Category Archives: News

U.S. may raise Arab states to ‘major’ ally status

Politico: The White House is open to the possibility of declaring all of the Arab states attending a Camp David summit “major non-NATO allies,” a designation that makes it easier for the United States to provide financial and military aid, a top U.S. official said Thursday.

The designation stops short of being a mutual defense pact, but a joint statement released later in the day includes a promise from the United States “to use all elements of power to secure our core interests in the Gulf region, and to deter and confront external aggression against our allies and partners.”

“I am reaffirming our ironclad commitment to the security of our Gulf partners,” Obama told reporters at a news conference at the conclusion of the summit.

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12 years later, a mystery of chemical exposure in Iraq clears slightly

C.J. Chivers reports: The toxic vapors acted quickly against the Second Platoon of the 811th Ordnance Company, whose soldiers were moving abandoned barrels out of an Iraqi Republican Guard warehouse in 2003. The building, one soldier said, was littered with dead birds.

As the soldiers pushed the barrels over and began rolling them, some of the contents leaked, they said, filling the air with a bitter, penetrating smell. Soon, many were dizzy and suffering from running noses and tearing eyes. A few were vomiting, disoriented, tingling or numb.

After the soldiers staggered outside for air, multiple detection tests indicated the presence of nerve agent. Others suggested blister agent, too. The results seemed to confirm the victims’ fear that they had stumbled upon unused stocks of Iraq’s chemical weapons.

From Camp Taji, where the barrels had been found, more than 20 exposed soldiers were evacuated in helicopters to a military hospital in Balad, where they were met by soldiers wearing gas masks and ordered to undress before being allowed inside for medical care.

“They drew a box in the sand and had armed guards and were like: ‘Do not get out of that box. Do not get out of that box,’ ” said Nathan Willie, a private first class at the time. “I was kind of freaked out.”

Since last fall, the United States military has acknowledged that American soldiers found thousands of abandoned chemical weapons in Iraq, and that hundreds of troops notified the military medical system that they believed they had been exposed to them. The military acknowledged the exposures after years of secrecy — and of denying medical tracking and official recognition to victims — only after an investigation by The New York Times.

Even then, the affliction of the 811th Ordnance Company had quietly remained one of the unsolved mysteries of the Iraq war, and a parable of what several of the victims describe as the corrosive effects of the government’s secrecy on troop welfare and public trust. [Continue reading…]

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Turks are wondering if their president is insane

The Daily Beast reports: It’s less than four weeks to go before parliamentary elections in Turkey on June 7, and it looks like President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is panicking. Or worse.

A popular refrain among his political opponents, and on the street, is that Erdogan has lost his marbles and is driven by an insatiable appetite for power. Ever since he moved into a lavish 1,100-room palace in Ankara last year, Erdogan has been accused of succumbing to an out-of-control urge for grandeur. Kurdish politician Abdullah Zeydan says the president “thinks he is a sultan.” Meral Aksener, a nationalist politician and deputy speaker of parliament, claims Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was telling people behind closed doors that Erdogan “is out of his mind.”

“Obviously, there is panic,” said Yavuz Baydar, a respected journalist.

At a minimum there is frustration for the president of this country with huge strategic importance, which has the second largest army in NATO and borders Iran, Iraq and Syria or, if you will, the Islamic State. Over the course of 12 years in power, first as prime minister and since last year as president, Erdogan has overseen unprecedented economic stability and growth in Turkey, trimmed the power of the military, with its long history of coups and its reputation as “the deep state,” and entered into an important dialogue with Kurdish politicians and even Kurdish rebels.

But polls say Erdogan, 61, will probably fail to get the majority he wants to push through sweeping constitutional changes to give himself unlimited but as yet unspecified power as president. The economy has grown sluggish of late, unemployment is on the rise, and the political opposition is resurgent, all of which spells trouble for Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Some polls suggest the AKP could even lose its majority in parliament. [Continue reading…]

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Traces of chemicals in Syria add to pressure on Obama to enforce a ‘red line’

The New York Times reports: If President Obama hoped that the danger of chemical warfare in the Middle East receded when Syria gave up tons of poison gas, mounting evidence that toxic weapons remain in the strife-torn country could once again force him to decide just how far he is willing to go to enforce his famous “red line.”

The discovery of traces of ricin and sarin in Syria, combined with the use of chlorine as a makeshift weapon in the country’s grinding civil war, undercut what Mr. Obama had viewed as a signal triumph of his foreign policy, the destruction of President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical arsenal.

But Mr. Obama appears no more eager to use military force against Mr. Assad’s government today than he was in 2013 when he abruptly called off a threatened airstrike in exchange for a Russian-brokered agreement in which Syria voluntarily gave up its chemical weapons. Instead, the Obama administration responded to reports of violations this time by seeking renewed assistance from Russia and exploring a new United Nations Security Council resolution addressing Syria’s continued use of chemicals as weapons.

“You’re dealing with a regime that is not very credible on weapons of mass destruction programs,” said Robert Ford, the Obama administration’s former ambassador to Syria. “No one should be surprised the regime didn’t declare all of its facilities. But the bad news in all of this is the regime is using chemical weapons regularly — even if not sarin gas now, they’re using chlorine gas regularly and they are not deterred from doing so.” [Continue reading…]

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Former European leaders call for change in EU policy on Israel

The Guardian reports: A high-profile group of former European political leaders and diplomats has called for the urgent reassessment of EU policy on the question of a Palestinian state and has insisted Israel must be held to account for its actions in the occupied territories.

In a hard-hitting letter to the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, the group – which includes former prime ministers, foreign ministers and ambassadors also expresses serious doubts about the ability of the US to lead substantive negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

It charges that EU political and financial aid has achieved nothing but the “preservation of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and imprisonment of Gaza”.

The group, known as the European Eminent Persons Group, argues that the re-election of prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the head of a narrow rightwing coalition has made the issue even more pressing. [Continue reading…]

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House votes to end NSA’s bulk phone data collection

The New York Times reports: The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved legislation to end the federal government’s bulk collection of phone records, exerting enormous pressure on Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, who insists that dragnet sweeps continue in defiance of many of those in his Republican Party.

Under the bipartisan bill, which passed 338 to 88, the Patriot Act would be changed to prohibit bulk collection by the National Security Agency of metadata charting telephone calls made by Americans. However, while the House version of the bill would take the government out of the collection business, it would not deny it access to the information. It would be in the hands of the private sector — almost certainly telecommunications companies like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, which already keep the records for billing purposes and hold on to them from 18 months to five years.

So for the N.S.A., which has been internally questioning the cost effectiveness of bulk collection for years, the bill would make the agency’s searches somewhat less efficient, but it would not wipe them out. With the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the spy agencies or the F.B.I. could request data relevant to an investigation. Corporate executives have said that while they would have to reformat some data to satisfy government search requirements, they could most likely provide data quickly. [Continue reading…]

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Carlotta Gall corroborates parts of Seymour Hersh’s Bin Laden story

Carlotta Gall is one of the New York Times’ most respected reporters. There are few if any journalists who have covered the Afghanistan-Pakistan war for longer or in greater depth. She has, as far as I can tell, no political axe to grind.

In response to Seymour Hersh’s London Review of Books article on the killing of Osama bin Laden, Gall writes:

Beginning in 2001, I spent nearly 12 years covering Pakistan and Afghanistan for The Times. (In his article, Hersh cites an article I wrote for The Times Magazine last year, an excerpt from a book drawn from this reporting.) The story of the Pakistani informer was circulating in the rumor mill within days of the Abbottabad raid, but at the time, no one could or would corroborate the claim. Such is the difficulty of reporting on covert operations and intelligence matters; there are no official documents to draw on, few officials who will talk and few ways to check the details they give you when they do.

Two years later, when I was researching my book, I learned from a high-level member of the Pakistani intelligence service that the ISI had been hiding Bin Laden and ran a desk specifically to handle him as an intelligence asset. After the book came out, I learned more: that it was indeed a Pakistani Army brigadier — all the senior officers of the ISI are in the military — who told the C.I.A. where Bin Laden was hiding, and that Bin Laden was living there with the knowledge and protection of the ISI.

I trusted my source — I did not speak with him, and his information came to me through a friend, but he was high enough in the intelligence apparatus to know what he was talking about. I was confident the information was true, but I held off publishing it. It was going to be extremely difficult to corroborate in the United States, not least because the informant was presumably in witness protection.

I do not recall ever corresponding with Hersh, but he is following up on a story that many of us assembled parts of. The former C.I.A. officer Larry Johnson aired the theory of the informant — credited to “friends who are still active” — on his blog within days of the raid. And Hersh appears to have succeeded in getting both American and Pakistani sources to corroborate it. His sources remain anonymous, but other outlets such as NBC News have since come forward with similar accounts. Finally, the Pakistani daily newspaper The News reported Tuesday that Pakistani intelligence officials have conceded that it was indeed a walk-in who provided the information on Bin Laden. The newspaper names the officer as Brigadier Usman Khalid; the reporter is sufficiently well connected that he should be taken seriously.

This development is hugely important — it is the strongest indication to date that the Pakistani military knew of Bin Laden’s whereabouts and that it was complicit in hiding a man charged with international terrorism and on the United Nations sanctions list. [Continue reading…]

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Vatican officially recognizes ‘State of Palestine’ in new treaty

The Associated Press: The Vatican has officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty.

The treaty, which was finalized Wednesday but still has to be signed, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic relations from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine.

The Vatican had welcomed the decision by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012 to recognize a Palestinian state. But the treaty is the first legal document negotiated between the Holy See and the Palestinian state and constitutes an official recognition.

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North Korea executes defense chief on treason charges: report

Reuters: North Korea has executed its defense chief on treason charges by putting him in front of an anti-aircraft gun at a firing range, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told lawmakers.

Hyon Yong Chol, 66, who headed the isolated country’s military, was purged late last month for disobeying Kim Jong Un and falling asleep during a meeting at which North Korea’s young leader was present, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed in a closed-door meeting with the spy agency on Wednesday.

His execution, the latest of a series of high-level purges since Kim took power in 2011, was watched by hundreds of people, they said.

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Merkel comes up empty as German-U.S. spy talks go nowhere

Bloomberg: Chancellor Angela Merkel has little to show for an effort begun a year ago to limit American spying in Germany as talks between the two countries on U.S. surveillance have run aground.

Meant to calm German outrage over alleged American espionage, the negotiations have been further hampered by the latest reports in Germany that the country’s BND foreign-intelligence agency collaborated with the National Security Agency to help the U.S. spy on European allies and companies, said a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive talks.

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GCHQ openly recruiting hackers as British government seeks more surveillance powers

Forbes: Now that the Conservative Party has secured a majority government in the UK, it’s pushing ahead with plans to expand the surveillance state with the Communications Data Bill, also known as Snooper’s Charter, which would require communications providers from BT to Facebook to maintain records of customers’ internet activity, text messages and voice calls for a year. This may have emboldened GCHQ, the British spy agency and chief NSA partner, which has, for the first time, openly called for applicants to fill the role of Computer Network Operations Specialists, also known as nation-state funded hackers.

According to a job ad for a Computer Network Operations Specialist, a student or graduate will have to have, or soon have, “a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree incorporating ethical hacking, digital forensics or information security”.

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The use of force against the mentally ill incarcerated in America

Human Rights Watch: Jail and prison staff throughout the United States have used unnecessary, excessive, and even malicious force against prisoners with mental disabilities, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today.

The 127-page report, “Callous and Cruel: Use of Force against Inmates with Mental Disabilities in US Jails and Prisons,” details incidents in which correctional staff have deluged prisoners with painful chemical sprays, shocked them with powerful electric stun weapons, and strapped them for days in restraining chairs or beds. Staff have broken prisoners’ jaws, noses, ribs; left them with lacerations requiring stitches, second-degree burns, deep bruises, and damaged internal organs. In some cases, the force used has led to their death.

“Jails and prisons can be dangerous, damaging, and even deadly places for men and women with mental health problems,” said Jamie Fellner, US program senior adviser at Human Rights Watch and the author of the report. “Force is used against prisoners even when, because of their illness, they cannot understand or comply with staff orders.”

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The Afghans fighting Assad’s war

Der Spiegel reports: His war only lasted from one dawn to the next. When the sun rose for the second time over the Syrian city of Aleppo, Murad, a farmer from Afghanistan, was still cowering on the second floor of the house he was supposed to defend to the death. That, at least, is what his Iranian officer had ordered him to do.

How, though, did he get to this war-torn city far away from his village in the mountains of Afghanistan? All he had wanted was an Iranian residence permit, he says. But at the end of his trip, he found himself fighting as a mercenary in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Bashar Assad regime.

On that morning in Aleppo, Murad didn’t know how many from his unit were still alive, nor did he know where he was or who he was fighting against. His four magazines had been empty for hours. When a violent explosion caused the house he was in to collapse, he found himself thinking about his daughters, he says. “I screamed and thought I was suffocating. And then, everything around me was quiet.”

Men arrived and pulled Murad, who was still screaming, out of the rubble. He was lucky, even if he didn’t see it that way at first. “I thought they would kill me immediately. But they bandaged me up and took me to their quarters. There was someone there who spoke a bit of Persian and he told me I didn’t need to be afraid.”

That was seven months ago. Since then, Murad and another Afghan have been sitting in a makeshift prison belonging to the al-Shamiya Front, one of Aleppo’s larger rebel formations. They are being held in a neon-lit basement, next to a roaring generator. The walls are crumbling, a product of the myriad explosions that have shaken the city. In addition to Afghans, Pakistanis and Iranians have also been taken prisoner by other rebel groups, all of them fighting on the front lines. [Continue reading…]

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House arrest reports add to mystery surrounding fate of Syrian security chief

The Guardian: Mystery surrounds the fate of a senior Syrian security chief who is rumoured to have fallen foul of President Bashar al-Assad, against a background of recent rebel gains, growing Iranian influence and reports of intrigue and disarray in Damascus.

Lt Gen Ali Mamlouk, the head of the country’s national security council, was reported on Monday to be under house arrest in the Syrian capital following a rash of speculation about his whereabouts at a time of deepening crisis for the regime.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the 69-year-old was arrested on suspicion of planning a coup and talking to the opposition because he has qualms about Iran, Assad’s most loyal ally. Tehran is playing an increasingly pivotal role in Syria.

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Iraq counts on magic wands to stop ISIS

The Daily Beast: Last summer, in the days after the group now known as ISIS began its assault across Iraq, many feared that Baghdad could soon fall. Car bombs regularly killed dozens inside the capital. Police and soldiers manned checkpoints across the city. They were Baghdad’s defense and symbols of the state’s power in the face of onslaught. To protect the capital, these cops and soldiers were armed with magic wands. They still are now, nearly a year later.

Across Iraq, members of the security forces carry these magic wands—Rube Goldberg gadgets supposedly designed to detect explosives. The walkie talkie-sized instruments, as ubiquitous in Baghdad as radios are on cops in the United States, are useless pieces of plastic and a required piece of equipment. They were purchased by the Iraqi government for millions of dollars and are still in use to this day, waved around cars like divining rods, two years after a British con man was sentenced to prison for selling them.

Iraqi police officer Salim Abdul Zahra, 33, wielded one of the wands while manning a checkpoint in Baghdad last December. “Want the truth?” Zahra asked after some preliminary explanation about how the detector was supposed to be used. “It is worthless and fake,” he said. “The proof is all the explosions that still happen here.”

But though the wand didn’t work, he said he had to wave it around. Ultimately, if he didn’t use the wand, which he and his fellow officers knew was worthless, he would stick out. “What I can do?” he asked. “I follow the orders and use it.”

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In sign of Palestinians’ mood, Hamas wins vote at a West Bank university

The New York Times reports: Lina Halsa certainly made a splash at the student rally for the Islamist Hamas movement here at Birzeit University last month. Wearing a sleeveless top, tight jeans, and with her hair in a ponytail, Ms. Halsa’s attire was revealing even by the standards of this liberal, secular campus. But it was downright scandalous according to Hamas norms.

Yet, Ms. Halsa was the very image of Hamas success on the campus, where the Islamist party beat out the more moderate Fatah faction in student elections. A photograph of her waving the faction’s signature green banner rocketed around social media, followed by a video in which she explained that she voted Hamas in part because her clothing “shows how much they are able to embrace other people.”

A headline in the Pan-Arab daily Al Hayat trumpeted: “A Blonde Turns Birzeit Green.”

The April 22 election was about far more than clothing, of course. Student elections are seen as an important benchmark of the Palestinian political mood, particularly since there has been no national balloting since Hamas won the legislative contests in 2006, and president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is starting the 11th year of what was to be a five-year term. The nod to Hamas was broadly interpreted as another indication of just how unpopular President Abbas and his government have become. [Continue reading…]

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Bangladeshi secular blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death in third fatal attack this year

The Washington Post: Ananta Bijoy Das, a Bangladeshi writer known for advocating science and secularism, was hacked to death by masked men wielding machetes while on his way to work Tuesday morning.

Das died instantly in the attack, police in Sylhet city told the Associated Press. He is the third Bangladeshi writer to be killed in less than four months.

Though police did not offer a motive for the killing, they mentioned to Al Jazeera that Das has written about science and the evolution of the Soviet Union. He was also a blogger for Mukto-Mona, or “free mind,” the site launched by prominent author Avijit Roy, who was killed at a Bangladeshi book fair in similar fashion in February.

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Pakistanis knew where bin Laden was, say U.S. sources

NBC News reports: Two intelligence sources tell NBC News that the year before the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a “walk in” asset from Pakistani intelligence told the CIA where the most wanted man in the world was hiding – and these two sources plus a third say that the Pakistani government knew where bin Laden was hiding all along.

The U.S. government has always characterized the heroic raid by Seal Team Six that killed bin Laden as a unilateral U.S. operation, and has maintained that the CIA found him by tracking couriers to his walled complex in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The new revelations do not necessarily cast doubt on the overall narrative that the White House began circulating within hours of the May 2011 operation. The official story about how bin Laden was found was constructed in a way that protected the identity and existence of the asset, who also knew who inside the Pakistani government was aware of the Pakistani intelligence agency’s operation to hide bin Laden, according to a special operations officer with prior knowledge of the bin Laden mission. The official story focused on a long hunt for bin Laden’s presumed courier, Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

While NBC News has long been pursuing leads about a “walk in” and about what Pakistani intelligence knew, both assertions were made public in a London Review of Books article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Hersh’s story, published over the weekend, raises numerous questions about the White House account of the SEAL operation. It has been strongly disputed both on and off the record by the Obama administration and current and former national security officials. [Continue reading…]

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