WarSclerotic

Pro-Iran Shiite militias have been observed fighting Syrian army forces several times over the last two weeks, in what has been described as a battle for one of Syria’s key strategic areas, with developments closely followed by a concerned Israel.

It is the first time the two sides have been reported to be fighting, with fatalities and casualties on both sides, after years of cooperation during Iran’s involvement and support for Syrian President Bashar Assad in the country’s civil war.

The reports came from various media outlets in the eastern area of Al-Bukamal and from credible Syrian opposition websites.

The fighting is focused around the town of Al-Bukamal, next to the Al-Qa’im border crossing between Syria and Iraq, which is considered a key strategic point in securing trade between Iraq and Syria — and indirectly, between Iran and the Mediterranean Sea.

Al-Bukamal is located on the eastern border of the Deir Ezzor region, on the banks of the Euphrates River.

An Iraqi soldier stands guard in Qaim, near the Syrian border, in the Euphrates river valley 200 miles (320 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq. (photo credit: AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

The fighting between Shiite militia forces and the Syrian military’s forces began more than two weeks ago, and are in an all-out battle over control of the town, its various neighborhoods and the border crossing. Similar exchanges of fire were reported in the nearby town of Al-Mayadin.

In both towns there were reports of fighters killed and wounded, although the exact number isn’t clear. Among the dead was a high-ranking officer of Iranian origin and fighters from the Afghan Fatemiyoun Division, which is funded, equipped and trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

One of the reports said more than 25 people have been killed in the battles, but that number hasn’t been confirmed by credible sources.

The fighting resumed over the weekend, local media reported, with the Iranians bringing reinforcements to the area and making threats to Assad’s loyalists that those identified with the military would be eliminated if they don’t retreat from the town.

It is likely part of the Iranian effort to gain control of the key route without the Syrian army — or any other force — being able to have any influence.

Israel has been following the developments in that area, fearing that Iran could succeed in establishing a land corridor to the Mediterranean that would pose a significant threat to the Jewish state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long been campaigning internationally against Iranian presence and influence in Syria, and has lately been seeking to convince Russia to expel all Iranian forces from Syria.

Arab media reports said the Shiite militias have in the last several weeks been setting up Shia religious institutions in Al-Bukamal, and militia members have taken over homes belonging to Syrian refugees who can’t return to their homes.

Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, center, attends a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guard commanders in Tehran, Iran. September 18, 2016. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Over the last few months there has been an Iranian effort to establish a presence around the border crossing, and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, has been seen there several times.

On June 18 there were reports of a large-scale airstrike on Shiite militias operating in the area that killed dozens, with several media outlets claiming Israel was behind the attack.

One report said there was another strike in recent days that killed more than 25 members of the Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite militia Hezbollah Brigades, while they were on their way to Baghdad.

Top Palestinian officials accused the United States of engaging in “blackmail” following the State Department’s announcement Friday it would cut $200 million in aid to the Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman said the US decision was meant to force the Palestinians to abandon their claim to Jerusalem.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the move was part of continuing political and financial pressure on the Palestinian leadership. He said the Americans must be fully aware that there will be no peace without East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state.

“This administration is dismantling decades of US vision and engagement in Palestine,” Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s envoy to the US, said in a statement.

He charged that following US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and decision to freeze funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, the decision was “another confirmation of abandoning the two-state solution and fully embracing Netanyahu’s anti-peace agenda.”

PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat called the move “a provocation” and “bullying” by Trump.

The move by the State Department was the ostensible result a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority that Trump ordered in January, following Palestinians’ boycott of the administration over the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as well as the decision to move the US embassy there.

Dr. Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s General Delegation to the US. (Courtesy)

This is not the first time Trump has cut longstanding aid bound to the Palestinians. It has also cut assistance to the UN relief agency for Palestinians, at a reported total of around $300 million.

Earlier this month, the administration released millions of dollars in frozen aid to the PA, but only for Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation, an administration source said.

“Weaponizing humanitarian and developmental aid as political blackmail does not work,” Zumlot said.

“Only a recommitment from this administration to the long-held US policy of achieving peace through the two-state solution on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem the capital of the state of Palestine and respecting international resolutions and law will provide a way forward,” he added.

Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi speaks during a press conference on February 24, 2015 in the West Bank city of Ramallah. (AFP/Abbas Momani)

Zumlot’s statement was echoed by Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, who also accused the US of “cheap blackmail.”

“The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion,” she said in a statement. “There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation.”

“The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources,” Ashrawi continued.

“Now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation.”

The move was also criticized by some in the US, among them Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy.

“It is the Palestinian people, virtual prisoners in an increasingly volatile conflict, who will most directly suffer the consequences of this callous and ill-advised attempt to respond to Israel’s security concerns,” said Leahy, a Democrat.

View image on Twitter

Sen. Patrick Leahy

✔@SenatorLeahy

BREAKING: Leahy REAX To WH Decision To Redirect Humanitarian & Other U.S. Aid Away From West Bank And Gaza https://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/breaking_leahy-reax-to-wh-decision-to-redirect-humanitarian-and-other-us-aid-away-from-west-bank-and-gaza …

10:55 PM – Aug 24, 2018

• 73

• 74 people are talking about this

Twitter Ads info and privacy

The left-wing Middle East advocacy group J Street said Trump’s decision would “have a devastating impact on innocent women, children and families,” arguing that they were intended to “cruelly punish Palestinian civilians and marginalize and undercut Palestinian leadership.”

The funds withheld Friday are directed toward health and educational programs, as well as initiatives to make Palestinian governance more efficient. They are used both in the PA-administered West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The Trump administration said the terror group’s control of Gaza was one of the main reasons it wanted to cease its aid to the coastal enclave.

“This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation,” the State Department official said.

The official did not give an exact amount of the funds to be cut, but said it is more than $200 million that was approved in 2017. The US had planned to give the Palestinians $251 million for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current budget year that ends September 30. But with just over a month to go before that money must be used, reprogrammed to other areas or returned to the Treasury, less than half has actually been spent.

Palestinians collect food aid at a United Nations food distribution center in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 28, 2018. (Said Khatib/AFP)

Washington’s withdrawal of the aid comes as Trump’s team tasked with brokering an Israeli-Palestinian accord is expected to release its long-awaited peace plan.

Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy for Middle East peace Jason Greenblatt are expected to roll out the proposal in the near future, though they have provided no timetable for when that might happen.

The Associated Press Contributed to this report.

TEHRAN — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for unity on Saturday in the face of criticism from all sides of his handling of an economic crisis and tensions with the United States.

“Now is not the time to unload our burdens on to somebody else’s shoulders. We must help each other,” Rouhani said in a televised speech at the shrine of late revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini.

“The country’s problems and resisting foreigners’ conspiracies is the responsibility of every one of us,” he said.

With rapidly rising food prices, a dramatic currency collapse and the reimposition of US sanctions after it abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal, many Iranians are in a bleak mood.

Much of his electoral base among reform-minded urbanites has lost faith in him, while working-class areas have seen months of sporadic strikes and protests that have occasionally turned violent.

Some of the most virulent criticism has come from the hardline religious establishment who long opposed Rouhani’s efforts to rebuild ties with the West.

On August 16, an image went viral of a protest by seminary students in the shrine city of Qom, at which one placard warned Rouhani would meet the same fate as former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was found dead in a swimming pool last year.

Rouhani sought to play down the differences, saying: “The clerical, religious institutions and the government are alongside each other.”

But he added a typically cryptic warning: “No one can walk into the sea and not expect to get his feet wet.”

Hardliners have been blamed for stoking economic protests that have sometimes turned against the Islamic system as a whole.

Rouhani still has the support of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who says he must remain in power to avoid further disorder.

A handout picture provided by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader on April 30, 2018, shows Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waving to the crowd as he delivers a speech during Labor Day. (AFP PHOTO / Iranian Supreme Leader’s Website / HO)

But Khamenei has also blamed government mismanagement, rather than foreign hostility, for the current crisis.

“We are aware of people’s pain, suffering and problems and all our efforts are geared at reducing these problems,” Rouhani pledged.

Since the US pulled out of the nuclear deal with Iran in May, the Iranian rial has slipped to record lows, which has consequently led many in the authoritarian country to explicitly call for an end to the rule of Iran’s Islamist leadership.

Protests have sprung up in several major cities including Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad and Tehran, driven by concerns over the economy as well as wider anger at the political system.

Videos have shown demonstrators cry out against “the dictator” in reference to Khamenei.

The numerous protests are a continuation of sorts of a nationwide anti-government movement that started gaining ground in late December and continued protesting sporadically throughout the year.

On Thursday the EU announced a first financial support package to Iran of 18 million euros ($21 million), as part of the bloc’s commitment to keeping the nuclear deal alive.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Lithuania’s Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis at the government’s headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania, Thursday, August 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday slammed the move, calling it a “big mistake” and saying it was like a “poison pill” for the Iranian people.

“Giving money to this regime, especially at this time, is a big mistake and it must be stopped. [The regime] isn’t going to use it to solve their water problems, it’s not going to help an Iranian truck driver,” he said. “After all, where is their money going? For missiles, and to the Revolutionary Guard. All countries need to act together to renew sanctions on Iran,” he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — US President Donald Trump said Friday he has directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to delay a planned trip to North Korea, citing insufficient progress on denuclearization.

Trump put some blame on Beijing, saying he does not believe China is helping “because of our much tougher Trading stance.”

The surprise announcement appeared to mark a concession by the president to domestic and international concerns that his prior claims of world-altering progress on the peninsula had been strikingly premature.

“I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Trump tweeted Friday, barely two months after his June meeting with the North’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

Trump’s comment followed a report issued Monday by the International Atomic Energy Agency outlining “grave concern” about the North’s nuclear program. It came a day after Pompeo appointed Stephen Biegun, a senior executive with the Ford Motor Co., to be his special envoy for North Korea and said he and Biegun would visit next week.

US President Donald Trump, right, listens to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during press conference after a summit of heads of state and government at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, July 12, 2018. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)

The State Department never confirmed details of the trip, but it had been expected that Pompeo would be in Pyongyang for at least several hours Monday, according to several diplomatic sources familiar with the plan.

White House officials did not immediately comment on what prompted Trump to call off Pompeo’s trip. The State Department had no immediate comment on the matter and referred questions to the White House.

Trump laid unspecified blame on China, North Korea’s leading trade partner, which is widely believed to hold the greatest sway over Kim’s government.

The US and China have been locked in a trade dispute for months, with each side ratcheting up tariffs on imports from the other country in what may be the opening salvos of a trade war.

Trump tweeted that “Pompeo looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our Trading relationship with China is resolved.” He added: “In the meantime I would like to send my warmest regards and respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!”

After more a year of escalating tensions defined by nuclear and missile tests, new sanctions and “fire and fury” rhetoric, Trump made history meeting Kim earlier this year. In the run-up to the summit both nations engaged in hard-nosed negotiation, with Trump publically calling off the meeting in an effort to push Kim to agree to nuclear concessions. During the summit, the pair signed a vague joint statement in which the North agreed to denuclearize, but which left nearly all details undefined.

“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” Trump declared on Twitter after the meeting.

“Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem,” he added. “No longer – sleep well tonight!”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) shakes hands with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 14, 2018. (AFP/Pool/Andy Wong)

Pompeo would have been hard pressed to return from Pyongyang with anything resembling progress on the denuclearization front.

Although it has halted nuclear and missile testing and taken some unrelated steps — dismantling portions of a missile engine facility and returning the suspected remains of American servicemen killed during the Korean War — its nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile development remain intact, according the UN’s atomic watchdog and intelligence agencies.

In addition, recent statements from North Korean officials have ruled out any new concessions until it sees a reciprocal gesture from the US beyond suspending military exercises with South Korea. North Korea has been demanding that the U.S. ease or lift crippling sanctions — something Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton have flatly ruled out until the its nuclear program is fully and verifiably dismantled.

Other than sanctions relief, the North, backed by South Korea, has been seeking a declaration of the end of the Korean War. The conflict stopped with the signing of an armistice rather than a peace treaty, meaning the war is not technically over. Both the North and South have vowed to end the open state of hostilities, and Seoul had been hoping to persuade the Trump administration to sign off on a non-binding end-of-war declaration as a goodwill gesture that would give Kim Jong Un domestic cover to proceed with denuclearization moves.

Pompeo and other administration officials have suggested some concessions short of easing or lifting sanctions are possible before verified denuclearization, but have refused to be specific about what they could be. And they have been skeptical about an end-of-war declaration in the absence of any progress on the nuclear matter.

At the same time, lawmakers from both parties, including GOP hawks who generally support Trump, have expressed concerns about such a move, as it could be used by the North to demand the removal of US troops from South Korea and potentially Japan without anything in return.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and Kim Yong Chol, right, a North Korean senior ruling party official and former intelligence chief, meet at the Park Hwa Guest House in Pyongyang, North Korea, Friday, July 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Trump had kept up the positive tone as recently as Tuesday at a campaign rally in West Virginia. There Trump maintained “we’re doing well with North Korea.”

“There’s been no missile launches. There’s been no rocket launches,” he added.

At the same rally, Trump seemed to take a different tone too on China, saying he had withheld some criticism of China because “I wanted them to help us with North Korea and they have.”