An affordable price is probably the major benefit persuading people to buy drugs at www.americanbestpills.com. The cost of medications in Canadian drugstores is considerably lower than anywhere else simply because the medications here are oriented on international customers. In many cases, you will be able to cut your costs to a great extent and probably even save up a big fortune on your prescription drugs. What's more, pharmacies of Canada offer free-of-charge shipping, which is a convenient addition to all other benefits on offer. Cheap price is especially appealing to those users who are tight on a budget
Service Quality and Reputation
Although some believe that buying online is buying a pig in the poke, it is not. Canadian online pharmacies are excellent sources of information and are open for discussions. There one can read tons of users' feedback, where they share their experience of using a particular pharmacy, say what they like or do not like about the drugs and/or service. Reputable online pharmacy canadianrxon.com take this feedback into consideration and rely on it as a kind of expert advice, which helps them constantly improve they service and ensure that their clients buy safe and effective drugs. Last, but not least is their striving to attract professional doctors. As a result, users can directly contact a qualified doctor and ask whatever questions they have about a particular drug. Most likely, a doctor will ask several questions about the condition, for which the drug is going to be used. Based on this information, he or she will advise to use or not to use this medication.
Category Archives: IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
Official: US goal to take in 110,000 refugees in coming year
FNC: WASHINGTON – The United States will strive to take in 110,000 refugees from around the world in the coming year, a senior Obama administration official said Wednesday, in what would be a nearly 30 percent increase from the 85,000 allowed in over the previous year.
The increase reflects continuing concern about the refugee crisis stemming from Syria’s civil war and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet it’s still far short of what advocacy groups say is needed to address an unprecedented crisis that saw some 1 million people pour into Europe alone last year.
The official who wasn’t authorized to discuss the numbers before an official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Secretary of State John Kerry had previously suggested that the U.S. target would climb to 100,000 in the coming year, but that the figure was a floor, not a ceiling. He briefed lawmakers on the revised figure on Tuesday.
The 110,000 goal covers a 12-month period that starts next month. In the 12 months ending Sept. 30, the U.S. goal was 85,000, and in the three years before that, the target was 70,000 per year.
The White House has tried to emphasize that the refugee program is safe and doesn’t pose a major threat to national security. That concern was heightened last year after terrorist attacks in European cities — including some connected to people who had spent time in Syria. Officials said that potential refugees would continue to be subject a more rigorous screening process than any other foreigners granted entrance to the U.S.
The announcement comes two weeks after the U.S. announced it had met President Barack Obama’s goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees despite early skepticism that it would reach its goal. Millions of Syrians have been displaced by a civil war that has killed roughly half a million people.
Republican governors have pushed back vehemently and tried to refuse to let them into their states, leading to a clash with the administration, which has maintained that states can’t legally bar refugees who otherwise meet the criteria.
The administration did not release a breakdown of how many refugees would be accepted from specific countries in the coming year.
The U.S. has tried to encourage other countries, too, to increase their contribution to alleviating the refugee crisis. The official said increasing the U.S. target this year reflected that strategy and Obama’s belief that all nations need to do more to help the neediest.
As part of that effort, Obama plans to host a summit on refugee issues with world leaders next week during the U.N. General Assembly gathering in New York.
The U.N. refugee agency chief, Filippo Grandi, said Tuesday that Europe needed to boost its efforts to take in people from places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In an Associated Press interview, he called it “one of the great challenges” of the future.
“There’s a time now to have this rational discussion,” he said.
****
Hillary Clinton will hold “a number of bilateral meetings” at next week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the campaign said Wednesday.
The former secretary of state anticipates meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, according to a campaign aide’s guidance. More from Politico.
****
TEHRAN, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will attend the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting on Tuesday in New York, the first Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri said Sunday, state IRIB TV reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and a number of Iran’s diplomats and officials will accompany Rouhani to attend the meeting.
There is no report about a meeting plan between Rouhani and the U.S. President Barack Obama during his visit to New York.
US says it destroyed Islamic State chemical threat in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP)– American warplanes eliminated a “significant chemical threat” to Iraqi civilians by bombing a complex of buildings near the northern city of Mosul that Islamic State militants had converted from pharmaceutical manufacturing to chemical weapons production, the three-star general in charge of U.S. air operations in the Middle East said Tuesday.
Photo: DailyMail
Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian told reporters at the Pentagon that the target was an Islamic State headquarters also used to produce lethal chemicals, possibly including chlorine and mustard gas. He provided no details on the chemical production.
Harrigian described the airstrike as a large, well-planned operation, which destroyed more than 50 targets at the site with a variety of U.S. warplanes, including Air Force B-52 bombers and Marine Corps F-18D attack planes. Other U.S. officials said later that a total of 12 U.S. planes were used.
Harrigian said the mission was part of a broader effort to cut off the Islamic State’s main sources of revenue, kill their leaders and create “organizational dysfunction” in ways that will eliminate the group as a military threat in Iraq and Syria.
Meanwhile:
Hezbollah “secretly” deploying in Quneitra: report
A pro-rebel outlet claims that Hezbollah fighters have taken up positions in the province along the Israeli border under the guise of being local militiamen.
BEIRUT – Hezbollah has allegedly started to “secretly” deploy its members to Quneitra to replace regime troops stationed in the province near the Golan demarcation line with Israel, according to a pro-opposition outlet.
Al-Etihad press reported Thursday that pro-regime troops in Madinat al-Baath and Khan Arnabeh—both government strongholds northeast of the rebel-held Quneitra border crossing—were being “withdrawn in batches” for redeployment near the western Ghouta suburbs of Damascus.
The outlet’s report mirrored that of local correspondent Omar al-Joulani, who reported on Tuesday that pro-regime forces as well as Hezbollah withdrew a number of their combatants and tanks from the two Quneitra province towns.
However, Al-Etihad press cited local sources as saying that Hezbollah members “came out with the regime forces in public,” but returned in secret to positions under the guise of being local militiamen.
“Hezbollah fighters… returned under the name of the Golan Regiment,” the sources claimed, in reference to the predominantly Druze force that fights under the banner of the regime’s auxiliary National Defense Force.
On Monday, Iran’s Fars News reported that Hezbollah and Syrian regime forces are readying a major offensive against rebels along the Golan demarcation line with Israel.
Syrian military sources said that Hezbollah deployed fighters “in the vicinity of the Quneitra border crossing.”
“[Hezbollah] aims to put an end to the presence of armed men in the area close to the border,” the sources told the Iranian outlet.
The Fars News report comes after the leader of Iran’s paramilitary Basij force, General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, toured Syria’s border with Israel near Quneitra in July, the first such visit of a top-ranking official from Tehran to be publicized in Iranian media.
Cross-border incidents
In past weeks, pro-regime forces have bombarded rebel positions in Al-Hamidiyah and other rebel-held villages along the Golan border near the Quneitra crossing, with a number of mortar rounds hitting Israel, prompting Tel Aviv to launch retaliatory strikes on at least five occasions.
On July 4, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hit two Syrian army targets in the Golan after stray fire damaged the technical fence stretching across the demarcation line between the two countries in the mountainous region.
Two weeks later, an unmanned aerial vehicle crossed over the border into Israeli territory in the central Golan, prompting Israel to fire two Patriot missiles in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down the drone.
An air-to-air missile fired by an Israeli jet also failed to bring down the drone, which Tel Aviv suspects is Russian-manufactured.
In the latest incident, Israel once again responded to a stray cross-border mortar strike on September 8, hitting a Syrian army target east of the Druze-populated town of Hader in Quneitra, as per Tel Aviv’s standard practice of retaliation to errant fire.
A local pro-Assad fighting force also claimed that Israel conducted a missile strike on one of its convoys in the Quneitra province, although Tel Aviv has made no official comment on the accusation while Syrian state media has also stayed mum.
The Golan Regiment announced on July 28 that two Israeli Nimrod missiles hit one of its positions, but did not name the specific location of the strike.
“The commander of the Golan Regiment’s Fist Battalion, Majid Himoud, escaped the Zionist [strike],” the group, which is part of the Syrian regime’s auxiliary National Defense Force, announced on its official Facebook page.
The militia, which is predominantly Druze, added that Israel fired the missiles from its side of the divided Golan Heights, but did not specify whether the Nimrods were launched from an aircraft or the ground.
Iran, a known and proven state sponsor of terror has a history of stealing worldwide peace.
Below is the Congressional hearing of the money transfer transaction(s) to Iran, and the testimony reveals there are more coming and others not previously known.
There is an extensive al-Qaeda network feeding global branches based in the Islamic Republic.
Fifteen years on from the 11 September 2001 terror attacks on the US, al-Qaeda is better-positioned than ever before. Its leadership held, and it has rebuilt a presence in Afghanistan. More importantly, al-Qaeda has built powerful regional branches in India, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Syria.
Rebranding itself away from the savagery of Iraq, al-Qaeda has sought to embed itself in local populations by gaining popular legitimacy to shield itself from retribution if, or when, it launches terrorist strikes in the West. This is proceeding apace, above all because of a failure to assist the mainstream opposition in Syria, sections of which were forced into interdependency with al-Qaeda to resist the strategy of massacre and expulsion conducted by the Assad regime.
The 9/11 massacre had not come from nowhere. In February 1998, Osama bin Laden, then-leader of al-Qaeda, plus Ayman al-Zawahiri and three others signed a document that said “kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim”.
Al-Qaeda attempted to blow up US troops in Yemen in December 1992. Three months later, al-Qaeda attacked New York’s World Trade Center, murdering six people. In November 1995, a car bomb in Riyadh targeted the American training mission for the Saudi National Guard, killing six people. In June 1996, Iran blew up the US military living quarters at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, murdering 19 people.
Al-Qaeda played “some role, as yet unknown” in the attack, according to the 9/11 Commission. The US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were levelled in August 1998, slaughtering 224 people and wounding 5,000, mostly Africans. And in October 2000, a skiff containing two suicide bombers struck an American Naval vessel, the USS Cole, in the port of Aden, killing seventeen sailors.
The conspiracy theories about 9/11 are now a feature of life today. Often proponents will hide behind the façade of “asking questions”. Instead of queries about jet fuel melting steel beams and nano-thermite, however, this inquisitiveness would be much better directed at the actual unanswered questions surrounding 9/11, which centre on the role of Iran.
In 1992, in Sudan, al-Qaeda and Iran came to an agreement to collaborate against the West “even if only training”, the 9/11 Commission records. Al-Qaeda members went to the Bekaa valley to be trained by Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese proxy. Hezbollah’s military leader at that time, Imad Mughniyeh, personally met Bin Laden in Sudan to work out the details of this arrangement.
There is no doubt that training provided by Iran made the 1998 East African Embassy bombings possible, and after the bombing numerous al-Qaeda operatives fled unhindered through Iran to Afghanistan. The 9/11 Commission documented that over-half of the death pilots “travelled into or out of Iran” and many were tracked into Lebanon.
Iran and Hezbollah wished to conceal any past evidence of cooperation with Sunni terrorists associated with al-Qaeda
Senior Hezbollah operatives were certainly tracking some of the hijackers, in at least one case travelling on the same plane. The operational planner of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, lived in Iran for long stretches of the 1990s. To this day there is an extensive al-Qaeda network that feeds the global branches based in Iran, sheltered from US counter-terrorism efforts.
“Iran and Hezbollah wished to conceal any past evidence of cooperation with Sunni terrorists associated with al-Qaeda,” the 9/11 Commission noted. But the connections were there, and “this topic requires further investigation”. Sadly, such investigation has never occurred. Instead, the Islamic Republic has been brought into the fold, with billions of dollars released to it through the nuclear deal and a curious belief that Tehran can, or will, help stabilise the Middle East has taken hold.
Bin Laden had intended to drive the US out of the region with the 9/11 attack. “Hit them and they will run,” he told his followers. This was a theme of his 1996 fatwa first declaring war on America. In this, he miscalculated.
The Taliban regime had sheltered Jihadi-Salafists from all over the Arab world. Some left over from the fight against the Soviet occupation; others on the run from the security services of their native lands or just wanting to live in a land of “pure Islam”. Though the training and planning for global terrorism occurred in Afghanistan, most of al-Qaeda’s resources were directed more locally, toward irregular wars, notably in Algeria, Bosnia, and Chechnya. Al-Qaeda trained up to 20,000 jihadist insurgents before 9/11. This sanctuary was lost in the aftermath of 9/11, something lamented by jihadi strategist Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (Abu Musab al-Suri).
Bin Laden had worked with Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), the Jordanian founder of what we now know as the Islamic State (Isis), to carve out a jihadi statelet in northern Iraq in the late 1990s led by a group called Ansar al-Islam.
Rice is thrown as Hezbollah members carry the coffin of top their commander Mustafa Badreddine on 13 May 2016Reuters/Aziz Taher
After the Taliban’s fall, al-Khalayleh moved into this area and into Baghdad in early 2002. After making preparations through Syria for the influx of foreign fighters, al-Khalayleh moved to the Ansar-held territory and waited for the US.led Coalition.
IS’s predecessor planned – with al-Qaeda’s blessing – to expel the Coalition forces and set up an Islamic state in Iraq that could then spread across the region, restoring the caliphate. But IS’s methods brought it into frequent conflict with al-Qaeda, and by 2008 IS had been strategically defeated after provoking a backlash among Sunnis in Iraq. The distinctions between IS and al-Qaeda hardened thereafter until their formal split in February 2014.
IS, post-2008, changed some tactical aspects so as to bring the tribes back on-board but remained remarkably consistent in its approach, including the celebration of violence, premised on the idea of building an Islamic state as quickly as possible, which would force the population into collaboration with it and ultimately acceptance over time. In contrast, al-Qaeda placed ever-more emphasis on building popular support that would culminate in a caliphate when it had a critical mass.
The discrediting of IS’s predecessor, operating under al-Qaeda’s banner, damaged al-Qaeda so much that Bin Laden considered changing the organization’s name. Events since then, above all allowing the Syria war to protract, allowed al-Qaeda to rebrand as “pragmatic”, using IS as a foil, and recover.
Al-Qaeda, vanguard-style, took on the local concerns, worked to solve them, and in turn claimed the protection of the local population. Al-Qaeda has tangled itself so deeply into local dynamics, in Yemen and Syria most notably, that it would require a substantial local effort to root them out.
Unfortunately, the Western approach is making the problem worse. A good example came on Thursday night (8 September 2016) when the US launched air strikes against some leaders of al-Qaeda in Syria, now calling itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS), which ostensibly disaffiliated from al-Qaeda in July in order to further this process of entanglement.
JFS claims it has no external ambitions and is working to break the siege of 300,000 people in the rebel-held areas of Aleppo city, yet it is attacked. Meanwhile, the US has done nothing about the thousands of Iranian-controlled Shia jihadists, tied into Iran’s global terrorist network, who are the leading element in imposing the siege, and conducted these strikes likely in furtherance of a deal with Russia, which also helped impose the siege. JFS thus claimed that it is serving the Syrian people, while the US opposes the revolution and supports the pro-regime coalition.
“It is a highly unfortunate reality that many Syrians living in opposition areas of Syria perceive JFS as a more determined and effective protector of their lives and interests than the United States and its Western allies,” wrote Charles Lister. The West has been unwilling to do anything to complicate the ability of the Bashar al-Assad regime to commit mass-murder for fear of antagonizing the Iranians and collapsing a “legacy-setting nuclear accord“. While that remains the case, al-Qaeda will continue to gain power and acceptance as a necessary-evil in Syria, and the ramifications of Syria are generational and global.
It is true that there is far too much optimism in current assessments of IS’s impending doom. The group will outlast the loss of its cities, and the misguided way the Coalition has conducted the war will provide conditions for a potential revival. Still, it is al-Qaeda that has the long-term advantage.
IS claimed sole legitimacy to rule, gained visibility and therefore followers. But as strategists like Setmariam understood, this made them visible to their enemies too, a toll that is beginning to tell, especially abroad. In Syria, formal al-Qaeda branches were never the organisation’s only lever and al-Qaeda was much more interested in shaping the environment than ruling it. In essence, al-Qaeda will give up the name and the public credit for the sake of the thing – whether that’s the popular understanding of the religion or the foundations of an Islamic emirate.
“IS wants the world to believe that it is everywhere, and … al-Qaeda wants the world to believe that it is nowhere.” That quip from Daveed Gartenstein-Ross neatly summarizes the trajectory of the two organisations. What can’t be seen is harder to stop – al-Qaeda’s counting on it.
Kyle W. Orton is associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and a Middle East analyst and commentator.
North Korea Claims Nuke Test Proves It Can Miniaturize Warheads
VOA: North Korea has claimed the past two tests involved hydrogen bombs, which are much more powerful than atomic bombs. Analysts, however, said the January blast was not big enough to be a full thermonuclear explosion or “H-bomb.”
South Korea’s meteorological agency said Friday’s test produced a 10-kiloton blast, nearly twice the power of the country’s nuclear test in January but slightly less than the Hiroshima bombing, which was measured about 15 kilotons.
N.Korea conducts fifth and largest nuclear test, drawing broad condemnation
AP/MSN: North Korea conducted its fifth and biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that its rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.
The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea’s founding, was more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to some estimates, and drew condemnation from the United States as well as China, Pyongyang’s main ally.
Diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would discuss the test at a closed-door meeting on Friday, at the request of the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Under 32-year-old dictator Kim Jong Un, North Korea has accelerated the development of its nuclear and missile programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, in Laos after a summit of Asian leaders, said Kim was showing “maniacal recklessness” in completely ignoring the world’s call to abandon his pursuit of nuclear weapons.
U.S. President Barack Obama, aboard Air Force One on his way home from Laos, said the test would be met with “serious consequences”, and held talks with Park and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the White House said.
China said it was resolutely opposed to the test and urged Pyongyang to stop taking any actions that would worsen the situation. It said it would lodge a protest with the North Korean embassy in Beijing.
There were further robust condemnations from Russia, the European Union, NATO, Germany and Britain.
North Korea, which labels the South and the United States as its main enemies, said its “scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead,” according to its official KCNA news agency.
It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit.
Pyongyang’s claims of being able to miniaturise a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.
Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.
“Sanctions have already been imposed on almost everything possible, so the policy is at an impasse,” said Tadashi Kimiya, a University of Tokyo professor specialising in Korean issues.
“In reality, the means by which the United States, South Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached their limits,” he said.
UNPRECEDENTED RATE
North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its neighbours South Korea and Japan.
“The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable the DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power,” KCNA said, referring to the country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
It was not clear whether Pyongyang had notified Beijing or Moscow of its planned nuclear test. Senior officials from Pyongyang were in both capitals this week.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she had no information to provide when asked if China had advance warning of the test, and would not be drawn on whether China would support tougher sanctions against its neighbour.
Although Beijing has criticised North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, it has repeatedly expressed anger since the United States and South Korea decided in July to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the South.
China calls THAAD a threat to its own security and will do nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on its nuclear programme.
Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors nuclear tests around the world, indicates the magnitude – around 5 – of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was greater than a previous one in January.
Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test so far.
He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield. Such a yield would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two.
“That’s the largest DPRK test to date, 20-30kt, at least. Not a happy day,” Lewis told Reuters.
South Korea’s military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North’s most powerful nuclear blast to date.
“The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren’t a backwards state any more,” Lewis said.
Executive Orders, Statutes, Rules and Regulations Relating to North Korea
The North Korea sanctions program represents the implementation of multiple legal authorities. Some of these authorities are in the form of executive orders issued by the President. Other authorities are public laws (statutes) passed by The Congress. These authorities are further codified by OFAC in its regulations which are published the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Modifications to these regulations are posted in the Federal Register. In addition to all of these authorites, OFAC may also implement United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) with regard to the North Korea. Proclamations
Proclamation 8271 – Termination of the Exercise of Authorities Under the Trading With the Enemy Act With Respect to North Korea (Effective Date – June 27, 2008)
Executive Orders
13722 – Blocking Property of the Government of North Korea and the Workers’ Party of Korea, and Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to North Korea (Effective date – March 16, 2016)
13687 – Imposing Additional Sanctions with Respect to North Korea (Effective date – January 2, 2015)
13570 – Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect To North Korea (Effective date – April 18, 2011)
13551 – Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to North Korea (Effective date – August 30, 2010)
13466 – Continuing Certain Restrictions With Respect to North Korea and North Korean Nationals (June 26, 2008)
FNC: As many as 100,000 Iranian-backed fighters are now on the ground in Iraq, according to American military officials — raising concerns that even if the Islamic State falls, it may only be replaced by another anti-American force which fuels more sectarian violence in the region.
The ranks have swelled inside a network of Shiite militias known as Popular Mobilization Forces. Since the rise of Sunni-dominated ISIS fighters inside Iraq more than two years ago, the Shiite forces have grown to 100,000 fighters, Col. Chris Garver, a Baghdad-based U.S. military spokesman, confirmed in an email to Fox News. The fighters are mostly Iraqis.
Garver said not all the Shia militias in Iraq are backed by Iran, adding: “The [Iranian-backed] Shia militia are usually identified at around 80,000.”
According to some experts, this still is an alarmingly high number.
Even more troubling to the U.S. military are reports that Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general who commands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, is now on the ground outside Mosul ahead of an expected ground operation to retake Iraq’s second-largest city which has been under ISIS control for the past two years.
According to the Long War Journal, a spokesman for the Iranian-backed forces said earlier this month that Soleimani is expected to play a “major role” in the battle for Mosul.
When asked about Shia militias participating in the liberation of Sunni-dominated Mosul, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq said last week, “The government of Iraq is in charge of this war. We’re here to support them. So, who they [want in] the campaign is really their decision.”
A U.S. military official could not confirm Soleimani’s presence in Mosul, but said Soleimani had been seen throughout Iraq and Syria in the past two years coordinating activities. More here.
****
Protecting money designated for Iraq is sneaking into the hands of the Iranian militia. Exactly what are we knowingly funding and who is tracking it?
(U//FOUO) Section 1236 Report: Department of Defense (DoD) Quarterly Progress Report on the Authority to Provide Assistance to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Document here but heavily redacted.
**** Yes, there is more….
SecurityAssistance: Following the collapse of Iraq’s fighting force, the United States is again trying to train and equip the Iraqi military to effectively defeat a terrorist group. In FY2015, Congress allocated $1.6 billion for the Iraq Train and Equip Fund (ITEF) with $1.2 billion for official Iraqi forces, $350 million for Kurdish forces, and $24 million for tribal security forces.
According to the fact sheet, the United States has already provided Iraq’s security forces over 1,200 military vehicles, approximately 20,000 smalls arms and heavy weapons, 2,000 additional AT-4 anti-tank weapons and nearly 300 counter improvised explosive device equipment and more than 2,000 Iraqi Kurdish Forces received U.S. military training. In addition, the administration has requested an additional $715 million for ITEF for FY2016, which both houses of Congress have included in their versions of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Iraq does not just receive funding through ITEP though. Allocations for U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program began in FY 2012 for $850 million, originally intended to build up Iraq’s long-term sustainment and logistics capabilities, but as IS gained momentum in Iraq in 2014, portions of FMF funding were redirected to urgent counterterrorism supplies, including critical resupply of Hellfire missiles, rockets, tank ammunition, small arms/ammo and individual soldier items. Moving into FY2016, the administration has requested $250 million for FMF, the same amount that was allocated in FY 2015.
While these two programs compose the majority of security assistance to Iraq, some U.S. security aid programs still provide millions of dollars in funding to Iraq each year such as the Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs (NADR). From FY 2012-2015, Congress allocated on average $28 million annually for NADR, a relatively small decline in funding compared to the $30 million allocated annually during the last two years of the Iraq war.
U.S. security assistance to Iraq has returned to levels not seen since the end of the Iraq War in an effort to rebuild the Iraqi military and combat the Islamic State. The State Department stresses its dedication “to helping Iraq improve security, maintain sovereignty, and push back against terrorism, most recently ISIL.” As the United States continues its campaign against IS into 2016 one hopes that U.S. assistance is more effective compared to the last go-round, especially since the latest video released by IS depicts the fighters training with American-made M16 assault rifles.
****
The Department of Defense was required to budget and buy Iran’s designated ‘heavy water’. Really? Yes.
In part from ScienceMag: DOE has struck a deal to purchase 32 tons of heavy water—water containing the hydrogen isotope deuterium—from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
The $8.6 million sale, expected to be completed Friday morning in Vienna, helps Iran meet a commitment under last July’s nuclear deal to shed heavy water—and it will have a swords-to-ploughshares payoff. “We’re securing material that will allow us to do great science,” says Thom Mason, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. DOE will resell a portion to industry for uses such as nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and protecting optical fibers and semiconductors against deterioration by blasting them with deuterium gas. DOE will also send 6 tons to Oak Ridge for an upgrade of the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), the world’s most powerful accelerator-driven machine for generating neutrons for research.
****
In part from ExchangeMonitor: Heavy water, which is used in some plutonium-producing nuclear reactors, is key for nuclear weapons development.
The agreement requires Iran to redesign and rebuild its heavy-water reactor at Arak; focus on using light water for future power and research reactors; not to build any new heavy-water reactors or accumulate the material for 15 years; and make all excess domestic heavy water available for export to foreign buyers.
In a prepared statement, the Department of Energy said there were no plans for additional purchases of Iranian heavy water: “The U.S. will not be Iran’s customer forever. It is exclusively Iran’s responsibility to find a way to meet its JCPOA commitments, whether that is by selling, diluting or disposing of future stocks of heavy water to remain within the JCPOA limit.”
Some of the heavy water will be used at the Oak Ridge lab’s Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), with the rest provided to commercial users.
An amendment from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) against purchases of heavy water from Iran temporarily held up passage of the Senate energy appropriations bill this spring. The amendment was eventually stripped from the legislation.
A bill from Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) to prohibit any federal entity in any fiscal year from spending money on Iranian heavy water passed the House in July and was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
