prosecution. Two have since been captured in recent months. All deny the charges against them.

In late March, Edgar Veytia, the top prosecutor in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit and a close ally of its PRI governor, was arrested at the U.S. border on drug-trafficking charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

Alejandro Hope, a prominent Mexico City security expert, predicted in an April newspaper column that murders could approach a record 30,000 by the end of 2017, based on the fact that initial numbers tend to be revised upward by Mexican government statisticians.

Mr. Peña Nieto “thought that Mexico did not have a structural problem that needed to be tackled,” Mr. Hope said. “They tried to change the narrative,” he said. “But they didn’t try to change the reality.”

In a lengthy response to a list of questions from The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Peña Nieto’s office acknowledged an uptick in murders beginning in 2015 that has continued into this year, and said the government has implemented a new, long-term anticrime strategy as one of its top priorities. It said the new program includes a broad overhaul of Mexico’s justice system and moves to strengthen national-security institutions.

It blamed Mexico’s local law-enforcement forces for failing to do their job. “The lack of professional, trustworthy and efficient institutions at the local level has opened up spaces for organized crime to operate with impunity,” the statement said.

Here in Chihuahua — Mexico’s largest state by area, which borders Texas and New Mexico — the killing of Ms. Breach took place in an atmosphere of mounting violence and political intrigue.

In October, voters elected Javier Corral, a former journalist who had been friends with Ms. Breach for more than 25 years, as Chihuahua’s new governor. Chihuahua was one of seven states where PAN governors swept to victory last year, including some of the country’s most violent, including Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Quintana Roo.

Late last year, Chihuahua’s former governor, César Duarte, fled to El Paso, Texas, not long before an arrest order was issued in Mexico alleging that he had embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars from the state. The new governor has declared Mr. Duarte a fugitive from justice. Mr. Duarte’s attorney didn’t return calls seeking comment.

Chihuahua has long been a coveted territory for drug traffickers. The state’s largest city, Ciudad Juárez, was ground zero for cartel violence during the last drug war, suffering one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, sent gunmen to try to take over the city’s drug trade from the powerful Juárez Cartel and its armed wing, known as La Línea. Mr. Guzmán recruited two street gangs, the Artistic Assassins and the Mexicles, to help. More than 9,000 people were killed there between 2007 and 2011.

Today, Mr. Guzmán is in jail in Manhattan, facing federal drug charges. In Ciudad Juárez, the atmosphere is tense. On Monday, the army deployed soldiers to carry out regular patrols of the city alongside state and local police for the first time in five years, after a paroxysm of violence killed 29 people over the course of five days.

Across the state, violence has become more diffuse and unpredictable as smaller gangs compete for influence and control of the drug trade, according to the state attorney general’s office, the governor’s office and security experts.

“No one person has established himself as the outright leader of La Línea or the Juárez Cartel,” said Will R. Glaspy, a special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso division.

Ms. Breach often wrote about the growing links between politics and the drug trade in the area where she grew up, in the rugged hills of the Sierra de Chihuahua.

In March of last year, Ms. Breach wrote a series of articles about alleged family connections between organized crime and candidates for local political office. In one article, she revealed that the mother-in-law of Carlos Arturo Quintana, an alleged gang leader also known as “El 80,” had registered with the PRI as a primary candidate to be municipal president of the town of Bachíniva.

In her hometown of Chínipas, the nephew of two alleged former lieutenants to Mr. Guzmán registered in PRI party primaries to run for mayor. After Ms. Breach’s articles were published, the PRI renounced both candidates. Neither candidate could be reached for comment.

Soon after, Ms. Breach began receiving death threats, according to her family. When she was killed, the hand-scrawled message next to her body was signed “El 80.”

One person rattled by Ms. Breach’s murder was Mr. Corral, the new governor. In an interview, Mr. Corral said when he took office the state prosecutor’s office had been “totally dismantled” and thousands of open criminal investigations filed away and forgotten, including crimes of murder, rape and kidnapping.

Mr. Corral said the previous state administration under the PRI made deals with drug gangs to relocate some of them to rural areas, where they were allowed to operate.

“They were sent to the Sierra de Chihuahua, and they began to take control of the towns, the local police forces, and they became bosses of the whole territory,” Mr. Corral said.

A spokesman for the PRI’s state committee in Chihuahua didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

Cesar Peniche, a former federal security official appointed by Mr. Corral to be the state’s top prosecutor, has pledged to rebuild his office and solve Ms. Breach’s murder. Police say they have identified two suspects but have yet to make any arrests.

In March, a human head, believed by law-enforcement officials to belong to one of the bodyguards of Mr. Quintana, the purported La Línea capo, was found in a cooler by the side of the road in the city of Álvaro Obregón.

A day later, police killed another purported cartel gunman, a rival of El 80, believed to be responsible for the decapitation. On a recent Saturday night, gunmen killed six people and injured 22 in a bar in the semirural town of Ciudad Cuauhtémoc.

In late May, state police officer Jesús Pérez was on patrol in Ciudad Juárez with a reporter and photographer from The Wall Street Journal when a distress call blared out from shortwave radio: Gunmen had attacked a state police command post in the rural town of Villa Ahumada, about 90 minutes’ drive away.

The gunmen strafed the local police post with hundreds of .50 caliber rounds using a military-grade machine gun, killing one officer and critically injuring three more, before fleeing to the countryside.

A spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office identified the suspected gunmen as members of La Línea, and later said that the shooting was retaliation for an investigation the state police were carrying out into cattle theft and extortion by organized crime groups in the area. Days later, two local police commanders were arrested on suspicion of collaborating with the attackers.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-...oversial-tactical-nuclear-weapon/3929249.html

Pakistan Enhances Range of Controversial ‘Tactical’ Nuclear Weapon

July 05, 2017 12:07 PM
Ayaz Gul

ISLAMBABAD —*Pakistan’s military announced Wednesday that it has successfully undertaken a series of flight tests of its battlefield nuclear-capable NASR missile this week, enhancing the rocket’s flight maneuverability and extending its range to 70 kilometers from 60.

“This weapon system will augment credible deterrence against prevailing threat spectrum more effectively, including anti-missile defenses. NASR is a high precision weapon system with the ability of quick deployments,” the Pakistan army’s media wing said when it released details of the flight testing process.

The development of Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons is a source of concern for the United States because their smaller size increases the risk of a nuclear conflict with rival India, non-proliferation experts say.

Pakistani officials say that smaller weapons would deter their bigger neighbor from imposing a sudden, limited and lightning assault with conventional forces under New Delhi’s “Cold Start” doctrine.

Pakistan army Chief General Qammmar Javed Bajwa, who has witnessed the Nasr flight tests, referred to the Indian doctrine.

"Nasr has put cold water on Cold Start. War must be avoided at all costs and our strategic capability is a guarantee of peace against a highly militarized and increasingly belligerent neighbor,” the army statement quoted Bajwa as saying.

“Our [nuclear] capability is only meant to ensure, no one thinks war remains an option,” the general said.

Pakistan’s relations with India have deteriorated in recent years and military clashes along the disputed Kashmir border have lately become routine.

The disputed Himalayan region has triggered two of the three wars between India and Pakistan and it remains the primary source of regional tensions.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/world/middleeast/russia-syria-oil-isis.html?_r=0

MIDDLE EAST

Russia Deploys a Potent Weapon in Syria: The Profit Motive

By ANDREW E. KRAMER
JULY 5, 2017

MOSCOW — The Kremlin is bringing a new weapon to the fight against the Islamic State militant group in Syria, using market-based incentives tied to oil and mining rights to reward private security contractors who secure territory from the extremists, Russian news outlets have reported.

So far, two Russian companies are known to have received contracts under the new policy, according to the reports: Evro Polis, which is set to receive profits from oil and gas wells it seizes from the Islamic State using contract soldiers, and Stroytransgaz, which signed a phosphate-mining deal for a site that was under militant control at the time.

The agreements, made with the Syrian government, are seen as incentives for companies affiliated with Russian security contractors, who reportedly employ about 2,500 soldiers in the country, to push the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, out of territory near Palmyra, in central Syria.

Most Middle Eastern wars are suspected of having some variant of this deal, but it is seldom made as explicit as in the Russian contracts.

Continue reading the main story

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“It’s all very simple,” Ivan P. Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trends Studies, said by telephone of the deals, struck in December but just recently reported. “If a company provides security, then the country getting that service should pay. It doesn’t matter how the payment is made.”

In the petroleum deal, Evro Polis, a corporation formed last summer, will receive a 25 percent share of oil and natural gas produced on territory it captures from the Islamic State, the news site Fontanka.ru reported.

The website has a record of accurately reporting about private security companies in Russia, and just last month Washington appeared to corroborate one of its earlier reports by imposing sanctions on a Russian whose activities first came to light in the publication.

Fontanka’s latest article on the topic, published last week, detailed how Evro Polis was cooperating with a shadowy Russian private security group called Wagner, which American sanctions suggest has also provided contract soldiers to the war in Ukraine.

The deal is distinct from the common practice of oil majors and other corporations outsourcing security in hot spots in the Middle East and elsewhere. Under the contract, the wells are not just to be guarded, but to be captured first, the article said.

“The arrangement returns to the times of Francis Drake and Cecil Rhodes,” it noted, referring to two figures from British history whose careers mixed warfare and private profit.

Evro Polis, according to Fontanka and public company records in Russia, is part of a network of companies owned by Evgeniy Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg businessman close to President Vladimir V. Putin and known as “the Kremlin’s chef” for his exclusive catering contracts with the administration. His company, Concord Catering, also supplies food to many of Moscow’s public schools, according to Russian news reports.

Journalists have reported that Mr. Prigozhin engaged in another recent Russian experiment in restoring influence abroad while keeping costs down: He set up a factory of so-called internet trolls in St. Petersburg, an office packed with low-paid people posting online under assumed identities to influence public opinion in foreign countries, including the United States.

Last month, the Treasury Department in Washington imposed sanctions on Dmitri Utkin, the founder of Wagner, the private security group the report said would capture the Syrian oil and gas wells for Evro Polis. Fontanka first linked Mr. Utkin to Wagner in an article in 2015.

In the other deal, the Russian energy company Stroytransgaz won rights to mine phosphate in central Syria under the condition it secure the mine site, the Russian news outlet RBC reported.

Stroytransgaz, which is majority owned by another Russian under United States sanctions, Gennady Timchenko, signed a deal with the Syrian government to resume mining at the Sharqiya phosphate deposit, which was under Islamic State control at the time, RBC reported. Under the agreement, an unidentified Russian private military contractor would guard the site.

In this instance, however, Russian, Iranian and Syrian soldiers — rather than private contractors — conducted the operations in May that expelled Islamic State militants from the mining site, RBC reported.

In anticipation of the commercial payoff, the report said, a Russian ship laden with mining equipment docked at the Syrian port city of Tartus, where Russia has a naval base, even before the military operation began.

Russian officials have not commented publicly on either deal.

The Russian Energy Ministry did not respond to written questions about the reported oil and gas deal. The owner of Evro Polis did not reply to an email sent to an address listed on company records.

Asked on a conference call with journalists about the Syrian oil deal, the Kremlin press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov, said, “We do not monitor some entrepreneurial activity” of Russian companies abroad.

Mr. Konovalov, the military analyst, said the Syrian government was more than willing to strike such deals, trading natural resources for security.

“They get the better side of this contract,” he said. “They get our participation in the security sector in Syria, which is very valuable.”

The Fontanka report suggested that Russian security contractors had already put the agreement to work, fighting to expel the Islamic State from natural gas fields near Palmyra.

The Russians are training and fighting alongside a unit of the Syrian Army called ISIS Hunters, whose exploits are widely promoted in the Russian state news media. The Fontanka report linked to a video filmed from a body camera worn by a Russian-speaking soldier with ISIS Hunters during a firefight in the desert.

“Friendly, don’t shoot!” the soldier yelled in Russian, apparently to other Russian soldiers nearby.

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Moscow.

A version of this article appears in print on July 6, 2017, on Page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Profit Motive Fortifies Russia’s Arsenal in Syria. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.lawfareblog.com/primer-debates-over-law-and-ethics-autonomous-weapon-systems

AUTONOMOUS WEAPON SYSTEMS

A Primer on Debates over Law and Ethics of Autonomous Weapon Systems

By Kenneth Anderson, Matthew Waxman Wednesday, July 5, 2017, 10:00 AM


For Lawfare readers interested in law and regulation of autonomous weapon systems (AWS), we’re pleased to note our new essay, recently posted to SSRN, “Debating Autonomous Weapon Systems, Their Ethics, and Their Regulation Under International Law.” It appears as a chapter in a just-published volume, The Oxford Handbook of Law, Regulation, and Technology, edited by Roger Brownsword, Eloise Scotfield, and Karen Yeung (Oxford University Press, July 2017).

Our chapter can be read on its own as a non-technical and relatively short primer on normative debates over AWS. The book in which it appears addresses emerging technologies and regulation more generally. Some readers might find it interesting to see how debates over the law, regulation, and ethics of AWS compare and contrast with those of other emerging technologies (Table of Contents tab here).

Although our chapter expresses a point of view on these normative debates (a point of view we’ve previously conveyed here, here, and elsewhere), it is intended to present, as fairly as we could in a limited space and in non-technical language, the leading positions in the debate. It's not a brief for one side or the other. Teachers looking for a basic introduction to the AWS topic for use in law, international relations, ethics, armed conflict or military studies, etc., might find it useful. For teachers of courses touching on the regulation of emerging technology more broadly, the volume as a whole is a useful introduction—the articles and their topics are well chosen and edited to ensure that they maintain a consistently explanatory tone and don’t fall into specialist jargon. It is available as a hardback, paperback, or e-book.

We’d note here that our chapter is current only as of early 2016 (and it was largely written in 2015), and as with other emerging technologies, technical advances as well as legal/regulatory developments tend to render scholarly commentary out of date relatively quickly. From the vantage point of July 2017, however, we think our article holds up pretty well.

As for more recent 2017 developments in the international AWS debate, an excellent recent Lawfare post by Rebecca Crootof and Frauke Renz provides background as well as their assessment of where they believe the AWS debate should go. They describe, among other things, recent cancellation of the scheduled August 2017 informal experts meeting under auspices of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) review process, on account of insufficient funding from states. For more background on the underlying technologies, Paul Scharre’s recent lecture (available here) provides excellent discussion of artificial intelligence and future warfare, and Michael Horowitz succinctly puts some of these issues and other military-technological developments in strategic context here.

SSRN abstract:

An international public debate over the law and ethics of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) has been underway since 2012, with those urging legal regulation of AWS under existing principles and requirements of the international law of armed conflict, on the one side, in argument with opponents who favor, instead, a preemptive international treaty ban on all such weapons, on the other. This Chapter provides an introduction to this international debate, offering the main arguments on each side. These include disputes over defining an AWS, the morality and law of automated targeting and target selection by machine, and the interaction of humans and machines in the context of lethal weapons of war. Although the Chapter concludes that a categorical ban on AWS is unjustified morally and legally — favoring the law of armed conflict’s existing case-by-case legal evaluation — it offers an exposition of arguments on each side of the AWS issue.​

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