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katyshannon

U.S. Strikes in Somalia Kill 150 Shabab Fighters - The New York Times - 0 views

  • American aircraft on Saturday struck a training camp in Somalia belonging to the Islamist militant group the Shabab, the Pentagon said, killing about 150 fighters who were assembled for what American officials believe was a graduation ceremony and prelude to an imminent attack against American troops and their allies in East Africa.
  • Defense officials said the strike was carried out by drones and American aircraft, which dropped a number of precision-guided bombs and missiles on the field where the fighters were gathered.
  • Pentagon officials said they did not believe there were any civilian casualties, but there was no independent way to verify the claim. They said they delayed announcing the strike until they could assess the outcome
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  • It was the deadliest attack on the Shabab in the more than decade-long American campaign against the group, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, and a sharp deviation from previous American strikes, which have concentrated on the group’s leaders, not on its foot soldiers. Continue reading the main story #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap { max-width:180px; } .g-artboard { margin:0 auto; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180{ position:relative; overflow:hidden; width:180px; } .g-aiAbs{ position:absolute; } .g-aiImg{ display:block; width:100% !important; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 p{ font-family:nyt-franklin,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:13px; line-height:18px; margin:0; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle0 { font-size:11px; line-height:13px; font-weight:500; font-style:italic; color:#628cb2; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle1 { font-size:12px; line-height:14px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.00833333333333em; color:#000000; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle2 { font-size:12px; line-height:14px; font-weight:500; text-align:right; letter-spacing:0.00833333333333em; color:#000000; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle3 { font-size:12px; line-height:13px; font-weight:700; letter-spacing:0.00833333333333em; color:#000000; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle4 { font-size:11px; line-height:13px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.00833333333333em; color:#000000; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle5 { font-size:11px; line-height:13px; font-weight:500; font-style:italic; text-align:center; color:#628cb2; } #g-0308-for-web-ATTACKmap-180 .g-aiPstyle6 { font-size:9px; line-height:8px; font-weight:500; text-transform:uppercase; text-align:center; color:#000000; } Gulf of Aden ETHIOPIA SOMALIA Camp Raso Mogadishu KENYA Indian Ocean 300 miles MARCH 7, 2016 By The New York Times
  • It comes in response to new concerns that the group, which was responsible for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on African soil when it struck a popular mall in Nairobi in 2013, is in the midst of a resurgence after losing much of the territory it once held and many of its fighters in the last several years.
  • The planned attack on American and African Union troops in Somalia, American officials say, may have been an attempt by the Shabab to carry out the same kind of high-impact act of terrorism as the one in Nairobi.
  • Pentagon officials would not say how they knew that the Shabab fighters killed on Saturday were training for an attack on United States and African Union forces, but the militant group is believed to be under heavy American surveillance.
  • The Shabab fighters were standing in formation at a facility the Pentagon called Camp Raso, 120 miles north of Mogadishu, when the American warplanes struck on Saturday, officials said, acting on information gleaned from intelligence sources in the area and from American spy planes
  • One intelligence agency assessed that the toll might have been higher had the strike happened earlier in the ceremony. Apparently, some fighters were filtering away from the event when the bombing began.
  • The strike was another escalation in what has become the latest battleground in the Obama administration’s war against terror: Africa.
  • The United States and its allies are focused on combating the spread of the Islamic State in Libya, and American officials estimate that with an influx of men from Iraq, Syria and Tunisia, the Islamic State’s forces in Libya have swelled to as many as 6,500 fighters, allowing the group to capture a 150-mile stretch of coastline over the past year.
  • The arrival of the Islamic State in Libya has sparked fears that the group’s reach could spread to other North African countries, and the United States is increasingly trying to prevent that
  • American forces are now helping to combat Al Qaeda in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso; Boko Haram in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad; and the Shabab in Somalia and Kenya, in what has become a multifront war against militant Islam in Africa.
  • The United States has a small number of trainers and advisers with African Union — primarily Kenyan — troops in Somalia. Defense officials said that the African Union’s military mission to Somalia was believed to have been the target of the planned attack.
  • Saturday’s strike was the most significant American attack on the Shabab since September 2014, when an American drone strike killed the leader of the group, Ahmed Abdi Godane, at the time one of the most wanted men in Africa. That strike was followed by one last March, when Adan Garar, a senior member of the group, was killed in a drone strike on his vehicle.
  • If the killings of Mr. Godane and Mr. Garar initially crippled the group, that no longer appears to be the case. In the past two months, Shabab militants have claimed responsibility for attacks that have killed more than 150 people, including Kenyan soldiers stationed at a remote desert outpost and beachcombers in Mogadishu.
  • In addition, the group has said it was responsible for a bomb on a Somali jetliner that tore a hole through the fuselage and for an attack last month on a popular hotel and a public garden in Mogadishu that killed 10 people and injured more than 25. On Monday, the Shabab claimed responsibility for a bomb planted in a laptop computer that went off at an airport security checkpoint in the town of Beletwein in central Somalia, wounding at least six people, including two police officers. The police said that one other bomb was defused.
  • At the same time, Shabab assassination teams have fanned out across Mogadishu and other major towns, stealthily eliminating government officials and others they consider apostates.
  • The Shabab have also retaken several towns after African Union forces pulled out. The African Union peacekeeping force, paid for mostly by Western governments, features troops from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Djibouti and other African nations.
  • The Shabab were once strong, then greatly weakened and now seem to be somewhere in between, while analysts say the group competes with the Islamic State for recruits and tries to show — in the deadliest way — that it is still relevant. Its dream is to turn Somalia into a pure Islamic state.
criscimagnael

Car Bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia's Capital, Kills 8 - The New York Times - 0 views

  • In December, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed suspended Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble over accusations of corruption. Mr. Roble has refused to step down, claiming that Mr. Mohamed — whose official term lapsed in February, but who has stayed in office — is trying “to overthrow the government, the Constitution and the laws of the land.”
    • criscimagnael
       
      This reminded me of our own country's 2020 election and how we are very lucky that it did not get this far. Seeing similar things in other countries shows what could have happened here and that we weren't super far off.
  • A large explosion killed at least eight people and injured nine others in Mogadishu on Wednesday, according to the head of an ambulance service, the latest attack to hit Somalia’s capital as the country grapples with political infighting and a growing humanitarian crisis.
  • The car explosion occurred just before noon on a road leading to Mogadishu’s international airport,
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  • The road also services a major police academy and a compound where United Nations and foreign government staff members and officials live.
  • The bombing, part of a string of attacks blamed on the Qaeda-linked Al Shabab extremist group that have gripped Somalia in recent months, comes as the country’s leaders struggle to resolve a political crisis that has distracted the government from the deteriorating security situation.
  • Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, a government spokesman, condemned what he described as a suicide attack, calling it “cowardly.”
  • “Such acts of terrorism will not derail the peace & the ongoing development in the country,” he wrote on Twitter. “We must unite in the fight against terrorism.”
  • Witnesses said the explosion could be heard in many of the city’s districts.
  • The United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia condemned the attack, and said none of its “personnel or contractors” were in the targeted convoy.
  • The explosion has hit the country as it undergoes a tense election period that has seen growing infighting among its political leaders.
  • The political struggle has threatened to tip the country into violent conflict, like the clashes that broke out in April, and reverse the modicum of peace and stability Somalia has achieved in recent years.
  • As disagreements over the elections have persisted, Al Shabab have stepped up their attacks, particularly in the capital. Over the past two months, the group has carried out car bomb explosions, assassinated government officials and attacked election centers — efforts analysts say are aimed at undermining the electoral process.
  • The security situation in Somalia is deteriorating, and parts of the country are facing their driest season in around four decades. An estimated 3.8 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity, according to the United Nations, with almost three million displaced within the country.
  • “As long as the election cycle and current tensions drag on, the attention of the political elite will be more inwardly focused, while other priorities lag behind,”
  • “This unfortunately creates greater space for Al Shabab to operate.”
maddieireland334

Kenya tells longtime refugees living in camps to go home - 0 views

  • Yussuf, who has lived here most of his life, has to leave by November because Kenya is shutting all its refugee camps, displacing 600,000 people. The government said the camps have become infiltrated by terrorists
  • Now the Kenya government wants to repatriate Dadaab refugees to Somalia. The government also wants to close another camp, Kakuma, that houses refugees from South Sudan, where a fragile cease-fire has taken hold in that country’s civil war.
  • Kenya announced in May that it would will shutter the camps by November and send refugees back to Somalia and elsewhere after numerous attacks staged by al-Shabab, a Somalia terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda.
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  • Al-Shabab militants also attacked Kenyan peacekeeping troops in Somalia, where the central government in Mogadishu is weak. Al-Shabab, hoping to establish a radical Islamic theocracy, claims it wants Kenyan forces to leave Somalia.
  • Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery said Kenyan security forces have thwarted numerous al-Shabab terrorism attempts over the years by arresting terror suspects at the Dadaab refugee complex and recovering caches of arms there.
  • Dadaab and Kakuma are also hotbeds for poaching, human trafficking, illegal arms sales and other criminal activities, he added.
  • But refugees at the camp say the government is punishing them for the mistakes of others.
  • Others said they could not afford to leave the camp.
  • The United States has  joined the United Nations and human rights groups in urging Kenya to rescind its decision to shut down the refugee camps.
  • Meanwhile, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights urged the international community to help Kenya shoulder the burden of hosting the refugees to avoid closing the camps.
Megan Flanagan

Shabab Attack on Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, Kills Over a Dozen - The New York Times - 0 views

  • at least 15 people dead and creating a fiery scene of wrecked cars, crumbled buildings, panic and smoke that stretched for blocks in the heart of Mogadishu, the capital.
  • The Shabab, a Somali militant organization that has attacked several other hotels in similar fashion, claimed responsibility for the assault.
  • Somalia has been increasingly violent.
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  • are competing with the Islamic State and are desperate to demonstrate their militant prowess.
  • Somalia’s government and its Western allies, including the United States, have gone on the offensive, increasing the frequency of their strikes against militants.
  • United States killed about 150 Shabab fighters in airstrikes on a training camp; the attack was one of the deadliest single assaults in recent Somali history.
  • merican officials have said the troops’ primary role is to train and assist the African Union and Somali forces fighting the Shabab.
  • Two Somali lawmakers have been confirmed dead, and the authorities said the death toll could rise.
  • “I am scared,” said Abdulkadir Hassan
Alex Trudel

Al-Shabaab faction pledges allegiance to ISIS - CNN.com - 0 views

  • A high-ranking member and spiritual leader of Al-Shabaab has pledged allegiance to ISIS, a move that further fractures the Somali-based jihadi group and spreads the reach of ISIS farther into Africa.
  • The Al-Shabaab-linked source told CNN that members of the group now fear for their lives as other political leaders systematically try to root out possible ISIS supporters within their ranks.
  • For weeks, Al-Shabaab's secret police, known as the Amniyat, have been arresting and jailing members within the insurgent group who they believed would switch their allegiance from al Qaeda to ISIS.
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  • Puntland region of northern Somalia, and thus unlikely to be persecuted or reached by the Amniyat, which operates mostly in southern Somalia.
  • Sources within Somalia's security apparatus estimate that about 100 fighters would likely defect to ISIS, among the estimated 1,400-strong insurgent group.
  • "Al-Shabaab won't have a jihadi legitimacy if they don't have muhajideen (foreign fighters) within their ranks," the source said. "They were built on welcoming foreign fighters, and having them in the movement's hierarchy from the very first day."
  • One analyst explained ISIS' effectiveness in using modern technology to recruit new members
  • l-Shabaab's leadership, however, is still very much pro-al Qaeda. Its most recent propaganda video, showing a deadly attack on Burundian soldiers fighting for the African Union in Southern Somalia, used quotes from the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the group's current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. "This is a subtle way of intimating the leadership's loyalty to al Qaeda," says a source close to Somalia's intelligence service, NISA.
  • "Many Muhajirs (foreign fighters and members of the diaspora) were trying to leave and the harakah (leadership) is trying to make them stay."
  • ISIS may be more appealing to younger, more impressionable jihadis.
  • Nigeria's Boko Haram group and now to East Africa, potentially as far as the borders of Kenya.
  • The defection also shows a certain division within its ranks. The source close to Al-Shabaab told CNN he thought it was "the worst idea ever."
  • Somalia said its battle against terrorists will not be affected by any name changes.
  • r they change their name, affiliation or not," said Abdisalam Aato, the government spokesman.
sarahbalick

Al-Shabab seizes African Union base in Somalia - BBC News - 0 views

  • Al-Shabab seizes African Union base in Somalia
  • The Islamist group says it has taken "complete control" of the AU camp and killed more than 60 Kenyan soldiers.
  • The number of casualties on both sides was not known, Kenyan military spokesman Col David Obonyo said in a statement.
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  • "We then saw an al-Shabab fighter in the town. We also saw Kenyan soldiers who were fleeing from the camp."At the moment the camp is in the hands of al-Shabab. We can see military cars burning and dead soldiers all over the place. There are no civilian casualties but most people have fled the town."
krystalxu

Negotiating With Al-Shabaab Will Get America Out of Somalia - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • a huge section of the city, previously considered relatively safe, now lies in ruins.
  • Ghastly as al-Shabaab is, negotiating with the group may be the only road to peace.
  • Within Somalia, al-Shabaab continued to control much of the countryside and has proved all but impossible to dislodge.
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  • al-Shabaab began receiving support from enraged Arab supporters and the group has since become a member of the al-Qaeda network.
  • AMISOM troops, particularly Ugandan ones, have committed numerous human rights violations, including the sexual abuse of Somali girls and women, and are notoriously corrupt.
krystalxu

Out of Tragedy, An Opportunity for Somalia's Government - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • more are certain to die in the city’s few under-resourced and over-crowded hospitals.
  • The most persistent lag with which the political elite will be forced to reckon is security reform.
  • The Islamic State, for one, has tried to infiltrate the country from the northeast.
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  • Somalis tend to expect little from from their government, ever since the formal state collapsed more than two decades ago, brought down by internal power struggles and clan politics.
  • and set milestones, including due dates for an accurate tally of all the members of the army, navy, or police, as well as a payroll system and legislation on countering violent extremism.
  • Somalia’s Internal Security Ministry spokesman has left office, though rumors in national media say he was fired.
julia rhodes

The protest and the predators - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • Belonging to the anti-war group Code Pink, one of the protesters tried to remind Brennan of children being killed by the drones, another held up a list of victims in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan and another a sign saying "Drones Make Enemies".
  • The route to drone supremacy has been a surreptitious one relying sometimes on exaggerations of their "surgical accuracy" and precision
  • Brennan claimed that not a single "collateral" death had taken place as a result of drone strikes in Pakistan. This was proven untrue by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism which looked at 116 secret drone strikes during the period in which 45 or more civilians appeared to have died.
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  • He responded simply by insisting that the strike against Anwar Al-Awlaki, one of two American citizens killed by drones in 2009, was justified because he was a "legitimate military target"
  • no United States citizen may arbitrarily deprived of life, liberty or property by the Government without sanction of law
  • redefinitions of what counts as a "casualty"
  • "counts all military age males in a strike zone as combatants" unless there is explicit evidence, posthumously proving them innocent.
  • Administration's assertion that the 9/11 attacks constituted a "declaration of war" by al-Qaeda against the United States and hence gives the latter the power to pursue the group regardless of which country's borders it may be located in. This is precisely the argument used by the Obama Administration to justify its attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan, even though it has not officially declared war against the country. Its consequences are a legal limbo, where the victims of the attacks cannot avail either the international law of war under the Geneva Conventions or being non-citizens also cannot bring claims under US law.
  • he United Nation's move is replete with good intentions, and on the international legal front, any response to US overreach on drones even if it is a belated one, is welcome indeed.
  • n addition, absent on both the international front and in the domestic debate on drones inside the United States is a discussion of the moral challenges imposed by using lethal killing technology where the killers are never themselves in danger and the targets have little notice of the extent of the surveillance they may be facing or the probability of an attack.
  • then Afghanistan and now Pakistan are ravaged and hundreds of thousands of people killed in the name of eliminating terror.
katyshannon

The Assassination Complex - 0 views

  • DRONES ARE A TOOL, not a policy. The policy is assassination. While every president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel, Congress has avoided legislating the issue or even defining the word “assassination.” This has allowed proponents of the drone wars to rebrand assassinations with more palatable characterizations, such as the term du jour, targeted killings.”
  • When the Obama administration has discussed drone strikes publicly, it has offered assurances that such operations are a more precise alternative to boots on the ground and are authorized only when an “imminent” threat is present and there is “near certainty” that the intended target will be eliminated. Those terms, however, appear to have been bluntly redefined to bear almost no resemblance to their commonly understood meanings.
  • Additional documents on high-value kill/capture operations in Afghanistan buttress previous accounts of how the Obama administration masks the true number of civilians killed in drone strikes by categorizing unidentified people killed in a strike as enemies, even if they were not the intended targets. The slides also paint a picture of a campaign in Afghanistan aimed not only at eliminating al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, but also at taking out members of other local armed groups.
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  • The Intercept has obtained a cache of secret slides that provides a window into the inner workings of the U.S. military’s kill/capture operations at a key time in the evolution of the drone wars — between 2011 and 2013. The documents, which also outline the internal views of special operations forces on the shortcomings and flaws of the drone program, were provided by a source within the intelligence community who worked on the types of operations and programs described in the slides.
  • The source said he decided to provide these documents to The Intercept because he believes the public has a right to understand the process by which people are placed on kill lists and ultimately assassinated on orders from the highest echelons of the U.S. government. “This outrageous explosion of watchlisting — of monitoring people and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers, assigning them ‘baseball cards,’ assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield — it was, from the very first instance, wrong,” the source said.
  • Two sets of slides focus on the military’s high-value targeting campaign in Somalia and Yemen as it existed between 2011 and 2013, specifically the operations of a secretive unit, Task Force 48-4.
  • The first drone strike outside of a declared war zone was conducted more than 12 years ago, yet it was not until May 2013 that the White House released a set of standards and procedures for conducting such strikes. Those guidelines offered little specificity, asserting that the U.S. would only conduct a lethal strike outside of an “area of active hostilities” if a target represents a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons,” without providing any sense of the internal process used to determine whether a suspect should be killed without being indicted or tried.
  • One top-secret document shows how the terror “watchlist” appears in the terminals of personnel conducting drone operations, linking unique codes associated with cellphone SIM cards and handsets to specific individuals in order to geolocate them.
  • The ISR study also reveals new details about the case of a British citizen, Bilal el-Berjawi, who was stripped of his citizenship before being killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2012. British and American intelligence had Berjawi under surveillance for several years as he traveled back and forth between the U.K. and East Africa, yet did not capture him. Instead, the U.S. hunted him down and killed him in Somalia.
  • Taken together, the secret documents lead to the conclusion that Washington’s 14-year high-value targeting campaign suffers from an overreliance on signals intelligence, an apparently incalculable civilian toll, and — due to a preference for assassination rather than capture — an inability to extract potentially valuable intelligence from terror suspects.
  • They also highlight the futility of the war in Afghanistan by showing how the U.S. has poured vast resources into killing local insurgents, in the process exacerbating the very threat the U.S. is seeking to confront.
  • These secret slides help provide historical context to Washington’s ongoing wars, and are especially relevant today as the U.S. military intensifies its drone strikes and covert actions against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Those campaigns, like the ones detailed in these documents, are unconventional wars that employ special operations forces at the tip of the spear.
  • Whether through the use of drones, night raids, or new platforms yet to be unleashed, these documents lay bare the normalization of assassination as a central component of U.S. counterterrorism policy.
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    The Intercept's release of top-secret government documents detailing U.S. drone strikes in the Middle East and Africa.
rachelramirez

Sanctuary without end: The refugees the world forgot - CNN.com - 0 views

  • The refugees the world forgot
  • For Dadaab is the largest refugee camp in the world. If it was a city, it would be one of Kenya's largest.
  • Abdula and his family fled Somalia's brutal civil war for Dadaab in 1994. The 26-year-old has been living here since childhood and knows little else.
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  • And even though the camp has existed for 24 years, permanent structures are banned by the Kenyan government.
  • Dadaab rose from modest beginnings, set up in 1991 as a temporary shelter for 90,000 refugees fleeing the civil war engulfing neighboring Somalia.
  • During the height of Somalia's 2011 famine, tens of thousands of refugees made the journey by bus, donkey cart and foot to escape hunger and the Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab. A quarter of a million people died during the famine. Most were under the age of six, according to the U.N.
Javier E

So Wrong for So Long | Foreign Policy - 0 views

  • Getting Iraq wrong wasn’t just an unfortunate miscalculation, it happened because their theories of world politics were dubious and their understanding of how the world works was goofy. When your strategic software is riddled with bugs, you should expect a lot of error messages.When your strategic software is riddled with bugs, you should expect a lot of error messages.
  • For starters, neoconservatives think balance-of-power politics doesn’t really work in international affairs and that states are strongly inclined to “bandwagon” instead. In other words, they think weaker states are easy to bully and never stand up to powerful adversaries. Their faulty logic follows that other states will do whatever Washington dictates provided we demonstrate how strong and tough we are.
  • What happened, alas, was that the various states we were threatening didn’t jump on our bandwagon. Instead, they balanced and then took steps to make sure we faced significant and growing resistance. In particular, Syria and Iran (the next two states on the neocons’ target list), cooperated even further with each other and helped aid the anti-American insurgency in Iraq itself.
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  • Today, of course, opposition to the Iran deal reflects a similar belief that forceful resolve would enable Washington to dictate whatever terms it wants. As I’ve written before, this idea is the myth of a “better deal.” Because neocons assume states are attracted to strength and easy to intimidate, they think rejecting the deal, ratcheting up sanctions, and threatening war will cause Iran’s government to finally cave in and dismantle its entire enrichment program.
  • On the contrary, walking away from the deal will stiffen Iran’s resolve, strengthen its hard-liners, increase its interest in perhaps actually acquiring a nuclear weapon someday, and cause the other members of the P5+1 to part company with the United States.
  • The neoconservative worldview also exaggerates the efficacy of military force and downplays the value of diplomacy.
  • In reality, military force is a crude instrument whose effects are hard to foresee and one which almost always produces unintended consequences (see under: Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, etc.)
  • Moreover, neocons believe military force is a supple tool that can be turned on and off like a spigot.
  • Once forces are committed, the military brass will demand the chance to win a clear victory, and politicians will worry about the nation’s prestige and their own political fortunes. The conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia should remind us that it’s a lot easier to get into wars than it is to get out of them
  • Third, the neoconservatives have a simplistic and ahistorical view of democracy itself. They claim their main goal is spreading freedom and democracy (except for Palestinians, of course), but they have no theory to explain how this will happen or how toppling a foreign government with military force will magically cause democracy to emerge
  • In fact, the development of liberal democracy was a long, contentious, imperfect, and often violent process in Western Europe and North America
  • Fourth, as befits a group of armchair ideologues whose primary goal has been winning power inside the Beltway, neoconservatives are often surprisingly ignorant about the actual conditions of the countries whose politics and society they want to transform.
  • In addition to flawed theories, in short, the neoconservative worldview also depends on an inaccurate reading of the facts on the ground.
  • Last but not least, the neoconservatives’ prescriptions for U.S. foreign policy are perennially distorted by a strong attachment to Israel,
  • But no two states have identical interests all the time, and when the interests of two countries conflict, people who feel strongly about both are forced to decide which of these feelings is going to take priority.
  • some proponents of the deal have pointed out — correctly — that some opponents don’t like the deal because they think it is bad for Israel and because the Netanyahu government is dead set against it. As one might expect, pointing out these obvious facts has led some opponents of the deal to accuse proponents (including President Obama) of anti-Semitism
  • Instead of being a serious criticism, this familiar smear is really just a way to change the subject and to put proponents of the deal on the defensive for pointing out the obvious
  • The fact that the neoconservatives, AIPAC, the Conference of Presidents, and other groups in the Israel lobby were wrong about the Iraq War does not by itself mean that they are necessarily wrong about the Iran deal. But when you examine their basic views on world politics and their consistent approach to U.S. Middle East policy, it becomes clear this is not a coincidence at all
lenaurick

Greece buses 2,000 refugees from border camp to Athens | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • Greece buses 2,000 refugees from border camp to Athens
  • Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis continue to be allowed into Macedonia and the Balkans, but people of other nationalities, who make up roughly 10% of the total number, have been stopped at the border since early November. Instead of returning to Athens, many of them set up camp for several weeks – and several sewed shut their mouths – leading to Wednesday’s dispersal.
  • In northern Greece, an activist and an aid worker said hundreds of Greek police arrived in the morning to disperse the camp, which includes asylum seekers from warring countries such as Somalia, as well as peaceful ones like Morocco. The vast majority went without protest, though some Iranians held a short demonstration at around midday, before being bussed back to Athens in a convoy of around 50 coaches.
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  • And you have UNHCR [the UN refugee agency] telling people how to apply for asylum.”
  • Many migrants instead tried their luck on the triple razor-wire fence that lines the borders of the Spanish enclave of Melilla, which more than 2,000 migrants and refugees managed to scale in 2014
  • t was the third boat attempting the crossing in as many days. On Sunday, the Spanish coastguard rescued 51 people making the journey, and on Monday another 47 people.
  • The numbers arriving on the islands nevertheless remain a far cry far from those in 2006, when more than 31,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands. Hundreds of others drowned or died of thirst and exposure while attempting the journey, which can take up to two weeks.
  • Meanwhile, the bodies of 11 migrants attempting to reach Spain’s Canary Islands by boat were recovered on Tuesday, the latest victims of a perilous migration route that appears to be regaining popularity with sub-Saharan migrants desperate to make it to Europe.
  • Greece has dispersed more than 2,000 refugees
  • Greece has dispersed more than 2,000 refugees
  • EU announced that over 1 million people had now claimed asylum within its borders since the start of the year.
  • Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis continue to be allowed into Macedonia and the Balkans
  • on Wednesday 11 people were confirmed to have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean during an attempt to reach Spain’s Canary Islands by boat from west Africa.
  • which includes asylum seekers from warring countries such as Somalia, as well as peaceful ones like Morocco.
  • he morning to disperse the camp,
  • Other observers speculate that those who have been returned to Athens will not remain for long, with many expected to try to reach northern Europe via Bulgaria or Albania instead.
  • On Sunday, the Spanish coastguard rescued 51 people making the journey, and on Monday another 47 people.
  • Rough estimates suggest that more than 400 people have arrived in the Spanish archipelago since the start of the year,
Megan Flanagan

Teaching resumes at Kenya's Garissa University - CNN.com - 0 views

  • dormitory where the attackers went room to room killing students has since been renamed.
  • police station has been set up at the school and security presence has upped from four officers to 30.
  • Classes resume Monday at Garissa University College, nine months after the school experienced one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks Kenyan soil.
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  • separated Muslims and shot Christians to death
  • dead students lay in rows, others shot in the back of the head.
  • students are still haunted by the massacre and one wonders if it is not too soon for classes to restart.
  • attending early morning prayers when Al Shabaab militants threw a grenade into the room and sprayed the room with bullets
  • The Islamist extremist group is based in Somalia, but it hasn't confined its terrorism to the nation that shares a border with Kenya
  • And while she received money from the government and the college, she is still struggling to pay medical bills along with her school fees at her new university
  • "Those of us who lived. We still have not healed," she says.
  • Across the country, there have been efforts to improve school security
  • no escaping the atmosphere of fear the attacks have created
  • murder 148 people, the worst terrorist attack in Kenya since the 1998 embassy bombings.
  • militants have vowed to continue with attacks until Kenya withdraws troops from neighboring Somalia, where they are helping fight the terror group.
  • If we closed the school then Al Shabaab would have won because they would have shut down a center of higher learning,"
draneka

Fallen Troops' Families Tell of Meeting Presidents: Sympathy and Sometimes Discomfort -... - 0 views

  • And while a number of relatives said they were subject to verbal punches dressed up as sympathy, none came from the presidents who sent their sons and daughters to war.
  • This year, 11 American service members have been killed in Afghanistan and 14 in Iraq. Seventeen sailors were killed in accidents involving two Navy warships, the John S. McCain and the Fitzgerald. A member of the Navy SEALs was killed in Somalia and four American soldiers in the Niger ambush. Mr. Trump said this week that he had called “every family of somebody that’s died, and it’s the hardest call to make.”
  • “He said he was sorry, and he said he and I had something in common,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Oh dear, what is this?’ He said, ‘You and I cry when they play the national anthem.’”
anonymous

Life after al-Shabab: Driving a school bus instead of an armed pickup truck - 0 views

  • Any caught trying to leave are put to death. At the same time, the government tries to encourage defectors, and runs rehab centres to help them re-enter society.
  • "We are not afraid to tell our stories. Ask us anything you want. You can take our photos and use our real names."
  • al-Shabab, which has been in existence for more than a decade and controls large parts of Somalia, imposing harsh rules and punishments. The group has set up a parallel administration, with ministries, a police force and a justice system. It runs schools and health centres, irrigates land and repairs roads and bridges, and needs people to carry out this work.
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  • The penalty for defecting is death. Al-Shabab has told me this penalty applies to anyone who leaves the group without permission, not just fighters.
  • they tried to alter my mind
  • Every two weeks they sent a brainwashing team to our battalion which sat with us for hours reciting verses from the Koran and repeating over and over again how the government, the African Union and its other international supporters were infidels and apostates.
  • the decision to defect was terrifying
  • there is also the fear of what will happen on the other side
  • There are efforts to spread the word inside al-Shabab territory about this defectors' programme. Colourful leaflets have been designed, with images for those who cannot read showing members of al-Shabab being rescued, and a phone number they can call. These efforts have led to an increase in defections, with more than 60 leaving al-Shabab in a two-month period earlier this year.
  • He says he will never return to his home village - he will spend the rest of life trying to melt into the big city of Mogadishu
  • some active members of al-Shabab slip through the net and send messages to the group from within the camp.
  • But life after al-Shabab is rarely easy.
  • some members of his family have rejected him
  • Sheikhs visit to help with deradicalisation, to convince the young men that there is another kind of Islam unlike that drilled into them by al-Shabab.
  • defectors receive political education to make them more positive about the government.
  • I meet a neatly dressed and softly spoken young man, Bashir, who recently left Serendi after two years there. It is difficult to imagine how such a gentle person could have been a member of a group that focuses so intently on violence, both in its actions and its words.
  • Now that Serendi is operating more successfully, rehabilitation centres are also being set up for defectors' wives
  • Al-Shabab regularly assassinates people in Mogadishu; residents of the city say the militants are everywhere. They "tax" people, distribute charity and dispense justice in areas nominally under government control.
Javier E

China to Be No. 1 Economy Before 2030, Study Says - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • To assess the validity of this study, the research and analysis team graded their past work on global trends, an effort undertaken every four years since 1996. Past studies, they found, had underestimated the speed with which changes arrived on the global scene.
  • The risk of conflict within a state — like a civil war or an insurgency — is expected to decline in Latin America, but will remain high in sub-Saharan Africa, in parts of the Middle East and South Asia, as well as in some Asia-Pacific island hot spots, the study warns.
  • “the health of the global economy increasingly will be linked to how well the developing world does — more so than the traditional West.” In addition to China, the developing nations that “will become especially important to the global economy” include India, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and Turkey.
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  • A new intelligence assessment of global trends projects that China will outstrip the United States as the leading economic power before 2030, but that America will remain an indispensable world leader
  • “The growth of the global middle class constitutes a tectonic shift,” the study says, adding that billions of people will gain new individual power as they climb out of poverty. “For the first time, a majority of the world’s population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world.”
  • half of the world’s population will probably be living in areas that suffer from severe shortages of fresh water, meaning that management of natural resources will be a crucial component of global national security efforts.
  • terrorists could mount a computer-network attack in which the casualties would be measured not by the hundreds or thousands killed but by the millions severely affected by damaged infrastructure, like electrical grids being taken down.
  • At least 15 countries are “at high risk of state failure” by 2030, the report predicts, among them Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda and Yemen.
  • The best-case situation for global security until 2030, according to the study, would be a growing political partnership between the United States and China.
  • The worst-case situation envisions a stalling of economic globalization that would preclude advancement of financial well-being around the world. That would be a likely outcome after an outbreak of a health pandemic that, even if short-lived, would result in closed borders and economic isolationism.
  • Mr. Burrows noted that the audiences in China were far more accepting of the American intelligence assessments — both those predicting China’s economic ascendancy and those warning of political dangers if there was no reform of governance in Beijing — than were audiences in Russia.
  • To assess the validity of this study, the research and analysis team graded its past work on global trends, an effort undertaken every four years since 1996. Past studies, it found, underestimated the speed with which changes arrived on the global scene.
  • previous assessments should have paid greater attention to ideology.
  • The risk of conflict within a state — like a civil war or an insurgency — is expected to decline in Latin America, but will remain high in sub-Saharan Africa, in parts of the Middle East and South Asia, and in some Asia-Pacific island hot spots
  • Most worrisome — and already a part of the global security dynamic — is an assessment that future wars in Asia and the Middle East could include nuclear weapons.
  • Other important demographic trends will be aging populations in Europe, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which could slow their economies further
  • “the health of the global economy increasingly will be linked to how well the developing world does — more so than the traditional West.”
  • In addition to China, the developing nations that “will become especially important to the global economy” include Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and Turkey.
marleymorton

Trump administration to allow 872 refugees into U.S. this week - 0 views

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    The U.S. government has granted waivers to let 872 refugees into the country this week, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday. The waivers, granted by the State Department and DHS, came amid worldwide protests against President Trump's executive order which bans all Syrian refugees indefinitely, halts refugee entries for 120 days, and restricts for three months immigrants from Libya, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - Muslim-majority countries with a combined population of 212 million.
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