$1.7 Billion to Iran, but the Cash Does not End There

Posted on September 8, 2016September 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

From Raqqa to Paris and Other Targets in Europe

Posted on September 6, 2016September 6, 2016 by Denise Simon

ISIS cell behind Paris atrocity ‘planned attacks on shopping centre and targets in Holland’: Full scale of attack revealed as official warns operatives are trying to reach UK

ISIS fanatics killed 130 people in the French capital on November 13
But papers claim murderous team may have been plotting wider attack
Investigators believe shopping centres and targets in Holland identified
Official says ISIS has stepped up moves to infiltrate operatives in the UK

DailyMail: A network of ISIS extremists who targeted Paris in November last year had ambitious plans to carry out yet more atrocities, it has emerged.

Fanatics killed 130 people in the French capital on November 13 when they massacred music fans in the Bataclan theatre hall, set off suicide bombs at the Stade de France and gunned down revellers outside bars.

But the terror group’s external operations wing, known as Amn al-Kharji, may have been planning for the murderous team to hit other targets, including supermarkets and packed shopping centres, it has been reported.

A network of ISIS extremists who targeted Paris in November last year had made ambitious plans to carry out yet more atrocities, it has emerged. People are pictured fleeing from the Bataclan on November 13

There are also suggestions their hit list included targets in the Netherlands while one official said ISIS has stepped up moves to infiltrate its attackers into Britain.

Details of an apparent wider plot emerged after CNN examined tens of thousands of pages of documents from investigations into the Paris massacre.

The papers revealed that the ISIS network may have been planning to follow up the slaughter in Paris with attacks in several other locations.

CNN says the documents show a suspected terrorist called Abid Tabaouni, believed to have been linked to the Paris terror cell, was at large in Europe for months after the atrocity. He was only arrested in July this year.

A European counter-terror official told CNN that Paris was a ‘slimmed-down’ version of a far wider plot.

Sources told the broadcaster that, even now, operatives planted in Europe are waiting for instructions from key ISIS strategists based in the terror group’s Syrian stronghold.

The terror group’s external operations wing, known as Amn al-Kharji, may have been planning for the murderous team to hit other targets, including supermarkets and packed shopping centres. The exterior of the Bataclan, where 90 people died, is pictured above

According to the CNN reporters Scott Bronstein, Nicole Gaouette, Laura Koran and Clarissa Ward, documents revealed that two terror suspects who were delayed in reaching France ahead of the November 13 killings may have been plotting to return to the French capital for a further attack at a later date.

Adel Haddadi and Muhammad Usman had reportedly been looking at train times to Paris and made a number of overseas calls in the days before they were arrested – and investigators believe they were waiting for a third man to join them.

The attack on Paris was one of a series of jihadist strikes on French soil.

In January last year, terrorists shot 12 people dead at the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Days later a Jewish supermarket was targeted with four shot dead.

In June this year Police officer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his wife were knifed to death inside their home near Paris by a man who said he had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

And on July 14, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, thought to have links with ISIS, murdered 84 when he drove a lorry into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice.

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From CNN in part:

Suspected ISIS operative map graphic

The documents show:

a fuller portrait of the suspected terrorists’ extensive use of social media platforms such as Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp, many encrypted for secure communication. One app let them pick their own phone number, allowing them to disguise who was calling them and from where.

how ISIS handlers protect their missions by: giving operatives only as much information and money as they need to reach the next phase; contacting them on each leg of their journey; and insisting on pseudonyms, even within teams.

how the suspected terrorists constantly exchanged logistical advice with others in their network, including whether or not to use real names at border crossings and how to sneak across those borders illegally. One tip was to hide in train restrooms.

A senior European counter-terrorism official who spoke to CNN said that according to investigations into the network that carried out the Paris attacks, they were a slimmed-down version of an even more ambitious plan to hit Europe.

After interrogating suspects and gathering intelligence, European investigators now believe that ISIS initially planned for the operatives it sent last year to also attack the Netherlands, as well as other targets in France including shopping areas and possibly a supermarket in Paris, the official said.

In addition, recently obtained intelligence indicates that ISIS has stepped up efforts to infiltrate operatives into the UK to launch attacks there, an official told CNN.

The senior European counter-terrorism official told CNN that security services were “uncovering more and more ISIS operatives” on continental European soil. ISIS operatives dispatched back to Europe have taken advantage of encryption, especially the Telegram messenger app, to communicate securely, the official told CNN, frustrating European security services.

“Encrypted messaging groups have the potential to revolutionize terror plot planning by allowing entire cells to coordinate in real time without compromising themselves,” said CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.

Europe’s security agencies have had important successes, though. One major breakthrough was the capture of two men who authorities believe intended to travel to France alongside the two suicide bombers who eventually blew themselves up outside a Paris stadium.

Investigators: Two ISIS attackers who never reached France

Those two suspected ISIS operatives are identified in the documents as Algerian-born Adel Haddadi and his Pakistani travel partner, Muhammad Usman.

Algerian-born Adel Haddadi is a suspected ISIS operative.

Muhammad Usman is a suspected ISIS operative from Pakistan

Documents that detail their capture and extensive interrogations, particularly with Haddadi, show how ISIS supported the attackers throughout their journey from Syria through Europe — and how future attacks might be organized. The following account of their journey to Europe is based on those documents, which include evidence gathered by investigators, and their conclusions.

Haddadi and Usman, who was identified by investigators as a suspected bombmaker for the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, set out from the capital of the self-declared ISIS caliphate in Raqqa, Syria, six weeks before the Paris attacks.

They were part of a team, investigators concluded. The two others, Ahmad al-Mohammad and Mohamad al-Mahmod, would later blow themselves up outside the national stadium in Paris. The team crossed the border from Syria into Turkey in early October and headed for the Turkish coast.

Ahmad al-Mohammad was one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks.

Mohamad al-Mahmod was one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks.

The four men didn’t seem to know each other’s real names, or what their final mission would be. All Haddadi knew, he later told interrogators, was that they were being sent to France to do “something for the good of God.”

The documents show that their journey was directed by a shadowy ISIS leader in Syria, known only as Abu Ahmad. Operating like a puppet-master from afar, Abu Ahmad handled their logistics: connecting them with smugglers and cars for transport, providing pre-programmed cell phones and getting them fake Syrian passports.

He wired them money as they moved, using intermediaries who couldn’t be traced, and communicated using encrypted apps.

“Abu Ahmad … is key in sending those individuals, at least the foreigners, into the Paris attacks,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, president and chairman of the French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, who reviewed the documents for CNN.

“He is the one who recruited them, who funds them, who trained them,” said Brisard. “He was always in contact with them.”

Throughout their journey, Abu Ahmad gave the men only enough money and information to get to the next stop, rarely if ever telling them what would happen next, the documents show.

Posing as Syrian refugees

The documents reveal fresh details about their journey and the way they posed as Syrian refugees, blending in with thousands fleeing the war-torn country.

They made the treacherous crossing from Izmir, Turkey, into Greece in a boat filled with dozens of refugees. But they were then intercepted by the Greek Navy.

The two who would go on to strike the Paris stadium passed through Greece and started moving across Europe toward their target in France. Greek officials declined to explain how the two got through.

But Greek authorities discovered Haddadi and Usman’s fake Syrian passports. The pair were arrested, their money was taken, and they were held for nearly a month.

Sources told CNN that investigators believe that delay was significant; as a result, they would not have a chance to become part of the Paris attacks.

The Greeks released Haddadi and Usman in late October. They immediately contacted their ISIS handler, Abu Ahmad, who arranged for someone to wire them 2,000 euros. Flush with cash, the pair continued along the refugee route.

It was likely a quiet journey.

The documents show that Usman spoke only Urdu, while Haddadi spoke mostly Arabic. And as they travelled north, Usman was preoccupied with a strikingly un-Islamic hobby — using his phone to peruse almost two dozen X-rated sites, including “sexxx lahur” and “Pakistani Lahore college girls … ImakeSex.”

Both men’s phones have given European officials rich investigative veins to mine, revealing dozens of contacts across Europe and the Middle East.

One of the people Haddadi reached out to for help was a technician at one of the most important nuclear research centers in Europe. That man was placed under immediate observation by French authorities, the documents show.

Data pulled from the phones also revealed how the operatives functioned both with extreme care and sometimes, seemingly, by the seat of their pants. In one exchange, Haddadi asks a contact for advice about what to do at a border crossing and whether a friend should use his real name. The friend is so worried about this, Haddadi gripes that he’s “driving me crazy.”

This graphic, featuring suspected ISIS operative Adel Haddadi, shows Haddadi’s global network.

Other online conversations, notably with Abu Ahmad, are clearly in code. One message investigators pulled from Haddadi’s phone shows the ISIS handler counseling patience, though the exact meaning of his message isn’t clear. “Yes, but not yet,” it reads, “the drugs are not good.”

On November 14, the day after the Paris attacks, Haddadi and Usman arrived in Salzburg, Austria, applied for asylum and settled into one of the city’s refugee centers, where they waited for weeks.

Investigators: Planning for another strike

They were waiting with a purpose, according to the documents.

European investigators concluded that Haddadi and Usman were part of the same terror cell as the Paris bombers and, having failed to participate in that bloody day, were planning another strike.

Investigators found that in the days before their arrest, Haddadi and Usman were researching trains to Paris and making a flurry of phone calls overseas , including to contacts in Belgium and France.

The documents also reveal that investigators believe that Haddadi and Usman were waiting for a third man to join them — Abid Tabaouni. Keep reading here from CNN, this was remarkable work by these journalists.

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Paris attacks: French authorities file terror charges against Pakistani man

29-year-old Algerian Adel Haddadi, 35-year-old Pakistani Muhammad Usman were charged with criminal conspiracy with terrorists

House DHS Chairman Releases Terror Threat Snapshot

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

September-Terror-Threat-Snapshot

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has released his monthly Terror Threat Snapshot for September 2016. The current edition paints an ominous backdrop for one of the worst years on record for homegrown Islamist extremism.

166 Homegrown Terror Plots; 26 Arrests

According to the snapshot, FBI Director James Comey estimates that around 80 percent of his Bureau’s 1,000-plus active homegrown terrorist investigations can be traced to ISIS, and he calls that statistic “the greatest threat to the physical safety of Americans today.” Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 166 homegrown terror plots were uncovered in the United States; nearly 90 percent of U.S.-based ISIS supporters are male and close to 35 percent of them are recent converts to Islam.

The Terror Threat Snapshot states that 26 people have been arrested in 13 states so far in 2016. The offenses – all related to ISIS – include weapons charges, offering financial support to the Islamic State, and actual plots to attack U.S. targets and citizens. McCaul’s snapshot also points out 47 ISIS-linked plots to attack towns and cities in Europe, and 28 attacks targeting Westerners outside of the U.S. and Europe.

Recent ISIS-Related Arrests in the United States

Here is a breakdown of the recent major arrests, according to the snapshot:

Minnesota: U.S. citizen and Minneapolis resident Mohamed Amiin Ali Roble, 20, was charged for his role in a terror network that was dispatching its members to Syria in order to join ISIS.

North Carolina: 35-year-old U.S. citizen, Erick Jamal Hendricks of Charlotte, was arrested after attempting to hire a cell of terror operatives with a goal to ultimately launch attacks within the United States. Hendricks had also previously reached out – via social media – to the ISIS-linked group that targeted a cartoon competition in Garland, Texas in 2015.

Virginia: Nicholas Young, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen from Fairfax, Virginia, and a police officer for the Washington Metro Transit Police, was arrested for ISIS-related charges. Young is the first uniformed police officer in the U.S. ever charged with an ISIS-linked offense.

Michigan: Sebastian Gregorson, a U.S. citizen who recently converted to Islam, was arrested in Detroit for “possessing a destructive device and acquiring explosive materials without a license.” Gregorson is alleged to be a solid ISIS support and also possessed a CD entitled “Anwar al Awlaki” who was one of al-Qaida’s major recruiters.

Guantanamo Bay Detainees Released – Including Bin Laden’s Bodyguards

September’s Terror Threat Snapshot also states that a recent assessment performed by the Director of National Intelligence revealed that 30 percent of released Guantanamo Bay detainees have either returned to or are suspected of returning to jihadist activity. According to the snapshot, the Department of Defense announced that 15 detainees were handed over to the government of the United Arab Emirates. Of those 15, some were explosive experts, some were trained al-Qaida fighters and at least two of them were employed as Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguards.

Other highlights of this month’s Terror Threat Snapshot include the ongoing Iranian terror threat, foreign fighter statistics and a full report of foreign Jihadist networks and safe havens.

2 Generals Have a Lot to Say About Obama’s ISIS Strategy

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

Former U.S. Commanders Take Increasingly Dim View of War on ISIS

As conflict enters its third year, endgame still elusive

Time: It’s a most peculiar war: rarely has the U.S. been killing so many while risking so few. The U.S. is beating ISIS handily, judging by Vietnam’s body-count metric. The total number of ISIS battlefield deaths claimed by U.S. officials has jumped, from 6,000 in January 2015 to 45,000 last month—a bloodbath for an enemy force estimated to number about 30,000. Three U.S. troops have died. That’s an eye-watering U.S.-to-ISIS “kill ratio” of 15,000-to-1. “We’ve got good momentum going,” General Joseph Votel, chief of U.S. Central Command, who is overseeing the war, said Tuesday. “We are really into the heart of the caliphate.”

Yunus Keles / Anadolu Agency / Getty ImagesSyrian Peshmerga fighters outside Mosul Aug. 18, preparing for an offensive to retake Iraq’s second-largest city from ISIS.

But some of his predecessors disagree. James Mattis, a retired Marine general who commanded Central Command from 2010 to 2013, says the war on ISIS is “unguided by a sustained policy or sound strategy [and is] replete with half-measures.” Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine four-star who held the same post from 1997 to 2000, says he doesn’t think he could do so today. “I don’t want to be part of a strategy that in my heart of hearts I know is going to fail,” he says. “It’s a bad strategy, it’s the wrong strategy, and maybe I would tell the President that he would be better served to find somebody who believes in it, whoever that idiot may be.”

Day after day, American warplanes, sometimes joined by allies, have been attacking individual ISIS targets, down to backhoes and foxholes. ISIS has lost 40% of its Iraqi territory, the Pentagon says, and 5% in Syria. It doesn’t seem to have lost any of the terrain it has staked out on the internet. That’s slow progress by a 27-state military alliance against a two-year-old rump state.

The U.S.-led war against the Islamic State is entering its third year (eclipsing the time the U.S. spent fighting World War I). In part, that’s because it’s a small-bore campaign: the U.S. is spending $4 billion a year, equal to a third the cost of a single aircraft carrier (planes not included). “Employing an anemic application of force relative to previous air campaigns has yielded the Islamic State time to export their message, garner followers, and spread their message,” says David Deptula, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who planned the 1991 bombing campaign that all-but-drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. “A comprehensive strategy to rapidly decompose the Islamic State is still lacking.”

On the ground—the only way to retake territory—the hapless Iraqi army, Kurdish forces, and a motley medley of Syrian rebels are spear-heading the fight. U.S. troops alongside them (about 5,000 in Iraq, and 300 in Syria), serve primarily as advisers, in another unfortunate echo of Vietnam. ISIS continues to hold on to its key centers of gravity: its self-declared capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, 300 miles away. “I’ve talked to some U.S. generals who are really frustrated—they could be in Raqqa in a week,” Zinni says. The U.S. is “losing credibility and they’re actually encouraging the enemy because they’re able to hold the ground for years now.”

But bombs or ground troops, by themselves, can’t cure ISIS or whatever radical group springs up to replace it. “Proposals to escalate or accelerate the campaign in Iraq and Syria in order to hasten the Islamic State group’s defeat would accomplish a lot less than commonly supposed,” says Stephen Biddle, a military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who advised then-general David Petraeus on Iraq from 2007 to 2009. “The problem isn’t taking Mosul or Raqqa—it’s what would come afterward. Stabilization is unlikely without an investment vastly larger than most Americans will support.” The U.S. has spent $3 trillion and nearly 7,000 lives trying to bring stability to Afghanistan and Iraq, with little to show for it. (For his part, Petraeus, who ran Central Command from 2008 to 2010, only acknowledges that “we’re waging war in a way that is somewhat unique.”)

ISIS’s tenacity is the oxygen that gives life to would-be jihadists around the globe, pumping violence into places like Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. The significance of Tuesday’s killing of ISIS strategist Abu Muhammad Adnani, apparently in a U.S. drone strike, marks a clear blow to the jihadists. But there are others, waiting in the wings, eager to replace him, U.S. officials say.

Current U.S. commanders say their progress is limited by the lack of local ground forces to retake territory from ISIS. They estimated from the start that the fight could take at least three years, winning credit for candor that was MIA when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. U.S. officials say the anti-ISIS forces are making slow, but steady, gains, and an offensive to retake Mosul may begin by year’s end (originally, the Pentagon had penciled in April 2015 for the effort to retake northern Iraq’s largest city).

Part of the challenge is the Gordian knot that the Iraq-Syrian theater has become. ISIS sprang from the now-five-year-old Syrian civil war, which has killed 400,000 and displaced 10 million. Nearly half have fled the country, fomenting unrest across Europe. Iran and Russian back the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad—a fight the U.S. has resolutely refused to enter (even after Assad, despite a warning of a “red line” by President Obama, used chemical weapons on his own people in 2013). “At the end of the day, our current U.S. policy in the region has failed expensively and shredded our credibility,” says Barry McCaffrey, a retired Army general says retired Army general Barry McCaffrey, who led an Army division into Iraq in 1991’s Gulf War.

With more than a dozen air forces overhead, and about 1,000 armed factions on the ground, the risk of crossfires and mistaken shoot downs is ever present. Don’t think that doesn’t pre-occupy U.S. military planners. Given the death-by-fire of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh at ISIS hands last year after his F-16 crash-landed inside the self-declared caliphate, the U.S. is going to great lengths to keep its ISIS-fighting troops safe. U.S. domestic political pressure to smash ISIS would surge following any such capture and torture of a U.S. pilot or commando. That’s why robust combat-search and rescue teams are on alert whenever U.S. warplanes fly in harm’s way, and why the U.S. military is training its forces to elude capture and escape from “a typical remote Iraqi/Syrian village.”

The U.S. has big goals for a small-scale war. Washington sees its mission as destroying ISIS, helping negotiate an end to the Syrian civil war, and keeping the lid on the historic rivalry between Islam’s Sunni and Shiite branches. Iran and Russia back Syria’s Assad. Saudi Arabia and Turkey want him gone. But Turkey is a problematic NATO ally that views Kurdish separatists, a key U.S. ally in the ISIS fight, as a bigger threat than ISIS. The U.S. is backing four major rebel groups with air strikes: the Iraqi army, moderate Syrian rebels, and separate Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria. But crushing ISIS helps Assad, fueling the civil war, and bolstering Kurdish fighters angers Turkey, which believes some are allied with a Turkish Kurdish group responsible for terror attacks inside that country.

All this, rightly or wrongly, has tied U.S. hands. “There is no political will in the White House to even listen to serious recommendations from military commands,” says Derek Harvey, a retired Army military-intelligence colonel who spent much of his career in Iraq. “The original strategy explained by the President was barely adequate and even that was not resourced or executed well.” While Obama’s go-slow approach loses its lease in January, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump has detailed a replacement. “First and foremost are we going to be decisive and have some balls, or just continue to try to manage conflict to unacceptable ends,” Harvey adds. “If not the former, then we should not play in the sandbox.”

As the long-awaited showdown to retake Mosul looms, cracks are appearing in the allied front. Iraq’s parliament voted to oust Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi on corruption charges Aug 25. In recent days, it has become clear that the Qayara air base south of Mosul that is supposed to be a major launching pad for the assault was almost completed destroyed by retreating ISIS fighters in July. And Kurdish forces—long lauded as the best fighters in the region—are hungry. “The Peshmerga are not getting enough calories to keep them in the field,” Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland said Aug. 10 as he wrapped up his 11 months in charge of the ISIS fight. “We’re very interested in making sure that they have enough food just to carry on the fight.” Such news could well delay the Mosul fight into 2017.

“Doing nothing would be far preferable to this mess,” says Daniel Bolger, a retired Army three-star who commanded troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq before retiring in 2013. He plucks a quote from the military history he teaches at North Carolina State University, when asked about current U.S. strategy. It comes from a French general after he witnessed the doomed charge of the British Light Brigade against the Russians in the Crimean War in 1854: “It is magnificent, but it is not war,” Pierre Bosquet said. “It is madness.”

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Then it seems, the matter of Islamic State in Libya is a month by month gig.

Obama extends Libya bombing mission against ISIS, officials say

President Obama has extended the U.S. military’s combat mission in Libya for another month at the request of senior military leaders, two defense officials with knowledge of the order told Fox News.

The decision keeps two U.S. Navy warships off the coast of Libya to continue striking ISIS and assist Libyan ground forces fighting the terror group in the coastal city of Sirte.

One of the U.S. warships had been scheduled to go to the Persian Gulf in September to begin airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and keep an eye on Iran, a week after four provocations between Iranian gunboats and U.S. Navy ships — one of which resulted in warning shots being fired by a U.S. warship. The other, a U.S. Navy destroyer, was supposed to head to the Black Sea near Russia next month. But both plans will be put on hold, according to one defense official.

USS Wasp, a large amphibious assault ship loaded with over 1,000 Marines as well as Harrier jets and Cobra attack helicopters, will remain off the coast of Libya – as will her escort ship, USS Carney, a guided-missile destroyer.

“The destroyer is close enough to be seen from shore,” one defense official said.

U.S. Marine Corps jets and attack helicopters from USS Wasp have conducted 92 airstrikes against ISIS in Libya as of Monday, according to statistics provided from the U.S. military’s Africa Command.

Marine Harrier jets have conducted 124 missions over Libya against ISIS since airstrikes began on Aug. 1. Marine Cobra attack helicopters have flown 31 missions as of Tuesday, according to statistics provided by one defense official who requested anonymity.

Another defense official told Fox News he expected U.S. airstrikes to be ending soon because ground forces loyal to the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli which the U.S. military is supporting is now in control of 90 percent of Sirte. The Libyan city is located roughly halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi on the Mediterranean coast.

Earlier this week, Libyan forces suffered heavy casualties while fighting ISIS, according to reports. According to the BBC, 34 Libyan soldiers were killed and 150 wounded in recent fighting.

Estimates about the ISIS presence in Libya vary. In June, CIA Director John Brennan said there were 5,000 to 8,000 fighters in Libya. Recently, U.S. military officials said only “hundreds” remained in the ISIS-stronghold of Sirte, but did not have estimates for the rest of the country.

Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has officially disclosed the extension for the two U.S. Navy warships and airstrikes against ISIS there. The president’s initial authorization was for 30 days.

Russia Blocking UN Sanctions on Syrian Chemical Attacks

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

Russia blocks UN move to sanction Syria for chemical attacks

Russia’s UN ambassador questioned whether a UN report had provided evidence of President Assad’s chemical weapons attacks

MiddleEastEye: Russia blocked a move by the United Nations on Tuesday to sanction Syria for the government’s alleged use of chemical weapons in the country’s brutal civil war.

Britain and France called for UN sanctions after a UN-led investigation found that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had carried out at least two chemical attacks, one in 2014 and one in 2015.

Following a closed-door Security Council meeting the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said he had “very serious questions” about the findings and suggested the panel should continue its work.

“There are a number of questions which have to be clarified before we accept all the findings of the report,” Churkin said.

Previous reports from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had concluded that toxic gases have been used as weapons in Syria’s five-year war, but stopped short of identifying the perpetrators.

The panel of inquiry, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), for the first time pointed the finger of blame at the Assad government for chemical weapons use after years of denial from Damascus.

The British and French ambassadors described the use of chemical weapons against civilians as a war crime, while US ambassador Samantha Power called for quick action to ensure those responsible “pay a price.”

Churkin, however, made clear he was unconvinced by the JIM report.

“There is nobody to sanction in the report,” Churkin said. “It contains no names, no specifics, no fingerprints.”

“Clearly there is a smoking gun. We know that chlorine was most likely used, but there are no fingerprints on the gun,” he said.

The panel found that the Syrian government had dropped chemical weapons on two villages in northwestern Idlib province: Talmenes on 21 April, 2014 and Sarmin on 16 March, 2015.

In both instances, Syrian air force helicopters dropped “a device” on houses that was followed by the “release of a toxic substance,” which in the case of Sarmin matched “the characteristics of chlorine.”

Chlorine use as a weapon is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria joined in 2013, under pressure from Russia, Assad’s ally.

No evidence

Syrian ambassador Bashar Jaafari rejected the findings, saying the panel lacked “physical evidence” to support its conclusions that chlorine barrel-bombs were dropped on civilians.

The report was “totally based on witnesses presented by terrorist armed groups,” Jaafari told reporters.

French ambassador Francois Delattre called for a “quick and strong Security Council response” that would include “imposing sanctions on those who are responsible for these acts.”

The council will be “looking at the imposition of sanctions and some form of accountability within international legal mechanisms,” said British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft.

The report also found that the Islamic State had used mustard gas in an attack on the town of Marea in northern Aleppo province in August 2015.

Human Rights Watch called on the council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court for war crimes and to urgently impose sanctions.

Britain, France and the United States said such a step remained an option, even though Russia and China blocked ICC referral in 2014.

“Russia and China don’t have a leg to stand on by continuing to obstruct the Security Council on Syria sanctions and ICC referral,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch.

“The Security Council diminishes its importance if it doesn’t take strong action against demonstrated use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government.”

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Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations has dismissed as flawed the findings of a UN-mandated investigation blaming Syrian forces for the use of chemical weapons, saying the report is based on “false testimonies.” Per the Iran Project

Last week, a report carried out by the Joint Investigative Mechanism of the UN and the OPCW claimed that Syrian forces had used chlorine in two separate attacks against militants in 2014 and 2015.

The investigation was launched based on the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2235, which called for determining which party used chemical arms in Syria.

Syria rejected the allegations, with Ja’afari saying on Tuesday that the conclusions of the report “lack any physical evidence, whether by samples or attested medical reports that chlorine was used.”

The Syrian diplomat also said the report was “totally based on witnesses presented by terrorist armed groups.”

Russia, which has been backing the Syrian government in its war against the terrorists, also cast doubt on the report.

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Per the United Nations website:

24 August 2016 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today submitted a joint UN-Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) report to the Security Council outlining in-depth investigation into, as well as the findings, assessments and conclusions of, nine selected cases related to incidents involving the use of chemicals weapons in Syria.

According to a statement issued today by Mr. Ban’s spokesperson, the UN chief is looking forward to the Council’s consideration of the report.

The report will be available publicly shortly thereafter, the statement added.

The methods of work and the investigation of the specific cases are described in the report’s annexes.

According to the statement, the UN chief also expressed appreciation to the Joint Investigative Mechanism’s Leadership Panel and its staff, as well as to the OPCW and the Office for Disarmament Affairs for their continued support to the Mechanism.

He further thanked the Member States of the UN for their assistance to the Mechanism, including financial support.

The joint body, established by the Security Council in August 2015 for a period of one year with a possibility of future extension, is tasked with identifying “individuals, entities, groups, or governments involved in the use of chemicals as weapons, including chlorine or any other toxic chemical,” in Syria, according to the Council, which reiterated that those responsible must be held accountable.

That body differs from the OPCW-UN Joint Mission on the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons, and which was formally established in August 2013. It completed its mandate and wrapped up operations on 30 September 2014. From now on, the OPCW mission in Syria will continue to deal with the destruction of chemical weapon production facilities and clarification of certain aspects of the Syrian initial declaration under the Chemical Weapons Convention .