WAR 11-19-2016-to-11-25-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(242) 10-29-2016-to-11-04-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...04-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(243) 11-05-2016-to-11-11-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...11-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(244) 11-12-2016-to-11-18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Europe: Politics, Trade, NATO
Started by*Plain Jane‎,*11-16-2016*04:55 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?505974-Europe-Politics-Trade-NATO

Main Russia/Ukraine invasion thread - 8/11/16 Ukraine Military On "Combat" Alert
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ne-Military-On-quot-Combat-quot-Alert/page453

Merkel & Obama: Internet a ‘Disruptive’ Force, Gov must ‘Contain, Manage, and Steer’ this
Started by*Possible Impact‎,*11-17-2016*01:51 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...orce-Gov-must-‘Contain-Manage-and-Steer’-this

Going HOT: Russian Using S-300, S-400, Bastion P-800, Pantsir Systems in Syria
Started by*Possible Impact‎,*11-15-2016*08:35 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-S-400-Bastion-P-800-Pantsir-Systems-in-Syria

60 Minutes Crew Tries To Paint Happy Picture of Immigrants In Sweden, Gets Attacked
Started by*thompson‎,*11-17-2016*07:00 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...Picture-of-Immigrants-In-Sweden-Gets-Attacked

Mexican ex-mayor arrested after drug cartel kills hundreds, 'burns remains in ovens'
Started by*Medical Maven‎,*Yesterday*07:27 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-cartel-kills-hundreds-burns-remains-in-ovens

The Continued Unravelling of the Middle East: A Deep Dive into History
Started by*Millwright‎,*Yesterday*04:30 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...g-of-the-Middle-East-A-Deep-Dive-into-History

Murder of 3 Catholic priests in one week in Mexico sends shivers all the way to Vatican
Started by*imaginative‎,*11-17-2016*08:15 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...n-Mexico-sends-shivers-all-the-way-to-Vatican

US Army Ranked 'Weak' In New Think Tank Report
Started by*geoffs‎,*11-17-2016*03:01 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?506028-US-Army-Ranked-Weak-In-New-Think-Tank-Report

Is the US fighting with Turkey in Syria and Iraq? (Turkey now believes USA will attack)
Started by*Possible Impact‎,*11-07-2016*06:39 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...and-Iraq-(Turkey-now-believes-USA-will-attack)

Police: ISIL attacks thwarted in Kosovo
Started by*Housecarl‎,*11-17-2016*06:11 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?505994-Police-ISIL-attacks-thwarted-in-Kosovo

Captured ‘Mad Max’ type vehicle becomes central to battle against ISIS
Started by*Millwright‎,*11-16-2016*07:24 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ehicle-becomes-central-to-battle-against-ISIS

German Lawmaker Pushes For European Nuclear Deterrence Plan (Use UK & France's Nukes)
Started by*Possible Impact‎,*11-16-2016*11:27 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ar-Deterrence-Plan-(Use-UK-amp-France-s-Nukes)

ISIS singles out Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade as "excellent" attack target
Started by*hope4mil‎,*11-15-2016*07:05 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...y-parade-as-quot-excellent-quot-attack-target

Trump and Putin vow to tackle ISIS together as they hold breakthrough talks
Started by*Be Well‎,*11-15-2016*09:37 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ISIS-together-as-they-hold-breakthrough-talks

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN13E09V

World News | Sat Nov 19, 2016 | 4:08am EST

Islamic State kills 12 Sunni tribal fighters, police south of Mosul

Islamic State killed seven Sunni tribal fighters who support the Iraqi government and five policemen on Saturday in a town south of Mosul, the insurgents' last major city stronghold in Iraq, local security sources said.

The tribal fighters and police were gunned down at two fake checkpoints set up by the insurgents in Shirqat, a Sunni town between Mosul and Baghdad, they said.

Islamic State has escalated attacks on forces and officials opposed to its rule as it fights off a military campaign to retake Mosul, the largest city in the "caliphate" it declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria.

The hardline Sunni group claimed an attack on a Sunni wedding west of Baghdad that killed at least 12 people on Thursday. It staged attacks and bombings over the past weeks in the Sunni towns of Falluja and Rutba, also west of the capital.

Iraqi armed forces began their offensive on Mosul on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni tribes and Iranian-backed Shi'ite paramilitary forces are also taking part.

(Reporting by Saif Hameed; Editing by Patrick Markey and Robin Pomeroy)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.asianage.com/india/all-india/191116/pak-giving-jets-missiles-nuclear-
teeth.html

‘Pak giving jets, missiles nuclear teeth’

US scientist identifies 5 Army bases that may serve a role in Nuclear-posture.

THE ASIAN AGE. | SANJIB KR BARUAH
Published* Nov 19, 2016, 5:34 am IST
Updated* Nov 19, 2016, 5:34 am IST

New Delhi: Pakistan is secretly changing its nuclear deterrence stance from a limited one to a full-spectrum nuclear deterrence posture, the director of the Nuclear Information Project (NIP) at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), has claimed.

The new posture implies integrating strategic missiles with nuclear warheads and making its fighter-bombers capable of carrying and firing nuclear weapons.

Leading FAS scientist Hans M. Kristensen, in his recent blog “Pakistan’s Evolving Nuclear Weapons Infrastructure”, said: “Pakistan now identifies with what is described as a full-spectrum nuclear deterrent posture, which is thought to include strategic missiles and fighter-bombers for so-called retaliatory strikes in response to nuclear attacks, and short-range missiles for sub-strategic use in response to conventional attacks”.

This posture is being augmented with at least 10 nuclear-related facilities, “including five missile garrisons (soon possibly 6) as well two (possibly four) air bases with fighter-bombers”.

“There are still many unknowns and uncertainties about the possible nuclear role of these facilities. All of the launchers are thought to be dual-capable, which means they can deliver both conventional and nuclear warheads,” writes Mr Kristensen.

The scientist’s claim comes at a time of escalating Indo-Pak tension since the September 18 attack by Pakistan-backed militants who attacked an Indian Army base in Uri. India hit back very strongly on September 28-29 when the Army crossed into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to target areas used to gather terrorists killing many militants and Pakistani soldiers.

Ever since the border areas on the two respective sides have been witnessing unprecedented firing and shelling including heavy artillery guns.

On two occasions in the recent past — on September 17 and 26 — Pakistani defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif had threatened India with the use of nuclear weapons. “We haven’t kept the devices that we have just as showpieces. But if our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India),” he had said in one of his interviews.

While the nuclear warheads are stored safely in unidentified locations, in a conflict situation they would have to be ‘mated’ with the launchers before use.

Mr Kristensen identified at least five bases that might serve a role in Pakistan’s emerging nuclear posture, including Army garrisons at Akro (Petaro), Gujranwala, Khuzdar, Pano Aqil and Sargodha. A sixth base at Bahawalpur may be under construction with possibility of a seventh base near Dera Ghazi Khan.

Interestingly, the NIP director points out that Pakistan using F-16 fighter bombers may be a violation of terms and conditions as these aircraft were sold on the condition “that they could not be uses to deliver nuclear weapons”. Mr Kristensen claims his sources have indicated that some of the aircraft were “converted nonetheless”.*

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...oreans-norths-nuclear-program-will-top-issue/

Asia Pacific / Politics

Trump national security pick tells South Koreans that North’s nuke program will be priority

by Jesse Johnson
Staff Writer

Nov 19, 2016
Article history

In an apparent bid to allay fears of an American pullback from Northeast Asia, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser has called U.S.-South Korean ties a “vital alliance” as the two nations seek to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, a South Korean official said Saturday.

Trump adviser and retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn made the comments during talks Friday with a delegation of South Korean officials visiting the U.S. to gauge the incoming administration’s position on the alliance, South Korea’s presidential deputy national security adviser Cho Tae-yong was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

“He characterized the Korea-U.S. alliance as a vital alliance, and the basis of the alliance should continue to be strengthened,” Cho said of the one-hour meeting with Flynn.

Flynn, who has yet to formally accept the post Trump offered him, also told the delegation that the incoming U.S. administration would make the North Korean nuclear issue a top priority as it works closely with the South, Cho said.

Trump’s stunning victory in the presidential election raised concerns in Seoul and Tokyo about the fate of Washington’s alliances with the two Asian powers. Trump had been critical of the pacts and had vowed to take a fresh look at the ties, suggesting the withdrawal of American troops stationed in the two countries unless they cough up more cash. He had even said he was open to the idea of South Korea and Japan developing their own nuclear arsenals.

South Korea hosts approximately 28,500 U.S. troops, while Japan hosts about 54,000 military personnel. Both contribute substantial sums to base U.S. forces there, despite Trump’s claims that they are not paying enough.

Cho said the meeting did not touch on defense cost-sharing, U.S. troop reductions, the planned deployment of a powerful missile defense system to South Korea or bilateral military intelligence sharing between South Korea and Japan.

Since his victory, Trump and his advisers have worked to tamp down the rhetoric of the campaign trail.

In a meeting with Trump on Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was impressed enough with his apparently moderated stance to call the president-elect a “trustworthy leader.” And in a Nov. 10 phone call, Trump also reaffirmed his commitment to the alliance with South Korea.

“We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea,” South Korea’s presidential Blue House quoted Trump as saying at the time.

North Korea has conducted an unprecedented two nuclear tests this year — including its most powerful to date. It has also launched a volley of missiles this year, with some crashing down into Japanese waters, as it seeks to master the technology needed to fix a nuclear warhead to a missile capable of hitting the United States.

Amid the standoff with the North and tensions with its main patron, China, experts say Trump is likely to take a more traditional U.S. approach to Asia, albeit one that diverges from President Barack Obama’s policy of “strategic patience,” which has sought to wait out a sanctions-crippled Pyongyang.

In an essay written just before the election in Foreign Policy magazine, Trump advisers Alexander Gray and Peter Navarro promoted what they say will likely be Trump’s approach to the region: “peace through strength.”

“This essay and other comments by surrogates suggest that Trump may already be walking back from his campaign positions,” Stephan Haggard, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, wrote on the Peterson Institute for International Economics’ blog “North Korea: Witness to Transformation” on Friday.

“On the alliances, Gray and Navarro seem intent on providing assurances, reiterating the demand for more cost-sharing but underlining that ‘there is no question of Trump’s commitment to America’s Asian alliances as bedrocks of stability in the region.'”


Keywords
China, Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, North Korea nuclear crisis, nuclear weapons, South Korea, U.S.
Related
Trump makes transition to power a family affair
Trump picks hard-line conservatives Sessions, Flynn to head Justic Department, CIA

Asia Pacific
Myanmar man who set himself on fire in an Australian bank is an asylum seeker
Thousands rally against Malaysian leader Najib; 15 detained
China censors ‘fatty’ nickname for Kim Jong Un online
Large anti-Park protest planned in Seoul, fourth amid scandal

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/behnam-ben-taleblu-iran-tightens-military-ties-with-china/

Iran Tightens Military Ties with China

Behnam Ben Taleblu, Patrick Megahan
17th November 2016 - FDD Policy Brief

Iranian and Chinese security officials signed a military-cooperation agreement this week to establish a joint commission to boost defense ties. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution and the subsequent severing of U.S. military assistance, Tehran has relied on Chinese arms to supplement its defense industry. This week’s agreement, however, will significantly bolster ties that for decades existed mostly behind closed doors, and underscore the countries’ shared interest in challenging U.S. supremacy in their respective regions.

Iran’s close defense ties with Beijing started in the 1980s, when the Islamic Republic was engulfed in a bloody war with Iraq and desperate for arms. China, seeking secure energy sources and a bulwark against America, was eager to provide advanced weapons to Tehran. Among them were Silkworm anti-ship missiles, which targeted Kuwaiti oil tankers during that decade’s Tanker War.

China continued to supply arms to Tehran throughout the 1990s as Iran rebuilt its military after the war. These included newer anti-ship missiles such as the C-802 (which Tehran has since provided to its regional proxies) and the C-704. China has also equipped Iran with surface-to-air missiles, fighters, fast attack craft, and ballistic missile equipment. Key among these technologies are guidance systems for Iran’s missiles, which according to the director of national intelligence is the largest arsenal in the Middle East. China has even served as a transit point for North Korean missile technology en route to Iran.

Reports on the memorandum have thus far been vague, revealing only a stated interest in combatting terrorism and a promise to hold joint military drills. Still, the increasingly public nature of their cooperation should not come as a surprise. Both Iran and China feel threatened by U.S. air and naval superiority and hope to supplant Washington as the preeminent military power of their respective regions. Moreover, Iran is now eyeing potential purchases for when a UN-mandated arms ban expires in 2020, or possibly earlier, per last summer’s nuclear deal.

Admittedly, China is not the only country positioning itself to cash in on Iranian arms purchases. Over the last two years, Russia has stepped up its relationship with Tehran, delivering the S-300 surface-to-air missile system this year, and is now reportedly negotiating a $10-billion arms deal involving T-90 tanks.

There is one military capacity Tehran desperately needs to deter a U.S. attack and which Beijing is best suited to provide: robust maritime Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) capabilities. Over the past decade, China has dramatically increased its own A2/AD capacity in the South China Sea and its littorals, aiming to diminish U.S. room to maneuver in the western Pacific. Its tools include long-range anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, and layered air defense systems that force an adversary’s air and naval forces to operate from a distance. For Iran, these would allow it to control the strategic Strait of Hormuz while limiting an enemy’s ability to strike deep within its territory. China and Iran even began joint naval drills in 2014.

In an era when U.S. military resources are already strained globally, agreements like this between Iran and China make it harder for Washington to defend its partners and deter aggression around the world. As a new administration prepares to take office, U.S. policymakers must prepare for the likelihood that an Iran no longer under arms embargo will capitalize on its long-standing partnership with China.

Patrick Megahan is a research analyst focusing on military affairs at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Behnam Ben Taleblu is a Senior Iran Analyst

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.politico.eu/article/the-...-agency-jorge-domecq-eu-military-cooperation/

A European Pentagon

An obscure defense agency will play a key role as the EU embarks on greater military cooperation.

By Jacopo Barigazzi and Bjarke Smith-Meyer 11/16/16, 5:31 AM CET Updated 11/16/16, 7:57 PM CET
Comments 12

If EU leaders manage to forge tighter defense links, the*headquarters will likely be a squat, rectangular building on the edge of Brussels’ hippest shopping districts that’s home to the European Defense Agency.

Though virtually unknown, the defense agency, or EDA, stands to play a key role as EU nations move ahead with greater military cooperation — a goal that has taken on new urgency with the election of Donald Trump, who has called on the Europeans to pay more for their own defense and cast doubt on America’s commitment to NATO.

For now, the*EDA is an obscure European organization with a relatively tiny budget, a staff of just 130, that is currently run by diplomats, not military chiefs. The agency’s chief executive, Jorge Domecq, is a Spanish*diplomat, who reports to Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief.

EU officials raised its budget from*€30.5 million to €31 million on Tuesday, an amount that pales compared to the Pentagon’s budget of more than*€540 billion. Domecq said it reflected his agency’s job, which isn’t to supplant national militaries but *coordinate the efforts of EU countries to improve security and leverage scarce resources.

“The objective is not to become the Pentagon,” said Domecq, who served as chief of staff to another Spaniard, Javier Solana, when he was secretary-general of NATO in the late 1990s. “We are not seeking a European army [and] we are not seeking a European Pentagon,”*Domecq said in an interview with*POLITICO.

The EDA actually got its start when EU officials had*another goal in mind: to promote advances in defense technologies. The agency was created in 2004, intended as a version of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA. But there was never sufficient financial investment to make the agency a serious player.

Now, with the push to increase military cooperation — a step EU foreign and defense ministers agreed to on Monday — the EDA is expected to gain new relevance. Plans drawn up by Mogherini would*give it a central role*in boosting the efficiency and the capability of European defense systems.

The tiny budget increase approved on Tuesday is the first for the agency since 2010, though officials acknowledged it was more symbolic than anything.

And there are*other efforts underway to potentially ramp up European military spending, including a proposal to establish*an EU defense fund, which the Commission aims to outline at the end of this month.

The cash pot will be financed largely*through the issuance of “defense bonds,” which would help alleviate some of the financial burden of military spending within*EU countries.

Costly projects such as the building and launching of satellites*or the construction of aircraft carriers might be financed through the bonds, rather than national budgets.*The bonds might also be used to finance*cyber-security initiatives, officials said.*

“The European Commission is ready to play an active role in fostering European defense cooperation,” a spokesperson said. “Europe’s soft power is not enough in the long run without at least some integrated defense capacities.”

Levels of military spending in Europe have long been a contentious issue, and are likely to become even more of a focus, given Trump’s repeated demand on the campaign trail that European nation’s bear more of the financial costs of NATO.
*
Overall military spending in Europe*hit*€200 billion last year, but only four out of the 28 EU nations*met the NATO spending target of 2 percent of economic output.
The bonds would be marketed to private money managers, potentially offering a reliable government-backed investment.*

To help stir market appetite, European Commission Vice President*Jyrki Katainen, said that the European Investment Bank should also be allowed to buy the defense bonds, suggesting potential changes to the lender’s current mandate, which prohibits military investment.

Yet, some traders are questioning whether the timing is right for any issuances in the short term, especially as bond markets continue to suffer from the persistent search for higher yields.

“There will always be people that are interested in long-term returns,” said Mike Van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets. “But the question is whether there will be enough demand in proposed yields to make it cheaper for [the Commission] to fund these types of projects.”

However, Holger Schmieding, the chief economist at Berenberg Bank, was largely supportive of the initiative. “Appetite for bonds issued by EU institutions,” he said, “is usually ample.”

“Whether it’s a good idea to try to hide fiscal deficits that way is a different matter,” he said.

Domecq said that even in EU treaties his agency was destined for bigger things. “EDA,” he said, “was meant to play an essential role at the right moment.”

Quentin Ariès contributed to this story.

Also On Politico
EU backs greater military cooperation
Jacopo Barigazzi

Also On Politico
Obama urges NATO members to pull their weight
Nolan D. McCaskill

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/11/18/general-pacific-grows-unstable-fight-coming.html

General: As Pacific Grows More Unstable, the Fight is Coming

Military.com | Nov 18, 2016 | by Hope Hodge Seck

With uncertain new leadership in allied countries and the sabre-rattling of hostile states growing louder, Marines in the Pacific are being prepared for a coming conflict, the commanding general of 3rd Marine Division said this week.

Speaking at Marine Corps Association's Ground Dinner near Washington, D.C., Thursday night, Maj. Gen. Richard Simcock made a plea for more amphibious ships in the region and increased collaboration with the Navy as the region braces anticipates a future that may include a confrontation or contingency involving a powerful regional competitor.

"The fight that's coming, we're not going to be able to get a hodgepodge, hillbilly organization and just throw three [Marine Expeditionary Units] together and say that's a [Marine Expeditionary Brigade] and we can land the landing force," he said. "We're not training with our Navy brethren; we're not doing the things that are going to carry us to victory in the fight that is clearly coming out of the Pacific. Those are the biggest issues that I deal with right now."

Recent upheavals in the region, he said, included the death in October of the 88-year-old king of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej, a beloved ruler who leaves an uncertain political future in his son, the crown prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. Meanwhile, the newly elected Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, who took office in June, has repeatedly made headlines with his hostility toward the U.S. and insults and rebukes to President Barack Obama.

"The things that we did in the Philippines and things like Balikatan are in question," Simcock said, naming a major U.S.-Philippines exercise held in the spring and taking its name from the Tagalog word for "shoulder-to-shoulder." This year's exercise involved 5,000 U.S. troops. Duterte said in September that he wanted to end all joint war games with the U.S., with next spring's Balikatan being the last.

"If there such a thing as key terrain, the Philippines is it," Simcock said. "This archipelago of seven thousand islands is critical to us."

North Korea, a longtime source of instability in the region, is "popping off nuclear missiles like it's cool," Simcock said. "Our South Korean allies, it's all we can do to say, 'don't go.' Maybe they need to go."

All this comes as one of the largest powers in the region, China, has added infrastructure to contested islands in the South China sea in what Navy Adm. Harry Harris, the head of U.S. Pacific Command, has called a clear act of militarization.

While Simcock said he works with new seabasing platforms, designed to be a stopgap as the Navy and Marine Corps grapple with a shortage of available amphibious ships, they lack the combat survivability and many of the troop-carrying features of traditional amphibious ships.

"What if I had four or five ships that we dedicated to the division and the combat power that we could bring to bear at the place and time of our choosing?" he said.

Despite the challenges, Simcock said the Marines under his command would be prepared to take on any mission.

"Our commandant [Gen. Robert Neller], when he came out, he looked at me and said, 'the fight is coming. I looked at him and said, 'Commandant, you're absolutely right,'" Simcock said. "He said, 'Richard, your boys ready? I said, 'absolutely they're ready, no doubt about it.'"

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-ceasefire-idUSKBN13E05D

World News | Sat Nov 19, 2016 | 8:51am EST

Yemen truce strained by reports of air strikes and fighting

By Mohamed Ghobari | SANAA

A truce aimed at ending more than a year of war in Yemen began on Saturday, although residents said fighting was still going on in parts of the country.

The 48-hour ceasefire by the Saudi-led military coalition raised hopes of an end to a humanitarian crisis caused by a war that has drawn in regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The truce seemed to be largely holding up despite gun battles in the Western city of Taiz and air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition reported by residents in villages east of the capital Sanaa.

Yemen's Saudi-backed government and its Iran-aligned Houthi adversaries blamed each other for the violence in Taiz where thousands of civilians are trapped and many have been wounded. Government forces this week made advances on Taiz threatening to break a year-long siege by the rebels.

Saudi Arabia and allied Sunni Muslim Gulf states began a military campaign in March last year to prevent the Houthis and forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking control of the whole country.

The Saudi-led coalition expelled enemy fighters from the southern port city of Aden last summer but the Houthis continue to hold the capital and tracts of the country, with the help of Saleh loyalists.

More than 10,000 Yemenis have been killed in the war.

The truce started at noon (0900 GMT), the Saudi Press Agency reported, and could be extended if the Houthis show commitment to it and allow aid into areas such as Taiz.

The Houthis said on Wednesday they were ready to stop fighting and join a national unity government.

"The Yemeni people exercise their right to self-defense and when Saudi Arabia stops fighting, the war will stop," Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi politburo, told Reuters on Saturday when asked about the group's commitment to the truce.

But he said Saudi Arabia's decision to announce the ceasefire just a few hours before it began meant there was not enough time to arrange for aid convoys to be delivered.

STALEMATE

Saturday's ceasefire was announced after diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, but Hadi's camp said that although its Gulf allies had been consulted, his government had been sidelined.

The coalition has not said whether it accepts the U.N.-brokered peace plan which gives the rebels a share of power.

Hours before the ceasefire began, a soldier in Saudi Arabia was killed by a missile fired by the Houthis, the interior ministry said, the type of cross-border attack that the Saudis insist must stop.

Any "military movements" by Houthi forces will be "addressed by the coalition", said the SPA statement, adding that controls imposed by the coalition on Yemen's ports and airports to stop arms getting to the enemy will remain in place.

The near-blockade on air, sea and land access has caused food shortages in a country that imports over 90 percent of its staples, driving up prices and making it impossible for many Yemenis to feed themselves and their families.

No side has emerged as the dominant force in a war that has dragged into stalemate, displaced more than 3 million people and given room for a powerful branch of al Qaeda to expand its operations.

The frontline has changed little over recent months, with the Houthis and their allies holding most of Yemen's northern half, including the capital Sanaa, while forces loyal to Hadi share control of the rest of the country with local tribes.

Hadi's government says the Houthis illegally seized power in a coup backed by Iran, and demands that they quit the cities they seized and hand over heavy weapons before any political settlement starts.

The Houthis say they took power to end corruption and to get rid of Islamist militants they say expanded their influence during Hadi's presidency.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed El Sherif in Cairo; Writing by Tom Finn; Editing by Tom Hogue and Robin Pomeroy)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.military.com/daily-news/...-soldiers-being-shot-outside-jordan-base.html

Video Shows 3 US Soldiers being Shot outside Jordan Base

Stars and Stripes | Nov 19, 2016 | by Tara Copp

Video footage of a shooting in Jordan that killed three U.S. soldiers has raised the possibility that it was a deliberate attack, U.S. officials said Friday.

Security camera footage of the Nov. 4 attack shows a lone Jordanian gunman at a checkpoint shooting at a convoy of Green Berets who were there to conduct training at King Faisal Air Base in al-Jafr. Several news outlets have reported the military personnel were working for the CIA in Jordan.

A U.S. official on the condition of anonymity confirmed the video shows the Jordanian waived the first vehicle through the checkpoint and then opened fire on and ultimately killed two of the Americans in the second vehicle, which was first reported by CBS. U.S. troops in a third vehicle returned fire and a third American was killed.

The U.S. official also confirmed the possibility that the Americans were specifically targeted. A second U.S. official said the investigation into the killings -- including interviews with witnesses of the attack -- were not complete. The FBI is leading the investigation.

"We want to tell these families what it was and what it wasn't, instead of what it looks like," the second U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity.

Both U.S. officials said the Jordanian shooter survived the attack, but is in a medically induced coma at a Jordanian hospital.

One of the U.S. officials also said Special Operations Command - Central is conducting a separate "15-6" investigation that will provide a timeline and details of the incident. A 15-6 is an in-depth military investigation that determines whether there is a reason to charge any U.S. military personnel in relation to the incident. The 15-6 investigation is expected to be released after the FBI investigation is complete.

The Nov. 4 incident killed Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Lawrence, Kan.; Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson, Ariz., and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Texas. They are members of the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/middle-east-misjudgment/

Middle East

Middle East Misjudgment

Review of 'Ike’s Gamble' By Michael Doran

Omri Ceren / Nov. 16, 2016

In the middle of Israel’s 2014 war with Hamas, State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki defended a diplomatic move by Secretary John Kerry that had generated open fury in Jerusalem and at least five Arab capitals by suggesting to reporters that the firestorm had been whipped up by an Israeli misinformation campaign. “It’s simply not the way that partners and allies treat each other,” she complained. Then she declared that Kerry was Israel’s strongest supporter and a close personal friend of Israeli officials—and had been mediating at their invitation.

That last bit of gaslighting was too much for Matthew Lee, the curmudgeonly dean of the press corps at the State Department. “The Israelis fought tooth and nail, didn’t want him anywhere near this,” Lee said, and started listing individual Israelis one by one, asking her which ones Kerry was friends with. The official State Department transcript then reads, almost unkindly, “(Laughter.)”

Kerry had embraced a Turkish-Qatari ceasefire proposal that demanded capitulation to Hamas, at the expense of an Egyptian-sponsored draft Israel had accepted. It united Israelis across the political spectrum with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, and the Palestinian Authority in appalled horror. The Israeli cabinet unanimously and publicly rejected the proposal, the Egyptians made it known they wouldn’t forget the U.S.’s kneecapping them, and Hamas’s Fatah rivals issued a statement saying that any Palestinian who wanted to be represented by Turkey or Qatar could go live there. And the Obama administration blamed Israel.

There are several explanations for the crisis, but the broadest is this: U.S. foreign policy has always been hampered by solutionism. Instead of managing problems across decades by balancing scheming rivals and mercurial allies, we throw resources at problems until they go away. But that can’t explain why Kerry would choose a solution that aligned the U.S. against its traditional partners.

Michael Doran’s Ike’s Gamble, a riveting account of President Dwight Eisenhower’s conduct in Middle East, offers a key historical insight: Modern American diplomats have, going back to the beginning of the Cold War, been simply awful at distinguishing friends and foes in the Middle East. Doran, who is a Hudson Institute senior fellow and a former National Security Council senior director, describes Eisenhower’s trajectory as “nothing if not a lesson in the dangers of calibrating the distinction between ally and enemy incorrectly.”

The Middle East alliance most conspicuously recalibrated and miscalibrated has been the one America has with Israel. Doran assembles piles of notes, logs, and diaries documenting deep hostility toward the Jewish state among Eisenhower and his advisors. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was at the center of a cohort of officials who considered the Truman administration’s decision to recognize Israel one of the greatest mistakes in American diplomatic history. They acutely resented the existence of the new state and blamed U.S.-Israel ties for whatever challenges Washington now faced in the Middle East, from U.S.-Arab relations to anti-communist challenges. Their goal was to move the U.S. toward “impartiality,” a euphemism for creating distance between the U.S. and Israel.

Many in that same cohort of officials also held a deep hostility toward Jews, including an expansive paranoia about the role of pro-Israel lobbies in national and global affairs. Notes from a 1958 National Security Council have Dulles declaring that U.S. policy was hobbled because “the state of Israel was in fact the darling of Jewry throughout the world, and world Jewry was a formidable force indeed,” and that even the Soviets were unwilling to fully embrace the destruction of Israel because “of the potency of international Jewry.” Dulles said his goal was to “deflate the Jews.”

Alongside anti-Zionism, the Eisenhower administration was also animated by an anti-imperialism that—when translated into policy euphemisms—had the U.S. playing an “honest broker” between America’s British ally and former British colonies in the Arab world openly hostile toward American interests. Early in his administration, Eisenhower abandoned an understanding provided to London by the Truman administration, in which the United States had committed to supporting a package deal whereby Britain gave up its leverage over Egypt only in the context of guaranteed concessions elsewhere. The reversal chilled British Prime Minister Churchill’s faith in U.S. assurances, to the detriment of America’s position, a dynamic that Doran extensively unpacks.

Ike’s Gamble is not just about how Eisenhower sold out the U.S.’s Israeli and British allies, but to whom he sold them out. The book charts years of efforts to curry favor with Gamal Abdel Nasser, who took over Egypt in a coup in 1952. To do so, the U.S. pressured Britain on its management of the Suez Canal, sought to force Israeli territorial concessions in the Sinai Peninsula and Negev desert, provided Egypt with development and security aid, and built Nasser a mass communication infrastructure that would enable him to reach the entire Arab world. Those efforts only emboldened Nasser, who responded by nationalizing the Canal Zone, organizing attacks against vulnerable Israeli territory, forging military ties with the Soviet Union, and using his radio station to demonize the West and its regional allies.

A central thesis of Ike’s Gamble is that by the end of his time in office, Eisenhower understood the folly of trading allies for enemies in general, and of creating distance between the U.S. and Israel more specifically. That wisdom eluded the Obama administration, which enthusiastically pursued many of the exact same moves. President Obama boasted early in 2009 that he would create daylight between the U.S. and Israel, and he quickly reversed letters of guarantee from George W. Bush providing assurances to Israel should Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip in exchange for concessions on West Bank communities. The reversal chilled the Israeli prime minister’s faith in U.S. assurances, to the detriment of America’s position. Seven years into the Obama administration, top officials from his State Department were still posting Israel-lobby conspiracy theorists over social media, and even the president spoke darkly about “donors” torquing American politics on behalf of policies critical to Israel.

In between, among many other things, was the diplomatic row that Kerry sparked over the Gaza war cease-fire. It eventually subsided, armed hostilities continued for another few weeks, and then the Israelis began systematically to conduct decapitation strikes until Hamas capitulated. For his part, Kerry moved on to Iran talks, and a summer later he sealed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which legalized Iran’s nuclear program and unleashed it across the region.

Ike’s Gamble can be read as most immediately aimed at the sources and consequences of the American diplomacy toward Iran. Doran is one of a small group of scholars who argued years ago that far from the Obama administration pursuing what seemed to many to be an incompetent series of failed initiatives to bolster traditional American allies and constrain Iran, Washington was pursuing a coherent and consistent program of realigning with Tehran and eschewing old alliances. Subsequent gleeful published boasts from top figures of the Obama administration have confirmed the theory.

Now, after half a decade of the Obama administration’s subordinating almost everything to Iran diplomacy, Doran writes, “there is no period in twentieth-century Middle Eastern history that rhymes more powerfully with the present than the Eisenhower era.” On the ground and day by day, the region seems to have dissolved into a chaos of all against all. But from just a little above, the meaningless distinctions vanish and the environment emerges clearly as all against Iran.

The next administration will have to choose which side to take. The superb Ike’s Gamble makes the case that it must be America’s traditional allies, especially Israel, and that any other option—including and especially outreach to avowed enemies of the United States—will end in catastrophe.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.atimes.com/grim-security-scenario-awaits-trump-south-asia/

A grim security scenario awaits Trump in South Asia

By Kadayam Subramanian November 18, 2016 10:15 AM (UTC+8)

Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report.

The election of Donald J Trump, an allegedly racist, misogynistic and anti-minority person, to the position of President-Elect has far-reaching significance for the world. The election has met with significant opposition within the US. It has also viewed with dismay across the world.

Donald J Trump will be sworn in President of the US on January 20 2017.

Some uncertainty seems to prevail over who would become part of the President-Elect’s policy team on the multifarious challenges across the globe that he faces.

The South Asian response has been marked by diverse emotions and feelings including fear, disillusion and loathing accompanied by a measure of gloating as well.
Two perspectives on this election, one each from Pakistan and India, may be of interest.

Mohammed Hanif, a Pakistani novelist, writing in the International New York Times recently was at his sardonic best. He felt that “everything we already knew about ugly America just got a chest-thumping confirmation from Americans themselves!”

“There is gloating that the bully that roamed the earth proposing to start wars, topple governments and bankroll tin-pot dictators, has finally come home and brought with him all the racism and vulgarity he had doled out in various parts of the planet.”

The bully had “come home to assert his supremacy, his whiteness, his right to be ugly and foul-mouthed and to get rewarded for it.”

America, said the gloaters, “was a bit like that aging thing, who can’t terrorize the neighborhood anymore and so had turned on its own family.”

The Pakistanis who gloated over the Trump win, were basically saying that the previous American Presidents weren’t all that different. They’d put their arms around your shoulder and walk beside you for a bit and then stab you in the back. Trump however, kicked you while spitting on your face with a crowd cheering on.

America needed a revolution, said a friend. Did he think Trump’s win was good because it would trigger a revolution? “No,” he said: “Trump is the revolution!”

The Indian scholar-activist, Vithal Rajan writing in the Hindu newspaper grimly noted that in post-imperial America Trump was a “loose cannon” with limited diplomatic ability and imagination. “Sophisticated Chinese gamesmanship would have helped the American empire retain its power through military force. But the Chinese know that today political power is maintained through economic strength rather not territorial expansion.”

Donald J. Trump, as the 45th President of the US, would be encouraged by the racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and violent Americans to embark on expensive but futile military adventures abroad while poverty spread at home. Frustrations of “red neck America” would grow and develop resulting in governance failure and tempt President Trump to vent his Islamophobia in West Asia and Pakistan.

South Asia would become the most dangerous place on earth. India’s right wing, maddened by the media, yells that Pakistan be taught a lesson for inflicting cross-border terrorism on India. The Indian Defense Minister wants that he should not be constrained by the no-first-use compulsion in adopting the nuclear option. Such hyper-nationalism could embolden the Pakistani military to opt for an all-out war with India.

Hasty US withdrawal of support could encourage the volatile Pakistani military to destabilize and escalate the situation to precipitate a nuclear clash. Without adequate diplomatic skills, the US, UK and Russia would fail to pull back India and Pakistan from the brink of war.

This would be a tragic outcome for the Trump presidency in South Asia.

Bilateral relations between India and Pakistan deteriorated after the avoidable shooting down of the charismatic young Kashmiri leader (22) Burhan Wani by the Indian security forces on July 9, 2016. The mass upsurge that ensued was put down at great human cost aggravating tensions in the Kashmir Valley. The upsurge was indigenous in origin but India projected it as Pakistan inspired. It sought to divert attention to human rights violations in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Balochistan. It accused Pakistan of being the mother of all terrorism in the region ignoring the fact that the New Delhi-based South Asia terrorism portal (www.satp.org) had brought out that during the years 2003-2016, Pakistan had suffered more from terrorist attacks than India.

The portal added that during these years, India had lost 26,882 lives (civilians: 9,640, security forces: 4,249, terrorists: 12,993) and Pakistan had lost 61,148 lives (civilians: 21,389, security forces: 6,564, terrorists: 33,195) from terrorist attacks. Further, the anti-Soviet Mujahedeen wars in Afghanistan (1979-1989) led by the US had led to influx of 25,000 foreign jihadists into Afghanistan and the entry of about seven million Afghan refugees into Pakistan.

It is quite amazing that official Indian agencies had failed to note this*data emanating from one of India’s reputed agencies.

Terrorism has been described as a “multinational systemic crime” along with drug trafficking, money laundering and espionage. There is considerable scope for regional cooperation between India and Pakistan, which both countries should consider.

At the BRICS conference that*followed in New Delhi, attended by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, India massively targeted Pakistan as the mother ship of all terrorism and sought to isolate it internationally but failed. The President of China clearly stated that his country did not believe in targeting any single country or religion as the main source of terrorism. China believed that Pakistan had suffered more from terrorism and had made huge sacrifices in fighting against it. India suffered a significant diplomatic setback.

India attributed the September 18 terrorist attack at the Uri military camp in Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan-based terrorists. On September29, India carried out “surgical strikes” against Pakistan across the Line of Control (LoC). However, Pakistan denied that any such strikes had taken place.

A good deal of xenophobia was witnessed in India following the “surgical strikes” against Pakistan. Militaristic noises are being made, including by the Defense Minister of India.

This is the precise context in which the election of the controversial Donald J. Trump as President-Elect of the US has taken place. This development has far reaching significance for peace-building in South Asia. The US President-Elect has a key role to play in this regard.

The selection of the US President-Elect’s National Security Advisor and his team of experts, is keenly awaited.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://abcnews.go.com/International...l-suspected-extremists-somali-border-43667711

Kenya Police Kill 4 Suspected Extremists at Somali Border

By The Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya — Nov 20, 2016, 3:43 AM ET

A Kenyan official says police officers killed four suspected extremists at the Somali border, a region hard-hit by recent attacks by the Somali extremist group al-Shabab.

North Eastern Regional Coordinator Mohamud Saleh said Sunday that police killed the men while ambushing a group of about 20 suspected members of a cell of al-Shabab militants on Saturday.

Saleh says the group allegedly was planning an attack on a police station. He says police recovered four rifles and Somali army military jackets.

Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa, has vowed retribution on Kenya for its troop presence in Somalia.

Kenya deployed troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al-Shabab, which is waging an insurgency against Somalia's weak U.N.-backed government threatening instability in the region.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2016/11/20/51/0301000000AEN20161120002700315F.html

S. Korean military fully prepared to cope with NK provocation

2016/11/20 15:21

SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military said Sunday it is fully prepared to cope with any provocations on the Seohae Islands, along the inter-Korean maritime border.

The stance comes six years after the North launched an artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea that left four people dead, and damaged both military and civilian property. The surprise attack marked the first time that Pyongyang intentionally fired on South Korean soil since the Korean War (1950-53).

The Marine Corps, which is in charge of defending the five Seohae Islands, and the Navy that patrols waters south of the Northern Limit Line said that since the attack, they have set up airtight "package" contingencies.

"These include the formation of a regimental level quick reaction force that can be deployed anywhere in the country within 24 hours, the creation of a dedicated Northwest Islands Defense Command and strengthening cooperation with the United States," an official source said.

Seoul and Washington kicked off the Korea Marine Exercise Program (KMEP) just after the artillery attack, with Marines from the two countries having undertaken this drill three times this year alone.

Seoul military said its front-line officers have been ordered to maintain an aggressive position in regards to sudden attacks, instead of the passive stance employed in the past.

During the Yeonpyeong artillery strike, the North is estimated to have fired off some 170 rounds of 122 mm rockets, while South Korea's response was limited to 70-80 rounds being fired from its 155 mm howitzer.

In regards to the reaction team, comprised of some 3,000 troops, the military claimed such a force can prevent further unexpected hostilities.

Besides such measures, South Korea has increased the number of Marines stationed on the western islands and vastly improved the equipment there, including more K-9 self-propelled artillery, multiple rocket launchers and Cobra gunships.

Official sources said that starting in 2013, troops have been supplied with the Israeli Spike missile system that has a range of 20 km, the ARTHUR counter-battery radar and drones.

Military bases on the islands have further been fortified to better defend against attacks, while more emergency bunkers have been built for civilians.

yonngong@yna.co.kr
(END)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...its-soil-shivshankar-menon/article9366037.ece

NEW DELHI, November 20, 2016
Updated: November 20, 2016 03:45 IST

Pak. cannot control terrorism on its soil: Shivshankar Menon

Special Correspondent

“Threat of tactical nuclear weapons deployment against India higher".

Pakistan can no longer control terrorism on its soil, believes former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, as terrorism is “hard-wired into Pakistan’s society and polity.”

“I am not so sure that it’s any longer within Pakistan’s capacity to stop terrorism”, he said speaking to a television channel on Saturday.

Sounding a warning note on Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities, Mr. Menon, who served as High Commissioner to Pakistan before he was Foreign Secretary and then the NSA, said that the likelihood of tactical nuclear weapons being used against India has increased, with “younger officers in an Army that is increasingly religiously motivated and less and less professional and that has consistently produced rogue officers and staged coups against its own leaders.”

According to a release from TV Today’s “To The Point” programme, Mr. Menon said that this, in turn, meant that there was an increased possibility of an “all-out nuclear war when India retaliates against tactical nuclear weapons with massive retaliation of its own.”

No First Use policy
However, the former National Security Adviser also hit out at Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s suggestion last week that India’s No First Use (NFU) policy should be reconsidered, adding that the Defence Minister doesn’t have a right to voice “personal opinions” on nuclear policy in public “when that opinion contradicts the official policy of the country,” the TV channel added.

 

[Ozlady]

Thanks Housecarl for your hard work in reporting, a lot going on....

PS.. birds have gone silent here after 3 days of heavy activity.

 

[jed turtle]

Ditto. You are a huge contributor to this board!

 

[Housecarl]

^^^
Thanks Guys....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.minotdailynews.com/news/local-news/2016/11/getting-ready/

Getting ready

Lockheed Martin making plans for major missile upgrade program

Local News
Nov 20, 2016
Eloise Ogden
Regional Editor
eogden@minotdailynews.com

The U.S. Air Force recently launched a major multi-billion dollar, long-term program to replace the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile system. The program will have a significant impact on the Minot community and other communities with nearby Air Force ICBM wings.

Minot Air Force Base’s 91st Missile Wing is one of three ICBM wings in the Air Force responsible for operating, maintaining and securing 150 Minuteman III missiles in underground launch facilities across several counties in northwest and north central North Dakota. The other wings are at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo., and Malmstom AFB, Mont.

On Wednesday, a team from Lockheed-Martin met with Minot Area Chamber of Commerce officials to discuss the program and the impact it will have on the local community.

Lockheed Martin is one of three qualified military contractors to submit its proposal recently for the program. Boeing and Northrop Grumman also have submitted proposals.

The program will primarily involve upgrading the missile, communications, launch facilities and launch control centers.

Currently, Lockheed Martin is doing research and making preparations if the company is selected for the program. Besides Minot, the work will be done in Wyoming and Montana where other ICBMs are located.

The Lockheed Martin team members in Minot for the meeting were: John Karas, vice president and Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Denver; retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Deppe, independent consultant to Lockheed Martin from Florida; Bill Hughes, Business Development for Lockheed Martin Space Systems in King of Prussia, Pa.; and Frank Gallegos, director of Lockheed Martin Strategic Programs/Government Affairs at its Omaha Field Office.

“We do plan to engage the community more entirely including other industry and academia because if we’re fortunate enough to win, GBSD upgrade is not just about the missile,” he said.

In addition to the 150 Minuteman III ICBMs in underground facilities in the Minot missile field, the program includes the launch control centers and Minot Air Force Base.

“GBSD is going to take a lot of effort and people,” Karas said.

The federal government estimates the entire project costs will range between $50 billion to $80 billion. From the three contractors’ proposals, first two proposals will be selected and finally one contractor will be selected.

Multi-billion program

Of the total project costs around $10 billion-15 billion of it will be for the upgrades at the three wings, with several billion dollars per wing.

The Air Force has programmed 2075 as the end date for GBSD. Lockheed Martin team members said their design has to be supportable and sustainable to that time.

“The Air Force is all about cost and schedule,” Karas said. “We’ve got to lean forward now even if the award is not expected until the third quarter of next year. You have to get started to get contractors lined up and trusted partnerships so we’ll start with the Chamber.”

Several weeks ago, they met with staff members of congressional members in Washington, D.C.

Karas said if they are awarded the project, they plan to expand to local industries because there will be workers needed for positions including air conditioning, electrical and fitters.

“If we’re fortunate enough to get selected, I don’t see how you can do it any other way. I think there will be a lot of regional jobs too because of the magnitude of the job,” Karas said.

The Minuteman missiles have had numerous modifications over the years, but team members said GBSD likely will be the biggest effort ever in terms of modifications since the silos and missiles were installed in the 1960s.

“We’re trying for minimum disruption to the community with maximum positive impact,” Karas said. “The positive impact is all the local workers and capabilities. Once we see what areas are we think there will be opportunities to create new industry or new jobs here because we’re going to need new staging sites for hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of hardware for the base and upgrading what’s inside the silos.”

He said Lockheed Martin will start with surveys of local areas. “Definitely when it comes time to start upgrading the silos and launch control facilities, it will be a lot of local focus,” he said.

“It’s a three-year contract for us to study and at the end of the three years is when they’ll pick a single contractor,” Karas said.

When activity starts will depend on the Air Force’s choice for its contractor and that contractors’ plans.

“It will take four or five years before you’ll start to see some real activity I would say, on the earliest,” Karas said.

Karas said if they were to set up a staging area, for example, for air conditioning or harnessing, by the time it is planned and built that could take three or four years. “When they snap that chalk line to say go, we’ve got to be ready and that’s why we’re doing the preparation work here – getting to know the local capability. If you don’t and wait to do it in the middle of the three years, you’re going to be rushed and ill prepared,” Karas said.

Karas has been involved in similar work for several programs in Florida and Texas. Those programs involved going into the community, building up capabilities and working with the Chamber, politicians and local industries, he said. “I don’t see it any different here,” he said.

For the airmen

“Everything that we’re doing is really for the Air Force base and for the airmen that are going to be here today and be supporting the nuclear deterrent for the next 50 years,” Karas said.

“Some of the things in our design that we’re doing are about making the airmen more protected and more secure, trying to make sure that when they have to do maintenance and operations it will be in a better environment so it’s really important that we keep them first and foremost when we’re doing this because it’s really about the young men and women that maintain and if necessary, have to operate the system. That’s a big part of our design,” he said.

Many people with ICBM backgrounds, including Deppe, Baker and Gallegos, all Air Force veterans, are on the Lockheed Martin team. Deppe, an expert in missiles, retired from the Air Force after a 42-year career. He completed his career as vice commander of Air Force Space Command.

Karas has a background in large space system development whether it’s missiles or ground systems. One of his previous positions was as vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Human Space flight line of business, which is highlighted by the multi-billion Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle program.

“I know one thing, it’s going to take a lot more people than any single wing or any single state where the wings are to do this job,” Karas said, of the GBSD program. “That’s another reason why we’ve got to utilize everybody we can locally and go look at other infrastructures that we might have to put here or somewhere else to get the job done. It’s a giant task.”

Team members said Wednesday that their visit to Minot and the other two communities is the first of* many.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003360351

Japan-ASEAN defense cooperation should be deepened on multiple levels

7:37 pm, November 20, 2016
The Yomiuri Shimbun

It is hoped that defense cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will be steadily deepened in consideration of China’s maritime advancement in the South and East China seas.

A meeting of defense ministers from Japan and ASEAN countries has been held in Laos — the first of its kind to take place in two years, marking the second time such a gathering has been held. Defense Minister Tomomi Inada announced a comprehensive package of support measures, the pillar of which included those aiming to secure the thorough observance of the rule of law in the sea and the air, as well as to promote capacity building for the military of each ASEAN nation.

The measures also seek to provide defense equipment and technical cooperation, while continuing to promote joint training, personnel development and other plans, as in the past. Newly added steps are aimed at undertaking to build cyberdefenses and dispose of landmines and unexploded bombs.

It is important to appropriately grasp the diverse needs and problems of the ASEAN member nations, and then make strategic efforts in this respect.

In response to enhanced cooperation due to the establishment of the ASEAN Community in December last year, multitiered assistance covering more than one country will also be extended in addition to past separate defense cooperation for each nation.

The move seeks to widen the scope of training for specialists by Japan and equipment-related cooperation to cover more than one nation, thereby enabling countries involved to share information and technology. Doing so will promote efforts to boost the capability of ASEAN as a whole and strengthen its members’ unity. These aims can be viewed as reasonable.

Aim for restraint on China

In around 1990, Japan started defense exchanges with ASEAN nations, and our nation has been promoting separate defense cooperation with each member of the association since around 2000. A case in point is detailed technical guidance provided by Self-Defense Forces personnel on such matters as those related to disaster relief activities and the construction and improvement of facilities. These efforts have been held in high esteem.

It is desired that efforts will be made to further improve the quality of defense cooperation now and beyond.

In reference to the court of arbitration ruling that rejected China’s claim to sovereignty rights in the South China Sea, Inada said, “[The ruling] constitutes final judgment binding upon parties [to the case], and it’s important to settle [the issue] based on this.” She reportedly agreed with the ASEAN defense ministers regarding the necessity of securing the rule of law and resolving disputes in a peaceful manner.

This will serve as an indirect restraint on China.

In recent years, meanwhile, China has also been seeking to increase its provision of weapons and other assistance to ASEAN nations. It is said that Thailand intends to buy submarines from China.

There are differences in the degree of interest with respect to the stances adopted by Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines in dealing with China, with the former two countries receiving a massive amount of economic assistance from China and the latter two locked in territorial disputes in the South China Sea with the nation.

There is no doubt that the ASEAN members have a desire to obtain assistance, with their eyes on both Japan and China to size up their respective moves.

Preserving the principle regarding the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is indispensable for Japan’s efforts to secure the safety of sea lanes.

To prevent this situation from affecting the Chinese military’s activities in the East China Sea, efforts should be made to proactively promote cooperation with ASEAN.

In facilitating such cooperation, it is important for Japan to closely coordinate with the United States and decide what kind of role each should assume in this respect, despite uncertainties about the intentions of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Nov. 20, 2016)Speech

 

[Housecarl]

That this is even getting covered IMHO is a DOT regardless of by whom.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/18/why-the-mega-rich-are-getting-bodyguards.html

PROTECTION

Why The Mega-Rich Are Getting Bodyguards

Prince Harry wants girlfriend Meghan Markle to have one, and wealthy visitors to Paris are asking for extra levels of protection.

Tom Sykes
11.18.16 3:55 PM ET

The affluent centers of the capital cities of Western Europe always used to be considered among the safest places in the world. There used to be a quiet confidence among the 1% that they could walk down a street in Mayfair or the Boulevard Saint-Germain reasonably safe in the knowledge that they weren’t going to get mugged, gassed, beaten or robbed in broad daylight.

It’s an attitude that still persists in London, as the solo outing by Meghan Markle to her new boyfriend Prince Harry’s Kensington branch of Wholefoods last week showed.*

The little shopping trip, made just days after Harry issued an unprecedented statement condemning media intrusion into her life, was a clear sign that despite Harry’s concerns for her safety, Markle ultimately found enough comfort in the old ideas of London’s innate safety to venture out alone.*

Harry, unsurprisingly given his life experiences, is less complacent; he is said to have offered to pay for 24hr close protection for Markle out of his own pocket. Markle reportedly found the offer ‘charming’ but has declined to accept.

Markle’s easy attitude to security is still widely reflected across London; stroll around London’s premier roads such as Mount Street or South Molton Street any fine afternoon, and the wearable wealth alone on display in the form of furs and jewels is quite simply staggering.

In Paris, however, attitudes to personal safety among the super-rich are changing quickly in the wake of a series of vicious and highly publicized attacks.

And, in what many will see as a worrying omen when it comes to next year’s Presidential election in which Marine Le Pen is tipped to do extremely well for the National Front, due in part to the horrific terror attacks the country has endured in recent years, many are proving quick to scapegoat refugees and illegal immigrants.

The most recent high-profile attack to grab headlines in Paris was on a female Bollywood star. Last week, the Indian actress Mallika Sherawat was attacked by three masked men who sprayed her and her partner with tear gas.

The men ran off before stealing anything for reasons unknown, but there is little doubt that the attack was an attempted robbery.

The street robbery took place just weeks after raiders broke into Kim Kardashian’s luxury holiday residence, tied her up, and stole millions of dollars-worth of jewels last month, and has served to focus minds on the issue of personal security in the French capital.

One security consultant told the Daily Beast that mega-rich tourists were now choosing to avoid Paris as a holiday destination, and that wealthy business travelers who have to come to the city are asking for extra levels of protection.

It’s a particular problem for Paris, which has fiercely guarded its reputation as the ultimate retreat for the person who has everything. Indeed, news magazine Le Point recently asked its readers, “Is Paris the new ‘no-go zone’ for the world’s most fortunate tourists?”

As The Daily Beast’s Erin Zaleski has written, high-value street crime is swiftly becoming a part of everyday Parisian life.

On the Sunday night prior to the Kim Kardashian raid, for example, thieves snatched a Richard Mille watch valued at about $112,000 from a Qatari man on a bustling, upscale street just a short walk from the Champs-Élysées. Saudi princesses, Emirati singers and wealthy Chinese tourists have all also been targeted while visiting the French capital.

As a result business is booming for French security firms offering bodyguards, or ‘close personal protection’, as the industry terms it.

Laurent Dequatremard, director of the French security company International Protection Services Bodyguard,* which provides bodyguards to visiting celebrities, tycoons and CEO’s at a rate of €800 per day, says that Paris is “less safe than big cities like London, Manhattan, Hong Kong or Dubai.”

He attributes this to three main factors; weak law and enforcement thereof, widespread unemployment and, controversially, the rise of illegal immigration.
Dequatremard cited “a lot of undocumented people on the Champs-Elysées” in an email conversation with the Daily Beast as a major cause of the present trouble.

“We have a lot of clients in Paris asking for security services as they don’t feel safe,” he said, “We recommend to have protection with you during the day and guards at night if your building/residence is not secure.”

Another private bodyguard working in Paris, Fidel Matola, was also quick to blame the rise in crime on undocumented immigrants.

He told the Daily Beast: “At the moment it is very dangerous not just in Paris but in other big cities such as St Tropez. There are many refugees, come from Africa and they rob people and houses and do bad things to French people.”

Challenged by the Daily Beast on whether it was overly simplistic to blame the apparent high-end crime wave on refugees, Matola was unapologetic, saying, “Refugees increase the danger. This is what I see.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/11/20/world/middleeast/ap-ml-egypt.html?_r=0

MIDDLE EAST

Egypt to Try Nearly 300 Over Attacks, Assassination Plot

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOV. 20, 2016, 11:33 A.M. E.S.T.

CAIRO — Egypt's state news agency says nearly 300 suspects linked to the Islamic State group have been referred to a military tribunal over attacks and an alleged plot to assassinate President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

MENA reported Sunday that the 292 suspects are accused of taking part in terror attacks and of plotting to kill both el-Sissi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.

An IS affiliate in the northern Sinai Peninsula has carried out scores of attacks in recent years, mainly targeting security forces. The insurgents stepped up their attacks in 2013 when el-Sissi, who was then the army chief, led the overthrow of Egypt's first freely elected president, the Islamist Mohammed Morsi.

 

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http://www.nrttv.com/EN/Details.aspx?Jimare=11075

TURKEY WARNS AGAINST SHIA MILITIAS ENTERING TAL AFAR

6 hours ago
Views 721

SULAIMANI — Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin warned on Sunday (November 20) against Shia militias entering the Islamic State (ISIS) held town of Tal Afar, threatening his country will take “action” against such a move.

Kalin said in Istanbul Tal Afar will become the center of sectarian and ethnic conflict if Hashid al-Shaabi, the Iranian-backed Shia paramilitary groups enters the town. The spokesman referred to such a move as “unacceptable.”

There is a deal concerning the deployment of 2,000 Shia Turkmen and Sunnis along with the Iraqi army into the town of Tal Afar, according to Kalin, which Turkey wants all sides to commit to.

Kalin said what is now happening in Tal Afar seems to be a contradiction to statements Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi made two weeks ago, which the spokesman said were in opposition to Shia militias entering the town.

The town of Tal Afar is around 77 kilometers (47 miles) west of Mosul. Recapturing it would help cut ISIS’ supply lines between Mosul and its Syrian territories, and offer a base for Hashid al-Shaabi’s stated plan to take their battle with ISIS into Syria.

Hashid al-Shabi announced on November 16 the recapture of Tal Afar air base as the Shia militia continues operations toward Tal Afar, west of Mosul.

Hashid al-Shaabi was formed in 2014 to help push back ISIS’ sweeping advance through northern and western provinces.

(NRT)

 

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38041847

Brazil: Four dead after police helicopter 'shot down by gang'

1 hour ago
From the section Latin America & Caribbean

Four police officers have died after their helicopter crashed over Rio de Janeiro's notorious City of God favela.

In video footage of the crash, sustained gunfire can be heard before the helicopter drops from the sky, narrowly missing a main road.

The helicopter was giving support to a police operation against gangs in the favela, according to police.

Police reportedly began a large scale operation on Sunday in western Rio, with arrests and seizures of drugs.

'Fell in a ditch'

There had been several clashes during Saturday between police and criminal gangs operating in the City of God favela area.

Firefighters removed the bodies of the victims from the wreckage, which could be seen in the footage crumpled and smoking.

A police spokesman said that forensics officers were examining the wreckage to determine the cause of the crash.

One man who saw the incident, Thiago Duarte, told Associated Press: "We were here watching the shooting in the woods... Suddenly a friend shouted 'the bullets reached the helicopter, it's going to come down!'

"It was clear that [the pilot] was trying to do everything to avoid falling over the shanty town or on the expressway, so it turned back and fell into the ditch."

On Sunday, police backed by an armoured vehicle carried out further operations, with at least two people arrested, another injured and a number of drugs seized.

Rio state security secretary Roberto Sa said police were investigating a territorial dispute between members of two favelas in western Rio.

If the helicopter was shot down by gang members, it would not be a first for the city, which hosted the 2016 Olympics.

In 2009, drug traffickers opened fire on a police helicopter, causing it to explode and crash land on a football pitch, killing both pilots.

Violence has been on the rise in Rio over the past two years following the failure of a 2010 programme to rid the favelas of drug gangs.

A total of 3,649 murders were reported in 2016 up until the end of September, a rise of almost 18% on the same period last year.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1681659-army-we-will-fight-russian-chinese-tanks

SHARE & EMBED
Army Analyst: We Will Fight Russian & Chinese Tanks, Weapons

KRIS OSBORN
Friday at 1:55 PM

After more than a decade of counterinsurgency warfare, the Army is now emphasizing major force-on-force mechanized warfare against Russia or Chinese weapons around the world.

The global proliferation of Russian and Chinese weapons massively increases the likelihood that US Army forces will confront tanks, drones, electronic warfare systems, precision munitions, armored vehicles and artillery made by near-peer competitors.

Although the prospect of major-power mechanized ground war between the US and Russia or China may not seem likely, the US Army is tasked with the need to be ready for any ground-combat scenario. What this means, Army leaders expained, is that the current and future combat environment the globe is both increasingly urban and armed with Russian and Chinese-made tanks and weapons.

Russian-built T-72 and T-90 tanks, Chinese drones, fighters and missiles are now part of Armies around the world who might wind up in conflict with the US. In particular, Pakistan is armed with Type 85-IIAP Chinese-built tanks and Iran is equipped with Russian-made T-72s. Even smaller countries, such as Bangladesh, have Chinese tanks. In addition, a far greater number of smaller countries such as Cuba, India and Lybia have Russian tanks. North Korea, not suprisingly, has both Russian and Chinese tanks.

Also, senior Army officials explaine that if US Army ground forces wind up on the ground in Syria, they will definitely wind up confronting Russian-built weapons. Although such a scenario may or may not happen, the prospect presents a very real threat to Army analysts and trainers.

"If the Army goes into ground combat in the Middle East, we will face equipment from Russia, Iran and in some cases China," a senior Army official told Scout Warrior.

Re-focused Army Training

The Army’s “live-fire” combat exercises involve large-scale battalion-on-battalion war scenarios wherein mechanized forces often clash with make-shift, “near-peer” enemies or enemy weapons using new technologies, drones, tanks, artillery, missiles and armored vehicles.

The Army is expanding its training and “live-fire” weapons focus to include a renewed ability to fight a massive, enemy force in an effort to transition from its decade-and-a-half of tested combat experience with dismounted infantry and counterinsurgency.

Recent ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have created an experienced and combat-tested force able to track, attack and kill small groups of enemies -- often blended into civilian populations, speeding in pick-up trucks or hiding within different types of terrain to stage ambushes.

“The Army has a tremendous amount of experience right now. It has depth but needs more breadth. We’re good at counterinsurgency and operations employing wide area security. Now, we may have to focus on 'Mounted Maneuver' operations over larger distances,” Rickey Smith, Deputy Chief of Staff, Training and Doctrine Command, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

While senior Army leaders are quick to emphasize that counterinsurgency is of course still important and the service plans to be ready for the widest possible range of conflict scenarios, there is nonetheless a marked and visible shift toward being ready to fight and win against a large-scale modernized enemy such as Russia or China.

The Army, naturally, does not single out these countries as enemies, train specifically to fight them or necessarily expect to go to war with them. However, recognizing the current and fast-changing threat environment, which includes existing tensions and rivalries with the aforementioned great powers, Army training is increasingly focused on ensuring they are ready for a mechanized force-on-force type engagement.

At the same time, while large-scale mechanized warfare is quite different than counterinsurgency, there are some areas of potential overlap between recent warfare and potential future great power conflict in a few key respects. The ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, over a period of more than a decade, involved the combat debut of various precision-guided land attack weapons such as GPS guided artillery and rocket weapons.

Weapons such as Excalibur, a GPS-guided 155m artillery round able to precisely destroy enemy targets at ranges greater than 30-kilometers, gave ground commanders an ability to pinpoint insurgent targets such as small gatherings of fighters, buildings and bomb-making locations. Guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System, or GLMRS, is another example; this precision guided long-range rocket, which can hit ranges up to 70-kilometers, was successful in killing Taliban targets in Afghanistan from great distances, among other things.

These kinds of precision munitions, first used in Iraq and Afghanistan, are the kind of weapon which would greatly assist land attack efforts in a massive force-on-force land war as well. They could target key locations behind enemy lines such as supplies, forces and mechanized vehicles.

Drones are another area of potential overlap. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan featured a veritable explosion in drone technology and drone use. For example, the Army had merely a handful of drones at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Now, the service operates thousands and has repeatedly relied upon them to find enemy locations, spot upcoming ambushes and save lives in combat. These are the kinds of platforms which would also be of great utility in a major land war. However, they would likely be used differently incorporating new tactics, techniques and procedures in a great power engagement.

“This is not back to the future…this is moving towards the future where Army forces will face adaptive enemies with greater lethality. This generation of Army leaders will orchestrate simultaneous Combined ArmsManeuver and Wide Area Security” Smith said.

Nevertheless, many Army leaders now experienced with counterinsurgency tactics will need to reexamine tactics needed for major conventional warfare.

“You have a generation of leaders who have to expand learning to conduct simultaneous ‘Combined Arms’ and 'Wide Area Security” Smith said.

“The Army has to be prepared across the entire range of military operations. One of these would be ‘near-peer’ operations, which is what we have not been fighting in recent years,” Smith explained.

Massive Land War "Decisive Action"

The new approach to this emerging integrated training is called “Decisive Action,” Maj. Gen. Wayne Grigsby, Commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said several months ago.

Grigsby explained that live-fire combat at Fort Riley, Kan., affords an opportunity to put these new strategies into effect.

“Every morning I could put a battalion on the north side and a battalion on the south side - and just joust working "Combined Arms Maneuver." I can do battalion-on-battalion and it does involve “Combined Arms” live fire,” said Grigsby. “Because of the airspace that we have here - and use the UAS - I can synchronize from 0-to-18,000 feet and do maneuver indirect fire.”

This includes the use of drones, Air Force air assets, Army attack aviation along with armored vehicles, artillery, tanks and infantry units equipped for small arms fire, he explained.

Some of the main tactics and techniques explored during “Decisive Action” live fire exercises include things like “kill what you shoot at,” “move to contact,” “synchronize indirect fire,” and “call-in 9-line,” (providing aircraft with attack coordinates from the ground), Grigsby said.

Grigsby explained that “live-fire” combat exercises now work to incorporate a wide range of emerging technologies so as to better anticipate the tactics, weapons and systems a future enemy is likely to employ; this includes the greater use of drones or unmanned systems, swarms of mini-drones in the future, emerging computing technology, tank-on-tank warfare tactics, electronic warfare, enemy aircraft and longer-range precision weaponry including anti-tank missiles, guided artillery and missiles.

In order to execute this kind of combat approach, the Army is adapting to more “Combined Arms Maneuver.” This warfare compentency seeks to synchronize a wide range of weapons, technologies and war assets in order to overwhelm, confuse and destroy an enemy force.

Smith likened “Combined Arms” to being almost like a symphony orchestra where each instrument is geared toward blending and contributing to an integrated overall musical effect.

In warfare, this would mean using tank-on-tank attacks, indirect fire or artillery, air defenses, air assets, networking technologies, drones, rockets, missiles and mortar all together to create a singular effect able to dominate the battlespace, Smith explained.

For example, air assets and artillery could be used to attack enemy tank or armored vehicle positions in order to allow tank units and infantry fighting vehicles to reposition for attack. The idea to create an integrated offensive attack – using things like Apache attack helicopters and drones from the air, long-range precision artillery on the ground joined by Abrams tanks and infantry fighting vehicles in a coordinated fashion.

Smith also explained how preparing for anticipated future threats also means fully understanding logistics and sustainment -- so that supplies, ammunition and other essentials can continue to fortify the war effort.

Current “Decisive Action” live fire training includes an emerging emphasis on “expeditionary” capability wherein the Army is ready to fight by tonight by rapidly deploying over large distances with an integrated force consisting of weapons, infantry, armored vehicles and other combat-relevant assets.

At the same time, this strategy relies, to some extent, on an ability to leverage a technological edge with a “Combined Arms” approach as well, networking systems and precision weapons able to destroy enemies from farther distances.

In order to incorporate these dynamics into live-fire training, Grigsby said the battalion -on-battalion combat exercises practice a “move to contact” over very large 620 kilometer distances.

“This builds that expeditionary mindset,” he explained.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-raids-idUSKBN13G0KA

World News | Mon Nov 21, 2016 | 8:30am EST

Saudi-led coalition says Yemen truce will not be renewed: TV

A two-day ceasefire after nearly two years of war in Yemen expired at midday (0900 GMT) on Monday and would not be renewed, a spokesman for a Saudi-led military coalition told al-Arabiya TV, with each side blaming the other for violations.

The 48-hour truce, announced unilaterally by the Saudi coalition on Friday, failed to halt fighting across the country between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi-led forces, which intervened on the side of the exiled government in March 2015.

The 20-month conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than three million.

Residents in the capital Sanaa said that Saudi-led coalition jets had bombed army bases on a mountain overlooking the city earlier on Monday, and the force of the explosions had shaken buildings in several city neighborhoods.

Sanaa is controlled by the Houthis, who still hold vast swathes of Yemen despite the Saudi-led military campaign gaining territory and not succeeding in restoring President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power.

Visiting neighboring Oman last Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that both sides had agreed to a deal whereby the Houthis would quit Yemen's major cities and the factions would form a national unity government.

But Hadi's government rejected the announcement that the warring parties had agreed to an open-ended truce and to work toward forming a joint government.

It said it was not consulted about the accord and objected to demands that the Houthis withdraw from cities they had captured since 2014.

The Houthis have also said the ceasefire was designed to undermine the agreement reached in Oman.

The Saudi coalition has made no comment on the deal.

Gulf Arab forces intervened in Yemen in March 2015, after the Houthis, backed by government troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, advanced on Hadi's temporary headquarters in Aden forcing him to flee to Saudi Arabia.

The Gulf Arab coalition had said the weekend truce would automatically be renewed if the other side abided by it.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Louise Ireland)

 

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World News | Mon Nov 21, 2016 | 8:29am EST

Suicide bomber kills dozens at Shi'ite mosque in Kabul

By Mirwais Harooni | KABUL

A suicide bomber killed more than 30 people and wounded dozens on Monday in an explosion at a crowded Shi'ite mosque in the Afghan capital Kabul, officials said, the third major attack on minority Shi'ites in the city since July.

The attacker entered the Baqir-ul-Olum mosque shortly after midday as worshippers gathered for Arbaeen, a Shi'ite ritual marking the end of a 40-day mourning period for the 7th century death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.

Fraidoon Obaidi, chief of the Kabul police Criminal Investigation Department, said at least 27 people were killed and 35 wounded.

The United Nations said at least 32 had been killed and more than 50 wounded, including many children. It described the attack as "an atrocity".

"I saw people screaming and covered in blood," one survivor told Afghanistan's Ariana Television, adding that around 40 dead and 80 wounded had been taken from the building before rescue services arrived at the scene.

Another witness said he had helped carry 30-35 bodies from the mosque.

Bloody sectarian rivalry between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims has been relatively rare in Afghanistan, a majority Sunni country, but the attack underlines the deadly new dimension that growing ethnic tension could bring to its decades-long conflict.

Already there had been two major recent attacks on Shi'ite targets in Kabul, both claimed by Islamic State.

One was on a demonstration by the mainly Shi'ite Hazara community in July which killed more than 80 people, in the deadliest attack on civilians since 2001.

Last month, 18 people were killed when a gunman in police uniform opened fire on worshippers gathered at a shrine in Kabul for Ashura, one of the holiest occasions in the Shi'ite calendar.

In addition, at least 14 people were killed in an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in northern Balkh province, for which no group has so far claimed responsibility.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday's attack, but the Taliban, seeking to reimpose strict Islamic law after they were toppled from power in 2001, denied any involvement.

"We have never attacked mosques as it's not our agenda," said the movement's main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid.

Officials said the attack was a deliberate attempt to stoke sectarian tensions.

Any resurgence of sectarian or ethnic violence could threaten the fragile stability of the government headed by President Ashraf Ghani, who described the mosque blast as an attempt "to sow seeds of discord".

Government Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said Afghanistan should not fall victim to "enemy plots that divide us by titles".

"This attack targeted innocent civilians - including children - in a holy place. It is a war crime & an act against Islam & humanity," he said in a message on his Twitter account.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in Afghanistan in the 15 years since the Taliban government was brought down in the U.S.-led campaign of 2001.

In July, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported that 1,601 civilians had been killed in the first half of the year alone, a record since it began collating figures in 2009.

(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Nick Macfie and Mike Collett-White)

 

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http://www.voanews.com/a/france-says-foiled-terror-attack/3605243.html

Europe

France says Foiled Terror Attack

November 21, 2016 7:27 AM
Reuters

PARIS —*France said it had foiled a militant plot and arrested seven people in the southern port city of Marseille and the eastern city of Strasbourg.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the seven people of French, Moroccan and Afghan origin, aged 29 to 37, had been detained on Sunday.

Two were arrested in Marseille. Most of the others, he said on Monday, were arrested in Strasbourg — a city where one of oldest and largest Christmas markets is set to open this week.

"An attack has been foiled... The scale of the terrorist threat is enormous and it is not possible to ensure zero risk despite everything we are doing," he added.

He gave no information on the target of the planned attack.

But a source close to the inquiry told Reuters that Strasbourg had not been targeted.
The mayor of Strasbourg said it appeared that the plot had focused on "the Paris region."

Islamist militants killed 17 people in Paris in January 2015 in an attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Another 130 people were killed when gunmen and suicide bombers attacked the capital in November 2015, and 86 more were killed when a man drove a truck into crowds in the city of Nice on July 14.

Islamic State, whose strongholds in Syria and Iraq are being bombed by French jets, has urged followers to continue attacking France.

 

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http://www.army-technology.com/features/featuregermanys-future-roadmap-5026307/

Analysis
NOV 21 2016

Build and rebuild: Germany's future defence strategy

The German Federal Ministry of Defence’s 2016 White Paper came with some sober assessments on the state of European and wider international security challenges. As Claire Apthorp finds out, peace and stability are no long a matter of course, even in Europe.

“The past years have shown that we must not take the achievements of the European post-war order for granted,” Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote in her introduction to the paper. “We would not have believed it possible that borders would be redrawn by military force and in breach of international law in Europe in the 21st century. Wars and conflicts are raging on Europe’s doorstep.”

A number of issues borne of this growing instability now pose a threat to Germany’s security: the migrant crises and resulting quick growth in Germany’s population, Islamist terrorism, the cyber challenge, and the shift in relationships with international partners, namely Russia, which is “rejecting a close partnership with the West and placing emphasis on strategic rivalry… presenting itself as an independent power centre with global ambitions,” according to the white paper.

Stronger together
Germany’s security is based on partnerships - a strong North Atlantic Alliance in NATO and a united European Union are fundamental to the nation’s security policy. In order to maintain and grow these partnerships – and take a more leading role within them - the white paper identifies a number of areas where this policy can be shaped to better suit the wider, less stable global context that Germany faces as it looks toward the third decade of the 21st century and beyond.

The white paper heralds a more active Germany that recognises the need to be more proactive in its own defence and that of its allies. Many welcome this change in tone. Since its reunification Germany has continued to be hesitant about the use of its military power, particularly in securing its own interests.

Mostly it has worked within the framework of the NATO alliance where there has been real need, such as in Kosovo and later in Afghanistan. It was also vehemently against the US invasion of Iraq – a position that in hindsight seems to have been correct. However, as security on the continent has worsened the German public has finally been convinced of the need for a more active defence policy.

More and better equipped soldiers
Key to this is an expansion of the country’s land forces, with plans to recruit nearly 14,300 soldiers over the next seven years in order to update the task spectrum of the Bundeswehr and meet the growing demands placed on it by military commitments and the increased expectations of its allies and partners.

Critically, a deeper pool of personnel will enable the German Army to improve its defence posture in the face of the changing character of conventional and collective defence that relies increasingly on short-notice deployments to face spatially focused threats. With operations no longer necessarily conducted in large contingents the army must be ready to “deliver effects across the entire operational spectrum and ensure that it is ready and capable,” as the white paper pointed out.

In doing so, the paper suggests that Germany will be more formally prepared to take a stronger role in military engagements outside NATO territory, loosening its previously firm stance that its military engagement outside NATO territory should be covered when possible by a UN Security Council mandate and take place in a NATO or EU framework.

In its July 2016 commentary on Germany’s new security strategy, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) pointed out that “Germany is participating, for example, in the US-led counter-ISIL coalition alongside European allies and partners in the region, with approval of the Bundestag. The white paper accepts the principle of ad hoc coalitions as a legitimate form of German military engagement. This endorsement in Germany’s highest strategy document ensures that Germany will be able to consider participation in other coalitions in the future as a matter of efficacy, not as a precedent-breaking example.”

A boost for Germany’s under-funded forces
The recruitment drive will be underpinned by an increased defence budget with an extra €5bn being added to the pot - from €34.2bn to €39.2bn by the end of the 2020s.

However, there is a lot to be done with this new and improved budget. The last few years have seen a number of reports leaked that show the extent to which Germany’s armed forces have been undermined by political neglect, budget cuts, equipment issues, and on-going programme overruns and cost blow outs.

A 2014 leaked parliamentary report published by the Washington Post showed a military force running on empty: three out of its four submarines are out of service, less than 40% of its Boxer armoured personnel carrier and infantry fighting vehicles are fit for operations, and only seven of the navy’s 42-strong fleet of NH90 tactical transport helicopters are flightworthy.

Germany’s NH90 programme is a prime example of the difficulties the military has faced in trying to arm its forces with world-class equipment while managing a budget in decline. The programme was initiated in the late 1980s, with the helicopter designed as a common helicopter with different variants for NATO requirements.

From its first flight in 1995 and delivery to German forces in 2006, the programme limped through delay after delay, including the loss of an aircraft in Uzbekistan in 2014 and the grounding of the entire fleet. The army was originally expected to order around 200 aircraft, but will end up with a fleet of only around 82 aircraft by the time deliveries complete in 2021.

Is it enough?
Beyond such equipment considerations, commentators question whether the white paper goes far enough. It sets out a vision for Germany’s defence in the future, but there are few concrete proposals of how to reach that state.

In addition, although the extra funds are welcome, it still leaves German defence spending well below the 2% threshold considered adequate by NATO and once you dig deeper in to the figures, spending on new equipment also falls short of the 20% figure usually quoted as sufficient for a NATO nation.

Although the white paper sets out the ideal of a new, more active German defence policy, it will prove a long hard march for the army and its sister services to shape themselves to the future.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/11/trump-nato-europe-germany/508229/

What Happens to NATO Now?
The alliance faces two possible paths ahead. One is disintegration.

Graffiti on a brick wall in the U.K. spells out "SPEND."
Can the U.S. president make a deal?Darren Staples / Reuters
BRUCE ACKERMAN 4:50 AM ET

“Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing,” then-presidential candidate Donald Trump mused in August, “if we actually got along with Russia and worked out some kind of deal where we go and knock the hell out of ISIS along with NATO and along with the countries that are in that area?” At other times, however, Trump publicly imagined himself engaged in a very different NATO initiative. Under this scenario, he would denounce America’s European allies as freeloaders and force them to accept a deal requiring them to pay a much bigger share of the alliance’s defense burden.

On first glance, these two initiatives don’t seem mutually exclusive, and Trump will be tempted to pursue both of them once he becomes president. But he’ll soon discover that he can’t have it both ways, and it is all too likely that his partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin will lead to the dramatic weakening of NATO.

To see the risks involved, suppose that Trump follows through on his idea of joining Putin in an all-out war in support of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in Syria—as he put it, “Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS.”

As they announce their alliance in the Mideast, the two strongmen solemnly declare that they will also extend their détente to Eastern Europe, where military tensions have recently been escalating. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its air and naval forces have been engaging in a series of hostile incursions along the European frontier. In response, NATO has launched its own build-up—to the point where it will be placing St. Petersburg within firing distance of short-range missiles (that could carry nuclear warheads). Given their Mideastern partnership, it would only make sense for Putin and Trump to call a halt to this dangerous escalation, and announce their intention to engage in future confidence-building measures.

But as their war against Assad’s enemies drags on for months and years, suppose that Putin reconsiders this larger détente. He begins preliminary planning for a Ukrainian-style takeover of the Baltic states. Under this scenario, local Russian minorities in Estonia or Latvia engage in “spontaneous” uprisings backed by poorly disguised Russian ground troops streaming across their borders. In weighing this aggressive strategic shift, Putin recognizes that the Baltic countries, unlike Ukraine, are members of NATO, and thereby entitled to protection under Article 5 of the alliance’s treaty. Nevertheless, perhaps Trump and others might be willing to blink and accept Putin’s loud assertions that his troops had nothing to do with the seizure of power by natives sympathetic to the Russian cause?

Here is where Trump’s parallel effort to force Europe to stop the NATO “free-loading” becomes important. When highlighting the problem in his 2017 State of the Union, America’s new president could make a very strong case for his initiative. He could emphasize that the Europeans themselves have pledged that each NATO country would devote 2 percent of its GDP to military expenditure—and yet all major Continental powers have failed to fulfill their commitments. Germany, for example, has only invested 1.2 percent of GDP in defense. Nevertheless, given Europe’s massive fiscal crisis, the Continental powers will predictably try to deflect Trump’s demand for big increases—generating a series of bitter confrontations that will put grave stress on traditional trans-Atlantic understandings.

As Putin observes the trans-Atlantic name-calling, he will be sorely tempted to take his chances on a rerun of a Ukrainian-style takeover. As the Russians encourage their initial round of “spontaneous” uprisings, Trump will suddenly confront his moment of truth: Will he abandon his Middle Eastern alliance with Putin, and support decisive NATO action to repel the looming Russian threat? Or will he be so disgusted by the squabbling Europeans that he will permit the slow-motion incorporation of chunks of the Baltic states into the Russian Federation—and destroy the credibility of NATO’s guarantee of mutual defense?

Long-distance psychoanalysis isn’t my specialty, but I could readily imagine Trump telling the “selfish” Europeans to go to hell—employing a rhetorical variation on his response to the prospect of war between North Korea and America’s long-time ally, Japan: “Good luck. Enjoy yourself, folks.” As NATO disintegrates, the Russians will reestablish an expanding sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. In the meantime, Western Europeans will desperately remilitarize to defend themselves, since they can no longer count on the United States to help counter future threats.

This nightmare scenario suggests that Trump cannot responsibly delay a choice between Putin and NATO. If he chooses NATO, the president-elect, once in office, should refuse to join Russia in all-out support for the Assad dictatorship. It is far better for him to make an independent break with Obama’s failed strategies in the Middle East. This will allow Trump to make a burden-shifting agreement with NATO one of his primary objectives.

Suppose that Trump puts NATO first. Is there any reason to think that the Europeans, beset by so many other problems, will go along with a substantial hike in their defense contributions?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will play a central role here. As the Continent’s economic powerhouse, Germany will have to accept a big share of the increased burden. At the same time, it has a powerful national interest in keeping the Eastern frontier as far east as possible. If NATO disintegrates, Germany will be forced to increase its military investments dramatically in response to Putin’s advances in Eastern Europe. The trillions it will then spend would far exceed the sums that Trump will be demanding.

In contrast, a successful agreement with Trump will sharply reduce the chances of Russian aggression. Consider that Putin presides over a declining and aging population of about 140 million, whose prosperity is heavily dependent on oil prices. His military only looks formidable if Trump moves in the direction of détente with Russia. Once Trump has reaffirmed America’s commitment to the alliance, only a foolish adventurer would attempt a Baltic takeover—and Putin is no fool.

Nevertheless, Merkel will have a tough time gaining political support for a reasonable deal with Trump. While she has recently backed plans for increased military investment, she will have trouble sustaining political momentum for this initiative. She faces a serious electoral test next year, with the extreme Right gaining substantial parliamentary representation for the first time in modern German history. She is likely to emerge from the elections at the head of a broad coalition which includes leftist parties with strong pacifist leanings. They are likely to urge her to reject any big hike in expenditure, on the grounds that it will propel the country down the path of militarization that led to such catastrophe in the 20th century. Similar dynamics will confront other European leaders. Will they rise to the occasion and try to convince their fellow citizens that a reinvigorated trans-Atlantic alliance is worth the price demanded by the self-promoting deal-maker from Washington?

We won’t find out unless President Trump makes a New Deal on NATO a high priority—and successfully trades a renewed American commitment to defend the Eastern European frontier for a new European commitment to bear a fair share of the costs. He is deluding himself if he thinks he can have it both ways, and also try to make America Great Again with the aid of Vladimir Putin.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...ms-it-overran-district-center-in-kandahar.php

Taliban claims it overran district center in Kandahar

BY BILL ROGGIO | November 21st, 2016 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio

The Taliban claimed it seized control of Ghorak district in Kandahar province on Nov. 19. The claim cannot be independently verified in the Afghan press, but in the past the district has been hotly contested and Taliban has overrun it.

From the Taliban statement that was released on Voice of Jihad:

A recent report arriving from Ghorak district of southern Kandahar province say that, enemy troops of the said district administration center and a military base were force to flee this noon with the help of a large military convoy and helicopters towards Maiwand district, giving the district center completely to Mujahideen.

According to details the said district center was under tight besiege of Mujahideen for the past some time.
Mujahideen are chasing the enemy in the area, a reinforcement truck has been destroyed while an APC was shred into pieces by an IED attack, inflecting heavy casualties on enemy.

It must be mentioned that, at least 55 gunmen were killed and a sizable amount of weapons were sized when 2 enemy bases and 2 posts were overrun in the said district some time ago.

The Taliban previously claimed to have taken control of Ghorak in mid-October 2015. Based on press reports, FDD’s Long War Journal had previously assessed Ghorak to be contested. As recently as Nov. 18, a report in Xinhua said that “security forces’ presence is slim” in the district. On Nov. 15, Afghan officials said that all schools in Ghorak were closed due to “security problems,” Zee News reported.

The security situation in Kandahar province has been difficult to assess. FDD’s Long War Journal estimated that three of Kandahar’s 15 districts are under Taliban control (Ghorak, Registan, Shorabak). Anecdotal press reports indicate that the districts of Arghistan, Khakrez, Maiwand, Shah Wali Kot, and Zhari are contested, but this cannot be confirmed.

Ghorak is situated along a belt of Taliban-controlled or contested districts in southern Afghanistan that spans the provinces of Farah, Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar. Ghorak borders Helmand province, where the Taliban controls six and contests seven of the 14 districts. Ghorak also borders Uruzgan, where the Taliban controls one and contests five of the six districts.

The Taliban has used this southern safe haven to directly threaten the capitals of Farah, Helmand, and Uruzgan. Afghan forces, backed by US advisers and airstrikes, have struggled to stave off Taliban offensives against the capitals of these three provinces.

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

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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...reconciled-with-afghan-government-in-2008.php

Bagram suicide bomber reconciled with Afghan government in 2008

BY BILL ROGGIO | November 16th, 2016 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
The Taliban suicide bomber who killed two American soldiers and two contractors at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan’s central province of Parwan on Nov. 12 had joined the Afghan government’s “peace process” and reconciled in 2008. He then received a job at Bagram Air Base, which he then used to execute his attack. The Bagram attack took place as US soldiers and other Americans on the base were commemorating Veterans Day with a 5K run.

From Pajhwok Afghan News:

He had been working at the largest US military base in Afghanistan for the past five years, said the Bagram district’s administrative chief, Abdul Shakoor Qudusi,

[Qudusi] identified the bomber as Qari Naib, 23, who hailed from the Laghmani village of the district. Naib’s brother and father have been arrested by police.

Wahid Sediqui, the governor’s spokesman, endorsed the district chief’s view and said Naib had received vocational training on metalwork provided by South Korea.

It is unclear if the suicide bomber remained a Taliban plant at Bagram for the eight years since he joined the peace process, or if he was recently persuaded by the Taliban to rejoin its ranks and execute the attack. The Taliban does have a department, known as “Call and Guidance, Luring and Integration,” which encourages Afghan security personnel and workers to defect. This department was created by the Taliban’s founder and first emir, Mullah Omar, and has been instrumental in getting Afghan security personnel to attack US and NATO troops. [See Threat Matrix report, Mullah Omar addresses green-on-blue attacks.]

The Bagram attack is worrisome as the base is one of the most secure facilities in Afghanistan, and is a major hub for US air operations in Afghanistan. The US and NATO are both heavily reliant on local Afghans to provide key services as the number of troops near an all-time low (the US has less than 10,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan). Afghans who work at US facilities will increasingly come under more pressure to help the Taliban as the group continues to make gains across the country.

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

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.defensenews.com/articles/chinas-maritime-militia-a-growing-concern

China’s Maritime Militia a Growing Concern

By: Christopher P. Cavas, November 21, 2016 (Photo Credit: US Navy)

*WASHINGTON Near the top of US Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift’s concerns is China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), and close behind is the country’s burgeoning Coast Guard. But a third government-controlled seagoing force, the little-known and somewhat mysterious maritime militia, is drawing increased attention.

“Let’s be careful to not characterize them as, you know, a rag-tag group of fishermen. They’re well organized,” Swift told a small group of reporters in Washington Nov. 18.

The militia, Swift said, “are structured. [Chinese president] Xi Jinping has gone to visit them, recognized them publicly for their great efforts.”

The militia “are operating largely independently out there or in groups,” Swift said. And while not strictly a military force, the militia, to Swift, are not acting randomly.

“I think they have a clear command and control. It’s transparent to me,” he said.

Chinese officials routinely deny any government connection, and have described the militia as fishermen wearing camouflage uniforms for sun protection. On at least one occasion they were referred to as a film crew. Their ships have had a strong hand in numerous encounters at sea and on one occasion obstructed a US Navy surveillance ship and tried to snatch its towed listening gear.

“There needs to be precision in how we talk about the maritime militia,” Swift said. “I’ve made it clear in my conversations with my counterparts that they’re being commanded and controlled. And if they’re being command-and-controlled I have an obligation to treat them exactly like I do any other unit that’s being command-and-controlled.”

Swift noted that relationships with the Chinese Navy remain professional, and lauded the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a 2014 agreement establishing procedures and protocols to keep incidents from escalating in scale or becoming violent. At least 21 countries have signed the agreement, including China, but not every Chinese maritime agency is taking part.

“CUES has been incredibly important in reducing the uncertainty,” Swift said. “We have a mechanism now that has diminished the impact of the language barrier, we have a mechanism to communicate that transcends the differences between Chinese and English with the PLAN. That was a very positive step.”

The US has been urging the Chinese Coast Guard to join the agreement, but so far to no avail.

“We’re going to continue to push at it,” Swift said. “We’re making some progress, the conversation is deepening, but it’s been difficult to have the conversation, even to start the conversation.”

One obstacle to getting the Chinese Coast Guard on board may be internal politics. The service was formed only in 2013 when five different maritime agencies – often referred to as the five dragons – were brought together.

“I don’t think they’ve fully integrated themselves,” Swift observed, and noted the possibility of another traditional sticking point – money.

“There’s still a lot of competition between the PLAN and the Chinese Coast Guard from a financial point,” he noted.

Swift said he enjoys personal relationships with most Chinese Navy fleet commanders.

“As I talk to my counterparts in China – the South Sea Fleet commander, the East Sea Fleet commander, the North Sea Fleet commander – I know these gentlemen personally. [People’s Liberation Army Navy commander] Admiral Wu Shengli, I know him personally as well.

“The discussions we’ve had is that we have more than an obligation to ensure that a tactical event doesn’t occur that takes away maneuver space from our two presidents. We have a responsibility as maritime leaders to ensure that tactical forces don’t get so wrapped up in the rhetoric that’s occurring at the national level or the international level that they don’t think they’re defending the sovereignty of whatever their national position is.

“On the US side as well, I caution my commanders on a regular basis about their obligations and responsibilities to the ultimate authority, which is our commander in chief.

“We have complete unanimity and agreement when I talk to my Chinese counterparts,” Swift added. “That’s absolutely the case.”

But opening up communications with the maritime militia remains a vexation.

“I haven’t even pushed at the problem of bringing CUES to them because I can’t get anyone to acknowledge the veracity of who they are. I can’t get that conversation started,” Swift said.

“I don’t know how to make sure we can communicate with them other than for me to continue to say that the Pacific Fleet will continue to hold anyone responsible that is being directed to execute operations that are counter to freedom of navigation.”

It’s not even clear to the US why China created the maritime militia.

“I haven’t started the process of trying to understand the mechanisms that China has walked through to come to the conclusion that they need a Maritime Militia,” Swift admitted. “The fact is that it is there. Let’s acknowledge that it’s there. Let’s acknowledge how it’s being command-and-controlled.

“I’m concerned about it. I want dialogue, and the dialogue’s not happening,” Swift said. “I’d love to have a discussion with my Chinese counterparts – whoever’s running them. What is the intent?”

Swift again praised the Chinese Navy for maintaining navy-to-navy relationships.

“Even when we have disagreements, some of the best conversations I have are with my Chinese counterparts,” Swift said. “They’re precise. They have a level of clarity to them. We understand what the core issues are. We have disagreements because our governments have different policy positions, but we understand the ramifications of getting it wrong.

“That’s where I think we need to drive to. And I’m hopeful.”

Another Pacific player, however, is ratcheting up tensions in the region, Swift said, and he pointed to a series of provocative exercises between the Russian and Chinese navies.

“There has been a series of bilateral maritime exercises between China and Russia,” Swift noted. “At first they were in the Yellow Sea, kind of a safe place to do it. The next series was in the Sea of Japan – a little more edgy. Japan was pretty focused as were South Korea and others as well.

“And now they’ve done one in the South China Sea, which is even edgier. So that’s another example of angst and uncertainty.”

Russia is not a CUES signatory.

An “Upgunned ESG”

Swift also is trying out new surface ship constructs to see if his warships can’t increase their effectiveness. Under his aegis, a three-ship destroyer surface action group (SAG) just completed a western Pacific deployment during which it was controlled by the California-based Third Fleet rather than the Seventh Fleet in Japan – a move he termed “a laboratory.”

A repeat SAG is not yet planned, but in late 2017 Swift intends to deploy what he’s calling an “upgunned ESG,” or expeditionary strike group, built around the big-deck amphibious assault ship Wasp operating F-35B Joint Strike Fighters. The Wasp will be accompanied by the other ships of its Japan-based amphibious ready group (ARG) carrying US Marines from the 31 st Marine Expeditionary Unit in Okinawa.

But the ARG will be expanded to an ESG by adding three surface ships, likely guided-missile destroyers.

“We’ll have the same command-and-control structure as a carrier strike group,” Swift said. “The SAG will be made up of three ships that would have been independent deployers.”

The commander of the Seventh Fleet amphibious force, a rear admiral, will be embarked aboard Wasp, Swift noted – an upgrade from the senior-grade captain that normally commands an ARG. The enhanced air group and larger surface force, Swift said, “gives you so much more situational awareness that I think it takes a flag officer and his staff to manage that.”

Air operations are likely to more closely resemble those of an aircraft carrier and, as with a carrier strike group, one of the destroyers will defend the big-deck amphib as an air warfare commander, Swift said.

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[Housecarl]

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/11/22/world/africa/ap-af-nigeria-boko-haram.html?_r=0

Africa

Boko Haram Besieging Villages in Chibok Area, Say Leaders

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOV. 22, 2016, 5:36 A.M. E.S.T.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Boko Haram fighters are overrunning villages near the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok, forcing hundreds of people to flee as the insurgents loot and burn in the area where nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped in 2014, local leaders said Tuesday.

"Chibok is now under Boko Haram siege," the chairman of the Chibok local government area, Yaga Yarkawa, told journalists Tuesday in Maiduguri, the birthplace of Nigeria's homegrown Islamic extremist group some 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Chibok.

The accounts of Boko Haram violence around Chibok, along with multiple suicide bombings in Maiduguri city and attacks on army outposts raise doubts about military and government claims that the 7-year-old insurgency is nearly defeated. Instead, the rebels have stepped up attacks as the rainy season draws to an end, making them more mobile.

Nine villages within 25 kilometers (16 miles) of Chibok town have been razed in the past two weeks with the most recent attack at Thlaimaklama at the weekend, Yarkawa said.

Boko Haram is employing scorched earth tactics, rustling livestock, looting crops just ready to harvest, and burning homes and what crops they cannot carry, he said. "Contrary to claims by government and security operatives, Chibok is not safe."

It's not known if anyone has been killed because people are too scared to go back to the deserted villages, civilian self-defense fighter Bulama Abogu said. No soldiers have intervened, he said.

Many of the villages fringe on the Sambisa Forest, where Nigerian security forces have been carrying out near-daily air bombardments and ground attacks in which they have freed thousands of Boko Haram captives and cut food supplies.

The forest stronghold was where Boko Haram initially took 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from the government high school at Chibok April 14, 2014. Nigeria's government last month secured the first negotiated release of 21 Chibok girls. Another Chibok girl escaped captivity in May and one was rescued in an army raid earlier this month. The government says it is conducting negotiations with Boko Haram for the freedom of nearly 200 Chibok girls remaining in captivity.

The chief of army staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, last week insisted that "the terrorists have been defeated" and said the army is conducting "mop-up operations aimed at ensuring that we clear the rest of them."

That is disputed by former Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who said at the weekend that "The insurgents still occupy a specific geographical space. They still retain the capacity for occasional deadly attacks. Many citizens in the zone still remain vulnerable and live in fear."

Some Boko Haram fighters are moving south into east-central Taraba state, according to some recent reports. There are fears that as the extremists come under greater military pressure Boko Haram fighters will disguise themselves as nomadic Fulani herders, who are blamed for deadly conflicts for land and water with farmers in central Nigeria, said analyst Jacob Zenn.

The Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people, spread across Nigeria's borders and created 2.6 million refugees and a humanitarian crisis that the U.N. estimates has 14 million people in desperate need of food aid.
___
Faul reported from Lagos, Nigeria.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.eurasiareview.com/22112016-indias-nuclear-doctrine-time-for-a-review-analysis/

India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Time For A Review? – Analysis

BY IPCS NOVEMBER 22, 2016
By Gurmeet Kanwal*

The fragile security environment in Southern Asia is marked by territorial disputes and radical extremism, among other threats and challenges to peace and stability. The security environment has been further vitiated by the proxy war being waged against India (and against Afghanistan) by the Pakistan army and the ISI – the ‘deep state’ – through terrorist organisations like the LeT and the JeM.

While the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks at Mumbai in November 2008 are still to be brought to justice by the authorities in Pakistan, recent terrorist attacks in India have occurred at Gurdaspur, Udhampur, Pathankot, Pampore and Uri. India’s patience had worn thin and the public outcry to punish Pakistan was growing by the day when the Indian army launched surgical strikes across the LoC in September 2016.

In case there is a major terrorist strike in India (on a politically sensitive target, with damage to critical infrastructure and large-scale casualties) with credible evidence of state sponsorship from Pakistan, the Indian government will have no option but to retaliate militarily. Though the Indian response will be carefully calibrated, any military retaliation runs the risk of escalation to a larger conflict with nuclear overtones.

Most Indian analysts believe that there is space for conventional conflict below the nuclear threshold as long as care is taken to avoid crossing Pakistan’s nuclear red lines (space, military, economic and political). Pakistani analysts aver that Pakistan has a low nuclear threshold and that Indian forces ingressing into Pakistani territory will be confronted with tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) to stop their advance and force them to retreat.

It must be noted that the term ‘TNW’ is used in a colloquial sense as it is widely in use. There is no such thing as the ‘tactical’ use of nuclear weapons; their impact is strategic and their consequences are likely to be geo-strategic. Perhaps the term ‘battlefield’ use of nuclear weapons would be preferable.

Pakistan has been developing what it calls ‘full spectrum deterrence’ from the strategic to the tactical, from IRBMs (Shaheen 1, 2 and 3) and nuclear glide bombs delivered by fighter-bomber aircraft, cruise missiles (Babar and Ra’ad) to surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) launched from surface ships. The 60 km range, Hatf-9, Nasr SRBM is claimed to be tipped with a TNW.

India’s ‘credible minimum deterrence’ nuclear doctrine professing a ‘no first use’ posture is predicated on massive retaliation to a nuclear first strike. While the doctrine suffices to deter a first strike on Indian cities due to the certainty of massive retaliation, its efficacy in a contingency resulting in the use of TNWs against Indian troops on Pakistani territory needs to be debated.

After the Pokhran tests of May 1998, a draft nuclear doctrine was prepared by the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) headed by K Subrahmanyam. It was handed over to the government on 17 August 1999. The draft doctrine was debated within the government by various stakeholders. After several meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the government issued a statement on 4 January 2003, spelling out India’s nuclear doctrine and expressing satisfaction with the operationalisation of its nuclear deterrent. The government statement included the following salient features:

- India will build and maintain a credible minimum deterrent; follow a No First Use posture; and, will use nuclear weapons only “in retaliation against a nuclear attack on Indian territory or on Indian forces anywhere”
- It was also affirmed that nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage
- Retaliatory attacks will be authorised only by the civilian political leadership through the Nuclear Command Authority
- Nuclear weapons will not be used against non-nuclear weapon states
- India will retain the option of retaliating with nuclear weapons in the event of a major attack against it with biological or chemical weapons
- Continuance of strict controls on export of nuclear and missile-related materials and technologies, participation in FMCT negotiations, continued moratorium on nuclear testing
- Continued commitment to the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world, through global, verifiable and non-discriminatory disarmament.

In the decade and a half since the nuclear doctrine was unveiled by the government, several organisations and individuals have commented on it. Some of them have been critical of the NFU posture. Among them, Bharat Karnad (author of Nuclear Weapons and India’s Security, Macmillan, 2004) has consistently questioned the NFU posture. He has written: “NFU may be useful as political rhetoric and make for stability in situations short of war. But as a serious war-planning predicate, it is a liability. NFU is not in the least credible, because it requires India to first absorb a nuclear attack before responding in kind.”

Former PM Manmohan Singh, while speaking at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, on 2 April 2014, called for a global ‘no first use’ norm. He said, “States possessing nuclear weapons… [must] quickly move to the establishment of a global no-first-use norm…” This was followed by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) promising in its election manifesto to review India’s nuclear doctrine to “study in detail India’s nuclear doctrine, and revise and update it, to make it relevant to challenges of current times…” and to “maintain a credible minimum deterrent that is in tune with changing geostrategic realities.” Some BJP leaders hinted that the NFU posture would also be reviewed. However, sensing the international criticism that was bound to follow, Narendra Modi, BJP’s PM candidate, emphasised that there would be ‘no compromise’ on no first use. Regardless of election-time rhetoric, it is necessary that important government policies must be reviewed periodically with a view to examining and re-validating their key features.

Criticism of the nuclear doctrine has mainly been centred on the following key issues:

- The NFU posture is likely to result in unacceptably high initial casualties and damage to Indian cities and infrastructure;
- The threat of ‘massive’ retaliation lacks credibility, especially in retaliation to first use of TNWs against Indian forces on the adversary’s own territory;
- Nuclear retaliation for a chemical or biological attack would be illogical, as such attacks could be launched by non-state actors with or without state support;
- And, it would be difficult to determine what constitutes a ‘major’ chemical or biological strike.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said recently that he wondered whether India’s nuclear doctrine should be constrained by a no first use posture. He mentioned the advantages of unpredictability and said, “If a written strategy exists…you are giving away your strength. Why should India bind itself [to no first use]? India is a responsible nuclear power and…[it should suffice to say that] we will not use nuclear weapons irresponsibly.”

The essence of the Defence Minister’s introspection was that ambiguity enhances deterrence. This view has been expressed by several nuclear strategists. However, he emphasised several times that there was no change in India’s nuclear doctrine and that he was expressing a personal view. While he has been criticised, there can be no doubt that fresh thinking is invaluable to the discourse on the subject.

As almost fourteen years have passed since the doctrine was first enunciated, in the debate that followed the Defence Minister’s comments on no first use, several analysts have suggested that the nuclear doctrine needs to be reviewed. In fact, a review should be carried out every five years. The government should initiate the process to review the nuclear doctrine, but the review should not be confined to official circles only. It should include a wider debate with participation by think-tanks and individual analysts. Each facet pertaining to the doctrine must be discussed.

*Gurmeet Kanwal
Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-iran-un-idUSKBN13H2B9

World News | Tue Nov 22, 2016 | 2:49pm EST

Israel accuses Iran of sending Hezbollah arms on commercial flights

By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS

Israel has accused Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of using commercial airline flights to ship weapons to the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah.

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon accused Iran of using airlines such as Mahan Air. The United States has sanctioned the Iranian carrier for providing services to the Quds Force, a special forces unit of the IRGC, as well as Hezbollah.

Iran's mission to the United Nations and Mahar Air were not immediately available to comment on the accusations.

Danon wrote that Quds Force officers pack arms and materiel into suitcases that are transferred to Hezbollah either by commercial flights to Beirut or commercial flights to Damascus in Syria, and then transferred by land to Lebanon.

"It is clear that Iran is still the primary supplier of arms and related materiel to Hezbollah, in blatant violation of numerous Security Council resolutions," Danon wrote. "The Security Council must condemn Iran and Hezbollah for the violation of its resolutions."

Danon's letter to the 15-member Security Council, seen by Reuters, did not offer any evidence to support his accusations.

The charge may add fuel to the debate about the agreement among Iran, the United States and five other nations to remove some of the economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restraints on the country's alleged nuclear weapons program.

U.N. Security Council missile restrictions and an arms embargo on Iran are not technically part of the nuclear agreement.

Also In World News
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and several of his national security appointees have criticized the nuclear deal and charged that it does not do enough to halt the Islamic Republic's support for terrorism."Stop all engines on this nuclear deal. Take a step back. Really take a deep-dive look at everything going on in the Middle East," former Defense Intelligence Agency head Michael Flynn, Trump's choice for national security adviser, said in a Fox News interview in March.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by John Walcott and Jonathan Oatis)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-missiles-analysis-idUSKBN13H1UU

World News | Tue Nov 22, 2016 | 11:08am EST

Houthi missile arsenal holds a key to future Yemen peace

By Noah Browning | DUBAI

A U.N. peace plan for Yemen seeks to deprive the country's armed Houthi movement of its missile arsenal which Yemeni security sources say includes scores and maybe even hundreds of Soviet-era ballistic missiles pointed at their foes in Saudi Arabia.

But whether the Iran-allied group will abandon the missiles hidden in mountainous ravines which have given them regional clout despite 20 months of punishing war is an open question.

The group possesses Scud missiles, shorter-range Tochka and anti-ship missiles, and unguided Grad and Katyusha rockets, the security sources told Reuters. It has even manufactured smaller home-made rockets with names like "Volcano" and "Steadfast".

Retaining them could fortify the Houthis in a permanently armed enclave like fellow Iran-allied groups Hamas and Hezbollah - deepening the regional power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran and unnerving key shipping lanes such as the Gulf of Aden through which most of the world's oil is transported.

Western and regional powers have long worried that complex internal rivalries and an active al Qaeda branch could push Yemen toward chaos - fears which largely materialized last year.

A Saudi-led military coalition has staged thousands of air strikes on the Houthis since the group toppled the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and fanned out across the country in March 2015.

While Iran has strongly denied aiding the Houthis, Saudi concerns that the Houthis are the proxies of their regional arch-rival sparked their intervention.

FATE OF PLAN IN DOUBT

The conflict has now killed 10,000 people while hunger and disease stalk the country which even before the war was awash with guns and plagued by poverty.

But the Houthis may feel ceding Yemen's most powerful weapons to neutral officers and becoming a political party as envisioned by the U.N. plan may leave them vulnerable to attack.

"When the Houthis seized (the capital) Sanaa, they assumed total control of state institutions, key posts in the army and all the missiles," a senior Yemeni security official said, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"Relinquishing the security apparatus will be the most important step toward what the country needs most - putting the state back together," the official added.

A 48-hour ceasefire aimed at paving the way for peace talks and a unity government expired on Monday, the latest in a series of failed truces which leave the fate of the U.N. plan in doubt.

Saudi-led bombings have repeatedly struck underground missile silos, sending mushroom clouds exploding over Sanaa.

Early in the war, the coalition said it had destroyed 80 percent of the country's stockpile of 300 ballistic missiles.

Yet the Houthis have managed to launch dozens of them at pro-government forces inside Yemen and at Saudi Arabia throughout the war, including just outside the holy city of Mecca some 600km (370 miles) north of the country.

While Scuds are notoriously inaccurate and most appear to have been shot down by Saudi Patriot missiles acquired from the United States, the projectiles have unnerved Gulf Arab states.

SEIZED FROM ARMY STORES

Seized by the Houthis from army stores after their takeover, Yemen's missiles were amassed over the course of decades in legal acquisitions from the Soviet Union and North Korea.

The Houthis have upgraded some missiles to maximize their range, and their technical savvy in local manufacture of smaller rockets and several deadly launches may suggest foreign help, military analysts say.

A Tochka ballistic missile attack last September killed more than 60 Emirati, Saudi and Bahraini troops outside the central city of Marib and another killed the Saudi intelligence chief for Yemen and a senior Emirati officer in the southwest.

Speaking to Reuters, an anti-Houthi tribal commander said his scouts spotted what they said were members of the Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah aiding the Marib strike.

"My men reported spotting the missile launcher accompanied by several cars carrying Hezbollah advisers - we referred the information to the coalition but we got no response," the commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, said it lacked evidence of a Hezbollah link to those attacks but believed the Houthis receive their help.

"We have information that there are Lebanese working with the (Houthi) militias belonging to Hezbollah ... We know they are there, we know they help them renew and maintain the missiles," Asseri told Reuters.

Yemeni, Western and Iranian officials told Reuters that Iran has stepped up transfers of missiles and other weapons to the group in recent months.

Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman, a spokesman for Yemen's pro-Houthi military, denied in a statement this month that their forces had ever received Iranian aid.
Iran and Hezbollah have also strongly denied aiding them.

GATE OF TEARS

Houthi missiles have also rattled shipping passing through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, Arabic for "Gate of Tears", on the Red Sea. The group fired a conventional ship missile at an Emirati military craft on Oct. 1 and a ballistic missile a week later at pro-government forces on tiny Mayun Island sitting astride the 25.6-km-wide (16-mile) waterway's narrowest point.

The United States bombed radar stations along the Houthi-controlled coast after it said a U.S. warship in the strait was unsuccessfully attacked by several land-to-sea missiles - an accusation the Houthis denied.

"It's an extremely worrying sign, and the technology used from small speed boats to the missiles shows imitation, at the very least, of naval patterns Iran has used in the Gulf," said one diplomat, who declined to be identified.

But expanding of the conflict seaward may seek to convince Saudi Arabia and its ally the United States that the Houthis refuse to cede their still-dominant political position inside Yemen despite the drawn-out and bloody conflict.

"It appears to be their way of saying, 'look over here, we're capable of internationalizing this conflict - take our position seriously,'" another diplomat said.

POWER STRUGGLE

A peace plan hammered out by the United Nations has exiled Hadi effectively resigning in exchange for the Houthis quitting main cities and handing over arms to neutral army units.

While Hadi fiercely opposes the scheme, diplomats and Yemeni officials say his coalition backers have tired of the stalemated conflict and could accept his exit, if it removed the Houthi military threat to their borders.

The Houthis have accepted the U.N. deal, which would allow its seasoned fighters to retain their light weapons, something that could allow them to retain power in national politics.

"The Houthis have sought out guarantees that they won't face a sudden attack from within Yemen and that they will retain a major political role," a Yemeni diplomatic source told Reuters.

A Houthi official suggested its refusal to demobilize was a patriotic resistance to foreign plots and guaranteed order.

"It is important to note here the conspiracy against the missile forces in Yemen," Hamid Rizq wrote on the group's news website al-Masira last month. "(There has been) an American conspiracy to dismantle the Yemeni army through so-called 'restructuring' ... to pave the way for the spread of chaos."

(Editing by William Maclean and Peter Millership)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-up...y-dismisses-15000-more-after-coup-bid-2016-11

UPDATE 3-From soldiers to midwives, Turkey dismisses 15,000 more after coup bid

Reuters
7h

* Doctors, nurses, tax inspectors among those sacked

* Turkey blames U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen for coup

* Erdogan says cleric's network not yet fully cleansed

* European lawmakers want end to EU membership talks (Adds Erdogan quotes, European Parliament)

By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Nick Tattersall

ANKARA/ISTANBUL, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Turkey dismissed 15,000 more state employees on Tuesday, from soldiers and police officers to tax inspectors and midwives, and shut 375 institutions and several news outlets, deepening purges carried out since a failed coup.

The dismissals, announced in two decrees, bring to more than 125,000 the number of people sacked or suspended in the military, civil service, judiciary and elsewhere since July's coup attempt. About 36,000 have been jailed pending trial in the crackdown condemned by Western allies and rights groups.

President Tayyip Erdogan said the measures had significantly weakened the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose followers are blamed by Ankara for infiltrating state institutions over several decades and carrying out the attempted putsch.

But he made clear the purges were not yet over.

"We know they have not been completely cleansed. They are still present in our military, in our police force, in our judiciary," he told a conference on policing in his palace.

"We will not leave our country to them, we will not let them consume this nation. We will do whatever is necessary," he said.

The coup and its aftermath have shaken confidence in the stability of Turkey, a NATO member key to the fight against Islamic State and a bulwark for Europe against the conflicts raging in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.

The crackdown has covered a vast range of professions - often where links to Gulen's network are unclear - including doctors, nurses and midwives. Dismissals are announced in the Official Gazette with no reasons given beyond "membership of, or links to, terrorist organisations or groups deemed to be acting against national security interests".

Some of the accused have been targeted for having accounts with a bank once controlled by Gulen's followers, being members of an opposition union, or using a smartphone messaging app seen by the authorities as a Gulenist communications tool, according to Turkish media reports.

European allies have criticised the breadth of the purges, and EU parliament lawmakers called on Tuesday for a freezing of Turkey's EU membership talks. A senior U.N. official has described the measures as "draconian" and "unjustified".

Erdogan has rejected such criticism, saying Turkey is determined to root out its enemies at home and abroad, and could reintroduce the death penalty. He has accused Western nations of siding with coup plotters and of harbouring terrorists.

'SOLD THEIR SOULS'

Ankara blames Gulen and his network, which it refers to as the "Gulenist Terror Organisation" (FETO), for the events of July 15, in which more than 240 people were killed as rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter jets and helicopters, bombing parliament and other key buildings.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania in the United States since 1999, denies involvement.

"There is no place in this ... land drenched with the blood of martyrs for those who sold their souls to Pennsylvania, the separatist terrorist organisation, or any other illegal organisation," Erdogan said.

He frequently uses "Pennsylvania" as shorthand for the cleric's network. The "separatist organisation" is a reference to the Kurdish PKK group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey's southeast.

Nearly 2,000 members of the armed forces, 7,600 police officers, 400 members of the gendarmerie, and more than 5,000 public workers, including nurses, doctors and engineers, were dismissed in Tuesday's decrees for suspected links to terrorist organisations.

The Official Gazette made clear they would not be able to claim any severance or seek any other job in public service. The decrees were issued under the emergency rule imposed in the wake of the failed coup, which allows Erdogan and the government to bypass parliament.

Erdogan's opponents say the purges go well beyond a crackdown on suspected Gulenists and are being used to crush dissent. Those accused are often unable to find other work and ostracised in their community, with Turkish media reports saying some have committed suicide before their trials can begin.

Pro-Kurdish politicians have been detained in a parallel crackdown, accused of links to the PKK, including the leaders of parliament's second-largest opposition grouping the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

EUROPEAN OUTRAGE

On top of Tuesday's decrees, authorities issued arrest warrants for 60 people, including air force pilots in the central city of Konya, over suspected Gulenist links. More than 300 pilots have already been detained or dismissed.

In another operation around Istanbul, 19 prison staff including the warden of Turkey's largest jail Silivri were held on suspicion of using smartphone messaging app ByLock, which authorities say is used by Gulen's network.

A trial also began on Tuesday of Gulen, in absentia, and 72 other people accused of trying to overthrow Turkey's government. The case pre-dates the coup attempt, but is likely to be expanded to include charges related to the events of July 15.

Arrest warrants were also issued for 22 executives from telecoms firm Turk Telekom, the Hurriyet newspaper said. It said 12 of them had been detained in an operation spanning four provinces. Turk Telekom shares fell 0.7 percent, underperforming a 0.5 percent rise on the Istanbul stock index.

Tuesday's decrees also announced the closure of 375 institutions or associations, including minority rights groups, lawyers' associations and women's groups. The decrees also shut 18 charities and nine media outlets. Turkey has closed more than 130 media outlets since July.

Guy Verhofstadt, head of the Liberals in the European Parliament, said the assembly was calling for EU officials to suspend negotiations with Turkey over membership of the bloc.

"Dozens of media outlets closed, members of parliament penalised or put in jail, there is a debate on the death penalty, there is more and more political control of the judiciary ... Our relationship with Turkey becomes more and more of a liability," he told a news conference on Tuesday. (Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul, Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Pravin Char)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-india-cross-border-fire-kills-civilians-kashmir/3608217.html

Asia

Pakistan: Cross-Border Indian Fire Kills 11 Civilians, 3 Troops**

Last Updated: November 23, 2016 6:51 AM
Ayaz Gul

ISLAMABAD —*Pakistan says cross-border firing by India Wednesday killed at least 11 civilians and three soldiers in the disputed Kashmir region.

The military claimed retaliatory fire by Pakistani troops also killed at least seven Indian soldiers. But it did not cite sources for giving the toll for the other side and India has not yet responded to the claims.

The Pakistani civilian casualties occurred in the Neelam Valley near the Line of Control, or LoC, which divides the Himalayan region between India and Pakistan.
Officials said that the Indian fire struck a passenger bus and the death toll was likely to increase.

Pakistan military’s media wing alleged Indian troops also targeted an ambulance that was sent for evacuation. Residents in Neelam told VOA they were forced to flee to take refuge in bunkers around their villages shortly after the early morning clashes erupted.

The latest skirmishes came a day after the Indian Army vowed retribution for killing three of its soldiers by Pakistani troops across the de facto Kashmir border.

One of the bodies had been allegedly mutilated, charges Pakistani military officials rejected as “a fabrication.”

Indian army officials have not yet commented on the bus attack but confirmed ceasefire violations by Pakistan "all along the Line of Control" in Kashmir.

Both countries have been routinely trading fire in Kashmir in recent months, rendering a 2003 mutual ceasefire understanding ineffective.

The clashes have caused military and civilian casualties on both sides and raised fears of another wider conflict between India and Pakistan.

“India also maintained direct military pressure on Pakistan through deployment of advanced weapons systems, offensive troops positioning to refine the (Indian) capacity of a surprise attack [against Pakistan],” warned Pakistani foreign policy advisor, Sartaj Aziz.

He told a conference of South Asian experts in Islamabad that tensions on the eastern border are undermining Pakistan’s ongoing counterterrorism efforts to secure its 2,600-kilometer porous frontier with Afghanistan.

“India has increased ceasefire violations on the LoC (in Kashmir) to constrain Pakistan army’s ability to deploy more resources on its western borders with Afghanistan,” Aziz asserted.

Around 200,000 Pakistani troops have already been engaged in major operations against local and foreign terrorist groups in the volatile borderland blamed for deadly attacks in both the countries.

Tension between India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons, have been running high since September when suspected Islamist militants raided an Indian military base in Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers.

New Delhi alleged the assault originated from the Pakistani side of Kashmir, charges Islamabad rejected.

Days later the Indian army claimed it had conducted retaliatory “surgical strikes” on militant bases near the LoC in Pakistani Kashmir, assertions Pakistan rejected as “fabricated and politically motivated.”

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/23/bara...roblem-and-it-looks-like-its-north-korea.html

Barack Obama warned Donald Trump about one very specific problem and it looks like it’s North Korea

Christine Wang | @christiiineeee
1 Hour Ago
Comments 25

The outgoing Obama administration has told Donald Trump's transition team that North Korea is the top national security issue, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with conversations.

Officials, who have grown increasingly concerned about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, are now pushing for a more assertive response, the Journal said.

CNBC previously reported that North Korea's nuclear capability may be the No.1 foreign policy threat for the incoming Trump administration. Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, said the issue will be given a high priority under the new administration, Reuters reported last week citing a South Korean official who spoke with Flynn.

U.S. and China have already agreed on new U.N. sanctions to impose on the isolated communist state in the wake of its September nuclear test, Reuters reported on Wednesday citing a senior Security Council diplomat. The measures would include a crackdown on North Korea's coal exports and targeted sanctions of a global travel ban and asset freeze, the diplomat told Reuters.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2016/1123/Iran-to-US-honor-nuclear-deal-or-else

First Look

Iran to US: honor nuclear deal, or else

Momentum is building in Washington and among Iranian hard-liners to oppose the deal and renew sanctions against Iran.

By Ben Rosen, Staff November 23, 2016

A week after the US House of Representatives reauthorized a 20-year-old law to renew sanctions against Iran, the country’s supreme leader said any passage of the law by the US Senate and president would lead to a retaliation.

“Definitely, the Islamic Republic of Iran will show a reaction,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to his website. He did not elaborate on the reaction.

While Mr. Khamenei has repeatedly said the United States has violated its end of the one-year-old nuclear deal, the House’s passage of the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) last week could herald an official step away from the landmark agreement. It is also a further manifestation of reactions to the deal: While the Obama administration and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani seek to uphold the deal, some members of Congress and Iranian hard-liners have sought to dismantle because, they say, the other side already has violated some of its terms.

The deal reached in July 2015 required Iran cap its nuclear program in exchange for lifting of sanctions against it.

As the Christian Science Monitor’s Scott Peterson this past summer, “all sides have strictly adhered to the letter of the deal .”

Iran has dramatically reduced the scale of its nuclear infrastructure – reconfiguring a heavy water nuclear reactor and a deeply buried uranium enrichment facility, for example – while keeping a limited capacity to produce fuel for nuclear energy. And non-nuclear sanctions have been lifted, partially ushering Iran back into the global economy.

The deal is said to have prevented a new US war in the Middle East that, as the Monitor’s Howard LaFranchi wrote, at times, during the past decade, seemed near.

But momentum has been building in the US and Iran to oppose the deal. After the US House reauthorized the ISA, there is widespread support in the Senate, according to the Associated Press. The law was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran’s energy industry and deter Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. While it must be signed by President Obama to become law, if it were, the act would extend sanctions for another 10 years.

Republicans in Congress have unanimously opposed the agreement. But some Democratic senators who originally supported the deal have shifted their stances as well. In July, they said they support Senate action aimed to “strengthen” the deal and counter Iran’s “aggressive behavior.”

Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington and a critic of the deal, told the Monitor in July that the main reason for opposition is that members of Congress see Iran has been emboldened to act even more aggressively, undertaking controversial ballistic missile testing, for example.

“Yes, the Iranians have given up some nuclear technology and infrastructure – all of which they could easily reconstitute,” said Mr. Dubowitz. “But at the same time they’ve been very smart about doing things to impede the administration from pushing back against Iran’s malign activities.”

That same month, a group of 75 national security leaders released a letter to Mr. Obama that extolled the deal’s accomplishments and called for using the deal to expand engagement with Iran. But opposition within Congress and under a Trump administration could impede that. President-elect Donald Trump has also criticized the nuclear deal.

In response to this building opposition, Khamenei has said the US has violated the deal by “various violations” so far. The Khamenei regime has been warning Iranians not to expect the nuclear deal to last 10 years, Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, told the Monitor.

The US House of Representatives also passed a bill last week that would block the sale of commercial aircraft by The Boeing Company and Airbus to Iran.

Still, sanctions relief has already brought benefits to Iran “such as oil production returning to pre-sanctions levels; a boost of trade with the European Union by 22 percent; and $3.5 billion of a foreign direct investment in Iran in the first quarter of 2016 –*breaking a decade-long record,” Mr. Peterson reported for the Monitor.

This report contains material from the Associated Press and Reuters.*

 

[Housecarl]

FUNG RED ALERT: Turkish Soldiers Killed by Syrian Airstrikes...The Turks Were Targeted
Started by doctor_fungcool‎, Today 02:43 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...y-Syrian-Airstrikes...The-Turks-Were-Targeted

-

Vladimir Putin launches 4,000mph supersonic missile that could reach UK in 13 minutes
Started by China Connection‎, Today 01:38 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nic-missile-that-could-reach-UK-in-13-minutes

Russia Is Reviving Soviet Era ICBM-Carrying "Nuclear Trains"
Started by Possible Impact‎, Yesterday 04:22 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...et-Era-ICBM-Carrying-quot-Nuclear-Trains-quot

--

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http://www.independent.ie/world-new...-missiles-on-baltic-angers-nato-35241029.html

Russian build-up of missiles on Baltic angers Nato

Marc Bennetts
PUBLISHED
24/11/2016 | 02:307 COMMENTS

Nato has accused Russia of stoking tensions in Europe by deploying anti-ship missiles to its westernmost Baltic region.

The alliance described President Vladimir Putin's decision to send state-of-the-art Bastion missile-launchers to Kaliningrad, which borders Nato members Poland and Lithuania, as "aggressive military posturing".

In a statement to the AP news agency, it said the Kremlin's move would do nothing to "lower tensions or restore predictability to our relations".

It came shortly after US state department spokesman John Kirby called Russia's plans to permanently deploy its S-400 air missile defence system and ballistic Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad "destabilising to European security".

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov hit back at Mr Kirby's comments, branding Nato an "aggressive" military alliance.

"Russia does what it has to do. It has every sovereign right to take necessary measures throughout the territory of the Russian Federation," Mr Peskov said.

Viktor Ozerov, chairman of the defence committee in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, said Moscow's deployment of the Iskander missiles was a response to the US missile shield in Eastern Europe.

The United States activated the first phase of its land-based missile defence system in Romania in May. Another stage is due to come into operation in Poland in 2018.

Russia has long been opposed to the missile shield, which it calls a danger to its national security. Nato said it is intended to guard against attack by 'rogue' states such as North Korea.

Russia also criticised a report that claimed Russian tankers had smuggled jet fuel to Syria through EU waters in contravention of European sanctions.

At least two Russian-flagged ships made deliveries, an intelligence source with a European Union government told Reuters.

The source said the jet fuel was delivered to war-torn Syria via Cyprus.
Tensions

Russia's defence ministry said its tankers had been taking the fuel to its forces in Syria and that EU sanctions did not "concern" Moscow.

"Russia, like Britain of late, is not a member of the European Union," read the defence ministry statement, in reference to Brexit.

Tensions also mounted between Russia and Ukraine, after Moscow accused the Ukrainian security service of abducting two of its soldiers near the border between Russian-annexed Crimea and Ukraine.

Kiev said the men, named as Ensign Maxim Odintsov and Junior Sergeant Alexander Baranov by the Russian defence ministry, served in the Ukrainian army before deserting to Russia following Moscow's seizure of Crimea in March 2014.

It said they were detained on Sunday after crossing the Chongar checkpoint into Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called the men's capture "an unlawful act of provocation carried out by Ukrainian special services toward Russian citizens on Russian soil".

Irish Independent

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.rferl.org/a/finland-defense-baltic/28136317.html

RUSSIA

Finnish Defense Minister Warns Of Accidents Amid Baltic Sea Buildup

November 24, 2016

Finland's defense minister has warned of the potential of accidents or unforeseen confrontations amid the ongoing military buildup in the Baltic Sea.

Jussi Niinisto made the comments on November 23 in an interview on with Finnish MTV3 News.

"We naturally support detente. And we practice an active policy of stability," he said. "We'd like to see the military situation calm down in the Baltic Sea, rather than escalate."

Finland, which is not a part of NATO or any Russia-led alliance, has watched with growing concern the increased number of Russian naval ships, military aircraft overflights and coastal defenses in and around the Baltic.

Russia recently moved advanced Iskander missiles, with the potential for nuclear warheads, to the Kaliningrad exclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania.

NATO has responded with increased U.S. naval patrols, and military aircraft intercepts, including from the three ex-Soviet Baltic states.

Finland is a member of the European Union and could be called on to help the Baltic countries, if Russia threatened them.

Niinisto said he hadn't seen "any inclination among the Russian leadership to threaten" Finland.

Based on reporting by AP

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-deplo...tems-on-disputed-kurile-islands/28133041.html

RUSSIA

Russia Deploys Coastal Missile Systems On Disputed Kurile Islands

November 22, 2016

Russia says it has deployed Bal and Bastion coastal missile systems on the disputed Kurile Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The Russian Pacific Fleet's Boyevaya Vakhta (Combat Watch) newspaper reported on November 22 that the missile systems have entered into service on the islands of Iturup and Kunashir.

The Bastion system has been developed to defend coastal areas stretching more than 600 kilometers and destroy surface ships. The Bal system's antiship missile has a range of 120 kilometers.

Tokyo-Moscow relations have been hampered for decades by a dispute over the Kurile Islands, which Soviet troops seized at the end of the World War II.

Lingering tensions over the islands have prevented Japan and Russia from ever signing a peace treaty to formally end the war.

Based on reporting by RIA and Interfax