Terrorism & Security

Smoke rises from a fire as a result of fighting in the Syrian village of Quneitra near the border with Israel, as seen from an observatory near the Quneitra crossing, Thursday. (Sebastian Scheiner/AP)

Syrian fighting spills into Golan Heights – and Israel's doorstep

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 06.06.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The Syrian Army and rebels today battled for control of the only Syrian crossing with Israel in a Golan Heights demilitarized zone. The fighting sent peacekeepers scrambling and starkly illustrated Israeli concerns about its northern neighbor's war.

The fighting in the UN-controlled area lasted for seven hours, continuing even after government forces announced they had retaken control of the crossing at Quneitra, which allows passage between Syria and Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, according to the Guardian.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declared a state of high alert along the northern border, and the area was proclaimed a closed military zone. Much of the highway running along the cease-fire line was closed, farmers were evacuated from nearby fields, and local residents were told to stay indoors, the Guardian reports. 

"This is the most tense the situation has been since 1973. Even a very tiny provocation could result in regional deterioration," said David Nisan, a risk consultant who monitors the region for the Israeli firm Max Security Solutions.

Israel has three overarching concerns as it watches the war unfold to the north, an unnamed Israeli military official told the Guardian: "strategic weapons, chemical weapons, and the Golan Heights."

"The [Assad] regime has assured us [of] quiet on the Golan border for 40 years. Now it seems we have someone in control of that border who has their back to us now but may turn around and face us at any point."

The Christian Science Monitor reported in March that although Israel is trying to stay out of the fray, it is assiduously preparing for all possibilities. As Syrian government control over much of the country crumbles, it will become increasingly difficult for Israel to ensure its security without crossing into the war itself. 

A sturdy new fence, surveillance sensors, and troop deployments along the Israeli side of the 65-mile border reflect concern in the Jewish state about the spillover from Syria’s civil war and what comes after the expected downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Errant fire from Syria has already crossed into Israeli territory several times, prompting Israel to fire back once.

"Things can change dramatically in hours," says Kobi Marom, a resident of the Golan Heights ski village, Neve Ativ, and reserve Army colonel, as he surveys the valley. "We are trying to be prepared for a new situation in the region." 

Israel is perhaps most concerned about the jihadist groups fighting alongside the rebels, some of which have ties to Al Qaeda and an anti-Israel agenda. Israel is worried that such groups will use Syria as a springboard to launch attacks on Israel. 

It's unclear whether the rebels fighting at Quneitra today came from the rebel Free Syrian Army or were foreign jihadist fighters. Several such groups have established themselves in the northern Golan, according to the Guardian. 

"Some of these fighters are from local villages but others are foreign jihadists, many of them Iraqis," Nisan said. "We've seen a lot of YouTube videos from a group calling themselves the Quneitra Liberation Front waving the black flag of al-Qaida."

Austrian peacekeepers patrol the area. None of them were injured in the fighting – although one Filipino peacekeeper was, according to Israel's Ynet News – but the Austrian government announced today that it would be pulling them from the area, Bloomberg reports. “An uncontrollable and immediate risk for the Austrian soldiers has grown to an unacceptable level,” Austrian government officials said in the statement.

The Austrian contingency to the UN Disengagement Observer Force, the name for the UN peacekeeping force deployed in the Golan, has been the largest since UNDOF was created in 1974 to monitor the cease-fire between Israel and Syria. It has roughly 1,100 members, with about 380 of those coming from Austria, according to Haaretz. 

Twenty-one Filipino peacekeepers were kidnapped earlier this year while on patrol in the area. 

Within Syria, the Quneitra crossing is symbolically important, both because it is the only passage to the Golan Heights and because it is a major conduit between Syria's south and Damascus and the Mediterranean Coast farther afield, according to Ynet.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un meets with the 507th unit of the Korean People's Army (KPA) and sentry guards at Mount O-sung in this photo taken June 2, 2013 and released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang June 3, 2013. (KCNA/REUTERS)

North Korea will talk to South Korea in bid to ease tension on the peninsula

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 06.06.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

North and South Korea have reached an agreement to hold talks on reopening a joint industrial complex that was shuttered in April, the first step toward cooperation – after countless steps in the opposite direction – since it was closed.

Pyongyang had rejected all previous offers to discuss reopening the Kaesong industrial complex. Observers speculate that its acquiescence now signals it is feeling dangerously isolated from China, a vital ally that has indicated frustration with North Korean intransigence and warmed up to US-led efforts to isolate Pyongyang.

Daniel Pinkston, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group covering Northeast Asia, said that when North Korean and Chinese officials met last month, China may not have been "as generous as the North Koreans have been expecting in terms of aid... trade and investment," CNN reports.

“North Korea has made this conciliatory gesture earlier than expected, and it seems that they are more desperate to boost the economy than anticipated,” said Jo Dong Ho, North Korean Studies professor at Ewha Womans University, according to Bloomberg. Chinese pressure has left the North with “no choice but to cooperate with the South to get the economy going."

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, told the Associated Press that Pyongyang's announcement is timed for US-China talks scheduled for later this week. "North Korea is making it easier for China to persuade the US to get softer on Pyongyang," Koh said.

“The scheduled meeting of Obama and Xi Jinping is an important fact in understanding this gesture,” said Kim Yong Hyun, a Seoul-based professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University, according to Bloomberg. “It once again shows that China is our key when it comes to North Korea strategies.”

Pyongyang's agreement to talks may also be a bid to soothe a Beijing frustrated by having to defend Pyongyang. In a separate report, AP reports that China is "taking a tougher stance on North Korea, as the US hoped it would."

It has supported tighter United Nations sanctions in response to the February nuclear test and stepped up border inspections. Most notably, a leading Chinese state bank shut accounts of North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, its main foreign exchange institution.

Two weeks ago, China hosted a top North Korean envoy, a visit that Brookings Institution scholar Cheng Li says was expedited in advance of the U.S.-China summit that starts Friday. The North has since adopted a less confrontational stance and declared a willingness to return to the negotiating table.

Chinese academics are also more willing now to openly consider the prospect of a North Korean collapse. 

But in China, talk of a North Korean collapse is no longer the taboo subject it once was. Academics are increasingly willing to discuss it and a former top US general said he has detected, during informal meetings, a willingness of Chinese officials to consider such discussions. 

…

While the more critical recent tone of Chinese scholars — and their willingness to discuss once-forbidden issues like reunification — is probably not the position of China’s leaders, it reflects the government’s frustrations with North Korea and could be intended to send a message for it not to push China too far, said former senior State Department official Evans Revere.

But, the AP report notes, China "is not taking steps that could hasten the end of the Kim regime, such as cutting supplies."

South Korean news agency Yonhap reports that if the talks happen, they will be the first time officials from the two countries meet directly since February 2011. The North has preferred private talks through nongovernmental channels such as businessmen, but the South has been emphatic in its demands for government-to-government talks. 

Yonhap says "all outstanding issues that have strained cross-border relations" will be on the table, including the disconnecting of the hotline between the North and South earlier this year. 

The Associated Press reports that North Korea's acceptance of talks via a statement in state media was its first public response to the South's offer of talks on Kaesong in April.

The closure of the complex came on the heels of tightened UN sanctions after North Korea's third nuclear test in February and the holding of regular US-South Korea military drills. The North pulled its 50,000 workers from the complex and blocked deliveries. South Korean workers eventually departed as well.

Agreeing to talks could indicate that "the cost of closure of Kaesong is greater than [the North] had anticipated," Mr. Pinkston said, according to CNN. Launched during the "sunshine" era of North-South engagement as a symbol of cooperation, it provides inexpensive labor for South Korean companies and critical foreign currency for isolated North Korea, largely shut out of the global financial system by sanctions.

"There's political symbolism, economic aspects and nationalistic Pan-Korean elements wrapped up in it as well. The loss if Kaesong is not reopened is more than material," Pinkston said in an interview with the Guardian.

Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad carry their national flag as they walk along a street in Qusair, Wednesday. Britain has joined France in declaring that sarin nerve gas has been used by Assad's forces in the Syrian civil war. (SANA/Reuters)

Britain joins France in saying nerve gas used in Syria

By Arthur Bright, Staff writer / 06.05.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Britain has joined France in declaring that sarin nerve gas has been used in the Syrian civil war, though it did not go as far as France as to accuse President Bashar al-Assad's regime of deploying the chemical weapon.

The British Foreign Office said today that it had found the presence of sarin in several samples from Syria, though it did not specify where the samples were acquired or whether the rebels or the Assad regime used the nerve agent, reports the Independent.

Britain has evidence suggesting a number of different chemical agents have been used, "sometimes including sarin, sometimes not," said Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, Mark Lyall Grant.

The British statement follows a stronger claim by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who on Tuesday said the French government had proof of sarin use and there was "no doubt" that the Assad government's forces deployed the agent, reports France 24.

“There is no doubt that it’s the regime and its accomplices” that are responsible for the use of the gas, Fabius announced on France 2 television.

“All options are on the table,” he added. “That means either we decide not to react or we decide to react including by armed actions targetting the place where the gas is stored.”

Mr. Fabius did not offer proof that President Assad's forces used sarin, however. Prior to his television appearance, his ministry stated that it was "certain" sarin had been used, but did not attribute the use to either faction.

France 24 adds that the samples were smuggled out of Syria by reporters from the French newspaper Le Monde, and came from two locations: Jobar, just inside central Damascus, and Saraqib, near the northern city of Idlib.

France and Britain recently secured legal clearance from the EU to supply conventional weapons to the Syrian rebels, after the EU arms embargo against Syria lapses at the start of the month.

The two nation's statements add to a growing sentiment in the West that chemical weapons are in play in Syria. Yesterday, a UN commission on the civil war stated that there were "reasonable grounds to believe that limited quantities of toxic chemicals were used," according to Paulo Pinheiro, the commission's chair. Mr. Pinheiro added that the UN was not able to determine "the precise chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrator," however.

The White House continues to preach caution on the topic however, the BBC notes. Asked about the French report yesterday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that "we need to expand the evidence we have, we need to make it reviewable, we need to have it corroborated, before we make any decisions based on the clear violation that use of chemical weapons would represent by the Syrian regime.

The Associated Press adds that Russia appears unmoved by the evidence so far of sarin use. US officials said that a delegation sent to Moscow last month with the government's "best evidence" of chemical weapons use by Assad regime forces were not able to convince their Russian counterparts to change their support for Assad.

Reuters reports that Brigadier General Mustafa al-Sheikh, a Syrian army defector, says that Syria's chemical weapons agency is currently run by one of Assad's top advisers, national security chief Ali Mamlouk, but "effective control of the weapons is becoming fragmented."

Sheikh said the arsenal is now in the hands of chemical weapons-trained loyalists of Assad's Alawite clan, a Shi'ite offshoot sect, and is being used for limited attacks that have killed dozens of rebels.  

"Most of the chemical weapons have been transported to Alawite areas in Latakia and near the coast, where the regime has the capability to fire them using fairly accurate medium range surface-to-surface missiles," Sheikh said.  

Some chemical munitions remain in bases around Damascus, and have been deployed with artillery shells. "It is a matter of time before fairly large warheads are used," he said.

Paulo Pinheiro, chairperson of the UN commission of inquiry, speaks next to commission member Carla del Ponte (l.) during a news conference on the presentation of their latest report at the UN in Geneva Monday. United Nations human rights investigators said on Tuesday they had 'reasonable grounds' to believe that limited amounts of chemical weapons had been used in Syria. (Ruben Sprich/Reuters)

UN finds evidence of 'toxic chemicals' and a worsening war in Syria

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 06.04.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Just a week after the EU decided to let its arms embargo on Syria lapse and as the international community seeks a political solution to the civil war, a United Nation’s human rights investigation warned of rising violence and found “reasonable grounds” to believe some toxic chemicals have been used.

"The conflict in Syria has reached new levels of brutality," the investigating commission said. "War crimes, crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations continue apace."

The 29-page report, presented in Geneva to the UN Human Rights Council, says that both the rebels and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad are exercising brutality. Child fighters have been involved in combat, with nearly 90 killed, and extrajudicial murders and kidnappings have been on the rise, the report says.

However, “war crimes by rebels, including murder, torture and hostage-taking, did not reach the intensity and scale of those committed by government forces and affiliated militia,” Reuters reports.

“There is a strong element of retribution in the government’s approach, with civilians paying a price for ‘allowing’ armed groups to operate within their towns,” the report said.

Chemical weapons

The investigation documented abuses between Jan. 15 and May 15, 2013, with at least 17 massacres taking place during the 4-month review period. It also looked into four reported cases of chemical weapons use in March and April.

"There are reasonable grounds to believe that limited quantities of toxic chemicals were used. It has not been possible, on the evidence available, to determine the precise chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrator," said Paulo Pinheiro, who chairs the UN commission of inquiry.

President Obama has said for months that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be considered a “red line,” however the administration has stated there isn’t yet enough conclusive evidence, reports The Christian Science Monitor. In April, Obama's legislative affairs director Miguel E. Rodriquez wrote to Sens. John McCain and Carl Levin: "Intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient – only credible and corroborated facts that provide us with some degree of certainty will guide our decision-making, and strengthen our leadership of the international community."

It is unclear whether this most recent report will provide the levels of evidence required by the US administration, however, attention is still largely focused on co-organizing a peace summit with Russia in the coming weeks. A State Department spokesperson said on Thursday the US planned to move ahead with the conference, despite an interview given by President Assad on Lebanese TV where he announced the Russian delivery of sophisticated defense weapons.

'Future worst cases?'

Today’s report is the fifth released by the panel on the conflict. The investigating team conducted 430 in person interviews with refugees in countries neighboring Syria and with those still inside the country via Skype, reports Reuters. The findings were inconclusive as to which side of the conflict was responsible for any chemical attacks, and the need for access inside the country in order to collect samples was highlighted.

The Guardian reports that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon created a team to investigate chemical attacks after the Syrian government reported an attack by rebels on March 19. However, the investigation was expected to look no further than that single incident in northern Aleppo. Syria has refused access to the team, which has insisted on a broader examination of chemical weapon use.

In an opinion pierce for the Washington Post today, Michael Gerson wrote that the “worst case scenario” for Syria seems to be taking a nosedive. “Future worst cases — involving loose chemical weapons, regional sectarian war, the fall of friendly governments — don’t require much imagination,” Mr. Gerson writes. “At some point…Syria’s downward spiral demands grammatical innovation. Most worst? Worstest?”

Syria has become a global proxy war, in which every other participant is more invested than the United States. Russia, Iran, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia — along with Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and now the Muslim Brotherhood — aid the forces that seem to serve their interests. U.S. support for the moderate opposition that began the Syrian revolution, in contrast, has been hesitant, late and restricted….

Secretary of State John Kerry’s Russian outreach has only complicated the situation. A return to the Geneva process is marginalizing the people we most want to help. After receiving inadequate support from the United States and taking a beating on the ground, the [Free Syrian Army] is being told to shape up and negotiate with Assad and his Russian allies, who are actively providing the means to destroy the rebellion. If the FSA acquiesced, it would be discredited. More Syrians — who generally have no interest in the return of the caliphate — would choose to fight under the jihadist black flag. It is a predicable calculation: better a radical than a lackey.

But the opposite might also be true. If the responsible Syrian opposition was more obviously effective — adequately armed and trained, in control of territory and the air above it, providing public services, building legitimacy — more Syrians might end their marriages of convenience with the jihadists. Syrian nationalism could find more responsible expression.

The problem is that, with the FSA’s prospects and morale in decline, an outside intervention now would need to be decisive to make a difference.

“Increased arm transfers hurt the prospect of a political settlement to the conflict, fuel the multiplication of armed actors at the national and regional levels and have devastating consequences for civilians,” the UN report said.

The conflict has claimed an estimated 80,000 lives since it began. Mr. Pinheiro, commission chair, said, “It’s an illusion that more weapons will tip the balance between the two parties. No one is winning.”

Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaks to the media in Istanbul, Turkey, June 3, 2013. Erdogan on Monday again dismissed street protests against his rule as actions organized by extremists, qualified them as a temporary blip, and angrily rejected comparisons with the Arab Spring uprisings. (AP)

Turkey's Erdogan dismisses protests: 'What is the message?' (+video)

By Arthur Bright, Staff writer / 06.03.13

As his country experienced the fourth day of street protests against his administration, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan today dismissed the demonstrations, shrugging off comparisons to the Arab Spring and other movements that have shaken Turkey's Middle Eastern neighbors.

The Associated Press reports that Mr. Erdogan appeared "defensive and angry" when asked by reporters whether his government would soften its tone and whether it understood "the message" of the protesters opposed to what they say is the creeping Islamization of Turkey by his AKP party's government.

“What is the message? I want to hear it from you,” Erdogan retorted.

“What can a softened tone be like? Can you tell me?” he said. He spoke to reporters before leaving on what was planned to be a four-day trip to Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

He also waved off comparisons to the Arab Spring, saying “We already have a spring in Turkey,” alluding to the nation’s free elections. “But there are those who want to turn this spring into winter."

The comparisons come after a weekend of protests involving tens of thousands of demonstrators opposed to AKP policies that started last week in Istanbul's Taksim Square and spread to cities across the country. Though the protest initially stemmed from government plans to bulldoze Gezi Park, a small green square near Taksim, to build a shopping and luxury apartment complex, it exploded into a broader demonstration complete with running battles with police. More than 1,000 have been injured in the fighting since, reports Reuters.

Taksim's historical significance

Reuters also notes that Taksim holds a "particular resonance" for Turks.

While other Istanbul squares embody the grandeur of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Taksim pays homage to the secular ideals of the republic founded in 1923 after the empire collapsed. More recently, the square was the site of a 1977 massacre of up to 40 leftists during a May Day rally.

"Taksim carries enormous significance for different circles ... To bulldoze Taksim without any real social consensus is to harm an important public space not just for Istanbul, but for all of Turkey," said Eyup Muhcu, head of the Chamber of Architects, in an interview before the protests.

The Christian Science Monitor's Scott Peterson reports that those in Taksim dislike the comparisons between their protests and the Arab Spring that felled regimes across the Middle East. "Those were distinctly Arab events, they say, while Turkey’s protest is about more inclusive democratic leadership," he writes.

“This is the radicalism of the moment,” Eda [a history student at Bogazici University] says, pointing to a nearby police car, where other students cavorted and took photos of themselves, as if on a new playground toy. “This is not the consensus. It’s just a show."

Similarly, the BBC's Paul Mason writes that despite the comparisons that some have drawn to recent protest movements around the world, the Taksim demonstrations are distinct.

I have covered Syntagma [Square anti-austerity protests in Greece], the Occupy protests and reported from Tahrir Square. This is different to all of them.

First, it is massive. The sheer numbers dwarf any single episode of civil unrest in Greece.

Second, the breadth of social support - within the urban enclave of Istanbul - is bigger than Greece and closer to Egypt.

But Mr. Mason also distinguishes it from Egypt.

Is this the Turkish Tahrir? Not unless the workers join in. Turkey has a large labor movement, and a big urban poor working population, and Monday is a work day, so we will see. It is certainly already something more than the Turkish version of Occupy.

Time Magazine writes that "For Erdogan, the greatest danger is that conservative Muslims, who form the AKP’s base, will flinch at the images of police brutality and begin to join the protesters’ ranks."

That may be one reason why the government has pulled police forces out of Taksim and clamped down on the media harder and more visibly than ever. Many press outlets are downplaying the protests. On Saturday, one of the country’s leading papers, owned the Prime Minister’s son-in-law, buried the story. Later that evening, as clashes between police and protesters continued around Istanbul and other cities, CNN Turk, a leading news network, aired a cooking show, plus documentaries about a 1970s novelist, dolphin training, and penguins.

Baghdad municipality workers clean up while restaurant staff react after a parked car bomb exploded near the popular restaurant in the Ur neighborhood in northern Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday. With the uptick in violence spanning the country in May, Iraq has seen the deadliest month since June 2008, according to the United Nations. (Khalid Mohammed/AP)

Iraq sees deadliest month in 5 years

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 05.31.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

More than 500 people were killed in Iraq in May, about 120 of them since May 27 alone, making it the deadliest month since June 2008, according to the United Nations.

The uptick in violence has put increased pressure on the government to prove its ability to keep sectarian tensions under control and prevent the country from spiraling into a renewed civil war.

The death toll prompted a warning from UN special representative to Iraq, Martin Kobler. "Systemic violence is ready to explode at any moment if all Iraqi leaders do not engage immediately to pull the country out of this mayhem," Mr. Kobler said in Baghdad, according to CNN. 

The violence has spanned the country, with a failed assassination against Anbar Province's governor, explosions and shootings in Mosul, and a series of bombings in Baghdad this week alone.

The deaths stem from an explosion of Iraq's constantly simmering Sunni-Shiite tensions, which were sparked earlier this year by Sunni protests throughout the country against their political marginalization. The situation escalated last month, after security forces violently dispersed a Sunni protest camp. 

Under former dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Sunni minority had outsized political influence. Since coming into government following the US toppling of Mr. Hussein's government, Iraq's long sidelined Shiite majority has steadily consolidated political power, excluding Sunni officials.

That the recent violence has targeted both Sunnis and Shiites is telling. Sunni insurgent forces, most notably Al Qaeda in Iraq, "have long targeted Iraq's Shiite majority and government security forces. But Sunni mosques and other targets have also been struck over the past several weeks, raising the possibility that Shiite militias are also growing more active," the Associated Press reports. 

The government is under pressure to prove it is capable of curtailing the violence. It has imposed a ban on many cars in Baghdad in an effort to thwart additional car bombings and footage of Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki inspecting checkpoints throughout the city was broadcast on state television, AP reports.

“These daily patterns of car bomb attacks … in Baghdad and some other cities (are) really unacceptable for the people of Iraq, who have suffered so much,” Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday.

“It’s the government’s responsibility to redouble its efforts, to revise its security plans, to contain this wave, to prevent it from sliding into sectarian conflict and war,” he added. “That should not happen again.” 

A predominant concern among Iraq observers is that the government is too weak to bring the current situation under control.

“Iraq is a reactor that’s overheating and there’s little coolant available,” Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Beirut-based Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies, told AP. “Iraq’s nascent politics is not equipped to sustain the current dangerous levels of internal and external pressure. There needs to be an off-ramp to relieve some of the pressure.”

Mushreq Abbas, a contributor to Al Monitor and managing editor of Al Hayat's Iraq bureau, writes that one of the clearest signs of the country's fragility is the reemergence of the term "death squad," which was used during Iraq's civil war to describe the groups of both Sunnis and Shiites who carried out "killings based on ID cards." Rumors about false checkpoints set up throughout Baghdad for the purpose of checking IDs have run rife.

The interior ministry has denied the reports, but that has not stemmed panic. 

Mr. Abbas writes that the elimination of these death squads is one of Mr. Maliki's biggest achievements. 

It could be said that the major achievement made by Maliki throughout his rule, which began in 2006, is eliminating the death squads through the so-called Saulat al-Fursan [Charge of the Nights] military operations. These operations were followed by a large-scale cleansing of the security forces, which included hundreds of officers and soldiers who were believed to be involved in one way or another in the establishment of the death squads. This achievement is not only about Maliki himself, as head of the government or leader of the State of Law Coalition, but mainly about the people’s trust in the security services, and whether or not this trust will be undermined by high rates of violence and the return of various aspects of the civil war.

However, Abbas continues, the security and military forces are still accused of favoring Shiites over Sunnis, and Maliki's party over others, and they have not made enough of an effort to show that they are first and foremost "protectors and defenders of the people against terrorist acts."

With government legitimacy tenuous and the proliferation of insurgent groups, there seem to be few options for arresting the country's spiraling violence. Abbas writes: "Today, the urgent question in the streets of Baghdad is, 'Have all opportunities to prevent a civil war been squandered?'"

A Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile system is on display in an undisclosed location in Russia. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview taped on Tuesday that his government had received the first shipment of S-300 missiles, despite Western requests that Russia stop the weapons sale. (AP/File)

Syria's president claims Russian arms are already arriving (+video)

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 05.30.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Russia has fulfilled a partial shipment of advanced defense missiles to Syria, President Bashar al-Assad reportedly stated in an interview with a Lebanese news channel set to be aired in full today. The revelation could jeopardize an already fragile US-Russia-sponsored peace conference scheduled for the coming weeks, and increase the threat of Syria’s violence spreading into neighboring countries.

"Syria has received the first shipment of Russian anti-aircraft S-300 rockets," Mr. Assad told Lebanese TV station Al Manar in an interview taped on Tuesday, according to The New York Times. "The rest of the shipment will arrive soon."

Russia said it would consider delivering defense missiles to Syria after the European Union decided this week to let its Syrian arms embargo lapse on June 1, reports The Christian Science Monitor.

The US, Israel, and France have all issued calls to Russia to stop the delivery of the missiles, Reuters reports. And today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “We must prepare defensively and offensively for the era of renewed war.”

There is no confirmation the missiles have been delivered, and on Tuesday, when the interview was reportedly recorded, Israel’s defense minister said no missiles had yet been delivered from Russia, reports the Times.

The Washington Post obtained a March weapons request from Syria to Moscow, seeking a laundry list of arms including “[t]wenty-thousand Kalashnikov assault rifles and 20 million rounds of ammunition. Machine guns. Grenade launchers and grenades. Sniper rifles with night-vision sights,” according to the Post.

The Syrian army general asked for a price quote “in the shortest possible time.” He closed with kind regards to Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms exporter.

The flow of arms to Syria, including the advanced S-300 missile defense batteries that Moscow said this week it would supply, continues amid hopes that an international conference, jointly proposed by the United States and Russia, will lead to a negotiated political settlement of Syria’s civil war.

The BBC reports another excerpt from President Assad’s interview with Hezbollah-backed Al Manar where he states, “The Syrian army has scored major victories against armed rebels on the ground and the balance of power is now with the Syrian army."

Some analysts say Assad’s account of a missile delivery is little more than a bluff. Assad’s “statement may be a ruse to boost his credentials of still being a leader of Syria,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai told Bloomberg.

The peace conference, which many hoped to see launch in Geneva this month, is looking more fraught by the day. In addition to increased tensions over the EU arms embargo both the Syrian government and opposition say the other’s prerequisites for discussing peace are unacceptable. The Times reports:

On Wednesday, the Syrian opposition said that Mr. Assad’s departure is a prerequisite to talks — a condition his government and Russia reject — while Syria’s foreign minister said that Mr. Assad would stay on at least until 2014 and might seek re-election and that any peace agreement would have to be approved by a referendum.

Mr. Assad’s statements — and the choice of the Hezbollah channel to deliver them — added to the confrontational atmosphere….

Syrian rebel commanders have also issued aggressive statements in recent days, threatening to attack Hezbollah and even the Lebanese Army inside Lebanon if Hezbollah’s intervention is not halted.

Late Wednesday, Lebanon’s president, Michel Suleiman, a political ally of Hezbollah, issued an unusual statement calling on Hezbollah to pull out of Syria for the sake of Lebanese security and the integrity of the group’s primary mission, fighting Israel.

The Chicago Tribune wrote an op-ed today on the importance of leverage in risky negotiations like Syria, noting that Assad and his allies have “raised the ante” in the lead-up to the Geneva peace conference:

The U.S. and its allies once thought that Assad only needed a sharp nudge from power. That the mounting toll of more than 70,000 deaths — many civilians — would topple the regime. That the rebels would unite around a leader. That all those refugee families fleeing their homes and pouring into Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraq would focus the world's attention on a solution.

But the bloody stalemate continues. If anything, Assad is more secure now than in past months. His army has launched offensives against rebel strongholds. His allies are stepping up to help. The regime's foes — in Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere — are funneling arms and money to the rebels….

The U.S. may wait to see what happens at the Geneva peace conference, assuming it is held, before making more moves to bolster the rebels. But the conference will be a dud for the U.S. if Assad and his allies hold all the leverage.

Taliban No. 2 commander Waliur Rehman (c.) in 2011 in Shawal area of South Waziristan along the Afghanistan border in Pakistan. Pakistani intelligence officials say a US drone strike has killed the commander of the Pakistani Taliban. The militant group denies he is dead. (Ishtiaq Mahsud/AP/File)

Drone kills top Pakistani militant as US resumes drone attacks (+video)

By Arthur Bright, Staff writer / 05.29.13

At least six people were killed in a drone strike Wednesday in northwest Pakistan, reportedly including a top Pakistani Taliban official, in the first publicized US drone attack since President Barack Obama announced he was changing policy on such strikes.

According to multiple reports, Wali-ur-Rehman, the second in command of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, was killed in the attack in North Waziristan, a militant stronghold. The drone reportedly fired two missiles into a mud house in the village of Chashma, killing at least six and wounding four others. Reuters reports that Mr. Wali-ur-Rehman had been poised to succeed TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

"This is a huge blow to militants and a win in the fight against insurgents," one security official told Reuters, declining further comment.

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The Pakistani Taliban are a separate entity allied to the Afghan Taliban. Known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), they have launched devastating attacks against the Pakistani military and civilians.

Reuters reports that the Pakistani Foreign Office expressed concern over the attack, stating that "Any drone strike is against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan and we condemn it." Reuters notes, however that the comment was made before Wali-ur-Rehman had been identified as a casualty.

Pakistani newspaper The News International reports that the TTP denied that Wali-ur-Rehman was killed.

The drone strike comes at a precarious time for both Washington and Islamabad. Last week, President Obama announced that the White House had codified new policy guidance on the use of lethal force against terrorists, including the use of drones, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Generally speaking, the US government has to determine that a potential drone target poses a “continuing and imminent threat to the American people,” the president said.

Drones can be used only if the US can’t capture individual terrorists.

“Our preference is always to detain, interrogate, and prosecute them,” Obama said.

And finally, before any strike occurs, there must be “near certainty” that no civilians will be killed or injured, according to the president.

Experts note, however, that at least rhetorically, the president's guidelines match what has been said before about US drone policies, and it is unclear whether this announcement marks a change in process – particularly as most of the relevant information on drone policy remains classified.

At the same time, Pakistan is in an interim period between its recent presidential election and the formation of a new government led by Nawaz Sharif, who "has made it very clear through the election campaign that he wants all drone strikes to stop all together," reports the BBC's Richard Galpin.

"The plain fact here is that the drone strikes are extremely unpopular, the vast majority of the population opposed to them – recent research showing two-thirds of them, of the population were opposed to them. Nawaz Sharif, I think is pretty much obliged to bring this issue up in negotiations with the American government to see if he can persuade them to stop the strikes."

But at the same time, says the BBC's M Ilyas Khan, "any strike against the Pakistan Taliban would be welcomed by the Pakistani authorities because the group has for several years been exclusively focused on pursuing Pakistani – rather than Afghan – military and civilian targets."

Our correspondent says it comes on the same day that the newly-elected parliament of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province - which adjoins North Waziristan - holds its first meeting.

The province is now being ruled by former cricketer Imran Khan's PTI party, which has in recent months repeatedly spoken out against drone attacks, as has Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague (l.) talks with Belgium's Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, during the EU foreign ministers meeting, at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday. The European Union nations remain divided on Monday whether to ease sanctions against Syria to allow for weapons shipments to rebels fighting the regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. (Yves Logghe/AP)

With EU arms ban set to lapse, obstacles to UK, French intervention fall

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 05.28.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The European Union failed to renew an arms embargo against war-torn Syria yesterday. While the move was celebrated by those hoping to help arm the Syrian rebels, others fear that removing the obstacles to arming them will complicate work toward a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

Britain and France were the only EU countries, out of 27, who supported lifting the ban on arming Syrian rebels, which expires Jun. 1. But the arms embargo was wrapped up in a larger bundle of EU sanctions on Syria that required unanimous consent to amend or renew. To renew the other sanctions, the EU members acquiesced to Britain and France's insistence on letting the arms sanctions expire.

Both Paris and London say there are no plans to send weapons “at this stage,” reports Reuters. EU officials said that meant no shipments before Aug. 1.

"While we have no immediate plans to send arms to Syria, it gives us the flexibility to respond in the future if the situation continues to deteriorate," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said yesterday.

Even if Britain and France do supply weapons to Syrian rebels, “they will have to authorize any shipments on a case-by-case basis and follow safeguards to ensure no equipment lands in the wrong hands,” reports Reuters.

The possibility of arming the rebels has been floated in Europe and pushed by many opponents to the current US policy in Syria.  Accusations of chemical weapon use and reports of increased violence, including claims of a state-led massacre in western Syria in early May, have caused many in the international community to call for greater intervention.

The response to yesterday’s decision to let the embargo lapse has been mixed. Austria and Sweden were the most vocal opponents, noting that more weapons in Syria would only create more violence and instability in the region. Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger now says Vienna may have to reconsider its deployment of nearly 400 troops on the border of Israel and Syria. WHY?

The Guardian notes a mixed response in Britain as well, citing tweets from a number of members of parliament (MPs). Labor Party MP Emily Thornberry tweeted:

If UK to export arms to #Syria "moderates" can Hague say who they are & how he'll ensure only they receive weapons? m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22684948…

While Conservative MP Brooks Newmark sent a tweet reading:

EU ending arms embargo to Syrian Opposition will hopefully send  powerful signal to Assad to negotiate to end civil war at Geneva 2 #Syria

Russia, a longtime ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said the EU’s inability to renew the arms embargo could jeopardize a much-lauded upcoming peace conference co-organized by Russia and the US.

"This does direct damage to the prospects for convening the international conference," Russian news agency Itar-Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying, according to a separate Reuters article reports.

John Kerry met with his Russian counterpart last night in Paris to discuss the conference in the wake of the EU arms announcement, but no update was given, reports Reuters.

Some non-European nations, such as Qatar, have already been providing arms to Syrian rebels, and this month US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel hinted at a potential shift in US policy, reports CNN.

"Arming the rebels – that's an option," Mr. Hagel said during a Pentagon news conference in early May. "You look at, and rethink all options. That doesn't mean you do or you will," Hagel said. "These are options that must be considered with partners, with the international community, what is possible, what can help accomplish these objectives."

In late February the United States upped its non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, for the first time providing support directly to Free Syrian Army fighters. Prior to that it only aided unarmed groups and local councils, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the New York Times notes there is “something curious” about the debate on Syria taking place among US policy makers:

Although the Assad regime has massacred more than 70,000 of its citizens and appears to have violated all norms of warfare by using chemical weapons against civilians, calls for robust intervention are muted.

The legacy of Iraq looms large. A war-weary nation that has sacrificed so much on the battlefields of the Middle East is reluctant to embark on new campaigns. Neither the Obama administration nor its Congressional critics seem to have an appetite for nation-building. And there is a reluctance to admit that half measures like arming the rebels or establishing a no-fly zone are unlikely to end the suffering of the Syrian people in the face of a determined Alawite minority, led by a vicious Mr. Assad, who has no qualms about carrying out ethnic cleansing in a struggle to the death.

But Mr. Takeyh warns that the message the US is sending via such hesitant action may be heard by the likes of Iran, which has long been slapped with sanctions for its suspected nuclear-armament program. If “red lines” are crossed with no intervention in Syria, he posits, could the same go for Iran?

A major American intervention would give [Iran] pause; a reluctant intercession in Syria by a hesitant America would only enhance their resolve.

Paradoxically, an intervention intended to persuade Iran’s leaders of the viability of American red lines could instead convince them that their nuclear program is safe from American retaliation.