Putin Announces U.S. as a Threat to Security

Posted on January 2, 2016January 2, 2016 by Denise Simon

Heh….Obama is no threat to anyone except Christians,legal gun owners and to taxpayers. But in case you are inclined to do some copying and pasting, here is the document. The United States under Barack Obama has refused to remain on a global stage and work to find peace through diplomacy or even militarily. Putin continues to challenge NATO and Putin will continue to be aggressive towards NATO members.

The document outlines the national interests and strategic priorities of the nation. Putin signed the executive order Thursday, establishing a new posture toward the NATO bloc, which has seen its relationship with Russia deteriorate since the crisis in Ukraine, which began in 2014.

Russian news agency Tass quotes the strategy, which cites a NATO military buildup, and “the alliance’s approach to Russia’s borders,” as a threat to Russia’s national security. The document says the organization is illegally extending its reach.

Putin Names US As Threat To Russian National Security In New Strategy Document

Durden/Zerohedge: It’s no secret that relations between Moscow and the West have deteriorated the post-Cold War lows.

The annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Ukraine have pushed the two sides to the brink of a Baltic battle while Russia’s intervention in Syria changed the West’s calculus when it comes to pushing for regime change in the Mid-East.

Earlier this year, in a hilariously accurate assessment of US foreign policy, Vladimir Putin’s Security Council issued a statement entitled “About The US National Security Strategy“. Here are some notable excerpts (translated):

The armed forces are considered as the basis of US national security and military superiority is considered a major factor in the American world leadership. While maintaining the continuity of the plants to use military force unilaterally and anywhere in the world, as well as to maintain a military presence abroad…

Significant efforts by the US and its allies will be directed to the formation of anti-Russian policy states, with which Russia has established partnership relations, as well as to reduce Russian influence in the former Soviet Union.

Continue the policy of preserving the global dominance of the United States, increasing the combat capabilities of NATO, as well as to strengthen the US military presence in the Asia-Tihokeanskom region. Military force will continue to be considered as the primary means of ensuring national security and interests of the United States.

Becoming more widespread to eliminate unwanted US political regimes acquire advanced technology “color revolutions” with a high probability of their application in relation to Russia.

Thus, the strategy was developed on the basis of American exceptionalism, the right to take unilateral action to protect and promote the interests of the United States in the world and bears the active anti-Russian charge.

In other words, Moscow views US foreign policy as decidedly Russophobic and The Kremlin pretty clearly sees Washington as a threat to Russia’s security. Well on New Year’s Eve, Vladimir Putin made it official by signing a new appraisal of his country’s national security which, for the first time, lists the US as a threat. Here’s Reuters:

The document, “About the Strategy of National Security of Russian Federation”, was signed by President Vladimir Putin on New Year’s Eve. It replaces a 2009 version, endorsed by then- President Dmitry Medvedev, the current prime minister, which mentioned neither the United States not NATO.

It says Russia has managed to heighten its role in solving global problems and international conflicts. That heightened role has caused a reaction by the West.

“The strengthening of Russia happens against the background of new threats to the national security, which has complex and interrelated nature,” the document goes on to note.

Conducting an independent policy, “both international and domestic” has caused “counteraction from the USA and its allies, which are striving to retain their dominance in global affairs.”

That in turn is likely to lead to “political, economical, military and informational pressure on Russia.”

The document also implicates Washington in staging “anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Ukraine”, which is of course true. The result: a protracted civil war and a US puppet government that is less popular than its Russia-backed predecessor.

The document also reiterates Russia’s concerns about the expansion and strengthening of NATO. Here’s an excerpt:

The buildup of the military potential of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and vesting it with global functions implemented in violations of norms of international law, boosting military activity of the bloc’s countries, further expansion of the alliance, the approach of its military infrastructure to Russian borders create a threat to the national security.”

The references are to the multiple war games and snap drills NATO has conducted near Russia’s borders over the past nine months and to the inclusion of Montenegro in the alliance (documented here).

Of course one doesn’t necessarily have to interpret the document in the way the Western media has. Compare and contrast the following two headlines, the first from Reuters and the second from Sputnik:

Those two pieces refer to the very same document although you wouldn’t know it by what’s implied. Here are some excerpts from the Sputnik piece:

The strategy defines main venues of Russia-US partnership on the global arena as the improvement of mechanisms of arms controls, the strengthening of mutual trust measures, joint efforts in the area of WMD non-proliferation, expanded cooperation in the fight against terrorism as well as in the resolution of regional conflicts.

“Russia supports the strengthening of mutually-beneficial cooperation with the European countries, the European Union…with the goal of developing a transparent system of collective security in the Euro-Atlantic region based on clearly-defined legal agreements,” the text of the document, posted on Thursday on the government’s legal information portal, says.

According to the document, Russia continues to view NATO expansion and military activities near Russian borders as a major threat to its security and a violation of international laws, but is ready to develop relations with the Alliance in the interests of the European security.

The takeaway here probably isn’t whether or not the US is listed as a “threat” to Russia’s national security but rather that The Kremlin if officially recognizing Russia’s role in a kind of new world order wherein all matters of geopolitical significance are no longer decided in Washington.

In other words, the era of unipolarity and US hegemony (which has lasted nearly a quarter century) has come to an end and Russia’s discussion of the backlash from the US and NATO isn’t so much an effort to cast aspersions (i.e. to call this country or that country “a threat”) as it is to outline and assess the new reality.

NYE Hillary Email Drop, Missed the Court Order

Posted on January 1, 2016January 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

As a primer, due to the recent charges and arrest of Bill Cosby:

Bill Cosby Donated To The Clinton Foundation. Will The Charity Return The Money?

DailyCaller: Numerous organizations had disassociated themselves from Bill Cosby even before the comedian was charged with a crime for any of the alleged sexual assaults he committed over the years. Colleges and universities have scrubbed the formerly-beloved TV dad’s name from their buildings. Others have rescinded honorary degrees given to Cosby and more have returned donations he has provided.

But one organization that has yet to make a move regarding Cosby is the Clinton Foundation.

As was reported earlier this year, the “Cosby Show” creator gave between $1,001 and $5,000 to the non-profit organization operated by former president Bill Clinton and his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Even as dozens of women came forward to accuse Cosby of sexually assaulting them over the past several decades, the charity declined to relinquish the Cosby cash. And in a particularly awkward interview in July, Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri hemmed and hawed when asked whether the Foundation would return the money.

Hillary Clinton emails: Kissinger, Photoshop and ‘Texts from Hillary’

(CNN)The State Department on Thursday afternoon released new emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but the tranche was smaller than required for this month.

“We have worked diligently to come as close to the goal as possible, but with the large number of documents involved and the holiday schedule we have not met the goal this month,” the State Department said in a statement to reporters Thursday morning.

The State Department was supposed to release over 8,000 pages of emails Thursday — 16% of Clinton’s total available emails — but released approximately 5,500. Additional emails will be released “sometime next week,” the department said.

Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find in the final email dump of 2015:

Mark Penn suggested HRC ‘consider resigning’ after Obama’s ‘more flexibility’ hot mic moment

During a meeting at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, President Barack Obama was caught on a live mic telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate sensitive issues, like missile defense, “after my election.”

The content of their discussion was quickly transmitted around the world, eventually making its way to Clinton by way of an enraged former aide and longtime pollster Clinton family pollster Mark Penn.

“This could be about the stupidest thing ever said by a president in foreign policy,” Penn wrote in an email to Clinton, then suggesting she “consider resigning” if the kerfuffle compromised her politically.

“What is this referring to?” a puzzled Clinton asked, forwarding Penn’s message to foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan, who explained the situation, adding a dose of calm: “It is not good — at all,” he writes, “but I think Mark may be pushing it a bit far.”

‘You look cute’

When a photo Hillary Clinton went viral — “The Texts from Hillary” meme, which repeatedly featured an image of her wearing sunglasses and thumbing away on her Blackberry — all chief of staff Cheryl Mills said was, “You look cute.”

Clinton was tipped to the viral hit in an April 5, 2012 email from Russell Potter, a State staffer, who wrote “Not sure if you’re aware of this and its recent ‘life’ on Facebook. “Seems everyone is posting it.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton checks her PDA upon departure in a military C-17 plane from Malta bound for Tripoli, on October 18, 2011.

Clinton replied later “Why now? That was on way to Libya?”

Clinton later rode the hit to some fame but also saw it used by opponents after it was discovered she had been using a private email server.

Who gets to ride with Hillary?

As flow charts and organizational structures go, perhaps none was as important as the one top Clinton aide Philippe Reines set up to determine who rides with the former secretary of state.

Looking like it was punched up on a MS-DOS word processor, it starts with one simple question: “Is Huma here?” and ends, more than a page later with the ever-important question of whether Reines himself gets in with Clinton.

And if Reines is already in the limo/SUV? “Chutzpah!”

And when nobody showed him any love, Reines sent it around again to show how much work he put into it.

“I did NOT/NOT receive sufficient appreciation for the below. Only Jake reacted. It took HOURS to get the formatting right. Literally hours to ensure it would work on every size font,” Reines wrote. “Without positive reinforcement I’m not sure I can continue to really invest myself in these missives/diatribes.”

Sullivan forwarded the chart to Clinton with just one line “See below.”

Kissinger gets impatient

For anyone out there thinking it takes too long to declassify old State Department email, you’ve got a friend in Henry Kissinger.

The former secretary of state and top foreign policy adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford wrote to Clinton in February 2012 complaining that, despite having paid $150,000 to have his files digitized in an effort to to “accelerate” the process, “that has clearly not happened.”

“Let me show you the magnitude of the problem” he continued. “Jeff Smith has been advised by the National Declassification Center that, of the 559,679 pages I donated and are on the RAC, the State Department has responsibility to review 259,402 pages. Of that total, the Department has declassified only three pages (yes, three) that are ready for public release.”

‘Why is being on a cruise ship a dangerous or difficult situation!’

In one chain from 2011, Clinton and senior aide Sullivan seem to mock an American citizen stranded in Egypt after the embassy closed amid escalating protests.

Clinton was forwarded excerpts from an interview that vacationer Laura Murphy gave to CNN, in which the latter woman called U.S. response “grossly insufficient” and “quoted the ambassador as saying, ‘You’re on a lovely cruise ship, I suggest you stay there.'”

“What’s this about?” Clinton asks.

“Dissatisfaction by (American citizens) with our support in helping them leave,” Sullivan says in his response, suggesting the State Department send out a “good comms person.”

“Agreed,” says Clinton. “But, why is being on a cruise ship a dangerous or difficult situation!”

“A fine question!” Sullivan replies.

Murphy was stranded on a river cruise that had been anchored in Luxor after the captain was warned that stops along the Nile could be dangerous for tourists.

Murphy wasn’t the only person on the cruise to express frustration.

PBS travel-show host Regina Fraser told CNN at the time that the U.S. embassy transferred her call for assistance to an automated message, which advised her to go to their website — this despite the fact that she had no Internet access.”

‘Good info, sadly’

Here’s an inside look at some delicate negotiations between the administration and the New York Times over new details emerging from Benghazi in the days after the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 attack.

Following what appears to be some high level back-and-forth, at least one official seems to shrug and concede a disputed story is going to be published. Why’s that? The emailer concedes that the reporter “had good info, sadly.”

Who’s the “biggest jerk” in all of foreign service?

Of the many notes and memos Sidney Blumenthal passed Clinton, this one may carry the greatest insight but with the clawing realization the world will never find out who is one of the “biggest jerks” in diplomacy.

Blumenthal passed along this advice from John Kornblum, who was an ambassador to Germany under Bill Clinton:

“‘Just for the record, if she does not already know it, (redacted) is one of the biggest jerks in the foreign service. Not only can he not get along with people or think clearly on anything, he also went totally over to the dark side during the Bush administration. He is in a league with (redacted) on this one. He once literally shouted me down at a conference where I suggested the Bush administration was hurting U.S. relations with Europe.'”

Team Clinton speculates over Obama hit

It was summer of 2010 and Democrats were getting anxious — rightfully, as it turned out — about the coming midterm elections. In a Financial Times story, one unnamed White House adviser put the onus on the President himself.

“I never thought I would say this, but even I’m unsure what President Obama really believes,” the individual is quoted as telling reporter Henry Luce. “Instead of outsourcing decisions to Congress, he should spell out his bottom line. That is what leaders are for.”

In an email flagging this to Clinton, while piling scorn on top Obama political aide David Axelrod and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Blumenthal suggested Tom Daschle and John Podesta as potential sources.

“Why do you think it might be Daschle?” Clinton asks. “Or Podesta?”

We don’t see his response, but we do know this: Podesta is currently the chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Clinton reaction to being photo-shopped out of Situation Room pic

Remember when Der Tzitung, a Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper, photoshopped Clinton out of that now-famous photo of a packed White House Situation Room during the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound?

Clinton was on that story early, apparently reading about it on a blog, which cited an item in the Jerusalem Post, and not pleased.

They’d done it, she told her aides, “perhaps because no woman should be in such a place of power or that I am dressed immodestly!!”

Then, signing off drolly, Clinton writes:

“And so, Happy Mother’s Day.”

What’s confidential and what’s not

The emails released on Thursday included 275 that had been upgraded in whole or part to “classified,” and redacted accordingly, a State Department official told CNN.

However, the official added that none of the emails contained information that was classified at the time they were sent of received — something Clinton has repeatedly emphasized as she campaigns for the presidency.

Most of those emails were upgraded to the lowest classified level, “Confidential,” but two were upgraded to the higher level of “Secret.”

Why are we getting these emails now

The State Department was ordered to release all of Clinton’s work-related emails by Judge Rudolph Contreras as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by journalist Jason Leopold. The case came after it was revealed that Clinton used a private email server to conduct official business while leading the department.

In May, Contreras ordered the State Department to “aspire to abide” to a monthly production schedule, releasing specified numbers of emails at the end of each month up until January 29, 2016.

While the schedule is aspirational, the department must also submit reports each month to explain its progress. State Department attorneys will therefore have to explain the failure to meet the December quota in a filing to Contreras next week.

When Countries Fail, Terror Spreads

Posted on January 1, 2016January 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

While Donald Trump is cresting the political wave running for President, he did get one thing wrong. His statement about ‘letting Syria and Islamic State fight’, it becomes a matter of 300,000 dead and an estimated 4 million displaced people, many that are flowing into Europe and causing epic financial burdens on other countries.

In the case of the most recent Paris attack, Syria and Belgium failed causing a massacre in France.

Investigation Uncovers New Details About How the Paris Terror Attacks Unfolded

ViceNews: As the investigation into the Paris terror attacks continues, one thing has become clear: The attacks started in — and may have been directed from — neighboring Belgium.

After accessing 6,000 official records from the ongoing police investigation, French daily Le Monde has reconstructed the days that led to the coordinated attacks that brought the French capital to a standstill and left 130 people dead.

On November 13, three teams of gunmen attacked three targets in Paris: the Stade de France, the Bataclan concert hall, and cafés and restaurants in the 11th and 12th Arrondissements. The attackers used three vehicles: a Renault Clio, a SEAT, and a Volkswagen Polo.

In the early hours of November 12, the Clio and the SEAT were spotted in a backstreet of Molenbeek, a neighborhood of Brussels that has been labeled “the heart of jihadism” in Europe. Three men reportedly exited the vehicles and exchanged a package.

According to investigators, the men in the cars were Salah Abdeslam, now one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, his brother Brahim, who blew himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire café, and Mohamed Abrini, a 30-year-old Belgian man who helped mastermind the attack. Like Abdeslam, Abrini still remains at large.

First Stop: Charleroi
Le Monde revealed that, prior to meeting up in Molenbeek, the cars made a brief stop in the Belgian city of Charleroi, spending time in a neighborhood infamous for weapons and drugs trafficking.

At around 4pm on November 12, the two cars set off for Paris. There, they were met by a third vehicle, which would transport the third team of attackers.

In Paris, the attackers split up into two groups. The Bataclan attackers took a hotel room in the southeast Paris suburb of Alfortville. The men who would carry out the attacks at the stadium and along the busy sidewalks of the 11th and 12th Arrondissements spent the night in a house in the northeastern Paris suburb of Bobigny. Investigators found a roll of Scotch tape in the house that the attackers used to assemble their explosive belts.

A Mysterious Trip to the Airport
At 6pm on November 13, the Clio traveled to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and remained there until 7:20pm. Investigators still aren’t sure about the purpose of this brief stop. At 7:40pm, the three Bataclan attackers left their hotel in the Polo. At 8:29pm, Salah Abdeslam drove the third car to the Stade de France, where he dropped off three of his accomplices, each of them wearing a belt packed with explosives. At 8:39pm, the SEAT continued toward the 11th Arrondissement.

Salah Abdeslam, Bilal Hadfi, and two unidentified men carrying fake Syrian passports rode in the Clio. So far, the only thing known about the unidentified men is that they entered Europe at the start of October.

Riding in the SEAT were Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Brahim Abdeslam, and a third man, who may have died in the police raid on Abaaoud’s hideout in Saint-Denis, in the early hours of November 18.

Omar Ismail Mostefaï, Samy Amimour, and Foued Mohamed-Aggad rode in the Polo. Their car was headed to the Bataclan concert hall, where 1,500 people gathered to hear the Eagles of Death Metal perform.

Attacks Likely Coordinated in Belgium
Le Monde also confirmed earlier reports that three Bataclan gunmen were communicating with an individual in Belgium until the moment the attack began. Investigators found a white Samsung mobile phone bearing the DNA of Mostefaï and Mohamed-Aggad in a trash can near the Bataclan. The discarded phone contained a text message sent at 9:42pm to an unknown contact in Belgium.

“We’ve left,” the message said. “We’re starting.” The contact communicated a total of 25 times with the attackers, disabling the line immediately after receiving the text message announcing the start of the attack.

Abaaoud was also in touch with someone in Belgium on the night of November 13. Investigators have established that the two Belgian phone lines were situated at the exact same location, suggesting both teams in Paris were communicating with the same person.

Paris Associate Killed in Syria
An associate of the Paris attackers was recently killed in an airstrike in Syria. Charaffe Al-Mouadan, a 26-year-old Syria-based member of the Islamic State (IS), was born in the northeastern Paris suburb of Bondy and was a close friend of Amimour, one of the Bataclan gunman. They were both arrested in October 2012 for suspected terror activity, a year before Al-Mouadan relocated to Syria to join IS.

Al-Mouadan — who went by the nickname “Souleymane” — was also friends with Abaaoud. Radio station France Info revealed the existence of a photograph that shows Al-Mouadan posing with Abaaoud’s younger brother in Syria.

Investigators turned their attention to Al-Mouadan after one of the Bataclan survivors said he overheard Mostefaï refer to a man called “Souleymane.” According to the witness, Mostefaï asked Amimour whether he was planning to “get in touch with Souleymane.”

In a statement released on Tuesday, US coalition spokesman Steve Warren said that Al-Mouadan was one of 10 IS leaders killed in targeted airstrikes. Several of these leaders, he noted, were directly linked to attacks abroad — including the Paris attacks.

According to David Thompson, a reporter for French radio station RFI, Al-Mouadan was not a leader of the group — just a fighter with a strong social media presence.

Muslim Brotherhood in U.S. Gets Millions in Grants

Posted on December 30, 2015December 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States document is here.

The House Intelligence Committee Testimony on the Muslim Brotherhood is here.

Mosque Linked To Muslim Brotherhood Has Received Millions In Federal Grants

DailyCaller: A Kansas City mosque owned by an Islamic umbrella organization with deep ties to the U.S. arm of the Muslim Brotherhood has received millions of dollars in federal grants over the past several years, according to a federal spending database.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has received $2,739,891 from the Department of Agriculture since 2010, a Daily Caller analysis has found. The money largely went to the mosque’s Crescent Clinic to provide services through the Women, Infant and Children nutrition program, known as WIC.

The most recent federal payment — in the amount of $327,436 — was handed out Oct. 1.

Property records show the mosque is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which acts as a financial holding company for Islamic organizations. It offers sharia-compliant financial products to Muslim investors, operates Islamic schools and owns more than 300 other mosques throughout the U.S.

Founded in 1973 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Muslim Students Association, NAIT’s most controversial connection is to the 2007 and 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror financing cases. Along with other Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), NAIT was named a co-conspirator in the federal case but was not indicted.

At the Holy Land Foundation trial, evidence was presented that ISNA diverted funds from the accounts it held with NAIT to institutions linked to Hamas and to Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader.

Federal prosecutors introduced evidence in the case that “established that ISNA and NAIT were among those organizations created by the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood.” Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of checks drawn from ISNA’s account and deposited in the Holy Land Foundation’s account with NAIT were made payable to “the Palestinian Mujahadeen,” which is the original name for Hamas’ military wing.

While Hamas was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 1997 and is considered the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the larger Muslim Brotherhood is not itself designated as a terrorist group.

NAIT has other ties to the Holy Land Foundation case. Its newly-appointed executive director, Salah Obeidallah, was a founding member and former president of the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, N.J.

In the 1990s, the imam at that mosque was Mohammad El-Mezain, a founding member of the Holy Land Foundation who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for helping fund Hamas. Obeidallah has said that he was not aware of El-Mezain’s terror funding activities.

In being owned by NAIT, the Kansas City organization is in company with numerous mosques with ties to known terrorists, terror sympathizers and fundamentalist Islamists.

Purportedly backed by money from Saudi Arabia and supporting a fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, NAIT holds the deed to the Islamic Society of Boston, which operates the mosque attended by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the so-called Boston Marathon bombers.

It also controls the Islamic Center of San Diego, which was attended by Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two al-Qaeda members who helped fly American Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

According to a 2002 Newsweek investigation, members of the San Diego mosque helped the two terrorists obtain housing, driver’s licences and social security numbers. They claimed not to have known about the men’s terror plans.

NAIT also owns the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Fairfax Co., Va. — a known hotbed of terrorist activity. Al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki served as imam at that location in 2001 and 2002. He was killed by an American drone in Yemen in 2011.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has its own loose links to terrorist activities. The mosque made news earlier this year when it held the funeral for Nadir Soofi, one of the two jihadis who attempted to pull off a terrorist attack in Garland, Tex. Soofi, who was 34, and his accomplice, 30-year-old Elton Simpson, opened fire outside of an art exhibit featuring cartoons of Muhammad, but were killed by a security guard.

Both Soofi and Simpson attended the Islamic Community Center in Phoenix, which land deeds show is owned by NAIT.

That particular mosque posted $100,000 bond for Simpson following his 2010 arrest for lying to FBI agents about his plans to travel to Somalia to join a terrorist group. Simpson was given three years probation in that case.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has also hosted Imam Khalid Yasin, an American-born convert to Islam, who has publicly supported sharia law and claimed that homosexuals should receive the death penalty.

As a May 2010 Yahoo! message board post shows, Yasin visited the Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City and other area mosques that month to hold a series of lectures and workshops about Islam.

That was nearly two years after Yasin touted the virtues of sharia law and capital punishment in a speech at a British mosque. Full article here.

Afghanistan is a Growing Festering War, Again

Posted on December 30, 2015December 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

WASHINGTON —Afghanistan’s security situation is so tenuous that the top U.S. commander there wants to keep as many U.S. troops there as possible through 2016 to boost beleaguered Afghan soldiers and may seek additional American forces to assist them.

Army Gen. John Campbell said in an interview with USA TODAY that maintaining the current force of 9,800 U.S. troops to train Afghan forces and conduct counter-terrorism raids is vital, and that the scheduled reduction to 5,500 by Jan. 1, 2017, should be put off as long as possible.

“My intent would be to keep as much as I could for as long as I could,” Campbell said by telephone from Kabul. “At some point it becomes physics. I’m going to have to get them out.”

News from Afghanistan in 2015, when American troops ended their daily combat mission after 14 years, has been grim. Taliban insurgents stormed the northern provincial capital of Kunduz in October and were pushed out after fierce fighting that included an inadvertent attack by a U.S. warplane on hospital that killed 42 civilians. In the south, Taliban insurgents have battered Afghan troops in Helmand province; an al-Qaeda training camp was also discovered there and destroyed. Islamic State fighters have set up outposts in the east. Last week, six U.S. airmen were killed by a suicide bomber outside Bagram Air Base.

The Pentagon’s own quarterly assessment of security in Afghanistan this month noted that in “the second half of 2015, the overall security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated with an increase in effective insurgent attacks and higher (Afghan security force) and Taliban casualties.”

Campbell will be Washington soon to brief senior leaders on the security situation in Afghanistan and troop levels required for their missions. He declined to offer specifics on his recommendations, saying they were classified. More here from USAToday.

Report: Russia Signals Readiness to Ease UN Sanctions Against Taliban

A senior Russian diplomat reportedly said Moscow is ready “to show flexibility” on possibly easing United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed on Afghanistan’s Taliban, which has intensified attacks against U.S. service members and American-trained Afghan security forces.

Breitbart: The Taliban recently claimed responsibility for killing six U.S. troops, and the group has been behind a record number of casualties incurred by the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), which includes army, police, and militia units.

“He appeared to be suggesting that major powers should consider an accommodation with the Taliban to stop the spread of rival Islamic State [ISIS/ISIL] militants, deemed a much bigger, international menace by the West,” Reuters reports, referring to Zamir Kabulov, a department chief at Russia’s Foreign Ministry and President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on Afghanistan.

“We are ready to approach in a flexible way the issues of a possible easing of the regime of sanctions under Security Council Resolution 1988 on the Taliban, if this does not contradict Afghanistan’s national interests,” the Tass news agency quoted Kabulov as saying, according to Reuters.

“No one is talking today about achieving a victory by military means over the Taliban, while the implementation of the national reconciliation policy would in practice mean their return to power,” he added.

Kabulov noted that Russia supports the U.S.-backed Afghanistan government police aimed at achieving national reconciliation.

In 2011, the UN Security Council Resolution 1988 was passed, designating the Taliban insurgency as a threat to international peace and imposing a freezing of assets, bans on travel, and other restrictions on individuals deemed to be associated with the terrorist group.

Although the Taliban branch in Pakistan—Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP)—is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, the Afghan Taliban is not. TTP is also known to carry out attacks on the Afghanistan side of the country’s border with Pakistan.

ISIS terrorists, which have seized swaths of Iraq and Syria, have established a presence in eastern Afghanistan and have been engaged in turf battles with the Taliban, which has labeled ISIS as “barbaric” in the Afghan territory it has captured.

Last week, Kabulov said that Russian interests in Afghanistan “objectively coincide” with those of the Taliban movement in the fight against ISIS.

He noted that Russia had established communication channels to exchange information on ISIS with the Taliban.

“Moscow, currently conducting a bombing campaign in Syria it says is aimed at Islamic State forces, has been concerned about the possible spread of Islamic State from Afghanistan into neighboring ex-Soviet states like Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,” points out Reuters.

U.S. Gen. John Campbell, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and the Pentagon have acknowledged that ISIS is growing in Afghanistan.

“Groups associated with Islamic State have made growing inroads in Afghanistan, attracting fighters and support away from disenchanted members of the Taliban,” reports Reuters.

“They have been battling government forces and the Taliban in a challenge for supremacy of the Islamist insurgency, and its rise has caused alarm outside Afghanistan, with U.S. commanders citing the movement as a reason to delay troop withdrawals,” it adds.

Militants from the ethnic Uzbek minority in Afghanistan have been linked to the Islamic State.

Russian is reportedly helping to strengthen the Afghan security forces.

In September, a United Nations report revealed that ISIS is actively recruiting supporters in nearly three-quarters (25) of the country’s 34 provinces.

Kabulov estimated in October that there were nearly 3,500 ISIS-linked jihadists in Afghanistan, adding that the number was growing.

Gen. Campbell recently said that between 1,000 to 3,000 ISIS-linked militants were operating in Afghanistan.