FOX31 Denver | Wife of vet wounded in Iraq seeks action from lawmakers FOX31 Denver Colorado congressman Mike Coffman says Hixson's case falls into what he calls a "disturbing pattern" of treatment for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. "Just in looking at the case so far this is a reaction to powerful drugs that this veteran was ... |
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Wife of vet wounded in Iraq seeks action from lawmakers - FOX31 Denver
MOSUL, Iraq - Iraqi forces helped by U.S. airpower have clawed back much of this broken city from ISIS. But as you approach East Mosul, the military checkpoints on the rutted road aren't manned by the Iraqi army. Nor are they flying the flag of Iraq.
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The uniformed Iraqis at the checkpoints are members of Iranian-backed Shiite militias that now control the entrance to this Sunni Arab city. Rather than fly the red, white, and black Iraqi banner, the militiamen display a religious flag adorned with the face of the holiest Shiite icon, the prophet's grandson Imam Hussain. As if to hammer home the message, the face of Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini adorns a large placard tacked to a post on the road.
Washington should regard the black flags as a warning signal. Even before ISIS is fully defeated, Shiite Iran is laying the groundwork to expand its deep penetration of Iraq (with whom it shares a nearly 1,000-mile border). Tehran wants to control the Baghdad government through its Shiite political and militia proxies, marginalizing Sunnis, including in Mosul.
But judging by history, repression in Sunni areas of Iraq will provide fertile ground for the next jihadi movement to take root.
So the Shiite flags at Mosul's gateway signal that a military defeat of ISIS is insufficient. There must also be a political plan (although none is yet evident in Baghdad or Washington) to assure Sunnis of a role in a post-ISIS Iraq.
That plan is needed sooner rather than later. So far, the Shiite militias are not entering the city proper, Mosul residents tell me. "Right now they are not pushing people out," says an elementary school teacher who lives in East Mosul. He says, however, that sectarian Shiite political parties linked to the militias are already opening offices in the city.
In other contested parts of Iraq, hard-line Shiite militias are ethnically cleansing Sunnis from towns and villages to create a Sunni-free corridor from Iran across Iraq to the Syrian border. (That will enable Tehran to send men and heavy weapons by a land route through Syria to its anti-Israel ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.) These militias receive extensive Iranian support and Iraqi government funds.
Maslawis (as Mosul natives are called) view the Iraqi military far more positively than they do the militias, even though Iraqi forces are composed heavily of Shiites (who make up a majority of the population). That's because Iraqi forces are loyal to the state, not to Shiite political parties or Tehran.
I heard nothing but praise for the behavior of the Iraqi military units that entered the city, especially the U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service (CTS). "The only force people like is the CTS and [its] Golden Division," the prominent Sunni Sheikh Abdullah al-Yawar told me. "It did not force people to leave their homes."
Although the militias are technically under military control, no one knows their future after ISIS is defeated. Sunnis fear they will act as armed wings of competing Shiite parties or an Iraqi version of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps, which took over Iran's army from within.
And Sunnis rightly fear Iran's long-term intentions. They know Tehran still remembers Saddam Hussein's 1980 invasion of Iran, when Sunnis ran Iraq, and the decadelong war that followed. "Iran wants to see Iraq's Sunnis weak and divided," one Sunni politician told me, "so the 1980s can never happen again."
Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi, who will visit Washington this week, says all the right things about reconciliation with Sunnis. "We are proud of our diversity," he said this month at a forum sponsored by the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. "Victory will be done when we are united."
Yet Sunnis in Mosul have yet to see any of the $500 million set aside by the Iraqi finance ministry for reconstruction. Nor is it clear when hundreds of thousands of Mosul residents who fled the fighting will be permitted to return home.
Moreover, Maslawis worry about who is going to protect them from terrorism, or displacement, after ISIS is defeated. The 8,000 Sunni tribesmen trained by U.S. forces as a "hold force" to secure Mosul after ISIS have been deployed but have yet to make an impact.
Once U.S. airpower is no longer needed to target ISIS, Maslawis believe Iran will press the Baghdad government to kick U.S. forces out of the country. Having once been hostile to the American presence, Sunnis now want those forces to stay.
They know the Iranians are very clever at playing the long game. Tehran appears eager to shift Iraqi politics toward a system where the Shiite majority assumes permanent dominance over the Sunni and Kurdish minorities.
The Iranians are buying off weak Sunni politicians, helping to keep a divided community even more so. Money is also flowing to small minority groups like the Shiite Shabaks, who are manning the checkpoints at the entry to Mosul. Shabaks are a tiny Iraqi ethno-religious sect that, I'm told, had never taken up arms before.
All this raises the question of what options Washington has in Iraq to offset Iran and prevent ISIS 2.0. Here's what savvy Iraqi Arabs and Kurds told me they hope a Trump administration will do:
First, stay engaged with Iraq and retain a military presence to help Iraqi forces prevent an ISIS resurgence.
Second, bolster Abadi against Iranian efforts to back a hard-line Shiite opponent. For starters, encourage America's Gulf Arab allies to help finance Sunni reconstruction. Washington should also aid Mosul's civil society activists who are trying to rebuild from the ground up.
Third, press Baghdad to adopt a federal system, which the country's constitution provides for, so Sunnis can establish their own provinces within the country. Iran and Shiite parties will oppose this formula, but it's the only way to convince Iraq's Sunnis that they have a future.
All this requires serious, long-term U.S. engagement, which may not appeal to a Trump administration. But, as the Shiite flags outside Mosul make clear, shorter-term thinking will be costly.
Absent a strong U.S. effort, the next iteration of ISIS will grow in Iraq.
You can find the first two of Trudy Rubin's reports from Mosul at http://www.philly.com/Trudyrubin. Email:trubin@phillynews.com
Published: March 19, 2017 3:01 AM EDT The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Worldview: Rubin: After ISIS, Iran looking to deepen presence in Iraq - Philly.com
TUNIS Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) has been coordinating with military forces from eastern Libya and has "no reason to believe" it will not regain control of the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf oil ports, NOC's chairman said.
The loss and recapture of the ports this month by the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) had raised doubts over its willingness to let the Tripoli-based NOC manage the ports.
Revenue from the sites is controlled by a central bank and U.N.-backed government in the capital which pro-LNA factions oppose.
Eastern officials accuse rivals in Tripoli and the western city of Misrata of supporting a March 3 attack on the ports by a faction known as the Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB).
An oil guard commander appointed by the U.N.-backed government was deployed to secure them.
After they were retaken, the head of a Benghazi NOC office appointed by Libya's eastern government said he was pulling out of an NOC unification deal signed in July and an LNA spokesman said there would be no immediate decision on a handover.
But in written responses provided to Reuters, Mustafa Sanalla, the Tripoli-based NOC chairman, said his staff had already been working with the LNA.
"We have been coordinating our assessment of the facilities with them," Sanalla said, in his first public comments since the ports were retaken.
"We have no reason to believe control of the ports will not be handed back to NOC."
Es Sider and Ras Lanuf have a combined potential capacity of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Operations there and at two other ports southwest of Benghazi are crucial to the NOC's efforts to revive Libya's output, which has been crippled by years of conflict and political chaos.
The LNA took over the ports in September, ending a two-year blockade at three of them and quickly inviting the NOC to resume exports.
Es Sider and Ras Lanuf were badly damaged in previous rounds of fighting and have been operating well below normal levels. The latest clashes, which included ground battles and more than a week of LNA air strikes, had dented the LNA's claim it could defend the ports and led to fears that facilities would suffer further damage.
But Waha Oil Company resumed pumping to Es Sider on Saturday and Sanalla said the NOC had decided to restart operations at the ports based on technical assessments and a review by military engineers.
"For the most part, the facilities are not damaged. In one or two locations, some work needs to be done by the military engineers. Our workers are returning to their terminals gradually."
Reuters journalists observed little apparent additional damage to the ports during a visit on Thursday.
An engineer at the Waha oil field said on Sunday it was pumping 25,000 bpd to Es Sider as it restarted production, which stood at 75,000 bpd before the clashes.
Sanalla said the NOC was hoping to raise overall production to 800,000 bpd by the end of April from 611,000 bpd currently.
Libya along with Nigeria has been exempted from production cuts recently agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
However, any gains in Libya remain fragile as long as the political turmoil that has fractured the country since its 2011 uprising continues.
Oil accounts for nearly all of Libya's income and pipelines and ports have been repeatedly blockaded by local groups seeking political and financial gain.
Eastern authorities have attempted to sell oil independently, but have been blocked by international sanctions which remain in place.
Oil facilities are protected by the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) but PFG units often operate independently or for a particular political faction.
Sanalla said a neutral PFG should have a role, "but under the authority and real management of NOC".
"Putting the PFG under the NOC would, we think, go a long way to removing Libya's oil assets as an object of military competition," he said.
"Unless oil assets are taken off the table as an object of conflict, unless the oil industry is ring-fenced from our political conflict, then the possibility of more fighting remains."
(Additional reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi; editing by Jason Neely)
BEIJING China should not be singled out in a fight against excess steel capacity that requires stronger global cooperation, Wang Shouwen, a vice commerce minister, said on Saturday.
LONDON/NEW YORK Oil prices were largely steady on Friday, and looked set to finish the week with modest gains after losing almost 10 percent last week on concerns that an OPEC production cut was failing to reduce a global supply overhang.
MUMBAI India's Adani Enterprises said it would finalize an investment decision by June for its Carmichael coal project in Australia, which has been delayed due to protests from environmental groups.
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Exclusive: Libya's NOC says expects to regain Es Sider, Ras Lanuf oil ports - Reuters
africanews | UN calls for a unified Libyan army before lifting arms embargo africanews U.N. special envoy to Libya ,Martin Kobler, told a news conference during an Arab league meeting on Libya's crisis, in Cairo on Saturday, that the international body calls for a unified army with a clear chain of command represented by the UN-backed ... |
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UN calls for a unified Libyan army before lifting arms embargo - africanews
Summary
Reuters is reporting that Russia, according to anonymous Egyptian and US sources, deployed military advisers and drones to an Egyptian air base near the border with Libya. There was no official confirmation of the reports. Russia, for its part, has denied it, but doubts remain. For the past few months, Russias official stance has been to establish ever closer relations to General Khalifa Haftar, who has played a leading role in fighting ISIS and other Islamists in Libyas eastern region of Cyrenaica. The general has even secured French and British support. However, Haftars rising influence represents a challenge to the UN-recognized government led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli.
Whether there are actually Russian troops at the Libyan border or not, Russia has long had interests in Libya. Their bilateral relationship has been centered on security and military sales; it began decades ago, involving the supply of Soviet-era weaponry to the North African country, from MiG jets to tanks. In the 1970s and 80s, Libyan officers received training from Russian instructors. That Moscow would seek to revive this relationship now should come as a surprise to no one.
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Libya: The Next Piece in Russia's Geopolitical Chess Match - Geopoliticalmonitor.com