Egypt said Monday that Saudi Arabia has halted fuel shipments indefinitely, in a sign of lingering tensions following a dispute over the conflict in Syria. – Associated Press Until now, Mr. Muhaysini, a 31-year-old Saudi-born cleric who said he was calling from Syria, had not been the type to contact Western publications. That he is doing so is most likely a reflection of how the Nusra Front is trying to buy itself some flexibility by publicly rebranding — even if no one in counterterrorism circles believes it is truly changing. Public relations efforts have become paramount in the contest within the jihadist world for recruits and resources, and in the effort to evade military reprisals from foreign powers. – New York Times
0 Comments
Iraqi military and police forces said Monday that they have uncovered a mass grave near a small town south of the Islamic State-held city of Mosul. Initial reports say 100 bodies were found, many of them decapitated. – Washington Post Now, in the fourth week of a U.S.-backed alliance’s pincer-like move to retake the northern Iraqi city, the whereabouts of the Islamic State chieftain are unknown – though a rare audio recording posted online last week by the militant group and attributed to him urged followers to fight to the death. – Los Angeles Times The Institute for the Study of War has a good map of where the Iraqi Army, special forces, and Kurdish Peshmerga are in and around the city here. Everyone loves to keep tabs on where Iranian Quds Force leader Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani is. And reports out of Iraq say he’s there, despite the fact that he’s banned from international travel under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231. The Long War Journal flags a report out of Iraq where Akram al Kabi, head of an Iranian-backed militia, claims he’s seen Soleimani. As the LWJ says, “Soleimani was purportedly spotted near Mosul on Oct. 17, the day of the siege’s launch, and was confirmed to be in the Kurdistan Regional Government territory on Oct. 23, before flying to Tehran on Oct. 28 to visit the families of Iranian soldiers killed in Syria. Confirmed photos of Soleimani in Iraq since his visit to Tehran have yet to emerge.”
An Irish recruit to ISIS, Khalid Kelly, is reported to have blown himself up in a vehicle bomb attack near Mosul. The Islamic State carried out a pair of suicide bombings in the Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Samarra on Sunday that used ambulances to kill at least 21 people. Pic of Khalid Kelly
Three American military trainers assigned to help upgrade Jordan’s armed forces were shot to death on Friday at a Jordanian Air Force base, an alarming confrontation that raised questions about the relationship between two longtime allies. – New York Times
When the Lebanese militant organization, Hezbollah, joined the fight on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Assad pretty much from the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the professional military assessment from Israel was essentially: Have at it. Let them bleed. – Defense News Interview: Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon talks to TAI editor Adam Garfinkle about Israel’s future. – The American Interest Seth Cropsey writes: The Israeli government’s greatest maritime challenge in the next decade will not be expanding its navy or cultivating external energy assets, but reframing its view of the sea. It faces a transition from an economic to a geostrategic view of the sea, and must take a hard look at the role of seapower in its national strategy. Its leaders know that a vulnerable Mediterranean coastline can be the nation’s Achilles heel, but this vulnerability also presents Israel with an opportunity. Effective maritime strategy could transform Israel’s strategic position, and help ensure its security for the coming decades. – The American Interest The threat by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, to retaliate for the Mosul assault with crippling car bombings in Baghdad has been largely neutralized. Such bombings, military officials fear, could terrorize the capital and unleash a new spiral of violence, undermine the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and pressure it to divert troops to defend Baghdad. – New York Times
Iraqi forces opened a safe passage for civilians trapped in Mosul’s dense neighborhoods on Sunday, allowing thousands to flee areas where Islamic State militants put up some of the fiercest resistance yet in the campaign to retake the city. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required) The U.S. spent more than $160 billion to rebuild war-wrecked Iraq and Afghanistan, but there appears to be little appetite in Washington to fund a third big reconstruction era for Iraq’s ongoing second war. – Washington Times The civilian presence hugely complicates the fight for the advancing Iraqi forces and for airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, a fact the Islamic State is using for its gain as it desperately tries to hold on to its capital in Iraq. – Washington Post Villages recaptured from ISIS over the past three weeks by the Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi army forces on the road to Mosul have been honeycombed with tunnels, many of them booby-trapped. In the past three days, commanders say Iraqi forces have faced the hardest fighting of the offensive as they entered Mosul, made worse by extensive tunnels that are allowing ISIS fighters to appear seemingly out of nowhere, attack, then retreat to the hidden bunkers. – Washington Post Islamic State fighters under siege by Iraqi forces have increasingly sent explosive-packed cars and trucks barreling toward the front lines. The Iraqi military’s answer to armored vehicle bombs is a Russian-made antitank missile mounted atop an American-made Humvee. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required) After three weeks of steady fighting around the Islamic State’s stronghold in Iraq, U.S. commanders say the group’s defeat there is inevitable. But even once violence abates in Mosul, the broader fight against ISIS will be far from over. – Military Times During the opening three days of the Mosul offensive, U.S.-led airstrikes rattled the city at a rate of one bomb every eight minutes, an official said. – Military.com The Guards, a force of some 2,500 mainly Sunni Arab fighters from Nineveh province and Mosul, its regional capital, are trained and supported by Turkey — whose presence in nearby Iraqi Kurdistan and demand for a greater role in the Mosul battle has inflamed tensions with Baghdad. – Financial Times Iraq's special forces worked Sunday to clear neighborhoods on the eastern edge of Islamic State-held Mosul as bombings launched by the extremist group elsewhere in the country killed at least 20 people. – Associated Press Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces attacked an Islamic State-held town northeast of Mosul on Monday, trying to clear a pocket of militants outside the city while Iraqi troops wage a fierce urban war with the jihadists in its eastern neighborhoods. - Reuters The US military says that the Taliban “influences” at least 25 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts and controls only 8 more. The numbers are at odds with an assessment by The Long War Journal of Taliban control in Afghanistan. The US military’s estimate does not explain how the Taliban is able to support multiple concurrent offensives across the country and threaten five provincial capitals. – Long War Journal
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have said next to nothing about how they would handle the war in Afghanistan. That's remarkable, given the enormous U.S. investment in blood and treasure over the past 15 years — including two American deaths on Thursday — the resilience of the Taliban insurgency and the risk of an Afghan government collapse that would risk empowering extremists and could force the next president's hands. – Associated Press Kabul's military training academy is churning out classes of enthusiastic women to serve in Afghanistan's army, but the realities of rising violence and a conservative society make the future for the young recruits far from certain. - Reuters Interview: Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, traveled to the region last week to take stock of the war against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria….Votel sat down with The Times to discuss what he heard from commanders on the ground. Here’s an edited version of his comments. – Los Angeles Times Kenneth Pollack writes: Many Kurds still hope that independence will solve their problems in the short term, by allowing the KRG to borrow money both domestically and internationally, by eliminating the discount on KRG oil exports, and by giving them full control over their monetary policy. The fact that they now feel like there is real hope for a peaceful secession has been a significant psychological boon. However, over time, it is likely that if these far-reaching reforms in economics and governance continue and expand, they will ultimately be the greatest benefit to Kurdistan, potentially setting it on the course to eventual stability, if not real prosperity. – Brookings Institution
A joint Kurdish-Arab militia has begun a new phase in the operation to dislodge the Islamic State from its stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, moving to isolate the city and largely cut off the resupply of arms, supplies and fighters, a United States military spokesman in Baghdad confirmed on Sunday. – New York Times
The former head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Avi Dichter, says Iran now commands a force of 25,000 Shia militants in Syria, fighting against the Sunni opposition to the Iranian-backed, Shia government of Syrian President Assad. These fighters are mostly recruits from Afghanistan, Pakistan and are in addition to Hezbollah, the Iranian terrorist army based out of Lebanon. – Washington Times For some Syrian women living in Lebanon, the bitter realities of life as a refugee have nourished an unexpected side effect: empowerment…Uprooted from some familiar social constraints and exposed to programs promoting women’s rights through contact with aid groups, some of them have obtained a degree of personal autonomy they never experienced in Syria. – Washington Post With the imminent arrival of its lone aircraft carrier off the coast of Syria, Russia is set to bulk up its military campaign ahead of what probably will be a renewed bombing campaign on the besieged city of Aleppo. – Washington Post’s Checkpoint Defense Secretary Ash Carter applauded U.S.-backed coalition forces for opening a new "isolation" effort in Raqqa on Sunday as part of an operation to remove the Islamic State from its de facto capital in Syria, but neglected to offer any hint of progress made with Turkey in negotiating allowing the Kurdish-led Syrian forces to enter the city. – Washington Examiner Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford on Sunday met in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart on the planned Raqqa offensive to be led by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds considered terrorists by Turkey. – Military.com
Shadi Hamid writes: For the first time in nearly a century, the caliphate—or at least a caliphate—has become something tangible, but also something brutal and frightening. In a brilliant stroke of ideological appropriation, the Islamic State took an idea that had animated the Muslim world for nearly 14 centuries and made it its own. In so doing, it also managed to taint an idea that hundreds of millions of Muslims continue to look to with considerable longing. – Brookings Institution
Report: Russia is preparing to escalate its military operations in Syria in order to tout its standing as a great power, reinforce its claims to be a credible partner against violent extremism, and reinvigorate domestic support for its continued participation in the Syrian Civil War – Institute for the Study of War
Civilians have no escape route from the Iraqi city of Mosul and are under threat of “possible mass casualties” from daily U.S. and coalition airstrikes aiding the ongoing Iraqi government offensive to reclaim the city from the Islamic State, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday. – Washington Post As Iraqi and Kurdish military forces converge on the eastern outskirts of Mosul, U.S. commanders are concerned about their ability to launch airstrikes without laying waste to the ancient city and the civilians who live there. – Los Angeles Times Islamic State cut off cellular service to Mosul two years ago. Now Iraqi forces trying to recapture the city are trucking in portable cellphone towers—and encouraging residents to take advantage of restored coverage to call with useful intelligence. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required) The brutally simple weapon that for years caused problems for U.S. troops occupying Iraq and Afghanistan is now increasingly shaping the ongoing push by Iraq’s military and other allied ground forces to retake Mosul from the Islamic State. – Washington Times Iraqi citizens along the outskirts of Mosul are telling coalition forces of the torturous existence they lived for the past two years under the Islamic State group. – Washington Times U.S. special operators were at the front line on the edge of Mosul earlier on Tuesday with elite Iraqi troops who were preparing to enter the Islamic State's last stronghold in the country. – Stars and Stripes U.S.-backed Iraqi forces moved closer on Wednesday to a town south of Mosul where aid groups and regional officials say Islamic State has executed dozens of prisoners. - Reuters Islamic State militants killed 40 former members of the Iraqi Security Forces near Mosul on Saturday and threw their bodies in the Tigris river, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Tuesday, citing reports from the field. - Reuters Islamic State documents and posters, obtained in villages captured by Iraqi forces, highlight a tight and comprehensive system of rule by the militants, who went to great lengths to explain their extremist philosophy. - Reuters While the fight on Mosul's eastern front has moved at a brisk, steady pace since the offensive formally began Oct. 17, the ground assault to the south has been a grinding slog. – Associated Press Turkey's defense minister said Tuesday his country is making preparations for "all kinds of possibilities" after the military began deploying tanks and other vehicles to the border with Iraq. – Associated Press Peter Bergen interviews US CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel: Votel…sat down with me on Thursday at a US base in the Middle East and also on his plane on Friday to discuss how that campaign is going, from the commencement of major combat operations to take back Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, from ISIS, to the incipient US operations around Raqqa, ISIS' de facto capital in Syria, to ISIS' plans to transform from a physical caliphate to a virtual one, and the continued threat posed by al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria. - CNN Kenneth Pollack writes: The apparent decision to simply follow Abadi’s lead and leave post-liberation Mosul to the Iraqi government raises the question of whether the Obama administration is repeating the same mistake it has in the past. – Brookings Institution Iraqi Special Forces pressed deeper into eastern Mosul on Friday, as troops assaulted six new neighborhoods. Heavy fighting was reported as large convoys of displaced persons continued to rush out of the besieged city held by Islamic State for more than two years. – Washington Post
Holding white flags and traveling in convoys of dump trucks, army buses and family sedans, thousands of residents poured out of eastern neighborhoods of Mosul on Thursday, the first significant wave of people to escape the city held by the Islamic State. – Washington Post While the Islamic State’s tactics have been a hodgepodge of diversionary skirmishes and concerted counterattacks, the desert terrain outside Mosul has allowed the group — also known as ISIS and ISIL — to effectively use antitank guided missiles, or ATGMs, in its defense of the city’s approaches. Though it is hardly a new tactic on the recent battlefields in Iraq and Syria, the large offensive has produced footage of the weapons in use against U.S.-made vehicles that — in recent years — have not had to contend with them. – Washington Post As Iraqi and Kurdish forces tighten the noose around the Islamic State-held city of Mosul, American and coalition commanders are keeping a wary eye on the city’s western flanks, where thousands of Shia majority paramilitary fighters have launched an offensive toward the city. – Washington Times An audio recording purportedly circulated this week by reclusive Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may be proof that communications have broken down between the terrorist group’s top leaders in Syria and its rank-and-file fighters in the besieged city of Mosul, the Pentagon said Thursday, as coalition forces continued their advance on Iraq’s second-largest city. – Washington Times The U.S. military on Thursday called the latest message from Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi a desperate bid to boost morale among militants who increasingly realize they're fighting for a losing cause. – Military.com As Iraqi troops enter the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul this week, they have help from the sky in the form of F/A-18 Super Hornets based on the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Arabian Gulf. – DOD Buzz Iraqi special forces recaptured six districts of eastern Mosul on Friday, a military statement said, expanding the army's foothold in the Islamic State stronghold a day after its leader told his jihadist followers there could be no retreat. - Reuters The commander of the Iraqi special forces who are spearheading the offensive to recapture the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul said on Thursday that they had gained a foothold in the city quicker than expected. - Reuters Iraq is not planning for U.S. military advisors to accompany Iraqi forces inside the city of Mosul, at least for now, a U.S. military spokesman said on Thursday, potentially limiting America's role in the offensive against Islamic State. - Reuters The Kurdish women are part of a larger armed unit of some 600 fighters aligned with the Kurdistan Freedom Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PAK. This group has joined an array of Iraqi and Kurdish forces who are backed by a U.S.-led coalition in an offensive designed to push Islamic State out of their stronghold of Mosul. - Reuters Analysis: As Iraq comes closer to ejecting the Islamic State from its last major stronghold in the country, the question is no longer whether it can succeed. The question is whether it will all have to be done again someday. – New York Times Pakistani police arrested dozens of people in a crackdown on more than 90 seminaries in Karachi, following a series of sectarian shootings in the country's largest city, officials said on Monday. - Reuters Clashes erupted Monday between the riot police and thousands of supporters of the opposition politician Imran Khan in northwestern Pakistan, ahead of his plan to hold a protest in the Pakistani capital later this week. – New York Times Pakistan opposition leader Imran Khan backed down from his threat to shut down the capital on Wednesday, vowing instead to hold a celebratory rally about a Supreme Court decision to pursue a case linked to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. - Reuters Two supporters of a Pakistani opposition party have died from use of tear gas by police trying to keep hundreds of people from entering the capital, Islamabad, for a protest to demand the prime minister resign, the party said on Tuesday. - Reuters So much divides the two politicians, but at least one thing unites them: they have spent their careers fighting for women. They became unlikely allies in the battle to pass a historic law to protect women from murder by members of their own families. – Associated Press After days of police crackdowns on his supporters, Imran Khan, Pakistan’s opposition leader, on Tuesday called off his plan to shut down the Pakistani capital with street demonstrations, averting a potentially violent clash. – New York Times
Aykan Erdemir writes: Mr. Erdogan’s latest assault against Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party is a dangerous political move. Arresting pro-Kurdish lawmakers undermines not only their party but also the Turkish parliament. Shutting off channels into democratic participation for Turkey’s Kurdish electorate plays to the PKK’s strength. The more Turkey’s Kurds are disenfranchised, the more they stand to be drawn toward violence and extremism. That adds an additional layer of volatility to a country also targeted by Islamist terrorists and weakened by Mr. Erdogan’s own efforts to dismantle representative democracy. – WSJ’s Think Tank Stephen Blank writes: [T]he real beneficiary of Erdogan’s actions is Putin. In this light, the current trends in the Russo-Turkish “liaison” are not only dangerous for Turkey, its neighbors, and its allies. These trends also represent a grandiose and successful manifestation of the abiding Russian employment of reflexive control tactics to induce other political actors to do what they believe is their interest while actually serving Moscow’s interests. Putin may well succeed in weakening NATO and the EU and gaining more influence in the Middle East, but when all is said and done what will Erdogan have gained? – Atlantic Council To cheers from his supporters, President Tayyip Erdogan, evoking the glories of Turkey's Ottoman past, has vowed to root out enemies at home and abroad, from followers of the cleric he blames for the coup attempt, to Kurdish militants and Islamic State jihadists. The unprecedented crackdown at home and his bellicose stance on the world stage have alarmed Western and some regional allies, who fear the NATO member and EU candidate nation is becoming an ever more unpredictable partner, and one over which they have decreasing leverage. - Reuters Editorial: Mr. Erdogan is holding back a tide of Syrian war refugees from Europe, and Turkey is critical to the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State. These are real concerns but should not prevent the United States from speaking out against arbitrary detention, persecution of civil society and suppression of free speech in Turkey. The United States often describes freedom of expression and human rights as “universal values” when they are trampled in China and Russia. They are no less universal when trampled in Turkey. – Washington Post Top U.S. General heads to Turkey. In an attempt to smooth things over with Turkey -- who has insisted the Kurds play no part in the fight for Raqqa -- Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an unannounced visit to Ankara on Sunday, meeting with Turkish officials to discuss battle plans. His staff also announced that the Pentagon is sending a team of officers to Ankara to work with the Turkish General Staff on coordinating the fight. The Turks will play a key role in identifying and training local Syrian Arabs to hold the city once ISIS is evicted.
Michel Aoun, a charismatic retired general, polarizing Christian politician and ally to Hezbollah, was chosen president of Lebanon on Monday morning, ending a two-and-a-half-year vacuum that had tested the country’s ability to function without political leadership – New York Times
Approaching from the east, and facing Islamic State artillery, snipers and suicide attacks, Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces breached Mosul’s city limits on Tuesday, officers said, the first time government forces have entered the city in more than two years. – New York Times FPI Senior Policy Analyst Tzvi Kahn writes: [A]fter the defeat of IS in Mosul, President Obama — or, more likely, his successor — must take steps to ensure that Iran cannot benefit from the resulting vacuum. At a minimum, such an approach will require a greater U.S. military commitment to stabilize Iraq and reduce the influence of Iran and Sunni extremism. – Foreign Policy Initiative
Frederic Hof writes: [T]hose who have, albeit inadvertently and with the best of intentions, transmitted messages of American weakness, confusion, and doubt to the likes of Vladimir Putin also bear an explanatory burden. They have left millions of Syrian civilians defenseless and have placed at risk the credibility and reputation of the United States in the process. They have much to answer for. But first things first: explain to your countrymen how you are not putting global security at risk by acceding to mass murder in Syria and by encouraging Mr. Putin to think he faces an empty suit. And in so doing, please: do not try to attach the specter of World War III to those who have urged, in the context of Syria and for over five years, a convergence of word with deed. – Atlantic Council
Michael O’Hanlon writes: To be sure, the practical challenges associated with negotiating and implementing a Syrian confederation are considerable. But in fact, each can be addressed. Given the impracticality of any solution for Syria that does not devolve power from the center, it is important to do so. Consider these counterarguments to the critics of confederation – Washington Times |
Archives
May 2024
Categories |