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Gloves Come Off in Turkey After Erdogans Constitutional Referendum

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was further empowered by the passage of a constitutional referendum last month that granted him sweeping powersand now hes acting like it. Since the passage of the referendumwhich has since been upheld by the Council of State, Turkeys highest administrative courtTurkey has cracked down again on people suspected of having ties to the Gulenist Movement, which the government has accused of plotting the attempted coup in July 2016. Last week, Turkish authorities carried out raids across the country to arrest more than 1,000 people and said they were looking for 2,200 others. The Turkish government also suspended more than 9,000 police officers for alleged ties to Gulen.

Erdogan is asserting himself in Syria as well. Last Tuesday, Turkish planes bombed Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria, touching off several days of cross-border clashes. Turkish officials said they were targeting groups with ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the U.S. and Turkey have both designated as a terrorist organization. U.S. forces are again running interference between the two nominal allies in the counter-Islamic State coalition; over the weekend, U.S. troops, prominently displaying large American flags on their vehicles, patrolled the border with Kurdish forces in an effort to deter the Turkish military from targeting them. The U.S. military had previously used a visible presence to break up clashes between Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army rebels and U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels in the area around Manbij in March. U.S. forces were also photographed protecting a senior leader of the PKK, Sahin Cilo, for whom the Turkish government has offered a $1.1-million bounty.

U.S. forces are again running interference between the two nominal allies in the counter-Islamic State coalition...

Erdogan has said that he plans on trying to convince President Donald Trump to reduce U.S. support for the Kurds when he meets with the president later this month and has threatened to target Kurdish forces again. But the U.S. military sees the largely-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition as an indispensable part of the upcoming offensive against the Islamic State in Raqqa. SDF fighters are advancing in Tabqa, to the west of the Islamic State stronghold, but more clashes with Turkish forces would distract from the push deeper into eastern Syria. "We are seriously concerned to see U.S. flags in a convoy that has YPG [a Kurdish militia] rags on it. We will mention these issues to President [Donald Trump] during our visit to the United States on May 16," he said on Sunday.

Iraqs Qatari Hostage Crisis Is Over But Can Another Be Prevented?

In December 2015, armed men abducted 26 members of a Qatari hunting party in southern Iraq. Among those abducted were members of the Qatari royal family, the al-Thanis, and suspicion fell on Iranian-backed Shia militias operating in the area. The incident made the international news wires briefly at the time and then largely disappeared from the headlines. But while the story went quiet, the Qatari hostages became pawns in an elaborate international negotiation that is only now coming to light.

It is clear now that from the very start, the hunters abduction was linked to the civil war in Syria, the New York Times reports. The hunting party, it is now known, was being held by the Iraqi branch of Kataeb Hezbollah. Over the past 16 months, Iran has used the hostages, held by one of their Iraqi proxies, to pressure Qatar to compel their rebel proxies in Syria to accept a ceasefire agreement. In addition to convincing their rebel partners in Syria to allow the Assad regime humanitarian access to besieged towns, Qatar is believed to have paid a hefty ransom to Kataeb Hezbollah. The arrangement also involved payouts to extremist groups, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra), Hassan Hassan wrote in The National. Last month, when the Assad regime began implementing an agreement to facilitate the relocation of groups under rebel siege in Fuaa and Kefraya and regime siege in Madaya and Zabadani, Qatar had a plane standing by on the tarmac in Baghdad awaiting the release of the hunting party. The 26 captives were handed over to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, and then to the Qatari embassy.

The Iraqi government has appeared frustrated with the way the hostage negotiations played out. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called the abductions an insult to Iraq and its people and said that the Qataris had traveled to Iraq legally and should have been protected by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. He also criticized the payouts to militias. Some analysts have suggested that this is evidence that Abadi is chafing at Irans assertiveness in Iraq, but Qatari officials have suggested that this is disingenuous and say that Abadi was kept apprised of the negotiations, including the delivery of a large ransom payment.

Syria has created a dense network of proxies tied back to the regional powers of the Middle East. These transnational webs create liabilities, and what happens in Syria doesnt necessarily stay in Syria.

Syria has created a dense network of proxies tied back to the regional powers of the Middle East. These transnational webs create liabilities, and what happens in Syria doesnt necessarily stay in Syria. The Qatari hostage crisis in Iraq is over, but it demonstrates a willingness from Iran to work through its proxies to obtain leverage in other battlefieldseven at the expense of the sovereignty of one of its partners, Iraq. And if the Iraqi government couldnt prevent the abduction from happening in the first place, and couldnt secure the Qataris release in their 16-month captivity, it seems unlikely that Baghdad could stop something similar from happening again. As Hassan Hassan concludes, there is no question that the deal denigrates the government in Baghdad The deal empowers extremists from both Sunni and Shia sides, fuels conflicts and strengthens Irans hands in the region.

Is Saudi Arabia Really Going into Hodeida?

After weeks of discussion about a pending offensive by the Saudi-led intervention force in Yemen to retake the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida, including hints about an escalated U.S. role, the plan is now in doubt. Last Friday, former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein, now at the Middle East Institute, told Al-Monitor that he has been told the Saudis are looking for a political offramp that could restart negotiations with the Houthis and ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resolve the civil war more broadly. They are thinking more creatively about how do we achieve this objective without having to resort to military [solutions] and breaking a lot of crockery, he said. The ousted Yemeni government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi reportedly proposed that the Houthis cede control of the port of Hodeida to the United Nations at a donor conference last week as an alternative to a military offensive.

But on Monday, Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said that he is under the impression that an attack is still being prepared, reiterating his concerns about the potential for a humanitarian catastrophe. Those concerns have also been raised by rights groups and experts who have argued that the fighting could restrict access to aid and cause a famine. Other experts have also warned about the opportunity the prolonged civil war has given to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has fought alongside U.S.- and Saudi-backed pro-government fighters against the Houthisa fact confirmed by the leader of AQAP, Qasim al-Rimi, in a message released over the weekend.

The Saudi-led intervention force and the Yemeni government are facing strains within their coalition that may be prompting the new ambiguity about the Hodeida offensive. Hadi recently fired two prominent southern officials with close ties to the United Arab Emirates, including the governor of Aden, prompting street fights last week. The move appeared to be an effort to rein in southern secessionists, but now seems to have inflamed tensions at the local and regional level instead.

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Middle East Ticker: Turkey Cracks Down at Home and Abroad, Iraq Caught in Middle of Syria's Proxy War, and Saudi ... - Lawfare (blog)

BERLIN The top U.S. military officer in Europe raised concerns about Turkish air strikes in Syria and Iraq during a meeting last week with Ankara's chief of general staff in Turkey, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

General Curtis Scaparrotti told General Hulusi Akar last Friday that the strikes were not properly coordinated with the United States and its allies in their fight against Islamic States, a spokesman for U.S. European Command told Reuters.

U.S. military officials said last week that Turkey gave the U.S.-led coalition less than an hour of advance notice about the air strikes, an insufficient amount of time to ensure the safety of coalition forces on the ground.

"I can tell you General Scaparrotti did express his concern about recent air strikes conducted by Turkey in northern Syria and northern Iraq without proper coordination with the U.S. and coalition," Captain Danny Hernandez said. "No more details will be provided in order to keep the discussions private."

Turkey remains a strategic ally of the United States and a vital partner in the fight against violent extremist organizations, added Hernandez, who is based in Stuttgart, home of the U.S. European Command.

A Turkish foreign ministry spokesman said the partners had been informed through both military and diplomatic channels.

Russia has also criticized the air strikes, which it said violated fundamental principles of intergovernmental relations.

The air strikes are part of Turkey's widening campaign against groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey for Kurdish autonomy and are also fighting in Syria and Iraq.

On Tuesday of last week, Turkish planes bombed Kurdish targets in Iraq's Sinjar region and northeast Syria, killing about 70 militants, according to a Turkish military statement.

The air strikes in Syria targeted the YPG, a key component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are backed by the United States and have been closing in on the Islamic State bastion of Raqqa.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said after those strikes that Washington had expressed its concerns to the government of Turkey, saying they "were not approved by the coalition and had led to the unfortunate loss of life of our partner forces" in the fight against Islamic State.

Turkish warplanes then hit Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq the following day, killing six militants, the Turkish military said.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

PARIS France's presidential rivals, centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right's Marine Le Pen, go head-to-head on Wednesday in a televised debate in which sparks are sure to fly as they fight their corner in a last encounter before Sunday's runoff vote.

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday moved to ease the tension from U.S. air strikes in April against Russian ally Syria, expressing a desire for a Syrian ceasefire and safe zones for the civil war's refugees.

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US general told Turkey of concerns about Syria/Iraq air strikes - Reuters

An explosion rocks a building in the palace complex of Saddam Hussein, during the U.S. 'Shock and Awe' air raids which marked the beginning of the occupation in Baghdad, Iraq, April 21, 2003. The complex on the banks of the Tigris later became what is now known as the Green Zone and houses both the Iraqi legislation as well as key U.S. installations.Franco PagettiVII An explosion rocks a building in the palace complex of Saddam Hussein, during the U.S. 'Shock and Awe' air raids which m

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More than a movie about Italian photographer Franco Pagettis work, the short documentary Shooting War (23 minutes) is a lesson in practicing critical visual literacy. Beyond the photographer himself, several people chime in, including Alice Gabriner, International Photo Editor at TIME who assigned the VII photographer to cover the war in Iraq from 2003 until the end of 2008, and Sara Farhan, a History Ph.D. candidate at York University in Toronto. As the three of them deconstruct Pagettis images, layers of meaning are progressively revealed, and several questions regarding the coverage of the conflict emerge.

Everybody can look at a picture and bring a complete different meaning to it, believes Aeyliya Husain, the movies director. The notion that you dont need captions because photography is a universal language is a lie. Without language attached to them, any of these photos could be misinterpreted or used as propaganda. And also, the back-story could be entirely forgotten. Take that photo of Alan Kurdi ; it moved millions, and ten years from now, it will be the one people remember. But, I fear that the events that led to this image, that led to the refugee crisis will be lost.

This fascination for the duality of images their power to profoundly impact viewers as well as their limitations drove Husain, who is Iraqi and lives in Toronto, to reach out to photographers who had covered the American intervention in her homeland. The intent: to interrogate the role photos played in our understanding of the situation in the country. She settled on Pagetti because of his unique perspective: On the one hand, as someone who disagrees with the invasion, he wasnt pandering to the United States position. Yet, at the same time, since he was embedded with the American army, he wasnt photographing from an Iraqi point of view either. He stood somewhere in the middle, she says.

Not only this, but his work also exposes the theatrics of wars. The bombs they dropped on the so-called green zone during the first three days, from March 21 to March 23, 2003, were incredibly scenographic," says Pagetti. "There were producing a lot of flames. I felt like I was watching a Hollywood war movie. Once the images of those strikes had graced every magazine cover, the American army seemed to change their style. Bombs were still exploding, but all you would see is some smoke. It was as if the initial strikes were intended for the TV, to show how powerful the United States were." And then, the fighting on the ground began.

These tensions are explained through commentary on two of the thousands of pictures he produced over the course of six years. The first shows an Iraqi man kneeling against a wall in his home, surrounded by American soldiers holding him at gunpoint. Reminiscent of Goyas painting The Third of May 1808 in which captives are facing a firing squad the image convey the violence of the moment, while the guns flashlight resemble a theater spotlight, giving it a surreal feel. In the documentary, Pagetti muses about what the photograph reveals about who the servicemen or what the firearms holds power, while Farhan considers what it says about the deliberate targeting of able-bodied adult men. The second image focuses on a young boy wailing as his father is taken away by American soldiers to be interrogated. Though theres no physical destruction, no shooting, no wounded, theres emotional destruction, reflects the veteran photojournalist. This kid will remember that day forever. He knew he was losing something important. He was seeing the collapse of the stability of his future.

Throughout his time in Iraq, Pagetti was hoping to humanize the conflict taking place in what seems to many in the Western hemisphere as a faraway land, in a bid that the public would care more. In many ways, the short documentary continues that work by providing the audience with the tools to interpret what they see in his images.

Franco Pagetti is a photographer based in Italy. He is represented by VII Photo.

Alice Gabriner, who edited this photo essay, is TIME's International Photo Editor.

Laurence Butet-Roch is a freelance writer, photo editor and photographer based in Toronto, Canada. She is a member of the Boreal Collective .

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How One Photographer Aims to Make Sense of the Iraq War - TIME

As the battle against Islamic State intensifies in heavily populated cities, the U.S. military has reexamined the way it reports whether its daily bombing runs over Iraq and Syria are inadvertently killing civilians.

The review, amid mounting criticism from victims and human rights and aid groups about the procedures, found that the military failed to report 80 civilian casualties from airstrikes during the last two years.

Independent reporting suggests there may be more casualties the coalition has overlooked.

For instance, according to the report released Sunday, the coalition found insufficient information to be able to determine if civilians were present or harmed in an airstrike in Iraq on Jan. 17.

In April, The Times visited the site in east Mosuls Baysan neighborhood, saw the leveled home and spoke with survivors who said eight civilians were killed.

Omar Hasan Abdul Qadir, 67, said the eight were all his relatives, including four grandchildren.

We will cooperate with anyone and talk to anyone who wants to talk to us about the incident, he said by phone Sunday, weeping. I would love for them to know what happened to us and how they killed eight members of our family. We have been devastated, devastated.

The U.S. military now says a total of 352 civilians have been killed in airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition since the air war against Islamic State was launched in August 2014 still far fewer than independent monitors estimates.

The new assessment, released as part of a monthly report, reveals the Pentagon is finding it difficult to determine how many innocent people are dying in conflict zones where there are few U.S. troops directing fire from the front lines and commanders rely instead on drone surveillance and reports from allies.

Col. Joe Scrocca, a U.S. military spokesman based in Baghdad, said the commands analysts recognized anomalies after poring over data for several months. He said it led them to reexamine 396 reports of civilian casualties to identify any errors or gaps in reporting.

We've been trying to improve the reporting process by making it more predictable and transparent every month, Scrocca said.

Scrocca said the coalitions two-person team investigating civilian casualties from airstrikes is conservative in its estimates, requiring confirmation from more than one source.

The coalition investigates civilian casualties based on reports from its staff, the news media, social media, local and international monitoring groups. It does not require investigators to visit the scene of strikes, speak with victims or other witnesses.

Coalition warplanes have carried out 20,205 strikes in Iraq and Syria since 2014. The number of civilian casualties has steadily risen in recent months as combat shifted to densely populated west Mosul, where coalition warplanes are dropping more bombs than at any point since the war began.

Before the Mosul offensive launched on Oct. 17, Iraqi officials dropped leaflets and aired television advisories urging residents to stay home rather than flee, promising the military would protect them.

The difficulty of conducting a bombing operation in such an urban environment drew international attention when scores of civilians were killed in a strike on a cluster of buildings in west Mosuls Jadidah neighborhood on March 17.

The Pentagon is still investigating the incident, but Iraqi civil defense officials responsible for removing the bodies said the strike killed more than 270 people.

The Pentagon is increasingly at odds with critics in human rights groups, who say thousands of civilians have been killed in the air campaign.

Airwars, a London-based nonprofit independent monitoring group with a staff of journalists and researchers, said its figures showed at least 3,325 civilians have been killed in 566 strikes.

Iraqi and Syrian civilians continue to pay a high price for their liberation, said Chris Woods, director of Airwars.

Scrocca said the true tally of civilian casualties probably lies somewhere between the coalitions figure and that of Airwars.

Based on interviews with victims, the coalition may not only be lowballing the death toll: It appears to be overlooking and rejecting legitimate claims.

Qadir, the survivor of the Jan. 17 airstrike, said he is still willing to assist the coalition in investigating. I really dont know at all what was the justification to hit the house with many kids and women inside. I do have witnesses that our house was hit, he said.

But Scrocca said the coalition could not find Qadir or other survivors of the strike. All we have is an allegation, no proof or way to interview victims, he said.

The Times also visited a residential compound in west Mosuls Mahata neighborhood, where survivors said a March 13 airstrike killed at least 21 people, including four children, in three houses that were reduced to a heap of crumbling concrete.

Survivors said they had not been contacted by Iraqi or coalition authorities, and the strike was not mentioned in Sundays report. Scrocca said the coalition is investigating.

My house has been destroyed by an airstrike and that is very clear, survivor Shahab Ahmed Aaid, 25, said on Sunday. All my neighbors are witnesses. I want the coalition and U.S. to investigate and be fair about it.

The Times had also spoken with Raed Mohammed Hasan, 30, at his damaged east Mosul home, where he said 11 people were killed by a coalition airstrike Jan. 21, including his 10-month-old daughter, Rania. Mohammed said he heard Islamic State fighters nearby before the strike, but they escaped.

He called for an independent investigation.

We want the United Nations to get involved in the investigation, and we want them to be neutral and fair, Mohammed said.

Scrocca said that airstrike wasnt mentioned in Sundays report because the coalition received the allegation only last month and The Times report included no specific location or contact info for us to follow up on.

The coalition confirmed that a Dec. 11 strike targeting Islamic State fighters in east Mosuls Falah neighborhood killed eight civilians after it ignited a weapons cache, creating secondary explosions and a fatal fire in the victims home across the street. The coalition made no mention of the strikes sole survivors: Mohammed Mumtaz, 30, and his 8-year-old son, Yaman. Mumtaz said he was not contacted by the coalition, and did not expect compensation.

Nothing can compensate for my loss, said Mumtaz, a pharmacist who lost his wife, parents, two brothers, sister-in-law and two nephews.

U.S. forces have blamed Islamic State, also known as ISIS, for packing buildings full of civilians and stationing snipers on the roofs in what may be an effort to lure airstrikes and cause civilian casualties.

Sundays report confirmed that eight civilians were mistakenly killed and a dozen injured on Nov. 17 in east Mosuls Aden neighborhood by a strike meant to hit Islamic State fighters.

Victims included Imad Jasims brother, two sons, four nephews and an unborn niece. His mother suffered burns to her scalp and back. His 40-year-old sisters legs were broken and she still cannot walk.

The way they are targeting ISIS is wrong: They will target one ISIS militant and as a result many civilians will die, Jasim, 30, said Sunday.

An unemployed taxi driver, he is trying to get his injured relatives treated, but said no one will lend him the money.

The coalition does not have a system for victims to appeal for compensation, although Scrocca said that payments may be offered as a token of sympathy and regret. They can only be offered if we have sufficient information on victims, which we rarely are given.

Hennessy-Fiske reported from Cairo and Hennigan from Washington. Special correspondent Wael Resol in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @mollyhf, @wjhenn

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US reconsiders its responsibility for civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria - Los Angeles Times

The United Nations says a group of 36 Yazidis have been rescued in Iraq after three years of "slavery" under the rule of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande said that since April 28, when they were rescued, the women and girls from the group had been receiving lodging, clothing, medical, and psychological aid in Duhok, a Kurdish city north of Mosul.

Thousands of Yazidi women and girls were abducted, tortured, and sexually abused by IS fighters after the militants rounded up Yazidis around the town of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq in 2014.

While some have escaped, as many as 3,500 remain in captivity.

The Yazidi faith has elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Islam. The IS group considers them "devil worshippers."

Most of the Yazidi population, numbering around half a million, remains displaced in camps inside the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa

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Group Of 36 Yazidis Rescued From IS In Iraq - Radio Free Europe - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty