Category Archives: Middle East

Biden Nominates Gen. Lloyd Austin for SecDef with Intel Scandals

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It was 2016. Prior to that it was the withdraw of forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. This nomination hearing should be quite contentious. There was also this gem –>

A $500m effort to train Syrian forces against the Islamic State has resulted in only a handful of fighters actively battling the jihadi army, the top military commander overseeing the war has testified.

“We’re talking four or five,” General Lloyd Austin, commander of US Central Command, told a dissatisfied Senate armed services committee on Wednesday.

The training initiative is Barack Obama’s linchpin for retaking Syrian territory from Isis. The Pentagon anticipated in late 2014 that it would have trained 5,000 anti-Isis Syrian rebels by now.

“The program is much smaller than we hoped,” conceded the Pentagon’s policy chief, Christine Wormuth, saying there were between 100 and 120 fighters currently being trained. Wormuth said they were “getting terrific training”.

but read on…

NYT’s: Officials from the United States Central Command altered intelligence reports to portray a more optimistic picture of the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria than events on the ground warranted, a congressional panel said in a report issued Thursday.

The interim report, from a task force established by the Republican chairmen of the House Armed Services Committee, Intelligence Committee and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, found “widespread dissatisfaction” among Central Command intelligence analysts, who said superiors were doctoring their assessments of American efforts to defeat the Islamic State. Central Command, known as Centcom, is the military headquarters in Tampa, Fla., that oversees American military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia.

“Intelligence products approved by senior Centcom leaders typically provided a more positive depiction of U.S. antiterrorism efforts than was warranted by facts on the ground and were consistently more positive than analysis produced by other elements of the intelligence community,” a news release about the report said.

“What happened at Centcom is unacceptable — our war fighters suffer when bad analysis is presented to senior policy makers,” said Representative Ken Calvert, Republican of California. “The leadership failures at Centcom reach to the very top of the organization.”

The 10-page report detailed persistent problems in 2014 and 2015 in Central Command’s description and analysis of American efforts to train Iraqi forces. Although it offers no definitive evidence that senior Obama administration officials ordered the reports to be doctored, it describes analysts as feeling as though they were under pressure from Centcom leaders to present a more optimistic view of the threat posed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

“Throughout the first half of 2015, many Central Command press releases, statements and congressional testimonies were significantly more positive than actual events,” the report said. “For example, a Centcom official stated publicly that a major military assault to take back Mosul could begin as early as April or May 2015.”

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, remains under the control of the Islamic State.

“After months of investigation, this much is very clear,” Representative Mike Pompeo, Republican of Kansas, said in a statement. “From the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States Central Command’s most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command’s intelligence products to downplay the threat from ISIS in Iraq.”

Republicans created the task force after learning that analysts had raised concerns that intelligence about the Islamic State was being manipulated. The report released Thursday is to be followed up by more extensive findings as the investigation continues. There is an additional, ongoing investigation of Centcom intelligence by the Department of Defense inspector general. More here.

*** Biden picks retired Army general Lloyd Austin to run Pentagon - Times of India

Gen. Lloyd Austin III, currently vice chief of staff of the Army, would become the next top U.S. commander for the Middle East — directing the end of the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan — if the Senate confirms his nomination.

Austin, 59, would be the first African-American general to lead CentCom. Nearly all international combat troops are to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

If confirmed, Austin would replace Marine Gen. James Mattis, who took the CentCom helm in August 2010.

Mattis has not yet announced his plans once he leaves CentCom, and his departure appears to be unconnected to the recent scandal involving Tampa socialite Jill Kelley. Mattis has not been linked to the controversy. More here.

 

When Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was Killed in Tehran

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al-Masri, who was about 58, was one of Al Qaeda’s founding leaders and was thought to be first in line to lead the organization after its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Long featured on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, he had been indicted in the United States for crimes related to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded hundreds. The F.B.I. offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture, and as of Friday, his picture was still on the Most Wanted list.

The F.B.I. wanted poster for Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri.  American intelligence officials say that Mr. al-Masri had been in Iran’s “custody” since 2003, but that he had been living freely in the Pasdaran district of Tehran, an upscale suburb, since at least 2015. Source

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Israel worked together to track and kill a senior al-Qaida operative in Iran earlier this year, a bold intelligence operation by the two allied nations that came as the Trump administration was ramping up pressure on Tehran.

Four current and former U.S. officials said Abu Mohammed al-Masri, al-Qaida’s No. 2, was killed by assassins in the Iranian capital in August. The U.S. provided intelligence to the Israelis on where they could find al-Masri and the alias he was using at the time, while Israeli agents carried out the killing, according to two of the officials. The two other officials confirmed al-Masri’s killing but could not provide specific details.

1998 file photo of Nairobi

Al-Masri was gunned down in a Tehran alley on Aug. 7, the anniversary of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Al-Masri was widely believed to have participated in the planning of those attacks and was wanted on terrorism charges by the FBI.

Al-Masri’s death is a blow to al-Qaida, the terror network that orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S, and comes amid rumors in the Middle East about the fate of the group’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The officials could not confirm those reports but said the U.S. intelligence community was trying to determine their credibility.

Two of the officials — one within the intelligence community and with direct knowledge of the operation and another former CIA officer briefed on the matter — said al-Masri was killed by Kidon, a unit within the secretive Israeli spy organization Mossad allegedly responsible for the assassination of high-value targets. In Hebrew, Kidon means bayonet or “tip of the spear.”

The official in the intelligence community said al-Masri’s daughter, Maryam, was also a target of the operation. The U.S. believed she was being groomed for a leadership role in al-Qaida and intelligence suggested she was involved in operational planning, according to the official, who like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Al-Masri’s daughter was the widow of Hamza bin Laden, the son of al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden. He was killed last year in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

The news of al-Masri’s death was first reported by The New York Times.

Both the CIA and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, which oversees the Mossad intelligence agency, declined to comment.

Israel and Iran are bitter enemies, with the Iranian nuclear program Israel’s top security concern. Israel has welcomed the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord and the U.S. pressure campaign on Tehran.

At the time of the killings, the Trump administration was in the advanced stages of trying to push through the U.N. Security Council the reinstatement of all international sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the nuclear agreement. None of the other Security Council members went along with the U.S., which has vowed to punish countries that do not enforce the sanctions as part of its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran.

Israeli officials are concerned the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden could return to the nuclear accord. It is likely that if Biden does engage with the Iranians, Israel will press for the accord to be modified to address Iran’s long-range missile program and its military activity across the region, specifically in Syria and its support for groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.

The revelations that Iran was harboring an al-Qaida leader could help Israel bolster its case with the new U.S. administration.

Al-Masri had been on a kill or capture list for years. but his presence in Iran, which has a long history of hostility toward al-Qaida, presented significant obstacles to either apprehending or killing him.

Iran denied the reports, saying the government is not harboring any al-Qaida leaders and blaming the U.S. and Israel for trying to foment anti-Iranian sentiment. U.S. officials have long believed a number of al-Qaida leaders have been living quietly in Iran for years and publicly released intelligence assessments have made that case.

Al-Masri’s death, albeit under an assumed name, was reported in Iranian media on Aug. 8. Reports identified him as a Lebanese history professor potentially affiliated with Lebanon’s Iranian-linked Hezbollah movement and said he had been killed by motorcycle gunmen along with his daughter.

Lebanese media, citing Iranian reports, said that those killed were Lebanese citizen Habib Daoud and his daughter Maraym.

The deaths of al-Masri and his daughter occurred three days after the catastrophic Aug. 4 explosion at the port of Beirut and did not get much attention. Hezbollah never commented on reports and Lebanese security officials did not report that any citizens were killed in Tehran.

A Hezbollah official on Saturday would not comment on al-Masri’s death, saying Iran’s foreign ministry had already denied it.

The alleged killings seem to fit a pattern of behavior attributed to Israel in the past.

In 1995, the founder of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad was killed by a gunman on a motorcycle in Malta, in an assassination widely attributed to the Mossad. The Mossad also reportedly carried out a string of similar killings of Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran early last decade. Iran has accused Israel of being behind those killings.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and former analyst on Iranian affairs in the prime minister’s office, said it has been known for some time that Iran is hiding top al-Qaeda figures. While he had no direct knowledge of al-Masri’s death, he said a joint operation between the U.S. and Israel would reflect the two nations’ close intelligence cooperation, with the U.S. typically stronger in the technical aspects of intelligence gathering and Israel adept at operating agents behind enemy lines.

Diplomat James Jeffrey Lied to Pres Trump about Syria

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JTN:

A former infantry officer in the U.S. army, Ambassador Jeffrey served in Germany and Vietnam from 1969 to 1976.

>> Think of it <<

James Jeffrey—who is retiring from his posts as the Special Representative for Syria Engagement and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS — reportedly said that “shell games” have been used to avoid telling U.S. leaders the true number of American troops in Syria.

“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey said, according to Defense One.

Jeffrey reportedly said that when President Donald Trump was interested in withdrawing from Syria, arguments against a withdrawal were presented to the commander in chief.

“What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal,” Jeffrey told the outlet. “When the situation in northeast Syria had been fairly stable after we defeated ISIS, [Trump] was inclined to pull out. In each case, we then decided to come up with five better arguments for why we needed to stay. And we succeeded both times. That’s the story.”

The president last year officially agreed to maintain some troops in Syria, according to Defense One.

While Jeffrey in 2016 prior to the presidential election signed onto an anti-Trump letter with other individuals who had previously served under Republican administrations, Defense One noted that Jeffrey’s advice for the Biden administration is to persist in the course set by President Trump’s team.

Trump Working to Free American Hostages, Including Austin Tice

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Some things just cannot be mentioned by President Trump on the campaign trail for fear of damage to existing talks and harm to the hostages. Such is true with those that the President is working diligently to release. Further, it should be noted that under the Obama/Biden administration, the notable hostages released include the treasonous Bowe Bergdahl for 5 Gitmo detainees and likely some other side deals, yet to still be determined beyond the Taliban’s diplomatic facility in Qatar.

There were also 4 Americans that were released by Iran and thankfully so, however that included an exchange of at least 7 Iranians imprisoned in the United States and that pesky pile of money alleged to have been $150 billion.

But read on and give a hat tip to the Trump White House for all of these efforts.

WSJ: A top White House of­fi­cial re­cently trav­eled to Dam­as­cus for se­cret talks with the As­sad regime, mark­ing the first time such a high-level U.S. of­fi­cial has met in Syria with the iso­lated gov­ern­ment in more than a decade, ac­cord­ing to Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials and oth­ers fa­mil­iar with the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Journalist Austin Tice went missing in Syria in 2012 and hasn’t been heard from since.
Photo: Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Zuma Press

Kash Pa­tel, a deputy as­sistant to Pres­i­dent Trump and the top White House coun­tert­error­ism of­fi­cial, went to Dam­as­cus ear­lier this year in an ef­fort to se­cure re­lease of at least two Amer­i­cans be­lieved to be held by Pres­i­dent Bashar al-As­sad, the of­fi­cials said. Of­fi­cials fa­mil­iar with the trip de­clined to say whom Mr. Pa­tel met with dur­ing his trip.

The last known talks be­tween White House and Syr­ian of­fi­cials in Dam­as­cus took place in 2010. The U.S. cut off diplo­matic re­la­tions with Syria in 2012 to protest Mr. As­sad’s bru­tal crack­down on pro­testers call­ing for an end to his regime.

U.S. of­fi­cials are hop­ing a deal with Mr. As­sad would lead to free­dom for Austin Tice, a free­lance jour­nal­ist and for­mer Ma­rine of­fi­cer who dis­ap­peared while re­port­ing in Syria in 2012, and Majd Ka­mal­maz, a Syr­ian-Amer­i­can ther­a­pist who dis­ap­peared af­ter be­ing stopped at a Syr­ian gov­ern­ment check­point in 2017. At least four other Amer­i­cans are be­lieved to be held by the Syr­ian gov­ern­ment, but lit­tle is known about those cases.

Ibrahim Ka­mal­maz, one of Mr. Ka­mal­maz’s sons, wel­comed Mr. Pa­tel’s trip as a pos­i­tive step in try­ing to bring his fa­ther home.

“This ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­mit­ted to our dad’s case, and we con­tinue to speak with of­fi­cials at the high­est lev­els of the U.S. Gov­ern­ment to bring dad home,” he said Sun­day.

A State De­part­ment spokes­woman de­clined to com­ment. White House of­fi­cials didn’t re­spond to re­quests for com­ment. The Syr­ian mis­sion to the United Na­tions didn’t im­me­di­ately re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment on the visit.

Both the Trump and Obama ad­min­is­trations worked to iso­late Mr. As­sad, who has en­listed help from Rus­sia and Iran to sup­press pop­u­lar protests and armed re­sis­tance that has un­suc­cess­fully sought to force him from power. The nearly decade­ long war has frac­tured the coun­try and left nearly a half-mil­lion peo­ple dead. Ear­lier this year, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion im­posed pun­ish­ing new eco­nomic sanc­tions on Syria that have fur­ther mar­gin­al­ized the As­sad regime.

 

In March, Mr. Trump wrote Mr. As­sad a pri­vate let­ter propos­ing a “di­rect di­a­logue” about Mr. Tice, and ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials have tried a va­ri­ety of ways to ne­go­ti­ate a deal.

Last week, Lebanon’s top se­cu­rity chief, Ab­bas Ibrahim, met at the White House with Robert O’Brien, the White House na­tional se­cu­rity ad­viser, to dis­cuss the Amer­i­cans held in Syria, ac­cord­ing to peo­ple in­volved in the talks.

Mr. Ibrahim, head of Lebanon’s Gen­eral Se­cu­rity agency, has served as a vi­tal me­di­a­tor be­tween the U.S. and Syria. Last year, he helped to se­cure the re­lease of Sam Good­win, an Amer­i­can trav­eler held for more than two months while vis­it­ing Syria as part of an at­tempt to visit every coun­try in the world.

Mr. Trump has boasted in re­cent months of his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ef­forts in cam­paign ral­lies, and the Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion fea­tured a video of Mr. Trump meet­ing with Amer­i­cans who had been held in In­dia, Iran, Syria, Tur­key and Ve­nezuela.

Last week, Mr. Pa­tel helped bro­ker a deal that led to the re­lease of two Amer­i­cans held by Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen in ex­change for the re­turn of more than 200 Houthi loy­al­ists stuck out­side the frac­tured Mid­dle East na­tion.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is also try­ing to press Ve­nezuela to re­lease six oil ex­ec­u­tives held since 2017. Two other Amer­i­cans were ar­rested in May af­ter en­ter­ing Ve­nezuela to al­legedly take part in an at­tempted coup to over­throw Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro.

The fam­i­lies of both Mr. Tice and Mr. Ka­mal­maz be­lieve that the two men are alive, but Syr­ian of­fi­cials haven’t of­fered de­finitive proof.

Talks with the As­sad regime haven’t got­ten very far, ac­cord­ing to peo­ple briefed on the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The As­sad regime has re­peat­edly de­manded that the U.S. with­draw all its forces from Syria. Sev­eral hun­dred Amer­i­can forces help pro­tect oil fields in the north­east­ern part of the coun­try as part of an ef­fort to pre­vent Is­lamic State from re­gain­ing a foothold in the coun­try.

Con­cerns about the fate of both men was height­ened by the death of Layla Shweikani, a 26-year-old Illi­nois na­tive, who hu­man rights groups said was de­tained, tor­tured and ex­e­cuted by the As­sad regime in 2016 af­ter work­ing as an ac­tivist and aid worker in Syria.

Mr. Trump has taken a per­sonal in­ter­est in try­ing to se­cure Mr. Tice’s free­dom, men­tion­ing his case in a March news con­fer­ence and is­su­ing a state­ment on the eighth an­niver­sary of his dis­ap­pear­ance.

 

Court Rules Iran Owes $1.4B Over Presumed Death of FBI Agent

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Levinson was originally with the Drug Enforcement Agency before moving to the FBI and later assigned to a special operation for the CIA. Levinson’s family received $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work in Iran and to forestall any revelation of details regarding the arrangement between Levinson and the agency. Levinson had retired from the FBI in 1998 and had become self-employed as a private investigator; his specialty was Russian organized crime gangs, and he was even interviewed numerous times for television documentaries to discuss the topic. Both Levinson and the CIA analyst who hired him, Anne Jablonski, specialized in Russian organized crime and not Iranian issues.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A U.S. judge has ordered Iran to pay $1.45 billion to the family of a former FBI agent believed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic Republic while on an unauthorized CIA mission to an Iranian island in 2007.

The judgment this month comes after Robert Levinson’s family and the U.S. government now believe he died in the Iranian government’s custody, something long denied by Tehran, though officials over time have offered contradictory accounts about what happened to him on Kish Island.

Tensions remain high between the U.S. and Iran amid President Donald Trump’s maximalist pressure campaign over Tehran’s nuclear program. And though the U.S. and Iran haven’t had diplomatic relations since the aftermath of the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, America stills holds billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets that could be used to pay Levinson’s family.

In a ruling dated Thursday, the U.S. District Court in Washington found Iran owed Levinson’s family $1.35 billion in punitive damages and $107 million in compensatory damages for his kidnapping. The court cited the case of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died in 2017 shortly after being freed from captivity in North Korea, in deciding to award the massive amount of punitive damages to Levinson’s family.

“Iran’s conduct here is also unique, given that — astonishingly — it plucked a former FBI and DEA special agent from the face of the earth without warning, tortured him, held him captive for as long as 13 years, and to this day refuses to admit its responsibility,” the ruling by Judge Timothy J. Kelly said.

“And his wife and children, and their spouses and children — while keeping Levinson’s memory alive — have had to proceed with their lives without knowing his exact fate. These are surely acts worthy of the gravest condemnation,” the judge added.

Iranian state media and officials in Tehran did not immediately acknowledge the ruling in a case in which Iran offered no defense. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday from The Associated Press.

In a statement, Levinson’s family called the court’s award “the first step in the pursuit of justice.”

“Until now, Iran has faced no consequences for its actions,” the family said. “Judge Kelly’s decision won’t bring Bob home, but we hope that it will serve as a warning against further hostage taking by Iran.”

Levinson disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007. For years, U.S. officials would only say that Levinson, a meticulous FBI investigator credited with busting Russian and Italian mobsters, was working for a private firm on his trip.

In December 2013, the AP revealed Levinson in fact had been on a mission for CIA analysts who had no authority to run spy operations. Levinson’s family had received a $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others.