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History > 2015 > USA > International (I)
3 U.S. Defeats:
Vietnam, Iraq and Now Iran
AUG. 7, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist
David Brooks
The purpose of war, military or economic, is to get your enemy to
do something it would rather not do. Over the past several years the United
States and other Western powers have engaged in an economic, clandestine and
political war against Iran to force it to give up its nuclear program.
Over the course of this siege, American policy makers have been very explicit
about their goals. Foremost, to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
Second, as John Kerry has said, to force it to dismantle a large part of its
nuclear infrastructure. Third, to take away its power to enrich uranium.
Fourth, as President Obama has said, to close the Fordo
enrichment facility. Fifth, as the chief American negotiator, Wendy Sherman,
recently testified, to force Iran to come clean on all past nuclear activities
by the Iranian military. Sixth, to shut down Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Seventh, to have “anywhere, anytime 24/7” access to any nuclear facilities Iran
retains. Eighth, as Kerry put it, to not phase down sanctions until after Iran
ends its nuclear bomb-making capabilities.
As a report from the Foreign Policy Initiative exhaustively details, the U.S.
has not fully achieved any of these objectives. The agreement delays but does
not end Iran’s nuclear program. It legitimizes Iran’s status as a nuclear state.
Iran will mothball some of its centrifuges, but it will not dismantle or close
any of its nuclear facilities. Nuclear research and development will continue.
Iran wins the right to enrich uranium. The agreement does not include “anywhere,
anytime” inspections; some inspections would require a 24-day waiting period,
giving the Iranians plenty of time to clean things up. After eight years, all
restrictions on ballistic missiles are lifted. Sanctions are lifted once Iran
has taken its initial actions.
Wars, military or economic, are measured by whether you achieved your stated
objectives. By this standard the U.S. and its allies lost the war against Iran,
but we were able to negotiate terms that gave only our partial surrender, which
forces Iran to at least delay its victory. There have now been three big U.S.
strategic defeats over the past several decades: Vietnam, Iraq and now Iran.
The big question is, Why did we lose? Why did the combined powers of the Western
world lose to a ragtag regime with a crippled economy and without much popular
support?
The first big answer is that the Iranians just wanted victory more than we did.
They were willing to withstand the kind of punishment we were prepared to mete
out.
Further, the Iranians were confident in their power, while the Obama
administration emphasized the limits of America’s ability to influence other
nations. It’s striking how little President Obama thought of the tools at his
disposal. He effectively took the military option off the table. He didn’t
believe much in economic sanctions. “Nothing we know about the Iranian
government suggests that it would simply capitulate under that kind of
pressure,” he argued.
The president concluded early on that Iran would simply not budge on fundamental
things. As he argued in his highhanded and counterproductive speech Wednesday,
Iran was never going to compromise its sovereignty (which is the whole point of
military or economic warfare).
The president hoped that a deal would change the moral nature of the regime, so
he had an extra incentive to reach a deal. And the Western, Russian and Chinese
sanctions regime was fragile while the Iranians were able to hang together.
This administration has given us a choice between two terrible options: accept
the partial-surrender agreement that was negotiated or reject it and slide
immediately into what is in effect our total surrender — a collapsed sanctions
regime and a booming Iranian nuclear program.
Many members of Congress will be tempted to accept the terms of our partial
surrender as the least bad option in the wake of our defeat. I get that. But in
voting for this deal they may be affixing their names to an arrangement that
will increase the chance of more comprehensive war further down the road.
Iran is a fanatical, hegemonic, hate-filled regime. If you think its radicalism
is going to be softened by a few global trade opportunities, you really haven’t
been paying attention to the Middle East over the past four decades.
Iran will use its $150 billion windfall to spread terror around the region and
exert its power. It will incrementally but dangerously cheat on the accord.
Armed with money, ballistic weapons and an eventual nuclear breakout, it will
become more aggressive. As the end of the nuclear delay comes into view, the
45th or 46th president will decide that action must be taken.
Economic and political defeats can be as bad as military ones. Sometimes when
you surrender to a tyranny you lay the groundwork for a more cataclysmic
conflict to come.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 7, 2015, on
page A27 of the New York edition with the headline: Iran, the Third Defeat.
3 U.S. Defeats: Vietnam, Iraq and Now Iran,
NYT,
AUGUST 7, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/opinion/
david-brooks-3-us-defeats-vietnam-iraq-and-now-iran.html
Deal Reached on Iran Nuclear Program;
Limits on Fuel Would Lessen With Time
JULY 14, 2015
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
and DAVID E. SANGER
VIENNA — Iran and a group of six nations led by the United States
reached a historic accord on Tuesday to significantly limit Tehran’s nuclear
ability for more than a decade in return for lifting international oil and
financial sanctions.
The deal culminates 20 months of negotiations on an agreement that President
Obama had long sought as the biggest diplomatic achievement of his presidency.
Whether it portends a new relationship between the United States and Iran —
after decades of coups, hostage-taking, terrorism and sanctions — remains a
bigger question.
Mr. Obama, in an early morning appearance at the White House that was broadcast
live in Iran, began what promised to be an arduous effort to sell the deal to
Congress and the American public, saying the agreement is “not built on trust —
it is built on verification.”
He made it abundantly clear he would fight to preserve the deal from critics in
Congress who are beginning a 60-day review, declaring, “I will veto any
legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal.”
Almost as soon as the agreement was announced, to cheers in Vienna and on the
streets of Tehran, its harshest critics said it would ultimately empower Iran
rather than limit its capability. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,
called it a “historic mistake” that would create a “terrorist nuclear
superpower.”
A review of the 109-page text of the agreement, which includes five annexes,
showed that the United States preserved — and in some cases extended — the
nuclear restrictions it sketched out with Iran in early April in Lausanne,
Switzerland.
Yet, it left open areas that are sure to raise fierce objections in Congress. It
preserves Iran’s ability to produce as much nuclear fuel as it wishes after year
15 of the agreement, and allows it to conduct research on advanced centrifuges
after the eighth year. Moreover, the Iranians won the eventual lifting of an
embargo on the import and export of conventional arms and ballistic missiles — a
step the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E.
Dempsey, warned about just last week.
American officials said the core of the agreement, secured in 18 consecutive
days of talks here, lies in the restrictions on the amount of nuclear fuel that
Iran can keep for the next 15 years. The current stockpile of low enriched
uranium will be reduced by 98 percent, most likely by shipping much of it to
Russia.
That limit, combined with a two-thirds reduction in the number of its
centrifuges, would extend to a year the amount of time it would take Iran to
make enough material for a single bomb should it abandon the accord and race for
a weapon — what officials call “breakout time.” By comparison, analysts say Iran
now has a breakout time of two to three months.
But American officials also acknowledged that after the first decade, the
breakout time would begin to shrink. It was unclear how rapidly, because Iran’s
longer-term plans to expand its enrichment capability will be kept confidential.
The concern that Iran’s breakout time could shrink sharply in the waning years
of the restrictions has already been a contentious issue in Congress. Mr. Obama
contributed to that in an interview with National Public Radio in April, when he
said that in “year 13, 14, 15” of the agreement, the breakout time might shrink
“almost down to zero,” as Iran is expected to develop and use advanced
centrifuges then.
Pressed on that point, an American official who briefed reporters on Tuesday
said that Iran’s long-term plans to expand its enrichment capability would be
shared with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other parties to the
accord.
“It is going to be a gradual decline,” the official said. “At the end of, say,
15 years, we are not going to know what that is.” But clearly there are
intelligence agency estimates, and one diplomat involved in the talks said that
internal estimates suggested Iran’s breakout time could shrink to about five
months in year 14 of the plan.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who led the negotiations for the United States in
the final rounds, sought in his remarks Tuesday to blunt criticism on this
point. “Iran will not produce or acquire highly enriched uranium” or plutonium
for at least 15 years, he said. Verification measures, he added, will “stay in
place permanently.”
He stressed that Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency had “entered
into an agreement to address all questions” about Iran’s past actions within
three months, and that completing this task was “fundamental for sanctions
relief.”
Compared with many past efforts to slow a nation’s nuclear program — including a
deal struck with North Korea 20 years ago — this agreement is remarkably
specific. Nevertheless, some mysteries remain. For example, it is not clear
whether the inspectors would be able to interview the scientists and engineers
who were believed to have been at the center of an effort by the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps to design a weapon that Iran could manufacture in
short order.
In building his argument for the deal, Mr. Obama stressed that the accord was
vastly preferable to the alternate scenario: no agreement and an unbridled
nuclear arms race in the Middle East. “Put simply, no deal means a greater
chance of more war in the Middle East,” he said. He said his successors in the
White House “will be in a far stronger position” to restrain Iran for decades to
come than they would be without the pact.
In an interview Tuesday with Thomas L. Friedman, an Op-Ed columnist with The New
York Times, Mr. Obama also answered Mr. Netanyahu and other critics who, he
said, would prefer that the Iranians “don’t even have any nuclear capacity.” Mr.
Obama said, “But really, what that involves is eliminating the presence of
knowledge inside of Iran.” Since that is not realistic, the president added,
“The question is, Do we have the kind of inspection regime and safeguards and
international consensus whereby it’s not worth it for them to do it? We have
accomplished that.”
As news of a nuclear deal spread, Iranians reacted with a mix of jubilation,
cautious optimism and disbelief that decades of a seemingly intractable conflict
could be coming to an end.
“Have they really reached a deal?” asked Masoud Derakhshani, a 93-year-old
widower who had come down to the lobby of his apartment building for his daily
newspaper. Mr. Derakhshani remained cautious, even incredulous. “I can’t believe
it,” he said. “They will most probably hit some last-minute snag.”
Across Tehran, many Iranians expressed hope for better economic times after
years in which crippling sanctions have severely depressed the value of the
national currency, the rial. That in turn caused inflation and shortages of
goods, including vital medicines, and forced Iranians to carry fat wads of bank
notes to pay for everyday items such as meat, rice and beans.
“I am desperate to feed my three sons,” said Ali, 53, a cleaner. “This deal
should bring investment for jobs so they can start working for a living.”
National dignity, a major demand of Iran’s leader, did not matter to him, he
said. “I really do not care if this is a victory for us or not,” he said. “I
want relations with the West. If we compromised, so be it.”
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, who was elected in 2013 on a platform of
ridding the country of the sanctions, said that the Iranian people’s “prayers
have come true.”
One of the last, and most contentious, issues was the question of whether and
how fast an arms embargo on conventional weapons and missiles, imposed starting
in 2006, would be lifted.
After days of haggling, Secretary of State Kerry and his Iranian counterpart,
Mohammad Javad Zarif, agreed that the missile restrictions would remain for
eight years and that a similar ban on the purchase and sale of conventional
weapons would be removed in five years.
Those bans would be removed even sooner if the International Atomic Energy
Agency reached a definitive conclusion that the Iranian nuclear program is
entirely peaceful, and that there was no evidence of cheating on the accord or
any activity to obtain weapons covertly.
The provisions on the arms embargo are expected to dominate the coming debate in
Congress on the accord.
Even before the deal was announced, critics expressed fears that Iran would use
some of the billions of dollars it will receive after sanctions relief to build
up its military power. Iranian officials, however, have said that Iran should be
treated like any other nation, and not be subjected to an arms embargo if it
meets the terms of a nuclear deal.
Defending the outcome, Mr. Kerry told reporters here that China and Russia had
favored lifting the entire arms embargo immediately, suggesting he had no choice
but to try to strike a middle ground.
Mr. Kerry appeared to secure another commitment that was not part of a
preliminary agreement negotiated in Lausanne. Iranian officials agreed here on a
multiyear ban on designing warheads and conducting tests, including with
detonators and nuclear triggers, that would contribute to the design and
manufacture of a nuclear weapon. Accusations that Tehran conducted that kind of
research in the past led to a standoff with inspectors.
Diplomats also came up with unusual procedure to “snap back” the sanctions
against Iran if an eight-member panel determines that Tehran is violating the
nuclear provisions. The members of the panel are Britain, China, France,
Germany, Russia, the United States, the European Union and Iran itself. A
majority vote is required, meaning that Russia, China and Iran could not
collectively block action.
With the announcement of the accord, Mr. Obama has now made major strides toward
fundamentally changing the American diplomatic relationships with three nations:
Cuba, Iran and Myanmar. Of the three, Iran is the most strategically important,
the only one with a nuclear program, and it is still on the State Department’s
list of state sponsors of terrorism.
While the agreement faces heavy opposition from Republicans in Congress, and
even some Democrats, Mr. Obama’s chances of prevailing are considered high. Even
if the accord is voted down by one or both houses, he could veto that action,
and he is likely to have the votes he would need to override the veto. But he
has told aides that for an accord as important as this one — which he hopes will
usher in a virtual truce with a country that has been a major American adversary
for 35 years — he wants a congressional endorsement.
Mr. Obama will also have to manage the breach with Mr. Netanyahu and the leaders
of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states who have warned against the deal, saying
the relief of sanctions will ultimately empower the Iranians throughout the
Middle East.
Thomas Erdbrink contributed reporting from Iran, Dan Bilefsky from London, and
Gardiner Harris from Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on July 15, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: World Leaders Strike Agreement With Iran to
Curb Nuclear Ability and Lift Sanctions.
Deal Reached on Iran Nuclear Program
Limits on Fuel Would Lessen With Time, NYT, JULY 14, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/
iran-nuclear-deal-is-reached-after-long-negotiations.html
Terrorist Attacks
in France, Tunisia and Kuwait
Kill Dozens
JUNE 26, 2015
The New York Times
By BEN HUBBARD
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a matter of hours and on three different
continents, militants carried out attacks on Friday that killed scores of
civilians, horrified populations and raised thorny questions about the evolving
nature of international terrorism and what can be done to fight it.
On the surface, the attacks appeared to be linked only by timing.
In France, a man stormed an American-owned chemical plant, decapitated one
person and apparently tried to blow up the facility. In Tunisia, a gunman drew
an assault rifle from a beach umbrella and killed at least 38 people at a
seaside resort. And in Kuwait, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque
during communal prayers, killing at least 25 Shiite worshipers.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks in Tunisia and
Kuwait, according to statements on Twitter. But it almost did not matter for
terrorism’s global implications whether the three attacks were coordinated. Each
in a different way underlined the difficulties of anticipating threats and
protecting civilians from small-scale terrorist actions, whether in a mosque, at
work or at the beach.
The attacks occurred at a time of fast evolution for the world’s most dangerous
terrorist organizations, which continue to find ways to strike and spread their
ideology despite more than a decade of costly efforts by the United States and
others to kill their leaders and deny them sanctuary.
The United States has killed leaders of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Yemen and
elsewhere, but the group has maintained a string of branches and melded itself
into local insurgencies. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has
worked on two levels, seeking to build its self-declared caliphate on captured
territory in Iraq and Syria while inciting attacks abroad.
Fueling that expansion are civil wars and the collapse of state structures in
Arab countries from Libya to Yemen that have opened up ungoverned spaces where
jihadists thrive, while social media has given extremists a global megaphone to
spread their message.
While officials in the three countries investigated the attacks, many noted that
leaders of the Islamic State have repeatedly called for sympathizers to kill and
sow mayhem at home.
Earlier this week, the spokesman for the Islamic State, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani,
greeted the group’s followers for Ramadan, telling them that acts during the
Muslim holy month earned greater rewards in heaven.
“Muslims, embark and hasten toward jihad,” Mr. Adnani said in an audio message.
“O mujahedeen everywhere, rush and go to make Ramadan a month of disasters for
the infidels.”
The attacks targeted each country in a particularly sensitive spot.
Tunisia, widely hailed as the sole success of the Arab Spring uprisings that
began more than four years ago, suffered a sharp blow to its tourism sector, a
pillar of the local economy.
The bombing in Kuwait followed the pattern of similar attacks on Shiite mosques
in Saudi Arabia and was aimed at sowing sectarian divisions in a country where
Sunnis and Shiites serve together in top government bodies and open friction
between the sects is uncommon.
The motivation behind the attack in France was less clear, although the
beheading suggested that the perpetrator had at least been inspired by the
Islamic State, which frequently propagandizes similar killings in the
territories it occupies.
And because the day’s events appeared to bear some of the infamous hallmarks of
the Islamic State and its supporters, some analysts speculated that the attacks
had been timed to mark the first anniversary of its declaration of a caliphate.
Even if that is not the case, the SITE intelligence Group, which tracks
extremist propaganda, said the attacks inspired “celebration from Twitter
accounts of Jihadi fighters and supporters of the Islamic State.”
Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said “We
have entered a new jihadist era,” adding that the Islamic State had used its
international brand to establish sleeper cells abroad, whose actions were meant
to advance its efforts to build a state.
“Everything in the end serves the purpose of strengthening the project of the
Islamic State,” she said.
United States intelligence and counterterrorism officials were scrambling Friday
to assess the connections, if any, between the attacks in France, Kuwait and
Tunisia. Officials said that if the assessment found that the attacks were
linked, officials would seek to determine whether the Islamic State had actively
directed, coordinated or inspired them.
Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, condemned the attacks, which he called
“heinous.” But there was no word yet on whether they were coordinated, he said.
“We just don’t know yet.”
In claiming the Kuwait attack, the Islamic State called the suicide bomber “one
of the knights of the Sunni people” and lauded him for killing Shiites, who are
considered apostates in the group’s hard interpretation of Islam.
The assault resembled others launched by the Islamic State recently on Shiite
mosques in neighboring Saudi Arabia, prompting many to believe that the militant
group is seeking to set off a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites.
Some Kuwaitis said that with sectarian tensions rising across the
region, it was only a matter of time before they reached Kuwait.
“Ever since I heard about Qatif and the Shiite mosques there, I
just had this feeling that we were next,” said Bodour Behbehani, a Shiite
graduate student in Kuwait City, recalling a mosque bombing last month near
Qatif, a city in Saudi Arabia.
The American war on terrorism has taken many forms over the years. But the
spread of such small-scale attacks highlighted what even American officials have
called a failure to win the ideological — or information — war that feeds
militancy and inspires recruits.
The challenge, analysts and government officials say, is to reorient a strategy
centered on combat to one that challenges extremist groups on all fronts
simultaneously: political, social, ideological and religious. A primary aim,
they say, should be to win the information war and undermine the appeal of
radical Islamist ideologies.
Such terrorist attacks have shattered the assumption that the Islamic State can
be confined to territories it controls in the Middle East, said Bruce Hoffman,
director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. Although
Western governments can work to monitor those who might be plotting attacks,
this will not solve their root cause.
“Chasing individuals is probably a fool’s errand given the geographically
disparate nature of the threat,” Dr. Hoffman said. “There comes a point where
you have to tackle the organization behind it.”
And monitoring has limits. The authorities in Tunisia said the gunman there was
a young Tunisian with no prior police record. The authorities in France said
that the attacker arrested there had connections to radical Islamists but that
surveillance of him stopped in 2008.
The Kuwaiti authorities did not identify the attacker in their country.
To fight the Islamic State, the United States has formed an international
coalition that is bombing its fighters and their bases in Iraq and Syria, a
process that President Obama has said seeks to degrade and destroy the group.
But while the group has lost many fighters and some territory, Friday’s attacks
demonstrated the continued power of the jihadist movement to inspire attacks
abroad by local actors.
It is an extraordinary coincidence that “all three attacks happened at the same
day and time,” said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism research fellow at New
America, a research organization in Washington. He said the attacks suggested
that the focus on taking territory from the Islamic State could make the United
States miss other ways it poses dangers.
“We can’t get attached to a single metric for understanding this organization,”
he said.
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Tampa, Fla.; Hwaida Saad from Beirut;
and Rick Gladstone from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Attacks on 3 Continents Expose Global
Hurdles in Terror Fight.
Terrorist Attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait Kill Dozens,
NYT, JUNE 26, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/world/middleeast/
terror-attacks-france-tunisia-kuwait.html
‘Defending the Faith’ in the Middle East
MAY 23, 2015
The New York Times
SundayReview | Opinion
By DAVID MOTADEL
CAMBRIDGE, England — THE last several months have brought a
dramatic escalation in conflict across the Middle East, almost all of it
involving tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims — which are in turn fueled
by a power struggle between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia for regional
supremacy.
Tehran runs a vast patronage network, backing Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Syria’s
Alawite regime, Yemen’s rebellious Zaydi Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq.
Under the umbrella of Shiite solidarity, Iran provides military aid and funds
industrial projects, madrasas, mosques and hospitals. And its leaders have
become more vocal about their aims, with President Hassan Rouhani proclaiming
himself protector of Iraq’s holy cities.
Even more aggressive is Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has sent planeloads of weapons
and millions of dollars to Sunni militants in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, many of
them Salafi extremists. In contrast to Tehran, Riyadh has no compunction about
deploying its army openly, as in 2011, when Saudi tanks rolled into Bahrain to
quell the pro-democracy rallies of the country’s Shiite majority, or during the
current Saudi-led aerial campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
And yet, as new and disturbing as these developments may appear, the linkage of
sectarian and secular interests is a return to the classic geopolitics of
religion in the Middle East. During the 18th and 19th centuries, great powers
presented themselves as protectors of specific religious groups to expand their
influence and provoke unrest and division in rival states. That does not mean
that the current developments are not alarming. But to fully understand them, we
need to understand the nature and history of such sectarian patronage systems.
Consider Imperial Russia’s claim to be the patron of Orthodox Christendom, a
claim mainly targeted at its major regional rival, the Ottoman Empire. Following
the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774, the Treaty of
Kutchuk Kainardji allowed Russia to represent Orthodox Christians in Ottoman
lands. Although the treaty gave the czar only the right to build an Orthodox
Church in Constantinople’s Galata quarter (which never happened), Russia used it
as a basis to declare patronage over all Orthodox Ottomans. Over the following
decades, it increasingly meddled in the sultan’s relations with his Orthodox
subjects, undermining Ottoman sovereignty.
Similarly, Imperial France claimed to be the patron of global Catholicism,
especially the Maronites of the Ottoman Levant. By the 19th century, Paris was
widely recognized as having the right to intervene on behalf of the sultan’s
Catholic subjects. “In the Orient, where the authority of men is measured by the
number of their clients, the development of our Catholic clientele is a national
interest for us,” wrote the French historian Ernest Lavisse. Paris even
intervened militarily on behalf of its Catholic clients: In 1860 Napoleon III
sent an expeditionary corps to the Levant to stop massacres of Maronite
Christians by Druse.
The most extensive patronage efforts, however, were made by the Ottomans. From
the reign of Abdul Hamid II in the 19th century, the Ottomans used their
self-professed status as the defenders of global Islam to advance their
influence into rival empires, from French North Africa to British India.
Interventions on behalf of religious clients frequently had bloody consequences,
most notably the Crimean War, pitting Russia against the British, French and
Ottomans. The conflict was triggered by Russia’s attempts to expand its control
over Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and its demand for patronage over
the churches and sacred places in the Holy Land, where the growing French
influence over Catholics threatened Russian hegemony.
During the war, all sides tried to stir up brethren in the enemy’s hinterlands.
The czar’s clerics called the Ottomans’ Orthodox population to arms, while the
Ottomans tried to incite Russia’s Muslims in the Crimean peninsula and in the
Caucasus. Although the responses were minimal, czarist officials accused Crimean
Muslims of collaboration, causing a massive wave of refugees to Ottoman lands.
The most spectacular efforts to employ the geopolitics of religion were made by
the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In 1914, the sheikh al-Islam, who oversaw
the empire’s religious affairs, issued five fatwas, translated into numerous
languages, urging Muslims in the British, French and Russian empires to revolt.
In some cases, Ottoman agents distributed not only Pan-Islamic pamphlets but
also rifles. At the same time, Russia tried to stir up the sultan’s Christian
minorities. While neither side was particularly successful, the calls became
excuses for targeting religious minorities across the region during and after
the war.
The politics of religion undermined the Westphalian order, based on the
principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time,
these policies subverted states, fueled divisions within them — and often ended
in violence.
This is also the case in the current conflict. Iran’s attempts to become the
global defender of Shiite Muslims and Saudi Arabia’s efforts to lead the Sunnis
have become central in their battle for mastery of the Middle East, transforming
the region’s international system from an order of states to an order of faiths.
While their rivalry can be traced back to the early days of Pahlavi Persia and
Saudi Arabia in the 1920s, its religious dimension came to the fore only after
the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79. The collapse of states across the Middle East
over the last decade unsettled the region’s sectarian status quo and led to a
sustained period of escalation.
We need to take the Middle East’s new religious protectorates seriously, but we
shouldn’t overrate the importance of transnational sectarian bonds. For Tehran
and Riyadh, such patronage mostly serves profane interests, while Sunni and
Shiite groups turn to them for help mostly because they are aware that they will
be receptive. On the ground, many of Tehran’s and Riyadh’s clients have their
own interests, which may diverge from those of their protectors.
The West has reacted aimlessly to this development, supporting Iran-backed
Shiite militias in Iraq while endorsing the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen. This
strategy may help establish a sort of regional status quo, but it simply manages
the problem without solving it.
To weaken the order of transnational sectarian protectorates in the region,
their underlying conflicts need to be resolved. The clients — Sunni or Shiite —
must be sensibly accommodated in their states’ power structures, which will
reduce the appeal of foreign patronage.
More important, the international community must prevent any further escalation
of the struggle between their main protectors, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Solving
these problems will not be easy. Religious protectorates have proven remarkably
persistent; yet they have also proven too dangerous to ignore.
David Motadel is a historian at the University of Cambridge and the author of
“Islam and Nazi Germany’s War.”
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A version of this op-ed appears in print on May 24, 2015, on page SR6 of the New
York edition with the headline: ‘Defending the Faith’ in the Middle East.
‘Defending the Faith’ in the Middle East,
NYT, MAY 23, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/opinion/sunday/
defending-the-faith-in-the-middle-east.html
King’s Absence at Meeting
Signals a Saudi-U.S. Marriage Adrift
MAY 11, 2015
The New York Times
By PETER BAKER
and MICHAEL D. SHEAR
WASHINGTON — The decision by King Salman of Saudi Arabia to skip
a summit meeting called by President Obama reflects a new reality for two
nations that for generations shared goals in the Middle East but that are now at
odds in fundamental ways.
Both countries insisted on Monday that the king’s absence was not a snub, even
as it was hard to ignore four powerful factors that have led to rising tensions
between the two nations: the administration’s pursuit of a nuclear accord with
Iran, the rise of the Islamic State in the region, the regional unrest that came
to be known as the Arab Spring and the transformation of world energy markets.
An American oil boom in particular has liberated the United States from its
dependence on Riyadh and changed a decades-long power dynamic.
To the extent that this week’s meetings of Persian Gulf leaders at the White
House and Camp David were intended to help smooth over those divisions, an
opportunity has slipped away. And the future looks even more complicated if the
two countries head down different paths toward their perceived security.
“There’s no question there have been differences. That’s been true for some
time,” said Philip Gordon, who stepped down a month ago as the White House
coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the gulf region. “The
relationship is not a sentimental one. We each have interests, and if we show
we’re willing to work with them on their core interests, they will show they’re
willing to do that with us.”
The question is whether each is willing. In the 70 years since Franklin D.
Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz, the relationship between the United States
and Saudi Arabia has been a complicated marriage of shared interests, clashing
values and cynical accommodations. The common denominator was a desire for
stability. But now the two sides define that differently.
For Mr. Obama, a diplomatic agreement with Iran curbing its nuclear program
offers the strongest chance of keeping conflict in the region from escalating.
For the Sunni-led Saudi government, the relaxation of sanctions in the proposed
deal would simply give Iran, a predominantly Shiite state, billions of dollars
to foment more instability around the region.
While the Americans and the Saudis are now cooperating to fight the Islamic
State, Riyadh wants more action to force out the government of President Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, while Mr. Obama has been reluctant to intervene. Similarly,
while Mr. Obama has portrayed the drive for greater democracy in the region as a
force for good, the Saudis see the still simmering Arab Spring movement as a
threat to their hold on power.
In the midst of all that, the politics of energy have shifted along with the
surge in oil production in North Dakota and Texas. No longer so dependent on
foreign crude, the United States can flex muscles without worrying about the
Saudis cutting its energy supply. Yet Washington still relies on Riyadh to keep
the price of oil low to pressure Russia’s energy-based economy in the standoff
over Ukraine.
Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, said that
differences were to be expected between two countries with varied interests but
that those did not undermine the broader relationship. “We have a very robust
agenda that we share with the Saudis,” he said. “There have been disagreements
under this administration and under the previous administration about certain
policies and development in the Middle East, but I think on a set of core
interests, we continue to have a common view about what we aim to achieve.”
But experts said the United States had little desire to be drawn more deeply
into the dangerous proxy war between Iran and the Sunni states playing out in
places like Yemen. “The United States is not interested in overindulging in
other issues that the gulf states are worried about,” said Marwan Muasher, a
Jordanian former foreign minister. “Are the gulf states going to go back from
this meeting feeling reassured? I would say the answer is no.”
Presidents have labored to stay close to Saudi Arabia for decades, but have
sometimes run into turbulence. Ronald Reagan sold the Saudis sophisticated Awacs
airplanes over the objections of Israel. George Bush sent 500,000 troops to
defend Saudi Arabia and reverse Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. His son George
W. Bush shared plans in advance with eager Saudis for his own invasion of Iraq.
But King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who died in January, was once so upset with
the younger Mr. Bush about his support for Israel that the king threatened to
storm out of a visit to the president’s Texas ranch. The Saudis also frustrated
Mr. Bush by refusing to work closely with the Shiite-led Iraqi government as it
fought Sunni insurgents. Over the years, administrations have worried about
Saudi money that has financed extremist groups.
Mr. Obama, who ripped up his schedule to fly to Riyadh in January to pay
respects to King Salman when he took power, spoke with the king by telephone on
Monday. The White House had announced Friday that King Salman would attend the
meeting, but was blindsided over the weekend when the Saudis said they would
instead send Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The Saudis said the king needed to stay in Riyadh because of the kingdom’s air
campaign against Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen. Some regional experts said
that at age 79, he has not traveled much out of the country. But some Arab
officials said his decision not to attend reflected a broader disappointment
that Mr. Obama would not be offering much concrete security assistance at the
meeting.
The king was not the only one to turn down Mr. Obama’s invitation. The leaders
of Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates — some of whom are in ill health —
will also skip the meeting, sending subordinates instead.
Critics said the list of attendees revealed Mr. Obama’s inability to shape
events in the region. “It’s an indicator of the lack of confidence that the
Saudis and others have,” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, told MSNBC.
He blamed Secretary of State John Kerry for misreading Saudi signals. “He
sometimes interprets things as he wants them to be rather than what they really
are,” Mr. McCain said.
The Obama administration said it had rejected a mutual defense treaty sought by
the gulf states several weeks ago. The foreign ministers of those countries,
however, raised no major protests to Mr. Kerry when he met with them in Paris on
Friday in advance of this week’s summit meeting. “There was no hint of
dissatisfaction,” said Robert Malley, the president’s top Middle East adviser.
Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, insisted on Monday that no slight
was intended by the king’s last-minute decision to skip the summit meeting. “The
idea that this is a snub because the king did not attend is really off base,” he
told reporters in Washington. “The fact that our crown prince and deputy crown
prince attend an event outside of Saudi Arabia at the same time is
unprecedented.”
White House aides said the Saudi princes were the important ones to deal with on
these issues. But the president, who will host a dinner at the White House on
Wednesday night and then a day of meetings at Camp David on Thursday, will be
left with few prospects for a major breakthrough.
Tamara Cofman Wittes, a former deputy assistant secretary of state under Mr.
Obama, said: “If anybody had the idea that the summit, in the midst of
everything that’s going on, was going to somehow be a neatly wrapped little
package that would conclude everything, they were kidding themselves.”
Helene Cooper contributed reporting.
A version of this news analysis appears in print on May 12, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Absent King Signals Saudi-U.S. Marriage
Adrift.
King’s Absence at Meeting Signals a Saudi-U.S. Marriage Adrift,
MAY 11, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/politics/
kings-absence-at-summit-signals-saudi-us-marriage-on-rocks.html
Saudi Arabia Says King
Won’t Attend Meetings in U.S.
MAY 10, 2015
The New York Times
By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia announced on Sunday that its new
monarch, King Salman, would not be attending meetings at the White House with
President Obama or a summit gathering at Camp David this week, in an apparent
signal of its continued displeasure with the administration over United States
relations with Iran, its rising regional adversary.
As recently as Friday, the White House said that King Salman would be coming to
“resume consultations on a wide range of regional and bilateral issues,”
according to Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman.
But on Sunday, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said that the king would instead
send Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister, and Deputy
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the defense minister. The agency said the
summit meeting would overlap with a five-day cease-fire in Yemen that is
scheduled to start on Tuesday to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Arab officials said they viewed the king’s failure to attend the meeting as a
sign of disappointment with what the White House was willing to offer at the
summit meeting as reassurance that the United States would back its Arab allies
against a rising Iran.
King Salman is expected to call Mr. Obama on Monday to talk about his
last-minute decision not to attend the summit meeting, a senior administration
official said on Sunday.
The official said that when the king met Secretary of State John Kerry in Riyadh
last week, he indicated that he was looking forward to coming to the meeting.
But on Friday night, after the White House put out a statement saying Mr. Obama
would be meeting with King Salman in Washington, administration officials
received a call from the Saudi foreign minister that the king would not be
coming after all.
There was “no expression of disappointment” from the Saudis, said the official,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
publicly. “If one wants to snub you, they let you know it in different ways,”
the official said.
Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said King Salman’s absence was both a blessing and a
snub. “It holds within it a hidden opportunity,” he said, “because senior U.S.
officials will have an unusual opportunity to take the measure of Mohammed bin
Salman, the very young Saudi defense minister and deputy crown prince, with whom
few have any experience.”
But, Mr. Alterman added: “For the White House though, it sends an unmistakable
signal when a close partner essentially says he has better things to do than go
to Camp David with the president, just a few days after the White House
announced he’d have a private meeting before everything got underway.”
Mr. Kerry met on Friday in Paris with his counterparts from the Arab nations
that were invited to the summit meeting — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab
Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — to discuss what they were expecting
from the summit meeting, and to signal what the United States was prepared to
offer at Camp David.
But administration officials said that the Arab officials had pressed for a
defense treaty with the United States pledging to defend them if they came under
external attack. But that was always going to be difficult, as such treaties —
similar to what the United States has with Japan — must be ratified by Congress.
Instead Mr. Obama is prepared to offer a presidential statement, one
administration official said, which is not as binding and which future
presidents may not have to honor.
The Arab nations are also angry, officials and experts said, about comments Mr.
Obama recently made in an interview with The New York Times, in which he said
allies like Saudi Arabia should be worried about internal threats — “populations
that, in some cases, are alienated, youth that are underemployed, an ideology
that is destructive and nihilistic, and in some cases, just a belief that there
are no legitimate political outlets for grievances.”
At a time when American officials were supposed to be reassuring those same
countries that the United States would support them, the comments were viewed by
officials in the gulf as poorly timed, foreign policy experts said.
The Arab countries would also like to buy more weapons from the United States,
but that also faces a big obstacle — maintaining Israel’s military edge. The
United States has long put restrictions on the types of weapons that American
defense firms can sell to Arab nations, in an effort to ensure that Israel keeps
a military advantage against its traditional adversaries in the region.
That is why, for instance, the administration has not allowed Lockheed Martin to
sell the F-35 fighter jet, considered to be the jewel of America’s future
arsenal, to Arab countries. The plane, the world’s most expensive weapons
project, has stealth capabilities and has been approved for sale to Israel.
In Paris on Friday, Mr. Kerry said that the United States and its Arab allies,
which constitute the Gulf Cooperation Council, were “fleshing out a series of
new commitments that will create between the U.S. and G.C.C. a new security
understanding, a new set of security initiatives that will take us beyond
anything that we have had before.”
The king is the latest top Arab official who will not be attending the summit
meeting for delegations from members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The United Arab Emirates is also sending its crown prince to the meetings, the
officials said. The Emirati president, Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan, was never
expected to attend because of health reasons, American and Arab officials said.
Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman also will not be attending because of health
reasons, officials said.
Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States,
declined to say exactly what his government was pushing for from the United
States when he spoke at a conference in Washington on Thursday.
“The last thing I want to say is ‘here’s what we need,’ ” he said at a panel
discussion sponsored by the Atlantic Council in Washington. “That’s not the
right approach. The approach is, let’s come here, let’s figure out what the
problems are, how we can work together to address our needs.”
King Salman’s decision to skip the summit meeting does not mean that the Saudis
are giving up on the United States — they do not have many other options, said
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace. “As upset as the Saudis are, they don’t really have a viable alternative
strategic partnership in Moscow or Beijing,” Mr. Sadjadpour said.
But, he added, “there’s a growing perception at the White House that the U.S.
and Saudi Arabia are friends but not allies, while the U.S. and Iran are allies
but not friends.”
Ben Hubbard contributed reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Peter Baker
from Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on May 11, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Saudi King Plans to Skip Meetings in
Washington.
Saudi Arabia Says King Won’t Attend Meetings in U.S.,
NYT, MAY 10, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/world/middleeast/
saudi-arabia-king-wont-attend-camp-david-meeting.html
King Salman Upends Status Quo
in Region and the Royal Family
MAY 10, 2015
The New York Times
By BEN HUBBARD
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — For much of the past decade, change has
come slowly to Saudi Arabia, if at all.
The oil-rich kingdom was led by an ailing monarch who worked quietly behind the
scenes to preserve the status quo, propping up friendly dictators around the
Middle East and depending on a leadership of aging princes at home.
But in the few months since the death of King Abdullah in January, the new king,
Salman, has moved fast to reshape foreign and domestic policies. He has rattled
alliances with the United States and regional powers that for decades have been
the bedrock of stability for his kingdom, and he has also shaken up the Saudi
royal family.
King Salman, 79, has shifted toward an activist foreign policy, going to war in
Yemen and increasing support for rebels in Syria as he positions his country as
the defender of the region’s Sunnis. In some cases, he has sanctioned allying
with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda.
Domestically, he has made sweeping changes, promoting younger officials, firing
those deemed unfit and giving enormous authority to his untested son Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, 29. He has shown close ties to religious conservatives,
raising questions about the fate of his predecessor’s limited reforms.
“Now, suddenly, change has become the norm,” said Ford M. Fraker, a former
United States ambassador to the kingdom who maintains ties with top officials.
“King Salman is very clearly stepping up and ensuring that Saudi Arabia is
taking the leadership role in the region.”
Salman’s new direction poses stark challenges to the United States as Saudi
Arabia rallies its Sunni allies to press Washington for a firmer commitment to
their security.
Those concerns are expected to dominate the conversation when Persian Gulf
leaders meet President Obama in Washington this week. King Salman had been
expected to attend, but it was announced on Sunday that Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Nayef would take his place.
The state-run Saudi Press Agency said the decision had been made because the
meeting overlapped with a five-day cease-fire in Yemen, but some Arab officials
said the move signaled displeasure over United States policy toward Iran.
King Salman’s policy changes are the efforts of an absolute monarch to
re-establish his country’s clout in a region torn apart by civil wars, where
weak states are contending with jihadists and rising sectarianism — as well as
American reluctance to get too deeply involved.
The new policies are driven by a desire to confront the rising influence of
Iran, the kingdom’s Shiite adversary, at a time when a potential deal on Iran’s
nuclear program could improve Tehran’s fortunes. They also reflect a resurgence
of the pre-Arab Spring model of governance that emphasized centralization of
power and a security-first approach to preserving authority and stability.
King Salman has made no gestures toward social or political liberalization in a
country where women cannot drive and dissenting views can lead to prison.
In January, he replaced the head of the religious police who was seen as trying
to curb excesses of the force. He has also dismissed the deputy education
minister, the only woman in such a high-level cabinet post, and appointed as a
royal adviser a cleric whom King Abdullah had dismissed for criticizing the
country’s first coed university.
But his focus appears to be security, a reaction to the growing influence of
Iran and the rise of extremist groups like the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
or ISIL. In addition to leading an air campaign in Yemen, he has promoted
security-minded officials, naming his nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, 55, who
as interior minister has led the kingdom’s counterterrorism efforts, crown
prince.
Fueling the change is frustration with the United States, long considered the
kingdom’s closest Western ally and guarantor of its security. Saudis accuse the
Obama administration of neglecting its Arab allies while prioritizing
rapprochement with Iran.
In increasing the kingdom’s regional role, King Salman risks escalating the
conflict with Iran, fueling further instability. And his support for Islamists
could end up empowering extremists, just as Saudi support for the Afghan jihad
decades ago helped create Al Qaeda.
Saudi analysts and members of the royal family have lauded King Salman’s moves
as necessary to face regional tensions after a period of stagnation.
During his last years, King Abdullah, who died at age 90, was ill, as was his
elderly foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal. Both men were often tied up
with medical treatment as the war in Syria escalated, the Islamic State rampaged
across Syria and Iraq; and Iran and its proxies expanded their influence in
Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad.
King Salman hit back in March, after mostly Shiite rebels in Yemen seized the
capital and forced the president into exile, by forming an Arab military
coalition to bomb the rebels, known as Houthis.
“People are seeing this as positive because they have been longing to have a
decisive leader,” said Awadh al-Badi, a scholar at the King Faisal Center for
Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. “Danger is coming toward the borders and
there are threats around the region.”
While diplomats dispute the strength of ties between Iran and the Houthis, Saudi
leaders worried that the Houthis could become an Iranian-backed threat on their
border, as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is to Israel. But Western
analysts and diplomats say that there are great risks to the intervention.
The Houthis appear unwilling to withdraw, and the ousted president, Abdu Rabbu
Mansour Hadi, is in Riyadh as aid agencies warn of a humanitarian crisis. Al
Qaeda in Yemen, meanwhile, has used the chaos to gain ground.
“Hadi’s political support on the ground is being undermined as Yemeni civilians
see him sitting comfortably in Riyadh applauding airstrikes that are making
their lives hell,” said Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East and
North Africa program at Chatham House, a policy institute in London.
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In another shift, King Salman appears to have discarded his predecessor’s
rejection of political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood as a fundamental
threat to the regional order. King Abdullah had branded the Brotherhood a
terrorist organization and worked with Egypt to wipe it out there.
In Yemen, King Salman is working with Islah, a Muslim Brotherhood political
party, and has warmed relations with Qatar, a backer of the Brotherhood. In
March, he received Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Riyadh. The two
agreed to work together to support the rebels seeking to topple President Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, according to Yasin Aktay, the foreign relations chief for
Turkey’s governing party.
Although Mr. Aktay said that only moderate groups received support, many of
Syria’s most effective fighters are staunch Islamists who often fight alongside
the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, raising the possibility that aid
might also empower extremists.
King Salman has a history of working with Islamists. Decades ago, he was a royal
point man and fund-raiser for jihadists going to Afghanistan, Bosnia and
elsewhere.
He also spent 48 years as governor of Riyadh Province, a position from which he
has brought a strict, top-down management style. He worked long hours, and
residents joked about setting their watches to the sight of his convoy heading
to work at 8 a.m.
He managed the family’s relationships with the tribes, giving him deep knowledge
of Saudi society, and read widely, often summoning writers he disagreed with to
discuss their views.
As king, he has reformatted the government. He replaced Prince Saud as foreign
minister with Adel al-Jubeir, the former ambassador to Washington, who is
decades younger. When a presentation by the minister of housing failed to
impress, he was replaced. The health minister was fired after being filmed
arguing with a citizen. And the head of protocol at the royal court was
dismissed after he hit a photographer during a visit by the king of Morocco.
But generating the most scrutiny is the tremendous power the king has granted
his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who now oversees some of the kingdom’s most
important portfolios. Among his big jobs are defense minister; head of an
economic and development council composed of top ministers; and head of the
Supreme Council of Saudi Aramco, the state oil giant.
Prince Mohammed’s biography contains little military or financial experience. He
has mostly worked for his father. And his power makes some nervous.
“What you have is a 29-year-old with untested and unproven leadership qualities
and who is reported to be impulsive in his decision making,” said a diplomat
involved in Saudi issues, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was
not authorized to speak to the news media.
Some have speculated that such centralization of power could cause challenges
from those in the royal family who have been left out. Others say those princes
have the most to lose if the dynasty that keeps them rich falters.
“They have the power, I have billions in the bank,” said an aide to a top
prince, summarizing the views of many in the family. “It is not in their
interest to shake things.”
Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul.
A version of this article appears in print on May 11, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: King Salman Upends Status Quo in Region and
the Royal Family.
King Salman Upends Status Quo in Region and the Royal Family,
NYT, MAY 10, 20015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/world/middleeast/
king-salman-upends-status-quo-in-region-and-the-royal-family.html
Strikes on Syria
Tied to Deaths of 52 Civilians
MAY 2, 2015
The New York Times
By ANNE BARNARD
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Airstrikes by the American-led coalition
against Islamic State militants have killed several dozen people in northern
Syria, with the death toll from Friday’s attacks rising to more than 52
civilians on Saturday, according to a Syrian monitoring group and local
activists.
The attacks on the village of Bir Mahli, in Aleppo Province, east of the
Euphrates River, killed at least nine children, said the group, the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain and monitors the
violence in Syria through a network of contacts inside the country.
Since September, the United States and allied countries have been conducting
airstrikes in Syria and Iraq against militants of the Islamic State group, also
known as ISIS or ISIL.
According to the tallies of airstrikes that the United States Central Command
routinely releases, there were several in “the area of” Kobani, a town near the
Turkish border, north of Bir Mahli, that were said to have hit Islamic State
positions, vehicles and “tactical units.”
“We have no information to corroborate allegations that coalition airstrikes
resulted in civilian casualties,” Capt. John J. Moore said in an email.
“Regardless, we take all allegations seriously and will look into them further.”
A local Kurdish activist, Perwer Mohammad Ali, confirmed that civilians had been
killed in strikes on Bir Mahli on Friday. He said that while many Kurds had fled
the ethnically mixed villages since the militants arrived in the area, some Arab
civilians still lived in the village.
The Observatory said that members of at least six families were killed, along
with some Islamic State fighters, and that 13 were missing.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, and Karam Shoumali
from Istanbul.
A version of this article appears in print on May 3, 2015, on page A12 of the
New York edition with the headline: Strikes on Syria Tied to Deaths of 52
Civilians.
Strikes on Syria Tied to Deaths of 52 Civilians,
NYT, MAY 2, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/world/middleeast/
strikes-on-syria-tied-to-deaths-of-52-civilians.html
Regret Over a Drone’s Deadly Damage
APRIL 24, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
For years, the Obama administration has kept its drone strikes
shrouded in great secrecy, knowing that what have been described as precision
attacks on terrorist targets have also killed innocent civilians. So it was
important to see candor and remorse from President Obama in his apology for the
killing of two hostages held by Al Qaeda, an American and an Italian, in a drone
strike near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in January.
“It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally and our fight
against terrorists specifically, mistakes — sometimes deadly mistakes — can
occur,” President Obama said on Thursday. “One of the things that makes us
exceptional is our willingness to confront squarely our imperfections and to
learn from our mistakes.”
The deaths of Warren Weinstein, an American development expert, and Giovanni Lo
Porto, an Italian aid worker, were a disturbing reminder of the unintended
consequences of an execution program of questionable legality. The
administration sought to reduce the room for error in 2013, when Mr. Obama
instructed the Central Intelligence Agency, which authorized the January strike,
to make sure with “near certainty” that imminent strikes would not put civilians
in harm’s way.
The stricter criterion was adopted in response to growing evidence that drone
strikes had killed dozens of noncombatants. The Open Society Foundations said in
a report in November that American drone strikes in Pakistan have killed more
than 2,000 people, including an undetermined number of civilians. Drone strikes
in Yemen have also killed civilians. Their use in both countries has incited
deep resentment toward the United States.
The administration’s account of the January strike also raises serious questions
about just how much intelligence officers have before dropping bombs into remote
areas by hitting a switch half a world away.
Besides the two hostages, the strike killed Ahmed Farouq, an American citizen
accused of having played a leading role in a Qaeda franchise in India. The White
House also disclosed on Thursday that Adam Gadahn, an American who was a Qaeda
spokesman, is believed to have been killed in a separate strike, also in
January. Officials said that neither of the American Qaeda members was
deliberately targeted.
“These and other recent strikes in which civilians were killed make clear that
there is a significant gap between the relatively stringent standards the
government says it’s using and the standards that are actually being used,”
Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union,
said in a statement.
Drone strikes might be a tool of last resort to hunt down terrorists in areas
where local governments are unwilling or unable to pursue them. But the risks
involved in their use are high. Along with Mr. Obama’s apology, the
administration says it will provide compensation to the Weinstein and Lo Porto
families. The handling of this case stands in contrast to the silence it usually
maintains about the civilian victims of drone strikes.
Mr. Obama has promised an independent review of the January attack. While that
is important, the White House should go further to provide a fuller accounting
of what it knows about the number of civilians killed by the drone-based
counterterrorism campaign.
That information is critical to an informed debate about the merits of the
program and how it is carried out.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up
for the Opinion Today newsletter.
A version of this editorial appears in print on April 25, 2015, on page A16 of
the New York edition with the headline: Regret Over a Drone’s Deadly Damage.
Regret Over a Drone’s Deadly Damage,
NYT, APRIL 24, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/opinion/regret-over-a-drones-deadly-damage.html
Rising Toll on Migrants
Leaves Europe in Crisis;
900 May Be Dead at Sea
APRIL 20, 2015
The New York Times
By JIM YARDLEY
ROME — European leaders were confronted on Monday with a
humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean, as estimates that as many as 900
migrants may have died off the Libyan coast this weekend prompted calls for a
new approach to the surging number of refugees crossing from Africa and the
Middle East.
Even as efforts continued to collect the bodies from the sinking off Libya late
Saturday and early Sunday — only 28 survivors have been found — Italian rescue
ships responded to new distress calls from other vessels. A second migrant ship
crashed near the Greek island of Rhodes, underscoring the relentless flow of
people fleeing poverty, persecution and war.
European foreign ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss how to respond. Those
governments are trying to balance humanitarian responsibilities against budget
constraints and widespread public sentiment against immigration. Italy’s
representative pushed for Europe to make “major commitments” to confront the
crisis, and European heads of government scheduled an emergency session for
Thursday.
The disaster also underscored how Libya, reeling from violence and political
turmoil, has become a haven for human smuggling rings along the African
coastline. In Rome, the prime ministers of Italy and Malta on Monday called for
targeted, nonmilitary intervention against Libya’s human traffickers.
This year’s death toll in the Mediterranean Sea is thought to have already
surpassed 1,500 victims — a drastic spike from the same period last year. With
the arrival of warmer weather, the number of migrants on smuggling boats has
risen sharply, with more than 11,000 people being rescued during the first 17
days of April. Migrants also now seem to be coming from a larger geographic area
— from Bangladesh and Afghanistan in Asia; Syria and Iraq in the Middle East;
and African nations such as Gambia, Somalia, Mali and Eritrea.
“What happened on Sunday was a game changer,” Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of
Malta said at a news conference with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy.
“There is a new realization that if Europe doesn’t act as a team, history will
judge it very harshly, as it did when it closed its eyes to stories of genocide
— horrible stories — not long ago.”
Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, expressed dismay at
what he characterized as European apathy over the migration crisis. “How many
more people will have to drown until we finally act in Europe?” he asked in a
statement. “How many times more do we want to express our dismay, only to then
move on to our daily routine?”
Italy has been at the forefront of coping with the surge in refugees and has
been increasingly insistent that the rest of Europe do more to help. A widely
praised Italian-led search-and-rescue program was phased out last fall and
replaced by a smaller European-led operation.
An Italian Coast Guard ship was expected to deliver 28 survivors to the Sicilian
port city of Catania late on Monday. The ship, the Bruno Gregoretti, had already
delivered the 24 bodies recovered at sea to Malta, where health officials have
begun conducting autopsies. Italian prosecutors in Catania have begun a criminal
inquiry into the sinking, and according to The Associated Press and other news
organizations, charged the boat’s captain, a Tunisian, with reckless multiple
homicide. Both the captain and a Syrian crew member were charged with “favoring
illegal immigration,” The A.P. reported.
Giovanni Salvi, the lead prosecutor in Catania, said his team had already
debriefed a Bangladeshi survivor who had been taken by helicopter to Sicily on
Sunday. The survivor described a three-tiered vessel teeming with migrants from
Tunisia, Nigeria, Egypt, Somalia, Zambia and Bangladesh.
“A few hundred people were forced to enter the hold, the lowest level, and
locked up so that they would not climb up,” Mr. Salvi said during a televised
news conference on Monday. He said the Bangladeshi survivor estimated that 250
women and 50 children were also aboard.
Mr. Salvi said that estimating the death toll should be done with “extreme
cautiousness.” He said the Bangladeshi survivor estimated that 950 people had
been onboard the vessel, while other survivors told members of the Italian Coast
Guard that the figure was closer to 700. He said the vessel sank in deep water
and had not yet been precisely located.
“If these figures are confirmed,” he added, “it is understandable why so few
bodies have been recovered. The majority didn’t have the chance to escape and
would have sunk with the boat.”
The prosecutor also noted that the ship most likely had begun its journey in
Egypt and then made several stops along the African coastline, collecting more
migrants before turning toward Italy. He said his office was also investigating
the reasons the boat capsized, including reports from a merchant ship that had
been diverted for rescue efforts that the boat toppled after migrants rushed to
one side.
Meanwhile, Italian ships on Monday responded to two new distress calls in the
Mediterranean: one was an inflatable raft with 100 to 150 people near the Libyan
coast as well as a separate vessel holding 300 people. Earlier, a distress call
had come into the Rome office of the International Organization for Migration,
an advocacy group, which alerted the Italian Coast Guard.
Joel Millman, a spokesman for the organization, said the caller
suggested that as many as three boats had been in distress. “One of the boats
called our office and said a boat was taking on water and that they thought that
20 people were dead,” said Mr. Millman, noting that the account could not yet be
confirmed.
At almost the same time in Greece, three people drowned when a small boat
carrying migrants crashed into the rocks off the Greek island of Rhodes in the
Aegean Sea. Greek news media showed video of people flailing in the water, or
floating on a piece of the boat’s hull, as rescuers with the Greek Coast Guard
pulled them onto the nearby rocks.
It is unclear how many people were aboard the ship. The authorities confirmed
that 90 people had been rescued, including 27 who were hospitalized with minor
injuries. Some Greek news outlets reported that the number could have been as
high as 200. Among the three victims were two adults and a child.
Even as attention has been mostly focused on the large migrant boats pushing
toward Italy, Greece has also seen a sharp increase in smuggling boats this year
— most of them smaller vessels that have left from the nearby Turkish coasts,
often carrying refugees escaping the civil war in Syria.
The question confronting European leaders is whether and how to expand the
rescue efforts in the Mediterranean. As the danger rises, and more deaths are
being reported, migrants seem determined to reach Europe.
At a small gathering of Nigerian migrants on Monday at a church in Tripoli,
Libya, several said they remained determined to make the sea journey to Italy,
no matter the dangers. Many of them spoke of the difficulty of life in Nigeria
and of making a treacherous desert crossing just to reach Libya. And in Libya,
they said they lived at the mercy of lawless militias that often jail African
migrants or subject them to extortion.
“I have been hearing the stories that people are dying, but me, I will cross it
and I will cross it successfully,” said one migrant, who gave his name as Pious
and said he was waiting to save up about $950 to pay a smuggler.
“I know that my Lord is with me. He will cross with me. I have made up my mind.”
Reporting was contributed by Gaia Pianigiani from Rome, Dan Bilefsky from
London, Niki Kitsantonis from Athens, David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, and
Suliman Ali Zway from Tripoli, Libya.
A version of this article appears in print on April 21, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Rising Toll on Migrants Leaves Europe in
Crisis; 900 May Be Dead at Sea.
Rising Toll on Migrants Leaves Europe in Crisis; 900 May Be Dead
at Sea,
NYT, APRIL 20, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/world/europe/
european-union-immigration-migrant-ship-capsizes.html
Egypt Sentences an American to Life
APRIL 21, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
In the summer of 2013, shortly after Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first
democratically elected president, had been deposed by the military, thousands of
Egyptians took to the streets to protest the coup. They were hopeful that the
popular uprising in 2011 had shattered a psychological barrier in a nation long
governed as a police state. People on the street, many believed at the time, had
earned the right to challenge those in the presidential palace. Among the
protesters was Mohamed Soltan, an American citizen.
The protesters were tragically wrong. Egyptian security forces executed hundreds
of Islamists who had taken over a public square and then rounded up thousands of
suspected supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that
propelled Mr. Morsi to power.
Mr. Soltan, 27, an Ohio State University graduate who volunteered as a
translator for foreign journalists covering the turmoil that followed Mr.
Morsi’s ouster, was among those arrested and imprisoned. Earlier this month, an
Egyptian judge sentenced him to life in prison. Mr. Soltan joined the growing
ranks of victims of a judicial dragnet that has branded all suspected Islamists
as terrorists. (On Tuesday, Mr. Morsi was sentenced to 20 years over the killing
of protesters while he was in power in 2012.)
Mr. Soltan’s father, Salah Soltan, was sentenced to death in the same case.
Mohamed Soltan was not a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he condemned
the coup as undemocratic. He has been on hunger strike for more than a year to
protest his detention. American officials warned in a letter to his family that
the hunger strike “is a significant threat to his life.”
President Obama brought up the case with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi last
year to no avail. Cairo’s intransigence is particularly galling considering the
Obama administration’s decision to continue giving Egypt $1.3 billion annually
in military aid despite its abysmal human rights record. Mr. Soltan’s best hope
is that Mr. Sisi would order him deported, as he did recently with an Australian
journalist whose detention sparked a global uproar. That would effectively
overturn his sentence, but it would do nothing for the thousands of Egyptians
who have unfairly been sentenced to life in prison, or death, for exercising
their right to denounce their authoritarian rulers.
A version of this editorial appears in print on April 22, 2015, in The
International New York Times.
Egypt Sentences an American to Life,
NYT, APRIL 21, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/opinion/egypt-sentences-an-american-to-life.html
Obama Meets Raúl Castro,
Making History
APRIL 11, 2015
The New York Times
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
and RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
PANAMA — President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba met
here Saturday in the first face-to-face discussion between the leaders of the
two countries in a half-century.
Seated beside Mr. Castro in a small room in the convention center downtown where
the Summit of the Americas was being held, Mr. Obama called it a “historic
meeting.”
“Our governments will continue to have differences,” he said at a news
conference wrapping up the summit meeting. “At the same time, we agreed that we
can continue to take steps forward that advance our mutual interests.”
He called his meeting with Mr. Castro “candid and fruitful,” and said work would
continue on the goal he announced in December of re-establishing diplomatic
relations and reopening embassies in Havana and Washington.
Still, Mr. Obama said crucial steps in the normalization process would not be
completed rapidly. He stopped short of announcing a final decision, now widely
expected, to remove Cuba from the United States’ list of state sponsors of
terrorism, saying he wanted to study it further.
For now, Mr. Obama argued, the best way to address the United States’
disagreements with Cuba and other countries in the hemisphere on such issues as
human rights and democracy was by engaging with them.
“So often, when we insert ourselves in ways that go beyond persuasion, it’s
counterproductive, it backfires,” he said, adding that was “why countries keep
on trying to use us as an excuse for their own governance failures.”
“Let’s take away the excuse,” Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Castro said he wanted a new beginning with the United States despite the two
countries’ “long and complicated history.” He added that “we are willing to
discuss everything, but we need to be patient — very patient.”
The meeting on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas was an important step
for Mr. Obama as he seeks to ease tensions with Cuba and defuse a
generations-old dispute that has also affected relations with the other
countries of the region.
Since his first foray to the summit meeting three months after taking office,
Mr. Obama has seen one bone of contention frustrate his efforts to reach out to
the United States’ hemispheric neighbors: the fact that Cuba was blackballed
from the gathering. He was scolded by Argentina’s president for maintaining an
“anachronistic blockade,” lectured by Bolivia’s president about behaving “like a
dictatorship,” and in 2012 blamed for the failure of leaders to agree on a joint
declaration — the result, his Colombian host said, of the dispute over Cuba.
From left, President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, President Dilma Rousseff of
Brazil, President Juan Carlos Varela of Panama, President Obama and Luis Alberto
Moreno, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, in Panama on
Friday.
This year, Mr. Obama came to the summit meeting here determined to change the
dynamic with a series of overtures to Cuba. In addition to the meeting with Mr.
Castro, 83, the gathering was the first time in the more than 20-year history of
the summit meeting that Cuba was allowed to attend.
“The United States will not be imprisoned by the past — we’re looking to the
future,” Mr. Obama, 53, said of his approach to Cuba at the summit meeting’s
first plenary session on Saturday. “I’m not interested in having battles that
frankly started before I was born.”
He said the shift in policy would be a turning point for the entire region. Mr.
Castro, in a speech of more than 45 minutes that went well beyond the allotted
eight minutes, spoke in unusually warm tones about an American president who has
sought reconciliation with his country. But in a nod to allies like Venezuela
that still support Cuba, he also delivered a lengthy diatribe on historical
American injustices in the hemisphere.
Mr. Castro said he had read Mr. Obama’s books and praised his background as
“humble.” He saluted his “brave” decision to take steps against a trade embargo
against Cuba by using his executive powers to loosen a host of travel and
commerce restrictions. And he thanked Mr. Obama for vowing a “rapid decision” on
removing Cuba from the United States government’s list of states that sponsor
international terrorism, a designation that has hobbled Cuba’s ability to bank
with the United States and some foreign creditors.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro spent time during their hourlong meeting reflecting on
the significance of the moment for Cubans, Americans and the entire region, said
a senior administration official who would describe the private session only on
the condition of anonymity. There was no tension in the room, the official said,
but the two presidents did not agree on everything. While they both committed to
opening embassies in each other’s countries, Mr. Obama stressed what has emerged
as a sticking point in the talks over opening an American embassy in Havana:
ensuring that diplomats could move freely around the country.
And Mr. Castro said he wanted to see the United States trade embargo against
Cuba lifted, which Mr. Obama has called on Congress to do.
At a news conference, Bruno Rodríguez, the Cuban foreign minister, said his
meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday, and Mr. Castro’s with
Mr. Obama, allowed the countries to draw closer. “A principal result is that
these two governments now know each other better,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “We have
a better understanding of our common ground, a better idea of our mutual
interests” and “better knowledge of the scope and depth of our differences.”
For Mr. Obama, the summit meeting was a chance to showcase progress toward a
goal he aspired to during the first Latin American summit meeting he attended —
where he spoke of a “new beginning” with Cuba even in its absence — and to clear
away what had become a dysfunctional subtext of the meeting for generations of
American presidents.
“Our Cuba policy, instead of isolating Cuba, was isolating the United States in
our own backyard,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security
adviser for strategic communications. “This time, we arrived here, yes,
certainly not agreeing with everybody on everything,” he said, but with “broad
agreement with the leaders here that what the president did was the right
thing.”
“It is going to open up the door not just to greater engagement with Cuba, but
potentially more constructive relations across the hemisphere,” Mr. Rhodes said.
Several Latin American nations have criticized recent United States sanctions
against several Venezuelan officials it has accused of human rights violations.
But Mr. Obama’s overtures to Cuba, and his recent executive action on
immigration to make it easier for some people who are in the United States
without authorization to stay legally, have brought an unusual round of salutes
and congratulations.
“President Obama is going to leave a legacy the way he is supporting Hispanics
in the United States, and also his new policy for Cuba for us is very
important,” President Juan Carlos Varela of Panama said just before meeting with
Mr. Obama.
President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, who demanded Cuba’s inclusion in this
summit meeting as he closed the last one, in his country in 2012, also
celebrated Cuba’s arrival.
“The Cuba situation has been an obstacle going back a long time in the relations
of the United States with Latin America and the Caribbean, and without that
obstacle the cooperation on many fronts will be more fluid,” he told the
Colombian newspaper El Tiempo before arriving here.
It was a far cry from the last Summit of the Americas in 2012 in Cartagena,
Colombia — marred by a prostitution scandal involving Secret Service agents —
when some Latin American leaders openly berated Mr. Obama for the United States’
stance on excluding Cuba. Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela said they would not
attend again unless Cuba could.
The president ended that gathering with a testy lament, seemingly irritated by
his inability to move past old disputes.
“Sometimes those controversies date back to before I was born,” Mr. Obama said
in his closing news conference, adding that it felt at times as if “we’re caught
in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy, and ‘Yanquis’ and
the Cold War, and this and that and the other.”
The meeting was not without reminders of the old animosities. It was marred by
several clashes in the streets between Cuban dissidents and government
representatives, one of whom accused the demonstrators of being paid by foreign
governments, including the United States.
And President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela came to the summit meeting armed with
a petition demanding that Mr. Obama lift sanctions that he imposed by executive
order last month on members of the country’s government for human rights abuses.
“I respect you, but I don’t trust you, President Obama,” he said in a
profanity-laced speech.
But longtime observers of the region said Mr. Obama’s move had robbed
hemispheric neighbors of an oft-repeated knock against this American president
and his predecessors.
“It opens the door for the U.S. government by removing this argument that has
been a pretext and an issue that has been invoked, not only by Cuba but other
countries in the region, as a distraction,” said José Miguel Vivanco, the
director of the Latin America program at Human Rights Watch.
“The focus has been for so many years on the U.S. policy toward Cuba, not on the
record of Cuba,” he added. “This puts the U.S. government and the Obama
administration in a very different position with much more credibility when it
comes to talking about democracy and human rights.”
A version of this article appears in print on April 12, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Obama Meets Cuban Leader, Making History.
Obama Meets Raúl Castro, Making History,
NYT, April 11, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/world/americas/obama-cuba-summit-of-the-americas.html
Engaging With Latin America
APRIL 10, 2015
The New York Times
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
As President Obama arrived in Panama for the Summit of the
Americas this weekend, attendees were raptly watching how his encounter with
President Raúl Castro of Cuba would be choreographed and whether a face-to-face
run-in with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela would be unbearably awkward.
There’s plenty of potential for political theater any time heads of state of the
Americas convene, given the hemisphere’s shifting alliances and strained
relationships. The meeting underway in Panama City, however, has the potential
to deliver more than the sort of drama and rhetoric that has dominated previous
summit meetings. Policy initiatives advanced by the Obama administration have
opened multiple opportunities to engage differently and more robustly with
neighbors that have long felt neglected, and in some instances slighted, by
Washington.
Clearly, the most dramatic of these initiatives has been the sweeping overhaul
of American policy toward Cuba announced by Mr. Obama in December. Beyond that,
there are other concrete steps the administration can take to strengthen its
standing in the region.
Central American and Caribbean leaders have become increasingly anxious about
their energy dependence on Venezuela, whose economic and political crisis has
forced it to cut back on petroleum shipments it has long offered neighbors under
attractive credit terms. If those nations are unable to find more dependable
energy sources, they could soon grapple with painful power shortages. That has
the potential to cripple already-weak economies, deepening poverty and
instability in a region intrinsically linked to the United States through
migration patterns and trade.
A day before flying to Panama, Mr. Obama met with Caribbean leaders in Jamaica
to discuss steps the United States could take to help the region embrace cleaner
energy sources, including investing in solar and wind power. While those
initiatives make good policy and environmental sense, the United States should
also take steps to make it easier for countries in the Caribbean basin to import
natural gas, a less carbon-intensive fuel than coal or oil. That would require
easing restrictions on the export of natural gas from the United States and
devising financing mechanisms that are palatable to the buying nations and
attractive for American energy companies.
Mr. Obama’s effort to shield certain immigrants from deportation through
executive action and his administration’s initiative to substantially increase
aid for Central America has earned him significant good will in Latin America.
But there are relationships with Latin American nations that remain
unnecessarily strained.
The relationship with Brazil is the most consequential and also, quite possibly,
the easiest to mend. President Dilma Rousseff, who was justifiably angered by
revelations in 2013 that the National Security Agency had been spying on her,
appears eager to turn the page. The summit meeting presents an opportunity for
Mr. Obama and Ms. Rousseff to set a new tone and identify opportunities for
cooperation in areas such as trade, environmental policy and regional politics.
Easing tension with Venezuela will be trickier. Mr. Maduro, a mercurial and
populist leader, has justified his government’s growing authoritarianism on the
baseless argument that Washington is gearing up for a military intervention. In
the lead-up to the summit meeting, he gathered signatures of support for himself
in a document that he vowed to hand deliver to Mr. Obama.
The Obama administration’s decision to impose sanctions on seven Venezuelan
officials last month did more to inflame Mr. Maduro’s rhetoric than to curb his
government’s despotic conduct. During his private meetings and public statements
in Panama, Mr. Obama can deflate Mr. Maduro’s fearmongering by reiterating that
the United States is not about to carry out a coup in Caracas. More
significantly, Mr. Obama can be an inspirational voice for citizens ruled by
oppressive leaders.
He set the right tone on Friday, as he addressed civil society leaders from
around the region. “Civil society is the conscience of our countries,” Mr. Obama
said. “It’s the catalyst of change. It’s why strong nations don’t fear active
citizens.”
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter.
A version of this editorial appears in print on April 11, 2015, on page A18 of
the New York edition with the headline: Engaging With Latin America.
Engaging With Latin America, NYT, APRIL 10, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/opinion/engaging-with-latin-america.html
Handshake for Obama
and Raúl Castro of Cuba
APRIL 10, 2015
The New York Times
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
and RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
PANAMA CITY, Panama — President Obama and President Raúl Castro
of Cuba shook hands here on Friday night, and American officials said they would
hold discussions on Saturday during a gathering of regional leaders, in the
first full-fledged meeting between presidents of the United States and Cuba in
more than a half-century.
The expected encounter was not on Mr. Obama’s official schedule, but it held
deep significance for the regional meeting, as the president’s move to ease
tensions with Cuba has overshadowed the official agenda.
Mr. Obama is nearing a decision on removing Cuba’s three-decade-old designation
as a state sponsor of terrorism, citing progress in the effort to re-establish
diplomatic ties after half a century of hostilities.
He spoke by telephone with Mr. Castro before the gathering, and on Thursday,
Secretary of State John Kerry met with Bruno Rodríguez, the Cuban foreign
minister — the highest-level session between the governments in more than 50
years — to lay the groundwork for the advancing reconciliation. The
much-anticipated handshake on Friday night came as leaders gathered for a
welcome dinner, where Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro were seated at the same table,
separated by two other people.
Before the official start of the summit meeting, Mr. Obama spoke at a civil
society forum. “As we move toward the process of normalization, we’ll have our
differences government-to-government with Cuba on many issues, just as we differ
at times with other nations within the Americas,” he said. “There’s nothing
wrong with that, but I’m here to say that when we do speak out, we’re going to
do so because the United States of America does believe, and will always stand
for, a certain set of universal values.”
The president rushed through a packed schedule on Friday as the summit meeting
got underway, beginning his day with a tour of the Panama Canal.
From left, President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, President Dilma Rousseff of
Brazil, President Juan Carlos Varela of Panama, President Obama and Luis Alberto
Moreno, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, in Panama on
Friday.
At a forum with business executives Mr. Obama promoted a $1 billion investment
package he has proposed for Central America in an effort to address the causes
of the surge of immigrants across America’s southern border last summer. “The
more we see our economies as mutually dependent rather than a zero-sum game, I
think the more successful all of us will be,” he said.
Mr. Obama made it clear that he still had human rights concerns and was
determined to discuss them openly. He held a lengthy meeting with civil society
leaders from 12 other countries, including two from Cuba, after a speech at the
forum in which he referred to the American civil rights and gay rights movements
and to people who opposed apartheid in South Africa and Communism in the Soviet
Union.
“Civil society is the conscience of our countries,” he said.
Cuba is attending the Summit of the Americas for the first time since the
meeting’s inception in 1994. As senior Cuban and American officials spoke,
people representing pro- and anti-Cuban government groups clashed for the third
straight day on the sidelines, drawing a contrast with the diplomatic warming.
Hours before Mr. Obama arrived to address the civil society forum at a hotel
here, members of groups sent by the Cuban government tried to block access to
dissidents, calling them mercenaries who did not speak for Cuba.
At one point, amid angry chanting by the various groups, one of Cuba’s
best-known government opponents, Guillermo Farinas, was jostled and manhandled
as he tried to pass through a crowd of pro-Castro demonstrators.
“These aren’t really dissidents, they aren’t really interested in democracy and
human rights,” Patricia Flechilla, a Cuban student and delegate at the summit
meeting, told reporters, going on to repeat a familiar complaint from the Cuban
government that opponents are paid and propped up by foreign governments, namely
the United States.
The fracas interrupted the work of the forum, made up of nongovernmental groups
from across the hemisphere, to produce a statement directed at the region’s
leaders.
Later, before Mr. Obama arrived, scores of people waving Cuban flags and
chanting “Long Live Fidel, Long Live Raúl” gathered outside the hotel.
Santiago Canton, executive director of RFK Partners for Human Rights at the
Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, said the presence of Cuba
at the summit meeting would inevitably lead to discord that only highlighted the
lack of democracy and human rights on the island. “People were sent by the Cuban
government to disrupt everything going on, and they are doing that well,” he
said after observing the clash. “Human rights and democracy are weak points on
the Cuban side.”
Representatives of the Cuban delegation said they would withdraw from the civil
society forum rather than “share space with mercenaries.”
A version of this article appears in print on April 11, 2015, on page A5 of the
New York edition with the headline: Handshake for Obama And President of Cuba.
Handshake for Obama and Raúl Castro of Cuba,
NYT, APRIL 10, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/world/americas/cuba-us-obama-castro-terrorism.html
Cuban Expectations in a New Era
APRIL 7, 2015
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
Soon after President Obama announced a sweeping overhaul of
American policy toward Cuba in December, it became clear that change would
unfold slowly. Untangling the web of sanctions the United States imposes on Cuba
will take years because many are codified into law. The Cuban government, while
publicly welcoming a rapprochement, seems intent on moving cautiously at a
pivotal moment when its historically tight grip on Cuban society will inevitably
be tested.
Mr. Obama, President Raúl Castro of Cuba and 33 other heads of state in the
hemisphere are scheduled to gather at the Seventh Summit of the Americas in
Panama City, Panama, this week to take stock of the challenges and opportunities
of the thaw in American-Cuban relations. The policy remains a work in progress,
but it has already reset Cubans’ expectations about their future and their
nation’s role in a global economy.
Whether, and how quickly, their aspirations for greater prosperity and for
better communications within Cuba and the rest of the world are met will depend
largely on their own government. One change is already clear: the Obama
administration’s gamble on engaging with Cuba has made it increasingly hard for
its leaders to blame their economic problems and isolation on the United States.
While the American and Cuban governments have yet to formally re-establish full
diplomatic relations, some early concrete steps are promising. Obama
administration officials and business executives have met in recent weeks with
Cuban officials to explore how American companies can help upgrade the nation’s
telecommunications infrastructure and provide cheaper and more available
Internet service. Executives from Google, whose platforms and services are
widely desired in Cuba, visited the island in mid-March to make headway in the
company’s goal of establishing its presence there.
Meanwhile, Airbnb, the company based in San Francisco that allows people to list
their homes online for short-term rentals, announced last week that it had
broken into the Cuban market, unveiling 1,000 listings there. That debut in Cuba
could boost the small, but growing private sector in a nation where people have
only recently been allowed to earn a living outside state employment.
Many Cuban-Americans expressed skepticism about Mr. Obama’s policy when it was
announced. A poll conducted last month by Bendixen & Amandi International found
that 51 percent of Cuban-Americans agreed with the decision to start normalizing
relations with Cuba, an increase from 44 percent in a survey in December.
A number of Cuban dissidents have arrived in Panama City to participate in
sideline events. The regional leaders should not ignore them, but rather work to
amplify their voices. They have struggled for years to be heard in their own
country, where those critical of the Communist system have faced repression.
Others who cannot afford a trip to Panama or are restricted from traveling have
pledged to hold a parallel meeting in Cuba, where those who favor greater
freedoms have been dismissed as a fringe group. Increasingly, the government
will have to reckon with the fact that many of the dissidents’ aspirations are
shared by most Cubans.
A version of this editorial appears in print on April 7, 2015, on page A22 of
the New York edition with the headline: Cuban Expectations in a New Era.
Cuban Expectations in a New Era, NYT, APRIL 7, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/opinion/cuban-expectations-in-a-new-era.html
The Obama Doctrine and Iran
APRIL 5, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist
In September 1996, I visited Iran. One of my most enduring
memories of that trip was that in my hotel lobby there was a sign above the door
proclaiming “Down With USA.” But it wasn’t a banner or graffiti. It was tiled
and plastered into the wall. I thought to myself: “Wow — that’s tiled in there!
That won’t come out easily.” Nearly 20 years later, in the wake of a draft deal
between the Obama administration and Iran, we have what may be the best chance
to begin to pry that sign loose, to ease the U.S.-Iran cold/hot war that has
roiled the region for 36 years. But it is a chance fraught with real risks to
America, Israel and our Sunni Arab allies: that Iran could eventually become a
nuclear-armed state.
President Obama invited me to the Oval Office Saturday afternoon to lay out
exactly how he was trying to balance these risks and opportunities in the
framework accord reached with Iran last week in Switzerland. What struck me most
was what I’d call an “Obama doctrine” embedded in the president’s remarks. It
emerged when I asked if there was a common denominator to his decisions to break
free from longstanding United States policies isolating Burma, Cuba and now
Iran. Obama said his view was that “engagement,” combined with meeting core
strategic needs, could serve American interests vis-à-vis these three countries
far better than endless sanctions and isolation. He added that America, with its
overwhelming power, needs to have the self-confidence to take some calculated
risks to open important new possibilities — like trying to forge a diplomatic
deal with Iran that, while permitting it to keep some of its nuclear
infrastructure, forestalls its ability to build a nuclear bomb for at least a
decade, if not longer.
“We are powerful enough to be able to test these propositions without putting
ourselves at risk. And that’s the thing ... people don’t seem to understand,”
the president said. “You take a country like Cuba. For us to test the
possibility that engagement leads to a better outcome for the Cuban people,
there aren’t that many risks for us. It’s a tiny little country. It’s not one
that threatens our core security interests, and so [there’s no reason not] to
test the proposition. And if it turns out that it doesn’t lead to better
outcomes, we can adjust our policies. The same is true with respect to Iran, a
larger country, a dangerous country, one that has engaged in activities that
resulted in the death of U.S. citizens, but the truth of the matter is: Iran’s
defense budget is $30 billion. Our defense budget is closer to $600 billion.
Iran understands that they cannot fight us. ... You asked about an Obama
doctrine. The doctrine is: We will engage, but we preserve all our
capabilities.”
The notion that Iran is undeterrable — “it’s simply not the case,” he added.
“And so for us to say, ‘Let’s try’ — understanding that we’re preserving all our
options, that we’re not naïve — but if in fact we can resolve these issues
diplomatically, we are more likely to be safe, more likely to be secure, in a
better position to protect our allies, and who knows? Iran may change. If it
doesn’t, our deterrence capabilities, our military superiority stays in place.
... We’re not relinquishing our capacity to defend ourselves or our allies. In
that situation, why wouldn’t we test it?”
Obviously, Israel is in a different situation, he added. “Now, what you might
hear from Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, which I respect, is the notion,
‘Look, Israel is more vulnerable. We don’t have the luxury of testing these
propositions the way you do,’ and I completely understand that. And further, I
completely understand Israel’s belief that given the tragic history of the
Jewish people, they can’t be dependent solely on us for their own security. But
what I would say to them is that not only am I absolutely committed to making
sure that they maintain their qualitative military edge, and that they can deter
any potential future attacks, but what I’m willing to do is to make the kinds of
commitments that would give everybody in the neighborhood, including Iran, a
clarity that if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by
them. And that, I think, should be ... sufficient to take advantage of this
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see whether or not we can at least take the
nuclear issue off the table.”
He added: “What I would say to the Israeli people is ... that there is no
formula, there is no option, to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon that
will be more effective than the diplomatic initiative and framework that we put
forward — and that’s demonstrable.”
The president gave voice, though — in a more emotional and personal way than
I’ve ever heard — to his distress at being depicted in Israel and among American
Jews as somehow anti-Israel, when his views on peace are shared by many
center-left Israelis and his administration has been acknowledged by Israeli
officials to have been as vigorous as any in maintaining Israel’s strategic
edge.
With huge amounts of conservative campaign money now flowing to candidates
espousing pro-Israel views, which party is more supportive of Israel is becoming
a wedge issue, an arms race, with Republican candidates competing over who can
be the most unreservedly supportive of Israel in any disagreement with the
United States, and ordinary, pro-Israel Democrats increasingly feeling
sidelined.
President Obama explains why the nuclear deal is the best, and only, option to
keep Israel safe from Iran. This is an excerpt of an interview with Thomas L.
Friedman. By A.J. Chavar, Quynhanh Do, David Frank, Abe Sater and Ben Werschkul
on Publish Date April 5, 2015. Photo by Todd Heisler/The New York Times.
“This is an area that I’ve been concerned about,” the president said. “Look,
Israel is a robust, rowdy democracy. ... We share so much. We share blood,
family. ... And part of what has always made the U.S.-Israeli relationship so
special is that it has transcended party, and I think that has to be preserved.
There has to be the ability for me to disagree with a policy on settlements, for
example, without being viewed as ... opposing Israel. There has to be a way for
Prime Minister Netanyahu to disagree with me on policy without being viewed as
anti-Democrat, and I think the right way to do it is to recognize that as many
commonalities as we have, there are going to be strategic differences. And I
think that it is important for each side to respect the debate that takes place
in the other country and not try to work just with one side. ... But this has
been as hard as anything I do because of the deep affinities that I feel for the
Israeli people and for the Jewish people. It’s been a hard period.”
You take it personally? I asked.
“It has been personally difficult for me to hear ... expressions that somehow
... this administration has not done everything it could to look out for
Israel’s interest — and the suggestion that when we have very serious policy
differences, that that’s not in the context of a deep and abiding friendship and
concern and understanding of the threats that the Jewish people have faced
historically and continue to face.”
As for protecting our Sunni Arab allies, like Saudi Arabia, the president said,
they have some very real external threats, but they also have some internal
threats — “populations that, in some cases, are alienated, youth that are
underemployed, an ideology that is destructive and nihilistic, and in some
cases, just a belief that there are no legitimate political outlets for
grievances. And so part of our job is to work with these states and say, ‘How
can we build your defense capabilities against external threats, but also, how
can we strengthen the body politic in these countries, so that Sunni youth feel
that they’ve got something other than [the Islamic State, or ISIS] to choose
from. ... I think the biggest threats that they face may not be coming from Iran
invading. It’s going to be from dissatisfaction inside their own countries. ...
That’s a tough conversation to have, but it’s one that we have to have.”
That said, the Iran deal is far from finished. As the president cautioned:
“We’re not done yet. There are a lot of details to be worked out, and you could
see backtracking and slippage and real political difficulties, both in Iran and
obviously here in the United States Congress.”
On Congress’s role, Obama said he insists on preserving the presidential
prerogative to enter into binding agreements with foreign powers without
congressional approval. However, he added, “I do think that [Tennessee
Republican] Senator Corker, the head of the Foreign Relations Committee, is
somebody who is sincerely concerned about this issue and is a good and decent
man, and my hope is that we can find something that allows Congress to express
itself but does not encroach on traditional presidential prerogatives — and
ensures that, if in fact we get a good deal, that we can go ahead and implement
it.”
Since President Obama has had more direct and indirect dealings with Iran’s
leadership — including an exchange of numerous letters with Iran’s supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — than any of his predecessors since Iran’s
revolution in 1979, I asked what he has learned from the back and forth.
“I think that it’s important to recognize that Iran is a complicated country —
just like we’re a complicated country,” the president said. “There is no doubt
that, given the history between our two countries, that there is deep mistrust
that is not going to fade away immediately. The activities that they engage in,
the rhetoric, both anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, is deeply
disturbing. There are deep trends in the country that are contrary to not only
our own national security interests and views but those of our allies and
friends in the region, and those divisions are real.”
But, he added, “what we’ve also seen is that there is a practical streak to the
Iranian regime. I think they are concerned about self-preservation. I think they
are responsive, to some degree, to their publics. I think the election of
[President Hassan] Rouhani indicated that there was an appetite among the
Iranian people for a rejoining with the international community, an emphasis on
the economics and the desire to link up with a global economy. And so what we’ve
seen over the last several years, I think, is the opportunity for those forces
within Iran that want to break out of the rigid framework that they have been in
for a long time to move in a different direction. It’s not a radical break, but
it’s one that I think offers us the chance for a different type of relationship,
and this nuclear deal, I think, is a potential expression of that.”
What about Iran’s supreme leader, who will be the ultimate decider there on
whether or not Iran moves ahead? What have you learned about him?
“He’s a pretty tough read,” the president said. “I haven’t spoken to him
directly. In the letters that he sends, there [are] typically a lot of reminders
of what he perceives as past grievances against Iran, but what is, I think,
telling is that he did give his negotiators in this deal the leeway, the
capability to make important concessions, that would allow this framework
agreement to come to fruition. So what that tells me is that — although he is
deeply suspicious of the West [and] very insular in how he thinks about
international issues as well as domestic issues, and deeply conservative — he
does realize that the sanctions regime that we put together was weakening Iran
over the long term, and that if in fact he wanted to see Iran re-enter the
community of nations, then there were going to have to be changes.”
Since he has acknowledged Israel’s concerns, and the fact that they are widely
shared there, if the president had a chance to make his case for this framework
deal directly to the Israeli people, what would he say?
“Well, what I’d say to them is this,” the president answered. “You have every
right to be concerned about Iran. This is a regime that at the highest levels
has expressed the desire to destroy Israel, that has denied the Holocaust, that
has expressed venomous anti-Semitic ideas and is a big country with a big
population and has a sophisticated military. So Israel is right to be concerned
about Iran, and they should be absolutely concerned that Iran doesn’t get a
nuclear weapon.” But, he insisted, this framework initiative, if it can be
implemented, can satisfy that Israeli strategic concern with more effectiveness
and at less cost to Israel than any other approach. “We know that a military
strike or a series of military strikes can set back Iran’s nuclear program for a
period of time — but almost certainly will prompt Iran to rush towards a bomb,
will provide an excuse for hard-liners inside of Iran to say, ‘This is what
happens when you don’t have a nuclear weapon: America attacks.’
“We know that if we do nothing, other than just maintain sanctions, that they
will continue with the building of their nuclear infrastructure and we’ll have
less insight into what exactly is happening,” Obama added. “So this may not be
optimal. In a perfect world, Iran would say, ‘We won’t have any nuclear
infrastructure at all,’ but what we know is that this has become a matter of
pride and nationalism for Iran. Even those who we consider moderates and
reformers are supportive of some nuclear program inside of Iran, and given that
they will not capitulate completely, given that they can’t meet the threshold
that Prime Minister Netanyahu sets forth, there are no Iranian leaders who will
do that. And given the fact that this is a country that withstood an eight-year
war and a million people dead, they’ve shown themselves willing, I think, to
endure hardship when they considered a point of national pride or, in some
cases, national survival.”
The president continued: “For us to examine those options and say to ourselves,
‘You know what, if we can have vigorous inspections, unprecedented, and we know
at every point along their nuclear chain exactly what they’re doing and that
lasts for 20 years, and for the first 10 years their program is not just frozen
but effectively rolled back to a larger degree, and we know that even if they
wanted to cheat we would have at least a year, which is about three times longer
than we’d have right now, and we would have insights into their programs that
we’ve never had before,’ in that circumstance, the notion that we wouldn’t take
that deal right now and that that would not be in Israel’s interest is simply
incorrect.”
Because, Obama argued, “the one thing that changes the equation is when these
countries get a nuclear weapon. ... Witness North Korea, which is a problem
state that is rendered a lot more dangerous because of their nuclear program. If
we can prevent that from happening anyplace else in the world, that’s something
where it’s worth taking some risks.”
“I have to respect the fears that the Israeli people have,” he added, “and I
understand that Prime Minister Netanyahu is expressing the deep-rooted concerns
that a lot of the Israeli population feel about this, but what I can say to them
is: Number one, this is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn’t get a
nuclear weapon, and number two, what we will be doing even as we enter into this
deal is sending a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region
that if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there. And I think the
combination of a diplomatic path that puts the nuclear issue to one side — while
at the same time sending a clear message to the Iranians that you have to change
your behavior more broadly and that we are going to protect our allies if you
continue to engage in destabilizing aggressive activity — I think that’s a
combination that potentially at least not only assures our friends, but starts
bringing down the temperature.”
There is clearly a debate going on inside Iran as to whether the country should
go ahead with this framework deal as well, so what would the president say to
the Iranian people to persuade them that this deal is in their interest?
If their leaders really are telling the truth that Iran is not seeking a nuclear
weapon, the president said, then “the notion that they would want to expend so
much on a symbolic program as opposed to harnessing the incredible talents and
ingenuity and entrepreneurship of the Iranian people, and be part of the world
economy and see their nation excel in those terms, that should be a pretty
straightforward choice for them. Iran doesn’t need nuclear weapons to be a
powerhouse in the region. For that matter, what I’d say to the Iranian people
is: You don’t need to be anti-Semitic or anti-Israel or anti-Sunni to be a
powerhouse in the region. I mean, the truth is, Iran has all these potential
assets going for it where, if it was a responsible international player, if it
did not engage in aggressive rhetoric against its neighbors, if it didn’t
express anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiment, if it maintained a military that
was sufficient to protect itself, but was not engaging in a whole bunch of proxy
wars around the region, by virtue of its size, its resources and its people it
would be an extremely successful regional power. And so my hope is that the
Iranian people begin to recognize that.”
Clearly, he added, “part of the psychology of Iran is rooted in past
experiences, the sense that their country was undermined, that the United States
or the West meddled in first their democracy and then in supporting the Shah and
then in supporting Iraq and Saddam during that extremely brutal war. So part of
what I’ve told my team is we have to distinguish between the ideologically
driven, offensive Iran and the defensive Iran that feels vulnerable and
sometimes may be reacting because they perceive that as the only way that they
can avoid repeats of the past. ... But if we’re able to get this done, then what
may happen — and I’m not counting on it — but what may happen is that those
forces inside of Iran that say, ‘We don’t need to view ourselves entirely
through the lens of our war machine. Let’s excel in science and technology and
job creation and developing our people,’ that those folks get stronger. ... I
say that emphasizing that the nuclear deal that we’ve put together is not based
on the idea that somehow the regime changes.
“It is a good deal even if Iran doesn’t change at all,” Obama argued. “Even for
somebody who believes, as I suspect Prime Minister Netanyahu believes, that
there is no difference between Rouhani and the supreme leader and they’re all
adamantly anti-West and anti-Israel and perennial liars and cheaters — even if
you believed all that, this still would be the right thing to do. It would still
be the best option for us to protect ourselves. In fact, you could argue that if
they are implacably opposed to us, all the more reason for us to want to have a
deal in which we know what they’re doing and that, for a long period of time, we
can prevent them from having a nuclear weapon.”
There are several very sensitive points in the framework agreement that are not
clear to me, and I asked the president for his interpretation. For instance, if
we suspect that Iran is cheating, is harboring a covert nuclear program outside
of the declared nuclear facilities covered in this deal — say, at a military
base in southeastern Iran — do we have the right to insist on that facility
being examined by international inspectors?
“In the first instance, what we have agreed to is that we will be able to
inspect and verify what’s happening along the entire nuclear chain from the
uranium mines all the way through to the final facilities like Natanz,” the
president said. “What that means is that we’re not just going to have a bunch of
folks posted at two or three or five sites. We are going to be able to see what
they’re doing across the board, and in fact, if they now wanted to initiate a
covert program that was designed to produce a nuclear weapon, they’d have to
create a whole different supply chain. That’s point number one. Point number
two, we’re actually going to be setting up a procurement committee that examines
what they’re importing, what they’re bringing in that they might claim as
dual-use, to determine whether or not what they’re using is something that would
be appropriate for a peaceful nuclear program versus a weapons program. And
number three, what we’re going to be doing is setting up a mechanism whereby,
yes, I.A.E.A. [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors can go anyplace.”
Anywhere in Iran? I asked.
“That we suspect,” the president answered. “Obviously, a request will have to be
made. Iran could object, but what we have done is to try to design a mechanism
whereby once those objections are heard, that it is not a final veto that Iran
has, but in fact some sort of international mechanism will be in place that
makes a fair assessment as to whether there should be an inspection, and if they
determine it should be, that’s the tiebreaker, not Iran saying, ‘No, you can’t
come here.’ So over all, what we’re seeing is not just the additional protocols
that I.A.E.A. has imposed on countries that are suspected of in the past having
had problematic nuclear programs, we’re going even beyond that, and Iran will be
subject to the kinds of inspections and verification mechanisms that have never
been put in place before.”
A lot of people, myself included, will want to see the fine print on that.
Another issue that doesn’t seem to have been resolved yet is: When exactly do
the economic sanctions on Iran get lifted? When the implementation begins? When
Iran has been deemed to be complying fully?
“There are still details to be worked out,” the president said, “but I think
that the basic framework calls for Iran to take the steps that it needs to
around [the Fordow enrichment facility], the centrifuges, and so forth. At that
point, then, the U.N. sanctions are suspended; although the sanctions related to
proliferation, the sanctions related to ballistic missiles, there’s a set of
sanctions that remain in place. At that point, then, we preserve the ability to
snap back those sanctions, if there is a violation. If not, though, Iran,
outside of the proliferation and ballistic missile issues that stay in place,
they’re able to get out from under the sanctions, understanding that this
constant monitoring will potentially trigger some sort of action if they’re in
violation.”
There are still United States sanctions that are related to Iran’s behavior in
terrorism and human rights abuse, though, the president added: “There are
certain sanctions that we have that would remain in place because they’re not
related to Iran’s nuclear program, and this, I think, gets to a central point
that we’ve made consistently. If in fact we are able to finalize the nuclear
deal, and if Iran abides by it, that’s a big piece of business that we’ve gotten
done, but it does not end our problems with Iran, and we are still going to be
aggressively working with our allies and friends to reduce — and hopefully at
some point stop — the destabilizing activities that Iran has engaged in, the
sponsorship of terrorist organizations. And that may take some time. But it’s
our belief, it’s my belief, that we will be in a stronger position to do so if
the nuclear issue has been put in a box. And if we can do that, it’s possible
that Iran, seeing the benefits of sanctions relief, starts focusing more on the
economy and its people. And investment starts coming in, and the country starts
opening up. If we’ve done a good job in bolstering the sense of security and
defense cooperation between us and the Sunni states, if we have made even more
certain that the Israeli people are absolutely protected not just by their own
capacities, but also by our commitments, then what’s possible is you start
seeing an equilibrium in the region, and Sunni and Shia, Saudi and Iran start
saying, ‘Maybe we should lower tensions and focus on the extremists like [ISIS]
that would burn down this entire region if they could.’ ”
Regarding America’s Sunni Arab allies, Obama reiterated that while he is
prepared to help increase their military capabilities they also need to increase
their willingness to commit their ground troops to solving regional problems.
“The conversations I want to have with the Gulf countries is, first and
foremost, how do they build more effective defense capabilities,” the president
said. “I think when you look at what happens in Syria, for example, there’s been
a great desire for the United States to get in there and do something. But the
question is: Why is it that we can’t have Arabs fighting [against] the terrible
human rights abuses that have been perpetrated, or fighting against what Assad
has done? I also think that I can send a message to them about the U.S.’s
commitments to work with them and ensure that they are not invaded from the
outside, and that perhaps will ease some of their concerns and allow them to
have a more fruitful conversation with the Iranians. What I can’t do, though, is
commit to dealing with some of these internal issues that they have without them
making some changes that are more responsive to their people.”
One way to think about it, Obama continued, “is [that] when it comes to external
aggression, I think we’re going to be there for our [Arab] friends — and I want
to see how we can formalize that a little bit more than we currently have, and
also help build their capacity so that they feel more confident about their
ability to protect themselves from external aggression.” But, he repeated, “The
biggest threats that they face may not be coming from Iran invading. It’s going
to be from dissatisfaction inside their own countries. Now disentangling that
from real terrorist activity inside their country, how we sort that out, how we
engage in the counterterrorism cooperation that’s been so important to our own
security — without automatically legitimizing or validating whatever repressive
tactics they may employ — I think that’s a tough conversation to have, but it’s
one that we have to have.”
It feels lately like some traditional boundaries between the executive and
legislative branches, when it comes to the conduct of American foreign policy,
have been breached. For instance, there was the letter from 47 Republican
senators to Iran’s supreme leader cautioning him on striking any deal with Obama
not endorsed by them — coming in the wake of Prime Minister Netanyahu being
invited by the speaker of the House, John Boehner, to address a joint session of
Congress — without consulting the White House. How is Obama taking this?
“I do worry that some traditional boundaries in how we think about foreign
policy have been crossed,” the president said. “I felt the letter that was sent
to the supreme leader was inappropriate. I think that you will recall there were
some deep disagreements with President Bush about the Iraq war, but the notion
that you would have had a whole bunch of Democrats sending letters to leaders in
the region or to European leaders ... trying to undermine the president’s
policies I think is troubling.
“The bottom line,” he added, “is that we’re going to have serious debates,
serious disagreements, and I welcome those because that’s how our democracy is
supposed to work, and in today’s international environment, whatever arguments
we have here, other people are hearing and reading about it. It’s not a secret
that the Republicans may feel more affinity with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s
views of the Iran issue than they do with mine. But [we need to be] keeping that
within some formal boundaries, so that the executive branch, when it goes
overseas, when it’s communicating with foreign leaders, is understood to be
speaking on behalf of the United States of America, not a divided United States
of America, making sure that whether that president is a Democrat or a
Republican that once the debates have been had here, that he or she is the
spokesperson on behalf of U.S. foreign policy. And that’s clear to every leader
around the world. That’s important because without that, what you start getting
is multiple foreign policies, confusion among foreign powers as to who speaks
for who, and that ends up being a very dangerous — circumstances that could be
exploited by our enemies and could deeply disturb our friends.”
As for the Obama doctrine — “we will engage, but we preserve all our
capabilities” — the president concluded: “I’ve been very clear that Iran will
not get a nuclear weapon on my watch, and I think they should understand that we
mean it. But I say that hoping that we can conclude this diplomatic arrangement
— and that it ushers a new era in U.S.-Iranian relations — and, just as
importantly, over time, a new era in Iranian relations with its neighbors.”
Whatever happened in the past, he said, “at this point, the U.S.’s core
interests in the region are not oil, are not territorial. ... Our core interests
are that everybody is living in peace, that it is orderly, that our allies are
not being attacked, that children are not having barrel bombs dropped on them,
that massive displacements aren’t taking place. Our interests in this sense are
really just making sure that the region is working. And if it’s working well,
then we’ll do fine. And that’s going to be a big project, given what’s taken
place, but I think this [Iran framework deal] is at least one place to start.”
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The Obama Doctrine and Iran,
APRIL 5, 2015, NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/opinion/thomas-friedman-the-obama-doctrine-and-iran-interview.html
Islamic State
Seizes Palestinian Refugee Camp
in Syria
APRIL 4, 2015
The New York Times
By ANNE BARNARD
AMMAN, Jordan — Islamic State militants have seized most of a
sprawling Palestinian refugee district in the southern part of the Syrian
capital, Damascus, an area that has been under siege and bombardment for nearly
two years already, according to Palestinian and United Nations officials and
residents.
The officials called for quick action by international organizations, the Syrian
government and all armed groups to head off an unfolding catastrophe. Reports of
killings and even beheadings were beginning to circulate on Saturday, worsening
what is already a longstanding humanitarian nightmare for the 18,000 residents
of the Yarmouk refugee camp.
By seizing much of the camp, the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as
ISIS or ISIL, made its greatest inroads yet into Damascus, a significant step
for a group that rose largely in the northern and eastern provinces of Syria,
far from the capital. Yet at the same time, the move suggests that as the
Islamic State loses ground in Iraq and northeastern Syria, the most daring
response it could muster on the ground was to attack one of the most vulnerable
populations in Syria.
Most of all, the attack was a perverse answer to the question of how life in
Yarmouk could get worse. Many residents’ very presence there is a scar from a
previous war; they are descended from Palestinians who fled or were driven from
their homes in the 1948 war over Israel’s founding.
More recently, they have been blockaded and bombarded by the Syrian government
for nearly two years, and ruled internally by a tangled web of armed groups,
including Syrian insurgents and Palestinian factions, said by residents to
siphon scarce food to their own fighters and families.
While Palestinian leaders had initially sought to maintain neutrality in Syria’s
war, in reality, Palestinian refugees living in Syria — who had more rights
there than in other countries and therefore had a greater stake in society —
have strong sympathies on both sides of the conflict. Some supported President
Bashar al-Assad, seeing him as a champion of the Palestinian cause, while others
became leaders in the initial political uprising against him. Hamas, the
powerful Palestinian Sunni militant group, broke with Mr. Assad over what it saw
as his repression of an uprising led by fellow Sunni Muslims, but has lately
sought a measure of reconciliation.
Nevertheless, Palestinians are caught in the middle, and most of the camp’s
160,000 prewar residents, once the world’s largest concentration of Palestinian
refugees outside the West Bank and Gaza, have been scattered in what some are
calling a second Nakba, or catastrophe, the Palestinians’ name for the events of
1948.
“For over 700 days, the camp has been the victim of a draconian siege, which has
resulted in the death by starvation of at least 200 Palestinians,” Saeb Erekat,
the longtime Palestinian peace negotiator with Israel, said in a statement
issued Saturday that called on all parties to provide civilians with safe
passage out of the “death trap.”
He said the humanitarian disaster underscored the vulnerability of Palestinian
refugees and their need for a “right of return” to reclaim homes in what is now
Israel, one of the thorniest issues in world affairs. But for the time being, he
added, “Yarmouk shall remain a testament to the collective human failure of
protecting civilians in times of war.”
The fighting in Yarmouk was also a testament to the complexity of the Syrian
conflict, where various insurgent groups are battling both the government and
the Islamic State amid shifting and contradictory alliances.
At first, the latest chapter appeared to have begun with low-level disputes
between ISIS militants in the neighboring suburb of Hajar al-Aswad and members
of a Hamas-affiliated militia in the camp, Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis.
But as the Hamas-linked fighters clashed with ISIS and tried to keep it from
establishing a foothold in the camp, members of the Nusra Front, a Qaeda
affiliate that has a major presence there, did not help, several residents said.
Some said that despite its rivalry with the Islamic State elsewhere, the Nusra
Front actively prevented other insurgent groups from sending reinforcements from
nearby suburbs, and that many of its members defected to ISIS.
Anwar Raja, a spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine-General Command, a pro-Assad group, said Nusra and the Islamic State
were “all the same” and the latest fighting showed that recent talks to reach a
settlement for the camp were “nonsense and promotion for terrorism.”
In spite of the difficulties they face, Yarmouk residents have continued to
produce films and music about their and Syria’s plight, making the camp a symbol
of resilience as well as suffering. But adding an ISIS occupation onto
everything else, one Palestinian resident of Damascus said, “would be
catastrophic.”
Hwaida Saad and Maher Samaan contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.
A version of this article appears in print on April 5, 2015, on page A12 of the
New York edition with the headline: Islamic State Seizes Palestinian Refugee
Camp in Syria.
Islamic State Seizes Palestinian Refugee Camp in Syria, NYT,
APRIL 4, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/world/middleeast/islamic-state-seizes-palestinian-refugee-camp-in-syria.html
The Shabab’s Horrifying Resurgence
APRIL 3, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya is reeling from the shock of the massacre,
early on Thursday, of 147 people in an attack by Somali militants on a college.
At least four Shabab gunmen stormed Garissa University College, about 200 miles
northeast of the capital, Nairobi, before dawn. They took students hostage and
continued their assault until late in the evening, when Kenyan security forces
ended the siege.
A Kenyan worker for an international aid agency, Reuben Nyaora, told Agence
France-Presse: “I have seen many things, but nothing like that. There were
bodies everywhere in execution lines, we saw people whose heads had been blown
off, bullet wounds everywhere, it was a grisly mess.”
The attackers, Islamist militants from the Shabab, the Somali terrorist
organization that has claimed responsibility, were reported to have taunted the
victims, saying they came ready to die, and it would be a “good Easter” for
them. In a particularly callous touch, they ordered some victims first to call
their parents on their cellphones to relay the terrorists’ message that the
attack was in retaliation for Kenya’s part in military efforts in Somalia
against the Shabab, and then shot them.
In the event, the militants more than succeeded in raining on Kenya’s Easter
holiday. A somber mood has settled over the country.
Kenyans on Twitter, easily Africa’s most vocal population on social media, were
reflective. The customary jokes about funny encounters by Nairobians traveling
upcountry for the holiday were markedly absent. The top trending topic was
#NoMore, a hashtag denouncing the Garissa terror attack. #HappyEaster did make
its way into the Top 10, as did #GoodFriday, but among the rest were #Somalia,
#PrayforKenya, #Westgate — the upmarket mall that the Shabab attacked, killing
67 people, in September 2013 — and #Muslims.
The attack sent a worrying message about the Shabab. The militants may have been
beaten out of their strongholds in Somalia by African Union peacekeeping forces
over the last two years, and a combination of American airstrikes and several
defections have taken out many of its leaders, but the Islamists are far from
defeated.
This was the most deadly terror attack in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the
United States Embassy in Nairobi by Al Qaeda. If the Shabab meant to declare
that it has emerged stronger from its crisis, it has indeed acted with more
deadly efficiency. Fewer gunmen were involved at Garissa than in the Westgate
assault, yet they slaughtered twice as many.
Another significant factor is that, as far as can yet be determined, the Garissa
attackers avoided killing Muslims, whereas at Westgate the militants executed
“bad” Muslims who couldn’t recite verses of the Quran fluently or were not
dressed with sufficient modesty. This time, the fighters sorted the victims
according to their religion and then “mercilessly executed the Christians,” as a
Shabab spokesman, Ali Mohamud Rage, gleefully told Radio Andalus in Somalia on
Friday. In attacks last year on the Kenyan coast, and in the northeast, they did
the same. Letting the Muslims walk, then killing the Christians.
In this respect, the Shabab is different from Nigeria’s Boko Haram and the
Islamic State, which will kill Muslims they consider not to be true believers.
In a Kenya that is still struggling to heal ethnic and regional divisions,
inserting a new Muslim-versus-Christian dynamic could throw an accelerant on the
flames of conflict.
The Shabab has also evolved in its demands. In addition to its call for Kenya to
withdraw its troops from African Union peacekeeping forces, the militants also
said they wanted to reunite the northern part of Kenya, which is populated by
ethnic Somalis, with their motherland. This pan-Somali nationalist project has
coincided with active recruitment by the Shabab among poor young Muslims in
northeastern Kenya.
If the Kenyan government responds heavy-handedly against either Somalis or
Muslims — which is clearly what the Shabab is trying to provoke — there will be
a real risk of alienating the Somali-populated northern region. There are also
signs inside Kenyan politics that nervousness about Somalia is growing.
As the appetite for the military campaign wanes, a new approach is needed. Aden
Bare Duale, the majority leader of the National Assembly and himself a Kenyan
Somali, was pilloried when, a few weeks ago, he suggested that it was time to
negotiate with the Shabab. Outlining a very different strategy, Interior
Minister Joseph Nkaissery said recently that Kenya was considering the
construction of a security barrier along its 430-mile border with Somalia.
The sands now seem to have shifted in Shabab’s favor. When it controlled large
parts of Somalia, its hands were full: collecting taxes, policing the streets
and administering its cruel forms of Shariah law justice. It was stretched and
distracted.
Now relieved of the burden of administering territory, the Shabab can focus on
its original mission: jihad. And with this has come a new discipline and sharper
focus.
Inside Somalia, the Shabab is training its fire on political and military
targets — the presidential palace, Parliament, the African Union military base
and hotels where government officials hang out. Outside Somali territory, it is
minimizing Muslim casualties.
A humbling on Somalia’s battlefields may, tragically for Kenyans, have turned to
the Shabab’s advantage.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is the editor of The Mail and Guardian Africa.
The Shabab’s Horrifying Resurgence, APRIL 3, NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/opinion/the-shababs-horrifying-resurgence.html
A Promising Nuclear Deal With Iran
APRIL 2, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The preliminary agreement between Iran and the major powers is a
significant achievement that makes it more likely Iran will never be a nuclear
threat. President Obama said it would “cut off every pathway that Iran could
take to develop a nuclear weapon.”
Officials said some important issues have not been resolved, like the possible
lifting of a United Nations arms embargo, and writing the technical sections
could also cause problems before the deal’s finalization, expected by June 30.
Even so, the agreement announced on Thursday after eight days of negotiations
appears more specific and comprehensive than expected.
It would roll back Iran’s nuclear program sufficiently so that Iran could not
quickly produce a nuclear weapon, and ensure that, if Iran cheated, the world
would have at least one year to take preventive action, including reimposing
sanctions. In return, the United States, the European Union and the United
Nations would lift sanctions crippling Iran’s economy, though the timing of such
a move is yet another uncertainty.
Iran would shut down roughly two-thirds of the 19,000 centrifuges producing
uranium that could be used to fuel a bomb and agree not to enrich uranium over
3.67 percent (a much lower level than is required for a bomb) for at least 15
years. The core of the reactor at Arak, which officials feared could produce
plutonium, another key ingredient for making a weapon, would be dismantled and
replaced, with the spent fuel shipped out of Iran.
Mr. Obama, speaking at the White House, insisted he was not relying on trust to
ensure Iran’s compliance but on “the most robust and intrusive inspections and
transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program.”
There is good reason for skepticism about Iran’s intentions. Although it pledged
not to acquire nuclear weapons when it ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty in 1970, it pursued a secret uranium enrichment program for two decades.
By November 2013, when serious negotiations with the major powers began, Iran
was enriching uranium at a level close to bomb-grade.
However, Iran has honored an interim agreement with the major powers, in place
since January 2014, by curbing enrichment and other major activities.
By opening a dialogue between Iran and America, the negotiations have begun to
ease more than 30 years of enmity. Over the long run, an agreement could make
the Middle East safer and offer a path for Iran, the leading Shiite country, to
rejoin the international community.
The deal, if signed and carried out, would vindicate the political risks taken
by President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and President Obama to engage after decades
of estrangement starting from the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Talking to adversaries — as President Ronald Reagan did in nuclear weapons
negotiations with the Soviets and President Richard Nixon did in his opening to
China — is something American leaders have long pursued as a matter of practical
necessity and prudence.
Yet in today’s poisonous political climate, Mr. Obama’s critics have gone to
extraordinary lengths to undercut him and any deal. Their belligerent behavior
is completely out of step with the American public, which overwhelmingly favors
a negotiated solution with Iran, unquestionably the best approach.
Sunni Arab nations and Israel are deeply opposed to any deal, fearing that it
would strengthen Iran’s power in the region. This agreement addresses the
nuclear program, the most urgent threat, and does not begin to tackle Iran’s
disruptive role in Syria and elsewhere. Iran is widely seen as a threat; whether
it can get beyond that will depend on whether its leaders choose to be less
hostile to its neighbors, including Israel.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter.
A version of this editorial appears in print on April 3, 2015, on page A22 of
the New York edition with the headline: A Promising Nuclear Deal With Iran.
A Promising Nuclear Deal With Iran, NYT, APRIL 2, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/opinion/a-promising-nuclear-deal-with-iran.html
The Fruits of Diplomacy With Iran
A Good Deal With Iran
APRIL 2, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
By WILLIAM J. BURNS
WASHINGTON — IN a perfect world, there would be no nuclear
enrichment in Iran, and its existing enrichment facilities would be dismantled.
But we don’t live in a perfect world. We can’t wish or bomb away the basic
know-how and enrichment capability that Iran has developed. What we can do is
sharply constrain it over a long duration, monitor it with unprecedented
intrusiveness, and prevent the Iranian leadership from enriching material to
weapons grade and building a bomb.
Those are the goals that have animated recent American diplomacy on the Iranian
nuclear issue, including during the back-channel talks with Iran that I led in
Oman and other quiet venues in 2013. Against a backdrop of 35 years without
sustained diplomatic contact, filled with mutual suspicion and grievance, it was
hardly surprising that our discussions were difficult, and our Iranian
counterparts as tough-minded and skeptical as they were professionally skilled.
But our efforts helped set the stage for the interim agreement, or Joint Plan of
Action, concluded in November 2013.
Much maligned at the time, the J.P.O.A. has proved its value, freezing and
rolling back Iran’s nuclear program for the first time in a decade, applying
innovative inspections measures, allowing only modest sanctions relief and
keeping substantial pressure on Iran.
The understanding announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Thursday
is an important step forward. Many crucial details still have to be resolved.
But the understanding outlines a solid comprehensive agreement that would
increase, for at least a decade, the time it would take Iran to enrich enough
weapons-grade material for a single bomb from the current two-to-three-month
timeline to at least one year. It would significantly reduce Iran’s stockpile of
low-enriched uranium, substantially limit the country’s enrichment capacity and
constrain Iranian research and development on more advanced centrifuges. And it
would cut off Iran’s other possible pathways to a bomb, including by effectively
eliminating Iran’s potential capacity to produce weapons-grade plutonium at its
planned Arak reactor and banning enrichment at the underground Fordow facility
for at least 15 years.
In addition to these significant limitations, we would create an inspection
regime unparalleled in intensity, going well beyond current international
standards and ensuring that any breakout effort would be quickly detected. Only
a negotiated deal gets us the verification and monitoring we need to close off
any covert path to a weapon.
Through carefully phased sanctions relief with built-in procedures to reimpose
sanctions immediately in case of Iranian noncompliance, we would also preserve
ample enforcement leverage. With more eyes on less material in fewer places, and
clarity about the harsh costs of cheating, we would be well positioned to deter
and prevent Iranian breakout.
As consequential as this understanding is, much more remains to be done. Three
challenges loom largest.
The first is the most obvious and immediate: the difficult, painstaking work of
negotiating the details of a comprehensive agreement. Rigorous execution of such
an agreement will be a critical priority for this administration and its
successor, and that will depend on the quality of its verification and
enforcement provisions. There is no reason to rush this effort, especially given
the continued freeze on Iran’s program under the J.P.O.A. What’s crucial is to
get it right.
The second and third challenges are more long-term, but equally important.
Completing this comprehensive nuclear accord with Iran must be one part of a
cleareyed strategy for a Middle East in deep disarray. I do not assume that
progress on the nuclear issue will lead anytime soon to relaxation of tensions
with Tehran on other regional problems, or to normalization of United
States-Iranian relations. Nor do I assume that the Iranian leadership will make
an overnight transformation from a revolutionary, regionally disruptive force to
a more “normal” role as another ambitious regional power.
That means we must work to reassure our partners in the region, whose concerns
about both Iranian threats and the impact of a nuclear deal are palpable. We
should urgently pursue new forms of security assurances and cooperation. Taking
a firm stance against threatening Iranian actions in the region, from Syria to
Yemen, not only shores up anxious longtime friends. It also is the best way to
produce Iranian restraint, much as a firm stance on sanctions helped persuade
Iran to reassess its nuclear strategy.
Similarly, it’s important to embed a comprehensive Iranian nuclear agreement in
a wider effort to strengthen the global nuclear order. New inspection and
monitoring measures applied through an Iran agreement may create useful future
benchmarks. The Iranian problem has exposed significant vulnerabilities under
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, especially the absence of a clear divide
between civilian and military programs. The Iran case makes clear that the gray
zone in the treaty between the right to use nuclear energy and the prohibition
against manufacturing nuclear weapons is too wide. As nuclear technology and
know-how become more diffuse and states turn to nuclear power to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, building a sturdy firewall between military and
peaceful activities will be an increasingly important task.
None of this will be easy. But the prospect of a comprehensive nuclear agreement
with Iran in the next few months, if executed rigorously and embedded in wider
strategies for regional order and global nuclear order, can be a significant
turning point. It can also be a much-needed demonstration of the enduring value
of diplomacy.
The history of the Iranian nuclear issue is littered with missed opportunities.
It is a history in which fixation on the perfect crowded out the good, and in
whose rearview mirror we can see deals that look a lot better now than they
seemed then. With all its inevitable imperfections, we can’t afford to miss this
one.
William J. Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
was deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014 and continues to advise the
government on the Iran talks.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 3, 2015, on page A23 of the
New York edition with the headline: The Fruits of Diplomacy With Iran.
The Fruits of Diplomacy With Iran,
NYT, APRIL 2, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/opinion/a-good-deal-with-iran.html
A Foreign Policy Gamble by Obama
at a Moment of Truth
APRIL 2, 2015
The New York Times
Middle East | News Analysis
By PETER BAKER
WASHINGTON — On the day he took office, President Obama reached
out to America’s enemies, offering in his first inaugural address to “extend a
hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” More than six years later, he
has arrived at a moment of truth in testing that proposition with one of the
nation’s most intransigent adversaries.
The framework nuclear agreement he reached with Iran on Thursday did not provide
the definitive answer to whether Mr. Obama’s audacious gamble will pay off. The
fist Iran has shaken at the so-called Great Satan since 1979 has not completely
relaxed. But the fingers are loosening, and the agreement, while still
incomplete, held out the prospect that it might yet become a handshake.
For a president whose ambitions to remake the world have been repeatedly
frustrated, the possibility of a reconciliation after 36 years of hostility
between Washington and Tehran now seems tantalizingly within reach, a way to be
worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize that even he believed was awarded prematurely.
Yet the deal remains unfinished and unsigned, and critics worry that he is
giving up too much while grasping for the illusion of peace.
“Right now, he has no foreign policy legacy,” said Cliff Kupchan, an Iran
specialist who has been tracking the talks as chairman of the Eurasia Group, a
consulting firm. “He’s got a list of foreign policy failures. A deal with Iran
and the ensuing transformation of politics in the Middle East would provide one
of the more robust foreign policy legacies of any recent presidencies. It’s kind
of all in for Obama. He has nothing else. So for him, it’s all or nothing.”
As Mr. Obama stepped into the Rose Garden to announce what he called a historic
understanding, he seemed both relieved that it had come together and combative
with those in Congress who would tear it apart. While its provisions must be
translated into writing by June 30, he presented it as a breakthrough that
would, if made final, make the world a safer place, the kind of legacy any
president would like to leave. “This has been a long time coming,” he said.
Mr. Obama cited the same John F. Kennedy quote he referenced earlier in the week
when visiting a new institute dedicated to the former president’s brother,
Senator Edward M. Kennedy: “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never
fear to negotiate.” The sense of celebration was captured by aides standing
nearby in the Colonnade who exchanged fist bumps at the end of the president’s
remarks.
But Mr. Obama will have a hard time convincing a skeptical Congress, where
Republicans and many Democrats are deeply concerned that he has grown so
desperate to reach a deal that he is trading away American and Israeli security.
As he tries to reach finality with Iran, he will have to fend off legislative
efforts, joined even by some of his friends, to force a tougher posture.
House Speaker John A. Boehner, who has been traveling in the Middle East in
recent days, repeated his insistence that Congress review any deal before
sanctions are eased. “My concerns about Iran’s efforts to foment unrest, brutal
violence and terror have only grown,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement. “It would
be naïve to suggest the Iranian regime will not continue to use its nuclear
program, and any economic relief, to further destabilize the region.”
Mr. Obama tried to reverse that argument on Thursday, framing the choice as
either accepting his deal or risking war, a binary formulation his critics
reject. “Do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented,
backed by the world’s major powers, is a worse option than the risk of another
war in the Middle East?” Mr. Obama asked. If Congress kills the deal, he said,
“then it’s the United States that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy.”
An agreement with Iran remains the most promising goal left in a foreign policy
agenda that has unraveled since Mr. Obama took office. Rather than building a
new partnership with Russia, he faces a new cold war. Rather than ending the war
in Iraq, he has sent American forces back to fight the Islamic State, though
primarily from the air. Rather than defeating Al Qaeda, he finds himself chasing
its offshoots. Rather than forging peace in the Middle East, he said recently
that is beyond his reach.
Mr. Obama still aspires to reorient American foreign policy more toward Asia,
and a pending Pacific trade pact could have a lasting impact if he can seal the
deal and push it through Congress. He has nudged the world, particularly China,
toward more action on climate change. He will count the restoration of
diplomatic relations with Cuba after a half-century of estrangement as a major
achievement.
But with so many disappointments, Iran has become something of a holy grail of
foreign policy to Mr. Obama, one that could hold the key to a broader reordering
of a region that has bedeviled American presidents for generations. Aides say he
has spent more time on Iran than any other foreign policy issue except
Afghanistan and terrorism.
Since the 1979 Iranian revolution that swept out the Washington-supported shah
and brought to power an anti-American Islamic leadership, the country has been
the most sustained destabilizing force in the Middle East — a sponsor of the
terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, a supporter of Shiite militias that killed
American soldiers in Iraq, a patron of Syria’s government in its bloody civil
war, and now a backer of the rebels who pushed out the president of Yemen.
A nuclear agreement will not change all of that, or perhaps any of that, a point
Mr. Obama’s critics have made repeatedly. But Mr. Obama hopes it can be the
start of a new era. An Iran that would “rejoin the community of nations,” as he
put it Thursday, may have incentive to stop fomenting so much trouble. Failure
as Mr. Obama sees it means more war, more instability. He has been willing to
gamble America’s relationship with Israel and his own presidency on that
premise.
“Obama always saw the Iranian nuclear threat as a major security challenge that
would lead to war if not controlled, and further proliferation if not
prevented,” said Gary Samore, a former top arms control adviser to Mr. Obama who
is now president of the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran.
“If we get a nuclear deal, it won’t solve the problem, because the current
government in Iran will still be committed to acquiring a nuclear weapons
capability,” he added. “But it would give the next president a much stronger
basis to manage and delay the threat.”
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former C.I.A. analyst who is now a senior fellow at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said a nuclear accord with Iran was all
that remained of Mr. Obama’s dream of transformation. But Mr. Obama, he said,
has misjudged Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its president,
Hassan Rouhani.
“A reading of the supreme leader or of Hassan Rouhani in their own words ought
to tell you that there is a near-zero chance that an accord will diminish the
revolutionary, religious hostility that these two men, the revolutionary elite,
have for the United States,” he said.
If Mr. Obama does turn out to be right, Mr. Gerecht added, history will reward
him. “If he is wrong, however, and this diplomatic process accelerates the
nuclearization of the region, throws jet fuel on the war between the Sunnis and
the Shia, and puts America into a much worse strategic position in the Middle
East,” he said, “then history is likely to be harsh to Mr. Obama.”
R. Nicholas Burns, who was President George W. Bush’s lead negotiator on Iran,
said Mr. Obama had embraced and enhanced a strategy his predecessor began.
“We’ll have to judge him by the final result, but so far, this has been a
successful effort,” he said. “A good deal could prevent Iran from getting a
nuclear weapon. A bad deal could end up empowering Iran, a defeat for him and
the country.”
“In terms of legacy,” Mr. Burns added, “this is one of the two or three things
that will determine it, for good or bad.”
Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed reporting.
A version of this news analysis appears in print on April 3, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Clenched Fist Loosens a Bit.
A Foreign Policy Gamble by Obama at a Moment of Truth,
NYT, APRIL 2, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/world/middleeast/a-foreign-policy-gamble-by-obama-at-a-moment-of-truth.html
Obama Removes Weapons Freeze
Against Egypt
MARCH 31, 2015
The New York Times
By PETER BAKER
WASHINGTON — Seeking to repair relations with a longtime ally at
a time of spreading war in the Middle East, President Obama on Tuesday lifted an
arms freeze against Egypt that he had first imposed after the military overthrow
of the country’s democratically elected government nearly two years ago.
Mr. Obama cleared the way for the delivery of F-16 aircraft, Harpoon missiles
and M1A1 Abrams tanks, weapons prized by Egyptian leaders, who have smoldered at
the suspension. In a telephone call, Mr. Obama assured President Abdel Fattah
el-Sisi of Egypt that he would support the full $1.3 billion in annual military
assistance the Cairo government traditionally receives, even as others seek to
cut it, the White House said.
The decision signaled a trade-off for a president who has spoken in support of
democracy and human rights but finds himself in need of friends at a volatile
time in a bloody part of the world. The White House made no effort to assert
that Egypt had made the “credible progress” toward democracy that Mr. Obama
demanded when he halted the arms deliveries in October 2013. Instead, the
decision was justified as being “in the interest of U.S. national security,” as
the White House put it in a statement.
Administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe
internal deliberations, said the timing of the move was not directly related to
the swirling crosscurrents now roiling the Middle East, including the widening
conflict in Yemen, the rise of extremism in Libya, the battle with the Islamic
State in Syria and Iraq or the possible nuclear deal with Iran.
But they said the broader perils of the region, particularly militant attacks in
the Sinai Peninsula, had played an indirect role. “Given that higher level of
threat, we felt it particularly important to make sure Egypt had all of the
equipment it could possibly need to defend itself from these threats,” one of
the officials said.
Beyond Sinai, Egypt faces multiple security issues. In February, it conducted an
airstrike against Islamic militants in Libya in retaliation for the beheadings
of a group of Egyptian Christians. Egypt has also said it will send ground
troops into Yemen if necessary to support the Saudi-led operation against
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. And Egyptian leaders agreed in concept to create a
combined military force with other Arab states.
Mr. Obama’s move will release 12 F-16 fighter jets, 20 Harpoon missiles, and the
shells and parts necessary to assemble up to 125 M1A1 Abrams tanks that Egypt
had previously paid for but that have been held up since 2013. The F-16s are
especially important to Egyptian leaders, who have bitterly raised the issue
with their American counterparts at nearly every opportunity.
Intended or not, experts said Mr. Obama’s decision would be interpreted as an
effort by Washington to bolster a fragile position in the region. “The U.S. is
facing quite a few challenges, and it needs to shore up relations with allies,”
said Steven Simon, a former Middle East adviser to Mr. Obama now affiliated with
Dartmouth. “The assistance to Egypt was always predicated on its foreign policy,
not its domestic policy. That was certainly the Egyptian understanding of it.”
But other experts and human rights advocates said Mr. Obama had effectively
capitulated to Mr. Sisi, a former general who helped lead the military overthrow
of President Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013 and then won
the presidency in an election tainted by wide-scale arrests of opposition
figures. They compared Mr. Obama’s decision to lift the arms freeze to past
instances when he did not live up to his own words, citing the “red line” he
drew against Syrian use of chemical weapons in its civil war.
“Unsurprisingly, in this case you see that national security priorities, broadly
defined, trump virtually everything else,” said Sarah Margon, the Washington
director of Human Rights Watch. “And that’s a very myopic, short-term approach
to fighting terrorism. Human rights abuses are actually a very bad
counterterrorism strategy.”
According to Human Rights Watch and an Egyptian group called the Arabic Network
for Human Rights Information, the Egyptian authorities arrested more than 40,000
people after Mr. Sisi’s removal of Mr. Morsi and have never provided a full
accounting of the detentions.
Mr. Sisi’s government has cracked down on nongovernmental organizations that
take foreign money and has authorized military courts to hold mass trials in
terrorism cases that the rights groups call a way of suppressing protesters.
Amy Hawthorne, a senior fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at
the Atlantic Council in Washington, said Mr. Obama’s decision would be seen as a
victory by Egyptians who wore down American officials’ resistance.
“This isn’t their intention, but it will be read by Sisi as acceptance of his
legitimacy and a desire to satisfy his demands in their relationship,” she said.
“I’m still trying to understand, how do our concerns factor in?”
Mr. Obama’s decision does include elements that may irritate Mr. Sisi, however.
Until now, Egypt and Israel were the only countries permitted to buy American
arms by drawing credit from future foreign aid. Mr. Obama said he would halt
that for Egypt, barring it from drawing in advance money expected in the 2018
fiscal year and beyond. He will also channel future military aid to four
categories — counterterrorism, border security, maritime security and Sinai
security — rather than give Egypt broad latitude to decide how to use it.
The change in policy is intended to wean Egypt away from large, expensive
weapons systems that signal national prestige but are not suited to fighting the
sort of insurgent and terrorist threats it now confronts, American officials
said.
Without its aid already spoken for years in advance, Egypt will have more
flexibility to make arms purchases to deal with immediate challenges. The United
States will also have more flexibility to cut it off if future actions warrant,
officials said.
Indeed, some scholars said the end of cash-flow financing, as it is called, was
the most significant element of Mr. Obama’s announcement because the resumption
of aid had been expected eventually.
“Now the military aid could be much more easily discontinued in the future,”
said Michael Wahid Hanna, a researcher at the Century Foundation in New York.
“This is a very far-reaching step.”
Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the
release of the weapons did not mean that the United States would stop pressing
Egypt to ease its domestic repression of dissent.
“We will continue to engage with Egypt frankly and directly on its political
trajectory and to raise human rights and political reform issues at the highest
levels,” she said.
David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo.
A version of this article appears in print on April 1, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Obama Removes Weapons Freeze Against Egypt.
Obama Removes Weapons Freeze Against Egypt,
NYT, MARCH 31, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/world/middleeast/obama-lifts-arms-freeze-against-egypt.html
Saudi Arabia’s Ominous Reach Into Yemen
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
MARCH 31, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
The Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen threatens to turn
what has been a civil war between competing branches of Islam into a wider
regional struggle involving Iran. It could also destroy any hope of stability in
Yemen. Even before the Saudis and their Arab allies started the bombing, Yemen
was in severe distress; on Tuesday, the United Nations high commissioner for
human rights warned that it is now on the brink of collapse.
Rather than bombing, Saudi Arabia should be using its power and influence to
begin diplomatic negotiations, which offer the best hope of a durable solution.
Saudi Arabia intervened last week after the Houthis, who are supported by Iran,
overthrew Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and captured large chunks of land. The
Sunni-run government in Saudi Arabia has watched with growing alarm as
Shiite-majority Iran has gradually extended its influence throughout the region,
from Lebanon to Syria and Iraq, and fears Iran is poised to do the same in
Yemen, a Sunni-majority nation.
The possibility of a deal between the United States, other major powers and Iran
to limit Iran’s nuclear program has alarmed Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states
even more, prompting them to talk openly, and irresponsibly, about developing
their own nuclear programs. The Saudis have also joined with other Sunni nations
to form a military coalition, anticipated to include a 40,000-troop army, to
counter Islamic extremists and Iran, which is likely to further increase
tensions.
Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states have reason to worry about Iran’s
disruptive, sometimes brutal, policies, including its help in keeping President
Bashar al-Assad in power in Syria despite a civil war that has killed more than
200,000 people, most of them Sunnis. Even so, the Arab states have their own
checkered history in fueling extremists and regional unrest. The Saudis appear
to be overreacting to Iran’s role in Yemen, which involves financing the Houthis
but little else, according to American officials.
Yemen has been a problem for decades, and the threat there is growing more
complicated. For several years, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been based
in Yemen and is one of Al Qaeda’s most active and lethal affiliates.
Unlike that Qaeda affiliate, the Houthis are indigenous to Yemen and won’t be
defeated militarily, or at least not without destroying the country. The Saudi
foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, on Tuesday foreshadowed an open-ended
commitment, saying the Saudi-led offensive would continue until Yemen was
“returned to security, stability and unity.” Yet airstrikes alone won’t do the
job. Saudi Arabia has not ruled out a ground invasion, even though its troops
are inexperienced in such combat and would be at a particular disadvantage
against Houthi fighters, who are battle-hardened and know the country’s
forbidding terrain.
The Houthis have fought a half-dozen civil conflicts since 2004 and are still
standing. The Saudi bombing may have already had one especially tragic outcome:
Humanitarian workers said a strike killed at least 40 people at a camp for
displaced people.
It would be a catastrophic mistake for Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to
allow the Yemeni civil war to become the catalyst for a larger sectarian
Shiite-Sunni war with Iran. President Obama should press this fact upon the
Saudi leadership. As one of Saudi Arabia’s most reliable allies, he should use
his influence to encourage all sides to work toward a political solution — both
to prevent a wider conflict and to give Yemen a chance at stability.
A version of this editorial appears in print on April 1, 2015, on
page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: The Saudis’ Ominous Move
Into Yemen.
Saudi Arabia’s Ominous Reach Into Yemen, NYT, MARCH 31, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/opinion/saudi-arabias-ominous-reach-into-yemen.html
A Dangerous Escalation in Iraq
MARCH 26, 2015
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
The New York Times
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
By ordering the bombing of the Iraqi city of Tikrit, President
Obama has escalated America’s involvement in the fight against the Islamic State
without providing a shred of evidence showing how it could advance American
interests, or what happens once the bombs stop falling.
The strikes are part of a campaign that from the outset has been waged without
the authorization from Congress required by the Constitution. Mr. Obama is
pursuing the operation at the request of Iraqi officials, who said air power was
needed to break a stalemate. His reliance on two Bush-era war authorizations,
for Afghanistan and Iraq, are insufficient to embroil the nation in the war
against ISIS, which has been underway for eight months and could continue for
years.
These strikes could further destabilize Iraq if the United States is seen to be
siding with Shiite militias — which make up the bulk of the ground forces
battling ISIS in Tikrit — over Iraq’s minority Sunnis. Yet in a sign of just how
unpredictable the dynamics of the region are, some of the militias see the
United States as the greater evil and are so angered by the airstrikes that they
have already announced they are pulling out of the fight.
Until now, America has left the battle in the hands of a force of about 30,000
Iraqis led by Iran and composed mainly of Iran-backed militias; they are facing
a far smaller group of ISIS jihadists. The Iraqi government and its army have
been largely sidelined, having lost credibility when the army failed to stop the
ISIS onslaught last year. Mr. Obama ordered the airstrikes on Wednesday after
the nearly four-week-old ground offensive to retake the city had stalled. Tikrit
is a strategic crossroads in the heart of Sunni territory in central Iraq, and
its liberation from ISIS control could make it easier to liberate Mosul, Iraq’s
second-largest city, which is now also under the control of the Islamic State.
The overwhelmingly Shiite ground forces battling ISIS in Sunni Tikrit have
become increasingly powerful as the government army has disintegrated. The
militias have a brutal record of sectarian bloodletting, including burning and
bulldozing thousands of homes and other buildings in dozens of Sunni villages
after American airstrikes drove ISIS out of the town of Amerli in northeastern
Iraq last summer. If that happened in Tikrit, the United States would be blamed
for helping to trigger yet another cycle of horrific sectarian violence.
In the fight against ISIS, the United States and Iran, bitter enemies for
decades, share the goal of defeating the group. American officials insist they
are not cooperating with Iran, but the two governments communicate, through the
Iraqis if not directly, and their operations have often been complementary. Many
of America’s Sunni allies are concerned about Iran’s growing influence in the
region, including in Iraq.
The administration may hope that a victory in Tikrit will bolster the standing
of Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, who has made some strides in
restoring Baghdad’s credibility after the disastrous tenure of his predecessor,
Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. There was also hope of ensuring that the Americans, not
the Iranians, would be the dominant foreign force in any coalition that attempts
at some point to retake Mosul.
Before ordering the airstrikes, Mr. Obama reportedly insisted that the Shiite
militias move aside so the Iraqi Army could play a larger role, and on Thursday
Iraqi special forces were reported to be advancing on Tikrit. Maj. Gen. Qassim
Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corp, who had been advising forces around Tikrit, reportedly left the
area on Sunday.
The core problem is that if ISIS is expelled from Tikrit, the Americans and
Iraqis will need to bring security and ensure there is a government that
respects the rights of all citizens. That should involve reaching out to leading
Sunnis and assuring them that they will be central to rebuilding, securing and
governing their city. It has long been apparent that no amount of American
military assistance alone can save Iraq if the country’s leaders continue to
marginalize the Sunnis.
Relief aid, including electricity and water, should be delivered immediately to
Tikrit. The militias must be marginalized or their fighters integrated into
Iraqi institutions like the army and the police so that they serve the state
rather than a warlord or faction. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the senior
leader of the Shiite world, can have an important function in making the case
for a more inclusive government. So can Iran, whose fitness for rejoining the
international community will be judged by its willingness to cooperate on
security in the region.
A version of this editorial appears in print on March 27, 2015, on page A24 of
the New York edition with the headline: A Dangerous Escalation in Iraq.
A Dangerous Escalation in Iraq,
NYT, MARCH 26, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/opinion/a-dangerous-escalation-in-iraq.html
U.S. to Delay Pullout of Troops
From Afghanistan to Aid Strikes
MARCH 24, 2015
The New York Times
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s decision to maintain troop levels
in Afghanistan through 2015 is partly designed to bolster American
counterterrorism efforts in that country, including the Central Intelligence
Agency’s ability to conduct secret drone strikes and other paramilitary
operations from United States military bases, administration officials said
Tuesday.
Mr. Obama on Tuesday announced that he would leave 9,800 American troops in
Afghanistan until at least the end of the year. The announcement came after a
daylong White House meeting with President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan. The two
men said the decision was a necessary response to the expected springtime
resurgence of Taliban aggression and the need to give more training to the
struggling Afghan security forces.
But two American officials said that a significant part of the deliberations on
the pace of the withdrawal had been focused on the need for the C.I.A. and
military special operations forces to operate out of two large military bases:
Kandahar Air Base in southern Afghanistan and a base in Jalalabad, the biggest
city in the country’s east. Reducing the military force by half from its current
level, as planned, would have meant closing the bases and relocating many of the
C.I.A.’s personnel and its contractors.
President Obama, in an appearance with the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, said
that delaying the withdrawal of the 9,800 American troops stationed in
Afghanistan would be “well worth it.”
Jalalabad has been the primary base used by the C.I.A. to conduct drone strikes
in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The drone operations were relocated there after
the Pakistani government kicked the C.I.A. out of an air base inside Pakistan.
The pace of drone strikes there has declined significantly since the peak during
the early years of the Obama administration, but intelligence officials have
lobbied to keep enough of a military presence in Afghanistan to allow the drone
program to continue.
“The intelligence community sees around 10,000 troops as a key baseline to keep
counterterrorism operations going in the country,” said one American official,
speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations in
Afghanistan.
The resilience of Al Qaeda in the mountains that straddle the border between
Afghanistan and Pakistan has surprised many American officials, and there are
fears that the Islamic State could gain a foothold in the Afghan conflict. Mr.
Ghani has repeatedly raised the specter of the Islamic State in comments ahead
of his trip to Washington and during his visit.
In a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Obama pledged to “continue to conduct
targeted counterterrorism operations” in Afghanistan. But he stressed the need
for “flexibility” on troop levels as a way to maintain the overall security
posture of Afghan forces in the country.
“This flexibility reflects our reinvigorated partnership with Afghanistan, which
is aimed at making Afghanistan secure,” Mr. Obama said, adding later that “we
want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to help Afghan security
forces succeed.”
When Mr. Obama’s advisers were first debating what presence the military should
have in Afghanistan beginning in 2015, after the end of formal “combat
operations,” American officials determined that a minimum of about 10,000 troops
would be needed for two broad missions: training and advising Afghan soldiers as
well as carrying out counterterrorism operations — a generic term for military
special operations missions and C.I.A. drone strikes in Pakistan.
If that number of troops were to decline significantly, intelligence officials
have warned that they may have to reconsider how large a C.I.A. presence to keep
inside Afghanistan.
The administration’s original plan envisioned that by 2015, Afghan special
forces would largely take on the role that American-led special operations
troops have played in the war: targeting Qaeda operatives and carrying out raids
aimed at eliminating Taliban field commanders, one of the few tactics that have
proved effective in undermining the insurgency.
But the elite Afghan soldiers remain heavily reliant on their American
counterparts, although they are considered far better than Afghanistan’s
conventional troops. They have only limited airlift capabilities — a serious
deficiency in a country as mountainous as Afghanistan — and they do not have the
high-end intelligence-collecting technology of the American forces.
The Afghans also do not have armed drones, which have been used with increasing
frequency in recent years in Afghanistan against Qaeda and Taliban targets. The
drones flown in Afghanistan are operated by the American military; the ones used
across the border in Pakistan are operated by the C.I.A.
The base in Jalalabad is also a hub for the collection of intelligence on Qaeda
operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan; it was, for instance, the base from
which American forces carried out the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in
Pakistan.
Mr. Obama’s decision on the troop levels came after a direct entreaty from Mr.
Ghani, who has been visiting the United States this week. While the decision
will mean that some American soldiers who had expected to return home will
rotate back into Afghanistan “for a few extra months,” Mr. Obama said, the
additional time will be “well worth it.”
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced funding for Afghan security forces,
while Secretary of State John Kerry and the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani,
discussed a “development partnership.”
The extension was needed in part “so we don’t have to go back,” Mr. Obama said,
“so we don’t have to respond in an emergency because terrorist activities are
being launched out of Afghanistan.”
Mr. Ghani, who expressed gratitude to American troops and taxpayers for their
support, said the extension would allow his military to better prepare for the
total withdrawal of United States forces, still scheduled for the end of 2016.
“Much binds us together, and the flexibility that has been provided for 2015
will be used to accelerate reforms to ensure that the Afghan security forces are
much better led, equipped, trained, and are focused on their fundamental
mission,” Mr. Ghani said, speaking in mostly English during the news conference.
The announcement was not unexpected. Administration officials had strongly
suggested in recent days that Mr. Obama would agree to slow the pace of the
troop withdrawal.
Mr. Ghani, making his first trip to the United States as president of his
country, met throughout the morning with Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R.
Biden Jr., discussing the future of American involvement in what Mr. Obama once
declared a “necessary” war.
Mr. Obama has pledged to withdraw all but about 1,000 troops by the time he
leaves office at the beginning of 2017. Those forces would operate largely in
the Afghanistan capital, Kabul, protecting embassy personnel and other American
officials there.
While acknowledging the need to maintain force levels through at least the end
of 2015, Mr. Obama reiterated his intent to keep that promise as he hands over
the keys to the Oval Office to his successor.
“The date for us to have completed our drawdown will not change,” he said
Tuesday.
Mr. Ghani’s meetings with his American counterpart were part of a five-day visit
to the United States that included a series of discussions on Monday at Camp
David, the presidential retreat in the mountains of Maryland.
His trip will continue Wednesday with an address to a joint meeting of Congress,
and on Thursday, when Mr. Ghani will meet with world leaders at the United
Nations.
While the primary mission of Mr. Ghani’s trip is a military extension, he is
also using his visit as a public-relations blitz aimed at repairing
Afghanistan’s reputation as a country whose leaders have taken American help for
granted over the past decade.
In a series of appearances Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Ghani repeatedly thanked
American troops for their sacrifices in his country, and he promised that
Afghanistan would reciprocate by building a government that could stand on its
own economically, socially and militarily.
“You stood shoulder to shoulder with us, and I’d like to say thank you,” Mr.
Ghani said at the news conference on Tuesday. “I would also like to thank the
American taxpayer for his and her hard-earned dollars that has enabled us.”
Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Matthew Rosenberg contributed reporting from
Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on March 25, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: U.S. to Delay Afghan Pullout to Aid Strikes.
U.S. to Delay Pullout of Troops From Afghanistan to Aid Strikes,
NYT, MARCH 24, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/world/asia/
ashraf-ghani-of-afghanistan-wants-us-troops-to-stay-longer.html
Iran’s Hard-Liners Show Restraint
on Nuclear Talks With U.S.
MARCH 23, 2015
The New York Times
By THOMAS ERDBRINK
TEHRAN — A coterie of Iran’s hard-line Shiite Muslim clerics and
Revolutionary Guards commanders is usually vocal on the subject of the Iranian
nuclear program, loudly proclaiming the country’s right to pursue its interests
and angrily denouncing the United States.
But as the United States and Iran prepare to restart nuclear talks this week,
the hard-liners have been keeping a low profile.
“They have been remarkably quiet,” said Nader Karimi Joni, a former member of
the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary group.
Their silence is a result of state policies intended by Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to seriously try to find a solution through
negotiations. Ayatollah Khamenei has largely supported the nuclear talks and the
Iranian negotiators, whom he has called “good and caring people, who work for
the country.”
The restraint by the hard-liners also reflects a general satisfaction, analysts
say, with the direction of the talks and the successes Iran is enjoying,
extending and deepening its influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
As a result, state-condoned demonstrations against the talks have fizzled out,
as have meetings among hard-line politicians and student groups who said they
had been worried about a potential deal.
Billboards in Tehran once depicting United States negotiators as commandos and
devils have been replaced by slogans supporting the international outreach of
the government of President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate who won office promising
to complete the nuclear deal and end crippling economic sanctions.
Two weeks ago, the Committee to Protect Iranian Interests, the main group
opposing the talks, was again out on the streets, but this time protesting the
government’s economic policies.
“We are having in-house debates over our strategies,” said the group’s
spokesman, Alireza Mataji, refusing to explain why he and his supporters were no
longer publicly opposing a deal.
Those debates are more likely a simple buckling under to orders from above, Mr.
Joni said. “Those critical of a deal have been told to keep quiet, to prevent
giving the other side the option to blame Iran,” said Mr. Joni, who is now a
journalist.
Iran’s hard-liners, who have always pledged full allegiance to Ayatollah
Khamenei, do not dare veer off the course for nuclear talks set out by him —
even if they involve the archenemy United States.
In a speech on Saturday to commemorate the first day of the Iranian New Year,
Ayatollah Khamenei underlined that his country’s establishment was in favor of
talks. Addressing a crowd of thousands, he rejected President Obama’s remarks
that some in Iran were against resolving the nuclear issue through diplomacy.
“This is a lie,” he said. “No one in Iran is against the resolution of the
nuclear issue through negotiations. What the Iranian nation does not want to
agree with is the impositions and bullying of the Americans.”
While supporting the talks, the supreme leader has had to walk a fine line,
balancing the hopes and expectations of those wanting to end Iran’s isolation
with those deeply invested in its anti-Western ideology. So while encouraging
the negotiations, Ayatollah Khamenei has also accused the United States of being
untrustworthy, those who are familiar with his views say, so he can blame
Washington if the talks fail.
Until that moment, however, internal dissent will not be tolerated, as it will
only undermine the country’s negotiating position, Iranian analysts and
hard-liners say.
“We will have no letters or other nonsense that we are witnessing in the United
States,” Hamid Reza Taraghi, a political strategist with close ties to Ayatollah
Khamenei, said, referring to a letter 47 Republican senators sent to Iran’s
leaders warning them that any deal on their nuclear program could be reversed by
Mr. Obama’s successor. “Iran speaks with one voice.”
Mr. Taraghi said the muzzle would remain in place as long as the negotiations
seemed to be progressing. “Fact of the matter is that we are seeing positive
changes in the U.S. position in the nuclear talks,” he said. “We are steadfast
and the U.S. is compromising. We are not complaining.”
The last time Iran’s hard-line faction erupted was in February, after a
well-documented stroll by Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and
Secretary of State John Kerry along the banks of Lake Geneva.
This “show of intimacy with the enemy of humanity” was a disgrace for the
nation, said Mohammad Reza Naghdi, head commander of the Basij. Members of
Parliament quickly joined in, as did several influential Friday Prayer leaders,
who are often critical of the government.
But after Mr. Zarif explained to Ayatollah Khamenei that refusing the afternoon
stroll would have been a diplomatic faux pas, the leader agreed and all
criticism ended, said Mohammad Sadegh Kharazi, a former Iranian ambassador with
close ties to the ayatollah and Mr. Zarif.
“The leader is a logical and reasonable person,” Mr. Kharazi said. “He greatly
trusts Mr. Zarif and knows he will do his utmost to get Iran’s rights in the
talks.”
There is one remaining bastion of resistance, however. Iran’s oldest newspaper,
Kayhan, whose editor in chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, was appointed by Ayatollah
Khamenei, continues to criticize a potential deal.
Its editorials cast doubts over leaked details, like a 10-year suspension of
enrichment (a nonstarter, the paper says); the speech before Congress by
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (a “fake struggle” between two
allies); and the “real” intentions of the Obama administration to engage in
talks (“their only goal is regime change”).
But even this conservative redoubt, wary of crossing Ayatollah Khamenei, holds
its fire on the nuclear talks.
“In the end, the supreme leader will be the one who benefits from a deal,” said
Mr. Taraghi, the analyst. “If it is a good deal, and he says so, all factions
will follow him. If not, all will follow him, too.”
The nuclear negotiations aside, Mr. Taraghi said, the hard-liners have many
other things to be pleased about, like the string of Shiite successes in the
Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Yemen).
“Deal or no deal, we are at new peaks of our power,” he said.
A version of this article appears in print on March 24, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Iran Hard-Liners Show Restraint on Nuclear
Deal.
Iran’s Hard-Liners Show Restraint on Nuclear Talks With U.S.,
NYT, MARCH 23, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/world/middleeast/irans-hard-liners-nuclear-talks.html
Unstated Factor in Iran Talks:
Threat of Nuclear Tampering
MARCH 21, 2015
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
and WILLIAM J. BROAD
WASHINGTON — In late 2012, just as President Obama and his aides
began secretly sketching out a diplomatic opening to Iran, American intelligence
agencies were busy with a parallel initiative: The latest spy-vs.-spy move in
the decade-long effort to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Investigators uncovered an Iranian businessman’s scheme to buy specialty
aluminum tubing, a type the United States bans for export to Iran because it can
be used in centrifuges that enrich uranium, the exact machines at the center of
negotiations entering a crucial phase in Switzerland this week.
Rather than halt the shipment, court documents reveal, American agents switched
the aluminum tubes for ones of an inferior grade. If installed in Iran’s giant
underground production centers, they would have shredded apart, destroying the
centrifuges as they revved up to supersonic speed.
But if negotiators succeed in reaching a deal with Iran, does the huge, covert
sabotage effort by the United States, Israel and some European allies come to an
end?
“Probably not,” said one senior official with knowledge of the program. In fact,
a number of officials make the case that surveillance of Iran will intensify and
covert action may become more important than ever to ensure that Iran does not
import the critical materials that would enable it to accelerate the development
of advanced centrifuges or pursue a covert path to a bomb.
In the case of the covert effort to purchase the specialty aluminum, the
Iranians actually discovered the switch before they installed the tubes, and now
say they are racing ahead to develop a next-generation centrifuge that would
produce nuclear fuel far faster, a prospect that has become a major sticking
point in negotiations.
In public, the Obama administration says economic sanctions on oil exports and
financial transactions drove Iran to negotiations — and the prospect of getting
those restrictions lifted are the best chance of persuading Iran’s leadership to
take a diplomatic deal limiting Iran’s production of nuclear fuel for a decade
or more.
In private, officials say sabotage was the other big stick — a persistent effort
to slow Iran’s progress, and a signal that the United States had other ways to
deal with the nuclear program. On occasion they allude to it, as Stephen J.
Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, did at a presentation on
sanctions last year, when he talked about how the financial penalties were
supplemented by “things directed at their program, which we can’t talk about.”
Although American officials remain suspicious of Iran operating a covert nuclear
facility, they say they see no solid evidence of a hidden operation today. And
if a new one was started, it would explicitly violate the agreement that appears
to be taking shape in Switzerland. Sabotage, in contrast, is not likely to be
addressed in any agreement — though it would clearly violate the spirit of a new
relationship between Washington and Tehran.
It is entirely possible that if an accord is reached, President Obama could call
a pause in what has been more than a decade of attacks, the most famous of which
was a yearslong effort, code-named Olympic Games, which inserted into Iranian
facilities the most sophisticated cyberweapons ever deployed. One of them was
the Stuxnet worm that disabled about 1,000 centrifuges, but also spread around
the world, revealing the program.
But reaching an accord is quite different than reaching a state of trust. Inside
Iran, there will be pressure to keep making slow progress on a nuclear program
that is central to the ambitions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and
thousands of scientists who have labored for years. And in the uneasy alliance
among Israel, the United States and Europe there will be continued debate about
whether to supplement diplomatic pressure with covert action to keep Iran from
getting to the threshold of being able to build a weapon.
For the past decade or so, the covert war to halt Iran’s nuclear program has
included high-profile assassinations of their top scientists — widely attributed
to Israel — and cyberattacks.
The assassinations suddenly stopped a few years ago, after they were publicly
denounced by the United States. The cyberattack efforts may be continuing,
probably at a lower level: a recently disclosed document from the National
Security Agency, written in 2013, describes “NSA’s planned battle rhythm” to
attack Iran’s systems in case of a crisis, and “Iran’s discovery of computer
network exploitation tools on their networks in 2012 and 2013.” They make it
clear that the N.S.A. has played a crucial role in the negotiations, in “support
to policy makers” during negotiation on Iran’s nuclear program.
The ultimate goal of the covert program of industrial sabotage, according to
intelligence and weapons specialists, is to produce damage obscure enough to
evade easy detection, but extensive enough to result in random failures that
seriously impede Iran’s nuclear drive.
“It’s clearly slowed things down,” said Ian J. Stewart, a nuclear expert in the
Department of War Studies at King’s College London, who was an author of a
recent study on the Iranian sabotage and formerly worked for the British
Ministry of Defense.
Iran insists that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and has even started
displaying evidence of Western sabotage. Last September, it mounted an
exhibition of equipment it said had been tampered with. The items ranged from
pressure sensors and giant industrial pumps to delicate parts for the
centrifuges — the tall, silvery machines that spin faster than the speed of
sound as they purify uranium, a main fuel of reactors and atomic bombs. The
machines are enormously sensitive.
“The exhibition shows only a small part of the hostile measures,” Asghar Zarean,
a senior official of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told journalists.
The enemy, he added, “is more hostile to us every day.”
Iran’s biggest claim of sabotage centers on its Arak reactor complex, which is
still under construction. It is a central issue in the last stages of the
negotiations, because if the facility goes into operation, it will create
plutonium — a second route to a bomb, and a way to make smaller, often more
powerful weapons. Israel has made it clear it will consider attacking the
facility the way it destroyed a Syrian reactor in 2007, and the remote site at
Arak is ringed by miles of security fences and dozens of antiaircraft batteries.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator, said
in an interview with The New York Times last summer that someone had tried to
sabotage the reactor’s cooling system.
“It would have caused an environmental catastrophe,” he said, adding that the
effort had been detected by Iranian scientists. American officials steadfastly
refuse to say if they had anything to do with the operation — but immediately
note that if a catastrophic failure had struck the plant, its design and its
remoteness would have limited the impact on the nearby population.
If the accord is reached, Iran likely would be able to operate it only at low
levels, using a fuel that produces less plutonium.
When it comes to accusations like Mr. Zarif’s, it is often hard to separate fact
from propaganda.
But the latest case of covert action was those aluminum tubes, a story not
revealed by the Iranians. The details were in a criminal complaint, unsealed in
Illinois, against an Iranian identified as “Individual A” who operates from Iran
and through “front companies in the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia.”
It described an effort by the Iranian and an alleged middleman, Nicholas Kaiga,
to buy the tubing from an Illinois firm from 2008 through 2012. Many of the
conversations were recorded, and the complaint includes some of the discussions
about where the tubing was headed — an effort, the government claims, to cover
up that Iran was the ultimate destination.
What the Iranians wanted was something called aluminum 7075 — a designation for
lightweight, yet incredibly strong material that is often used to manufacture
fighter jets.
According to the court documents, in late 2012 the Iranians discovered that
cheaper aluminum had been substituted for the tubes, and they complained to a
business associate who, it turns out, was an undercover agent.
“Are you sure?” the agent asked in a recorded phone call, according to the
complaint.
“Yes yes,” the Iranian replied, “that’s sure.”
A version of this article appears in print on March 22, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Unstated Factor in Iran Talks: Threat of
Nuclear Tampering.
Unstated Factor in Iran Talks: Threat of Nuclear Tampering,
MARCH 21, 2015, NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/world/middleeast/unstated-factor-in-iran-talks-threat-of-nuclear-tampering.html
Suicide Attacks at Mosques in Yemen
Kill More Than 130
MARCH 20, 2015
The New York Times
By MOHAMMED ALI KALFOOD,
KAREEM FAHIM and ERIC SCHMITT
SANA, Yemen — An affiliate of the Islamic State that had not
previously carried out any major attacks claimed responsibility for coordinated
suicide strikes on Zaydi Shiite mosques here that killed more than 130 people
during Friday Prayer, bringing to Yemen the kind of deadly sectarian fighting
that has ripped apart Syria and Iraq.
The bombings, apparently carried out by Sunni extremists against Shiite places
of worship, threatened to propel the conflict toward the kind of unrestrained
sectarian bloodletting that Yemen had so far avoided.
It also showed how drastically the situation had deteriorated in Yemen after
Houthi rebels seized power, galvanizing Sunni militants who opposed them at a
time when Washington’s ability to conduct counterterrorism operations was
greatly reduced.
Western counterterrorism officials fear that a security vacuum resembling
Somalia’s would draw even more jihadists to ungoverned territory in Yemen, where
they would have the space and time to plot attacks against the West.
Even Yemen’s powerful affiliate of Al Qaeda had been reluctant to carry out
large-scale attacks against Muslim civilians, despite its hatred of the Houthis,
whose leaders are members of the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam and are considered
heretics by the Sunni militants.
Instead, it was a rival jihadist group affiliated with the Islamic State and
calling itself Sana Province that raised the specter of a destabilizing new
brand of violence in Yemen’s civil conflict. “This operation is but the tip of
an iceberg,” the group said in an audio statement. “The polytheist Houthis have
to know that the Islamic State soldiers will be not satisfied, or rest, until we
eradicate them.”
The attacks, the deadliest against civilians in the country in recent memory,
offered a grisly illustration of how Yemen’s fracturing is undermining
counterterrorism programs that American officials consider pivotal at a time of
increasing attacks around the world. Some of those attacks appear to be a result
of an escalating rivalry between Al Qaeda and its affiliates and the Islamic
State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, a former Qaeda franchise in Iraq.
“It’s hard to imagine how things could be on a worse path in Yemen,” said
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House
Intelligence Committee. He said the panel had received recent classified
briefings on Yemen that were “pretty grim.”
In a sign of the deteriorating security, the last 125 American Special
Operations advisers were withdrawing from Yemen on Friday as Qaeda fighters
seized Huta, a town about 20 miles from the base in the south where the
Americans were operating, said a United States official, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity to discuss operations.
Al Qaeda has carried out frequent attacks in the province, clashing with
military units, assassinating security officials and occasionally firing heavy
weapons at the military base, in Al Anad. The Pentagon declined to comment on
the withdrawal, which was reported in the Yemeni news media on Friday.
Continue reading the main story
Coming a day after violence spread to Aden in the south in rare factional
clashes over control of the international airport and a security base, Friday’s
attacks brought into sharp relief the mounting chaos that is spreading through
the impoverished country. Yemen, with no recognized government, faces a possible
breakup between rival factions in the north and south, a spreading armed
conflict that is displacing thousands of Yemenis and a financial collapse.
The threat of civil war also poses multiple challenges to the Obama
administration, which only a few months ago held out Yemen’s negotiated
transition from autocracy to an elected president as a model for
post-revolutionary Arab states.
With the beleaguered government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi decamped to
Aden, the Pentagon has effectively lost its major partner in the fight against
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which American intelligence officials say
still poses the most potent terrorist threat to the United States.
Many Yemenis are harshly critical of American counterterrorism programs,
complaining of a relationship between the two countries based on security
issues, and opposing American drone strikes against Qaeda militants that have
killed civilians.
In Yemen, fighters clash daily along several contested fronts. Sunni extremists,
including the Islamic State fighters and militants linked to the Qaeda
affiliate, have carried out a number of deadly attacks against supporters of the
Houthi rebel movement, which controls Sana and since September has been Yemen’s
most dominant force.
There are growing fears that Yemen is becoming a stage for the regional rivalry
between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia, which opposes the Houthis, has
supported Sunni militants in Yemen, diplomats say, while the Houthis have
received financial and military support from Iran.
The claim of responsibility for Friday’s attack by the Islamic State affiliate,
just a day after the group claimed responsibility for the attack in Tunis this
week that killed more than 20 people, appeared to illustrate the organization’s
expanding ideological reach, although its links to both local groups was not yet
fully understood.
In Washington, officials suggested that local militants were trying to benefit
from the Islamic State’s notoriety to elevate their stature within jihadist
ranks.
“There’s no doubt that there has been a lot of political instability in Yemen
that has only worsened and that has created some chaos and does make it easier
for these kinds of extremist groups to capitalize on that chaos and carry out
acts of violence and to spread their hateful ideology,” said the White House
press secretary, Josh Earnest.
The bombings on Friday came after a week of unusually widespread bloodshed in
Yemen. In the space of a few days, a prominent opposition journalist was
assassinated outside his home in Sana, rare militia fighting erupted in Aden
and, on Friday, Qaeda militants seized government buildings in a provincial
capital in the south.
“Yemenis knew violence, but not this brutal,” said Farea al-Muslimi, a
Sana-based political analyst and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East
Center in Beirut, Lebanon, speaking about the assassinations, clashes and
bombings over the past few days. “There are no norms,” he said. “It’s a very
scary moment.
Yemen has been leaderless since January, when the Houthis tightened their grip
on the capital and placed the president, Mr. Hadi, along with his government,
under house arrest.
Mr. Hadi later fled to Aden and declared that he was still the country’s leader,
splitting the country between hostile centers of power. United Nations diplomats
have been unable to broker a compromise that would stitch the country back
together. And regional powers, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, seem to have
abandoned the effort, throwing their support behind either Mr. Hadi or the
Houthis and inflaming the conflict.
Analysts said the descent into anarchy had laid bare the failure of the
country’s political factions, as well Yemen’s prominent backers, including the
United States, to arrest the crisis. A process that was supposed to aid Yemen’s
transition from decades of authoritarianism to democracy, led by the United
Nations, “had not prevented civil war, but rather delayed it,” Mr. Muslimi said.
Aden became further embroiled in that conflict on Thursday, with fighting that
pitted tribesmen and military units loyal to Mr. Hadi against a security unit
seen as close to Yemen’s former autocratic leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was
removed from power in 2012 but retained his influence, most recently by allying
himself with the Houthis.
On Friday, hospitals in Sana made urgent appeals for blood to treat the hundreds
of people wounded in the blasts at the Badr and Hashoush Mosques. Another
suicide bomber was detected before he could reach a mosque in the northern
province of Saada, a Houthi stronghold.
The bombers at the Badr Mosque maximized casualties by detonating their
explosives inside but also among the overflow of worshipers outside. A dozen
members of one family were killed, witnesses said.
Two suicide bombers also attacked the Hashoush Mosque, with one of the attackers
hiding his explosives in a fake cast on his leg. He detonated the explosive
after he was stopped at a checkpoint about 65 feet from the mosque entrance,
killing a few people while the other bomber rushed inside as prayers ended,
killing dozens more.
“We have seen bombings before in Sana,” said Hassan Ali, a resident of the
neighborhood. “But this is the most horrible crime.”
Mohammed Ali Kalfood reported from Sana, Kareem Fahim from Cairo, and Eric
Schmitt from Washington. Saeed Al-Batati contributed reporting from Al Mukalla,
Yemen.
A version of this article appears in print on March 21, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Militants Linked to ISIS Say They Killed
Yemenis.
Suicide Attacks at Mosques in Yemen Kill More Than 130, NYT,
MARCH 20, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/world/middleeast/suicide-attacks-at-shiite-mosques-in-yemen.html
White House Antagonism
Toward Netanyahu Grows
MARCH 20, 2015
The New York Times
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
WASHINGTON — The White House is stepping up its antagonism toward
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite his victory in this week’s elections,
signaling that it is in no rush to repair a historic rift between the United
States and Israel.
The sharpened tone indicates that the Obama administration may be re-evaluating
its relationship with its closest ally in the Middle East, having lost patience
with Mr. Netanyahu in the closing days of an election campaign in which he
spotlighted deep disagreements with President Obama over a Palestinian state and
a nuclear deal with Iran.
“You reach a tipping point,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former American
ambassador to Israel and Egypt. “It’s the culmination of six and a half years of
frustration, including some direct hits at the president’s prestige and the
office of the presidency.”
The aggressiveness underlines a calculation by Mr. Obama that an international
accord with Iran to rein in its nuclear program is within reach despite Mr.
Netanyahu’s adamant opposition, and that there is little value in being more
conciliatory toward him.
And, domestically, the administration is risking the alienation of a core
Democratic constituency of Jewish voters, in part banking on the fact that many
of them also are upset with Mr. Netanyahu.
“In a way, the administration has already won,” said Aaron David Miller, a
former Middle East adviser to Democratic and Republican administrations. “If you
get agreement by the end of March, it will be historic in nature, it will have
demonstrated that the administration is prepared to willfully stand up to
Republican opposition in Congress and to deal with members of its own party who
have doubts, and has withstood Israeli pressure.”
In a congratulatory call to Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday that Mr. Obama waited two
days to place, the president chided the prime minister for his pre-election
declaration that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch.
Although Mr. Netanyahu has since tried to backtrack on those comments, Mr. Obama
said that they had nonetheless forced his administration to reassess certain
aspects of its policy toward Israel, according to a White House official who
offered details of the call only on the condition of anonymity.
For the second consecutive day on Friday, the White House publicly questioned
Mr. Netanyahu’s sincerity about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process,
suggesting that Mr. Obama did not trust him to back Palestinian statehood, a
central element of United States policy in the Middle East.
Asked why the president did not take the prime minister at his word about his
support for a two-state solution, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary,
quickly shot back: “Well, I guess the question is, which one?”
“The divergent comments of the prime minister legitimately call into question
his commitment to this policy principle and his lack of commitment to what has
been the foundation of our policy-making in the region,” Mr. Earnest said.
Continue reading the main story
He said Mr. Netanyahu had raised questions about his “true view” on a two-state
solution. “Words matter,” Mr. Earnest said.
On the call between the two leaders, the president also discussed the prime
minister’s Election Day comments about Israeli Arabs’ going to the polls in
“droves,” which were interpreted widely as an attempt to suppress the Arab vote
and prompted outrage in Mr. Obama’s administration and around the world.
The tense conversation came on the same day the White House announced that Denis
R. McDonough, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, would deliver the keynote address on
Monday to the annual conference of J Street, a pro-Israel group aligned with
Democrats that has been fiercely critical of Mr. Netanyahu.
The moves confirmed that instead of acting quickly to smooth over tensions with
Mr. Netanyahu that burst to the fore in the weeks running up to the Israeli
elections, the White House is stoking the acrimony.
What is less clear is whether the approach will lead to a lasting policy shift
or was merely a public round of venting.
“You have a dysfunctional and unproductive relationship which is being played
out publicly, and you’re now at the point where there are two options, meltdown
or dial-down,” Mr. Miller said.
So far, the White House has stopped short of concrete action to challenge Mr.
Netanyahu, such as calling on him to remove his ambassador to the United States,
Ron Dermer. An American-born former Republican operative, Mr. Dermer angered the
administration when he helped congressional Republicans arrange, without the
White House’s knowledge, the prime minister’s speech to Congress this month
denouncing Mr. Obama’s efforts to strike a nuclear deal with Iran.
Mr. Earnest said on Friday that it was up to Mr. Netanyahu to decide who should
represent Israel in the United States, and that the White House would maintain
an “open line of communication” as it reassessed its policy.
Mark Regev, Mr. Netanyahu’s spokesman, said on Friday that the prime minister
“couldn’t be prouder” of Mr. Dermer, in whom he had “full confidence.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s executive director, said the Obama administration’s
refusal to allow Mr. Netanyahu to backtrack on his comments against a
Palestinian state was appropriate, saying such statements should have
consequences.
“In his actions, he’s not actually doing anything to repair the wound or to heal
the wound that was opened by his and the ambassador’s actions,” Mr. Ben-Ami said
of Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Dermer.
At the same time, Mr. Ben-Ami added, the rift between Mr. Obama and Mr.
Netanyahu “is built on policy and substantive disagreement, and there’s no
erasing that.”
Administration officials have suggested that they may now agree to passage of a
United Nations Security Council resolution embodying the principles of a
two-state solution based on Israel’s 1967 borders and mutually agreed exchanges
of territory, a step that would be anathema to Mr. Netanyahu.
But Mr. Obama assured Mr. Netanyahu in the phone call on Thursday that the
United States placed a high priority on its security cooperation with Israel,
which receives more than $3 billion a year in American military aid. On Friday,
Mr. Earnest said the reassessment of policy that Mr. Obama envisions would not
threaten that cooperation.
The schism has exacerbated tension between the White House and the most powerful
American pro-Israel group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, with
which sitting presidents have traditionally been in lock step. Aipac, which like
Mr. Netanyahu is vehemently opposed to the emerging nuclear agreement with Iran,
on Friday said the onus was on the White House to repair the breach.
“Unfortunately, administration spokespersons rebuffed the prime minister’s
efforts to improve the understandings between Israel and the U.S.,” the group
said in a statement.
“In contrast to their comments,” the statement continued, “we urge the
administration to further strengthen ties with America’s most reliable and only
truly democratic ally in the Middle East. A solid and unwavering relationship
between the U.S. and Israel is in the national security interests of both
countries and reflects the values that we both cherish.”
Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
A version of this article appears in print on March 21, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: At White House, a Sharper Tone With
Netanyahu.
White House Antagonism Toward Netanyahu Grows,
NYT, MARCH 20, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/world/middleeast/white-house-antagonism-toward-netanyahu-grows.html
Netanyahu Tactics Anger Many U.S. Jews,
Deepening a Divide
MARCH 20, 2015
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Long before the latest election in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu was
a polarizing figure among American Jews. But even many of his supporters said
this week that they were appalled at his last-minute bid to mobilize Jewish
voters by warning that Arabs were going to the polls in droves, and his
renunciation of a two-state solution to the Palestinian crisis.
Mr. Netanyahu’s party won the election and cheers from hard-line American Jews.
But in interviews this week, rabbis, scholars and Jews from across the country
and a range of denominations said that with his campaign tactics, he had further
divided American Jews and alienated even some conservatives, who had already
suspected that he was more committed to building settlements than building peace
with the Palestinians.
Even with Mr. Netanyahu’s postelection interview walking back his statements
against a two-state plan for peace with Palestinians, many Jews say they are
worried that the most lasting outcome of the elections will be the increasing
isolation of Israel — not only around the world but also from the younger
generation of American Jews. Unlike their parents and grandparents, these Jews
have grown up in an era when Israel is portrayed not as a heroic underdog but as
an oppressive occupier, and many of them tend to see Mr. Netanyahu as out of
step with their views on Israel and the world.
On the eve of the recent recent Israeli election, the prime minister said that
no Palestinian state would be created on his watch. Two days later, he began to
backtrack.
Aaron Voldman, 27, who recently returned to Wisconsin after a year studying on a
fellowship in Israel, said he was still “outraged” at Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign,
especially his election-eve pledge that there would be no Palestinian state if
he were re-elected.
“It is the only viable option to secure peace in the Holy Land — how could he,
in good conscience, just write it off?” said Mr. Voldman, who like many Israelis
speaks of Mr. Netanyahu using his nickname. “Bibi is not committed to doing what
needs to be done to secure peace and justice. The Palestinians did not have a
willing partner in his administration during the last round of negotiations.”
Anguish over Israel, after intensifying through the final days of the campaign,
is now stirring up discussion among American Jews online, at synagogues from
coast to coast and even among some rabbis and Jewish organizational leaders who
are understanding of Mr. Netanyahu’s statements that he is above all concerned
about Israel’s security. They say they have watched as American Jews pull away
from Israel, alienated by the intractable conflict with the Palestinians and the
expansion of Jewish settlements.
Rabbi Misha Zinkow at Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio, said that one of his
foremost concerns was “the lack of engagement of North American Jews with
Israel” – a trend that he sees expanding among younger Jews.
“The scare tactics that emerged in the 11th hour of the election appealed to
very deep anxiety and fear,” said Rabbi Zinkow, who leads a 145-year-old Reform
congregation with a membership of about 550 households. “They deepen the
distance and provide fodder for those who want to disengage. Those statements
appealed to emotions that young American Jews just don’t have, and they sound
racist.”
He said that in his sermon on Friday night, he would talk about the relationship
between American Jews and Israel. “We’re family,” he plans to say. “Families
have disagreements and disappointments and betrayal.
“Don’t let your disappointments cause you to walk away.”
The Jewish establishment’s calls for unity, however, are now competing with
demands for escalated activism.
In a widely discussed opinion piece in Haaretz, Peter Beinart, a liberal critic
of Israel, argued this week that those who support Israel should pressure the
Obama administration to present its own peace plan “and to punish — yes, punish
— the Israeli government for rejecting it.
“It means making sure that every time Benjamin Netanyahu and the members of his
cabinet walk into a Jewish event outside Israel,” he wrote, “they see diaspora
Jews protesting outside.”
Rob Eshman, publisher and editor in chief of The Jewish Journal, a mainstream
Jewish newspaper in Los Angeles, wrote this week that the election results show
that Israeli and American Jews “are drifting apart.”
And on Thursday, the Conservative Jewish movement’s rabbinic arm, the Rabbinical
Assembly, took the unusual step of issuing a statement condemning Mr. Netanyahu
for putting out a video on social media during the election campaign warning
that “right-wing rule is in danger” because Arab voters were streaming to the
polls. The video was widely criticized as race-baiting, and it offended the
sensibilities of American Jewish leaders who have long proclaimed with pride
that Israel is a democracy in which the Arab minority has the right to vote.
Rabbi William Gershon and Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the president and executive
vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said, “This statement, which
indefensibly singled out the Arab citizens of Israel, is unacceptable and
undermines the principles upon which the State of Israel was founded.”
Mr. Netanyahu tried to explain himself in interviews on Thursday with several
American outlets. “I wasn’t trying to block anyone from voting; I was trying to
mobilize my own voters,” he told National Public Radio.
And of course, plenty of American Jews were not disappointed by the election
results. At Congregation B’nai Israel, a politically active Reform synagogue in
Sacramento, Rabbi Mona Alfi said that she had been teaching a women’s study
group in the evening as the election results were coming in, and that there had
been a wide range of opinions on Mr. Netanyahu’s candidacy.
“One woman was really excited when it looked like Bibi was winning the exit
polls,” Rabbi Alfi said. “Another was expressing hope that it would be a
different result. My congregation is like the majority of American Jews. It is
more of a center-left congregation on Israeli politics, but we do have a very
strong contingent of Bibi supporters as well.”
Orthodox Jews are often more reliable supporters of Mr. Netanyahu and his party,
Likud, and they have tended to stay loyal. Rabbi Sidney Shoham is a retired
Modern Orthodox rabbi who at 86 spends his winters in a predominantly Jewish
apartment building in Boca Raton, Fla., where the televisions in the gym are
often tuned to Fox News. He said he and other residents cheered Mr. Netanyahu’s
recent speech to the joint meeting of Congress warning President Obama against
signing a nuclear deal with Iran, and he welcomed the prime minister’s
re-election.
“My greatest thrill is that Netanyahu was able to pull off a feat that in my
opinion was not only good for the morale of Israel and the security of Israel,
but finally put Obama in his place,” said Rabbi Shoham.
He said that he saw Israel was becoming more isolated internationally, but that
he was not terribly troubled by it because of what he said was a basic Jewish
principle: “Being more or less in control of your own self, your own country, or
your own being is much more important than being loved by others.”
But as criticism of Mr. Netanyahu continues to mount — Mr. Obama directly told
him Thursday that the United States would have to “reassess our options” after
the prime minister’s “new positions and comments” on the two-state solution —
many other Jewish leaders are deeply disturbed at the prospect of Israel as a
pariah.
“Having Israel so isolated and marginalized in so many places is profoundly
troubling,” said Rabbi Richard Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform
Judaism. Rabbi Jacobs said that the gap between Jews in the United States and
Israel was “potentially widening” and that it needed to be addressed with
openness and transparency.
“I think we have to work very hard,” he said, “and do more creative and honest
work to have these deep, open conversations in our Jewish community and not
simply paper over differences.”
Netanyahu Tactics Anger Many U.S. Jews, Deepening a Divide,
NYT, MARCH 20, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/us/netanyahu-tactics-anger-many-us-jews-deepening-a-divide.html
Suicide Attacks at Mosques in Yemen
Kill More Than 100
MARCH 20, 2015
The New York Times
By MOHAMMED ALI KALFOOD
and KAREEM FAHIM
SANA, Yemen — In the deadliest attack on civilians in Yemen in
recent memory, more than 100 people were killed on Friday when suicide bombers
attacked two Zaydi Shiite mosques in the capital, Sana, during weekly prayers. A
group claiming to be the Yemeni division of the Islamic State militant group
said it was responsible for the attack, raising fears of a growing shift toward
sectarian violence in the country’s civil conflict.
Hospitals in the capital made urgent appeals for blood to treat the hundreds of
people injured in the explosions at the Badr and Hashoush mosques, which were
apparently coordinated. Another suicide bomber was detected before he could
reach a mosque in the northern province of Saada, a stronghold of the Houthi
rebel movement, which controls Sana and since September has been Yemen’s most
dominant force.
An Interior Ministry official said at least 60 people were killed at each
mosque, but the death toll is expected to rise.
The most recent attack on civilians in the capital was in January, when a car
bomb killed more than 30 people outside a police academy.
Sunni extremists, including the Islamic State fighters and militants linked to
an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Yemen, have carried out a number of deadly attacks
against supporters of the Houthis, whose leaders are members of the Zaydi branch
of Shiite Islam and are considered heretics by the Sunni militants.
But bombings of mosques have been rare, and in a recent statement on “unlawful”
killings, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen condemned such attacks. Instead, a
previously unknown group affiliated with the Islamic State, calling itself Sana
Province, claimed responsibility for Friday’s bombings, raising the specter of a
deadly, destabilizing new force in Yemen’s conflict.
“This operation is but the tip of the iceberg,” the group said in an audio
statement carried by the SITE Intelligence Group. “Let the polytheist Houthis
know that the soldiers of the Islamic State will not rest and will not stay
still until they extirpate them.”
The carnage on Friday came after days of fighting across Yemen, marking a
violent new stage in a seven-month-old political crisis that is increasingly
taking on the character of a civil war.
Yemen has been leaderless since January, when the Houthis tightened their grip
on the capital and placed the president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, along with his
government, under house arrest.
Mr. Hadi later fled to the southern port city of Aden and declared that he was
still the country’s leader, splitting the country between competing centers of
power. Diplomats, including those at the United Nations, have been unable to
broker a compromise, as many regional powers, including Iran and Saudi Arabia,
seem to have abandoned the effort, throwing their support behind either Mr. Hadi
or the Houthis and inflaming the conflict.
Earlier this week, unidentified assassins shot and killed one of Yemen’s most
prominent dissident journalists and a supporter of the Houthis, Abdulkarim
al-Khaiwani, outside his home in Sana. On Thursday, violence spread to Aden in a
day of rare factional clashes over control of the international airport and a
security base.
The fighting in Aden pitted tribesmen and military units loyal to Mr. Hadi
against a security unit seen as close to Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah
Saleh, who has remained influential in the country and allied himself with the
Houthis.
There were more reports of fighting in the south on Friday. Warplanes bombed Mr.
Hadi’s presidential compound in Aden for a second day, but did not cause any
casualties, according to witnesses and security officials in the city.
Blood could be seen on the street outside the Badr mosque, where the bombers
maximized the number of casualties by detonating their explosives inside but
also among the overflow of worshipers outside. Witnesses said 12 members of one
family were killed.
Two suicide bombers also attacked the Hashoush mosque, with one hiding his
explosives in a fake cast on his leg, which he detonated after he was stopped at
a checkpoint about 65 feet from the mosque entrance. The other bomber made it
inside as the prayers ended.
“Yemenis knew violence, but not this brutal,” said Farea al-Muslimi, a
Sana-based political analyst, speaking about the assassinations, clashes and
bombings over the last few days.
“There are no norms,” he said. “It’s a very scary moment.”
Mohammed Ali Kalfood reported from Sana, and Kareem Fahim from
Cairo. Saeed Al-Batati contributed reporting from Al Mukalla, Yemen.
Suicide Attacks at Mosques in Yemen Kill More Than 100,
NYT, MARCH 20, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/world/middleeast/suicide-attacks-at-shiite-mosques-in-yemen.html
Bloodshed in Tunisia
MARCH 19, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
With their massacre of at least 20 people from five countries at
the National Bardo Museum in Tunis, the gunmen who carried out the rampage on
Wednesday struck at Tunisia’s economic lifeblood, the tourism industry; its
government; and the international community. The attack lays bare the extent to
which extremists who are spreading through the region now threaten Tunisia, the
only success story of the Arab Spring.
This is a fragile moment for Tunisia as it moves to consolidate the democracy
put in place after the popular uprising four years ago that overthrew a
dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. As the country’s leaders deal with the
mounting security threats, they will have to be careful not to crush the civil
liberties that are essential to any democratic society. The government needs
economic aid and support in training its security forces from the United States,
Europe and the Gulf states.
Japanese, Italian, Spanish and British tourists, as well as three Tunisians,
were victims of the attack. Two gunmen were killed by security guards and on
Thursday Tunisian authorities announced the arrest of nine people suspected of
being accomplices. Supporters of the Islamic State celebrated the attack and
warned vaguely of more violence to come. Other groups, including one loyal to Al
Qaeda’s branch in North Africa, claimed some association with the killings, but
officials said no firm links had been confirmed.
Even before the museum attack, Tunisia had been struggling with security issues.
An estimated 3,000 Tunisians are believed to have gone to fight with radical
Islamists in Libya and Syria. Authorities have had a hard time stemming the
weapons flowing across the border from a chaotic Libya. There have also been
numerous attacks on security forces since 2011. In 2013, two leftist politicians
were killed in separate incidents that threatened to derail the transition to
democracy.
Economic concerns drove Tunisia’s revolutionaries into the streets in 2011, and
the country still lacks the jobs, foreign investment and trade that could put it
on a firm footing.
One bright spot is the fact that Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that swept
to power in the postrevolution elections and then lost to the secular Nidaa
Tounes party last October, has continued to work constructively within the
system and has some members in the coalition government.
The party’s leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, has long argued that democracy and Islam
can coexist. On Wednesday, he issued a statement condemning the attack,
stressing that it will not “undermine our revolution and our democracy.”
Secular hard-liners in the political establishment no doubt will try to exploit
the killings as reason to crack down on even moderate Islamists and crush any
dissent. The right response is to keep working to strengthen Tunisia’s democracy
and expand political freedoms while also working with the international
community to improve the economy.
The country has been an example of sanity in a region consumed by chaos and
dominated by authoritarian governments. It will need substantial international
help to stay that way.
A version of this editorial appears in print on March 20, 2015, on page A28 of
the New York edition with the headline: Bloodshed in Tunisia.
Bloodshed in Tunisia,
NYT, MARCH 19, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/opinion/bloodshed-in-tunisia.html
2 Gunmen Reported Killed
at Tunisia Museum
After Attack That Left 9 Dead
MARCH 18, 2015
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
CAIRO — Gunmen in military uniforms attacked an art museum in
downtown Tunis around noon on Wednesday, killing nine people and taking
hostages, officials said. Security forces later advanced into the museum and
killed two gunmen in a firefight, state television reported.
Tunisian authorities said midafternoon that the operation to retake the museum
was continuing but was nearly complete.
Early reports said that there were two or three gunmen, and that the civilians
who were killed included seven foreign visitors and one Tunisian. State
television reported that a museum guard who was injured later died of his
wounds. As as many as fifteen more people were reported to have been injured.
State television said 10 Italian and Asian tourists were being held hostage by
the gunmen.
An electoral poster in Tunisia, where the nation’s second free election is to
take place this month. The country is among the Arab world’s most educated, but
militants are recruiting heavily there.
The attack began at a time when hundreds of visitors were on their way into the
museum. Interior ministry officials said the gunmen were armed with grenades and
assault rifles. Gunfire was first heard around 12:30 p.m.
Helicopters buzzed over the area in the afternoon, and Tunisian state television
said they were evacuating people from the area, possibly including those injured
in the attack.
The site of the attack, the National Bardo Museum, is near the national
Parliament in downtown Tunis. By early afternoon, the Parliament building had
been evacuated, and police officers surrounded the area.
Continue reading the main story YouTube video from outside the museum in Tunis.
Video by yassine abidi
The identity and motivation of the attackers were not immediately clear.
Officials said it was possible that the Parliament, rather than the museum, was
the original intended target of the attack; some reports said that legislators
were discussing an antiterrorism law on Wednesday.
Tunisia was the country where the Arab Spring revolts against autocratic rule
began four years ago.
Of all the countries affected, Tunisia has made the most successful transition
toward democracy, recently completing presidential and parliamentary elections
and a peaceful rotation of political power. Security forces have struggled
against occasional attacks by Islamic extremists, but they have usually occurred
in mountainous areas far from the capital.
Recruiters for the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS or ISIL,
have sought to take advantage of the new level of freedom after the revolution,
as well as the economic disruptions, high youth unemployment and resentment of
the country’s often abusive police force, which is left over from the old
authoritarian order. Those factors have helped make Tunisia one of the biggest
sources of foreign fighters joining the Islamic State’s fight in Syria and Iraq.
In a video that circulated online last December, three Tunisian fighters with
the Islamic State are heard warning that Tunisians would not live securely “as
long as Tunisia is not governed by Islam.” One of the fighters who appeared in
the video was Boubakr Hakim, a suspect wanted in connection with the 2013
assassination of a left-leaning Tunisian politician, Chokri Belaid.
As the assault on the museum unfolded on Wednesday, supporters of the Islamic
State circulated the video again on social media, celebrating the attack as a
fulfillment of that warning.
2 Gunmen Reported Killed at Tunisia Museum After Attack That Left
9 Dead,
NYT, MARCH 18, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/world/africa/gunmen-attack-tunis-bardo-national-museum.html
As Netanyahu Prevails in Israel,
a Thorny Relationship Persists for U.S.
MARCH 18, 2015
The New York Times
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
WASHINGTON — Benjamin Netanyahu’s resounding victory in Israeli
elections on Tuesday appears to have dashed any hopes President Obama might have
had for a way out of his tumultuous and often bitter relationship with the prime
minister.
White House officials offered no immediate reaction late Tuesday night to
results that showed Mr. Netanyahu with a substantial lead after a divisive
campaign that featured a national debate about whether the Israeli leader was
undermining the country’s longstanding connection with the United States.
In a statement earlier in the day, Josh Earnest, the White House press
secretary, said only that Mr. Obama was “committed to working very closely with
the winner of the ongoing elections to cement and further deepen the strong
relationship between the United States and Israel.”
He added: “The president is confident that he can do that with whomever the
Israeli people choose.”
Mr. Netanyahu achieved a surprisingly strong finish after a highly controversial
speech this month before the United States Congress, addressing Iran’s nuclear
ambitions and deepening the rift with Mr. Obama and his top aides.
If Mr. Netanyahu is able to form a new government in the weeks ahead, he may
well emerge as an even more empowered antagonist for the United States during
the final two years of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
The prime minister emerged as the top candidate in the Israeli elections by
declaring that he was now opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state,
perhaps the most central piece of United States foreign policy doctrine as it
relates to Middle East peace. And in the final hours of the campaign, Mr.
Netanyahu appealed to supporters in his own country by warning that a wave of
Arab voters could sweep him out of office.
Any hopes of restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the Middle East —
already a long shot given the prime minister’s disagreements with Mr. Obama over
settlements — could be even further undermined by Mr. Netanyahu’s newly stated
opposition to a “two-state solution” in the Middle East.
Mr. Netanyahu’s continued presence as Israel’s leader also means that his vocal
opposition to the negotiations with Iran will only grow more intense as the
deadline for reaching a nuclear agreement draws closer. Mr. Obama and the
leaders of five other nations have said they want to reach a framework for a
deal with Iran by the end of this month.
But beyond the substantive issues, Mr. Netanyahu’s victory means that Mr. Obama
will not have an opportunity for a “reset” on one of his trickiest, most fraught
relationships with any world leader.
On the one hand, White House officials insist that Mr. Obama has talked with Mr.
Netanyahu — on the phone or in person — more than with any other world leader.
And they say the bonds between the military and intelligence agencies of the two
countries are as strong as ever. Aid to Israel has not wavered, officials note.
But personally, Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu have never become close, aides said.
The Israeli prime minister is known for being difficult. James A. Baker III, the
former secretary of state, once barred Mr. Netanyahu, then a more junior
government official, from the halls of the State Department. President Bill
Clinton famously disliked Mr. Netanyahu.
“This is a relationship between the president and the prime minister that you
could actually see getting worse,” Robert Gibbs, a former White House press
secretary, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.
The question moving forward for Mr. Obama may be whether he should essentially
write off the Israeli prime minister in much the same way he has written off
building any relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, another
frequent antagonist.
Alternatively, Mr. Obama could use the Israeli election as an excuse to try and
make one last attempt at building a more cooperative relationship with Mr.
Netanyahu.
Even if that happens, though, it is not clear whether Mr. Netanyahu would
reciprocate, especially with the Iran negotiations looming this summer.
Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said he views Iran’s nuclear ambitions as an
existential threat to Israel, and he is unlikely to want to compromise in the
interests of easing any relationship — even with the president of the United
States.
As Netanyahu Prevails in Israel, a Thorny Relationship Persists
for U.S.,
NYT, MARCH 18, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/world/middleeast/netanyahu-obama-israel-election.html
Netanyahu Soundly Defeats
Chief Rival in Israeli Elections
MARCH 17, 2015
The New York Times
By JODI RUDOREN
TEL AVIV — After a bruising campaign focused on his failings,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel won a clear victory in Tuesday’s
elections and seemed all but certain to form a new government and serve a fourth
term, though he offended many voters and alienated allies in the process.
With 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, the YNet news site reported Wednesday
morning that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party had captured 29 or 30 of the 120 seats
in Parliament, sweeping past his chief rival, the center-left Zionist Union
alliance, which got 24 seats.
Mr. Netanyahu and his allies had seized on earlier exit polls that showed a
slimmer Likud lead to create an aura of inevitability, and celebrated with
singing and dancing. While his opponents vowed a fight, Israeli political
analysts agreed even before most of the ballots were counted that he had the
advantage, with more seats having gone to the right-leaning parties likely to
support him.
It was a stunning turnabout from the last pre-election polls published Friday,
which showed the Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog, with a four- or five-seat
lead and building momentum, and the Likud polling close to 20 seats. To bridge
the gap, Mr. Netanyahu embarked on a last-minute scorched-earth campaign,
promising that no Palestinian state would be established as long as he remained
in office and insulting Arab citizens.
Mr. Netanyahu, who served as prime minister for three years in the 1990s and
returned to office in 2009, exulted in what he called “a huge victory” and said
he had spoken to the heads of all the parties “in the national camp” and urged
them to help him form a government “without any further ado.”
“I am proud of the Israeli people that, in the moment of truth, knew how to
separate between what’s important or what’s not and to stand up for what’s
important,” he told an exuberant crowd early Wednesday morning at Likud’s
election party at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds. “For the most important thing for
all of us, which is real security, social economy and strong leadership.”
But it remained to be seen how his divisive — some said racist — campaign
tactics would affect his ability to govern a fractured Israel.
Mr. Herzog also called the election “an incredible achievement.” He said he had
formed a negotiating team and still hoped to lead “a real social government in
Israel” that “aspires to peace with our neighbors.”
“The public wants a change,” he said at an election-night party in Tel Aviv,
before the Likud’s large margin of victory was revealed by the actual vote
count. “We will do everything in our power, given the reality, to reach this. In
any case, I can tell you that there will be no decisions tonight.”
Based on the results reported on YNet, Mr. Netanyahu could form a narrow
coalition of nationalist and religious parties free of the ideological divisions
that stymied his last government. That was what he intended when he called early
elections in December. President Reuven Rivlin, who in coming days must charge
Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Herzog with trying to forge a coalition based on his poll
of party leaders’ preferences , said shortly after the polls closed that he
would suggest they join forces instead.
“I am convinced that only a unity government can prevent the rapid
disintegration of Israel’s democracy and new elections in the near future,” he
told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Both camps rejected that option publicly, saying the gaps between their world
views were too large. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Herzog started working the phones
immediately after the polls closed, calling party heads to begin the
horse-trading and deal-making in hopes of lining up a majority of lawmakers
behind them.
The biggest prize may be Moshe Kahlon, a popular former Likud minister who broke
away — in part out of frustration with Mr. Netanyahu — to form Kulanu, which
focused on pocketbook issues. Mr. Kahlon leans to the right but has issues with
the prime minister, and he said Tuesday night that he would not reveal his
recommendation until the final results were tallied.
Kulanu — Hebrew for “All of Us” — won 10 seats , according to the tally YNet
reported Wednesday based on 99.5 percent of ballots counted. That is enough to
put either side’s basic ideological alliance over the magic number of 61 if they
also win the backing of two ultra-Orthodox parties that won a total of 14 seats.
“The clearest political outcome is that Kahlon is going to be the kingmaker, and
it really depends on how he is going to play his cards,” said Yohanan Plesner,
president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “It very much depends on Kahlon.”
Silvan Shalom, a Likud minister, told reporters that the prime minister would
reach out first to Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home party and to Avigdor
Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu, two archconservatives, and “of course Moshe
Kahlon,” predicting a coalition “within the next few days” of 63 or 64 seats.
“Israel said today a very clear ‘yes’ to Prime Minister Netanyahu and to the
Likud to continue leading the State of Israel,” Mr. Shalom said. “We’ll do it
with our allies. We’ll have a strong coalition that is able to deal with all the
important issues.”
The Zionist Union said, essentially, not so fast.
Nachman Shai, a senior lawmaker from the Labor Party, which joined with the
smaller Hatnua to form the new slate, said Mr. Herzog could still form a
coalition, thought he did not specify how, and advised the public to “wait and
see.” “They’re trying to cash the check and create a certain atmosphere of
victory," Mr. Shai told reporters. “We’ll do the same.”
The murky exit-poll predictions led to a murky reaction from the White House,
where a spokesman said that President Obama remained “committed to working very
closely with the winner of the ongoing elections to cement and further deepen
the strong relationship between the United States and Israel, and the president
is confident that he can do that with whomever the Israeli people choose.”
The Joint List of Arab parties won 13 seats, making it the third-largest
parliamentary faction. Its four component parties previously had 11.
The unity seems to have lifted turnout among Arab voters to its highest level
since 1969, said the list’s leader, Ayman Odeh. Arab parties have never joined
an Israeli coalition, but Mr. Odeh has indicated that he would try to help Mr.
Herzog in other ways in hopes of ending Mr. Netanyahu’s tenure.
Continue reading the main story
Yesh Atid, a centrist party that won a surprising 19 seats in the 2013 election,
its first, earned 11 this time. The Jewish Home lost votes to Mr. Netanyahu’s
swing to the right and ended up with eight, according to YNet, down from its
current 12. The ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu had six, and the leftist
Meretz four.
A new ultra-Orthodox breakaway faction apparently failed to pass the raised
electoral threshold to enter Parliament, which means its votes will be
discarded, costing the right-wing bloc.
Turnout was near 72 percent, four percentage points higher than in 2013, which
analysts attributed to the surprisingly close contest between the Likud and
Zionist Union.
“For the first time in many years, we see a serious strengthening in the two
major parties,” said Yehuda Ben Meir of the Institute for National Security
Studies. “Both parties are higher up at the expense of the smaller parties,
which is good for stability, and it’s a move to the center. The larger parties
are always more to the center than the satellite parties.”
But Mr. Plesner of the Democracy Institute said the results showed the need for
electoral reform because Israel’s “system is so fragmented, so unstable, so
difficult to govern.”
Tuesday’s balloting came just 26 months after Israel’s last election, but the
dynamic was entirely different. In 2013, there was no serious challenge to Mr.
Netanyahu. This time, Mr. Herzog teamed up with Tzipi Livni to form the Zionist
Union, an effort to reclaim the state’s founding pioneer philosophy from a
right-wing that increasingly defines it in opposition to Palestinian national
aspirations.
They promised to stop construction in isolated Israeli settlements in the
occupied West Bank, to try to renew negotiations with the Palestinians, and to
restore relations Mr. Netanyahu had frayed with the White House. Mostly, though,
they — along with Yesh Atid and Kulanu — hammered the prime minister on
kitchen-table concerns like the high cost of housing and food.
Mr. Netanyahu talked mainly about the threats of an Iranian nuclear weapon and
Islamic terrorism, addressing economics only in the final days. That was also
when he made a sharp turn to the right, backing away from his 2009 endorsement
of a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict and sounding an alarm
Tuesday morning that Arabs were voting “in droves.”
Many voters complained about a bitter campaign of ugly attacks and a lack of
inspiring choices.
“I am happy today to be able to vote, but I know I’ll be unhappy with the
result, no matter who wins,” said Elad Grafi, 29, who lives in Rehovot, a large
city south of Tel Aviv. Sneering at the likelihood of any candidate being able
to form a coalition stable enough to last a full term, he added, “Anyway, I’ll
see you here again in two years, right?”
In the Jerusalem suburb of Tzur Hadassah, Eli Paniri, 54, a longtime Likud
supporter, said he “voted for the only person who should be prime minister:
Netanyahu.”
“I am not ashamed of this,” Mr. Paniri said after weeks of Netanyahu-bashing
from all sides. “He is a strong man and, most important, he stood up to
President Obama.”
Reporting was contributed by Irit Pazner Garshowitz from Tzur Hadassah, Israel,
and Tel Aviv; Isabel Kershner, Myra Noveck and Carol Sutherland from Jerusalem;
Michael D. Shear from Washington; Diaa Hadid from the West Bank; Rina
Castelnuovo from Beit Zayit, Israel; and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel.
A version of this article appears in print on March 18, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: NETANYAHU SOUNDLY DEFEATS CHIEF RIVAL.
Netanyahu Soundly Defeats Chief Rival in Israeli Elections,
NYT, MARCH 17, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/world/middleeast/israel-election-netanyahu-herzog.html
Mr. Netanyahu’s
Unconvincing Speech to Congress
MARCH 3, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel could not have hoped
for a more rapturous welcome in Congress. With Republicans and most Democrats as
his props, he entered the House of Representatives to thunderous applause on
Tuesday, waving his hand like a conquering hero and being mobbed by fawning
lawmakers as he made his way to the lectern.
Even Washington doesn’t often see this level of exploitative political theater;
it was made worse because it was so obviously intended to challenge President
Obama’s foreign policy.
Mr. Netanyahu’s speech offered nothing of substance that was new, making it
clear that this performance was all about proving his toughness on security
issues ahead of the parliamentary election he faces on March 17. He offered no
new insight on Iran and no new reasons to reject the agreement being negotiated
with Iran by the United States and five other major powers to constrain Iran’s
nuclear program.
His demand that Mr. Obama push for a better deal is hollow. He clearly doesn’t
want negotiations and failed to suggest any reasonable alternative approach that
could halt Iran’s nuclear efforts.
Moreover, he appeared to impose new conditions, insisting that international
sanctions not be lifted as long as Iran continues its aggressive behavior,
including hostility toward Israel and support for Hezbollah, which has called
for Israel’s destruction.
Mr. Netanyahu has two main objections. One is that an agreement would not force
Iran to dismantle its nuclear facilities and would leave it with the ability to
enrich uranium and, in time, to produce enough nuclear fuel for a bomb. Two,
that a deal to severely restrict Iran’s ability to produce nuclear fuel for a
decade or more is not long enough. He also dismisses the potential effectiveness
of international inspections to deter Iran from cheating.
While an agreement would not abolish the nuclear program, which Iran says it
needs for power generation and medical purposes, neither would walking away.
Even repeated bombing of Iran’s nuclear plants would not eliminate its
capability because Iran and its scientists have acquired the nuclear know-how
over the past six decades to rebuild the program in a couple of years.
The one approach that might constrain Iran is tough negotiations, which the
United States and its partners Britain, France, China, Germany and Russia have
rightly committed to. If an agreement comes together, it would establish
verifiable limits on the nuclear program that do not now exist and ensure that
Iran could not quickly produce enough weapons-usable material for a bomb. The
major benefit for Iran is that it would gradually be freed of many of the
onerous international sanctions that have helped cripple its economy.
While no Iranian facilities are expected to be dismantled, critical
installations are expected to be reconfigured so they are less of a threat and
the centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium would be reduced. Iran would be
barred from enriching uranium above 5 percent, the level needed for power
generation and medical uses but not sufficient for producing weapons-grade
nuclear fuel. Absent a negotiated agreement, Iran will continue with its program
without constraints.
Mr. Netanyahu also denounced Iran’s Islamic regime and the danger it poses to
Israel and to regional stability through its support for President Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, Shiite militias in Baghdad, rebels in Yemen and Hezbollah in
Lebanon.
Iran’s behavior is often threatening and reprehensible, and that is precisely
why Mr. Obama has invested so much energy in trying to find a negotiated
solution. But a major reason for Iran’s growing regional role is the
American-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which Mr. Netanyahu
supported, although he was not prime minister at the time. Even after a nuclear
agreement is signed, some sanctions connected to Iran’s missile and nuclear
programs will remain in place.
Despite his commitment to negotiations, President Obama has repeatedly said he
would never let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon and if an agreement is not honored,
he would take action to back up his warning. Mr. Netanyahu obviously doesn’t
trust him, which may be the most dangerous truth of this entire impasse.
The response in Congress suggested considerable opposition to a nuclear deal.
But a new poll by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation
and the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development shows that a clear majority
of Americans — including 61 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of Democrats —
favor an agreement.
Congress must not forget that its responsibility is to make choices that advance
American security interests, and that would include a strict and achievable
agreement with Iran. If it sabotages the deal as Mr. Netanyahu has demanded, it
would bear the blame.
A version of this editorial appears in print on March 4, 2015, on page A24 of
the New York edition with the headline: Mr. Netanyahu’s Unconvincing Speech.
Mr. Netanyahu’s Unconvincing Speech to Congress, NYT, MAR. 3,
2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/opinion/netanyahu-israel-unconvincing-iran-speech-to-congress.html
For Netanyahu and Obama,
Difference Over Iran Widened Into Chasm
MARCH 3, 2015
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON — Over six years of bitter disagreements about how to
deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, President Obama and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel kept running into one central problem: The two
leaders never described their ultimate goal in quite the same way.
Mr. Obama has repeated a seemingly simple vow: On his watch, the United States
would do whatever it took to “prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Mr.
Netanyahu has used a different set of stock phrases. Iran had to be stopped from
getting the “capability” to manufacture a weapon, he said, and Israel could
never tolerate an Iran that was a “threshold nuclear state.”
That semantic difference has now widened into a strategic chasm that threatens
to imperil the American-Israeli relationship for years to come, and to upend the
most audacious diplomatic gamble by an American leader since President Richard
M. Nixon’s opening to China.
For years, Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu avoided direct discussion
of the philosophic and practical differences between an Iran on the verge of
having the ultimate weapon and an Iran that actually possesses one. But it lies
at the heart of the argument that Mr. Netanyahu is pressing before a joint
session of Congress on Tuesday morning.
“It’s a distinction with a huge difference,” said Robert Einhorn, who helped
formulate the administration’s Iran strategy at the State Department and
enforced the sanctions that helped force Tehran into the difficult negotiations
that followed. “It defines two different approaches to dealing with Iran that
today may be fundamentally irreconcilable.”
In short, Israel would eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability, and the United
States would permit a limited one.
The emotions surrounding Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to do an end run around the
White House and appear before Congress at the invitation of the Republican
leadership has obscured what the two countries’ approaches would look like. Mr.
Netanyahu has simplicity and recent history on his side. Mr. Obama has
practicality on his, along with a compelling case that his Israeli counterpart
has yet to come up with a better approach that would not most likely lead to
military conflict.
The essence of Mr. Netanyahu’s case is that the only way to make sure Iran never
gets a bomb is for it to dismantle all of its nuclear facilities — from the
uranium enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordo to the heavy-water plutonium
reactor at Arak, along with the mines that produce uranium ore and the
laboratories where Iranian scientists are believed to have worked on bomb
designs. It is a maximalist position based on a belief that Iran’s long history
of nuclear deception means that any facilities left in place would eventually be
put to use.
“We’ve seen this kind of agreement before — between the U.S. and North Korea,”
Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli minister for intelligence, said on a visit to
Washington late last year. He was referring to a deal of the George W. Bush
administration requiring North Korea to “disable” its main nuclear facilities,
and to the dramatic implosion in 2008 of the cooling tower at one of its main
nuclear reactors. Seven years later, the North Koreans have rebuilt and are back
in business — and by some estimates, they are poised to build bombs faster than
ever.
Continue reading the main story
The problem with the dismantle-it-all approach is that the Iranians have made
clear that it is a deal they would never sign. For all the suspicions swirling
around Iran’s program, the country is a signatory to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty — a treaty that Israel, India and Pakistan never signed.
(North Korea pulled out.) Iran argues that signatories have a “right to enrich,”
something the Obama administration obliquely acknowledged at the start of the
current negotiations, nearly two years ago.
So Mr. Obama’s strategy has been one of buying time. That sounds like a
concession, but it has worked well with Iran for two decades. No nation has
spent more years seemingly trying to build a weapon but failing to get there.
American intelligence agencies say that is because Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has never made the “political decision” to build a bomb.
But that is only part of the answer. The United States and its allies have done
their part to slow Iran’s efforts, blocking the shipment of needed technology,
imposing sanctions on the country’s oil exports, slipping faulty parts into its
supply chain and attacking the country’s nuclear facilities with one of the most
sophisticated cyberweapons ever developed.
Mr. Obama’s approach is based in part on a bet that time remains on America’s
side. Eventually, the administration’s thinking goes, the clerical government in
Iran will fall or be eased from power, and a more progressive leadership will
determine that Iran does not need a weapon. But the implicit gamble of the
accord now under discussion is that the long-awaited change will occur within 15
years, when the deal would expire and Iran would be free to build 180,000
advanced centrifuges the supreme leader spoke about last summer.
If Iran had that many machines to enrich uranium — a big if — it would have the
capacity to make a bomb’s worth of uranium every week or so.
Even a far smaller number of centrifuges worries the Israelis and many of their
gulf neighbors. Three years ago, the Obama administration was talking about
letting Iran keep a few hundred machines spinning in a “pilot” plant,
essentially a face-saving capacity. Then the figure rose to 1,500 centrifuges.
Now, 4,000 to 6,500 are under consideration.
“The Iranians give up no capability in their possession,” Maj. Gen. Yaakov
Amidror, a former Israeli national security adviser, wrote over the weekend,
“they only postpone their intention to fulfill those capabilities.”
The critique stings Secretary of State John Kerry, who is negotiating the accord
in Switzerland, but he will not discuss it, citing the confidentiality of the
talks. But that secrecy is costing him support every day, in Congress and from
his allies in the Persian Gulf.
“I just saw him, and he wouldn’t offer up any details,” said one senior official
from a gulf nation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his
conversations at the State Department were private. “What am I supposed to
conclude from that?”
In fact, there is a case to be made that the number of spinning centrifuges is
only one factor in how long it would take Iran to get to a bomb. If Iran ships
enough of its fuel out of the country, in a deal with Russia that has largely
been struck, officials say, there would be precious little nuclear fuel to
enrich.
If the remaining centrifuges are connected to one another in ways that can
produce only reactor-grade uranium, it would essentially limit Iran’s options —
as long as inspectors were present every few days or weeks, so that they could
raise the alarm if the machines were reconfigured to make bomb fuel.
But those arguments require some knowledge of the physics of enriching uranium,
and they will be hashed out in an environment where politics, not engineering,
will dominate the debate. Mr. Kerry says he is ready for that. “We’re not about
to jump into something we don’t believe can get the job done,” he said while
traveling in Europe on Monday.
But then he turned to what may be his most effective argument: Mr. Netanyahu has
yet to come up with a plan that does not ultimately lead to a decision to take
military action to wipe out Iran’s facilities.
“You can’t bomb knowledge into oblivion unless you kill everybody,” Mr. Kerry
said. “You can’t bomb it away. People have a knowledge here.”
The key, he said, was “intrusive inspections” and “all the insights necessary to
be able to know to a certainty that the program is, in fact, peaceful.”
And there lies the problem for the White House. It is easy to make verification
measures sound tough, but it is hard to enforce them. Dennis B. Ross, who worked
for Mr. Obama from 2009 to 2011 and focused on the issue of Iran, wrote recently
that the deal must have “anywhere, anytime access to all declared and undeclared
facilities.”
As part of Mr. Obama’s selling of the agreement, Mr. Ross argued, he should
specifically describe how the United States would respond to any race for the
bomb, including the use of military force.
For his part, Mr. Obama says the use of force is implicit in a promise he made
two years ago that “we’ve got Israel’s back.”
Mr. Netanyahu once pretended to welcome those words. His speech on Tuesday is
testament to the fact that, rightly or wrongly, he no longer believes them.
For Netanyahu and Obama,
Difference Over Iran Widened Into Chasm, NYT,
MAR. 3, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/politics/obama-netanyahu-iran-dispute.html
Boris Nemtsov, Putin Foe,
Is Shot Dead in Shadow of Kremlin
FEB. 27, 2015
The New York Times
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW — Boris Y. Nemtsov, a prominent Russian opposition leader
and former first deputy prime minister, was shot dead Friday evening in central
Moscow in the highest-profile assassination in Russia during the tenure of
President Vladimir V. Putin.
The shooting, on a bridge near Red Square, under the towering domes of St.
Basil’s Cathedral, ended Mr. Nemtsov’s two-decade career as a champion of
democratic reforms, beginning in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse in
1991, and just days before he was to lead a rally to protest the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Putin condemned the killing, the Kremlin said, and Mr. Putin’s spokesman,
Dmitri S. Peskov, said the president would personally lead the investigation.
The killing only added to the sense of a country backing away from the future
many foresaw here in the early 1990s, when Mr. Nemtsov got his start as an
up-and-comer in the years of the first post-Soviet president, Boris N. Yeltsin,
and where doors are now closing on the vision of a pluralistic political system
of the type he had said he wanted for Russia.
“They have started to kill ‘enemies of the people,’ ” the former opposition
member of Parliament Gennady Gudkov posted on Twitter. “Mr. Nemtsov is dead. Who
is next?” President Obama condemned the “brutal murder” of Mr. Nemtsov, 55, in a
statement from the White House Friday.
“We call upon the Russian government to conduct a prompt, impartial and
transparent investigation into the circumstances of his murder and ensure that
those responsible for this vicious killing are brought to justice,” Mr. Obama
said. “Nemtsov was a tireless advocate for his country, seeking for his fellow
Russian citizens the rights to which all people are entitled.”
Mr. Obama recalled meeting with Mr. Nemtsov in Moscow in 2009 and praised him
for his “courageous dedication to the struggle against corruption in Russia.”
A dashing, handsome young politician of the early post-Soviet period, Mr.
Nemtsov soared into the upper levels of government, and he was often touted as
an heir apparent to Mr. Yeltsin. Mr. Nemtsov was then discredited, like so many
others in the political elite of the 1990s, by political missteps, chaos and
corruption, though he himself was not implicated in any wrongdoing. Mr. Putin
eventually prevailed in the maneuvering to succeed Mr. Yeltsin.
While others from the Yeltsin years went into business or dropped out of view,
Mr. Nemtsov chose to dive into the beleaguered opposition, at times standing in
tiny crowds in street protests in the rain, enduring arrests and focusing
attention on government corruption. The opposition movement swelled in 2011,
with tens of thousands in the streets of Moscow, but was crushed by Mr. Putin
when he returned to the presidency in 2012.
“I love Russia and want the best for her, so for me criticizing Putin is a very
patriotic activity because these people are leading Russia to ruin,” Mr. Nemtsov
said in an interview in 2011, republished Saturday on the Meduza news site.
“Everybody who supports them in fact supports a regime that is destroying the
country, and so they are the ones who hate Russia. And those who criticize this
regime, those who fight against it, they are the patriots.”
In recent years, Mr. Nemtsov’s star had been eclipsed by Aleksei A. Navalny, the
anticorruption blogger who played a leading role in the 2011 protests. But Mr.
Nemtsov remained active and was a leading organizer of this weekend’s planned
rally.
Mr. Nemtsov was organizing the rally in part because Mr. Navalny is currently
serving a two-week jail sentence for handing out leaflets on the subway. The
rally was also noteworthy because it was the first political action inside
Russia specifically endorsed by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the exiled former
political prisoner, who had signed the petition for a parade permit.
The investigative committee of the prosecutor’s office said gunmen shot Mr.
Nemtsov four times in the back as he walked over the bridge, and by accident or
design theatrically placed his body on the wet asphalt with the Kremlin visible
behind. No suspects have been reported to be in custody.
While such contract street killings were commonplace in Moscow in the 1990s, the
violence had dwindled under Mr. Putin, making the killing of Mr. Nemtsov all the
more shocking. He is by far the most prominent public figure to die in such a
fashion, though just one in a string of murders of opponents of Mr. Putin, most
notoriously the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the human rights researcher
Natalia Estemirova and the security service defector Aleksandr V. Litvinenko.
And while low-level criminals have been detained in some cases, the
investigations in Russia never traced back to those who ordered the murders.
The Interfax news agency cited an unnamed security service operative as saying
the murder was a “provocation,” coming as it did just days before the opposition
march.
Mr. Nemtsov was an atomic physicist who got his start in politics organizing
protests against the planned construction of a nuclear reactor in his home city
of Nizhny Novgorod, on the Volga River east of Moscow. In a recent interview
with the magazine Sobesednik, Mr. Nemtsov had said his mother feared that Mr.
Putin would have him killed for his outspoken, unbowed criticism of the war in
Ukraine.
“She is truly scared that he could kill me soon for all of my statements, both
in real life and on social networks,” Mr. Nemtsov said in the interview. “This
is not a joke; she is a smart person.”
Asked by the magazine if he was worried Mr. Putin would kill him, Mr. Nemtsov
said he was “somewhat worried, but not as seriously as my mother.”
The Interior Ministry confirmed the murder of Mr. Nemtsov at around 1 a.m. in
Moscow, a report that was confirmed by his shocked and saddened supporters.
“Unfortunately I can see the corpse of Boris Nemtsov in front of me now,” Ilya
Yashin, a co-founder of the Mr. Nemtsov’s political party, told Russia’s
lenta.ru news website. “I see the body and lots of police around it.”
Andrew Roth contributed reporting from Kharkiv, Ukraine, and Peter Baker from
Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on February 28, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Putin Foe Shot in the Shadow of the
Kremlin.
Boris Nemtsov, Putin Foe, Is Shot Dead in Shadow of Kremlin,
NYT, FEB. 27, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/world/europe/boris-nemtsov-russian-opposition-leader-is-shot-dead.html
ISIS Onslaught
Engulfs Assyrian Christians
as Militants Destroy Ancient Art
FEB. 26, 2015
The New York Times
By ANNE BARNARD
ISTANBUL — The reports are like something out of a distant era of
ancient conquests: entire villages emptied, with hundreds taken prisoner, others
kept as slaves; the destruction of irreplaceable works of art; a tax on
religious minorities, payable in gold.
A rampage reminiscent of Tamerlane or Genghis Khan, perhaps, but in reality,
according to reports by residents, activist groups and the assailants
themselves, a description of the modus operandi of the Islamic State’s
self-declared caliphate this week. The militants have prosecuted a relentless
campaign in Iraq and Syria against what have historically been religiously and
ethnically diverse areas with traces of civilizations dating to ancient
Mesopotamia.
The latest to face the militants’ onslaught are the Assyrian Christians of
northeastern Syria, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, some
speaking a modern version of Aramaic, the language of Jesus.
Assyrian leaders have counted 287 people taken captive, including 30 children
and several dozen women, along with civilian men and fighters from Christian
militias, said Dawoud Dawoud, an Assyrian political activist who had just toured
the area, in the vicinity of the Syrian city of Qamishli. Thirty villages had
been emptied, he said.
The Syriac Military Council, a local Assyrian militia, put the number of those
taken at 350.
Reached in Qamishli, Adul Ahad Nissan, 48, an accountant and music composer who
fled his village before the brunt of the fighting, said a close friend and his
wife had been captured.
“I used to call them every other day. Now their mobile is off,” he said. “I
tried and tried. It’s so painful not to see your friends again.”
Members of the Assyrian diaspora have called for international intervention, and
on Thursday, warplanes of the United States-led coalition struck targets in the
area, suggesting that the threat to a minority enclave had galvanized a
reaction, as a similar threat did in the Kurdish city of Kobani last year.
The assault on the Assyrian communities comes amid battles for a key crossroads
in the area. But to residents, it also seems to be part of the latest effort by
the Islamic State militants to eradicate or subordinate anyone and anything that
does not comport with their vision of Islamic rule — whether a minority sect
that has survived centuries of conquerors and massacres or, as the world was
reminded on Thursday, the archaeological traces of pre-Islamic antiquity.
An Islamic State video showed the militants smashing statues with sledgehammers
inside the Mosul Museum, in northern Iraq, that showcases recent archaeological
finds from the ancient Assyrian empire. The relics include items from the palace
of King Sennacherib, who in the Byron poem “came down like the wolf on the fold”
to destroy his enemies.
“A tragedy and catastrophic loss for Iraqi history and archaeology beyond
comprehension,” Amr al-Azm, the Syrian anthropologist and historian, called the
destruction on his Facebook page.
“These are some of the most wonderful examples of Assyrian art, and they’re part
of the great history of Iraq, and of Mesopotamia,” he said in an interview. “The
whole world has lost this.”
Islamic State militants seized the museum — which had not yet opened to the
public — when they took over Mosul in June and have repeatedly threatened to
destroy its collection.
In the video, put out by the Islamic State’s media office for Nineveh Province —
named for an ancient Assyrian city — a man explains, “The monuments that you can
see behind me are but statues and idols of people from previous centuries, which
they used to worship instead of God.”
A message flashing on the screen read: “Those statues and idols weren’t there at
the time of the Prophet nor his companions. They have been excavated by
Satanists.”
The men, some bearded and in traditional Islamic dress, others clean-shaven in
jeans and T-shirts, were filmed toppling and destroying artifacts. One is using
a power tool to deface a winged lion much like a pair on display at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has presented itself as a
modern-day equivalent of the conquering invaders of Sennacherib’s day, or as
Islamic zealots smashing relics out of religious conviction.
Yet in the past, the militants have veered between ideology and pragmatism in
their relationship to antiquity — destroying historic mosques, tombs and
artifacts that they consider forms of idolatry, but also selling more portable
objects to fill their coffers.
The latest eye-catching destruction could have a more strategic aim, said Mr.
Azm, who closely follows the Syrian conflict and opposes both the Islamic State
and the government.
“It’s all a provocation,” he said, aimed at accelerating a planned effort, led
by Iraqi forces and backed by United States warplanes, to take back Mosul,
Iraq’s second-largest city.
“They want a fight with the West because that’s how they gain credibility and
recruits,” Mr. Azm said. “They want boots on the ground. They want another
Falluja,” a reference to the 2004 battle in which United States Marines, in the
largest ground engagement since Vietnam, took that Iraqi city from Qaeda-linked
insurgents whose organization would eventually give birth to the Islamic State.
The Islamic State has been all-inclusive in its violence against the modern
diversity of Iraq and Syria. It considers Shiite Muslims apostates, and has
destroyed Shiite shrines and massacred more than 1,000 Shiite Iraqi soldiers. It
has demanded that Christians living in its territories pay the jizya, a tax on
religious minorities dating to early Islamic rule.
Islamic State militants have also slaughtered fellow Sunni Muslims who reject
their rule, killing hundreds of members of the Shueitat tribe in eastern Syria
in one clash alone. They have also massacred and enslaved members of the Yazidi
sect in Iraq.
The latest to face its wrath, the Assyrian Christians, consider themselves the
descendants of the ancient Assyrians and have survived often bloody Arab,
Mongolian and Ottoman conquests, living in modern times as a small minority
community periodically under threat. Thousands fled northern Iraq last year as
Islamic State militants swept into Nineveh Province.
Early in February, according to Assyrian groups inside and outside Syria, came a
declaration from the Islamic State that Christians in a string of villages along
the Khabur River in Syrian Hasaka Province would have to take down their crosses
and pay the jizya, traditionally paid in gold.
That prompted some to flee, and others to take a more active part in fighting
ISIS alongside Kurdish militias, helping take back some territory.
Islamic State militants hit back, hard, driving more than 1,000 Assyrian
Christians from their homes, some crossing the Khabur River, a tributary of the
Euphrates, in small boats by night.
Local Assyrian leaders were negotiating with the Islamic State through
mediators, said Mr. Dawoud, the deputy president of the Assyrian Democratic
Organization. The Assyrian International News Agency, a website sharing
community news, said Arab tribal leaders were mediating talks to exchange the
prisoners for captured Islamic State fighters and that the Islamic State had
agreed to free Christian civilians but not fighters.
Mr. Nissan, the accountant, described how he and others crammed into a truck,
paying exorbitant rates, to escape. Earlier, he said, Nusra Front fighters and
other Syrian insurgents had looted the village without harming anyone, but he
feared ISIS more because “they consider us infidels.”
“I made a vow, when I return I want to kiss the soil of my village and pray in
the church,” he said, adding that he had composed a song for the residents of
Nineveh Province when they were displaced a few months ago.
“I called it ‘Greetings from Khabur to Nineveh,’ “ he said. “Now we’re facing
the same scenario.”
Hwaida Saad and Maher Samaan contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, and
Karen Zraick from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on February 27, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: ISIS Onslaught Overruns Assyrians and
Wrecks Art.
ISIS Onslaught Engulfs Assyrian Christians as Militants Destroy
Ancient Art, NYT,
FEB. 26, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/world/middleeast/more-assyrian-christians-captured-as-isis-attacks-villages-in-syria.html
The Human Stain
FEB. 26, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist
Nicholas Kristof
SINJIL, West Bank — The Israeli elections scheduled for March 17
should constitute a triumph, a celebration of democracy and a proud reminder
that the nation in which Arab citizens have the most meaningful vote is, yes,
Israel.
Yet Israeli settlements here on the West Bank mar the elections, and the future
of the country itself. The 350,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank — not even
counting those in Arab East Jerusalem — impede any Middle East peace and stain
Israel’s image.
But let’s be clear: The reason to oppose settlements is not just that they are
bad for Israel and America, but also that this nibbling of Arab land is just
plain wrong. It’s a land grab. The result is a “brutal occupation force,” in the
words of the late Avraham Shalom, a former chief of the Israeli internal
security force, Shin Bet.
Most Israeli settlers are not violent. But plenty are — even stoning American
consular officials early this year — and they mostly get away with it because
settlements are an arm of an expansive Israeli policy. The larger problem is not
violent settlers, but the occupation.
“We planted 5,000 trees last year,” Mahmood Ahmed, a Palestinian farmer near
Sinjil told me. “Settlers cut them all down with shears or uprooted them.”
Israel has enormous security challenges, but it’s hard to see the threat posed
by 69-year-old Abed al-Majeed, who has sent all 12 of his children to
university. He told me he used to have 300 sheep grazing on family land in Qusra
but that nearby settlers often attack him when he is on his own land; he rolled
up his pant leg to show a scar where he said a settler shot him in 2013. Now he
is down to 100 sheep.
“I can’t graze my sheep on my own land,” he said. “If I go there, settlers will
beat me.”
Sarit Michaeli of B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, accompanied me here
and said that the allegations are fully credible. Sometimes Palestinians
exaggerate numbers, she said, but the larger pattern is undeniable: “the
expulsion of Palestinians from wide areas of their agricultural land in the West
Bank.”
Elsewhere, I saw graffiti that said “Death to Arabs” in Hebrew, heard
Palestinians say that their olive trees had been poisoned or their tires
slashed, and talked to an Arab family whose house was firebombed in the middle
of the night, leaving the children traumatized.
The violence, of course, cuts both ways, and some Israeli settlers have been
murdered by Palestinians. I just as easily could have talked to settler children
traumatized by Palestinian violence. But that’s the point: As long as Israel
maintains these settlements, illegal in the eyes of most of the world, both
sides will suffer.
To its credit, Israel sometimes lets democratic institutions work for
Palestinians. In the southern West Bank, I met farmers who, with the help of a
watchdog group, Rabbis for Human Rights, used Israeli courts to regain some land
after being blocked by settlers. But they pointed wistfully at an olive grove
that they are not allowed to enter because it is next to an outpost of a Jewish
settlement.
They haven’t been able to set foot in the orchard for years, but I, as an
outsider, was able to walk right into it. A settler confronted me, declined to
be interviewed, and disappeared again — but the Palestinians who planted the
trees cannot harvest their own olives.
A unit of Israeli soldiers soon showed up to make sure that there was no
trouble. They were respectful, but, if they were really there to administer the
law, they would dismantle the settlement outpost, which is illegal under Israeli
as well as international law.
Kerem Navot, an Israeli civil society organization, has documented “the
wholesale takeover of agricultural lands” by Israeli settlers. It notes that
this takeover is backed by the Israeli government “despite the blatant
illegality of much of the activity, even in terms of Israeli law.”
There are, of course, far worse human rights abuses in the Middle East; indeed,
Israeli journalists, lawyers, historians and aid groups are often exquisitely
fair to Palestinians. Yet the occupation is particularly offensive to me because
it is conducted by the United States’ ally, underwritten with our tax dollars,
supported by tax-deductible contributions to settlement groups, and carried out
by American bulldozers and weaponry, and presided over by a prime minister who
is scheduled to speak to Congress next week.
At a time when Saudi Arabia is flogging dissidents, Egypt is sentencing them to
death, and Syria is bombing them, Israel should stand as a model. Unfortunately,
it squanders political capital and antagonizes even its friends with its naked
land grab in the West Bank. That’s something that Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu might discuss in his address to Congress.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on February 26, 2015, on
page A27 of the New York edition with the headline: The Human Stain.
The Human Stain, NYT,
FEB. 26, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/opinion/nicholas-kristof-the-human-stain.html
George Clooney
on Sudan’s Rape of Darfur
FEB. 25, 2015
The New York Times
By GEORGE CLOONEY,
JOHN PRENDERGAST
and AKSHAYA KUMAR
In the early 2000s, a brutal conflict in western Sudan between
the government and rebels led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
Darfuris, with millions displaced as refugees. In 2004, the United States
declared Sudan’s actions a genocide.
After that spike in attention and concern, the world has largely forgotten about
Darfur. Unfortunately, the government of Sudan has not.
Because Sudan’s government routinely blocks journalists from going into the
Darfur region and severely restricts access for humanitarian workers, any window
into life there is limited. The government has hammered the joint peacekeeping
mission of the United Nations and African Union into silence about human rights
concerns by shutting down the United Nations human rights office in the capital,
Khartoum, hampering investigators of alleged human rights abuses and pressuring
the peacekeeping force to withdraw.
Just last week, the regime reportedly convinced the peacekeeping mission to pull
out of areas it says are stable, hoping no one takes a closer look. As a result,
mass atrocities continue to occur in Darfur with no external witness. This is
also the case in Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains, two southern regions
devastated by the government’s scorched-earth tactics.
Every once in a while, however, a sliver of evidence emerges. In recent years,
citizen journalists and human rights defenders from Darfur and the Nuba
Mountains have smuggled out videos showing bombing raids and burning villages.
Images captured by our Satellite Sentinel Project confirmed the systematic
burning and barrel bombing of at least half a dozen villages in Darfur’s eastern
Jebel Marra area last year.
To avoid scrutiny, the government has spent millions of dollars provided by
Qatar to set up “model villages,” where it encourages Darfuris displaced by
violence to settle. Human Rights Watch recently documented a chilling incident
of mass rape at one of these villages, Tabit.
After collecting more than 130 witness and survivor testimonies over the phone,
its researchers concluded that at least 221 women had been raped by soldiers of
the Sudanese Army over a 36-hour period last October. The peacekeepers’ attempts
to investigate this incident were obstructed by the government, which allowed
them into the town briefly for interviews that were conducted in a climate of
intimidation. A leaked memo from the peacekeeping mission shows that Sudanese
troops listened in on and even recorded many of the interviews. Since then, the
people of Tabit have had their freedom of movement severely curtailed.
The army had controlled the town since 2011, with a base on the outskirts, and
was not trying to drive the population from their homes to gain territory. The
sexual violence has no military objective; rather, it is a tactic of social
control, ethnic domination and demographic change. Acting with impunity,
government forces victimize the entire community. Racial subordination is also
an underlying message, as non-Arab groups are singled out for abuse.
Human rights courts around the world have found that rapes by army officials or
police officers can constitute torture. When issuing its findings about crimes
committed in a similar situation in Bosnia, the International Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia determined that the rapes of women at two camps were acts of
torture since sexual violence was used as an instrument of terror. The mass
rapes in Tabit follow the same pattern.
During our own visits to Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and refugee camps in
neighboring countries, we have heard story after story like those from Tabit.
These “torture rapes” are just one tool in Sudan’s criminal arsenal, which also
includes aerial bombing of hospitals and agricultural fields, burning of
villages and the denial of food aid.
Over time, international outrage has shifted away from Darfur. When change
doesn’t come fast enough, attention spans are short — especially for places that
appear to have no strategic importance. In the last two years, however, Darfur
became important to the Sudanese government when major gold reserves were
discovered in North Darfur, the region that includes Tabit.
When South Sudan won its independence in 2011, the part of Sudan left behind
lost its biggest source of foreign exchange earnings: oil revenues. So gold has
become the new oil for Sudan.
According to the International Monetary Fund, gold sales earned Sudan $1.17
billion last year. Much of that gold is coming from Darfur and other conflict
zones. The government has attempted to consolidate its control over the
country’s gold mines in part by violent ethnic cleansing.
Unfortunately, the United Nations Security Council is too divided to respond
with action to the crimes being committed in Darfur and other parts of Sudan.
Russia and China, which have commercial links to Khartoum through arms sales and
oil deals, are unwilling to apply pressure that might alter the calculations of
the Khartoum government. But that doesn’t mean the international community is
without leverage.
First, international banks, gold refiners and associations like the Dubai Multi
Commodities Center and the London Bullion Market Association should raise alerts
for Sudanese gold and initiate audits to trace it all to its mine of origin to
ensure that purchases are not fueling war crimes in Darfur. The gold industry
has already adopted a similar approach to suppliers in the Democratic Republic
of Congo.
Second, the international community has imposed sanctions unevenly and without
sufficient enforcement to have a significant impact. The United States and other
countries should expand sanctions and step up enforcement to pressure Sudan to
observe human rights and to negotiate for peace. Most important, the next wave
of American sanctions should target the facilitators, including Sudanese and
international banks, that do business with the regime either directly or through
partners.
The “torture rapes” in Tabit are a reminder to the world that the same
conditions that led to the United States’ declaration of genocide in Darfur are
still firmly in place, with devastating human consequences. We must not forget
the survivors, and we must impose deterrent costs on the orchestrators and their
enablers.
George Clooney, an actor and film producer, and John Prendergast are the
founders of the Satellite Sentinel Project. Mr. Prendergast is also the founding
director of the Enough Project, where Akshaya Kumar is a policy analyst.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on February 26, 2015, on page A27 of
the New York edition with the headline: Sudan's Rape of Darfur.
George Clooney on Sudan’s Rape of Darfur, NYT,
FEB. 25, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/opinion/george-clooney-on-sudans-rape-of-darfur.html
Unshackle the United Nations
FEB. 24, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
By SALIL SHETTY
LONDON — Glance at any newsstand or catch any rolling news
channel, and you will be confronted by a seemingly unrelenting tide of horror.
Limp bodies pulled from rubble, shells and barrel bombs pounding once leafy
neighborhoods. Refugees huddled for warmth or risking life and limb for
survival. Mass abductions and beheadings.
From Ukraine to Nigeria, from Libya to Syria, the last 12 months have been a
year of harrowing bloodshed. Millions of civilians have been caught up in
conflict, with violence by states and armed groups inflicting untold death,
injury and suffering. For the first time, Amnesty International has tallied the
number of countries where war crimes have been committed: a shocking 18 in 2014.
Among the worst were Syria, the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan,
Nigeria and Israel and the Palestinian territories.
As a result of the growth of groups like the Islamic State and Boko Haram,
abuses by armed groups spilled over national borders, reaching at least 35
countries.
Faced with the enormity and the relentlessness of this horror it is easy to feel
hopeless. But we are not powerless. Our governments and institutions may lack
the will but they have the capacity, both individually and collectively, to help
protect civilians in danger. It is a duty that they are abjectly failing to
fulfill.
In our annual report being released Wednesday, we examine the human rights
situation in 160 countries. We find that the global response to conflict and
abuses has been shameful and ineffective.
Weapons have been allowed to flood into countries where they are used for grave
abuses by states and armed groups with huge arms shipments delivered to Iraq,
Israel, Russia, South Sudan and Syria last year alone. As the Islamic State took
control of large parts of Iraq, it found large arsenals, ripe for the picking.
An historic Arms Trade Treaty came into force last year, providing a legal
framework for limiting the international transfer of weapons and ammunition. But
many nations have yet to ratify the treaty. There is also an urgent need for
restrictions to tackle the use of explosive weapons — including aircraft bombs,
mortars, artillery, rockets and ballistic missiles — that have devastated
populated areas.
The United Nations, established 70 years ago to ensure that we would never again
see the horrors witnessed in the Second World War, has repeatedly failed to act,
even where it could prevent terrible crimes from being committed against
civilians. The use of veto powers has enabled the narrow vested interests of the
Security Council’s five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and
the United States — to take precedence over the needs of victims of serious
human rights violations and abuses. This has left the United Nations hamstrung
and increasingly discredited at this critical time.
Last week, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon wrote to the Security Council, calling
for an end to the “business-as-usual” approach to Syria and urgent action to
lift sieges on civilians and to end barrel bomb attacks. This appeal followed
four vetoes by Russia and China that blocked Security Council action on Syria
that could have helped save civilian lives. Likewise, the United Nations’
failure to pass a single resolution during the 50-day conflict in Gaza last year
was largely due to the threat of a veto by the United States. Each such failure
diminishes what little trust is left in the Security Council to take decisive
action to protect civilians.
The failures of our governments and institutions are dismaying, but they should
spur us to action. We call on our governments to take some fundamental steps.
In situations where mass atrocities are being committed — or about to be
committed — the five veto-wielding states should commit to not use their veto.
In doing so, they will unshackle the Security Council, enabling it to protect
the lives of civilians in advance, during or in the wake of grave crimes. Such a
commitment would also send a clear signal to perpetrators of abuse that the
world will not sit idly by while mass atrocities — war crimes, crimes against
humanity, genocide — take place.
Some may argue that it is wildly unrealistic to expect the five permanent
members to place the suffering of civilians in distant lands above their
geopolitical interests. But this thinking is both morally and logically flawed.
The nature of global conflict is changing. The definition of any country’s
national interest should no longer be viewed through a blinkered nationalistic
lens.
Conflicts no longer respect national borders. Armed groups and their ideologies
do not confine themselves to their country of origin. Impunity emboldens human
rights abusers and weapons empower them. Meanwhile the human tide of refugees
creeps ever higher. In 2014, more than 3,000 people drowned in the Mediterranean
trying to reach Europe from Africa and the Middle East.
The myopic response of our leaders has been not only ineffective but
counterproductive. Governments around the world have resorted to knee-jerk,
draconian “anti-terror” tactics that have only served to undermine our
fundamental human rights and helped to create conditions of repression in which
extremism thrive. Last year, 131 countries tortured or otherwise ill-treated
people, and prisoners of conscience were jailed in 62 countries. Three quarters
of governments investigated by Amnesty International had arbitrarily restricted
freedom of expression, cracking down on press freedom, arresting journalists or
shutting down newspapers. These figures are a disturbing increase from previous
years.
Government leaders have attempted to justify human rights violations by talking
of the need to keep the world “safe.” But the truth is, there can be no genuine
security without human rights.
The challenges facing us are substantial and tackling them will not be easy.
Abuses by states are difficult to confront and the ruthlessness of armed groups
like the Islamic State and the threat they pose cannot be underestimated.
It will take commitment, vision and global cooperation. People of conscience
must recognize that we are not powerless, and our governments must stop
pretending that the protection of civilians is beyond their power.
Salil Shetty is the secretary general of Amnesty International.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on February 25, 2015, in The
International New York Times.
Unshackle the United Nations, NYT,
FEB. 24, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/opinion/unshackle-the-united-nations.html
Obama Urges Global United Front
Against Extremist Groups Like ISIS
FEB. 18, 2015
The New York Times
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
WASHINGTON — President Obama called on Americans and more than 60
nations on Wednesday to join the fight against violent extremism, saying they
had to counter the ideology of the Islamic State and other groups making
increasingly sophisticated appeals to young people around the world.
On the second day of a three-day meeting that comes after a wave of terrorist
attacks in Paris, Sydney, Copenhagen and Ottawa, Mr. Obama said undercutting the
Sunni militant group’s message and blunting its dark appeal was a “generational
challenge” that would require cooperation from mainstream Muslims as well as
governments, communities, religious leaders and educators.
“We have to confront squarely and honestly the twisted ideologies that these
terrorist groups use to incite people to violence,” Mr. Obama told an auditorium
full of community activists, religious leaders and law enforcement officials —
some of them skeptical about his message — gathered at the Eisenhower Executive
Office Building next door to the White House. “We need to find new ways to
amplify the voices of peace and tolerance and inclusion, and we especially need
to do it online.”
Key points in the terrorist group’s rapid growth and the slowing of its advance
as it faces international airstrikes and local resistance.
But, Mr. Obama said, “we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people
who have perverted Islam.”
White House officials cast the conference as a rallying cry and progress report
after Mr. Obama’s speech on terrorism to the United Nations General Assembly in
September, and said it signaled Mr. Obama’s desire to play the leading role in
assembling an international coalition to fight an ideological war against the
Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. They said the battle was just as
important as the military campaign Mr. Obama launched against the Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria last summer, which has shown mixed results.
Despite the president’s call to arms, many of the leaders and officials
attending the conference expressed doubt about the ability of the Obama
administration to counter extremist messages, particularly from the Islamic
State, which has a reach and agility in social media that far outstrips that of
the American government.
“We’re being outdone both in terms of content, quality and quantity, and in
terms of amplification strategies,” said Sasha Havlicek of the Institute for
Strategic Dialogue, a London-based research organization, in a presentation at
the meeting. She used a diagram of a small and large megaphone to illustrate the
“monumental gap” between the Islamic State, which uses social media services
like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and other groups and governments, including
the Obama administration.
“The problem is that governments are ill placed to lead in the battle of ideas,”
Ms. Havlicek said as she called for private companies to become involved in what
she called “the communications problem of our time.”
Administration officials acknowledged the problems they face. “You could
hypothetically eliminate the entire ISIL safe haven, but still face a threat
from the kind of propaganda they disseminate over social media,” said Benjamin
J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser. “It’s an undervalued part of
how you prevent terror attacks in the United States.”
Continue reading the main story
At the same time, human rights activists at the conference said they had grave
concerns about domestic efforts to counter violent extremism, known inside the
government by the acronym C.V.E. They said that programs to spot potential
homegrown terrorists could morph into fearmongering closet surveillance efforts
that trample on civil rights and privacy, and that the administration could also
be giving tacit approval to foreign governments that abuse human rights in the
name of countering terrorism.
A coalition of advocacy groups wrote to the White House on Tuesday raising their
concerns, and some Muslim-American community groups boycotted the meeting.
“The government must behave in a way so that victims of hate crimes and violent
extremism know that government agencies are there to protect their rights and
safety, not just monitor their religious and political expression,” said Samer
Khalaf, the president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “This
focus solely on attacks committed by Arabs or Muslims reinforces the stereotype
of Arab- and Muslim-Americans as security threats, and thus perpetuates hate of
the respected communities.”
American intelligence officials have long believed that the greatest terrorist
threat in the United States is no longer from meticulously plotted events like
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that originate overseas, but from American citizens
who become radicalized on their own or by a foreign terrorist organization.
In his remarks, Mr. Obama said that other countries had a responsibility to
help.
“If we’re going to prevent people from being susceptible to the false promises
of extremism, then the international community has to offer something better,”
Mr. Obama said, adding that the United States would “do its part” by promoting
economic growth and development, fighting corruption and encouraging other
countries to devote more resources to education, including for girls and women.
“When governments oppress their people, deny human rights, stifle dissent or
marginalize ethnic and religious groups, or favor certain religious groups over
others, it sows the seeds of extremism and violence,” Mr. Obama said. “It makes
those communities more vulnerable to recruitment.”
Part of the business of the conference on Wednesday was to bring together
leaders from Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Boston, where federal pilot programs
underway are aimed at helping target disaffected young people who might be
susceptible to extremist messages.
The president said it was crucial that such efforts include input from
Muslim-Americans, who he said have sometimes felt “unfairly targeted” by
government antiterrorism efforts.
“We have to make sure that abuses stop, are not repeated, that we do not
stigmatize entire communities,” Mr. Obama said. “Engagement with communities
can’t be a cover for surveillance.”
Among the participants on Wednesday was Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, who
said the attacks in her city had prompted her to ask herself, “What did we not
do to prevent that?”
Hans Bonte, the mayor of Vilvoorde, Belgium, said that his town of 4,200 had
been beset by Islamic State recruitment efforts and that 28 young people had
gone to Iraq and Syria. He said another 40, including a number of under-age
girls, were preparing to depart or “marked as potential leavers.”
“We are facing a global problem, but we have to act locally,” Mr. Bonte said,
criticizing what he called some European countries’ “ostrich policy” of saying
they do not have a problem.
One surprise participant in State Department sessions for the meeting on
Wednesday was the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the post-Soviet
K.G.B.
The State Department said it had been notified Tuesday night that Aleksandr V.
Bortnikov would be attending the conference as part of an expanded Russian
delegation. The visit would be unusual under the best of circumstances, but it
comes at a moment of heightened tensions over the Kremlin’s support for
separatists in eastern Ukraine and the role of Russian troops in the fighting
there.
“Violent extremism and terrorism are problems that affect communities around the
world, including Russia,” said Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman.
The European Union has put Mr. Bortnikov on its sanctions list because of the
Ukraine crisis, but he is not subject to American sanctions. On Thursday, Mr.
Obama will address foreign leaders gathered at the State Department to talk
about their countries’ programs.
Vitaly I. Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, questioned the
effectiveness of a United States-led global effort to counter terrorism, which
he said would be counterproductive. “It’s only going to attract extremists,” he
said Wednesday evening at an event at the Harvard Club in New York.
Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from Washington, and Somini Sengupta
from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on February 19, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Against Radicals, Obama Urges Global
United Front.
Obama Urges Global United Front Against Extremist Groups Like
ISIS, NYT,
FEB. 18, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/us/obama-to-outline-nonmilitary-plans-to-counter-groups-like-isis.html
Civilian Casualties in Afghan War
Topped 10,000 in 2014, U.N. Says
FEB. 18, 2015
The New York Times
By AZAM AHMED
KABUL — Last year was the deadliest for civilians caught up in
Afghanistan’s war since the United Nations began keeping records in 2009, the
world body said Wednesday — a harbinger of the new dynamic of the conflict, in
which insurgents and Afghan forces increasingly engage in face-to-face battles.
By almost any metric, 2014 was a grim year. Civilian casualties, including both
deaths and injuries, were up 22 percent from the previous record set in 2013,
and they surpassed 10,000 for the first time since the United Nations’
record-keeping began. The number of women and children injured or killed also
hit new highs.
Casualties caused by roadside bombs, suicide attackers and explosive devices
soared to record levels. And for the Afghan security forces, 2014 marked the
deadliest year since the start of the war in 2001.
In large part, the surge in casualties is a result of the altered nature of the
war. Almost no troops from the American-led international coalition are fighting
anymore, and the air support once available to keep the Taliban from massing in
large groups has been reduced.
As a result, Afghan forces are facing the insurgents in a head-on fight that has
taken a tremendous toll on Afghans in general. Such ground engagements accounted
for 34 percent of civilian casualties in 2014.
Ground fighting amplifies the fog of war, making the assignment of
responsibility more difficult even as the violence increases. Of the 3,605
Afghans killed or wounded during ground operations last year, it was unclear in
nearly 30 percent of the cases which side was responsible. While the insurgents
were deemed to be responsible for the largest share of ground-related casualties
— 43 percent — the government and its allies were responsible for 26 percent, a
massive increase from previous years.
The report released Wednesday by the United Nations Assistance Mission in
Afghanistan built on the organization’s midyear update, released last summer,
which laid out similar trends.
The data offers a rare insight into the toll the war is taking on Afghans at a
time when less and less information is publicly available. With the Afghan
forces now fully in the lead, the ministries most involved in the fight, the
Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry, have released information on
casualties only sporadically, and never anything specifically about civilians.
Among the more surprising developments reported by the United Nations was the
effect of cross-border shelling into Afghanistan from Pakistan, which has been
the subject of heavy complaints by the Afghan government. Such incidents, 41 in
all, accounted for 1 percent of civilian casualties last year, with 71 people
injured and 11 killed, the United Nations said. All but one of those incidents
were in the eastern province of Kunar, with the other in the southeastern
province of Khost.
The Taliban, as well as other antigovernment groups, continued to cause the vast
majority of civilian casualties, at 72 percent of the total, the United Nations
said. The use of improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks caused a
combined 4,560 deaths and injuries to Afghan civilians.
Civilian casualties caused by the international military forces declined 43
percent in 2014, as fewer coalition members engaged in combat. Militias that
fight on behalf of the government, meanwhile, were deemed responsible for 102
casualties, an 85 percent increase from 2013.
The militias, which President Ashraf Ghani has vowed to disband, remain highly
controversial in Afghanistan. The United Nations said there had been a
significant increase in human rights abuses perpetrated by these groups,
especially in the country’s north, northeast and southeast, where they often
operate in areas with little government presence. The United Nations report
decried a “failure by the government of Afghanistan to hold these armed groups
accountable.”
The Khanabad district of Kunduz Province, where anywhere from 900 to 1,200
militiamen operate, was particularly problematic, the report said. On Aug. 4,
members of one of the pro-government militias killed a teacher in the district
for publicly opposing tax collection, the report said.
Civilian Casualties in Afghan War Topped 10,000 in 2014, NYT,
U.N. Says,
FEB. 18, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/world/asia/afghanistan-civilian-casualties-topped-10000-in-2014-un-says.html
Anger of Suspect in Danish Killings
Is Seen as Only Loosely Tied to Islam
FEB. 16, 2015
The New York Times
By ANDREW HIGGINS
and MELISSA EDDY
COPENHAGEN — When Aydin Soei, a sociologist in Denmark, met
members of an inner-city gang in 2008, one teenage tough stood out as more
intelligent than his peers, and more mercurial. He showed little interest in
Islam, but a deep loathing for Denmark, the country where he was born and spent
his entire life.
On Sunday, that former gang member, Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, died in a gun
battle with Danish police officers just a few hundred yards from his boyhood
home in Norrebro, an immigrant area of the Danish capital. It was the final,
bloody episode of a short and angry life that included street crime and macho
violence and ended with a 15-hour explosion of militancy on the streets of
Copenhagen.
Thousands of Danes bearing lighted torches and flags braved icy wind to gather
for a mass memorial Monday evening in the Copenhagen neighborhood where the
gunman sprayed a cafe with bullets Saturday afternoon. The cafe, whose name
translates as “the powder keg,” was hosting a discussion about free speech at
the time of the attack.
As the authorities across Europe try to figure out how radical
Islam turns a tiny but dangerous minority of young Muslims into terrorists, Mr.
Soei, the sociologist, said that Mr. Hussein, 22, was an exemplar of a
phenomenon of Europe’s urban neighborhoods, not a product of the teachings of
the Quran or their distortions by militant preachers.
“This wasn’t an intellectual Islamist with a long beard,” Mr. Soei said. “This
was a loser man from the ghetto who is very, very angry at Danish society.”
The Danish authorities have still not officially named Mr. Hussein as the gunman
who killed a Danish film director on Saturday at the cafe and a Jewish security
guard at a synagogue later Sunday, wounding five police officers during the
onslaught. But Mr. Hussein’s former neighbors, who have had their homes searched
by the police, and others who knew the dead suspect, said Mr. Hussein was indeed
the man responsible for Denmark’s worst terrorist violence since the 1980s.
“I’m just as shocked as the rest of the world,” his distraught father, a
Palestinian from Jordan, told the newspaper Jyllands Posten on Monday, adding
that the first he knew of his son’s actions was when the authorities contacted
him on Sunday.
“This is not just sad, it is a tragedy,” said Anoir Hassouni, a social worker at
a kickboxing club where Mr. Hussein fought and trained for eight months before
he was convicted of violent assault in 2013. He was released from prison just
two weeks before the weekend attacks.
The city-funded kickboxing club, situated in a former municipal garage covered
with graffiti, included many troubled youths from poor or broken homes, Mr.
Hassouni said. Some drift into gangs and drugs and get involved in crime, he
added, but “they don’t do anything like this.”
Denmark’s prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, said Monday that investigators
so far had “no indication that he was part of a cell” and that the suspect
appeared to have acted alone. The authorities say they have no evidence that the
suspect ever traveled to Syria or Iraq to wage violent jihad, unlike thousands
of other young European Muslims.
Though perhaps not part of an established jihadist network, the young man was
clearly not alone in his anger. On Monday, about a dozen young men, their faces
covered by scarves, visited the spot where Mr. Hussein died and, declaring
themselves his brothers, shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” as they
removed flowers laid in memorial, a ritual they said was contrary to Islamic
teaching.
In place of the flowers, they left a printed leaflet on the ground that
fulminated against what they described as Denmark’s double standards, noting
that Mr. Hussein’s body had been left in a pool of blood when the body of the
Jewish security guard killed at the synagogue had been quickly covered. This,
the leaflet said, exposed promises of equality as a fraud and showed that
“religion and background make a difference.”
They also taped a sign written in Danish and Arabic to the wall near the spot
where Mr. Hussein died: “May God show mercy. Rest in Peace, Captain,” it said,
using a gangland title of respect.
Mr. Soei, the sociologist, said he first met Mr. Hussein as part of a group of
urban youths during his research for his book, “Angry Young Men.” He said Mr.
Hussein was at that time one of the core members of a gang known as the
“Brothas,” a group of teenagers with little education, loose contacts to Islam,
mostly through their immigrant parents, and big chips on their shoulders against
a society from which they felt excluded.
“He was one of the members who seemed to be the most interested and engaged,”
Mr. Soei recalled. “He was willing to enter into a dialogue about questions of
the gang and their behavior. He wasn’t unintelligent. When he wanted to, he
could do a good job in school. But he had an enormous temper he couldn’t
control.”
Until his 2013 arrest, Mr. Hussein attended a vocational high school in the town
of Hvidovre, near Copenhagen, and was a “good and successful student,” the
school’s principal said. Mr. Hussein spent 18 months at the school and “there
was nothing to suggest” any shift toward radical Islam.
His temper, however, became so uncontrollable that it unnerved even his fellow
gang members, who expelled him from the group. He then stabbed a commuter on a
train, for which he was convicted and sent to prison.
Until his incarceration, religion for Mr. Hussein and fellow gang members was
not so much a faith, Mr. Soei said, but “part of their identity, part of their
narrative of: ‘We are outsiders because of who we are and how we look,’ but they
were not praying all the time.”
The Danish newspaper Berlingske reported Monday that, while in prison, Mr.
Hussein spoke openly about his wish to travel to Syria to fight with the Islamic
State. His remarks, the paper said, led the prison service to put his name on a
list among 39 others radicalized in Danish prisons. The prison service declined
to comment.
After attacks in Paris last month on the offices of the satirical newspaper
Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery store, the French authorities have identified
prison as a catalyst for radicalism. Two of the three gunmen responsible for
those attacks spent time in French prisons, coming into contact with jihadist
militants who turned the men’s previously tepid faith in Islam into radical
zealotry.
As part of the investigation into the killings in Copenhagen, police officers on
Sunday raided an Internet cafe, Power Play Reborn, in the Norrebro district and
detained four young men, two of whom are still in detention.
The manager of the cafe, who gave only his first name, Adeel, said the detained
men “were just local punks” who spent much of their time “playing shoot’em-up
games” on the Internet.
He said he did not know Mr. Hussein, who, according to Danish media reports,
visited the Internet cafe on Saturday after the first deadly shooting in the
north of the city.
Local gang members, he added, “don’t care about religion. They just want to make
money and chill out.”
Correction: February 17, 2015
An earlier version of this article misspelled the town in Denmark where Omar
Abdel Hamid El-Hussein attended a vocational school. It is Hvidovre, not
Hvidore.
Martin Sorensen contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on February 17, 2015, on page A6 of
the New York edition with the headline: Anger of Suspect in Danish Killings Is
Seen as Only Loosely Tied to Islam.
Anger of Suspect in Danish Killings Is Seen as Only Loosely Tied
to Islam,
FEB. 16, 2015, NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/world/europe/copenhagen-denmark-attacks.html
Netanyahu
Urges ‘Mass Immigration’
of Jews From Europe
FEB. 15, 2015
The New York Times
By ISABEL KERSHNER
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on
Sunday that his government was encouraging a “mass immigration” of Jews from
Europe, reopening a contentious debate about Israel’s role at a challenging time
for European Jews and a month before Israel’s national elections.
Speaking the morning after a Jewish guard was fatally shot outside a synagogue
in Copenhagen in one of two attacks there, the remarks echoed a similar call by
the prime minister inviting France’s Jews to move to Israel after last month’s
attacks in Paris. Critics said then that the expression of such sentiments so
soon after the Paris shootings was insensitive and divisive. Such sentiments
also go to the heart of the complexity of Israel’s identity and its relationship
with the Jewish communities of the diaspora, whose support has been vital.
“Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews,”
Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday in Jerusalem. “Of course, Jews deserve protection in
every country, but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your
home,” he added.
But expressing the unease felt by many Jews abroad over such comments, Jair
Melchior, Denmark’s chief rabbi, said he was “disappointed” by Mr. Netanyahu’s
call.
“People from Denmark move to Israel because they love Israel, because of
Zionism, but not because of terrorism,” Mr. Melchior told The Associated Press
on Sunday. “If the way we deal with terror is to run somewhere else, we should
all run to a deserted island.”
In a move that was planned before the attacks in Copenhagen — which left another
man dead when a gunman opened fire as a Swedish cartoonist who had caricatured
the Prophet Muhammad was speaking at a cafe — Mr. Netanyahu announced Sunday a
$45 million government plan to encourage the absorption of immigrants from
France, Belgium and Ukraine in 2015. Israel says it has seen a significant
increase in the number of people interested in emigrating from these countries.
More than 7,000 French Jews migrated to Israel in 2014, double the number from
the year before. After the attacks in January in Paris that killed 17 people,
including four Jews in a kosher supermarket, Israel was expecting an even larger
influx.
For many Israelis, more Jewish immigration is an ideal embodied in the Hebrew
word for it, aliya, which means ascent. The state was built by immigrants; its
1948 Declaration of Independence states that Israel “will be open for Jewish
immigration and for the ingathering of the exiles.”
But the question of under what conditions goes to the core of Zionism and the
essence of the principles on which the state was founded.
While some present Israel as primarily a refuge established on the ashes of the
Holocaust, many Israelis prefer to view Zionism as a more proactive realization
of the political vision of the Jewish nation.
Shlomo Avineri, an Israeli professor of political science, described Mr.
Netanyahu’s call as “an intellectual and moral mistake” and accused him of
taking a populist stance for electoral purposes.
“The legitimacy of Israel does not hinge on anti-Semitism,” said Professor
Avineri, the author of a recent book, “Herzl’s Vision,” a biography of Theodor
Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. “It hinges on the right of the Jewish
people to self-determination in the Jewish state.”
While Israel should always be open to immigration, he said, the suggestion that
Israel is the only place where Jews can live safely “puts Netanyahu, and in a
way Israel, on a collision course with leaders of the democratic countries and
also with the leaders of the Jewish communities.”
Apparently piqued by Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks in January, President François
Hollande of France pledged during a speech at a Paris Holocaust memorial to
protect all of its citizens, and told French Jews: “Your place is here, in your
home. France is your country.”
On Sunday, the Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, visited the
Copenhagen synagogue where the attack took place and said, “The Jewish community
is a large and integrated part of Danish society.”
For some Israeli experts, though, Mr. Netanyahu’s call was a natural expression
of the nation’s ethos.
“The raison d’être of Israel is to create a place where Jews can have a better
quality of Jewish life,” said Avinoam Bar-Yosef, president of the Jewish People
Policy Institute, a research center in Jerusalem.
“In my view, Netanyahu is encouraging those who in any event intend to leave
their countries of origin to move to Israel and not to other places,” Mr.
Bar-Yosef said, adding, “Even if it is controversial, this is something that a
prime minister of Israel needs to do.”
Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for the Jewish Agency for Israel, which coordinates
migration to Israel, agreed, saying, “The general perception is that when Jews
come under attack, it is the prime minister’s job to remind them that Israel
offers them shelter.”
“The rest,” said Mr. Palmor, a former Israeli diplomat, “is a matter of tone and
emphasis.”
Mr. Netanyahu has again weighed in on the subject at a fraught time, when
Israel’s relations with the White House are strained over his address to a joint
meeting of Congress on Iran’s nuclear program next month, two weeks before
Israeli elections on March 17.
In an election video posted Saturday on Mr. Netanyahu’s Facebook page, the prime
minister gave a personal account of how important immigration to Israel has been
for Europe’s Jews. Talking into the camera, Mr. Netanyahu tells the story of how
his grandfather was beaten unconscious by an anti-Semitic mob at a train station
“in the heart of Europe” at the end of the 19th century.
“He pledged to himself that if he survived the night he would bring his family
to the land of Israel and help build a new future for the Jewish people in its
land,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “I am standing here today as the prime
minister of Israel because my grandfather kept his promise.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 16, 2015, on page A5 of
the New York edition with the headline: Netanyahu Urges ‘Mass Immigration’.
Netanyahu Urges ‘Mass Immigration’ of Jews From Europe,
NYT, FEB 15, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/middleeast/netanyahu-urges-mass-immigration-of-jews-from-europe.html
Islamic State Video
Shows Beheadings
of Egyptian Christians in Libya
FEB. 15, 2015
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
CAIRO — A video released Sunday night by the Islamic State
appeared to show the mass beheading of at least a dozen Egyptian Christians by
fighters in a recently formed Libyan arm of the militant group.
Identical in style and details to earlier execution videos released by the
Islamic State, this one was the first the group has released depicting a killing
outside of its core territory in Syria and Iraq. It appeared to show much closer
communication and collaboration between the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or
ISIL, and its far-flung satellite groups than Western officials previously
believed.
As the Obama administration seeks broad approval to use military force in an
open-ended war against the Islamic State, the new video may reinforce the
concerns among some lawmakers that the legislation could authorize operations in
unexpected territories like Libya, where local militants are planting the
Islamic State flag as “provinces” of the group.
Continue reading the main story
Concern is already growing in Libya and the West that the group might capitalize
on the chaos that has engulfed the country in order to establish and expand a
base of operations there. At least three groups of Libyan fighters have already
pledged loyalty to the Islamic State, one in each of the country’s three
regions: Barqa in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west.
Officials of Libya’s internationally recognized government recently traveled to
Washington to seek help from the West in preventing the Islamic State’s
expansion. Even some opponents fighting that government as part of a coalition
with Libyan Islamist factions have reportedly begun raising alarms about the
need to stop the Islamic State from expanding in Libya.
In Cairo, where the military-backed government has been working to defeat the
Islamist factions in neighboring Libya, supporters of the government cited the
video released Sunday as new evidence that those factions pose a growing threat
to Egypt’s own security.
Confirming that those killed in the video were Egyptian Christians taken hostage
in Libya weeks ago, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt on Sunday announced
seven days of national mourning and a meeting of his defense council. In a
televised address, he said Egypt would choose the “necessary means and timing to
avenge the criminal killings.”
The White House offered support to Egypt’s government and condolences to the
victims’ families in a statement on Sunday night, condemning the “despicable and
cowardly” killings and saying, “ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds.”
The Islamic State promoted the video last week with a photograph from the scene
that appeared in its English-language online magazine, Dabiq.
The main difference from other execution videos it has released is that the new
one appears to have taken place on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, on a
rocky beach said to be in western Libya, far closer to Europe than sites
previously depicted.
Fighters under the banner of the Tripolitania Province of the Islamic State
announced last month that they were holding about 20 Egyptian Christians, or
Copts. A similar number of Egyptian Christians in Libya seeking work had
disappeared in the mid-coastal city of Surt. Officials of both the Egyptian
government and the Coptic Church confirmed that captives seen in a photograph
with the announcement were the missing Egyptian Christians, and on Sunday
confirmed that they were killed in the video.
In the video, masked fighters identified as from the Tripolitania Province of
the Islamic State, dressed in black with machetes at their chests, parade along
a rocky beach toward the camera with a row of bound captives in orange
jumpsuits, like the ones worn by victims in previous Islamic State videos.
About five minutes long, the video bears the logo of Al Hayat, the Islamic
State’s media arm. Unlike the cellphone videos usually made by Libyan militants,
it is as polished as previous Islamic State videos, with slow motion, aerial
footage and the quick cuts of a music video. The only sound in much of the
background is the lapping of waves.
The captives are made to kneel in the sand. Then they are simultaneously
beheaded with the theatrical brutality that has become the trademark of Islamic
State extremists. There was no indication in the video about when the beheadings
took place.
The lead executioner speaks in fluent English with an American accent, and his
words are translated in Arabic subtitles. Under the title “A Message Signed With
Blood to the Nation of the Cross,” he emphasizes that the fighters are just one
part of the broader Islamic State group.
“Oh, people, recently you have seen us on the hills of as-Sham and Dabiq’s
plain, chopping off the heads that have been carrying the cross for a long
time,” he said, using Arabic terms for places in and around Syria. “Today, we
are on the south of Rome, on the land of Islam, Libya, sending another message.”
He implies that they are taking revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden by
American commandos and his burial at sea, saying, “The sea you’ve hidden Sheikh
Osama bin Laden’s body in, we swear to Allah we will mix it with your blood.”
One subtitle adds that the killing is also retaliation for a sectarian dispute
that flared in Egypt five years ago over a Coptic Christian woman, Camilia
Shehata, the wife of a Coptic Christian priest. She disappeared for a time, and
many Muslims believe she tried to convert to Islam, only to be kidnapped by her
husband and members of the church.
Ms. Shehata briefly became a cause célèbre among Islamist militants, before the
Arab Spring eclipsed such skirmishes.
“This filthy blood is just some of what awaits you, in revenge for Camelia and
her sisters,” a caption declares, as blood from the prisoners darkens the waves.
Analysts said the video challenged the presumptions of many Western analysts
that militants in places like Libya might be adopting the banner of the Islamic
State for its notoriety without signing on to its bloodthirsty and messianic
ideology.
“It is one thing to fly the ISIS flag because a lot of guys are doing it,” said
William McCants, a researcher at the Brookings Institution who studies Islamist
militants. “It is another thing to capture a bunch of Egyptian Copts and kill
them and see it as some of part of a grand, final-days battle.”
David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, and Rukmini Callimachi
from New York. Merna Thomas contributed reporting from Cairo, and Emmarie
Huetteman from Rancho Mirage, Calif.
A version of this article appears in print on February 16, 2015, on page A6 of
the New York edition with the headline: Islamic State Video Shows Beheadings of
Egyptian Christians in Libya.
Islamic State Video Shows Beheadings of Egyptian Christians in
Libya,
NYT,
FEB 15, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/middleeast/islamic-state-video-beheadings-of-21-egyptian-christians.html
Terror Attacks
by a Native Son Rock Denmark
FEB. 15, 2015
The New York Times
By ANDREW HIGGINS
and MELISSA EDDY
COPENHAGEN — After killing a Danish film director in a Saturday
afternoon attack on a Copenhagen cafe and then a Jewish night guard at a
synagogue, the 22-year-old gunman responsible for Denmark’s worst burst of
terrorism in decades unleashed a final fusillade outside a four-story apartment
building before dawn on Sunday.
Cornered by the police in a narrow street near the railway station in Norrebro,
a heavily immigrant, shabby-chic district of Denmark’s capital, the Danish-born
attacker opened fire and was killed in a burst of return fire, the police said.
His body fell face up on the sidewalk, said Soren Krebs, 22, an economics
student who lives in the adjacent building, and it left a pool of blood that was
hosed away Sunday afternoon by the fire department.
“My first feeling was just panic,” Mr. Krebs recalled, adding that he initially
thought the gunfire was a battle between drug dealers. In Denmark, he said, “the
first thing that comes to mind is not terrorism. This is not a problem we have
had to think about much.”
After a January rampage in the Paris area that killed 17 people, and police
raids in Belgium a week later that the authorities said thwarted a major
terrorist operation, Denmark became over the weekend the latest European country
plunged into what Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt described Sunday as “a
fight for freedom against a dark ideology.”
Though the gunman’s name and basic biographical details were still unclear late
Sunday, he appears to have shared some traits with at least two of the militants
responsible for the Paris violence, notably a criminal record and an abrupt
transition from street crime to Islamic militancy.
The Danish news media identified him as Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, but the
Copenhagen police did not confirm his name. They identified him only as a
22-year-old, born and raised in Denmark, whom they knew for gang-related
activity and for several criminal offenses linked to weapons violations and
violence.
A Copenhagen police statement issued in November 2013 asked for help in finding
a suspect by the same name who was wanted at the time in connection with a
stabbing on a commuter train. The police noted then that the suspect “should be
considered dangerous.”
This weekend Ms. Thorning-Schmidt warned the usually placid nation — whose 5.6
million citizens regularly rank in opinion surveys as among the world’s happiest
people — that “if a madman is willing to sacrifice his life, then we will never
be able to guard ourselves 100 percent.”
Heavily armed police officers were out in force across Copenhagen, the Danish
capital, on Sunday. Though the authorities said the gunman appeared to be acting
alone, police officers raided a number of homes and other places, including an
Internet cafe. The local news media reported that at least two people had been
detained, but a police spokesman, Soren Hansen, said he could not confirm any
arrests.
In the Norrebro district, a search of the gunman’s apartment uncovered an
automatic weapon, the spokesman said. The attacker was carrying two guns —
including the weapon apparently used to kill the director and the Jewish
security guard — when he was shot early Sunday outside the window of Mr. Krebs,
the student.
Awakened by a burst of gunfire shortly after 5 a.m., Mr. Krebs said, he looked
out of his ground-floor bedroom to witness a shootout “like in a movie” and then
crawled next door to the room of a fellow student, Casper Dam, who had been out
late drinking and was asleep. The two terrified men took refuge in a bathroom
away from the street.
Jens Madsen, the chief of Denmark’s domestic security agency, known as P.E.T.,
said there was no indication the gunman had traveled to Syria or Iraq as a
jihadist fighter or had any connection to the two French-born brothers who
attacked the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7 or a third
Frenchman who, two days later, seized a Paris kosher supermarket and killed
shoppers there.
But Mr. Madsen, speaking to reporters at Copenhagen’s Police Headquarters on
Sunday, said it was possible that the city’s attacks had been “inspired” by the
Paris bloodshed.
While most Danes responded with shock to the weekend shootings, the country’s
security services have been on alert against Islamic extremism since 2005, when
the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published 12 cartoons of the Prophet
Muhammad and, several months later, a Copenhagen mosque sent a mission to the
Middle East to rally hostility against Denmark. Danish diplomatic missions were
attacked and Danish businesses boycotted across the Muslim world.
In an editorial to be published Monday, Jyllands Posten said, “Unfortunately, it
is difficult to claim surprise at the attacks in Copenhagen.” Terrorism, it
added, was “not a question of if, but when.”
Kurt Westergaard, who drew a cartoon for the newspaper that showed Muhammad with
a bomb in a black turban, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in 2010,
fleeing into a safe room at his home in the port city of Aarhus to escape a
young Somali armed with an ax and a knife.
In 2013, Lars Hedegaard, an outspoken critic of Islam and a defender of Lars
Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist who appeared to have been targeted at the cafe,
was shot at outside his Copenhagen home by a gunman disguised as a postal
worker.
The weekend violence, however, still represented the worst terrorism to hit
Denmark since the 1980s, when left-wing extremists killed a police officer in
the capital and still-unidentified extremists planted bombs near a Copenhagen
synagogue and the offices of an American airline.
In its response to the threat since the cartoon crisis, the authorities have
combined extensive surveillance of suspected militants and of radical mosques
with efforts to “rehabilitate,” rather than punish, young Muslims who dabble in
extremism but have not yet been implicated in criminal actions. While most
European governments have sought to arrest or expel residents who have returned
home after waging jihad in Syria and Iraq, for example, the city of Aarhus has
set up a counseling program to help them reintegrate into society.
Like the Paris gunmen, the 22-year-old responsible for the weekend’s killings in
Copenhagen was born in the country he sought to terrorize, into a Muslim
immigrant family. He had a criminal record, and Danish TV2 television said he
had been released from prison just weeks earlier.
His first attack took place Saturday afternoon when he sprayed bullets into the
cafe where Mr. Vilks, who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, was speaking.
That attack killed one man, identified by the Danish media as Finn Norgaard, 55,
a film director. Three police officers were wounded. Mr. Vilks, who was
attending a meeting on freedom of speech, was not hurt.
The gunman then fled by car, and the vehicle was later found abandoned. Video
footage from surveillance cameras showed the suspect talking into a cellphone,
apparently to order a taxi. He then took a cab to Mjolnerparken, an area of
Norrebro, where surveillance cameras caught him entering a housing compound and
leaving 20 minutes later.
He then reappeared, according to the police, shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday at a
synagogue in the center of the city, opening fire on the police and security
guards, one of whom was killed.
Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, a leader of Denmark’s Jewish community, said that the
victim at the synagogue was a young Jewish man who was guarding a building
adjacent to the synagogue. He said that about 80 people were inside the
synagogue at the time celebrating a bat mitzvah, and that the police had been
asked to provide protection after the cafe shooting. Denmark’s chief rabbi, Jair
Melchior, identified the victim as Dan Uzan, 37, a longtime security guard.
Soren Esperson, deputy chairman of the Danish People’s Party, a right-wing
populist party, said the attack “looks very much like a copycat action.”
He said, “It has the same targets as in Paris: a cartoonist, Jews and the
police.” A loud critic of immigration, his party has surged in recent years.
Mr. Esperson derided pleas from leading mainstream politicians, including the
prime minister, that Islam not be blamed for the violence. “Of course this has
something to do with Islam just as the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades and
witch burning had something to do with Christianity,” he said. Christianity, he
added, had “dealt with its fanatics,” and Islam “must now do the same.”
Muslim organizations in Denmark condemned the attacks. The Islamic Religious
Community, an umbrella organization, denounced what it called a “wrong action”
and also called on the Danish authorities to “show their solidarity with all,
including Muslims, who will undoubtedly be the next victims in daily life.”
Meanwhile, the authorities and residents in the neighborhood where the gunman
lived are scrambling to learn how a common criminal seemingly turned into a
violent zealot.
Mohammud Awil, who has lived in Mjolnerparken since emigrating from Somalia 26
years ago, blamed extremist self-declared preachers who “pick on young people
who drink or use drugs because they are very weak.” Mr. Awil, a bus driver, said
he knew several families whose Danish-born children had gone to fight in Somalia
or the Middle East. “They get brainwashed,” he said.
Ms. Thorning-Schmidt sought to calm tensions after the attacks, saying, “This is
not a war between Islam and the West.”
Michael Forsythe contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Melissa Eddy from
Copenhagen.
A version of this article appears in print on February 16, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Terror Attacks By a Native Son Rock
Denmark.
Terror Attacks by a Native Son Rock Denmark,
NYT,
FEB 15, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/europe/copenhagen-attacks-suspect-is-killed-police-say.html
Military and ISIS
Clash Over Iraqi Town
Near a Base Housing U.S. Troops
FEB. 14, 2015
The New York Times
By KAREEM FAHIM
BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers and militants of the Islamic State group
clashed again over the weekend in a western Iraqi town that has changed hands
several times in skirmishes near a military base where American troops are
training Iraqi soldiers.
Hundreds of Islamic State fighters captured most of the town, Baghdadi, on
Thursday, but by Friday evening Iraqi soldiers had retaken several government
buildings.
Then early Saturday, in what has become a familiar routine, the soldiers
suddenly withdrew, all but handing the town back to the militants, according to
local security officials.
“I have no explanation,” Col. Shaaban al-Obeidi, a commander in a police combat
unit in Baghdadi, said on Saturday afternoon, adding that the militants were
surrounding a residential complex where hundreds of civilians were staying.
“They have put all those families in danger,” Colonel Obeidi said.
Eight months after Islamic State militants stormed areas of northern and western
Iraq, lapses by the army have left the militants in control of important towns,
despite airstrikes by the United States and other forms of military support for
the Iraqi troops.
Concerns about the army’s performance have also threatened to delay a
long-awaited offensive on Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.
The militants have been especially resilient in the western province of Anbar,
including around the Ayn al-Asad base, near Baghdadi, where about 300 American
troops are training Iraqi soldiers.
On Friday morning, eight militants tried to infiltrate the base, raising
concerns that the American soldiers could be drawn into ground combat.
The American troops were “several kilometers” away, the United States military
said in a statement, and Iraqi soldiers killed the militants before they could
attack.
The sudden withdrawal of Iraqi forces on Saturday highlighted the challenges
facing the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as it tries to unify and
professionalize the forces fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or
ISIL.
An ad hoc effort has emerged on the ground, in which Kurdish and Shiite militias
that answer to their own commanders have made the most impressive battlefield
gains, undermining the standing of the government.
The militia fighters have also been accused of carrying out revenge attacks
against Sunnis, further eroding the government’s authority. On Saturday,
unidentified militia fighters were blamed for the assassination of a prominent
Sunni tribal leader, Sheikh Qasim Sweidan al-Janabi, whose body, along with
those of his son and nine bodyguards, was found dumped near a bridge in Baghdad.
Mohamed al-Karbouli, a member of Iraq’s Parliament, said Mr. Janabi and his
nephew Zaid al-Janabi, who is also a lawmaker, were ambushed by militants in
pickup trucks in southern Baghdad on Friday as they returned from a funeral in
Latifiya, south of the capital.
Zaid al-Janabi was beaten and then released, Mr. Karbouli said. He added that he
blamed “government silence over the predominance of militias in Baghdad” for
creating the conditions that led to the deaths.
Omar Al-Jawoshy and Falih Hassan contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on February 15, 2015, on page A16 of
the New York edition with the headline: Military and ISIS Clash Over Iraqi Town
Near a Base Housing U.S. Troops.
Military and ISIS Clash Over Iraqi Town Near a Base Housing U.S.
Troops,
NYT, FEB 14, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/world/middleeast/clashes-continue-in-iraq-near-base-of-us-troops.html
Islamic State
Sprouting Limbs Beyond Mideast
FEB. 14, 2015
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON — The Islamic State is expanding beyond its base in
Syria and Iraq to establish militant affiliates in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt
and Libya, American intelligence officials assert, raising the prospect of a new
global war on terror.
Intelligence officials estimate that the group’s fighters number 20,000 to
31,500 in Syria and Iraq. There are less formal pledges of support from
“probably at least a couple hundred extremists” in countries such as Jordan,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Yemen, according to an American
counterterrorism official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
confidential information about the group.
Lt. Gen. Vincent R. Stewart, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
said in an assessment this month that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or
ISIL, was “beginning to assemble a growing international footprint.” Nicholas
Rasmussen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, echoed General
Stewart’s analysis in testimony before Congress last week.
But it is unclear how effective these affiliates are, or to what extent this is
an opportunistic rebranding by some jihadist upstarts hoping to draft new
members by playing off the notoriety of the Islamic State.
Critics fear such assessments will once again enmesh the United States in a
protracted, hydra-headed conflict as President Obama appeals to Congress for new
war powers to fight the Islamic State. “I’m loath to write another blank check
justifying the use of American troops just about anywhere,” said Representative
Adam B. Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee.
The sudden proliferation of Islamic State affiliates and loyalist fighters
motivated the White House’s push to give Mr. Obama and his successor new
authority to pursue the group wherever its followers emerge — just as he and
President George W. Bush hunted Qaeda franchises outside the group’s
headquarters, first in Afghanistan and then in Pakistan, for the past decade.
“We don’t want anybody in ISIL to be left with the impression that if they move
to some neighboring country, that they will be essentially in a safe haven and
not within the range of United States capability,” Josh Earnest, the White House
press secretary, said on Wednesday.
The Islamic State began attracting pledges of allegiance from groups and
individual fighters after it declared the formation of a caliphate, or religious
state, in June 2014. Counterterrorism analysts say it is using Al Qaeda’s
franchise structure to expand its geographic reach, but without Al Qaeda’s
rigorous, multiyear application process. This could allow its franchises to grow
faster, easier and farther.
“Factions which were at one time part of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, as well as
groups loyal to it or in some ways working in tandem with it, have moved on to
what they see as more of a winning group,” said Steven Stalinsky, executive
director of the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington, which
monitors Arabic-language news media and websites.
Continue reading the main story
The Islamic State’s attraction, even in the West, was proved when Amedy
Coulibaly, one of the gunmen in the Paris terrorist attacks last month, declared
allegiance to the group.
In Afghanistan last week, an American drone strike killed a former Taliban
commander, Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic
State and had recently begun recruiting fighters. But that pledge seemed to
indicate less a major expansion of the Islamic State than a deepening of
internal divisions in the Taliban.
There is no indication that the Islamic State controls territory in Afghanistan,
but it has signaled its interest in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has reportedly
sent envoys there to recruit.
Similarly, until recently, leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in
Yemen, used nonconfrontational language to mask simmering disagreements with the
Islamic State and its head, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But tensions peaked in
November, when a faction of Qaeda fighters there swore loyalty to Mr. Baghdadi.
Any authorization to use American military force against the Islamic State could
arguably also cover interventions in Egypt and Libya, where active militant
organizations have pledged allegiance to the group and have received its public
acknowledgment as “provinces” of the putative caliphate.
Although there is little or no public evidence that the Islamic State’s leaders
in Syria and Iraq have practical control over its North African provinces, its
influence is already apparent in their operations and is destabilizing the
countries around them. A publication released by the central group last week
included a photograph of fighters in Libya with its affiliate there parading 20
Egyptian Christian captives in the Islamic State’s trademark orange jumpsuits,
indicating at least a degree of communication.
In Egypt, the Sinai-based extremist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis sent emissaries
to the Islamic State in Syria last year to seek financial support, weapons and
tactical advice, as well as the publicity and recruiting advantages that might
come with the Islamic State name, according to Western officials briefed on
classified intelligence reports.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis began adopting the Islamic State’s signature medieval
punishment, beheadings, even before a formal merger. After becoming the Sinai
Province of the Islamic State in November, the group’s online videos and
statements claiming responsibility for attacks began to take on more of the
sophistication and gore associated with its new parent group.
Unlike the Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq, the Sinai Province has so
far focused on hitting the security forces of the military-backed Egyptian
government, largely avoiding attacks on Westerners, members of Egypt’s Christian
minority or other purely civilian targets.
But despite the government’s escalating crackdown in Egypt, the militants appear
to have grown bolder and more advanced since linking themselves to the Islamic
State. On the night of Jan. 29, for example, the Sinai Province claimed
responsibility for a series of coordinated bombings that targeted security
forces across the region, killing 24 soldiers, six police officers and 14
civilians, according to the Egyptian state news media.
In neighboring Libya, at least three distinct groups have declared their
affiliation with the Islamic State, one in each of the country’s component
regions: Barqa in the east, Fezzan in the desert south, and Tripolitania in the
west, around the capital. With fighting among other regional and ideological
militias having already plunged the country into chaos, the Islamic State
affiliates pose a new obstacle to Western attempts to negotiate a truce or a
unity government.
Western officials, especially in southern Europe, fear that the three Libyan
“provinces” could evolve into bases for Islamic State fighters traveling across
the Mediterranean, into Egypt or elsewhere in North Africa. Eastern Libya has
already become a training ground for jihadists going to Syria or Iraq and a
haven for Egyptian fighters staging attacks in the neighboring desert.
Ambassador Deborah K. Jones, the American envoy to Libya, posed a question on
Twitter in a plea for unity this month: “Can a divided #Libya withstand
#ISIL/Daesh?” she wrote, using the English and Arabic shorthand for the Islamic
State.
The Islamic State’s self-proclaimed provinces have compounded Libya’s
instability by introducing the prospect of Islamist-against-Islamist violence
between those who support and those who oppose the group. But Tripolitania has
leapt to the fore as the province that most clearly threatens Westerners and
Western interests.
Last month, fighters under the group’s banner claimed responsibility for a
brazen attack on a luxury hotel in the capital, Tripoli, that is a hub for
visiting Westerners and leaders of the Islamist-backed provisional government.
At least eight were killed, including David Berry, an American security
contractor who had served as a Marine. Two of the Islamic State fighters died in
a battle against government forces, a sign of the Islamist-versus-Islamist
volatility the group had injected into the Libyan chaos.
“It is a real conflict,” said Frederic Wehrey, a senior policy analyst at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who recently visited Libya.
“The Islamic State guys are trying to carve out territory” apart from the
broader Islamist coalition and are “challenging them on their own turf,” he
said, while other extremists are “peeling off, gravitating to the Islamic State
and becoming bolder.”
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo.
Rukmini Callimachi contributed reporting from New York, and Ben Hubbard from
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Islamic State Sprouting Limbs Beyond Mideast,
NYT,
FEB 14, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/world/middleeast/islamic-state-sprouting-limbs-beyond-mideast.html
U.S. Is Escalating
a Secretive War in Afghanistan
Data From Seized Computer Fuels a Surge
in U.S. Raids on Al Qaeda
FEB. 12, 2015
The New York Times
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — As an October chill fell on the mountain passes that
separate the militant havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a small team of Afghan
intelligence commandos and American Special Operations forces descended on a
village where they believed a leader of Al Qaeda was hiding.
That night the Afghans and Americans got their man, Abu Bara al-Kuwaiti. They
also came away with what officials from both countries say was an even bigger
prize: a laptop computer and files detailing Qaeda operations on both sides of
the border.
American military officials said the intelligence seized in the raid was
possibly as significant as the information found in the computer and documents
of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after members of the Navy SEALs
killed him in 2011.
In the months since, the trove of intelligence has helped fuel a significant
increase in night raids by American Special Operations forces and Afghan
intelligence commandos, Afghan and American officials said.
The spike in raids is at odds with policy declarations in Washington, where the
Obama administration has deemed the American role in the war essentially over.
But the increase reflects the reality in Afghanistan, where fierce fighting in
the past year killed record numbers of Afghan soldiers, police officers and
civilians.
American and Afghan officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because
they were discussing operations that are largely classified, said that American
forces were playing direct combat roles in many of the raids and were not simply
going along as advisers.
“We’ve been clear that counterterrorism operations remain a part of our mission
in Afghanistan,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said on
Thursday. “We’ve also been clear that we will conduct these operations in
partnership with the Afghans to eliminate threats to our forces, our partners
and our interests.”
The raids appear to have targeted a broad cross section of Islamist militants.
They have hit both Qaeda and Taliban operatives, going beyond the narrow
counterterrorism mission that Obama administration officials had said would
continue after the formal end of American-led combat operations last December.
The tempo of operations is “unprecedented for this time of year” — that is, the
traditional winter lull in fighting, an American military official said. No
official would provide exact figures, because the data is classified. The Afghan
and American governments have also sought to keep quiet the surge in night raids
to avoid political fallout in both countries.
“It’s all in the shadows now,” said a former Afghan security official who
informally advises his former colleagues. “The official war for the Americans —
the part of the war that you could go see — that’s over. It’s only the secret
war that’s still going. But it’s going hard.”
American and Afghan officials said the intelligence gleaned from the October
mission was not the sole factor behind the uptick in raids. Around the same time
that Afghan and American intelligence analysts were poring over the seized
laptop and files, Afghanistan’s newly elected president, Ashraf Ghani, signed a
security agreement with the United States and eased restrictions on night raids
by American and Afghan forces that had been put in place by his predecessor,
Hamid Karzai. Mr. Karzai had also sought to limit the use of American air power,
even to support Afghan forces.
Mr. Karzai’s open antipathy to the United States helped push the Obama
administration toward ordering a more rapid drawdown than American military
commanders had wanted. And while the timetable for the withdrawal of most
American troops by the end of 2016 remains in place, the improving relations
under Mr. Ghani pushed the Obama administration to grant American commanders
greater latitude in military operations, American and Afghan officials said.
American commanders welcomed the new freedom. Afghan forces were overwhelmed
fighting the Taliban in some parts of the country during last year’s fighting
season, which typically runs from the spring into the autumn. Many Western
officials fear that this year’s fighting season could be even worse for the
Afghans without the air power and logistical support from the American-led
coalition, and without joint Afghan-American night raids to keep up pressure on
insurgent commanders.
Gen. John F. Campbell, the American commander of coalition forces, appears to
have interpreted his mandate to directly target Afghan insurgents who pose an
immediate threat to coalition troops or are plotting attacks against them. He is
not targeting Afghans simply for being part of the insurgency. But one criterion
used to determine whether an individual is a danger to the force, an American
military official said, is whether the person has in the past been associated
with attacks or attempted attacks on American forces — a large group, given that
the United States was at war with the Taliban for more than a decade.
Since the start of the year, the rationale of protecting American forces has
been readily used by the coalition to justify operations, including in two
instances in the past week.
On Saturday, coalition officials announced that a “precision strike resulted in
the death of two individuals threatening the force” in the Achin district of
eastern Afghanistan.
Two days later, the coalition carried out what it described as another precision
strike that killed “eight individuals threatening the force” in Helmand
Province, in southern Afghanistan. Although the coalition would not say who
exactly was killed, Afghan and American officials and tribal elders in Helmand
said that the dead included Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, a former Taliban commander
and Guantánamo Bay detainee who recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic
State, the terrorist group also known as ISIS or ISIL.
In interviews conducted before Mullah Rauf’s death, Afghan and American
officials said they had targeted him and his fighters in multiple night raids
since November.
American officials said that Mullah Rauf’s Islamic State affiliation, which they
described as little more than symbolic, was ancillary. Rather, they said in
recent days, he was being targeted because of intelligence gleaned from the
laptop seized in the raid in October.
The officials would not discuss the precise nature of the intelligence that led
them to target Mullah Rauf, or whether there had been a list in the laptop that
helped them with targeting specific individuals. They said that revealing the
nature of the intelligence could compromise future operations.
Afghan and American officials said the raids over the past few months had been
carried out by the elite commandos of the National Directorate of Security,
Afghanistan’s main spy agency, and members of a mix of American military Special
Operations units, such as Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, and paramilitary officers
from the C.I.A.
The National Directorate of Security said it had killed Mr. Kuwaiti, the man in
the mountain village in October, and claimed credit for seizing the laptop. The
C.I.A., which trains and bankrolls the Afghan spy agency, declined to comment.
Mr. Kuwaiti himself may have unintentionally provided some clues about the
nature of the intelligence in a eulogy he wrote three years ago for another
senior Qaeda operative, who was killed in an American drone strike in Pakistan.
Writing in Vanguards of Khorasan, a Qaeda magazine, Mr. Kuwaiti said he had been
a “student” and “comrade” of Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who, before his death, was
described as Al Qaeda’s general manager, according to The Long War Journal, a
website that tracks militants.
In the eulogy, Mr. Kuwaiti repeatedly noted that he had access to Mr. Rahman’s
documents, and that he had been informed of the details of numerous operations,
including a suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan in 2009 that killed seven
C.I.A. officers.
A former American military official said that Mr. Kuwaiti was believed to have
taken on some of Mr. Rahman’s duties within Al Qaeda; that he was close with
Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s leader; and that “he would have had a lot of the
nuts and bolts about what they were up to in that computer.”
Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on February 13, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Is Escalating a Secretive War in
Afghanistan.
U.S. Is Escalating a Secretive War in Afghanistan, NYT,
FEB 12, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/world/asia/data-from-seized-computer-fuels-a-surge-in-us-raids-on-al-qaeda.html
Obama,
Trying to Add Context to Speech,
Faces Backlash Over ‘Crusades’
FEB. 6, 2015
The New York Times
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
WASHINGTON — President Obama personally added a reference to the
Crusades in his speech this week at the National Prayer Breakfast, aides said,
hoping to add context and nuance to his condemnation of Islamic terrorists by
noting that people also “committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
But by purposely drawing the fraught historical comparison on Thursday, Mr.
Obama ignited a firestorm on television and social media about the validity of
his observations and the roots of religious conflicts that raged more than 800
years ago.
On Twitter, amateur historians angrily accused Mr. Obama of refusing to
acknowledge Muslim aggression that preceded the Crusades. Others criticized him
for drawing simplistic analogies across centuries. Many suggested that the
president was reaching for ways to excuse or minimize the recent atrocities
committed by Islamic extremists.
“I’m not surprised, I guess,” said Thomas Asbridge, a medieval historian and
director of the Center for the Study of Islam and the West at the University of
London. “Any use of the word ‘Crusade’ has to be made with great caution. It is
the most highly charged word you can use in the context of the Middle East.”
It was, Mr. Obama’s aides said, not entirely an accident. The president wanted
to be provocative in his remarks, they said, urging people to see how the
current brutality of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, fits in the
broader sweep of a global history that has often given rise to what he called “a
sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.”
They described the president as eager to use the prayer breakfast to make people
think about the need to stand up against those who try to use faith to justify
violence, no matter what religion they practice.
Still, White House officials said the president did not expect to start a
full-throated, daylong debate about the Crusades. And they expressed surprise
that a single sentence in the speech had generated such an outcry.
“What he wanted to do is take on perversions of religions that are out there,” a
senior White House adviser said, requesting anonymity to discuss the president’s
speechwriting process. “He wanted to make the point that this isn’t the first
time we’ve seen faith perverted and it won’t be the last.”
The first and loudest response to Mr. Obama’s remarks came from partisans, who
accused the president of offending millions of Christians with an ill-considered
comparison of the Islamic terrorist threat to the territorial attacks in Europe
in the 11th century.
Michelle Malkin, a conservative columnist, said on Twitter that “ISIS chops off
heads, incinerates hostages, kills gays, enslaves girls. Obama: Blame the
Crusades.”
But the conversation quickly moved beyond the usual suspects. Many of the
commentators on Friday came to the defense of the Crusades, arguing that the
brutal sweeps through Europe were a reaction to previous Muslim advances.
Mr. Asbridge, who has written a series of histories of the period, said that
view of the Crusades is held by relatively few historians. Most believe, he
said, that the Christian Crusades were attempts to reclaim sacred territories,
rather than reaction to Muslim actions more than 450 years earlier.
“I don’t necessarily have a problem with President Obama attempting to remind
people that there is a history of violence by Christians,” he said. “But we have
to be very careful about judging behavior in medieval times by current
standards.”
Deborah E. Lipstadt, a professor of modern Jewish history at Emory University,
said the president’s remarks seemed to be an attempt to avoid alienating Muslims
by blaming their religion for groups like ISIS.
She said the remarks at the prayer breakfast will rightly bolster critics who
insist that Mr. Obama should simply say that the United States is at war with
Islam.
“He has bent over backwards to try to separate this from Islam,” Ms. Lipstadt
said. “Sometimes people try to keep an open mind. And when you have too open a
mind, your brains can fall out.”
In Mr. Obama’s remarks at the breakfast, he also managed to anger people in
India, just days after being hosted by the country’s leaders during a three-day
trip to New Delhi. In the speech, Mr. Obama called India “an incredible,
beautiful country,” but he added that it is “a place where, in past years,
religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples
of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs — acts of intolerance
that would have shocked Gandhiji.”
Indian news channels ran Mr. Obama’s remarks as top news for most of the day
Friday, prompting senior ministers to issue public remarks in response. Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley responded by saying that India “has a huge cultural
history of tolerance. Any aberration doesn’t alter the history.”
Eric Schultz, the deputy White House press secretary, said Friday that he had no
response to critics of Mr. Obama’s speech, but he described the president’s
remarks as in keeping with his “belief in American exceptionalism,” which stems
in part from “holding ourselves up to our own values.”
“So the president believes that when we fall short of that, we need to be honest
with ourselves and look inward and hold ourselves accountable,” Mr. Schultz
said. “What I think the president was trying to say is, over the course of human
history, there are times where extremists pervert their own religion to justify
violence.”
Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on February 7, 2015, on page A11 of
the New York edition with the headline: Obama, Trying to Add Context to Speech,
Faces Backlash Over ‘Crusades’.
Obama, Trying to Add Context to Speech, Faces Backlash Over
‘Crusades’,
FEB 6, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/us/obama-trying-to-add-context-to-speech-faces-backlash-over-crusades.html
ISIS Declares
Airstrike Killed a U.S. Hostage
FEB. 6, 2015
The New York Times
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
and RICK GLADSTONE
She had always been the unidentified, lone female American
hostage of the Islamic State. For nearly 17 months, while her fellow American
captives were beheaded one after another in serial executions posted on YouTube,
Kayla Mueller’s name remained a closely guarded secret, whispered among
reporters, government officials and hostage negotiators — all fearing that any
public mention might imperil her life.
On Friday, the Islamic State confirmed her identity, announcing that Ms.
Mueller, a 26-year-old aid worker from Prescott, Ariz., had been killed in the
falling rubble of a building in northern Syria that it said had been struck by
bombs from a Jordanian warplane. Both the Jordanian and American governments
said there was no proof, even as they rushed to deplore her possible death. Top
Jordanian officials said the announcement was cynical propaganda.
But the group’s use of Ms. Mueller’s name for the first time prompted her family
and its advisers to confirm her prolonged captivity in a statement and changed
the calculus about what could be reported about her life. It threw a spotlight
on a hostage ordeal that befell an eager and deeply idealistic young woman, who
had ventured into one of the most dangerous parts of Syria — apparently without
the backing of an aid organization, according to interviews with advisers to the
family and employees of Doctors Without Borders, the international medical
charity that hosted Ms. Mueller during her brief stay in one of Syria’s ravaged
cities.
An online posting by the Islamic State showed a collapsed building in northern
Syria where it said the 26-year-old woman had been killed.
Ms. Mueller, 26, of Prescott, Ariz., is the last remaining American known to be
held hostage by ISIS.
She was taken captive Aug. 4, 2013, in Aleppo, Syria.
She had worked with the humanitarian groups Support to Life and Danish Refugee
Council, aiding Syrian refugees in Turkey.
A few months before she went missing, The Daily Courier in Arizona had profiled
her work with refugee children.
Ms. Mueller participated in a “YouTube sit-in” organized by opponents of the
Syrian government in 2011.
Initially based in southern Turkey, where she had worked for at least two aid
organizations assisting Syrian refugees, Ms. Mueller appears to have driven into
the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Aug. 3, 2013, alongside a man who has been
alternatively described as her Syrian friend or colleague, and by others as
either her boyfriend or her fiancé. He had been invited to travel to the city to
help fix the Internet connection for a compound run by the Spanish chapter of
Doctors Without Borders, known in Spanish as Médicos Sin Fronteras, or M.S.F.
Employees of the charity said they were surprised when the young Syrian man
arrived with Ms. Mueller.
“On Aug. 3, 2013, a technician sent by a company contracted by M.S.F. arrived at
one of the organization’s structures in Aleppo, Syria, to perform repairs.
Unbeknown to the M.S.F. team, Kayla, a friend of the technician’s, was
accompanying him,” said the group’s spokesman, Tim Shenk, in a statement.
It took longer than expected to finish the repair work, and as night approached,
M.S.F. agreed to let the two stay overnight, out of concern for their safety,
said Mr. Shenk. The next day the charity arranged to transport them to an Aleppo
bus stop, where they planned to catch a bus back to Turkey.
They never made it. They were abducted on the road, the statement said.
Although Ms. Mueller had moved to Turkey in December 2012 to work with two
organizations helping refugees — including the Danish Refugee Council — she was
not employed by either of those groups when she entered Syria at a time when
numerous foreigners already had been kidnapped inside the country, said the
Mueller family advisers. What she was doing in Aleppo — beyond accompanying her
Syrian companion — remains unclear.
Her companion, who was released after several months, declined to be
interviewed.
“There is a lot of murkiness about what she was doing there. That’s been the
problem — no one really knows,” said one adviser of the Muellers.
In the statement released Friday, the family said that it had received the first
message from Ms. Mueller’s captors in May 2014 — nine months after her
disappearance. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, provided initial
proof that she was alive, the family said.
Then on July 12, 2014, the Islamic State announced that it would kill her within
30 days unless the family provided a ransom of 5 million euros ($5.6 million),
or exchanged her for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist educated in
America who was convicted of trying to kill American soldiers and F.B.I. agents
in Afghanistan in 2008. She is serving a sentence in a Texas jail, according to
an email explaining the demands forwarded to The New York Times by an
acquaintance of the Muellers. When the deadline passed, nothing happened,
prompting the family to hope that Ms. Mueller might be spared.
During those 30 days, her parents shared their ordeal only with the tight-knit
group of advisers and with parents of other American hostages held by the
Islamic State. Together the anxious parents traveled to Washington to meet Obama
administration officials to push for the release of their children. That was
shortly before the United States began airstrikes against the Islamic State in
concert with European and Arab allies. Soon after, in August, the Islamic State
posted the first of its decapitation videos, starting with the beheading of the
American James Foley, and then in quick succession the fellow Americans Steven
J. Sotloff and Peter Kassig.
ISIS Declares Airstrike Killed a U.S. Hostage,
FEB 6, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/world/middleeast/isis-claims-american-hostage-killed-by-jordanian-retaliation-bombings.html
Jordan Executes Prisoners
After ISIS Video of Pilot’s Death
FEB. 3, 2015
The New York Times
By ROD NORDLAND
and RANYA KADRI
AMMAN, Jordan — When relatives learned Tuesday night that the
Islamic State had released a video showing the death of a Jordanian fighter
pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, they tried to keep it from his mother, Issaf,
and his wife, Anwar. They switched off the television and tried to wrest a
smartphone out of his wife’s hand, but she had already seen a mobile news
bulletin.
Anwar ran crying into the street, calling her husband’s name and saying,
“Please, God, let it not be true.” Issaf fell to the floor screaming, pulled her
head scarf off and started tearing at her hair.
That was even before they knew how he had been killed. No one dared let them
know right away that Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s tormentors had apparently burned him
alive inside a cage, a killing that was soon described as the most brutal in the
group’s bloody history.
Jordan responded rapidly, executing Sajida al-Rishawi, who was convicted after
attempting a suicide bombing, and Ziad al-Karbouli, a top lieutenant of Al Qaeda
in Iraq, before dawn on Wednesday, according to the official news agency Petra.
On Tuesday, Anwar Kasasbeh had been laughing at the memory of her husband’s
delight when he discovered that her family kept rabbits in their home. After
they married, her parents gave them the rabbits to take care of.
“It was so funny, he was so happy about those rabbits,” Anwar told a visiting
reporter about her 26-year-old husband. “He told me how he always wanted
rabbits.”
The video, with its references to the Islamic State’s punishment of nations like
Jordan that joined the American-led coalition against it, appeared to be an
attempt to cow the Arab nations and other countries that have agreed to battle
the militants in Syria. So far, it appeared to have had the opposite effect in
Jordan, which suggested its resolve had been stiffened. But the capture of the
pilot had already hurt the coalition, with the United Arab Emirates suspending
its own airstrikes in December and demanding that the group improve its search
and rescue efforts for captured members.
The release of the video came after weeks of growing anxiety in Jordan as the
country’s leaders tried desperately to win the release of Lieutenant Kasasbeh, a
member of an important tribe and the first fighter for the coalition bombing the
Islamic State to be captured. Their attempts became more complicated late last
month when the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, suddenly entangled the
pilot’s fate with that of a Japanese man it held hostage, demanding that Jordan
release Ms. Rishawi in exchange for him.
If Jordan failed to do so by last Thursday, they said, Lieutenant Kasasbeh would
be killed. Jordanian officials expressed willingness to bargain, a major
concession to the militants, but refused to release Ms. Rishawi until they
received proof that the pilot was alive.
On Tuesday, Jordanian officials said they learned that the pilot had actually
been killed on Jan. 3, suggesting that their caution had been justifiable. They
did not, however, explain where they got the information.
Even by Islamic State standards, the latest propaganda video was particularly
gruesome. The footage alternated images of the pilot while he was alive with
segments showing the rubble of destroyed buildings and the burned bodies of
Syrians allegedly killed in coalition airstrikes. Islamic State members took to
Twitter to applaud the pilot’s death, calling it an eye for an eye.
At the end of the 22-minute video, an Islamic State fighter set a powder fuse
alight as Lieutenant Kasasbeh watched, his clothes drenched in fuel. The flames
raced into the cage and engulfed him. The camera lingered, showing close-ups of
his agony, before concluding with pictures of what the Islamic State claimed
were other Jordanian pilots and an offer of a reward of 100 gold coins for
whoever killed one of them. (American officials said they were trying to
authenticate the video.)
The Jordanian military responded swiftly. “The blood of our hero martyr, Moaz
Kasasbeh, will not go for nothing,” said Mamdouh al-Ameri, a spokesman for the
Jordanian military. “And the revenge will be equal to what happened to Jordan.”
Within hours, a convoy was seen leaving the women’s prison in Jordan, presumably
taking Ms. Rishawi to the men’s prison an hour outside Amman where executions
are carried out, normally by hanging.
Both prisoners had already been sentenced to death for terrorism offenses. Mr.
Karbouli was accused as one of the planners of the 2005 hotel bombings in Amman
that killed more than 57 people; Ms. Rishawi was the only one of four suicide
bombers in that attack whose explosive vest failed to detonate. Both were
affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq, which became the present-day Islamic State.
Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are among several Arab countries taking part
in American-led air raids against Islamic State positions in Syria. Two other
Arab states, plus Iraq, are members of the coalition in other capacities.
Lieutenant Kasasbeh was said to have been shot down in his F-16 fighter bomber
on Dec. 24 during an air operation against Islamic State positions not far from
the militants’ stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria.
He cut a dashing figure in uniform, with green eyes, black hair and a slim
build, and he had a significant social media following.
His capture transfixed the nation, which suddenly saw photos of the lieutenant
being dragged by militants out of a swamp where he had apparently crashed.
Weeks before the deadly attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in
France prompted refrains of “Je Suis Charlie,” Jordan’s Queen Rania started a
campaign on Instagram called “We Are All Moaz.”
Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s captivity at first aroused anti-coalition sentiment among
many in Jordan, but public opinion shifted dramatically as the Islamic State
issued videos showing what it said were the beheadings of two Japanese hostages,
including the one the militants had wanted to trade. By last week, critics of
the coalition and the government had come under fire for trying to turn the
pilot’s plight to political advantage.
Continue reading the main story
For someone in the elite forefront of Jordan’s air force — its 60 or more F-16s
are its most important aircraft — Lieutenant Kasasbeh did not show any early
interest in the military or in flying, his family said.
“It was just by happenstance,” his father, Safi Youssef Al-Kasasbeh, said
Sunday. During his last year in high school, his son, the fourth of eight
children and the third son, had been planning to go to medical school in Russia,
as his mother had long encouraged. But he saw a notice in a Jordanian newspaper
inviting candidates to see if they qualified for the air force, and, on a lark,
Lieutenant Kasasbeh applied for what would be a prestigious position.
To everyone’s surprise, he was chosen over hundreds of other applicants and went
straight to flight school instead of to college. He was commissioned as an air
force officer in 2009.
His eldest brother, Jawad Safi al-Kasasbeh, an engineer seven years older than
Moaz, took his captivity particularly hard. Twice, Jawad had saved his younger
brother’s life when he was a small child: once when Moaz accidentally started a
fire, and another time when he nearly stuck a nail in an electric socket.
“Now, when he really needs me, I can’t do anything,” Jawad said. “I was the one
who was supposed to support him, to be there for him.”
Jawad even helped introduce him to his future wife, Anwar, the sister of Jawad’s
best friend. The couple had moved into an apartment of their own, in the
family’s hometown, Al Karak, so Moaz could be close to his parents, instead of
near the air base a couple hours’ drive away. Moaz often visited his parents on
days off, and the last time Jawad saw him, five days before he was captured, he
had been taking his father’s car to Amman for repair.
Far from the speed-addict image of the fighter pilot, his family said, Moaz was
austere in his personal habits. His car was a nine-year-old Mitsubishi Lancer,
and he rarely wore jeans, preferring suits when he was not in uniform.
His brothers and his parents agreed that Lieutenant Kasasbeh had always been the
favored son, the one closest to the parents among the eight siblings. He usually
got his own way with his father, but not always.
Like Anwar, Jawad recalled how much his brother had wanted a pet rabbit and how
he had badgered their father, who said they had no place to put it. So Moaz
built an enclosure in the yard and asked again. When his father said they had no
food for the animal, Moaz gathered rabbit food and stocked the enclosure. Still
no. So he got his baby sister and put her there, saying, “See, she’s my rabbit
now.”
Tears came to Jawad’s eyes as he recalled that story. Before she learned of her
husband’s death, Anwar, his wife, worried that he would be upset if he returned
home to learn that, distracted by concern over his plight, no one had taken care
of the rabbits, and they had escaped.
Rukmini Callimachi and Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from
New York; Rana F. Sweis from Amman, Jordan; and Karam Shoumali from Istanbul.
A version of this article appears in print on February 4, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Family and Nation Mourn Pilot Slain by
ISIS.
Jordan Executes Prisoners After ISIS Video of Pilot’s Death,
FEB 3, 2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/world/middleeast/isis-said-to-burn-captive-jordanian-pilot-to-death-in-new-video.html
Coming to Mourn Tahrir Square’s Dead,
and Joining Them Instead
Killing of Shaimaa el-Sabbagh in Cairo
Angers Egyptians
FEB. 3, 2015
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
CAIRO — Her friends wanted to lay a wreath in Tahrir Square as a
memorial, but Shaimaa el-Sabbagh urged them to reconsider. She feared that the
police might attack, mistaking them for supporters of the outlawed Muslim
Brotherhood, said a cousin, Sami Mohamed Ibrahim.
But how, her friends asked, could the police attack civilians who were armed
only with flowers? So she kissed her 5-year-old son, Bilal, goodbye; left him in
the care of a friend near her home in Alexandria; and, a day before the
anniversary of the start of the Arab Spring revolt here, boarded a train for
Cairo.
By midafternoon on Jan. 24, Ms. Sabbagh, 31, lay dead on a crowded street
downtown, a potent symbol of the lethal force the Egyptian authorities have
deployed to silence the cacophony of protest and dissent unleashed here four
years ago. Human rights advocates say the cold brutality of her killing shows
how far the military-backed government is willing to go to enforce a return to
the old authoritarian order.
Stark images of her killing resonated so widely here that in a televised
appearance Sunday, even President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi offered condolences,
declaring that he saw Ms. Sabbagh as “my own daughter.” At the same time, police
attempts to deflect blame for her killing have been undercut by Ms. Sabbagh’s
personal profile: as a mother, an accomplished poet and a left-leaning activist
who supported the military ouster of the Islamist president.
Photographers and videographers captured her death moment by
moment. As soon as the procession began and without any warning, masked riot
police officers blasted the crowd with tear gas and birdshot from across a
narrow street. A shotgun cracked. A kneeling friend held Ms. Sabbagh by the
waist to keep her upright, blood streaking down her cheeks and his head against
her abdomen. Then another friend carried her limp frame, cradled in his arms,
through the tear gas in a vain attempt to save her.
Seldom has a needless death by police gunfire been so thoroughly and so movingly
documented, rights advocates say, citing both the photographic evidence and
multiple witnesses.
“A woman who went out to lay a wreath of flowers on Tahrir Square — we see her
taking her last breath,” said Ghada Shahbandar, an Egyptian rights advocate.
“How much more explicit can an image be?”
“It is a disgrace,” she said, lamenting the surreal attempts of the government’s
supporters to pin the blame on a shadowy conspiracy as elaborate as a Hollywood
thriller. “We have lost the appreciation of human life. We have lost the value
of human blood, and we call for more and more killing as though we have not had
enough!”
Ms. Sabbagh is just one name on a roster of thousands killed by police gunfire
since the Arab Spring began in 2011. More than 800 were killed during the
original 18-day uprising against President Hosni Mubarak. About 1,000 more,
according to the most credible counts, were killed on one day, Aug. 14, 2013,
when soldiers and police officers broke up a sit-in by supporters of the ousted
President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hundreds more died in other
mass shootings that summer.
Since then, the killing of protesters — mostly Islamists, but also leftists or
liberals, and mostly unarmed — has become an almost weekly occurrence. Sondos
Reda, a 17-year-old girl attending an Islamist rally, was killed in clashes with
the police in Alexandria on the same day that Ms. Sabbagh died in Cairo. At
least 20 others were killed the next day, Jan. 25, on the anniversary of the
uprising. A student was killed five days later in clashes with the police at a
demonstration in the province of Sharqiya, north of Cairo, and others have
reportedly been killed since then in Giza.
But in “a moment of collapsing freedoms,” Ms. Sabbagh has become “a symbol of
the revolution,” said Sayed Abu Elela, 31, the friend who held her by the waist
in the moments after she was shot.
Ms. Sabbagh grew up in a conservative Muslim household but rebelled against its
traditions, her friends said, and her father, a Muslim preacher who died a few
years ago, grew resigned to her independence.
He used to tell her, “For the likes of you, wearing pants is a ‘covering,’ ” or
modesty, Mr. Abu Elela recalled.
As a teenager in the late 1990s, she drifted into a circle of poets who used to
meet at cafes around Alexandria, said Khaled Hegazzi, who first met her there.
Her activism, he said, seemed to grow out of their cafe debates. “That is where
it came from,” he said.
She became one of a small group of published Egyptian poets working in the
avant-garde style of free verse but using popular, colloquial Arabic. Rejecting
the grand and overtly political themes favored by the previous generations, she
focused instead on the details of everyday life. Her generation “stopped doing
noisy politics,” said Maged Zaher, an Egyptian-American poet who has translated
some of Ms. Sabbagh’s work. “There is politics, but it is not sloganeering.”
Her poem “A Letter in My Purse” was about a lost handbag. “Anyway, she has the
house keys,” Ms. Sabbagh wrote, “and I am waiting for her.”
In another poem, Ms. Sabbagh wrote as a Muslim girl who witnessed the
crucifixion on a Cairo clock tower, hearing the voices of “the people who love
God as they damn this moment where the creatures of God approved/Of crucifying
Jesus naked in the crowded square on the clock arms as it declared one in the
afternoon.”
She married a painter, Osama el-Sehely, earned a master’s degree in folklore at
the Academy of Arts in Cairo and developed a passion for documenting the fading
traditions of daily life in Egypt. She once spent months visiting towns across
the Nile Delta to record the variations in the ways residents baked and served
flatbread, said Delphine Blondet, who runs a dance school in Alexandria and
recruited Ms. Sabbagh to research traditional birth celebrations for an
educational project.
Ms. Sabbagh refused payment. “She just loved Egyptian people,” Ms. Blondet said.
“Not the country as it is now, for sure, but really the people.”
After the uprising in 2011, Ms. Sabbagh joined the Socialist Popular Alliance
Party. She became a regular at almost every demonstration, and her friends in
Alexandria called her “the voice of the revolution” because of her talent for
leading chants. When a television interviewer in late 2012 asked her to look
back at the period “after the revolution,” she rejected the question: “We are
still ‘after the revolution,’ ” she said.
The Egyptian authorities quickly pledged a full investigation into her death.
But several witnesses who reported the killing to the police said they had been
immediately detained for questioning as suspects — including Mr. Abu Elela, who
had held her in her final moments and was detained overnight.
And by the next day, an Interior Ministry spokesman made clear that the ministry
had essentially ruled out police responsibility. Gen. Gamal Mokhtar of the
ministry said at a gathering of international correspondents last week that it
was implausible that the police would resort to such force for such a small
crowd. “What is the need for the police to shoot bullets?” he asked. The
photographs and videos were “no proof at all,” he said.
“There is a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood whose entire job and concern is to
fabricate photos and videos that tell people that the police are assaulting
protesters — that this one is bleeding, that one is injured,” he said.
Last weekend, the police detained one of Ms. Sabbagh’s fellow demonstrators,
Zohdy al-Shamy, deputy chairman of her party, holding him overnight for
questioning about whether he might have used a concealed weapon fired through
his jacket pocket to kill his colleague.
“Madness,” said Medhat el-Za’ed, a party spokesman.
Ms. Sabbagh’s history, though, has also made it unusually difficult for the
authorities to explain away the killing by accusing her of treason or violence.
Last week, even the flagship state newspaper, Al Ahram, published a front-page
editorial expressing rare, officially sanctioned criticism of the Egyptian
police.
“Peaceful Shaimaa only dreamed of a free country,” wrote Ahmed el-Sayed
al-Naggar, the chairman of the state-run news organization, but “she was killed
in cold blood by the same person who killed the martyrs she was going to honor.”
In the television appearance Sunday, Mr. Sisi urged the interior minister to
track down the killer, offering reassurances that even if a police officer had
shot Ms. Sabbagh, the ministry itself would not bear the blame.“I don’t know, in
all sincerity and truth, who is behind the killing of Shaimaa el-Sabbagh,” he
insisted, a hand on his heart.
In Alexandria, a friend and her cousin said, no one has yet told Ms. Sabbagh’s
son that his mother is not coming home.
Correction: February 3, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the timing of televised remarks by
the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, that included condolences on the
death of Shaimaa el-Sabbagh. The remarks were made Sunday, not Monday.
Merna Thomas contributed reporting from Cairo.
A version of this article appears in print on February 4, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Activist Killed in Egypt Turns Into a
Symbol.
Coming to Mourn Tahrir Square’s Dead,
and Joining Them Instead,
FEB 3, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/world/middleeast/shaimaa-el-sabbagh-tahrir-square-killing-angers-egyptians.html
Mr. Putin Resumes His War in Ukraine
FEB. 2, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The fighting in eastern Ukraine has flared up again, putting an
end to any myth about the cease-fire that was supposed to be in force since
September.
Though the Russian economy is staggering under the twinned onslaught of low oil
prices and sanctions — or, conceivably, as a result of that onslaught —
President Vladimir Putin has sharply cranked up his direct support for the
rebels in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, while continuing to baldly deny
it and to blame all the violence on the United States.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is broke, and without the military means to move against the
Russian-backed rebels. Most of the victims are civilians who struggle with
hunger and dislocation in the rubble of the combat zones and die in the constant
exchanges of shells and rockets.
The eruption of fighting in recent weeks, which was not supposed to happen until
spring, has given new force to pleas to the Obama administration to give Ukraine
the means to resist Mr. Putin — in money and in arms.
Certainly the United States and Europe should increase their aid to Ukraine and
explore ways to expand existing sanctions against Russia. NATO’s commander, Gen.
Philip Breedlove, is said to support providing weapons and equipment to Kiev.
And Secretary of State John Kerry is said to be open to discussing the idea. But
lethal assistance could open a dangerous new chapter in the struggle — a chapter
Mr. Putin would quite possibly welcome, as it would “confirm” his propaganda
claims of Western aggression.
So far, President Obama has cautiously pledged to help Ukraine in every way
“short of military confrontation.” Yet with sanctions and diplomacy making no
headway against Russian aggression, it is imperative that the United States and
its allies take a new look at what would bring Russia to a serious negotiation.
The first question is, to negotiate what? Along with denying the direct
involvement of his troops in eastern Ukraine, Mr. Putin has not made clear what
he is trying to achieve. Russian officials have suggested that Moscow has no
interest in annexing eastern Ukraine, the way it grabbed Crimea, but rather
seeks a Ukrainian federation in which the pro-Russian provinces would have
relative autonomy, along with assurances that Ukraine will not move to join
NATO.
There is definitely potential for negotiations there. Yet the latest rebel
attacks have focused on Mariupol, an important port on the Black Sea, and on
expanding the rebels’ control to areas that would give their self-proclaimed
“republics” greater military and economic cohesion. And that speaks to long-term
rebel occupation.
Tempting as it is to focus on punishing Mr. Putin, the greater objective must be
to end the fighting so that Ukraine can finally undertake the arduous task of
reforming and reviving its economy. Toward that end, the West must make clear to
Mr. Putin that if a federation is his goal, the United States and its allies
will actively use their good offices with Kiev to seek a workable arrangement.
But if the evidence continues to accumulate that Mr. Putin and the rebels are
carving out a permanent rebel-held enclave in eastern Ukraine, à la
Transdniestria, Abkhazia or South Ossetia, he must know that the United States
and Europe will be compelled to increase the cost.
A version of this editorial appears in print on February 2, 2015,
on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Mr. Putin Resumes His
War.
Mr. Putin Resumes His War in Ukraine,
JAN 2, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/opinion/mr-putin-resumes-his-war-in-ukraine.html
ISIS Tactics Questioned
as Hostages Dwindle
FEB. 1, 2015
The New York Times
By ROD NORDLAND
AMMAN, Jordan — The extremists of the Islamic State managed to
parlay their Japanese and Jordanian hostages into 12 days of worldwide
publicity. But other than depleting their supply of foreign hostages, did they
really accomplish anything?
Analysts who study terrorist groups were skeptical, and many said the militants’
tactics had backfired badly, particularly in Jordan. The extremists apparently
killed two Japanese men, but failed to achieve either of their professed goals:
$200 million in ransom, and the release of a female Iraqi suicide bomber from
death row in Jordan.
Their threat to kill a captive Jordanian air force pilot (and their failure to
produce evidence that he was alive) did not achieve the intended effect of
undermining support for Jordan’s role in the international coalition bombing the
Islamic State. Now even skeptical Jordanians have begun rallying around their
government’s position and denouncing the extremists.
That shift comes as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has nearly
run out of Western or other foreign hostages, as fewer aid workers and
journalists dare to enter Syrian territory. Last August, when the American-led
bombing campaign began, the group held at least 23 Western hostages; now they
are believed to have four hostages viewed as prominent internationally,
including two Westerners. The extremists continue to hold an untold number of
Syrians.
Over the weekend, the group released a video showing the apparent beheading of
the journalist Kenji Goto, who was captured when he went to Syria last October
in a bid to find Haruna Yukawa, a Japanese adventurer who disappeared there in
August. A video showing a still image of Mr. Yukawa beheaded was released by the
group on Jan. 24.
Beginning on Jan. 20, Mr. Goto was forced by his captors to plead for his life,
directing those entreaties at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Similarly heart-rending
messages were sent from his wife and mother in his final days.
In Mr. Goto’s apparent last moments, the Islamic State’s executioner, known as
Jihadi John for his British-accented English, who appears in many of the
beheading videos, taunted Mr. Abe: “This knife will not only slaughter Kenji,
but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found.”
Mr. Abe responded that Japan “will cooperate with the international community
and make the terrorists pay the price.” He added, “I’m outraged by the
despicable terrorist act, and I will never forgive the terrorists.”
Jordanian officials were more circumspect, as their pilot remains at the
extremists’ whim. Jordan’s offer to trade him for the suicide bomber, Sajida
al-Rishawi, remains on the table.
But Jordanian society underwent a sea change in its attitude toward the
coalition last week, as the fate of the pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh,
transfixed the country and its powerful tribes. Even many Jordanians who at the
beginning of the week said the hostage crisis showed they were involved in
someone else’s war seemed to change their minds, especially after the horrible
images of Mr. Goto’s killing emerged.
“From Day 1 of Jordan joining the coalition against ISIS, part of our people
believed it’s not our war,” said Oraib al-Rantawi, director of the Al-Quds
Center for Political Studies here. “Another part felt that sooner or later it
will be, so it’s better to fight them in the backyard of another country than in
our own bedrooms.”
“Moaz is in every bedroom in Jordan now,” said Naif al-Amoun, a member of
Jordan’s Parliament who is from Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s hometown, Karak. “We are
not going to let anyone exploit this issue to turn us against the government.”
Mr. Amoun added, “In the last couple of days, the treatment of the pilot
backfired against ISIS. Instead of dividing Jordan, Jordanians are more united
behind their government.”
Ora Szekely, a political scientist at Clark University in Massachusetts who
studies extremist groups like ISIS, said that nonstate actors like the Islamic
State “are much less coherent and cohesive than they want us to think they are.”
Since the extremists seemed to have no coherent strategy in how they handled the
Japanese and Jordanian hostages, their most likely goal was public relations —
and it was a flop, she said. “There is a certain amount of making this up as
they go along.”
“Killing the second Japanese was a big mistake and they got nothing for it,”
said Clark McCauley, a psychology professor at Bryn Mawr College who studies
political radicalization. “These people are in many ways their own worst
enemies. You just have to give them time and space and their extremity will
alienate their own base.”
Peter Kassig was one of at least 23 foreign hostages from 12 countries who were
kidnapped by Syrian insurgents, sold or handed over to the Islamic State, and
held underground in a prison near the Syrian city of Raqqa.
OPEN Graphic
Hassan Abu Hanieh, an Amman-based political analyst who follows extreme Islamist
groups, cautioned that the Islamic State still has the pilot — assuming he is
alive — and may well use his fate to try to shift Jordanian public opinion.
Jordan is one of four Arab countries participating in airstrikes against ISIS.
While ISIS cares little about public opinion in Japan — or Britain or the United
States, two other countries whose nationals have been beheaded — Jordan is a
different matter. “It has goals for expansion into Jordan, and when ISIS
realized this is a losing game on their end, they stopped the game and killed
the Japanese, but not Lt. Kasasbeh,” Mr. Hanieh said.
Other than the Jordanian pilot, ISIS is known to be holding two Western
hostages: the British journalist John Cantile, who has made a series of
videotaped speeches on behalf of ISIS, and an American female aid worker, whose
identity is being kept confidential. Another female aid worker from an
undisclosed country is also being held. In addition, three staff workers for the
International Committee of the Red Cross disappeared in October 2013, although
no information has been released about their identities or who abducted them.
The Islamic State reportedly has been paid millions of dollars in ransom for its
hostages, particularly in the past six months, making hostage-taking an
important form of financing.
As one journalist working along the border between Turkey and Syria put it
recently, “Journalists in Syria are seen as walking bags of money.”
Unsurprisingly, most journalists and foreign aid workers are now avoiding Syria
entirely — raising fears that the extremists would begin taking hostages
elsewhere.
“The F.B.I. has recently obtained credible information indicating members of an
ISIL-affiliated group are tasked with kidnapping journalists in the region and
returning them to Syria,” American law enforcement officials warned journalists
in an October bulletin. “Members of this group might try to mask their
affiliation with ISIL to gain access to journalists.”
Many journalists working in the area are well aware of the risks. “ISIS has a
network of agents roaming the areas that mostly attract journalists, near the
border,” said Zaher Said, a Syrian who works for Western journalists in the
Gaziantep area of southern Turkey.
“They disguise themselves as drivers or fixers offering to help journalists work
in the south of Turkey, in order to establish good ties with them for a future
plan of kidnapping them to the other side of the border,” said Mr. Said.
Most experienced journalists were aware of the risks in Turkey, and so far none
had been kidnapped there. “It is not only ISIS and its network that poses a
risk, but also self-motivated bounty hunters,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon; Karam Shoumali
from Istanbul; Michael S. Schmidt from Washington; and Martin Fackler from
Tokyo.
A version of this article appears in print on February 2, 2015, on page A6 of
the New York edition with the headline: ISIS Tactics Questioned as Hostages
Dwindle.
ISIS Tactics Questioned as Hostages Dwindle,
FEB 1, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/world/middleeast/isis-tactics-questioned-as-hostages-dwindle.html
ISIS Says It Has Killed
2nd Japanese Hostage
JAN. 31, 2015
The New York Times
By ROD NORDLAND
AMMAN, Jordan — The Islamic State claimed to have beheaded a
Japanese journalist in a video released Saturday night, the culmination of a
two-week-long drama that appears to have cost the lives of two Japanese men.
The video of the killing of the journalist, Kenji Goto, came two days after a
deadline set by the extremist group expired, and the Jordanian government did
not give in to its demand that a convicted would-be suicide bomber be exchanged
for Mr. Goto’s life.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, reacting to the release of the video, said Sunday
that Japan would not give in to terrorism. President Obama issued a statement in
which he said the United States “condemns the heinous murder” of Mr. Goto, whom
he described as a courageous journalist.
Left unclear by the video, which was posted on a Twitter account associated with
the Islamic State’s media organization, Al Furqan, was the fate of a Jordanian
pilot, whom the extremists also threatened to kill if Jordan did not release the
would-be bomber, Sajida al-Rishawi. Japan had not yet authenticated the video.
Jordan did not publicly comment.
Jordan had agreed to release Ms. Rishawi only if the extremists provided proof
that the pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, was still alive. He was shot down
over Syria on Dec. 24 during airstrikes on the Islamic State.
The 67-second video released Saturday showed Mr. Goto in an orange jumpsuit
kneeling while a black-masked extremist, who appeared to be the man known as
Jihadi John because of his British-accented English, blamed Mr. Abe for Mr.
Goto’s fate.
“Abe, because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this
knife will not only slaughter Kenji, but will also carry on and cause carnage
wherever your people are found,” the extremist said. “So let the nightmare for
Japan begin.” He then began cutting Mr. Goto’s neck, but the screen went black,
and then showed a still shot of his apparently decapitated body, hands still
handcuffed behind his back, and with his severed head placed on top.
Mr. Abe had promised $200 million in nonlethal aid to countries fighting the
Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Speaking to reporters in Tokyo early
Sunday morning, Mr. Abe said Japan would not back down from its policy.
“We will increase our humanitarian aid, including food and medical support,” he
said. “Japan will resolutely fulfill its responsibility to the international
community in the fight against terrorism.”
The extremists had produced a photograph showing the other Japanese hostage,
Haruna Yukawa, also beheaded, a week before. The extremists had demanded $200
million to release both men, but after a previous ultimatum expired, they said
they had killed Mr. Yukawa. Then they changed their demand to a swap of Ms.
Rishawi for Mr. Goto.
While there was widespread support in Jordan for a swap, officials insisted that
they wanted their pilot released as well, or at least wanted to see evidence
that he was still alive before they would release Ms. Rishawi, who was convicted
for her role in a series of bombings of hotels in Amman that killed at least 57
people in 2005.
The video of Mr. Goto’s apparent execution began with the extremist brandishing
a knife toward the camera, while Mr. Goto knelt and stared calmly at the camera,
closing his eyes just before the knife was drawn across his throat. They
appeared to be in a dry streambed.
“To the Japanese government,” the killer said, “You, like your foolish allies in
the satanic coalition, have yet to understand that we by Allah’s grace are the
Islamic caliphate, with authority and power. An entire army thirsty for your
blood.”
The top Japanese government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga,
called the killing “a terrorist act of extreme brutality.” Live television
coverage in Japan showed officials rushing into the prime minister’s office soon
after the video was posted.
Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the United States National Security
Council, said American authorities were working to confirm the authenticity of
the video, and called for the release of all remaining hostages.
The Islamic State message released Sunday was uploaded with a second video,
which purports to show the beheading of a man the extremists said was an
intelligence agent working for Jordan in Syria.
Mr. Goto, 47, was known as a respected journalist and the author of five books
who knew his way around conflict zones after having spent more than two decades
covering them as a freelance television cameraman. He appeared drawn to Syria
and Iraq by a lifelong idealistic zeal to cover the plight of the weak,
particularly refugee children.
He was apparently captured by the militants in late October when he crossed into
territory held by the Islamic State, which has taken over large swaths of Iraq
and Syria, in a bid to win the freedom of Mr. Yukawa. They met in April after
Mr. Goto helped negotiate Mr. Yukawa’s release from detention by the rebel Free
Syrian Army during an earlier trip into Syria.
“My son’s final act was to go to Syria to help a fellow Japanese,” Mr. Goto’s
mother, Junko Ishido, said Sunday. “Please understand his kindness and courage.”
Correction: January 31, 2015
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of another Japanese
hostage apparently beheaded by the Islamic State. He was Haruna Yukawa, not
Yakuwa.
Mohammad Ghannam contributed reporting from Beirut, and Martin Fackler from
Tokyo.
A version of this article appears in print on February 1, 2015, on page A6 of
the New York edition with the headline: ISIS Says It Has Killed 2nd Japanese
Hostage.
ISIS Says It Has Killed 2nd Japanese Hostage,
JAN 31, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/world/middleeast/islamic-state-militants-japanese-hostage.html
Clashes Intensify
Between Armenia and Azerbaijan
Over Disputed Land
JAN. 31, 2015
The New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
AGDAM, Azerbaijan — Overshadowed by the fighting in Ukraine,
another armed conflict in the former Soviet Union — between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh — has escalated with deadly
ferocity in recent months, killing dozens of soldiers on each side and pushing
the countries perilously close to open war.
The month of January was heavily stained by blood, with repeated gun battles and
volleys of artillery and rocket fire. Two Armenian soldiers were killed and
several wounded in a fierce gunfight on Jan. 23 along the conflict’s northern
front. That set off a weekend of violence including grenade and mortar attacks
that killed at least three Azerbaijani soldiers.
The most recent clashes prompted an unusually pointed rebuke by international
mediators who met on Monday in Krakow, Poland, with the Azerbaijani foreign
minister, Elmar Mammadyarov.
“The rise in violence that began last year must stop,” the mediators, from
France, Russia and the United States, said in a joint statement, adding, “We
called on Azerbaijan to observe its commitments to a peaceful resolution of the
conflict. We also called on Armenia to take all measures to reduce tensions.”
Instead, the violence has continued.
On Thursday, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said it had shot down a drone not
far from Agdam, an Azerbaijani city that was once home to more than 40,000
people but has been a ghost town for more than 20 years since its occupation by
Armenian forces.
Tensions are expected to grow even further this year as Armenia prepares to
commemorate in April the 100th anniversary of the genocide against Armenians in
Turkey.
While the fighting here often seems to be an isolated dispute over a mountainous
patch of land that no one else wants — roughly midway between the Armenian
capital, Yerevan, and the Azerbaijani capital, Baku — the conflict poses an
ever-present danger by threatening to draw in bigger powers, including Russia,
Turkey and Iran.
It also provides a chilling warning of what could be in store for Ukraine, where
many fear Russia is intent on turning the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk
into a similar permanent war zone.
The recent flare in fighting has been fueled by a quiet arms race, in which both
countries — but especially oil-rich Azerbaijan — have built up arsenals of ever
more powerful weapons.
Russia is the main supplier to each side, even as it claims a leadership role in
international peace negotiations, known as the Minsk Group process, which it
chairs with the United States and France.
In recent weeks, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan has upped the ante,
demanding that the Minsk Group leaders take steps to force Armenia to withdraw
from Azerbaijani lands — nearly one-fifth of Azerbaijan’s
internationally-recognized territory — that it has occupied since a truce was
signed in 1994.
“Measures must be taken,” Mr. Aliyev said in a speech to government ministers in
January. “The truth is that the continued occupation of our lands is not just
the work of Armenia. Armenia is a powerless and poor country. It is in a
helpless state. Of course, if it didn’t have major patrons in various capitals,
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would have been resolved fairly long ago.”
In his speech, Mr. Aliyev warned darkly that Azerbaijan, which has an economy
seven times larger than Armenia’s, planned this year to spend more than double
Armenia’s entire annual budget of $2.7 billion on strengthening its military.
President Serzh Sargsyan has responded with his own threats. “The hotheads
should expect surprises,” Mr. Sargsyan said at a recent military ceremony.
The dangerous consequences of the arms buildup were on full display in November
as Azerbaijan shot down an Mi-24 attack helicopter as it flew just north of
Agdam along the cease-fire line, killing three Armenian soldiers on board.
The wreckage fell in the region near Agdam that has served as a buffer zone
since the 1994 truce, and for days the three bodies lay in the open as Armenian
forces seeking to recover their fallen comrades were repelled by gunfire.
“This is as bad as it has got since the cease-fire,” said Thomas de Waal, a
senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in
Washington, whose book “Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and
War” is widely regarded as the most authoritative account of the Karabakh
conflict.
“Fifteen years ago it was still bad but it was just a bunch of trenches with a
bunch of soldiers leaning over them with some guns,” Mr. de Waal said. “Now, you
have this massive heavy weaponry on either side, sometimes only 100 yards from
each other, with these drones and so forth.”
He added, “The stakes get higher every year, and the chances of miscalculation
get higher as well.”
With tensions mounting, visits to each side of the front line, and interviews
with senior government and military officials, as well as conversations with
dozens of residents, refugees, war veterans, soldiers, local officials,
academics, civic activists and even schoolchildren, found the two sides bracing
for war, and neither expecting nor prepared for peace.
“We have a saying,” said Col. Abdulla Qurbani, a senior official in the
Azerbaijan Defense Ministry, while on a tour of the Azerbaijan side of the line
of contact. “When water mixes with earth, this is mud. When blood mixes with
earth, this is motherland.”
Across the line in Shushi, a city whose Azerbaijani residents were forced to
flee during the war, an Armenian woman, Anaida Gabrielyan, said: “Our land is
soaked in blood. Every millimeter is soaked in grief.”
Since fighting began in the late 1980s, it has killed tens of thousands of
people and displaced more than a million, many of whom have been living as
refugees for more than 20 years.
The increased firepower is not the only reason the conflict has grown more
dangerous and more intractable.
The fight is rooted in religious hatreds — real and imagined — between Christian
Armenia and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan.
And a new generation of Armenians and Azerbaijanis, including the soldiers now
serving on the front line, cannot remember when their parents and grandparents
lived peacefully as neighbors — before Armenians were purged from Azerbaijan and
Azerbaijanis were forced from the areas now occupied by Armenia.
Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, where the majority Armenian population declared
an independent republic after the collapse of the Soviet Union, are hamstrung by
their unrecognized status, which prohibits most international trade.
The republic is largely viewed as a puppet extension of Armenia, with its
residents traveling abroad on Armenian passports and many Armenian officials,
including President Sargsyan, having been born in Nagorno-Karabakh and having
previously held government posts there.
In casual conversations, it was not uncommon for Azerbaijanis to deny that the
Armenian genocide occurred, or for Armenians to insist that Azerbaijanis were
not a real nation and had no legitimate ties to lands they had lived on for
centuries.
“This is our land, our homeland, and we will always protect it,” said Gayane
Gevorgyan, an Armenian and the mother of two young children who now lives in
Shushi, a city that before the war had a majority Azerbaijani population. “We
will do it for our children. We have no place else to go.”
Although the long history of Azerbaijani residents in Shushi is well documented,
and the city contains two famous mosques, Ms. Gevorgyan said that Azerbaijanis
expelled during the war had no right to return.
“We were part of greater Armenia even before Christ,” she said in an interview
at the State Historical Museum, where she works as a guide. “Shushi is not their
homeland, so they don’t have any right to come back.”
In Azerbaijan, there is a city government-in-exile with a single-minded focus on
reclaiming the city, called Shusha in Azerbaijani. “Our only goal is to come
back,” said Bayram A. Safarov, the head of the administration in exile. “I know
every stone there.”
The hardened views in the public mind make it even more difficult to broker an
accord, despite Presidents Aliyev and Sargsyan’s having met three times last
year.
“The reality is after 20 years of inflammatory rhetoric, both presidents will
admit to you that the people of the two countries are just not ready,” said one
Western official who has met both men, and who requested anonymity to discuss
private conversations on sensitive diplomatic issues.
In Azerbaijan, tens of thousands of refugees live in substandard housing. In
some cases, families have lived for years in individual college dormitory rooms,
sharing a bathroom on the hall.
Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh are hamstrung by their unrecognized status,
which prohibits most international trade.
The region’s capital, called Stepanakert in Armenian and Xankendi in
Azerbaijani, has no functioning airport. And officials there do not have a
formal role in the peace process.
Irina Khachaturyan, who sells trinkets from a stall in the central market in
Stepanakert, is Armenian but said she dreamed of returning to Baku, the
Azerbaijani capital where she lived before the war.
“It was my motherland; I was born there, lived there, studied there,” Ms.
Khachaturyan said.
Although she lives among fellow Armenians, she said Stepanakert never became
home.
“I never found my place,” she said. “These 25 years, I have been living like on
needles.”
Alexandra Odynova contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on February 1, 2015, on page A10 of
the New York edition with the headline: Clashes Intensify Between Armenia and
Azerbaijan Over Disputed Land.
Clashes Intensify Between Armenia and Azerbaijan Over Disputed
Land,
JAN 31, 2015, NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/world/asia/clashes-intensify-between-armenia-and-azerbaijan-over-disputed-land.html
Joe Biden: A Plan for Central America
JAN. 29, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
By JOSEPH R. BIDEN Jr.
AS we were reminded last summer when thousands of unaccompanied
children showed up on our southwestern border, the security and prosperity of
Central America are inextricably linked with our own.
The economies of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras remain bogged down as the
rest of the Americas surge forward. Inadequate education, institutional
corruption, rampant crime and a lack of investment are holding these countries
back. Six million young Central Americans are to enter the labor force in the
next decade. If opportunity isn’t there for them, the entire Western Hemisphere
will feel the consequences.
Confronting these challenges requires nothing less than systemic change, which
we in the United States have a direct interest in helping to bring about. Toward
that end, on Monday, President Obama will request from Congress $1 billion to
help Central America’s leaders make the difficult reforms and investments
required to address the region’s interlocking security, governance and economic
challenges. That is almost three times what we generally have provided to
Central America.
Last summer, as our countries worked together to stem the dangerous surge in
migration, the leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras asked for
additional assistance to change the climate of endemic violence and poverty that
has held them back. In June, I made it clear to these leaders that the United
States was ready to support them — provided they took ownership of the problem.
Mr. Obama drove home this point when the leaders visited Washington in July.
And they responded. Honduras signed an agreement with Transparency International
to combat corruption. Guatemala has removed senior officials suspected of
corruption and aiding human trafficking. El Salvador passed a law providing new
protections for investors. Working with the Inter-American Development Bank,
these three countries forged a joint plan for economic and political reforms, an
alliance for prosperity.
These leaders acknowledge that an enormous effort is required. We have agreed to
intensify our work together in three areas.
First, security makes everything else possible. We can help stabilize
neighborhoods through community-based policing, and eradicate transnational
criminal networks that have turned Central America into a hotbed for drug
smuggling, human trafficking and financial crime. Some communities in Guatemala
and El Salvador are already seeing the benefit of United States-sponsored
programs on community policing, specialized police training and youth centers
similar to Boys and Girls Clubs in the United States. As I learned in crafting
the 1994 United States crime bill, these programs can reduce crime.
Second, good governance begets the jobs and investment that Central America
needs. Today, court systems, government contracting and tax collection are not
widely perceived as transparent and fair. These countries have among the lowest
effective tax rates in the hemisphere. To attract the investments required for
real and lasting progress, they must collect and manage revenues effectively and
transparently.
Third, there is not enough government money, even with assistance from the
United States and the international community, to address the scale of the
economic need. Central American economies can grow only by attracting
international investment and making a more compelling case to their citizens to
invest at home. That requires clear rules and regulations; protections for
investors; courts that can be trusted to adjudicate disputes fairly; serious
efforts to root out corruption; protections for intellectual property; and
transparency to ensure that international assistance is spent accountably and
effectively.
We are ready to work with international financial institutions and the private
sector to help these countries train their young people, make it easier to start
a business, and ensure that local enterprises get the most out of existing free
trade agreements with the United States.
The challenges ahead are formidable. But if the political will exists, there is
no reason Central America cannot become the next great success story of the
Western Hemisphere.
The region has seen this sort of transformation before. In 1999, we initiated
Plan Colombia to combat drug trafficking, grinding poverty and institutional
corruption — combined with a vicious insurgency — that threatened to turn
Colombia into a failed state. Fifteen years later, Colombia is a nation
transformed. As one of the architects of Plan Colombia in the United States
Senate, I saw that the key ingredient was political will on the ground. Colombia
benefited from leaders who had the courage to make significant changes regarding
security, governance and human rights. Elites agreed to pay higher taxes. The
Colombian government cleaned up its courts, vetted its police force and reformed
its rules of commerce to open up its economy. The United States invested $9
billion over the course of Plan Colombia, with $700 million the first year. But
our figures show that Colombia outspent us four to one.
The cost of investing now in a secure and prosperous Central America is modest
compared with the costs of letting violence and poverty fester.
Mr. Obama has asked me to lead this new effort. For the first time, we can
envision and work toward having the Americas be overwhelmingly middle class,
democratic and secure.
That is why we are asking Congress to work with us. Together, we can help
Central America become an embodiment of the Western Hemisphere’s remarkable rise
— not an exception to it.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the vice president of the United States.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 30, 2015, on page A27 of the
New York edition with the headline: A Plan for Central America.
Joe Biden: A Plan for Central America,
JAN 29, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/opinion/joe-biden-a-plan-for-central-america.html
Washington and Havana Break the Ice
JAN. 30, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
A couple of years after America’s attempted invasion of Cuba in
1961, the disastrous intervention known as the Bay of Pigs, an envoy President
John F. Kennedy secretly dispatched to Havana posed an odd question to the Cuban
leader, Fidel Castro.
“Do you know how porcupines make love?” James Donovan asked, to make a point
about how hard it would be to establish a trustful relationship between
Washington and Havana. “Very carefully.”
More than a half century later, as American and Cuban officials faced each other
last week for historic talks to begin normalizing relations, it was evident that
trust remains in short supply. But this first step in the present détente bodes
well for a process that will require patience and deft managing of expectations
in both countries.
Having been indoctrinated for decades to view the American government with
suspicion and resentment, Cubans across the island were mesmerized by a week
that was as remarkable for some of the things that happened as it was for those
that did not.
A vivacious senior Cuban diplomat, Josefina Vidal, substantively answered
questions about the thaw from international and Cuban journalists during a
televised news conference, a rare sight in a country where official statements
are typically oblique and issued in writing. Remarks to the press by Roberta
Jacobson, the United States assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere
affairs, were also televised and covered by Cuba’s state media without the usual
condemnatory tone reserved for American policy.
The two women agreed to disagree on a lot, including what role Washington could
play to promote greater freedoms in the authoritarian nation. But breaking with
a tradition of charged rhetoric on both sides, Ms. Vidal and Ms. Jacobson
treated each other civilly.
“Despite the profound differences between the two countries, the exchanges
unfolded in a respectful and professional manner,” Ms. Vidal said.
Ms. Jacobson held a high-profile meeting with dissidents; the Cuban government
did not stop it or publicly condemn it. She also visited the home of a prominent
blogger, Yoani Sánchez, where she gave an interview to the independent news site
Ms. Sánchez runs from her living room. “As journalists, we’re witnessing
historic days, in which information is a winner,” Ms. Sánchez tweeted.
José Daniel Ferrer, a leading dissident, said he has reassessed his early
concern that normalization of relations would embolden the Cuban government and
hurt the cause of those who have been pressing for democratic reforms. “The road
is going to be very long and hard,” said Mr. Ferrer, the head of the Patriotic
Union of Cuba, who met with Ms. Jacobson and other senior diplomats during her
visit. “But I think that if we are able to work smartly and give it our best, we
can advance a lot under these new parameters.”
Glued to the news, Cuban entrepreneurs were abuzz about the opportunities the
new relationship could bring. Some Cuban journalists, meanwhile, suggested that
it might be time for more media outlets to operate independent of state control.
What was arguably most striking about the momentous week in
Havana was that neither of the Castro brothers was seen or heard from. But this
week, Fidel Castro broke his silence about the new era with the United States,
making a brief mention of the talks at the end of a lengthy letter published
Monday by the Communist Party newspaper, Granma.
“I don’t trust American policies,” Mr. Castro wrote, adding that he nonetheless
supported negotiations about the countries’ differences through diplomacy. “We
will always defend cooperation and friendship with all nations on earth, among
them our political adversaries.”
President Raúl Castro, meanwhile, said in a speech on Wednesday that the road to
normalization will be long, as he listed a lengthy set of grievances, including
the American naval base in Guantánamo Bay and the sanctions against the island.
“We were able to advance in this recent negotiation because we treated each
other with respect, as equals,” he said.
With plenty of people in both countries skeptical about the merits of a thaw,
Cuban and American officials will need to be pragmatic and patient as they begin
to untangle a toxic relationship laden with five decades of acrimony, resentment
and mistrust. Given the enthusiasm and expectation the new era has sparked among
ordinary Cubans and Americans alike, allowing the détente to collapse would be a
loss for both sides.
A version of this editorial appears in print on January 30, 2015,
on page A26 of the New York edition with the headline: Washington and Havana
Break the Ice.
Washington and Havana Break the Ice,
JAN 30, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/opinion/washington-and-havana-break-the-ice.html
Three Americans Are Killed
in a Shooting at Kabul Airport
JAN. 29, 2015
The New York Times
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
KABUL, Afghanistan — Three American military contractors were
killed in a shooting on the military side of Kabul’s international airport on
Thursday, military officials said.
The precise circumstances of the shooting, which occurred around 6:40 p.m., were
murky. The gunman was killed as well, officials said. The motive of the attack
was not immediately clear, nor was the identity of the killer, whom officials
described only as an Afghan man.
Some news reports said the attacker was an Afghan soldier or was wearing a
security forces uniform. Officials would not confirm those reports, which
suggested the shooting might have been a new “green on blue” or insider attack,
in which members of the Afghan security forces have turned on Western allies.
Insider killings became so worrisome in recent years that many security rules
for shared bases and training missions were tightened. But such attacks ebbed as
American troops withdrew from front-line posts, or from the country altogether,
over the last year.
It was not the first time an attack targeting the Western troop presence
occurred on the military side of the airport, where much of the Afghan Air Force
is based. Nearly four years ago, an Afghan Air Force colonel shot and killed
eight American service members and a contractor before killing himself.
Early on Friday morning, a spokesman for the American-led military coalition in
Afghanistan, Col. Brian Tribus, said in a statement that “three coalition
contractors were killed, as was an Afghan local national.”
An American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details
of the investigation, said that three victims were American and that the
attacker, an Afghan, had been killed.
Officials would not say what company the victims worked for, or what their jobs
were.
In an attack earlier Thursday, in Laghman Province in the east of the country, a
suicide attacker detonated explosives amid mourners gathered at the funeral of a
local police commander. At least 12 people were killed and several dozen
wounded, according to the Laghman authorities.
The police commander had been killed by an improvised explosive device hidden
near a bus stop on Thursday morning in Mehtar Lam, the provincial capital, said
Sarhadi Zwak, a spokesman for the Laghman governor.
Khalid Alokozai contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on January 30, 2015, on page A3 of
the New York edition with the headline: Three Americans Are Killed in a Shooting
at Kabul Airport.
Three Americans Are Killed in a Shooting at Kabul Airport,
JAN 29, 2015, NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/world/asia/three-americans-are-killed-in-kabul-airport-shooting.html
A New Chapter for America and India
JAN. 27, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
After years of near misses and unfulfilled promises, President
Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India appear to have set relations
between their democracies on a deeper, perhaps even revolutionary, path.
Part of the improvement in bilateral relations has to do with the personal
chemistry between the two, which by all accounts appears warm and genuine. Mr.
Obama had barely gotten off his plane in New Delhi when he and Mr. Modi embraced
like old friends. They share humble roots. A visit by Mr. Modi to the White
House in September went exceptionally well. And there was plenty of colorful
symbolism in New Delhi: Mr. Obama became the first American president to attend
the annual Republic Day parade.
There are strategic imperatives at work as well. Both leaders need to expand
their economies, and both see the other as a crucial partner in offsetting
China’s increasingly assertive role in Asia. The potential for cooperation is
considerable. Much of the public focus on the visit was on trade, energy and
breaking a logjam that has held up the sale of American nuclear energy
technology to India. But when Mr. Modi and Mr. Obama sat down to talk, the first
45 minutes of the discussion was consumed by China.
Although it has a history of suspicion and rivalry with China, India has acted
independently in foreign policy and resisted American efforts to forge a common
front. That seems to be changing with Mr. Modi, who shares concerns about
China’s growing economic and military strength and has shown remarkable
confidence in striking a new path. He signed a joint statement with Mr. Obama
chiding the Chinese government for provoking conflict with its neighbors over
the South China Sea; suggested reviving a security network involving the United
States, India, Japan and Australia; and expressed interest in playing a greater
role in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in which India could help
balance China’s influence.
China was not happy, dismissing the visit as a “superficial rapprochement.” The
trick for Mr. Obama and Mr. Modi will be to stand firm in support of a stable,
rules-based order in Asia while not provoking China.
That could be tested by their decision to renew a 10-year defense pact as well
as agreements to proceed jointly on developing military hardware, including
Raven drones, systems for Lockheed’s C-130 transport planes and jet engine
technology. India is the world’s biggest weapons importer and, just last year,
the United States overtook Russia as India’s main arms supplier. Mr. Modi, who
has made economic growth his first priority, is determined to develop an
indigenous defense industry. The question is how to do that without fueling a
regional arms race.
No real breakthroughs were announced on trade. The Americans have been
frustrated with the slow pace of Mr. Modi’s economic reforms; and the solution
that the two leaders claimed to have found to the Indian liability law that has
blocked the sales of American nuclear fuel and reactors struck observers as
vague and inconclusive. The impasse has long marred a 2006 nuclear deal that was
supposed to help energy-hungry India.
The modest movement on climate change was disappointing. India agreed to move to
phase down hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, in line with a treaty called the
Montreal Protocol. But it set no specific goals limiting greenhouse gases, as
China did in its meeting with Mr. Obama in November. India is the third-largest
carbon polluter behind the United States and China but has resisted bolder
measures, citing its need to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. Without
India on board with commitments, the best efforts of the rest of the world will
not be enough.
Mr. Obama could not leave India without addressing human rights. In a speech on
Tuesday, he urged India to protect the rights of girls and women, combat human
trafficking and slavery, promote religious and racial tolerance, and empower
young people. Hopes have faded that Mr. Modi would rein in the divisive agenda
of his militant Hindu-nationalist supporters. But his plans to build India into
an economic powerhouse will mean nothing if the country devolves into division
and bloodshed.
With their talk of an “enduring commitment,” Mr. Obama and Mr. Modi have raised
expectations and set a firm basis for moving forward. Even so, the countries
have no obvious plans to deal with Pakistan or the India-Pakistan nuclear
competition that threatens the region, and it cannot be assumed that all past
differences will fade. Building a true partnership will take sustained efforts
over many decades.
A New Chapter for America and India,
JAN 27, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/opinion/a-new-chapter-for-america-and-india.html
China Tries to Stay Aloof
From Warming U.S.-India Relationship
JAN. 27, 2015
The New York Times
By JANE PERLEZ
BEIJING — When Chinese troops provoked a standoff with Indian
forces on a disputed border high in the Himalayas just before President Xi
Jinping of China arrived in India last year, a pall fell over what was supposed
to be a landmark visit.
That episode, emblematic of China’s recent aggressiveness in the region,
recurred in the minds of some Chinese analysts over the past few days, as China
observed the warmth between President Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of
India during Mr. Obama’s visit to New Delhi.
At the time of Mr. Xi’s trip in September, the Ministry of National Defense in
Beijing sheepishly conceded that a Chinese incursion into Indian territory had
probably occurred, and people here know that the troop movement, though small in
the scheme of things, emboldened Mr. Modi to warn Mr. Xi about China’s
expansionist tendencies.
There were no such lectures between Mr. Modi and Mr. Obama.
“China’s primary task is to deal with India with sophistication,” Shi Yinhong, a
professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said this
week. “But it’s not China’s talent to deal with India in this way.”
The reaction in China to the breadth of strategic and economic issues discussed
by the United States and India during Mr. Obama’s visit and to their obvious,
though not publicly expressed, mutual anxiety about China has been cool but
controlled.
China can see that India’s steadfast policy of navigating an independent
position, aloof from power plays in East Asia, is crumbling under the forceful
Mr. Modi. Beijing is also aware that India’s problems with the United States,
based in large part on Washington’s relationship with India’s archenemy,
Pakistan, have diminished, analysts said.
But for the moment, China appears to be banking on India’s long-held position
that it will not sign up as a permanent ally of anyone, including the United
States.
Moreover, China has seemed eager not to be too negative about the Obama visit in
order not to damage the progress, even if limited, made during Mr. Xi’s three
days in India. Beijing, now anxious to play down the suspicions between it and
New Delhi, sees big opportunities in Indian infrastructure and technology
projects as Mr. Modi tries to kick-start the economy.
“We know India does not want to be part of a containment policy against China,”
said Hua Chunying, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry here. “We believe
that the zero-sum game belongs to the last century.”
Still, China has paid close attention to the active foreign policy of Mr. Modi,
who since assuming office has cultivated not only the United States but also
Japan, China’s main rival in East Asia.
China has taken comfort in its economic relationship with India, to which it
sells far more than India sells to China. But during a visit to New Delhi last
year, the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, outstripped China on the economic
front in advance.
Mr. Xi promised $20 billion in investments in India over the next five years,
something of a letdown in New Delhi. Word before his visit had put the
investment at $100 billion. In contrast, Mr. Abe had already pledged $32 billion
to help improve India’s weak infrastructure.
Mr. Modi enjoys an especially close personal bond with Mr. Abe — the Indian
leader is an admirer of Japanese culture — and it was at Mr. Modi’s suggestion
that Japan was invited last year to join naval exercises with the United States
and India. The move drew displeasure from Beijing.
Mr. Modi did not stop there: During his talks with Mr. Obama, he suggested
revitalizing a loose security network involving the United States, India, Japan
and Australia, a grouping that China views with suspicion.
For his part, Mr. Obama persuaded Mr. Modi to sign a statement that implicitly
criticized China for its provocative moves in the South China Sea. India had
already expressed concerns about China’s behavior in that arm of the western
Pacific and is cooperating with Vietnam, another critic of China, on an oil
drilling venture in the area’s waters.
“China feels unhappy but not surprised” about India’s siding with the United
States on the South China Sea, said Wu Xinbo, the director of the Center for
American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Will that have any impact on
China’s maritime policies? No. What India can do is not substantive in the
regional situation.”
China also expressed concerns this week about Mr. Obama’s offer to support
India’s membership in the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, an organization
devised to ensure that civilian nuclear trade is not diverted for military uses.
India’s possible membership in the organization was part of a deal worked out
between Washington and New Delhi that broke a five-year logjam preventing
American companies from building nuclear power plants in India.
India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and if it
joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group, it would be the only member not to have
signed the treaty, which is supposed to prevent states from acquiring nuclear
weapons.
“We support the group carrying out discussions on admitting new members, and at
the same time we encourage India to take the next steps to satisfy the relevant
standards of the group,” Ms. Hua, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said
of India’s proposed membership in the suppliers group.
For China, the biggest long-term worry about the developing relationship between
New Delhi and Washington may be the advanced military technology that the United
States will probably sell to India in the future, said Mr. Wu of the Center for
American Studies.
At the moment, Mr. Wu said, “We don’t view India as a major threat.” But that
could change with more American military sales to India.
“That will touch China’s security nerve,” he said. “The more advanced Indian
capability will increase the pressure on China.”
China Tries to Stay Aloof From Warming U.S.-India Relationship,
JAN 27, 2015, NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/world/asia/china-tries-to-stay-aloof-from-warming-us-india-relationship.html
Obama Arrives in Saudi Arabia
to Pay Respects to King’s Family
JAN. 27, 2015
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
and PETER BAKER
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia on
Tuesday, leading a bipartisan delegation of prominent current and former
officials to offer condolences for the death of King Abdullah and pay respects.
Air Force One landed midafternoon on a clear, mild day with a brisk wind
snapping the American and Saudi flags to attention. The president was greeted by
a military honor guard and a cordon of black-robed Saudi officials wearing white
or red checkered kaffiyehs.
The president spoke with the new Saudi leader, King Salman, as the two walked to
a covered area. They turned to face the honor guard as the band played “The
Star-Spangled Banner” and the Saudi national anthem.
Mr. Obama, Michelle Obama and Salman proceeded toward a stand by the terminal
stairs. Mr. Obama shook hands with a long line of Saudi princes, senior
government officials and military officers.
Joining the president are his Republican opponent from 2008, Senator John McCain
of Arizona, and several veterans of Republican administrations, including two
former secretaries of state, James A. Baker III and Condoleezza Rice, and two
former national security advisers, Brent Scowcroft and Stephen J. Hadley.
Also accompanying Mr. Obama in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, are senior figures
from his own administration, including Secretary of State John Kerry; John O.
Brennan, the director of the C.I.A.; and Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of
the United States Central Command, the military unit that oversees Middle East
operations.
The White House said several Democratic members of Congress are part of the
delegation as well, including some who were already traveling with the president
as part of his three-day visit to India. Those to join him for the trip to
Riyadh include Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Representatives Nancy Pelosi
and Ami Bera of California and Eliot L. Engel and Joseph Crowley of New York.
The heavyweight delegation, hurriedly assembled over the past couple of days,
highlights the importance that the United States places on its relationship with
Saudi Arabia, not just for its ample supplies of oil but also for its leadership
in the region and its assistance with intelligence and counterterrorism efforts.
In addition to paying respects to the family of Abdullah, who died Friday, the
goal of the trip is for the president and his team to take Salman’s measure and,
quietly at least, assess his health. The king, 79, has had at least one stroke
and lost some movement in one of his arms.
While Mr. Obama has met Salman before, they do not have a notable relationship.
But American officials were encouraged that Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the
interior minister, was named deputy crown prince, signaling a next generation of
leadership, because he has a long history of working with the United States on
counterterrorism issues. He has met with Mr. Obama at least twice.
In keeping with that, Mr. Obama’s delegation includes current and former
officials who have worked with Prince Mohammed and his colleagues on terrorism
issues, including Mr. Brennan; Lisa Monaco, the president’s counterterrorism
adviser; Joseph W. Westphal, the ambassador to Saudi Arabia; Samuel Berger, a
former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton; and Frances Fragos
Townsend, a former counterterrorism adviser to President George W. Bush.
Mr. Baker, who served as secretary of state under the elder President George
Bush, said that he believed it was important to show the Saudis how much the
United States values their relationship.
“This is an extraordinarily critical and sensitive time in the Middle East, when
everything seems to be falling apart,” Mr. Baker said aboard Mr. Kerry’s
aircraft. “And the kingdom in some ways is becoming an island of stability.”
He added, “You look around particularly at what is happing in the last few days
in Yemen, and you see Saudi Arabia encircled almost on all sides by states that
are having extraordinary difficult problems, if they are not failed states.”
President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi of Yemen resigned last week in the face of an
armed rebellion by the Houthis, a Shiite group backed by Iran.
Since his coronation last week, Salman has given no public indication of whether
he will depart from the policies of his predecessor on any major international
issue. But analysts say the new king shares his predecessor’s frustration with
what many Saudis consider a lack of American leadership in the Middle East under
Mr. Obama.
“Saudi Arabia is emerging as the major bulwark against Iranian expansion,” said
Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, adding that Iran was trying to expand its
influence in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. “There is no doubt that
the Iranians are on the move.”
Mr. McCain, who also traveled to Riyadh with Mr. Kerry, said that he did not
expect any major changes in Saudi policy under the new king. “I would be
surprised if there is any real change in their behavior,” he said. “Despite the
fact it is a monarchy, there is a lot of consensus.”
The Saudi leadership was alarmed at the American response to the Arab Spring
uprisings that began in 2011, and it has criticized Mr. Obama for giving up on
Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, and for not acting forcefully to
oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
The two nations have found common ground, however, in the fight against the
extremists of the Islamic State, who have seized territory in Iraq and Syria.
They also share concerns about Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s neighbor to the south,
where the Western-backed government collapsed amid the advance of pro-Iranian
Houthi militants and where Al Qaeda also has an active franchise that seeks to
strike both the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Obama is scheduled to spend only four hours on the ground in Riyadh, long
enough for a meeting and a dinner at a palace, before heading back to
Washington. But the fact that he decided to go sent a message, since he rarely
makes overseas trips when a country’s current or former leader dies. One of the
few exceptions was the 2013 memorial to Nelson Mandela.
In part, aides said, that reflects the fact that few leaders of close allies
have died in office during Mr. Obama’s tenure, and they noted that it was
fortunate timing that when Abdullah died, the president was already about to
head to India, putting him relatively close for an extra stop in Riyadh.
Mr. Obama has had his disputes with Saudi leaders, most notably on how far to go
in negotiating with Iran and on how to respond to the threat posed by the
terrorist group called the Islamic State. But like his Democratic and Republican
predecessors, he has leaned on Saudi Arabia for help in the region.
“It will be a chance for us to make sure that we’re in good alignment going
forward where we have overlapping interest,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy
national security adviser to Mr. Obama. “I think you saw the king send a signal
that he’s committed to continuity in terms of Saudi Arabia’s approach to those
issues. But again, I think we’re well placed to continue cooperation.”
Michael R. Gordon reported from Riyadh, and Peter Baker from New Delhi. Ben
Hubbard contributed reporting from Riyadh.
Obama Arrives in Saudi Arabia to Pay Respects to King’s Family,
JAN 27, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/world/middleeast/obama-leading-a-high-powered-delegation-to-saudi-arabia.html
Obama Makes the Most
of India’s Republic Day Parade
JAN. 26, 2015
The New York Times
By PETER BAKER
and ELLEN BARRY
NEW DELHI — On one level, of course, it was just a parade. But as
President Obama watched marching military units pass by at India’s annual
Republic Day celebration on Monday, it served as a fitting geopolitical metaphor
as well.
Overhead were Russian-made MI-35 helicopters and on the street in front of him
were Russian-made T-90 tanks, a reminder of India’s longstanding ties to Moscow
dating to the Cold War. Yet it was Mr. Obama in the seat of the chief guest as
he used his visit here to cement stronger relations between the United States
and India.
The parade was the visual centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s three-day trip, a colorful
mélange of modern-day military hardware, soldiers in traditional turbans and
costumes riding camels, and a series of floats from myriad states capturing
different aspects of India’s rich and complicated cultures. The invitation to
Mr. Obama to attend in the position of honor was an important diplomatic
gesture.
While the weather proved rainy and dreary, Mr. Obama gave every impression of
enjoying himself. He bobbed his head with the music and chatted amiably with
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sitting to his right. He appeared to be chewing
gum, probably Nicorette, which he uses as a substitute for smoking. Michelle
Obama joined him, as did several members of the United States Congress,
including Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, the House minority leader.
Mr. Obama’s decision to accept the invitation to be chief guest was seen here as
a great tribute to India, heralded by politicians and the news media as a sign
of the country’s importance on the world stage. An announcer told the crowd that
it was “a proud moment for every Indian.”
The president’s presence required extensive security preparations, as he had not
spent so much time outdoors in public in a foreign country during his six years
in office. As is typical for outdoor events, he was seated behind bulletproof
glass shields. Indian security was so tight that ballpoint pens were confiscated
from reporters who showed up to cover the parade.
Republic Day is a major holiday in India, marking the day in 1950 when the
country’s postpartition democratic Constitution came into force. Much of New
Delhi was shut down, and as usual on the holiday, alcohol generally was not to
be served.
While the military hardware underscored New Delhi’s ties to Moscow, Mr. Obama
and the American delegation made clear that they want to compete for India’s
defense dollars. Mr. Obama and Mr. Modi renewed the 10-year defense pact between
the two countries on Sunday and agreed to cooperate on aircraft carrier and jet
engine technology. They also agreed to work on joint production of small-scale
surveillance drones.
“None of these things should be considered small in terms of just what it means
for working together as two defense industrial bases and what we can share with
each other in terms of lessons learned going forward, in terms of acquisition
systems and what that means just for the general partnership over all,” said
Philip Reiner, the president’s top South Asia adviser.
Indian analysts disagreed about the significance of the defense agreements.
“It’s a huge step forward,” said Baijayant Panda, an Indian lawmaker who has
long worked on issues involving the United States. “Irrespective of how this is
viewed today, in a year or 10 months down the road, the defense relationship is
going to be considered a huge success.”
Ashok K. Behuria, an analyst with the Institute for Defense Studies and
Analyses, a research center based in New Delhi, said the joint projects were far
more modest than those India has with Russia. “I would say they have lowered
their ambitions; they have taken up only those issues which are realizable,” he
said. “They are baby steps. Let’s hope they will succeed.”
That did not mean Russia was about to cede a lucrative, longtime market. Sergei
K. Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, made a point of visiting last week just
before Mr. Obama to discuss joint production of a light utility helicopter and
to resolve disagreements about a long-delayed fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
India has been the world’s largest consumer of Russia’s arms industry, which was
evident throughout the Republic Day parade, particularly with a series of
flyovers by MIG-29 and SU-30 fighter jets. But balancing it out a bit were P-8
Poseidon naval surveillance planes made by Boeing.
After the parade, Mr. Obama was scheduled to attend a reception hosted by
India’s president, Pranab Mukherjee, and to meet privately with leaders of the
Indian National Congress party, the long-dominant force now in opposition since
the Bharatiya Janata Party of Mr. Modi won enough seats in Parliament last year
to form a governing coalition. In the evening, Mr. Obama planned to host a
meeting of Indian and American business chief executives.
Obama Makes the Most of India’s Republic Day Parade,
JAN 26, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/world/asia/obama-makes-the-most-of-indias-republic-day-parade.html
Rifts Between U.S. and Nigeria
Impeding Fight Against Boko Haram
JAN. 24, 2015
The New York Times
By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — Relations between American military trainers and
specialists advising the Nigerian military in the fight against Boko Haram are
so strained that the Pentagon often bypasses the Nigerians altogether, choosing
to work instead with security officials in the neighboring countries of Chad,
Cameroon and Niger, according to defense officials and diplomats.
Major rifts like these between the Nigerian and American militaries have been
hampering the fight against Boko Haram militants as they charge through northern
Nigeria, razing villages, abducting children and forcing tens of thousands of
people to flee.
Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to travel to Nigeria on Sunday to
meet with the candidates in Nigeria’s presidential elections, and the Pentagon
says that the Nigerian Army is still an important ally in the region — vital to
checking Boko Haram before it transforms into a larger, and possibly more
transnational, threat.
“In some respects, they look like ISIL two years ago,” Michael G. Vickers, the
undersecretary of defense for intelligence, told the Atlantic Council last week,
using another name for the militant group known as the Islamic State. “How fast
their trajectory can go up is something we’re paying a lot of attention to. But
certainly in their area, they’re wreaking a lot of destruction.”
But American officials are wary of the Nigerian military as well, citing
corruption and sweeping human rights abuses by its soldiers. American officials
are hesitant to share intelligence with the Nigerian military because they
contend it has been infiltrated by Boko Haram, an accusation that has prompted
indignation from Nigeria.
“We don’t have a foundation for what I would call a good partnership right now,”
said a senior military official with the United States Africa Command, or
Africom, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized
to speak publicly on the matter. “We want a relationship based on trust, but you
have to be able to see yourself. And they’re in denial.”
The United States was so concerned about Boko Haram infiltration that American
officials have not included raw data in intelligence they have provided Nigeria,
worried that their sources would be compromised.
In retaliation, Nigeria in December canceled the last stage of American training
of a newly created Nigerian Army battalion. There has been no resumption of the
training since then.
Some Nigerian officials expressed dismay that relations between the two
militaries have frayed to this point.
“For a small country like Chad, or Cameroon, to come to assist” the Americans,
“that is disappointing,” said Ahmed Zanna, a senator from Nigeria’s north. “You
have a very good and reliable ally, and you are running away from them,” he
said, faulting the Nigerian government. “It is terrible. I pray for a change of
government.”
The tensions have been mounting for years. In their battle against Boko Haram,
Nigerian troops have rounded up and killed young men in northern cities
indiscriminately, rampaged through neighborhoods and, according to witnesses and
local officials, killed scores of civilians in a retaliatory massacre in a
village in 2013.
Refugees said the soldiers set fire to homes, shot residents and caused panicked
people to flee into the waters of Lake Chad, where some drowned.
Last summer, the United States blocked the sale of American-made Cobra attack
helicopters to Nigeria from Israel, amid concerns about Nigeria’s protection of
civilians when conducting military operations. That further angered the Nigerian
government, and Nigeria’s ambassador to the United States responded sharply,
accusing Washington of hampering the effort.
“The kind of question that we have to ask is, let’s say we give certain kinds of
equipment to the Nigerian military that is then used in a way that affects the
human situation,” James F. Entwistle, the American ambassador to Nigeria, told
reporters in October, explaining the decision to block the helicopter sale. “If
I approve that, I’m responsible for that. We take that responsibility very
seriously.”
All the while, Boko Haram has continued its ruthless push through Nigeria,
bombing schools and markets, torching thousands of buildings and homes, and
kidnapping hundreds of people.
Now stretching into its sixth year, the militant group’s insurgency has left
thousands of people dead, the overwhelming majority of them civilians. It killed
an estimated 2,000 civilians in the first six months of 2014 alone, Human Rights
Watch said, and many of Nigeria’s major cities — Abuja, Kano, Kaduna — have been
bombed.
American officials say that while it is unclear exactly how much territory Boko
Haram effectively controls in Nigeria, the group is, at the very least,
conducting attacks across almost 20 percent of the country.
“They reportedly control a majority of the territory of Borno State,” in
northeastern Nigeria, “and a significant portion of the border areas with
Cameroon and Chad,” said Lauren Ploch Blanchard, a specialist in African Affairs
with the Congressional Research Service.
Even before the Nigerians canceled the training program in December, American
military officials were stewing when soldiers showed up without proper
equipment. Given the nation’s oil wealth, the Americans attributed the deficits
to chronic corruption on the part of Nigerian commanders, saying that they had
pocketed the money meant for their soldiers.
“It’s not like they don’t have the money,” the senior Africom official said.
“There are some things that we require to be good partners. The first of which
is a commitment on the part of the Nigerian government to support its own army.
They have a responsibility to provide adequate pay, to take care of their
people, and to equip them.”
“None of those empty allegations have ever been proved,” said Chris Olukolade, a
spokesman for the Nigerian military. “The Nigerian military has always been
receptive of honest support or assistance from well-meaning friends or partners.
No one should however seek to use this security situation to usurp our
sovereignty as a nation.”After Boko Haram made international headlines last
April by kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls, the United States flew several
hundred surveillance drone flights over the northeast to search for the girls,
but those missions were unsuccessful. When the Pentagon did come up with leads,
American military officials said, and turned that information over to Nigerian
commanders to pursue, they did nothing with it.
The frustrations between the two sides has broad implications for the fight
against Boko Haram, officials said, including making it harder for other
international partners who have joined the effort. “We are trying to work
closely with the French and the Americans in support of the Nigerian military
and government against Boko Haram,” a senior British diplomat said. “A rift
between one of our two partners and the Nigerians is not a good thing.”
Adam Nossiter contributed reporting from Maiduguri, Nigeria.
Rifts Between U.S. and Nigeria Impeding Fight Against Boko Haram,
JAN 24, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/world/rifts-between-us-and-nigeria-impeding-fight-against-boko-haram.html
War Is Exploding Anew in Ukraine;
Rebels Vow More
JAN. 23, 2015
By RICK LYMAN
and ANDREW E. KRAMER
DONETSK, Ukraine — Unexpectedly, at the height of the Ukrainian
winter, war has exploded anew on a half-dozen battered fronts across eastern
Ukraine, accompanied by increasing evidence that Russian troops and Russian
equipment have been pouring into the region again.
A shaky cease-fire has all but vanished, with rebel leaders vowing fresh
attacks. Civilians are being hit by deadly mortars at bus stops. Tanks are
rumbling down snowy roads in rebel-held areas with soldiers in unmarked green
uniforms sitting on their turrets, waving at bystanders — a disquieting echo of
the “little green men” whose appearance in Crimea opened this stubborn conflict
in the spring.
The renewed fighting has dashed any hopes of reinvigorating a cease-fire signed
in September and honored more in name than in fact since then. It has also put
to rest the notion that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, would be so
staggered by the twin blows of Western sanctions and a collapse in oil prices
that he would forsake the separatists in order to foster better relations with
the West.
Instead, blaming the upsurge in violence on the Ukrainians and
the rise in civilian deaths on “those who issue such criminal orders,” as he did
on Friday in Moscow, Mr. Putin is apparently doubling down, rather than backing
down, in a conflict that is now the bloodiest in Europe since the Balkan wars.
With the appearance in recent weeks of what NATO calls sophisticated Russian
weapons systems, newly emboldened separatist leaders have abandoned all talk of
a cease-fire. One of the top leaders of the Russian-backed rebels said Friday
that his soldiers were “on the offensive” in several sectors, capitalizing on
their capture of the Donetsk airport the day before.
“We will attack” until the Ukrainian Army is driven from the border of the
Donetsk region, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic
rebel group, said in comments carried by Russian news agencies.
“On our side, we won’t make an effort to talk about a cease-fire,” Mr.
Zakharchenko said. “Now we’re going to watch how Kiev reacts. Kiev doesn’t
understand that we can attack in three directions at once.”
For long-suffering residents of Donetsk, who have lived with constant shelling,
chronic electricity failures and, since September, a cutoff of pensions and
other government support payments from Kiev, the resumption of military action
came as little surprise.
“It was pure illusion that peace could be achieved now,” said Enrique Menendez,
a former advertising agency owner who now runs a humanitarian relief operation
in eastern Ukraine. “None of the sides has yet achieved its goals. The only real
surprise is that the fighting started in the winter instead of the spring.”
While the separatist forces now seem ascendant, analysts have
little doubt that their fortunes are tied to the level of support provided by
Moscow. In August, on the verge of defeat, they were rescued by an all-out
Russian incursion that turned the tide on the battlefield and drove Kiev to the
bargaining table. The same dynamics appear to be at work now, Ukraine and NATO
say, with Russian troops in unmarked uniforms apparently joining the separatists
in the assaults on Ukrainian positions.
While Moscow denies any role in the fighting, Sergei A. Markov, a political
analyst close to the Kremlin, says it is not surprising that Mr. Putin has
continued to support the rebellious republics of southeast Ukraine even in the
face of economic pressure from the West. In fact, the intensity of the standoff,
he said, has undermined the influence of Mr. Putin’s liberal economic advisers
in government, rendering their voices almost mute in debates over Ukraine.
Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow,
echoed that point. “The influence of economists as a whole has completely
vanished,” Mr. Sonin said of the Kremlin. “The country is on a holy mission.
It’s at war with the United States, so why would you bother about the small
battleground, the economy?”
Mr. Putin is said to watch his approval ratings closely, and they have risen to
great heights recently with the annexation of Crimea and the tensions with the
West over eastern Ukraine. In this respect, said Igor Shuvalov, a first deputy
prime minister of Russia, continued fighting in Ukraine may actually help to
solidify Mr. Putin politically at a time of deteriorating economic conditions.
“When a Russian feels any foreign pressure, he will never give up his leader,”
Mr. Shuvalov said Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We
will survive any hardship in the country, eat less food, use less electricity.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Markov said, the stresses of juggling a war and the deepening
economic crisis in Russia have left Mr. Putin noticeably preoccupied,
“We have much less time than before,” he said of a recent meeting between
experts and Mr. Putin in which he participated. “It was clear to me that the
thoughts of Mr. Putin were somewhere else, but not in our room.”
The slow grind of combat in southeastern Ukraine that began in April has now
killed at least 5,086 soldiers and civilians, the United Nations reported on
Friday. The world body bases its estimate on official morgue and hospital
reports, and analysts believe that it understates the total death toll. The
report said that 262 of the deaths occurred in the past nine days, making that
period the deadliest since the September cease-fire.
Signs of the new belligerence were evident across eastern Ukraine on Friday.
Indeed, fighting has also flared beyond Donetsk, including a road and rail hub
northeast of the city, as well as a strategic checkpoint near Luhansk, the other
main rebel stronghold. Rebel commanders claimed on Friday to have captured the
village of Krasny Partizan, north of Donetsk, which would be another setback for
government forces.
In another worrisome sign, the rebels were not the only ones taking a more
aggressive tone.
Speaking to security officials in Kiev after the loss of Donetsk airport,
President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine expressed frustration with the broken
peace process.
“If the enemy does not want to abide by the cease-fire, if the enemy doesn’t
want to stop the suffering of innocent people in Ukrainian villages and towns,
we will give it to them in the teeth,” he said.
Any major offensive by either side would clearly be a repudiation of the
cease-fire signed on Sept. 5 and endorsed by the group’s main sponsor, Russia.
That agreement, always shaky, began to break down several weeks ago. It had set
the de facto borders of the rebel republic to encompass about one-third of the
Donetsk region of Ukraine.
Mr. Zakharchenko has threatened to expand his territory before, but his warnings
have not typically prompted much alarm. Now, with the war raging and his troops
on the march, more attention is being paid.
As recently as a few weeks ago, peace seemed to be slowly seeping into the
blood-soaked fields of eastern Ukraine. Russia seemed occupied with the drop in
oil prices and the ruble’s collapse. The shaky cease-fire was holding. Language
on both sides was noticeably more conciliatory.
That all seems a long time ago now on the war-rattled streets of Donetsk, where
a main hospital was hit by a shell this week.
If one were to ask the remaining residents of Donetsk, even those who have been
loyal to the Kiev government, whether they supported this new rebel advance,
they would say yes, Mr. Menendez said — and not necessarily for political
reasons.
“They just want to push the front lines out of the city,” he said, “to stop the
shelling on them.”
David M. Herszenhorn and Andrew Roth contributed reporting from Moscow, and
Alison Smale from Davos, Switzerland.
A version of this article appears in print on January 24, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: War Is Exploding Anew in Ukraine; Rebels
Vow More.
War Is Exploding Anew in Ukraine; Rebels Vow More,
JAN 23, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/europe/ukraine-violence.html
For King Salman, New Saudi Ruler,
a Region in Upheaval
JAN. 23, 2015
The New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
As he takes over in Saudi Arabia, King Salman faces a list of
foreign policy challenges that rival any a Saudi ruler has grappled with in
decades.
To the immediate south, the government of impoverished Yemen collapsed even as
the previous monarch lay dying. To the north, Saudi Arabia’s effort to overthrow
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria instead helped create a menacing spillover,
with fighters from the extremist Islamic State recently carrying out a bloody
suicide bombing on the Saudi border with Iraq.
To the west, an old ally Egypt, once wobbling toward chaos, appears to be
stabilizing under a new military regime, not least due to Saudi financial
support estimated at a whopping $12 billion.
Most important, to the east, Iran looms as an ever-larger threat. The Islamic
Republic has been steadily expanding its influence within the Shiite Muslim
crescent from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, and seems on the verge of
repairing its abysmal relations with the West if it can conclude a deal over its
disputed nuclear program.
The late King Abdullah made aggressive, often uncharacteristically open foreign
policy moves to influence events in each of those arenas, particularly in the
last two months when the kingdom forced world oil prices down by half. That and
other Saudi foreign policy efforts since 2011 have all had one aim: to try to
restore the old, autocratic order in the Middle East after a series of popular
uprisings pushed one Arab country after another into chaos.
The death of a monarch will not alter that goal.
“The recent shift in Saudi regional and foreign relations is not how outspoken
it has become, but how muscular it has become,” said Fawaz A. Gerges, a
professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. “It has
long prided itself on acting behind the scenes.”
The chain of events in the Middle East pushed Saudi into the open, particularly
as the generation of post-colonial, dictatorial governments that had survived
for decades tumbled one after another — first Iraq, then Tunisia, Egypt and
Libya, while Syria erupted in flames. It has spent an estimated $25 billion
trying to turn back political change.
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who helped keep Iran in check, fell to the
American invasion in 2003. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who like the Saudis
valued stability over change, was driven from office in 2011. Syria, once a
stalwart ally, was drawn into Iran’s orbit as Mr. Assad relied heavily on Tehran
to put down a popular uprising. On the Arabian Peninsula, Riyadh felt compelled
to dispatch its military to help suppress a Shiite uprising in Bahrain.
Saudi Arabia felt exposed, especially because many of the region’s revolutions
brought to power the Muslim Brotherhood, and in Syria fueled the rise of the
Islamic State, which declared its goal of establishing a Muslim caliphate. Both
struck at the ruling Saud dynasty’s claim of being the sole embodiment of Sunni
Islamic rule.
“The Saudis are trying to reassert the state system in the region,” said Eugene
L. Rogan, the director of the Middle East Center at St. Antony’s College,
Oxford. “They are very concerned about having an Islamic alternative that is
trying to trump the Saudi claim to being ruled by the Quran. To have someone
declaring themselves a caliph is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the
Saudi monarchy.”
Riyadh only recently repaired a serious rift with Qatar over its support for
Muslim Brotherhood groups in the Arab world.
Iran, the bastion of Shiite Islam, represents another alternative version of the
faith, but that rivalry has been around for 1,000 years. As Iranian political
and military influence has grown in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and now Yemen,
however, Riyadh has felt it needed to act.
Lacking the military means to sway events in Syria, although Riyadh did support
and fund anti-Assad rebels, Saudi Arabia instead turned to the oil weapon in
order to try to influence Syria’s two main backers, Iran and Russia, some
analysts said.
As worldwide demand softened, Saudi Arabia continued pumping, even as prices
tumbled to around $50 from more than $100.
To maintain its own social spending, including $130 billion in benefits pledged
to help ward off an uprising at home, the kingdom needs an oil price of $100 per
barrel. But given its foreign reserves of around $730 billion, analysts said it
could hold out for a few years with lower prices. Moscow and Tehran, both
stalwart backers of Syria, are already suffering.
Riyadh is hoping to reach some deal with Iran on its influence in Iraq and
Syria, as well as Moscow on the latter. In the past, such attempts resulted only
in deals on oil, analysts said. On the oil front, the main goal of Saudi Arabia
is to maintain its global market share and to undermine the development of
alternative sources and technology, they said.
“Saudi oil policy will continue as it is regardless of the leadership,'” said
John Sfakianakis, the Riyadh-based Middle East director for the Ashmore Group,
an investment fund. “They can endure this for quite some time.”
At home, the Saud family has maintained social peace through a combination of
draconian punishments for those challenging its conservative doctrines and
lavish spending on social benefits.
But the current situation in the region, analysts suggested, is the worst
constellation of political and economic turmoil facing any monarch in 50 years.
When King Faisal seized the throne in 1964 by deposing his own brother, the
treasury was bare and across the region Arab nationalist adherents of the
Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, including some in the Saudi military,
sought the death of kings.
“Salman has plenty of challenges, but what he has at home is a relatively stable
domestic political situation,” said F. Gregory Gause III, the head of the
international affairs department and a Saudi specialist at Texas A & M
University.
Riyadh will remain a strong supporter of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has
restored military rule in Sunni Egypt.
“They like him because they like the Egyptian military, they see it as a
stabilizing force,” said Khalid al-Dakhil, a political-science professor and
political analyst in Riyadh. “The Saudis and the Egyptian military are against
the idea of revolution to start with, especially popular revolution.”
Saudi Arabia has not been drawn directly into the Arab uprisings in Tunisia,
which is relatively stable, nor Libya, although that may yet occur. Its main
problem is right next door in Yemen.
Militiamen from the Houthis, a Zaydi sect of Shiite Islam but also traditional
rulers of Yemen, are on the verge of seizing power. Given the fact that the
current fighters are backed by Iran and modeled themselves on Hezbollah in
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia cut off the $4 billion it had been providing annually to
the pro-American government.
But Qaeda militants control large chunks of the south, where Sunni Muslims
predominate. So the Saudis will ultimately have to choose a new ally where all
are flawed. “There is no political force in Yemen that can stabilize the
situation there,” said Mr. Dakhil.
The Saudis have long relied on the United States as their military umbrella,
although that relationship soured after King Abdullah felt that President Obama
was ignoring the region, or at least Saudi concerns. According to a leaked
diplomatic memo, in 2008 King Abdullah urged the United States to weigh military
action against Iran to “cut off the head of the snake.”
The Saudis are concerned about Washington coming to terms with Iran, and Riyadh,
like Israel, relishes the split between Congress and the White House over more
sanctions. And overall, their interests tend to diverge, especially when it
comes to fighting Al Qaeda and other extremist organizations, which receive some
of their funding from Saudi sources.
“I think the Saudis and the Americans have developed the habit of coexisting
with their disagreements,” said Mr. Dakhil.
That too, was an attitude that emerged under King Abdullah and will likely
endure. “The default setting for the Saudis is always the status quo,” said Mr.
Rogan.
Correction: January 23, 2015
An earlier version of this article misidentified the president of Syria. He is
Bashar al-Assad, not Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father and a former president.
For King Salman, New Saudi Ruler, a Region in Upheaval,
NYT, JAN 23, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/middleeast/for-king-salman-new-saudi-ruler-a-region-in-upheaval.html
New King in Saudi Arabia Unlikely
to Alter Oil Policy
JAN. 23, 2015
The New York Times
By STANLEY REED
LONDON — The death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia early Friday
is unlikely to deter the desert kingdom from maintaining a high level of oil
production despite the recent sharp drop in prices, analysts said.
Saudi Arabia’s policy results from a consensus of the kingdom’s leadership and
energy experts, and it will not be easy to abandon, longtime observers of Saudi
Arabia say.
“There is no near-term reason to modify the kingdom’s position,” said Sadad
al-Husseini, a former executive vice president and board member of Saudi Aramco,
the national oil company, in a telephone interview.
Saudi Arabia is the most influential of the 12 OPEC members because it is by far
the largest producer and the only one with the ability to substantially vary
output to affect markets. In December, Saudi Arabia produced about 9.6 million
barrels per day, a slight decline from the previous month, but still about 10
percent of the world total.
Mr. Husseini, who now runs his own energy consulting firm, noted that Saudi
Arabia had only fully detailed its position to maintain its oil production quota
at a November meeting of OPEC in Vienna and that it was likely to wait for at
least several months to see how the policy played out.
“The kingdom is unlikely to reverse a policy that it has just announced with the
outcome still evolving,” he said.
The new ruler, King Salman, who was crown prince and a brother of Abdullah, said
in a televised address on Friday that the kingdom would not change course and
would maintain “the correct policies which Saudi Arabia has followed since its
establishment.” This month, Salman seemed to endorse the current oil policies in
a speech given on behalf of his brother.
The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose nearly 2 percent to
$49.45 a barrel in morning trading, reflecting uncertainty among traders about
the continuity of Saudi policy. But the market erased much of those gains after
the new king said that policy would remain unchanged. Prices have fallen about
60 percent since June amid a glut of production and slowing global demand.
During a long career as governor of Riyadh Province, the new king, who is 79,
established a reputation as a conciliator among rival factions in the huge royal
family, but he has experienced bouts of poor health in recent years. Simon
Henderson, a Middle East analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, said it was most likely that the reins of power, including over oil
policy, would be held by a group of advisers now forming around the king.
“Now that he is older, he is likely to take a more hands-off approach, relying
on a coterie of advisers, which will probably include several of his sons,” said
Mr. Henderson, who has written extensively on Saudi succession issues.
Salman moved quickly on Friday to begin forming that inner circle. He promoted
his son Mohammad bin Abdul Aziz bin Salman as chief of the royal court and
private adviser, replacing Abdullah’s chief adviser, Khalid al-Tuwaijri. The
king’s son is likely to be a central figure along with another son Abdel Aziz,
who is a senior official in the oil ministry.
Ali al-Naimi, who has been the kingdom’s oil minister for 19 years and has been
the chief proponent of Saudi Arabia’s policy of maintaining market share, will
remain in that position, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
So far, the Saudis and other Persian Gulf producers appear convinced that their
cutting production in an oversupplied market would only benefit other producers.
A long, stable period of relatively high prices has led producers, mostly
outside OPEC, to make huge investments in high cost endeavors like Canadian
heavy oil projects and deepwater fields in Brazil, as well as the shale projects
that have greatly increased production in the United States.
The Saudi and Gulf position is that it will take time for a shakeout to occur
among oil producers, which may eventually leave low-cost producers in the Middle
East in a stronger position.
“We expect the Saudi oil policy to remain consistent under King Salman,” said
Richard Mallinson, an analyst at Energy Aspects, a market research firm in
London, in an email to clients on Friday.
“While it would be within his power to make dramatic changes and reverse the
current policy, there are no indications at present that he might do so,” Mr.
Mallinson said. “Saudi Arabia is almost certain to remain focused on the
long-term and its future position in the global oil market.”
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has adjusted its production in what has been a
mostly successful effort to keep markets balanced and prices in the
$100-a-barrel range. But as prices began falling last summer, the Saudis and
their Gulf OPEC allies declined to intervene, contributing to the sharp drop.
Even Gulf oil officials in recent interviews have said they were surprised by
how far and how fast prices have fallen. The expectation around the Gulf appears
to have been that a floor would have been found in the range of $50 to $60 a
barrel.
Gulf oil officials say privately that Saudi Arabia and other OPEC producers have
not completely ruled out a cut that might help calm the markets. But the Persian
Gulf producers insist that a wide range of countries inside and outside OPEC
participate in any effort to absorb the glut in the markets — a long shot at
this point.
A clue to whether Saudi Arabia will change its stance under the new king will be
whether its long-serving oil minister, Mr. Naimi, remains in his role as the new
group around King Salman consolidates power.
In recent years, Mr. Naimi, who is 79, is said to have told friends that he
would prefer to retire and spend time on other pursuits like his role as
chairman of a science and technical university named after Abdullah. But he has
stayed on at the late king’s request.
Abdullah’s death might be an appropriate time for the kingdom to switch oil
leaders, although there is no obvious candidate to succeed Mr. Naimi.
There is little sign that Mr. Naimi faces near-term challenges at home. A
career Saudi oil man, he is seen as having a rare combination of industry
knowledge and the political savvy to manage the royal family and other
constituencies in the kingdom.
Nonetheless, lower prices and falling income are not good news for an oil
minister. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies like Kuwait and the United Arab
Emirates have surprised many observers by not trimming production in the face of
a glut, as has been their practice in the past.
Declining to play the role of swing producer inevitably makes Mr. Naimi a target
of anger both inside and outside of OPEC, as oil companies halt planned projects
and lay off workers and as oil-producing countries see their government coffers
shrink.
The stress on Mr. Naimi, who is usually unflappable, was evident at the November
OPEC meeting, when he snapped at at least one journalist asking about the oil
market and declined to answer questions during the traditional interview session
before the start of the gathering.
While the Gulf producers may have substantial reserve assets to cushion the
sharp falls of income, countries like Venezuela and to a lesser extent Algeria,
Iran and Nigeria will be squeezed if low prices persist.
New King in Saudi Arabia Unlikely to Alter Oil Policy,
JAN 23, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/business/international/king-abdullahs-death-unlikely-to-upset-saudi-oil-goals-analysts-say.html
N.S.A. Tapped
Into North Korean Networks
Before Sony Attack, Officials Say
JAN. 18, 2015
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
and MARTIN FACKLER
WASHINGTON — The trail that led American officials to blame North
Korea for the destructive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November
winds back to 2010, when the National Security Agency scrambled to break into
the computer systems of a country considered one of the most impenetrable
targets on earth.
Spurred by growing concern about North Korea’s maturing capabilities, the
American spy agency drilled into the Chinese networks that connect North Korea
to the outside world, picked through connections in Malaysia favored by North
Korean hackers and penetrated directly into the North with the help of South
Korea and other American allies, according to former United States and foreign
officials, computer experts later briefed on the operations and a newly
disclosed N.S.A. document.
A classified security agency program expanded into an ambitious effort,
officials said, to place malware that could track the internal workings of many
of the computers and networks used by the North’s hackers, a force that South
Korea’s military recently said numbers roughly 6,000 people. Most are commanded
by the country’s main intelligence service, called the Reconnaissance General
Bureau, and Bureau 121, its secretive hacking unit, with a large outpost in
China.
The evidence gathered by the “early warning radar” of software painstakingly
hidden to monitor North Korea’s activities proved critical in persuading
President Obama to accuse the government of Kim Jong-un of ordering the Sony
attack, according to the officials and experts, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity about the classified N.S.A. operation.
Mr. Obama’s decision to accuse North Korea of ordering the largest destructive
attack against an American target — and to promise retaliation, which has begun
in the form of new economic sanctions — was highly unusual: The United States
had never explicitly charged another government with mounting a cyberattack on
American targets.
Mr. Obama is cautious in drawing stark conclusions from intelligence, aides say.
But in this case “he had no doubt,” according to one senior American military
official.
“Attributing where attacks come from is incredibly difficult and slow,” said
James A. Lewis, a cyberwarfare expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington. “The speed and certainty with which the
United States made its determinations about North Korea told you that something
was different here — that they had some kind of inside view.”
For about a decade, the United States has implanted “beacons,” which can map a
computer network, along with surveillance software and occasionally even
destructive malware in the computer systems of foreign adversaries. The
government spends billions of dollars on the technology, which was crucial to
the American and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, and documents
previously disclosed by Edward J. Snowden, the former security agency
contractor, demonstrated how widely they have been deployed against China.
But fearing the exposure of its methods in a country that remains a black hole
for intelligence gathering, American officials have declined to talk publicly
about the role the technology played in Washington’s assessment that the North
Korean government had ordered the attack on Sony.
The extensive American penetration of the North Korean system also raises
questions about why the United States was not able to alert Sony as the attacks
took shape last fall, even though the North had warned, as early as June, that
the release of the movie “The Interview,” a crude comedy about a C.I.A. plot to
assassinate the North’s leader, would be “an act of war.”
Dinner in Pyongyang
The N.S.A.’s success in getting into North Korea’s systems in recent years
should have allowed the agency to see the first “spear phishing” attacks on Sony
— the use of emails that put malicious code into a computer system if an
unknowing user clicks on a link — when the attacks began in early September,
according to two American officials.
But those attacks did not look unusual. Only in retrospect did investigators
determine that the North had stolen the “credentials” of a Sony systems
administrator, which allowed the hackers to roam freely inside Sony’s systems.
In recent weeks, investigators have concluded that the hackers spent more than
two months, from mid-September to mid-November, mapping Sony’s computer systems,
identifying critical files and planning how to destroy computers and servers.
“They were incredibly careful, and patient,” said one person briefed on the
investigation. But he added that even with their view into the North’s
activities, American intelligence agencies “couldn’t really understand the
severity” of the destruction that was coming when the attacks began Nov. 24.
In fact, when, Gen. James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence,
had an impromptu dinner in early November with his North Korean counterpart
during a secret mission to Pyongyang to secure the release of two imprisoned
Americans, he made no mention of Sony or the North’s growing hacking campaigns,
officials say.
In a recent speech at Fordham University in New York, Mr. Clapper acknowledged
that the commander of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, Kim Yong-chol, with
whom he traded barbs over the 12-course dinner, was “later responsible for
overseeing the attack against Sony.” (General Clapper praised the food; his
hosts later presented him with a bill for his share of the meal.)
Asked about General Clapper’s knowledge of the Sony attacks from the North when
he attended the dinner, Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for the director of national
intelligence, said that the director did not know he would meet his intelligence
counterpart and that the purpose of his trip to North Korea “was solely to
secure the release of the two detained U.S. citizens.”
“Because of the sensitivities surrounding the effort” to win the Americans’
release, Mr. Hale said, “the D.N.I. was focused on the task and did not want to
derail any progress by discussing other matters.” But he said General Clapper
was acutely aware of the North’s growing capabilities.
Jang Sae-yul, a former North Korean army programmer who defected in 2007,
speaking in an interview in Seoul, said: “They have built up formidable hacking
skills. They have spent almost 30 years getting ready, learning how to do this
and this alone, how to target specific countries.”
Still, the sophistication of the Sony hack was such that many experts say they
are skeptical that North Korea was the culprit, or the lone culprit. They have
suggested it was an insider, a disgruntled Sony ex-employee or an outside group
cleverly mimicking North Korean hackers. Many remain unconvinced by the efforts
of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to answer critics by disclosing some of
the American evidence.
Mr. Comey told the same Fordham conference that the North Koreans got “sloppy”
in hiding their tracks, and that hackers periodically “connected directly and we
could see them.”
“And we could see that the I.P. addresses that were being used to post and to
send the emails were coming from I.P.s that were exclusively used by the North
Koreans,” he said. Some of those addresses appear to be in China, experts say.
The skeptics say, however, that it would not be that difficult for hackers who
wanted to appear to be North Korean to fake their whereabouts. Mr. Comey said
there was other evidence he could not discuss. So did Adm. Michael S. Rogers,
the N.S.A. director, who told the Fordham conference that after reviewing the
classified data he had “high confidence” the North had ordered the action.
A Growing Capability
North Korea built its first computer with vacuum tubes in 1965, with engineers
trained in France. For a brief time, it appeared ahead of South Korea and of
China, which not only caught up but also came to build major elements of their
economic success on their hardware and software.
Defectors say that the Internet was first viewed by North Korea’s leadership as
a threat, something that could taint its citizens with outside ideas.
But Kim Heung-kwang, a defector who said in an interview that he helped train
many of the North’s first cyberspies, recalled that in the early 1990s a group
of North Korean computer experts came back from China with a “very strange new
idea”: Use the Internet to steal secrets and attack the government’s enemies.
“The Chinese are already doing it,” he quoted one of the experts as saying.
Defectors report that the North Korean military was interested. So was the
ruling Workers’ Party, which in 1994 sent 15 North Koreans to a military academy
in Beijing to learn about hacking. When they returned, they formed the core of
the External Information Intelligence Office, which hacked into websites,
penetrated fire walls and stole information abroad. Because the North had so few
connections to the outside world, the hackers did much of their work in China
and Japan.
While perhaps a coincidence, the failure, which lasted about 10 hours, began
after President Obama said the U.S. would respond to an act of “cybervandalism”
against Sony Pictures.
Chinese Annoyance With North Korea Bubbles to the Surface
Chinese Annoyance With North Korea Bubbles to the Surface
A retired general’s scathing account of North Korea as a recalcitrant ally
headed for collapse and unworthy of China’s support revealed how far relations
between the two countries have sunk.
According to Mr. Kim, the military began training computer “warriors” in earnest
in 1996 and two years later opened Bureau 121, now the primary cyberattack unit.
Members were dispatched for two years of training in China and Russia. Mr. Jang
said they were envied, in part because of their freedom to travel.
“They used to come back with exotic foreign clothes and expensive electronics
like rice cookers and cameras,” he said. His friends told him that Bureau 121
was divided into different groups, each targeting a specific country or region,
especially the United States, South Korea and the North’s one ally, China.
“They spend those two years not attacking, but just learning about their target
country’s Internet,” said Mr. Jang, 46, who was a first lieutenant in a
different army unit that wrote software for war game simulations.
Mr. Jang said that as time went on, the North began diverting high school
students with the best math skills into a handful of top universities, including
a military school specializing in computer-based warfare called Mirim
University, which he attended as a young army officer.
Others were deployed to an “attack base” in the northeastern Chinese city of
Shenyang, where there are many North Korean-run hotels and restaurants. Unlike
the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the cyberforces can be used
to harass South Korea and the United States without risking a devastating
response.
“Cyberwarfare is simply the modern chapter in North Korea’s long history of
asymmetrical warfare,” said a security research report in August by
Hewlett-Packard.
An Attack in Seoul
When the Americans first gained access to the North Korean networks and
computers in 2010, their surveillance focused on the North’s nuclear program and
its leadership, as well as efforts to detect attacks aimed at United States
military forces in South Korea, said one former American official. (The German
magazine Der Spiegel published an N.S.A. document on Saturday that provides some
details of South Korea’s help in spying on the North.) Then a highly destructive
attack in 2013 on South Korean banks and media companies suggested that North
Korea was becoming a greater threat, and the focus shifted.
“The big target was the hackers,” the official said.
That attack knocked out almost 50,000 computers and servers in South Korea for
several days at five banks and television broadcasters.
The hackers were patient, spending nine months probing the South Korean systems.
But they also made the mistake seen in the Sony hack, at one point revealing
what South Korean analysts believe to have been their true I.P. addresses. Lim
Jong-in, dean of the Graduate School of Information Security at Korea
University, said those addresses were traced back to Shenyang, and fell within a
spectrum of I.P. addresses linked to North Korean companies.
The attack was studied by American intelligence agencies. But after the North
issued its warnings about Sony’s movie last June, American officials appear to
have made no reference to the risk in their discussions with Sony executives.
Even when the spear-phishing attacks began in September — against Sony and other
targets — “it didn’t set off alarm bells,” according to one person involved in
the investigation.
The result is that American officials began to focus on North Korea only after
the destructive attacks began in November, when pictures of skulls and gruesome
images of Sony executives appeared on the screens of company employees. (That
propaganda move by the hackers may have worked to Sony’s benefit: Some employees
unplugged their computers immediately, saving some data from destruction.)
It did not take long for American officials to conclude that the source of the
attack was North Korea, officials say. “Figuring out how to respond was a lot
harder,” one White House official said.
David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and Martin Fackler from Seoul, South
Korea. Nicole Perlroth contributed reporting from San Francisco.
N.S.A. Tapped Into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack,
Officials Say,
JAN. 18, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/world/asia/nsa-tapped-into-north-korean-networks-before-sony-attack-officials-say.html
Why I Won’t Serve Israel
JAN. 11, 2015
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
By MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER
TEL AVIV — “WHAT are you,” he asked, “a leftist?”
We were both wearing the surplus United States Marines uniforms given to
prisoners at Israeli Military Jail No. 6.
“It depends how you define ‘left,’ ” I said.
“Don’t get clever with me. Why are you here?”
“I didn’t want to be part of a system whose main task is the violent occupation
of millions of people.”
“In other words: You love Arabs, and don’t care about Israeli security.”
“I think the occupation undermines all of our security, Palestinians’ and
Israelis’.”
“You’re betraying your people,” he said.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Me? Desertion.”
There is a growing chasm between Israeli rhetoric and reality. In the discourse
of Israel’s Knesset and media, the Israel Defense Forces represent a “people’s
army.” Refusal to serve is portrayed by politicians and pundits — many of whom
began their careers through service in elite units — as treacherous and
marginal. This rhetoric becomes the common wisdom: A popular bumper stickers
reads, “A real Israeli doesn’t dodge the draft.”
The outrage is disproportionate. Rarely do more than a few hundred Jewish
Israelis publicly refuse to serve each year in protest against Israel’s
occupation of the Palestinian territories. The shrill condemnation of refusers
is thus an indication of the establishment’s panic.
Last year brought something of a surge in refusals. Open letters of refusal were
published by a group of high schoolers, a group of reservists, veterans of the
elite intelligence Unit 8200 and alumni and former staff members of the
prestigious Israel Arts and Sciences Academy. All were denounced by politicians
and in the media: In September, the Knesset’s opposition leader, the Labor
member Isaac Herzog, blasted the letter from Unit 8200 as “insubordination.”
Aggression toward refusers is widespread. When I accompanied a refuser named Udi
Segal to his draft station during the Gaza war this summer, we were met by a
group draped in Israeli flags and chanting, “Udi, you’re a traitor! Go live in
Gaza!” After signing the scholars’ letter, Raya Rotem, a former literature
teacher whose husband was killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, received a
threatening phone call. And a friend of 50 years severed ties with her.
The idea that the “real Israelis” serve and those who refuse are “traitors” is a
false dichotomy. As Ms. Rotem told me, “Israeli patriotism today means resisting
anything which frames the occupation as normal.” It’s also inaccurate: The
reality is that a majority of Israeli citizens do not serve in the military,
including Palestinian citizens of Israel, or the “fifth column,” as they are
often branded, and the ultra-Orthodox, or “leeches,” as they’ve been called.
The largest group is the 1.7 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. Members of
this community are not required by law to enlist, and only a tiny fraction
volunteer (about 100 Christians and a few hundred Muslims in 2013). In 2014, the
defense forces began sending “voluntary draft notices” to Christian Arab
citizens, inciting Palestinian protests at Hebrew University and in Tel Aviv.
Even among the Druze, an Arabic-speaking minority whose male members have been
drafted since 1956 and whose Arab and Palestinian identities are often played
down or denied, dissent is rising. Omar Saad, a soft-spoken viola player, is the
most prominent of a rising number of Druze refusers. He spent the first half of
2014 in and out of jail. In his letter of refusal, he wrote, “How can I bear
arms against my brothers and people in Palestine?”
The next biggest group of nonserving Israelis are the Haredim, ultra-Orthodox
Jews. Historically, they have been exempted from service as long as they were
enrolled full-time in a yeshiva. Recently, though, a coalition formed in the
Knesset over a proposal to draft the Haredim — which resulted in a
500,000-strong public demonstration. Most Haredim cite religious reasons for
refusing, but the Haredi refusenik Uriel Ferera, recently released after six
months in jail, gave the occupation as a primary factor in his decision.
There are also thousands of “gray refusers,” who find quieter ways to get out of
the army, mostly by seeking mental health exemptions, known as a “Profile 21.”
Like most public refusers in recent years, I was released after a month in
military jail with a Profile 21.
Most of the prisoners with me in Military Jail No. 6 were Mizrahim (Jews of
Middle Eastern origin), Ethiopians and Russians. Many of these members of
Israel’s most marginalized Jewish communities told me of their intention to “get
out on 21,” despite the risk this entailed for their future: Employment and
educational opportunities often depend on completing military service.
In a recent interview, the Israeli author Amos Oz urged politicians to act as
“traitors,” and make peace. But the type of traitors Mr. Oz wishes for —
visionary ministers, peace-minded military men — are nonexistent. The most
left-wing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s potential challengers in
Israel’s coming election is the same Mr. Herzog who attacked the 8200 refusers.
Peace won’t come from the next Knesset, or the one after that. But some hope for
a less violent, more decent future lies with the real traitors, the disregarded
millions of Israeli citizens who have refused to serve in the army.
The reasons for not serving may differ between a Palestinian youth from Acre and
a Haredi from Beit Shemesh, between an 8200 veteran and an Ethiopian immigrant,
between me and the deserter in Military Jail No. 6, but there is a deeper
consensus: We all refuse to see the government as a moral guide and military
service as sacrosanct. As the Israeli government leads us further from peace,
and the army faithfully executes its violent orders, this is the kind of
treachery we need most.
Moriel Rothman-Zecher is working on a book about his experience
refusing to serve in the Israel military.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 12, 2015, on page A19 of the
New York edition with the headline: Why I Won’t Serve Israel.
Why I Won’t Serve Israel,
NYT,
JAN 11, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/opinion/why-i-wont-serve-israel.html
In New Era of Terrorism,
Voice From Yemen Echoes
JAN. 10, 2015
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE
For more than five years now, as Western terrorism investigators
have searched for critical influences behind the latest jihadist plot, one name
has surfaced again and again.
In the failed attack on an airliner over Detroit in 2009, the stabbing of a
British member of Parliament in London in 2010, the lethal bombing of the Boston
Marathon in 2013 and now the machine-gunning of cartoonists and police officers
in Paris, Anwar al-Awlaki has proved to be a sinister and durable inspiration.
Two of those four attacks took place after Mr. Awlaki, the silver-tongued,
American-born imam who joined Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, was killed by a C.I.A.
drone strike in September 2011.
In the age of YouTube, Mr. Awlaki’s death — or martyrdom, in the view of his
followers — has hardly reduced his impact. The Internet magazine Inspire, which
he oversaw along with another American, Samir Khan, has continued to spread not
just militant rhetoric but also practical instructions on shooting and
bomb-making.
In effect, Mr. Awlaki has become a leading brand name in the world of armed
jihad. He operated mainly in English, the language of global commerce, and has
helped attract a diverse group of volunteers. The four attacks were carried out
by a Nigerian banker’s son, a British college student, two Chechen immigrants to
Massachusetts and two Frenchmen of Algerian background. His pronouncements
continue to provide a supposed religious rationale for thuggish acts vehemently
denounced by the overwhelming majority of Muslims and Islamic authorities.
Mr. Awlaki also became the face in the West of Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula, or A.Q.A.P., as it is widely known. Against the odds, the group,
which was formally created in early 2009 by Yemeni and Saudi militants, has
supplanted Al Qaeda’s old core in Pakistan as the terrorist organization most
feared by the United States and now, perhaps, by Europe as well.
Since it split with Al Qaeda a year ago, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
or ISIL, has seized the international spotlight, first with territorial gains
and more recently with beheadings of journalists and other hostages. But if
A.Q.A.P. was behind the machine-gunning in Paris of cartoonists and editors at
the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, then Al Qaeda may have regained the
publicity advantage in its rancorous rivalry with its offshoot.
The evidence that Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch, and the late Mr. Awlaki, had a role
in preparations for the Paris assault has accumulated steadily since Wednesday’s
shootings. The two gunmen, identified by the French police as the brothers Saïd
and Chérif Kouachi, seemed determined to attach the A.Q.A.P.-Awlaki label to
their shooting spree.
An eyewitness heard the brothers yell to passers-by at the shooting scene to
“tell the media that this is Al Qaeda in Yemen.” They reportedly told the driver
of a car they hijacked that their attack was in revenge for Mr. Awlaki’s death.
Intelligence officials and eyewitnesses said the older brother, Saïd Kouachi,
34, had spent time in Yemen between 2009 and 2012, getting firearms training
from the Qaeda branch and, according to some reports, meeting with Mr. Awlaki.
According to a Yemeni journalist, Mohamed al-Kibsi, Saïd Kouachi roomed briefly
in the Yemeni capital, Sana, with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow
up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 with explosives hidden in
his underwear. Mr. Abdulmutallab, who is now serving a life sentence in federal
prison, told the F.B.I. that his plot was approved and partly directed by Mr.
Awlaki.
Continue reading the main story
And Chérif Kouachi, 32, in a brief telephone interview with a French television
reporter before he was killed with his brother on Friday, firmly associated the
attack with A.Q.A.P. and its former propagandist.
“I, Chérif Kouachi, was sent by Al Qaeda in Yemen,” the younger Mr. Kouachi said
in audio later broadcast by the BFMTV channel in France. “I went there, and it
was Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki who financed me.” François Molins, the Paris
prosecutor, said at a news conference later that day that Chérif Kouachi had
visited Yemen in 2011.
Shortly before being killed in police shootouts, Chérif Kouachi and a man
believed to have killed a police officer spoke on the phone with a French
television station.
Also on Friday, a member of A.Q.A.P.’s “media committee” sent journalists a
statement explicitly claiming responsibility for the brothers’ attack. “The
leadership of A.Q.A.P. directed the operation, and they have chosen their target
carefully as revenge for the honor of the prophet,” the statement said. Another
A.Q.A.P. leader who regular speaks for the organization, Harith al-Nadari,
issued an audio statement praising the attack, though he did not claim
explicitly that the group was behind it.
None of the statements explained why the brothers had allowed nearly three years
to pass after their return from Yemen before they attacked the newspaper.
“Awlaki’s name still pops up pretty often in cases of Western radicals, but
given the amount of time since his death, it is unusual to see a case where the
suspects actually met him,” said J. M. Berger, a fellow with the Brookings
Institution’s project on American relations with the Islamic world who has
studied Mr. Awlaki. “It reflects the long lead time on this plot. We may never
know if this attack was formulated back then, or if the targets or particulars
changed over time.”
American Origins
Mr. Awlaki was born in New Mexico in 1971 while his Yemeni father was a graduate
student, went with his family to Yemen at the age of 7 and returned to the
United States at 19 to study engineering at Colorado State University. He
discovered a knack for preaching and spent eight years as a highly successful
imam at mosques in Denver, San Diego and Washington, where he preached at the
Capitol and was a luncheon speaker at the Pentagon.
He came under F.B.I. scrutiny briefly in 1999 for contacts with known militants,
and again in 2002 when agents discovered that three of the Sept. 11, 2001,
hijackers had worshiped in his mosques. The national Sept. 11 commission raised
the possibility that Mr. Awlaki was part of a support network for the hijackers,
but the F.B.I. concluded that he had no prior knowledge of the plot.
In 2002, Mr. Awlaki moved to London, where he became a popular speaker and
flirted more openly with militancy. After moving to Yemen in 2004, he began to
espouse violent jihad against the United States and other countries he labeled
enemies of Islam.
By 2009, when Mr. Awlaki was linked to Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist
who killed 13 people in a shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., the F.B.I., as well as
the authorities in Canada and Britain, found that the cleric’s calls for
violence were turning up on the laptops of nearly everyone they charged with
plotting jihadist attacks. His website and Facebook page had attracted a large
following across the English-speaking world, and scores of foreigners traveled
to Yemen to meet him.
“Awlaki was a huge magnet,” said Morten Storm, a Danish man who visited the
cleric in Yemen, first as a convinced militant, and later, after growing
disillusioned with Islam, as an agent of Danish, British and American
intelligence agencies. Mr. Storm said the leader of A.Q.A.P., Nasir al-Wuhayshi,
a former secretary to Osama bin Laden who now is the second-ranking figure in
the global Qaeda network, remained a revered figure among jihadists.
“If you want old-school Al Qaeda, the place to go is still Yemen,” Mr. Storm
said in a telephone interview.
In the case of Major Hasan, who asked his views on the religious justification
for killing American soldiers, Mr. Awlaki declined to answer directly, sending
two noncommittal replies. But by late 2009, the cleric had joined A.Q.A.P. and
was helping to prepare Mr. Abdulmutallab for his airliner attack.
‘Operational’ Terrorist
After the underwear bomb fizzled, President Obama, judging that the cleric was
now an “operational” terrorist, sought and received a Justice Department legal
opinion declaring that killing him without a trial, despite his American
citizenship, would violate neither the law nor the Constitution. During a
17-month manhunt, Mr. Awlaki called for the murder of cartoonists who insulted
the Prophet Muhammad and helped A.Q.A.P. send bombs in printer cartridges to the
United States on cargo planes; a Saudi tip foiled the plan. But the cleric’s
followers kept getting arrested, including Roshonara Choudhry, who said, after
listening to more than 100 hours of Mr. Awlaki’s lectures, that she had stabbed
a member of Parliament who had voted in favor of the Iraq war.
The drone strike that killed Mr. Awlaki also killed Samir Khan and two other
Qaeda operatives, and two weeks later, another American strike killed Mr.
Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, infuriating many Yemenis. Obama administration
officials have said the son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, also an American citizen,
was not the intended target of the strike.
By then, in the fall of 2011, chaos in the wake of the ouster of Yemen’s
longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh, had allowed Al Qaeda to seize large swaths
of territory in the country’s south. In 2012, Yemeni forces, and American drones
strikes, drove A.Q.A.P. out of the towns it had captured.
But in recent months, as a Shiite militia known as the Houthis seized power in
Sana and elsewhere across Yemen, A.Q.A.P. has gained strength by rallying Sunni
tribesmen against the Houthis. The growing violence, including numerous A.Q.A.P.
bombings, underscores the failure of Yemeni and American efforts, including the
drone campaign, to dismantle the group.
Dashed Hopes
American officials had hoped that the deaths of Mr. Awlaki and Mr. Khan, who
were viewed as part of an A.Q.A.P. cell focused on attacking the United States
and Europe, would curb the group’s ambitions. But A.Q.A.P. attempted a second
underwear bombing of an airliner in 2012; it was foiled because the would-be
bomber was an infiltrator sent by Saudi and Western intelligence agencies.
In April 2013, investigators found that the two Tsarnaev brothers, the Chechens
accused in the Boston Marathon bombing, had been deeply influenced by Mr. Awlaki
and had gotten their bomb-making directions from Inspire magazine.
The killings of A.Q.A.P.’s main English-language propagandists did not slow down
its robust media production. In fact, A.Q.A.P. put out English-language videos
and audio messages at a far faster rate in 2013 and 2014 than in earlier years,
according to IntelCenter, a company that tracks jihadist media. Inspire magazine
has continued to appear, and a 2013 issue called for the killing of Charlie
Hebdo’s editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, among others. The Kouachi brothers sought
out Mr. Charbonnier by name when they invaded the newspaper, and he was among
the first to be killed.
Meanwhile, Mr. Awlaki’s voluminous work retains a huge following on YouTube and
Islamic sites.
Most of the tens of thousands of Awlaki videos on YouTube feature his earlier,
less controversial talks, which made him a best-seller on CD. But his later
calls for attacks on America can also be found on the site without difficulty.
According to the company, YouTube prohibits material intended to incite
violence, and it is removed when flagged by the site’s users and reviewed by the
company’s paid staff. Some 14 million videos that violated YouTube’s rules were
taken down in 2014. But company officials have wrestled with the free-speech
implications of censoring material that may have news value or shed light on an
important phenomenon like Islamist radicalism.
The graphic footage of the Kouachi brothers gunning down a French police
officer, for instance, may technically violate YouTube’s standards but has been
played on television around the world. “YouTube has clear policies prohibiting
violent content or content intended to incite violence,” the company said, “and
we remove videos violating these policies when flagged by our users. We also
terminate any account registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist
organization.”
Mr. Berger, the Brookings fellow, said that while there had been a shift in
online attention among jihadists from clerics to fighters, “most of Awlaki’s
work is carefully constructed to be evergreen — it doesn’t become dated.”
“It will continue to be important for years,” he added.
Reporting was contributed by Rukmini Callimachi in Paris, Kareem
Fahim in Cairo, and Shuaib Almosawa in Sana, Yemen.
A version of this article appears in print on January 11, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: In New Era of Terrorism, Voice From
Yemen Echoes as France Declares ‘War’.
In New Era of Terrorism, Voice From Yemen Echoes,
NYT, JAN 10, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/world/middleeast/
in-new-era-of-terrorism-voice-from-yemen-echoes-as-france-declares-war.html
Dozens Said to Have Died
in Boko Haram Attack
JAN. 9, 2015
The New York Times
By ADAM NOSSITER
DAKAR, Senegal — Refugees in northeast Nigeria fleeing an attack
by the Islamist group Boko Haram have spoken of dozens of civilian deaths and
scores of houses destroyed in an already hard-hit fishing village near Lake
Chad.
Local officials and witnesses who have fled to the regional capital, Maiduguri,
described a days-long rampage of shooting, looting and arson. The scorched-earth
tactics they described were consistent with those used previously by Boko Haram
during an insurgency now entering its sixth year.
In a single week from Dec. 27, the Nigeria Security Tracker kept by the Council
on Foreign Relations counted about 56 people killed by Boko Haram in the region,
and 40 abductions. That tally, relatively light in a conflict that has killed
thousands, nonetheless indicates the terrorist group’s modus operandi — a
ferocious policy designed to stamp out the few elements of state authority that
exist in the remote region.
No witness or official was able to give a precise number of the dead in the
village, Baga. They said the killing began last Saturday, after the militants
overpowered Nigerian soldiers at a military outpost there. Then the fighters
turned on the residents.
“They are following them to the bush, whether it is a man or a boy, they shoot
them,” Alhaji Baba Abahassan, the Baga District head, said from Maiduguri. “Our
people ran into the water. They are breaking houses and shops. They break each
and every house and shop.”
“After taking the goods, they put fire, and burn this place,” he said. “Even
now, if they see a man, they will kill you. They killed many people, but nobody
has the exact number. If I say this is the exact number of killed, I am telling
lies.”
The latest attack on Baga is the second time in less than two years that the
fishing town near the borders with Niger and Chad has been sacked. The first
time, in April 2013, the destruction and killing were the work of the military,
according to witnesses and human rights groups. Some 200 people were killed then
by enraged soldiers, witnesses said, and thousands of homes were burned by the
military.
Boko Haram has now captured or sacked many of the small towns in Maiduguri’s
orbit, and appears to be encircling the city of several million, whose
population has swelled with thousands of refugees. It did much the same thing
last summer, but confounded expectations by refraining from making a move on the
city, northeastern Nigeria’s regional hub.
It is not clear whether the group will do so now. Nor is it known what dominion
it exercises over the villages and small towns its fighters have attacked. The
governor of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the bustling capital, said the
Islamists have imposed the crudest form of Shariah, or Islamic law, on these
places.
The governor, Kashim Shettima, is among those who expect Boko Haram to continue
to pressure Maiduguri. “The Boko Haram strategy is to strangulate the city, and
make it the capital of their caliphate,” he said in an interview from the
Nigerian capital, Abuja. “They have captured all the outlying towns. The Boko
Haram is better armed than ever before.”
The group’s easy defeat of the Nigerian soldiers at Baga last week would seem to
support the governor’s point.
A survivor of the attack, Hauwa’u Bukar, said the assailants were methodical and
vicious. “When they neutralized the soldiers, they proceeded to Baga and started
killing everyone on sight,” said Ms. Bukar, whose husband died in the attack.
“There was no pity in their eyes. Even old men and children were killed.”
A correspondent for The New York Times contributed reporting from Maiduguri,
Nigeria.
A version of this article appears in print on January 10, 2015, on page A6 of
the New York edition with the headline: Dozens Said to Have Died in Boko Haram
Attack.
Dozens Said to Have Died in Boko Haram Attack,
NYT,
JAN 9, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/world/africa/
dozens-said-to-have-died-in-boko-haram-attack.html
French Police Storm Hostage Sites,
Killing Gunmen
Charlie Hebdo Suspects Dead in Raid;
Hostage Taker in Paris Is Also Killed
JAN. 9, 2015
The New York Times
By ANDREW HIGGINS
and DAN BILEFSKY
PARIS — The French police killed three terrorists on Friday in
raids, ending three days of bloodshed that shook a nation struggling with
Islamic extremists.
At least 17 French citizens were killed by terrorists in the chaos, first in a
massacre at a satirical newspaper that some Muslims believed insulted the
Prophet Muhammad, and then in a roadside shooting on Thursday and two standoffs
on Friday that left the gunmen and four of their hostages dead.
The raids, led by heavily armed elite police units, unfolded nearly
simultaneously on the eastern edge of Paris and north of the city — at a
printing plant where the two brothers of Algerian descent suspected in the
newspaper attack held a hostage, and at a kosher supermarket where an armed
associate of African origin had lined the place with explosives and threatened
to kill the shoppers at his mercy.
In a solemn address to the nation Friday evening, President François Hollande
called this week’s violence, the worst spasm of terrorism in France since the
1954-62 Algerian War, the work of “madmen, fanatics” who had created “a tragedy
for the nation that we were obliged to confront.”
During the assault on the Hyper Cacher supermarket, the police units were
sprayed with bullets, said Christophe Tirante, a senior police official.
The police also said the supermarket had been booby-trapped, making it
especially hard to get to the hostage taker.
Rocco Contento, a spokesman for the Unité S.G.P. police union in Paris, said the
police had been helped by someone hiding in a cold meat locker in the
supermarket who had texted helpful messages. Four of the hostages were killed,
but the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said that all had died when the
terrorist stormed the supermarket in the early afternoon, not in the police
raid.
Denouncing the attack on the store as a “terrifying act of anti-Semitism,” Mr.
Hollande saluted the security forces for their “courage, bravura and
efficiency,” but warned that France was “not finished with the threats of which
it is the target.”
Also far from over are the shock waves created by a drama that sharply escalated
longstanding worries about France’s impoverished immigrant suburbs and the
radicalization of disenfranchised young people on society’s margins. And many
questions remain about the failure of the French security apparatus to disrupt
the actions of militants who had links to operatives working with Al Qaeda in
Yemen. The militants had been known to the police for years and had been closely
monitored by the intelligence services.
Al Qaeda in Yemen, also known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, did not
issue an official statement on the events in France. But a member claiming to
speak for the group sent The New York Times a statement saying that the attacks
had been orchestrated through its leadership in Yemen. “The target was in France
in particular because of its obvious role in the war on Islam and oppressed
nations,” the statement said.
Continue reading the main story
Concerns about further attacks were underscored by remarks on Friday from Harith
al-Nadhari, a militant cleric who speaks for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The Associated Press reported that he had issued a recording on the group’s
Twitter feed that denounced the “filthy” French, called the dead militants
heroes and warned France, “You will not enjoy peace as long as you wage war on
God and his prophets and fight Muslims.”
The events are already resonating in French politics and could further
strengthen a surging far-right party, the National Front, which has railed
against what it says is the failure of immigrants, Muslims in particular, to
integrate into French society.
But the raids on Friday — one on the printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goële, a
village near Charles de Gaulle Airport 25 miles north of Paris, and the other on
the kosher store in Porte de Vincennes at the eastern edge of the city — eased a
dark and at times panicked mood that had gripped the public and politicians
since the massacre of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper on Wednesday.
Fear that the crisis was slipping beyond the control of Mr. Hollande’s already
beleaguered Socialist government had stirred calls from some conservative
politicians for a state of emergency. There had also been several retaliatory
attacks on mosques and an explosion at a kebab shop in eastern France.
Mr. Hollande, denouncing racism and anti-Semitism, said the week’s mayhem had
“nothing to do with Islam” and described unity as the nation’s “best weapon.”
Saïd Kouachi, 34, the older of the two brothers suspected of carrying out the
attack on Charlie Hebdo, traveled to Yemen in 2011 and received training from Al
Qaeda’s affiliate there before returning to France, according to American
officials.
His younger brother, Chérif Kouachi, 32, a sometime pizza delivery man and
fishmonger, said he, too, had trained in Yemen. He had been arrested in France
in 2005 as he prepared to leave for Syria, the first leg of a trip he had hoped
would take him to Iraq; he was convicted three years later.
During the attack on the newspaper, the assailants identified themselves as part
of Al Qaeda in Yemen and shouted, “Allahu akbar,” meaning, “God is great.” Their
open embrace of Islam during an act of violence was seized on by those who had
been warning about what they called the gulf between Islam and the values of the
West.
The hostage taker at the supermarket was identified as Amedy Coulibaly, a
32-year-old Frenchman of African descent who had fatally shot a police officer
in the south of Paris on Thursday. He was a friend of the younger Kouachi
brother, Chérif.
The police said that both Mr. Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi were
followers of Djamel Beghal, a French-Algerian champion of jihad who was jailed
in 2001 for planning an attack on the American Embassy in Paris.
The police said Mr. Coulibaly had an accomplice, identified as Hayat
Boumeddiene, 26. Her whereabouts on Friday was unclear.
Alain Grignard, a senior Belgian counterterrorism official who has investigated
jihadist groups in France for decades, said in a telephone interview that, while
it was uncertain whether the attacks had been coordinated, it was clear that the
attackers had known each other and been part of the same network. He said their
training and expertise showed that they were “not kids from the poor,
working-class suburbs who just decided to do this.”
The attack in Porte de Vincennes appeared to have been calculated to distract
attention from the Kouachi brothers as they tried to avoid capture by the
police, who had been searching for them since Wednesday, Mr. Grignard said.
After a fruitless chase that extended into northern France and back toward
Paris, the police tracked the brothers early Friday to Dammartin-en-Goële. The
brothers, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and a grenade launcher, seized the
printing plant and took a hostage.
The police said the brothers had been located by helicopters with heat sensors.
Soon afterward, residents of Dammartin-en-Goële, a sleepy rural village of
8,000, saw what looked like commandos drop from helicopters on ropes.
Planes at Charles de Gaulle Airport nearby were advised to avoid certain
runways.
Officials ordered residents to stay indoors and close window shutters. Students
were locked down in local schools, and police officers sealed off all roads.
While the brothers took control of the printing plant, the crisis took an
unnerving turn when their associate, Mr. Coulibaly, seized hostages at the
kosher supermarket about 30 miles away.
Mr. Coulibaly, who the authorities said had gunned down a female police officer
on Thursday in Montrouge, a suburb south of Paris, threatened to kill his
hostages if the police attacked the Kouachi brothers.
The authorities said they believed Mr. Coulibaly was part of the same jihadist
network as the brothers, and issued photographs of him and Ms. Boumeddiene.
In a measure of the jitters pervading Paris during the sieges, the police
ordered shopkeepers on Rue des Rosiers, a street with many Jewish-owned
businesses, to close as a precaution. The French news media said the Grand
Synagogue of Paris had closed for security reasons, not hosting Shabbat services
for the first time since World War II.
In an effort to calm the rising alarm, Mr. Hollande sought to assure the public
that Paris remained safe. He walked, escorted by bodyguards, from his office at
the Élysée Palace in the center of the city to the nearby headquarters of the
Interior Ministry.
“France is going through a trying time,” he told officials at the ministry,
vowing to regain control after attacks he described as “the worst of the past 50
years.”
With helicopters circling Dammartin-en-Goële as a cold drizzle fell, the police
established contact with the brothers in the printing plant and began
negotiations.
“They said they wanted to die as martyrs,” said Mohamed Douhane, a senior police
officer. “They are behaving like two determined terrorists who are certainly
physically exhausted, but who want to escape with one last big show of force and
heroic resistance. They feel trapped and know that their last hours have come.”
The brothers also called BFMTV, a French broadcaster, and Chérif Kouachi told
the station that he had been sent on a mission by Al Qaeda in Yemen.
Apparently responding to American officials who said his older brother, Saïd,
had met in Yemen with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Qaeda chief who was
later killed in a drone strike, Chérif told the station: “I was sent, me, Chérif
Kouachi, by Al Qaeda of Yemen. I went over there, and it was Anwar al-Awlaki who
financed me.”
Mr. Coulibaly, at the supermarket, also spoke with the broadcaster but said he
was from the Islamic State, the militant group that has seized parts of Iraq and
Syria. He said his attack had been coordinated with the Kouachi brothers, BFMTV
reported.
After hours of unsuccessful negotiations, the police decided to take the
offensive, starting raids at about 5 p.m., just as dusk fell.
Mr. Contento, the police union spokesman, said both Kouachi brothers were killed
in an assault that lasted just a few minutes.
“The two suspects have been killed, and the hostage has been freed,” he said.
“The special counterterrorism forces located where the terrorists are and broke
down the door. They took them by surprise.”
Correction: January 9, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the year that Chérif
Kouachi was arrested for his involvement in a Paris terrorist cell. It was 2005,
not 2008. Because of an editing error, the earlier version referred incorrectly
to the victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Twelve people, including
journalists and police officers, were killed, not 12 journalists.
Reporting was contributed by David Jolly from Dammartin-en-Goële, France, and
Maïa de la Baume, Aurelien Breeden, Nicola Clark and Rukmini Callimachi from
Paris.
A version of this article appears in print on January 10, 2015, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: French Gunmen Die in Raids.
French Police Storm Hostage Sites, Killing Gunmen
Charlie Hebdo Suspects Dead in Raid; Hostage Taker in Paris Is Also Killed,
NYT, 9.1.2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html
A Timeline of Threats and Acts of Violence
Over Blasphemy and Insults to Islam
JAN. 7, 2015
The New York Times
By RICK GLADSTONE
The assault on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French
newspaper that has repeatedly satirized religion, was one of the deadliest in a
history of violent responses and threats against the news media over the mockery
of Islam.
The responses have included the assassinations of journalists and writers and
attacks on the institutions that published their work. The responses also have
broadened in recent years to include bloggers and the makers of Internet videos.
People of many faiths have committed violent acts in the name of religion and
issued threats over insults. In Islam, though, there are strict prohibitions on
the rendering of images of the Prophet Muhammad and other religious depictions.
In a number of countries where Islam is the prevailing religion, such insults
are crimes. Some are punishable by death.
Here are some of the notable attacks over the past few decades:
FEBRUARY 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the supreme leader of Iran,
issues a death sentence against Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,”
for blaspheming Islam, forcing Mr. Rushdie into hiding. Others are also targeted
for roles in publishing translations of the book, including Japanese and Italian
translators who are stabbed, one fatally.
JUNE 1992 Farag Fouda, a columnist for the Egyptian weekly magazine October, is
fatally wounded by an assassin from a Muslim extremist group over Mr. Fouda’s
outspoken opposition to religious fundamentalism.
NOVEMBER 2004 Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker and television host, is killed on
an Amsterdam street by a Moroccan Dutchman to avenge what the killer regarded as
Mr. Van Gogh’s anti-Islamic work. Mr. Van Gogh had collaborated with Ayaan Hirsi
Ali, a Somali refugee-turned-Dutch politician, on “Submission: Part 1,” a short
film in which verses of the Quran were written on the bodies of naked women to
protest their treatment by men. Ms. Hirsi Ali received police protection after
the film was shown on Dutch television; Mr. Van Gogh had refused such
protection.
SEPTEMBER 2005 The publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad in
Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, inspire a wave of other newspapers —
including Charlie Hebdo — to reprint the cartoons, provoking more death threats
against the cartoonists and others deemed responsible.
SEPTEMBER 2006 Masked gunmen abduct and behead Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, the
editor in chief of Al Wifaq, a Sudanese newspaper, after he angered Islamists by
publishing an article about the Prophet Muhammad.
SEPTEMBER 2012 “Innocence of Muslims,” a vulgar American-made video about
Muhammad that was spread via the Internet, leads to waves of violent protests
against United States embassies around the world, and is considered a
contributing factor in the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya,
that killed four Americans, including the ambassador.
Shreeya Sinha contributed reporting.
A Timeline of Threats and Acts of Violence Over Blasphemy and
Insults to Islam,
NYT, Jan 7, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/middleeast/
perceived-anti-islam-insults-in-the-media-have-often-led-to-retributions-and-threats.html
Terrorists Strike
Charlie Hebdo Newspaper in Paris,
Leaving 12 Dead
JAN. 7, 2015
By DAN BILEFSKY
and MAÏA de la BAUME
PARIS — The police organized an enormous manhunt across the Paris
region on Wednesday for three suspects they said were involved in a brazen and
methodical midday slaughter at a satirical newspaper that had lampooned Islam.
The terrorist attack by masked gunmen on the newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, left 12
people dead — including the top editor, prominent cartoonists and police
officers — and was among the deadliest in postwar France. The killers escaped,
traumatizing the city and sending shock waves through Europe and beyond.
Officials said late Wednesday that two of the suspects were brothers. They were
identified as Said and Chérif Kouachi, 34 and 32. The third suspect is Hamyd
Mourad, 18. News reports said the brothers, known to intelligence services, had
been born in Paris, raising the prospect that homegrown Muslim extremists were
responsible.
Early Thursday, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor said that Mr. Mourad had
walked into a police station in Charleville-Mézières, about 145 miles northeast
of Paris, and surrendered.
“He introduced himself and was put in custody,” said the spokeswoman, Agnès
Thibault-Lecuivre.
The assault threatened to deepen the distrust of France’s large Muslim
population, coming at a time when Islamic radicalism has become a central
concern of security officials throughout Europe. In the space of a few minutes,
the assault also crystallized the culture clash between religious extremism and
the West’s devotion to free expression. Spontaneous rallies expressing support
for Charlie Hebdo sprung up later in the day in Paris, throughout Europe and in
Union Square in New York.
Officials and witnesses said at least two gunmen had carried out the attack with
assault weapons and military-style precision. President François Hollande of
France called it a display of extraordinary “barbarism” that was “without a
doubt” an act of terrorism. He declared Thursday a national day of mourning.
He also raised the terror alert for the Île-de-France region, which includes
Paris, to its highest level, saying several terrorist attacks had been thwarted
in recent weeks as security officials here and elsewhere in Europe have grown
increasingly wary of the return of young citizens from fighting in Syria and
Iraq.
The French authorities put some schools on lockdown for the day; added security
at houses of worship, news media offices and transportation centers; and
conducted random searches on the Paris Métro.
The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said that according to witnesses, the
attackers had screamed “Allahu akbar!” or “God is great!” during the attack,
which the police characterized as a “slaughter.”
Corinne Rey, a cartoonist known as Coco, who was at the newspaper office during
the attack, told Le Monde that the attackers had spoken fluent French and said
that they were part of Al Qaeda.
An amateur video of the assailants’ subsequent gunfight with the police showed
the men shouting: “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad. We have killed Charlie
Hebdo!” The video, the source of which could not be verified, also showed the
gunmen killing a police officer as he lay wounded on a nearby street.
The victims at Charlie Hebdo included some of the country’s most popular and
iconoclastic cartoonists. One, the weekly’s editorial director, Stéphane
Charbonnier, had already been receiving light police protection after earlier
threats, the police and Mr. Molins said. An officer assigned to guard Mr.
Charbonnier and the newspaper’s offices was among the victims.
As news of the assault spread, there was an outpouring of grief mixed with
expressions of dismay and demonstrations of solidarity for free speech.
By the evening, not far from the site of the attack in east Paris, an estimated
35,000, young and old, gathered at Place de La République. Some chanted,
“Charlie! Charlie!” or held signs reading, “I am Charlie” — the message posted
on the newspaper’s website.
Vigils of hundreds and thousands formed in other cities around France and
elsewhere.
Parisians discussed what the terrorist attack in the heart of the city could
mean for France and its large Muslim population.
Video by Quynhanh Do and Stefania Rousselle on Publish Date January 7, 2015.
Photo by Thibault Camus/Associated Press.
Mr. Molins said that two men armed with AK-47 rifles and wearing black masks had
forced their way into the weekly’s offices, at 10 Rue Nicolas-Appert in the 11th
Arrondissement, at about 11:30 a.m. They opened fire at people in the lobby
before making their way to the newsroom on the second floor, interrupting a
staff meeting and firing at the assembled journalists.
The attackers then fled outside, where they clashed three times with the police.
They then drove off in a black Citroën and headed north on the right bank of
Paris. During their escape, prosecutors said, they crashed into another car and
injured its female driver before robbing another motorist and driving off in
that person’s vehicle. The police said that the black Citroën was found
abandoned in the 19th Arrondissement.
The precision with which the assailants handled their weapons suggested that
they had received military training, the police said. During the attack, which
the police said lasted a matter of minutes, several journalists hid under their
desks or on the roof, witnesses said.
One journalist, who was at a weekly office meeting during the attack and asked
that her name not be used, texted a friend after the shooting: “I’m alive. There
is death all around me. Yes, I am there. The jihadists spared me.”
Treasured by many, hated by some and indiscriminate in its offensiveness,
Charlie Hebdo has long reveled in provoking.
In 2011, the office of the weekly was badly damaged by a firebomb after it
published a spoof issue “guest edited” by the Prophet Muhammad to salute the
victory of an Islamist party in Tunisian elections. It had announced plans to
publish a special issue renamed “Charia Hebdo,” a play on the word in French for
Shariah law.
Police said the dead included four celebrated cartoonists at the weekly,
including Mr. Charbonnier, known as Charb, Jean Cabut, Georges Wolinski and
Bernard Verlhac.
Mr. Charbonnier stoked controversy and drew the ire of many in the Muslim
community in 2006 when he republished satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
that had been published in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. His last cartoon
for Charlie Hebdo featured an armed man who appeared to be a Muslim fighter with
a headline that read: “Still no attacks in France. Wait! We have until the end
of January to offer our wishes.”
Michael J. Morell, a former deputy director of the C.I.A. and now a consultant
to CBS News, said it was unclear whether the attackers had acted on their own or
been directed by organized groups. He called the motive of the attackers
“absolutely clear: trying to shut down a media organization that lampooned the
Prophet Muhammad.”
“So, no doubt in my mind that this is terrorism,” he said.
Mr. Morell added, “What we have to figure out here is the perpetrators and
whether they were self-radicalized or whether they were individuals who fought
in Syria and Iraq and came back, or whether they were actually directed by ISIS
or Al Qaeda.”
Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, one of France’s
largest, expressed horror at the assault. “We are shocked and surprised that
something like this could happen in the center of Paris. But where are we?” he
was quoted as saying by Europe1, a radio broadcaster.
“We strongly condemn these kinds of acts, and we expect the authorities to take
the most appropriate measures,” he said, adding, “This is a deafening
declaration of war.”
The attack comes as thousands of Europeans have joined jihadist groups in Iraq
and Syria, further fueling concerns about Islamic radicalism and terrorism being
imported. Those worries have been especially acute in France, where fears have
grown that militants are bent on retaliation for the government’s support for
the United States-led air campaign against jihadists with the Islamic State
group in Syria and Iraq.
Last month, Prime Minister Manuel Valls ordered hundreds of additional military
personnel onto the streets after a series of attacks across France raised alarms
over Islamic terror.
In Dijon and Nantes, a total of 23 people were injured when men drove vehicles
into crowds, with one of the drivers shouting an Islamic rallying cry. The
authorities depicted both drivers as mentally unstable. The attacks came after
violence attributed to “lone-wolf” attackers in London in 2013, in Canada in
October and last month in Sydney, Australia.
In September, fighters in Algeria aligned with the Islamic State beheaded Hervé
Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from Nice, and released a video
documenting the murder. Mr. Gourdel had been kidnapped after the Islamic State
called on its supporters to wage war against Europeans.
President Obama issued a statement condemning the killings. “Time and again, the
French people have stood up for the universal values that generations of our
people have defended,” he said.
“France, and the great city of Paris where this outrageous attack took place,
offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful
vision of these killers. We are in touch with French officials, and I have
directed my administration to provide any assistance needed to help bring these
terrorists to justice.”
Correction: January 7, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the abandoned car
believed to have been used by the gunmen, using information from the police. It
was found in the 19th Arrondissement, not the 20th.
Correction: January 9, 2015
An article on Thursday about the assault on the French satirical newspaper
Charlie Hebdo reversed, in some editions, the ages for Said and Chérif Kouachi,
brothers whom the authorities named as suspects in the attack. Said Kouachi is
34, and Chérif is 32. And because of an editing error, the article misidentified
the area covered by the terror alert that President François Hollande of France
raised to its highest level. It is the Île-de-France region, which includes
Paris, not all of France. (On Thursday, Mr. Hollande extended the top-level
terror alert to a second region, Picardy, as the manhunt for the Kouachis
continued.)
Aurelien Breeden and Laure Fourquet contributed reporting from
Paris, and Michael S. Schmidt from Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on January 8, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: Terrorists Strike Paris Newspaper, Leaving
12 Dead.
Terrorists Strike Charlie Hebdo Newspaper in Paris, Leaving 12
Dead,
NYT, JAN7, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html
More Sanctions on North Korea
After Sony Case
JAN. 2, 2015
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
The Obama administration doubled down on Friday on its allegation
that North Korea’s leadership was behind the hacking of Sony Pictures,
announcing new, if largely symbolic, economic sanctions against 10 senior North
Korean officials and the intelligence agency it said was the source of “many of
North Korea’s major cyberoperations.”
The actions were based on an executive order President Obama signed on vacation
in Hawaii, as part of what he had promised would be a “proportional response”
against the country. But in briefings for reporters, officials said they could
not establish that any of the 10 officials had been directly involved in the
destruction of much of the studio’s computing infrastructure.
In fact, most seemed linked to the North’s missile and weapons sales. Two are
senior North Korean representatives in Iran, a major buyer of North Korean
military technology, and five others are representatives in Syria, Russia, China
and Namibia.
The sanctions were a public part of the response to the cyberattack on Sony,
which was targeted as it prepared to release “The Interview,” a crude comedy
about a C.I.A. plot to kill Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader.
The administration has said there would be a covert element of its response as
well. Officials sidestepped questions about whether the United States was
involved in bringing down North Korea’s Internet connectivity to the outside
world over the past two weeks.
Perhaps the most noticeable element of the announcement was the administration’s
effort to push back on the growing chorus of doubters about the evidence that
the attack on Sony was North Korean in origin. Several cybersecurity firms have
argued that when Mr. Obama took the unusual step of naming the North’s
leadership — on Dec. 19 the president declared that “North Korea engaged in this
attack” — he had been misled by American intelligence agencies that were too
eager to blame a longtime adversary and allowed themselves to be duped by
ingenious hackers skilled at hiding their tracks.
But Mr. Obama’s critics do not have a consistent explanation of who might have
been culpable. Some blame corporate insiders or an angry former employee, a
theory Sony Pictures’ top executive, Michael Lynton, has denied. Others say it
was the work of outside hacking groups that were simply using the release of
“The Interview” as cover for their actions.
Both the F.B.I. and Mr. Obama’s aides used the sanctions announcement to argue
that the critics of the administration’s decision to attribute the attack to
North Korea have no access to the classified evidence that led the intelligence
agencies, and Mr. Obama, to their conclusion.
“We remain very confident in the attribution,” a senior administration official
who has been at the center of the Sony case told reporters in a briefing that,
under guidelines set by the White House, barred the use of the briefer’s name.
Still, the administration is clearly stung by the comparisons to the George W.
Bush administration’s reliance on faulty intelligence assessments about Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 American-led invasion of the
country. They note how rare it is for Mr. Obama, usually cautious on
intelligence issues, to blame a specific country so directly. But they continue
to insist that they cannot explain the basis of the president’s declaration
without revealing some of the most sensitive sources and technologies at their
disposal.
By naming 10 individuals at the center of the North’s effort to sell or obtain
weapons technology, the administration seemed to be trying to echo sanctions
that the Bush administration imposed eight years ago against a Macao bank that
the North Korean leadership used to buy goods illicitly and to reward loyalists.
President Bush, speaking to reporters one evening in the White House, argued
that those sanctions were the only ones that got the attention of Kim Jong-il,
whose son has ruled the country since his death in 2011.
In another sign of how Mr. Obama was seeking to punish individual leaders, the
executive order he signed gives the Treasury Department broad authority to name
anyone in the country’s leadership believed to be involved in illicit activity,
and to take action against the Workers’ Party, which has complete control of
North Korea’s politics.
In a statement, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew suggested that the sanctions
were intended not only to punish North Korea for the hacking of Sony — which
resulted in the destruction of about three-quarters of the computers and servers
at the studio’s main operations — but also to warn the country not to try
anything like it again.
“Today’s actions are driven by our commitment to hold North Korea accountable
for its destructive and destabilizing conduct,” Mr. Lew said. “Even as the
F.B.I. continues its investigation into the cyberattack against Sony Pictures
Entertainment, these steps underscore that we will employ a broad set of tools
to defend U.S. businesses and citizens, and to respond to attempts to undermine
our values or threaten the national security of the United States.”
Beyond the initial sanctions, the power of the president’s order might come from
its breadth and its use in the future. One senior official said the order would
allow the Treasury to impose sanctions on any person who is an official of the
North Korean government or of the Worker’s Party or anyone judged “controlled by
the North Korean government” or acting on its behalf.
Yet it is easy to overestimate the impact of sanctions. Six decades of efforts
to isolate North Korea have not stopped it from building and testing a nuclear
arsenal, launching terrorist attacks on the South, testing missiles or
maintaining large prison camps.
In addition, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the country’s main intelligence
organization, has long been under heavy sanctions for directing the country’s
arms trade, including the Proliferation Security Initiative, an effort started
by the Bush administration to intercept the sales of missiles and other arms.
Still, the Treasury’s statement on Friday that “many of North Korea’s major
cyberoperations run through R.G.B.” was more than has been said publicly by the
United States about how the North Koreans structure their cyberoperations. And
administration officials insisted again that the Sony attack “clearly crossed a
threshold,” in the words of one senior official, from “website defacement and
digital graffiti” to an attack on computer infrastructure.
Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on January 3, 2015, on page A1 of the
New York edition with the headline: More Sanctions on North Korea After Sony
Case.
More Sanctions on North Korea After Sony Case,
NYT, 2.1.2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/us/in-response-to-sony-attack-us-levies-sanctions-on-10-north-koreans.html
As Refugee Tide Swells,
Lebanon Plans a Visa Requirement
for Syrians
JAN. 2, 2015
The New York Times
By ANNE BARNARD
BEIRUT, Lebanon — For the first time since colonial powers carved
Syria and Lebanon into separate countries, Syrians will soon need visas to enter
Lebanon, the latest and most significant in a series of new measures by Syria’s
neighbors to try to control an overwhelming flow of refugees that appears
unlikely to end any time soon.
More than three million Syrians have fled their country during nearly four years
of war — with more than 1.1 million seeking refuge in Lebanon alone — creating
an enduring humanitarian, economic and political crisis that has put
extraordinary pressure on Syria’s neighbors, especially Lebanon, Turkey and
Jordan.
With no political settlement in sight that would allow the bulk of the refugees
to return home, neighboring countries are recasting their policies to recognize
the long-term nature of the challenge. Turkey has moved to better integrate the
more than one million Syrians it is hosting, granting access to education and
social services. But Lebanon and Jordan are moving in the opposite direction,
making it harder for Syrians to enter, and more difficult for them to work and
receive services once they arrive.
Lebanon’s announcement, which was a New Year’s Eve surprise to Syrians preparing
to bid good riddance to a year that was perhaps the deadliest in the war, comes
at a time when the United Nations says there are more refugees worldwide than at
any time since World War II. The wave of people fleeing war, oppression and
extreme poverty has overwhelmed regional governments and prompted humanitarian
organizations to press wealthier nations to take in larger numbers of refugees.
“Across the region, there are various measures being taken by host governments
that are restrictive on refugees,” said Ron Redmond, a senior spokesman for the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “We understand the reasons they
cite for doing this, but at the same time our job is to ensure the refugees
aren’t pushed back to someplace where they may be in danger.”
In Lebanon, a country of just four million citizens, in addition to the 1.1
million refugees registered with the United Nations there are an estimated
500,000 who are unregistered. (More than seven million have been internally
displaced in Syria.) The visa requirement is scheduled to begin Monday,
according to rules published by country’s General Security Agency, which handles
border controls and residency permits.
The new rule is a stark symbol of new divisions in the region, given the deep
historical ties between the two countries. But it is also an indication of the
weakened position of Syria, a country that long influenced Lebanon, sending in
troops during its smaller neighbor’s civil war in 1976 and going on to
politically dominate the country, maintaining tens of thousands of troops there
until 2005.
Syria still requires no visa for Lebanese citizens, a vestige of what was once a
no-visa regimen among the Arab countries. Some of those countries have erected
new entry barriers for one another’s citizens in recent years as conflict has
spread, introducing new economic, sectarian and political strains.
The measure will have an immediate impact on Syrians, for whom Lebanon is the
most popular escape route. Not counting border procedures, Beirut is just a
two-hour drive from Damascus, along a route still controlled by the government
and relatively secure.
In recent months, Lebanon has turned back a growing number of Syrians at the
border, on a relatively ad hoc basis, but refugees have still trickled through.
Some Syrians cross illegally along porous borders in the mountains, but a large
majority of refugees have entered at official crossing points, the United
Nations says.
Mr. Redmond said the United Nations refugee agency was studying the measure to
learn whether it affected the one million officially registered refugees already
in the country. But he added that a gradual tightening of entry requirements had
already had a marked effect.
The number of officially registered arrivals in Lebanon in November was down 75
percent from the summer, suggesting that many people were either turned away or
did not try to cross because they had heard of the new restrictions.
“We don’t know where they are going,” Mr. Redmond said. “But there have
certainly got to be a lot of desperate people.”
The visa announcement caused immediate consternation among those not registered.
Some are middle-class professionals who do not consider themselves in need of
refugee benefits and have relied on what up to now was an automatically granted
six-month residency permit that could be renewed. Others arrived illegally and
have not registered because they fear the authorities. Still others are Syrians
who travel between the two countries on regular family and work business. Long
before the war, hundreds of thousands of Syrians regularly worked as laborers in
Lebanon.
At a cafe sparkling with Christmas lights in West Beirut on New Year’s Eve, a
crowd of middle-class, antigovernment Syrians danced to Arabic songs. (Some were
beloved tunes by pop stars who have emerged during the war as government
supporters, but when it came to music, culture and nostalgia trumped politics.)
The party’s host paused to wonder whether it would be the last such gathering in
Beirut, which in addition to hosting many destitute refugees has also become a
hub of Syrian artists, doctors and activists.
“We don’t know if we will be here dancing next year,” he said. Asked where they
might go, he said, “We have no idea.”
The measure says Syrians must apply for one of several types of visas, such as
student, business and transit, but refugee was not listed among them. Another
route is to be sponsored by a Lebanese citizen.
The Lebanese authorities have also begun to crack down on expired residency
permits, anecdotal evidence suggests. There is political tension over the
refugees, who are straining schools and hospitals, camping in farm fields and,
because they are overwhelmingly Sunnis, threatening to upset Lebanon’s sectarian
balance if they stay permanently.
Refugees have a fraught place in Lebanese history: Palestinians who fled the war
over Israel’s founding in 1948, and their descendants, remain in impoverished
camps and were part of the volatile mix that set off the country’s long civil
war a generation ago.
Jordan has announced that it will no longer be able to provide health care for
the 623,000 registered refugees on its territory, Mr. Redmond said. (The total
number of Syrians in Jordan and Turkey, as in Lebanon, is believed to be much
higher than official numbers.) And while the Jordanian government says it has
not stopped unrestricted entry, in practice groups of refugees are periodically
stranded in a no man’s land on the border, in one recent case for months.
Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad and Mohammad Ghannam from Beirut; Rana
F. Sweis from Amman, Jordan; and Ceylan Yeginsu from Istanbul.
A version of this article appears in print on January 3, 2015, on page A8 of the
New York edition with the headline: As Refugee Tide Swells, Lebanon Plans a Visa
Requirement for Syrians.
As Refugee Tide Swells, Lebanon Plans a Visa
Requirement for Syrians,
NYT, 2.1.2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/world/
as-refugee-tide-swells-lebanon-plans-a-visa-requirement-for-syrians.html
Despite Thaw,
American Base at Guantánamo
Still Stings for Cubans
JAN. 1, 2015
The New York Times
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba — At a military checkpoint on the road that
approaches the American naval base here, one of three along the way, four Cuban
soldiers in pea-green fatigues, without guns, stood on duty last Sunday laughing
over a joke in the shade of an almond tree, beside a neatly cultivated flower
bed. A large sign declared the site “the first anti-imperialist trench.”
They stopped the few cars that approached and asked to see the special passes
required for access to Caimanera, the town that once served as the gateway to
the United States military base across Guantánamo Bay.
“Because this is an area of high sensitivity for defense, everyone needs a
pass,” said one of the soldiers, a first lieutenant named Gamboa, turning back a
reporter from The New York Times. Passes usually take 72 hours to approve, he
said, and on a Sunday it was certainly impossible to get one.
Despite the sudden thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba, the
base here remains a sore point for Cubans, a deeply felt grievance that the
Castros, first Fidel and now his brother Raúl, have long pointed to as a
stinging symbol of American imperialism.
A senior State Department official in Washington said that Cuban negotiators had
raised their government’s oft-repeated demand for the return of the base during
the secret talks that culminated in last month’s surprise announcement that the
two countries would re-establish full diplomatic relations.
“It’s logical that the Cubans would raise it,” the official said, adding,
however, that it did not become a focus of the talks. “These were more intensive
conversations than we’ve had in a long time, but it’s also true that Guantánamo
comes up all the time, even in our migration talks, as a principled issue for
the Cubans.”
Here in Guantánamo, a city of about 216,000 people, with a prosperous-looking
downtown and decrepit back streets, residents have repeatedly been reminded over
the years that they stand virtually face to face with the enemy.
“It’s a little bit delicate,” said Geny Jarrosay, 25, an art student who has
created several pieces based on the complex, sometimes tense relations between
the base and the city of Guantánamo, where he grew up. “Coexisting with it is
like having a person you don’t like living in your house for 50 years, and
you’ve gotten used to both the good and the bad.”
But the base gives Cuba, an island nation, a sort of de facto land border, and a
hostile one at that.
“We’re very conscious that it’s American territory even though it’s not,” Mr.
Jarrosay said. “It’s Cuban territory.”
For a video and photo project he completed this year, Mr. Jarrosay says he
obtained some dirt from the base — he won’t say how — and on a bus trip across
Cuba tossed it out the window a little bit at a time.
“It was like returning the soil to Cuba,” he said.
It might be said that the Guantánamo base is the last fruit of America’s
original sin in Cuba — its 1898 invasion in the midst of the island’s war of
independence from Spain. A peace treaty ending the Spanish-American War in 1898
installed the United States as the island’s administrator, which it remained
until 1902, when Washington allowed Cuba to govern itself.
Continue reading the main story
But the price was the hated Platt Amendment, a series of conditions written into
the Cuban Constitution that gave the United States sway over Cuban affairs and
the right to establish naval bases there. In 1903, the open-ended lease for the
base at Guantánamo was signed.
For many years, the city of Guantánamo and nearby towns like Caimanera were
closely linked to the base. Many residents worked there, and American troops
disported in the local brothels and bars.
But after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, the base became a symbol of
American highhandedness and a point of repeated friction. Cuba refuses to cash
the checks sent by the United States to pay the annual rent of $4,085.
When the Bush administration built a prison on the base to house captured
terrorism suspects after 9/11, Cuba strenuously objected. Later reports of
brutal treatment of prisoners there deepened Cuba’s ire.
After taking office in 2009 President Obama ordered the closing of the prison.
But he has not been able to carry out his pledge, and the prison remains a
bitter symbol of frustration and unfulfilled promises, and what many critics
call a stain on America’s reputation. Twenty-eight detainees were transferred
from the prison to other countries last year, but 127 remain.
Even after the prison is finally shut down, analysts say, it is unlikely that
the base will be returned to Cuba any time soon.
“This is an excellent moment to open up that question and ponder what that would
mean for the United States and Cuba,” said Jana K. Lipman, an associate
professor of history at Tulane University, who has written about the base. But
she said that the political risks of returning it were great, recalling the
experience of President Jimmy Carter when he negotiated the handover of the
Panama Canal in the 1970s.
“That was not a popular decision as far as public opinion was concerned,” Ms.
Lipman said. “There was a lot of political spillback that the president had to
deal with.”
Nearly all the people interviewed here, whether they supported the Cuban
government or opposed it, said the base should be returned to Cuba.
“It’s Cuban territory; it doesn’t belong to” the United States, said Iliana
Cotilla. She is a nurse who supplements her government salary by selling coffee
and snacks from the front of her house, a business newly allowed under Cuba’s
socialist system. “It’s a lack of respect to have that on our territory, to be
abusing and torturing people there.”
Periodic tensions aside, there is generally no day-to-day contact between Cubans
and the base, which is several miles away and out of sight of the city of
Guantánamo. The last two local residents who worked on the base retired in 2012.
A resident of Caimanera, who lives within the restricted zone that requires a
pass to enter, said that it was like living on the border between hostile
countries, describing a sort of militarized gated community.
Having a military base in the neighborhood does have its advantages, said the
man, who spoke anonymously for fear of the authorities. “It’s very calm, it’s
very controlled, and there is no crime or drugs,” he said. And residents get a
cash bonus for living there.
On a wooded hill just outside the city of Guantánamo, at a newly built tourist
overlook with a 10-foot-high viewing platform and a restaurant, Néver Pérez, 48,
and his wife, Licet Palomino, 45, gazed over Guantánamo Bay toward the base in
the distance.
Mr. Pérez, who is from Guantánamo but now lives in Orlando, Fla., having been a
resident of the United States for 14 years, said that he hoped the new opening
with the United States would lead to the return of the base. “If they have good
relations I think they will give it back,” he said, dressed in a red, white and
blue shirt patterned after the stars and stripes of the American flag.
For a small fee, a government-paid guide, Yunior Leyva, 31, provided binoculars
to visitors and pointed to what he said was a radar installation on top of a
hill within the base, with structures looking like giant white mushrooms.
Back in town, Clara Duany, 74, said that she worked on the base as a housekeeper
from 1956 to 1960. She said that during Fidel Castro’s guerrilla war against the
dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, she smuggled medicine from the base to the
rebels and had to take refuge on the base to escape capture by the government.
Today, she is famous here as La India, the unpaid mascot for the local baseball
team, the Indios del Guaso.
Ms. Duany said she felt no rancor toward the Americans despite the government’s
anti-imperialist sloganeering.
“If they call me I will go work there again,” she said. In the choppy English
she learned years ago on the base she said: “I liked every day. Everything. Yes,
too much.”
A version of this article appears in print on January 2, 2015, on page A4 of the
New York edition with the headline: Despite Thaw, American Base at Guantánamo
Still Stings for Cubans.
Despite Thaw, American Base at Guantánamo Still Stings for
Cubans,
NYT,
1.1.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/world/
despite-thaw-american-base-at-guantanamo-still-stings-for-cubans.html
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