Syrian rebel factions in Idlib Province have been engaged in serious fighting for days. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (salafi-jihadist coalition formed and led by an AQ spin-off) has apparently decisively defeated Nour al-Din al-Zinki Movement, forcing their remnants to flee from Idlib into Turkish-controlled areas to the north. Nour al-Din al-Zinki got sorta infamous among observers of the war a few years back; the US was giving them weapons, but then some of their members beheaded a child on film, which the US said it would "take into account" or something similarly non-committal.
“Zenki had been a thorn in Tahrir Al Sham’s side and one of the most stubborn challenges to its dominance, and now it has been defeated,” said Sam Heller, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The Observatory said that hundreds of Zenki fighters and other defeated National Liberation Front affiliates retreated to territory held by Turkey-backed rebels in Afrin, which Hayat Tahrir Al Sham cut off from other territory in Idlib.
According to this article, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham followed this up by directly attacking Turkish-backed rebel factions north of the area they took from al-Zinki. Since Turkish troops are stationed in that region, that's a pretty bold move, although the article notes that Turkey and its proxies are massed to the east in preparation for war with the SDF, and were apparently caught off guard by HTS's attack.
I wonder if HTaS' willingness to fight Turkish backed rebel factions will open the door to negotiation between them and the government backed forces?
John Bolton is now in Turkey. Presumably taking time away from his busy schedule of selling invasions of North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela to Make North Syria and Kurdistan Great Again(tm).
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Bolton doesn't really care where the US is fighting its wars so long as poor brown-skinned people are getting bombed.
Turkey's adventurism was always going to be cause for concern for the other major regional powers, but apparently it's been taking effect a lot faster than I would've expected. Granted, the Israelis and Saudis have been cooperating a lot more for some time now. Riyadh's moved from bankrolling the overthrow of the Syrian government to convincing them to switch camps (then again, we tried to do the same thing with Iran's relationship with Russia), and Israel may follow suit (instead of outright bombing Syria).
Iran got caught with two assassinations of Dutch citizen Iranian dissidents in the EU, so they're getting sanctioned again by the EU.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Syrian rebel factions in Idlib Province have been engaged in serious fighting for days. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (salafi-jihadist coalition formed and led by an AQ spin-off) has apparently decisively defeated Nour al-Din al-Zinki Movement, forcing their remnants to flee from Idlib into Turkish-controlled areas to the north. Nour al-Din al-Zinki got sorta infamous among observers of the war a few years back; the US was giving them weapons, but then some of their members beheaded a child on film, which the US said it would "take into account" or something similarly non-committal.
“Zenki had been a thorn in Tahrir Al Sham’s side and one of the most stubborn challenges to its dominance, and now it has been defeated,” said Sam Heller, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The Observatory said that hundreds of Zenki fighters and other defeated National Liberation Front affiliates retreated to territory held by Turkey-backed rebels in Afrin, which Hayat Tahrir Al Sham cut off from other territory in Idlib.
According to this article, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham followed this up by directly attacking Turkish-backed rebel factions north of the area they took from al-Zinki. Since Turkish troops are stationed in that region, that's a pretty bold move, although the article notes that Turkey and its proxies are massed to the east in preparation for war with the SDF, and were apparently caught off guard by HTS's attack.
I wonder if HTaS' willingness to fight Turkish backed rebel factions will open the door to negotiation between them and the government backed forces?
I like your optimism, so far my thought process has been "HTS in full control of Idlib + government wants control of Idlib = bloodbath".
More reports of fighting came yesterday, with HTS pushing Ahrar al-Sham out of some of its strongholds. Twitter has gifted me with these maps representing the two HTS advances:
Turkey's adventurism was always going to be cause for concern for the other major regional powers, but apparently it's been taking effect a lot faster than I would've expected. Granted, the Israelis and Saudis have been cooperating a lot more for some time now. Riyadh's moved from bankrolling the overthrow of the Syrian government to convincing them to switch camps (then again, we tried to do the same thing with Iran's relationship with Russia), and Israel may follow suit (instead of outright bombing Syria).
So a major power pulls out, and a coalition of third powers begins to enter the war on the side that should ostensibly be religious enemies, in order to counterbalance potential aggression by a regional rival that should technically be allies?
Is everyone involved trying to do a 30 years war reenactment?
Turkey's adventurism was always going to be cause for concern for the other major regional powers, but apparently it's been taking effect a lot faster than I would've expected. Granted, the Israelis and Saudis have been cooperating a lot more for some time now. Riyadh's moved from bankrolling the overthrow of the Syrian government to convincing them to switch camps (then again, we tried to do the same thing with Iran's relationship with Russia), and Israel may follow suit (instead of outright bombing Syria).
So a major power pulls out, and a coalition of third powers begins to enter the war on the side that should ostensibly be religious enemies, in order to counterbalance potential aggression by a regional rival that should technically be allies?
Is everyone involved trying to do a 30 years war reenactment?
Quite possibly. I'm pretty sure half the anti-Hapsburg realms went around razing the Holy Roman Empire while declaring some variation of the following: "We're not actually fighting here, you're just an idiot." "Okay, we're fighting here, but we're not fighting the Holy Roman Empire, even if we just killed scores of their levied peasant armies." and "Okay, we're fighting here, but it's absolutely that castle's own fault we had to wipe it out. Which we didn't. But even if we did, we'd have every right to do so."
Turkey's adventurism was always going to be cause for concern for the other major regional powers, but apparently it's been taking effect a lot faster than I would've expected. Granted, the Israelis and Saudis have been cooperating a lot more for some time now. Riyadh's moved from bankrolling the overthrow of the Syrian government to convincing them to switch camps (then again, we tried to do the same thing with Iran's relationship with Russia), and Israel may follow suit (instead of outright bombing Syria).
So a major power pulls out, and a coalition of third powers begins to enter the war on the side that should ostensibly be religious enemies, in order to counterbalance potential aggression by a regional rival that should technically be allies?
Is everyone involved trying to do a 30 years war reenactment?
Quite possibly. I'm pretty sure half the anti-Hapsburg realms went around razing the Holy Roman Empire while declaring some variation of the following: "We're not actually fighting here, you're just an idiot." "Okay, we're fighting here, but we're not fighting the Holy Roman Empire, even if we just killed scores of their levied peasant armies." and "Okay, we're fighting here, but it's absolutely that castle's own fault we had to wipe it out. Which we didn't. But even if we did, we'd have every right to do so."
Makes me think about the virtues and risks of a unipolar/bipolar world vs a multipolar world.
Turkey's adventurism was always going to be cause for concern for the other major regional powers, but apparently it's been taking effect a lot faster than I would've expected. Granted, the Israelis and Saudis have been cooperating a lot more for some time now. Riyadh's moved from bankrolling the overthrow of the Syrian government to convincing them to switch camps (then again, we tried to do the same thing with Iran's relationship with Russia), and Israel may follow suit (instead of outright bombing Syria).
So a major power pulls out, and a coalition of third powers begins to enter the war on the side that should ostensibly be religious enemies, in order to counterbalance potential aggression by a regional rival that should technically be allies?
Is everyone involved trying to do a 30 years war reenactment?
Quite possibly. I'm pretty sure half the anti-Hapsburg realms went around razing the Holy Roman Empire while declaring some variation of the following: "We're not actually fighting here, you're just an idiot." "Okay, we're fighting here, but we're not fighting the Holy Roman Empire, even if we just killed scores of their levied peasant armies." and "Okay, we're fighting here, but it's absolutely that castle's own fault we had to wipe it out. Which we didn't. But even if we did, we'd have every right to do so."
Pretty much, in the case of France especially.
It went from “We support our catholic brothers” to “we support our catholic brothers please ignore the gold and French weapons popping up in protestant hands” to “we support our Catholic brothers please ignore the “pro-French” volunteer forces fighting with the Swedes and Dutch” to “French forces are going into the HRE on a peacekeeping mission to protect French interests” to“fuck it DOW Austria and Spain”.
There is a shady part of the Afghanistan War that no one really talks about, in the eastern provinces like Khost and Nangarhar. Essentially the US campaign in some of these areas is run by the CIA and not the DoD. The CIA has developed its own local militia/paramilitary forces who operate outside of Afghan government institutions. I've seen these groups - the Khost Protection Forces in particular - mentioned before, but NYT recently published a more up to date and in depth report. Shockingly, it sounds like the CIA is doing bad things. Some important bits
As Mr. Khan was driven away for questioning, he watched his home go up in flames. Within were the bodies of two of his brothers and of his sister-in-law Khanzari, who was shot three times in the head. Villagers who rushed to the home found the burned body of her 3-year-old daughter, Marina, in a corner of a torched bedroom. The men who raided the family’s home that March night, in the district of Nader Shah Kot, were members of an Afghan strike force trained and overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency in a parallel mission to the United States military’s, but with looser rules of engagement.
At a time when the conventional Afghan military and police forces are being killed in record numbers across the country, the regional forces overseen by the C.I.A. have managed to hold the line against the most brutal militant groups, including the Haqqani wing of the Taliban and also Islamic State loyalists.
But the units have also operated unconstrained by battlefield rules designed to protect civilians, conducting night raids, torture and killings with near impunity, in a covert campaign that some Afghan and American officials say is undermining the wider American effort to strengthen Afghan institutions.
Those abuses are actively pushing people toward the Taliban, the officials say.
...the members are paid nearly three times as much as regular Afghan soldiers.
For months, The New York Times has investigated the human toll of the C.I.A.-sponsored forces on communities. Times journalists researched frequent complaints — at times almost weekly — that these units had raided and killed civilians, and The Times went to the sites of half a dozen of their raids, often less than 24 hours after the force had left.
The investigation found details of a C.I.A. mission with tactical successes that have come at the cost of alienating the Afghan population. One former senior Afghan security official bluntly accused the strike forces of war crimes.
Several current and former Afghan officials said that the C.I.A. still largely commanded the strike forces in Khost and Nangarhar, effectively putting the units above the law. American agents and contractors work closely with them on their bases, develop the targets for them, and help guide the operations from headquarters. And the Americans have a presence at bases where detainees have accused the units of torture and abuse, officials say.
I'll stop quoting there because the article is very interesting and worth reading in full. Sorta sounds like the CIA is running death squads in eastern provinces and doing their usual "torture the Afghans" thing.
edit- ok one more:
At a September news conference in the city of Jalalabad, elders from three districts of Nangarhar said that over 100 civilians were killed by the 02 unit the month before. (That number could not be verified independently.)
"02" even sounds like what the CIA might name one if its death squads
Jesus Christ, it's the same mistakes over and over again. And as soon as these guys stop being paid you can just add them to the pile of groups exploiting and destabilising the country. How the fuck is the CIA still so shortsighted. This lesson has been playing out for decades in every theatre they get involved in. I suppose you could argue the CIA is just doing the dirty work for the government to give them their desired shortsighted "quarterly return", but don't they get bored of using the same playbook with the same inevitable blowback?
It's easy to blame the Afghan national army and police forces--with their rampant corruption and infiltration--but how little has changed with the forces under direct US control over the years.
So Afghanistan's own security apparatus (see the "rampant" above) is maturing, taking on CIA duties...and in return, the CIA is taking on duties from the departing foreign military, and employing paramilitary forces in the process. Nice cycle.
Turkey's foreign minister comments on the fighting in Idlib:
“Radical groups are attacking the Syrian opposition, and we have taken necessary measures to halt these attacks.” (source: Anadolu agency)
Kind of an odd statement to release a few days after HTS inflicted devastating defeats on various rivals in the province (what "measures" could they have taken?). Maybe he means that Turkey has reinforced their Syrian allies to Idlib's north with more Turkish troops/armor, since there had been reports of clashes between HTS and the Turkish-backed forces in Afrin/north Aleppo. I was kind of surprised that Turkey basically stood by and did nothing as HTS destroyed Nour al-Din al-Zinki and badly wounded its other rivals, but probably they don't want to become entangled in an extended campaign against HTS in Idlib when they're in the middle of a kind of standoff with the SDF.
Jesus Christ, it's the same mistakes over and over again. And as soon as these guys stop being paid you can just add them to the pile of groups exploiting and destabilising the country. How the fuck is the CIA still so shortsighted. This lesson has been playing out for decades in every theatre they get involved in. I suppose you could argue the CIA is just doing the dirty work for the government to give them their desired shortsighted "quarterly return", but don't they get bored of using the same playbook with the same inevitable blowback?
To me it sounds like they're already exploiting and destabilizing the country.
The Taliban infiltrated an Afghan intelligence base on Monday, killing dozens who worked for the agency in what officials said was one of the deadliest attacks against the intelligence service in the 17-year war with the Taliban.
...
The attack, early Monday morning, came hours before the Taliban announced it had resumed peace talks with American officials.
...
Several senior Afghan officials put the number of dead between 40 and 48, while as many as 60 more were wounded.
... The intelligence agency, long mentored by C.I.A. advisers, has also worked to extend its forces around the country by training local militias. In the past, security officials have played down those efforts, casting the militias as organic movements of locals who are staging “uprisings” against the Taliban. But on Monday, they acknowledged that many men killed in the attack were militia members they had been training.
...
Casualties of Afghan intelligence officers have generally been lower than those of other forces, in part because of the better training and equipment they have. But in recent years, as regular forces have been stretched by intensifying fighting across the country, Afghan intelligence officers, particularly the agency’s special forces, have often found themselves operating like regular forces, deployed to different areas to hold the line and taking on other tasks they are not meant for.
That bolded part was interesting to me; I've seen Afghan media (Tolo usually) repeatedly refer to "uprising groups" in reports of fighting against the Taliban. I was never really sure what sort of local militia those reports referred to, so I'm glad NYT attempted to clarify.
Aside from that, I don't know that the decision to reenter talks was related to the attack on the intelligence base (the article doesn't state that it was but sort of seems to imply a relation). Regardless, an intelligence base getting wiped out in a province I don't hear much about (Wardak) is yet another bad sign for the Afghan government. Fighting this winter has also been more severe than in previous winters. People used to refer to a "fighting season" in Afghanistan, and the violence still tamps up from mid spring-mid fall, but the level of violence in the winter now surpasses even the summers of many years past.
Whenever I hear about the destruction of a training base (a frequent enough occurrence in wars), I get upset about the degree to which war targets the youth. Young men as a demographic just get fucked by these wars. Obviously not news or anything, it has always been this way (Russia in WWII is a particularly tragic example) but it's just so wrong.
edit- also I'm about to watch Korengal, a documentary made by the people behind Restrepo, I'll let y'all know what I think of it
Regardless, here's an Afghanistan news rundown for anyone interested:
- I didn't find Korengal to be very interesting, but it was well done nonetheless. Zooms in on the experiences of a handful of American soldiers garrisoning a base in a dangerous region of eastern Afghanistan, where the Taliban often pass through when smuggling weapons and such. The US withdrew from the valley several years ago, after which the already-present Taliban gained control of most of it. However, ISIS's Afghan branch recently managed to push the Taliban out of the valley, in an assault reportedly involving hundreds of fighters from surrounding provinces. In so doing, they have taken control of a somewhat strategic position and, unfortunately, created a new foothold in the east.
- Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says that 45,000 Afghan soldiers have been killed since late 2014. This is a higher number than anyone has previously acknowledged. When taking Taliban and civilian deaths into account, it seems likely that over 100,000 Afghans have been killed in just the last four years of warfare. A far greater toll than is widely understood, and a number that makes the lack of attention paid to the conflict even less justifiable.
- Despite the lack of US commitment and relatively low troop levels, we have been bombing the everliving fuck out of the country.
As the security crisis continues, SIGAR also noted the US has dramatically increased air attacks, dropping 6,823 bombs in the first 11 months of 2018.
"This year's figure was already 56 percent higher than the total number of munitions released in 2017 [4,361], and is more than five times the total released in 2016," SIGAR said in its report.
- The Khost Protection Force - one of the CIA-trained paramilitaries (not under Afghan government control) referred to in an above post - has again been accused of murdering civilians
A survivor of the attack carried out in Surkai village in Zurmat district, in Paktia province, described to AAN how five men in his family, including three university students, and a neighbour, were summarily executed and how he was questioned by an American in uniform accompanying the Afghan gunmen. The Paktia governor’s spokesman has also confirmed that ‘foreign troops’ were involved in the operation (and the US military spokesman has said the US military was not involved).
Any one want to explain to me what Turkey's over aching goals in the region are? They seem to mostly be "avoid being a mere puppet to the US and KSA". Seem to be moving towards Moscow and Tehran.
Any one want to explain to me what Turkey's over aching goals in the region are? They seem to mostly be "avoid being a mere puppet to the US and KSA". Seem to be moving towards Moscow and Tehran.
Edrogan makes a lot of noise about a new Ottoman Empire. They want to be the major power player in the region again, and it is starting to look like that includes annexing territory.
Any one want to explain to me what Turkey's over aching goals in the region are? They seem to mostly be "avoid being a mere puppet to the US and KSA". Seem to be moving towards Moscow and Tehran.
Power, basically, not really different than anyone else. They're pretty well set up for it too. Good location, a relatively united people (except for that pesky minority!) with a history of rule.
If by moving towards you mean getting diplomatically closer to Russia and Iran, well, keep in mind nothing is set in stone. Looking at a map, I'd say Turkey is natural rivals with both of them, at least in the long term.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Turkey and Russia's relationship isn't exactly 100% rainbows and sunshine
Its a lot like the relationship between the European monarchies post-Waterloo. They're geographical rivals but in the immediate time frame they're more concerned about the socio-economic and geopolitical forces that could overthrow their rule.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
You would hope they had dragged him into the Hague, but sometimes you have to put Al Capone in prison on tax charges.
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Descendant XSkyrim is my god now.Outpost 31Registered Userregular
Is this a place to discuss the current relationship between Pakistan and India? I only ask because there has been some skirmishing over the last few days over Kashmir (surprise!) and Pakistan shot down a few of India's planes.
Given that the two are nuclear powers, this does not seem to me like the best thing to be happening right now. Any thoughts from people who probably know more than I do about the situation?
As an aside, it's pretty exciting that Netanyahu has been indicted. He should have been shown the door a long time ago, and it's horrifying that it took an indictment to put a dent in his image.
Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
Very big. It could lead to the breaking of the Likud coalition in the Knesset, which may very well sideline the smaller right wing parties. It's worth noting that he was recently trying to orchestrate merging the Kahne supporters into one of those parties to bulk their numbers up, a move that was widely criticized because the Kahne supporters are basically one step from being terrorists.
Is this a place to discuss the current relationship between Pakistan and India? I only ask because there has been some skirmishing over the last few days over Kashmir (surprise!) and Pakistan shot down a few of India's planes.
Given that the two are nuclear powers, this does not seem to me like the best thing to be happening right now. Any thoughts from people who probably know more than I do about the situation?
As an aside, it's pretty exciting that Netanyahu has been indicted. He should have been shown the door a long time ago, and it's horrifying that it took an indictment to put a dent in his image.
We talked about it, the latest news is Pakistan is returning the Indian pilot they recovered.
As an aside, it's pretty exciting that Netanyahu has been indicted. He should have been shown the door a long time ago, and it's horrifying that it took an indictment to put a dent in his image.
Well shit, it actually happened. Hopefully this is a step toward his replacement by a less intransigently awful Israeli government.
Any one want to explain to me what Turkey's over aching goals in the region are? They seem to mostly be "avoid being a mere puppet to the US and KSA". Seem to be moving towards Moscow and Tehran.
I would say: suppress restive Kurdish regions/PKK and its allied factions in neighboring countries, expand influence in neighboring countries if possible (as in northern Iraq and northern Syria), and support the Muslim Brotherhood and MB-esque political factions in regional power struggles. Their relationships with other powers, like the US, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, have in my opinion been pretty complicated or nuanced. Rather than align themselves with one end of the international (US/Russia) or regional (Saudi Arabia/Iran) poles, I think Turkey has attempted to form an independent regional strategy over the past couple of years. I'd speculate that the Syrian war also significantly changed Turkey's approach to foreign policy - moving away from the US due to the US-YPG alliance, for example, but probably also in other ways.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Very big. It could lead to the breaking of the Likud coalition in the Knesset, which may very well sideline the smaller right wing parties. It's worth noting that he was recently trying to orchestrate merging the Kahne supporters into one of those parties to bulk their numbers up, a move that was widely criticized because the Kahne supporters are basically one step from being terrorists.
That's being too kind to the Kahane party. Their name is Jewish Power, and they're about what you'd expect from a group whose name is $ETHNIC_GROUP Power.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
They also have pretty fraught relations with the forces they support in Syria and strategic security concerns in the Caucuses, but the shooting down of planes deeeeefinitely doesn't help.
Turkey and Russia's relationship isn't exactly 100% rainbows and sunshine
Shooting down planes does that. Even if no more get shot down after that.
You're the person who taught me that a Russia-Turkey alliance was somewhere between "Nope" and "Hahahahaha. The person who told you this, how many drugs were they on."
For all the reasons Solar mentioned above plus both of them want to be the big dogs in their region. And while many things in life are not zero-sum, power sure as hell is.
Plus there's that whole NATO thing that is a pretty big deal.
EDIT: Less hot-take-like, there's also the fact almost every Kurdish separatist group that Ankara (and the rest of NATO) designated subversive, violent, or outright terroristic was trained by the Soviet government, often at very high levels like the KGB in the case of the PKK (well, that's the accusation anyway), and certainly armed by the Soviet Union--even if a few of them have long since moved on from that connection. Can't imagine the Turks are all that pleased at that historical phenomenon.
On the flip side, well...among other things, Armenians were disproportionately represented in the Soviet government since before the Second World War, and have a disproportionate influence on contemporary Russian politics owed to the close relationship between Moscow and Yerevan. Certainly more than the under-representation of Azerbaijanis in the Soviet leadership. The historical animosity between Turkish and Armenian nationalities (compared to the closer ties between Turks and Azerbaijanis, or Armenians and Iranians) is sometimes considered a reason for further strain on Russo-Turkish relations.
Good article on Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif's brief resignation. He resigned a few days ago, to the delight of hard-line factions in Iran who despise him for his willingness to negotiate the JCPOA with the US. However, other powerful figures, including President Rouhani, head of the Revolutionary Guard Qasem Soleimani, and, according to Soleimani, Ayatollah Khamenei, expressed support for Zarif, and now he has returned to his post.
Soleimani's emphatic support of Zarif comes as the US administration’s abrogation of the JCPOA and pursuit of a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran has all but decimated the fragile momentum Rouhani had built in favor of diplomacy and increased openness. Rather than the economic dividends he promised with the nuclear deal, Rouhani has wound up with an economy debilitated by reimposed US sanctions and hard-liners vindicated in their warnings not to trust the United States.
However, Soleimani — who is respected across Tehran's partisan divide but especially revered by conservative forces — has great influence over the balance of power in Tehran's contentious domestic politics. His comments diminished the political space for hard-line forces to sabotage Zarif's foreign policy approach and awkwardly positioned them on the same side as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promptly bid Zarif "good riddance."
Still, everything I read makes the more reformist parties sound severely weakened by fallout the US's abrogation of the JCPOA and the worsening of the economy amid reimposed sanctions. The Trump administration may have destroyed an opportunity for positive political change in Iran, as many predicted it would.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is drawing criticism for saying that Israel is "the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people." The comment prompted many people — including Israel's president and the star of Wonder Woman — to defend Israel's Palestinian Arab minority.
Palestinian Arab citizens are about a fifth of Israel's population and often face discrimination and accusations of disloyalty.
The prime minister's comment set off criticism, debates over Israel's true nature — and observations that with Israel's legislative elections now less than a month away, Netanyahu's provocative language might be calculated to help his Likud Party at the polls.
Netanyahu and his party are warning that if they lose upcoming elections, the new government could include Arab political parties.
A couple of years ago I might have thought that it was nice they finally stopped pretending but it seems like people only stop pretending when they really wanna lean in on being terrible.
Over the last several weeks, Algeria has seen widespread protests against the continued rule of their nearly-vegetative president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The general theory among Algerians and people observing events there, from what I've seen, is that Bouteflika is basically just paraded around as the face of the government, but does not actually rule the country, and probably isn't physically or mentally capable of doing so at this point. A vaguely defined network of generals, politicians/state officials, and business/corporate leaders is described as being in charge (unsurprisingly), but even then it's not clear who is really calling the shots.
During the Arab Spring revolts in 2011, Algeria was surprisingly quiet. The government gave monies to its citizens to help keep the peace, and at the time some argued that memories of Algeria's brutal civil war in the 1990s were still fresh enough to dissuade people from attempting to revolt. But it appears enough Algerians are finally fed up with their country's economic difficulties and Weekend at Bernie's style of governance. Bouteflika's announcement of running for a fifth term enraged people, and these weeks of mass demonstrations have forced him to back down and promise not to run in the next election. However, the elections themselves have been postponed and there is no new date, which has understandably angered some of the opposition. Some high profile figures in the ruling FLN have turned on Bouteflika's clique and have expressed support for the protestors.
In Sudan, protests have been raging for even longer, as was mentioned in this thread some weeks ago. Sudan's longtime President Omar al-Bashir (30 years in power!) has reacted increasingly harshly to these protests, most recently by enacting an "emergency" law that, from the sounds of things, basically legitimizes anything the security forces do in quelling the unrest and removes what restraints were ostensibly in place. Nonetheless, protests have continued, despite the intransigence of rulers in Khartoum.
In Afghanistan, as peace talks between the US and Taliban continue, fighting between the Afghan government and Taliban rages on. Multiple Afghan army bases have been destroyed or ravaged in the last few weeks, including one in Helmand where US troops were present at an adjacent building but did not stop the Taliban from killing scores of Afghan soldiers (Taliban Target Key Afghan Base on Eve of Peace Talks), a border base in Kandahar (‘No One Survived.’ A Taliban Attack Kills 32 at Remote Afghan Post), and an army base in the north where a whole company of over fifty soldiers were killed or taken captive a couple of days ago (Taliban Wipe Out an Afghan Army Company While Talking Peace With the U.S.). In what appears to be a tragic friendly fire incident, the US air force also destroyed an Afghan army base, killing and wounding numerous soldiers (Afghan Army Base Is Wiped Out by U.S. Airstrikes, Officials Say).Taliban leadership sounds confident in its public statements (A Taliban Leader, Eyeing U.S. Peace Deal, Speaks to Afghans’ Fears), urging Afghans not to fear the "new system" that they will put in place after the Americans withdraw and assuring them that they will be "treated well." Meanwhile, Afghans' reactions to the talk of peace/US withdrawal have been mixed. Many urban Afghans, especially in Kabul, fear a return of Taliban rule and would prefer continuing to fight for a victory over accepting a peace that leads to Taliban control. But in many rural parts of Afghanistan, which have borne the brunt of the violence, people seem to just want an end to the conflict, and care more about a cessation of violence than about which side prevails. Good NYT article on the subject (NYT continues to be the only American outlet who seems to care about this country) : Homes Lost and Lives Trampled, Rural Afghans Urgently Want Peace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is drawing criticism for saying that Israel is "the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people." The comment prompted many people — including Israel's president and the star of Wonder Woman — to defend Israel's Palestinian Arab minority.
Palestinian Arab citizens are about a fifth of Israel's population and often face discrimination and accusations of disloyalty.
The prime minister's comment set off criticism, debates over Israel's true nature — and observations that with Israel's legislative elections now less than a month away, Netanyahu's provocative language might be calculated to help his Likud Party at the polls.
Netanyahu and his party are warning that if they lose upcoming elections, the new government could include Arab political parties.
A couple of years ago I might have thought that it was nice they finally stopped pretending but it seems like people only stop pretending when they really wanna lean in on being terrible.
After the nation state law passed I guess this has become normal? The election campaign going on there is fucking nuts.
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I wonder if HTaS' willingness to fight Turkish backed rebel factions will open the door to negotiation between them and the government backed forces?
So, if it's at all accurate, this is quite a watershed moment: Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Gulf states planned to rehabilitate the Syrian government--to marginalize Iran and Turkey. In short, the Gulf states and Israel hoped that by extending a hand to Syria, they could remove its dependence on Iran, while simultaneously pushing against Turkey's growing influence. Part of that would also be propping up the Kurds against Turkey as well.
Turkey's adventurism was always going to be cause for concern for the other major regional powers, but apparently it's been taking effect a lot faster than I would've expected. Granted, the Israelis and Saudis have been cooperating a lot more for some time now. Riyadh's moved from bankrolling the overthrow of the Syrian government to convincing them to switch camps (then again, we tried to do the same thing with Iran's relationship with Russia), and Israel may follow suit (instead of outright bombing Syria).
Iran got caught with two assassinations of Dutch citizen Iranian dissidents in the EU, so they're getting sanctioned again by the EU.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
More reports of fighting came yesterday, with HTS pushing Ahrar al-Sham out of some of its strongholds. Twitter has gifted me with these maps representing the two HTS advances:
HTS's gains after defeating Zinki:
HTS's gains after defeating Ahrar al-Sham:
The province is mostly in their hands now.
So a major power pulls out, and a coalition of third powers begins to enter the war on the side that should ostensibly be religious enemies, in order to counterbalance potential aggression by a regional rival that should technically be allies?
Is everyone involved trying to do a 30 years war reenactment?
Quite possibly. I'm pretty sure half the anti-Hapsburg realms went around razing the Holy Roman Empire while declaring some variation of the following: "We're not actually fighting here, you're just an idiot." "Okay, we're fighting here, but we're not fighting the Holy Roman Empire, even if we just killed scores of their levied peasant armies." and "Okay, we're fighting here, but it's absolutely that castle's own fault we had to wipe it out. Which we didn't. But even if we did, we'd have every right to do so."
Makes me think about the virtues and risks of a unipolar/bipolar world vs a multipolar world.
Pretty much, in the case of France especially.
It went from “We support our catholic brothers” to “we support our catholic brothers please ignore the gold and French weapons popping up in protestant hands” to “we support our Catholic brothers please ignore the “pro-French” volunteer forces fighting with the Swedes and Dutch” to “French forces are going into the HRE on a peacekeeping mission to protect French interests” to“fuck it DOW Austria and Spain”.
I'll stop quoting there because the article is very interesting and worth reading in full. Sorta sounds like the CIA is running death squads in eastern provinces and doing their usual "torture the Afghans" thing.
edit- ok one more:
"02" even sounds like what the CIA might name one if its death squads
So Afghanistan's own security apparatus (see the "rampant" above) is maturing, taking on CIA duties...and in return, the CIA is taking on duties from the departing foreign military, and employing paramilitary forces in the process. Nice cycle.
“Radical groups are attacking the Syrian opposition, and we have taken necessary measures to halt these attacks.” (source: Anadolu agency)
Kind of an odd statement to release a few days after HTS inflicted devastating defeats on various rivals in the province (what "measures" could they have taken?). Maybe he means that Turkey has reinforced their Syrian allies to Idlib's north with more Turkish troops/armor, since there had been reports of clashes between HTS and the Turkish-backed forces in Afrin/north Aleppo. I was kind of surprised that Turkey basically stood by and did nothing as HTS destroyed Nour al-Din al-Zinki and badly wounded its other rivals, but probably they don't want to become entangled in an extended campaign against HTS in Idlib when they're in the middle of a kind of standoff with the SDF.
To me it sounds like they're already exploiting and destabilizing the country.
That bolded part was interesting to me; I've seen Afghan media (Tolo usually) repeatedly refer to "uprising groups" in reports of fighting against the Taliban. I was never really sure what sort of local militia those reports referred to, so I'm glad NYT attempted to clarify.
Aside from that, I don't know that the decision to reenter talks was related to the attack on the intelligence base (the article doesn't state that it was but sort of seems to imply a relation). Regardless, an intelligence base getting wiped out in a province I don't hear much about (Wardak) is yet another bad sign for the Afghan government. Fighting this winter has also been more severe than in previous winters. People used to refer to a "fighting season" in Afghanistan, and the violence still tamps up from mid spring-mid fall, but the level of violence in the winter now surpasses even the summers of many years past.
Whenever I hear about the destruction of a training base (a frequent enough occurrence in wars), I get upset about the degree to which war targets the youth. Young men as a demographic just get fucked by these wars. Obviously not news or anything, it has always been this way (Russia in WWII is a particularly tragic example) but it's just so wrong.
edit- also I'm about to watch Korengal, a documentary made by the people behind Restrepo, I'll let y'all know what I think of it
Regardless, here's an Afghanistan news rundown for anyone interested:
- I didn't find Korengal to be very interesting, but it was well done nonetheless. Zooms in on the experiences of a handful of American soldiers garrisoning a base in a dangerous region of eastern Afghanistan, where the Taliban often pass through when smuggling weapons and such. The US withdrew from the valley several years ago, after which the already-present Taliban gained control of most of it. However, ISIS's Afghan branch recently managed to push the Taliban out of the valley, in an assault reportedly involving hundreds of fighters from surrounding provinces. In so doing, they have taken control of a somewhat strategic position and, unfortunately, created a new foothold in the east.
- SIGAR's latest report says what observers of the conflict already suspected: government control of territory has continued to decline, and government forces are at their lowest manpower in years due to heavy casualty rates.
- Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says that 45,000 Afghan soldiers have been killed since late 2014. This is a higher number than anyone has previously acknowledged. When taking Taliban and civilian deaths into account, it seems likely that over 100,000 Afghans have been killed in just the last four years of warfare. A far greater toll than is widely understood, and a number that makes the lack of attention paid to the conflict even less justifiable.
- Despite the lack of US commitment and relatively low troop levels, we have been bombing the everliving fuck out of the country.
- The Khost Protection Force - one of the CIA-trained paramilitaries (not under Afghan government control) referred to in an above post - has again been accused of murdering civilians
Edrogan makes a lot of noise about a new Ottoman Empire. They want to be the major power player in the region again, and it is starting to look like that includes annexing territory.
Power, basically, not really different than anyone else. They're pretty well set up for it too. Good location, a relatively united people (except for that pesky minority!) with a history of rule.
If by moving towards you mean getting diplomatically closer to Russia and Iran, well, keep in mind nothing is set in stone. Looking at a map, I'd say Turkey is natural rivals with both of them, at least in the long term.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Booking producer for Morning Joe.
This seems...potentially big?
You would hope they had dragged him into the Hague, but sometimes you have to put Al Capone in prison on tax charges.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Given that the two are nuclear powers, this does not seem to me like the best thing to be happening right now. Any thoughts from people who probably know more than I do about the situation?
As an aside, it's pretty exciting that Netanyahu has been indicted. He should have been shown the door a long time ago, and it's horrifying that it took an indictment to put a dent in his image.
Very big. It could lead to the breaking of the Likud coalition in the Knesset, which may very well sideline the smaller right wing parties. It's worth noting that he was recently trying to orchestrate merging the Kahne supporters into one of those parties to bulk their numbers up, a move that was widely criticized because the Kahne supporters are basically one step from being terrorists.
We talked about it, the latest news is Pakistan is returning the Indian pilot they recovered.
Well shit, it actually happened. Hopefully this is a step toward his replacement by a less intransigently awful Israeli government.
I would say: suppress restive Kurdish regions/PKK and its allied factions in neighboring countries, expand influence in neighboring countries if possible (as in northern Iraq and northern Syria), and support the Muslim Brotherhood and MB-esque political factions in regional power struggles. Their relationships with other powers, like the US, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, have in my opinion been pretty complicated or nuanced. Rather than align themselves with one end of the international (US/Russia) or regional (Saudi Arabia/Iran) poles, I think Turkey has attempted to form an independent regional strategy over the past couple of years. I'd speculate that the Syrian war also significantly changed Turkey's approach to foreign policy - moving away from the US due to the US-YPG alliance, for example, but probably also in other ways.
That's being too kind to the Kahane party. Their name is Jewish Power, and they're about what you'd expect from a group whose name is $ETHNIC_GROUP Power.
Shooting down planes does that. Even if no more get shot down after that.
You're the person who taught me that a Russia-Turkey alliance was somewhere between "Nope" and "Hahahahaha. The person who told you this, how many drugs were they on."
For all the reasons Solar mentioned above plus both of them want to be the big dogs in their region. And while many things in life are not zero-sum, power sure as hell is.
Plus there's that whole NATO thing that is a pretty big deal.
EDIT: Less hot-take-like, there's also the fact almost every Kurdish separatist group that Ankara (and the rest of NATO) designated subversive, violent, or outright terroristic was trained by the Soviet government, often at very high levels like the KGB in the case of the PKK (well, that's the accusation anyway), and certainly armed by the Soviet Union--even if a few of them have long since moved on from that connection. Can't imagine the Turks are all that pleased at that historical phenomenon.
On the flip side, well...among other things, Armenians were disproportionately represented in the Soviet government since before the Second World War, and have a disproportionate influence on contemporary Russian politics owed to the close relationship between Moscow and Yerevan. Certainly more than the under-representation of Azerbaijanis in the Soviet leadership. The historical animosity between Turkish and Armenian nationalities (compared to the closer ties between Turks and Azerbaijanis, or Armenians and Iranians) is sometimes considered a reason for further strain on Russo-Turkish relations.
Still, everything I read makes the more reformist parties sound severely weakened by fallout the US's abrogation of the JCPOA and the worsening of the economy amid reimposed sanctions. The Trump administration may have destroyed an opportunity for positive political change in Iran, as many predicted it would.
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/11/702264118/netanyahu-says-israel-is-nation-state-of-the-jewish-people-and-them-alone
A couple of years ago I might have thought that it was nice they finally stopped pretending but it seems like people only stop pretending when they really wanna lean in on being terrible.
During the Arab Spring revolts in 2011, Algeria was surprisingly quiet. The government gave monies to its citizens to help keep the peace, and at the time some argued that memories of Algeria's brutal civil war in the 1990s were still fresh enough to dissuade people from attempting to revolt. But it appears enough Algerians are finally fed up with their country's economic difficulties and Weekend at Bernie's style of governance. Bouteflika's announcement of running for a fifth term enraged people, and these weeks of mass demonstrations have forced him to back down and promise not to run in the next election. However, the elections themselves have been postponed and there is no new date, which has understandably angered some of the opposition. Some high profile figures in the ruling FLN have turned on Bouteflika's clique and have expressed support for the protestors.
In Sudan, protests have been raging for even longer, as was mentioned in this thread some weeks ago. Sudan's longtime President Omar al-Bashir (30 years in power!) has reacted increasingly harshly to these protests, most recently by enacting an "emergency" law that, from the sounds of things, basically legitimizes anything the security forces do in quelling the unrest and removes what restraints were ostensibly in place. Nonetheless, protests have continued, despite the intransigence of rulers in Khartoum.
In Afghanistan, as peace talks between the US and Taliban continue, fighting between the Afghan government and Taliban rages on. Multiple Afghan army bases have been destroyed or ravaged in the last few weeks, including one in Helmand where US troops were present at an adjacent building but did not stop the Taliban from killing scores of Afghan soldiers (Taliban Target Key Afghan Base on Eve of Peace Talks), a border base in Kandahar (‘No One Survived.’ A Taliban Attack Kills 32 at Remote Afghan Post), and an army base in the north where a whole company of over fifty soldiers were killed or taken captive a couple of days ago (Taliban Wipe Out an Afghan Army Company While Talking Peace With the U.S.). In what appears to be a tragic friendly fire incident, the US air force also destroyed an Afghan army base, killing and wounding numerous soldiers (Afghan Army Base Is Wiped Out by U.S. Airstrikes, Officials Say).Taliban leadership sounds confident in its public statements (A Taliban Leader, Eyeing U.S. Peace Deal, Speaks to Afghans’ Fears), urging Afghans not to fear the "new system" that they will put in place after the Americans withdraw and assuring them that they will be "treated well." Meanwhile, Afghans' reactions to the talk of peace/US withdrawal have been mixed. Many urban Afghans, especially in Kabul, fear a return of Taliban rule and would prefer continuing to fight for a victory over accepting a peace that leads to Taliban control. But in many rural parts of Afghanistan, which have borne the brunt of the violence, people seem to just want an end to the conflict, and care more about a cessation of violence than about which side prevails. Good NYT article on the subject (NYT continues to be the only American outlet who seems to care about this country) : Homes Lost and Lives Trampled, Rural Afghans Urgently Want Peace.
After the nation state law passed I guess this has become normal? The election campaign going on there is fucking nuts.