Khald Hiftar of Libya Hires DC Lobby Firm

Posted on November 7, 2017November 7, 2017 by Denise Simon

Col. Hiftar hires a DC lobby firm….why? To get money from the U.S. and Russia at the same time perhaps?

Khaled Khalifa Hiftar is restoring Libya to what end and before Russia fully steps in?What about the migrant crisis?

After Hiftar gained political and military legitimacy, Hifter concentrated on fighting Islamists in Benghazi, though with little initial success. His most sworn enemy was Ansar al-Sharia, the dominant terror group in Benghazi at the time, which the United States had already declared a terrorist organization after it was accused of killing the US ambassador in 2012.

Hifter relied heavily on his tribal connections in eastern Libya and capitalized on the bad security situation in Benghazi. By May 2015, he believed he had enough force to declare war on terror throughout Libya, not just Benghazi, where hundreds of former security officials, army officers and civil and political activists had been assassinated. In a way he was defending himself since he knew that he could be next on the death list.

His offensive in Benghazi stalled for a while since the army fragments he managed to reorganize were few in numbers and lacked training and equipment. Above all, many former professional officers did not join him because neither his motives nor his objectives were clear. More here.

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For months, the Kremlin has sought to draw Libya’s eastern potentate General Khalifa Hiftar into its orbit. Hiftar is currently the de facto leader of a bloc of eastern Libyan forces that oppose Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli, the so called Government of National Accord. Negotiations between the two sides are going nowhere and rumors of a potential Hiftar offensive against the Tripoli government have been swirling for months.

Hiftar has been to Moscow and paid a visit to the Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov in the Mediterranean, during which he held a video call with Russian Defense Minister Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Then, last week, Moscow reportedly deployed troops to a base on Egypt’s northern coast just 60 miles from the border crossing with Libya.

There are a few ways to interpret their latest move: It could just be posturing, part of a Russian hybrid warfare strategy aimed at influencing ongoing negotiations over Libya’s future. But there are plenty of reasons to believe it may be the early phase of a Russian intervention.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is eager to underscore the challenges that U.S. pro-democracy interventions in the Middle East have faced and offer up an alternative Russian strategy that relies on authoritarian leaders that look a lot like Putin himself. The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya has long been a target of Kremlin criticism and the chance to portray Russia as Libya’s savior as Russia has attempted to do in Syria must be more than a little tempting for the Russian president.

Closer ties to Libya would also offer Russia the chance to extend its reach further along the Mediterranean’s southern littoral i.e. NATO’s southern flank. Russia could, for example, seek to deploy advanced anti-access, area-denial systems along the Libyan coast, significantly enlarging the anti-access bubble that it has already established in the Eastern Mediterranean with similar deployments in Syria a bubble that was already raising significant concern with top U.S. military commanders a year ago. More here.

Further, what was his relationship with Hillary and Ambassador Cretz? We may never know due to those still missing Hillary emails.

Downfall and exile

Gaddafi put Haftar – recently promoted to field marshal – in charge of the Libyan forces involved in the conflict in Chad in the 1980s. This proved to be his downfall, as Libya was defeated by the French-backed Chadian forces, and Haftar and 300 of his men were captured by the Chadians in 1987.

Having previously denied the presence of Libyan troops in the country, Gaddafi disowned him. This led Haftar to devote the next two decades towards toppling the Libyan leader.

He did this from exile in the US state of Virginia. His proximity to the CIA’s headquarters in Langley hinted at a close relationship with US intelligence services, who gave their backing to several attempts to assassinate Gaddafi.

Return from exile

After the start of the uprising against Gaddafi in 2011, Haftar returned to Libya where he became a key commander of the makeshift rebel force in the east.

With Gaddafi’s downfall, Haftar faded into obscurity until February 2014, when he outlined on TV his plan to save the nation and called on Libyans to rise up against the elected parliament, the General National Congress (GNC), whose mandate was still valid at the time.

His dramatic announcement was made at a time when Libya’s second city, Benghazi, and other towns in the east had in effect been taken over by the local al-Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al-Sharia, and other Islamist groups who mounted a campaign of assassinations and bombings targeting the military, police personnel and other public servants.

Although Haftar did not have the wherewithal to put his plan into action, his announcement reflected popular sentiment, especially in Benghazi, which had become disenchanted with the total failure of the GNC and its government to confront the Islamists.

Haftar’s popularity is not necessarily shared elsewhere in the country where he is remembered more for his past association with Gaddafi and his subsequent US connections.

He is also detested by Islamists who resent him for confronting them in Benghazi and elsewhere in the east.

Operation Dignity

In May 2014 Haftar launched Operation Dignity against Islamist militants in Benghazi and the east. In March 2015 Libya’s elected parliament, the House of Representatives (HoR) – which had replaced the GNC – appointed him commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA).

After a year of little progress, in February 2016 the LNA pushed the Islamist militants out of much of Benghazi. By mid-April this had been followed up by further military action that dislodged the Islamists from their strongholds outside Benghazi and as far as Derna, 250km east of Benghazi.

Operation Swift Thunder

In September 2016, the LNA launched operation “Swift Thunder”, seizing from the Petroleum Facilities Guard – an armed group aligned with the UN-brokered Government of National Accord (GNA) – the key oil terminals of Zueitina, Brega, Ras Lanuf and Sidrah, in the oil-rich heartland locally known as the Oil Cresent.

In recognition of this, the Speaker of the HoR and supreme commander of the armed forces, Agilah Saleh, promoted Haftar from lieutenant-general to field marshal. More here from BBC.

Saudi Arabia says Lebanon Declares War

Posted on November 7, 2017November 7, 2017 by Denise Simon

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It is all about Iran….

Saudi Arabia reveals list of wanted members of the terrorist Iranian militias in the region including Yemen.

What did President Trump know or what was he told?

Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Hariri of Lebanon in Joint Press Conference

Saudi Arabia says Lebanon declares war, deepening crisis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon on Monday of declaring war against it because of aggression by the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah, a dramatic escalation of a crisis threatening to destabilize the tiny Arab country.

Lebanon has been thrust to the center of regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran since the Saudi-allied Lebanese politician Saad al-Hariri quit as prime minister on Saturday, blaming Iran and Hezbollah in his resignation speech.

Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan said the Lebanese government would “be dealt with as a government declaring war on Saudi Arabia” because of what he described as aggression by Hezbollah.

Faulting the Hariri-led administration for failing to take action against Hezbollah during a year in office, Sabhan said “there are those who will stop (Hezbollah) and make it return to the caves of South Lebanon”, the heartland of the Shi‘ite community.

In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV, he added: “Lebanese must all know these risks and work to fix matters before they reach the point of no return.”

He did not spell out what action Saudi Arabia might take against Lebanon, a country with a weak and heavily indebted state that is still rebuilding from its 1975-90 civil war and where one-in-four people is a Syrian refugee.

There was no immediate comment from the Lebanese government.

Hezbollah is both a military and a political organization that is represented in the Lebanese parliament and in the Hariri-led coalition government formed last year.

Its powerful guerrilla army is widely seen as stronger than the Lebanese army, and has played a major role in the war in neighboring Syria, another theater of Saudi-Iranian rivalry where Hezbollah has fought in support of the government.

Lebanese authorities said on Monday the country’s financial institutions could cope with Hariri’s resignation and the stability of the Lebanese pound was not at risk.

But the cash price of Lebanon’s U.S. dollar-denominated bonds fell, with longer-dated maturities suffering hefty losses as investors took a dim view of the medium- to longer-term outlook for Lebanon.

HARIRI FREE TO TRAVEL, SAUDI FM SAYS

Hariri cited a plot to assassinate him during his unexpected resignation speech broadcast from Saudi Arabia which caught even his aides off guard. He also slammed Hezbollah and Iran, accusing them of sowing strife in the Arab world.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said he will not comment on Hariri’s speech, calling it a “Saudi statement” and saying Riyadh had forced Hariri to resign.

The sudden nature of Hariri’s resignation generated speculation in Lebanon that his family’s Saudi construction business had been caught up in an anti-corruption purge and he had been coerced into resigning. More here.

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Western intelligence services warned Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri of an assassination plot against him, thus prompting him to resign on Sunday, according to Saudi news media. Hariri is a Saudi-born Lebanese politician, reputed to be one of the world’s wealthiest people. He is the second son of the late Rafiq Hariri, who ruled Lebanon for much of the 1990s but was assassinated in 2005. Saad al-Hariri spent most of his life in Saudi Arabia, the United States and France, but returned to Lebanon in 2014 to lead the Future Movement, a center-right political party supported by Sunni Muslims and some Christians. He became prime minister in 2016.

On Friday, Hariri flew from Beirut to Riyadh for a scheduled high-level visit. But on Sunday he shocked the Arab world by announcing his resignation from the post of prime minister. He did so in a surprise television address from the Saudi capital, which was broadcast live in Lebanon. Hariri told stunned Lebanese audiences that he was resigning in order to protect himself from a plot that was underway to assassinate him. He added that the political climate in Lebanon was intolerably tense and reminded him of the conditions that led to the assassination of his father 12 years ago. He also accused Iran and Hezbollah of acting as the primary destabilizing factors in Lebanon and much of the Middle East. Hariri and his supporters believe that Hezbollah was behind his father’s assassination in 2005. There was intense speculation in Lebanon on Monday that Hariri would remain in Saudi Arabia for the foreseeable future, fearing for his life if he returned to Lebanon.

On Sunday, the Saudi-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsatclaimed that Hariri decided to resign after he “received warnings from Western governments” that there would be an assassination plot against him. The newspaper did not name the Western governments, nor did it identify those who are allegedly trying to kill Hariri. Later on Sunday, Saudi television station al-Arabiya al-Hadath alleged that an assassination attempt against Hariri had been stopped at the last minute in the Lebanese capital Beirut earlier in the week. Both news media cited “sources close” to the Lebanese leader, but did not provide specific information, nor did they give details of the alleged plot or plots. It is worth noting, however, that Lebanese security officials denied these reports from Riyadh. Lebanese media quoted senior security official Major General Abbas Ibrahim as saying that no information about assassination plots had been uncovered. Major Ibrahim, who heads Lebanon’s General Directorate of General Security, said that his agency had no information about attempts to kill Hariri or other Lebanese political figures.

This could mean that the information about a possible assassination plot against Hariri was given directly to him by Western intelligence agencies, probably because the latter fear that Lebanese security agencies are infiltrated by Hezbollah sympathizers. Or it could mean that the Saudi media reports are inaccurate. Lebanon is now awaiting further details by Hariri regarding the alleged assassination plot against him. In the meantime, the already fragile political life of Lebanon appears to be entering a period of prolonged uncertainty.

Saudi: Prince AlWaleed bin Talal is in the Criminal Stacks

Posted on November 5, 2017November 5, 2017 by Denise Simon

Finally…

So Harvard University what say you?

The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program promotes the scholarly study of Islam and the Muslim world in a broadly interdisciplinary context.

The Islam in the West (IITW) program is an interfaculty initiative launched in 2003 with funds from the Office of the Provost at Harvard University. The Program’s mission is to enhance our knowledge on Muslim minorities in secular and democratic contexts in the West, assist undergraduate and graduate students from different schools and disciplines find guidance and resources, develop a collaborative group of Harvard faculty members from different disciplines with an interest in the subject, and to advance knowledge in an increasingly important area of research. More here.

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Forbes posted a 2010 interview with the Prince:

Would you look into purchasing more American real estate?

Well, we are a presence in the U.S., but maybe not directly through our real estate in the

ownership of hotels. For example, we own the Plaza in New York. We own, for example,

the Four Seasons brand with Bill Gates. We own the Fairmont brand with the Colony

group, private equity. I own almost 100 hotels in North America. Some of them are only in management, but some of them we have some small stakes in them. So we are in the real estate arena in the United States indirectly through our hotel portfolio. More details here.

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia has arrested dozens of princes, senior military officers, businessmen and top officials, including a well-known royal billionaire with extensive holdings in Western companies, as part of a sweeping purported anti-corruption probe that further cements control in the hands of its young crown prince.

A high-level employee at Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Co. told The Associated Press that the royal, who is one of the world’s richest men, was among those detained overnight Saturday. The company’s stock was down nearly 9 percent in trading Sunday on the Saudi stock exchange.

Reports suggested those detained were being held at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, which only days earlier hosted a major investment conference with global business titans from the U.S., Japan and other countries. A Saudi official told The Associated Press that other five-star hotels across the capital were also being used to hold some of those arrested.

The surprise arrests, which also reportedly include two of the late King Abdullah’s sons, were hailed by pro-government media outlets as the greatest sign yet that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is keeping his promise to reform the country, long been plagued by allegations of corruption at the highest levels of government.

A Saudi government official with close ties to security says 11 princes and 38 others are being held. The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Saudi Twitter accounts released several other names of those arrested, such as: Alwalid al-Ibrahim, a Saudi businessman with ties to the royal family who runs the Arabic satellite group MBC; Amr al-Dabbagh, the former head of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority; Ibrahim Assaf, the former finance minister; and Bakr Binladin, head of the Saudi Binladin Group, a major business conglomerate.

An earlier crackdown on perceived critics of the crown prince included clerics, writers, lesser-known princes and Saudi figures popular on social media.

“The dismissals and detentions suggest that Prince Mohammed rather than forging alliances is extending his iron grip to the ruling family, the military, and the national guard to counter what appears to be more widespread opposition within the family as well as the military to his reforms and the Yemen war,” James M. Dorsey, a Gulf specialist and senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said an analysis of the shake-up. More here.

***

In part from Reuters:

Aside from a stake in Citigroup, Prince Alwaleed, 62, owns significant stakes in Twitter (TWTR.N), ride-hailing firm Lyft and Time Warner (TWX.N).

His investment firm Kingdom Holding 4280.SE – whose share price plunged 10 percent on Sunday in response to news of his detention – recently bought about half of a 31.1 percent stake in Saudi lender Banque Saudi Fransi 1050.SE from France’s Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA).

FINANCE MINISTER‘S SON

Prince Alwaleed’s father was the kingdom’s finance minister during the 1960s. Prince Alwaleed formed Kingdom Holding in 1979, initially pouring money into real estate in Riyadh; in the 1990s he ventured into Wall Street, investing heavily in Citigroup.

He had a close relationship with former Citigroup Chief Executive Sanford “Sandy” Weill, and has nurtured close ties with other Wall Street leaders including Goldman Sachs (GS.N) CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Prince Alwaleed increased his stake in Citigroup at the height of the global financial crisis a decade ago and he has held on to the stake, saying as recently as last month that he was very happy with the investment.

“He’s always been a colorful and unofficial public face of Saudi Arabia, though he has never been a key decision-maker in the kingdom,” a Gulf-based businessman said.

During the U.S. election campaign, Prince Alwaleed demanded that Trump withdraw from the election campaign after the candidate pledged to ban Muslims’ entry into the United States.

Trump responded by tweeting that the Saudi prince wanted to control “our politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it after I get elected.”

After Trump’s election victory, Prince Alwaleed said whatever their past differences, America had spoken, and he congratulated Trump on his victory.

Prince Alwaleed was an early advocate of women’s employment in Saudi Arabia and a lifting of the ban on women driving. In September, King Salman ordered that the ban should be lifted next year.

Import a Terrorist, Apply to the Diversity Visa Lottery Program

Posted on November 3, 2017November 3, 2017 by Denise Simon

Even the LATimes calls for the program to be ended. In part: Sayfullo Saipov, who allegedly killed eight and wounded 11 in a truck attack on Tuesday, entered the country from Uzbekistan through the diversity visa lottery. He is not the first presumed terrorist to enter using the program. Lottery terrorists include Hesham Mohamed Ali Hedayet, who shot up an El-Al ticket counter in 2002, killing two, and Imran Mandhai, who planned to bomb power stations in Florida the same year.

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The chilling details on Imran Mandhai are located here.

National security problems with the lottery have long been known. At a 2003 congressional hearing, the inspector general of the State Department, which oversees the lottery, testified that the program “contains significant risks to national security from hostile intelligence officers, criminals and terrorists attempting to use the program for entry into the United States as permanent residents.”

The concerns identified at that hearing 14 years ago remain. In 2016, Immigration and Customs Enforcement created a list of countries that “promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members.” Of the top 10 source countries for lottery winners in 2016, four were on ICE’s list: Egypt (No. 2), Iran (No. 3), Uzbekistan (No. 5) and Sudan (No. 7). Many other countries on the ICE list also send significant numbers of lottery winners.

In 2015, 14.4 million individuals plus family members successfully registered for the annual drawing. The State Department has to weed out those who do not qualify. After a computer randomly selects 100,000 names. State Department employees interview and vet the finalists, whittling down the list to the 50,000 cap. This is no simple task, since most applicants come from countries where recordkeeping is spotty and documents are hard to verify. Screening for visa lottery fraud takes up valuable State Department resources that could be allocated elsewhere if the program did not exist.

*** Suddenly, Chucky Schumer is suddenly quiet or forgets some facts.

The program was created by the late-Senator Ted Kennedy in the early 1990s, with help from then-Rep. Chuck Schumer, now the Senate Minority Leader, as a way to open the door to more Irish immigrants who could not qualify for immigration opportunities because of our equally nonsensical family chain migration policy. Of course, Schumer (and Kennedy until his death), continues to this day to defend family chain migration, and is fighting efforts to adopt a merit-based immigration policy that would obviate the need for the annual Wheel of Fortune exercise. More here.

Included in the lottery are all four countries the U.S considers state sponsors of terror — Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Syria — and 13 of the 14 nations that are coming under special monitoring from the Transportation Security Administration as founts of terrorism. Pakistan is excluded because, like China, it sends over tens of thousands of immigrants each year and doesn’t need to be in the lottery.

Among the winners for 2010 are:

Nigeria: 6,006
Iran: 2,773
Algeria: 1,957
Sudan: 1,084
Afghanistan: 345
Cuba: 298
Somalia: 229
Lebanon: 181
Libya: 152
Iraq: 142
Saudi Arabia: 104
Syria: 98
Yemen: 72

The State Department’s Office of the Inspector General recommended in a 2003 report that terror-sponsoring nations be removed from the diversity visa program.

“OIG believes that this program contains significant vulnerabilities to national security as hostile intelligence officers, criminals and terrorists attempt to use it to enter the United States as permanent residents,” the office’s deputy inspector testified to Congress in 2004.

A separate report filed by the Government Accountability Office also faulted the program for being susceptible to widespread fraud. A cottage industry has emerged abroad to cater to the lottery, and it regularly bilks people out of massive amounts of money and even coerces some into marriage to keep their diversity visas. More here.

Meanwhile:

The resettlement of refugees in the U.S. has been fairly consistent across the country since 2002, with no state resettling a majority of them. In fiscal year 2017, no state resettled more than 10% of the 53,716 refugees the nation admitted that year. California, Texas, New York, Washington, Michigan and Ohio each accounted for at least 5% of refugees resettled, while all other states had a lower share. In fiscal 2002, the earliest year state-level data are publicly available, California resettled 16% of the nation’s 27,110 refugees, the only state to account for more than 15% of the nation’s total that year – or in any following year, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. State Department data.

Most refugees today come from the Middle East and Africa, but this has not always been the case. Check more details here.

U.S Should Follow Europe’s Lead on Cyber

Posted on November 1, 2017November 1, 2017 by Denise Simon

Imagine that….Europe may be more right on this issue than the United States is due to congress where decisions just cannot be made.

Going back to 2011, the Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

In 2016, Pentagon leaders are still working to determine when, exactly, a cyber-attack against the U.S. would constitute an act of war, and when, exactly, the Defense Department would respond to a cyber-attack on civilian infrastructure, a senior Defense Department official told lawmakers on Wednesday.

A cyber strike as an act of war “has not been defined,” Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security Thomas Atkin told the House Armed Services Committee. “We’re still working toward that definition.” More here.

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So, is Europe ahead of the United States on this issue?

EU governments to warn cyber attacks can be an act of war

European Union governments will formally state that cyber attacks can be an act of war in a show of strength to countries such as Russia and North Korea.

Diplomats and ambassadors in Brussels have drafted a document, obtained by The Telegraph, that represents an unprecedented deterrent aimed at countries using hackers and cyber espionage against EU members.

The document, set to be agreed by all 28 EU members states, including Britain, in the coming weeks warns that individual member states could respond “in grave instances” to cyber attacks with conventional weapons.

The British government has now said it was all but certain that North Korea was behind the “WannaCry” malware attack that hit NHS IT systems in May. Work on the EU paper began among fears that Russia would attempt to influence this year’s German elections and over hybrid warfare employed in Ukraine. More here.

This could be a pretext for what is a probable threat.

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Banks fearing North Korea hacking prepare defenses: cyber experts

WASHINGTON/TORONTO (Reuters) – Global banks are preparing to defend themselves against North Korea potentially intensifying a years-long hacking spree by seeking to cripple financial networks as Pyongyang weighs the threat of U.S. military action over its nuclear program, cyber security experts said.

North Korean hackers have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from banks during the past three years, including a heist in 2016 at Bangladesh Bank that yielded $81 million, according to Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer at cyber security firm CrowdStrike.

Alperovitch told the Reuters Cyber Security Summit on Tuesday that banks were concerned Pyongyang’s hackers may become more destructive by using the same type of “wiper” viruses they deployed across South Korea and at Sony Corp’s (6758.T) Hollywood studio.

The North Korean government has repeatedly denied accusations by security researchers and the U.S. government that it has carried out cyber attacks.

North Korean hackers could leverage knowledge about financial networks gathered during cyber heists to disrupt bank operations, according to Alperovitch, who said his firm has conducted “war game” exercises for several banks.

“The difference between theft and destruction is often a few keystrokes,” Alperovitch said.

Security teams at major U.S. banks have shared information on the North Korean cyber threat in recent months, said a second cyber security expert familiar with those talks.

“We know they attacked South Korean banks,” said the source, who added that fears have grown that banks in the United States will be targeted next.

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have been building after a series of nuclear and missile tests by North Korea and bellicose verbal exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

John Carlin, a former U.S. assistant attorney general, told the Reuters summit that other firms, among them defense contractors, retailers and social media companies, were also concerned.

“They are thinking ‘Are we going to see an escalation in attacks from North Korea?’” said Carlin, chair of Morrison & Foerster international law firm’s global risk and crisis management team.

Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it is unlikely that North Korea would launch destructive attacks on American banks because of concerns about U.S. retaliation.

Representatives of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the top U.S. banking regulators, declined to comment. Both have ramped up cyber security oversight in recent years.

For other Reuters Cyber Summit news click on www.reuters.com/cyberrisk