The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Officials became aware last week that newly analyzed information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that on May 23, senior members of the UAE government discussed the plan and its implementation. The officials said it remains unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done. The false reports said that the emir, among other things, had called Iran an “Islamic power” and praised Hamas.
I did not expect this. I thought they found an auspicious event to could deliberately overreact to, I did not think it was this kind of conspiracy. Damn.
The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Officials became aware last week that newly analyzed information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that on May 23, senior members of the UAE government discussed the plan and its implementation. The officials said it remains unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done. The false reports said that the emir, among other things, had called Iran an “Islamic power” and praised Hamas.
I did not expect this. I thought they found an auspicious event to could deliberately overreact to, I did not think it was this kind of conspiracy. Damn.
honestly I'm a little dumbfounded, i knew there was shadiness behind this whole sudden escalation but this strikes me as underhandedness of a completely different flavor
The fact too that it seems to have been so....casually orchestrated and planned? Is it just me or was this fairly easily exposed?
A lot of people still seem to have weird conceptual blocks about how hard it is to convincingly fabricate, vanish or otherwise play did-that-really-happen-shenanigans with online material.
(Also, a lot of other people simply don't care, unless the original fakeries are immediately caught out, because dammit they've got their narrative now.)
The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Officials became aware last week that newly analyzed information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that on May 23, senior members of the UAE government discussed the plan and its implementation. The officials said it remains unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done. The false reports said that the emir, among other things, had called Iran an “Islamic power” and praised Hamas.
I did not expect this. I thought they found an auspicious event to could deliberately overreact to, I did not think it was this kind of conspiracy. Damn.
Why? I don't know that Qatar even matters to them.
Iran is one of Russia's larger trading partners and primary means of projecting power in the middle east. Fracturing the small states on the side of Iran could produce a beneficial outcome for them.
The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Officials became aware last week that newly analyzed information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that on May 23, senior members of the UAE government discussed the plan and its implementation. The officials said it remains unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done. The false reports said that the emir, among other things, had called Iran an “Islamic power” and praised Hamas.
I did not expect this. I thought they found an auspicious event to could deliberately overreact to, I did not think it was this kind of conspiracy. Damn.
Why? I don't know that Qatar even matters to them.
Iran is one of Russia's larger trading partners and primary means of projecting power in the middle east. Fracturing the small states on the side of Iran could produce a beneficial outcome for them.
And it would certainly weaken and distract the US...
The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Officials became aware last week that newly analyzed information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that on May 23, senior members of the UAE government discussed the plan and its implementation. The officials said it remains unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done. The false reports said that the emir, among other things, had called Iran an “Islamic power” and praised Hamas.
I did not expect this. I thought they found an auspicious event to could deliberately overreact to, I did not think it was this kind of conspiracy. Damn.
You know, I think this changes little. The crisis wasn't caused by this fabricated leak, it was caused by... differences between Qatar and KSA/UAE. This fabrication was just a causus beli to do something drastic in response.
I don't see the blockade dropping because of this, nor the US suddenly turning around condemning the UAE, though I'm hopefully wrong.
Israel has launched airstrikes against Syrian government/allied forces repeatedly in Syria, and has given southern rebel factions financial and medical aid (don't know about arms). I think they are less deeply involved than the US, Russia, Iran, and Turkey, but they nonetheless see the Syrian government/Iranian/Hezbollah side as their enemy and sometimes act against them.
Whether this statement implies an escalation in those actions or is just bluster is anyone's guess, though I'm leaning toward/hoping for the latter.
edit - Also, I see no reason to suspect Russian involvement in the Qatar hack. The UAE government doing so out of its own volition seems like an adequate explanation. Russia is not the only country to launch cyberattacks on other nations, remember Stuxnet?
In the decades since Egypt went into the American camp--and became entirely dependent on NATO for any sort of military hardware--Syria would potentially be the one neighboring power that had both historical animosity towards Israel and might potentially engage them in a conventional war and not collapse immediately even before American intervention.
Emphasis on might. Or they might collapse immediately. Or Israel might pound them into nuclear grit. In a 2005 Syria v. Israel showdown, it shockingly doesn't look particularly good for the non-nuclear power--but the Syrians actually technically won a war against Israel, with a very modest victory in Lebanon (on top of the few they lost quite disastrously). Before a multi-year long civil war, the Syrian military was as professional, well-equipped, and confident a neighboring enemy as Israel was going to face, barring Iran somehow secretly crossing the entirety of its puppet-government neighbor (and there was a strong argument that pre-civil war Syrian's officer corps and enlisted were still a more professional force than their Iranian counterparts, with better access to Russian training and equipment).
To repeat, Israel very likely would've beat them in a conventional conflict. But no country likes losing, and Jerusalem would be foolish to pass it up when, in reality, every country with the possible exception of Russia can bomb Syria with zero international repercussions and a substantially reduced threat of Syrian self-defense. And if the Russians started bombing the Syrian government as well, they'd get a pass too.
EDIT: Also, when we say "Israel isn't really involved in Syria," that does mean, "Except that they bomb Syrian military units and facilities once in a while." It's some involvement (I'm not convinced Israel is responsible for bombing the Damascus Airport earlier this year, though it's possible), but at the same time, metaphorically "all the cool kids are doing it."
The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Officials became aware last week that newly analyzed information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that on May 23, senior members of the UAE government discussed the plan and its implementation. The officials said it remains unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done. The false reports said that the emir, among other things, had called Iran an “Islamic power” and praised Hamas.
I did not expect this. I thought they found an auspicious event to could deliberately overreact to, I did not think it was this kind of conspiracy. Damn.
Why? I don't know that Qatar even matters to them.
Iran is one of Russia's larger trading partners and primary means of projecting power in the middle east. Fracturing the small states on the side of Iran could produce a beneficial outcome for them.
In other words, it could matter to Russia (who has sold weapons to both sides of that ideological divide in the Gulf--it's not Iran, but the UAE is a consistent Russian customer).
It would just matter to Iran more as a matter of necessity.
I think every Gulf State, including Saudi Arabia, has purchased some post-Soviet equipment from Russia--including Iran, obviously, whom only has Soviet-era equipment by virtue of capturing it form Iraq and reproducing it illegally. Everything else is after 1991.
Part of that is from the early years of the Russian Federation, and Boris Yeltsin's charming declaration, "Now that we have wonderful allies (like NATO), we can discard our all junk allies (like Syria and Vietnam)." The US was perfectly fine with Russian arms sales for a time, though it does seem like now Washington has ensured the Gulf States know who to buy from (through things like competitive pricing I imagine).
Until very recently, the UAE was the largest customer--and operator--of Russia's newer infantry fighting vehicle, the BMP-3 (which replaced the BMP-2 that the Soviet Union sold extensively). If wikipedia is to be believed, the Emirates Army has almost 600 of them, and first took delivery in 1992. By contrast, Russia now has 720--for a much larger military in a much larger country. For at least a decade, the UAE was the primary operator of the BMP-3, dwarfing the small inventory the Soviet Union had at its collapse.
It's not like the Saudi Royal Armed Forces (or Egypt, for that matter) using American tanks, transports, IFVs, aircraft, and helicopters, but it's still a fairly substantial arms export for Russia.
EDIT: Really did not realize how big that photo was. Whoops.
You can speculate any country into being responsible for the hack, but I'm not sure why you would do that when there's no reported state actor but the UAE which is right there and a main instigator in the conflict.
I think every Gulf State, including Saudi Arabia, has purchased some post-Soviet equipment from Russia--including Iran, obviously, whom only has Soviet-era equipment by virtue of capturing it form Iraq and reproducing it illegally. Everything else is after 1991.
Part of that is from the early years of the Russian Federation, and Boris Yeltsin's charming declaration, "Now that we have wonderful allies (like NATO), we can discard our all junk allies (like Syria and Vietnam)." The US was perfectly fine with Russian arms sales for a time, though it does seem like now Washington has ensured the Gulf States know who to buy from (through things like competitive pricing I imagine).
Until very recently, the UAE was the largest customer--and operator--of Russia's newer infantry fighting vehicle, the BMP-3 (which replaced the BMP-2 that the Soviet Union sold extensively). If wikipedia is to be believed, the Emirates Army has almost 600 of them, and first took delivery in 1992. By contrast, Russia now has 720--for a much larger military in a much larger country. For at least a decade, the UAE was the primary operator of the BMP-3, dwarfing the small inventory the Soviet Union had at its collapse.
*snip*
It's not like the Saudi Royal Armed Forces (or Egypt, for that matter) using American tanks, transports, IFVs, aircraft, and helicopters, but it's still a fairly substantial arms export for Russia.
EDIT: Really did not realize how big that photo was. Whoops.
The US also tacitly endorsed the practice of friendly regimes buying late-era Soviet/Russian equipment. Then examples would get "lost" and somehow end up at a US base getting tested all to hell and reverse-engineered if it had anything good. There are also stories of CIA operators trading cases of Vodka (and cash) for commanders to "displace" top-end AA missiles, radars, etc during the breakup of the USSR.
You can speculate any country into being responsible for the hack, but I'm not sure why you would do that when there's no reported state actor but the UAE which is right there and a main instigator in the conflict.
It was in response to the prior motives assumed when we thought it was Russia; not a statement that is definitely was still them.
You can speculate any country into being responsible for the hack, but I'm not sure why you would do that when there's no reported state actor but the UAE which is right there and a main instigator in the conflict.
I just assumed it was the Russians. Now that we have more evidence, it is probably the UAE. Though they could have hired out if they didn't have onsite talent good enough.
I think every Gulf State, including Saudi Arabia, has purchased some post-Soviet equipment from Russia--including Iran, obviously, whom only has Soviet-era equipment by virtue of capturing it form Iraq and reproducing it illegally. Everything else is after 1991.
Part of that is from the early years of the Russian Federation, and Boris Yeltsin's charming declaration, "Now that we have wonderful allies (like NATO), we can discard our all junk allies (like Syria and Vietnam)." The US was perfectly fine with Russian arms sales for a time, though it does seem like now Washington has ensured the Gulf States know who to buy from (through things like competitive pricing I imagine).
Until very recently, the UAE was the largest customer--and operator--of Russia's newer infantry fighting vehicle, the BMP-3 (which replaced the BMP-2 that the Soviet Union sold extensively). If wikipedia is to be believed, the Emirates Army has almost 600 of them, and first took delivery in 1992. By contrast, Russia now has 720--for a much larger military in a much larger country. For at least a decade, the UAE was the primary operator of the BMP-3, dwarfing the small inventory the Soviet Union had at its collapse.
*snip*
It's not like the Saudi Royal Armed Forces (or Egypt, for that matter) using American tanks, transports, IFVs, aircraft, and helicopters, but it's still a fairly substantial arms export for Russia.
EDIT: Really did not realize how big that photo was. Whoops.
The US also tacitly endorsed the practice of friendly regimes buying late-era Soviet/Russian equipment. Then examples would get "lost" and somehow end up at a US base getting tested all to hell and reverse-engineered if it had anything good. There are also stories of CIA operators trading cases of Vodka (and cash) for commanders to "displace" top-end AA missiles, radars, etc during the breakup of the USSR.
They're good stories, and like most stories of that sort apocryphal. It doesn't take much reason to know why either: vodka, an actual Eurasian product manufactured in very large quantities, is fairly useless to the governments of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan (as the primary sellers of said inventories, Belarus largely held on to its inventory or delivered it to Russia after treaty agreement). And contrary to Nick Cage in Lord of War, said governments were extremely keen on protecting those inventories for the very same reason: they desperately wanted hard cash, and weren't about to let some middleman or wannabe-gangster get in the way for anything larger than small arms (the sort of things NATO governments leave behind rather than pay to move), and handled arms sales directly (and gave draconian punishments to anyone in their way). Compared to the massive sale of public infrastructure, mineral rights and joint-stock companies to foreign interests, military equipment sales were impressively less corrupt (but they weren't devoid of corruption either). It's why hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars worth of inventory ended up being scrapped instead of pawned: sometimes there was no suitable customer for it.
More relevantly, a curiosity: the Kazakh Foreign Ministry directly denied sending military personnel to fight in Syria. Kazakhstan, like Armenia and Belarus, is integrated into the regional military framework of the Russian-led CSTO, which also means shared training, a shared air defense network (with Russia footing the bill) and a bunch of conferences. I'm inclined to believe Astana, but the origin of the rumor isn't too surprising: a substantial portion of the Russian ground troops sent to Syria, alongside the VVS, are Russian Army personnel from Chechnya and Ingushetia, two majority-Muslim federal republics in the Caucuses (obviously Chechnya is in the news a great deal now). There's any number of reasons from this decision, from internal politics at Grozny amid huge international criticism of physical violence and arrests on LGBT there, to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov wanting to make himself the face of rebuilding the Muslim world following the expensive restoration of Grozny and the other population centers in Chechnya in the last decade (the Chechen government and NGOs have been sending large amounts of money towards the reconstruction of mosques in Damascus, Aleppo, etc.). There's even practical, non-malicious reasons one could argue (would the Russian government only sending Christian soldiers be a good thing?). But to this day, there hasn't been concrete evidence of the other CSTO member states involving themselves in the Syrian Civil War in a military capacity--even though Armenian volunteers are a known thing in Syria (fighting for the government), there aren't aircraft from Armenia, Belarus or Kazakhstan conducting bombing runs like NATO members.
A few weeks ago, I believe, a Saudi newspaper cited an unnamed source that "60,000 Russian Muslim" soldiers would be sent to Syria. Moscow doesn't reveal its exact numbers (nor does Washington, I think?), but the speculation is more than 4,000, but less than 5,000, based on--weirdly enough--the number of overseas military personnel votes collected in the 2016 election, and the turn-out rate for soldiers, where some data is available. I think this is where Wikipedia gets its numbers too. It also looses some of its conspiratorial luster when you remember than the Russian Air Force deployment there (VVS) is predominantly not Muslim.
The idiocy shown here is pretty striking. There was clearly no backup plan if Qatar didn't immediately cave in to all the (outrageous) demands. So now KSA and its lackeys look dumb and weak, good job guys, great foreign policy there.
I don't think anyone thought that Turkey would act so quickly and decisively.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Perhaps they thought the US would have their back on the issue?
I'm sure they did. They probably discussed it over that creepy orb. And Trump was tweeting like Qatar was the fount of terrorism. So it makes Trump look dumb too, not that he needed help on that front.
So, after the transition in KSA between crown princes, many Middle Eastern analysts much smarter than me were mocking the idea of it being a smooth and stable process. But there wasn't much to it beyond innuendo, informed guesses, and mocking of this video that you might have seen between the new and old princes.
As next in line to be king of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Nayef was unaccustomed to being told what to do. Then, one night in June, he was summoned to a palace in Mecca, held against his will and pressured for hours to give up his claim to the throne.
By dawn, he had given in, and Saudi Arabia woke to the news that it had a new crown prince: the king’s 31-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman.
...
But since The New York Times reported last month that Mohammed bin Nayef had been confined to his palace, United States officials and associates of senior royals have provided similar accounts of how the elder prince was pressured to step aside by the younger one. All spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to endanger their contacts inside the kingdom, or themselves.
...
But while his removal struck many as sudden, it had been planned out.
On the night of June 20, a group of senior princes and security officials gathered at the Safa Palace in Mecca after being informed that King Salman wanted to see them, according to United States officials and associates of the royal family.
It was near the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, when Saudis were preoccupied with religious duties and many royals had gathered in Mecca before traveling abroad for the Eid al-Fitr holiday. That made it advantageous for a change, analysts said, like a coup on Christmas Eve.
Before midnight, Mohammed bin Nayef was told he was going to meet the king and was led into another room, where royal court officials took away his phones and pressured him to give up his posts as crown prince and interior minister, according to United States officials and an associate of the royal family.
At first, he refused. But as the night wore on, the prince, a diabetic who suffers from the effects of a 2009 assassination attempt by a suicide bomber, grew tired.
Meanwhile, royal court officials called members of the Allegiance Council, a body of princes who are supposed to approve changes to the line of succession. Some were told that Mohammed bin Nayef had a drug problem and was unfit to be king, according to an associate of the royal family.
...
One American official and one adviser to a Saudi royal said Mohammed bin Nayef opposed the embargo on Qatar, a stand that probably accelerated his ouster.
I don't expect anything to happen now, but once Salman dies I'm not convinced the succession of power will be a smooth one. bin Salman is young, and everything he's done so far has either been a failure or a road to nowhere. Even 2030 hasn't anything but an expensive PR project that isn't on track to accomplish anything.
They had an internal palace assassination at one point in the 20th century, didn't they? Where one of the Kings or Crown Princes was killed by another member of the family?
They had an internal palace assassination at one point in the 20th century, didn't they? Where one of the Kings or Crown Princes was killed by another member of the family?
Yeah. Faisal (the ruling king at the time) was assassinated by one of his nephews (whose name I can't remember).
It's fairly interesting because King Faisal knew about his nephews intent to kill him and his response was "Inshallah" (if Allah Wills It). His nephew did shoot him at an audience, and afterwards at the hospital one of his last commands was that his nephew shouldn't be executed.
Of course the nephew was executed anyway.
Faisal, despite the way he came into power, always struck me as one of the few Saudi kings I could sympathise with. He abolished slavery, tried to modernize the country and tried to push his country towards moderate pluralism and Pan-Islamism.
Of course his successors have overturned most of his works.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Tensions in Jerusalem, centered around the al-Aqsa Mosque, are high. There was a deadly gunfight between Israeli police and armed Palestinians, Israel imposed new security measures including metal detectors, and protests/clashes have escalated since. Abbas, leader of Fatah, has called for a "Day of Rage", and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad joined Fatah's calls for protests.
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Tensions in Jerusalem, centered around the al-Aqsa Mosque, are high. There was a deadly gunfight between Israeli police and armed Palestinians, Israel imposed new security measures including metal detectors, and protests/clashes have escalated since. Abbas, leader of Fatah, has called for a "Day of Rage", and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad joined Fatah's calls for protests.
I can certainly understand Muslims being a little testy over even more layers of bullshit getting added to going to the al-Aqsa quarter and the fact that The Dome of the Rock is the 3rd holiest place in their religion, but this, it's not like Netanyahu is asking them to put a statue of him in the Mosque like Caligula wanted to do to the 2nd Temple before the revolt. The Jews cited as praying there would definitely be in violation of the terms of the UN agreement regarding al-Aqsa as being for Muslim worship only, but I don't know if it's a transgression worth poking Bibi with a stick over. If anything, I think this is the type of reaction Netanyahu and Likud were hoping for from the Mufti and other leaders in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as it's giving them cause to crack down even more in the occupied area.
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No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
It seems to me that both sides gain from escalation.
The Israeli right wing parties love it for the votes.
Fatah leadership will lead the Palestinians to their deaths while pocketing millions in foreign donations. Fatah's strategy makes sense if the goal isn't Palestinian liberation, but instead enrichment via donations by wealthy Muslims.
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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!".
It seems to me that both sides gain from escalation.
The Israeli right wing parties love it for the votes.
Fatah leadership will lead the Palestinians to their deaths while pocketing millions in foreign donations. Fatah's strategy makes sense if the goal isn't Palestinian liberation, but instead enrichment via donations by wealthy Muslims.
That's not accurate. Fatah for the most part tries to clamp down on activism and only encourages it to the degree that it can maintain some claim to be representing the the population it governs. So Fatah will endorse and call for protest that will be happening regardless of what they want to do so it doesn't get ahead of them and becomes something entirely out of their control. And as the stabbings and recent violence shows, they don't have as much control over the situation as they wish.
Fatah endorses protests like they endorse the sun rising.
Tensions in Jerusalem, centered around the al-Aqsa Mosque, are high. There was a deadly gunfight between Israeli police and armed Palestinians, Israel imposed new security measures including metal detectors, and protests/clashes have escalated since. Abbas, leader of Fatah, has called for a "Day of Rage", and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad joined Fatah's calls for protests.
I can certainly understand Muslims being a little testy over even more layers of bullshit getting added to going to the al-Aqsa quarter and the fact that The Dome of the Rock is the 3rd holiest place in their religion, but this, it's not like Netanyahu is asking them to put a statue of him in the Mosque like Caligula wanted to do to the 2nd Temple before the revolt. The Jews cited as praying there would definitely be in violation of the terms of the UN agreement regarding al-Aqsa as being for Muslim worship only, but I don't know if it's a transgression worth poking Bibi with a stick over. If anything, I think this is the type of reaction Netanyahu and Likud were hoping for from the Mufti and other leaders in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as it's giving them cause to crack down even more in the occupied area.
Bibi was definitely escalating when he disallowed Friday prayers in the mosque and arrested the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. And the new rules are an attempt at a new normal over the mosque and not some temporary measures, and they're understood in that context. They are a big deal and the Israelis know that.
Tensions in Jerusalem, centered around the al-Aqsa Mosque, are high. There was a deadly gunfight between Israeli police and armed Palestinians, Israel imposed new security measures including metal detectors, and protests/clashes have escalated since. Abbas, leader of Fatah, has called for a "Day of Rage", and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad joined Fatah's calls for protests.
I can certainly understand Muslims being a little testy over even more layers of bullshit getting added to going to the al-Aqsa quarter and the fact that The Dome of the Rock is the 3rd holiest place in their religion, but this, it's not like Netanyahu is asking them to put a statue of him in the Mosque like Caligula wanted to do to the 2nd Temple before the revolt. The Jews cited as praying there would definitely be in violation of the terms of the UN agreement regarding al-Aqsa as being for Muslim worship only, but I don't know if it's a transgression worth poking Bibi with a stick over. If anything, I think this is the type of reaction Netanyahu and Likud were hoping for from the Mufti and other leaders in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as it's giving them cause to crack down even more in the occupied area.
Yeah poking the bear at this site has a long history. The second Intifada started when Sharon, noted asshole, visited the site flanked by hundreds of armed goons. These days jews pray at the site all the time. They pretend they're "talking on a cell phone" and totally not praying. The guards look the other way.
A couple of years ago I figured ISIS was rather secure in Mosul, simply because retaking it would require doing something... like that. And I honestly assumed there would not be political will or stomach for doing that.
A couple of years ago I figured ISIS was rather secure in Mosul, simply because retaking it would require doing something... like that. And I honestly assumed there would not be political will or stomach for doing that.
I'm already feeling ill thinking of how many of my friends--genuinely non-terrible people, I would otherwise argue--are going to authoritatively claim all of those really only happened since March of this year.
A couple of years ago I figured ISIS was rather secure in Mosul, simply because retaking it would require doing something... like that. And I honestly assumed there would not be political will or stomach for doing that.
I'm already feeling ill thinking of how many of my friends--genuinely non-terrible people, I would otherwise argue--are going to authoritatively claim all of those really only happened since March of this year.
A couple of years ago I figured ISIS was rather secure in Mosul, simply because retaking it would require doing something... like that. And I honestly assumed there would not be political will or stomach for doing that.
I'm already feeling ill thinking of how many of my friends--genuinely non-terrible people, I would otherwise argue--are going to authoritatively claim all of those really only happened since March of this year.
I don't get it. Why would they think this? The article specifies it applies to the "9 month siege".
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Might be Russian criminals contracted by the UAE, as the article talks about the possibility that the works itself was outsourced.
Its not even the cool hacker future where people hack oil tankers to cause spills to game the stock market.
its just super dumb gossip that will wreck our world
honestly I'm a little dumbfounded, i knew there was shadiness behind this whole sudden escalation but this strikes me as underhandedness of a completely different flavor
The fact too that it seems to have been so....casually orchestrated and planned? Is it just me or was this fairly easily exposed?
NNID: Hakkekage
(Also, a lot of other people simply don't care, unless the original fakeries are immediately caught out, because dammit they've got their narrative now.)
Iran is one of Russia's larger trading partners and primary means of projecting power in the middle east. Fracturing the small states on the side of Iran could produce a beneficial outcome for them.
And it would certainly weaken and distract the US...
Hah, so it was entirely fabricated, nice.
You know, I think this changes little. The crisis wasn't caused by this fabricated leak, it was caused by... differences between Qatar and KSA/UAE. This fabrication was just a causus beli to do something drastic in response.
I don't see the blockade dropping because of this, nor the US suddenly turning around condemning the UAE, though I'm hopefully wrong.
Barak Ravid is a diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz.
... what... what does that mean? Israel's going to get involved in Syria? Huuuhhhh?
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Just say "okay" and then carry on with the ceasefire? Maybe?
Whether this statement implies an escalation in those actions or is just bluster is anyone's guess, though I'm leaning toward/hoping for the latter.
edit - Also, I see no reason to suspect Russian involvement in the Qatar hack. The UAE government doing so out of its own volition seems like an adequate explanation. Russia is not the only country to launch cyberattacks on other nations, remember Stuxnet?
Emphasis on might. Or they might collapse immediately. Or Israel might pound them into nuclear grit. In a 2005 Syria v. Israel showdown, it shockingly doesn't look particularly good for the non-nuclear power--but the Syrians actually technically won a war against Israel, with a very modest victory in Lebanon (on top of the few they lost quite disastrously). Before a multi-year long civil war, the Syrian military was as professional, well-equipped, and confident a neighboring enemy as Israel was going to face, barring Iran somehow secretly crossing the entirety of its puppet-government neighbor (and there was a strong argument that pre-civil war Syrian's officer corps and enlisted were still a more professional force than their Iranian counterparts, with better access to Russian training and equipment).
To repeat, Israel very likely would've beat them in a conventional conflict. But no country likes losing, and Jerusalem would be foolish to pass it up when, in reality, every country with the possible exception of Russia can bomb Syria with zero international repercussions and a substantially reduced threat of Syrian self-defense. And if the Russians started bombing the Syrian government as well, they'd get a pass too.
EDIT: Also, when we say "Israel isn't really involved in Syria," that does mean, "Except that they bomb Syrian military units and facilities once in a while." It's some involvement (I'm not convinced Israel is responsible for bombing the Damascus Airport earlier this year, though it's possible), but at the same time, metaphorically "all the cool kids are doing it."
In other words, it could matter to Russia (who has sold weapons to both sides of that ideological divide in the Gulf--it's not Iran, but the UAE is a consistent Russian customer).
It would just matter to Iran more as a matter of necessity.
I think every Gulf State, including Saudi Arabia, has purchased some post-Soviet equipment from Russia--including Iran, obviously, whom only has Soviet-era equipment by virtue of capturing it form Iraq and reproducing it illegally. Everything else is after 1991.
Part of that is from the early years of the Russian Federation, and Boris Yeltsin's charming declaration, "Now that we have wonderful allies (like NATO), we can discard our all junk allies (like Syria and Vietnam)." The US was perfectly fine with Russian arms sales for a time, though it does seem like now Washington has ensured the Gulf States know who to buy from (through things like competitive pricing I imagine).
Until very recently, the UAE was the largest customer--and operator--of Russia's newer infantry fighting vehicle, the BMP-3 (which replaced the BMP-2 that the Soviet Union sold extensively). If wikipedia is to be believed, the Emirates Army has almost 600 of them, and first took delivery in 1992. By contrast, Russia now has 720--for a much larger military in a much larger country. For at least a decade, the UAE was the primary operator of the BMP-3, dwarfing the small inventory the Soviet Union had at its collapse.
It's not like the Saudi Royal Armed Forces (or Egypt, for that matter) using American tanks, transports, IFVs, aircraft, and helicopters, but it's still a fairly substantial arms export for Russia.
EDIT: Really did not realize how big that photo was. Whoops.
The US also tacitly endorsed the practice of friendly regimes buying late-era Soviet/Russian equipment. Then examples would get "lost" and somehow end up at a US base getting tested all to hell and reverse-engineered if it had anything good. There are also stories of CIA operators trading cases of Vodka (and cash) for commanders to "displace" top-end AA missiles, radars, etc during the breakup of the USSR.
I just assumed it was the Russians. Now that we have more evidence, it is probably the UAE. Though they could have hired out if they didn't have onsite talent good enough.
They're good stories, and like most stories of that sort apocryphal. It doesn't take much reason to know why either: vodka, an actual Eurasian product manufactured in very large quantities, is fairly useless to the governments of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan (as the primary sellers of said inventories, Belarus largely held on to its inventory or delivered it to Russia after treaty agreement). And contrary to Nick Cage in Lord of War, said governments were extremely keen on protecting those inventories for the very same reason: they desperately wanted hard cash, and weren't about to let some middleman or wannabe-gangster get in the way for anything larger than small arms (the sort of things NATO governments leave behind rather than pay to move), and handled arms sales directly (and gave draconian punishments to anyone in their way). Compared to the massive sale of public infrastructure, mineral rights and joint-stock companies to foreign interests, military equipment sales were impressively less corrupt (but they weren't devoid of corruption either). It's why hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars worth of inventory ended up being scrapped instead of pawned: sometimes there was no suitable customer for it.
More relevantly, a curiosity: the Kazakh Foreign Ministry directly denied sending military personnel to fight in Syria. Kazakhstan, like Armenia and Belarus, is integrated into the regional military framework of the Russian-led CSTO, which also means shared training, a shared air defense network (with Russia footing the bill) and a bunch of conferences. I'm inclined to believe Astana, but the origin of the rumor isn't too surprising: a substantial portion of the Russian ground troops sent to Syria, alongside the VVS, are Russian Army personnel from Chechnya and Ingushetia, two majority-Muslim federal republics in the Caucuses (obviously Chechnya is in the news a great deal now). There's any number of reasons from this decision, from internal politics at Grozny amid huge international criticism of physical violence and arrests on LGBT there, to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov wanting to make himself the face of rebuilding the Muslim world following the expensive restoration of Grozny and the other population centers in Chechnya in the last decade (the Chechen government and NGOs have been sending large amounts of money towards the reconstruction of mosques in Damascus, Aleppo, etc.). There's even practical, non-malicious reasons one could argue (would the Russian government only sending Christian soldiers be a good thing?). But to this day, there hasn't been concrete evidence of the other CSTO member states involving themselves in the Syrian Civil War in a military capacity--even though Armenian volunteers are a known thing in Syria (fighting for the government), there aren't aircraft from Armenia, Belarus or Kazakhstan conducting bombing runs like NATO members.
A few weeks ago, I believe, a Saudi newspaper cited an unnamed source that "60,000 Russian Muslim" soldiers would be sent to Syria. Moscow doesn't reveal its exact numbers (nor does Washington, I think?), but the speculation is more than 4,000, but less than 5,000, based on--weirdly enough--the number of overseas military personnel votes collected in the 2016 election, and the turn-out rate for soldiers, where some data is available. I think this is where Wikipedia gets its numbers too. It also looses some of its conspiratorial luster when you remember than the Russian Air Force deployment there (VVS) is predominantly not Muslim.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40654023
The idiocy shown here is pretty striking. There was clearly no backup plan if Qatar didn't immediately cave in to all the (outrageous) demands. So now KSA and its lackeys look dumb and weak, good job guys, great foreign policy there.
:P
And they let him play with their supervillian globe too.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I'm sure they did. They probably discussed it over that creepy orb. And Trump was tweeting like Qatar was the fount of terrorism. So it makes Trump look dumb too, not that he needed help on that front.
And so today in the NYT...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-mohammed-bin-nayef-mohammed-bin-salman.html
I don't expect anything to happen now, but once Salman dies I'm not convinced the succession of power will be a smooth one. bin Salman is young, and everything he's done so far has either been a failure or a road to nowhere. Even 2030 hasn't anything but an expensive PR project that isn't on track to accomplish anything.
Not surprisingly, its ugly.
Yeah. Faisal (the ruling king at the time) was assassinated by one of his nephews (whose name I can't remember).
It's fairly interesting because King Faisal knew about his nephews intent to kill him and his response was "Inshallah" (if Allah Wills It). His nephew did shoot him at an audience, and afterwards at the hospital one of his last commands was that his nephew shouldn't be executed.
Of course the nephew was executed anyway.
Faisal, despite the way he came into power, always struck me as one of the few Saudi kings I could sympathise with. He abolished slavery, tried to modernize the country and tried to push his country towards moderate pluralism and Pan-Islamism.
Of course his successors have overturned most of his works.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Tensions in Jerusalem, centered around the al-Aqsa Mosque, are high. There was a deadly gunfight between Israeli police and armed Palestinians, Israel imposed new security measures including metal detectors, and protests/clashes have escalated since. Abbas, leader of Fatah, has called for a "Day of Rage", and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad joined Fatah's calls for protests.
I can certainly understand Muslims being a little testy over even more layers of bullshit getting added to going to the al-Aqsa quarter and the fact that The Dome of the Rock is the 3rd holiest place in their religion, but this, it's not like Netanyahu is asking them to put a statue of him in the Mosque like Caligula wanted to do to the 2nd Temple before the revolt. The Jews cited as praying there would definitely be in violation of the terms of the UN agreement regarding al-Aqsa as being for Muslim worship only, but I don't know if it's a transgression worth poking Bibi with a stick over. If anything, I think this is the type of reaction Netanyahu and Likud were hoping for from the Mufti and other leaders in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as it's giving them cause to crack down even more in the occupied area.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
The Israeli right wing parties love it for the votes.
Fatah leadership will lead the Palestinians to their deaths while pocketing millions in foreign donations. Fatah's strategy makes sense if the goal isn't Palestinian liberation, but instead enrichment via donations by wealthy Muslims.
"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!".
That's not accurate. Fatah for the most part tries to clamp down on activism and only encourages it to the degree that it can maintain some claim to be representing the the population it governs. So Fatah will endorse and call for protest that will be happening regardless of what they want to do so it doesn't get ahead of them and becomes something entirely out of their control. And as the stabbings and recent violence shows, they don't have as much control over the situation as they wish.
Fatah endorses protests like they endorse the sun rising.
Bibi was definitely escalating when he disallowed Friday prayers in the mosque and arrested the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. And the new rules are an attempt at a new normal over the mosque and not some temporary measures, and they're understood in that context. They are a big deal and the Israelis know that.
Yeah poking the bear at this site has a long history. The second Intifada started when Sharon, noted asshole, visited the site flanked by hundreds of armed goons. These days jews pray at the site all the time. They pretend they're "talking on a cell phone" and totally not praying. The guards look the other way.
A couple of years ago I figured ISIS was rather secure in Mosul, simply because retaking it would require doing something... like that. And I honestly assumed there would not be political will or stomach for doing that.
I'm already feeling ill thinking of how many of my friends--genuinely non-terrible people, I would otherwise argue--are going to authoritatively claim all of those really only happened since March of this year.
Why would they claim such?
I don't get it. Why would they think this? The article specifies it applies to the "9 month siege".