Not exactly known for his accurate military predictions, US Senator John McCain was once firmly convinced that Russia would never act in Syria. Oops.
Back in 2013, Russia, China, and Iran all warned the United States of the devastating consequences that would occur if it began airstrikes in Syria. Destabilizing the legitimate government of President Bashar al-Assad would lead to the inevitable rise of terrorist groups like the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
Arizona Senator John McCain, however, could not foresee this. And he was dead wrong about the future in other ways, as well.
It doesn’t concern me in the slightest,” McCain said in 2013, when asked if he was worried about a Russian and Chinese intervention in Syria. “Because they will not act.”
“The United States is the most powerful nation in the world, and we’re not going to be intimidated by Russia and China,” he added. “We are not, so I guarantee you that they will not act.”
Flash forward two years and the United States is, indeed, being intimidated. Beijing’s construction of artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago is forcing Washington to scramble together alliances in the Pacific.
But, more importantly, Russia’s anti-terror campaign in Syria has forced the United States to completely rethink its regional strategy. Airstrikes have devastated IS militants, and since the bombing began on September 30, Russian support is already helping to stabilize a nation thoroughly wrecked by the United States and its allies.
On Thursday, reports surfaced that a Russian airstrike killed Abu Bakr al-Shishani, a prominent leader of the Ahrar ash-Sham terrorist group.
“A group of militants, including the leader of Jaish al-Sham terrorist group, Chechen native Abu Bakr al-Shishani, was eliminated on October 14 as a result of a Russian airstrike in the Homs province,” a Syrian military source told Sputnik.
McCain, at least, is not in denial. Recognizing Russia’s success, the senator wrote an op-ed for CNN on Wednesday.
“Vladimir Putin must be stopped,” he wrote.
At least he didn’t risk his reputation by writing “Putin will be stopped,” because that would be…another false prediction.
WASHINGTON — The agreement signed last year by the Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs was explicit: For $5 million, Norway’s partner in Washington would push top officials at the White House, at the Treasury Department and in Congress to double spending on a United States foreign aid program.
But the recipient of the cash was not one of the many Beltway lobbying firms that work every year on behalf of foreign governments.
It was the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research organization, or think tank, one of many such groups in Washington that lawmakers, government officials and the news media have long relied on to provide independent policy analysis and scholarship.
More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
The money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. And it has set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom: Some scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research.
The think tanks do not disclose the terms of the agreements they have reached with foreign governments. And they have not registered with the United States government as representatives of the donor countries, an omission that appears, in some cases, to be a violation of federal law, according to several legal specialists who examined the agreements at the request of The Times.
As a result, policy makers who rely on think tanks are often unaware of the role of foreign governments in funding the research.
Joseph Sandler, a lawyer and expert on the statute that governs Americans lobbying for foreign governments, said the arrangements between the countries and think tanks “opened a whole new window into an aspect of the influence-buying in Washington that has not previously been exposed.”
“It is particularly egregious because with a law firm or lobbying firm, you expect them to be an advocate,” Mr. Sandler added. “Think tanks have this patina of academic neutrality and objectivity, and that is being compromised.”
The arrangements involve Washington’s most influential think tanks, including the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Atlantic Council. Each is a major recipient of overseas funds, producing policy papers, hosting forums and organizing private briefings for senior United States government officials that typically align with the foreign governments’ agendas.
Most of the money comes from countries in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia, particularly the oil-producing nations of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Norway, and takes many forms. The United Arab Emirates, a major supporter of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, quietly provided a donation of more than $1 million to help build the center’s gleaming new glass and steel headquarters not far from the White House. Qatar, the small but wealthy Middle East nation, agreed last year to make a $14.8 million, four-year donation to Brookings, which has helped fund a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world.
Some scholars say the donations have led to implicit agreements that the research groups would refrain from criticizing the donor governments.
“If a member of Congress is using the Brookings reports, they should be aware — they are not getting the full story,” said Saleem Ali, who served as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar and who said he had been told during his job interview that he could not take positions critical of the Qatari government in papers. “They may not be getting a false story, but they are not getting the full story.”
In interviews, top executives at the think tanks strongly defended the arrangements, saying the money never compromised the integrity of their organizations’ research. Where their scholars’ views overlapped with those of donors, they said, was coincidence.
“Our business is to influence policy with scholarly, independent research, based on objective criteria, and to be policy-relevant, we need to engage policy makers,” said Martin S. Indyk, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings, one of the oldest and most prestigious think tanks in Washington.
“Our currency is our credibility,” said Frederick Kempe, chief executive of the Atlantic Council, a fast-growing research center that focuses mainly on international affairs and has accepted donations from at least 25 countries since 2008. “Most of the governments that come to us, they understand we are not lobbyists. We are a different entity, and they work with us for totally different purposes.”
In their contracts and internal documents, however, foreign governments are often explicit about what they expect from the research groups they finance.
“In Washington, it is difficult for a small country to gain access to powerful politicians, bureaucrats and experts,” states an internal report commissioned by the Norwegian Foreign Affairs Ministry assessing its grant making. “Funding powerful think tanks is one way to gain such access, and some think tanks in Washington are openly conveying that they can service only those foreign governments that provide funding.”
The think tanks’ reliance on funds from overseas is driven, in part, by intensifying competition within the field: The number of policy groups has multiplied in recent years, while research grants from the United States government have dwindled.
Foreign officials describe these relationships as pivotal to winning influence on the cluttered Washington stage, where hundreds of nations jockey for attention from the United States government. The arrangements vary: Some countries work directly with think tanks, drawing contracts that define the scope and direction of research. Others donate money to the think tanks, and then pay teams of lobbyists and public relations consultants to push the think tanks to promote the country’s agenda.
“Japan is not necessarily the most interesting subject around the world,” said Masato Otaka, a spokesman for the Japanese Embassy, when asked why Japan donates heavily to American research groups. “We’ve been experiencing some slower growth in the economy. I think our presence is less felt than before.”
The scope of foreign financing for American think tanks is difficult to determine. But since 2011, at least 64 foreign governments, state-controlled entities or government officials have contributed to a group of 28 major United States-based research organizations, according to disclosures by the institutions and government documents. What little information the organizations volunteer about their donors, along with public records and lobbying reports filed with American officials by foreign representatives, indicates a minimum of $92 million in contributions or commitments from overseas government interests over the last four years. The total is certainly more.
After questions from The Times, some of the research groups agreed to provide limited additional information about their relationships with countries overseas. Among them was the Center for Strategic and International Studies, whose research agenda focuses mostly on foreign policy; it agreed last month to release a list of 13 foreign government donors, from Germany to China, though the organization declined to disclose details of its contracts with those nations or actual donation amounts.
Michele Dunne resigned as the head of the Atlantic Council’s center for the Middle East after calling for the suspension of military aid to Egypt in 2013.Credit Global Development Network
In an interview, John J. Hamre, president and chief executive of the center, acknowledged that the organization’s scholars at times advocate causes with the Obama administration and Congress on the topics that donor governments have funded them to study. But Mr. Hamre stressed that he did not view it as lobbying — and said his group is most certainly not a foreign agent.
“I don’t represent anybody,” Mr. Hamre, a former deputy secretary of defense, said. “I never go into the government to say, ‘I really want to talk to you about Morocco or about United Arab Emirates or Japan.’ I have conversations about these places all the time with everybody, and I am never there representing them as a lobbyist to their interests.”
Several legal experts who reviewed the documents, however, said the tightening relationships between United States think tanks and their overseas sponsors could violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the 1938 federal law that sought to combat a Nazi propaganda campaign in the United States. The law requires groups that are paid by foreign governments with the intention of influencing public policy to register as “foreign agents” with the Justice Department.
“I am surprised, quite frankly, at how explicit the relationship is between money paid, papers published and policy makers and politicians influenced,” said Amos Jones, a Washington lawyer who has specialized in the foreign agents act, after reviewing transactions between the Norway government and Brookings, the Center for Global Development and other groups.
At least one of the research groups conceded that it may in fact be violating the federal law.
“Yikes,” said Todd Moss, the chief operating officer at the Center for Global Development, after being shown dozens of pages of emails between his organization and the government of Norway, which detail how his group would lobby the White House and Congress on behalf of the Norway government. “We will absolutely seek counsel on this.”
Parallels With Lobbying
The line between scholarly research and lobbying can sometimes be hard to discern.
Last year, Japan began an effort to persuade American officials to accelerate negotiations over a free-trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of Japan’s top priorities. The country already had lobbyists on retainer, from the Washington firm of Akin Gump, but decided to embark on a broader campaign.
Akin Gump lobbyists approached several influential members of Congress and their staffs, including aides to Representative Charles Boustany Jr., Republican of Louisiana, and Representative Dave Reichert, Republican of Washington, seeking help in establishing a congressional caucus devoted to the partnership, lobbying records show. After those discussions, in October 2013, the lawmakers established just such a group, the Friends of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
To bolster the new group’s credibility, Japanese officials sought validation from outside the halls of Congress. Within weeks, they received it from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to which Japan has been a longtime donor. The center will not say how much money the government has given — or for what exactly — but an examination of its relationship with a state-funded entity called the Japan External Trade Organization provides a glimpse.
In the past four years, the organization has given the center at least $1.1 million for “research and consulting” to promote trade and direct investment between Japan and the United States. The center also houses visiting scholars from within the Japanese government, including Hiroshi Waguri, an executive in the Ministry of Defense, as well as Shinichi Isobe, an executive from the trade organization.
In early December, the center held an event featuring Mr. Boustany and Mr. Reichert, who spoke about the importance of the trade agreement and the steps they were taking to pressure the White House to complete it. In addition, at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing later that month, Matthew P. Goodman, a scholar at the center, testified in favor of the agreement, his language driving home the very message Japan’s lobbyists and their congressional allies were seeking to convey.
The agreement was critical to “success not only for the administration’s regional economic policy but arguably for the entire Asia rebalancing strategy,” Mr. Goodman said.
Mr. Hamre, the center’s president, acknowledged that his organization’s researchers were pushing for the trade deal (it remains pending). But he said their advocacy was rooted in a belief that the agreement was good for the United States economy and the country’s standing in Asia.
Foreign Government Contributions to Nine Think Tanks
Foreign governments and state-controlled or state-financed entities have paid tens of millions of dollars to dozens of American think tanks in recent years, according to a New York Times investigation.
Andrew Schwartz, a spokesman for the center, said that language in the agreements the organization signs with foreign governments gives its scholars final say over the policy positions they take — although he acknowledged those provisions have not been included in all such documents.
“We have to respect their academic and intellectual independence,” Mr. Otaka, the Japanese Embassy spokesman, said in a separate interview. But one Japanese diplomat, who asked not to be named as he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said the country expected favorable treatment in return for donations to think tanks.
“If we put actual money in, we want to have a good result for that money — as it is an investment,” he said.
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — two nations that host large United States military bases and view a continued American military presence as central to their own national security — have been especially aggressive in their giving to think tanks. The two Persian Gulf monarchies are also engaged in a battle with each other to shape Western opinion, with Qatar arguing that Muslim Brotherhood-style political Islam is the Arab world’s best hope for democracy, and the United Arab Emirates seeking to persuade United States policy makers that the Brotherhood is a dangerous threat to the region’s stability.
The United Arab Emirates, which has become a major supporter of the Center for Strategic and International Studies over the past decade, turned to the think tank in 2007 after an uproar in Congress about the nation’s plan to purchase control of terminals in several United States ports. After lawmakers questioned whether the purchase would be a national security threat to the United States, and the deal was scuttled, the oil-rich nation sought to remake its image in Washington, Mr. Hamre said.
The nation paid the research organization to sponsor a lecture series “to examine the strategic importance” of the gulf region and “identify opportunities for constructive U.S. engagement.” It also paid the center to organize annual trips to the gulf region during which dozens of national security experts from the United States would get private briefings from government officials there.
These and other events gave the United Arab Emirates’ senior diplomats an important platform to press their case. At a round table in Washington in March 2013, Yousef Al Otaiba, the ambassador to the United States, pressed Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about whether the United States would remain committed to his country given budget reductions in Washington.
Mr. Dempsey’s reply was quickly posted on the Facebook page of the United Arab Emirates Embassy: The country, he assured Mr. Al Otaiba and others in the crowd, was one of America’s “most credible and capable allies, especially in the gulf region.”
Access to Power
Small countries are finding that they can gain big clout by teaming up with American research organizations. Perhaps the best example is Norway.
As one of the world’s top oil producers, a member of NATO and a player in peace negotiations in spots around the globe, Norway has an interest in a broad range of United States policies.
The country has committed at least $24 million to an array of Washington think tanks over the past four years, according to a tally by The Times, transforming these nonprofits into a powerful but largely hidden arm of the Norway Foreign Affairs Ministry. Documents obtained under that country’s unusually broad open records laws reveal that American research groups, after receiving money from Norway, have advocated in Washington for enhancing Norway’s role in NATO, promoted its plans to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and pushed its climate change agenda.
Norway paid the Center for Global Development, for example, to persuade the United States government to spend more money on combating global warming by slowing the clearing of forests in countries like Indonesia, according to a 2013 project document describing work by the center and a consulting company called Climate Advisers.
Norway is a major funder of forest protection efforts around the world. But while many environmentalists applaud the country’s lobbying for forest protection, some have attacked the programs as self-interested: Slowing deforestation could buy more time for Norway’s oil companies to continue selling fossil fuels on the global market even as Norway and other countries push for new carbon reduction policies. Oilwatch International, an environmental advocacy group, calls forest protection a “scheme whereby polluters use forests and land as supposed sponges for their pollution.”
Kare R. Aas, Norway’s ambassador to the United States, rejected this criticism as ridiculous. As a country whose territory extends into the Arctic, he said, Norway would be among the nations most affected by global warming.
John J. Hamre, the president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that he did not view as lobbying his scholars’ advocacy on topics foreign donors have funded them to study.Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times
“We want to maintain sustainable living conditions in the North,” Mr. Aas said.
But Norway’s agreement imposed very specific demands on the Center for Global Development. The research organization, in return for Norway’s money, was not simply asked to publish reports on combating climate change. The project documents ask the think tank to persuade Washington officials to double United States spending on global forest protection efforts to $500 million a year.
“Target group: U.S. policy makers,” a progress report reads.
The grant is already paying dividends. The center, crediting the Norwegian government’s funding, helped arrange a November 2013 meeting with Treasury Department officials. Scholars there also succeeded in having language from their Norway-funded research included in a deforestation report prepared by a White House advisory commission, according to an April progress report.
Norway has also funded Arctic research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, at a time when the country was seeking to expand its oil drilling in the Arctic region.
Mr. Hamre, of the center, said he was invited to Norway about five years ago and given a presentation on the Arctic Circle, known in Norway as the “High North.”
“What the hell is the High North?” he said in an interview, recalling that he was not familiar with the topic until then.
But Norway’s government soon began sending checks to the center for a research program on Arctic policy. By 2009, after the new Norway-supported Arctic program was up and running, it brought Norway officials together with a key member of Congress to discuss the country’s “energy aspirations for the region.”
In a March 2013 report, scholars from the center urged the Obama administration to increase its military presence in the Arctic Circle, to protect energy exploration efforts there and to increase the passage of cargo ships through the region — the exact moves Norway has been advocating.
The Brookings Institution, which also accepted grants from Norway, has sought to help the country gain access to American officials, documents show. One Brookings senior fellow, Bruce Jones, offered in 2010 to reach out to State Department officials to help arrange a meeting with a senior Norway official, according to a government email. The Norway official wished to discuss his country’s role as a “middle power” and vital partner of the United States.
Brookings organized another event in April 2013, in which one of Norway’s top officials on Arctic issues was seated next to the State Department’s senior official on the topic and reiterated the country’s priorities for expanding oil exploration in the Arctic.
William J. Antholis, the managing director at Brookings, said that if his scholars help Norway pursue its foreign policy agenda in Washington, it is only because their rigorous, independent research led them to this position. “The scholars are their own agents,” he said. “They are not agents of these foreign governments.”
But three lawyers who specialize in the law governing Americans’ activities on behalf of foreign governments said that the Center for Global Development and Brookings, in particular, appeared to have taken actions that merited registration as foreign agents of Norway. The activities by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Atlantic Council, they added, at least raised questions.
“The Department of Justice needs to be looking at this,” said Joshua Rosenstein, a lawyer at Sandler Reiff.
Ona Dosunmu, Brookings’s general counsel, examining the same documents, said she remained convinced that was a misreading of the law.
A drilling rig in the Barents Sea in 2012. Norway, which as a top oil producer has an interest in United States policy, has committed at least $24 million to Washington think tanks in recent years.Credit Harald Pettersen/Statoil, via Scanpix, via Associated Press
Norway, at least, is grateful for the work Brookings has done. During a speech at Brookings in June, Norway’s foreign minister, Borge Brende, noted that his country’s relationship with the think tank “has been mutually beneficial for moving a lot of important topics.” Just before the speech, in fact, Norway signed an agreement to contribute an additional $4 million to the group.
Limits on Scholars
The tens of millions in donations from foreign interests come with certain expectations, researchers at the organizations said in interviews. Sometimes the foreign donors move aggressively to stifle views contrary to their own.
Michele Dunne served for nearly two decades as a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs at the State Department, including stints in Cairo and Jerusalem, and on the White House National Security Council. In 2011, she was a natural choice to become the founding director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, named after the former prime minister of Lebanon, who was assassinated in 2005.
The center was created with a generous donation from Bahaa Hariri, his eldest son, and with the support of the rest of the Hariri family, which has remained active in politics and business in the Middle East. Another son of the former prime minister served as Lebanon’s prime minister from 2009 to 2011.
But by the summer of 2013, when Egypt’s military forcibly removed the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, Ms. Dunne soon realized there were limits to her independence. After she signed a petition and testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging the United States to suspend military aid to Egypt, calling Mr. Morsi’s ouster a “military coup,” Bahaa Hariri called the Atlantic Council to complain, executives with direct knowledge of the events said.
Ms. Dunne declined to comment on the matter. But four months after the call, Ms. Dunne left the Atlantic Council.
In an interview, Mr. Kempe said he had never taken any action on behalf of Mr. Hariri to try to modify positions that Ms. Dunne or her colleagues took. Ms. Dunne left, he said, in part because she wanted to focus on research, not managing others, as she was doing at the Atlantic Council.
“Differences she may have had with colleagues, management or donors on Middle Eastern issues — inevitable in such a fraught environment where opinions vary widely — don’t touch our fierce defense of individual experts’ intellectual independence,” Mr. Kempe said.
Ms. Dunne was replaced by Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., who served as United States ambassador to Egypt during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the longtime Egyptian military and political leader forced out of power at the beginning of the Arab Spring. Mr. Ricciardone, a career foreign service officer, had earlier been criticized by conservatives and human rights activists for being too deferential to the Mubarak government.
Scholars at other Washington think tanks, who were granted anonymity to detail confidential internal discussions, described similar experiences that had a chilling effect on their research and ability to make public statements that might offend current or future foreign sponsors. At Brookings, for example, a donor with apparent ties to the Turkish government suspended its support after a scholar there made critical statements about the country, sending a message, one scholar there said.
“It is the self-censorship that really affects us over time,” the scholar said. “But the fund-raising environment is very difficult at the moment, and Brookings keeps growing and it has to support itself.”
The sensitivities are especially important when it comes to the Qatari government — the single biggest foreign donor to Brookings.
Brookings executives cited strict internal policies that they said ensure their scholars’ work is “not influenced by the views of our funders,” in Qatar or in Washington. They also pointed to several reports published at the Brookings Doha Center in recent years that, for example, questioned the Qatari government’s efforts to revamp its education system or criticized the role it has played in supporting militants in Syria.
But in 2012, when a revised agreement was signed between Brookings and the Qatari government, the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself praised the agreement on its website, announcing that “the center will assume its role in reflecting the bright image of Qatar in the international media, especially the American ones.” Brookings officials also acknowledged that they have regular meetings with Qatari government officials about the center’s activities and budget, and that the former Qatar prime minister sits on the center’s advisory board.
Mr. Ali, who served as one of the first visiting fellows at the Brookings Doha Center after it opened in 2009, said such a policy, though unwritten, was clear.
“There was a no-go zone when it came to criticizing the Qatari government,” said Mr. Ali, who is now a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. “It was unsettling for the academics there. But it was the price we had to pay.”
In strongly-worded remarks, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu has recommended Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD) watch their step, making clear that any move aimed at Turkey would not remain unreciprocated.
“I call on [PYD leader] Salih Muslim to [use] good sense and to pull himself together. It would not be good for him if he doubts Turkey’s will and determination. Turkey has been fighting against terror and nobody should attempt to test its determination in this fight against terror,” Sinirlioğlu said on Oct. 15 in response to reported remarks by Muslim.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu lashed out at both the United States and Russia for supplying weapons and support to the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the military wing of PYD, in its bid to fight extremist jihadists, raising concerns that the arms could be used against Turkey by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an affiliate of the PYD.
“At the moment, nobody can assure us that these weapons delivered to the PYD will not go to the PKK. If we find out that these weapons are taken into northern Iraq and used there, we will destroy them wherever they are,” Davutoğlu said on Oct. 12.
In remarks reported by Arbil-based BasNews agency on Oct. 14, Muslim said that Syrian Kurds won’t attack Turkey but they will strongly meet any Turkish assaults.
“The message that we have given to the PYD is clear. If they resort to any move directed at Turkey, the required penalty will be given without hesitation,” Sinirlioğlu said a joint press conference with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Jubeir following their meeting.
In Washington, following Davutoğlu’s warning, U.S. State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said the United States will continue its support for groups that are “proving effective against ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] in Syria.” His remarks on Oct. 14 were delivered in response to a question regarding U.S. aid to the PYD, which underlined a contradiction between statements by State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner and Muslim on recipients of U.S. ammunition airdrops.
While Toner argued that the ammunition was provided to Syrian Arabs, Muslim told the Turkish press that the PYD and its allies have been receiving U.S. airdrops.
Sinirlioğlu, meanwhile, didn’t touch upon any statements from Washington.
Over the past 24 hours, Russian warplanes completed 33 sorties in Syria, striking ISIL facilities in the provinces of Idlib, Hama, Damascus, Aleppo, and Deir az-Zor, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.
Russia and the United States are moving closer to a possible agreement to provide for the safety of their aircraft over Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.
“Yesterday, another round of negotiations was held on a possible agreement on ensuring the safety of Russian and US-led coalition flights over Syria. We note that our positions are moving closer on key provisions of the future document,” ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov told reporters.
In addition, Russian and Israeli aircraft have begun training on safe flights in Syrian airspace.“Yesterday, the first stage of exercises on preventing dangerous incidents in the sky above the Syrian Arab Republic began between Russia’s Aerospace Forces and the Israeli Air Force,” Konashenkov said, adding that the second phase of joint exercises will take place later on Thursday.
The spokesman noted that a mutual information mechanism on flights over Syria has been organized between the Russian control center at Syria’s Hmaimim airbase and the Israeli Air Force’s command post.
Over the past 24 hours, Russian aviation completed 33 sorties in Syria, striking ISIL facilities in the provinces of Idlib, Hama, Damascus, Aleppo, and Deir az-Zor, he added.
“Near the region of East Ghouta in the Damascus Province, an Su-34 destroyed a camouflaged firing position with an Osa missile complex that was earlier captured by militants from the Syrian Armed Forces,” Konashenkov said.
He said a KAB-500 bomb destroyed the complex that was under a concrete enclosure.
In addition, Su-24M bombers smashed an ISIL command post in Qusair al-Ward in the Aleppo province. The facility was destroyed by a direct hit, he said.
In the province of Hama Russian warplanes destroyed a professionally camouflaged artillery battery, the Defense Ministry spokesman went on to say. According to him, it was detected by Russian military drones.
The methods the enemy used to deploy its artillery shows that Islamic State has professionals with good military training in its ranks,” Konashenkov said.
According to him, after additional reconnaissance and target localization Su-34 bombers and Su-25 attack aircraft carried out a massive airstrike.
The precision airstrikes took out six pieces of artillery, armament, and four high terrain vehicles equipped with mortars, he added.
According to Konashenkov, Islamic State militants have begun to retreat in Syria, as Russian aviation increases reconnaissance to pinpoint new positions.
“The militants are retreating, trying to establish new positions, and changing underway the course of their existing logistics system for the supply of ammunition, weaponry and equipment,” ministry spokesman Maj. Gen Igor Konashenkov told reporters.
Of course, in order to verify and confirm this information we have increased the intensity of reconnaissance flights by the air force and by unmanned aerial vehicles,” he said.
At the same time, Russian forces have eased the intensity of sorties in Syria over the last day, the spokesman stated. “This is due to the fact that the Syrian army’s offensive is transforming the contact line with Islamic State terrorist formations.”
Militant Islamist fighters hold the flag of Islamic State (IS) while taking part in a military parade along the streets of northern Raqqa province in this June 30, 2014 file photo.
Reuters/Stringer
Islamic State called on Muslims to launch a “holy war” against Russians and Americans over what it called their “crusaders’ war” in the Middle East, an audio message distributed by supporters of the ultra hardline group said on Tuesday.
“Islamic youth everywhere, ignite jihad against the Russians and the Americans in their crusaders’ war against Muslims,” the speech by Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani said.
The United States and Russia are carrying separate airstrike campaigns in Syria, which they say are targeting Islamic State.
Washington says Moscow’s campaign has mainly targeted other insurgent groups including those that have fought Islamic State, a charge Russia denies.
The United States is also carrying out airstrikes in Iraq, where Russia has also become separately involved. A senior Iraqi parliamentarian said on Tuesday that Russian officials were part of a new Iraq-based intelligence center with staff from Iran and Syria.
The audio message also confirmed the death of Abu Mutaz Qurashi, which the SITE monitoring service said was a reference to a senior Islamic State official killed in an airstrike in Iraq in August and referred to then as Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali.
The White House said at the time that a U.S. air strike in Iraq had killed Hayali, whom it described as the second-in-command of the group which has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.
The audio made no specific mention of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose health and whereabouts became a subject of speculation earlier this week when an Islamic State convoy was hit in Iraq.
Eight senior figures from Islamic State were killed in the Iraqi air strike while meeting in an Iraqi town on Sunday, but Baghdadi did not appear to be among them, residents of the town and hospital sources said.
A commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has threatened terror attacks against U.S. warships and vowed that the Islamic Republic would chase U.S. forces into “the Gulf of Mexico” in order to exact revenge for any attacks, according to regional reports.
Alireza Tangsiri, an IRGC lieutenant commander, said that suicide bombers are on stand by and ready to “blow up themselves” to “destroy the U.S. warships,” according to remarks made Monday in Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.
“They [the U.S.] have tested us once and if necessary, there are people who will blow up themselves with ammunitions to destroy the U.S. warships,” Tangsiri was quoted as saying.
He added that if the United States takes any hostile action against Iran, the country’s military forces would pursue the Americans into the Gulf of Mexico.
“I declare now that if the enemy wants to spark a war against Iran, we will chase them even to the Gulf of Mexico and we will (certainly) do it,” he said.
The threats come a day after Iran test fired ballistic missiles in the region, in a potential violation of international agreements barring such activity.
Junker Throws in the Towel: “We Can’t Go On” Fighting Russia The EU chief says Europe can no longer afford to have a policy dictated by the United States
This article originally appeared at German Economic News. Translated from the German by Boris Jaruselski
His own man?
Huge reversal: the EU seeks a normal relationship with Russia. It seems that the EU is being greatly affected by the actions of Vladimir Putin in Syria: suddenly the EU President Jean-Claude Junker is saying that the EU must not let the US dictate their relationship with Russia. He has demanded a normalization of relations – and indirectly, the end of sanctions.
The EU Commission President advocated a relaxation in the conflict with Russia. “We have to achieve a sustainable relationship with Russia. It’s not sexy, but has to be done. We can’t go on like this anymore”, he said on Thursday in Passau. It isn’t necessary to achieve overall understanding, but a sensible conversational basis. “The Russians are a proud people”, the country has “a role to play”, said Junker: “One must not remove them from the bigger picture, otherwise they’ll call again, very quickly, as we seen already.” He critisized US Presidnet Barack Obama, for having downgraded Russia as “regional power”. “Russia needs to be treated correctly”, the Luxemburgian explained. “We can not have our relationship towards Russia dictated by Washington. It’s simply not on.”
This statement is particularly noteworthy. Until now, the EU always placed emphasis on having complete accord with the Americans, with the placement of the Russian sanctions. Some time ago, the US Vice President Joe Biden made it clear that the US had urged the EU to impose the sanctions. Junkers’ big back flip is confirming the statement made by Biden. It’s hard to discern what’s really going on Junker’s mind: as late as March, Junker was demanding the establishment of a EU army, which was expressly directed against Russia: such a European army would “give Russia the impression, that we are seriously intending to defend European Union’s values”, Junker said word for word, back then.
In this Nov. 19, 2014, file photo, fighters from Kurdish popular defense units YPJ (women) and YPG (men) gather during a short break before heading out to fight for new positions in Kobani, Syria. AP Photo
Turkey has warned the United States and Russia it will not tolerate Kurdish territorial gains by Kurdish militia close to its frontiers in north-western Syria, two senior officials said.
“This is clear cut for us and there is no joking about it,” one official said of the possibility of Syrian Kurdish militia crossing the Euphrates to extend control along Turkish borders from Iraq’s Kurdistan region toward the Mediterranean coast.
Turkey fears advances by Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, backed by its Democratic Union Party (PYD) political wing, on the Syrian side of its 900-kilometer border will fuel separatist ambitions among Kurds in its own southeastern territories. But Washington has supported YPG fighters as an effective force in combating Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“The PYD has been getting closer with both the United States and Russia of late. We view the PYD as a terrorist group and we want all countries to consider the consequences of their cooperation,” one of the Turkish officials said, referring to the PYD, which Turkey links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey suspects Russia, which launched air strikes in Syria two weeks ago, has also been lending support to the PYD and YPG, its armed wing.
“With support from Russia, the PYD is trying to capture land between Jarablus and Azaz, going west of the Euphrates. We will never accept this,” the official said.
The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that Iraqi forces could have discovered a cache of U.S. weapons and missiles seized by Islamic State (IS) militants operating in the country, according to U.S. officials and regional media reports.
Iraqi forces combatting IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) are said to have found a stockpile of U.S. weapons, including ammunition and anti-armor missiles, hidden at sites controlled by terrorist forces, according to foreign military sources who spoke to Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency. This is said to include a “huge volume” of advanced TOW II anti-tank missiles.
When asked to address the reports on Monday, a Pentagon official acknowledged that U.S. weapons had gone missing last year, but denied that the United States was intentionally arming IS or its affiliates in the region.
“As you may recall, when ISIL overran Iraqi positions last year, we were aware of ISIL capturing some Iraqi weapons and equipment that had been supplied by the U.S. to Iraqi forces,” the official said. “However, the claims that U.S. and Coalition forces are directly supplying ISIL with any weapons, equipment, or ammunition are completely false.”
Fars claimed the U.S. weapons and ammunition were discovered over the weekend near the Iraqi city of Fallujah and that they had been “airdropped” into the area by American forces.
“The military hardware and weapons had been airdropped by the U.S.-led warplanes and choppers for the ISIL in the nearby areas of Beiji,” a military source was quoted as telling Fars.
The U.S. defense official rejected this claim, calling it “nothing more than propaganda intended to mislead readers about the true nature of the coalition’s efforts to support our Iraqi partners and defeat ISIL.”
Another Pentagon official noted that Iran often disseminates these types of reports and officials “regularly have to correct the record.”
Iraqi sources had claimed over the weekend that U.S. shipments had been spotted being sent to IS, though the claims could not be verified. Videos disseminated via Twitter appear to show Iraqis digging through U.S. supply crates.
The claims follow months of speculation among some Iraqis that the United States is wrongly arming terrorist forces in the country.
Such claims are a sign of a growing propaganda war on both sides of the fight, with the United States working to dampen conspiracies about its supposed support for IS.
Iranian officials and the country’s media outlets have attempted to perpetuate this narrative.
Fars quoted an Iraqi official earlier this year who claimed that U.S. aircraft were dropping food and weapons for forces believed to be affiliated with IS.
“The U.S. planes have dropped weapons for the ISIL terrorists in the areas under ISIL control and even in those areas that have been recently liberated from the ISIL control to encourage the terrorists to return to those places,” Jafar al-Jaberi, a coordinator for the Iraqi popular forces, was quoted as telling the outlet.
Meanwhile, U.S. coalition forces continue to strike IS positions.
The Pentagon announced on Sunday that it had conducted 17 airstrikes in Iraq and another seven in Syria.
“The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community,” the Pentagon said. “The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group’s ability to project terror and conduct operations.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA-backed rebels in Syria, who had begun to put serious pressure on President Bashar Assad’s forces, are now under Russian bombardment with little prospect of rescue by their American patrons, U.S. officials say.
Over the past week, Russia has directed parts of its air campaign against U.S.-funded groups and other moderate opposition in a concerted effort to weaken them, the officials say. The Obama administration has few options to defend those it had secretly armed and trained.
The Russians “know their targets, and they have a sophisticated capacity to understand the battlefield situation,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee and was careful not to confirm a classified program. “They are bombing in locations that are not connected to the Islamic State” group.
Other U.S. officials interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The CIA began a covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train a moderate opposition to Assad. Over that time, the CIA has trained an estimated 10,000 fighters, although the number still fighting with so-called moderate forces is unclear.
The effort was separate from the one run by the military, which trained militants willing to promise to take on IS exclusively. That program was widely considered a failure, and on Friday, the Defense Department announced it was abandoning the goal of a U.S.-trained Syrian force, instead opting to equip established groups to fight IS.
For years, the CIA effort had foundered — so much so that over the summer, some in Congress proposed cutting its budget. Some CIA-supported rebels had been captured; others had defected to extremist groups. The secret CIA program is the only way the U.S. is taking on Assad militarily. In public, the United States has focused its efforts on fighting IS and urging Assad to leave office voluntarily.
“Probably 60 to 80 percent of the arms that America shoveled in have gone to al-Qaida and its affiliates,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.
But in recent months, CIA-backed groups, fighting alongside more extremist factions, began to make progress in Syria’s south and northwest, American officials say. In July and August, U.S.-supported rebels seized territory on the al-Ghab plain, in northwest Syria’s Idlib and Hama governorates. The plain is a natural barrier between areas controlled by Sunni Muslims and the Alawite sect to which Assad and his loyalists belong. The capture of the al-Ghab plain was seen as a breakthrough toward weakening the Alawites.
Those and other gains put Damascus, the capital, at risk, officials say.
But in recent days, Russian airstrikes have hit groups in the area, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank that closely tracks the situation. Russian bombs and missiles have hit specific buildings associated with the moderate Syrian opposition, according to a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence.
Russian officials have insisted they are bombing Islamic State militants and other terrorists.
U.S. intelligence officials see many factors motivating Russia’s intervention: Moscow’s reasserting its primacy as a great power, propping up Assad and wanting to deal a blow to the United States, which has insisted that Assad must go to end Syria’s civil war.
Russia is also interested in containing IS, an organization that includes thousands of Chechen fighters who may pose a threat to Russia, officials say.
But in the short term, “my conclusion is that the timing of their intervention was driven by Assad really going critical,” said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., also a House Intelligence Committee member.
The administration is scrambling to come up with a response to Russia’s moves, but few believe the U.S. can protect its secret rebel allies. The administration has all but ruled out providing CIA-backed groups with surface-to-air missiles that can down aircraft, fearing such weapons would end up in the wrong hands, officials say.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, says the U.S. should consider establishing a no-fly zone that allows rebels a safe place from which to operate, and shooting down Syrian helicopters that are bombing civilians. He said the U.S. also should provide arms to the Ukrainian government fighting Russian-backed separatists.
A no-fly zone would require the U.S. military to be ready to engage in air battles with the Syrian government, something it is not prepared to do.
The administration “is debating the merits of taking further action or whether they are better off letting Putin hang himself,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Our options are much narrower than they were two weeks ago,” said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who serves on the Intelligence and Armed Services committees. “I don’t think there is any simple answer. … Further air involvement has become very problematic because of the Russian engagement.”
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