Category Archives: Lands

France to deploy aircraft carrier to fight ISIS, says report

AFP reports: The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its fleet will be deployed to the Gulf to support operations against the Islamic State group, a military news site reported on Tuesday.

The deployment of the marine battle group is due to be announced by President Francois Hollande when he gives his annual new year’s speech to the armed forces onboard the Charles de Gaulle on January 14, according to the “Mer et Marine” news site.

The Elysee Palace confirmed to AFP that the carrier would travel to the Gulf on its way to India, where it is due to take part in exercises in mid-April.

“The Charles de Gaulle will be available to participate, if necessary, in all operational missions”, the Elysee spokesman said. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Who are the #CharlieHebdo killers?

One of the hallmarks of terrorism is that provokes its audience to prematurely assign meaning.

Today’s brutal attack on the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has swiftly been taken to be an attack on free speech and this meaning seems so obvious, no one pauses to consider whether it is accurate.

The attackers identities remain unknown but there is little reason to doubt that they are Islamic extremists of some description. Exactly who is a detail that is probably of less concern to those whose first need is to condemn violence and to defend free speech.

I neither doubt the sincerity of these condemnations nor the need to defend free speech, but it’s important to try and understand exactly what happened.

A few hours before the attack, the magazine tweeted:

The caption says “Greetings from al-Baghdadi as well” and the ISIS leader is saying, “…and especially health.” The magazine adds, “Best wishes, by the way.”

But Kim Willsher at The Guardian notes this important detail about the timing of the attack:


If the attackers had studied the work schedule of the journalists that carefully, it’s reasonable to infer that this operation was painstakingly planned and its occurrence right after the Baghdadi tweet was either pure coincidence or just a useful pretext.

It’s now reported that the gunmen told a bystander that the attack was carried out by Al-Qaeda in Yemen. The gunmen have been described as wearing military dress and armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket launcher.


Drawing a distinction between AQAP and ISIS may seem like a distinction without a difference. But the two jihadist groups have different objectives and competing interests.

In late November, NBC News reported:

Escalating a war of words between terrorism’s old and new schools, an Islamic scholar with al Qaeda’s Yemen-based offshoot on Friday accused ISIS of “planting … disunity” among the various Islamic extremist factions fighting to topple the Syrian government and rejcted the authority of the Iraq- and Syria-based group’s self-declared caliphate.

Harith Al-Nadhari, a spiritual leader and Shariah law scholar with the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), said in a videotape released on YouTube and other social media that the infighting among Syrian rebel groups was “the biggest disaster that hit the Ummah (Arabic for the Muslim community) at this stage.”

He blamed ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, for the divisions, saying that it had exported “infighting and fitna (Arabic for strife) to other fronts,” according to a translation of his comments by Flashpoint Partners, which monitors terrorist group’s online communications.

Al-Nadhari also criticized ISIS for what he described as an overreach by calling for Muslims everywhere to “pledge allegiance to the caliph.”

While AQAP acuses ISIS of sowing discord between Muslims, the Charlie Hebdo attack is clearly aimed at sharpening the divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims and between the East and the West.

To the extent that this message resonates with those whose support for ISIS has become shaky, the attack may serve a strategic goal: to present al Qaeda rather than ISIS as the preeminent defender of Muslims.

An ISIS critic, noting the difference in expressions of concern about deaths in Syria versus those in Paris, tweets:


At the same time, there is also apparently an ongoing effort to use the attack to coral support for ISIS:


Naturally, the conspiracy theorists — yet to agree on their narrative — are busy at work:


Meanwhile, Jeffrey Goldberg tweets:


Many have retweeted a 2012 New Yorker cartoon which depicts the price of capitulating to the opponents of free speech.


And in defense of the satirists, it’s worth noting that as much as they were criticized for being provocative, their sharp statements were not lacking in nuance:


And neither was their critical focus reserved for Islam:


Before too many voices get raised in an unreflective and uninformed defense of Western ideals, let’s hope the gunmen are caught and they are carefully questioned.

An eyewitness description of the attack may turn out to be quite significant:

“Everything happened very calmly, without shouting, without insults.”

That the attackers operated with clinical efficiency suggests that their operation was not only planned meticulously but there was probably as much thought put into anticipating its effect.

That’s why I’m inclined to think that this was designed not simply to send a narrow message — this is the price for insulting Islam — but to have a much wider impact, deepening the divide between Muslims and non-Muslims.

It’s largely our choice whether the attack has this effect.

Facebooktwittermail

Saudi Arabia is right to be anxious over its ideological links with ISIS

Brian Whitaker writes: In a pre-dawn raid on Monday, militants attacked a Saudi border post from the Iraqi side of the frontier. The resulting clash left three soldiers and four militants dead, according to the Saudi government news agency.

It later emerged that one of the dead soldiers was no ordinary border guard but the commander of Saudi Arabia’s northern border forces, Brigadier General Awdah al-Balawi. This suggests that the attack, far from being random or opportunistic, had been carefully targeted and perhaps based on inside information regarding the general’s whereabouts.

The attack has been widely attributed to Islamic State, with some reports saying the rebel group has now claimed responsibility for it. This might be viewed simply as a reprisal for Saudi participation in the US-led bombing campaign against Isis, but Isis has also been seeking to extend the current conflict in Syria and Iraq into Saudi territory.

There is no doubt that Isis has both sympathisers and active supporters inside the kingdom – it claimed responsibility for shooting a Danish citizen in Riyadh last November, for example – but whether it will be able to establish a military foothold is another question. Isis tends to flourish militarily in places where central government is weak, but that is not the case in Saudi Arabia. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

ISIS leader in Kobane apparently dished out cocaine to his fighters

With candor you’re unlikely to find from a traditional news outlet, Joakim Medin reports from Kobane: Streets and strategic buildings have been taken over by slow street fighting, which culminated in the important December 22 recapturing of Kobane’s Cultural Center. A few hours earlier, the happy fighters of this YPG unit had managed to make their own successful early morning attack against a house on the southern front, where an IS leader named Emir Abu Zahra was known to reside. They told me that in the firefight he was shot and killed.

“They also found a few things of his, which they took with them,” Dayan told me.

A slightly older fighter who speaks German came back into the room where we drank tea and perused the findings. Among them was a very thick, professional Dell laptop — one of those rugged, military-style Latitude XFRs, which has a ballistic armor protection system and is sold in stores for a few thousand dollars. They are meant to be used in demanding environments by oil workers, the police, and the army. It’s an expensive piece of equipment, but something you can probably easily pick up after having robbed the central bank of Mosul.

There’s also a traditional looking Middle Eastern dagger among the possessions they said they took from the now dead IS leader. Surprisingly, it’s not an authentic one, but a tacky copy with an Egyptian sphinx emblazoned on the case, and a horned goat head on the shaft. There are no blood traces on the blade.

And finally, sitting in front of me, is a large, transparent plastic bag filled with white powder. The YPG fighters told me they are not sure what this could be. So I dipped my index finger into it, and sure enough, it’s a big bag of cocaine. I must admit, I am familiar with the taste of the drug.

“Cocaine? What is that?” they ask.

The other guys have no knowledge of this drug, or how people use it. It’s nothing they have heard of or encountered before. But Dayan suggests that the powder is something Abu Zahra was distributing in smaller portions to his fighters.

There have been persistent rumors and accusations of drug use in the ranks of Islamic State fighters. Leaders in the group have been said to drug their militants to give them greater courage as they go into battle. This has led to both successful, but also reckless and ineffective suicide attacks by fighters who can easily be shot down. Certain IS militants have been described as “drug-crazed,” and Kurds report having found mysterious pills, capsules, and syringes on living and dead IS fighters. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Hezbollah apparently suffers major infiltration by Israel

The New York Times reports: The admission from Hezbollah’s deputy chief was startling. The group, he said over the weekend, is “battling espionage within its ranks” and has uncovered “some major infiltrations.”

To analysts and even some Hezbollah loyalists, the remarks were immediately taken as confirmation of long-swirling reports that a senior operative had been caught spying for Israel, disrupting a series of assassination plots abroad.

The accounts in the Lebanese and Arab news media, relying on unnamed sources, identify the mole as Mohammad Shawraba, the man charged with exacting revenge for Israel’s assassination of a top operative, Imad Mughniyeh, in 2008. They say Mr. Shawraba fed information to Israel that foiled five planned retaliation attempts. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

U.S. and Russia in danger of returning to era of nuclear rivalry

Julian Borger writes: A widening rift between Moscow and Washington over cruise missiles and increasingly daring patrols by nuclear-capable Russian submarines threatens to end an era of arms control and bring back a dangerous rivalry between the world’s two dominant nuclear arsenals.

Tensions have been taken to a new level by US threats of retaliatory action for Russian development of a new cruise missile. Washington alleges it violates one of the key arms control treaties of the cold war, and has raised the prospect of redeploying its own cruise missiles in Europe after a 23-year absence.

On Boxing Day, in one of the more visible signs of the unease, the US military launched the first of two experimental “blimps” over Washington. The system, known as JLENS, is designed to detect incoming cruise missiles. The North American Aerospace Command (Norad) did not specify the nature of the threat, but the deployment comes nine months after the Norad commander, General Charles Jacoby, admitted the Pentagon faced “some significant challenges” in countering cruise missiles, referring in particular to the threat of Russian attack submarines.

Those submarines, which have been making forays across the Atlantic, routinely carry nuclear-capable cruise missiles. In the light of aggressive rhetoric from Moscow and the expiry of treaty-based restrictions, there is uncertainty over whether those missiles are now carrying nuclear warheads. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Inside Putin’s information war

Peter Pomerantsev writes: There were more than 20 of us sitting around the long conference table: tanned broadcasters in white silk shirts, politics professors with sweaty beards and heavy breath, ad execs in trainers—and me. There were no women. Everyone was smoking. There was so much smoke it made my skin itch.

It was 2002, and I was just out of university, living in Moscow and working at a think tank meant to be promoting Russian-U.S. political ties. A friendly Russian publisher who wanted me to work for him had invited me to what would be my first meeting in Moscow. And that’s how I ended up surrounded by Russian media gurus tucked away on the top floor of Ostankino, the Soviet-era television center that is the battering ram of Kremlin propaganda—home to the studios of the country’s biggest channels. Here, Moscow’s flashiest minds gathered for a weekly brainstorming session to decide what Ostankino would broadcast.

At one end of the table sat one of the country’s most famous political TV presenters. He was small and spoke fast, with a smoky voice: “We all know there will be no real politics,” he said. “But we still have to give our viewers the sense something is happening. They need to be kept entertained.”

“So what should we play with?” he asked. “Shall we attack oligarchs? Who’s the enemy this week? Politics has got to feel like a movie!”

More than a decade later, that movie is increasingly dark and disturbing. The first thing Russian militias do when they take a town in East Ukraine is seize the television towers and switch them over to Kremlin channels. Soon after, the locals begin to rant about fascists in Kyiv and dark U.S. plots to purge Russian speakers from East Ukraine. It’s not just what they say but how they say it that is so disturbing: irrational spirals of paranoia, theories so elaborate and illogical one can’t possibly argue with them.

This is even before the bombs start falling on them: “Information war is now the main type of war,” says the Kremlin’s chief propagandist Dmitry Kieselev, “preparing the way for military action.” And Putin’s Russia is very good at it, having combined the dirtiest mechanisms of PR, brainwashing techniques pioneered in cults and a rich KGB tradition of psy-ops into a sort of television Frankenstein with which it controls its own population, conquers neighboring countries and attacks the West. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Europe’s fear of Syria’s ‘ghost ships’

James Denselow writes: The story of the Ezadeen, the ship set on autopilot and set towards Europe with 450 fleeing Syrian refugees on board, could be a turning point in the European response to the crisis in Syria. With a conflict that has killed some 200,000 people burning brightly on its doorstep Europe’s prime focus to date has been on ensuring that it stays away from the flames. The emergence of “ghost ships”, the latest gruesome tactic to come out of a conflict that has also put the “barrel bomb” into the popular lexicon, may force a much needed revaluation on the strategy of Europe’s response.

The discovery of the Ezadeen is simply the latest in an increasing number of horror stories emerging from the Mediterranean Sea. The boat, aptly a former livestock carrier, was found in rough seas some 40 nautical miles off the Italian coast – the second vessel in four days to be found sailing abandoned by its crew.

The ghost ships represent both a new tactic – using large cargo ships to move people in winter across longer crossing – and a new trend – that of the refugees coming from Syria. Last year some 230,000 people arrived illegally across the Mediterranean into the EU with Italy receiving the lion’s share of 160,000 whilst 3,500 people died trying to make the crossing. The UNHCR explained that in 2014 for the first time, people mainly from Syria “have become a major component in this tragic flow, accounting for almost 50 per cent of the total”. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The rise and fall of one of the Syrian opposition’s most powerful commanders

The Washington Post reports: In Syria’s chaotic and increasingly radicalized revolution, one man stood out for having resolutely moderate views, a large following and, it was widely whispered, the support of the United States and its allies.

Jamal Maarouf, a former day laborer who until recently was one of northern Syria’s most powerful commanders, had been held up by the Syrian opposition as a model rebel leader who shunned extremism and was among the first to take up arms against the Islamic State.

He had also, however, established a reputation as a warlord, whose fighters exacted tribute at checkpoints and spent more time engaged in the lucrative smuggling businesses he operated than waging war.

When the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra group forced him to flee his headquarters in the picturesque Jabal Zawiya mountains of northern Idlib province in November, Maarouf found himself with few friends. About half of his men remained behind, preferring to accommodate the invaders than fight for their leader. Moderate allied groups declined to respond to his pleas for help. So did the U.S.-led coalition, which failed to answer e-mails sent by the Syrian opposition requesting airstrikes against his attackers. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Foreigners fighting with Kurds against ISIS in Syria: who and why?

Reuters reports: While illegally crossing the Iraqi-Syrian border, Canadian Peter Douglas was adamant that his incursion was for humanitarian reasons – to help the people of Syria.

Douglas is one of a growing band of foreigners to dodge authorities and join the fight against Islamic State militants who have killed thousands and taken vast parts of Iraq and Syria, declaring a caliphate in territory under their control.

Many of these fighters argue they are there for humanitarian reasons but they say their decision to take up arms to fight for the Syrian people will not be viewed as such by some.

“I want to fight the Islamic State, although it might be the last thing I do,” said Douglas, 66, from Vancouver, as he prepared to board a boat crossing a remote stretch of the Tigris River .

“I know I have 10 years to live before I will start develop dementia or have a stroke so I wanted to do something good,” he added, although he acknowledged that taking up arms was new on the list of jobs and occupations he has previously pursued.

So far an estimated few dozen Westerners have joined Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State in northern Syria, including Americans, Canadians, Germans, and Britons. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Saudi Arabia after King Abdullah

Ali Alyami writes: The Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, CDHR, has been inundated with inquiries from Western media and politicians since news broke of King Abdullah’s recent hospitalization. They are wondering about the Saudi royal succession and whether King Abdullah’s “reform” initiatives will continue when he no longer rules.

Traditionally, Saudi kings are designated years or decades before inheriting the throne. Crown princes become automatically kings when reigning kings die after long and, in some cases, incapacitating ailments. Given this family tradition, it’s assured that Crown Prince Salman (known for his pro-Salafi Islam and anti-reform proclivities) will inherit the Saudi throne unless the 35 princes’ “Allegiance Commission” which King Abdullah established in 2006 reasserts its powers to recommend future Saudi kings and crown princes.

This is unlikely to happen without a potential palace revolt which is said to be the primary reason that convinced King Abdullah to bypass his brainchild Commission when he unilaterally appointed his ultra-conservative half-brother Naif (a staunch opponent of any political reform) Crown Prince in 2011 without consulting the Commission. When Naif mysteriously died in Switzerland, the King again disregarded his Commission and appointed Naif’s full brother Salman as Crown Prince.

Ironically, the King was profusely praised for creating the Commission by the international community and by progressive members of the royal family like Prince Talal, who resigned from the Commission to protest King Abdullah’s decision to circumvent it. Abdullah’s move dashed the hopes of Saudi reformers for any reform that might pave the way to popular political participation.

However, the traditional process of royal succession could be transformed if reform-minded royals, especially the younger generation, or if King Abdullah’s powerful sons, specifically, Prince Mitib, the Minister of the ruthless National Guard, Prince Mishal, the Governor of Mecca and Prince Abdul Aziz, the deputy to the ailing Foreign Minister Saud Alfaisal, demand a greater role in deciding who should be the next king and what reform strategies must be initiated and implemented after their father no longer rules. Like their father, none of King Abdullah’s sons trusts Crown Prince Salman and his Sudairi wing of the family (the Sudairi 7) due to historical animosities, namely the marginalization of their father for decades prior to his ascendance to the throne in 2005. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Iranian president suggests direct votes on major issues

The New York Times reports: Iran’s president said Sunday that he might invoke a powerful but neglected tool in his fight with hard-liners, suggesting the possibility of organizing direct referendums that would bypass the institutions the conservatives control and give more of a voice to Iranian voters.

President Hassan Rouhani, speaking during a conference on the country’s economic problems, said that Iranians were entitled to have major issues put to a nationwide vote, as described in the 1979 Constitution.

“It will be good to, after 36 years, even for once, or even every 10 years if we implement this principle of the Constitution, and put important economic, social and cultural issues to a direct referendum instead of to the Parliament,” Mr. Rouhani said.

In the opaque world of Iranian politics his remarks are a clear warning to hard-liners, who control the Parliament, key decision-making councils, the state-run media, the security forces and the intelligence services, but who have a shrinking base of support in the country. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Israel to ask U.S. Congress members to halt aid to Palestinians

Haaretz reports: After freezing the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, Israel is taking additional steps to punish the PA’s for its request to join the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

A senior Israeli official said on Sunday Jerusalem would be contacting pro-Israel members of the U.S. Congress to ensure the enforcement of legislation stipulating that if the Palestinians initiate any action against Israel at the ICC, the State Department would have to stop American aid to the PA, which comes to some $400 million annually. The stop-gap funding bill was passed in Congress last month.

Both houses of the new Congress to be seated later this month will be controlled by the Republican Party, with many key positions filled by senators and representatives who are pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian. The law regarding the Palestinians initiating action at the ICC is strongly worded and states that President Barack Obama cannot waive a decision to halt aid to the PA. [Continue reading…]

Zvi Bar’el writes: The half billion shekels ($128 million) in tax revenues that were to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority, but which were frozen by Israel last Friday, are a little bit less than the amount the PA spends on salaries for its employees in a single month.

This fact underlies the grave fear that the authority will be forced to delay salary payments until it finds a different solution.

It is worth recalling now that one of the main justifications for the protest in the Gaza Strip before Operation Protective Edge, which encouraged Hamas to attack Israel last summer, was the complete ban imposed by Jerusalem on the transfer of the tax money from the PA and Qatar, to the Islamic movement’s government in Gaza.

We can learn from this that any sanctions imposed by Jerusalem on the PA could very well serve as a double-edged sword against Israel. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Wars and instability prompt biggest migrant wave since World War Two

The Guardian reports: The two “ghost ships” discovered sailing towards the Italian coast last week with hundreds of migrants – but no crew – on board are just the latest symptom of what experts consider to be the world’s largest wave of mass-migration since the end of the second world war.

Wars in Syria, Libya and Iraq, severe repression in Eritrea, and spiralling instability across much of the Arab world have all contributed to the displacement of around 16.7 million refugees worldwide.

A further 33.3 million people are “internally displaced” within their own war-torn countries, forcing many of those originally from the Middle East to cross the lesser evil of the Mediterranean in increasingly dangerous ways, all in the distant hope of a better life in Europe.

“These numbers are unprecedented,” said Leonard Doyle, spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration. “In terms of refugees and migrants, nothing has been seen like this since world war two, and even then [the flow of migration] was in the opposite direction.”

European politicians believe they can discourage migrants from crossing the Mediterranean simply by reducing rescue operations. But refugees say that the scale of unrest in the Middle East, including in the countries in which they initially sought sanctuary, leaves them with no option but to take their chances at sea. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

How Britain exported next-generation surveillance

James Bridle writes: It was a cool, quiet Monday evening in northeast England when the computer first told them about Peter Chapman. The clock read a little after five, and two officers from Cleveland police were cruising in their patrol car. A screen lit up next to them: the on-board computer was flashing an alert from the local police network. The message told them the target was a blue Ford Mondeo and gave them its registration number.

It was only a few minutes before they came across the car and pulled it over with a sounding of their siren. Inside was Chapman, a 33-year-old convict wanted for questioning in connection with a string of offences, including arson and theft. The officers verified his identity and took him to a station just a few miles away.

At 5:07 p.m. on October 26, 2009, just 20 minutes before he was arrested, Chapman had driven past an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera stationed next to the road. As his car passed, the camera recorded its registration number, together with the time and location, and sent the information to Cleveland Police’s internal computer network, where it was checked against a hotlist downloaded from Britain’s central police database.

There was a hit: a request to detain anyone driving Chapman’s car had been entered into the system three days earlier. Once the computers had processed their search — a matter of fractions of a second — the command to apprehend the driver was broadcast to local officers, who stopped and arrested Chapman as soon as they were able.

This feat was made possible by the continuous operation of a vast automated surveillance network that sits astride Britain’s roads. The technology — known as License Plate Recognition (LPR) in the US, where it is also used — captures and stores data on up to 15 million journeys in the UK each day.

It is the most extensive system of its kind in the world.

Yet the true extent of the network, the areas it covers, and the locations of the cameras, is a matter of secrecy. In order to function fully, say the police, such details cannot be revealed. As a result, we do not know precisely how the technology is used, nor how it is abused.

It is only in cases like Peter Chapman’s that this secret system becomes visible. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Erdogan tackles growing threat from cartoonists

A protester who held up this image, published in The International New York Times, has been questioned by the police.

The New York Times reports: In the cartoon, an image of Recep Tayyip Erdogan stands watch while two thieves empty a safe full of cash. “No need to rush,” one of the thieves says with a grin. “We have a holographic watchman,” he adds.

The message in the cartoon, published in February in Cumhuriyet, an opposition newspaper, was unmistakable, coming as members of the Turkish leader’s inner circle were targeted in a corruption investigation.

Mr. Erdogan was not amused. The offending cartoonist, Musa Kart, who had a history of drawing cartoons critical of Mr. Erdogan, was taken to court on charges of insulting the prime minister (now the president), violating the privacy of an investigation and committing libel. Mr. Kart was acquitted in October, leaving him free, for the moment — Mr. Erdogan’s lawyer has appealed the decision — to keep challenging authority with his caricatures of Turkey’s rich and powerful.

“This repetitive cycle of legal actions affects all cartoonists, writers, intellectuals in this country,” Mr. Kart said. “We will continue to work and express what we think for the good of our future generations.”

But the episode points to an increasingly difficult environment for editorial cartoonists, who have long been a staple of Turkey’s political culture, as Mr. Erdogan has shown less tolerance for criticism and dissent. Critics of Mr. Erdogan and his government have found themselves embroiled in criminal lawsuits while dozens have lost their jobs — victims, critics say, of government efforts to intimidate dissidents. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail