Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category

U.K.’s May Urges G-7 to Help Iraq Prosecute Foreign Jihadists – Bloomberg

Theresa May, left, during a meeting in Taormina, Sicily, on May 26, 2017.

The Group of Seven nations must help Iraq and its neighbors catch and prosecute foreign nationals who travel to fight for Islamic State, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said as she called for global action in the wake of the Manchester bombing.

Speaking at the G-7 summit in Taormina, Sicily, May warned that foreign nationals who travel to Syria and Iraq will try to return to their home countries to carry out attacks on civilians.

Allies must share the names of terror suspects to help the countries they pass through to catch them -- and should also hand over evidence such as videos or papers that show citizens who have traveled to conflict zones, she said.

May also wants the G-7 to help Iraq and other countries prosecute foreign fighters they capture in their own courts. Her call came four days after a suicide bomber killed 22 people including children at a concert in Manchester, northern England.

It is vital we do more to cooperate with our partners in the region to step up returns and prosecutions of foreign fighters, May said. This means improving intelligence-sharing, evidence gathering and bolstering countries police and legal processes.

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U.K.'s May Urges G-7 to Help Iraq Prosecute Foreign Jihadists - Bloomberg

Iraq and Afghanistan: The $6 Trillion Bill for America’s Longest War Is Unpaid – Common Dreams


Common Dreams
Iraq and Afghanistan: The $6 Trillion Bill for America's Longest War Is Unpaid
Common Dreams
The high rates of injuries and increased survival rates in Iraq and Afghanistan mean that over half the 2.5 million who served there suffered some degree of disability. Their health care and disability benefits alone will easily cost $1 trillion in ...

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Iraq and Afghanistan: The $6 Trillion Bill for America's Longest War Is Unpaid - Common Dreams

Three top Islamic State militants killed in Iraq, Syria: Pentagon – Reuters

WASHINGTON Three senior Islamic State military leaders and planners were killed in coalition attacks in Iraq and Syria over the past two months, the coalition fighting the militants said in a statement released by the Pentagon on Friday.

Mustafa Gunes, an Islamic State operative from Turkey, was killed in an air strike in Mayadin, Syria, on April 27, the statement said. Abu Asim al-Jazeri, an Islamic State planner from Algeria, was killed in Mayadin on May 11, it said.

Abu Khattab al-Rawi, an Islamic State military leader, was killed in al Qaim, Iraq, on May 18, the statement said. It said all three were foreign fighters but did not identify al-Rawi's home country.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

MINYA, Egypt Egyptian air force planes on Friday carried out strikes directed at camps in Libya where Cairo believes militants responsible for a deadly attack on Christians earlier in the day were trained, Egyptian military sources said.

WASHINGTON Two Chinese fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the South China Sea on Wednesday, with one coming within 200 yards (180 meters) of the American aircraft, U.S. officials told Reuters.

TRIPOLI Heavy clashes erupted in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Friday, as armed groups aligned with the U.N.-backed government fought to fend off a major offensive by rival Islamist-leaning forces and militia fighters.

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Three top Islamic State militants killed in Iraq, Syria: Pentagon - Reuters

U.S. failed to keep proper track of more than $1 billion in weapons and – Washington Post

IRBIL, Iraq The U.S. Army failed to properly keep tracks of hundreds of humvees, tens of thousands of rifles and other pieces of military equipment that were sent to Iraq, according to a governmentaudit from 2016 that was obtained by Amnesty International and released Wednesday.

The price of the equipment meant to equip the Iraqi army, Shiite militias and the Kurdish peshmerga totaled more than $1 billion.

This audit provides a worrying insight into the U.S. Armys flawed and potentially dangerous system for controlling millions of dollars worth of arms transfers to a hugely volatile region, Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty Internationals Arms Control and Human Rights researcher, said in an emailed statement.

[Tracking U.S. weapons grows harder in the fog of Iraqs fragmented war]

The arms and equipment transfers were apart of the Iraq Train and Equip Fund, a program that initially appropriated $1.6 billionunder the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act to help Iraqi forces combat the rise of the Islamic State. The 2017 act is slated to lend$919.5 million to the fund.

The audit found that improper record-keeping, including duplicatedspreadsheets, handwritten receipts and a lack of a central database to track the transfers, contributed to the reportsfindings. Additionally, the audit claimed that under the Iraqi Train and Equip Fund, once the equipment was transferredto the government of Iraq, the Pentagon no longer had to monitor the materialas it was no longer U.S. government property.

While likely not an issue for things such as uniform items and body armor, the lack of any post-transfer accountability on U.S. arms and munitions raises the chances for illicitdiversion from the intended supply chain. Currently, the Middle East is awash in U.S. weapons and equipment, and with President Trumps decision to equip Kurdish forces in Syria with more weapons, it is unclear whether the United States has learned from any of its past mistakes in the region.

The need for post-delivery checks is vital, Wilcken said. Any fragilities along the transfer chain greatly increase the risks of weapons going astray in a region where armed groups have wrought havoc and caused immense human suffering.

The audit said the training and equipment fundsmanagementhad initiateda two-step corrective action plan to implement visibility and accountability systems following concerns raised by the Pentagons inspector general. The audit does not detail what the corrective actions might entail. However, it wouldlikely include greater oversight by the Pentagons End Use Monitoring division. The division runs the Golden Sentry Program, with the intended purpose ofmonitoring the transfer and stockpiles of U.S. equipment that is providedto other countries.

[Afghanistan may have lost track of more than 200,000 weapons]

A 2015 audit on the Iraq Train and Equip Fund found similar issues, including almost no record-keeping on the Iraqi side.

Iain Overton, a former BBC journalist, and histeam of researchers pulled 14 years of Pentagon contracts, revealing that the United States has supplied more than 1.45 million firearms to various armed groupsin Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a New York Times magazine report. Those includemore than 978,000 assault rifles, 266,000 pistols and almost 112,000 machine guns. It is unclear how many of those remain in possession of their intended recipients.

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U.S. failed to keep proper track of more than $1 billion in weapons and - Washington Post

Lawmakers demand documents, testimony from U.S. contractor in Iraq sex trafficking case – PBS NewsHour

A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle sits in a shelter at Joint Base Balad, Iraq in this file photo. An investigation by The Associated Press this month found that Sallyport Global fired two of its investigators after they uncovered evidence of the trafficking as well as alcohol smuggling and major security violations at Balad Air Base. Photo by REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Erik Gudmundson/Handout.

WASHINGTON A congressional investigative panel is demanding documents and testimony from an embattled U.S. defense contractor accused of failing to promptly disclose human trafficking on a base in Iraq.

An investigation by The Associated Press this month found that Sallyport Global fired two of its investigators after they uncovered evidence of the trafficking as well as alcohol smuggling and major security violations at Balad Air Base.

In a letter to Sallyports Chief Executive Officer, Victor Esposito, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ordered Sallyport to turn over an extensive list of documents and to make company representatives available to answer questions before June 9. The letter signed by the committees chairman, Jason Chaffetz, a Republican, and top Democrat, Elijah Cummings, cited the APs reporting.

The allegations include prostitution, alcohol smuggling, timesheet fraud, concealment from Department of Defense auditors, and retaliation against employees whose duty it was to investigate these allegations, the letter says.

Sallyport Global Holdings was paid nearly $700 million in federal contracts to secure Balad Air Base, home to a squadron of F-16 fighter jets as part of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group.

In a statement, Sallyport Chief Operating Officer Matt Stuckart said the company looked forward to speaking to the panel.

The allegations include prostitution, alcohol smuggling, timesheet fraud, concealment from Department of Defense auditors, and retaliation against employees whose duty it was to investigate these allegations.

Sallyport takes any suggestion of wrongdoing at Balad Air Force Base in Iraq very seriously and strongly disputes the claims made by two former employees, said Matt Stuckart, Chief Operating Officer. Since taking over operations January 2014, Sallyport has helped turn Balad Air Base into an instrumental part of the fight against ISIS.

In their letter, the lawmakers wrote, Protecting American troops and facilities abroad is a solemn responsibility. They then raised concerns about the fired investigators charge that the company shut down their investigations.

Making matters worse, according to the report, Sallyport management short-circuited internal investigations and fired the employees responsible for them when they requested to interview Sallyport management suspected of wrongdoing, they wrote.

After the APs report, the company denied the allegation that company managers had shut down an investigation into alcohol smuggling and human trafficking. They later acknowledged that after learning that the original probe had been stopped, lawyers had asked for a second investigation into new reports of prostitution on the base.

According to the investigators original report in February 2016, four Ethiopian women who were suspected of working at a hotel in Baghdad as prostitutes moved to the base after customers at the hotel complained about contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Those customers included Sallyport employees, the investigators said.

The House panel is also scrutinizing allegations raised in another AP investigation that contractors have reported fraudulent data in a key military program to counter IS propaganda online.

Based in Reston, Virginia, Sallyport was founded in 2003 to work in Iraq on reconstruction, and has since expanded its operations globally.

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Lawmakers demand documents, testimony from U.S. contractor in Iraq sex trafficking case - PBS NewsHour