Category Archives: Analysis

U.S. officials say key Iraqi refinery isn’t actually all that key

Foreign Policy reports: Despite the recent focus by Iraqi and American officials on the importance of defending and holding the Iraqi oil refinery at Baiji, the Defense Department made a sharp reversal on Wednesday, claiming that the site doesn’t actually matter as they used to say.

The refinery is “not strategically any more significant than any other piece of ground” in Iraq, Defense Department spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

In recent days, Islamic State fighters have breached the perimeter of the facility and established a foothold inside the refinery, though Warren declined to estimate how much ground they now hold or if the Iraqi forces inside were being reinforced or resupplied in any way.

“At this point it’s impossible to predict how this is going to turn out,” Warren said. “It’s been a tough, fluid fight [and] right now it’s flowing in the wrong direction.”

His comments represent a stark change in attitude over the fate of the facility than had been put forth by top U.S. and Iraqi officials as recently as mid-April, when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Washington.

Speaking to reporters on April 16, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey called Baiji “a more strategic target” than places like Ramadi because of the centrality of oil to the Iraqi economy. “That’s why the focus right now is in fact on Baiji,” he said. [Continue reading…]

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Nomi Prins: Hillary, Bill, and the big six banks

She eats at Chipotle. (Order: chicken burrito bowl.) She travels by van. (Model: A Chevy Express Explorer Limited SE nicknamed the “Scooby” van.) She barely figures in her own presidential campaign announcement video. (Entrance timing: A minute and a half into the two-minute clip.) Her campaign staff is so cheap they don’t have business cards, they commute by Bolt Bus, and they aren’t even equipped with real phones.

This is the “new” Hillary Clinton in the early days of her 2016 presidential bid. Absent — for now — are the swagger, the grand pronouncements, the packed gymnasiums and auditoriums, and the claques of well-paid consultants falling over each other to advise and guide her that we saw in Clinton’s last presidential bid. This time around, Clinton is casting herself in a new role: as the humble and understated people’s candidate. She cares about “everyday Iowans” and “everyday Granite Staters.” She really does! Her carefully staged events with those “everyday” Americans at small-town coffee shops and local businesses give her the chance to “share ideas to tackle today’s problems and demonstrate her commitment to earning their votes.”

This effort to recast Clinton as a folksy, down-to-earth, woman of we-the-people is, however, about to collide with the reality of American politics in the money-crazed, post-Citizens United era. Winning the White House in 2016 will cost somewhere between $1 billion and $3 billion — money raised by the candidate’s own campaign and outside groups like super PACs and dark-money nonprofits. And this in an election where it’s already estimated that the overall money may hit $10 billion. Jeb Bush, arguably the most formidable candidate in the GOP field, is on his way to raising $100 million in just the first few months of 2015, a year and a half before the actual election. The prospect of being drastically outgunned by Bush has prodded Clinton to speed up her fundraising schedule and hit the donor circles in New York City and Washington in settings that couldn’t be more removed from the local Chipotle. “I need to get out there earlier,” Politico quoted her telling one of her aides.

In the coming months, whatever hours Clinton spends introducing herself to voters in small-town America, she will spend hundreds more raising money in four-star hotels and multimillion-dollar homes in Hollywood and San Francisco, New York and Boston, Washington and Miami. She will court wealthy liberals across the land and urge them to collectively give tens of millions of dollars to her campaign. The question underlying this inevitable mad dash for cash isn’t “Can Hillary Clinton raise the funds?” The Clintons are practiced buckrakers.

The question is: “Can Clinton claim to stand for ‘everyday Americans,’ while hauling in huge sums of cash from the very wealthiest of us?”

This much cannot be disputed: Clinton’s connections to the financiers and bankers of this country — and this country’s campaigns — run deep, as Nomi Prins, former Wall Street exec and author of All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power (just out in paperback), writes in today’s dispatch. As she documents in her book, the Clintons have longstanding ties to the mightiest banks on Wall Street. Those alliances will prove vital as Hillary tries to keep up in the “money primary” of the 2016 campaign. But as she tries to appeal to working and middle class people, you can expect her opponents to use Clinton’s Wall Street connections against her. And it’s reasonable to ask: Who counts more to such a candidate, the person you met over that chicken burrito bowl or the Citigroup partner you met over crudités and caviar? Andy Kroll

The Clintons and their banker friends
The Wall Street connection (1992 to 2016)
By Nomi Prins

[This piece has been adapted and updated by Nomi Prins from chapters 18 and 19 of her book All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, just out in paperback (Nation Books).]

The past, especially the political past, doesn’t just provide clues to the present. In the realm of the presidency and Wall Street, it provides an ongoing pathway for political-financial relationships and policies that remain a threat to the American economy going forward.

When Hillary Clinton video-announced her bid for the Oval Office, she claimed she wanted to be a “champion” for the American people. Since then, she has attempted to recast herself as a populist and distance herself from some of the policies of her husband. But Bill Clinton did not become president without sharing the friendships, associations, and ideologies of the elite banking sect, nor will Hillary Clinton.  Such relationships run too deep and are too longstanding.

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What sort of wunderkind was Aaron Swartz?

Ed Lake writes: Who was Aaron Swartz? I never met him, though I’ve had dealings with friends of his over the years. The outline of his biography is a matter of public record: teenaged computer whizz gets rich, becomes a political activist and ends up in his 20s facing decades in jail for murky charges related to the misappropriation of academic journal articles. That much is on Wikipedia.

If that isn’t intimate enough, perhaps his character comes through in the tributes that poured onto the internet following Swartz’s suicide in 2013. The signature notes of tenderness, exasperation and awe, in reminiscences from Tim Berners-Lee, Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow and many other notable mentors, certainly conjure a fleeting presence. Nevertheless, in the end, the person is irrecoverable, and those of us who weren’t lucky enough to know him never will.

‘What was Aaron Swartz?’, on the other hand, seems like both a tractable and a worthwhile question, not least because a decent answer ought to say something about where we are now. Swartz positioned himself at the exact spot where technology and politics press noses and glare at one another. It’s a Silicon Valley joke (or perhaps just a Silicon Valley joke) that every idiot with a dating app says he wants to change the world, but Swartz seems really to have meant it. He quit money the way PayPal’s co-founder Peter Thiel wants smart kids to quit college. He became a white-hat hacker among the levers of state power.

And things ended, not just badly, but dismally, in a sulphurous halfworld of G-men, prosecutorial intimidation and forced betrayals. It is, I suspect, impossible to learn anything about the young activist’s story without starting to see it as a symbol of something ominous in our present chunk of history. But what? [Continue reading…]

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Saudi effort isn’t the beginning of the end of Assad

Hassan Hassan writes: Saudi Arabia’s role in the Syrian conflict has been the subject of much speculation. Are the recent rebel gains in northern, central and southern Syria part of an escalation against Iranian-backed forces? Do these gains mark the beginning of the end for Bashar Al Assad?

Saudi Arabia has previously supported large-scale operations against the Syrian regime but those operations lacked a strategy. High expectations during such operations often led to disappointment and played into the regime’s hands.

It is clear that this time is different. Conversations within policy circles in the Gulf indicate that the regime’s downfall is not necessarily the goal right now. Nor is it to compel the Assad regime to negotiate. Instead, the goal is simply to project power through the rebels against Iran’s allies.

There is also an intention to strengthen Sunni militias to build stability. Various political and military forces within the country will be working towards one goal despite their different allegiances. Beyond influence, opposition forces will be backed to potentially lead future Syria. To achieve these goals, Saudi Arabia is working closely with Turkey and Qatar.

However, the gains made by the rebels in the north have little to do with Saudi Arabia. Turkey and Qatar have provided financial support to their allies. For more than a year, aid to groups widely known to be supported by Turkey and Qatar was blocked because of resistance from the US and Saudi Arabia. That changed recently and the rebels have since gained momentum.

There have been other key factors. Rebels in the north are working with more harmony than ever before. Ideologically aligned forces also worked in separate groups but closely coordinated with others through separate operations rooms. [Continue reading…]

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Why Assad is losing

Charles Lister writes: After roughly two years of being on the defensive, Syria’s rebels are making dramatic gains in the north of the country. In the span of six weeks, coalitions of insurgent fighters captured the city of Idlib and won a series of key strategic victories elsewhere in the governorate. In the face of the opposition, the Syrian Army and its supporting militias appear at their weakest point since early 2013.

However, while much of the subsequent commentary proclaimed this as the beginning of the end for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, we are still a long way from that. In fact, the regime reacted to its dramatic losses in the north by carrying out hundreds of air strikes, barrel bombings, and chlorine attacks in rural Idlib, Hama, and Aleppo. Regime ground offensives were launched in eastern Damascus, in areas of Homs, and in the mountains around Zabadani near the Lebanese border. Meanwhile, a major joint regime-Hezbollah offensive in the Qalamoun mountains now also looks imminent.

So what is happening in Syria? Recent events have clearly tipped the psychological scales back into the opposition’s favor: Losses in Idlib and the southern governorate of Deraa have placed great pressure on Assad, whose severe manpower shortages are becoming more evident by the day. Frustration, disaffection and even incidences of protest are rising across Assad’s most ardent areas of support on Syria’s coast — some of which are now under direct attack. Hezbollah is stretched thin and even Iranian forces have begun withdrawing to the areas of Syria deemed to be the most important for regime survival.

The regime is no longer militarily capable of launching definitively successful operations outside of its most valuable territories, while its capacity for defense against concerted attack now appears questionable at best. It also looks diplomatically weaker, as Russia appears no longer wedded to the Assad regime’s long-term survival and is now more open to the idea of a managed transition that would ensure the best chances of post-regime stability. Meanwhile, Iran’s apparent rapprochement with the United States and its expected involvement in talks in Geneva convened by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura may open the door for, at the very least, discussions of a negotiated solution in Syria.

However, diplomacy alone will be unlikely to provide a path out of Syria’s conflict. Even as a broad swathe of the international community talks behind closed doors about launching a major new diplomatic initiative on Syria, it will ultimately be military pressure inside Syria that will determine whether such an initiative has any chance of success. [Continue reading…]

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Within two decades, global oil demand will start to fall

Amy Myers Jaffe writes: When it comes to oil demand, the conventional wisdom is clear: Population growth and a rising global middle class guarantee that demand — and prices — will rise over the coming decades. It is a story line that is almost universally accepted by investors, governments and industry alike.

But like many such consensus views, it is one that should be treated with caution.

The world’s economy is experiencing transformational changes that, I believe, will dramatically alter patterns of energy use over the next 20 years. Exponential gains in industrial productivity, software-assisted logistics, rapid urbanization, increased political turmoil in key regions of the developing world, and large bets on renewable energy are among the many factors that will combine to slow the previous breakneck growth for oil.

The result, in my opinion, is as startling as it is world-changing: Global oil demand will peak within the next two decades.

The geopolitical and economic implications of peaking demand will be huge. The fall in the importance of Saudi Arabia is already palpable, with all the major powers from the U.S. to China more willing to accommodate Saudi archrival Iran. In addition, Russia’s ability to use oil as a weapon will wane, as will the economic leverage of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. As economic growth becomes increasingly disconnected from oil, world powers will likely shift their attention to other increasingly scarce resources that will be equally critical to economic well-being, such as food, water and minerals. A greater interest in Africa, for example, is already starting to emerge. [Continue reading…]

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Tikrit: Iraq’s abandoned city

Zaid Al-Ali writes: On June 11, 2014, Mahmoud, a sixty-year-old employee at a school in Tikrit, Iraq, drove home for his afternoon nap. Thirty minutes later, he received a frantic call from a friend in Baghdad who demanded to know if TV reports that ISIS had taken over the city were accurate. Mahmoud dismissed them; after all, he had noticed nothing unusual during his drive home; nor had he heard any gunfire or other commotion from his house, which was near the main road. As he drove back to his school, however, he was shocked to see ISIS fighters driving around unopposed. As he soon learned, a contingent of just thirty militants in seven vehicles had seized control in the time it took him to have his nap. Iraq’s security forces, on which 100 billion dollars of Iraq’s money had been spent between 2006 to 2014, had simply melted away.

Located on the Tigris about one hundred miles northwest of Baghdad, Tikrit was an orderly former Baathist stronghold that had avoided the worst of the country’s recent conflicts. But over the next nine months, ISIS would remake the entire city administration, massacre vast numbers of soldiers and tribesmen, and impose its own harsh strictures on everyone from women and civil servants to smokers and lawyers. By the time Iraqi forces backed by US warplanes finally retook the city on April 3, following nearly a month of fighting, Tikrit was a hollow shell of its former self, and almost all of its population of about 200,000 was displaced. In the weeks since the liberation, many are seeking answers to some vital questions: How did ISIS take over the city so quickly in the first place? And what does Tikrit’s experience reveal about the way ISIS rules?

On June 10, 2014, when ISIS quickly overran Mosul—Iraq’s second largest city, 140 miles further north—Tikritis were confident that their own city would remain under Baghdad’s control. Though it was overwhelmingly Sunni, Tikrit had little tradition of sectarianism and Shia Iraqis who lived in or visited the city did not feel threatened. With a strong police presence and a major army base, Camp Speicher, it was also one of the few places in Iraq where safety was not a major concern. During the civil conflict (2005-2007), when Mosul and Fallujah burned, Tikrit’s shops and government offices were almost always open, and property prices soared. Children went to school; students and faculty filled the university every day. I visited regularly, sometimes with my wife and son, and forged lasting relationships with many of the city’s inhabitants.

Few people realized that ISIS had been preparing for the takeover for several years. As early as 2011 and 2012, when jihadist groups were becoming increasingly active in the Syrian conflict, Tikriti businesses were threatened by Islamist militants who were extorting money for their activities in Syria. During the summer of 2012, Youssef, the owner of a Tikriti IT shop, received a call on his cellphone. “We know that you want to do what is right, so give us what is owed to us,” the caller said. Youssef asked what they wanted. “100,000 dollars, that is our share.” Enraged, Youssef asked, “Who are you?” The answer came without hesitation: “The Islamic State.” The threat to Youssef’s life and business were clear so there was no question that some money would be changing hands. The two parties negotiated over a period of weeks, always over the phone, and finally agreed to lower the amount to 50,000 dollars, which he was told to transfer to someone in Samarra. The blackmailers acted with complete impunity and made no attempt to conceal their activities. I heard similar stories from other businessmen. [Continue reading…]

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The war in Yemen is splitting us

Ruba al-Eryani writes: Last week, after finishing my morning lectures, I called my family in Yemen – a daily routine since the escalation of the conflict last month.

“Most of the windows in the house are shattered. But the Saudis have stopped [striking] for now,” my dad said. “Oh, wait, I was wrong. They’re at it again.”

Except, they weren’t. The ‘pounding’ my father was hearing was my nine-year-old brother in the next room beating cushions with his fists as he imitated the sound of airstrikes.

Ever since a Saudi-led coalition launched ‘Operation Decisive Storm’ – a bombing campaign that aims to reinstate President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and push back Houthis rebels – I have been struggling to sleep. Caught between two time zones, the gulf between my life as a university student abroad and that as an activist watching Yemen fall apart, widens every day. [Continue reading…]

Middle East Eye reports: Weeks of airstrikes by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition have devastated Yemen’s northern province of Saada, a remote stronghold of the Shiite Houthis who the coalition are trying to drive back.

“The Saudis have decimated Saada. They bombed roads, government buildings, schools and military sites,” Muammar al-Thari, the deputy governor of Saada, told Middle East Eye by telephone on Monday.

Al-Thari said the province was a “disaster area,” and that he was sending appeals to international rights organisations to pressure Saudi Arabia to halt the airstrikes.

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U.S. needs to stop tiptoeing around the ‘killer robots’ threat

Mary Wareham writes: When it comes to banning “killer robots,” the United States is going to take some convincing. That was one major take-away from April’s multilateral meeting on the matter where a US delegation joined 90 other nations at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss what to do about the development of “lethal autonomous weapons systems.”

In November 2012, the US became the first nation to articulate a detailed policy on killer robots, citing a long list of concerns and obstacles that would have to be overcome before developing and acquiring them. It has been careful, however, to stress that Department of Defense Directive 3000.09 “neither encourages nor prohibits the development” of future autonomous weapons systems.

Indeed, it appears that of all nations, the US is the farthest along in moving toward fully autonomous weapons. Last November, The New York Times reviewed several examples of missile systems with various degrees and forms of human control under development or in use by the US, Israel, Norway, and the UK.

Despite its investment in “semi-autonomous” weapons, the US has been one of the strongest supporters of international talks on questions relating to the emerging technology of lethal autonomous weapons systems held by the Convention on Conventional Weapons. The US participated actively in the meetings in May 2014 and April 2015. But the US’s eagerness to engage in talks about such weapons should fool no one into believing it supports a ban. At the discussions last month it was one of only two nations (the other was Israel) saying that the door should remain open for future development and acquisition of these weapons. [Continue reading…]

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The IDF’s new tactics

Neve Gordon writes: Several months ago, a young woman working in Kibbutz Dorot’s carrot fields noticed a piece of paper lying on the ground with a short inscription in Arabic. It looked like a treasure map. She put it in her pocket. Some time later, she gave it to her friend Avihai, who works for Breaking the Silence, an organisation of military veterans who collect testimony from Israeli soldiers to provide a record of everyday life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Avihai was in the middle of interviewing soldiers about their experiences during Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip last summer. He recognised the piece of paper as a leaflet that had been dropped by an Israeli plane above Palestinian neighbourhoods in the northern part of the Strip; the wind had blown it six miles from its intended landing point.

The leaflet helps explain why 70 per cent of the 2220 Palestinians killed during the war were civilians. The red line on the map traces a route from a bright blue area labelled Beit Lahia, a Palestinian town of 60,000 inhabitants at the north edge of the Strip, and moves south through Muaskar Jabalia to Jabalia city. The text reads:

Military Notification to the Residents of Beit Lahia

The IDF will be undertaking forceful and assertive air operations against terrorist elements and infrastructure in the locations from which they launch their missiles at the State of Israel. These locations include:

From east Atatra to Salatin Street. From west [unclear] to Jabalia Camp.

You must evacuate your homes immediately and head toward southern Jabalia town along the following road:

Falluja Road, until 12 noon, Sunday 13 July 2014.

The IDF does not intend to harm you or your families. These operations are temporary and will be of short duration. Any person, however, who violates these instructions and does not evacuate his home immediately puts his own life as well as the lives of his household in danger. Those who take heed will be spared.

‘The significance of this leaflet,’ Yehuda Shaul, the founder of Breaking the Silence, told me, ‘cannot be appreciated fully without reading our new report.’ The report is made up of 111 testimonies, provided by around seventy soldiers who participated in the fighting.

One thing is immediately clear from the interviews: the IDF’s working assumption was that once the leaflets were dropped, anyone who refused to move was a legitimate target: [Continue reading…]

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Here’s what a cyber warfare arsenal might look like

Scientific American: The Pentagon has made clear in recent weeks that cyber warfare is no longer just a futuristic threat—it is now a real one. U.S. government agency and industry computer systems are already embroiled in a number of nasty cyber warfare campaigns against attackers based in China, North Korea, Russia and elsewhere. As a counterpoint, hackers with ties to Russia have been accused of stealing a number of Pres. Barack Obama’s e-mails, although the White House has not formally blamed placed any blame at the Kremlin’s doorstep. The Obama administration did, however, call out North Korea for ordering last year’s cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The battle has begun. “External actors probe and scan [U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)] networks for vulnerabilities millions of times each day, and over 100 foreign intelligence agencies continually attempt to infiltrate DoD networks,” Eric Rosenbach, assistant secretary for homeland defense and global security, testified in April before the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. “Unfortunately, some incursions — by both state and nonstate entities — have succeeded.”

After years of debate as to how the fog of war will extend to the Internet, Obama last month signed an executive order declaring cyber attacks launched from abroad against U.S. targets a “national emergency” and levying sanctions against those responsible. Penalties include freezing the U.S. assets of cyber attackers and those aiding them as well as preventing U.S. residents from conducting financial transactions with those targeted by the executive order. [Continue reading…]

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From chimps to bees and bacteria, how animals hold elections

By Robert John Young, University of Salford

Lots of people find elections dull, but there’s nothing boring about the political manoeuvres that take place in the animal kingdom. In the natural world, jockeying for advantage, whether this is conscious or merely mechanical, can be a matter of life or death.

Chimpanzees, our closest relatives, are highly political. They’re smart enough to realise that in the natural world brute strength will only get you so far – getting to the top of a social group and remaining there requires political guile.

It’s all about making friends and influencing others. Chimps make friends by grooming each other and forming alliances; this behaviour is especially prominent in males wishing to be group leader. In times of dispute they call upon their friends for assistance or when they sense a coup may be successful. And the ruling group either reaffirms its position or a new group grabs control – but having the weight of numbers is normally critical to success.

You’ve got my vote.
IFAW, CC BY-NC

Back in the 1980s, the leading Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal spent six years researching the world’s largest captive colony for his classic book Chimpanzee Politics. He soon realised that, in addition to forming cliques, chimp politics still involves some degree of aggression.

Humans in modern societies have largely replaced antagonistic takeovers with voting. Chimps do not, however, live in a democratic society. For them, the social structure of the ruling party is usually one based on male hierarchy, where dominant individuals have best access to the resources available – usually food and females.

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The season for rapprochement with Iran

Robin Wright writes: In her title role on the CBS television drama “Madam Secretary,” Téa Leoni has achieved what Secretary of State John Kerry yearns for — a deal with Iran which eases the thirty-six years of tensions that have afflicted six Presidents. Leoni’s character, Elizabeth Faulkner McCord, goes to Tehran as part of the diplomatic process, and a fictional Iranian President visited Washington.

Neither is likely to occur offscreen anytime soon. But the United States and Iran, backed by five other world powers, are scheduled to begin nonstop negotiations this week for a prospective June 30th agreement that will prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t get it,” Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told me in New York last week. We spoke at the residence of Iran’s U.N. Ambassador, in the elegant second-floor parlor where Zarif had hosted Kerry two days earlier. That meeting had been a first; technically, Kerry was on Iranian soil.

Other officials involved in the talks have told me that diplomacy is further along than was indicated by the so-called blueprint for a deal, which was announced in Lausanne on April 2nd (and enumerated in a four-page U.S. fact sheet). What is more striking, after eighteen months of negotiations, is the changing climate, whether in popular culture, public opinion, or diplomacy. In the case of “Madam Secretary,” an American TV drama dared to build a whole season around rapprochement with Iran. It began with the Administration uncovering a rogue U.S. coup attempt, along the lines of what the C.I.A. and British intelligence carried out in Iran in 1953. The premise throughout the season was that Washington no longer supports regime change in Iran — which has been true of both the Bush and Obama Administrations but is still anathema to many in Congress. Rotten Tomatoes gives the “Madam Secretary” season an approval rating of eighty per cent among the public, a sign that its Iran plotline is considered realistic or acceptable. Several of the show’s episodes have drawn more than ten million viewers. The season ended last night, with Secretary McCord subpoenaed by a Senate investigation trying to discredit her and sabotage U.S. diplomacy for political gain. (Not in Washington!) But in the end she prevails, and wins a (fictional) poll showing that eighty-two per cent of the public supports her stand. [Continue reading…]

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$500-million program to train anti-ISIS fighters appears stalled

The Los Angeles Times reports: Eleven months after President Obama announced plans to arm opposition fighters to confront Islamic State militants in war-torn Syria, the $500-million program to train a proxy force has yet to begin, raising questions about its viability and effectiveness.

The lack of a reliable partner on the ground has restricted the U.S. ability to gather intelligence and to target airstrikes against Islamic State leaders in Syria. The Sunni Muslim extremist group continues to lure recruits, raise money and maintain strongholds despite the U.S.-led bombing effort that began in September.

Adding to the challenge, the four countries where the military training will take place — Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — sharply disagree with Washington on what the proposed proxy force should do. They want it to focus first on ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad, while the White House wants the fighters to target Islamic State.
Rebels in Aleppo, Syria
Rebel fighters battling Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces take position in the ruins of a building in Old Aleppo. (Salih Mahmud Leyla / Anadolu Agency)

The slow rollout and the competing objectives have caused friction between the U.S. and several key allies, and frustration for those in Syria who had hoped Obama’s plan would lead to more immediate U.S. assistance. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. strike in Syria blamed for scores of deaths linked to Arab-Kurd rivalry

McClatchy reports: Scores of Arab villagers died in airstrikes Thursday in northeast Syria, and local media activists charged Saturday that the U.S.-led coalition was responsible.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britian-based group that monitors violence in Syria, said 55 villagers died in what it condemned as a “massacre committed by the U.S.-led coalition under the pretext of targeting the Islamic State.”

McClatchy obtained a list with the names of 10 families that reportedly had lost 64 members in the strike.

And the Syrian Opposition Coalition, the Istanbul-based group once recognized by the United States as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, said the information it had received lent “credence to reports that it was a U.S.-led coalition strike that caused the civilian casualties.”

The U.S. Central Command could not immediately confirm that Bir Mahalli, which lies about 33 miles south of Kobani, had been targeted for airstrikes Thursday. A statement from Centcom said U.S. aircraft struck six targets between 8 a.m. Thursday and 8 a.m. Friday “near Kobani” – a description that previous reporting has shown could include a location 30 miles or more distant.

The reported deaths of the villagers also embroiled the United States in Syria’s fierce ethnic rivalries, with activists pointing out that the fishing and farming village of about 4,000 Arabs has had tense relations with Kurds living nearby – especially with the Kurdish “People’s Protection Units” or YPG.

The Obama administration cooperated with the YPG in defense of Kobani, which Arabs call Ein al Arab, and there have been reports that the U.S.-led coalition continues to work with the YPG in the fight against the Islamic State.

But the activists said the YPG also is capturing villages inhabited by Arabs in an effort to pressure them to flee the area and has falsely accused Arabs in the area of supporting the Islamic State.

An activist from the area said local villagers were certain that the attack was by coalition aircraft because of the sound of the planes and the kind of bombs deployed. The activist, who spoke to McClatchy by Skype on condition of anonymity out of fear of both the YPG and the Islamic State, said the coalition may have received flawed intelligence about the target from its allies on the ground, a reference to YPG forces. [Continue reading…]

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‘We’ll die before they make us leave’: Lebanese Christians are ready to face ISIS on Syria’s border

Vice News reports: The distant thud of rockets can be heard in the Lebanese border town of Ras Baalbek. Local Christian residents here fear that the spread of militant Islamist groups, who are simultaneously fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and rebel groups in Syria, could eventually spill over into Lebanon.

Militant Sunni groups like the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat al Nusra, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, have made impressive gains throughout the last year, often slaughtering minorities along the way — including Christians, Shia, Alawites, and others.

This fear has prompted locals in Ras Baalbek to start stockpiling weapons, and hundreds of them have launched an armed volunteer group to patrol at night. The Lebanese military has also significantly bulked up its presence here and in other border areas.

Khalil al-Arish, a resident of the village, brings 15 years of military knowhow to the volunteer patrol. Today, he is a member of the Resistance Brigades, a Hezbollah militia designed for non-Shia Lebanese who support the political organization’s efforts to defend Lebanon’s soil.

“We have between 600 and 700 members in the village who volunteer to work the patrol without financial compensation,” Arish told VICE News, adding that it includes members of Lebanese political parties from across the spectrum. “Each night, around 100 people go out on patrol.” [Continue reading…]

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Situation in Yemen unchanged weeks into air war

AFP reports: Saudi-led airstrikes against rebels in Yemen have destroyed much of their military capabilities, but almost six weeks into the campaign the situation on the ground remains unchanged, analysts said.

Last month, the kingdom declared the strikes against the Iran-backed rebels that began on March 26 a success and announced the end to daily air raids, saying operations had entered a second phase focused on political efforts, aid deliveries and “fighting terrorism.”

However, the air war has continued at the same rate amid mounting criticism over a hike in civilian casualties.

“The Saudis seem to be caught in several contradictions — opening up a war with the Huthis and forces loyal to former president (Ali Abdullah) Saleh without a coherent plan for its ground component,” said Neil Partrick, a Gulf analyst at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.

So far, the coalition had only managed to bomb “military and civilian facilities needed by a Yemeni state that Riyadh claims is still ruled by President (Abedrabbo Mansour) Hadi,” Partrick told AFP. [Continue reading…]

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Yemen could come to regret a messy divorce

Faisal Al Yafai writes: In the south of Yemen today, every outsider is a northerner. The red star on a blue border, part of the old South Yemen flag, can be seen everywhere. The “northern occupation”, as the unification with the north has been increasingly called since 2009, is now the northern invasion.

There’s a grain of truth in the expression and it has gained from repetition and reality. The Houthis, once confined to the furthest northern province of Saada, suddenly appeared on the roads of Aden a few weeks ago, armed with guns, missiles and fighter jets. They brought with them the remnants of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s army.

And, because of their appearance and attempt to take over Yemen’s second city, they also brought the fighter jets of the GCC and the warships of Egypt. Sanaa had become a remote city for southerners since the Arab Spring – now it appeared to have returned to the South with a vengeance.

The South has had enough. Once the Houthis have been pushed out, calls for secession will rise again. In the past, during the transition from Ali Abdullah Saleh’s presidency, such calls could be muted by offering federalism – especially if it came from the mouth of the new president Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi, himself a southerner.

But after the ravages of the war are cleared away, it is unlikely anything will convince the southerners to stay. Even voices that once seemed open to autonomy within the union – in particular the former president of South Yemen Ali Salem Al Beidh, who still commands significant support – have turned against the Houthis and the North. Yemen’s south is marching towards the exit.

But going it alone has far more risks than either the southern movement Hirak or southerners themselves care to admit. Southerners may get their own country, only to regret it. [Continue reading…]

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