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A Turkish army tank drives toward the Turkish-Syrian border at Karkamis in southeastern Gaziantep province, Turkey, Aug. 25, 2016. (photo byREUTERS/Umit Bektas)

Author:Hamdi Malik Posted April 19, 2017

Having announced the end of Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria on March 29, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shortly thereafter declared a pendingnew stageof the operation, but on Iraqi soil. Any such operation is expected to exacerbate the myriad conflicts in the area.

TranslatorMuhammed Hussein Tal'at

Erdogan announcedthe new operation in an April 4television interview with the Anadolu Agency. Identifying Turkey's targets, he said, There are the Tal Afar and Sinjar situations. We also have kin in Mosul.The kin Erdogan referred to areTurkmens.During anApril7 TV interview,Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusogluconfirmed the government's plansfor an Iraqcampaign and explained Sinjar's importance. The PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party]wants to build its own camp in Sinjar, which we cannot allow,he said. We will undertake a [military] intervention, or they [PKK forces] will cross our borders to launch terrorist attacks. No time frame has beenpublicly announcedfor the Iraqoperation.

PKK forces entered Sinjar in 2014, after Islamic State militants attacked the area, which is inhabited primarily byYazidis.The heavy presence of PKK forces in the area has caused disputes among Kurdish factions. In March, bloody clashes erupted between the PKK-affiliated Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS)and the Rojavapeshmergaaffiliated with theKurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and supported by Ankara. The PKK sees the clashes as being related to avisitto Turkey by KDP leader and Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government PresidentMassoud Barzani. Meanwhile, the KDP has accused Iran of supporting the YBS as part of itsShiite Crescent project.

Turkey already hasmilitary forces in Iraq, at Bashiqa, a situation that has caused tensions with Baghdad. Turkey claims the troops are there merely to help train fighters in prepartion for taking Mosul from IS.Baghdad claims they are violating Iraqi sovereignty andhas called for their withdrawal. It appears that Turkey would needa comprehensive military invasion to drive thePKK from the Sinjar area, as airstrikes alone, which Turkey has conducted in the Qandil mountainsagainst PKK targets,are unlikelyto achieve Ankara's announced goal. It is possible that Turkey might use its forces in the Bashiqa camp to help do so.

The Bashiqa camp has been hemmed into the southby Baghdad-controlled joint forces, asorderedby Iraqi Prime MinisterHaider al-Abadi, sothe only way for Turkish forces in Iraq to reach Sinjar by land is to pass through areas controlled by the KDP. Would the KDPallowa foreign force to cross that territory to attack another Kurdish force?

Rabwar Fattah, director of the London-basedMiddle East Consultancy Service, told Al-Monitorin a phone interview, This step would be met with strong objectionby the Kurdish people in the region. However, the KDP leadership does not have many options, so if Turkey decides to take this step, the step will be taken regardless of what the leadership thinks.

The Baghdad government has publicly rejectedTurkish military operations in Iraq. The [Iraqi] government will not allow any external side to carry out military operations on the ground, including Turkey or any other state, Iraqi government spokesman Saad al-HadithisaidApril 7.

In fact, however, the central government in Baghdad also does not have many options if Turkey decides to launcha ground offensivein Sinjar. Opting for a direct military confrontation is unlikely, because Iraqi forces have their hands fullfightingIS, and Turkey has the advantage of superiorair power.

The diplomatic option does not appear to offer much either, as Baghdad has repeatedly requested that Turkey withdraw its forces from Iraqi territory. The Iraqis have requested backing for its position frominternational and regional organizations, includingthe UN Security Council and the Arab League, but in vain.

Further complicating the picture, Ankarahas accused Iran of using the PKK forces in Sinjar to secure a corridor from Iran to the Mediterranean. When we look at it all, there is a broad influence for Iranian and Persian nationalism based on sects in Iraq,Erdogan said in theAnadolu interview, expressing dissatisfaction with Irans role in Iraq.

The Turkish-Iranian conflict has recently taken a new turn, with armed Iraqi Shiite factions affiliated with Iran threateningto attack the Turkish forces in Iraq. Turkish military operations in Iraq would make such a confrontationmore likely. Moreover, any Turkish military advantagewouldnot safeguard its forcesagainst painful military strikes, as the Shiite factions have the expertise and support to strike Turkish forcesas they didUS forces when they occupied the country.

Tehran will not accept further Turkish military intervention in Iraq, Afshin Shahi, senior lecturer in international relations and Middle East politics at Bradford University, told Al-Monitor. Such military operations, if conducted, will transform the Iraqi situation into something similar to Syria, as it is likely to lead to proxy clashes in Iraq between Iran and Turkey.

Indeed, should Ankara follow through with Euphrates Shield Iraq,it appears almost certain that it would ignitemilitary escalation beyond its immediate targets and exacerbate thebattle between alliedblocs in Iraq and perhaps the region.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/04/iraq-turkey-iran-sinjar-pkk-kurdistan.html

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Ankara not backing down from Iraq intervention - Al-Monitor

Under Trump, Washington is being lured back to the strife-prone region. What's the endgame?

Listening to his campaign rhetoric, the last thing you would expect Donald Trump to do as president would be to escalate a ground war in the Middle East. He won the Republican nomination last year by campaigning against both George W. Bush's war in Iraq and Barack Obama's war in Libya.

But as Trump's young presidency has shown, many of the candidate's foreign policy positions are not as firmly held as his supporters had hoped. It's not just that Trump struck the Syrian regime after last week's chemical weapons attack on rebels. It's not just his recent reversals on Chinese currency manipulation and the Nato alliance. The president's biggest foreign policy surprise may be yet to come.

Senior White House and administration officials tell me Trump's national security adviser, General H.R. McMaster, has been quietly pressing his colleagues to question the underlying assumptions of a draft war plan against Daesh that would maintain only a light US ground troop presence in Syria. McMaster's critics inside the administration say he wants to send tens of thousands of ground troops to the Euphrates River Valley. His supporters insist he is only trying to facilitate a better interagency process to develop Trump's new strategy to defeat the self-described caliphate that controls territory in Iraq and Syria.

US special operations forces and some conventional forces have been in Iraq and Syria since 2014, when Obama reversed course and ordered a new air campaign against Daesh. But so far, the US presence on the ground has been much smaller and quieter than more traditional military campaigns, particularly for Syria. It's the difference between boots on the ground and slippers on the ground.

Trump himself has been on different sides of this issue. He promised during his campaign that he would develop a plan to destroy Daesh. At times during the campaign, he said he favoured sending ground troops to Syria to accomplish this task. More recently, Trump told Fox Business this week that that would not be his approach to fighting the Syrian regime: "We're not going into Syria," he said.

McMaster himself has found resistance to a more robust ground troop presence in Syria. In two meetings since the end of February of Trump's national security cabinet, known as the principals' committee, Trump's top advisers have failed to reach consensus on the Daesh strategy. The White House and administration officials say Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford and General Joseph Votel, who is in charge of US Central Command, oppose sending more conventional forces into Syria. Meanwhile, White House senior strategist Stephen Bannon has derided McMaster to his colleagues as trying to start a new Iraq War, according to these sources.

Because Trump's national security cabinet has not reached consensus, the Daesh war plan is now being debated at the policy coordinating committee, the interagency group hosted at the State Department of subject matter experts that prepares issues for the principals' committee and deputies' committee, after which a question reaches the president's desk for a decision.

The genesis of this debate starts with one of Trump's first actions as president, when he told the Pentagon to develop a strategy to defeat the Daesh group. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, opposed sending conventional forces into a complicated war zone, where they would be targets of al Qaeda, Daesh, Iran and Russia. In Flynn's brief tenure, he supported a deal with Russia to work together against Daesh and Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate, similar to a bargain Obama's secretary of state, John Kerry's tried and failed to seal with Moscow. Inside the Pentagon, military leaders favour a more robust version of Obama's strategy against Daesh. This has been a combination of airstrikes and special operations forces that train and support local forces. Military leaders favor lifting restrictive rules of engagement for US special operations forces and using more close air support, like attack helicopters, in future operations against the Daesh capital in Raqqa.

McMaster however is sceptical of this approach. To start, it relies primarily on Syrian Kurdish militias to conquer and hold Arab-majority territory. Jack Keane, a retired four-star army general who is close to McMaster, acknowledged to me this week that the Kurdish forces have been willing to fight Daesh, whereas Arab militias have primarily fought against the Assad regime.

"Our special operations guys believe rightfully so that this was a proven force that could fight," Keane said of the Kurdish fighters. "While this makes sense tactically, it doesn't make sense strategically. Those are Arab lands, and the Arabs are not going to put up with Syrian Kurds retaking Arab lands. Whenever you select a military option, you have got to determine what political end state will this support. Regrettably this option puts us back to the drawing board."

There are other reasons that relying too much on the Kurds in Syria presents problems. The US Air Force relies on Turkey's Incirlik Air Base to launch bombing raids over Daesh positions in Syria. The Turks consider the Syrian Kurdish forces to be allies of Kurdish separatists within Turkey and have complained that Obama was effectively arming militias with weapons that would be turned on their own government. (Turkey's own president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, cynically declared war on his own Kurdish population in 2016, exacerbating these tensions.)

Keane, who said he was not speaking for McMaster, told me he favored a plan to begin a military operation along the Euphrates River Valley. "A better option is to start the operation in the southeast along the Euphrates River Valley, establish a US base of operations, work with our Sunni Arab coalition partners, who have made repeated offers to help us against the regime and also Daesh. We have turned those down during the Obama administration." Keane added that US conventional forces would be the anchor of that initial push, which he said would most likely require around 10,000 US conventional forces, with an expectation that Arab allies in the region would provide more troops to the US-led effort.

"The president wants to defeat Daesh, he wants to win, what he needs is a US-led conventional coalition ground force that can take Raqqa and clean out the Euphrates River Valley of Daesh all the way to the Iraq border," Keane said. "Handwringing about US ground troops in Syria was a fetish of the Obama administration. Time to look honestly at a winning military strategy."

White House and administration officials familiar with the current debate tell me there is no consensus on how many troops to send to Syria and Iraq. Two sources told me one plan would envision sending up to 50,000 troops. Blogger and conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich wrote on April 9 that McMaster wanted 150,000 ground troops for Syria, but US officials I spoke with said that number was wildly inflated and no such plan has been under consideration.

In public the tightlipped McMaster has not revealed support for conventional ground forces in Syria. But on Sunday in an interview with Fox News, McMaster gave some insights into his thinking on the broader strategy against Daesh. "We are conducting very effective operations alongside our partners in Syria and in Iraq to defeat Daesh, to destroy Daesh and reestablish control of that territory, control of those populations, protect those populations, allow refugees to come back, begin reconstruction," he said.

That's significant. Obama never said the goal of the US intervention in Iraq and Syria was to defeat Daesh, let alone to protect the population from the group and begin reconstruction. Those aims are much closer to the goals of George W. Bush's surge strategy for Iraq at the end of his second term, under which US conventional forces embedded with the Iraqi army would "clear, hold and build" areas that once belonged to Al Qaeda's franchise.

McMaster himself is no stranger to the surge. As a young colonel serving in Iraq, he was one of the first military officers to form a successful alliance with local forces, in Tal Afair, to defeat the predecessor to Daesh, al Qaeda in Iraq. During the Iraq War, McMaster became one of the closest advisers to David Petraeus, the four-star general who led the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq that defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq - and brought about a temporary, uneasy peace there.

That peace unravelled after Obama withdrew all US forces from Iraq at the end of 2011. Obama himself never apologised for that decision, even though he had to send special operations forces back to Iraq in the summer of 2014 after Daesh captured Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. He argued that US forces in Iraq would have been caught up inside a civil war had they stayed.

The cadre of former military advisers to Petraeus took a different view. They argued that America's abandonment of Iraq gave militia there a license to pursue a sectarian agenda that provided a political and military opening for Daesh. An active US presence in Iraq would have restrained those sectarian forces.

One of those advisers was H.R. McMaster. It's now up to Trump to decide whether to test the Petraeus camp's theory or try to defeat Daesh with a light footprint in Syria. Put another way, Trump must decide whether he wants to wage Bush's war or continue Obama's.-Bloomberg

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How far will the US go to tackle Daesh in Syria, Iraq and Libya? - Khaleej Times

I was horrified when I read the International Organization for Migration (IOM) report last week on sub-Saharan Africans being sold and bought in open markets in Libyabut I was not surprised.

During a recent visit to Italy, I spoke with dozens of men and women from East and West Africa who recently arrived in Sicily from Libya. They recounted extreme acts of cruelty at the hands of human smugglers, members of the Libyan coastguard, state-run detention center workers and locals.

I was sold twice, a young man from Guinea told me on the tiny island of Lampedusa, just days after he arrived by boat from Libya. I was sold to an Arab man who forced me to work and told me to call my family so they would send money. He sold me to another Arab man who forced me to work for him, too. The young man was only able to leave once his family sent enough money to free him.

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Read more: African migrants smuggled into Libya are being sold at 'modern-day slave markets'

The slave trade affects women, too. A young woman from Nigeria told me: As a female, you cant walk alone in the street. Even if they dont shoot you, [if] youre black, theyll just take you and sell you. One man, also from Guinea, said that women are more expensive to buy than men.

Women also face shocking levels of sexual abuse. A United Nations official told me that of the migrants and asylum seekers in Libya, almost every woman has been sexually abused.

In this context, it is astounding that the European Unionis working hard to keep people off its shores, even if it means leaving them in Libya. As outlined in a declaration in Malta in February, EU heads of state have promised to train and equip the Libyan coastguard and are hoping to ensure [there are] adequate reception capacities and conditions in Libya for migrants.

With summer weather approachingbringing better conditions for crossing the Mediterraneanthe EU and its member states are working with a sense of urgency that is palpable.

Training the Libyan coastguard is a welcome move if it contributes to saving lives and treating those rescued with humanity and respect. But the question of what happens after they are rescued is key: People are currently taken to detention centers where they are held in inhuman conditions.

Describing such centers, asylum seekers and migrants told me they had been beaten and forced to ask their relatives for money, that sometimes those who could not pay were shot, and that they were hardly fed at all. In addition, the collusion between smugglers and people running some detention centres is no secret.

Absent from the EU plan is what happens to people who fled their homes because of violence or persecution. Many of those arriving in Italy via Libya are in this category, among them Eritreans, Somalis, Sudanese, and people fleeing other countries because it is unsafe for them, often because of their political activities or sexual orientation.

The EU is focused on increasing the number of people returning from Libya to their country of origin, but there does not seem to be any consideration for those who cannot do so safely.

Despite the ongoing chaos and violence in Libya there is an absencewith very few exceptionsof international staff, including those from the EU, the U.N., and humanitarian organizations on the ground. As such, the idea that the situation for migrants and asylum seekers will dramatically improve in the coming months is utterly unrealistic.

One Eritrean man told me that its better to die in the sea than to stay in Libya. Smugglers had chained him to the ground by the ankles for three days when he was unable to pay the money they demanded. It is little surprise that for people like him, risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean seems like the only option.

Izza Leghtas is Senior Advocate for Europe at Refugees International. Leghtas is the author of an upcoming report on the treatment of asylum seekers and migrants in Libya due out this May. Follow her on Twitter @IzzaLeghtas

Read more:
'It Is Better To Die Than Stay In Libya:' Libya's Slave Markets Remind Us of Flaws in EU Migration Plans - Newsweek

Russias Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mikhail Bogdanov AFP 2017/ ABBAS MOMANI

The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, met on Tuesday with a delegation of officials from Libyas Misurata city in Moscow.

The Russian side stressed the necessity to establish inclusive intra-Libyan dialogue with involvement of representatives of main political forces, tribal groups and the countrys regions in order to create nationwide power structures, including army and police that are ready to ensure security and order and to resist terrorist threats in an effective way, according to Sputnik.

Sputnik added that in this context, Moscow has reaffirmed its readiness to work closely with all the Libyan sides on behalf of the solutions [to the conflict] that would be mutually acceptable, the statement said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry added that the solutions should lay the groundwork for Libyas unity and further sustainable development as a sovereign and independent state, friendly to Russia, Sputnik indicated.

Libyas control has been split into three governments, two in the west and one in the east and they are all fighting for control for power, including the UN-backed Government of National Accord.

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Russia ready to broker solution to Libya's political conflict, Bogdanov says. - Libyan Express

Shehab Al-Makahleh

Shehab Al-Makahleh is a senior journalist who has written for various media outlets and newspapers around the world. He is also a senior advisor at Gu

Can Saif Gaddafi unite Libya with the support of the countrys numerous tribes?

Understanding the three key actors in the Libyan Civil War is critical during the coming months. Libyan National Army (LNA) Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar is pushing his Operation Dignity forces to the west and south of the country. His goal is to dislodge the failing UN-mandated Government of National Accord (GNA) and the fractured General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli.

Former adviser to the deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his cousin Ahmad Gaddaf al-Dam, is planning a return to Libya from his home in Egypt, and Gaddafis son Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was released from prison least year, is now garnering tribal support for a potential national role.

In fact, recent developments in the beleaguered North African country reveal that preparations are underway for Gaddafis son Seif to be Libyas next president following an interim period led by Haftar, with assistance from al-Dam. The tribes will be playing a key role in unifying the country behind these men.

These are not speculations. Indeed, al-Dam is currently preparing for his cousin, Seif, to have a say in the countrys political arena after ensuring the latters safety. Last summer, authorities released Gaddafi from prison after lifting his death sentence as a result of negotiations between Zintan authorities and the Gaddafi tribe.

According to sources close to al-Dam, who is based in Egypt and pays frequent visits to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Gaddafi will soon deliver a speech to the people of Libya once the country is fully liberated from actors in the civil war that the Tobruk-based administration, which Haftar is loyal to, recognizes as terrorist groups.

This will be done with assistance from Cairo and Abu Dhabi and logistical support from both Russia and the US, the latter of which is to guard Libyan oil fields. These plans entail American oil companies developing Libyan oil wells, guarded byUS military. Reportedly, Russia will train Libyas armed forces.

Gaddafi and al-Dam are holding peace talks with major Libyan tribes. Haftars talks in Moscow earlier this year were aimed at rehabilitating the LNA and supplyingit with Russian weapons. There aregood oddsthat the tribes that stood by Gaddafi in the past will fully support the LNAs fight against Salafist jihadist militias that have won control over parts of post-Gaddafi Libya. Al-Dam is now looking into the role that the tribal structure would play to achieve peace, stability and reconciliation in the country to reunify it after six years of violent unrest thathave resulted in hundreds of thousands of Libyans dying and being displaced.

The sources also talk about the key points of Gaddafis upcoming speech that will address the situation in the country and the need forreunification in order to counter all potential risks and threats, as well as exert all efforts to rebuild the country, drawingfrom oil revenues. Gaddafi will also highlight the importance of having good relations with African states, countries in southern Europe, US and Russia.

Moscow has been playing both sides of the Libyan Civil War by maintaining ties with the Tripoli- and Tobruk-based governments that broke ranks in 2014, splitting the country between the west Tripolitania, and east Cyrenaica. Yet Russia may well determine that no Libyan civilians can effectively rule the North African country and that the authorities in Tobruk, under the leadership of Haftar who may pave the way for Gaddafi should receive the Kremlins all-out support. In the event that the ineffectual, albeit internationally recognized GNA, crumbles this year, such a scenario would become increasingly likely.

As of now, the Russians seem to trust Haftar and prefer dealing with the field marshalmore than other Libyan officials. Although the Trump administration has yet lay out its vision for Libya, the Tobruk-based authorities are seeking to secure a commitment from the45th American president that hell lend Haftar future US support.

On April 10, Haftar met with a high-ranking US military official in Abu Dhabi to discuss the topic. Although the US still, at least officially, recognizes the GNA as Libyas legitimate government, the anti-Islamist composition of Trumps administration and Haftars narrative about leading the struggle against terrorism and extremism in Libya may well convinceto Washington withdraw its support for the Tripoli-based government and back its rival in the east.

Muammar Gaddafis daughter, Aysha, is ruled out of the presidential race as her brother Seif has a better chance of representing a united country upon receiving the full support and allegiance of Libyan tribes. With more than 140 tribes and clans, Libya is believed to be the most tribal nation in the Middle East, where every single tribe has a sayin a future Libyan government. This is well understood by Gaddafi, Haftar and al-Dam.

The goal is to orchestrate an effort to allow Gaddafi to lead the nation with a full support of those tribes whose influence extends beyond Libyan borders, including Gaddadfa, Bani Salim, Bani Hilal, Warfallah, Kargala, Tawajeer, Ramla, Turareg and Magariha. For this purpose, meetings were held in western Libya, near the Algerian border, to discuss this matter.

Perhaps only Saif Gaddafi is capable of reuniting the country in spite of friction and violent conflict that tears Libya apart. There are indications that there is growing support for himamong Libyas main tribes. Those who fought against his fathers regime during the 2011 revolution may not agree with this solution. But whether those forces will overcome their divisions, which are playing out in deadly clashes in Tripoli, and unify enough to really have a say in this development remains doubtful.

In other words, infighting seems likely to overtake any unified attempt to counter Gaddafis ascent. Gaddafi is pushing a Truth and Reconciliation Committee to air grievances to bring the shattered country together. His policy also seeks, along with Haftar and al-Dam, the lifting of sanctions to release frozen funds from the Libyan Investment Authority and those owed to the Central Bank of Libya to give theeconomy a much needed boost.

The tribes have high stakes in the countrys future leadership. The coming few weeks will witness many developments, starting with the trips that Haftar and al-Dam will pay to a Egypt, Russia and the UAE after they are given acarte blanche by the tribes whowill voice their allegiance to Gaddafi to be the next Libyan leader.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

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Who Will Govern Libya Later This Year? - Fair Observer