WarSclerotic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The general who oversaw the US raid on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi provided the most detailed account yet of the operation Wednesday and said the US is on alert for possible “retribution attacks” by extremists.

Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said al-Baghdadi’s remains were buried at sea within 24 hours of his death inside an underground tunnel where he fled as special operations soldiers closed in on him.

The Pentagon released the first government photos and video clips of the nighttime operation, including one showing Delta Force commandos approaching the walls of the compound in which al-Baghdadi and others were found.

Another video showed American airstrikes on other militants who fired at helicopters carrying soldiers to the compound.

The US also bombed the compound after the soldiers completed the mission so that it would not stand as a shrine to al-Baghdadi.

“It looks pretty much like a parking lot with large potholes right now,” McKenzie said.

The attacking American force launched from an undisclosed location inside Syria for the one-hour helicopter ride to the compound, McKenzie said.

Two children died with al-Baghdadi when he detonated a bomb vest, McKenzie said, adding that this was one fewer than originally reported. He said the children appeared to be under the age of 12. Eleven other children were escorted from the site unharmed. Four women and two men who were wearing suicide vests and refused to surrender inside the compound were killed, McKenzie said.

The general said the military dog that was injured during the raid is a four-year veteran with US Special Operations Command and had been on approximately 50 combat missions.

The dog, a male whose name has not been released because the mission was classified, was injured when he came in contact with exposed live electrical cables in the tunnel after al-Baghdadi detonated his vest, McKenzie said. He said the dog has returned to duty.

Baghdadi was identified by comparing his DNA to a sample collected in 2004 by US forces in Iraq, where he had been detained.

The US managed to collect “substantial” amounts of documentation and electronics during the raid, McKenzie said, but he would not elaborate. Such efforts are a standard feature of raids against high-level extremist targets and can be useful in learning more about the group’s plans.

Although the raid was successful, McKenzie said it would be a mistake to conclude that the Islamic State has been defeated.

“It will take them some time to re-establish someone to lead the organization, and during that period of time their actions may be a little bit disjointed,” the general said. “They will be dangerous. We suspect they will try some form of retribution attack, and we are postured and prepared for that.”

In outlining the operation, McKenzie said al-Baghdadi had been at the compound in Syria’s northwest Idlib province for “a considerable period,” but he was not specific.

He said the raid was briefed to President Donald Trump on Friday, and McKenzie made the decision to go ahead on Saturday morning.

McKenzie offered no new details about al-Baghdadi’s final moments.

“He crawled into a hole with two small children and blew himself up while his people stayed on the grounds,” he said when asked by a reporter about al-Baghdadi’s last moments and Trump’s description of the Islamic State leader as “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way” to his death.

Other senior Pentagon officials, including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said they could not confirm Trump’s description.

Several times this month, President Donald Trump has said he is withdrawing from Syria and that the troops are “coming home.” But, in fact, the US military remains in the country, shifting positions and gearing up to execute Trump’s order to secure Syria’s oil fields — not for the Syrian government but for the Kurds. Trump also has said he wants to “keep” the oil, although it’s unclear what he means.

Earlier Wednesday, the acting homeland security secretary, Kevin McAleenan, told a congressional hearing that US security agencies have been reminded of the potential for al-Baghdadi’s death to inspire his followers to launch an attack “in the immediate aftermath.”

Russell Travers, the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the same hearing that he does not believe al-Baghdadi’s death will have “much impact” on the organization.

“If there were significant attacks that were in the planning, that planning will continue. It won’t have that much effect,” Travers aid.

Within Syria and Iraq, he added, IS has at least 14,000 fighters.

“That’s an important number,” he said. “Because five, six years ago, when ISIS was at its low point, they were down under a thousand. To us, this tells us the insurgency has a lot of options.”

FBI Director Chris Wray said the biggest concern in the United States was the “virtual caliphate” that inspires Americans to pledge allegiance to IS and commit acts of violence in the group’s name even without traveling to Syria.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he worries that despite al-Baghdadi’s death, the conditions in Syria “are ripe for ISIS to reconstitute.”

BAGHDAD (AP) — Tens of thousands of Iraqis massed in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square on Friday in the biggest demonstrations since anti-government protests erupted a month ago, defying security forces that have killed scores of people and harshly criticizing Iran’s involvement in the country’s affairs.

The square and the wide boulevards leading into it were packed with flag-waving protesters, as security forces reinforced barricades on two bridges leading to the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of government. The protesters want sweeping change to the political system established after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, which they blame for widespread corruption, high unemployment and poor public services.

At least 255 people have been killed in two major waves of protests in the past month, including five who died Friday of wounds sustained earlier, according to security and medical officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief reporters. At least 350 people were wounded Friday as security forces fired tear gas grenades and rubber bullets to drive people back from the bridges.

Many protesters directed their rage at Iran, which emerged as a major power broker after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and has close ties to powerful political parties and state-backed militias that were mobilized to battle the Islamic State group but have now become an imposing political faction.

Videos circulated online of a group of protesters holding a poster showing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the head of its elite Quds force, Gen. Qassim Soleimani, with their faces crossed out. The video, which showed protesters beating the poster with their shoes, appeared to have been filmed Thursday in Tahrir Square. On Friday, protesters marched over an Iranian flag painted on the pavement with a swastika added to it.

This month’s protests in Iraq and similar demonstrations in Lebanon are fueled by local grievances and mainly directed at the political elite, but they also pose a challenge to Iran, which closely backs both governments. An increasingly violent crackdown in Iraq has raised fears of a backlash by Iran and its heavily armed local allies.

On Friday, a group of about 50 militia supporters showed up at the protest, prompting other demonstrators to chant: “Iran take your hands off, the people don’t want you!”

The militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, said in a statement that they stood with the protesters and were committed to protecting them. But the statement warned of “foreign interests” that it said wanted to sow division in order to cause “internal fighting, chaos and destruction.”

People walk by an Arabic sentence writing on the asphalt reads ‘Down with Iran’ near the site of the protests at Tahrir Square during anti-government ongoing protests in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Nov. 1, 2019. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

The remarks echoed those made by Khamenei and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, which has accused unidentified foreign powers of manipulating the protests.

Iraq’s influential Shiite clerical establishment, which is seen as politically independent, condemned “attacks on peaceful protesters and all forms of unjustified violence,” saying those responsible should be held accountable.

Shiite cleric Ahmed al-Safi, who delivered a Friday sermon on behalf of the clerical leadership, said authorities should not allow “any person or group or biased entity, or any regional or international party” to impose its view on the Iraqi people — an apparent reference to Iran.

The sermon was delivered in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, where masked men suspected of being linked to the security forces opened fire on protesters earlier this week, killing at least 18 people.

In this Thursday, Oct. 31, 2019 photo, mourners and protesters carry the flag-draped coffin of Mohammed Sadiq during his funeral during a demonstration at Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Iraq. Sadiq was killed while participating in the anti-government ongoing protests, his family said. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Amnesty International says security forces in Baghdad have fired military-grade tear gas grenades directly into the crowds, causing horrific wounds and occasionally lodging the projectiles in people’s skulls. During an earlier wave of demonstrations, snipers shot protesters in the head and chest, with nearly 150 killed in less than a week.

The protesters have called for the resignation of the government and sweeping changes to the political system established after the U.S. invasion, which apportions power among the Shiite majority and Sunnis and Kurds.

Iraq has held regular elections since then, but they have been dominated by sectarian political parties, many of which are close to Iran. The protests have occurred in Baghdad and mostly Shiite southern Iraq, and have been directed against the Shiite-led government. In southern Iraq, demonstrators have attacked and set fire to political party offices.

The protesters accuse their rulers of squandering the country’s oil wealth, pointing to its poor infrastructure and frequent power outages more than 15 years after the overthrow of Saddam and the lifting of international sanctions.

“I was born to be respected, among people who should be respected,” said a protester who identified himself as Abu Sajad. “But as far as we are concerned, we have the worst passport in the world and the worst nationality. We are the No. 1 country when it comes to corruption. We have the second or fourth largest oil reserves but we are a poor nation.”

President Barham Salih said Thursday he would approve early elections once a new electoral law is drafted, expressing support for the protesters but saying reforms would have to be enacted through constitutional means. He said Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi is willing to resign once political leaders agree on a replacement.

But the process of forming a new government could take weeks or even months, and a Cabinet reshuffle seems unlikely to satisfy the protesters.

Thousands also gathered in the main square of Najaf, another Shiite holy city, late Thursday. Groups of men danced and waved Iraqi flags, while volunteers handed out falafel sandwiches cooked on site.

“This is a great revolution,” said Marwa Ahmed, one of several women in the rally. “We will not give up or back down until our demands are met.”

Russia acquiesced to Israeli requests and canceled certain arms sales to regimes that are antagonistic toward Israel, an adviser to the prime minister said this week, according to the Ynet news site.

In return, he said, Israel canceled arms sales that irked the Russians, including to Ukraine.

“Russia agreed to Israel’s request and, for example, did not provide certain types of weapons to [Israel’s] enemy nations such as Iran, which states at the highest levels its wish to erase Israel off the face of the Earth,” Ariel Bulshtein, who is the prime minister’s adviser for the country’s Russian-speaking community, told Russian paper Izvestia Thursday, according to Ynet.

“Naturally we are unenthusiastic on [Russia] providing modern weapons to such regimes,” he said.

He added that Israel agreed “at least twice, if not more,” to Russian requests not to sell weapons to nations whose relations with Moscow are tense, such as Ukraine.

Bulshtein was appointed to the newly-created post in June, following the failure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to form a coalition and the announcement of new elections.

Ariel Bulshtein (Courtesy of EAJC)

The move was meant to help Likud’s efforts to siphon votes away from Yisrael Beytenu, the Russian-speaking party led by Avigdor Liberman, whose hard-nosed demands stymied Netanyahu’s efforts to form a coalition in the Knesset. Likud was largely unsuccessful in pulling Russian voters away form Liberman, who went on to increase his strength in the September vote.

Israel has highly sensitive relations with Russia, which has played a central role, alongside Iran, in preventing the fall of the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war. Israel is seeking to prevent Iran from deepening its military presence across the northern border.

Netanyahu has cultivated close ties to Putin, flying frequently to meet with him to discuss regional developments. This July, in a move targeting Israeli-Russian voters ahead of the repeat elections in September, Netanyahu’s Likud party hung a massive picture of the prime minister with Putin on its headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Prior to the election, Netanyahu flew to Russia for talks with Putin in Sochi. Meeting with Putin, the prime minister hailed bilateral relations, saying they have never been better.

Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip fired 10 rockets into Israel in two separate barrages on Friday night, the army said. One projectile slammed into a house in the town of Sderot, while the Iron Dome system intercepted eight and the tenth fell in open ground.

The army responded several hours later with strikes on several terror targets in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

Palestinian media reported that several airstrikes targeted training sites and outposts affiliated with Hamas and other groups.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said three men sustained moderate or serious shrapnel wounds from one of the airstrikes.

In the early hours of Saturday, sirens again sounded in Sderot and the village of Ibim. The IDF later attributed the sirens to “non-rocket fire” from Gaza into Israel.

During the earlier barrage, a 65-year-old woman was lightly hurt when she fell while running toward a shelter, medics said. Five people were treated for anxiety.

The attack was one of the largest in recent months and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also defense minister, was in contact with IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi and coordinating a response, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from Gaza, but Israel routinely holds Gaza’s Hamas rulers responsible for any violence emanating from the Strip.

Warning sirens had gone off in the town of Sderot and in other Israeli communities along the Gaza border as many families were eating Friday night Shabbat dinner.

The IDF said 7 rockets were fired in that barrage, all of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome system.

About an hour later another three rockets were fired into Israel and Iron Dome intercepted one. One of the rockets hit the home, causing serious damage but no injuries.

“There was a huge explosion,” one of the residents of the house told the Walla news site. “Luckily we were in the shelter; there is a lot of damage.”

The last rocket apparently fell in an open area.

Immediately after the first salvo was fired, an IDF tank shelled a Hamas observation post in Gaza, Palestinian and Hebrew-language media reported.

Yaron Sasson, a spokesman for the Sderot municipality, said there had been no warnings ahead of time.

“This was a complete surprise after a few months of quiet,” he told Israel Radio. “But again we have residents running for bomb shelters during the Friday night Shabbat meal,” he said.

Sasson recommended residents remain close to bomb shelters and said emergency workers were carrying out searches to make sure there were no casualties.

The rocket barrages came a day after a rocket fired from Gaza landed in an open field. There were no reports of injuries or damage in Thursday’s attack.

The Iron Dome air defense system was activated and an interceptor projectile was launched, the army said in a statement, but it apparently missed its target.

The IDF said a tank and fighter jets subsequently launched retaliatory strikes on two Hamas posts in the northern Strip.

The Gaza-based Shehab news agency reported that Israeli security forces fired at a jeep belonging to operatives in the border area, near Beit Lahia.

On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets shot down a drone that was flying at an “irregular altitude” over Gaza, the IDF said.

Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip fired a barrage of seven rockets into Israel on Friday evening, all of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, the army said.

The attack was one of the largest in recent months and local residents reported hearing several loud explosions, apparently from the interceptions. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Warning sirens had gone off in the town of Sderot and in other Israeli communities along the Gaza border.

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The rocket fire comes a day after one rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip by Palestinian terrorists.

Reports said the rocket landed in an open field. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

The Iron Dome air defense system was activated and an interceptor projectile was launched, the army said in a statement.

The IDF said a tank and fighter jets subsequently launched retaliatory strikes on two posts in the northern Strip belonging to the Hamas terror group, which rules Gaza.

The Gaza-based Shehab news agency reported that Israeli security forces had fired at