WAR 08-27-2016-to-09-02-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-militants-idUSKCN11204G

World News | Sat Aug 27, 2016 5:39am EDT

Bangladesh police kill 'mastermind' of Dhaka cafe attack

By Serajul Quadir | DHAKA

Bangladesh security forces killed three Islamist militants on Saturday including a Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen alleged to have masterminded an attack on a cafe in Dhaka last month in which 22 people, mostly foreigners, were killed, police said.

The militants were cornered in a hideout on the outskirts of the capital and, having refused to surrender, were killed in the ensuing gunbattle, Monirul Islam, the head of the Dhaka police counterterrorism unit, told Reuters.

He initially said four militants had been killed but later revised the number to three.

The success notched up by the security forces came ahead of a visit on Monday by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is expected to discuss security in the wake of a series of killings of liberals and religious minorities in the mostly Muslim country.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the assault on the cafe in a posh neighborhood of the capital, during which militants singled out non-Muslims and foreigners, killing Italians, Japanese, an American and an Indian.

The government has steadfastly denied the presence in the country of any transnational militant organization, like al Qaeda or Islamic State.

But police believe that Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was involved in organizing the cafe attack.

The scale of that attack and the targeting of foreigners has cast a shadow over foreign investment in the poor South Asian economy, whose $28 billion garments export industry is the world's second largest.


MASTERMIND'S DEATH

The suspected mastermind killed in Saturday's raid was identified as Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, a 30-year-old Canadian citizen born in Bangladesh. Analysts say Islamic State in April identified Chowdhury as its national commander.

"According to our evidence we are now sure that Tamim was among the three killed," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters. "So the chapter of Tamim has ended here."

Khan said Chowdhury was one of the main suppliers of funds and arms for several recent attacks. He had returned to Bangladesh in October, 2013 via Abu Dhabi, A K M Shahidul Hoque, the inspector general of police, said.


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The raid followed a tip off from the landlord of the house where the militants were staying, Hoque told reporters. The landlord said the militants had described themselves as businessmen in the medical trade.

Police have also been holding in detention two men who had been among the survivors of the attack on the restaurant.

Hasnat Karim, holds dual British and Bangladeshi citizenship, and Tahmid Hasib Khan, a student of Toronto University, had been dining separately in the restaurant.

A lawyer for Karim, a 47-year-old engineer, has said his client is innocent. Relatives of Khan, 22, say he is innocent too.

Earlier this month, security forces arrested four women suspected of being members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.


(Reporting by Serajul Quadir; writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
 

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Russian “New Generation” Warfare: Theory, Practice, and Lessons for U.S. Strategists

by Nicholas Fedyk
Journal Article | August 25, 2016 - 7:45am
Comments 1

Russian unconventional warfare—dubbed by analysts as “new generation” warfare—elevates the psychological and popular aspects of conflict more so than any of its geopolitical partners and rivals. In an era of expanding popular engagement and attention to foreign conflicts, a strategic appreciation of these people-centric dimensions is more important now than ever. Recent interventions in Crimea and Donbas demonstrate the effectiveness of this new generation strategy, expose some critical weaknesses in U.S. approaches to unconventional war, and provide lessons for future strategic design.

Historical Roots of Popular Engagement

Theorists have long understood that the population is a critical center of gravity in warfare. More specifically, both Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu linked popular support to the moral element of warfare: that is, a campaign’s morality or legitimacy is determined by the interests and will of the people supplying it, fighting in it, voting on it, and suffering from it. Therefore, leaders should target both their own people and their enemy’s: they should seek to treat their own with “benevolence, justice, and righteousness, [reposing] confidence in them,”[ii] while simultaneously attacking the enemy’s population to bring about a “gradual exhaustion of his physical and moral resistance.”[iii] The population is the third element of Clausewitz’s trinity, and in unconventional war it is arguably the most important. Exhausting popular will can damage an enemy more than seizing territory or inflicting physical damage—indeed, it is the intended end result of that seizure or damage.

Guerilla warfare theorists and practitioners—those who are aided by states engaged in unconventional warfare—likewise recognize that the population is a critical center of gravity. Regardless of the process or method of resistance—be it Mao’s three stages, Che’s foco, or others—guerilla leaders agree that insurgencies suffocate absent popular support. In their guerilla warfare manuals, Mao and Che echo this lesson. Even before violence escalates, Mao’s primary objective is to “persuade as many people as possible to commit themselves to the movement, so that it gradually acquires the quality of ‘mass.’”[iv] And with perfect certainty, Che believes that the “absolute cooperation of the people” is vital for an insurgency’s long-term success; to this end, “intensive popular work must be undertaken to explain the motives of the revolution, its ends, and to spread the incontrovertible truth that victory of the enemy against the people is finally impossible.”[v] Thus, the population is a center of gravity across all kinds of warfare: insurgency and counterinsurgency, conventional and unconventional, past and present.

Due to recent and dramatic changes in media, technology, and culture, the population plays an even more vital role in twenty-first century unconventional conflict. It is an era of round-the-clock news coverage, where the population, aided by smartphones, cable television, and social media, can track its government and military with startling frequency. People are more connected, but they can also be more mercurial. Individuals are inundated by distraction upon distraction: from the latest rumor about a stewing political controversy to an upcoming thunderstorm that may cancel the Nationals’ game, viewers’ attention spans are short. Even more concerning, the population is susceptible to misinformation. In the never-ending search for TV ratings, primetime networks push “breaking stories” without properly validating their accuracy, featuring “expert” analysts on screen whose remarks can be swayed by emotion or impulse that are passed on to viewers at home.

These factors pose a particular challenge for military and political leadership engaging in unconventional warfare. Successful unconventional warfare mandates a long-term approach, beginning at Phase Zero long before violence breaks out. Phase Zero engagements are effective because they seek to use nonmilitary instruments to shape the operational environment, preventing violence from occurring in the first place. Yet, they produce few rewards that are obvious to a skeptical public; soft instruments of power such as diplomacy, economic aid, and propaganda require patient persistence, and do not produce tangible, immediate indicators of victory. Indeed, the public may find such soft engagements unnecessary or wasteful.

Facing an impatient and skeptical public, strategists must sustain popular support by encouraging patience as they employ a diverse array of nonmilitary instruments to preempt violence. In other words, the population must “buy-in” to unconventional warfare. In addition, strategists should deceive and manipulate international opponents who may criticize such interventions and attempt to counter their narrative. How well does Russia’s new generation strategy achieve these goals? Does Russia inspire support from its own population, while denying its enemy’s ability to do the same? These questions will help evaluate the effectiveness of Russian strategy.

Russian Theory

In both theory and practice, Russia’s new generation warfare appreciates the popular element of war. In his report for the National Defense Academy of Latvia, Janis Berzins aptly describes Russian strategy as psychological or informational warfare.[vi] Whereas previous strategies focused on logistical or material concerns, such as the strength of the enemy’s forces, Russia is now preoccupied with the battlespace of the mind:

Thus, the Russian view of modern warfare is based on the idea that the main battlespace is the mind and, as a result, new-generation wars are to be dominated by information and psychological warfare, in order to achieve superiority in troops and weapons control, morally and psychologically depressing the enemy’s armed forces personnel and civil population.[vii]

Berzins then lays out ten guidelines for “developing Russian military capabilities by 2020” that address this new battlespace: influence is prioritized over destruction; inner decay over annihilation; and culture over weapons or technology. It is a true total war battlespace that encompasses political, economic, informational, technological, and ecological instruments. This theory is then implemented through eight specific phases, starting with establishing a “favorable political, economic, and military setup” long before conflict begins. This essential first phase is ongoing. Indeed, there is no artificial binary between war and peace, but simply war at all times, in all places, and with all resources.

Furthermore, since Russia prefers nonmilitary, nonviolent measures, this new generation war rarely boils over into full-scale armed conflict. In addition, Russian strategy emphasizes the importance of deception and misinformation to conceal its aggressive operations, a policy known as maskirovka (“camouflage” in Russian). In Taktika, Russian strategist V.G. Reznichenko defines maskirovka as “a set of measures designed to mislead the enemy with respect to the presence and disposition of troops, various military installations, their status, combat readiness, and operations, as well as the plans of the command elements.”[viii] Russian unconventional warfare is saturated in such deception, which makes war look like peace.

Russian Practice

Russia has masterfully implemented this new generation strategy in Crimea and Donbas. Consider the invasion of Crimea, which Russia silently executed under the guise of humanitarian intervention. With little local resistance or bloodshed, Russia carefully pried the peninsula back into its sphere of influence:

Its success can be measured by the fact that in just three weeks, and without a shot being fired, the morale of the Ukrainian military was broken and all of their 190 bases had surrendered. Instead of relying on a mass deployment of tanks and artillery, the Crimean campaign deployed less than 10,000 assault troops—mostly naval infantry, already stationed in Crimea, backed by a few battalions of airborne troops and Spetsnaz commandos—against 16,000 Ukrainian military personnel. In addition, the heaviest vehicle used was the wheeled BTR-80 armored personal carrier.[ix]

Closely following its unconventional warfare theory, Russian waged total war, utilizing a variety of soft instruments to shape the operational environment long before 2014 and cultivating the popular support necessary to sustain such an intervention. First, it worked by, with, and through local forces: it paid off oligarchs to run their own local militias, bribed local officials with positions in the new shadow government, and aided separatist forces with intelligence, artillery, rations, and other essential logistical support. Russia also maintains close economic ties with Ukrainian businesses in the region, investing heavily in the industrial and energy sectors. Finally, it disseminates pro-Russian propaganda through Russian-owned and funded radio and television networks, which continue to berate Kiev as a Western puppet and emphasizing Russia and Ukraine’s shared historic and cultural heritage. Through these mechanisms, Russia plants meaningful incentives for popular support and cooperation, while consistently denying the presence of Russian troops in Crimea or Donbas—true maskirovka in action. While controversial in the eyes of the international community, local polling suggests that a substantial majority of the local population endorsed the Russian invasion, a sentiment supported by the lack of ensuing popular resistance or violence and the transitions to regional shadow governments today.[x] Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Army continues to struggle with draft dodging and desertion, as the public appetite for war rapidly fades.[xi]

Strategic Communication: Inspiring Supporters, Fooling Critics

Russia’s clever use of media and communication is a critical part of new generation warfare. Ultimately, what Russia does may not be as important as how it communicates and defends its legitimacy—both to the international community and to its own domestic population. The Ukrainian intervention is especially illustrative: first, Russia deceives the international community, evades traditional deterrent mechanisms, and establishes its own definition of legitimacy; and second, Russia inspires and sustains domestic popular support.

First, Russia establishes its legitimacy through its heavily publicized cooperation with the Federal Assembly, its national parliament. In a method known as “legalism,” the Kremlin persuades the assembly to issue official, legal authorizations for the use of force in Ukraine. Since 2014, it has claimed two legal justifications for force: one, the protection and self-defense of Russian nationals living in Donbas and Crimea; and two, the direct invitation for intervention by Donbas and Crimean leadership, as well as that of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, whom Russia still believed was the legitimate leader of Ukraine in 2014.[xii]

According to U.S. and European critics, these justifications are illegitimate: they serve Russia’s own interests while trampling on Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. Yet, by claiming to act in support of self-defense and sovereignty—claims supported by its own parliament’s legislation—Russia turns traditional deterrent mechanisms on their head. Indeed, self-defense is explicitly permitted in Article 51 of the UN Charter. And while Article 5 of the NATO Treaty states that “an armed attack against one” is considered an attack against the alliance, how should the alliance respond when the armed attack in question is morphed or denied by the aggressor? Russia’s new generation warfare deliberately blurs the line between military and nonmilitary action, making it more difficult to determine or agree that an armed attack has actually occured, especially when the aggressor claims to act in defense of one of the main principles of the UN Charter. Ultimately, both Russia and its opponents lean on the same words to legitimize their policies: words like “self-determination,” “self-defense,” and “sovereignty.” Yet Russia is the only party that effectively backs up its rhetoric with action—both in the Phase Zero stage and in later ones when military force is required.

Just as it confuses and manipulates international audiences, Russian does the same to its domestic population, pushing a consistent, optimistic narrative to sustain support for a prolonged intervention. There are many newspapers, magazines, and radio stations, but television is Russian’s primary source for news and information about the ongoing conflict, and it exercises dominant influence over public opinion.[xiii] Television producer Peter Pomerantsev, in his aptly titled Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, describes its influence thus:


In a country covering nine time zones, one-sixth of the world’s land mass, stretching from the Pacific to the Baltic, from the Arctic to the Central Asian deserts, from near-medieval villages where people still draw water from wooden wells by hand, through single-factory towns and back to the blue glass and steel skyscrapers of the new Moscow—TV is the only force that can unify and rule and bind this country.[xiv]


The Russian government directly owns Channel One and Russia One, two of the three largest stations. Meanwhile, state-funded oligarchs own NTV, the third-largest channel, as well as leading newspaper and radio outlets.[xv] The government also aggressively censors speech that it considers offensive or critical.[xvi] It even hires social media “trolls” to obsessively peruse popular sites like Twitter and VKontakte who harass investigative journalists, Ukraine sympathizers, and even political opponents like German Chancellor Angela Merkel.[xvii] Working in “troll factories,” these users work in teams to provide a semblance of organic debate, fooling passive users.

Government influence over the media provides it with a direct channel to popular opinion, allowing the Kremlin to highlight the successes of new generation warfare and its easy payoffs in Ukraine.[xviii] As a result, popular support, a critical pillar of unconventional war, remains high in Russia. According to studies cited by the Carnegie Endowment, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, BBC, Freedom House, and others, Russian viewers trust the objectivity of these national TV stations, and this trust is actually rising.[xix] In fact, some 88 percent believe that the United States and Europe are manipulating their media in an “information war” against Russia, while their own government is simply reporting the facts.[xx]

It is no surprise, therefore, that Russians continue to support their government’s justification for Ukrainian intervention. And while they tend to oppose escalating the conflict with NATO or deploying more Russian troops abroad, Russia’s new generation warfare is designed precisely to avoid this kind of escalation.[xxi] Indeed, Russia’s “little green men” have occupied Crimea and parts of Donbas for over two years now, and the West has given little indication it is prepared to initiate a full-scale military conflict. In fact, Europe’s appetite for using even nonmilitary deterrents, like economic sanctions, is wearing thin.[xxii]

Lessons for the United States

Russia’s new generation warfare provides several lessons for U.S. strategists. First, the United States should recognize the important of Phase Zero operations and implement psychological, informational, and other nonmilitary measures that preempt and prevent conflict. Current U.S. doctrine demonstrates a poor appreciation for this kind of warfare, which is too rigidly focused on traditional military operations. For example, the first step of “preparation” requires executive “permission to execute an unconventional warfare campaign”—as if unconventional warfare is something that can be turned on and off at a moment’s notice.[xxiii] On the contrary, new generation warfare is a type of warfare that exists round-the-clock, using a nation’s total resources to shape the operational environment. It is not a set campaign; it is a way of life. U.S. leaders must adopt this mindset.

Second, U.S. leaders must use the media to encourage patience and trust in military activities. The impulsive, fast-paced cable news cycle far outpaces the military’s timeline. While CNN or Fox News may portray the loss of an airport or key building in Donetsk as a great calamity, the military knows it is just one step in the course of a long conflict that may take years to resolve. Unlike Russia, where the government and military control the narrative because they control the media outlets, U.S. media is far more independent—and it should remain so.[xxiv] However, U.S. officials should speak out more emphatically and frequently on these outlets, making a public case for a long-term military approach and countering the desire for quick results and decisive victories, neither of which characterize unconventional war. It should also seek to limit the rising number of leaks, which makes the military look disorganized and further divides popular opinion.

Finally, in addition to developing its own unconventional war strategy, the U.S. must grasp and counter Russia’s new generation warfare with nonmilitary instruments of its own.[xxv] These include establishing new TV and radio stations to disseminate pro-Ukrainian propaganda in Donbas; channeling economic aid to encourage private enterprise and strengthening links between Ukraine and the West; cutting back sanctions that harm the local population and alienate popular support; and aggressively exposing Russian flaws and abuses to encourage impatience and skepticism within Russia. This new generation conflict in Ukraine is fundamentally attritive; weakening the enemy’s will through these nonmilitary measures will pay large dividends in the long-run.

End Notes

Phillip Karber summarizes the Russian approach thus: “Russia’s new generation warfare differs from Western views of hybrid warfare — a blend of conventional, irregular and cyber warfare — in that it combines both low-end hidden state involvement with high-end direct, even braggadocio, superpower involvement. Contrary to Western politicians, the Russian leadership understands military options and plays them like a Stradivarius.” This paper will unwrap this definition and its impact on future unconventional war. See Phillip Karber, “Russia’s New Generation Warfare,” National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency, https://www.nga.mil/MediaRoom/News/Pages/Russia's-'New-Generation-Warfare'.aspx

[ii] Sun Tzu, Art of War (Philadelphia: Lippincot, 1862), 64.

[iii] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Peter Paret and Michael Howard (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), 93.

[iv] Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, trans. Samuel B. Griffith II (New York: Dover Publications, 2000), 21.

[v] Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 56.

[vi] Berzins’ assessment is based on recent Russian actions in Ukraine, as well as speeches and writings of Russian leaders translated into English, most notably that of Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov. For his original source, see Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying out Combat Operations,” in Voyenno-Promyshlennyy Kurier (Jan-Feb 2016), https://www.questia.com/library/jou...of-science-is-in-the-foresight-new-challenges. For another lucid summary of new generation warfare, see Footnote 1.

[vii] Janis Berzins, “Russia’s New Generation Warfare in Ukraine,” National Defense Academy of Latvia (April 2014), 5. Emphasis mine.

[viii] Cited by Major Kenneth Keating, “Maskirovka: The Soviet System of Camouflage,” U.S. Army Russian Institute (1981), 4, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a112903.pdf

[ix] Berzins, 4.

[x] Kenneth Rapoza, “One Year After Russia Annexed Crimea, Locals Prefer Moscow to Kiev,” Forbes (March 20, 2015), http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapo...ea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/#3b8476ae5951

[xi] Natalia Zinets, “Ukraine struggles to recruit soldiers for war in east,” Reuters (February 4, 2016), http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-crisis-military-idUKKCN0VD21Q

[xii] Christian Marxsen, “The Crimean Crisis: An International Law Perspective” (2014), 372-374, http://www.mpil.de/files/pdf4/Marxs...crisis_-_an_international_law_perspective.pdf

[xiii] For 90-95 percent of Russians, television is their main source of information about the events in Ukraine. See studies cited by the Carnegie Endowment at: http://carnegieendowment.org/publications/?fa=61236

[xiv] Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (Perseus Books, 2014), 5.

[xv] The top three channels collectively make up 40 percent of the TV market. Gazprom, Russia’s largest private company, is heavily subsidized by the Kremlin and operates many of the smaller channels. For a complete list of media companies and their share of the market, see: http://tinyurl.com/glagl2l

[xvi] “Hate speech” laws give the government wide latitude to arrest and intimidate its critics. See “Dozens in Russia imprisoned for social media likes, reposts,” Associated Press (June 2, 2016),

http://www.news.com.au/technology/o...s/news-story/9cb54ddab2810129920d560f4eb5983b

[xvii] Andrew Higgins, “Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation,” New York Times (May 31, 2016), http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/world/europe/russia-finland-nato-trolls.html?_r=0

[xviii] In particular, the media emphasizes four key pillars: “first, that the “conflict in Ukraine is internal; second, that the Ukrainian government is the main aggressor; third, that the Russian-speaking population is threatened and endangered by the Ukrainian government forces and volunteer right-wing battalions; and fourth, that Western powers are deliberately underplaying the harm that the Ukrainian government forces are causing in the eastern regions of the country.” See “Russia’s Information War Victory at Home – The Role of State Media,” Albany Associates (October 31, 2014), http://www.albanyassociates.com/not...-war-victory-at-home-the-role-of-state-media/

[xix] For one such study, see “Information Warfare,” Levada Center (November 12, 2014), http://www.levada.ru/eng/information-warfare

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Thomas Sherlock, “Putin’s Public Opinion Challenge,” National Interest (August 21, 2014), http://nationalinterest.org/feature/putins-public-opinion-challenge-11113

[xxii] David Francis and Lara Jakes, “Sanctions are a Failure: Let’s Admit That,” Foreign Policy (April 27, 2016), http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/28/sanctions-are-a-failurelets-admit-that/

[xxiii] David Maxwell, “Russia Versus U.S. Unconventional Warfare,” Class Lecture (June 13, 2016).

[xxiv] While benefiting the military, Russia’s control of the media comes at a great price: the loss or restriction of basic civil liberties. Freedom House ranks Russia as “not free,” awarding it low scores in not only press freedom, but freedom in the legal, political, and economic environments. See “Russia: Freedom of the Press 2015,” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/russia

[xxv] Sun Tzu’s maxim that the “supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy” applies here.

About the Author »

Nicholas Fedyk

Nicholas Fedyk is pursuing an M.A. in security studies at Georgetown University and received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown's School of Foreign Service in 2014. In his master's program, he focuses on terrorism and sub-state violence, particularly in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. He is a project associate at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.

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by Bill C. | August 26, 2016 - 6:10pm Login or register to post comments

First and foremost, in the New/Reverse Cold War of today, to see Russia's operations, at home, in Ukraine and elsewhere, from much the same standpoint/from much the same perspective that we saw/viewed, in the Old Cold War of yesterday, U.S. operations, at home, in Latin America and elsewhere, to wit: from the standpoint of:

a. Defending one's own nation from hostile foreign interference.

b. To demonstrate that one's nation has revitalized its will to oppose its opponents in the Cold War of the day.

c. To contain the spread of adverse revolutions and to reverse those that have already occur within such a Cold War.

d. Thus, employed as part of a broader strategy, to carry out an open-ended competition, and signal a certain confidence, that the value of protecting one's own sphere of interest is greater than any opponent’s interest in upsetting it.

(Note: ALL of the above ["a" - "d"] were [a] taken from the important "War on the Rocks" article entitled: "America Did Hybrid Warfare Too" [provided below] and adapted to serve our needs here re: Russia.)

http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/america-did-hybrid-warfare-too/

Bottom Line:

By embracing the idea/the context of a New/Reverse Cold War, do we not, thus, understand both:

a. What Russia (et al.) are trying to achieve today (containment/roll back of U.S./Western power, influence and control) and how they are trying to achieve it? And

b. What the U.S./the West is trying to achieve today (gain greater power, influence and control -- by spreading our way of life, our way of governance, our values, etc., throughout the world) -- and what we must, in the face of such resistance as is outlined at "a" immediately above, do to:

1. Overcome such resistance? And

2. Realize our "expansionist" goals in spite of same?

Conclusion:

Thus, first and foremost, to appreciate Clausewitz: "The first essential act of judgment is to establish the kind of war in which we are embroiled."

(This Clausewitz quote, likewise, taken from the important "War on the Rocks" article -- which is both referenced and provided at the link above.)
 

Housecarl

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The PLA¡¯s Latest Strategic Thinking on the Three Warfares

Publication: China Brief Volume: 16 Issue: 13
August 22, 2016 06:46 PM Age: 4 days
By: Elsa Kania

Beijing¡¯s response to the unfavorable South China Sea arbitration outcome has highlighted an important aspect of its military strategy, the ¡°three warfares¡± (ÈýÕ½). Consisting of public opinion warfare (ÓßÂÛÕ½), psychological warfare (ÐÄÀíÕ½), and legal warfare (·¨ÂÉÕ½), the three warfares have been critical components of China¡¯s strategic approach in the South China Sea and beyond. In peacetime and wartime alike, the application of the three warfares is intended to control the prevailing discourse and influence perceptions in a way that advances China¡¯s interests, while compromising the capability of opponents to respond.

Beijing has sought to delegitimize the arbitration process and achieved some success in undermining the coalescence of consensus in support of the ruling, while engaging in coercive signaling and deniable attempts to punish the Philippines. China¡¯s response has also included ¡°regularized¡± ¡°combat readiness patrols¡± over the South China Sea by H-6K bombers, as well as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against Philippine government websites (China Military Online, August 6; China Military Online, July 19; InterAksyon, July 15). Consistently, Beijing has attempted to advance narratives that frame itself as the upholder of international law, while claiming that the U.S. is to blame for the ¡°militarization¡± of the South China Sea (China Military Online, June 23). For instance, official media has frequently characterized the arbitration process as a ¡°farce,¡± and China¡¯s ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, has argued that the arbitration case would ¡°undermine the authority and effectiveness of international law,¡± justifying China¡¯s rejection of it as a defense of ¡°international justice and the true spirit of international law¡± (Xinhua, July 12; PRC Embassy to the U.S., July 13).

These aspects of Beijing¡¯s response should be contextualized by China¡¯s theoretical framework for the ¡°three warfares.¡± Beyond the South China Sea, this approach has been manifest in a variety of recent cases, including also the East China Sea dispute, China¡¯s opposition to THAAD, and intensifying pressures on Taiwan. The PLA¡¯s evolving strategic thinking on the three warfares, which is linked to its emphasis on information warfare, could influence its efforts to utilize such techniques in future contingencies.

Progression of the PLA¡¯s Approach to Three Warfares:

Although the three warfares constitute a relatively recent addition to Chinese strategy, the PLA¡¯s approach to public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare has been formalized and already advanced considerably. Based on the 2003 and 2010 Political Work Regulations (ÕþÖι¤×÷ÌõÀý), the three warfares, under the aegis of ¡°wartime political work¡± (սʱÕþÖι¤×÷), were the responsibility of the General Political Department of the former General Staff Department, which, through the recent organizational reforms, has become the Political Work Department (ÕþÖι¤×÷²¿), subordinate to the Central Military Commission (CMC) (CPC.com.cn, December 5, 2003; China Brief, February 4). In 2005, the CMC ratified¡ªand the former General Staff Department, General Political Department, General Logistics Department, and General Armaments Department jointly promulgated¡ªofficial guidelines (gangyao, ¸ÙÒª, literally ¡°outline¡± or ¡°essentials¡±) for public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare, officially incorporating the concepts into the PLA¡¯s education, training, and preparation for military struggle. [1] While these gangyao themselves are not publically available, the open-source PLA literature on the three warfares, which dates back to the mid-2000s, constitutes a valuable resource for analysis and comparison. [2]

Several recent texts present authoritative perspectives on the three warfares and illustrate the extent of their integration into the PLA¡¯s strategic thinking and officers¡¯ curricula. These include the latest editions of influential PLA texts on military strategy, the 2013 Academy of Military Science (AMS) edition of Science of Military Strategy (SMS, Õ½ÂÔѧ) and the 2015 National Defense University (NDU) SMS, as well as teaching material used by the NDU, An Introduction to Public Opinion Warfare, Psychological Warfare, and Legal Warfare (ÓßÂÛÕ½ÐÄÀíÕ½·¨ÂÉÕ½¸ÅÂÛ). [3] Based on these texts, China¡¯s use of the three warfares constitutes a perceptual preparation of the battlefield that is seen as critical to advancing its interests during both peace and war.

Three Takes on the Three Warfares:

2013 Science of Military Strategy:

The 2013 AMS SMS highlighted the significance of the three warfares as a force multiplier in military operations and political or diplomatic scenarios alike. [4] In particular, the text introduced the concept of huayuquan (»°ÓïȨ) through the use of information, belief, and mentality (ÐÅÏ¢Ò»ÐÅÑöÒ»ÐÄÖÇ). Although, in more general or colloquial usage, the term might seem to imply the ¡°right to speak¡± or ¡°freedom of speech,¡± the quan (Ȩ) in this context apparently alludes not to rights (ȨÀû) but rather to power or authority (ȨÁ¦). In this regard, the concept refers to the capability to control the narrative in a given scenario and might therefore be translated as ¡°discursive power.¡± [5] To contest huayuaquan requires ¡°the integrated usage¡± of public opinion warfare, legal warfare, and psychological warfare. These three warfare operations should be complementary and mutually reinforcing in future wars or in political and diplomatic struggle.

According to the text, the use of the three warfares in a particular circumstance should be adapted based on the operational context and intended outcome. In particular, the authors argue that achieving international sympathy and support, while diplomatically seizing the initiative, can ¡°provide a powerful pillar to support the whole operational activity.¡± For instance, if the operational intention must be hidden, the use of propaganda to influence public opinion can reinforce the stratagem of ¡°making a feint to the east and attacking in the west¡± (Éù¶«»÷Î÷). [6] So too, three warfare operations can have a strong ¡°psychological frightening force¡± (ÐÄÀíÕðÉåÁ¦) against an adversary. Although this text does not define the three warfares or discuss their usage in further detail, this focus on their importance, including in deception, indicates recognition of their potential utility in a range of circumstances.

2014 Introduction to Public Opinion Warfare, Psychological Warfare, and Legal Warfare:

This 2014 text, which serves as discipline teaching materials (ѧ¿Æ½Ì²Ä) for the NDU, presented a comprehensive overview of the three warfares, including their primary missions, historical development, theoretical foundation, basic principles, implementation, and tactics. [7] The text illustrates the NDU¡¯s sustained efforts to develop a ¡°science of the three warfares¡± (¡°ÈýÕ½¡±Ñ§), which are considered a ¡°major innovation¡± in the PLA¡¯s political work, and to integrate the concepts into its curriculum. [8] This is informed by the study of variety of traditional, ideological, and contemporary precedents, from the ancient Chinese emphasis on the use of ¡°strategems¡± (ıÂÔ) to the U.S. military¡¯s perceived engagement in analogous practices. At a basic level, the primary purpose of the three warfares is to influence and target the adversary¡¯s psychology through the utilization of particular information and the media as ¡°weapons.¡± In particular, the three warfares are seen as critical to increasing the PLA¡¯s ¡°soft power¡± (ÈíʵÁ¦) and contributing to its success in future wars. As warfare has evolved toward greater ¡°informationization¡± (ÐÅÏ¢»¯), the three warfares have evidently achieved a ¡°breakthrough¡± beyond their ¡°traditional scope and model,¡± becoming an ¡°organic¡± aspect of national strategy and warfare.

While the three warfares ¡°permeate¡± the ¡°whole course¡± of military struggle, their functions have also expanded and are relevant to the PLA¡¯s increasingly ¡°diversified¡± military missions. In particular, the relevant functions include:

¡¤ control of public opinion (ÓßÂÛ¿ØÖÆ)

¡¤ blunting an adversary¡¯s determination (ÒâÖ¾´ìÉË)

¡¤ transformation of emotion (Çé¸Ðת»¯)

¡¤ psychological guidance (ÐÄÖÇÓÕµ¼)

¡¤ collapse of (an adversary¡¯s) organization (×éÖ¯Íß½â)

¡¤ psychological defense (ÐÄÀí·ÀÓù)

¡¤ restriction through law (·¨ÂÉÖÆÔ¼)

In more general terms, the primary missions are to seize the ¡°decisive opportunity¡± (ÏÈ»ú) for controlling public opinion, organize psychological offense and defense, engage in legal struggle, and fight for popular will and public opinion. Under the aegis of these missions, this requires efforts to unify military and civilian thinking, divide the enemy into factions, weaken the enemy¡¯s combat power, and organize legal offensives.

According to the text, the implementation of the three warfares should be guided by certain basic principles. These emphasize integration with national political and diplomatic struggle; revolving around the launching of military operations; rapidly taking advantage of the ¡°decisive opportunity¡± (ÏÈ»ú); engaging in offense and defense, with an emphasis on offense; and the integration of peace and warfare (ƽս½áºÏ). Such principles imply advancing a highly coordinated approach that involves proactive peacetime preparation of the perceptual domain in order to enable the PLA to rapidly seize the initiative in a crisis or conflict scenario.

In its entirety, this NDU text highlights the PLA¡¯s focus on these informational, non-kinetic aspects of modern warfare and its extensive efforts to formulate a complex theoretical approach, with a focus on implementation, education, training, and the construction of specialized forces. Beyond the traditional applications of the three warfares, the text also displays efforts to innovate in the application of these concepts to new contexts, such as counterterrorism and stability protection (·´¿ÖάÎÈ), international peacekeeping, protecting transportation and escort (±£½»»¤º½), and closing and controlling borders (·â±ß¿Ø±ß).

2015 Science of Military Strategy:

The 2015 NDU SMS provides an overview of public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare and guidance regarding their implementation. According to the text, public opinion warfare involves using public opinion as a weapon by propagandizing through various forms of media in order to weaken the adversary¡¯s ¡°will to fight¡± (Õ½¶·ÒâÖ¾), while ensuring strength of will and unity among civilian and military views on one¡¯s own side. Psychological warfare seeks to undermine an adversary¡¯s combat power, resolve, and decision-making, while exacerbating internal disputes to cause the enemy to divide into factions (ÕóÓª). Legal warfare envisions use of all aspects of the law, including national law, international law, and the laws of war, in order to secure seizing ¡°legal principle superiority¡± (·¨ÀíÓÅÊÆ) and delegitimize an adversary. Each of the three warfares operates in the perceptual domain (ÈÏÖªÁìÓò) and relies upon information for its efficacy.

The 2015 SMS emphasizes the ¡°tight connection¡± of three warfares as an ¡°integrated whole¡± that should be utilized synthetically. From the authors¡¯ perspective, public opinion warfare and legal warfare primarily operate at the strategic level of warfare, whereas psychological warfare is often implemented at the campaign and tactical levels. If effectively implemented, the three warfares have the potential to establish favorable conditions for battlefield success and eventual victory.

For public opinion warfare, the requirements outlined are to ¡°demoralize one¡¯s opponent by a show of strength¡± (ÏÈÉù¶áÈË), ¡°create momentum to control the situation¡± (ÔìÊƿؾÖ), ¡°assail strategic points¡± (Åê»÷Òªº¦), and ¡°seek the avoidance of injury¡± (Ç÷Àû±Üº¦). In particular, it is critical to be the first to release information in a contingency and actively guide public opinion in order to achieve and preserve the initiative on the ¡°public opinion battlefield.¡± Beyond efforts to exploit an adversary¡¯s shortcomings, the opponent¡¯s attempts to engage in public opinion warfare must also be countered. For example, this approach is reflected in Beijing¡¯s attempts to influence domestic and international public opinion with regard to the U.S. role in Asia¡ªincluding claiming that the U.S. is at fault for regional tensions and the ¡°militarization¡± of maritime territorial disputes, while frequently denouncing U.S. ¡°hegemony¡± and pursuit of ¡°absolute security.¡±

The principles articulated for psychological warfare focus on ¡°integrating [psychological attacks] and armed attacks with each other¡± (ÓëÎäÁ¦´ò»÷Ïà½áºÏ), ¡°carrying out offense and defense at the same time, with offense as the priority¡± (¹¥·À²¢¾ÙÒÔ¹¥ÎªÖ÷), and ¡°synthetically using multiple forms of forces¡± (×ÛºÏÔËÓø÷ÖÖÁ¦Á¿). In this regard, psychological warfare is envisioned as closely integrated with all forms and stages of military operations in order to intensify the efficacy of conventional attacks. The implementation of psychological warfare should also focus on taking advantage of ¡°opportune moments¡± and ¡°striking first¡± to seize the initiative, based on the efforts of multiple forms of psychological warfare forces, including those from the armed forces, reserves, and society. For instance, the intensification of psychological pressures against and attempted intimidation of Taiwan at times of tension or crisis, especially recently during Tsai Ing-wen¡¯s presidency, reflects the application of such an approach, which has been carried out by the PLA¡¯s ¡°Three Warfares Base,¡± Base 311 in Fuzhou (Taiwan Link, August 8).

The implementation of legal warfare, which seeks to provide legal support to operational success, is informed by the principles to ¡°protect national interests as the highest standard¡± (ÒÔά»¤¹ú¼ÒÀûÒæΪ×î¸ß×¼Ôò), ¡°respect the basic principles of the law¡± (×ðÖØ·¨ÂɵĻù±¾×¼Ôò), ¡°carry out [legal warfare] that centers upon military operations¡± (ΧÈƾüÊÂÐж¯Õ¹¿ª), and ¡°seize standards [and] flexibly use [them]¡± (°ÑÎչ淶Áé»îÔËÓÃ). This approach emphasizes the necessity of a nuanced understanding of relevant domestic and international law in order to engage in ¡°legal struggle¡± and achieve the initiative. In the context of the South China Sea dispute, this has involved the utilization of rather tortuous interpretations of international law to oppose the Philippines¡¯ position and seek to delegitimize the arbitration process.

Conclusion

Based on these texts, the PLA perceives public opinion, psychological, and legal warfare as of distinctive strategic and operational significance, and the three warfares are evidently being incorporated more systematically into its overall thinking on military strategy. While the conceptualization of the three warfares in these recent texts builds upon the prior PLA literature and thinking on the concepts, these sources particularly highlight the complementarities among the three warfares and the importance of their synthetic integration with conventional military operations. This approach is also informed by the PLA¡¯s concerns about countering the perceived ¡°ideological assaults¡± (ÒâʶÐÎ̬¹¥»÷) of ¡°hostile forces¡± via the Internet (PLA Daily, August 12). In practice, this involves attempts to take advantage of prior peacetime preparation of this perceptual battlefield to establish favorable conditions for going on the offensive to seize the initiative. Since this is a dimension of strategic competition in which China has already demonstrated the efficacy of its efforts, understanding the three warfares will continue to have immediate, real-world relevance.

Looking forward, the PLA¡¯s future approach to the three warfares could continue to evolve in accordance with its recent and ongoing strategic, doctrinal, and also organizational changes. Beyond the recent changes in Chinese military strategy, with the 2014 revision of the PLA¡¯s military strategic guidelines (fangzhen, ·½Õë), overdue changes to its operational regulations (×÷Õ½ÌõÁî) or doctrine also seem to be occurring (China Brief, April 21). The PLA appears to remain in the process of working toward the official promulgation of a fifth-generation doctrine, and the underlying campaign outlines (Õ½ÒÛ¸ÙÒª) and combat regulations (Õ½¶·ÌõÁî) might include revised guidance for the implementation of the three warfares, given the recent focus on advancing the PLA¡¯s three warfares ¡°science.¡± Despite the limitations of the available sources, these three texts present the latest available perspectives on the PLA¡¯s evolving strategic thinking on the three warfares and thus can inform analyses of the PLA¡¯s implementation of these concepts.

Elsa Kania is a recent graduate of Harvard College and currently works as an analyst at the Long Term Strategy Group.

1. Wu Jieming [Îâ½ÜÃ÷] and Liu Zhifu [ÁõÖ¾¸»], An Introduction to Public Opinion Warfare, Psychological Warfare, [and] Legal Warfare [ÓßÂÛÕ½ÐÄÀíÕ½·¨ÂÉÕ½¸ÅÂÛ], National Defense University Press, 2014, p. 1.

2. For prior discussions of the three warfares, see prior analyses, including: Mark Stokes and Russell Hsiao, ¡°The People¡¯s Liberation Army General Political Department Political Warfare with Chinese Characteristics,¡± Project 2049, October 14, 2013. ¡°China: The Three Warfares,¡± prepared for Andrew Marshall, Director of the Office of Net Assessment, by Professor Stefan Halper, May 2013. Dean Cheng, ¡°Winning Without Fighting: Chinese Legal Warfare,¡± Heritage Foundation, May 21 2012. Dean Cheng, ¡°Winning Without Fighting: Chinese Public Opinion Warfare and the Need for a Robust American Response,¡± Heritage Foundation, November 26, 2012. Dean Cheng, ¡°Winning Without Fighting: The Chinese Psychological Warfare Challenge,¡± Heritage Foundation, July 12, 2013.

3. The Science of Military Strategy (SMS) is an authoritative text, typically used as teaching materials for senior PLA officers, that articulates the PLA¡¯s thinking on military strategy in multiple domains and contexts. The latest AMS edition of SMS was the focus of a recent book (Joe McReynolds, China¡¯s Evolving Military Strategy, Jamestown Foundation, 2016), but there has been less published analysis on the 2015 NDU text thus far. Since the AMS plays a more direct role in the formulation of military strategy, the 2013 SMS text might be more authoritative than the 2015 NDU edition. Nonetheless, this NDU text also presents a more recent and perhaps reasonably influential perspective that merits closer examination. Concurrently, it is important to recall that such works are primarily theoretical and reflect the viewpoints of these influential institutions, rather than the PLA as a whole. Given such caveats, these texts¡¯ respective content on the three warfares should not be taken as official articulations of the PLA¡¯s strategic or doctrinal approach but rather constitute more theoretical discussions of the concepts that can inform future analysis of these topics.

4. Academy of Military Science Military Strategy Research Department [¾üÊ¿ÆѧԺ¾üÊÂÕ½ÂÔÑо¿²¿], eds., The Science of Military Strategy [Õ½ÂÔѧ]. Military Science Press, 2013, p. 131.

5. John Costello and Peter Mattis, ¡°Electronic Warfare and the Renaissance of Chinese Information Operations,¡± in Joe McReynolds, China¡¯s Evolving Military Strategy, Jamestown Foundation, 2016.

6. This particular saying from the Thirty-Six Stratagems, which has been variously attributed to Sun Tzu and Zhuge Liang, seems to have originated from various aspects of Chinese written and oral military history.

7. Wu Jieming [Îâ½ÜÃ÷] and Liu Zhifu [ÁõÖ¾¸»], An Introduction to Public Opinion Warfare, Psychological Warfare, [and] Legal Warfare [ÓßÂÛÕ½ÐÄÀíÕ½·¨ÂÉÕ½¸ÅÂÛ], National Defense University Press, 2014, pp. 1¨C7, 14¨C20, 62¨C69, 121¨C132, 133¨C143, 226.

8. The text was formulated with high-level support from NDU starting from 2009 and authored by a committee of scholars under the leadership of two relatively senior NDU professors as a culmination of that process.

9. Xiao Tianliang [ФÌìÁÁ], eds., The Science of Military Strategy [Õ½ÂÔѧ]. National Defense University Press, 2015, pp. 216¨C218.


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Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://38north.org/2016/08/slbm082616/

North Korea’s SLBM Program Progresses, But Still Long Road Ahead

By John Schilling
26 August 2016

The success of North Korea’s latest submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test suggests the program may be progressing faster than originally expected. However, this does not mean it will be ready next week, next month, or even next year. Rather, the pace and method of the North’s SLBM testing would suggest possible deployment in an initial operational capability by the second half of 2018 at the earliest. Given Russia’s history of SLBM development—a model Pyongyang seems to be following—even after two years and 12 tests of varying degrees of “success” after its first successful launch from a submarine, there were still glitches to be found and fixed. The North Koreans may skip some of these tests, but rushing development almost certainly sacrifices reliability, and fielding inadequately tested or unreliable missiles could result in sunken submarines—a high price to pay when the North has only a single ballistic missile submarine of limited capability.

Furthermore, while North Korea’s single GORAE-class submarine could theoretically be used to field an SLBM, Pyongyang could not count on a single prototype submarine with one to two missiles to carry out wartime missions. Such a deployment would be more of a bluff than a game-changing threat. Moreover, the submarine has only been put to sea for short periods in coastal waters to verify basic seaworthiness and conduct a few launches. If it is meant to be an operational boat, it will need realistic testing in operational environments, such as exercises with its surface fleet. Furthermore, the North will almost certainly want to refine this design before trying to deploy an operational system.

While 38 North has reported on the North’s building up of infrastructure to construct new submarines—upgrading, modernizing and erecting new construction halls at the Sinpo South Shipyard—so far no information is known about whether actual submarine construction has begun. A new submarine could probably be built within a two to three year time frame, but the likelihood of building new models without further testing and refinement of the experimental GORAE-class seems low.

-

Reader Feedback

2 Responses to “North Korea’s SLBM Program Progresses, But Still Long Road Ahead”

1. Steven Hayden says:

August 26, 2016 at 9:42 pm

The Chinese JL 2 SLBM has 8000 km plus range. Why should the future DPRK SLBM not match or exceed it.The ISP of Pukkuksong may exceed the JL2 .Clearly the prior 30km SLBM mas not a prior failure. An article on application of cold start pop up systems in marine systems outside of subs would be interesting . Sanctions has inspired the technical departments to new excellence in DPRK. The purges of corrupt DPRK officials removed obstacles to progress. Expect that the rapid rate of scientific technical progress in DPRK will continue.The DPRK solid motor SLBM seems at least as reliable as solid motor Russian Bulava SLBM even after ten years of Russian testing of Bulava. The Pukkuksong is a amazing achievement for country of 22 million under some of the most severe economic sanctions in history.Somewhat similar to many technical advances of Germany under war time economic conditions What the DPRK needs is time to realize their destiny.

2. nigel portent says:

August 26, 2016 at 8:38 pm

This article is interesting, well-intentioned and seemingly as precise as any open source group may be in establishing a remote informational perspective on the NK SLBM development program, and its clearly obvious relationship to small nuclear warhead payloads.

However, it is a significant oversight to concentrate discussion of diesel submarines as a single-source delivery platform for any future NK SLBMs.

From a unsophisticated psychological analysis, the traditional behavior of a fanatical individual can easily be associated with the behaviors of the NK leadership.

This type of fanatical thought process is able to create clever and extremely devious approaches to a solution to a problem, while manipulating others with distractions by constant and repetitious events – hiding real methods and activities and applications.

Insanity breeds disturbing cleverness which may result in complete surprise.

That said, it is logical to assume that the NK leadership has other designs for delivery of nuclear weapons, to include fishing vessels towing submerged SLBM barges, tankers and cargo vessels with VLS packages, and perhaps even maritime buoys, just to name a few options. The constraints of a sane Western world can not be applied to the thought process of a NK leadership driven to develop a program for use as their ultimate threat tool against the West.

We have talked about these things too much, and allowed developments to proceed to far. Talk is no longer relevant, and action must be taken to eradicate this threat before it is fully functional and deployed.
 

Housecarl

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https://rbth.com/defence/2016/08/26/russian-private-military-company-spotted-in-syria_624521

Russian private military company ‘spotted’ in Syria

August 26, 2016 RBC Magazine

For the time being, private military companies (PMC) are outlawed in Russia. However, according to sources, the so-called Wagner group, a Russian equivalent of a PMC, has been spotted in Syria.

Not far from the base of the 10th Separate Special-Purpose Brigade of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) in the village of Molkino in the Krasnodar Territory, there is a checkpoint manned by guards armed with AK-74s.

Beyond the checkpoint, reportedly, lies the camp of a private military company (PMC), says a source at the military unit. There is no information on who owns this land but several neighboring plots are registered as belonging to the territorial division of the defense ministry’s forestry department.

The camp started operating approximately in the middle of 2015, say two RBK sources who used to work there. There are barracks, a guard tower, a police dog unit, a training facility and a parking lot on the territory of the camp.

The camp’s existence is not being publicized – formally, PMCs are outlawed in Russia. However, the Wagner group’s participation in the Syrian operation could pave the way for the legalization of private military companies in Russia.

Professional soldiers in Syria

Under Russian laws, the military can only be employed by the state. Mercenary activity is punishable by a prison term of up to 15 years. However, RBK sources in the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the defense ministry indicate that the Russian authorities have no intention of giving up on the idea of legalizing PMCs. Furthermore, there are private military companies in Russia that operate just like those abroad, despite the fact that there is no law in place to regulate their activity.

It is exactly because of the lack of legal regulation that Russian PMCs mainly operate abroad, registering their subsidiaries in offshore zones. Although Russian troops were not involved in a full-scale ground operation in Syria, there are reports of fighters who performed “special tasks.”

These are the kind of “special tasks” carried out in Syria by Major Sergei Chupov, a member of an elite unit who was killed in February 2016, an acquaintance of his told RBK.

The RBK source, who knew the serviceman well, claims that the interior ministry forces veteran, who had been through both Chechen campaigns, was in Syria as an employee of a private military company known as the Wagner group.

The Russian Defense Ministry dismissed reports about the Wagner group’s operation in Syria that appeared in the Wall Street Journal as an “information attack.” However, sources at the FSB and the defense ministry told RBK that unofficially the Wagner group is supervised by the GRU.

The Wagner group first appeared in the Middle East shortly before Russia began to officially deploy its bases in Syria in the fall of 2015, the RBK source at the Defense Ministry said.

In 2016, there were from 1,000 to 1,600 Wagner employees simultaneously present in Syria, says a source familiar with the operation.

Losses

According to RBK sources familiar with the details of the operation, Russia’s main losses in Syria were sustained by PMCs. The sources offer differing estimates of losses. A defense ministry official insists that a total of 27 “private servicemen” were killed in the Middle East, whereas a former PMC officer puts the figure at no fewer than 100.

RBK contacted the family of one of the killed PMC fighters but they refused to talk to the media. A Wagner group officer explained that non-disclosure is a prerequisite for the families to get compensation.

The standard compensation for the family of a killed PMC employee is up to 5 million rubles (about $80,000 at the current exchange rate), the source said.

Sensitive interests

PMC fighters played a major part in recapturing the historical part of the city of Palmyra from ISIS forces, says a former officer with the group. According to him, the Wagner group is being used mainly for carrying out offensives in difficult areas, making it possible to reduce losses among regular troops in Syria.

It is not quite accurate to describe the Wagner group as a private military company, another market source pointed out. “That group’s goal is not to make money, it is not a business,” he said.

In the case of the Wagner group, the interests of the state, which required forces to tackle sensitive tasks in Syria, coincided with the desire of a group of servicemen to make some money while performing tasks in the interests of the country, said an RBK source close to the FSB leadership.

“The benefit offered by PMCs is that they can be used abroad, when the use of regular troops is not very appropriate,” said Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy head of the Moscow-based Institute of Political and Military Analysis.

A similar reasoning was given by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who supervises the military-defense complex, in the fall of 2012: “We are thinking whether our money will be used to finance foreign private military companies or whether we shall consider the expediency of setting up companies like that inside Russia and make a step in that direction,” he said.

However, according to Vladimir Neyelov, an expert with the Center for Strategic Trend Studies, for the state “the use of private military companies can be financially advantageous only for addressing specific tasks, but it cannot replace the army.”

Yet while the operation of private military companies remains illegal in Russia, the defense ministry is considering transferring mercenaries from the Wagner group from Russian territory to Tajikistan, Nagorny Karabakh or Abkhazia, says RBC’s source in the FSB.

The source is convinced that the PMC will not be disbanded as it has proven its effectiveness.

Authors: Ilya Rozhdestvensky, Anton Bayev, Polina Rusyayeva. Yelizaveta Surnacheva contributed to this article.

First published in Russian by RBC Magazine.

Related
• Turkey has gone further than promised in Syria, says Moscow
• Surprise combat readiness check underway on eve of Kavkaz-1016 exercise
• Putin orders snap checks of armed forces
 

Housecarl

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-village-idUSKCN112094


WORLD NEWS | Sat Aug 27, 2016 3:30pm EDT

Turkey ratchets up Syria offensive, says warplanes hit Kurdish militia

By Umit Bektas | KARKAMIS, TURKEY
Rebels supported by Turkey fought Kurdish-backed forces in north Syria on Saturday, as Ankara ratcheted up its cross-border offensive by saying it had launched air strikes against both Kurdish forces and Islamic State.

Turkey's government, which is fighting a Kurdish insurgency at home, has said the Syrian campaign it opened this week is as much about targeting Islamic State as it is about preventing Kurdish forces filling the vacuum left when Islamists withdraw.

Turkey wants to stop Kurdish forces gaining control of a continuous stretch of Syrian territory on its frontier, which Ankara fears could be used to support the Kurdish militant group PKK as it wages its three-decade insurgency on Turkish soil.

Turkish security sources said two F-16 jets bombed a site controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia, which is part of the broader U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition. The sources also said the jets hit six Islamic State targets.

Turkish military sources said one of its soldiers was killed and three others wounded when a tank was hit by a rocket that they said was fired from territory held by the Kurdish YPG. The sources said the army shelled the area in response.

Syrian rebels opposed to Ankara's incursion said Turkish forces had targeted forces allied to the YPG and no Kurdish forces were in the area.

On the ground, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels fought forces aligned with the SDF near the frontier town of Jarablus. Forces opposed to Ankara said Turkish tanks were deployed, a charge denied by Turkey's rebel allies.

Turkey's offensive into Syria began on Wednesday, supporting its rebel allies with Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes. It seized control of Jarablus from Islamic State seeking to stop any Kurdish forces moving in first.

Saturday's use of warplanes against what Turkey said was a Kurdish YPG militia target highlights its determination to prevent any Kurdish territorial expansion in north Syria.

Any action against Kurdish forces in Syria puts Turkey at odds with its NATO ally the United States, which backs the SDF and YPG, seeing them as the most reliable and effective ally in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.

It adds complexity to the Syrian conflict that erupted five years ago with an uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has since drawn in regional states and world powers.

"DANGEROUS ESCALATION"

The Jarablus Military Council, part of the SDF, had said earlier on Saturday that Turkish planes hit the village of al-Amarna south of Jarablus, causing civilian casualties. It called the action "a dangerous escalation".

The Kurdish-led administration that controls parts of northern Syria said Turkish tanks advanced on al-Amarna and clashed with forces of the Jarablus Military Council. But the Kurdish administration said no Kurdish forces were involved.

However, the leader of one Turkey-backed rebel group gave a rival account. He told Reuters the rebels battled the Kurdish YPG around al-Amarna and denied any Turkish tanks took part.

Turkish security forces simply said Turkish-backed forces had extended their control to five villages beyond Jarablus.

A video released by Turkey's military showed the Turkish Red Crescent distributing food and aid to people in Jarablus, with the help of Turkish troops. It also showed what appeared to be Turkish-backed rebels flicking v-for-victory signs in the town.

The newly formed Jarablus Military Council has said it was made up of people from the area with the aim of capturing the town and the surrounding region from Islamic State militants. However, the Turkish-backed rebels seized Jarablus first.

Several militias under the SDF banner pledged support to Jarablus Military Council after it reported the Turkish bombing.

The Northern Sun Battalion, an SDF faction, said in a statement it was heading to "Jarablus fronts" to help the council against "threats made by factions belonging to Turkey".

Tension has mounted in Syria's Aleppo region in the past year between the U.S-backed Kurdish YPG force and its allies on one hand and Turkish-backed rebel groups on the other. The two sides have clashed on several occasions.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay and Orhan Coskun in Ankara and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Ros Russell)
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Reuters: BREAKING NEWS:Rocket attack on Turkey's Diyarbakir airport carried out by suspected kurdish militants, no casualties reported: news agency

More when I get it...HC

ETA....Then there's this.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...d-syrian-rebels-clash-with-kurdish-led-forces

Turkey-allied Syrian rebels clash with Kurdish-led forces

One Turkish soldier killed and three wounded, say Turkey’s official news agency, in new escalation of conflict

The fighting took place in northeastern Syria, near Jarablus. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA
Associated Press
Saturday 27 August 2016 16.42 EDT

One Turkish soldier was killed and three wounded in a Kurdish rocket attack in Jarablus, Syria, according to Turkey’s official news agency.

Turkey-allied Syrian rebels clashed with Kurdish-led forces in northeastern Syria, with reports of Turkish tanks and airstrikes backing the rebels, in an escalation that further complicates the already protracted Syrian conflict.

Turkey’s military didn’t specify what the airstrikes hit, saying only that “terror groups” were targeted south of the village of Jarablus, where the clashes later ensued. A Kurdish-affiliated group said their forces were the target and called the attack an “unprecedented and dangerous escalation”. If confirmed, it would be the first Turkish airstrikes against Kurdish allied forces on Syrian soil.


Turkey tells Kurds in northern Syria to withdraw or face action
Read more
The escalation highlights concerns that Turkey’s incursion into Syria this week could lead to an all-out confrontation between Ankara and Syrian Kurds, both American allies, and hinder the war against Islamic State (Isis) by diverting resources.

It marks Turkey’s determination to push back Kurdish forces from along its borders and curb their ambitions to form a contiguous entity in northern Syria. Kurdish groups have already declared a semi-autonomous administration in Syria and control most of the border area.

Jarablus, and Manjib to the south, were liberated from Isis fighters by Kurdish-led forces earlier this month and are essential to connecting the western and eastern semi-autonomous Kurdish areas in Syria.

Turkish officials said they will continue their offensive in Syria until there is no longer any terror threat to Turkey. Ankara backed Syrian rebels to gain control of Jarablus last week and they are now pushing south.

On Saturday, the Syrian rebels said they have seized a number of villages south of Jarablus from Isis militants and Kurdish forces. Clashes were fiercest with the Kurdish-allied forces over the village of Amarneh, eight km (five miles) south of Jarablus.

The media office of the Turkish-backed Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group said the Syrian rebels were backed by Turkish tanks. A news report on ANHA, the news agency for the semi-autonomous Kurdish areas, said local fighters destroyed a Turkish tank and killed a number of fighters in an attack by the Turkish military and allied groups on Amarneh.

There was no immediate comment from Turkish officials.

The clashes were preceded by Turkish airstrikes against bases of Kurdish-affiliated forces and residential areas at Amarneh. The Jarablus Military Council, affiliated with the US-backed Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces, said the Turkish airstrikes marked an “unprecedented and dangerous escalation” that “endangers the future of the region.” It vowed to stand its ground. Other groups which are part of the SDF vowed to support them, calling on the US-led coalition to explain the Turkish attacks on allied forces.

The Guardian view on Turkey’s incursion into Syria: Ankara’s biggest concern is containing the Kurds
Editorial: Civilians are paying the price for the competing interests of parties to the conflict
Read more
Turkey’s state news agency, citing military sources, said the Turkish military joint special task forces and coalition aeroplanes targeted an ammunition depot and a barrack and outpost used as command centres by “terror groups” south of Jarablus on Saturday morning. The Anadolu Agency did not say which group or village was targeted.

Meanwhile, the UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, appealed to the opposition to approve plans to deliver aid to rebel-held eastern Aleppo and government-held western Aleppo through a government-controlled route north of the city during a 48-hour humanitarian pause.

“People are suffering and need assistance. Time is of the essence. All must put the civilian population of Aleppo first and exert their influence now,” de Mistura said in a statement, urging an approval by Sunday.

Elsewhere, the Syrian government said it now has full control of the Damascus suburb of Darayya, following the completion of a forced evacuation deal struck with the government that emptied the area of its remaining rebels and residents and ended a four-year siege and gruelling bombing campaign.
 

Housecarl

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37196802

Czechs and Hungarians call for EU army amid security worries

26 August 2016
From the section Europe

The leaders of the Czech Republic and Hungary say a "joint European army" is needed to bolster security in the EU.

They were speaking ahead of talks in Warsaw with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They dislike her welcome for Muslim migrants from outside the EU.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said "we must give priority to security, so let's start setting up a joint European army".

The UK government has strongly opposed any such moves outside Nato's scope.
The Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak leaders are coordinating their foreign policy as the "Visegrad Group".

Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said building a joint European army would not be easy, but he called for discussion to start on it.

The EU has joint defence capabilities in the form of 1,500-strong battle groups, but they have not been tested in combat yet.

Last year European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for a European army to give the EU muscle in confronting threats from Russia or elsewhere.

Post-Brexit planning

Slovakia will host an informal EU summit on 16 September to consider the EU's future without the UK.

No UK minister will attend, as the Conservative government is preparing the ground for Brexit, in line with the 23 June vote to leave the 28-nation bloc.

"Brexit is not just an event like any other - it's a turning-point in the EU's history, so we have to frame a careful response," Mrs Merkel said.

_88503979_migrant_journeys_turkey_to_germany_624_v6.png

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cp...migrant_journeys_turkey_to_germany_624_v6.png

Germany wants the Visegrad countries to help house refugees from conflict zones, especially Syria, Iraq and Eritrea, but they oppose an EU quota system.

Germany took in more than a million non-EU migrants last year - a record influx.
New Hungary fence

Hungary and Slovakia are suing the European Commission at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), calling its quota scheme for distributing refugees illegal.

Hungary will hold a referendum on 2 October aimed at showing majority opposition to quotas.

Hungary's migrants pushed back into Serbia
Hungary and the smugglers' route through Europe

Mr Orban announced plans on Friday to build a second razor-wire fence, taller and stronger than the first, along Hungary's southern border with Serbia.

The second fence would be to keep out any future wave of migrants arriving from the Balkans.

The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest says Hungary currently allows around 30 people a day through two transit zones built into the existing fence. Migrants live in wretched conditions beside the fence, waiting to be allowed through, he reports.

Others pay people smugglers, who bribe police on both the Serbian and Hungarian side.

A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.

---

REPORT: Germany ‘Annexing’ Dutch Military As Secretive EU Army Begins To Take Shape
Started by Intestinal Fortitude‎, 04-21-2016 10:03 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ary-As-Secretive-EU-Army-Begins-To-Take-Shape
 

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http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-hot-seat-korea-south-china-sea-2016-8

China's in the hot seat on 2 major foreign-policy issues

Amanda Macias
10h 14,289
Comments 20

As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to host the annual G20 summit next month, two major foreign-policy challenges have begun to simmer between the US and China: The deployment of America's most advanced missile-defense system to South Korea and China's role in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

Here's a brief look at both issues.

View As: One Page Slides


The Korean Peninsula
The Korean Peninsula
South Korea's President Park Geun-hye walks next to China's President Xi Jinping during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 10, 2014.Reuters
In July, the US agreed to equip South Korea with America's most advanced missile-defense system in order to counter North Korean threats.

China, Pyongyang's closest ally, has said that since the bilateral decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, the North's missile tests have expanded and are poised to increase.

"The recent behavior from South Korea has undermined the foundation for our bilateral trust," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, quoted by Yonhap.

hong kong kerry chinaSimilarly, Fan Changlong, one of the vice chairmen of the Chinese Central Military Commission, told US National Security Adviser Susan Rice that THAAD deployment will only worsen things on the Korean peninsula.

Meanwhile, the rogue regime continues to conduct defiant ballistic-missile tests. The most recent test occurred earlier this week when the North fired what was believed to be a KN-11 missile from a submarine.


via GIPHY

So far this year, North Korea has conducted a little more than 13 rounds of ballistic missile tests and has fired 29 various rockets, according to South Korea's UN ambassador.

In conjunction with US forces, the THAAD system is slated to be operational in South Korea by the end of 2017.

Until then, China remains a master of what authors Douglas Schoen and Melik Kaylan of "The Russia-China Axis" call a "geopolitical two-step."

China is "[d]oing the bare minimum necessary to create the impression of cooperation (voting for sanctions on North Korea, for instance) while doing nothing substantive to truly cooperate (not lifting a finger to enforce those same sanctions)."

South China Sea
South China Sea
Chinese sailors line up to welcome home two Chinese warships in Qingdao, China, September 23, 2002.Reuters
Despite last month's historic legal decision rejecting China's nine-dash line in the resource-rich waters of the South China Sea, Beijing continues to dig in its heels over its claims.

On July 12, the Permanent Court of Arbitration issued a 500-page unanimous ruling in Republic of Philippines v. People's Republic of China, a case brought by the Philippines in 2013.

The court found that Beijing had violated the Philippines' economic and sovereign rights and concluded there was no legal basis for China's nine-dash line, which encompasses approximately 85% of the South China Sea.

map south china sea

And while the ruling is only binding between Beijing and Manila, it does, however, set a legal foundation by determining that the rules of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNLCLOS) take precedence over China's historic claims.

In short, if there is no nine-dash line, other territorial claimants in the South China Sea may be inspired to file lawsuits against China if Beijing refuses to compromise on access to the resource-rich waters.

With rival territorial claims by Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, Taiwan, and China, the South China Sea — rich in natural resources and crisscrossed by shipping routes — is one of the most militarized areas on the planet.

However, Beijing has maintained that the Hague-based court ruling has no bearing on its rights in the South China Sea.

What's more, Chinese construction in these waters isn't quite over.

Nearly a month after the Hague-based court's decision, new satellite images published by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), a unit of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, showed significant preparations are underway for Chinese military aircraft.

"China is building hangar space for 24 fighter jets and three to four larger military planes at each of its three largest artificial islands," Gregory Poling, director of AMTI told Business Insider in a previous interview.

south china sea y'all

"The number, size, and construction make it clear these are for military purposes — and they are the smoking gun that shows China has every intention of militarizing the Spratly Islands."

Currently the US, with the world's largest navy, dominates the region; however, that is poised to change as Beijing dramatically expands its naval capabilities.

navy ships

"At some point, China is likely to, in effect, be able to deny the US Navy unimpeded access to parts of the South China Sea," writes Robert Kaplan, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and author of "Asia's Cauldron."

And while the US continues to press China on a diplomatic process in the South China Sea, Beijing continues to expand its influence in other parts of the world.

SEE ALSO: US Army chief to China: Sorry (not sorry) America's top missile defense system is going to South Korea
 

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-kurds-airport-idUSKCN1120TS

World News | Sat Aug 27, 2016 11:29pm EDT

Suspected Kurdish militants fire rockets at Turkey's Diyarbakir airport: media

Suspected Kurdish militants fired rockets at the airport in Turkey's main southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Saturday, sending passengers and staff scrambling for shelter, Dogan news agency said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Four rockets were fired at a police checkpoint outside the VIP lounge, and passengers and staff were taken inside the terminal building for safety, the private news agency said. The attack happened not long before midnight (5.00 p.m. ET) on Saturday.

Broadcaster NTV said the rockets landed on wasteland nearby. There were no casualties and no disruption to flights, Diyarbakir governor Huseyin Aksoy told the news channel.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Diyarbakir is the main city in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast, where Kurdish militants have waged a three-decade insurgency. The attack comes days after Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria aimed at driving back Islamic State and preventing territorial gains by Kurdish fighters.

Rebels supported by Turkey fought Kurdish-backed forces in northern Syria on Saturday, and Ankara said it had launched air strikes against both Kurdish militia fighters and Islamic State.

Turkey fears Kurdish militia fighters will fill the void as Islamic State is pushed back. It wants to stop Kurdish forces gaining control of a continuous stretch of Syrian territory on its frontier, which it fears could deepen the insurgency by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants on its own soil.


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Diyarbakir airport largely handles domestic flights and is served by carriers including Turkish Airlines.

The PKK, which first took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. A ceasefire collapsed just over a year ago, and violence has since surged.


(Reporting by Yesim Dikmen; Writing by Nick Tattersall)
 

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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/libya-qaddafi-isis-tripoli/497213/

Why Partitioning Libya Might Be the Only Way to Save It

Federica Saini Fasanotti | Aug 27, 2016
Comments 229

History repeats itself, it is often said. The strife facing modern-day Libya—strife largely born of and fueled by internal, sometimes tribal divisions—is only the latest iteration in a longstanding pattern. As the Italians discovered during their colonization of Libya, and as ISIS discovered when it conquered Sirte, and as the international community has recently discovered in a multitude of ways, Libya is a deeply divided country. Without a real approach to that reality—including, perhaps, creating a confederal model for Libya—Libyans themselves will continue to be their own worst enemies.

Then

Libya’s tribal divisions were long a reality for the Italians, who occupied the North African country from 1912, after winning it from Turkey, to 1943, when they lost it against the British. Italy also used those divisions to its advantage in early 1928, when it defeated the rebellious tribes of Mogharba and many others who were engaged in a fight against the Italian Royal Army, but also—and above all—against each other. The Italians occupied the Corridoio Sirtico (Sirtic Corridor), an ideal break line, and conquered the oases of al-Jufrah, Zellah, Awjilah, and Gialo, isolated in the Cyrenaic desert, more than 150 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. Shortly afterwards, three gruppi mobili (mobile groups), formed by thousands of Italian soldiers, moved in from Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in a pincer movement. The target: the rebels in the Sirtic Corridor, who also fell.

These developments allowed the unification of the two colonies, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, under the leadership of Marshal Pietro Badoglio. This was a major shift: Until that point, Libya had two political governments, two military commands, and two different administrations.

The Italians had faced a formidable set of foes, and made the right call in marshaling the use of all available troops on the ground and in the air, immediately and completely disarming the population and, in the end, transitioning Libya’s government from a military to a political one.

There’s a critical history lesson here, for the Libyans and for foreign powers that seek influence there: When Italians tried to unify the two already profoundly divided regions, they faced an extremely motivated enemy, with superb fighters and fine experts of the terrain who were supported by the people. That enemy had everything to win, but lacked one thing: unity.

Now

Long after the Italians left and Libya gained independence, Sirte remained a strategic point for the country. It was the hometown of longtime Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and the birthplace of the African Union in 1999. To this day, Sirte is still the key line of contact between Libya’s two main regions.

And one year ago, ISIS took control of the city. Various Libyan militias—about 70 percent of whom have come from Misrata, the rest from all over Libya—have fought to free it since then. The battle has been much more than a battle—rather, in the streets of Sirte, Libyans are deciding the alliances that will determine the fate of their country. Historically opposed militias are now allied and vice versa, while ISIS loses ground and withdraws into the dunes of the desert, planning much more fluid strategies.

Libyans are winning the battle, not the war. In Libya today, the main threat is not ISIS. It has never been. In Libya, the real problem is Libyans, fraught with internal divisions, just like a century ago. Many tend to perceive the foreign presence—even if decisive for victory, as in this case—as a threat rather than as a true alliance. Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj and Mohammed al-Ghasry (commander of the operation al-Bunyan al-Marsous) officially requested Western participation in the anti-ISIS fight. But that presence, which has been so decisive in military terms, could be counterproductive politically.

It’s striking, in fact, that two bitter enemies—General Khalifa Haftar (the “strongman” of Tobruk, supported by the Russians and French) and Sadiq al-Ghariani (the Grand Mufti of Libya, who lives in Tripoli)—have both condemned the U.S. intervention and, more typically, Serraj’s weakness. The latter is another problem: Serraj was chosen because he is a moderate, but this is likely to be his undoing at a time when political charisma could make a difference. To make things worse, the special envoy for the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, Martin Kobler, declared last week that support for the Government of National Unity (GNA) is “crumbling” amid increased power problems and the quick fall of Libya’s currency.

The other hot topic, as always, is the integration of General Haftar and his National Army into the GNA. But at the moment—thanks to dangerous and opaque foreign support, particularly from Russia—he does not seem willing to give anything to the GNA. After two years of civil war, nothing has changed, and this is a clear symptom of a much larger disease: a national conflict rooted in local and atavistic fights. Qaddafi no doubt had many faults, but so do the Libyans. Libyans today have much in common with the tribes of one century ago, with both in constant struggle with each other for pastures and land dominance. Above all, the result is the same: Libyans are fighting each other at a local, regional, and national level. Today, as in 1928, the willingness to put aside their own individualism for the higher good of the nation seems to be missing.

In the 1920s, the Italians won in Libya because they made the right moves military and politically. True. But, above all, they won against the Libyans because of their divisions. “Divide et Impera,”the ancient Romans said—the Italian Royal Army did it right, partly because Libyans already divided themselves. A century has passed since then. The Italians are gone, Qaddafi was killed, and ISIS seems to be on a similar path. And yet, once again, the true enemy of Libya seems to be always the same: Libya. Libyans will continue to be their own worst enemies—unless they, in partnership with the international community, can figure out a political model that benefits from their diversity rather than trying to override it.

This article appears courtesy of the Brookings Institution.

The Brookings Institution
The Nuclear No First Use Dilemma and North Korea
Is Biden’s Visit to Ankara the Last Chance for Turkey and America?
Why There Will Be No “Reset” with Russia
 

Housecarl

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-security-idUSKCN1120NG?il=0

World News | Sat Aug 27, 2016 12:57pm EDT

German military wants security checks on recruits, newspaper says

There are signs that Islamists are trying to join the German armed forces to get military training, and there is a risk they might use that training to carry out attacks in Germany or abroad, a German newspaper cited a draft document as saying.

Consequently, the armed forces want applicants to undergo a security check by the military counter-intelligence agency, starting in July 2017, so they can swiftly spot extremists, terrorists and criminals, Welt am Sonntag newspaper said in an article due to be published on Sunday.

Such security screening would require changes in the laws governing the military. A draft document justifying such changes, seen by Welt am Sonntag, said there are indications that Islamists are trying to get "so-called short-term servicemen into the armed forces" for training.

Germany is on edge after a series of violent attacks in July, two of which were claimed by Islamic State, and the interior minister has already announced plans to step up security.

The cabinet is set to approve a change to the military act next week, the newspaper said, citing security sources. A spokesman for the Defence Ministry said the government was in the process of deciding on the law.

The military counter-intelligence agency is looking into 64 suspected Islamists, 268 suspected right-wing extremists and six suspected left-wing extremists in the armed forces, the newspaper said.


(Reporting by Michelle Martin and Thorsten Severin, editing by Larry King)
 

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/philippine-muslim-extremists-stage-mass-jailbreak-051648360.html

Philippine Muslim extremists stage mass jailbreak

August 28, 2016
87 Comments

MARAWI (Philippines) (AFP) - Muslim extremists who support the Islamic State group staged a daring jailbreak in the southern Philippines, freeing 23 detainees in the latest in a series of mass escapes, officials said Sunday.

About 50 heavily armed members of the Maute group raided the local jail in the southern city of Marawi on Mindanao island on Saturday and freed eight comrades who were arrested barely a week ago, police said.

Fifteen other detainees, held for other serious offences, also escaped in the raid, said provincial jail warden Acmad Tabao.

Police earlier said that 28 inmates escaped but Tabao clarified the figure.

In a report Tabao said two women came to the prison gate, asking the guard to take delivery of some food for the detainees. When the guard opened the gate, hooded men forced their way into the compound.

They overwhelmed the guards, forcing them to their knees and taking two rifles before freeing the inmates.

The hooded men shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) before fleeing in a prison vehicle to a nearby lake. The Maute gang members then fled by boat while the other inmates scattered, Tabao said.

At the jail, two bullet holes and a shattered television set were the only evidence of the attack.

The eight Maute group members were arrested on August 22 after soldiers manning a checkpoint found improvised bombs and pistols in the van they were driving.

The Maute group is one of several Muslim gangs in Mindanao, the ancestral homeland of the Muslim minority in the largely Catholic Philippines.

The group has carried out kidnappings and bombings and is believed to have led an attack on an army outpost in the Mindanao town of Butig in February.

The fighting there lasted a week, leaving numerous fatalities and forcing thousands to flee their homes as helicopter gunships fought off the attackers.

During the Butig fighting the group's members were seen carrying black flags of the Islamic State group, and bandanas bearing the jihadists' insignia were found in their base, the military said.

Authorities said they were investigating the jailbreak and the reason why security had not been increased after high-risk suspects were brought in.

It was the latest of several mass escapes from poorly secured Philippine jails, with the incidents often involving Muslim extremists.

In 2009 more than 100 armed men raided a jail in the strife-torn southern island of Basilan, freeing 31 prisoners including several Muslim guerrillas.

The southern Philippines has been plagued by Muslim separatist insurgencies for over four decades, with the conflict leaving more than 120,000 dead.

President Rodrigo Duterte is pursuing peace talks with the largest Muslim insurgent groups, the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front which have ceasefires with the government.

Smaller bands like the Maute group and the Abu Sayyaf group are not covered by the ceasefires and are not part of the peace process.
 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-islam.html?_r=0

Saudis and Extremism: ‘Both the Arsonists and the Firefighters’

Critics see Saudi Arabia’s export of a rigid strain of Islam as contributing to
terrorism, but the kingdom’s influence depends greatly on local conditions.


By SCOTT SHANE
AUG. 25, 2016

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump do not agree on much, but Saudi Arabia may be an exception. She has deplored Saudi Arabia’s support for “radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism.” He has called the Saudis “the world’s biggest funders of terrorism.”

The first American diplomat to serve as envoy to Muslim communities around the world visited 80 countries and concluded that the Saudi influence was destroying tolerant Islamic traditions. “If the Saudis do not cease what they are doing,” the official, Farah Pandith, wrote last year, “there must be diplomatic, cultural and economic consequences.”

And hardly a week passes without a television pundit or a newspaper columnist blaming Saudi Arabia for jihadist violence. On HBO, Bill Maher calls Saudi teachings “medieval,” adding an epithet. In The Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria writes that the Saudis have “created a monster in the world of Islam.”

The idea has become a commonplace: that Saudi Arabia’s export of the rigid, bigoted, patriarchal, fundamentalist strain of Islam known as Wahhabism has fueled global extremism and contributed to terrorism. As the Islamic State projects its menacing calls for violence into the West, directing or inspiring terrorist attacks in country after country, an old debate over Saudi influence on Islam has taken on new relevance.

What Is Wahhabism?

The Islam taught in and by Saudi Arabia is often called Wahhabism, after the 18th-century cleric who founded it. A literalist, ultraconservative form of Sunni Islam, its adherents often denigrate other Islamic sects as well as Christians and Jews.

Is the world today a more divided, dangerous and violent place because of the cumulative effect of five decades of oil-financed proselytizing from the historical heart of the Muslim world? Or is Saudi Arabia, which has often supported Western-friendly autocrats over Islamists, merely a convenient scapegoat for extremism and terrorism with many complex causes — the United States’s own actions among them?

Those questions are deeply contentious, partly because of the contradictory impulses of the Saudi state.

In the realm of extremist Islam, the Saudis are “both the arsonists and the firefighters,” said William McCants, a Brookings Institution scholar. “They promote a very toxic form of Islam that draws sharp lines between a small number of true believers and everyone else, Muslim and non-Muslim,” he said, providing ideological fodder for violent jihadists.

Yet at the same time, “they’re our partners in counterterrorism,” said Mr. McCants, one of three dozen academics, government officials and experts on Islam from multiple countries interviewed for this article.

Conflicting Goals

Saudi leaders seek good relations with the West and see jihadist violence as a menace that could endanger their rule, especially now that the Islamic State is staging attacks in the kingdom — 25 in the last eight months, by the government’s count. But they are also driven by their rivalry with Iran, and they depend for legitimacy on a clerical establishment dedicated to a reactionary set of beliefs. Those conflicting goals can play out in a bafflingly inconsistent manner.

Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian terrorism expert who has advised the United States government, said the most important effect of Saudi proselytizing might have been to slow the evolution of Islam, blocking its natural accommodation to a diverse and globalized world. “If there was going to be an Islamic reformation in the 20th century, the Saudis probably prevented it by pumping out literalism,” he said.

The reach of the Saudis has been stunning, touching nearly every country with a Muslim population, from the Gothenburg Mosque in Sweden to the King Faisal Mosque in Chad, from the King Fahad Mosque in Los Angeles to the Seoul Central Mosque in South Korea. Support has come from the Saudi government; the royal family; Saudi charities; and Saudi-sponsored organizations including the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the International Islamic Relief Organization, providing the hardware of impressive edifices and the software of preaching and teaching.

There is a broad consensus that the Saudi ideological juggernaut has disrupted local Islamic traditions in dozens of countries — the result of lavish spending on religious outreach for half a century, estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. The result has been amplified by guest workers, many from South Asia, who spend years in Saudi Arabia and bring Saudi ways home with them. In many countries, Wahhabist preaching has encouraged a harshly judgmental religion, contributing to majority support in some polls in Egypt, Pakistan and other countries for stoning for adultery and execution for anyone trying to leave Islam.

Limits of Influence

But exactly how Saudi influence plays out seems to depend greatly on local conditions. In parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, for instance, Saudi teachings have shifted the religious culture in a markedly conservative direction, most visibly in the decision of more women to cover their hair or of men to grow beards. Among Muslim immigrant communities in Europe, the Saudi influence seems to be just one factor driving radicalization, and not the most significant. In divided countries like Pakistan and Nigeria, the flood of Saudi money, and the ideology it promotes, have exacerbated divisions over religion that regularly prove lethal.

And for a small minority in many countries, the exclusionary Saudi version of Sunni Islam, with its denigration of Jews and Christians, as well as of Muslims of Shiite, Sufi and other traditions, may have made some people vulnerable to the lure of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other violent jihadist groups. “There’s only so much dehumanizing of the other that you can be exposed to — and exposed to as the word of God — without becoming susceptible to recruitment,” said David Andrew Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington who tracks Saudi influence.

Exhibit A may be Saudi Arabia itself, which produced not only Osama bin Laden, but also 15 of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11, 2001; sent more suicide bombers than any other country to Iraq after the 2003 invasion; and has supplied more foreign fighters to the Islamic State, 2,500, than any country other than Tunisia.

Mehmet Gormez, the senior Islamic cleric in Turkey, said that while he was meeting with Saudi clerics in Riyadh in January, the Saudi authorities had executed 47 people in a single day on terrorism charges, 45 of them Saudi citizens. “I said: ‘These people studied Islam for 10 or 15 years in your country. Is there a problem with the educational system?’ ” Mr. Gormez said in an interview. He argued that Wahhabi teaching was undermining the pluralism, tolerance and openness to science and learning that had long characterized Islam. “Sadly,” he said, the changes have taken place “in almost all of the Islamic world.”

In a huge embarrassment to the Saudi authorities, the Islamic State adopted official Saudi textbooks for its schools until the extremist group could publish its own books in 2015. Out of 12 works by Muslim scholars republished by the Islamic State, seven are by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th-century founder of the Saudi school of Islam, said Jacob Olidort, a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. A former imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Adil al-Kalbani declared with regret in a television interview in January that the Islamic State leaders “draw their ideas from what is written in our own books, our own principles.”

Small details of Saudi practice can cause outsize trouble. For at least two decades, the kingdom has distributed an English translation of the Quran that in the first surah, or chapter, adds parenthetical references to Jews and Christians in addressing Allah: “those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians).” Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University and the editor in chief of the new Study Quran, an annotated English version, said the additions were “a complete heresy, with no basis in Islamic tradition.”

Accordingly, many American officials who have worked to counter extremism and terrorism have formed a dark view of the Saudi effect — even if, given the sensitivity of the relationship, they are often loath to discuss it publicly. The United States’ reliance on Saudi counterterrorism cooperation in recent years — for instance, the Saudi tip that foiled a 2010 Qaeda plot to blow up two American cargo planes — has often taken precedence over concerns about radical influence. And generous Saudi funding for professorships and research centers at American universities, including the most elite institutions, has deterred criticism and discouraged research on the effects of Wahhabi proselytizing, according to Mr. McCants — who is working on a book about the Saudi impact on global Islam — and other scholars.

One American former official who has begun to speak out is Ms. Pandith, the State Department’s first special representative to Muslim communities worldwide. From 2009 to 2014, she visited Muslims in 80 countries and concluded that Saudi influence was pernicious and universal. “In each place I visited, the Wahhabi influence was an insidious presence,” she wrote in The New York Times last year. She said the United States should “disrupt the training of extremist imams,” “reject free Saudi textbooks and translations that are filled with hate,” and “prevent the Saudis from demolishing local Muslim religious and cultural sites that are evidence of the diversity of Islam.”

Yet some scholars on Islam and extremism, including experts on radicalization in many countries, push back against the notion that Saudi Arabia bears predominant responsibility for the current wave of extremism and jihadist violence. They point to multiple sources for the rise and spread of Islamist terrorism, including repressive secular governments in the Middle East, local injustices and divisions, the hijacking of the internet for terrorist propaganda, and American interventions in the Muslim world from the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq. The 20th-century ideologues most influential with modern jihadists, like Sayyid Qutb of Egypt and Abul Ala Maududi of Pakistan, reached their extreme, anti-Western views without much Saudi input. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State despise Saudi rulers, whom they consider the worst of hypocrites.

“Americans like to have someone to blame — a person, a political party or country,” said Robert S. Ford, a former United States ambassador to Syria and Algeria. “But it’s a lot more complicated than that. I’d be careful about blaming the Saudis.”

While Saudi religious influence may be disruptive, he and others say, its effect is not monolithic. A major tenet of official Saudi Islamic teaching is obedience to rulers — hardly a precept that encourages terrorism intended to break nations. Many Saudi and Saudi-trained clerics are quietist, characterized by a devotion to scripture and prayer and a shunning of politics, let alone political violence.

And especially since 2003, when Qaeda attacks in the kingdom awoke the monarchy to the danger it faced from militancy, Saudi Arabia has acted more aggressively to curtail preachers who call for violence, cut off terrorist financing and cooperate with Western intelligence to foil terrorist plots. From 2004 to 2012, 3,500 imams were fired for refusing to renounce extremist views, and another 20,000 went through retraining, according to the Ministry of Islamic Affairs — though the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed skepticism that the training was really “instilling tolerance.”

An American scholar with long experience in Saudi Arabia — who spoke on condition of anonymity to preserve his ability to travel to the kingdom for research — said he believed that Saudi influence had often been exaggerated in American political discourse. But he compared it to climate change. Just as a one-degree increase in temperature can ultimately result in drastic effects around the globe, with glaciers melting and species dying off, so Saudi teaching is playing out in many countries in ways that are hard to predict and difficult to trace but often profound, the scholar said.

Saudi proselytizing can result in a “recalibrating of the religious center of gravity” for young people, the scholar said, which makes it “easier for them to swallow or make sense of the ISIS religious narrative when it does arrive. It doesn’t seem quite as foreign as it might have, had that Saudi religious influence not been there.”

Centuries-Old Dilemma

Why does Saudi Arabia find it so difficult to let go of an ideology that much of the world finds repugnant? The key to the Saudi dilemma dates back nearly three centuries to the origin of the alliance that still undergirds the Saudi state. In 1744, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a reformist cleric, sought the protection of Muhammad bin Saud, a powerful tribal leader in the harsh desert of the Arabian Peninsula. The alliance was mutually beneficial: Wahhab received military protection for his movement, which sought to return Muslims to what he believed were the values of the early years of Islam in the seventh century, when the Prophet Muhammad was alive. (His beliefs were a variant of Salafism, the conservative school of Islam that teaches that the salaf, or pious ancestors, had the correct ways and beliefs and should be emulated.) In return, the Saud family earned the endorsement of an Islamic cleric — a puritanical enforcer known for insisting on the death by stoning of a woman for adultery.

Wahhab’s particular version of Islam was the first of two historical accidents that would define Saudi religious influence centuries later. What came to be known as Wahhabism was “a tribal, desert Islam,” said Akbar Ahmed, the chairman of Islamic studies at American University in Washington. It was shaped by the austere environment — xenophobic, fiercely opposed to shrines and tombs, disapproving of art and music, and hugely different from the cosmopolitan Islam of diverse trading cities like Baghdad and Cairo.

The second historical accident came in 1938, when American prospectors discovered the largest oil reserves on earth in Saudi Arabia. Oil revenue generated by the Arabian-American Oil Company, or Aramco, created fabulous wealth. But it also froze in place a rigid social and economic system and gave the conservative religious establishment an extravagant budget for the export of its severe strain of Islam.

“One day you find oil, and the world is coming to you,” Professor Ahmed said. “God has given you the ability to take your version of Islam to the world.”

In 1964, when King Faisal ascended the throne, he embraced the obligation of spreading Islam. A modernizer in many respects, with close ties to the West, he nonetheless could not overhaul the Wahhabi doctrine that became the face of Saudi generosity in many countries. Over the next four decades, in non-Muslim-majority countries alone, Saudi Arabia would build 1,359 mosques, 210 Islamic centers, 202 colleges and 2,000 schools. Saudi money helped finance 16 American mosques; four in Canada; and others in London, Madrid, Brussels and Geneva, according to a report in an official Saudi weekly, Ain al-Yaqeen. The total spending, including supplying or training imams and teachers, was “many billions” of Saudi riyals (at a rate of about four to a dollar), the report said.

Saudi religious teaching had particular force because it came from the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, the land of Islam’s two holiest places, Mecca and Medina. When Saudi imams arrived in Muslim countries in Asia or Africa, or in Muslim communities in Europe or the Americas, wearing traditional Arabian robes, speaking the language of the Quran — and carrying a generous checkbook — they had automatic credibility.

As the 20th century progressed and people of different nationalities and faiths mixed routinely, the puritanical, exclusionary nature of Wahhab’s teachings would become more and more dysfunctional. But the Saudi government would find it extraordinarily difficult to shed or soften its ideology, especially after the landmark year of 1979.

In Tehran that year, the Iranian revolution brought to power a radical Shiite government, symbolically challenging Saudi Arabia, the leader of Sunnism, for leadership of global Islam. The declaration of an Islamic Republic escalated the competition between the two major branches of Islam, spurring the Saudis to redouble their efforts to counter Iran and spread Wahhabism around the world.

Then, in a stunning strike, a band of 500 Saudi extremists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca for two weeks, publicly calling Saudi rulers puppets of the West and traitors to true Islam. The rebels were defeated, but leading clerics agreed to back the government only after assurances of support for a crackdown on immodest ways in the kingdom and a more aggressive export of Wahhabism abroad.

Finally, at year’s end, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and seized power to prop up a Communist government. It soon faced an insurgent movement of mujahedeen, or holy warriors battling for Islam, which drew fighters from around the world for a decade-long battle to expel the occupiers.

Throughout the 1980s, Saudi Arabia and the United States worked together to finance the mujahedeen in this great Afghan war, which would revive the notion of noble armed jihad for Muslims worldwide. President Ronald Reagan famously welcomed to the Oval Office a delegation of bearded “Afghan freedom fighters” whose social and theological views were hardly distinguishable from those later embraced by the Taliban.

In fact, the United States spent $50 million from 1986 to 1992 on what was called a “jihad literacy” project — printing books for Afghan children and adults to encourage violence against non-Muslim “infidels” like Soviet troops. A first-grade language textbook for Pashto speakers, for example, according to a study by Dana Burde, an associate professor at New York University, used “Mujahid,” or fighter of jihad, as the illustration: “My brother is a Mujahid. Afghan Muslims are Mujahedeen. I do jihad together with them. Doing jihad against infidels is our duty.”

Pressure After 9/11

One day in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Robert W. Jordan, the United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia, was driving in the kingdom with the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan. The prince pointed to a mosque and said, “I just fired the imam there.” The man’s preaching had been too militant, he said.

Mr. Jordan, a Texas lawyer, said that after the Qaeda attacks, he had stepped up pressure on the Saudi government over its spread of extremism. “I told them: ‘What you teach in your schools and preach in your mosques now is not an internal matter. It affects our national security,’” he said.

After years of encouraging and financing a harsh Islam in support of the anti-Soviet jihad, the United States had reversed course — gradually during the 1990s and then dramatically after the Sept. 11 attacks. But in pressuring Saudi Arabia, American officials would tread lightly, acutely aware of American dependence on Saudi oil and intelligence cooperation. Saudi reform would move at an excruciatingly slow pace.

Twelve years after Sept. 11, after years of quiet American complaints about Saudi teachings, a State Department contractor, the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, completed a study of official Saudi textbooks. It reported some progress in cutting back on bigoted and violent content but found that plenty of objectionable material remained. Officials never released the 2013 study, for fear of angering the Saudis. The New York Times obtained it under the Freedom of Information Act.

Seventh graders were being taught that “fighting the infidels to elevate the words of Allah” was among the deeds Allah loved the most, the report found, among dozens of passages it found troubling. Tenth graders learned that Muslims who abandoned Islam should be jailed for three days and, if they did not change their minds, “killed for walking away from their true religion.” Fourth graders read that non-Muslims had been “shown the truth but abandoned it, like the Jews,” or had replaced truth with “ignorance and delusion, like the Christians.”

Some of the books, prepared and distributed by the government, propagated views that were hostile to science, modernity and women’s rights, not to say downright quirky — advocating, for instance, execution for sorcerers and warning against the dangers of the Rotary Club and the Lions Club. (The groups’ intent, said a 10th-grade textbook, “is to achieve the goals of the Zionist movement.”)

The textbooks, or other Saudi teaching materials with similar content, had been distributed in scores of countries, the study found. Textbook reform has continued since the 2013 study, and Saudi officials say they are trying to replace older books distributed overseas.

But as the study noted, the schoolbooks were only a modest part of the Saudis’ lavishly funded global export of Wahhabism. In many places, the study said, the largess includes “a Saudi-funded school with a Wahhabist faculty (educated in a Saudi-funded Wahhabist University), attached to a mosque with a Wahhabist imam, and ultimately controlled by an international Wahhabist educational body.”

This ideological steamroller has landed in diverse places where Muslims of different sects had spent centuries learning to accommodate one another. Sayyed Shah, a Pakistani journalist working on a doctorate in the United States, described the devastating effect on his town, not far from the Afghan border, of the arrival some years ago of a young Pakistani preacher trained in a Saudi-funded seminary.

Village residents had long held a mélange of Muslim beliefs, he said. “We were Sunni, but our culture, our traditions were a mixture of Shia and Barelvi and Deobandi,” Mr. Shah said, referring to Muslim sects. His family would visit the large Barelvi shrine, and watch their Shiite neighbors as they lashed themselves in a public religious ritual. “We wouldn’t do that ourselves, but we’d hand out sweets and water,” he said.

The new preacher, he said, denounced the Barelvi and Shiite beliefs as false and heretical, dividing the community and setting off years of bitter argument. By 2010, Mr. Shah said, “everything had changed.” Women who had used shawls to cover their hair and face began wearing full burqas. Militants began attacking kiosks where merchants sold secular music CDs. Twice, terrorists used explosives to try to destroy the village’s locally famous shrine.

Now, Mr. Shah said, families are divided; his cousin, he said, “just wants Saudi religion.” He said an entire generation had been “indoctrinated” with a rigid, unforgiving creed.

“It’s so difficult these days,” he said. “Initially we were on a single path. We just had economic problems, but we were culturally sound.”

He added, “But now it’s very difficult, because some people want Saudi culture to be our culture, and others are opposing that.”

C. Christine Fair, a specialist on Pakistan at Georgetown University, said Mr. Shah’s account was credible. But like many scholars describing the Saudi impact on religion, she said that militancy in Pakistan also had local causes. While Saudi money and teaching have unquestionably been “accelerants,” Pakistan’s sectarian troubles and jihadist violence have deep roots dating to the country’s origins in the partition of India in 1947.

“The idea that without the Saudis Pakistan would be Switzerland is ridiculous,” she said.

Elusive Saudi Links

That is the disputed question, of course: how the world would be different without decades of Saudi-funded shaping of Islam. Though there is a widespread belief that Saudi influence has contributed to the growth of terrorism, it is rare to find a direct case of cause and effect. For example, in Brussels, the Grand Mosque was built with Saudi money and staffed with Saudi imams. In 2012, according to Saudi diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, one Saudi preacher was removed after Belgian complaints that he was a “true Salafi” who did not accept other schools of Islam. And Brussels’ immigrant neighborhoods, notably Molenbeek, have long been the home of storefront mosques teaching hard-line Salafi views.

After the terrorist attacks in Paris in November and in Brussels in March were tied to an Islamic State cell in Belgium, the Saudi history was the subject of several news media reports. Yet it was difficult to find any direct link between the bombers and the Saudi legacy in the Belgian capital.

Several suspects had petty criminal backgrounds; their knowledge of Islam was described by friends as superficial; they did not appear to be regulars at any mosque. Though the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts, resentment of the treatment of North African immigrant families in Belgium and exposure to Islamic State propaganda, in person or via the internet and social media, appeared to be the major factors motivating the attacks.

If there was a Saudi connection, it was highly indirect, perhaps playing out over a generation or longer. Hind Fraihi, a Moroccan-Belgian journalist who went underground in the Brussels immigrant neighborhood of Molenbeek in 2005 and wrote a book about it, met Saudi-trained imams and found lots of extremist literature written in Saudi Arabia that encouraged “polarization, the sentiment of us against them, the glorification of jihad.”

The recent attackers, Ms. Fraihi said, were motivated by “lots of factors — economic frustration, racism, a generation that feels it has no future.” But Saudi teaching, she said, “is part of the cocktail.”

Without the Saudi presence over the decades, might a more progressive and accommodating Islam, reflecting immigrants’ Moroccan roots, have taken hold in Brussels? Would young Muslims raised in Belgium have been less susceptible to the stark, violent call of the Islamic State? Conceivably, but the case is impossible to prove.

Or consider an utterly different cultural milieu — the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia. The Saudis have sent money for mosque-building, books and teachers for decades, said Sidney Jones, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta.

“Over time,” said Ms. Jones, who has visited or lived in Indonesia since the 1970s, the Saudi influence “has contributed to a more conservative, more intolerant atmosphere.” (President Obama, who lived in Indonesia as a boy, has remarked on the same phenomenon.) She said she believed money from private Saudi donors and foundations was behind campaigns in Indonesia against Shiite and Ahmadi Islam, considered heretical by Wahhabi teaching. Some well-known Indonesian religious vigilantes are Saudi-educated, she said.

But when Ms. Jones studied the approximately 1,000 people arrested in Indonesia on terrorism charges since 2002, she found only a few — “literally four or five” — with ties to Wahhabi or Salafi institutions. When it comes to violence, she concluded, the Saudi connection is “mostly a red herring.”

In fact, she said, there is a gulf between Indonesian jihadists and Indonesian Salafis who look to Saudi or Yemeni scholars for guidance. The jihadists accuse the Salafis of failing to act on their convictions; the Salafis scorn the jihadists as extremists.

Whatever the global effects of decades of Saudi proselytizing, it is under greater scrutiny than ever, from outside and inside the kingdom. Saudi leaders’ ideological reform efforts, encompassing textbooks and preaching, amount to a tacit recognition that its religious exports have sometimes backfired. And the kingdom has stepped up an aggressive public relations campaign in the West, hiring American publicists to counter critical news media reports and fashion a reformist image for Saudi leaders.

But neither the publicists nor their clients can renounce the strain of Islam on which the Saudi state was built, and old habits sometimes prove difficult to suppress. A prominent cleric, Saad bin Nasser al-Shethri, had been stripped of a leadership position by the previous king, Abdullah, for condemning coeducation. King Salman restored Mr. Shethri to the job last year, not long after the cleric had joined the chorus of official voices criticizing the Islamic State. But Mr. Shethri’s reasoning for denouncing the Islamic State suggested the difficulty of change. The group was, he said, “more infidel than Jews and Christians.”


Follow Scott Shane on Twitter @ScottShaneNYT.

Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.


Document: State Dept. Study on Saudi Textbooks

Secrets of the Kingdom:

A Saudi Morals Enforcer Called for a More Liberal Islam. Then the Death Threats Began.
Jul. 11, 2016

A Saudi Imam, 2 Hijackers and Lingering 9/11 Mystery
June 18, 2016

How Kosovo Was Turned Into Fertile Ground for ISIS
May 22, 2016

ISIS Turns Saudis Against the Kingdom, and Families Against Their Own
April 1, 2016

Quiet Support for Saudis Entangles U.S. in Yemen
March 14, 2016

U.S. Relies Heavily on Saudi Money to Support Syrian Rebels
Jan. 24, 2016
 

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AFGHANISTAN PARTIAL THREAT ASSESSMENT: AUGUST 28, 2016

Aug 28, 2016 - Caitlin Forrest

Taliban militants are successfully expanding their territorial control across several regions of Afghanistan during their 2016 summer offensive, Operation Omari. The ANSF’s counter-offensive, Operation Shafaq has repulsed individual Taliban operations, such as the August offensive to isolate Helmand’s provincial capital, but the ANSF remain unprepared and under-resourced to conduct operations in more than one region simultaneously, despite NATO and U.S. assistance. Taliban offensives continue to limit the Afghan government’s control of terrain, thereby expanding ungoverned and remote areas where extremist networks such as ISIS and al Qaeda can reconstitute. The Afghan unity government faces a political crisis because of deadlines in September imposed by the original agreement through which it came to power. If Afghanistan remains on this course, global extremist organizations will reconstitute their sanctuaries in Afghanistan’s ungoverned spaces and pose enduring threats to U.S. national security.

The Taliban’s campaign gained momentum on several fronts in August after a lull coinciding with multiple leadership transitions. Taliban militants launched offensives to control the provincial capitals of Kunduz and Uruzgan Provinces and launched offensives surrounding the provincial capital of Helmand Province, Lashkar Gah. U.S. airstrikes and Afghan commando units appear to have slowed the Taliban militant advance on southern Lashkar Gah City as of August 15, but Taliban militants responded by attacking adjacent districts in Helmand and simultaneously pressuring Kunduz City in the north. The Taliban leverages its dispersed footprint to neutralize the ANSF capability even with U.S. and NATO assistance.

The ANSF’s Operation Shafaq is too geographically constrained and insufficiently resourced to combat the Taliban militants’ dispersed, simultaneous offensives. Operation Shafaq was designed to proceed in three distinct phases; beginning in Kunduz in April, then moving to protect the southern provinces, and most recently shifting to combat ISIS in Nangarhar in mid-July. Taliban militants launched offensives to set conditions to contest Kunduz in the North and Lashkar Gah in the South immediately after the ANSF shifted to disrupt ISIS in Nangarhar. U.S. and Afghan Air Force air strikes and reinforcements from Afghan Commando Units reportedly disrupted the militants’ advance on Lashkar Gah City, the capital of southern Helmand province, and aided in the recapturing of adjacent districts. ANSF counter-offensives in southern Helmand Province are ongoing and have not recaptured all areas lost to Taliban militants between July 29 and August 15. The Resolute Support spokesman U.S. Brigadier General Charles Cleveland announced that 100 U.S. troops were temporarily deployed to bolster the Train, Advise, and Assist mission around Lashkar Gah City on August 22. This deployment demonstrates that the ANSF are not prepared to combat large-scale Taliban militant offensives without direct U.S. assistance.

Taliban militants are exploiting the regionally-focused phases of the ANSF’s Operation Shafaq to reverse gains made by joint U.S.-ANSF operations. Taliban assaults in northern Afghanistan and ISIS militants in the East will likely capitalize on the redistribution of ANSF and U.S. troops to Helmand Province by returning to areas previously cleared by the U.S. and ANSF. Afghan Defense Minister Abdullah Khan Habibi directed security forces to launch a separate counter-offensive in northern Kunduz Province on August 21 due to militants contesting Kunduz City. This new offensive required Afghan National Army Deputy Chief of Staff General Murad Ali Murad to leave Helmand Province in order to lead operations in Kunduz Province, indicating that the ANSF does not have the command structure to lead simultaneous operations in multiple regions. The ANSF’s Operation Shafaq is not designed to hold more than one region at a time, and Taliban militants are exploiting this flaw to weaken the ANSF and improve conditions iteratively as they prepare to amass greater control of terrain.

The Taliban militants’ offensive is requiring the ANSF to deploy and redistribute their limited resources frequently, limiting the Afghan government’s ability to reach remote areas where extremist networks can reconstitute. Three quarters of ANSF soldiers are actively fighting insurgents, making it difficult to rest and refit units. This operational tempo negatively affects the ANSF’s effectiveness and exhausts resources. The frequent transfer of ANSF units between provinces also allows militants to return to areas cleared by security forces once the units relocate. The Taliban militants’ summer offensive is effectively stretching the capabilities of the ANSF and degrading its already low morale. Extremist groups will likely capitalize on the Taliban militants’ exhaustion of the ANSF to carve out their own sanctuaries in eastern Afghanistan. For example, ISIS militants are using their sanctuaries in Nangarhar Province to launch spectacular attacks in Kabul. Additionally, the Haqqani Network is on the offensive in their historic stronghold in Loya Paktia.

The Taliban summer offensive is outpacing the ANSF’s ability to secure the country as the National Unity Government faces a crisis and potential collapse in September. The National Unity Government is facing multiple crises due to its inability to deliver on requirements of the 2014 power sharing agreement. It is becoming increasingly unlikely that the Ghani-Abdullah Administration will meet the September 2016 deadline to hold a constitutional Loya Jirga as stipulated by the 2014 agreement or enact electoral reforms before the elections planned for October 2016. Opposition parties will aggressively challenge the Ghani-Abdullah Administration if it does not meet these deadlines. These deadlines coincide with the traditional end of the Taliban militants’ summer campaigns, a phase during which Taliban operations frequently crescendo. Last year, Taliban militants captured Kunduz City in September 2015. The National Unity Government could collapse if they fail to meet these political deadlines.

The numbers in the text below correspond to areas on the accompanying map.

1. ISIS Wilayat Khorasan militants are operating alongside Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) militants in Jowzjan Province. Security forces arrested the alleged ISIS “shadow governor” of Jowzjan province in Qush Tepah District in early August after a group of ISIS and IMU-affiliated militants clashed with security forces. It is unclear whether ISIS flipped the Taliban shadow governor in the province, or whether local reporting is simply referring to a local ISIS commander. A woman also surrendered to police in the provincial capital on August 16, claiming her husband was pressuring her to travel to Nangarhar to receive training to become a suicide bomber for ISIS.

2. Taliban militants attacked Kunduz city on August 22, the second time during Operation Omari. Militants attacked Kunduz City from three directions and blocked access to the north and south of the city, blocking potential ANSF reinforcements. Taliban militants briefly captured Khanabad District in Kunduz and Khwaja Ghar District in neighboring Takhar Province on August 20 and 22. Taliban militants also control 98% of Chahar Darah, Dasht-e Archi, and Qal’ah-ye Zal districts according to a report from the Independent Directorate of Local Governance released on July 31. Taliban militants staged their previous assault upon Kunduz from these districts in September 2015.

3. Taliban militants staged for attacks on Baghlan’s provincial capital and blocked ANSF forces in Kabul from traveling north. Taliban militants took control of Dahana-ye Ghori District, Baghlan Province on August 15 after laying siege to Afghan security forces, forcing a retreat. Militants may use Dahana-ye Ghori to block ANSF reinforcements in Kabul from reaching Kunduz City and/or stage offensives against the provincial capital, Pul-e Khumri City, which the group has done before.

4. Taliban militants may be switching loyalties to ISIS Wilayat Khorasan in Badakhshan Province. A large group of Taliban militants switched allegiance to ISIS in areas under Taliban control in Warduj and Yamgan Districts in northern Badakhshan Province according to local reports. This group could provide ISIS Wilayat Khorasan a foothold to expand into the northeastern provinces.

5. Unknown militants, possibly al-Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba, launched coordinated attacks against the Waygal District headquarters in Nuristan Province on August 14, a step change for militants in the province. Taliban militants reportedly claim to control the district; but Afghan officials have only acknowledged deadly clashes. Extremist networks are likely shifting operations from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan to Nuristan in order to reestablish a base of operations in Afghanistan in a historic stronghold.

6. ISIS Wilayat Khorasan is contesting a district center in Nangarhar and continues to stage attacks in Kabul from the province. Officials claimed on July 19 that Afghan security forces are unable to hold terrain outside the government compound in Deh Bala district center against ISIS militants. ISIS militants detonated two SVESTs during a protest by Shi’a Hazaras in Kabul City on July 23, an attack staged in Achin District, Nangarhar province. U.S. officials confirmed a U.S. drone strike killed ISIS Wilayat Khorasan leader Hafiz Khan in Nangarhar on July 26, however, and it is unclear whether ISIS’s operations in Nangarhar will be disrupted by the loss of his leadership.

7. Haqqani Network militants may be taking advantage of the ANSF’s focus on Helmand and Kunduz Provinces to establish control in Paktia Province. Militants captured Jani Khel district center on August 27 after Afghan security forces retreated due to a lack of supplies and reinforcements. Militants briefly closed the Gardez-Patan highway and clashed with security forces in Tsamkani and Jani Khel Districts in early August. Establishing a strong position in Paktia will give the Haqqani Network a staging ground to attack its provincial capital, Gardez, and set conditions to expand control.

8. ISIS Wilayat Khorasan may be exploiting Afghanistan’s ungoverned spaces to expand operations in Zabul Province. Afghan officials report that ISIS militants established an ISIS training and recruitment center in Khak-e Afghan District, Zabul Province. Local authorities claim the militants are flush with cash and are in constant contact with and receive funding from ISIS leaders in Iraq. Resolute Support spokesman Brigadier General Charles Cleveland refuted these claims, stating on August 14 that U.S. military intelligence had not seen evidence indicating an ISIS presence in Zabul Province.

9. Taliban militants are setting conditions to contest control of the provincial capital of Helmand. Taliban militants launched a large-scale offensive in six of Helmand’s 13 districts on July 29, one day after Resolute Support Commander U.S. General John Nicholson stated that the ANSF regained control of Sangin and Marjah district centers. Taliban militants briefly seized Reg-e Khan Neshin, Garmser, and Nawah-ye Barakzai district centers before security forces recaptured them between July 29 and August 14. Taliban militants launched offensives to take Nad Ali district center and captured a number of areas after clashes with security forces on August 1. A new Taliban commando unit is reportedly at the front of this offensive in Helmand with advanced fighters and technologies that have allowed the group to increase the frequency and effectiveness of its assaults. The U.S. deployed an additional 100 troops to support the train, advise, and assist mission around Lashkar Gah on August 22.
 

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MIDDLE EAST

Iran Arrests Nuclear Negotiator Suspected of Spying

By REUTERS
AUG. 28, 2016, 9:33 A.M. E.D.T.

DUBAI — Iran has arrested a member of the negotiating team that reached a landmark nuclear deal with world powers on suspicion of spying, a judiciary spokesman said on Sunday.

The suspect was released on bail after a few days in jail but is still under investigation, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said at a weekly news conference, calling the unidentified individual a "spy who had infiltrated the nuclear team," state media reported.

The deal that President Hassan Rouhani struck last year has given Iran relief from most international sanctions in return for curbing its nuclear programme, but it is opposed by hardliners who see it as a capitulation to the United States.

Ejei was responding to a question about an Iranian lawmaker's assertion last week that a member of the negotiation team who had dual nationality had been arrested on espionage charges.

Tehran's prosecutor general on Aug. 16 announced the arrest of a dual national he said was linked to British intelligence, but made no mention of the person being in the nuclear negotiations team. On Sunday, Ejei did not explicitly confirm that the arrested person had a second nationality.

Britain said on Aug. 16 that it was trying to find out more about the arrest of a joint-national.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by William Maclean and Robin Pomeroy)
 

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Czechs and Hungarians call for EU army amid security worries

26 August 2016
From the section Europe

The leaders of the Czech Republic and Hungary say a "joint European army" is needed to bolster security in the EU.

They were speaking ahead of talks in Warsaw with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They dislike her welcome for Muslim migrants from outside the EU.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said "we must give priority to security, so let's start setting up a joint European army".

The UK government has strongly opposed any such moves outside Nato's scope.
The Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak leaders are coordinating their foreign policy as the "Visegrad Group".

Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said building a joint European army would not be easy, but he called for discussion to start on it.

The EU has joint defence capabilities in the form of 1,500-strong battle groups, but they have not been tested in combat yet.

Last year European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for a European army to give the EU muscle in confronting threats from Russia or elsewhere.

Post-Brexit planning

Slovakia will host an informal EU summit on 16 September to consider the EU's future without the UK.

No UK minister will attend, as the Conservative government is preparing the ground for Brexit, in line with the 23 June vote to leave the 28-nation bloc.

"Brexit is not just an event like any other - it's a turning-point in the EU's history, so we have to frame a careful response," Mrs Merkel said.

_88503979_migrant_journeys_turkey_to_germany_624_v6.png

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cp...migrant_journeys_turkey_to_germany_624_v6.png

Germany wants the Visegrad countries to help house refugees from conflict zones, especially Syria, Iraq and Eritrea, but they oppose an EU quota system.

Germany took in more than a million non-EU migrants last year - a record influx.
New Hungary fence

Hungary and Slovakia are suing the European Commission at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), calling its quota scheme for distributing refugees illegal.

Hungary will hold a referendum on 2 October aimed at showing majority opposition to quotas.

Hungary's migrants pushed back into Serbia
Hungary and the smugglers' route through Europe

Mr Orban announced plans on Friday to build a second razor-wire fence, taller and stronger than the first, along Hungary's southern border with Serbia.

The second fence would be to keep out any future wave of migrants arriving from the Balkans.

The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest says Hungary currently allows around 30 people a day through two transit zones built into the existing fence. Migrants live in wretched conditions beside the fence, waiting to be allowed through, he reports.

Others pay people smugglers, who bribe police on both the Serbian and Hungarian side.

A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.

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REPORT: Germany ‘Annexing’ Dutch Military As Secretive EU Army Begins To Take Shape
Started by Intestinal Fortitude‎, 04-21-2016 10:03 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ary-As-Secretive-EU-Army-Begins-To-Take-Shape

Here's another one....

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http://www.defensenews.com/articles/former-italian-general-calls-for-european-army-after-brexit-vote

Former Italian General Calls for European Army After Brexit Vote
By: Tom Kington, August 25, 2016
Comments 5

ROME — One of the founding fathers of Europe’s long held plan for a unified army has said the UK exit from the European Union is the perfect time to realize the ambition, following years of British “sabotage” of the concept.

Gen. Vincenzo Camporini, a former head of the Italian general staff, told Defense News that the EU’s plans for a series of multinational battle groups run by an EU military headquarters could now flourish after the UK voted to leave the EU in June.

“The UK’s opposition to setting up the EU military HQ put a stop to it,” Camporini said.

Camporini was one of four European military officials who formed a working group in 1999 to map out a European army, a plan known as the Helsinki Headline Goal. He is now vice president and a security and defense analyst with the IAI think tank in Rome.


DefenseNews
After Brexit, Keep Calm and Carry On
Some battle groups have been formed, including an Italian-Slovenian-Hungarian group, but others exist only on paper.

“Those that exist have never been tested,” Camporini . “When will we follow the NATO example and have annual exercises?”

Another way Europe has sought to integrate armed forces was by setting up the European Defense Agency, a pan-European office designed to encourage joint procurement.

Camporini said the agency remained weak and ineffective, thanks in part to the UK undermining it.

“The UK always opposed funding increases, and three quarters of the agency’s budget is absorbed by salaries, leaving it as a body whose scope is survival,” he said. “It was clear that after its early enthusiasm, UK sentiment for EU defense cooled.”

Camporini said the military cooperation deal struck by the UK with France in 2010 was emblematic of the UK approach to European defense.

“The treaty clearly stated it was not to be extended to other countries. When a few months later as Chief of Staff I met in a ‘quad’ format my colleagues from France, Germany and UK, [then-Chief of the Defence Staff for the UK] Gen. [David] Richards and [then-Chief of the Defense Staff for France] Adm. [Edouard] Guillaud were really embarrassed to have to admit to this," Camporini said.

With the UK on its way out of the heading out of Europe, British opposition would no longer be a factor, but there would be other benefits, said Camporini. “The British attitude was an excuse for other — some people hid behind the UK. Now the excuse is no longer there; who is ready to go forward? I believe the Germans are willing, although I have doubts about France because of its nuclear deterrent. Will that be shared? It is a very delicate political issue.”

If Europe does now create a military capability, it will lack a British contribution, but Camporini said declining UK capabilities meant that was no longer a problem.

“If anyone had proposed building a European capability in 1999 without the UK, I would have said they were crazy, but during the last few years, UK governments have been greedy with the peace dividend and they gave up their sea projection capability, which they will not get back before their new carriers arrive,” he said.

The prospects for European collaboration appear brighter after the leaders of France, Germany and Italy all stressed military cooperation when they met in Italy for a post-Brexit vote summit.

Analysts have suggested defense cooperation is a handy cause to rally round since European leaders agree on little else, but a series of factors, from protecting frontiers to Russian aggression, have put a common defense back on the agenda, particularly among Eastern European states.

But before Europe can push on, Camporini said it would need to work on its political and military coordination. “We need to test decision-making procedures — there is no point having battle groups ready if you need months to get a political sign off.”

He cited the Eurofor military headquarters set up by Italy, France, Portugal and Spain as an example: “When the time came to deploy it to Kosovo, just after Kosovo declared independence, Spain vetoed it. We had a beautiful instrument which was eventually disbanded.”
 

Housecarl

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http://www.voanews.com/a/raid-on-seminary-in-pakistan-suspected-afghan-militants/3483706.html

ASIA

Raid on Seminary in Pakistan Detains 100 Suspected Afghan Militants

August 28, 2016 7:06 AM
Ayaz Gul

ISLAMABAD —
Pakistani security forces have raided a madrassa, or Islamic seminary, in the southwestern city of Quetta and rounded up around 100 Afghan nationals for suspected links to militant groups, officials said.

Provincial government spokesman Anwar ul-Haq Kakar told VOA the detainees did not posses any identity documents. Authorities also seized "undesired literature" from the seminary, known as Madrassa Abdullah bin Zubair. The institution, he said, has been sealed after the overnight raid in the Bhoosa Mandi area and detainees are being probed for further legal action.

It is unclear what prompted Saturday’s raid but the locality is notorious for harboring extremists linked to outlawed groups, including the Afghan Taliban.

Afghan officials have long alleged the Taliban insurgency takes direction from its so-called Quetta Shura (leadership war council) based in the Pakistani city and have pressed Islamabad to evict the insurgents. Pakistani officials reject the assertions, though they admit presence of insurgent fighters among hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in the province.

A U.S. drone strike in May killed fugitive Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor in a remote district of Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital city.

Al-Qaida, IS operatives captured

On Saturday, Baluchistan Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti revealed security forces captured six operatives of al-Qaida and Islamic State (IS) in the remote district of Noshki, which is located on the way to Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and Iran.

“An important Daesh commander is also among the detainees,” Bugti said, using the Arabic acronym for IS. Without sharing his identity or nationality, the minister said the detained commander was involved in “brain-washing and recruiting youth” to send to fight in Syria. He did not elaborate.

Authorities in Pakistan have also lately intensified a crackdown against Afghans living illegally in Baluchistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the two provinces bordering Afghanistan, and detained and deported hundreds of them.

The police crackdown has also led to incidents of alleged harassment of registered Afghan refugees, prompting thousands of families to return to their country in recent months. The registered refugees have until December this year to stay in Pakistan legally.

Separately, a spokesman for the paramilitary force called Frontier Corps (FC) said Sunday it has arrested 328 Afghan nationals from different parts of Quetta for not possessing travel documents and working without permits. “Those arrested have been handed over to the authorities at the FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) for their deportation,” a statement quoted him as saying.
 

Housecarl

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http://www.voanews.com/a/zimbabwe-protests-intensify-but-will-it-bring-change/3482594.html

AFRICA

Zimbabwe Protests Intensify, But Will It Bring Change?

August 27, 2016 8:30 AM
Sebastian Mhofu
Anita Powell

HARARE/JOHANNESBURG —
The grievances of the opposition protesters who marched in Zimbabwe’s capital Friday can be summed up in one word: In the Shona language, zvakwana, in Ndebele, sokwanele, and in English, enough.

“The people’s desperation is very deep,’ said former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, once considered the nation’s strongest opposition figure.

“It must not relent," he added. "It must continue to express itself, the level of desperation Zimbabweans are facing so that we are able to solve this problem ...But I am very glad that Zimbabweans are beginning to say: enough is enough.”

On Friday, that word drove hundreds of people to converge on the wide avenues of central Harare, where some stopped to tear down a street sign bearing the name of the man who is the target of their ire: President Robert Mugabe.

Reporters from VOA’s Zimbabwe service were on the scene and reported that protesters blocked roads, burned tires and hurled stones at police, ruling party supporters and buildings in central Harare. The chaos led vendors in the commercial district to shutter their shops.

Despite a court order allowing Friday’s opposition-led protest to proceed, police fired water cannon and tear gas in an attempt to stop it.

Reporters also saw police fire weapons into the air and beat protesters.

A lawyer representing the Zimbabwe People First party, led by former Vice President Joyce Mujuru, Gift Nyandoro, said the police ignored a court order.

"Police are refusing to recognize it," said Gift Nyandoro. "We inquired them about who’s in charge, they are refusing their name, neither their identity. It’s a bad day for Zimbabwe."

It was not immediately clear how many people were wounded in the protest.

Police did not answer VOA’s requests for comment Friday, but Zimbabwe’s home affairs minister, Ignatius Chombo, said the night before that police “would not watch foreign-funded protesters destroy Zimbabwe.” The government has long accused Western nations of backing an anti-government plot.

The opposition has called on Southern African leaders meeting in Swaziland to look at the situation in Zimbabwe.

Protesters in this march and in previous ones say they’re tired of poverty, tired of repression and crackdowns on dissent, and tired of corruption. Most of all, more and more Zimbabweans are saying they’re tired of the man who got them to this place, the man who has ruled the country for more than 35 years: President Mugabe.

For months now, Zimbabwe has experienced a growing wave of protests.

In April, some 3,000 opposition supporters marched in the capital over the failing economy. Other protests sprang up in other locations - including the virtual universe of social media - and around other topical issues.

So far, the demonstrations have been in urban areas. It remains to be seen whether the dissatisfaction has spread to the countryside which has traditionally been a stronghold of the government.

But Ciara Aucoin, a researcher for the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, says although Friday’s demonstration was unusual for its high degree of opposition collaboration, it may not be enough to change anything.

“It isn’t necessarily a tipping point, because it remains to be seen how the pushback from the government is going to affect the protest movement,” she said. “In one way, if it deters protesters, that could be a possible outcome. The other is that if it causes further mobilization - that remains to be seen.”

Instead of looking for the last straw, she said, protesters should be looking for the government’s last penny.

“Because of the budget deficits at the national level, there [are] questions around the ability of the state to maintain the payments to police and to ensure a kind of steady public order maintenance,” she said. “And so, if the protests were to grow, there are questions around the capacity of the state response to pay police who protect public order.”

Human rights groups have long denounced Zimbabwe’s pattern of repression.

Dewa Mavhinga of Human Rights Watch says this year’s protests may have started over basic human and civil rights and the economy, but have escalated because the government’s reaction was to further impede on their basic rights.

“Really this is because of bad governance, poor management by the state and also rampant corruption,” he said. ”So this is what has driven people on to the streets. Unfortunately, the government has not reacted by dealing with the root causes of these protests, but it has chosen to violently crush these demonstrations, further violating people’s rights.”

But protesters say confrontation doesn’t scare them. On Friday, the opposition group behind the latest protest swore: “beat us all you want, but we shall not yield.”

They plan to hold another protest next Friday.

Reporters with VOA’s Zimbabwe Service contributed to this report from Harare.
 

Housecarl

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http://www.thezimbabwedaily.com/mai...ing_wp_cron=1472425798.1966478824615478515625

Anarchy as Zimbabwe’s unpaid soldiers join discontent, Zanu PF youth dress in police uniform chips-in

Sunday 28th August 2016 18:50

HARARE – Zimbabwe slides on the verge of a revolt by uniformed forces amid reports that some unpaid rank and file members have joined mass protests demanding the resignation of President Robert Mugabe and his administration.

The defence force leaders are credited with keeping Mugabe in power since independence in 1980 but ordinary officers are frustrated by failure to pay their salaries, for the umpteenth time, sparking an unprecedented move to protest.

Sources says Zanu PF is now relying on party youth who are being given police uniform and deployed into the streets to confront angry protesters.

The questionable behaviour of Zimbabwe police have raised eyebrows in the manner they have dealt with the protesters prompting senior party official Professor Jonathan Moyo to condemn them on his twitter page.

In his indirect slaming of the police actions Prof. Moyo on Saturday suggested that the actions of the police was not of professionally trained law enforcement agents and cited sources that pointed blame on the opposition and the United States embassy.

Two weeks ago the controversial higher education Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo has lashed out against senseless battering of unarmed Zimbabwean civilians by Harare riot police.

Speaking after seeing pictures of bloodied and beaten protesters, Moyo used twitter to express shock at the manner in which Zimbabwe’s police reacts to peaceful protests.

He even went a step further to draw parallels with the 2007-8 violence that preceded 2008 elections.

“Law enforcement is essential, more so in these times of provocative antics, but it must be lawful. Remember 2007,” said Moyo via social media.

Moyo who also posted a picture of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai taken when he was attacked by police in 2007 begged Zimbabwe’s state agents to be careful as they are now giving a very bad picture of the country’s leadership and the police force.

Tsvangirai was injured and hospitalised in 2007 after being subjected to violent attacks by Zanu PF supporters and state agents.

Officers speaking to CAJ News on condition of anonymity expressed solidarity with the protesting masses, pointing out they also were not exempt from the economic crisis besetting the country.

“We have families to look after, so the protests that you are seeing here setting Harare alight have involved some of us,” said a soldier.

A flight air commando from the Manyame Airbase outside Harare expressed disappointment at not receiving his salary on Friday. The officer said they were also affected by rampant corruption.

Zimbabwe has simply run of currency, a few years after it shelved its worthless Zimbabwe dollar which at the country’s peak was one of the most lucrative currencies.

Ironically, security personnel have responded heavy-handedly to the protests, incurring widespread condemnation. Police have arrested 87 people in connection with last week’s violent protests.

“My warning to the police is that they must stop using force against civilians, otherwise we will soon take up arms to defend the masses,” said the air force commando.

In a separate interview, an officer with the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) said he was no longer taking orders from his superiors when it came to arresting civilians suspected of instigating violent protests. “Despite being law enforcers, we know corruption is the root cause of these problems,” he said.

More protests are scheduled for the major cities of Harare and Bulawayo this week.

Zimbabwe’s 18 opposition parties including former vice-president Joice Mujuru’s Zimbabwe People First and MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai had obtained a High Court order barring police from interfering with their intended demonstration.

The parties under the banner of the National Electoral Reform Agenda (Nera) and Coalition for Democrats wanted to protest against unfair electoral laws and systems, but were violently blocked by the police; minutes after the High Court had okayed the event.

In 2008 unpaid Zimbabwean soldiers went on rampage and attacked shops in the Harare central business districts.

The situation turned violent and for close to 12 hours, police were engaged in running battles with protestors in the central business district. Th protesters were angered by the police provocation. Some ran amok, looting shops, smashing cars and setting property ablaze.

But as it appeared the police were losing ground, the military took over in the late hours and spent the rest of Friday night patrolling the CBD and surrounding areas such as the Avenues where they attacked people on the streets, including commercial sex workers.

Truckloads of soldiers were seen patrolling the Avenues area and raiding night clubs where revellers were bludgeoned without reason or explanation.

Most revellers fled from the city centre fearing for their lives. Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi was part of a press conference by Home

Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo where the government threatened to unleash terror on protestors last Thursday.

Army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Alphios Makotore yesterday refused to comment when asked about the involvement of the military in patrolling streets, referring all questions to the Zimbabwe Republic Police.

However, police spokesperson, Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said she was out of town.

Opposition political parties and observers yesterday said they were worried about the involvement of the army, saying it showed how Mugabe, who has realised he was now sitting on a cliff edge was desperate to defend his continued hold on power.

Douglas Mwonzora, MDC-T secretary general who is Nera’s legal affairs head said opposition parties would not be intimidated by the army.

“This shows that the system is in a fix,” Mwonzora said.

“This is the work of a now panicky regime which is afraid of its own shadows.

“This was supposed to be a peaceful protest that was disrupted by the state itself. We won’t be intimidated. We are not fighting the army, we are fighting the system.”

Nera has called for another protest next Friday, which the union’s convenor Didymus Mutasa said would be of a greater magnitude.

ZimPF spokesperson, Jealousy Mawarire said deployment of soldiers to do crowd management was unconstitutional as soldiers were not trained for such tasks.

“Reports that the army has been deployed in the streets of Harare is in fact a declaration of a state of emergency,” he said.

“In fact there is already a curfew in Harare because residents are being forced out of the city centre at particular times by people alleging to be members of the army. – Plus SABC plus The Standard
 

Housecarl

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WORLD

Libya loyalists suffer toll as Sirte’s Islamic State holdouts put up fierce fight

AFP-JIJI, REUTERS
AUG 29, 2016
ARTICLE HISTORY

SIRTE, LIBYA – Forces loyal to Libya’s U.N.-backed unity government on Sunday pushed into the last areas of Sirte held by the Islamic State group in what was the jihadis’ coastal stronghold.

The battle for the hometown of Libya’s slain dictator Moammer Gadhafi was launched more than three months ago by forces loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord.

Islamic State captured the Mediterranean city in June 2015, sparking fears they would use it as a launchpad for attacks on Europe.

“The final battle for Sirte has started,” said Reda Issa, a spokesman for the pro-GNA forces, as loyalist forces thrust into two districts of the city where Islamic State still holds positions.

About 1,000 pro-GNA fighters were taking part in the offensive against “district number one and district number two” in northern and eastern Sirte, respectively, he said.

An AFP photographer saw several tanks and armed vehicles move toward district number one and heard gunfire and rocket explosions as they entered the area.

“Fierce street battles” took place during the day with pro-GNA forces using weaponry including heavy artillery, the photographer said. He said the fighting later became more sporadic.

Late Sunday, a loyalist field commander, Hisham Abdel Atti, said pro-GNA forces had seized “two thirds of district number one and large parts of district number three.

The jihadis are “retreating,” he said in remarks carried by the media center dedicated to the Sirte offensive.

At least 34 loyalists were killed on Sunday and 150 wounded, a field hospital for the pro-GNA forces said.

The AFP photographer saw several wounded men being evacuated to the field hospital.

The bodies of two Islamic State fighters lay on a street inside district number one, he said.

The pro-GNA forces said on Facebook the offensive came “after airstrikes overnight” and as they pressed the assault the jihadis countered with car bombs.

“The Daesh gangs committed mass suicide today when they sent five car bombs and a suicide bomber to try and stop our advancing forces,” a statement said without elaborating, using an alternate name for Islamic State.

Since Aug. 1, U.S. warplanes have backed the assault to expel Islamic State from Sirte, and as of Aug. 24 had carried out 82 strikes, according to the U.S. Africa Command.

The AFP photographer reported no airstrikes on Sunday.

The pro-GNA forces fought their way into Sirte on June 9 and two months later seized the jihadis’ headquarters at the Ouagadougou conference center, pinning down Islamic State fighters near the sea.

But their advance has been slowed by snipers, suicide bombings and booby traps.

Loyalist forces are mostly militias from western cities that have sided with the unity government of prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj and the guards of oil installations that Islamic State has repeatedly tried to seize.

Ahead of Sunday’s assault, they prepared their tanks for inspection, cleaned their weapons and deployed on the outskirts of Sirte and around the two districts.

“I’m cleaning my weapon … and getting it ready for the decisive battle,” one fighter, Osama Mohammad Mosbah, told AFP.

Sirte had been tense but calm since Thursday.

But fighting erupted Saturday on the edges of district number one between the jihadis and loyalist forces armed with machine guns and rocket launchers, the AFP reporter said.

Pro-GNA snipers deployed to the roofs of buildings whose facades were still painted with the jihadis’ black flag, and used binoculars to scan their surroundings for Islamic State fighters.

More than 370 pro-GNA fighters have been killed and nearly 2,000 wounded in the battle for Sirte since May, according to medical sources. Islamic State casualty figures are unavailable.

Analysts say that ousting the jihadis from Libya would be a symbolic boost for the country’s fragile unity government, but would not mean an end to unrest in the North African nation.

Islamic State could launch more scattered attacks across Libya, they say.

The jihadi group took advantage of chaos in Libya after the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed Gadhafi, as rival militias and authorities have vied for control of the oil-rich country.

A U.N.-brokered deal struck in December led to Sarraj’s unity government taking office in the capital Tripoli, but it has since struggled to fully assert its authority.

The presidential council headed by Sarraj said on Wednesday it would present a new Cabinet line-up in an attempt to secure the backing of parliament.

The legislature, which rejected a previous unity government in a vote on Monday, gave the council a “final chance” and 10 days to propose a new At least 34 Libyan fighters were killed and more than 180 wounded on Sunday as they closed in on the last Islamic State militant holdouts in Sirte, according to field hospitals.

Forces aligned with Libya’s U.N.-backed government have pushed militants back into a small residential area in central Sirte in a three-month-old campaign. Heavy fighting resumed on Sunday after a one-week lull.

The Libyan brigades, mostly from the city of Misrata, say they are close to victory in Sirte, but they have struggled to defend themselves against suicide bombings, sniper fire and land mines.

On Sunday several brigades stationed close to Sirte’s seafront advanced several hundred meters eastward through Sirte’s neighborhood number one, while other fighters overran Islamic State positions in street-to-street fighting to the south.

Fighters used tanks, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns to try to blast through Islamic State sniper positions.

The Misrata-led brigades said there had been five attempted car bombings on Sunday in a “desperate attempt to disrupt the advance,” though at least one of the bombs had been destroyed before it could reach its target.

The front lines in Sirte were quieter earlier this week as government-led forces said they were giving time to the wives and children of Islamic State fighters to leave the battle zone.

Almost all the city’s estimated 80,000 residents left after Islamic State took full control of the city last year, turning it into its regional stronghold and expanding its presence along about 250 km (155 miles) of coastline.

Libyan commanders say some Islamic State militants probably escaped around the start of the campaign to recapture Sirte in May, and their forces have been trying to secure the desert to the south and west of Sirte.
 

Housecarl

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Politics/DiplomacyNationalPolitics/Diplomacy
(EDITORIAL from The Korea Times on Aug. 29)
2016/08/29 07:22

NK missile threat

SLBM tests should serve as wakeup call to China

It is laudable for China to join the world at the United Nations to condemn North Korea for its Aug. 24 test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) that flew inside Japan's air defense zone.

In the aftermath of the North's Aug. 3 test, Beijing didn't sign on for the U.N. condemnation, insisting that the United States first cancel its plan to deploy a missile interceptor in South Korea.

By many indications, the latest move by the Chinese leaves a lot of doubt over whether this is a permanent change of stance toward its client state's strategic weapons programs ― missiles and nuclear weapons.

Rather, it should be better seen as part of China's elaborate efforts to prevent any distraction in the lead-up to the G-20 Summit it hosts in Hangzhou, Sept. 4 and 5.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated his country's opposition to the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea during a meeting with his counterparts from Seoul and Tokyo, which was held on the same day the North conducted its latest SLBM test.

This signifies Beijing sees a greater threat in THAAD, a defense-oriented weapon system, than the North's missiles that can make a deadly mix when combined with its nuclear weapons.

There are other signs that Beijing doesn't take the North's weapons of mass destruction seriously. Despite the toughest-ever U.N. sanctions taken following the North's nuclear and long-range missile tests early this year, Beijing is suspected of not being strict enough with controlling the movement of goods to the North. Also, it has paid the North tens of millions of dollars in exchange for fishing rights in the East and West seas. An educated guess is that irrespective of its intentions, China has helped the Kim Jong-un regime continue with its dangerous weapons programs.

China may feel the North in its pocket for many reasons. First of all, it is the key supplier of everything Pyongyang needs. If it cuts off fuel pipelines, the North's industry would grind to a full stop. Or if it withholds grain exports, famine would hit the North.

Plus, China certainly believes that the North, which is indulged in the game of pretending to be a big power, is better to have borders with than with the South, a U.S. ally.

But China should wake up from this old thinking for itself and the rest of the world.

The North's stealth SLBM has become sophisticated and the country is pushing hard for the development of intercontinental missiles as well as nuclear warheads through miniaturization efforts. Some experts say that it is only two years before the North's SLBMs go operational. It's noteworthy that the North is one of a handful of nations that have conducted nuclear tests in the latest 10 years, a reason why its nuclear devices can't be underestimated.

China shouldn't rule out the possibility that the North's nuclear-tipped long-range missiles are turned in the direction of Beijing or Shanghai, much closer than targets in the United States. After all, an old diplomatic saying goes, "There are no permanent friends nor permanent enemies but only permanent interests." China needs to stop being shortsighted, see the runaway train in the North and sincerely join in the global efforts to stop it before it's too late.

(END)
 

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Zawahiri says jihadists should prepare for guerrilla war in Iraq

BY THOMAS JOSCELYN | August 26, 2016 | tjoscelyn@gmail.com | @thomasjoscelyn

As Sahab, al Qaeda’s propaganda arm, released the third episode of Ayman al Zawahiri’s “Brief Messages to a Victorious Ummah” series on Aug. 25. The latest installment is subtitled “Fear Allah in Iraq.” The al Qaeda leader clearly expects the Islamic State to continue to lose ground, arguing that the Sunnis of Iraq should “reorganize themselves” for a “protracted guerrilla war to defeat the neo-Safavid [Iranian]-Crusader occupation of their regions as they did before.”

Banner for Episode 3 - Iraq

Zawahiri critiques the Islamic State’s approach to waging jihad in Iraq in his brief message, which is just over four minutes long. His arguments further highlight how al Qaeda and the Islamic State have evolved very different strategies for waging jihad. Whereas al Qaeda wants to be viewed as a popular revolutionary force, serving the interests of Muslims, the Islamic State deliberately markets itself as a top-down authoritarian regime that seeks to overtly impose its will on the populace. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State share the same long-term goal, as they both want to resurrect an Islamic caliphate. But they diverge on the steps that should be taken to achieve this goal.

Al Qaeda’s senior leaders think that the Islamic State’s methodology for waging jihad alienates the Muslim population and therefore makes it easier for the Sunni jihadists’ enemies to defeat them.

Zawahiri lays out a way forward for the jihadists in Iraq should the Islamic State’s caliphate continue to crumble.

Zawahiri says the jihadists in Iraq “must review their prior experiences to save them from the mistakes that led to their separation” from the Muslim community. These mistakes caused the jihadists to fall into “the abyss of extremism” and “takfir” (the practice of declaring other Muslims to be nonbelievers). They are also guilty of the “spilling forbidden [Muslim] blood,” Zawahiri says, and this path only serves the “proxies of America.”

In a telling passage, Zawahiri calls on “our brethren, the heroes of Islam, the mujahideen of the Levant” to assist “their brethren in Iraq in reorganizing themselves.”

Zawahiri famously sought to keep Al Nusrah Front in Syria, which was recently rebranded as Jabhat Fath al Sham (JFS, or Conquest of the Levant Front), separate from Baghdadi’s Islamic State. Zawahiri ruled that Baghdadi’s organization should be confined to Iraq, but the Islamic State refused to comply with his order.

Zawahiri now says the “battle is one,” with the Levant being “an extension of Iraq” and Iraq serving as “the depth of the Levant.”

That is, Zawahiri wants the jihadists in Iraq to follow the same strategy employed by al Qaeda in Syria. Under Zawahiri’s guidance, the group formerly known as Al Nusrah deeply embedded itself within the anti-Assad opposition and cultivated roots within the Syrian society.

Al Qaeda’s senior leadership publicly approved of Al Nusrah Front’s recent rebranding as JFS. This rebranding was spun as a clear “break” between Al Nusrah and al Qaeda. But Zawahiri’s own deputy, Abu Khayr al Masri, blessed the move shortly beforehand.

There is no hint in Zawahiri’s message that he feels betrayed by the jihadists in Syria. On the contrary, he wants the jihadists in Iraq to follow their model. When Zawahiri asks the “mujahideen of the Levant” to help their “brethren” in Iraq, he is clearly referring to JFS and others who have been following al Qaeda’s strategy.

The al Qaeda master further connects the jihad in Iraq to Syria by pointing out that Iranian-backed “militias and mercenaries” fight in both countries. Zawahiri says this is because Iran and its allies seek to annihilate Sunnis across the Middle East. He claims that Sunnis are being tortured and slaughtered in Iraq under the “pretext” of fighting Baghdadi’s Islamic State, but the supposed real reason for this can be found in the Iran’s expansionist goals. Zawahiri claims that the Iranians and the Americans have reached an “accord” that will allow a Crusader-Iranian-Alawite coalition (meaning an alliance of Western, Iranian and Assad regime forces) to swallow the whole region.

Even as Zawahiri rails against Iran, however, some of al Qaeda’s most senior leaders are stationed inside the country today.

All three episodes of Zawahiri’s “Brief Messages to a Victorious Ummah” series have been released this month. As Sahab has suffered production delays over the past two years, but the current pace of releases indicates that the official media shop for al Qaeda’s senior leadership is able to regularly churn out content once again. In the first episode of the new series, Zawahiri blasted the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In the second, he called on Muslims to support the Afghan Taliban and reject the Islamic State’s upstart presence in Afghanistan.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for The Long War Journal.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
And not just Israel....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsub/articles/20160826.aspx

Submarines: Narco Subs Threaten Israel

August 26, 2016: Apparently the long-feared appearance of South American “narco-subs” (drug smuggling submersible vessels) in Europe is imminent. This comes from revelations that Israel is deploying new sensors and techniques to find these small, easily built vessels that they fear will be used to attack Israel’s new offshore natural gas fields. Israel is not talking about how they found out.

The United States has been dealing with these vessels for over a decade and is apparently sharing with Israel what it knows about finding these vessels. The Israelis have an advantage in that they have a less restrictive ROE (Rules of Engagement) and, while the United States never has enough surface ships or long-range helicopters to make sure that long-range sensor contacts are actually narco-subs and not some legal vessel, the Israelis can warn all maritime traffic in their coastal waters to identify themselves or risk being fired on from the air or from surface craft. A number of the latter are unmanned, like the new Seagull USV (unmanned surface vessel) that can fire wire guided torpedoes.

Most of these narco-subs are still "semi-submersible" type vessels. These are 10-20 meter (31-62 foot) fiberglass boats, powered by a diesel engine, with a very low freeboard and a small "conning tower", providing the crew (of 4-5), and engine, with fresh air and the ability to safely navigate. A boat of this type was, since they first appeared in the early 1990s, thought to be the only practical kind of submarine for drug smuggling. But since 2000 the drug gangs have developed real submarines, capable of carrying 5-10 tons of cocaine. These subs cost a lot more than semi-submersibles and also don't require a highly trained crew. These subs borrow a lot of technology and ideas from the growing number of recreational submarines being built. Only three of these true subs have been found and apparently they are not sufficiently more effective to justify their higher cost.

Despite losing over a hundred of semi-submersibles to the U.S. and South American naval forces (and dozens more to accidents and bad weather), the drug gangs have apparently concluded that the subs are the cheapest and most reliable way to ship the drugs. Several hundred of these nacro-subs have been built and used on one-way trips to Mexico or the United States. Most of them get through.

A detection network, run mainly by the United States, locates a lot more of these cocaine subs than there are warships available to run them all down. Since the early 1990s the United States has used a special interagency (Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State, and Defense) and international (over a dozen nations participate) intelligence sharing/analysis operation (Joint Interagency Task Force-South) to track drug smuggling from South America. After 2001 the task force has become quite expert at tracking the submarines and submersibles built in South America for smuggling cocaine to North America and, in a few cases, all the way to Europe. Some of these long range subs are apparently going all the way from Ecuador to the United States, bypassing the Mexican cartels (who have been fighting each other, in a big way, since 2008).

Particularly worrisome are the larger boats headed for Europe. Little is known about these, expect that they exist. Only one has been found, abandoned on a Spanish beach. These subs would be more at risk of being lost because of accident or bad weather than being spotted. European navies (especially Portugal and Spain) and coast guards have been alerted and are looking. Apparently the risk of failure is so high for these trans-Atlantic narco-subs that few have been built and not on a regular basis.

The Colombian security forces and other Latin American navies have been responsible for most of these vessel captures. Usually these boats are sunk by their crews when spotted but the few that were captured intact revealed features like an extensive collection of communications gear, indicating an effort to avoid capture by monitoring many police and military frequencies. The Colombians have captured several of these vessels before they could be launched. Since 2010 the Colombians have been collecting a lot of information on those who actually builds these subs for the drug gangs and FARC (leftist rebels that provide security and often transportation for moving cocaine). That includes finding out where the construction takes place.

Colombian police have arrested dozens of members of gangs that specialized in building submarines and semisubmersible boats. As police suspected, some of those arrested were retired or on active duty with the Colombian Navy (which operates two 1970s era German built Type 209 submarines). These arrests were part of an intense effort to find the people responsible for building subs for cocaine gangs. Find the builders and you stop the building efforts. In this case it has only delayed some construction and made it more expensive to build these boats.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-germany-idUSKCN1130O1

WORLD NEWS | Sun Aug 28, 2016 2:51pm EDT

Germany, Poland and France call for more efforts to end Ukraine crisis

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland agreed on Sunday there should be greater international efforts to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters.

He said there had not been sufficient progress in implementing the Minsk ceasefire agreement. Western officials were talking with Russia and Ukraine to encourage them to implement measures already agreed in the Minsk process, including communal elections, he said.

"We have to work for a de-escalation of the situation," he told reporters after a meeting with his counterparts aimed at reinvigorating the Weimar Triangle trilateral group.

Steinmeier said the group also wanted to reassure Europeans about the continued importance and relevance of the European Union after the June 23 vote by Britain to exit the bloc.

"The Weimar Triangle can plan an important role ... It is a format where we can discuss progress or the lack of progress on issues such as the Normandy format aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict," Steinmeier said.

The Normandy group comprises Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.

Steinmeier said fresh efforts began in recent days to revive talks between Russia and Ukraine and pressure both sides to honor agreements they had already made.

The leaders of Russia, Germany and France have agreed to meet to discuss the situation in Ukraine on Sept. 4-5 in China on the sidelines of the G20 summit, the Kremlin said last week.

ALSO IN WORLD NEWS

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A recent surge in fighting in eastern Ukraine, where Kiev is fighting pro-Russian separatists, and fresh tension in Crimea have raised concern that a fragile ceasefire agreed in Minsk in February 2015 could collapse.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said last week he did not rule out introducing martial law and a new wave of military mobilization if the separatist conflict worsened.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Andrew Roche)
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.news.com.au/world/europe...l/news-story/5a8d5688e1d98903e4ea244f1082e167

europe

Woman critical after man screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ attacked couple at German music festival

AUGUST 29, 20169:24AM
Michael Morrow and AP
News Corp Australia Network

A MAN reportedly yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he attacked a couple with their own picnic knife at a German music festival, leaving a woman in a critical condition.
Oberhausen police say the suspect was overpowered by one of his victims, a 57-year-old man who was seriously injured in the late attack which happened late on Saturday night.

The other victim, a 66-year-old woman, suffered life-threatening injuries.

Police spokesman Andreas Wilming-Weber said on Sunday that one of the victims said the suspect had shouted “Allahu akbar!” (”God is great” in Arabic) during the attack.

But Wilming-Weber said no other witnesses heard the phrase and there was “no indication of any political motive.”

The suspect, a German citizen, appeared to have been under the influence of drugs and was taken to a psychiatric clinic after questioning.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-security-idUSKCN1140RZ

World News | Mon Aug 29, 2016 6:15am EDT

Thai police link beach-town bombings to Muslim insurgency


Thai police identified on Monday a third suspect wanted in connection with a wave of bombs in tourist towns this month that killed four people and for the first time linked the attacks to Muslim separatists operating in the far south.

Thailand's tourist industry had been largely spared a spill-over of violence from a decades-old insurgency in the far south and authorities had at first dismissed any connection between the Aug. 11-12 bombings and the separatists.

But police issuing an arrest warrant for a third suspect on Monday said all three of the people they wanted to question had links to previous attacks blamed on the Muslim insurgents.

"The three suspects for which we have obtained an arrest warrants are known to have ties to other previous attacks in the southern provinces," deputy national police spokesman Kissana Phathanacharoen told Reuters.

Police identified the third suspect as Asamin Katemadi and said he was also wanted in connection with a 2015 bomb attack on the tourist island of Samui.

Four Thai people were killed in the coordinated bomb attacks in various tourist town south of Bangkok this month and dozens were wounded, including foreigners.

The military government, apparently loath to spread alarm in the tourist industry, the one bright spot in a generally flat economy, at first dismissed any suggestion the Muslim separatists battling the predominantly Buddhist country's government might be to blame.

Authorities even hinted that supporters of ousted populist premier Thaksin Shinawatra might have been responsible. He denied any link.

Thailand's three far-south provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat are majority-Muslim and resistance to central government rule has existed there for decades, resurfacing violently in 2004.

More than 6,500 people have been killed in the largely ethnic Malay region since then in bombings and shootings that take place almost daily, according to Deep South Watch, a group which monitors the conflict.

Peace talks between the government and shadowy insurgents group began in 2013 under the civilian government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's sister, but have stalled since the military overthrew her in 2014.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said on Monday meetings were taking place between the government and various insurgent groups in Malaysia but he insisted that there needed to be a cessation of violence before further terms were discussed.

"As long as there is violence, can there be any trust?" he said when reporters asked him about the situation in the south.

Bangkok-based analyst Anthony Davis, at security consulting firm IHS-Jane's, told Reuters that the recent increase in violence may be due to dissatisfaction over the talks.


(Reporting by Aukkarapon Niyomyat and Pracha Hariraksapitak; Writing by Cod Satrusayang; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Robert Birsel)

-

Also In World News

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Iran deploys Russian-made S-300 missiles at its Fordow nuclear site: TV
Islamic State claims Kerbala wedding attack: Amaq news agency
 

Possible Impact

TB Fanatic
9 Dash Line 九虚线 ‏@9DashLine Aug 28
China urges Japan to be 'constructive' at G20 summit
http://reut.rs/2c28fKh



9 Dash Line 九虚线 ‏@9DashLine 18h
Japan's Abe pledges $30 billion for Africa over next three years
Tokyo and Beijing go head to head across continents

http://reut.rs/2bxshK1



9 Dash Line 九虚线 ‏@9DashLine 6h
China and Pakistan beware
- This week, India and US sign major war pact

http://bit.ly/2bK7Lrm SouthChinaSea



9 Dash Line 九虚线 ‏@9DashLine 2h
Aggressive actions by Beijing are forcing a recalibration in India
Rough waters ahead SouthChinaSea
http://dailym.ai/2bsbs65
 

vestige

Deceased
They're rioting in Africa
They're starving in Spain
There's hurricanes in Florida
And Texas needs rain
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The french hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like anybody very much!!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away!!

They're rioting in Africa
There's strife in Iran
What nature doesn't so to us
Will be done by our fellow man

Kingston Trio - Merry Minuet
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.stripes.com/navy-faces-new-normal-in-persian-gulf-more-iran-provocations-1.425837

ANALYSIS

Navy faces 'new normal' in Persian Gulf: more Iran provocations

By Robert H. Reid
Stars and Stripes
Published: August 27, 2016

WASHINGTON — U.S. sailors in the Persian Gulf can expect increased harassment by Iranian vessels as Iran’s hard-liners seek to bolster their position ahead of next year’s Iranian election and the U.S. is absorbed in its own electoral campaign.

Some analysts also believe the three incidents Tuesday and Wednesday, during which Iranian fast boats swarmed around U.S. warships in the northern Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz in the southern end, were to practice “swarm tactics” for attacking larger and better armed American vessels.

In one of the incidents, the USS Squall, a coastal patrol ship, fired shots in the water to warn the Iranians.

The latest incidents serve as a reminder that tensions remain high between the United States and Iran despite last year’s international agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program and lift crippling international sanctions.

Fox News quoted U.S. officials as saying there had been at least 30 dangerous interactions with the Iranians in the Gulf as of Friday - about the same number as in all of 2015.

Last December Iranian ships fired rockets near U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz and flew an unarmed drone over the aircraft carrier the USS Harry Truman. The following month Iran briefly detained 10 U.S. Navy sailors and forced them to kneel for propaganda pictures after they strayed into Iranian waters.

All this led Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations, to ponder whether the U.S. was facing a tense “new normal” in the Persian Gulf.

“We have to be mindful that we don’t become complacent as things get steadily busier, steadily more engaging and that we’re thoughtful about how we approach those challenges,” Richardson told reporters after the most recent incidents.

U.S. officials have not speculated publicly about Iran’s possible motives, pointing out that such harassment has been common in the Gulf for decades.

According to the Navy about 10 percent of its encounters with Iranian ships since the beginning of 2015 have been “unsafe and unprofessional.”

The Iranians themselves brushed aside U.S. criticism, saying Tehran reserves the right to investigate the intentions of any vessel operating close to its shores.

Two conservative Middle East defense analysts, Stephen Bryen and his wife Shoshana Bryen, believe the latest incidents were actually tests of new “swarming boat tactics” for engaging U.S. warships.

Writing in the U.S. News and World Report website, the Bryens said the tactics involve a number of fast boats armed with missiles and torpedoes attacking enemy ships from multiple directions.

“Recently, the Iranians added another dimension to the swarming boats: a vessel known as the Ya Mahdi, a remotely piloted fast patrol boat that can fire rockets or be stuffed with explosives,” they wrote.

The fast boats are maneuverable and can operate at up to 75 knots, they wrote. Some are built mostly with Fiberglas, which makes them difficult to detect with radar.

Whatever Tehran’s recent intentions, Iran’s behavior in the Gulf is often determined by internal Iranian politics, which can be confusing and opaque.

That often leads to actions which appear at odds with public statements by factions within the leadership that pursue agendas different from the hard-line Revolutionary Guard, whose naval units carried out the latest incidents.

“In particular, the provocations may have a domestic political dimension aimed at those within President Hassan Rouhani’s government who advocate better relations with the West,” wrote Farzin Nadimi, a U.S.-based analyst writing in the website The Washington Institute, a private think tank.


Nadimi wrote that the Revolutionary Guard may be trying to bolster their image as the protector of Iran’s coastal borders to justify their substantial share of the defense and research budget.

Some analysts also believe the hard-liners could be maneuvering for a political comeback in next May’s presidential election.

Rouhani was elected in 2013 on a pledge to end Iran’s international isolation and reverse the economic decline brought about by international sanctions and mismanagement by his hard-line predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rouhani’s allies also won important gains in parliament at the expense of the hard-liners in April’s legislative election.

Rouhani has not announced whether he will seek a second term. But some of his policies have come under fire from the real power in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is close to the Revolutionary Guard and openly hostile to the U.S.

Khamenei has said that the nuclear deal with the West and subsequent lifting of international sanctions, the signature achievement of the Rouhani administration, has failed to benefit ordinary Iranians.

A major incident with the U.S., which Iran’s state-controlled media would blame on the Americans, could bolster the hard-liners and portray Rouhani’s policies as a failure.

“In the meantime, observers should not be surprised if the naval harassment continues in the coming weeks,” Nadimi wrote. “Washington should, therefore’ be especially vigilant...”

All this comes at a time when the Obama administration is in its final months. The new U.S. president will be chosen in November, but it will take months afterward before the new chief executive’s team is fully in place.

“The Persian Gulf is the Iranian nation’s home,” Khamenei said in a speech last May. “We must be present in that region, hold war games and demonstrate power. … It is the Americans who should explain why they have come here from the other side of the world and stage war games.”

reid.robert@stripes.com
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/a/germany-charges-teenage-girl-islamic_state/3484762.html

Europe

Germany Charges Teenage Girl who Stabbed Policeman With Supporting IS

August 29, 2016 9:34 AM
Reuters

BERLIN — A 16-year-old girl who stabbed a policeman at a train station in Hanover, Germany, was acting under orders from Islamic State, federal prosecutors said.

Safia S., a German-Moroccan dual citizen who is in prison awaiting trial, was charged with attempted murder and with being a supporter of the jihadist group, the prosecutors said on Monday.

She traveled to Istanbul in January, where she met members of the group who planned to help her enter IS-controlled territory in Syria. Her trip was aborted when her mother brought her back to Germany, where she stabbed and seriously wounded the policeman in February, the prosecution said in a statement.

The Hanover stabbing preceded attacks against civilians in Germany in late July, including two claimed by Islamic State in which only the assailants died.

After being returned to Germany, Safia S. contacted IS members through an online messenger platform and asked them to help her plan an attack, prosecutors said.

They said a 19-year-old Syrian-German who knew about the plan and who is also in custody was charged with failing to report a crime.

The charges against both of the accused were pressed on Aug. 12, the prosecution said. No date for their trials has been set.

The summer attacks put the relatively liberal migration policies implemented by Chancellor Angela Merkel back in the spotlight and prompted her government to draft plans to increase spending on security.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://allafrica.com/stories/201608291220.html

29 August 2016
News24Wire (Cape Town) »

Zimbabwe: Zanu-PF Keen On Declaring a State of Emergency in Zim, MDC Claims

Zimbabwean opposition parties have reportedly expressed concern that President Robert Mugabe could soon declare state of emergency in a bid to stop increasing violent protests.

According to News Day, Mugabe's spokesperson, who is thought to be behind a shadowy state media columnists, Nathaniel Manheru, suggested in a piece published in state media over the weekend that Mugabe could throw away the Constitution and declare a state of emergency to deal with the continued protests.

This came following violent scenes that rocked the centre of Harare, as police fought running battles with opposition supporters who had tried to push ahead with a court-sanctioned march for electoral reforms.

The march was organised by 18 opposition parties, including the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai and the Zimbabwe People First, formed this year by former vice president Joice Mujuru.

'Anarchy disguised as democracy'

Social unrest is intensifying, with near-daily protests in the southern African country where cash shortages and a lack of jobs are making life difficult for many.

"The line has been crossed. From now onwards, it shall be another country. This caring world can go hang. We have a country to protect. And govern. After all, we have hit the bottom. We can't fall," Manheru wrote.

He urged President Robert Mugabe to ruthlessly and decisively crush protests in the same manner Syrian President Bashar Hafez al Assad moved to suppress dissent in his country.

"Assad moved in decisively to crush it . . . Assad may have lost peace, lost development, but saved a country . . . and don't waste time to decide is to govern, unless you want to capitulate anarchy disguised as democracy," he wrote.

Violent and brutal clampdown

The spokesperson for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Obert Gutu, however, said Manheru's threats were an indication that Mugabe's government wanted to "trash" the Constitution in an endeavor to suppress human rights.

"The MDC-T is acutely aware of the fact that the Zanu-PF regime is keen on declaring a state of emergency in Zimbabwe so that they can unleash a violent and brutal clampdown on the activities of opposition political parties. In this respect, therefore, we take Manheru's threats very seriously," Gutu was quoted as saying.

Mugabe himself on Friday warned opposition supporters against trying to stage "an Arab spring". The nonagenarian said this as he left the country for the 6th Tokyo Conference on African Development.

He accused the opposition of embarking on a "path of violence" but vowed that Arab Spring would not happen in Zimbabwe.

Source: News24
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cato.org/blog/north-korea-friendly-proliferation-may-beat-nuclear-umbrella

August 29, 2016 9:42AM

North Korea: Friendly Proliferation May Beat a Nuclear Umbrella

By Doug Bandow

The Obama administration is debating a declaration of no first use of nuclear weapons. Some Asia specialists fear the resulting impact on North Korea. But dealing with Pyongyang is a reason for Washington to encourage its ally South Korea to go nuclear.

Washington has possessed nuclear weapons for more than 70 years. No one doubts that the United States would use nukes in its own defense.

However, since then, Washington has extended a so-called “nuclear umbrella” over many of its non-nuclear allies. For instance, the United States long has threatened to use nuclear weapons in its NATO allies’ defense, though the precise circumstances under which the United States would act were not clear.

Northeast Asia is the region where nuclear threats seem greatest. Japan and South Korea are thought to be snuggled beneath America’s nuclear umbrella, which has discouraged both from acquiring their own weapons.

The “umbrella” obviously is defensive, that is, to protect American allies against the first use of nukes. However, Washington also could—and, it appears, would, if necessary, whatever that might mean—use nuclear weapons first to stop a conventional attack. Russia and China aren’t likely to attack the Republic of Korea or Japan. More plausible is a North Korean invasion of the ROK.

Extended nuclear deterrence always has been risky for the United States. It means being willing to fight a nuclear war on behalf of others. Americans would risk Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles to, say, defend Berlin and Tokyo.

At least bilateral deterrence among great powers tends to be reasonably stable. Dealing with North Korea is potentially more dangerous.

Yet the DPRK eventually may gain the ability to strike the U.S. by developing long-range missiles as well as nuclear weapons. The North isn’t likely to attack first, but it still could lay waste to a major American city–which would be a bad deal indeed.

Yet advocates of extended deterrence are criticizing proposals for an American pledge of no first use of nuclear weapons.

The problem is fundamental: It is one thing for Washington to use nuclear weapons, including preemptively, to protect America. It is quite different to do so for allies.

As I point out in National Interest: “Alliances are a means, not an end, that is, a mechanism to help defend the U.S. A North Korean attack on the ROK would be awful, a humanitarian tragedy. But American security would not be directly threatened. Certainly there is no threat warranting the risk of nuclear retaliation on the U.S.”

Of course, those being defended have configured their security policy and force structure in response. But future policy should not be held captive to the past.

Washington’s chief responsibility should be America’s security. Backers of the status quo act like there is no alternative to leaving the ROK (and Japan, which faces a real, though less direct, threat from the DPRK) vulnerable to attack.

However, Seoul is well able to deter and defeat the North. The ROK possesses around 40 times the GDP and twice the population of North Korea, as well as a vast technological lead and an extensive international support network. Japan, which long possessed the world’s second largest economy, also could do far more.

The South is capable of developing nuclear weapons. Indeed, polls show public support for such an option today. Opposition to nuclear weapons is stronger in Japan, but an ROK weapon would put enormous pressure on Tokyo to conform.

Obviously, there are plenty of good reasons to oppose proliferation, even among friends. However, the current system is entangling Washington in the middle of other nations’ potential conflicts. The result is to make America less secure.

Dealing with nuclear weapons is never easy. Washington’s best alternative may be to withdraw from Northeast Asia’s nuclear imbroglio. Then America’s allies could engage in containment and deterrence, just as America did for them for so many years.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/29/ground-zero-in-the-new-cold-war.html

FALLEN IDYLLS

Ground Zero in the New Cold War

The fraught frontier between Russia and the NATO-defended Baltics is full of surprises, not least its natural beauty. But tensions are building fast.

Anna Nemtsova
08.28.16 10:00 PM ET


THE CURONIAN SPIT — A bus ride from the last town in the European Union—Nida, Lithuania—across the border into Russia’s Kaliningrad region took less than an hour. The morning sun warmed sandy dunes along the shore of the Baltic Sea. There was hardly any traffic, just a few tourists and mushroom pickers stalking wild fungi in the lush vegetation of a national park. The bus glided quietly under pine trees on the only road in the Curonian Spit, a narrow stretch of land that is divided between two nations and, perhaps more critically at this moment, between two armies.

The northern part of the 98-kilometer-long peninsula belongs to Lithuania and is defended by thousands of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, while the rest of the peninsula is Russian, and similarly militarized.

Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Lithuanian and Russian residents on both sides of the border in this once peaceful corner of Europe have been witnesses to frequent shows of military force.

This month, both NATO and Russia flexed their muscles. Lithuania’s Flaming Thunder 2016 drills brought together more than 1,000 ground troops to fire artillery and mortars.

On the other side of the frontier, Russia was reinforcing, too, in preparation for September’s large-scale drills by coastal forces. Dwarfing the NATO contingent, at least in numbers, the Russian Baltic Fleet is equipped with at least 75 combat ships, dozens of jet fighters and assault helicopters. Last week, the fleet fired BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers.

Little Lithuania (population 2.9 million) has watched in horror as Russia’s form of hybrid warfare, using covert operations, local “insurgencies,” relentless propaganda, and threats of outright invasion, has torn Ukraine apart. But unlike Ukraine, Lithuania is a member of NATO, and Lithuanians are praying they’ll be protected under its wing.

So last month, when U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested he might not rush to the country’s defense unless he judged it had paid its NATO dues, a collective shiver ran through Lithuania. The evident coziness Trump feels for Russian President Vladimir Putin does not encourage confidence here either.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on a visit to the Baltics last week, told his audience, “Don’t listen to that other fellow,” meaning the unnamed Trump. “He knows not of what he speaks.”

For the moment, the promise NATO has made to its three Baltic members—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—is a deployment of up to 4,000 troops in the region, clearly intended as a tripwire should the Russians make an overt move.

But that, in turn, is spun by Moscow as a provocation and perhaps even a threat to the Kaliningrad enclave: Russian territory that lies between Lithuania and Poland.

So, right now, relations between Moscow and Vilnius look very grim indeed. Lithuania’s foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius, refers to Russia as an “aggressor” using “old KGB methods.” On the ground, meanwhile, people view the return to Cold War rhetoric and war games as a potential disaster.

As we waited in line at Russian customs on the border, the bus passengers discussed the artillery drills Russian forces had started in Kaliningrad a couple of mornings before. A middle-aged Lithuanian woman, Agota Gaurdas, and her husband, Virgilijus Gaurdas, said they were “terribly tired of the increasing threats” causing militarization of the region around their home in city of Klaipeda.

“We hear airplanes over our heads and wonder whether it’s Russian pilots exercising to bring down NATO planes over our roof or it is our forces, which are now NATO, learning to shoot down Russian soldiers?” said Virgilijus, a civil engineer. “We are worried that one day, when they actually decide to fire at each other, there will be nothing left of Lithuania.”

Virgilijus said he did not believe that the Kremlin was serious about invading Lithuania, and blamed politicians for the Cold War games.

While the majority of Lithuanians prefer to live their lives as if nothing dangerous is happening, there are thousands who’ve mobilized into a partisan movement to defend their Baltic state.

Earlier this month about 50 volunteers from the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union had their own military exercises all over the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. “It is counter-intelligence training,” said the drill’s coordinator, Haroldas Daublyus, a buff middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap. “Our mission was to identify Russian spies, who were hiding all around Vilnius; we trained to chase the spies, bugged their vehicles, and reported the group to authorities.”

The paramilitary Riflemen’s Union originally was established in 1919 when Lithuania declared independence and went to war against the Bolsheviks, the Western Russian Volunteer Army, and the Polish forces.

Soviet authorities banned the movement after they annexed Lithuania and the other Baltics in 1940. At the time it counted up to 50,000 volunteers, including famous writers, poets, and scientists.

In the past two decades, since the fall of the Soviet Union and the liberation of the Baltics, the movement has revived its partisan ideology. Today it claims up to 10,000 members, many of whom are current or former military.

Members of the Riflemen’s Union told The Daily Beast that they counted on Washington and NATO, but they also trained together with volunteers of similar partisan movement in Estonia and Latvia and felt ready to join the regular forces and defend their country’s 227-kilometer-long border at any moment.

“The idea that we should defend ourselves is common in a lot of people’s heads,” said Daubylus. “We are upset about what Trump says. He is betraying us all.”

“In the last two years we have tried everything from raids in the woods and shooting weapons to learning counter-intelligence tactics,” said Daubylus. “All of us, including 14-year-old members, are ready to unite with our neighbors and Ukraine and fight against the return of Russians.”

At the time Lithuanian partisans were catching Russian “spies” around Vilnius, the Collective Security Treaty Organization uniting six post-Soviet states also mobilized for major military drills in northwest Russia.

During the drills Aug. 16 to 18, Russian forces broadcast a woman’s voice repeating the following message to the supposed enemy: “NATO Soldiers! You are being brainwashed! This is not your territory that you fight on! Give up weapons, stop being puppets in your leaders’ hands!”

Last week the Lithuanian foreign ministry informed The Daily Beast that a majority of flights conducted by Russian aircraft in the international airspace near the Baltic States were not in compliance with international rules. Lithuanian authorities had to deal with “Russian transponders switched off, no pre-filed flight plans, [and] communication with flight control centers was not maintained.”

In Nida, once home to the German novelist Thomas Mann, residents depend on tourism and hope for peace for their business to flourish.

But in Kaliningrad there’s a certain excitement about the way Putin is pressuring the Baltic Fleet to get in shape. Ilya Stulov, who lives only 7 kilometers from the military base, knows exactly when Russian forces begin their thunderous drills, and hears through the grapevine how they’re doing.

“At least now Putin punishes commanders for missed targets during the drills,” says Stulov. “He sacked Vice Admiral Viktor Kravchuk and chief of staff Admiral Sergei Popov after the fleet missed at least one-third of their targets earlier this summer.”

All this serves Putin’s strategy of intimidation.

“The Kremlin makes us feel uncomfortable, threatens our security,” says Gintare Narkeviciute, the director for international affairs at the Ronald Reagan House, a think tank dedicated to promoting democracy and providing consultancy for Lithuanian state institutions. “They are not going to attack, this is psychological pressure.”

To young professionals in Baltic countries, who lived most of their lives identifying themselves as Europeans, the shadow of the Soviet past once again hanging over their heads is highly frustrating.

“We are worried that instead of peaceful reasonable development, Russia chooses to return to Brezhnev-style of militarization, of putting pressure and getting involved in our internal affairs,” Narkeviciute told The Daily Beast.

As a result of Russian counter-sanctions against goods from the West, Lithuanian exports to Russia have dropped by 39.2 percent, according to the foreign ministry in Vilnius. Farmers producing milk, cheese, and other products have suffered most, and have had to look for other markets.

To some older Lithuanians, whose youth was spent in the Soviet Union, especially to those who frequently travel to Russia for business or leisure, the idea of militarization and potential war with the neighbor simply sounds wild.

“If we do not listen to news about constant war games all around us, it all seems the same peaceful Baltics; but then we visit our friends in St. Petersburg and they tell us that EU propaganda turns us into zombies…,” my fellow passenger on the bus, Agota Virgilijus, told me, letting the words trail off.

She looked outside at families packing their car trunks with baskets full of mushrooms and added: “The sun, the dunes, and Baltic Sea are the same on both sides of the border of the Curonian Spit,” she said. “And so are the mushrooms.”
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-saudi-idUSKCN1141QG

World News | Mon Aug 29, 2016 1:02pm EDT

Rockets hit Saudi border town as Yemen war flares anew

By Katie Paul | NAJRAN, Saudi Arabia

Yemeni Houthi forces are again firing rockets at this corner of southern Saudi Arabia, ending a lull of several weeks and complicating efforts to revive talks on ending Yemen's 18-month-old civil war.

This month's collapse of negotiations on the Yemen conflict - which like the Syrian civil war pits allies of Saudi Arabia against those of its regional rival Iran - is taking a toll in the Saudi city of Najran, albeit on a much smaller scale than in Yemen itself.

Last week, one rocket fired by the Iranian-allied Houthi movement from northern Yemen landed in Najran, which lies 30 km (20 miles) from the border. It hit a car scrap yard, killing five Saudis and two Yemenis as they were driving past.

Another hit a Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) power station in Najran on Friday, spilling diesel from a punctured tank into acrid black lakes coating the surrounding streets.

On Saturday, nine-year-old Mahdi Saleh Abbas sat lying in a hospital bed with bandages over his eyes and shrapnel wounds pockmarked on his face. His cousin Yehyia, 3, had died that morning after a Katyusha rocket landed outside their home.

"They were playing. They're kids. It was normal," said Mahdi's father, Saleh, standing over his son's bed.


ROCKETS

Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Muslim allies view the Houthis, who hail from a branch of Shi'ite Islam, as proxies of Iran. The Houthis deny this, saying the exiled Yemeni government and the Saudis are Western pawns bent on dominating Yemen and excluding them from power.

The Houthi attacks on Saudi territory started anew in early August, which is also when a Saudi-led coalition resumed air strikes in Yemen against the Houthis and their local allies.

Saudi authorities say the latest wave of shelling has killed 29 civilians and injured around 300 in Najran, a city framed by jagged brown mountains that separate Saudi Arabia from Yemen.

Those figures are much smaller than the number of civilians killed by the coalition air strikes in support of the internationally-recognised government, for which the Saudi military has come under increasing criticism.

The United Nations human rights office said on Thursday that the coalition was responsible for 60 percent of the 3,799 civilians killed in Yemen's war. The coalition says it does not target civilians.

Still, the Najran casualties point to the Saudis' difficulties in securing their border against the more mobile Houthi forces and allies loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, even as the Houthis lob mostly unsophisticated Katyusha rockets into their territory.

The shelling had trailed off for several months as the peace talks held in Kuwait pushed forward. But in the last three weeks, after the negotiations crumbled, the rockets resumed.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said last week he had agreed with Gulf Arab states and the U.N. on a plan to restart the talks.

However, he said the Houthis must cease shelling across the border, pull back from the Yemeni capital Sanaa which they took control of two years ago, cede their weapons and enter into a unity government with their domestic foes.

Yemen's Houthi-run governing council said on Sunday it was ready to restart the talks, provided the coalition stopped attacking and besieging Houthi-held territories.

That same night, another rocket fell in Najran and killed two young girls, said the civil defence department.


NO MILITARY SITES

On Saturday, the Saudi information ministry escorted foreign journalists on a tour of parts of Najran city directly affected by the shelling, highlighting civilian suffering.

"They've hit schools, hospitals, civilian government buildings, markets," said Colonel Ali Omeer al-Shahrani, a spokesman for Najran's Civil Defence department, showing reporters photos of damage caused by the about 10,000 rockets launched on Najran since the start of the war.

There were no military sites within the city of Najran, he said, "just civilian and residential areas".


Also In World News
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Iran deploys Russian-made S-300 missiles at its Fordow nuclear site: TV
Exclusive: Yemen council head hails peace push, wants Saudis to 'feel pain'

Najran residents interviewed at the city's King Khaled Hospital likewise decried the attacks, using government-approved terminology to describe the Houthis and their allies.

"A Houthi is an untrustworthy person. He lies. He targets civilians," said Manea al-Ghobari, a 39-year-old teacher in Najran. "They can't hit our army or our soldiers at the border, so they're hitting civilians in their homes instead."

A Saudi government official followed the group of journalists throughout the day, filming the interviews.


STABLE SERVICES

Still, even as the attacks accelerate, life appears to carry on as normal for much of Najran. There were no signs of militarisation inside the city on Saturday: no checkpoints, no tanks, no heavily-guarded ammunition depots.

Instead, on the main road through town, the shops were open and active. Down the block from a man selling water melons off the back of a pickup truck, a Paris Hilton store advertised luxury handbags and accessories.

Although Houthi rockets have hit both water and electrical facilities, service provision to residents there was never interrupted, said Shahrani.

In the industrial eastern part of town, the most frequent target of attacks, the damage was more evident.

Pools of black diesel covered the streets, leaked from the SEC power station that had been struck the day before. Machines lay mangled and blackened by a fire that swept the plant after the strike.

An SEC spokesman said its service to the city was "solid and reliable". Asked about the financial effect of the damage to the facility, he said that neither the company nor its customers had experienced any impact.


(Reporting by Katie Paul, Editing by William Maclean and David Stamp)
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN1140HJ

World News | Mon Aug 29, 2016 1:24pm EDT

Suicide bomber kills 54 in Yemen attack: health ministry

Video

Islamic State suicide bomb kills dozens in Yemen
00:35

A suicide bomber killed at least 54 people when he drove a car bomb into a militia compound in Aden on Monday, the health ministry said, in one of the deadliest attacks claimed by Islamic State in the southern Yemeni port city.

The director general of Yemen's health ministry in Aden, al-Khader Laswar, told Reuters that at least 67 other people were wounded in the attack in the city's Mansoura district.

The militant Islamic State group said in a statement carried by its Amaq news agency one of its suicide bombers carried out the bombing.

"Around 60 dead in a martyrdom operation by a fighter from Islamic State targeting a recruitment center in Aden city," the statement said, without giving further details.


Soldiers gather at the site of an attack by a suicide bomber who drove a car laden with explosives into a compound run by local militias in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen August 29, 2016. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman


A security source said the attack targeted a school compound where conscripts of the Popular Committees, forces allied to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, were gathered for breakfast.

Witnesses said the suicide bomber entered the compound behind a truck that had brought breakfast for the conscripts, who had queued for the meal.

Ambulance sirens wailed throughout the morning as they ferried casualties to a hospital run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), which was overwhelmed by the number of casualties. An MSF spokesperson said the hospital received at least 45 bodies and more than 60 wounded people.

Islamist militants, including Islamic State, have exploited an 18-month-old civil war between the Houthi movement and Hadi's supporters, attacking senior officials, religious figures, security forces and compounds of the Saudi-led Arab military coalition which supports Hadi.

Last month, the governor of the southern Yemeni city of Aden survived a car bomb attack targeting his convoy, the latest attempt on the city's top official.


Related Coverage
Islamic State claims Yemen suicide bombing, says about 60 militia recruits killed

In May, a suicide bomber killed at least 40 army recruits and injured 60 others when he rammed a booby-trapped car at recruits lined up to enlist for military service at a compound in Aden.

Hadi's supporters, who accuse former President Ali Abdullah Saleh of using Islamist militants to target the internationally-recognized president, have launched a series of raids in recent weeks to try to stem the violence, seizing dozens of people suspected of involvement in attacks across the city.

In eastern Yemen, forces loyal to Hadi, backed by troops from the United Arab Emirates, drove members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula from the city of Mukalla in a military operation in May.


(Reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf; Writing by Hadeel Al Sayegh and Sami Aboudi; Editing by Toby Chopra)
 

mzkitty

I give up.
1h
Explosion near Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan leaves several dead, wounded, Interfax cites local emergency ministry - Reuters
End of alert

*snip*

Chinese Embassy Blast in Kyrgyzstan has left several dead. The incident took place in Bishkek when a vehicle loaded with explosive rammed the gate of Chinese Embassy. The driver of the car responsible for the blast is dead.


http://theasianherald.com/chinese-embassy-blast-kyrgyzstan-several-dead/


Brent C. Lee ‏@Duktiamat 30m30 minutes ago
Brent C. Lee Retweeted BNO News

#Kyrgyzstan well be very interested who takes credit for the Suicide car Bombing of the #China Embassy


BNO News Verified account
‏@BNONews

Suicide car bombing hits Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, state-run media reports http://bit.ly/2bEOLJ1
 

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mzkitty

I give up.
2m
Officials confirm Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan was attacked by a suicide bomber - AP
End of alert
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
2m
Officials confirm Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan was attacked by a suicide bomber - AP
End of alert

Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan hit by suicide bomber
Started by mzkittyý, Yesterday 11:29 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...e-embassy-in-Kyrgyzstan-hit-by-suicide-bomber

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.newsweek.com/suicide-bomber-chinese-embassy-kyrgyzstan-kills-three-extremism-494376?rx=us

World

Suicide Bomber at Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan Kills at Least Three

By Damien Sharkov On 8/30/16 at 4:12 AM

A suicide bomber blew himself up in front of the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan, killing at least two security staff members, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday.

The country’s Deputy Prime Minister Zhenish Razakov said the blast took place at the embassy gates in the capital of Bishkek around 10 a.m. local time on Tuesday, while the country’s health ministry reported three bodies had been found at the site—one the assailant and two guards.

According to Razakov, the guards were not Chinese nationals but Kyrgyz. According to Radio Free Europe, local news outlets have reported that the explosion came as a result of a car bomb, however, this has not been officially confirmed.

The motivations for the attack and the identity of the assailant are being investigated by Kyrgyz law enforcement, who have asked for calm.
Kyrgyzstan’s security risks have largely concerned ethnic minority and border disputes with neighbours Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, however, it also shares a large border with China’s Xinjiang province and with Kazakhstan.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art..._sea_dress_rehearsal_for_invasion_109769.html

August 30, 2016

East China Sea: Dress Rehearsal for Invasion?

By Todd Crowell

Tokyo delivered a humiliating public protest to Beijing for the intrusion of a vast Chinese “fishing fleet” escorted by more than a dozen coast guard and other law-enforcement vessels in or near waters of the disputed Senkaku islands.

Such protests are common in the ongoing cat and mouse game in the East and South China Seas, but they are usually delivered in private. In this case, Tokyo decided to turn its protest into political theater.

China’s Ambassador to Japan, Cheng Yonghua, was summoned to the foreign ministry, where news and television camera were waiting to film the encounter. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida kept Cheng waiting for ten minutes then entered, a stern look on his face, gesturing Cheng to sit down.

“Relations with China are becoming noticeably wors[e] because China is trying to change the status quo,” Kishida lectured Cheng, who looked embarrassed by the media presence. He said the Diaoyu, as China calls them, were Chinese territory and the two nations should “strive to reach a solution.”

Japan has become used to Chinese Coast Guard intrusions into its claimed territorial waters. On the average of once every two weeks, two or three Chinese ships slip into Senkaku waters. They stay for a couple hours then leave.

But there had been nothing like what happened August 8 when a flotilla of more than 230 “fishing boats” escorted by up to 28 Chinese Coast Guard and other law enforcement vessels virtually surrounded the Senkaku islands for several days.

It was not immediately clear exactly what message the Chinese were trying to convey, although Tokyo has been very vocal in supporting the Philippines in its legal action against China resulting in the July 11 ruling that confirmed all of Manila’s charges.

Was the latest intrusion a dress rehearsal for war?

The various scenarios for war in the East China Sea, and possibly in the South China Sea, usually fall into two main categories. There is the “accidental” fight scenario. A Chinese destroyer’s radar locks onto a Japanese warship. The Japanese captain fires back in self-defense and the incident spirals out of control.

That is one scenario. Another, possibly more realistic, is the “swarm” scenario: Several hundred “fishing boats” sail from ports in Zhejiang province for the Senkaku, where they overwhelm the Japanese Coast Guard by their sheer numbers.

This time, the fishing boats land some 200 or so commandoes disguised as fishermen or “settlers.” The Senkakus are not garrisoned by Japanese troops, so no shots are fired. The Chinese side says it is not using force, merely taking possession of what it claims to be its sovereign territory.

Tokyo feels obliged to respond, although the Chinese landing force is too large to dislodge by ordinary policing methods, such as those that have been used in the past when a handful of activists – Chinese and Japanese – tried to land on the disputed islands and plant their flags.

That would put Japan in the position of being the first party to fire shots, possibly landing elements of the Western Infantry Regiment, which was created and trained specifically to recapture islands. Meanwhile, Tokyo hurriedly consults with Washington seeking assurance that it will honor its commitments to defend Japan.

On more than one occasion, including in remarks from President Barack Obama himself, the United States has stated that the Senkaku come under the provisions of the joint security treaty as they are administered by Japan.

In the most recent incident, the estimated 230 Chinese fishing vessels escorted by Chinese law enforcement vessels made no effort to land anyone, though the Japanese Coast Guard shadowing the vessels kept a sharp eye out for any sign of it.

China boasts the world’s largest fishing fleet, but it is a matter of debate among security analysts as to extent to which China’s fishing fleet constitutes a paramilitary force, or as they sometimes say, a “maritime militia.” Somehow, a swarm of Chinese Fishing boats always seem to materialize on cue in disputes in the East and South China Sea.

The use of fishing boats, not to mention the nominally civilian coast guard, tends to blur the distinctions between what is civilian and what is military. In any conflict, the Japan and the U.S. would have to deal with ostensibly civilian boats that could flood the battlefield turning it into a confusing melee.

“China’s fishing fleet is being encouraged to fish in disputed waters . . . and are being encouraged to do so for geopolitical as well as commercial reasons,” says Alan Duport, a security analyst at the University of New South Wales.

Swarm tactics have been used often in the South China Sea. Hundreds of boats converged in the Gulf of Tonkin in 2014 in the dispute over the oil-drilling rig that the Chinese erected in Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Beijing has dispatched swarms of fishing boats to Laconia Shoals off the coast of Sarawak to fish in Malaysia’s EEZ, with escorts of coast guard vessels to protect them should Kuala Lumpur try to arrest them. Similar confrontations have taken place in Indonesia’s South Chia Sea EEZ.

China has been commissioning new coast guard vessels, either converted navy frigates or purpose-built cutters, at an astonishing rate to the extent that it can now deploy ships in various corners of the contested waters simultaneously.

It may be better that principle actors in the unfolding conflict are civilian vessels. But certainly lurking nearby and ready to respond are the warships of the regular Chinese, Japanese, and America navies.


Todd Crowell is the author of The Coming War between China and Japan, published as an Amazon Single for Kindle.
 
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