Category Archives: News

Yemen, long on the brink of catastrophe, may have tipped over the edge

The Wall Street Journal reports: The militant group that controls Yemen’s capital moved to extend its power southward with an attack on a major city, deepening chaos that has given terror groups greater room to proliferate and forced the U.S. to suspend military operations inside the country.

American officials now see Yemen teetering on the brink of a civil war involving the besieged president, a former president and a patchwork of militant groups. The leader of the Houthi militant group behind the southern offensive and a United Nations envoy both warned that Yemen is in imminent danger of becoming another Iraq, Syria or Libya — a conflict fueled by sectarian violence and warring terrorist networks.

The U.S. withdrew its remaining 100 military personnel from a base in southern Yemen over the weekend, American officials said on Sunday. Special Operations Forces had to halt, at least temporarily, the training of Yemeni troops and cooperation in operations against one of the world’s most dangerous al Qaeda offshoots. The U.S. had already closed its embassy in the capital San’a last month. [Continue reading…]

Brian Whitaker writes: Yemen has often been portrayed as a country on the brink of catastrophe. Equally often, it has defied expectations and muddled through – if only just. But the suicide attacks on two mosques that left at least 142 people dead in Sana’a last Friday are one sign, among many, that it has finally tipped over the edge.

The UN is warning helplessly about a rapid downward spiral and calling for a resumption of efforts towards a political settlement, but the prospects of that happening are virtually nil and the scene is set for a protracted civil war with multiple protagonists.

Inside Yemen, the lineup of forces is complicated. One key player is Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted from the presidency in 2012 after 34 years in power and has been causing trouble ever since.

Saleh appears to be colluding with the Houthis, whom he previously fought in a series of wars in the far north of the country. His alliance with the Houthis is seen by many as a tactical move aimed at eventually installing his son, Ahmad, as president. [Continue reading…]

The Associated Press reports from Aden: This port city, perched on an extinct volcano protruding into the Arabian Sea on Yemen’s far southern edge, has become perhaps the last refuge of the country’s embattled president, and it feels like now all his enemies are bearing down on it.

Driven out of the capital, Sanaa, by Shiite rebels who have taken over much of the north, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the remains of his government have made Aden their provisional capital. If they lose here, Hadi – the man the U.S. had hoped would stabilize the chaotic nation and fight al-Qaida’s powerful branch – likely will fall, plunging Yemen into a civil war.

In his first speech since fleeing Sanaa, Hadi on Saturday denounced the rebel takeover as “a coup against constitutional legitimacy” and declared Aden the country’s “temporary capital.” [Continue reading…]

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Yemeni implosion pushes southern Sunnis into arms of al Qaida and ISIS

The intrepid, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, reports: In a hollow in the sands of eastern Yemen, a line of pickup trucks carrying tribal fighters idled. A squat man with a shock of black hair, dressed in an overflowing dusty dishdasha, walked around slowly, inspecting the men and the vehicles, loaded with heavy machine guns and light artillery.

“The Houthis are behind that hill,” he shouted, pointing at a rocky outcrop sheltering the imaginary foe – northern Yemenis who overthrew the government last autumn, and seized the country’s third largest city on Sunday, according to security and military officials. “We will start by shelling their positions, and then you will storm the hill by cars and finally climb the hill on foot.”

His men call him the Biss – the Cat. After a rather desultory attempt to overrun the supposed adversary, they discovered that he had claws. “If the Houthis were actually there, they could have ended you all with one shell,” the Cat spat.

It’s a forlorn landscape, but one that contains compelling clues as to the shifting balance of power in the Middle East, and the new faultlines.

In Yemen there is little history of sectarian strife. The two main sects, Shia Zaidi and Sunni Shafi, have traditionally been seen as moderate with minimal differences.

But this changed when the Houthis, followers of an obscure Shia tradition who are accused of serving Iranian interests in Yemen, stormed the capital, Sana’a, in September, forcing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee to the southern port city of Aden.

Their advance had a galvanising effect in the country’s Sunni-dominated south, where al-Qaida is particularly strong and the jihadis of Islamic State are just starting to secure a toehold. [Continue reading…]

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Kurds accuse Iran of sending 30,000 troops to fight in Iraq

Al Jazeera: Kurdish authorities in Iraq have accused Iran of sending 30,000 soldiers and military experts to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Shakhawan Abdullah, the head of the Iraq’s parliamentary security and defence committee, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that Iranian soldiers were operating in a number of Iraqi cities and fighting on Iraqi soil.

Abdullah said Iran’s presence went beyond military advisers and experts, and that Iranians were fighting under the banner of the Popular Mobilisation Forces.

The Popular Mobilisation Forces is an umbrella organisation of Shia armed groups composed of around 100,000 fighters.

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Amazon’s trees removed nearly a third less carbon in last decade

The Guardian reports: The amount of carbon the Amazon’s remaining trees removed from the atmosphere fell by almost a third last decade, leading scientists to warn that manmade carbon emissions would need to be cut more deeply to tackle climate change.

Trees in untouched areas of the forest have been dying off across the basin at an increasing rate, found the study, published in Nature on Wednesday. Meanwhile the tree growth produced by higher CO2 levels in recent decades levelled off.

The authors said this may be because the Amazon’s seasonal weather variation had become more extreme. They also suggested more CO2 in the atmosphere was, counterintuitively, leading to trees dying younger.

Dr Roel Brienen of Leeds University said the Amazon was responsible for one-fifth to one-quarter of carbon sequestered on land, so any decline in its efficiency as a carbon sink was of consequence to efforts to combat climate change. [Continue reading…]

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‘Abandoned’ French working class ready to punish Left’s neglect by voting for Far Right

The Observer reports: At an election meeting just days before France’s regional elections, a Japanese journalist asked Marine Le Pen a question: why was her far-right Front National party tipped to do so well?

Polls suggest that the FN vote will reach unprecedented levels, with up to 30% of the vote, just ahead of the opposition Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party and leaving the ruling Socialist party trailing.

“The Front National is alone against everyone. The French people have realised for some time now that the Front National’s analysis is right, and the other political parties have failed,” Le Pen responded. The FN had gone from “a party of opposition … to a movement of government” by addressing “the economy, immigration and Islamic fundamentalism”, she added.

From Le Pen, a damning analysis of this type might be expected. But from a member of the leftwing commentariat? A new “state of the nation” tome, L’Insécurité culturelle, by analyst Laurent Bouvet, has caused a storm in Paris salons by suggesting that the country’s working class is ready to vote FN in droves because it has been abandoned by the left and deceived by the country’s Socialist government. [Continue reading…]

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Denmark threatened with nuclear attack by Russian ambassador

AFP reports: Russia’s ambassador to Denmark said Saturday that the NATO country’s navy could be targeted by nuclear missiles if it joins the Western alliance’s anti-missile shield.

The threat made by Ambassador Mikhail Vanin in an opinion piece he wrote for the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten sparked an angry reaction and came amid an increasingly Cold War-style standoff between Moscow and the West.

“I do not think that the Danes fully understand the consequences of what happens if Denmark joins the US-led missile defence,” Ambassador Mikhail Vanin wrote in the daily.

“If this happens Danish warships become targets for Russian nuclear missiles.”

Russia has long opposed NATO’s missile shield — launched in 2010 and due to be fully operational by 2025 — in which member countries contribute radar and weaponry to protect Europe against missile attacks.

Denmark has pledged to supply one or more frigates equipped with advanced radar to track incoming missiles.

The chairwoman of the Danish parliament’s foreign affairs, Mette Gjerskov told AFP that the comments were “very threatening and not necessary” as the missile shield was simply an “intruder alarm” and no danger to Russia. [Continue reading…]

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Arrests made in attack on Tunisian museum

The New York Times reports: The Tunisian authorities have arrested more than 20 people in the investigation into Wednesday’s attack at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis, including 10 the authorities say were directly tied to the deadly assault, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior said Saturday.

Some of those detained are relatives of the two gunmen who opened fire in the museum, killing 20 foreign tourists and three Tunisians before being shot dead by security forces.

The government and security forces have acted rapidly to investigate the attack and to present a determined and united front against terrorism, calling on all Tunisians and other countries to show solidarity. “There is a large-scale campaign against the extremists,” the ministry’s spokesman, Mohamed Ali Aroui, told news agencies.

Yet legislators and members of the public are already raising questions about security failures that allowed the gunmen to gain access to the museum so easily. [Continue reading…]

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Shiite rebels seize Yemen’s 3rd largest city, protests erupt

The Associated Press: Shiite rebels backed by supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh seized Yemen’s third largest city of Taiz and its airport on Sunday, security and military officials said, as thousands took to the streets in protest.

If the rebels hold onto the city, the capital of Yemen’s most populous province, it would be a major blow to embattled current President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who established a base in the southern city of Aden just 140 kilometers (85 miles) away after fleeing the rebel-held capital last month.

The seizure comes a day after the rebels, known as Houthis, called for a general mobilization against forces loyal to Hadi, who had just given a defiant speech challenging the Houthis in his first public address since leaving Sanaa.

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ISIS urges sympathizers to kill U.S. service members it identifies on website

The New York Times reports: In a new online threat to American military personnel, the Islamic State has called on its members and sympathizers in the United States to kill 100 service members whose names, photos and purported addresses it posted on a website.

The group said that the personnel had participated in efforts to defeat it in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.

Defense Department and F.B.I. officials said that they were aware of the website and were investigating the posting.

It does not appear that the information had been hacked from government servers. One Defense Department official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that most of the information could be found in public records, residential address search sites and social media.

The officials said the list appears to be drawn from personnel who have appeared in news articles about airstrikes on the militant group.

Some of the names also appear to be drawn from the Defense Department’s own official reports on the campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.

But the list also included armed services personnel and others in the United States or elsewhere who have had nothing to do with the bombing campaigns, officials said. [Continue reading…]

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From Minneapolis to ISIS: An American’s path to jihad

The New York Times reports: Reading back over Abdi Nur’s Twitter feed, his chilling progression from the basketball courts of South Minneapolis to the battlefields of Syria is clear.

Early last year, he began posting stern religious pronouncements and snippets of scripture. By April 2, a day after turning 20, he hailed Islamic fighters: “If the sky would be proud of the existence of the stars, the land should be proud of the existence of the Mujahideen.”

On May 29, the day he disappeared, he posted, “I Thank Allah For Everything No Matter What!” Soon he was in Turkey, rebuffing his mother’s and sister’s anguished pleas to come home. In late July, he declared, “What A Beautiful Day in Raqqa,” the de facto capital of the Islamic State in Syria. Last Aug. 7, he posted a picture of himself online with his finger on the trigger of a Kalashnikov.

Mr. Nur had become one of a small number of Americans enticed by the apocalyptic religious promise of the self-described Islamic State, which has seized large sections of Syria and Iraq and claims to be building a caliphate. [Continue reading…]

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Australia a puzzling hotbed of ISIS recruiting

The Associated Press reports: A nightclub bouncer who reportedly became a terror group leader. A man who tweeted a photo of his young son clutching a severed head. A teenager who is believed to have turned suicide bomber, and others suspected of attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State movement. All of them, Australian.

The London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence reports that between 100 and 250 Australians have joined Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria. Given Australia’s vast distance from the region and its population of just 24 million, it is a remarkable number. The center estimates that about 100 fighters came from the United States, which has more than 13 times as many people as Australia.

Experts disagree about why Islamic State has been so effective recruiting in Australia, which is widely regarded as a multicultural success story, with an economy in an enviable 24th year of continuous growth.

Possible explanations include that some Australian Muslims are poorly integrated with the rest of the country, and that Islamic State recruiters have given Australia particular attention. In addition, the Australian government failed to keep tabs on some citizens who had been radicalized, and moderate Muslims have been put off by some of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s comments about their community.

Greg Barton, a global terrorism expert at Monash University in Melbourne, said Australia and some other countries underestimated Islamic State’s “pull factor.”

“We’re all coming to terms with the fact that this is a formidable targeter and predatory recruiter that goes after individuals one by one with a very masterful use of technology, and our sense of confidence that because we’ve got society working well makes us secure misses the point,” Barton said.

Muslims make up about 2.2 percent of the population in Australia, compared to just 1 percent in the United States. And while many U.S. Muslims are from families who migrated in pursuit of the American economic dream, a larger proportion of Australian Muslims are from families who fled Lebanon’s civil war in the 1970s and ’80s. [Continue reading…]

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Nine British medics enter ISIS stronghold to work in hospitals

The Observer reports: Nine young British medical students have travelled illegally to Syria and are believed to be working in hospitals in Islamic State-controlled areas, the Observer can reveal. Their families were mounting a desperate effort on Saturday at the Turkish-Syrian border to persuade them to come home.

The group of four women and five men crossed the border last week, apparently keeping their plans secret from relatives until just before entering Syria, when one woman sent her sister a brief message and a smiling selfie.

“We all assume that they are in Tel Abyad now, which is under Isis control. The conflict out there is fierce, so medical help must be needed,” Turkish opposition politician Mehmet Ali Ediboglu told the Observer, shortly after meeting the families.

“They have been cheated, brainwashed. That is what I, and their relatives, think.”

Both he and the students’ parents were convinced that the young medics wanted to work with Isis, Ediboglu said, but they were also certain that the group did not plan to take up arms. “Let’s not forget about the fact that they are doctors; they went there to help, not to fight. So this case is a little bit different.”

The Home Office said that the medics would not automatically face prosecution under anti-terror laws if they tried to return to the UK, as long as they could prove they had not been fighting. [Continue reading…]

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Yemen bombings bring country closer to civil war

BBC News reports: Islamic State (IS) say its militants carried out suicide bombings on two mosques in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, which killed at least 137 people.

The attacks are the first claimed by IS – a Sunni group – since it set up a branch in Yemen in November.

Both mosques were used mainly by supporters of the Zaidi Shia-led Houthi rebel movement, which controls Sanaa. [Continue reading…]

The Toronto Star reports: Many fear the bombings Friday, coupled with Thursday’s battle between rival political factions for control of the airport in the southern city of Aden, will spark a series of retaliatory attacks.

Perhaps the grimmest indicator of how dire the situation has become is the fact that the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) quickly distanced itself from Friday’s suicide bombings.

AQAP’s leadership has in the past denounced the viciousness of the Islamic State’s tactics and the targeting of Muslims. Which means, in crude counterterrorism terms, that AQAP, once the world’s most feared Al Qaeda group, is now perceived as the more principled terrorists.

Washington-based analyst Sama’a Al-Hamdani said while the scale of the attack was unprecedented, it fits a pattern of escalating violence in Yemen.

“Everyone is expecting that someone will light a match and then an explosion will happen, but in Yemen is it more like a snowball effect,” she said in an interview Friday.

“It’s slow but consistent, in the same direction.”

This week marked the four-year anniversary of a seminal event that changed Yemen’s history — a day known locally as the “Day of Dignity.”

On March 18, 2011, forces loyal to then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh shot at unarmed demonstrators marching in the streets during the Arab Spring protests, killing 40. The snipers fired from rooftops and from behind a wall that Saleh’s forces had constructed days earlier near the demonstrators’ main camp, Change Square.

That day marked the beginning of the end for Saleh, who was forced to resign in 2012.

But Saleh never really went away as a deal brokered by the Gulf Co-operation Council, United States and Saudi Arabia, which paved the way for his successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, also granted him immunity from legal action.

Thursday’s battle for Aden airport was indicative of Saleh’s enduring power, as the clash pitted forces loyal to him against Hadi.

The Associated Press journalist Hamza Hendawi was at the airport on a flight bound for Cairo when the fighting broke out. “We were caught in what would become an hours-long battle, part of the bigger conflict tearing apart this chaotic, impoverished nation,” Hendawi wrote. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. fears ISIS is making serious inroads in Libya

Reuters: The United States is increasingly concerned about the growing presence and influence of the Syria-based Islamic State movement in Libya, according to U.S. officials and a State Department report.

The officials said what they called “senior” Islamic State leaders had traveled to the country, which is whacked by civil war, to help recruit and organize militants, particularly in the cities of Derna and Sirte.

Since late January, Islamic State militants have carried out attacks, including a car bombing and siege at the Corinthia, a luxury hotel in Tripoli, and an attack on the Mabruk oilfield south of Sirte, according to a report circulated this week by the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Bureau.

The militants also posted on the Web images of the beheading of 21 abducted Egyptian Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach.

The State Department document said estimates of the number of Islamic State fighters operating in Libya ranged from 1000 to 3000.

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Dutch investigation concludes MH17 downed by Buk missile from Russian battery

IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly reports: Investigators from the Office of the National Prosecutor (OM) of the Netherlands have completed the first phase of their work in definitely determining the cause of the mid-aid explosion and crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17). Preliminary information leaked to the Dutch media has concluded that a Russian unit is responsible for the shootdown.

Most of the collected debris from the aircraft, a Boeing 777 that crashed on 17 July 2014 while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with the loss of all 298 on board, is now spread out in hangers at the Royal Netherlands Air Force’s Gilze-Rijen airbase where investigators have been probing the wreckage for evidence.

The OM is part of a Joint International Team (JIT) conducting a criminal investigation charged with initially identifying what brought the aircraft down and from where. A second phase of the investigation is to then identify those responsible and bring them before a court with the proper jurisdiction.

According to all of the evidence the JIT has reviewed, which has included more than one million documents, photos and videos, the conclusions to date are that the MH17 was downed by a Buk-M1-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) launched from a Russian-owned battery that was most likely manned by a Russian crew. Photos and video evidence, as well as interviews with witnesses, prove that the battery was brought across the border from Russia into Ukraine shortly before the shootdown. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS using IEDs in staggering numbers across Iraq

Mike Giglio reports: ISIS is using improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in staggering numbers across its fronts in Iraq. Experts say the weapon has never been used on this scale before — it is “unprecedented,” says Jonah Leff of the arms-tracking firm Conflict Armament Research, and “a revolution in their use and deployment.”

IEDs were the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents during the U.S. occupation — and their use by ISIS now is playing a crucial role as the war against them reaches a pivotal moment in Iraq. While U.S. warplanes pound the militants, they face multipronged assaults from local forces: the Kurds, Iraqi troops, and Iran-backed militia. New offensives countrywide have been billed as preludes to a battle for the northern city of Mosul, the prize of ISIS’s summer onslaught and the Iraqi heart of its self-styled caliphate.

The offensives span from Kirkuk in the north to the edge of Anbar province west of Baghdad and the city of Tikrit, where some 20,000 militia and Iraqi soldiers are engaged in the largest operation against ISIS to date. All have slowed amid the havoc wreaked by IEDs. Fighters from each of the forces battling ISIS say that — like U.S. troops before them — they suffer most of their casualties from the bombs. [Continue reading…]

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Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric urges more professionalism in fight against ISIS

Reuters reports: Iraq’s most important Shi’ite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on Friday for greater professionalism and planning by government forces and allied militias in fighting Islamic State insurgents.

Sistani, who speaks for millions of Iraqis and has a worldwide following, also urged greater participation of Sunni residents in Islamic State-controlled areas of Salahuddin and Anbar provinces in the fight.

In Salahuddin, Iraqi security forces and mainly Shi’ite militia are fighting to dislodge the insurgents from Saddam Hussein’s hometown, Tikrit, which they overran last summer.

Some local Sunni tribes are supporting the efforts to retake Tikrit, where government and allied forces have not made any advances since last Friday. [Continue reading…]

Nancy A. Youssef adds: Iraqi politicians and military commanders have said repeatedly the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s grip on the city of Tikrit was about to end in the face of an overwhelming Iraqi military and militia offensive.

Just last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi reportedly declared that victory was near and “achieved totally by Iraqi hands.” And in an interview with ABC’s This Week that aired March 8, the prime minister said the forces’ advances were “ahead of planning.”

But two Pentagon officials told The Daily Beast on Thursday that the fall of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s hometown was at least two weeks away, as the campaign now is “stalled.” As Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Thursday, the Iraqi forces have not yet reached the center of the city. [Continue reading…]

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Iran nuclear talks lag, with status of new centrifuges another hurdle

The New York Times reports: A dispute over what limits should be placed on the development of new types of centrifuges has emerged as a major obstacle as negotiators try to work out an initial accord on Iran’s nuclear program, Western officials said on Thursday.

The negotiators’ goal has been to agree on the outlines of an accord by the end of March that would limit Iran’s nuclear program. A detailed and comprehensive agreement is to be completed by the end of June.

Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Thursday that while some progress had been made, the negotiators were still “pushing some tough issues.”

A European negotiator, who asked not to be named while discussing closed talks, was more skeptical, stressing that an accord would not be possible unless the Iranians showed significantly more flexibility over the coming days.

“We are not close to an agreement,” the official said. “We are not there at all.”

Western officials have suggested in recent weeks that the agreement six world powers are negotiating with Iran could allow it to retain and operate about 6,000 centrifuges. [Continue reading…]

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