Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

full disclosure one of my very first journalism gigs was working at the forward and i even wrote a takedown of a jpost columnist (who had been advocated for an IDF military coup) and jj came to the bullpen and gave me kudos for writing it. but i've pretty much switched over to tablet - primarily bc the old a&c editor at the forward (whom i think is great + i've written for a bunch) moved over to tablet and i think their arts + culture writing is much better than the forward. and idk in general even the political op-ed at tablet seem to be more diverse + interesting than the forward which has become sorta one-note on these topics (and there's for sure an anti-orthodox streak at the forward that tablet doesn't have).

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Thursday evening that there was “a possibility” that a terrorist bomb was responsible for the destruction of a Russian passenger plane that broke up last Saturday over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

Guardian leading with "Bomb placed in hold of doomed Russian plane, say reports"'

The reports in question being the BBC saying that an unnamed UK security source thinks based on 'chatter' there is a strong possibility that...etc.

Meduza, the Russian news site, is reporting that the black boxes from the plane have no data on them - possibly because they were not working or not turned on. No confirmation yet though.

looks like bad translation - they apparently contain no useful data, not no data.

Putin Suspends Russian Flights to Egypt Amid Security Fears

guess it wasn't a mechanical failure

http://www.france24.com/fr/urgent/20151106-crash-le-sinai-une-boites-noires-revele-quune-explosion-est-survenue-lors-vol-le-point?

"black box shows explosion"

well that was some quick blowback, way to go Vladimir

i assume putin will be under some political pressure at home to escalate based on this but i wonder if he has more room to maneuver around public opinion than the POTUS might have. it certainly seems like he wanted to deny that it was potentially terrorism for as long as possible - possibly bc he didn't want populist rage to force his hand in any particular direction.

Is it inconvenient for him that ISIS might be on some way be involved in this? Or are Russia now as gung-ho about fighting ISIS as they are about fighting the anti-Assad forces?

The Charlie Hebdo cartoon angering Russians.

lol

i wonder whether "assad's enemies are targeting us" or "yeah russian airplanes are shitty" is the worse story for them. but this whole story is a bit beyond me.

tbh, i think lack of regulation / corruption leading to the crash would be a bigger domestic problem for Putin . He has a lot of experience spinning terrorism.

The entire Romanian government was forced out of office this week because of the perception that corruption led to the nightclub fire. Not going to happen to Putin that quickly but it's arguably one of the things most likely to lead to his fireball.

xpost Yeah, since when has he been reluctant to cry terrorism? Gives him free(er) reign to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants.

Downfall. unfortunate autocorrect.

xp

he seemed reluctant regarding this incident, no? maybe i'm misreading it but it seemed like they held out against saying it even could be terrorism as long as they could, even while the us + uk were claiming otherwise. idk.

I doubt the UK would have been quick to leak rumours if it was their own plane. Russia has not ruled out terrorism but has said it's not appropriate to speculate while investigation is ongoing. Looks by the book to me but idk.

sure i just mean it's not like putin was rushing to exploit "terrorism!" so that he could escalate the war - and even with the most recent news his moves seem to be very deliberate. afaict no passionate speeches about smoking out the bad guys, or public commitments to escalate. if he was looking for an excuse i think we'd see something different from the by-the-book reticence that has until now characterized his response.

He'd look pretty daft if the investigation leads to a verdict of explosive decompression though.

This is astonishing if true:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/06/missed-by-a-1000-feet-how-british-holidaymakers-came-close-to-being-hit-by-a-missile-in-august

A British plane apparently dodged a stray Egyptian missile in August. I didn't know passenger jets could dodge surface to air missiles.

yikes

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/world/europe/confirmation-of-attack-on-russian-jet-may-strengthen-putins-resolve-in-syria.html?_r=0

Alexei Makarkin, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies, saw two main options for Russia. One, he said, was that “Russia can intensify the Syria operation, send more troops and volunteers to support Assad.” That move, he said, would probably worsen already strained ties with the West.

In the second option, “Fighting the Islamic State will become a priority rather than supporting Assad,” he said. “In this situation, Russia will pressure Assad to move toward a transitional government.” Those efforts had already started but not gotten very far before the attack.

...
Last week somebody floated two plain wooden coffins in a canal in St. Petersburg — home to most of the victims — one spray-painted with the question “For what?” in red, and the other with “For whom?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/world/middleeast/as-us-escalates-air-war-on-isis-allies-slip-away.html

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have shifted most of their aircraft to their fight against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Jordan, reacting to the grisly execution of one of its pilots by the Islamic State, and in a show of solidarity with the Saudis, has also diverted combat flights to Yemen. Jets from Bahrain last struck targets in Syria in February, coalition officials said. Qatar is flying patrols over Syria, but its role has been modest.

The engagement of Western allies, like France and Australia, has also been limited.

...
Britain has talked tough about going after the Islamic State, but unlike France, its actions have not matched its talk. Britain currently flies bombing missions over Iraq and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights over Syria

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/t31.0-8/10507021_1187988631215880_6850577068582535421_o.jpg

https://twitter.com/amirtibon/status/663823452902682624

ISIS claim suicide bombing in Beirut:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/world/middleeast/lebanon-explosions-southern-beirut-hezbollah.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/us/politics/us-steps-up-its-attacks-on-isis-controlled-oil-fields-in-syria.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article

While the American-led air campaign has conducted periodic airstrikes against oil refineries and other production facilities in eastern Syria that the group controls, the organization’s engineers have been able to quickly repair damage, and keep the oil flowing, American officials said. The Obama administration has also balked at attacking the Islamic State’s fleet of tanker trucks — its main distribution network — fearing civilian casualties.

But now the administration has decided to increase the attacks and focus on inflicting damage that takes longer to fix or requires specially ordered parts, American officials said.

....

The goal of the operation over the next several weeks is to cripple eight major oil fields, about two-thirds of the refineries and other oil-production sites controlled by the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL.

“We intend to shut it all down,” Col. Steven H. Warren, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said in an email on Thursday.

But now the administration has decided to increase the attacks and focus on inflicting damage that takes longer to fix or requires specially ordered parts

hack their amazon prime account imo

Yep, i can't remember whether i posted a story about this or not but the US had been holding off attacking oil facilities because of the fear that they would take years to repair properly and do terrible damage to the post-war economy under the National Council.

Interesting article on life in ISIS, as revealed by tweets.

The internet is slower than irans nuclear program... can't even upload an avi.

Some kind of progress seems to be happening at the Vienna talks, though it's worth noting that none of the Syrian factions are directly involved in talks:

https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/665569712957468672

Kerry apparently says there's broad consensus on a road-map towards UN-monitored elections / ceasefire.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39727/paris-attacks-middle-eastern-oligarchies/

Charles Pierce goes back to the discussion re how ISIS is funded with this 2010 reference:

In 2010, thanks to WikiLeaks, we learned that the State Department, under the direction of then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, knew full well where the money for foreign terrorism came from.

I was doing some quick googling over the weekend and saw that most 2015 articles focus on ISIS getting money from oil fields that ISIS directly controls. Are random rich Sunnis in Quatar, Kuwait, and Saudia Arabia still funding ISIS? Plus, isn't stopping this funding a little tougher than Pierce lets on, or is he right that the West is so comfortable with these countries that we won't take serious action on this issue?

apparently the US is also the biggest market for the stolen art that Daesh sells, but I don't have a link to confirm

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/19/world/middleeast/isis-finances.html?_r=0

The Islamic State takes in more than $1 million per day in extortion and taxation. Salaries of Iraqi government employees are taxed up to 50 percent, adding up to at least $300 million last year; companies may have their contracts and revenue taxed up to 20 percent. As other revenue streams have stalled, like banks and oil, the Islamic State has adjusted these rates to make taxation a larger portion of its income.

According to everything we've learned from the Mission: Impossible movies, taking out some rich Saudis, Kuwaitis and Qataris who fund ISIS should be a simple matter of overcoming the reversal at the end of the second act.

Exactly, that's it!

Hollande is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Obama next week to discuss the campaign against the Islamic State and urge the formation of a “grand coalition” against the group.

In Paris, however, Secretary of State John F. Kerry gave a cooler assessment of moves toward closer Western-led military coordination with Moscow. First, Kerry insisted, a cease-fire in Syria’s more than four-year civil war must take root and various sides must find some common ground.

A Russian French coalition...

France's earlier effort in Mali had some success, but there are still problems there

Today, parts of Mali’s central and northern territories remain a menacing no-go zone where just last week, Reuters reported that government troops said they had killed Islamic jihadists suspected of attacks in the region. An invisible line, running along the Niger River, has torn the country in two as it struggles to rebuild a common identity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/arts/design/african-biennale-of-photography-returns-to-mali-amid-unrest.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

― curmudgeon, Monday, November 16, 2015 4:29 AM (Y

Shoigu busted out the cruise missiles for the Kogalymavia announcement.

Partnership still looks a long way off but I'd expect a lot more intel sharing.

Russian intel supposedly suggests that an airport employee planted plastic explosives on the Kogalymavia plane.

ISIS has said that they had been planning to bomb a plane at Sharm-el-Sheikh for a while and initially thought it was going to be a member of the US-led coalition bombing Syria (idk who flys direct out of there and is involved atm - Turkey, maybe) but switched to Russia late on.

Only a political solution that finally incorporates Sunnis into Iraq, he said, will work.

He is Robert S. Ford, a former American ambassador to Syria and now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Is there any sign that the Iraqi government is doing this, or any way that anyone is encouraging it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/world/middleeast/in-rise-of-isis-no-single-missed-key-but-many-strands-of-blame.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2Fattacks-in-paris&contentCollection=world&action=click&module=NextInCollection®ion=Footer&pgtype=article

Others offer answers and more possible problems with those answers

The answer is simple...or maybe not

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/world/middleeast/envisioning-how-global-powers-can-smash-isis.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article

“The answer is simple: To beat ISIS, you need the enlistment of the Sunni forces that won’t happen as long as Assad remains in power in Damascus,” said Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The shortest and most effective way to deal with ISIS is for the United States and Russia to come to an agreement about the removal of Assad, and they will get support from others. Then the Sunni forces, the rebels, can deal with ISIS on the ground.”

....

Eradicating the group militarily from the territory it controls could come with another cost.

“Thousands of angry young men who were manning checkpoints and policing the streets of I.S. will be freed up to commit terrorism instead,” said Mr. Berger, the Brookings scholar. “The result will probably be a wave of terrorism the likes of which the world has never seen.”

probably, but then again maybe not.

when has the intelligence community ever been wrong?

x-post--that Berger statement about the IS folks manning checkpoints suddenly committing waves of terrorism seems like it could be wrong (they may not be former Baathists or jail-hardened jihadists)

yeah that seems like a questionable theory for a bunch of reasons, one being that terrorism takes resources and not just people, another being that a person willing to be a tax collector may not be equally willing to strap himself with explosives, another being that territorial control in itself enables recruitment.

http://i.imgur.com/ajKC27t.jpg

came in the mail today. ominous.

lol