Has Trump Read the Iran File, What Now?

Posted on November 22, 2016November 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

It is estimated that between 27,000 and 31,000 foreign fighters have flocked to Iraq and Syria since the breakout of the war in 2011. More here.

No one mentions Pakistan either.

TEHRAN: (APP) More than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict, the head of Iran’s veterans’ affairs office said Tuesday.

“The number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000,” Tasnim news agency quoted Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati, the head of Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs’ and Veterans’ Affairs, as saying.

Iran has sent military advisers, as well as fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad’s forces. They are known in Iran as “defenders of the shrines” in reference to Shiite holy sites in Syria.

Shahidi did not specify the nationalities of those killed.

Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad and provides both financial and military support for his regime.

The Fatemiyoun Division of Afghan recruits organised by Iran comprises the majority of volunteers sent from Iran to fight in Syria and Iraq.

Iran says they are sent to fight against Sunni extremists such as the

Islamic State group (IS).

The Islamic republic denies having any boots on the ground in Syria, and insists its commanders and generals of the elite Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations wing act as “military advisers” both there and in Iraq.

Iranian media regularly report on the death of Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani “martyrs” in Syria, whose bodies are buried in Iran.

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The Obama administration changed the balance of power in the Middle East with several disgusting decisions including failing on the red line threat, the JPOA nuclear deal and paying the huge ransom. The winner is clearly Assad as he remains safe yet the single achievement award goes to Tehran.

Trump would be well advised to begin to dismantle the balance of power beginning with removing Assad with the help of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Nations. That would begin to address Iran’s power in the region but it could be a nasty conflict for sure. If Iran and Syria are not addressed, then more countries will seek nuclear weapons, and deadly conflicts will not stop as there is no easy method or proposal for the West to exit out of the region after Islamic State is defeated due to the continued hostilities between the militias, the Sunnis and Shiite and the ruling governments.

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Mike Pompeo’s Iran File

If he honors the nuclear deal, Trump needs to enforce it vigorously.

WSJ: In summer 2015 Congressman Mike Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton visited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, where they learned of two secret codicils to the Iranian nuclear deal. The Obama Administration had failed to disclose these side agreements to Congress. When pressed on the details of the codicils, Secretary of State John Kerry claimed never to have read them.

We’re reminded of this episode on news that Donald Trump has asked Congressman Pompeo to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. The Kansas Republican is being denounced by liberals as a “hardliner,” but the truth is that he has shown an independent streak that has allowed him to raise thorny questions and gather vital information that Administration officials want suppressed. Isn’t that what Americans should expect in a CIA director?

That goes double regarding the Iranian nuclear deal, which Mr. Pompeo opposed in part because of the diplomatic legerdemain he and Sen. Cotton uncovered in Vienna. Of the two secret deals, one concerned the nuclear agency’s inspection of the Parchin military facility, where the Iranians were suspected of testing components of a nuclear deal. The other concerned Iran’s non-answers to questions about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.

Both issues went to the question of whether Iran’s compliance with an agreement would be verifiable, and it’s easy to see why the Administration was so reluctant to disclose the facts. The IAEA was permitted one inspection of Parchin, where it discovered uranium traces, and the agency later issued an exculpatory report on Iran’s military work to facilitate the deal’s implementation.

We’ve since learned much more about the precise terms of the nuclear deal—including the Administration’s willingness to ignore them to placate the Iranians. That includes allowing the mullahs to build and test ballistic missiles and exceed the deal’s 300-kilo limit on low-enriched uranium. The IAEA also reported this month that Iran exceeded its heavy-water limit for the second time this year.

The scope of Iran’s violations was laid out last week in a detailed analysis from the nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security. “IAEA reporting is so sparse as to confirm suspicions that compliance controversies are being deliberately omitted from the report,” note authors David Albright and Andrea Stricker. That makes the CIA’s job of investigating Iran’s nuclear programs all the more important, which is another reason to welcome Mr. Pompeo’s nomination.

Beyond that is the larger question of how the incoming Administration should treat the nuclear deal, which Mr. Trump has often called “disastrous.” Mr. Pompeo tweeted last week before his nomination that he wants to see the deal rolled back. But the question is how to do that in a way that doesn’t allow Iran to break out in a sprint to build the bomb. A unilateral U.S. withdrawal would also make it hard, if not impossible, to rally a world coalition for new global sanctions against Iran.

One strategy for the Trump Administration would be to announce that it will honor the deal reluctantly—and enforce it unsparingly. That puts the diplomatic onus on Tehran for its violations. This would include enforcing the “economic snapback” that the Obama Administration promised when it tried to sell the deal to Congress but had no intention of delivering.

The Trump Administration could also resume enforcement of current U.S. sanctions on Iran for its support for terrorism and human-rights abuses. Holding financial institutions accountable for “know your customer” rules when doing business with Iran would be an excellent place to start, as would a resumption of sanctions on banks like Sepah, which funds Iran’s ballistic-missile program.

Undoing the strategic damage of the Iran deal won’t happen overnight, and the Trump Administration will have to move carefully to avoid diplomatic missteps with allies and adversaries. Having Mr. Pompeo at CIA gives more confidence that at least the U.S. will be honest when Iran is breaking its commitments.

For Iraq and Syria, Iran is Never Leaving, Russia Loves it

Posted on November 21, 2016November 21, 2016 by Denise Simon

Ramadan al-Saadi, Alarabiya.net Saturday, 19 November 2016

In Syria’s Aleppo, Shiite militias point to Iran’s unparalleled influence

BEIRUT — Syria’s government hopes a brutal siege will vanquish rebel holdouts in the city of Aleppo, a key battleground. But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops aren’t leading the charge.

That task has been taken up by thousands of Shiite militiamen from Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan who are loyal to Iran, a Shiite country and perhaps Assad’s most important ally.

For much of Syria’s civil war, these religiously motivated fighters have reinforced Syria’s badly weakened military. Now, they are playing an increasingly critical role in trying to seize opposition-held eastern Aleppo by coordinating their attacks with government forces and warplanes flown by Russia, another ally of Assad’s.

The government, backed by Russian aircraft, launched a major offensive across northern Syria last week that has brought further devastation to eastern Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war.

The militias appear to be forming a sophisticated ground coalition that has further bolstered Iran’s influence in Syria, alarming even officials in Assad’s government, said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“They are building a force on the ground that, long after the war, will stay there and wield a strong military and ideological influence over Syria for Iran,” he said. “And there is not much Assad can do to curb the rising influence of these groups, even though Syrian officials are clearly concerned about this, because the militiamen are literally preventing the overthrow of his government.”

Analysts say Iran has long used Shiite militias in other countries to project its power. The groups include multiple factions that dominate Iraqi politics, as well as the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which is more powerful than Lebanon’s military.

Iran and its militias have frustrated U.S. officials. While both sides find themselves aligned against the Islamic State in Iraq, they are at cross-purposes in Syria, where anti-Assad rebels receive funding and arms from Washington and its allies.

Eventually, analysts say, Iran could even find itself in direct competition with Russia for influence in Syria.

The Shiite militias’ presence in Syria also has fueled Iran’s regional and religious rivalry with Saudi Arabia, a Sunni powerhouse that backs Syria’s Sunni-led rebellion.

Still, the payoff of using militiamen could be substantial. If the Syrian government is able to seize all of Aleppo, the regional balance would tip in Iran’s favor, dealing a blow to Saudi ambitions and the rebels who stormed the city’s eastern areas in 2012, said Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics.

“A defeat of the rebels in Aleppo would be a turning point in which Assad captures most of the urban centers of Syria,” he said. “It would be a setback for Saudi Arabia in its rivalry with Iran, which, as a result, would see its influence in Syria increase even more.”

The dozens of militias there have led the way in imposing a crushing blockade of the city’s opposition districts, where more than 200,000 people face worsening shortages of food and medicine. The fighters also call in air raids by Russian and government warplanes that have wrecked hospitals, residences and infrastructure in those areas.

Rebels have indiscriminately shelled government-held western Aleppo, but destruction there has not been as severe.

This month, rebel fighters in Aleppo launched a counteroffensive, but they have struggled to break the siege. Air power – especially Russia’s – has proved a formidable obstacle. The Shiite militiamen have, too, said Zakaria Malahfiji, a member of the Fastaqim rebel force, which is affiliated with the umbrella Free Syrian Army.

“They are fighting with passion, and they fight in well-coordinated attacks,” he said. “I remember one battle where these fighters just kept dying in one spot. One guy would charge, get shot and die, and then another, and then another and then another would do the same thing on the exact same spot. All of them died. They are motivated.”

The hard-line Sunnis of the Islamic State and other religious extremists have overshadowed the revolt against Assad that began peacefully in 2011 before turning into brutal war. Militants linked to al-Qaida have played a prominent role among rebel forces.

To the rebels, the Iranian-backed militiamen are extremists.

“They are spreading Iran’s influence and their extremist ideology, but our revolution is not about religion; it’s about freedom and dignity,” said Abdulmunem Zaineddin, a religious scholar involved with rebel forces in the battles in Aleppo.

The militias say their involvement in the civil war is about defending Shiite shrines in the country, as well as battling extremist Sunni groups.

“We don’t want sectarian violence. We want to protect Syria, to protect all that is sacred to everyone from terrorism, from the terrorist groups paid for by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the U.S.,” said Hisham Al Mossawi of Harakat al-Nujaba, a militia from Iraq whose fighters also are battling in Aleppo.

It’s unclear how many Shiite militiamen and militia factions are participating in the Aleppo battle. Hundreds and perhaps even thousands of the fighters have been killed during the war, including generals from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Avi Dichter, chair of Israel’s foreign affairs and defense committee, said this month that as many as 25,000 Shiite militants are fighting in Syria. Other analysts say the number is smaller.

Israeli intelligence closely monitors the fighting in Syria and, in particular, Hezbollah’s role in the conflict. Since it fought a devastating war with Israeli forces in 2006, the Lebanese militia has become more powerful, partly because of the battlefield skills honed in Syria.

Hezbollah intervened in Syria early on in the war, helping Assad’s forces rout rebels in key western areas of the country.

“The fighting has made (Hezbollah) a better fighting force and more adept in conventional military warfare,” Dichter said.

In Aleppo, Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards play prominent leadership roles, directing the foreign Shiite militiamen, many of whom are recruited by, and trained in, Iran.

The factions are learning to overcome issues such as linguistic differences, helping them become more adept at coordinating ground assaults, said Smyth, the analyst.

“History proves that whenever Iranians craft groups like these, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, they don’t give up arms, they don’t stand down and they don’t leave territory that they’ve taken,” he said. “They will be in Syria for years and years, and that will have consequences for everyone.”

Iraqi Shiite Militias Complicate Fight to Defeat ISIS in Mosul, Other Areas

(New York, NY) – (CEP) today released updated resources on three powerful Iraqi Shiite militias, as their involvement in the fight for the Sunni-dominated ISIS stronghold of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, is raising fears of the return of sectarian warfare to the area.

The three militias—the Badr Organization, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq—are the most powerful among Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a government-sanctioned umbrella group composed of predominantly Shiite fighters with strong military and financial ties to Iran. In a July report, Human Rights Watch documented killings, disappearances, torture, and the destruction of homes by the groups during the fight to retake Fallujah and other Sunni-dominated areas from ISIS. The organization urged that Iraq prevent the Shiite militias from playing any role in the campaign to drive ISIS from Mosul.

The Badr Organization began in 1983 as the military wing of an Iraqi political party that sought to bring Iran’s Islamic Revolution to Iraq and fought alongside Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. The Badr Organization is run by Hadi al-Amiri, who has a history of instigating sectarian violence in Iraq. He has also been linked to a 1996 attack in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. Air Force servicemen.

Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) is an Iranian-sponsored, anti-American Shiite militia that earned a reputation for targeting U.S. and coalition forces with roadside bombs and improvised rocket-assisted mortars. KH fought with the Assad regime in Syria at the behest of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). KH has remained virulently anti-American, repeatedly boycotting battles against ISIS in which U.S. airpower contributes. In 2009, the U.S. Treasury Department designated KH and its leader, Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi (a.k.a. Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes), for threatening stability in Iraq, declaring that KH and Ibrahimi “committed, directed, supported, or posed a significant risk of committing acts of violence against Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces.”

Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) has claimed responsibility for more than 6,000 attacks on American and Iraqi forces. Its founder and leader, Qais al-Khazali, reportedly led the January 2007 attack in Karbala that killed five U.S. soldiers. Today, AAH continues to commit sectarian violence, carry out homophobic attacks, and threaten the “interests” of Western countries participating in strikes in Syria.

Mosul, Iraq Offensive Chemical Weapons Report

Posted on November 11, 2016November 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

DailyMail

Islamic State executes scores, stockpiles chemicals – U.N.

MOSUL: Islamic State fighters have executed scores more people around Mosul this week and are reportedly stockpiling ammonia and sulphur in civilian areas, possibly for use as chemical weapons, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.

A mass grave with over 100 bodies found in the town of Hammam al-Alil was one of several Islamic State killing grounds, Shamdasani said, citing information gleaned from sources on the ground including a man who played dead during a mass execution.

Public executions were being carried out for “treason and collaboration” with Iraqi forces trying to recapture the city, or for the use of banned mobile phones or desertion.

People with explosive belts, possibly teenagers or young boys, were being deployed in the alleys of Old Mosul, while abducted women were being “distributed” to fighters or told they would be used to accompany Islamic State convoys, she said.

ISIS Killed over 70 Mosul Civilians as Iraqi Forces Advancing

Troops of Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) resumed their offensive against ISIS on the streets of Mosul on Friday after several days of relative quiet as the United Nations said ISIS militants have executed scores more people around the city this week.

The battle to retake Mosul, the ISIS terrorist last major stronghold in Iraq, is now in its fourth week, while Iraqi troops have pushed into the east of the city.

“Our forces have begun the attack on Arbajiyah. The clashes are ongoing,” Staff Lieutenant Colonel Muntadhar Salem said, referring to an area in the east of the city.

According to United Nation ISIS (ISIL, IS and Daesh) shot dead 40 civilians on Tuesday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul after accusing them of treason, the United Nations says.

Their bodies were then hung from electricity poles in several districts, the office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner said, citing sources.

A man was also reportedly shot dead in public in central Mosul for ignoring an ISIS ban on using mobile phones.

The killings of the civilians appeared to have been carried out on the orders of self-appointed “courts”, according to the UN report.

The UN says 20 civilians were also shot dead on Wednesday evening at the Ghabat military base in northern Mosul, supposedly for leaking information.

The UN also expressed concern at ISIS deployment of teenagers and young boys. Children are apparently seen in an ISIS video issued on Wednesday shooting dead four people for spying.

ISIS also announced on 6 November that it had beheaded seven militants for deserting the battlefield in the Kokjali district of eastern Mosul, the UN says.

Among the sources cited for the UN’s information was a man who played dead during a mass killing by ISIS terrorists.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein called for the government to “act quickly to restore effective law enforcement in areas retaken from ISIL (ISIS) to ensure that captured fighters and their perceived supporters are dealt with according to the law”.

Troops have reportedly been consolidating gains made in the eastern outskirts of Mosul, which they entered nine days ago amid fierce fighting.

Above Footage shows Peshmerga forces continue to clear the recently recaptured town of Bashiqa of improvised explosive devices left by Islamic State militants.

****What next for Islamic State? Incubating areas of sanctuary and they are.

In part from Rand: First, insurgent groups that lose territory generally need to find sanctuaries that allow them to rest, resupply their depleted forces, and plan future operations. In some cases, these safe havens are outside the country. In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s leadership and many of its fighters fled to neighboring Pakistan after their defeat in 2001 at the hands of U.S. and Afghan forces. Over the next several years, the Taliban used its safe havens in Pakistan to restart the war in Afghanistan, where it remains a significant threat to the Afghan state today. Similarly, Fidel Castro and his surly band of communist rebels suffered a debilitating defeat in July 1953 against the Cuban government in the city of Santiago de Cuba. But Castro eventually reorganized in Mexico, plotted his next steps in relative security, and eventually overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Sometimes adequate sanctuaries are available inside the country. In Somalia, al-Shabab lost virtually all of the territory it once controlled following military operations by the African Union Mission in Somalia, Somali government, allied clan militias, and U.S. forces from 2011 to 2015. But al-Shabab found a sanctuary in the Jubba River valley in southern Somalia among allied clans, and it has since waged a violent terrorist campaign in Somalia and neighboring countries like Kenya.

Islamic State leaders already appear to appreciate the importance of sanctuaries. Where the Islamic State has already lost territory in Iraq, such as in Ramadi and Fallujah, its fighters have melted away into the dense agricultural and desert areas around urban centers. Operating out of these jazirah (“isolated”) areas, the Islamic State could replicate the model it perfected a decade ago under the name “al Qaeda in Iraq” by sustaining itself through low-level criminal activity, storing weapons caches for extended operations, and executing a grueling murder and intimidation campaign. Islamic State fighters can also leverage the territory the group currently controls in Syria, which extends north of Raqqa and southeast along the Euphrates River to the Syrian-Iraqi border. This sanctuary was essential for the Islamic State’s resurgence in 2014.

Insurgent groups that face more powerful adversaries generally adopt a guerrilla strategy.

Second, insurgent groups that face more powerful adversaries generally adopt a guerrilla strategy rather than attempting to wage a conventional campaign and fight their enemies in pitched battles. A guerrilla strategy involves the use of military and political resources to mobilize a local population, conduct hit-and-run attacks rather than face the enemy directly on the battlefield, and undermine the government’s will to fight. Guerrilla warfare is attractive to groups that are significantly weaker than government security forces, which is why a guerrilla campaign is sometimes likened to a “war of the flea.”

For T.E. Lawrence, the British officer and advisor to Arab insurgents against the Ottoman Empire, guerrilla campaigns were the sine qua non of insurgent warfare, and mobility and hit-and-run attacks were their essential tactic. He wrote in The Evolution of a Revolt: “Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive.”

Most successful insurgent groups have utilized guerrilla strategies. In Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral and his African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) adopted a successful guerrilla campaign to win independence from Portugal. The PAIGC spent more than a decade conducting hit-and-run attacks against Portuguese forces until Guinea-Bissau became independent from Portugal in 1974. In South Africa, African National Congress (ANC) leaders began preparations in 1963 for Operation Mayibuye, which involved organizing and implementing a guerrilla strategy against the government. It was orchestrated by the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, and contributed to the end of the apartheid government in South Africa by 1994.

Today, the Islamic State faces a powerful coalition of adversaries that includes seasoned Kurdish Peshmerga, Iraqi security forces, Sunni Arab militias, Shiite militias, and U.S. and other coalition military power. If the Islamic State has any hope of surviving the loss of Mosul, its leaders will likely shift to a classic guerrilla campaign that includes ambushes, raids, sabotage, targeted assassinations, and suicide attacks. The Islamic State waged a successful conventional campaign in 2014 when its fighters from Syria surged across the border into Iraq’s Anbar province in large columns of mechanized and even armored vehicles, joining operatives that had already been active in Fallujah and Ramadi. Clashes often took the form of set battles, trench warfare, and town sieges. But the Islamic State no longer faces such parity, making guerrilla warfare its only viable option. More here.

Eastern Europe Readiness for War with Russia

Posted on November 7, 2016November 7, 2016 by Denise Simon

NATO puts 300,000 troops on ‘high alert’ in readiness for a confrontation with Russia as fears grow Putin is preparing to attack the West

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg putting 300,000 troops on ‘high alert’
Military intelligence are worried about Putin’s new Armata battle tank
UK stalled new tank design as heavy armour is not useful against jihadis

Nato chiefs, thrown into a panic by fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin might attack the West, are scrambling to put together a force of 300,000 troops which they can put on ‘high alert’.

Relations between Russia and the West have plunged in the last year, with Moscow’s insistence on backing its Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad, at all costs leading to serious tension with the US, Britain and France.

Most Nato members cut their defence spending dramatically since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 but Russia has been bolstering its military capabilities, holding parades involving more than 100,000 troops each year.

Nato soldiers stand on a pontoon bridge constructed across the Vistula river in Poland during the NATO Anaconda-16 exercise earlier this year

DailyMail: Moscow has been throwing its weight around in recent years – in 2008 Russian troops humiliated the Georgians and in turn the White House by invading South Ossetia and Abkhazia in support of pro-Moscow rebels.

Nato members like Estonia, Poland and Romania, who are feeling increasingly threatened by Moscow, are now being promised a rapid deployment force.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told The Times this week: ‘We have also seen Russia using propaganda in Europe among Nato allies and that is exactly the reason why Nato is responding. We are responding with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War.

‘We have seen Russia being much more active in many different ways.

‘We have seen a more assertive Russia implementing a substantial military build-up over many years; tripling defence spending since 2000 in real terms; developing new military capabilities; exercising their forces and using military force against neighbours,’ added Mr Stoltenberg. More here.

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Russia’s hybrid war actions:

Montenegro says “nationalists from Russia” planned to kill prime minister

IanAllen: Authorities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro say that “nationalists from Russia” and Serbia were behind a failed plot to kill the country’s prime minister and spark a pro-Russian coup in the country. As intelNews reported last week, the coup allegations surfaced on October 16, after 20 Serbians and Montenegrins were arrested by authorities for allegedly planning a military coup against the government of Montenegro. The arrests took place on election day, as Montenegrins were voting across the Balkan country of 650,000 people.

On Sunday, at a press conference in Montenegro’s capital and largest city, Podgorica, the country’s Chief Special Prosecutor, Milivoje Katnić, reiterated claims that the failed coup aimed to prevent the reelection of Prime Minister Milo Đukanović, whose push for Montenegro to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has prompted strong objections from Moscow. Katnić told journalists that the plotters had hired a “long-distance sharpshooter” who was “a professional killer”, for the task of killing Đukanović. After killing the Prime Minister, the plotters had planned to storm the parliament and prompt a pro-Russian coup in the former Yugoslav Republic, said the special prosecutor. He added that authorities had confiscated weapons, military uniforms and nearly $140,000 in cash that were found in the possession of the alleged coup plotters.

Asked about the fate of the 20 alleged coup plotters, Katnić said that 14 of them remained in custody in Podgorica, while six others had been extradited to Serbia. The Serbian government of Prime Minister Vučić has accepted Montenegro’s allegations that the coup was hatched in Serbia and has offered to help investigate alleged links between the plotters and the Russian state. However, said Katnić, his team of investigators had no evidence of direct involvement by Russia in the alleged coup plot. But, he said, “two nationalists from Russia”, whom he did not name, were among the leaders of the plot. In a press statement, Katnić’s office said that other coup plotters in addition to the 20 men arrested, remained at large, having escaped from Serbia. They could now be in Russia, he said. Moscow has not responded to the claims by the Montenegrin authorities.

*** Denise has interview Nolan Peterson on Ukraine

Back to Ukraine, ready for the Russian Invasion

Nolan Peterson: Kiev, Ukraine—The young man never told anyone he was going to war.

The 20-year-old student at Kiev’s Taras Shevchenko National University slipped away in June 2014 to join a civilian paramilitary group fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The young man, whose name was Sviatoslav Horbenko, was a star pupil at the university’s Institute of Philology, where he studied Japanese. When he transferred from a university in Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine, during his third year, he had to retake 17 exams.

He aced them all.

“There was no bellicose air about him,” said Serhiy Yanchuk, an associate professor at Taras Shevchenko University and coordinator of the university’s Students Guard, a volunteer militia comprising students and faculty.

“He never acted or behaved aggressively for his personal cause,” Yanchuk said. “He was friendly, warm hearted, and an easy-going person. One would surely want to be a friend of such a guy.”

At his father’s behest, the younger Horbenko moved to Kiev and settled into life and his studies at Taras Shevchenko National University.

And then, a few months after the war began in the summer of 2014, Sviatoslav Horbenko disappeared. Without telling his friends, family, or teachers, he joined Right Sector, a civilian volunteer battalion, to fight at the battle for the Donetsk airport.

Olexander Horbenko ultimately was able to track Sviatoslav down at boot camp. The father tried to dissuade his son from going to war. But Sviatoslav was determined.

“That was my last meeting with him alive, our unforgettable conversation,” Olexander Horbenko later said. “Sviatoslav considered defending his fatherland as his duty, and he developed the strong bonds of military comradeship.” Read the full story here.

Nadhmi Auchi is Back, Preventing War Crimes on Assad?

Posted on November 7, 2016November 7, 2016 by Denise Simon

Militant fighters of the Islamic State. File photo

As we witness tragedy beyond definition in Syria, it is becoming clear why Barack Obama has been largely absent on a policy in Syria. He has an old Chicago friend in the mix.

WikiLeaks: 29 Feb 1960 Foreign Service Dispatch from the US Embassy in Baghdad to the US Department of State, six scanned pages, declassified.

The document reports the terms of imprisonment and other sentences, imposed as a result of the 7 Oct 1959 Baath party assassination plot against the then Iraqi Prime Minister, Abdul al-Karim Qassim.

Notable figures sentenced include Saddam Hussien (“Saddam Husayn al-Tikriti”, Trial Group I) and the British-based Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who was sentenced to three years “rigorous imprisonment” (“Nadhmi Shakir Awji”, Trial Group IV). More here.

Rebel shelling kills over 80 civilians in Syria’s Aleppo

ARANews: Raqqa – A top security official in the ranks of the Islamic State (ISIS) radical group was reported dead on Sunday, after a US-led coalition hit his car with an airstrike in the western countryside of Raqqa Governorate, in northeastern Syria.

“The airstrike killed at least five ISIS members, including al-Othman who used to lead the ISIS security department in Tabqa,” local media activist Abdulkarim al-Yousef told ARA News.

The raid comes as part of the coalition’s policy to target and hunt ISIS jihadi leaders.

“The drone attack was carried out based on information from local sources trusted by the Syrian Democratic Forces,” an SDF spokesman told ARA News.

The strike coincided with the announcement of the battle for Raqqa by the Kurdish-Arab alliance of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Raqqa is deemed a de-facto capital for the ISIS’ self-declared Caliphate.

The US-backed SDF has established a new operations room to coordinate the battle for Raqqa against the Islamic State (ISIS). “On November 5th, the SDF established a new operations room known as the Euphrates Wrath to intensify coordination between the various military factions participating in the battle for Raqqa.”

Reporting by: Jamil Mukarram | Source: ARA News

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Assad Regime’s Grotesque PR Conference in Damascus Uses ‘New York Times,’ ‘Washington Post,’ NPR, and ‘New Yorker’ Reporters to Whitewash War Crimes

Syrian propagandists have found the ideal launderers for their message: Western journalists

Tablet: Bashar al-Assad’s regime has pulled off a grotesque PR coup by corralling a number of prominent American journalists from outlets like The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker to participate in a conference designed to legitimize the rule of Syria’s genocidal head of state. The conference held Sunday and Monday in Damascus, was organized by the British Syrian Society, a “foundation” chaired by Assad’s father-in-law, the London-based physician Fawaz Ahkras. The larger purpose of the conference appears to be raising money for the regime and its war effort, in part by relieving sanctions against major regime figures.

Many of the participants (here is a partial list of attendees) are British journalists, like Christina Lamb of The Sunday Times, and other UK figures drawn from Akhras’ London contacts. Indeed, the conference is meant to have something of a British ambiance, which is why it’s being conducted according to “Chatham House rules”—a phrase that misleadingly (and hilariously) suggests that the British foreign office is convening the panels. It seems unlikely that the Syrian intelligence officers speaking at the event, like Col. Samer, know Chatham House Rules from Hama Rules, nor do they care. The point is to legitimize the regime’s message with a vague atmosphere of Western ideas and methods—which is why having Western journalists in the audience, and even on panels, is important to the regime. Attending a conference that features at least four Syrian regime officials who are currently sanctioned for their role in Assad’s war crimes, are, among others, the New York Times’ Beirut correspondent Anne Barnard, NPR’s Alison Meuse, and Dexter Filkins of The New Yorker

The stated purpose of the Damascus conference is to “facilitate a better understanding of a very complicated crisis.” And presumably journalists in attendance have rationalized their participation to their editors along those exact lines: Since we’re covering the other side of a war, they’re no doubt explaining, it’s a good thing to hear the Assad regime’s side of the story. And since we can’t get into Damascus safely otherwise, it’s fine if we go under the protection of the regime. How else could we get in there?

There’s a simple test for whether such excuses are valid: Will the Assad government provide access to non-regime figures, like the citizens that Assad and his allies have starved in the town of Madaya? Will the regime provide them access to the countless opposition figures, including peaceful activists, the regime has put in prison and tortured? The answers are “of course not” and “under no circumstances.”

So, why go? For the camaraderie? For the sheer joy of doing journalism with other journalists in comfortable surroundings, while 200,000 Syrians are trapped, starving and under military assault, in the ruined city of Aleppo? For the great Middle Eastern food?

To get a sense of what attending a conference put on by a genocidal regime is like, here are some pictures from the twitter feed of Suzan Haidamous of The Washington Post, one of the journalists attending the Damascus conference. She deleted them after posting the pictures Sunday, the first day of the conference, perhaps after one of the subjects expressed concern that pictures of journalists being fed lavishly in the middle of Damascus—perhaps courtesy of the Syrian regime—as Assad and his allies starved Syrian civilians close by might damage the reputations of those depicted in the photos.

In the first picture, from left to right, are Dexter Filkins of The New Yorker; Haidamous; Nour Samaha, who has written for Foreign Policy and The Atlantic, Rania Abouzeid, who has contributed to TIME and The New Yorker; and Nabih Bulos, a special correspondent with the Los Angeles Times. Hashtags for this picture included #Goodtimes and #journalism.

*** Suzan Haidamous, who was enthusiastically promoting her participation in the Assad whitewash “conference” in Damascus, deleted these pics 1/

So, here they are, for the record: with Dexter Filkins, Haidamous, Nour Samaha, Rania Abouzeid, and Nabih Bulos. 2/

In the second picture, from left to right, are Anne Barnard, The New York Times Beirut bureau chief, Heba Saleh of the Financial Times; Hwaida Saad of The New York Times; and Haidamous. Hashtags here included #news and #reporting

That one was posted with the hashtags #Goodtimes and #journalism. A couple more appropriate ones were left out: #obscene #disgraceful 3/

And here’s the second deleted pic, with Haidamous, Hwaida Saad, Heba Saleh, and Anne Barnard. For the record. 4/4 pic.twitter.com/82fxmJ0lXu

That one was posted with the hashtags #Goodtimes and #journalism. A couple more appropriate ones were left out: #obscene #disgraceful 3/

And here’s the second deleted pic, with Haidamous, Hwaida Saad, Heba Saleh, and Anne Barnard. For the record. 4/4 pic.twitter.com/82fxmJ0lXu

A number of controversies have arisen during the course of the conference. Christina Lamb, the Sunday Times chief foreign correspondent, tweeted that she was incorrectly listed as a speaker at the event, when she was only going there to cover the conference. Electronic Intifada staffer Rania Khalek was also listed as a speaker at the conference, but then released a statement saying she was going only to report. She then announced that the critical response she got to her appearance had compelled her to step down from her post at EI, but former colleagues suggest she was more likely fired.

That even Khalek, a political activist and openly pro-Assad apologist, had some sense that this looks really, really bad does not reflect well on mainstream media organizations like The Washington Post, NPR, and The New Yorker.

For the reality is that the distinction between “speakers” and journalists merely covering the event as journalists is entirely irrelevant to the purpose of the conference, which was to eliminate such fine distinctions. That is why Western journalists were invited—to launder Assad’s information operation so that the regime’s political, military, security, and media officials, including those already sanctioned for their involvement in war crimes, were perceived to be no less serious than the American journalists they shared information and meals with: If The New York Times’ Beirut bureau chief sits at the same panel, and then at the same table at dinner, and walks away with the same swag as Bouthaina Shaaban, an Assad adviser sanctioned by the Department of Treasury in 2001, they are both legitimate voices, right?

This kind of information operation is more or less standard procedure for the Syrian regime, which has always used very simple images to send somewhat sophisticated messages. American policymakers who have visited Damascus over the last half-century to deliver what they typically described, in diplomatic terms, as “strong” messages to the regime of Hafez al-Assad and then his son Bashar failed to understand that their messages fell on deaf ears, and that the fact that they visited was actually the message. What the Assads gained by inviting them was pictures to prove to their domestic and regional adversaries, as well as their allies, that the United States was talking to them, which meant that they were legitimate.

The regime’s media love-in in Damascus serves the same purpose. The Assad regime wanted to legitimize its narrative of the five-and-a-half year conflict. All those people you think are innocent civilians are jihadi terrorists. They’re all ISIS, whether they’re armed or not. The tens of thousands of dead children are collateral damage. It doesn’t matter to the regime that some American journalists will leave the conference and report stories that don’t entirely jibe with the regime’s narrative. Indeed, the Assad government is encouraging “dissent” since it further corroborates their big message—there are different sides to this story, and ours is just as legitimate as theirs.

Idrees Ahmad ‏@im_PULSE Oct 31

Ever wondered why @nabihbulos & @Nour_Samaha‘s journalism is indistinguishable from regime press releases? Here they r @ regime’s PR shindig

Nabih‏@nabihbulos Oct 31

@im_PULSE@Nour_Samaha Funny. I thought I was a better writer than that. Anyway, I’m off 2 do my job, which is 2 report both sides of war.

The information operation is likely serving a more particular purpose as well. It’s a fund-raising campaign to assist a regime that’s broke, and under heavy sanctions. That’s why sanctioned regime figures like Shaaban, Ali Haider, Fares Shehabi, and Humam al-Jazaeri are at the conference—to give them a forum to address Western journalists, thereby effectively pronouncing them to be legitimate, too.

The fact that billionaire Iraqi-British businessman Nadhmi Auchi, a one-time business partner of now-imprisoned financier Tony Rezko, is also listed as a conference participant, is evidence of the seriousness of the enterprise. Syria will be rebuilt, the campaign argues, and serious men like Auchi are getting in on the ground floor, so it’s time for the Americans to stop fighting the future. “The regime has launched a concerted information campaign whose purpose is to begin focusing on the issue of reconstruction,” said Foundation for Defense of Democracies research fellow and Tablet contributor Tony Badran. “Specifically, how international donors should give money to a Syria still ruled by Assad. A major problem in this picture is U.S. and EU sanctions imposed on Assad and his regime. Hence, the information campaign, which involved allies of the regime in international organizations, the media and even the Syrian Christian clergy, has focused on the harm sanctions have caused Syrian citizens, and on the need to remove them in order for Syria to have a new start and rebuild. Some of the journalists attending the conference were part of this information campaign.”

Badran is referring to Nour Samaha, who reported from Damascus for The Atlantic to make the case for relieving sanctions. Khalek wrote against sanctions in an article for the Intercept, which was recycled by the Syrian press agency, SANA.

The argument is now supposed to circle back the other way, from the conference hall in Damascus via the editorial boardrooms of some of America’s top media organizations and to the next White House: It’s time to stop the bloodshed and accept that Assad is the president of Syria, for the foreseeable future. Syria needs to be rebuilt, but that can’t happen unless sanctions are removed.

It’s understandable that the Syrian regime and its propagandists are working hard to get their message out: After all, the alternative is further prosecutions for war crimes. The idea that major American news organizations are lending their brands and name reporters alike to the regime’s PR campaign to evade responsibility for its crimes is beyond shameful. It’s criminal.

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Slaughter in the playground: Six young children are killed on a break between lessons as ‘President Assad’s troops’ bomb a Syrian nursery school

A boy winces as he receives treatment at a hospital in Ghouta, an opposition-controlled suburb of the capital, Damascus, on Sunday

The White Helmets volunteer group posted this photo on social media purportedly showing a victim of the nursery attack on Sunday

More here from DailyMailUK.

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RCP: A British citizen of Iraqi descent, Mr. Auchi, 70, is a billionaire, the 279th richest man in the world, according to a Forbes magazine survey last year. A great deal of Mr. Auchi’s money was made doing business with the regime of Saddam Hussein, much of it under the table. In 1987, Mr. Auchi helped French and Italian firms win a huge oil pipeline contract in Iraq, chiefly by paying off Iraqi officials, according to testimony given by an Italian banker to prosecutors in Milan. In 2003, he was convicted for his role in what was then the largest scandal in French history, involving payoffs from executives of the oil company now known as Total to political figures in Spain, Germany and Africa.

“‘He has been able to collect British politicians the way other people collect stamps,’ wrote Nick Cohen in a 2003 profile of Mr. Auchi in the left wing British newspaper the Observer.

“Mr. Auchi was a leading supplier of arms to Saddam’s regime. A former Belgian ambassador to Luxembourgcharged that a bank in Luxembourg owned principally by Mr. Auchi laundered funds — including Oil-For-Food money — for Saddam and other Islamic dictators.

“‘The name Nadhmi Auchi was just another name for Saddam’s intelligence service, or so we thought,’ said Nibras Kazimi, a former Iraqi dissident who is now a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute in WashingtonD.C.

“Mr. Auchi is a business partner of Syrian-born businessman Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, who has supported Mr. Obama financially since his first run for the Illinois state senate in 1996.

“Mr. Rezko currently is in jail awaiting trial on charges he extorted money from firms seeking to do business with the state of Illinois…. Rezko’s bail was revoked Jan. 28 when the trial judge learned that he, friends and relatives had been wired $3.5 million [in May 2005] from firms in Lebanon controlled by Mr. Auchi. The judge feared Mr. Rezko was about to flee the country….

“Mr. Rezko has described Mr. Auchi as a ‘close friend.’ Mr. Auchi says they have only a business relationship. They’ve been partners in a chain of pizza restaurants in Wisconsin and in a major real estate development inRiverside Park in Chicago.

“The connection between Mr. Auchi and Sen. Obama is tenuous. But given Mr. Auchi’s shady past, his history of bribing politicians, it’s not unreasonable to ask if [he], through Mr. Rezko, was trying to buy influence with a rising political star [Obama].”