Russian Special Forces now in Libya

Posted on March 14, 2017March 14, 2017 by Denise Simon

Image result for Khalifa Haftar libya oil ports Haftar was protected by and lived in the U.S., becoming a citizen. We dispatched him to Libya to launch an interim government. Now he and Egypt both have turned to Russia for full control and support, Putin has complied, happily. John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are not responding to calls on line 4. Hah…

BBC: Forces loyal to Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar say they have retaken key oil-rich areas in the country’s east.

Ground, sea and air forces were engaged in the fight for sites at Ras Lanuf, Sidra and Ben Jawad from a rival Islamist militia, a spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Russia has denied reports that it has deployed special forces to the region in support of Gen Haftar. {See below, emphasis added}

Libya has been in chaos since the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

The oil terminals had been seized by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) – a mix of militias that includes Islamists – earlier this month, which then handed them over to the Petroleum Facilities Guard, affiliated to the UN-backed unity government based in Tripoli.

Gen Haftar is allied to an administration based in the eastern city of Tobruk, which is challenging the authority of the UN-backed government.

Russia moving special forces into Libya

U.S. sources claim Russia moving special forces into Libya to aid Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar.

U.S., Egyptian and diplomatic sources say that Russia has apparently been moving special forces to an airbase in western Egypt near the border with Libya in recent days, according to a report by Reuters.

Newsweek

The U.S. is concerned that such a Russian deployment may signify Russian support for Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, who suffered a setback on March 3 when the Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB) attacked oil ports controlled by his forces.

U.S. officials claimed that their surveillance units had observed Russian special operations forces and unmanned aircraft at Sidi Barrani, which is about 100 km from the Egypt-Libya border. The apparent Russian deployments have not been previously reported.

The Russian defense ministry did not respond to these claims on Monday and Egypt denied the presence of any Russian contingent on its soil.

Mohamed Manfour, commander of the Benina air base near Benghazi in Libya, denied that Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) had received military assistance from the Russian state or from Russian military contractors, and said there were no Russian forces or bases in eastern Libya.

Over the past two years a number of Western countries, including the U.S., have sent special operations forces and military advisors into Libya. The U.S. also carried out air strikes to support a successful Libyan campaign last year to oust ISIS from its stronghold in the city of Sirte.

Russia has shown increasing involvement in Libya in recent months and appears to be taking steps to back Haftar to lead the battle-torn kingdom, which has been split between local warlords in the aftermath of a 2011 NATO-backed uprising against the late leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was an ally of Russia. Several dozen armed private security contractors from Russia operated until February in a part of Libya that is under Haftar’s control.

The top U.S. military commander overseeing troops in Africa, Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, told the U.S. Senate last week that Russia was trying to exert influence in Libya to strengthen its leverage over whoever ultimately holds power.

“They’re working to influence that,” Waldhauser told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Asked whether it was in the U.S. interest to let that happen, Waldhauser said: “It is not.”

Russian involvement in Libyan affairs appears to be growing at a time when it is limiting its operations in Syria to attempts to force a resolution without taking charge of the country. Waldhauser believes that this is Russia’s eventual goal in Libya, which will enable it to gain leverage there in the event that Haftar gains control of the country. It is also eyeing Libya’s oil fields as a source of economic opportunities.

Russia, however, says that its primary objective in the Middle East is to contain the spread of violent Islamist groups.

Meanwhile who is Khalifa Belqasim Haftar? (Wikipedia file)

Haftar was born in eastern Libya. He served in the Libyan army under Muammar Gaddafi, and took part in the coup that brought Gaddafi to power in 1969. He commanded the Libyan contingent against Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973.^[3] In 1987, he became a prisoner of war during the war against Chad. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Gaddafi. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining U.S. citizenship.^[4] Haftar lived comfortably in Virginia, relatively close to CIA headquarters, from the early 1990s until 2011.^[5] In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death.

Haftar held a senior position in the forces which overthrew Gaddafi in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war.

Haftar’s campaign attracted opponents to the GNC to join him as well as armed groups including Zintan‘s al-Qaqaa and Sawaaq brigades, regional military police, the Saiqa special forces group in Benghazi, the Libyan air force and Ibrahim Jadhran’s federalist militias.^[6]

Haftar has been described as “Libya’s most potent warlord,” having fought “with and against nearly every significant faction” in Libya’s conflicts, and as having a “reputation for unrivalled military experience”.

***

Internal rivalries based on region, city, tribe, political factions, ethnicity, and militia membership have supplanted dictatorial repression. The costs of this multi-layered disunity are stark: Libya has lost billions of dollars in potential revenues due to fights over control of the oil sector. And nearly 5,000 people have been killed due to the instability since 2014, when Libya formally divided politically.

Perhaps the most immediate barrier to implementation is the role of General Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA). Although Secretary of State John Kerry did not mention him by name in his statement in Vienna after the meeting to support Libya on May 16, Haftar was clearly on his mind when he said battles of individuals serving their own interests undermined Libya’s security, and that Libya was at a crossroads between a fate of chaos fueled by personal rivalries or unity and peace. Article Eight of the current agreement stipulates that the Presidency Council should be the Supreme Commander of the Libyan Army, in control of all senior-level security official appointments and dismissals. In effect, this provision would give the Presidency Council control of Haftar’s fate. The pro-Haftar eastern government has made removal of this article one of its few conditions for recognizing the Government of National Accord (GNA).

This impasse underscores the need for Libyans to decide once and for all what relationship the military should have with civilian institutions in Libya, and specifically what role Haftar can or will play in the future of Libya. This has also been a difficult impasse for Western governments to navigate, harkening to a recurring Middle East policy battle between prioritizing counter-terrorism and security, and longer-term interests like political stability, rule of law and human rights. Haftar has contributed to counter-terrorism efforts against groups like Islamic State, especially in Benghazi, while undermining Libya’s long-term stability. More here from May of 2016.

Maritime Traffic, Pirates, Smuggling and Dark Beacons

Posted on March 14, 2017March 14, 2017 by Denise Simon

Maritime traffic is hardly considered a top priority and it should be. For illicit activities on the high seas, there is major intelligence value when it comes to smuggling and pirates.

— Israeli navy veteran Ami Daniel points at his computer screen and explains why the ship he was tracking should have been stopped and searched. It sailed near the Libyan port of Tobruk and waited four days more than a mile off the coast without ever docking, then moved west to Misrata, which it had never visited before.

Next came Greece, where it waited another four days offshore.

Whatever was on the ship — possibly drugs, weapons or people — likely eventually made its way to Europe’s shores, he said.

At a time of deep concern over migrant smuggling, Daniel said his company Windward has the ability to pick up such suspicious maritime behavior that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Ninety percent of the world’s trade is via the oceans, and ports simply cannot check even a fraction of all the containers. For that reason, they try to narrow it down with watch lists of ships.

But with turbulence in northern Africa and the collapse of Libya, smuggling networks have taken advantage of the situation while also becoming more sophisticated, Silvia Ciotti, head of the EuroCrime research body, explained.

And with the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees across the seas, resources in Europe have been stretched threadbare.

The same smugglers taking desperate migrants and refugees into Europe also take contraband goods, Ciotti said.

“One day it is drugs. One day it is weapons. They do not care,” she said. If a ship’s activities are unusual — turning off its radar or visiting an at-risk port — it will be flagged. More here for ToI.

The company is Windward, a rather new company that did get an interesting investor, former CIA director, General David Petraeus.

Using what it calls activity-based intelligence, Windward, a five-year-old maritime data and analytics firm here, probes beyond the ship-tracking services available on today’s market to validate identities of ocean-going vessels.

It compares their patterns of behavior and past associations with other ships —even where they loaded or didn’t load in specific ports of call.

“Nobody knows who’s the real owner of 75 percent of the world’s vessels,” said Daniel. “The reason is, for business reasons, they are registered under various flags of convenience by a lawyer who has one share and nobody knows who’s on top of him.

“So the tools of looking at data bases or registries are great in theory, but not in practice.”

The same holds true, company executives here say, for the Automated Information System (AIS), satellite-supported tracking system initiated in recent years by the US Coast Guard and now required by ocean-going vessels and passenger ships. Specific findings from the report showed an increase in GPS manipulation of 59 percent over the past two years; that 55 percent of ships misreport their actual port of call for the majority of their voyage; that large cargo ships shut off AIS transmissions 24 percent longer than others; and that 19 percent of the ships that “go dark” are repeat offenders.

To illustrate this point, Windward conducted an analysis specifically for Defense News, in which the company employed “reverse engineering” of a known arms smuggling incident to highlight similarly suspicious behavior by a ship that managed to evade detection by law enforcement authorities.

Its baseline case was the Haddad, a 39-year-old, Bolivian-flagged cargo vessel that embarked from Iskenderun, Turkey, in early September. It was ultimately seized by Greek authorities south of Crete with a cache of some 5,000 shotguns and a half million rounds of undocumented ammunition.

Using the route plied by the 66-meter Haddad, which sailed along the Turkish coast en route to Libya before being stopped, Windward came up with a similar profile of another ship which, for a variety of legal and proprietary reasons, it preferred to call Vessel X.

Like the Haddad, Vessel X was more than 30 years old and around the same size, about 75 meters. It left the same Turkish port on Aug. 19 — less than a month prior to Haddad — bearing a flag of convenience, this one from the South Pacific island of Vanuatu.

A day later, Vessel X stopped in an area near the Turkish shore where there was no other port in the area or any other reason to stop at that location, company analysts found. More here from DefenseNews.

Meanwhile, pirating is back in the news.

Somali pirates just hijacked a commercial ship for the first time in five years

WaPo: In 2010 and 2011, groups of armed Somali men were hijacking merchant vessels off Somalia’s coast at an almost daily pace. Thousands of hostages of myriad nationalities were taken, and billions of dollars were lost on ransoms, damages and delayed shipments.

The crisis was so severe that a naval task force with more than two dozen vessels from European Union countries, the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan banded together to restore order to one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. They largely succeeded. In 2015, there were 17 pirate attacks near Somalia, down from 151 in 2011. Many of those attacks were on smaller fishing boats from nearby countries, mostly by disgruntled Somali fishermen, but not commercial ships.

Until Tuesday.

Somali officials acknowledged that the Aris 13, an oil tanker, had been escorted to the Somali coast by at least eight and perhaps as many as dozens of armed men on two small skiffs. Reports from organizations that monitor piracy could not conclusively identify which flag the ship was flying or where it was owned, but Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that eight of its nationals were on board as crew. The ship was on its way south to Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.

The attack originated in the Puntland region, which is semiautonomous. “The vessel’s captain reported to the company they were approached by two skiffs and that one of them could see armed personnel on board,” an unidentified Middle East-based official told the Associated Press. “The ship changed course quite soon after that report and is now anchored.”

The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet oversees anti-piracy efforts along Somalia’s coast. Concerns about piracy’s reemergence in the region have been growing in concurrence with greater exploitation of Somalia’s waters by foreigners engaged in illegal fishing. Deprived of a livelihood, some Somali fishermen have turned back to hijacking to get by.

Salad Nur, described as a “local elder” by the Associated Press, said that the men involved in Tuesday’s hijacking had been searching for a commercial vessel for days on the open water. “Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing,” Nur said.

Piracy is also on the rise on the other side of Africa. Armed groups based along Nigeria’s coast have made that region the most dangerous for seafarers. That coast is also a major oil shipping route. Now that oil prices have dropped, pirates there have taken to kidnapping crew members for ransom rather than siphoning off oil, as the abductions have proved more lucrative.

Plan to Destroy N. Korea Missile Nuclear Program

Posted on March 14, 2017March 14, 2017 by Denise Simon

Report: Japan’s Largest Warship Heading to South China Sea, Will Train With U.S., Indian Navies

Izumo is one of two helicopter carriers the Japanese have built for the stated claim of anti-submarine warfare and humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations. The ship entered into service in 2015 and its sister ship Kaga is set to commission this year.

Both ships field seven Mitsubishi-built SH-60k ASW helicopters and seven AgustaWestland MCM-101 mine countermeasure (MCM) helicopters, according to U.S. Naval Institute’s Combat Fleets of the World. Both ships can also accommodate U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Japanese officials have said the threat of an expanded Chinese submarine fleet was a key driver of Japan developing the ship class.

Izumo’s ASW capability fits in with the goals of Malabar 2017 trilateral exercise with India and the U.S., according to a December interview with U.S. 7^th Fleet commander Adm. Joseph Aucoin with the Press Trust of India.

Aucoin promised a larger and more complex ASW exercise in 2017 that would combine new capabilities of the Indian and U.S. forces in the region – like the Indian and U.S. P-8A and Indian P-8I ASW aircraft.

Beijing, for its part, has been vocally opposed to Japan operating warships in the South China Sea and leaned on memories of Imperial Japanese actions in World War II.

Meanwhile:

Side-by-Side

The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson conducts a replenishment at sea with the fleet replenishment oiler USNS Tippecanoe in the South China Sea, March 5, 2017. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Sean M. Castellan.

***

The United States will permanently station attack drones in South Korea, the US military announced.

The announcement came a week after North Korea shot off four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and while the US and South Korea are conducting their annual joint military exercises.

“The stationing of this company, which will be assigned to the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, directly supports the US Army’s strategic plan to add one Gray Eagle company to each division in the Army,” USFK said in a news release.

“The UAS adds significant intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability to US Forces Korea and our ROK (Republic of Korea) partners.” More here from CNN.

*** The conditions in N. Korea and the plan? Military planners are beginning to consider the unthinkable — a first-strike targeting North Korea’s nuclear facilities

North Korea has been developing nuclear weapons now for more than two decades. A number of international diplomatic efforts slowed this progress, but the last such program failed in 2009. The country which calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006. Since then the DPRK has accelerated its progress, testing new nuclear devices in 2009, 2013, and then two more last year.

The explosive yields on these bombs have been small (for nuclear weapons) however, analysts believe this points to a disturbing possibility– that North Korea is attempting to build miniaturized nuclear warheads. While its propaganda channels already claim to have achieved this capacity, the DPRK’s nuclear test program seems to be a step-by-step approach to building nuclear missiles.

Concurrent to its nuclear program, North Korea has also forged ahead with the testing of new missile types. Among these, are the Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), theoretically capable of reaching the west coast of the United States, as well as the Scud-derived Hwasong and Rodong missiles, which were tested this week, and have a strike range which threatens regional US allies such as South Korea and Japan. One final, and perhaps most worrying threat is the Pukkuksong-1 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) which can be launched from beneath the waves.

Clearly, the country is hell-bent on creating the ability to launch a nuclear attack. The likely reason for this is to function as a so-called “nuclear deterrent.” Should an adversarial nation such as the US or South Korea attempt to attack the North, they can retaliate with nuclear weapons and make such an attack too costly to be considered. Assuming this, all intentional diplomatic efforts have gone into trying to prevent it.

Unfortunately, they have failed.

“Many analysts believe that North Korea already has the capability to place a nuclear weapon on top of a Rodong missile, so South Korea and Japan are already threatened by a possible North Korean nuclear strike,” says Scott Snyder, Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

John Schilling, an expert on missile technology from DPRK analysis portal 38 North also supports this view.

“North Korea is probably capable of mounting atomic warheads in the Scud-ER and similar Rodong missiles today, giving them a credible deterrent against South Korea and Japan. The history of their nuclear testing suggests a focused effort at developing lightweight atomic weapons, with consistent results in the last few tests pointing to at least one warhead design having achieved high reliability. Almost certainly this warhead will fit their existing missiles,” he explains.

Even using the small-yield devices so far developed by the DPRK, a nuclear first strike, if successful could easily kill millions in north Asia, and cripple the global economy. Given this, the US and its regional allies are taking defensive measures.

The most talked up of these is the US deployment this week of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea. This anti-ballistic missile system fires its own missiles to intercept incoming threats before they hit their targets. It is combined with other systems in use including Aegis and Patriot to provide a measure of breathing room. But in a real war, it might not be sufficient.

“THAAD, Aegis, and Patriot are all capable of engaging multiple targets simultaneously, and will probably destroy most missiles aimed at South Korea or Japan. With nuclear warheads on some of those missiles, ‘most’ may not be enough,” says Schilling.

With the situation growing ever more dire, military planners are beginning to consider the unthinkable – a first-strike targeting North Korea’s nuclear facilities. This would theoretically cripple the country’s nuclear weapons production and would buy time for a more congenial government to come to power in Pyongyang.

To say such an action would be difficult and risky however would be a massive understatement.

Some North Korean nuclear sites, such as the Yongbyon nuclear complex are above ground and would be relatively easy to destroy. Other sites, however, are likely located in hardened underground shelters, meaning that a large strike element would be necessary.

“Much of the Yongbyon nuclear complex could be destroyed by air attacks — aircraft and/or cruise missiles. But underground facilities first have to be found and then have to be struck by precision munitions — finding things is the potentially difficult part — North Korea denies a lot of information to the outside world,” says Bruce W. Bennet, a senior defense researcher at RAND Corporation.

“A major attack against those facilities almost certainly cannot be done without starting a wider conflict.”

Even if nuclear weapons are not used, North Korea has enough artillery aimed at South Korea to all but level the capital Seoul and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Scott Snyder agrees that such a first-strike would likely lead to a disastrous war.

“The United States could not strike North Korean nuclear facilities without running the risk of nuclear disaster. Pre-emptive options plausibly might be used to strike North Korean missile sites but North Korea would likely retaliate to such strikes,” he says.

Alternative options such as information operations aiming to destabilize the North Korean regime could be more attractive, as would be additional diplomatic pressure by China. But this itself could leave the DPRK’s leadership feeling even more under siege and may precipitate yet more irrational behavior.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula remains one of the greatest challenges currently facing the international community. With the DPRK preparing for what looks like yet another nuclear test, countries in the region, and major powers like the US and China need to present a united front in order to deter aggression and work together on a possible solution. The only other alternative would be war. More here.

*** In 2013 it was reported: North Korea is reported to have more than thousand missiles of varying capabilities, ranging from short-range (120 km and above) to long-range (greater than 5,500km). The country is believed to have developed its missile programme from Scuds, which it received from Egypt in 1970s. The following decade saw North Korea build its own Scuds – the Hwasong-5 and Hwasong-6, and a medium-range missile, the Nodong. These technologies are said to have been extensively used by the country in building its long-range missile, Taepodong.

***

A greater concern than multiple Scud-type missiles would be if North Korea proved the ability to fire simultaneous salvos of other types of missiles that could carry heavier payload, said one U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

North Korea theoretically had enough launchers to send at least 36 ballistic missiles of various types at the same time, said Joseph S. Bermudez, a strategic advisor at Allsource Analysis Inc and contributor to the 38 North Korea monitoring project. More here including comprehensive details on THAAD.

Proposed Trump Budget, Chain Saw or Scalpel?

Posted on March 13, 2017March 13, 2017 by Denise Simon

Back in January, The Hill reported on early meetings the Trump team was having to address the proposed governmental budget. Yippee…finally. However, are all the proposals a good thing once they are introduced? Trump’s White House wants to cut $10.5 TRILLION in 10 years. He is working to increase Pentagon spending by $54 billion.

***

Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned. The changes they propose are dramatic.

The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

*** So far, so good.

Okay, there are more clues, and you can decide for yourself.

The White House is proposing a 17% cut to the nation’s top weather and climate agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

A $1.3 Billion cut to the Coast Guard.

There are other agencies that will be affected and they can lobby their case for more funding once the budget is presented, reviewed and accepted.

The budget plans that the White House is expected to send to departments and agencies on Monday are just one stage in a lengthy process.

The agencies can argue for more funding, and final spending plans must be approved by the U.S. Congress.

Trump’s budget assumes annual economic growth of 2.4 percent, the second official said. While campaigning for the presidency last year, Trump called for a “national goal” of 4 percent economic growth.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking on Fox News earlier on Sunday, said Trump’s budget would not seek cuts in federal social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. More from Reuters.

Anyone remember the old discussion of balancing the budget? The Heritage Foundation has a money wing that has studied and examined all government agencies and has proposed the blueprint. It would be well for voters and those concerned with government budgets and spending to examine this blueprint and as such the Trump White House should do the same. The full blueprint is here and it is a stellar piece of work.

First up that must be scrutinized is ‘entitlements’. Just exactly where did that term come from anyway? Who is entitled to anything and why? If you can stomach entitlement spending and the associated charts, click here.

There are also federal government grant programs and the Trump White House has not mentioned these. The U.S. State Department is a major grant operation for non-government agencies (NGO) and click here for those details.

The Department of Justice provides grants and much of those dollars go to cities for sanctuary cities.

Then there is the Department of Agriculture with a grant program. In fact every agency has a grant operation and we have not mentioned subsidies. Whoa, that one will light your hair on fire.

As noted by the Daily Caller in 2015:

The federal government spends billions of dollars each year on business subsidies and tax credits, with most of the money accruing to large corporations, a new database reveals.

The database released Tuesday by the government accountability group Good Jobs First, called Subsidy Tracker 3.0, represents the first-ever comprehensive listing of federal economic development programs, expanding on the group’s existing database of state and local subsidies.

According to an accompanying report put out by the group, “two-thirds of the $68 billion in business grants and special tax credits awarded by the federal government over the past 15 years have gone to large corporations,” including numerous foreign firms.

C’mon White House, how about addressing the grants/subsidies/loan guarantee/pledges and types of aid to foreign countries that hate us.

First on the list is the money that should be terminated that the United States pays to UNRWA.

U.S. Funding for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA

The Palestinian Authority is hugely dependent upon foreign assistance, which accounts for about 66 percent of its annual budget. European Union funding for the PA amounted to $600 million in 2005.[2] The United States gives $70 million directly to the PA each year, as well as $225 million for humanitarian projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).[3] Between 1993 and 2004, the Palestinian Authority received $6.93 billion in aid from the international community.[4]

What do you want Trump to cut? Education? EPA? Section 8 Housing? United Nations? Ransom money to rogue nations? How about the waste, fraud and collusion of members of Congress? How about stopping ridiculous travel by federal government employees?

Maybe we need to look carefully too at what we NEED to be spending quality money on.

Leave your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks as it is going to be a wild ride to stop spending and reforming the tax code.

C’mon Trump, the IRGC IS a Terror Organization

Posted on March 8, 2017March 8, 2017 by Denise Simon

For a full report performed by European Iraqi Freedom Association on Iran’s Destructive Role in the Middle East, click here. In their report, EIFA alleges that the IRGC is “directly involved in the hidden occupation” of Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon and “meddling” in the internal affairs of at least eight countries, including Egypt, Bahrein, Jordan and Lebanon.

Revolutionary Guards Leading Iran’s Ballistic Missile Drive, Nuclear Weapons Program — Through Control Over Docks

Despite the United States placing the Iranian regime “on notice” for test-firing medium-range ballistic missiles in January, Tehran has taken no steps to change its behavior. Indeed, reports indicate that Iran test launched a new pair of ballistic missiles over the weekend.

New evidence was uncovered about the extent of control that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is leading the mullahs’ ballistic missile drive, parallel to the nuclear program and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, has over this.

In London on Tuesday, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) held a press conference revealing that the IRGC has a growing grip over Iran’s key economic hubs. The NCRI cited intelligence gathered by sources linked to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) from inside the regime, particularly among the IRGC rank and file. The data obtained in recent months clearly proves the IRGC has full control over 90 docks, which amount to 45% of Iran’s total official number of 212 piers.

The IRGC began setting up these “Bahman Docks” in 1982, by order of regime founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The group was instructed to manage its activities outside the authority of any state supervision and beneath the proverbial radar of international institutions.

Over the years since then, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered the expansion of IRGC activity at these docks, and the further intertwining of the organization with the country’s economy. The main goal today, and previously, is to bypass international sanctions.

As a result, the IRGC now has complete control over Iran’s ground, sea and air borders, flooding the economy with a variety of imports without paying a single dollar in customs.

The IRGC has ports in Bandar Lengeh in Hormozgan Province, two docks in Abu Musa Island and another two in the Greater Tunb Island — among others.

In addition to exporting arms to Middle East militias, the IRGC takes advantage of these docks to smuggle oil, gasoline, natural gas, chemical products, cigarettes, narcotics, alcoholic beverages, mobile phones and pharmaceuticals. The IRGC reportedly pockets an annual revenue of around $12 billion from importing and exporting illicit goods through the docks.

According to the NCRI, the IRGC has also established a number of front companies tasked specifically with transferring weapons caches through the docks. This flow of arms continues non-stop, with only a small percentage having been discovered and blocked by the international community in recent years. And all this is in addition to the colossal official budget the IRGC receives from Tehran.

The new revelation is but another reason for the international community to take firm and swift action against the IRGC.

***

These PMOI sources helped to identify three organizations – Admiral Group, Hafez Daya Arya and Valfajr – as shipping companies being used as fronts for smuggling weapons to other countries throughout the region, in particular, Yemen.

Since most Yemani docks are closed to Iranian ships, the IRGC’s shell companies began using ports in nearby Oman to smuggle weapons into Yemen. The PMOI alleges that they primarily used Soltan Qaboos Port in Muscat, Sohar Port in North Oman and Salalah Port in South Oman. For the rest of their operations, the guard is operating in ports in the Hormozgan and Bushehr Provinces along the Persian Gulf, as well as, the Farsi and Faror Islands, the group charged. More here.

***

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported that the IRGC is using civilian passenger jets operated by the Iranian airline Mahan Air to transfer weapons to Syria and Yemen and also to bring back the bodies of fallen fighters as well as injured fighters requiring treatment.

“In October 2016, a knowledgeable source at the U.S. Treasury Department told AP that the U.S. was trying to convince the E.U. to cooperate with American steps to disrupt Mahan Air’s financial flows. Five years ago, America leveled sanctions on Mahan Air due to its close ties to the IRGC and allegations that it was transferring weapons to Syria and Yemen, but thus far, the E.U. has not complied with these sanctions. More here.