Ankara, Baghdad and Riyadh ask: Are US air strikes working?

October 11, 2014

Oct 11: The ISIS, plaguing many countries in West Asia, made a symbolic assertion during Haj too. At the ritual stoning of the devil at Mina, five kilometres to the East of Mecca, fluttered a black banner of the Islamic State (IS). The police said nothing.

US Air StrikeRecently, The Independent in London published an article giving a clue to ordinary Saudi reaction to IS. Patrick Cockburn, the writer, has cited a study done by Fouad Khadem of the Centre of Academic Shia Studies in London.

Public discussions on sensitive issues are not permitted in Saudi Arabia. Tweeting therefore has become a common vehicle to sustain debates.

The messages Saudis have been sharing on the Islamic State are fascinating.

When IS swept through northern Iraq and eastern Syria, Mania bin Nasir al-Mani was pleased. "The great land of Allah belongs neither to Kings nor nations. Those who deserve the Caliphate are those who implement the Sharia of Allah on earth and on people. Apostates and traitors deserve nothing but the sword." Later, al Mani joined the IS in Syria.

One Azfar Minfard declared: "No need for IS to enter - our country is full of them (IS)." Fata al Arab was more emphatic: "IS is on the Saudi borders, and its supporters inside Saudi Arabia are more than its organized members and armed fighters."

A revealing tweet came from Adil al-Kalbany, a Wahabi Shaikh, who has for years led prayers as an Imam of the Holy Shrine in Mecca. "IS is a Salafi (fundamentalist) offshoot - a reality we should confront with transparency."

As soon as President Barack Obama announced the coalition of the willing to wage war against IS, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Jordan instantly signed up. The next country had to seek permission from parliament before it joined - Great Britain, but only to bomb IS in Iraq. Strange, isn't it?

The tardiness with which the coalition of willing nations is being erected contrasts sharply with the speed with which non-state actors have come together as ISIS - a hodge-podge of Islamists, ex-Baathists

turned-deeply religious in their marginalized distress, Naqshbandi Sufis, Muslim Brothers, Salafists, Al Qaeda, Jabat al Nusra, everyone without exception opposed to Islamic monarchies.

One would have thought that Morocco is not prominent in the coalition of the willing because Rabat considers itself remote from the IS theatre. The monarchy woke up with a start the other morning when its security forces, in a coordinated action with Spain, busted an IS recruitment cell.

While the cumulative power of all the elements in the IS are focussed on monarchies, principally Saudi Arabia, elements in the IS have independent scores to settle with regimes in Baghdad, Ankara and sub-groups fighting the central authority in these states.

The IS, which mutated from the civil war in Syria, first identified groups seething with local anger. The famous occupation of Mosul, which boosted the prestige of the IS as a formidable force, would not have been possible without painstaking groundwork.

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was able to find an ally at the highest echelons of the Nineveh province. Mosul is its capital. The Governor, Atheel Nujaifi, handed over the keys of Mosul to al Baghdadi, an act of splendid treachery. He arranged for a most orderly takeover of Mosul by the Caliphate.

Nujaifi had longstanding grievances. He had for years been trying to carve out Mosul as a Sunni dominated city surrounded by Kurds including 350,000 of a minority tribe called the Yazidis.

Mosul and Erbil happen to be just a little north of the 36th parallel beyond which Western Forces had established a security zone after the first Gulf war to encourage Kurdish refugees to return to Iraq.

This exactly is what Nujaifi was seething with rage about. He handed over the battle to the IS. This one move created turbulence in the Kurdish north of Iraq which the Americans had tranquilized with a No Fly Zone during Saddam's rule.

The alacrity with which Obama announced air strikes against the IS was to protect assets in Kurdish Iraq where Israelis, Turks and Americans have been doing reasonable business in recent decades. The swiftness with which the Gulf Sheikhs lined up dictated the next American priority.

Saudi Arabia had to be protected. Without a strong Saudi Arabia in the region, Israel would be a lonesome presence. That is why the US is talking of "decades" long presence in the region. Whatever else the IS may do they must not lurch towards Saudi Arabia. The US will stand at the gate like supreme bouncers. But an extended US stay will create the inevitable political backlash - exponential anti-Americanism.

Shias from Mosul clambered on to their cars and trucks and drove 450 km to Karbala and Najaf. Between these two pilgrim centres, the 120-km route is lined by big halls as halting stations for pilgrims. These are tearing at the seams with Shia refugees who do not know where to turn for help since there is very little government on view in Baghdad. The "all inclusive" government of Haider al Abadi is, on the face of it, not governing.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is scripting his own tragedy of indecision, rather like the Prince of Denmark. Everyone in the region, without exception, is keeping one's fingers crossed.

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News Network
April 26,2020

Seoul, Apr 26: A train presumed to belong to North Korean's Kim Jong-un has been spotted at a station in the state's eastern coastal town of Wonsan amid speculation about the leader's health, a US monitor said on Sunday, citing commercial satellite imagery on the region, Yonhap news agency reported.

According to 38 North-- a website devoted to analysis about North Korea, the imagery showed a train "probably belonging to Kim Jong Un parked at the Leadership Railway Station servicing his Wonsan compound since at least April 21."

"The approximately 250-metre long train, although partially covered by the station's roof, can be seen at a railway station reserved for use by the Kim family. It was not present on April 15 but was present on both April 21 and 23," it said.

"The train's presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean leader or indicate anything about his health, but it does lend weight to reports that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country's eastern coast," it added.

The report came as rumours about his health have spread as Kim apparently skipped an important annual visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun on the occasion of the April 15 birthday of late state founder and his grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

CNN intensified the speculation by reporting earlier last week that the United States is looking into intelligence that Kim is "in grave danger" after surgery.

Seoul officials have disputed recent media reports about Kim, saying there have been no unusual signs from the North. Some said that Kim is presumed to be staying in Wonsan for unspecified reasons.

Washington has also dismissed the reports, with US President Donald Trump calling such reports "incorrect" in a press briefing late last week.

On Saturday, other media reports stated that China has dispatched a team of medical doctors and officials to North Korea "to advise on" Kim, citing multiple unnamed people familiar with the situation.

North Korea's state media, however, has not made any mention of Kim's public activity for two weeks since he was last seen in April 11 presiding over a major party meeting, though it has reported on his handling of routine state affairs, such as sending diplomatic letters.
But not all speculation has proven to be false.

When he was absent from public for about a month in 2014, speculation arose about his health and a political crisis in the secretive state. He later reemerged with a cane and a limp reportedly after having a cyst removed from his ankle.

The 36-year-old leader is known to have various health problems apparently caused by obesity and heavy smoking. He took office as leader of the communist state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died of a heart attack in late 2011.

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News Network
May 20,2020

Kensington (United States), May 20: The world cut its daily carbon dioxide emissions by 17% at the peak of the pandemic shutdown last month, a new study found.

But with life and heat-trapping gas levels inching back toward normal, the brief pollution break will likely be “a drop in the ocean" when it comes to climate change, scientists said.

In their study of carbon dioxide emissions during the coronavirus pandemic, an international team of scientists calculated that pollution levels are heading back up — and for the year will end up between 4% and 7% lower than 2019 levels.

That's still the biggest annual drop in carbon emissions since World War II.

It'll be 7% if the strictest lockdown rules remain all year long across much of the globe, 4% if they are lifted soon.

For a week in April, the United States cut its carbon dioxide levels by about one-third.

China, the world's biggest emitter of heat-trapping gases, sliced its carbon pollution by nearly a quarter in February, according to a study Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change. India and Europe cut emissions by 26% and 27% respectively.

The biggest global drop was from April 4 through 9 when the world was spewing 18.7 million tons (17 million metric tons) of carbon pollution a day less than it was doing on New Year's Day.

Such low global emission levels haven't been recorded since 2006. But if the world returns to its slowly increasing pollution levels next year, the temporary reduction amounts to ''a drop in the ocean," said study lead author Corinne LeQuere, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia.

“It's like you have a bath filled with water and you're turning off the tap for 10 seconds," she said.

By April 30, the world carbon pollution levels had grown by 3.3 million tons (3 million metric tons) a day from its low point earlier in the month. Carbon dioxide stays in the air for about a century.

Outside experts praised the study as the most comprehensive yet, saying it shows how much effort is needed to prevent dangerous levels of further global warming.

“That underscores a simple truth: Individual behavior alone ... won't get us there,” Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn't part of the study, said in an email.

“We need fundamental structural change.”

If the world could keep up annual emission cuts like this without a pandemic for a couple decades, there's a decent chance Earth can avoid warming another 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) of warming from now, study authors said. But getting the type of yearly cuts to reach that international goal is unlikely, they said.

If next year returns to 2019 pollution levels, it means the world has only bought about a year's delay in hitting the extra 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) of warming that leaders are trying to avoid, LeQuere said. That level could still occur anywhere from 2050 to 2070, the authors said.

The study was carried out by Global Carbon Project, a consortium of international scientists that produces the authoritative annual estimate of carbon dioxide emissions. They looked at 450 databases showing daily energy use and introduced a measurement scale for pandemic-related societal “confinement” in its estimates.

Nearly half the emission reductions came from less transportation pollution, mostly involving cars and trucks, the authors said. By contrast, the study found that drastic reductions in air travel only accounted for 10% of the overall pollution drop.

In the US, the biggest pollution declines were seen in California and Washington with plunges of more than 40%.

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News Network
February 18,2020

Washington, Feb 18: The upcoming visit of President Donald Trump to India later this month has the potential to usher in a new era of bilateral ties between the two countries, a top American business advocacy group has said.

President Trump will pay a state visit to India on February 24 and 25 at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He would be accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump.

This would be the president's first bilateral visit in the third decade of the 21st century and also the first after his acquittal by the Senate in the impeachment trial.

"I believe President Trump's upcoming visit to India has the potential to usher in a new era of our bilateral ties," Mukesh Aghi, President of the US India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF) said in a statement on Monday.

On the sidelines of the visit, the USISPF, in collaboration with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the ORF, has announced to organise a program entitled "US-India Forum: Partners for Growth".

The full-day discussion will focus on the key pillars defining India and the US' strategic, economic, and cultural partnership over the next decade.

"We have an opportunity before us to make real progress on multiple aspects of the relationship— whether it is upholding peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region; building upon an already strong energy partnership; developing co-production and co-development opportunities in the defense space; or strengthening bilateral trade," Aghi said.

"We look forward to an extremely successful visit and some concrete outcomes from the visit," he said.

The day-long programme on February 25 in New Delhi, will bring together over 500 senior business executives, members of the US-India think tank community and leading figures of the Indian diaspora to set the agenda for this strategic partnership.

Discussions during the day will touch upon areas, including the Indo-Pacific Strategy and Maritime Security; the US-India Defence Partnership, the US-India Energy Partnership, Elevating US-India Trade and Investment and Role of the Indian Diaspora in US-India Relations.

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