I Never MENA Hurt You; I Never MENA Make You Cry 2017 (Middle East, North Africa, and Other Geopolitical Hotspots)

A thoughtful read, I felt:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/05/the-arab-world-has-never-recovered-from-the-loss-of-1967/

learned a lot from that. I liked this piece about how Israel never recovered from the victory: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/04/i-fought-for-a-better-israel-than-this-215222

As an addendum, I don't think the western view of the Arab world has ever recovered from the Yom Kippur War in 73. Them catching Israel unaware, then failing to win anyway, then punishing the west for their own failure through the oil embargo. I don't mean to say anti-arab racism is due to that, but geopolitically, I don't they've been treated seriously since.

Pinch of salt etc but Islamic State leader Baghdadi 'may have been killed by Russia'.

The MOD statement is less definitive in Russian than in English. It says they are still checking, while the Sputnik report suggests it has been checked.

Syria also claims they killed him last week fwiw so at least one of them is wrong.

any next manager odds yet? I heard Sherwood hasn't ruled himself out.

The US has just released a statement confirming it shot down a Syrian MiG in Syrian airspace - the first time this has ever been done, iirc. The Americans say it was attacking pro-US rebels, the Syrians seem to be claiming it was taking part in an operation to recapture a town from ISIS.

Syrian MiGs should trail banners identifying whether they are attacking ISIS, Syrian civilians, US-friendly Kurds or someone else. They could be color coded for easy deciphering by pilots of US fighter jets.

Also of interest: because of the Tehran attacks, Iran's RG supposedly launched into an attack on IS in Syria. link. If the Tehran attack leads to Iran entering the fight against ISIS proper, that's an interesting development, though for now I'd say it's just hardmanning, "the response the people demand", and doubt they will keep it up. But if Iran would choose to do so, to keep fighting IS, in Syria, it would probably make it harder on TrumpUSA to denounce them. They'd be on the same side in this.

Why do you think IS attacked Tehran? Iran funds the Kata'ib Hezbollah ("Hezbollah Brigades") and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq ("League of the Righteous") that are fighting against IS in both Iraq and Syria.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/16/white-house-officials-push-for-widening-war-in-syria-over-pentagon-objections/

Russia Threatens to Target U.S. Warplanes Over Syria

Trump's really taken the Saudi line, hook and sinker. Wasn't so long ago that his dank supporters were arguing that HRC was the one hellbent on WW3.

Yeah, i think that was evident in the bungling of the Qatar situation as well.

Test

Extraordinary statement from Tillerson calling KSA and other out on Qatar.

.@statedeptspox Nauert provides a readout of Secretary Tillerson's engagement on #Qatar, regional situation pic.twitter.com/vo2FJ86BZg

— Department of State (@StateDept) June 20, 2017

A number of Exxon-Mobil's biggest investments over the past decade have been in Qatar's LNG plants.

KSA has told Qatar to shut al-Jazeera, sever all diplomatic ties with Iran and close their military base in Turkey.

Will be worth watching Tillerson's reaction.

The full, bonkers, list of demands here:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/23/close-al-jazeera-saudi-arabia-issues-qatar-with-13-demands-to-end-blockade

Internal decision-making was presumably held up by the change in KSA's power structure but they're now in a position to try to turn the screw.

The long, impossible to meet list of demands certainly worked out when Austro-Hungary tried it.

I'm not sure what would qualify as a crisis in Syria, but this seems like a volatile situation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40413563 Hopefully it will be enough to warn Assad off and that will be it.

Contra thread title:

AP: In Yemen's secret prisons, UAE tortures and US interrogates

Hundreds of men swept up in the hunt for al-Qaida militants have disappeared into a secret network of prisons in southern Yemen where abuse is routine and torture extreme — including the “grill,” in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire, an Associated Press investigation has found.

Senior American defense officials acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights abuses. Interrogating detainees who have been abused could violate international law, which prohibits complicity in torture.

Israel approves construction of 800 new homes in east Jerusalem, where Palestinians hoped to establish capital. https://t.co/c4kwukiYN4

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 5, 2017

There was this as well: Israel seizes solar panels donated to Palestinians by Dutch government. Israel doesn't give a single fuck.

whoa

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/uae-hacked-qatari-government-sites-sparking-regional-upheaval-according-to-us-intelligence-officials/2017/07/16/00c46e54-698f-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?tid=a_breakingnews&hpid=hp_no-name_no-name%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-ends-covert-cia-program-to-arm-anti-assad-rebels-in-syria-a-move-sought-by-moscow/2017/07/19/b6821a62-6beb-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html?utm_term=.930728bc537f

Sky News Arabia to broadcast documentary 'Qatar...The Road to Manhattan' on Wednesday https://t.co/PjicnWFzy6 pic.twitter.com/MHPZV6e98L

— Gulf News (@gulf_news) July 24, 2017

Seems legit.

This whole Qatar thing has been pulled off quite ineptly, hasn't it?

something to keep an eye on

Abbas ordered heads of Tanzim Fatah to lead demonstrations on Friday.Tanzim was key to escalation in 2nd intifiada

— avi issacharoff (@issacharoff) July 26, 2017

Didn't expect to see Israel back down on the metal detectors at the Temple Mount.

A surprise to me too.

The UAE, in the meantime, realizing that depriving its sports-crazed citizens of televised international soccer games was a dangerous step too far, quietly decided to allow BeIN, the Aljazeera-owned worldwide sports channel, an exemption from the general embargo on the parent company.

http://time.com/4872857/saudi-arabia-qatar-patrick-theros/

Once again the whole world conspires against Kurdistan. Hey thanks guys for defeating IS but we want to protect Iraq's "unity"... It's sickening.

Iran wants in on the action too, testing a ballistic missile

big day today in the middle east

The Kurdish ref went as planned:

- Huge Yes vote
- Erdogan threatening the Kurds with all kinds of awful stuff, starving them being the worst
- It did lead to unprecedented crowds of Iranian Kurds on the streets, celebrating, too (in places like Mahabad etc)
- Israel continues to stand with the Kurds (with, again, a threatening Erdogan spouting nonsense at Israel)

#Breaking: Overwhelming majority, 92.73%, vote 'yes' for independence - electoral body releases preliminary results in #KurdistanReferendum pic.twitter.com/r1pq2vitq6

— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) September 27, 2017

Baghdad has pledged to close Kurdish airspace at 6pm on Friday and Turkey says it is considering whether to shut its frontier with Kurdistan and impose a trade ban.

Massoud Barzani, the de facto president of the region’s Kurds, had hoped to transition strong support for the poll into political leverage that could eventually help negotiate independence from Iraq. His moves have been met with increasing hostility, raising the prospect of isolation, and blockade.

Some Iraqi leaders have warned of military action, particularly over the fate of Kirkuk.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/27/over-92-of-iraqs-kurds-vote-for-independence

Women soon can drive in Saudi Arabia. Progress...

of course still can't marry, divorce, travel, open a bank account, or get a job without first getting permission from a male guardian or go outside without wearing an abaya...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/three-u-s-soldiers-killed-niger-suspected-ambush-n807821

Three U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers were killed and two were wounded in Niger on Wednesday, in an ambush by suspected Islamic militants operating from Mali, multiple sources with knowledge of the incident told NBC News.

According to the sources, one soldier form Niger was also killed in the attack.

The U.S. military did not confirm the deaths officially, but did acknowledge that a “hostile fire” incident involving U.S. troops had occurred. ...

still can't marry, divorce, travel, open a bank account, or get a job without first getting permission from a male guardian or go outside without wearing an abaya...

If they could fix the first five of those I think they'd concede the last one as least important.

interesting from the nyer profile of tillerson

In November, 2013, Tillerson travelled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Nuri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq. Maliki was hoping to persuade Tillerson to change his mind about a sensitive political matter. Exxon was then negotiating a multibillion-dollar deal with the government of Iraqi Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in the northern part of the country, which has long sought independence. Under the deal, Exxon would explore for oil in some eight hundred and forty thousand acres, potentially providing the Kurds with a steady stream of revenue that was independent of the government in Baghdad. In Maliki’s view, giving the Kurds their own revenue would hasten a breakup of the country.

Maliki was not alone in objecting; President Obama opposed the deal, and his aides had prevailed upon Exxon executives to drop the Kurdish project. “We were concerned that this would further embolden the Kurds to strike out on their own,” Tony Blinken, Obama’s deputy national-security adviser at the time, told me.

The meeting, held at the Willard Hotel, ended in acrimony. Exxon had previously made an agreement with Maliki to undertake two drilling projects in southern Iraq, and Maliki, a former dissident and guerrilla fighter, threatened to cancel them if Exxon pursued the Kurdish deal. Tillerson refused. Maliki argued bluntly, “You’re dividing the country. You’re undermining our constitution!” But Tillerson held firm. “It was one of the worst meetings of my career,” a senior Iraqi official who was in attendance said. In the end, Exxon made the Kurdish deal.

http://www.dw.com/en/kurds-blame-outside-world-for-loss-of-territories-to-iraq/a-41029920

Kurds...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/17/somalia-bomber-was-ex-solider-whose-town-was-raided-by-us-forces

a theory

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know US soldiers were in Niger, and I don't know why they're there or what the mission is.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-troops-niger/story?id=50559788

When did US forces arrive in Niger?

They arrived in early 2013 to help the French military that had intervened in neighboring Mali the year before. The French had moved into Mali after an Al Qaeda affiliated group and tribal groups took over the vast northern part of the country and were moving toward the capital of Mali. As part of the U.S. effort to assist that mission then-President Barack Obama ordered 150 U.S. military personnel to set up a surveillance drone operation over Mali that would fly from Niger's capital of Niamey.

How many U.S. troops are there in Niger?

About 800, but the vast majority of them are construction crews working to build up a second drone base in Niger’s northern desert. The rest run a surveillance drone mission from Niger’s capital of Niamey that helps out the French in Mali and other regional countries in the fight against Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and now ISIS. A smaller component, less than a hundred, are Army Green Beret units advising and assisting Niger’s military to build up their fighting capability to counter Al Qaeda and ISIS. There are an additional 300 U.S. military personnel in neighboring Burkina Faso and Cameroon doing the same thing. They are there as part of what’s known as the mission in the Lake Chad Basin.

So wait, what's happening in Saudi Arabia right now?

Saw something about a missile from Yemen, then this?

Wow lot of big news out of Saudi tonight. Reports of big names being taken into custody (Waleed bin Talal, Khaled Tuwaijri, Waleed Ibrahim).

— Tobias Schneider (@tobiaschneider) November 4, 2017