TURKEY: ATTEMPTED COUP, UNCLEAR WHO HAS CONTROL

Pinkerton Global Risk Group

BACKGROUND

Reuters

On July 15, 2016, reports began to appear that a faction of the Turkish military was attempting to carry out a coup, taking government infrastructure in Istanbul and Ankara. Istanbul&#8217s Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge were closed, helicopters were seen overhead in Istanbul, and military jets and helicopters were seen in Ankara. A short time later, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that an attempted coup was currently under way, and called for calm amid the uncertainty. The Turkish military then released a statement via email, and reported on Turkish TV channels that the Turkish military has taken power to protect democratic order.

A number of actions have been taken by the coup participants to consolidate power. According to the state-run Anadolu Agency, hostages were taken at Turkish military headquarters, including the Turkish chief of military staff. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media were restricted according to internet monitoring groups. Airports in Ankara and Istanbul were shut-down. Troops and transport carriers were seen throughout the streets of Ankara and Istanbul, and troops reportedly entered buildings associated with the Turkish state broadcaster, TRT, in Ankara, and the AK Party in Istanbul.

It was only after these actions were taken that, on orders of those perpetrating the coup, the Turkish state broadcaster announced that a new constitution would be prepared, and that the country would be run by a &#8220peace council&#8221. In the meantime, martial law would be imposed, and curfews enforced throughout the country.

It was not long after, however, that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan responded via a CNN Turk broadcast that people should take to the streets to protest against what he described as a coup attempt by a minority faction within the military. The Turkish justice minister expanded on the executive narrative of the coup stating that a U.S.-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, was responsible for the coup attempt.

Following the address, a number of pro-government actions could be witnessed throughout the country. The commander of Turkey&#8217s First Army, part of land forces responsible for Istanbul and other western areas, said those attempting a coup were a small faction and &#8220nothing to worry about.&#8221 The commander of Turkish special forces said a group had engaged in treason, would not succeed, and the military did not condone the coup. An NTV broadcaster stated that a Turkish fighter jet shot down a military helicopter used by coup-plotters over Ankara. And, a large number of Erdogan supporters took to the streets in a large display of support for Erdogan.

This culminated in an announcement made at 11:52 p.m. GMT when the Turkish Prime Minister said that the situation was under control, declaring a no-fly zone over Ankara, and blaming supporters of Fethullah Gulen, though the group denied involvement earlier in the night.

ANALYSIS

Coups are all or nothing events. If unsuccessful, perpetrators will likely be shot. Consequently, those committing the coup have an incentive to do anything necessary to ensure success. In the absence of a popular response to a coup, as appears to be the case in Turkey, there is also the incentive to use violence as a means to accomplishing their goals. Interestingly at the time of this writing, there has been very little bloodshed in the current coup attempt.

There have also been a number of other curious attributes to the current coup attempt. Turkish jets have been conducting low-level flights in Ankara, but there has been very little evidence that these jets are using ordinance. Soldiers are seemingly not acting as forceful in their support of the coup, particularly in Istanbul. High-ranking members of the military have condemned the coup.
These factors suggest that the coup is being conducted by a faction of the military, the likes of which is not large and consists of few, if any, general officers. It is likely being carried out with people of some rank, close to the rank of colonel, which would allow for the mobilization of large units, but find wanting the command and control needed to conduct a large scale operation, like a coup.

Erdogan has been in power for 13 years, so anyone below the rank of Major is likely an Erdogan partisan. Erdogan's recent arrest of many top-flag officers has removed non-supporters of Erdogen from positions of military power. Consequently, the only soldiers that are likely independent of Erdogen are those at the colonel level, which, evidence suggests, is likely the case.

What does this mean for the coup? It means that it is probably not going to be successful. The severe lack of command and control suggests that it will likely fail to contain all the elements necessary to completely take power. Most notably, it will fail to effectively show the awe-inspiring show of force needed for ordinary citizens to comply with the coup leaders demands.

However, the longer the government takes to display the inadequacy of coup participants, the more dangerous the situation will become as coup participants are likely to become more desperate and violent.

Brexit will turn Berlin into 'Europe’s startup capital'

The Local

London is currently thought of as the main hub for startups in Europe, but that will all turn around when the UK leaves the EU, tech industry experts say.

Thanks to its location in a finance centre and also fewer language barriers with Silicon Valley, London has long been dubbed the startup capital of Europe.

But not anymore, according to the some tech industry experts.

“The German startup capital of Berlin is the winner of Brexit, London is the loser,” said German Startups Association boss Florian Nöll on Friday.

At the same time though, Nöll said this isn’t the kind of victory one should celebrate.

“We haven’t seen ourselves as German or British entrepreneurs in a long time. We are European entrepreneurs. Our startups were founded for international markets.”

The German Association of the Internet Industry, eco, also say they expect that Brexit will bring a boost to Berlin as London loses its appeal as a pioneer for Europe.

Still, eco also sees Brexit as a setback for Europe in terms of global competition because plans to create a digital single market will now be on a smaller scale.

“A fragmented market will lose every form of competitiveness compared with countries like the USA,” warned eco’s politics and law director Oliver Süme.

Süme also predicted financial losses over the course of the UK’s exit negotiations.

“It will bring enormous insecurity in legal terms for companies in the Internet economy, and thus likely a drop in sales.”

The CEO of digital economy association Bitkom Bernhard Rohleder said he expected that the UK would distance itself from the principles of having a single market for the Internet.

“We must now make sure that the consequences for the German and the European digital economy remain as small as possible,” Rohleder said.

“Companies in Germany will have to deal with different rules in the UK. That is almost impossible for medium-sized companies and startups."

American tech writer Ben Thompson wrote for his website Stratechery that now is also a difficult time for American Internet giants in the EU: Germany and France have been trying to impose more restrictions especially on Google and Facebook, so without the more lenient voice of Britain, these two countries will have more power in regulating tech companies.

Five things to know about guns in Germany

The Local
1. Germany has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe

The US Library of Congress defines the German gun control system as “one of the most stringent in Europe”. And professor Christian Pfeiffer of Criminology Research Institute of Lower Saxony also told The Local that Germany’s laws were some of the toughest worldwide. Germans do not have fundamental rights to bear arms, unlike Americans do under the Second Amendment, and the country’s violent past including the Nazi era has certainly helped to shape the current strict regulations. To get a gun, Germans must first obtain a firearms ownership license (Waffenbesitzkarte) - and you may need a different one for each weapon you buy - or a license to carry (Waffenschein). Applicants for a license must be at least 18 years old and undergo what’s called a reliability check, which includes checking for criminal records, whether the person is an alcohol or drug addict, whether they have mental illness or any other attributes that might make them questionable to authorities.

The also have to pass a “specialized knowledge test” on guns and people younger than 25 applying for their first license must go through a psychiatric evaluation. One must also prove a specific and approved need for the weapon, which is mainly limited to use by hunters, competitive marksmen, collectors and security workers - not for self-defense. Once you have a license, you’re also limited in the number of and kinds of guns you may own, depending on what kind of license you have: Fully automatic weapons are banned for all, while semiautomatic firearms are banned for anything other than hunting or competitive shooting. Under the reforms passed in the wake of a 2009 mass shooting, gun owners are also subject to continued monitoring by the government with officials able to ask gun owners at any time to enter their private property and check that they are properly storing their weapons.

2. Fourth-highest gun ownership rate worldwide

But even given Germany’s strict gun policies, the country was still home to the fourth-highest number of legal guns per capita in 2013, falling behind just the United States, Switzerland and Finland. About 2 million people own more than 5.5 million legal guns in Germany for a population of more than 80 million. On top of that, police unions have estimated that there are up to 20 million more illegally-owned guns in Germany - this would mean roughly 30 guns for every group of 100 people.

3. One of the lowest rates of gun-related deaths worldwide

But even given the relatively high amount of guns in the country, Germany has one of the lowest rates of gun-related deaths each year, according to international GunPolicy.org research by the University of Sydney. Over the past 20 years, “crimes against life” - which include murder as well as negligent manslaughter - that involve guns have dropped from 783 in 1995 to 130 in 2015, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

Of those crimes last year, just 57 were intentional murders.

This of course pales in comparison to the rates in the US, where firearm homicides surpass 11,000 people killed each year or roughly 3.5 deaths per 100,000 people, according to GunPolicy.org. In Germany, that rate barely reaches 0.07 deaths per 100,000 people.

4. Mass shootings have led to stricter gun laws

 Several mass shootings within the past two decades have had a great impact on gun control policy. In 2002, a 19-year-old expelled from his high school in Erfurt brought a semiautomatic pistol to the school and killed 16 people before killing himself. The German parliament responded by passing major revisions to weapons laws, including increasing the minimum age for acquiring a gun and requiring a psychological exam for people under 25.In 2006, an 18-year-old went to his former school in Emsdetten and shot and wounded five people before killing himself. This led to restrictions on the sale of violent video games to juveniles. Then in 2009, a 17-year-old in Winnenden, Baden-Württemberg, went to his old school with a semiautomatic pistol, killing a total of 15 people at the school and while fleeing from police. Since those mass shootings, there has also been drop-off in gun violence. In 2009 when Winnenden happened, there were 179 crimes against life that involved guns being fired, compared to the 130 such crimes last year.

5. No major mass shootings since 2009

According to criminologist Christian Pfeiffer, the 2009 Winnenden massacre was Germany’s last mass shooting, defined as four or more people killed in a public place. However, a year later, a woman in a nearby small town shot and killed her five-year-old son, the boy’s father and then went to a hospital where she shot at more than a dozen others, killing one. Subsequent rampage shootings have resulted in fewer than four deaths, such as last year when a man shot dead two people in what appeared to be random killings. Meanwhile, so far this year the US has had about a dozen mass shootings where four or more people were killed, according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.

Dutch woman arrested in Qatar after making rape claim

--By BBC NEWS

A Dutch woman is being detained in Qatar on suspicion of adultery after she told police she had been raped.

The 22-year-old, who was on holiday, was drugged in a Doha hotel and woke up in an unfamiliar flat, where she realised she had been raped, her lawyer says.
She was arrested in March on suspicion of having sex outside of marriage. She is due to appear in court on Monday.

The alleged rapist is also being held, but says the sex had been consensual.
A Dutch foreign ministry spokeswoman said the woman, who she named as Laura, had been arrested but not yet been charged.

"We have provided assistance to her since the first day of detention. For the sake of the defendant's case we will not make further comments at this point," the Dutch embassy said in a statement.

'Great horror'

The woman had gone dancing at a hotel in Doha where alcohol was allowed, "but when she returned to the table after the first sip of her drink... she felt very unwell" and realised she had been drugged, her lawyer Brian Lokollo told Dutch broadcaster NOS-Radio1.

Her next memory was waking up in an unfamiliar apartment where she "realised to her great horror that she had been raped," Mr Lokollo added.

The woman may also be charged with an alcohol-related offence, news website Doha News reported.

It is an offence to drink alcohol or be drunk in public in Qatar, although alcohol is allowed at certain hotels and expatriates can obtain a permit for purchasing alcohol.

In 2013, a Norwegian woman in neighbouring United Arab Emirates was given a 16-month prison sentence for perjury, extramarital sex and drinking alcohol after she told police she had been raped.

She was later pardoned and allowed to return to Norway.

In Qatar, Nearly Three in Five People Live in ‘Labor Camps’

 In Qatar, Nearly Three in Five People Live in ‘Labor Camps’
Over the past several years, Qatar’s widespread use of migrant labor to build its ever growing queue of building and infrastructure projects has gained the attention and criticism of human rights activists across the globe.

These activists allege Qatar’s migrant laborers, most of whom come from South Asia, live in dirty, dangerous camps and have severely limited civil rights. Some might even argue that the term “indentured workers” or “slave laborers” would be a more accurate description.

While it has been known that a huge population of these migrants reside in Qatar, it wasn’t until a recent census that the truly stunning nature of migrant labor in the Middle Eastern country was known.

According to figures produced by the Qatari government, of its population of 2.4 million, nearly 60 percent, or three in five people, live in migrant labor camps. Other estimates, however, have put the figure much higher.

How did this tiny nation that was home to a mere 370,000 people in the mid-1980s end up with such a population boom in just three decades?
Moreover, how did this boom end up including more migrant laborers than Qatari citizens?
Qatar’s story is not wholly unique for the Middle Eastern region: As in Saudi Arabia, for example, Qatar found itself sitting atop fossil fuel resources worth billions upon billions. After oil prices fully rebounded in the 1990s, Qatar’s energy elites found their bank accounts overflowing.

That’s where the similarities start to fade. As Qatar began to tap the world’s third largest known reserve of natural gas and oil, it gradually surpassed Luxembourg to become home to the world’s highest GDP per capita by 2014.
With all that cash, what can a wealthy Qatar elite class to do? Fund opulent building projects, among other things. This led to the importation of migrant laborers; These people thought they were getting an unique opportunity to work but instead found themselves gravely exploited, sometimes even at the cost of their own lives.

Getting to Qatar as a migrant worker isn’t easy. With the promise of a steady income, these individuals are pushed to pay “recruitment fees” to a Qatari company for the privilege to work for them. Often, migrants cannot afford this and instead take out high-interest loans to pay for it.

After taking these steps, a laborer in Qatar might find himself earning meager wages (though workers are often underpaid, if they are paid at all) and living in an overcrowded, unsanitary camp. These “worker cities” are usually owned and “maintained” (cockroaches and open sewers are typical) by employers.

Many workers say it is not uncommon to end up working 12, even 24-hour days, often with little water or food, if any.

“We feel like we were cheated, we didn’t get the jobs we were expecting,” one Nepali worker says.

What happens if a worker wants to change employers? He must first gain permission from his current employer. And what happens when a migrant wishes to leave Qatar? He must obtain an exit visa — also provided by his employer.
If the employer doesn’t wish to grant those requests for whatever reason (such as unpaid debt from a loan taken out for the recruitment fees), then that worker is essentially trapped in Qatar with that employer.

Those who complain or try to hold an employer accountable could face worse repercussions, ending up not only stuck in Qatar but also unemployed and homeless.

Qatar has faced a great deal of heat over these practices. As the country plans to host the 2022 World Cup, this scrutiny has only increased — at the same time Qatar’s building projects ramp up to accommodate the anticipated tourism influx.

Hundreds of migrant workers have died since construction for the World Cup began. In 2013 alone, 185 Nepali workers perished; Between 2012 and 2014, 450 Indians died. Most deaths were related to heart failure. Exact numbers for other nationalities aren’t known, however activist groups believe around 4,000 laborers will die before the World Cup begins.

Qatar insists it is taking significant steps to make life better for its migrant workers. This claim is lacking substance, though, if the recent tragic labor camp fire in southwest Qatar, which claimed 13 lives, is any indication.

Every nation that intends to vie for the chance to play in the 2022 World Cup has a responsibility to threaten Qatar with boycott if genuine steps to protect the human and civil rights of its many migrant laborers are not taken immediately.

Iran to continue boosting defense capabilities: Minister

Iran NA

Iran will continue enhancing its defense capabilities, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said on Saturday.

Speaking at a local ceremony, Dehqan said that defense capabilities and national authority constitute Iran’s two major power elements.

Iran’s move towards realizing its revolution ideals under the guidelines of its leadership has forced the enemies to retreat, the commander added.

He underlined that the enemies are monitoring all Iran’s programs and movements.

They are looking for a chance to penetrate the country’s decision-making centers, the minister said.

The enemies particularly the United States and its allies are mulling annihilating elements of Iran’s power, Dehqan added.

He noted that the US has targeted Iran’s national economy in order to weaken the elements of the Islamic Republic’s power including the defense capablities and national authority.

Elaborating on the enemies’ economic war aginst Iran, the defense minister said that enemies imposed oppressive sanctions against us to deny Iran access to technology while they prevented other countries to improve ties with the Islamic Republic.

Calling Islmophobia, Iranophobia and Shiaphobia parts of the enemy’s psychological war against Iran, he said that the US, Saudi Arabia and their allies have created religious wars in the region in a bid to guarantee the security of Israel.

Unfortunately some ignorant, dependent states of the region are equipping the terrorists in the same way the US does, the commander added.

Hibatullah's Roots Were Non-Political And Reclusive

ToloNews

From a reclusive, non-political family in Kandahar, that fled the country during the civil war, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada has risen to become the Taliban's new leader.

But just who is this man and where does he come from? TOLOnews' correspondent Abdullah Hamim finds out.

Hibatullah was born in Panjwai district in the southern province 56 years ago. But fleeing the civil war, his family went to Pakistan.

A number of tribal elders in Panjwai, however said Hibatullah's family lived in Safid Rawan village for five decades. His father, Mullah Mohammad Akhund, was a religious scholar at a local mosque.

"We know the family of the Taliban's new leader. They lived here in Safid Rawan village 50 years ago. He was born here. His family was very kind. Hibatullah spent most of his childhood days here in this area," said
Haji Din Mohammad, a tribal elder from Panjwai.

His father was a cleric for many years at the Malook mosque and the family was not involved in politics, according to the tribal elders.

The elders said Hibatullah's family were well mannered and well behaved towards others but that they kept to themselves and did not participate in tribal assemblies and sessions, which were held to solve and discuss the villagers' problems.

Taliban last week confirmed former leader Mullah Mansour's death and appointed Hibatullah as his successor.
Hibatullah himself is a cleric and was the Taliban's top judge and a deputy under Mansour.

Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mohammad Yaqub, the elder son of the Taliban's founding leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, will serve as Hibatullah's top deputies.

Hibatullah reportedly lives in Ghaus Abad area in Quetta city in Pakistan.
Some critics said they believe that Hibatullah will further the Taliban insurgency.
Meanwhile, it is said that Hibatullah's appointment as the Taliban's new leader was done without consulting Mullah Rassoul, the leader of a divided faction of Taliban insurgents.

Anonymous hackers continue attacks on Iran’s official websites

Trend News Agency

An anonymous hacking group continues attacks on Iran's official websites, the country's Ghanoon newspaper reported May 28.

The group hacked websites of Iran's culture ministry, the legal deputy of the judiciary, as well as the interpreting administration of the judiciary on May 27, according to the report.

The websites were recovered later, suffering "no damages", Iranian media outlets reported citing officials.

The attacks against Iranian official websites started May 25, as the group which calls itself DAES hacked the website of the Statistical Center of Iran sending the website down for a short time, and posting a message of its own on the main page.

Iranian media outlets reported that the hackers were "outside of Iran", but little was known about them.

There were speculations that the hacker group is linked to Saudi Arabia. The DAES, which has officially claimed responsibility for the cyber attacks, wrote on the main page of the hacked websites that it is not linked with the "Islamic State" terrorists group, aka Daesh, and is only "one Sunni Muslim."
As DAES sounds like Daesh, it could be mixed up with the Arabic name of the "Islamic State" terrorist group.

Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported May 26 that two Saudi statistical websites were hacked just a day after Iran's statistics center was hacked, which raised the speculation in some Iranian media that a Saudi-Iranian cyber war is already going on.

Can America Ever Escape Its Failing Foreign Policy?

John Allen Gay

America’s current foreign-policy framework has produced a string of failures. Iraq and Afghanistan were expensive messes; Libya and the Balkan interventions, destabilizing wars of choice; we’re plainly overextended in Europe and can never seem to realize our long-promised pivot to Asia. Many of our allies carp about the need for U.S. “leadership” and growing threats in their neighborhoods while spending pittances on their own defense; at the same time, the publics in the same countries appear to resent our efforts to defend them. We have amassed all the downsides of empire, while seeing few of its benefits. And within many Washington foreign-policy circles, the solution to the problems our approach has created is to double down. Indeed, while most public discussion has focused on the shortcomings of one major party’s candidate for the presidency, few seem concerned that the other major party is poised to nominate a candidate who was an enthusiastic cheerleader for all of the serious foreign-policy blunders I listed above. Perhaps the United States simply has no alternative to its current strategy.

Not so, argues Stephen Walt. In a keynote address to the Charles Koch Institute’s Advancing American Security conference today in Washington, D.C., the Harvard professor made a bracing case for a different direction, a U.S. foreign policy far more restrained than today’s adventurism yet far more engaged than the isolationism of, say, Sakoku-era Japan. By remaining aloof from many of the world’s friction points, the United States would be able to invest more in its own affairs, building a firmer foundation of national power.

In Walt’s view, the United States enjoys advantages that almost no other great power in history has had. We are separated from all other major states by two vast oceans, and enjoy unquestioned supremacy in our entire hemisphere. We have the world’s largest and most dynamic economy, which underwrites the world’s strongest military. We can resort to nuclear weapons in the event that all these fail to protect us. We face few serious existential threats from other states.

U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High

Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group whose suicide rates had been stable or falling since the 1950s.

The suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, jumped by 63 percent over the period of the study, while it rose by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for males of any age. The overall suicide rate rose by 24 percent from 1999 to 2014, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the study on Friday.

The increases were so widespread that they lifted the nation’s suicide rate to 13 per 100,000 people, the highest since 1986. The rate rose by 2 percent a year starting in 2006, double the annual rise in the earlier period of the study. In all, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014, compared with 29,199 in 1999.
“It’s really stunning to see such a large increase in suicide rates affecting virtually every age group,” said Katherine Hempstead, senior adviser for health care at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who has identified a link between suicides in middle age and rising rates of distress about jobs and personal finances.

Researchers also found an alarming increase among girls 10 to 14, whose suicide rate, while still very low, had tripled. The number of girls who killed themselves rose to 150 in 2014 from 50 in 1999. “This one certainly jumped out,” said Sally Curtin, a statistician at the center and an author of the report.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30-year-high.html?_r=3 

Analysis: Recent twin elections in Iran ’undemocratic’

Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras,

Analysts have concluded that any elections under the rule of the mullahs in Iran would be depleted of any transparency and thus undemocratic. The new analysis says that recent Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections carried out last month in Iran have been illegitimate and must not be viewed as democratic.

The report by the Brussels-based International Committee In Search of Justice (ISJ), entitled 'A Study of 2016 ‘Elections’ in Iran,' provides insight on the make-up of the theocratic dictatorship and how each branch of government is under the direct authority of the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

'As opposition parties remained banned and even many current members of the Majlis and former officials of the Islamic Republic were not allowed to stand as candidates, the recent ballot was clearly not democratic, but an ’election within a selection’ of the ruling clique,' the 14-page report says in its conclusion.
'The controversial nuclear agreement created major tensions within the Iranian elite, and the continued costly participation in the war in Syria has become ever more difficult to sustain. Hence, the regime needed the February elections to produce a clear, near-unanimous result in favour of a strong leader, to be able to command and steer the country in difficult times. But Ayatollah Khamenei, fearing a repeat of the 2009 uprisings, did not risk interfering in the final tally. As a result, the internal fracture widened, and Khamenei failed to regain full control.'
'Meanwhile, the Rouhani/Rafsanjani faction, decimated in the filtering process, will have only a few more members in the Assembly of Experts. Additionally, the new Majlis members are not bound to follow their lead, so for leverage they will have to continue to rely on conservatives as well, as they do now under current Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani.'

'There was no clear winner in these elections, and both sides claim victory, which can only lead to more disputes and further destabilisation of the system. Therefore, one of the conclusions that can be drawn is that the Iranian system as a whole became weaker and more unstable as a result of these elections.'

'The economy, widely seen by analysts as a main issue in these elections, will remain a key factor. The Iranian economy is in dire straits. President Rouhani tried to present the nuclear deal at home as an opportunity to gain foreign investment and improve the lives of ordinary Iranians. However, after nearly three years in power, he has not affected that change, and his administration is feeling growing pressure.'

'A very costly involvement in Syria and Iraq -- with up to 60.000 Iranian-sponsored forces involved -- drains the Iranian economy. The very powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) -- entirely under Khamenei’s lead -- asserts widespread control of the national economy through an elaborate network of public and affiliated firms. Both sides, Rouhani/Rafsanjani and Khamenei’s hardliners, are on the same page regarding the foreign policy in Syria and Iraq, as they both see these two countries as Iran’s buffer defence zone. Hence, the costs of the involvement in foreign wars will stay high, despite the fact that the depressed oil market and the slow investment will halt the growth of the Iranian economy.'

'The internal repression is unlikely to decrease. ’Hardliners’ and ’reformists’ alike have as their main priority the preservation of the Islamic Republic regime. Increasing executions and inhuman punishments will, therefore, inevitably remain a gloomy part of the everyday life of the Iranian people. As Ann Appelbaum wrote in her Washington Post opinion: ’Regimes that need violence to repress their citizens do not make reliable diplomatic partners. Any ruling clique that fears popular revolt will always, at the end of the day, tailor its foreign policy to the goal of keeping itself in power,’' the report added.

ISJ is a non-profit NGO in Brussels whose membership includes elected parliamentarians, former officials and other dignitaries with an interest to promote human rights, freedom, democracy, peace and stability. Its President is Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former Vice-President of the European Parliament. ISJ’s campaigns have enjoyed the support of over 4000 parliamentarians on both sides of the Atlantic.

Inside the government's secret NSA program to target terrorists

Relentless attacks on American military personnel at the height of the Iraq war made the U.S. intelligence community confront a dire problem: They needed real-time intelligence to take Al Qaeda off the battlefield and dismantle its bomb-making factories.

This realization was the start of a highly secretive program, developed by the National Security Agency, to put NSA specialists on the battlefield in order to send “near real-time” intelligence to the troops so they could avoid ambushes and root out insurgents. For the first time, going in depth with Fox News, senior NSA leadership is speaking publicly about that program, called the Real Time Regional Gateway or RT-RG.
"Starting in 2005, we started seeing a big uptick in casualties caused by IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and ambushes," NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett told Fox News. The RT-RG program created to combat those attacks, he said, “was really a complete change in how we provided signals intelligence support to the tactical war fighter.”

The program, parts of which were classified until now, has dispatched thousands of NSA experts into war zones since 9/11. It has put those experts – from an agency most-known for its controversial surveillance programs – at grave risk across multiple theatres. But in the process, officials say, RT-RG has saved the lives of fellow Americans.

Col. Bob Harms, one of the first people on the ground for the NSA at Baghdad's Camp Victory, said the goal was to “get in front of our adversaries.”

Exclusive images shared with Fox News from Camp Victory show the basic set-up, which took traditional streams of intelligence and married it up with information gathered from raids – for instance, taking satellite images and combining that with on-the-ground information about an insurgent’s movements and contacts, to pinpoint threats.

Some of the most useful information came from captured operatives – information known in the intel world as "pocket litter." Harms said this included “pattern of life” details including “when do they go to sleep, where do they go to sleep, where do they work and those types of things."

The NSA's goal was to compress the timeline for crunching all this information from a period of weeks or days, to just hours or minutes. Think of it like a phone app -- but instead of giving directions, it's flagging threats.

"[Battlefield commanders] would actually feed us information … so that we could give them a roadmap to the next site,” Harms explained.

Ledgett said the program harnessed big data, in a way that it could be used immediately on the battlefield. Ledgett said RT-RG "integrated hundreds of pieces of information," and then software was developed to draw connections that could "put things on graphical displays" so it was easy for analysts and operators to understand.

"It might connect something like a phone number to a location, to an activity and display that to an analyst who could then, via radio, contact a convoy and say, ‘Hey looks like there's an ambush waiting for you at this point -- go left or go right or take an alternate route,’" he said.

Asked about collateral damage – the accidental killing of civilians -- Ledgett said the program reduced those numbers because targeting data was drawn from multiple sources. No further specifics were offered.
Retired Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News military analyst, said the program "gave a tool to brigade commanders, who were spread out all over the battlefield, something that they never had before."
It also took NSA experts out of the office and placed them in the field, to work side-by-side with special operations.

"We needed to be coffee-breath close in order to have that shared situational understanding," Harms said.
The program extended from Iraq to Afghanistan, and then other conflict zones that the NSA will not publicly identify. The statistics, declassified for this report, are sobering.

"Since 2001, we've deployed 5,000 NSA people to Iraq and 8,000 to Afghanistan -- and in total, 18,000 to hostile areas around the world," Ledgett said. "When the operational community embraces you that way and says ‘I want you on my team and I want you there with me’ … that's a pretty significant statement of value."
The deployments came with risk. Since 9/11, 24 names have been added to the NSA’s memorial wall, which pays tribute to fallen employees. Among them is NSA technical expert Christian Pike, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2013 working with the Navy SEALs.

"I'm sorry, I get a little emotional about this one," Ledgett said, taking a pause during the interview as he described a cabinet in his office with memorial cards for James T. Davis, one of the first Americans killed in Vietnam; NSA’s Amanda Pinson, killed by an IED in Iraq while providing signals intelligence support; and Christian Pike. Pike was also a family friend.

This Saturday is Armed Forces Day – and what was a ground-breaking NSA program a decade ago is now widely used by the war fighter.

Ledgett said one of the commanding generals in Iraq during the surge credited the NSA with helping take over 4,000 insurgents off the battlefield.

“There was an intense effort here … How do we drive those losses down?” Ledgett said. "Our job was to get the information to the people who needed it."

EgyptAir Flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo 'disappears from radar'

An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo has disappeared from radar, the Egyptian airline says.

It says there are 56 passengers, seven crew members and three security personnel on board Flight MS804.
The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000ft (11,300m) when it went missing over the eastern Mediterranean. An official said the plane lost contact with radar at 02:45 Cairo time (00:45 GMT).
EgyptAir says search and rescue teams have been deployed.

EgyptAir says the plane disappeared about 10 miles (16km) into Egyptian air space and the relevant authorities have been notified.

The search operation is being co-ordinated with the Greek authorities.

In a later update, EgyptAir said that three children were among those on board the plane.
Aviation analyst Alex Macheras told the BBC that Airbus A320s were regularly used for short-haul budget flights and had "an amazing safety record".

The EgyptAir aircraft left Paris at 23:09 local time on Wednesday (21:09 GMT) and was scheduled to arrive in the Egyptian capital soon after 03:00 local time on Thursday.

In March, an EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus. The attacker later surrendered and all hostages were released.

Last October, a Russian passenger plane flying from Sharm el-Sheikh crashed over the Sinai peninsula killing all 224 people on board. Officials in Moscow later said the aircraft was brought down by an explosive device.

Islamic State militants said they had bombed the plane.

Report: NSA Tapped Phone Of Russian Crime Boss To Probe For Putin Ties

refrel

Documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden suggest that the spy agency eavesdropped on a Russian mob kingpin in an effort to determine his possible ties to President Vladimir Putin.

According to an internal NSA newsletter published by the website The Intercept, the NSA in 2002 or 2003 successfully tapped the phone of Vladimir Kumarin, the reputed head of the notorious Tambov crime syndicate whose influence in St. Petersburg in the 1990s earned him the moniker "Night Governor."

The newsletter, published by The Intercept on May 16 states, says the State Department submitted a request to the NSA for intelligence on Kumarin "to learn whether there were any links" between the Tambov syndicate and Putin, who served as deputy mayor in St. Petersburg in the 1990s.

The website was co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, one of two American journalists who received secret NSA documents from Snowden. The document referencing Kumarin was among the first batch of internal NSA newsletters spanning a nine-year period that The Intercept plans to publish.

Putin has long been alleged to have maintained ties to organized-crime groups that flourished in St. Petersburg, where he grew up and began his political career, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed these claims.

Kumarin, who now goes by the last name Barsukov, is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence after being convicted on gang-related charges in 2009.

According to the NSA newsletter published by The Intercept, analysts from the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate "had their work cut out for them" with the State Department’s 2002 request because the agency "had neither Mr. Kumarin's phone number nor a sample of his voice."

The document, dated May 5, 2003, states that the NSA ultimately achieved "success" in the operation thanks to "many months of target development" and was able to issue intelligence reports based "on the intercept of Kumarin’s telephone."

The contents of those reports remain unclear.

A State Department official, when questioned by RFE/RL on May 17 about The Intercept report, said: "As a matter of policy the Department of State does not comment on specific intelligence allegations."

As experts on Russian organized crime have noted, the Tambov syndicate and other gangs were so entrenched in economic and political life in St. Petersburg in the 1990s that it was virtually impossible to conduct public affairs without dealing with them.

A Spanish judge this month issued international arrest warrants for several current and former Russian government officials and other political figures closely linked to Putin in connection with crimes committed in Spain, including murder, weapons and drug trafficking, extortion, and money laundering.

The Spanish documents target alleged members of the Tambov syndicate and another well-known crime group in St. Petersburg, the Malyshev gang. Both groups emerged as racketeering gangs comprised largely of former athletes during the twilight of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

Saudi to open ‘biggest’ security surveillance centre in Middle East

MEE

Saudi Arabia is planning to launch a new security surveillance centre which local media reported on Sunday will be the “biggest and most modern” in the Middle East.
The Saudi Gazette reported that the new National Centre for Joint Security Operations will have access to 18,000 security surveillance cameras, which will be “linked to smart applications” accessed by 1,600 newly trained officers.

It is not known when the centre will officially open, but the gazette said the Road Security Control is already operating from the new premises.

Authorities will gradually make “911” the number to call for any Saudi with a security related problem – anyone who calls will be passed to the new security centre “within seconds”.

All the officers who will manage the centre are fluent in English, according to the gazette, which added that they were trained abroad without revealing specifically where.

The centre will have “two giant screens” where images from the 18,000 security cameras will appear, which the gazette said would make it the biggest in the region.
The centre was previously known as the Command and Control Centre, and dealt solely with coordinating security services; the new centre will integrate all security related matters into one centralised body.

U.S. sees China boosting military presence after island-building spree

Reuters

China is expected to add substantial military infrastructure, including surveillance systems, to artificial islands in the South China Sea this year, giving it long-term "civil-military bases" in the contested waters, the Pentagon said on Friday.
In its annual report to Congress on China's military activities in 2015, the U.S. Defense Department estimated that China's reclamation work had added more than 3,200 acres (1,300 hectares) of land on seven features it occupied in the Spratly Islands in the space of two years.

It said China had completed its major reclamation efforts in October, switching focus to infrastructure development, including three 9,800 foot-long (3,000 meter) airstrips that can accommodate advanced fighter jets.

"Additional substantial infrastructure, including communications and surveillance systems, is expected to be built on these features in the coming year," the report said.
"China will be able to use its reclaimed features as persistent civil-military bases to enhance its presence in the South China Sea significantly."

The report comes at a time of heightened tension over maritime territories claimed by China and disputed by several Asian nations. Washington has accused Beijing of militarizing the South China Sea while Beijing, in turn, has criticized increased U.S. naval patrols and exercises in Asia.

The Pentagon report said China was focusing on developing capabilities to counter outside intervention in any conflict, but appeared to want to avoid direct confrontation with the United States in Asia, given the potential economic damage.
At the same time, "China demonstrated a willingness to tolerate higher levels of tension in the pursuit of its interests, especially in pursuit of its territorial claims," the report said.

MILITARY CHIEFS TALK

The Pentagon disclosed on Friday that the U.S. military's top officer, Marine General Joseph Dunford, had proposed an effort to "bolster risk reduction mechanisms" to his counterpart, the Chinese Chief of the Joint Staff Department, General Fang Fenghui.
Dunford's spokesman, Captain Greg Hicks, said in a statement that both sides agreed the talks, which took place by video conference on Thursday, were a valuable way to "manage both cooperative and contentious issues, and avoid miscalculation."

The Pentagon's report cautioned that China was committed to sustaining growth in defense spending even as its economic growth cools and to pursuing objectives increasingly distant from China's shores.

Abraham Denmark, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, told a briefing that China's 2015 defense spending was higher than it publicly disclosed and had reached $180 billion, compared with an official Chinese of $144 billion.

The report pointed to China's November announcement that it was establishing a military facility in Djibouti. It said China was also expected to establish naval logistics hubs in countries with which it shares interests, including Pakistan.

The U.S report renewed accusations against China's government and military for cyber attacks against U.S. government computer systems, a charge Beijing denies. It said attacks in 2015 appeared focused on intelligence collection.

"Targeted information could inform Chinese military planners' work to build a picture of U.S. defense networks, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis," the report said.

It also cautioned that the actions and skills needed for the intrusions carried out to date "are similar to those necessary to conduct cyberattacks."

Why Egypt's media has turned on President Sisi

Dr. H.A. Hellyer

When Egypt’s former defense minister, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, ascended to the presidency in 2014, nearly all of Egypt’s media stood faithfully by him. That same media was vigorously opposed to the former elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammad Morsi, whom the military under Sisi had forcibly overthrown following mass protests in 2013 — and rarely voiced criticism of Sisi in the first months of his presidency.

Almost two years later, the scene is quite different. Relations between Egypt’s media and the government have deteriorated so severely that, last week, Egyptian police were accused of raiding the headquarters of the Journalists Syndicate (the professional union responsible for protecting, defending, and accrediting journalists and editors for all private and state-run print media) and arresting two journalists, sparking substantial demonstrations.

And while the size of these protests is insignificant compared with the scale of the ones that brought down Egypt’s longtime ruler, Hosni Mubarak, in the 2011 Egyptian revolutionary uprising, the demonstrations are nonetheless indicative of how much the relationship between the Egyptian government and the press has deteriorated in just a few short years.

From loyal supporters to increasingly vocal critics: Sisi’s troubled press relations
Egyptian media were extremely supportive of the post-Morsi establishment, and that continued through the presidential election of 2014 and beyond. Relations between that extant part of Egypt’s media arena (pro-Islamist media had been shut down immediately after Morsi’s arrest — he remains imprisoned to this day) and the Muslim Brotherhood had been mutually recriminatory for a variety of reasons during Morsi’s year in office.

Following his removal, a cacophony of ultranationalist voices dominated the discussion, seeing Sisi as a savior against what they identified as an existential threat from the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the media’s adoration of Sisi gradually began to wane as the economic situation failed to pick up sufficiently. Egypt’s tourism industry, a cornerstone of the country’s economy, has suffered tremendously from the political upheaval that began in 2011, and many Egyptians supported Sisi in the belief that he would restore the order and stability necessary to revive the tourism industry and improve the economy more generally.

But security threats have continued to rock Egypt’s tourism industry — including, most prominently, the ISIS attack that brought down a Russian passenger airliner departing Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort town in late 2015. Many countries, including the UK and Russia (whose citizens represent a massive proportion of Egypt’s foreign tourists), suspended flights into the country’s tourist hotspots following that attack.

The government’s inability to address such problems quickly and effectively is likely to have disappointed many Egyptians — including those in the media — who’d hoped things would generally start to get better under Sisi.
The government’s relationship with the media further soured following the death of Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni earlier this year. Regeni had been doing research on Egypt’s labor movements — a politically sensitive issue in Egypt — when, on January 25, he went missing. His tortured body surfaced more than a week later in a ditch just outside of Cairo.

Although one Egyptian state agency alleged a "criminal gang" that specialized in "abducting foreigners while posing as policemen" was to blame for Regeni’s murder, a number of Egyptian columnists who had formerly been generally supportive of the government began expressing suspicion that the state’s security establishment was involved in Regeni’s abuse and demise. In Italy, public opinion was openly and overwhelmingly convinced of that link, resulting in quite strained relations between Rome and Cairo.

In a country where police brutality had been an energizing factor in the 2011 uprising, a nerve had again been struck in Egypt. For many years, rights organizations inside and outside Egypt, such as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, have highlighted the need for security sector reform. The lack of transparency in the handling of the Regeni case by the authorities further eroded the government-media relationship.
This latest crisis erupted over a couple of uninhabited islands in the Red Sea
But it was Sisi's decision to transfer control of two islands to Saudi Arabia — and the surge of nationalistic sentiment and anger that followed — that sparked the current crisis.

The sovereignty of these two uninhabited islands, located in the Red Sea between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, had been disputed by the two countries but had been under Egyptian control for decades. Then, during a five-day visit by the Saudi king to Egypt in mid-April, Sisi suddenly announced he was handing the islands over to Saudi control following negotiations.

Those discussions, however, had been wholly out of the public eye, and the public — including many in the media — reacted with shock and outrage at the abrupt news that the islands had been seemingly summarily handed over. Several thousand protesters took to the streets across Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt for several weeks. Egypt’s security services responded to the protests the way they often do: with tear gas and arrests.

Then on April 30, an Egyptian court issued a media gag order on cases of protesters arrested in demonstrations over the transfer of the islands, further angering the media. The next day, two journalists who were vigorously opposed to Sisi’s decision over the islands held a sit-in in the Journalists Syndicate headquarters — an establishment that many believed, with good reason, to be off-limits to the state’s security forces.

That’s because professional syndicates in Egypt have historically been treated as more or less inviolate. Egypt’s constitution affirms the independence and democracy of each professional syndicate and states that "no intervention from administrative authorities in its affairs is permitted."

In February, for instance, the Doctors Syndicate held an impromptu demonstration against the state over police abuse of doctors. Despite a highly controversial protest law that makes legal public protest incredibly restricted, if not impossible, that demonstration did not meet a crackdown from security forces. Most assumed that was because the demonstration had taken place at the syndicate.
This time, however, things went differently. On May 1, Egyptian state security forces entered the Journalists Syndicate headquarters and arrested the two journalists — an unprecedented move in the 75-year tenure of the syndicate — accusing them of being involved in inciting illegal protests against the state.

The response from the journalist profession was swift and severe — drawing almost universal condemnation, with even state-owned newspapers publishing strongly worded editorials denouncing the Interior Ministry’s move against the syndicate.

Private newspapers like al-Dostour, which have hitherto been pro-Sisi, have run headlines such as, "Disaster lies in state policy of running the country with a security mind-set." Journalists came out in force and tried to assemble at the syndicate.
On May 4, a day after World Press Freedom Day, the Journalists Syndicate publicly adopted a number of resolutions calling for, among other things, the dismissal of the state’s interior minister, an apology from the president, the release of all journalists from imprisonment for publication crimes, and a general conference to discuss a general strike by all journalists.

By any standard, the declaration was a daring one.

The Interior Ministry in 2013, following the toppling of Morsi from power, had managed to somewhat rehabilitate itself — it openly sided against the Muslim Brotherhood, which was eventually banned as a terrorist organization by the Egyptian state, and many within the pro-state media establishment declared the ministry as having learned its lesson post-2011.

Police brutality and the need for security sector reform, after all, were two of the most animating demands of the 2011 revolutionary uprising.

Today, the Interior Ministry is being mocked across the media spectrum — for no less than having mistakenly leaked its media strategy to journalists via normal press release email lists.

The strategy revealed that the ministry expected there would be "a strong campaign" by the media in solidarity with the syndicate and in defense of press freedoms, and that the ministry would try to gain public support by claiming the syndicate sought to be "above the law" and that it was "hiding criminals." The leaked strategy was widely spread over social media, and journalists and citizens alike mocked, and attacked, the ministry for its approach.

On May 6, the ministry declared that it would no longer email press releases (probably a good call), and that all communication with the media would happen via social media channels like Twitter and Facebook — presumably to stop such a mistake from happening again. It also imposed a "media gag" on discussions of the incursion into the syndicate, pending investigations.

The gag was roundly ignored.

A sign of rising discontent with Sisi?

The momentum behind this crisis has not yet run its course — and it’s unclear where it’s headed. There is little evidence to suggest a repeat of the kind of widespread mobilization we saw back in 2011, as the opposition to state authorities is fragmented, and there does not appear to be sufficient appetite for any upheaval, particularly after such a tumultuous period as the one after the downfall of Mubarak.

At the same time, though, there is growing dissent over the security sector as well as, crucially, the economy. The same issues that led to the revolutionary uprising of 2011 remain, and have intensified.

Egypt’s police and other security agencies have been in need of major, serious reform for years — under Sisi as well as all his predecessors in living memory. The issue is not a new one, but it requires political will, which as yet has not been forthcoming.
There has been no suggestion from Sisi that this is about to change — on the contrary, Sisi has been vigorous in his support of the security establishment, identifying problems as evidence of isolated occurrences rather than as systemic issues.

Egypt continues to face a number of substantial security problems, including a stubborn ISIS presence in the Sinai, as well as radical militant elements manifesting in other parts of the country. The security establishment is vested with the responsibility to respond to those challenges, and no other sector is able to replace it.

But as the challenges continue, and especially if they intensify, the need for the security forces to engage constructively, rather than counterproductively, increases. Recommendations to engage with different strategies in the Sinai, for example, have come from a slew of quarters — including Cairo’s allies.

Abjuring certain fundamental freedoms, including the independence of the press, on the altar of "security" is not a recipe for sustainable stability. One need only think back to 2010, when Mubarak’s regime made that same mistake, leading to the revolutionary uprising in 2011.

The Egyptian state under the Sisi presidency isn’t as cohesive as the Mubarak regime was, but the buck does stop at the presidency. By any realistic assessment, the long-term health of the state depends not on repudiating the need for security sector reform but on making it a priority.

If such a step continues to be ignored, as part of a wider course correction within the state, then the crisis with the Journalists Syndicate is only likely to be one of many more to come.

Bring Back the USIA, and Defeat ISIS

James K. Glassman

From the mountains of Colorado (Aspen Institute) to the canyons of New York (Tony Blair-Leon Panetta Commission) to the conference rooms of Washington (Homeland Security Advisory Council) to various get-togethers at CENTCOM and the State Department.

Intense concern about constraining ISIS on the Internet – the objective of all these conclaves – is certainly justified, and good ideas abound. The problem is that it’s doubtful we’ll succeed until we’ve got the right structure in place. I am not someone who believes that the proper bureaucratic set-up solves all problems, but it’s evident that you can’t get anything accomplished until there is someone in charge who has responsibility, authority, resources, the backing of the president and clear objectives.
The current system provides exactly none of these.

In 2006, President George W. Bush issued an executive order that gave the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs – then, Karen Hughes, and shortly thereafter, me – the “interagency lead” for strategic communications, mainly directed at Al Qaeda. The order didn’t mean that I could tell the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency what to do, but it did mean that I could take the lead in coordinating the efforts of all government agencies in non-violent efforts against terrorism.

I had the support of the President, National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, and, of course, my immediate boss, Condoleezza Rice. They understood that we couldn’t defeat terrorism without engaging the current destructive ideology through a war of ideas. We had little in the way of resources – though DoD chipped in – but we built a structure that was working.

In the great tradition of administration succession, however, the new leaders at the State Department and the White House dismantled what we had, then spent the next seven years rebuilding it.

But in order to build a soft-power infrastructure that lasts, I’m afraid it’s time to do something I rejected out of hand when I served on the Djerejian Commission in 2003: that is, resurrect the United States Information Agency.

Well, not exactly the USIA. What we need is smaller and more agile than the institution that played a critical role in defeating communism in the Cold War. This new USIA needs to make use of the huge capacity of the private sector to develop and disseminate narratives.

USIA met its demise in 1999 after years of having its funding remorsely reduced. Its functions were merged into the office that I later ran at State, but public affairs officers at the embassies reported to geographic bureaus. What public diplomacy lacked, as a result, was an esprit de corps, a feeling of purpose, and a decent budget. My guess is that all of those things could reemerge in a revived USIA because the simple formation of the new agency would provide drama and focus.

The new agency would need a chief with the confidence of the president – like Edward R. Murrow under Kennedy or Charles Z. Wick under Reagan – and the funds to conduct serious research and to contract with people who know how political theory, regional history and sociology, policy development, and the ability to communicate.

If such an agency existed today, its first assignment should be to mount a ferocious campaign to deter future recruits to ISIS. How? By showing impressionable young people the truth about being an ISIS fighter (or “wife”) through the testimony of former ISIS members who managed to get away. Not three or four videos posted on YouTube but hundreds, distributed through dozens of social media channels.

The agency would also have to work with our military and its allies to grab ISIS deserters when they leave Syria, Iraq, or Libya and, rather than putting them on trial, letting them tell their stories directly to camera.

We also need to battle the ISIS ideology in the same way we battled communism: taking it seriously and ripping it to shreds. And we need to provide productive pathways for potential ISIS recruits to travel – alternatives to violence as a way to find meaning in their lives.

But it all starts with will – and structure. One of the reasons that so many smart people are holding conferences about how to defeat ISIS on the Internet is the fear that the next attack on the U.S. is right around the corner. That may be true. But what we’ve learned from the dismantling of the USIA is that using soft power to achieve national-security ends is not an on-again, off-again endeavor. It needs to be sustained over long periods with significant investment. The Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians have already figured this out. We should too.

Jerusalem Day And Ramadan On The Same Evening – A Recipe For Conflict?

theyeshivaworld

Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim) is marked by a grand parade, the Flag Parade from town center that converges on the Kosel Plaza marking the liberation of the city from Jordanian occupation in 1967.

This year, that event falls on the first evening of Ramadan and the Ir Amim (עיר עמים) organization has already requested that police prohibit the Jerusalem Day marchers from using their regular route via the so-called Muslim Quarter of the city. The organization in its letter explains that if Jews carrying flags pass through as Muslims head to evening prayers conflict is certain and such a situation must be avoided.
The parade has become an annual tradition for tens of thousands, who march while singing and dancing as they head to the Old City from city center, culminating at the Kosel. There have been incidents and skirmishes in recent years as marchers passed through the Muslim Quarter streets. Adding to Israel Police’s headaches is the timing, that this coincides with Ramadan this year. Officials have yet to respond to Ir Amim’s letter.

According to Ir Amim, “the parade is characterized by racist behavior and any violent encounter between Jews and Muslim might lead to an explosion”. In addition, the organization cites the logistical reality of the narrow streets in the Muslim Quarter and the simple fact there will not be sufficient room.

Jerusalem City Hall has announced the Flag Parade is not a local city event and therefore the decision must be made by Israel Police and not City Hall.

Why the media will lift Trump up and tear Clinton down

David Roberts

It now seems all but certain that the presidential election will see Donald Trump face off against Hillary Clinton.

We find ourselves at the tail end of a brief period of clarity. For the past few months, virtually everyone outside of the 40 percent of Republican primary voters who carried him to victory has agreed that Trump is not fit to be president.

Marco Rubio called him a "con man." Mitt Romney called him "a phony, a fraud." Cruz called him an "amoral pathological liar" and said if he is elected "this country could well plunge into the abyss." Lindsey Graham said Trump would lead to "another 9/11." David Brooks called him "epically unprepared to be president." George Will said that "his running mate will be unqualified for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified." The house organ of conservatism, National Review, condemned him in florid terms. A Super PAC was created just to stop him.

As Cost emphasizes, the issue here is not (merely) ideological — it's about basic fitness and competence. A man with Trump's temperament and habits could do real, lasting, no-joke damage as the leader of the free world.

Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws, has demonstrated a basic level of competence. She understands how policy and government work. She's not openly racist; she hasn't encouraged street violence. There's no risk that she would disrupt the international order or cause an economic crisis out of pique.

That's a really, really low bar. But it's the only bar she has to clear in this contest. Almost irrespective of what you think of Clinton's politics or her policies, she is manifestly more prepared to run the federal government than Donald Trump.
The number of people who recognize this elemental fact about the election, however, has probably already reached and passed its peak. It will decline from here on out. The moment of clarity is already ending.

The political ecosystem needs two balanced parties to survive

Why is clarity passing? Because it appears Trump is actually going to be the Republican nominee. It's really happening. And the US political ecosystem — media, consultants, power brokers, think tanks, foundations, officeholders, the whole thick network of institutions and individuals involved in national politics — cannot deal with a presidential election in which one candidate is obviously and uncontroversially the superior (if not sole acceptable) choice. The machine is simply not built to handle a race that's over before it's begun.

There are entire classes of professionals whose jobs are premised on the model of two roughly equal sides, clashing endlessly. The Dance of Two Parties sustains the consultants and activists.

Paul Mitchell ‏@paulmitche11 That giant clicking sound is 10,000 Republican consultants and activists deleting their #NeverTrump tweets.

Dana Bash Verified account ‏@DanaBashCNN Trump campaign now being flooded with offers from seasoned operatives to help the campaign, Rick Wiley tells me.
It sustains the party hacks and grifters.

Reince Priebus Verified account ‏@Reince.@realDonaldTrump will be presumptive @GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton #NeverClinton

Fox News ✔ ‎@FoxNews.@newtgingrich: "@realDonaldTrump may turn out to be the most effective, anti-left leader in our lifetime." #Hannity

Ari Fleischer ✔ ‎@AriFleischer There's a lot about Donald Trump that I don't like, but I'll vote for Trump over Hillary any day.

Sean Hannity ✔ ‎@seanhannity.@BobbyJindal: "Today we have got two choices. It's either @realDonaldTrump or @HillaryClinton." #Hannity
And it sustains the media, which is what I want to discuss below.

Among all these classes of professionals, all these institutions, that whole superstructure of US politics built around two balanced sides, there will be a tidal pull to normalize this election, to make it Coca-Cola versus Pepsi instead of Coca-Cola versus sewer water.

The US political system knows how to play the former script; it doesn't know how to play the latter. There's a whole skein of practices, relationships, and money flows developed around the former. The latter would occasion a reappraisal of, well, everything. Scary.

So there will be a push to lift Donald Trump up and bring Hillary Clinton down, until they are at least something approximating two equivalent
choices...........................The campaign press requires, for its ongoing health and advertising revenue, a real race. It needs controversies. "Donald Trump is not fit to be president" may be the accurate answer to pretty much every relevant question about the race, but it's not an interesting answer. It's too final, too settled. No one wants to click on it.

What's more, the campaign media's self-image is built on not being partisan, which precludes adjudicating political disputes.

How does that even work if one side is offering up a flawed centrist and the other is offering up a vulgar xenophobic demagogue?..................

Report this

AMERICANS ON MUSLIMS IMMIGRATING TO USA

“We have to be careful. We’re allowing thousands of people to come into our country, thousands and thousands of people being placed all over the country that frankly nobody knows who they are. They don’t have documentation in many cases. In most cases. We don’t know what we’re doing. Let’s see what happens. This could be a very serious problem for the future,” -Trump.

Despite facing a substantial media backlash after he made the comments in December last year, polls taken immediately after the remarks showed that a majority of Americans supported a temporary ban on Muslim immigration.
How do voters feel about Trump’s proposal?

Fox News poll (Dec. 18, 2015 ) found 50 percent of voters favor Trump’s ban, while 46 percent are opposed.

However, when Trump’s name is removed from the question, support for the plan goes up five points and opposition goes down six: 55 percent favor the unnamed proposal, while 40 percent oppose it.

So while voters favor the “Trump” ban by a 4-point margin -- that increases to 15 points when the same ban is not associated with Trump.

EAST AFRICA: Anthrax Plot Signed By "Daesh"

Joshua Meservey

Kenyan police announced this week that they had arrested a man interning at a Kenyan hospital who was planning a major anthrax attack on the country. Police in neighboring Uganda arrested two alleged accomplices, and Kenyan police are still searching for two others they claim were involved in the plot.

Authorities believe the man, Mohammed Abdi Ali, is part of an Islamic State-linked East African terror network that has been radicalizing East Africans and facilitating their travel to Libya, Iraq, and Syria, where the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is most active.

Not enough information has been released to determine how serious the plot was. There have been no reports that any anthrax was recovered, and it is unclear if Ali had access to the dangerous substance. We also do not know how strong his links were to ISIS. Moroccan authorities have warned previously that ISIS is trying to build biological weapons , as well as launch a chemical attack in Europe as it has already done in Iraq and Syria.

Whatever the true story, ISIS does have alarming influence in Kenya and other East African countries. Kenyan authorities estimate that at least 20 Kenyans, many of them university students, have gone to fight for ISIS. Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, and almost certainly other East African countries have had citizens leave for ISIS as well.
ISIS also developed official support in East Africa for the first time late last year. Abdiqadir Mumin, a senior official in al-Shabaab—a prominent al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist group in Somalia that has networks throughout East Africa—and 20 of his followers declared allegiance to ISIS in October 2015.

Alarmingly, a former senior Somali intelligence official claims that the number of ISIS fighters has swelled since then to 150 today, and says they are receiving weapons and supplies from ISIS through nearby Yemen.

There have been other signs of ISIS’ presence in the region. In April, ISIS claimed its first attack in Somalia—a bombing of a vehicle belonging to the peacekeeping mission in the country. Two weeks later, it claimed a second attack, this time on Somali government troops. Also in April, a different group calling itself “Jahba East Africa” pledged itself to ISIS. Nothing has been heard from it since, however, so it may exist in little more than name only at the moment.

ISIS still faces significant hurdles in Somalia. The Somali government claims its commandos recently overran an ISIS training camp in southern Somalia. Al-Shabaab also remains entrenched in the country, and ISIS’ repeated overtures to al-Shabaab to forsake its affiliation with al-Qaeda and join ISIS have been rebuffed. In fact, al-Shabaab has hunted down and killed a number of its fighters who were agitating for the group to switch allegiances. It appears the pro-ISIS faction inside al-Shabaab is mostly comprised of younger fighters, while the older leadership, including al-Shabaab’s emir, Ahmad Umar, is determined for now to remain in the al-Qaeda fold.
Al-Shabaab could shift allegiances if it believed ISIS was a better deal, but that is unlikely at the moment. The group would probably have made the jump earlier if it was going to, when ISIS was at its zenith rather than now when it is suffering setbacks in Iraq and Syria. The war in Yemen has also revived al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, historically al-Shabaab’s strongest link to al-Qaeda, giving the Somali terrorists even more incentive to remain with al-Qaeda.

ISIS’ apparent growing strength in East Africa is of deep concern whether or not al-Shabaab switches over. ISIS’ presence likely portends increased radicalization and more terrorist attacks in a fragile region already unable to suppress al-Shabaab’s violence. The war against terrorism in East Africa may well be entering an even deadlier phase.

DAESH: IN MECCA?

JP 

According to the report, the Saudi police, in collaboration with the Kingdom's security forces, besieged Wadi Numan, a Mecca suburb, where a group of five ISIS fighters had been hiding.

The Saudi security forces captured Thursday morning an ISIS cell on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca, Jawal Watani, a prominent Saudi news page on Twitter reported.

According to the report, the Saudi police, in collaboration with the Kingdom's security forces, besieged Wadi Numan, a Mecca suburb, where a group of five ISIS fighters had been hiding.

Saudi security forces deployed helicopters to back up forces on the ground, fearing that the terrorists, refusing to hand themselves over to the police, would throw bombs on them.

During the operation, two ISIS fighters were killed by security forces, while two others committed suicide.

According to Saudi sources, the cell busted was preparing to attack a base of the emergency forces, located five kilometers from where the ISIS fighters resided.

The operation came shortly after the Saudi security forces arrested Ukab Atibi, a member of the ISIS cell that had carried out a suicide attack on a mosque used by members of a local security force in southwest Saudi Arabia in August 2015.