Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

Anything Illegal, Under Obama is Accelerated to Legal

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US government deports fewest immigrants in nearly a decade

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration deported fewer immigrants over the past 12 months than at any time since 2006, according to internal figures obtained by The Associated Press as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton called Obama’s deportation policies too harsh.

Deportations of criminal immigrants have fallen to the lowest levels since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, despite his pledge to focus on finding and deporting criminals living in the country illegally. The share of criminal immigrants deported in relation to overall immigrants deported rose slightly, from 56 percent to 59 percent.

The overall total of 231,000 deportations generally does not include Mexicans who were caught at the border and quickly returned home by the U.S. Border Patrol. The figure does include roughly 136,700 convicted criminals deported in the last 12 months.

Total deportations dropped 42 percent since 2012.

In a Miami interview with Spanish-language TV network Telemundo, Clinton promised to be “less harsh and aggressive” than Obama in enforcing immigration laws.

“The deportation laws were interpreted and enforced, you know, very aggressively, during the last six and a half years, which I think his administration did in part to try to get Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform,” Clinton said in the weekend interview.

In the first two full budget years under the Obama administration, the U.S. deported more people year over year, until reaching its 2012 peak. Those increases, which started under the administration of President George W. Bush, were small, rising just a few percentage points each year. Nevertheless, the record deportations in 2012 led immigration advocates to criticize Obama as the “deporter-in-chief.”

After multiple bills to overhaul immigration laws failed in Congress during Obama’s first term, he made administrative changes aimed at narrowing the population of immigrants targeted for deportation. The focus since then has been on criminals, and the overall number of deportations has steadily declined.

The Homeland Security Department has not yet publicly disclosed the new internal figures, which include month-by-month breakdowns and cover the period between Oct. 1, 2014, and Sept. 28. The new numbers emerged as illegal immigration continues to be sharply debated among presidential candidates, and has been a special focus of Republican Donald Trump.

And they come as Obama carries out his pledge from before his 2012 re-election to narrowly focus enforcement and slow deportations after more than a decade of rising figures.

The biggest surprise in the figures was the decline in criminal deportations. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson last year directed immigration authorities anew to focus on finding and deporting immigrants who pose a national security or public safety threat, those who have serious criminal records, and those who recently crossed the Mexican border. The decline suggests the administration has been failing to find criminal immigrants in the U.S. interior, or that fewer immigrants living in the U.S. illegally had criminal records serious enough to justify deporting them.

“With the resources we have … I’m interested in focusing on criminals and recent illegal arrivals at the border,” Johnson told Congress in April.

Roughly 11 million immigrants are thought to be living in the country illegally.

Obama has overseen the removal of more than 2.4 million immigrants since taking office, but deportations have been declining steadily in the last three years. Removals declined by more than 84,000 between the 2014 and 2015 budget years, the largest year-over-year decline since 2012.

The Homeland Security Department has in the past attributed the steady decline to changing demographics at the Mexican border, specifically the increasing number of immigrants from countries other than Mexico and the spike in unaccompanied children and families caught trying to cross the border illegally in 2014. The majority of the children and tens of thousands of people traveling as families, mostly mothers and children, came from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The Border Patrol historically sends home Mexican immigrants caught crossing the border illegally, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must fly home immigrants from other countries. That process is more expensive, complicated and time-consuming, especially when immigrants fight their deportation or seek asylum in the United States.

Arrests of border crossers from other countries also dropped this year, along with the number of unaccompanied children and families. As of the end of August, the Border Patrol arrested about 130,000 immigrants from countries other than Mexico, about 34,500 unaccompanied children and roughly 34,400 people traveling as families.

More than 257,000 immigrants from countries other than Mexico were apprehended at the border during the 2014 budget year, including more than 68,000 unaccompanied children and tens of thousands of family members. It was the first time that immigrants from other countries outnumbered those from Mexico.

Ahhhh….it gets worse, much worse. Tomorrow, America loses her full identity but gains new voters.

The Obama administration is launching a campaign to accelerate the conversion of millions of immigrants to citizenship. The nation’s immigration agencies will spend big bucks on “outreach” activities and the Naturalization process will be streamlined.

Breitbart: The goal is to add several million new citizens to the voter rolls by November 2016.

If you think the Naturalization process is governed by law and long-established rules so we need not worry about shortcuts and wholesale fraud – wake up. This is the Obama Administration we are talking about. If you think immigration law enforcement was politicized, wait until you see what citizenship fraud looks like. It will become very politically incorrect to question any immigrant’s right to vote.

The fact that newly naturalized citizens routinely vote Democrat more than Republican by 3-to-1 is, no doubt, a pure coincidence and has nothing to do with the desire to “expedite” the creation of new citizens.

By law, a legal immigrant can apply for citizenship and begin the Naturalization process after five years.

  • There are over 8.8 million immigrants now eligible.
  • Another 5 million will become eligible in the next four years.
  • Approximately 1.5 million each year will become eligible over the next decade.
  • Between now and 2024, almost 20 million immigrants could become citizens and join the voter rolls.

The citizenship application form, the N-400 Form, is available online, and an army of lawyers is waiting to help the 13 million eligible immigrants. There will be taxpayer-financed mobile units roaming the rural parts of America to be sure no one is overlooked. Uncle Sam wants YOU!

Historically, only about 60 percent of legal immigrants eventually became citizens, and different nationalities have sought citizenship at different rates. Millions of legal immigrants have been content to work and live in the United States without seeking citizenship. Now, there will be a bilingual multimedia campaign to remind them it is their duty to become voters, and jumping through the hoops will be made incredibly easy.

The Yearbook of Immigration Statistics provides a wealth of historical data about immigration and Naturalizations. For example, it tells us that legal immigrants from Mexico have always had one of the lowest rates of Naturalization. Could that be the reason the Obama appointees at the USCIS came up with an expensive PR campaign to educate, encourage and facilitate more Naturalizations?

  • Is it pure coincidence that more than 30 percent of those 8.8 million immigrants now eligible for citizenship are Mexican-born, or that more than 70 percent of Mexican legal immigrants register as Democrats if they become citizens?
  • Would the USCIS bureaucrats have discovered this urgent need for an “outreach campaign” if 80 percent of those 8.8 million were from Europe instead of Latin America and Asia?

No one will argue with the right of legal permanent residents to become citizens by following the lawful process for Naturalization. We all have parents, grandparents or great-grandparents who did that, and we are glad they did.  What raises red flags and rocket flares is not those aspirations but the motives, methods and malevolence of a lawless White House. Will Obama’s lawyers at USCIS bring the same passion and creative circumventions of law to the Naturalization rules and procedures as they have to other parts of immigration law?

In fact, we all know there will be fraud disguised as “expedited enfranchisement” on a massive scale so that the maximum number of new voters can be added to the rolls. And like other immigration benefits, once awarded, the new legal status dare not be taken away.

But the story does not end in 2016 or 2024. A September Pew Research Center report predicts 59 million new immigrants between now and 2065 if present trends continue —and that projection does NOT count 10-20 million illegal aliens given legal status and eventual citizenship through another amnesty.

But wait; there’s more fun and games in store. If Obama succeeds in his plans, his model for “facilitating” expedited citizenship will inevitably become the “new normal.” By 2065, those 59 million new immigrants will produce about 50 million new citizens of foreign birth –and 35 million new Democrats.

Optimists will paint a more rosy scenario. However, optimists will have to contend with the lasting effects of the Obama administration’s official abandonment — in the June “New Americans” manifesto — of assimilation as an integral, necessary element of immigration. You see, it is now officially considered xenophobic and racist to expect immigrants to adopt American values and adapt to American institutions. After all, every progressive knows that constitutionalism and the rule of law are mere artifacts of history, not anchors against the periodic storms of tyranny.

It is not an exaggeration to say that under Obama, the Naturalization process – becoming a citizen—no longer requires becoming an American. The real tragedy and the real crime of the Obama plan for accelerated Naturalization of millions flows from the redefinition of citizenship as a triumph of multiculturalism.

Obama’s most radical goal has not been the transformation of our economy, our foreign policy, or our place in the world. Obama aims to transform what it means to be an American.

Given the lack of resistance and absence of Republican leadership in opposition to those ideas, by the time those 50 million former immigrants cast a vote in 2065, it won’t matter which party wins the election.

 

 

 

How we get to World War III

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(Videos courtesy of Popular Mechanics)

by Danielle Pletka, AEI: NATO’s SecGen Jens Stoltenberg today warned the Russians about their violation of Turkish airspace in ongoing Russian air operations over Syria. It was only the latest warning from NATO about Russian violations of various NATO nations’ airspace and assorted other antics. But today’s incursion — which prompted a nasty threat from Turkey about what would happen if the Russians make the same mistake again — only underscores what a dangerous place the world has become since Barack Obama became president.

History teaches us that large wars begin for many complex reasons, and that notwithstanding our obsession with poor old Archduke Ferdinand, it was probably not simply his shooting that spawned World War I. But… there are now so many global flashpoints that we cannot rule out the notion that a conflict between major powers could break out simply based on circumstance. Consider:

  • NATO aircraft scrambled more than 500 times in 2014, with only a few exceptions, in reaction to Russian incursions into NATO member airspace. Russians planes reportedly often switch off transponders and fail to file flight plans, which has resulted in several near misses, including with a passenger plane. (Not to speak of the Russian shoot down of the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet.)

  • In 2014, Japan scrambled aircraft almost 1000 times, with all but a few of these incidents attributed to either Russian or Chinese warplanes.
  • Russian bombers entered US airspace 10 times in 2014, double the previous average.
  • On July 4th, as Americans celebrated Independence Day, the US Air Force scrambled fighter jets to intercept two pairs of Russian bombers skirting US airspace off the coast of California and Alaska.
  • The United States is preparing, reportedly, a show of force with “freedom of navigation operations” in the South China Sea, a reaction to increasingly aggressive land reclamation/military construction in disputed territory.

  • On the eve of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Washington, two Chinese fighters intercepted a US Air Force surveillance plane over the Yellow Sea.
  • The US is planning on stepping up air operations over Syria at the same time that Russia advances its own war on Assad’s opponents. Washington and Moscow aim to “deconflict” (whatever that means).
  • Russia is consistently violating its obligations under the Minsk Accords and continues to make claims on Ukrainian territory. Facing few consequences for his actions in Ukraine, there are fears that Putin may choose to move on NATO members Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia.

The world has always been a dangerous place, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons has only made it more so. But not since the Cold War have there been so many potential triggers for major power conflicts. Will we get into a shooting war? Perhaps not, and almost not certainly with the current Commander in Chief. But each time there is a near miss without consequence, as most are, bad actors are encouraged to believe there will never be any consequence. Still, notwithstanding Barack Obama, the United States does have red lines, treaty obligations (to the Philippines, to Japan, to NATO allies) that could force us into conflict where none was planned.

A Quick Preview of the Start of World War III

What Russia’s newest ICBM looks like when it takes off.

Popular Mechanics: The RS-24 was developed in secret by Russia, but public tests of the fifth-generation ICBM began in 2007 in response to a possible missile shield being built in Europe, and the Yars became operational in 2010. The RS-24 has been “MIRVed,” meaning it has multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles—in other words, each missile has multiple warheads that can hit multiple targets. Each of the RS-24’s four nuclear warheads has a yield of about 150 to 250 kilotons (the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had yields of 15 and 21 kilotons, respectively).

The RS-24 is powered by solid-state fuel, meaning that it can be ready to be launched within minutes, and is built to accelerate extremely quickly, giving opposition forces little time to react to a launch. It also can deploy a series of anti-missile-defense measures to evade attempts to shoot it down. The Russian government reports it to have an effective range of 6,800 miles, traveling at top speeds of 15,220 miles per hour, or just a shade under Mach 20. It can be launched from a silo, as seen above, or from a mobile launch vehicle, meaning the Russian government can essentially tuck one of these away anywhere in the vast wilderness that makes up so much of its territory.

What makes the Yars perhaps even more unsettling is that it’s an upgrade to the Topol-M ICBM, a weapon that Tyler Rogorsky over at Foxtrot Alpha called “scary as hell.” The Topol-M was the first ICBM to be developed by Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, and is now being phased out in favor of the RS-24.

The Yars and Topol-M, along with America’s own state-of-the-art ICBMs, the LGM-30G Minuteman-III and UGM-133 Trident II, are stark reminders that mutually assured destruction continues to define nuclear warfare, despite various nuclear arms treaties. It’s easier to add more warheads to an ICBM than to build a missile defense system that can effectively shoot down those additional warheads, meaning there isn’t much either side can hope to do once a nuclear power decides to launch—except fling off their own set of ICBMs and irradiate the other side of the globe as well.

Russian Fighter Jets, Navigational Error? Nah..

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Associated Press: NATO chief: Russian jets in Turkish airspace no accident

“BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO’s secretary-general on Tuesday rejected Moscow’s claim that its military incursion into alliance airspace over Turkey wasn’t intentional or important, saying there were two separate incidents and “the violation lasted for a long time.”

Turkey’s military, meanwhile, said more of its jets patrolling the border with Syria were placed in a radar lock by Russian planes and surface-to-air missile systems.

In Syria, Russian warplanes reportedly continued pounding targets in the country, where the Kremlin has come to the aid of beleaguered ally President Bashar Al-Assad.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference in Brussels that recent breaches of Turkish airspace by Russian warplanes were “very serious”— even dangerous.

“It doesn’t look like an accident, and we’ve seen two of them over the weekend,” he added.

The latest Russian airstrikes in Syria, in cooperation with Syrian jets, struck targets in rural areas of the northern Aleppo province, targeting the towns of al-Bab and Deir Hafer, Syrian state TV reported, quoting a military official.

Both towns are controlled by the Islamic State group. The official also said IS bases were targeted in Palmyra and surrounding areas in the central Homs province, destroying 20 vehicles, three arms depots and three rocket launchers.

Meanwhile, the Syrian air force was said to have targeted areas in rural Latakia controlled by militants, with the military official reporting the death of at least 12 fighters, including two Turks, one Saudi militant from al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, Nusra Front, and one Palestinian.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group with a wide network of activists on the ground, said in the last 24 hours, Russia carried out at least 34 airstrikes in Palmyra and vicinity, areas controlled by IS.

Airstrikes also were reported in the rural part of the city of Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital. The Observatory said at least 19 IS members were killed, including four in Raqqa in an airstrike that hit two vehicles and an arms depot. In Palmyra and its boroughs, the airstrikes were said to have killed 15 IS militants, struck 10 vehicles and an arms depot.

In a statement, NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said Stoltenberg later confirmed that NATO generals would be contacting their Russian counterparts about the violation of Turkish airspace.

“It’s unacceptable to violate the airspace of another country,” Stoltenberg told reporters. He said NATO is expressly worried that such acts by the Russians could have unforeseen consequences.

“Incidents, accidents, may create dangerous situations,” Stoltenberg said. “And therefore it is also important to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Turkey’s military said Tuesday that eight Turkish F-16 jet patrolling the Turkish-Syrian border were harassed by a MIG-29 plane as well as surface-to-air missile systems based in Syria in two separate incidents on Monday.

It was the second successive harassment of Turkish planes reported by Turkey. The MIG-29 locked radar on the planes for 4 minutes and 30 seconds, while the missile systems threatened the planes for 4 minutes and 15 seconds, the military said.

Turkey reported Monday that two Turkish jets were harassed by a MIG-29 on Sunday.

During an official visit to Belgium, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed NATO’s stance, and pointedly warned the Russians that if such actions continue, relations between the two neighboring countries on the Black Sea could go into a deep freeze.

“Any attack on Turkey is an attack on NATO,” Erdogan said. “If Russia loses a friend like Turkey with whom it has cooperated on many issues, it will lose a lot.”

A Turkish government official confirmed that Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov had been called to the ministry on Monday afternoon during which Turkish officials lodged a “strong protest” over the second infringement.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with Turkish government regulations.

On Monday, NATO ambassadors met in special session and condemned what they termed Russia’s “irresponsible behavior” in penetrating alliance airspace. The ambassadors also called on Russia to cease such practices.

On Thursday, NATO defense ministers are scheduled to meet in Brussels, and the actions of the Russian military in Syria and any measures the U.S.-led alliance needs to take as a result will be among the leading topics.

Stoltenberg told reporters he was also concerned that in Syria the Russians are not mainly targeting the Islamic State extremist group, “but instead attacking the Syrian opposition and civilians.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry rejected claims that its airstrikes in Syria are targeting civilians or opposition forces.

Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a televised briefing on Tuesday that Western media is engaged in “information warfare,” distributing “pure propaganda” about alleged civilian deaths caused in Syria.

Russia says the airstrikes that began last week are targeting IS and al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliates, but at least some of the strikes appear to have hit Western-backed rebel factions. The Russian attacks have largely focused on the northwestern and central provinces — the gateways to the heartland of Assad’s power in the capital and on the Mediterranean coast.

The main Western-backed Syrian opposition group said Russia’s airstrikes have damaged an archaeological in the northwestern village of Serjilla in Idlib province.

The Syrian National Coalition said the attacked area didn’t have any IS presence, adding that airstrikes occurred on Sunday and damaged an Assyrian site.

The group called on the U.N.’s cultural agency UNESCO to condemn the Russian airstrike and preserve archaeological sites in Syria.”

Of course there is more. It is fascinating that Russia is using some cunning tactics above the skies in Syria. The U.S. has drones watching the action and the reports are dispatched back to the Pentagon and for sure the White House situation room.

Watch this interesting video of the Russian planes (with Red Star painted over) at work in Syria

Take a look at what happens inside Latakia airbase, where the Russian Air Force contingent is based.

The following exclusive video by RT brings you inside al-Assad International Airport, near Latakia, where Russian Air Force contingent, currently made of 36 combat planes, is based.

The footage is extremely interesting as it clearly shows the six Su-34 Fullback aircraft returning from the first combat sorties against Islamic State targets in Syria.

A closer look at the warplanes provides the confirmation that all the aircraft, including the Su-25s and the Su-34s, were removed the standard Russian Air Force markings and the typical Red Star: most probably the Russians don’t want their symbol to be shown off along with the wreckage of a plane in case one is shot down or crashes in Syria.

By the way, the insignia were overpainted on the Su-30SMs and the Su-24Ms as well, even if these are not clearly visible in this video; however there are screenshots in the social media that prove the same applies to Flankers and Fencers.

Su-34 tail

Su-25 Latakia

This is not the first time aircraft taking part in real operations are stripped off their national markings. UAE F-16s deployed to Jordan to take part in Operation Inherent Resolve didn’t wear the national flag while some U.S. drones deployed in sensitive areas perform their clandestine missions “unmarked.”

 

For 30 Years Mexico Failed Earthquake Victims

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After so many regimes in Mexico, how can this be? How can the United Nations allow such living conditions? How can 30 years of U.S. Secretaries of State allow such squalor? Consider how these families felt being left behind after the earthquakes in Haiti or the tsunami in Japan or the earthquake in Chili? What about the billions that flows into Mexico via the Merida Initiative or through USAID?

30 years after Mexico City quake, hundreds still live in temporary camps

On the 30th anniversary of the massive Mexico City earthquake, alarms rang out across the city to commemorate the disaster.

But Marcia Vasquez needed no reminder of the Sept. 19 anniversary.

Vasquez, now 52, still lives in the camp she was forced to move to after her apartment caved in three decades ago.

“When I got home and saw everything was destroyed,” she says, “I thought of the people who had been in the building. Children. I could see toys hanging from the ruins. It was horrible.”

All of Vasquez’s belongings were lost that day. Pregnant and single at the time, she couldn’t afford to place a deposit and pay rent on another apartment, so she moved into a makeshift camp. She says that when she approached the government for assistance, she was told that she didn’t qualify because she hadn’t been injured, and that she should be grateful to be alive.

The government says 5,000 people died as a result of the magnitude 8 quake that struck at 7:19 a.m. Citizen activist groups say the death toll was closer to 30,000. Most sources agree that about 30,000 people lost their homes that day, and thousands more buildings were seriously damaged and unfit to live in.

Those left without a roof over their heads were known as damnificados — victims — and many of them moved into camps, most of which shut down as inhabitants gradually found replacement housing.

But 30 years later, about 300 families still live in what were then described as temporary settlements in the capital.

For about 20 years Vasquez lived in a tent that she made of plastic sheeting and wooden poles on the edge of a stinking river. Then the city government moved her to her current home in a collection of sheet-metal shacks that house about 70 families.

She bore and brought up her three children in the camp, and now lives with her 11-year-old grandson in the 10-by-20-foot space that she says leaks when it rains and heats up like an oven when it is warm.

“This place is better than where I was,” she says, sitting on the double bed in the corner of her home. “In the other place, huge rats would come into the tent and fight at night. I had to build a hammock for my babies so they slept high up and wouldn’t get eaten.”

Now, there are fewer rats and they are much smaller. Vasquez has pushed cheap bright pink soap into the holes in her roof to prevent rain from coming in. She has a small standing stove for cooking, but there is no running water. The floor is concrete.

She says she earns a little money each month cleaning houses and mending clothes.

Across the way from Vasquez lives Adriana Garcia, 30. A shabby curtain hangs across her front door, and she reluctantly agrees to be interviewed inside. Wet, clean clothes hang drying on the outside wall of the shack.

Garcia’s mother, Rosalinda, was living in the central Condesa neighborhood when the earthquake struck. Garcia was born two months later, and her mother continued to reside in the same apartment block even though it had been heavily damaged. City authorities insisted that they move out after smaller quakes threatened to bring down the building. Rosalinda died in the camp six years ago.

Garcia and her brother Ernesto, 27, still live in the camp, waiting to be rehoused.

“I get depressed a lot,” says Garcia, who used to work as a shop supervisor but is currently unemployed.

“Why do I have to live like this, I tell myself. I want a better life, but we’ve been waiting [for a new home]. Otherwise we’d have made more of a plan and done something else. It’s the most affordable way for us to get a place.”

Not all the residents are victims of the earthquake. Some are relatives who have taken the place of family members who were left homeless by the temblor and either died or moved on.

A few weeks ago, Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera ordered the local housing institute, INVI, to close the five remaining camps in the city and to resettle the inhabitants.

INVI Director Raymundo Collins said in an interview that within the next few months all of the camps will be gone. People will be given a rent subsidy of about $175 a month and then moved into new heavily subsidized housing that they will pay off, interest-free, at a rate dependent on their income levels.

There are no figures on how many people left homeless by the quake have already been rehoused by INVI. Many went off the official radar by moving in with family or going to live in other states.

“We can’t say that we’ve made a complete recovery, but there have been very important advances,” said Collins, who hopes the closing of the camps will bring an end to the housing crisis precipitated by the earthquake.

Both Vasquez and Garcia have doubts about whether they will be helped as the government has promised once they leave the camp. They say that they’ve been promised assistance before but not received any. Despite the discomfort of the camp, no one pays rent or for water and electricity, and the prospect of facing those bills is daunting, even if the cost of the rent is government-subsidized.

“I’m scared because I don’t know how it will be,” Vasquez says.

But rather like the earthquake in 1985, change is coming to those in these camps. Whether they like it or not.

Bonello is a special correspondent.

Will Putin Prevail in Syria – Iraq Operations?

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Is it incompetence or willful that Russia is operating with impunity in the skies above Turkey and Syria? It is also likely Russia may include Iraq in air strike operations. So, who is going to stop Russia and with what cause exactly?

Allies Respond to Russia’s Violations of Turkish and NATO Airspace

The North Atlantic Council met today to hold consultations on the potential implications of the recent dangerous military actions of the Russian Federation in and around Syria.

Allies expressed their deep concern with regard to the Russian military build-up in Syria and especially the attacks by the Russian Air Force on Hama, Homs, and Idlib which led to civilian casualties and did not target Da’esh. Allies call on the Russian Federation to immediately cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians, to focus its efforts on fighting ISIL, and to promote a solution to the conflict through a political transition.

Russian military actions have reached a more dangerous level with the recent violations of Turkish airspace on 3 October and 4 October by Russian Air Force SU-30 and SU-24 aircraft in the Hatay region. The aircraft in question entered Turkish airspace despite Turkish authorities’ clear, timely and repeated warnings. In accordance with NATO practice, Turkish fighter aircraft responded to these incursions by closing to identify the intruder, after which the Russian planes departed Turkish airspace.

Allies strongly protest these violations of Turkish sovereign airspace, and condemn these incursions into and violations of NATO airspace. Allies also note the extreme danger of such irresponsible behaviour. They call on the Russian Federation to cease and desist, and immediately explain these violations.

Meanwhile, late last week due to the aggressions of Russia in the region, the Obama White House and National Security Council decided to dust off the solutions, the battle plans and strategies offered by the Pentagon but ignored. It is alleged that the White House may go forward with protections of a 90 mile border region of Syria and Iraq as well as supporting the Kurds, an ally the White House has refused to acknowledge.

As the Defense Department Secretary, Ash Carter and the White House are telegraphing that Russian operations in Syria is a losing proposition, when it comes to Putin seeking and gaining power, that model is working.

Another interesting twist to Russian operations in Syria is the terror factions on the ground.

Nusra Front Bounty ISIS Syria Russia

Al-Qaeda Affiliate Issues Bounty for Capture of Russian Soldiers in Syria

A prominent spiritual leader and financier of Al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, issued a bounty worth three million Syrian pounds ($15,900) for the capture of a Russian soldier in Syria on Thursday, a day after Russia carried out its first airstrikes against rebel groups in the country.

A poster shared on social media offers one million Syrian pounds ($5,300) paid to the fighter who captures a Russian soldier and two million ($10,600) paid to the fighter’s faction.

“To the heroic Mujahideen brothers, a prize of a million [Syrian pounds] to anyone who takes hostage a Russian soldier,” wrote Abu Hassan al-Kuwaiti, a spiritual leader of the Nusra Front, in a tweet that has been retweeted more than 150 times and shared widely among online jihadi sympathizers on Twitter.
Although Newsweek could not independently verify that the account was owned by al-Kuwaiti, Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, an expert in the monitoring of online extremists and a fellow at the U.S.-based think tank The Middle East Forum, told Newsweek by email that the bounty had been publicized by al-Kuwaiti, describing him as an “important figure” in the terror group’s structure.

The two bounty posters appeared on social media for the capture of a Russian soldier after al-Kuwaiti’s announcement. One poster shows pictures of al-Kuwaiti, a Kuwaiti citizen whose real name is Ali bin Hamad al-Arjani, as well as Nusra Front’s top military commander, Maysar al-Jubouri, who is known by the nom de guerre Abu Maria al-Qahtani. A third man, who has not been identified, appears in the picture.

According to Laith Alkhouri, co-founder and Middle East and North Africa director of research and analysis at U.S.-based Internet monitoring group Flashpoint Intel, al-Kuwaiti is believed to act as both a spiritual figure and a financier to the Nusra Front. Alkhouri, who tracks online extremists, also confirmed that al-Kuwaiti posted the bounty from his official account, which is widely followed by other jihadi accounts vetted by Flashpoint. While the bounty is in the low thousands, Alkhouri says that it would provide vital funds for Nusra’s factions in rural areas of northern Syria.

“The motivation to capture a Russian soldier is not necessarily going to be the financial reward,” he says. “It’s not a massive amount of money, but that kind of money can really facilitate the movement and operations for a lot of soldiers and it actually is significant for Syrians themselves.”

Abu Hassan Al-Kuwaiti
While little is known about al-Kuwaiti, he has been quoted in the Kuwaiti media previously and regularly posts tweets about radical Islam and blog posts criticizing ISIS. In one post uploaded in July he complains that the rival group attempts to “sow strife in the ranks” of the Nusra Front.

The Nusra Front has been energized by Russia’s entry into the Syrian civil war and is likely using the offer of a bounty as a tool to attract jihadis from the former Soviet republics, says Michael Horowitz, security analyst at the Tel Aviv-based geopolitical risk consultancy The Levantine Group.

“The bounty is meant as a PR campaign to attract more jihadists,” he says. “For the Nusra Front, Russia’s intervention is a good opportunity to bolster its recruitment and to start unifying the mosaic of foreign fighters that are fighting the regime. The fact that Al-Qaeda, via its official branch in Syria, is once again fighting Russian forces, decades after the USSR was defeated in Afghanistan, is also a powerful image that could serve to unify jihadist groups in northern Syria. Nusra will most certainly try to use this image and any operation against Russian forcesincluding the kidnapping of a Russian soldierto gain momentum in the deadly competition with Islamic State [ISIS].”

Another prominent jihadi cleric linked to the Nusra Front also recalled Russia’s war in Afghanistan on Friday, warning that Syria will become a “graveyard for invaders,” the Associated Press reported.

“Oh Russian people, did you forget the Afghan quagmire? Do you want to enter a new quagmire? The people of the Levant will stand up to you,” Abdullah al-Muhaysini, a Saudi militant based in Syria, said in a video statement.

At least two radical Islamist groups from the former Soviet republics operating in northern Syria—one from Uzbekistan and one led by Chechens—officially joined Al-Qaeda in recent weeks, amid increasing signs of a Russian military build-up in Syria.

Al-Kuwaiti tweeted to his 3,000-plus followers on Friday, ordering them to follow Abu Jaber Dagestani, a prominent Russian-born member of the radical Caucasus Emirate group, which has previously received funding from Al-Qaeda. The pledges of allegiance and tweets highlight the close links between Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and the radical fighters from the Caucasus that Moscow considers to be a domestic security risk.

The Caucasus Emirate group is banned in Russia and considered a terrorist organization by the U.K., U.S. and U.N. A number of the group’s warlords declared their allegiance to ISIS in June, according to Russia’s federal security services (FSB). However, Dagestani tweeted at the time: “Do not believe everything you hear, not all jihadists of Caucasus swore allegiance to the Islamic State,” he wrote. “Those who declared allegiance have nothing to do with Sharia laws at all.”