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Haley has said panel wages ‘pathological’ anti-Israel campaign
U.K.’s Johnson has said council is flawed but has value
The Trump administration plans to announce its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, making good on a pledge to leave a body it has long accused of hypocrisy and criticized as biased against Israel, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley plan to announce the withdrawal at the State Department in Washington at 5 p.m., the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing a decision that hadn’t yet been made public.
The 47-member council, based in Geneva and created in 2006, began its latest session on Monday with a broadside against President Donald Trump’s immigration policy by the UN’s high commissioner for human rights. He called the policy of separating children from parents crossing the southern border illegally “unconscionable.”
The U.S. withdrawal had been expected. National Security Adviser John Bolton opposed the body’s creation when he was U.S. ambassador to the UN in 2006. In a speech to the council last year, Haley called out the body for what she said was its “relentless, pathological campaign” against Israel. She has also called for ways to expel members of the council that have poor human rights records themselves.
Won’t ‘Sit Quietly’
“For our part, the United States will not sit quietly while this body, supposedly dedicated to human rights, continues to damage the cause of human rights,” Haley said at the time. “In the end, no speech and no structural reforms will save the members of the Human Rights Council from themselves.”
A State Department spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, while the UN said it hadn’t received a notification that the U.S. was withdrawing.
The move comes as the Trump administration is under intense criticism from business groups, human rights organizations and lawmakers from both parties over its recently imposed decision to separate children from parents who enter the U.S. illegally.
Even some critics of the human rights council have called for continuing to push for a revamping of the body rather than quitting it.
On the opening day of the council’s current session, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson criticized the body’s perennial agenda item dedicated to Israel and the Palestinian territories, calling it “damaging to the cause of peace.” Nonetheless, he said the U.K. wasn’t “blind to the value of this council.”
The council is scheduled to discuss Israel and the Palestinian territories on July 2, according to its agenda.
*** Sheesh, judged by the company you keep eh? As a reminder, GW Bush removed the United States and Barack Obama reversed that.
bin Qumu was in Afghanistan in the 80’s, then Sudan in the 90’s and back to Libya and Afghanistan and back to Libya. In 2011, he was working to overthrow Qaddafi, which is precisely what Hillary was trying to do. Heck, the Hillary operation hired bin Qumu. For interesting read, click here to read his GITMO file. That pesky left wing radical law group, The Center for Constitutional Rights that represented several GITMO detainees, published a statement in 2011 that bin Qumu was a harmless man.
Osama Bin Laden’s driver who was linked to 2012 Benghazi attack that killed a US diplomat ‘is captured in Libya’, 11 years after he was released from Guantanamo
Reports: Libya National Army have captured a ‘high-ranking al-Qaeda’ operative
Suspect found in Derna is named as Ansar al-Sharia leader Abu Sufian Bin Qumu
Bin Qumu was once personal driver to al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden
He has links to the diplomatic compound attack by gunmen that killed US envoy Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi in 2012
Reports have emerged that the Libyan army has arrested Abu Sufian Bin Qumu, a leader of an Islamist militia group and former driver of Osama Bin Laden.
He was reportedly captured in raids in ‘one of the last strongholds’ of extremist groups in Derna.
Bin Qumu had purported links to attacks in Benghazi that killed US diplomat Chris Stevens in 2012.
It is believed Bin Qumu was arrested after his group ran out of ammunition at a hideout in Derna, according to Al Arabiya.
The 59-year-old is considered a high-ranking operative of al-Qaeda based on his associations with the terrorist group around the time it was founded.
He was said to be the personal driver to Osama Bin Laden in Sudan where the al-Qaeda leader lived for three years during the 1990s. But Bin Qumu denies this.
Washington Post reported he fought alongside the Taliban against US forces in Afghanistan before he was detained at Guantanamo Bay after being captured in Pakistan.
The US military characterised him as a ‘medium to high’ risk to national security while he was in US custody and he refused to cooperate with authorities and explain his past associations with Islamic extremists.
He was extradited to Libya in 2007 where he served jail time before being released by Muammar Gaddafi.
Bin Qama returned to Derna to establish the Ansar al-Sharia extremist group, who advocate the implementation of Sharia law across Syria.
It was also suggested by Washington Post that the Islamic faction’s militiamen were present during the Benghazi attacks in 2012.
Last year, Ahmed Abu Khattala was on trial in the US capital as the suspected mastermind of the attacks on a diplomatic compound in the Libyan city that killed four Americans.
It resulted in the death of Chris Stevens — the first US Ambassador killed by violence overseas since 1979.
Al Arabiya said Bin Qama, despite being a leader of Ansar al-Sharia, no longer played a prominent role in the group.
Imagine the other cities in Iraq and Syria. Mosul was part of Assyria as early as the 25th century BC. Of note, in 2008, there was a sizeable exodus of Assyrian Christians. They sought sanctuary in Syria and Turkey due to threats of murder unless they converted to Islam.
MOSUL, Iraq — In March, VICE News returned to Mosul for the first time since the war against ISIS was declared over eight months ago.
While life may be returning to normal in the eastern half of the city, on the other side of the river — where the fighting was most intense — the scale of rebuilding that needs to be done is monumental. It’s estimated there are still 8 million tons of conflict debris that need to be moved before reconstruction can start, equivalent to three times the size of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. About 75 percent of that rubble is in West Mosul, and it’s mixed with so much unexploded ordnance that experts say this is now one of the most contaminated spots on the planet.
In the Old City, where ISIS made its last stand, residents have slowly started to come back – a few business owners hoping to repair shops, and families who have no other option but to live in their damaged homes. Some water tanks have been trucked in, and electricity cables have been temporarily patched together along some streets, but the place feels deserted, and in some ways the scene was not that different from how it looked shortly after the fighting.
Eight months on, there are hundreds or perhaps thousands of bodies still under the rubble, making life unbearable for the families who have returned.
The putrefied corpses are mainly Islamic State fighters or their families, since many of the non-ISIS civilian bodies have been dug out and reclaimed by family members or civil defense workers. The bodies that remain are a severe health hazard, but there’s little political will to deal with them, and removing them is risky given the unexploded munitions littering the area. Nevertheless, teams of citizen volunteers are going house-to-house carrying out this gruesome, dangerous work on a daily basis.
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One volunteer team is led by Sroor al-Hosayni, a 23-year-old former nurse. Many of her group are even younger; some are medical students, but most have no formal training in handling corpses. So far, they say they’ve pulled and bagged more than 350 bodies that no one else was willing to deal with. They laid them in white plastic body bags where municipal trucks can easily collect them, labeling them for any potential explosives found with the corpse.
“We saw that there were bodies everywhere, in the alleys and inside the houses,” Hosayni said. “I took my team and started implementing this idea by going to help municipality and government workers in removing these bodies before summer comes and disease spreads in the city.”
At first the authorities complained, telling her: “‘You don’t have to move ISIS bodies. Leave them there; the dogs will eat them.”
Hosayni replied, “But one or two dogs can’t eat them; there are thousands of bodies.”
A suspected execution room inside the basement of a collapsed building Al Maydan, the district of the Old City where ISIS made its last stand. Hosayni and her team say there are more than 100 rotting corpses here. So far they have pulled more than 30 bodies from this room n the last few weeks. (Adam Desiderio/VICE News)
After filming Hosayni’s team at work near the destroyed Al Nuri mosque, we followed them to Al Maydan — the Old City neighborhood where ISIS made its last stand — where they had been working on one particular site for weeks.
Bulldozers have started clearing a path where Souk Al-Samak Street once ran along the river, but almost nothing else has changed since the air bombardment flattened this district.
The ruins of arched and intricately carved stone doorways open onto inner courtyards like dioramas of the war, frozen in time: Human corpses in varying degrees of decay lying amid stray ordnance, broken china, plastic toy trucks, and discarded military apparel.
Two hundred yards up the street and on the right, the team pointed us to a building on the banks of the Tigris River. Scrambling through the collapsed masonry, we emerged into two mostly intact basement rooms with barred windows looking out onto the river. In the far room, buzzing with flies and inescapable stench, were dozens and dozens of corpses, stacked too deep to count, one on top of another. It seemed to be the remains of a mass execution.
The body collectors told us there were at least 100 bodies in here; the team had already cleared more than 30 but had barely made a dent in the mound of corpses.
23 year-old Sroor al-Hosayni, a former nurse, leads a team of volunteer body collectors pulling corpses out of a collapsed building in Al Maydan, the district of the Old City where ISIS made its last stand. Hosayni and her team of volunteers have been pulling bodies from what they say is an execution room in the basement of this building. (Adam Desiderio/VICE News)
We saw what appeared to be the bodies of children, though it was difficult to verify given the level of decay. We saw no weapons or military gear on the bodies. The team told us they could see bullet wounds to their heads.
There are reports that ISIS locked large numbers of people in rooms like this, using them as human shields during the final days of the conflict. Many of those families died in coalition airstrikes — but this room was intact. It’s possible they could have been executed by ISIS fighters as government forces closed in. But it’s not clear why ISIS would kill or dispose of civilians in this way.
There are also reports of Iraqi forces executing captured ISIS members in this exact neighborhood. Beards and long hair were still visible on some of the corpses, leading the body collectors to believe some could be men who may have been affiliated with ISIS. But speaking to VICE, a senior Iraqi military official rejected any notion that Iraqi forces may have been responsible for the killings and told us that the site had already been investigated, without providing further details.
One international organization that has documented instances where Iraqi security forces have been accused of carrying out executions is Human Rights Watch.
Belkis Wille, the lead Iraq investigator at Human Rights Watch, visited the site soon after we did. She told us she was unaware of any investigation having been done at this particular site, and that — whoever was responsible for the deaths — the removal of evidence was troubling given that this was potentially the site of a war crime.
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“Sites like that need the proper forensic teams securing the site and conducting the analysis needed to determine whether this is indeed the site of a crime,” Wille told VICE News. “Despite promises by the prime minister at the end of the battle to investigate abuses, we haven’t seen any sign of that leading to teams coming in and doing the investigations necessary. And the question really is, at what point do these sites potentially lose their forensic value and lose the evidence?”
Inside the remains of Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, Iraq where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamic State caliphate in 2014. (Adam Desiderio/VICE News)
But for the body collectors — and for many residents of Mosul — with the heat of summer approaching, the overwhelming priority right now is to clean up this city and begin rebuilding. The need to properly document and investigate potential war crimes isn’t at the top of the agenda.
“It’s time to focus on the living, not the dead,” was the mantra we heard from authorities and from many families trying to rebuild their shattered lives.
Nevertheless, the question of what happened in neighborhoods like Al Maydan and others in those final stages before victory was announced, and in the days shortly afterward, refuses to disappear.
In the ultimate stages of the battle to extinguish the last pockets of ISIS from Mosul last summer, access to the “fight zone” became increasingly restricted.
Baghdad declared the conflict officially over on July 10. The announcement, broadcast live on state television, came as a surprise to many, since there were explosions and gunfire still echoing out from the Old City where the last dregs of the Islamic State terrorist group were refusing to surrender.
Just a day before that, VICE News was one of the few outlets that managed to get past the cordon to join a general from Iraq’s elite counterterrorism brigade and an advance team of his men as they carefully picked their way across the booby-trapped rooftops of collapsed buildings in the district of Al Maydan to plant an Iraqi flag on the banks of the Tigris.
It was a journey through hell. The neighborhood had been pulverized by airstrikes and shelling throughout the campaign, but the intensity had grown as ISIS fell back to these ancient, narrow streets lined with buildings dating back to the 12th century. There was hardly a structure still intact, ordnance and bodies lined the route, some fresh, some bloated and badly decomposed from days or weeks in the sun.
Reaching the river was a symbol of having decisively broken through ISIS defensive lines, a long-awaited moment of triumph for the soldiers. But as the flag was raised and the soldiers took selfies, gunfire from a sniper still alive among the rubble sent the party scattering for cover. In those final days, as different units of Iraq’s security forces held impromptu victory celebrations after liberating neighborhoods, the question lingered of what the end of hostilities actually looks like when the enemy is hell-bent on fighting to the death.
We will likely never know who killed the people in the basement room of the house on Al-Samak Street — but as long as claims persist that extrajudicial killings by Iraqi security forces may have taken place, the stakes of not investigating those could be high. While there is little sympathy for ISIS right now in the devastated neighborhoods of Mosul, a culture of impunity for any abuses that were committed could set the stage for the same kinds of grievances that contributed to the group’s rise in the first place.
Cover image: The basement of a collapsed building in Al Maydan, the district of the Old City where ISIS made its last stand. Volunteers have been pulling bodies from what they say is an execution room filled with more than 100 corpses in the basement of this building. (Adam Desiderio/VICE News)
I can think of a few that are missing, but this is a good start.
Primer: For context on Iranian activities/ Azadeh deplaned, exited customs and collected her bags. Suddenly, according to Azadeh, she was encircled by five agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), who informed her of her arrest on national security grounds. Her belongings were confiscated. She was handcuffed, blindfolded and pushed into the back seat of a car, where a female IRGC agent forced her to rest her head in the agent’s lap to avoid detection. “Where are we going?” Azadeh asked, as they sped through Tehran. “Evin Prison,” her captor replied. And here began Azadeh’s months-long nightmare in the fetid dungeons of the Islamic Republic. Read more here. (It is a must read)
Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Iranian entities for committing serious human rights abuses on behalf of the Government of Iran, as well as three leaders of one of these entities, the Ansar-e Hizballah organization. Additionally, OFAC designated an entity that has operated information or communications technology that facilitates monitoring or tracking that could assist or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of the Government of Iran. Finally, OFAC designated two individuals for engaging in censorship activities that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or assembly by citizens of Iran, and one individual for acting for or on behalf of an entity engaged in such censorship activities. These designations come in the wake of recent protests by the Iranian people and the regime’s subsequent brutal crackdown.
“Iran not only exports terrorism and instability across the world, it routinely violates the rights of its own people. The Iranian regime diverts national resources that should belong to the people to fund a massive and expensive censorship apparatus and suppress free speech,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “Those who speak out against the regime’s mismanagement and corruption are subject to abuse and mistreatment in Iran’s prisons. America stands with the people of Iran, and Treasury is taking action to hold the Iranian regime accountable for ongoing human rights abuses, censorship, and other despicable acts it commits against its own citizens.”
Today’s actions target the Iranian regime’s repression of its own people and the suppression of their freedoms of speech, expression, and peaceful assembly. As President Trump emphasized in his May 8, 2018 announcement of his decision to cease the United States’ participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the United States will not allow Iran’s malign behavior to go unchecked. These actions show a desire to hold malicious actors accountable for their actions even as they try to hide from international scrutiny.
Ansar-e Hizballah and Associated Individuals
OFAC is designating Ansar-e Hizballah for its role in serious human rights abuses in Iran. Additionally, OFAC designated three individuals for acting for or on behalf of the organization. Ansar-e Hizballah was designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13553 for being an official of the Government of Iran or a person acting on behalf of the Government of Iran (including members of paramilitary organizations) who is responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Iran or Iranian citizens or residents, or the family members of the foregoing.
Ansar-e Hizballah has been involved in the violent suppression of Iranian citizens and has collaborated with the Basij to violently attack Iranian students with knives, tear gas, and electric batons. The Basij Resistance Force was designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 on June 9, 2011 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran.
An organization supported by the Iranian regime that harasses and attacks the Iranian people, Ansar-e Hizballah has been linked to acid attacks against women in the city of Isfahan. Multiple women who were not dressed in accordance with the regime’s standards had acid thrown at them, severely injuring them and creating a climate of fear.
Abdolhamid Mohtasham is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah. As a founding member and key leader of the group, Abdolhamid Mohtasham plays a significant role in overseeing the group’s actions. He has threatened to use Ansar-e Hizballah to patrol Iranian streets and attack women whom he deems to be unvirtuous.
Hossein Allahkaram is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah. In 2011 the European Union sanctioned Hossein Allahkaram for co-founding and leading Ansar-e Hezbollah, noting that under his leadership the group used extreme violence during multiple crackdowns on student protestors.
Lastly, Hamid Ostad is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah. Hamid Ostad, who founded the Mashhad branch of Ansar-e Hizballah, was implicated in a mob attack against the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Mashhad.
Evin Prison
OFAC is designating Evin Prison pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13553 for being a person acting on behalf of the Government of Iran (including members of paramilitary organizations) who is responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Iran or Iranian citizens or residents, or the family members of the foregoing.
Prisoners held at Evin Prison are subject to brutal tactics inflicted by prison authorities, including sexual assaults, physical assaults, and electric shock. Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) maintain permanent wards in Evin Prison where they hold political prisoners. And while senior regime officials regularly downplay the torture and abuse that occurs in Evin Prison, the abuse of prisoners, including political prisoners, continues once sham inspections into the prison conditions end.
Iran’s MOIS was designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 on February 16, 2012 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran. The IRGC was designated pursuant to Executive Order 13553 on June 9, 2011 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran.
Hanista Programming Group
OFAC is designating Iran-based Hanista Programing Group pursuant to E.O. 13606 for having operated, or having directed the operation of, information and communications technology that facilitates computer or network disruption, monitoring, or tracking that could assist in or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of the Government of Iran.
Hanista Programing Group is responsible for creating and distributing alternative versions of the popular messaging and social media application Telegram that facilitate the Iranian regime’s monitoring and tracking of Iranian and international users.
Hanista Programing Group developed two social media applications called Mobogram and MoboPlus and embedded malicious content in them that facilitates the monitoring and tracking of Iranian citizens. This monitoring and tracking functionality could assist or enable serious human rights abuses by the Government of Iran, including the IRGC and MOIS.
Designation of Two Iranian Regime Officials for Censorship Activities
OFAC is designating Abolhassan Firouzabadi and Abdolsamad Khoramabadi pursuant to E.O. 13628 for having engaged in censorship or other activities with respect to Iran that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or peaceful assembly by citizens of Iran, or that limit access to print or broadcast media.
Abolhassan Firouzabadi is responsible for the Iranian government’s efforts to block social media applications like Telegram and to force Iranians to use state-run applications that are monitored by the regime. As the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, Abolhassan Firouzabadi heads the country’s top Internet policymaking body and oversees the regime’s attempts to censor speech and media.
The Supreme Council of Cyberspace was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on January 12, 2018.
As the Secretary of the Committee to Determine Instances of Criminal Content, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi has overseen the filtering and blocking of political content during elections. In 2017, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi tasked the Basij to lead the regime’s crackdown on cyber activity, and claimed that the country had thousands of monitors to report violations of websites and social media networks.
The Committee to Determine Instances of Criminal Content was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on May 30, 2013.
Designation of the Director of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)
Lastly, OFAC is designating Abdulali Ali-Asgari pursuant to E.O. 13628 for acting for or on behalf of IRIB.
Abdulali Ali-Asgari is the current Director General of IRIB and has acted on behalf of the organization, including representing the organization in international for a.
The IRIB was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on February 6, 2013 for restricting or denying the free flow of information to or from the Iranian people. IRIB was implicated in censoring multiple media outlets and airing forced confessions from political detainees.
As a result of these actions, all property and interests in property of the persons designated today that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with such persons. In addition, foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for, or persons that provide material or certain other support to, the individuals and entities designated today risk exposure to sanctions that could sever their access to the U.S. financial system or block their property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
This was a Congressional Budget Session for the State Department Fiscal year 2019.
The Congressman Gregory Meeks got on his high horse about the commitment to diplomatic security. Meeks in his last comment proved to be an ass. Check out that little 3 minute snippet here.
Now, we can’t know if this is a ‘to-do’ list for himself or those of his staff but an Associated Press photographer captured an interesting photo.
So, let’s go down the list shall we?
#7 Meet IG.:There are several that have been published recently with regard to the State Department. They include: Operation Inherent Resolve and Operation Pacific Eagle, a Fraud Alert and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. (The Freedom’s Sentinel is a quarterly report) Click here to see those IG reports.
#8 Jim Donovan: Last year, Donovan was on the short list to be Deputy Treasury Secretary and withdrew his name. He is a managing director and partner at Goldman Sachs and has close ties to Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney.
#9 Call Lavrov: Well we should all know him, he is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia. Now this is an interesting call because Lavrov is on his way to visit the DPRK, you know lil Kim Jung Un and Lavrov has is nurturing a relationship with Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, the Foreign Minister of Armenia. Or how about telling Lavrov, ‘he dude, this meddling thing and propaganda gig against the U.S. comes with consequences‘.
#10 Mexico Ambassador: This could have a couple of options. a) Our National Guard on the border b) The U.S ambassador to Mexico resigned in March and we presently don’t have one. Under consideration is Edward Whitacre Jr., a former CEO at General Motors and AT&T. Whitacre has also worked previously with Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man.
#12 Robert Reilly: Reilly has a long history at the State Department and in global media. He is a conservative and a senior policy fellow at the America Foreign Policy Council, The Claremont Institute. He was part of the Information Strategy Office at the Pentagon as well as a senior advisor on Operation Iraqi Freedom.
#13 Need help…no idea
#14 Diversity Data….hummm
Could bad math have us skipping to #20? Sam Feist: Well, perhaps Pompeo has a whole truck load of stuff to discuss with Sam. He is the Senior Vice President, Washington Bureau Chief for CNN.
Meanwhile: Pompeo says Singapore is “still” a go, cites “the preparations for our historic meeting with North Korea, still scheduled for June 12. We have a generational opportunity to solve a major national security challenge.” “We are clear-eyed about the regime’s history. It’s time to solve this once and for all. A bad deal is not an option. The American people are counting on us to get this right. If the right deal is not on the table, we will respectfully walk away.”
Pompeo assumed a similarly hard line on resuming talks with Iran, promising to “apply unprecedented financial pressure” and suggesting that economic sanctions are just one of several measures the United States will use against the regime in Tehran. To achieve a new nuclear deal, he added, Iran “simply needs to change its behavior.”
He did not back off the Trump administration’s threat to apply sanctions to European companies that do business with Iran, saying companies must wind down operations in Iran or else face penalties, and promised lawmakers that “we will come back to you seeking further authority” for additional measures to squeeze Tehran.
But the hearing turned combative as Democrats challenged Pompeo for presenting Congress with a State Department budget that maintains deep cuts to diplomatic and developmental activities — a budget that Rep. Eliot L. Engel (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the foreign affairs panel, called “insulting” and predicted that Congress would reject. More here.
