Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 29-30/2023
Two killed in shootout outside US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Reuters and Jerusalem Post/June 29/2023
A gunman opened fire outside the American mission and shot a Nepalese security guard dead. The attacker was killed by Saudi security forces. An armed man exchanged fire with Saudi security authorities near the US Consulate building in Jeddah leading to his death and the death of a Nepalese security guard, state news agency SPA reported on Wednesday. "A person in a car stopped near the American Consulate building in Jeddah Governorate and got out of it carrying a firearm in his hand, so security authorities took the initiative to deal with him as required, and the exchange of fire resulted in his death", a spokesperson for the Makkah Region police said. A Nepalese worker in the consulate's private security guards was injured and subsequently died, SPA reported.
Investigations are underway into the shootings.
No Americans were harmed when an armed man exchanged fire with Saudi security authorities near the US consulate building in Jeddah, leading to the deaths of the gunman and a security guard, the US State Department said. "The US Embassy and Consulate remain in contact with Saudi authorities as they investigate the incident," a department spokesperson said in a written statement.
Other attacks on the US consulate
The consulate has been targeted several times in recent years. In 2016, a suicide bomber was killed and two people were wounded in a blast near the compound.
And in 2004, five people stormed the US consulate with bombs and guns, killing four Saudi security personnel outside and five local staff within. Three of the attackers were killed in the assault and two were captured. The 2004 attack in Jeddah followed other deadly bombings and shootings against expatriate compounds, Westerners working in the kingdom and other targets that were part of an al Qaeda campaign aimed at ousting the ruling Al Saud family.
US-Saudi relations
The American Mission to Saudi Arabia began as a legation in Jeddah in 1942, according to the consulate website. However, full diplomatic relations didn't commence until 1949. As the Jerusalem Post previously reported, tensions have arisen between Saudi Arabia and the US. The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's visit in January was not well covered by Saudi media. Riyadh has also leveraged its growing relationships with Russia and China as the Biden administration has pushed back against some Saudi demands including lifting restrictions on arms sales and help with sensitive high-tech industries.

Air Strikes Hit Opposition Bases In Idlib
Asharq Al Awsat/29 June 2023
Syrian and Russian forces have launched air strikes on opposition bases in the country's northwest, the defense ministry said Wednesday, amid a weeklong uptick in deadly violence in the area. Syrian forces "in cooperation with the friendly Russian forces carried out precision... air and missile strikes targeting the fortified bases of terrorist organizations" in the Idlib region, the ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA. The operation came "in response to daily and repeated attacks... on civilians" in residential areas in nearby Hama province, it added, AFP reported. The bases, which contained weapons, ammunition and drones, were "totally destroyed", according to the statement. It did not specify the date of the bombardment, but the announcement came a day after Russian air strikes killed eight fighters affiliated with militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which controls opposition-held Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Despite periodic clashes, a ceasefire deal brokered by Moscow and Ankara has largely held in northwest Syria since March 2020. But the Britain-based Observatory war monitor said the Idlib region, Syria's last opposition bastion, and nearby areas have witnessed an increase in attacks in recent days. Syria's 12-year war broke out after Assad's repression of peaceful anti-government demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global militants. The war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions. Opposition-held Idlib region is home to about three million people, around half of them displaced.

Burhan’s Deputy Warns of 'Imminent' Catastrophe for Sudan, Neighboring Countries
Asharq Al Awsat/29 June 2023
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) stated on its Facebook page that the ongoing situation will inevitably result in "massive destruction" for Sudan and neighboring countries. The Movement emphasized that Deputy Head of the Sovereign Council, Malik Agar, is diligently working towards consolidating foreign and domestic initiatives through a credible dialogue, supported by facilitators of international and regional negotiations to attain peace and avert the impending collapse of Sudan. The SPLM-N underscored the imperative need to enhance cooperation between Sudan and its immediate neighboring countries, with the aim of putting an end to the conflict and establishing a state of lasting peace and stability. In May, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the commander of the Sudanese army, appointed Agar as a replacement for Hemedti. Burhan made a televised speech on Tuesday announcing a ceasefire on the first day of Eid, while the Rapid Support Forces announced a truce. "The conspiracy requires everyone to be awake and ready to respond to the existential threats to our country, and so we call on all the young men and who can defend to not hesitate to play this role, either from where he lives or by joining the armed forces," Burhan said during the speech. Multiple ceasefires announced by both sides have been systematically violated, as well as others mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia. The UN refugee agency warned that conflict in Sudan would prompt 1 million people to flee across its borders in the next six months. Witnesses told Reuters this month an increasing number of Sudanese civilians fleeing El Geneina, a city in Darfur hit by repeated attacks, have been killed or shot at as they tried to escape by foot to Chad. Burhan who is also the head of the Sudan's ruling sovereign council blamed the RSF for the “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” in the city.

Israeli secret service says it captured plot leader in Iran, foiling attack
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/Thu, June 29, 2023
Israel said on Thursday its Mossad intelligence service carried out an operation in Iran to capture the suspected leader of an Iranian plot to attack Israeli businesspeople in Cyprus and thwart the attack. "In a unique operation on Iranian soil, the Mossad captured the head of the cell, who, during an investigation, gave a detailed confession that led to the exposure and dismantlement of the terrorist cell behind the Cyprus attack," the Mossad said in a statement. Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment. Mossad did not say when the capture took place, where the suspect is now nor when the Cyprus attack would have happened. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said an attack had been foiled but did not give details. Cyprus at that time declined to comment. The Israeli agency identified the suspect as Yousef Shahabazi Abbasalilu and said he "received detailed instructions and weapons from senior (officials) in Iran's Revolutionary Guards" to carry out such an attack.Netanyahu's office, which oversees the Mossad, released a video appearing to show Abbasalilu recalling conversations he had with members of the Revolutionary Guard. Speaking at the Hatzerim Airbase in southern Israel on Thursday, Netanyahu said Israel was "working without respite" to thwart attempts by Iran and its proxies to attack Israel, including "in neighbouring countries that are not in conflict with us". Iran and Israel are longtime foes. Israel accuses Iran of backing militant attacks against it, while Iran says Israel has carried out a number of killings of Iranian officials. U.S., European and Israeli officials fear Iran may seek nuclear weapons. Tehran denies such ambitions. "We will not accept Iran's intentions to develop a nuclear arsenal," Netanyahu said, adding that any nuclear deal between the United States and Tehran would not bind Israel. "We will maintain our right and our obligation to defend ourselves, with our own forces, against any threat whatsoever, throughout the Middle East.")

Israel's President Herzog will address Congress to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its statehood
WASHINGTON (AP)/Thu, June 29, 2023
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will address a joint meeting of Congress on July 19 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Israel's statehood and to reaffirm his nation's special relationship with the United States, congressional leaders announced on Thursday. “The world is better off when America and Israel work together," said the announcement from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. "Eleven minutes after declaring independence in 1948, the United States was the first to recognize the state of Israel, and today, we continue to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two democracies."McCarthy addressed Israel’s parliament in May. It was the first time in 25 years, a sitting speaker of the House had addressed Israel’s Knesset, and it came in a period of fraught relations between Israel’s government and President Joe Biden. McCarthy noted that the only other president of Israel to address a joint meeting of Congress was Herzog's father, President Chaim Herzog, more than 35 years ago. The Israeli presidency is a largely ceremonial office meant to serve as a unifying force and moral compass in a diverse and often divided country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has addressed Congress three times — most recently in 2015, when Republican leaders invited him to deliver a speech railing against then-President Barack Obama’s emerging nuclear agreement with Iran. The speech infuriated the White House and fellow Democratic leaders. Biden, then Obama's vice president, was traveling abroad and did not attend Netanyahu’s address — when the vice president normally would have sat behind the Israeli leader during those remarks. Netanyahu, who returned to office last December, has known Biden for decades. But the two have disagreed over Netanyahu’s proposed overhaul of Israel’s judicial system, which critics see as a move toward authoritarianism, as well as his hard-line government’s expansion of West Bank settlements and punitive measures against the Palestinians. Netanyahu's position runs in direct opposition to Biden's moves to boost U.S.-Palestinian relations. Biden said in March there were no plans to invite Netanyahu to the White House “in the near term.” In a challenge to Biden, McCarthy said in May that he would invite Netanyahu to speak to Congress if Biden doesn't. House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, R-Calif., had invited Herzog to address Congress last year, and Schumer met with Herzog in Israel during a visit in February. Schumer said Herzog “has always been a great leader and is particularly influential at this time.”“This invitation to speak at a joint meeting of Congress is a testament to the decades of bipartisan and bicameral support for Israel that transcends party politics and I look forward to welcoming him to the Capitol,” Schumer said.

Israeli PM says key judicial reform clause 'out'
Agence France Presse/June 29, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had "thrown out" a key provision of his controversial judicial reform plan that has sparked one of the country's biggest ever protest movements. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Thursday, Netanyahu said he intends to press on with the reforms, but without a clause that aimed to curb the supreme court's powers and give politicians a greater say in the selection of judges. "I already changed a few things right after the original proposal was put forward," Netanyahu said. "I said that the idea of an override clause where the parliament, the Knesset, can override the decisions of the supreme court with a simple majority, I said, I threw that out." When the journalist asked whether the provision will be reintroduced in future, Netanyahu said: "People just don't know, they don't follow. I said it's out."Netanyahu's office, when contacted by AFP, declined to comment further. In March, as mass protests were backed by sweeping industrial action, Netanyahu had announced a "pause" to allow for talks on the reforms, which were moving through parliament and split the nation. In the interview he said he had sought to have a "broad consensus" with the opposition, but on June 14 Israel's two main opposition leaders, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, pulled out of negotiations. The proposals have sparked one the country's biggest protest movements, with tens of thousands taking to the streets every week since they were announced in January. Netanyahu's government, a coalition between his Likud party and extreme-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies, argues the changes are needed to rebalance powers between lawmakers and the judiciary.But opponents of the plan believe it could open the way to a more authoritarian government. The proposed changes to the justice system have also drawn intense criticism from the international community, with Israel's close ally the United States questioning the entire program. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he was "very concerned" over the proposed reforms, saying in March that "they cannot continue down this road, and I have sort of made that clear".

Israeli killing of 15-year-old Palestinian girl in West Bank casts light on civilian casualties
JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP)/Thu, June 29, 2023
At the funeral for Sadeel Naghniyeh, 15, her closest friends hoisted her dead body over their small shoulders. Wearing their school uniforms — tight black hijabs and oversized striped shirts — they staggered through the Palestinian refugee camp, crying and choking out the Islamic funeral prayers. Last week's tribute by the schoolgirls was a striking departure from the stream of funerals that have become a grim routine in this flashpoint West Bank town. The death of Sadeel — killed by suspected Israeli fire when a raid into the northern Jenin refugee camp ignited the territory's fiercest Israeli-Palestinian fighting in years — drew attention to the rising number of children killed in the heightened violence and the extraordinary risks they face. Typically in Palestinian funerals, older men — relatives and friends — drape the dead in the flags of militant groups. Sadeel's eighth-grade classmates wrapped her in the uniform she would no longer wear.“She was only a child. She had ambitions to become a nurse and save lives,” her father, Ghassan Naghniyeh, 46, said from his vine-covered driveway where Sadeel was shot. “They killed my daughter and they killed her dreams.”Witness accounts and surveillance videos suggest there were no clashes at that time on her street and that the fighting between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces was unfolding some 650 meters (700 yards) west of her home. The killing of Sadeel — one of 12 Palestinians under the age of 16 killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press — has sparked condemnation from rights groups and renewed scrutiny of the military’s record of causing civilian casualties. The army launched a widespread campaign into Palestinian towns last year in response to a wave of Palestinian attacks inside Israel.
So far this year, nearly 140 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, according to the AP’s count, almost half of them affiliated with militant groups. The army says that number is much higher. But civilians have also been killed, including a 2-year-old boy earlier this month and a 15-year-old boy in last week's same Jenin camp raid. His death is also under military review. “We’re not just talking about Sadeel’s death, we’re talking about daily killings and no accountability that could serve as a way to prevent Israel from killing more civilians in the future,” said Shawan Jabarin, director of Al Haq, a Palestinian human rights group.
The Israeli army often accuses Palestinian militants of endangering civilians by using residential areas for cover. It gave no explanation for Sadeel's death, saying the circumstances are “under examination.”Sadeel’s family believes the bullet that killed her likely came from an Israeli army jeep rumbling down their quiet street that morning, according to surveillance footage. Two motorists, a woman in her 30s and a young man, were wounded when they came under fire from the same jeep, neighbors said. The last video taken on Sadeel’s phone shows a similar military jeep moving along a dusty road some 200 meters (yards) from where she stood. It remains unclear whether it was the same jeep. Minutes after she posted the clip to Telegram, she was lying in her driveway, brain-dead. Two days later, she died. The Israeli military declined to answer multiple questions about the military vehicles. Without mentioning Sadeel, the army said its arrest operation had sparked a “massive exchange of fire with terrorists” and that Israeli forces had opened fire on gunmen and those throwing explosive devices. Israeli military raids have been met regularly with Palestinian gunfire and rippled into bloody battles. Israel contends the intensified military activities are a counterterrorism effort and has focused its operations on the hometowns of assailants — particularly the city of Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp. The camp has reemerged as a stronghold of Palestinian militancy two decades after Israel invaded the camp with tanks and helicopters, flattening homes. The effects of that 2002 battle, among the biggest of the second Palestinian uprising, linger. “The martyrs from that battle are still dead. The prisoners are still in prison,” said Mohammed Shehata, the general manager of the Freedom Theater, which was co-founded by a famous militant and offers drama classes for young Palestinians in the camp. "And now, the young people fighting today’s battles will pass their pain onto the next generation.”Sadeel, who lived just behind the theater, could often be found there, watching auditions, joking with foreign volunteers and playing improv games in its summer camp, Shehata said. He shared a video of a younger Sadeel singing with other kids, making her hands into a heart shape as she pranced. But the conflict never went away. It sliced through her home. Residents say on the outskirts of the camp, rooftops in Sadeel’s neighborhood afforded Israeli snipers a good vantage point. Multiple bullet holes from past raids pierce her father’s parked white Kia. Two of her uncles were Palestinian militants killed as teenagers in the second uprising. Another two remain in Israeli prison.
Sadeel’s profile picture on Facebook is a black-and-white photo of an unidentified girl wearing an abaya and holding up a rifle. “Oh God, I end my life according to your will,” she wrote several months ago. Transfixed by Israeli and Palestinian attacks, killings and clashes each day, Sadeel could hardly focus in school, her father said. Israeli officials say incitement on social media drives Palestinian youth toward militancy. But her uncle, Nidal Naghniyeh, described Sadeel's praise for militants as the inevitable outcome of life in Jenin refugee camp. “Sadeel had nothing else around her but death and destruction,” he said. "So what does she think about? What does she dream of? Death.”When Israeli military vehicles and drones swarmed the camp last week, Palestinian militants ambushed the forces with gunfire and powerful explosives, prompting the Israeli military to dispatch helicopter gunships to help evacuate its stranded soldiers. Seven Palestinians were killed. The raid started with a familiar scene. The camp sirens wailed. Militants fired into the air to warn residents about the incursion. Naghniyeh and his wife ushered Sadeel and their four sons toward the back of the house. They shut all the windows. But Sadeel was restless around 8.a.m. and asked her father if she could spend the day next door with her twin cousins, Sara and Yara. Naghniyeh agreed, considering it a safe and much-needed distraction. Minutes after she disappeared down the stairs, he heard his 9-year-old son, Hamoudi, shrieking. In the driveway, Naghniyeh cradled Sadeel's limp body and felt blood at the back of her head. He knew his only daughter was gone. “Whoever shot her would have seen her,” he said. “Did they not see she was small?”

Israeli Mossad interrogated inside Iran agent who had operated in Cyprus
Rina Bassist/Al Monitor/June 29/2023
Mossad published more details on a daring operation on Iranian soil, where its agents tracked and interrogated a head of an Iranian terror cell who had plotted to kill an Israeli in Cyprus.Israel’s Mossad revealed on Thursday details of a daring operation, where agents of the espionage agency tracked and interrogated on Iranian soil an Iranian agent who had operated in Cyprus days before being caught, targeting an Israeli businessman. The Mossad published the identity of the Iranian agent tracked — Yusef Shahabazi Abbasalilu — and also published a short video clip showing Shahabazi Abbasalilu explaining his actions in Cyprus. He was apparently filmed in Iran by Mossad agents. In the clip, the Iranian agent is saying that he had entered Cyprus with the help of a certain Hassan Shoushtari Zadeh, whose people — Pakistani nationals and others — assisted the agent reaching the south of the island. Shoushtari Zadeh then instructed Shahabazi Abbasalilu to hide his weapon in the house of the Pakistanis, which he did. After that, Shahabazi Abbasalilu received via WhatsApp from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) the identity of the target, and Shoushtari provided him with intelligence for the operation on the whereabouts of the target and how to get to his house in the middle of the night. Shahabazi Abbasalilu says in the film that he operated according to instructions. Once the police were after him, he was instructed to bury his weapon and escape back to Iran. Cypriot Philenews site first revealed on Sunday that Cypriot intelligence authorities, in cooperation with other foreign agencies, had thwarted a terror plot believed to be linked to the IRGC. A few hours later, the Mossad acknowledged assisting Cypriot authorities in foiling an Iranian-planned attack targeting Israeli and Jewish targets in the country.
A statement issued by the Mossad right after said that “the State of Israel operates using a wide variety of methods in every place to protect Jews and Israelis, and will continue to act to destroy Iranian terrorism wherever it raises its head, including on Iranian soil.” It continued that Israel “welcomes” the operation to foil the terror plot, accusing Iran of being the world’s chief terror-supporting country. This is not the first time Iranian agents were involved in plots against Jews and Israelis in Cyprus. On March 28, the office of the Israeli prime minister, in charge of the Mossad, said that the agency had assisted Cypriot security agencies in cracking down on an Iranian terror cell. According to Kathimerini Cyprus, the cell had included two Pakistani nationals, with a third operative suspected of being located in Iran. The Iran-based operative had reportedly urged the two Pakistani cell members to carry out the attack and promised them they would be paid. The attackers planned to strike a Jewish synagogue, which also functions as a restaurant. Israel’s public broadcaster KAN reported that the attackers had also planned on kidnapping Jews or Israelis. In October 2021, the office of then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett revealed it had foiled an Iranian plot to kill Israeli businessman Teddy Sagi who was living in Cyprus at the time. The Israeli statement emphasized that the failed hit on Sagi was not a criminal affair. “Regarding some of the reports last night about the incident in Cyprus, I would like to clarify, on behalf of the security establishment, that this was an act of terror that was orchestrated by Iran against Israeli businesspeople living in Cyprus,” said Bennett’s spokesperson Matan Sidi.

Israeli air force vets threaten not to serve after Netanyahu resumes judicial overhaul
Associated Press/June 29, 2023
Dozens of Israeli air force reservists have said they'll refuse to show up for duty if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government moves ahead with a contentious plan to overhaul the country's judiciary.
The threat comes after Netanyahu said his government would proceed with the overhaul after talks with the opposition to find a compromise faltered. Coalition legislators have since been advancing a legal change to what's known as the "reasonability standard" that critics say would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions and grant it too much power. Israeli media reported that 110 air force veterans signed the letter Wednesday saying that if the parliament passes the law that's moving through the chamber now, or any other law proposed as part of the overhaul, the reservists will not show up for duty. "Legislation like this grants the government limitless power with no restraint by the judiciary and it will bring us to a point of no return," the letter said. "We will not serve the military of a country that is not democratic." Airmen are seen as the cream of the military's personnel and irreplaceable elements of many of Israel's battle plans. Similar letters from reservists in other forces have also been issued in recent days. Speaking at a graduation ceremony of Israeli military officers, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant criticized the renewed threats by airmen and other officers to stop reporting for duty. "The calls for refusal and the threats to stop volunteering undermine the basic values of the army as the people's army — and threaten its competence," Gallant said. "Anyone who calls for refusal is not acting as part of a legitimate protest. He is harming the most important thing we have — the security of the state of Israel." Netanyahu also spoke out against the refuseniks."There are no grounds for refusal to serve, on any side, nor will there be. We have one country, one army and one home," he said. "We will stand guard over our home like brothers and sisters, and if the day comes, we will stand behind the flag united, and be determined like an iron fist."Netanyahu's government's plans to overhaul the judiciary plunged Israel into an unprecedented crisis earlier this year, prompting a chorus of threats from reservists, who make up the backbone of the country's mostly compulsory military, that they would not show up for service if the plan is followed through. As the threats mounted, Gallant delivered a speech to the nation about his concerns over the threat that the judicial changes posed to the military, leading Netanyahu to dismiss him in a move that sparked mass spontaneous protests and a day-long labor strike. That pressure prompted Netanyahu to backtrack on Gallant's firing and pause the overhaul. But once compromise negotiations stumbled, Netanyahu said he was pressing ahead. Another bill in the pipeline would limit the influence of the bar association, a key player in choosing judges, which recently elected to its leadership a staunch opponent to the overhaul. The overhaul has also sparked a protest movement that draws tens of thousands each Saturday and which during the height of the crisis blocked major roads and stopped trains, succeeding at one point in forcing Netanyahu to be airlifted to the airport for an overseas trip rather than drive. With the legislation moving ahead, the protests are set to once again ramp up pressure, with another day of disruption planned next week. Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, and allies in his nationalist religious government say the overhaul is needed to rein in an overly interventionist judiciary and restore power to elected officials. Critics say the plan would upend Israel's delicate system of checks and balances and push the country toward dictatorship. The dissent within military ranks over the judicial changes comes at a delicate time, as the army faces threats on multiple fronts and surging violence in the occupied West Bank. Israel's military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevy, on Wednesday spoke out against recent attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. "An IDF officer who stands by when seeing an Israeli citizen planning to throw a Molotov cocktail at a Palestinian house cannot be an officer. This is our way," Halevy said.

Blinken denies ‘agreement’ with Iran amid talk of informal deal
Elizabeth Hagedorn/Al Monitor/June 29/2023
The US Secretary of State said "there is no agreement in the offing" amid reports the two countries are close to an informal arrangement aimed at de-escalating tensions.
WASHINGTON — Asked whether the United States is pursuing an informal arrangement with Iran, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday there is "no agreement in the offing.” “We continue to be willing to explore diplomatic paths,” Blinken told a Council on Foreign Relations event in New York. “Whether Iran chooses itself to take actions — or maybe better put — not to take actions that further escalate the tensions not only between us, but with other countries, we'll see by their actions.”More than two years after President Joe Biden came into office promising a “longer and stronger” nuclear deal with Tehran, the two countries are said to now be considering a lesser, potentially unwritten, understanding to cool tensions. In addition to pausing its uranium enrichment at 60% purity, The New York Times reports the informal arrangement would involve Iran pledging to halt proxy attacks on American contractors in Iraq and Syria, restore some cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and refrain from sending ballistic missiles to Russia. Reportedly wedded to that are talks to release detained Americans Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz in exchange for limited access to Iranian assets frozen abroad under US sanctions. “The administration has insisted there is no formal deal either signed or impending, but nevertheless Washington and Tehran have taken mutual steps in the past few months to try to ratchet down tensions,” said Henry Rome, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “For the US, the priority seems to be more about the journey than the destination, in the sense that the priority now is mainly to lower the heat and buy time,” Rome said.
Some observers say the administration's careful choice of words — denying a “agreement,” but not an “understanding” or “arrangement” — may be an effort to avoid a vote in Congress, where there is little appetite for striking a deal with a country that’s providing Russia with lethal drones and cracking down on its own protesters. Under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), the president is required to submit any “agreement” concerning Iran’s nuclear program to Congress. Lawmakers have 30 days to review the deal, during which time they could vote against it with a joint resolution of disapproval.
They would need a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate to then overturn the president’s expected veto. Republicans, who in 2015 commanded both chambers, tried to kill the deal but lacked the necessary Senate votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster on a procedural vote.
An informal arrangement this time around — as opposed to formal re-entry into the original nuclear deal — would lower the political cost for the Biden administration, said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Democrats will make noise about it, Parsi said, but "they're going to be happy that there is not a full agreement that kicks in INARA because they have no appetite whatsoever for that fight in Congress right now.”
There is some disagreement over what constitutes an “agreement” under INARA. Reached for comment, a State Department spokesperson said the administration is "committed to ensuring the requirements of INARA are satisfied."
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in a June 15 letter to Biden that “any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran” needs to be sent to Congress per the 2015 law. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, have reintroduced legislation that would mandate a congressional review of any proposed sanctions relief for Iran. “Just like the JCPOA moved forward despite congressional, bipartisan opposition, the ball is in the administration’s hands,” said Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, using the acronym for the original nuclear pact. “That said, Congress does have the ability to legislate. Congress has the power of oversight. Congress has the ability to demand witnesses. Congress has the ability to demand documents. Congress can go to court to enforce any of these things,” Goldberg said in a media call Tuesday.
Republicans fuming over a potential arrangement with Iran are gearing up to stymie it. The Washington Free Beacon reports that the Republican Study Committee is pushing for Special Envoy Rob Malley and Biden’s senior Middle East advisor Brett McGurk to testify in a public hearing, or risk being subpoenaed.

Iran police chief makes rare visit to Russia for surveillance deals
Al Monitor/June 29/2023
The police commander's trip came against the backdrop of Iran's months-long unrest and reports that Tehran has been seeking Moscow's advice and surveillance equipment to crack down on dissent. Commander of the Iranian Police, Brig. Gen. Ahmad-Reza Radan, has been on a rare visit to Moscow since Tuesday, where he is discussing policing cooperation with the country's most senior security officials. After Radan's meeting with Russia's National Guard Commander, Viktor Zolotov, Iran's state-broadcaster reported that the two sides had inked a "long-term deal on policing and law enforcement." During the visit, according to Iranian media, Radan will see up close "Russian police's capacities in combating organized crime."The Iranian officer also sat down with Russia's most senior security man, Nikolai Patrushev, who has been leading the country's Security Council for 15 years. A report by Nour News, the outlet run by Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Radan had discussed with Patrushev cooperation on "special services," without elaborating on what those services were. Back in March, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Tehran has been receiving Moscow's assistance on "advanced digital-surveillance capabilities" in exchange for Iranian drones, which Russia is believed to be using against Ukrainian targets. Iranian officials have dismissed the report. Patrushev himself visited Iran last November at the height of unprecedented protests the Iranian establishment had to grapple with in the fallout of Mahsa Amini's death in custody of a hijab enforcing police squad. Exiled Iranian activists argued at the time that Patrushev was there for long-term advice to Iranian authorities on how to quell the protests. Citing a member of the Russian State Duma, the US-based Iran International TV reported on Thursday that part of the agenda in Radan's visit was discussions on how to counter plans by "Western intelligence agencies to instigate organized unrest in Iran and Russia." The already heavy-handed response by Iranian police and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the anti-government demonstrations has driven international outcries. Nearly 530 Iranians have been killed in the crackdown, according to a tally documented by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The sitting Iranian police commander has long earned notoriety for his uncompressing approach manifested in his brutal treatment of the 2009 post-election protests in the country. Blacklisted by the United States since 2010 over rights violations, Radan was reinstated to his post by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in January, in what appeared to be the cleric's discontent with the failure of Radan's predecessor to tackle the latest security crisis. Under Radan's current tenure, the Iranian police have been even doubling down on their repression against the violators of the strict and contentious mandatory hijab laws. One of the novel forms of the clampdown has appeared in the closure of hundreds of businesses over their alleged refusal to bar female customers without headscarves. Earlier this month, a local police chief in Radan's chain of command in the northern Mazandaran province triggered social media blowback after being caught on camera directing his forces to "break the neck of anyone who breaks the [hijab] norms."
"And I will assume responsibility," the commander said in an apparent word of reassurance and impunity to his officers.

Russian missile strike on restaurant kills 12 in Ukraine
Agence France Presse/June 29, 2023
The toll from a Russian missile strike on a restaurant in eastern Ukraine rose to 12 dead and at least 60 wounded on Thursday morning, including children, as the Kremlin insisted Russian forces only hit military-linked targets. The latest tragedy came as US President Joe Biden denounced Vladimir Putin as a "pariah" while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the Russian president had been weakened by mercenary group Wagner's aborted rebellion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile called the Kramatorsk strike a "terrorist attack" and in his Wednesday evening address announced the arrest of an individual who had coordinated Russian fire. In the Ukrainian-controlled town, where Russian strikes also hit homes, shops, a post office and other buildings, "rescue workers removed another body" on Thursday morning, bringing the death toll to 12, according to Kyiv's Interior Minister Igor Klymenko. Three children were among the dead but the count of the wounded differed, with Klymenko putting the figure at 65 and emergency services counting 60. The latter also said 11 people had been rescued from the Ria Pizza restaurant, an eatery popular with soldiers, aid workers and journalists.
- 'Horrible and very sad' -
Galyna, a military doctor, said she was near the restaurant when it was struck. "We were in an apartment and we heard an explosion," she said, adding there were numerous wounded inside. "It's horrible and very sad, but I am not surprised that a missile arrived here. It was a place where you could come and have a delicious lunch and coffee. "I myself have sat there more than once." Colombian President Gustavo Petro said that three Colombians were injured in the strike: decorated writer Hector Abad Faciolince, former Colombian peace negotiator Sergio Jaramillo and journalist Catalina Gomez. He said on Wednesday that Bogota would be sending a note of diplomatic protest to Russia over the incident. According to Ukrainian police, Russia fired two S-300 missiles -- surface-to-air devices that it also uses for ground strikes -- at Kramatorsk, which had a population of 150,000 before the war. Moscow maintains that it only targets military facilities in Ukraine. "Strikes are only carried out on objects that are in one way or another linked to military infrastructure," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. "The Russian Federation does not carry out strikes on civilian infrastructure," he added. 'Pariah around the world' Days after Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin's aborted rebellion -- widely seen as the biggest threat to Kremlin authority in decades -- Germany's Scholz said it would "surely have long-term consequences in Russia". "It shows that the autocratic structures, the power structures, have cracks and he in no way sits as firmly in the saddle as he always claims," Scholz told public broadcaster ARD. "But I don't want to take part in speculation about how long he'll stay in office -- it could be a long time or short, we don't know."In Washington, Biden said it was too early to tell whether Putin had been weakened by the Wagner group's mutiny. "It's hard to tell," Biden told reporters Wednesday. "But he's clearly losing the war" in Ukraine and "he's losing the war at home." Putin is now "a pariah around the world," Biden added in brief remarks. In a meeting with the head of the southern Russian province of Dagestan, parts of which were aired on state television, Putin on Wednesday said that he "didn't doubt" that he had the support of Russians during the mutiny.
'A potential threat' -
A feud between Wagner and the Russian army had escalated for months, with Prigozhin making increasingly scathing statements against the generals' handling of the offensive in Ukraine, blaming them for thousands of Russian losses. According to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday, Prigozhin aimed to detain the heads of the Russian military in the mutiny, but they discovered his planned rebellion early and avoided capture. Kyiv has said the mutiny's influence on fighting was minimal. "Unfortunately, Prigozhin gave up too quickly. So there was no time for this demoralising effect to penetrate Russian trenches," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CNN in a video published Wednesday. The conflict is now in its 16th month, with mass casualties on both sides and a rising civilian toll. A day after Belarus welcomed Prigozhin into exile, Polish President Andrzej Duda warned the presence of Wagner troops in the Moscow-allied neighbour could pose a potential threat to the region. "It is difficult for us to exclude today that the presence of the Wagner Group in Belarus could pose a potential threat to Poland, which shares a border with Belarus, a threat to Lithuania... as well as potentially to Latvia," Duda told reporters during a visit to Kyiv.

Putin is freezing out and arresting people deemed to be traitors after the Wagner mutiny: reports
Tom Porter/Business Insider/June 29, 2023
The Kremlin is searching for traitors in the Russian military, a report said. It comes after the Wagner mercenary group launched a mutiny aimed at toppling military chiefs. The Kremlin believes the rebellion may've had broader military backing. Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched a hunt for traitors in the wake of the Wagner Group's mutiny against military leaders, reports say. According to Washington DC-based think tank The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a well-sourced Russian military blogger claimed that "large-scale purges" had been launched of Russian military commanders and that the Russian Ministry of Defence is currently undergoing a "crash test" for loyalty. Sources also told The Financial Times that Putin is seeking to re-establish his authority over the Russian military in the wake of the rebellion, and is freezing out suspected traitors or sympathizers to repair his "tough guy" reputation. A source described as an acquaintance of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, told the outlet that Russian security services "have started shaking down sympathizers and those who violated their oath." Meanwhile, loyalists are being rewarded. The Financial Times said that Viktor Zolotov, a former bodyguard to the president, has received a promotion for his police force. According to reports, Russian Army General Sergei Surovokin, formerly the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, was arrested in the wake of the mutiny over allegations he supported it. It came after US intelligence officials told the New York Times that Surovikin had advanced knowledge of Prigozhin's plot. Surovikin in a video message Saturday denounced the rebellion, but both the Financial Times and the ISW report he may have been compelled to make the film because of his good relations with Prigozhin. The Russian military responded poorly to last Saturday's rebellion, with Wagner fighters seizing control of parts of southern Russia and the city of Rostov-on-Don, where the military's Ukraine war command centre is based, before advancing on Moscow. The rebellion was called off Saturday night after negotiations between Wagner leaders and the Kremlin resulted in Prigozhin going into exile in Belarus, and charges against Wagner fighters being dropped. But according to the ISW, Putin will likely be keen to find scapegoats for the rebellion and assert his dominance, given its leader has evaded punishment. "It's real tough guy stuff," a sanctioned figure in the Russian elite told the FT. "It's like when you go into the prison cell for the first time and punch the biggest guy you can find in the face to show nobody can mess with you." The rebellion was launched after months of infighting between key figures behind Russia's Ukraine invasion. Prigozhin had released a series of increasingly aggressive video messages from the front line accusing military leaders, including defense minister Sergei Shoigu, of botching the invasion and being part of a pampered elite. Prigozhin claimed to have extensive backing for his mutiny among Russian military members, but wider backing for the rebellion did not materialize on Saturday.

The US Marines have totally transformed for the coming missile war against China
David Axe/The Telegraph/June 29, 2023
Today’s US Marine Corps isn’t your father’s Marine Corps. It’s not even the same Marine Corps as five years ago. Unnoticed by many, the world’s biggest naval-infantry branch has embarked on a decade-long transformation, from America’s second army to a true island-hopping amphibious force.
Instead of essentially duplicating those things the much bigger US Army already does, the new Marine Corps is focusing on the things only it can do well among the American armed services. Namely, set up island outposts in dangerous territory and fire long-range weapons at enemy ships or shore targets – then pack up and sail or fly away before the enemy can shoot back. Ignore the critics, who include such towering figures as retired Marine General Anthony Zinni. The old general has lambasted the new Corps as a glorified “fires delivery system.” That is, an organisation whose only purpose is to fire long-range missiles.
Zinni’s critique is unfair. The Corps’ transformation is a good and necessary one at a time when the biggest military threat to the liberal world order is the Chinese navy – now the world’s biggest by number of warships, though not (yet) by tonnage and firepower.
Once the Marines’ Force Design 2030 reorganisation is complete, they will be a powerful air-sea-land force with a primarily maritime mission: a force that should cause Chinese fleet leaders to think twice when they deploy warships towards and into the “First Island Chain” threading from Japan south to the Philippines. The Marine Corps had previously adapted to the demands of America’s long counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan by getting heavier and focusing on ground warfare. The Marines upgraded their hundreds of 70-ton M-1 Abrams tanks to match the Army’s own tanks. The Corps even developed a cumbersome mine-clearing vehicle based on the superheavy M-1 chassis.
Eschewing their traditional role sailing the globe aboard the US Navy’s amphibious assault ships, the Marines became a landbound force. They began to lose their beach-assault skills for want of practice. Then came General David Berger. When the no-nonsense Berger took charge of the 200,000 active and reserve Marines back in 2019, he immediately determined that deterring or winning a war with China was the Corps’ main concern. And the Force Design 2030 reforms were a prerequisite to that victory. “We have to get rid of legacy things in the Marine Corps,” Berger said in 2019. “We’ve got to become expeditionary again, which we know how to do.”His plan, managed by his deputy General Eric Smith, was ruthless. The goal was to eliminate “big, expensive things that we can’t either afford to buy or afford to maintain over the life of it,” Berger said. “Things that don’t fit aboard ship, things that can’t fire hypervelocity projectiles, things that can’t have, don’t have the range that we’re going to need, the precision.”First to go were all 400 tanks – the Army took possession of them. The Army also got all those heavy mine-clearing vehicles. Berger cut the size of the Marines’ 32 infantry battalions and shuttered five of them. The Corps gave up half of its 28 batteries of towed howitzers. Ukraine ultimately benefited. It got many of those ex-Marine howitzers – and is scheduled to get some of the tanks, too. But the Corps itself was the main beneficiary. The thousands of personnel and billions of dollars Berger’s reforms freed up went to good use: standing up new units with new missions.
The Corps doubled its arsenal of wheeled HIMARS vehicles firing Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) long range precision missiles. In Ukrainian service these have proved accurate, deadly and so fast-moving that they’re difficult to target. The Marines also got new robotic launchers firing 100-mile-range stealthy anti-ship missiles. And they’re working on fitting the same robotic launchers with Tomahawk cruise missiles that can hit ships and land targets from a thousand miles away. More importantly, the Marine Corps wrote new war plans. The Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations doctrine explains how lightly-equipped Marine companies and battalions can establish austere bases on islands and archipelagos around the First Island Chain and work alongside the Navy to defeat the Chinese fleet. The Tomahawk would be the expeditionary units’ most powerful weapon. The new Block Va Maritime Tomahawk has a multi-mode seeker that lets it hit both ships and targets ashore. The Marines paid $125 million for their first 48 Tomahawks back in 2020. It’s unclear how many missiles and launchers the Corps ultimately will acquire. Potentially many hundreds: enough to keep any sane Chinese admiral awake at night. The Marines are also embarking their new F-35B jumpjet stealth fighters aboard Navy ships – and figuring out new ways of using them in coordination with those austere island bases. Major Mark Dion, the operations officer with Marine Fighter-Attack Squadron 314, has described how an F-35 could take off from the ship, strike enemy forces hundreds of miles away, then land at an outpost in order to refuel and rearm before flying back into battle. The Marines’ V-22 Osprey tiltrotor will also be useful as it too can land on ships and improvised landing pads or strips, but it has more range and speed than a helicopter. Berger’s 10-year plan to transform the Marine Corps is halfway complete. But it won’t be Berger who sees the reforms through to completion. He recently announced his retirement. The White House nominated Berger’s deputy Smith to replace him.
It should surprise no one that Smith, a longtime champion of Force Design 2030, not only plans to continue the reforms – he plans to accelerate them.

Ukrainian soldier says several Russian snipers failed to hit him even after he was wounded because 'they kind of sucked'
Business Insider/June 29, 2023
A Ukrainian sniper told 1843 magazine that he almost died in the battle of Mariupol last year. The soldier, whose call sign is Lucky, said he was wounded in a Russian grenade attack. Despite being wounded, Russian snipers were unable to hit him because they "sucked," he said. A Ukrainian soldier said that several Russian snipers failed to hit him in battle even after he was wounded because "they kind of sucked." In an interview with The Economist's 1843 magazine published last week, a 21-year-old Ukrainian sniper with the call sign Lucky said that he was able to escape death multiple times, including when he helped defend the port city of Mariupol in May 2022. Lucky, who is a sniper in Ukraine's Rapid Operational Response Unit, told 1843 he almost lost his life in the months-long battle for Mariupol, which ended in a Russian victory. Injured by a grenade attack one day, Lucky said he had to run past Russian snipers to get help but was not hit because "they kind of sucked." Lucky said only his arm was wounded in the attack. But despite his good fortune, he said he lost many friends in the battle, including his sniper partner who was killed in front of him. The bloody battle of Mariupol lasted from the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion last year until May 20, 2022. It ended in a victory for Russia, and Lucky told 1843 that he believed almost 30,000 civilians were killed, though the United Nations said at the time it was just over 1,300 people. Mariupol is currently still under Russian occupation. Lucky was forced to surrender and was sent to a prison camp in the Donetsk region where he was kept in a room with more than 600 people, the magazine reported. He lost 20 kilograms after he was forced to sleep on the concrete floor and was given just a small cup of water each day. While many Ukrainian soldiers were tortured and beaten, Lucky said he escaped the worst of it. "I guess I was lucky," he said. After four months he was released in a prisoner exchange. Lucky said he wants to return to Mariupol and fight for its liberation. He said he thinks Ukrainian troops could reach the city this year. "We have to go back and win this chapter, any way we can," he said. "I dream of vengeance."

NATO agrees to extend Stoltenberg mandate: diplomats
AFP/June 29, 2023
NATO countries have agreed to extend the mandate of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and will make a formal announcement next week, diplomats said Thursday. Former Norwegian premier Stoltenberg -- at the helm of the Western military alliance since 2014 -- already had his tenure prolonged a year, to October, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Multiple diplomats at NATO confirmed that its 31 member states had reached consensus to prolong the tenure of Stoltenberg, 64, for another year after struggling to find a suitable replacement by a summit in Lithuania in two weeks. Others seen as potential candidates, including Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and British Defense Minister Ben Wallace, have recently dropped out of contention. US ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith did not confirm any agreement.But she told journalists an announcement on the secretary general's position would likely be made "in the days ahead"."A possible extension of Jens Stoltenberg is an option that allies are looking at," Smith said.

UNESCO to approve US decision to rejoin the UN's cultural agency
Associated Press/June 29, 2023
UNESCO's 193 members states are gathering Thursday for a two-day meeting in Paris aimed at voting on the United States' plans to rejoin the U.N. cultural and scientific agency after a decade-long dispute sparked by the organization's move to include Palestine as a member. The U.S. announced earlier this month, that it wanted to return, five years after it withdrew from the agency during the presidency of Donald Trump. U.S. officials say the decision was motivated by concern that China is filling the gap left by the U.S. in UNESCO policymaking, notably in setting standards for artificial intelligence and technology education around the world. Approval by member states seems a formality since not a single country has raised an objection to the return of a country that was once the agency's single biggest funder. The vote is expected Thursday or Friday. The U.S. and Israel stopped financing UNESCO after it voted to include Palestine as a member state in 2011. The Trump administration decided in 2017 to withdraw from the agency altogether the following year, citing long-running anti-Israel bias and management problems.The Biden administration has already requested $150 million for the 2024 budget to go toward UNESCO dues and arrears. The plan foresees similar requests for the ensuing years until the full debt of $619 million is paid off. That makes up a big chunk of UNESCO's $534 million annual operating budget. Before leaving, the U.S. contributed 22% of the agency's overall funding. Israel has long accused the United Nations of anti-Israel bias. In 2012, over Israeli objections, the state of Palestine was recognized as a nonmember observer state by the U.N. General Assembly. The Palestinians claim the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip — territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for an independent state. Israel says the Palestinians' efforts to win recognition at the U.N. are aimed at circumventing a negotiated settlement and meant to pressure Israel into concessions. The United States previously pulled out of UNESCO under the Reagan administration in 1984 because it viewed the agency as mismanaged, corrupt and used to advance Soviet interests. It rejoined in 2003.

France arrests dozens in unrest after police shooting
Associated Press/June 29, 2023
Protesters angry after police fatally shot a 17-year-old boy set cars and public buildings ablaze in Paris suburbs and unrest spread to some other French cities and towns, despite increased security efforts and the president's calls for calm. The killing of 17-year-old Nahel during a traffic check Tuesday, captured on video, shocked the country and stirred up long-simmering tensions between young people and police in housing projects and other disadvantaged neighborhoods around France. Nahel's surname has not been released by authorities or by his family. In earlier statements, lawyers for the family spelled the name Nael. Clashes first erupted Tuesday night in and around the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where Nahel was killed, and the government deployed 2,000 police to maintain order Wednesday. But violence resumed after dusk. Police and firefighters struggled to contain protesters and extinguish numerous blazes through the night that damaged schools, police stations and town halls or other public buildings, according to a spokesperson for the national police. The national police on Thursday reported fires or skirmishes in multiple cities overnight, from Toulouse in the south to Lille in the north, though the nexus of tensions was Nanterre and other Paris suburbs. Police arrested 150 people around the country, more than half of them in the Paris region, the spokesperson said. She was not authorized to be publicly named according to police rules. The number of injured was not immediately released. French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency security meeting Thursday about the violence. "These acts are totally unjustifiable," Macron said at the beginning of the meeting, which aimed at securing hot spots and planning for the coming days "so full peace can return." Macron also said it was time for "remembrance and respect" as Nahel's mother called for a silent march Thursday in his honor on the square where he was killed. Multiple vehicles were set ablaze in Nanterre and protesters shot fireworks and threw stones at police, who fired repeated volleys of tear gas. Flames shot out of three stories of a building, and a blaze was reported at an electrical plant. Fire damaged the town hall of the Paris suburb of L'Ile-Saint-Denis, not far from France's national stadium and the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics. The police officer accused of the killing is in custody on suspicion of manslaughter and could face preliminary charges as soon as Thursday, according to the Nanterre prosecutor's office. French activists renewed calls to tackle what they see as systemic police abuse, particularly in neighborhoods like the one where Nahel lived, where many residents struggle with poverty and racial or class discrimination. Government officials condemned the killing and sought to distance themselves from the police officer's actions.Macron called the killing "inexplicable and inexcusable" and called for calm. "Nothing justifies the death of a young person," he told reporters in Marseille on Wednesday.
Videos of the shooting shared online show two police officers leaning into the driver-side window of a yellow car before the vehicle pulls away as one officer fires into the window. The videos show the car later crashed into a post nearby. The driver died at the scene, the prosecutor's office said. Bouquets of orange and yellow roses now mark the site of the shooting, on Nanterre's Nelson Mandela Square. Speaking to Parliament, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said, "the shocking images broadcast yesterday show an intervention that appears clearly not to comply with the rules of engagement of our police forces."
Deadly use of firearms is less common in France than in the United States, though several people have died or sustained injuries at the hands of French police in recent years, prompting demands for more accountability. France also saw protests against racial profiling and other injustice in the wake of George Floyd's killing by police in Minnesota. Asked about police abuses, Macron said justice should be allowed to run its course. A lawyer for Nahel's family, Yassine Bouzrou, told The Associated Press they want the police officer prosecuted for murder instead of manslaughter. French soccer star Kylian Mbappe, who grew up in the Paris suburb of Bondy, was among many shocked by what happened. "I hurt for my France," he tweeted.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 29-30/2023
Iranian Reactions to the Wagner Standoff in Russia
Farzin Nadimi/The Washington Institute./June 29/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/119580/119580/
Iranian officials are keenly aware that Putin’s crisis parallels their own vulnerabilities, so they will likely step up their efforts to cement the bilateral security relationship and obtain Russian weapons and technology. us military contractors would be able to reach Moscow, and whether Vladimir Putin’s reign would survive the humiliation. Hardline media such as the Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were quick to draw an analogy between the Wagner insurrection and the so-called “hybrid war waged by the conspiring West and NATO” against the Iranian regime, suggesting civil wars were being instigated in both countries. IRGC-affiliated media laid out elaborate scenarios to back this theory, including one in which Wagner members were supposedly fooled by a NATO “media disinformation trap” that persuaded them to turn their guns against their government. Indeed, various outlets expressed concern that the episode primarily served Ukrainian and Western interests. Hardliners also accused Iran’s domestic reformists and their media supporters of prematurely siding with Prigozhin against Putin. The managing editor of Kayhan—Hossein Shariatmadari, who was placed in that post by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—pointed his finger at reformists, harshly criticizing them for undermining the regime by “supporting” Prigozhin’s short-lived march toward Moscow. Notably, he likened it to their past support for the 2015 nuclear deal.
Hardliners seemed especially alarmed by the sight of armed Russians quickly mounting a surprise challenge that briefly threatened Russia’s seemingly invincible central government; the possibility of internal Russian collusion with Prigozhin worried them as well. In their view, the Iranian people and disenchanted military and security personnel might be inspired to adopt similar tactics in order to jumpstart the longstanding struggle against the regime in Tehran. Accordingly, after framing the Wagner insurrection as a Western plot to undermine Putin and contain Moscow’s military might, most regime media expressed relief that Putin had “skillfully” thwarted the threat and survived the episode unscathed.
Hardline commentators have gone so far in supporting Putin against “NATO-led plotters” that even some conservatives have urged a more balanced approach. For instance, outspoken former parliamentarian Ali Motahhari criticized Iranians who “tie the nation’s interests to those of Russia” and called for a return to the past revolutionary policy of non-alignment, as reflected in the old motto “no to West, no to East.”These days, however, Iranian leaders openly talk of their desire to take sides with Russia and China in a “new multipolar world order” to the detriment of the United States. They also want to get a good return on their political investment in Putin’s Russia, highlighted by their provision of Shahed suicide drones and ammunition to Moscow for use against Ukraine. In particular, they want Russia to help improve Iran’s weapons programs and deliver a promised fleet of advanced Su-35 fighter jets.
It therefore came as little surprise when President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian phoned their Russian counterparts one day after the Wagner “protest march,” voicing Tehran’s support for “Russia’s national sovereignty” amid the threat of rebellion. Likewise, Armed Forces General Staff commander Maj. Gen. Mohamad Bagheri called Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu on June 28 to convey his support, ask for assurances about the state of affairs in Russia, and invite him to Tehran—though this visit might not happen anytime soon.
In the longer term, the incident will no doubt remind Tehran that having a powerful foreign ally like Russia should not be taken for granted. Iranian officials will likely step up their entreaties for Russia’s promised weapons and technologies. Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan, head of the Law Enforcement Command, has already been dispatched for a rare visit to Moscow to discuss bilateral security cooperation. On June 28, he and influential Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya) commander Viktor Zolotov discussed “arms and ammunition, the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking, and destabilizing security threats.” Notably, Rosgvardiya was formed in 2016 for the express purpose of cracking down on Russia’s growing street protests, so Radan and Zolotov’s meeting is a further sign that the two regimes will draw even closer together in an effort to boost their mutual survival. As a Kayhan columnist wrote on June 27, “A blow that fails to kill you will make you even stronger.”
*Farzin Nadimi is a senior fellow with The Washington Institute.

China's Saboteurs Are Coming to America
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/June 29, 2023
There is now a Chinese invasion of the U.S. homeland.
Chinese migrants are entering the United States on foot at the southern border. Almost all are desperate, seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Some, however, are coming to commit acts of sabotage.
Many [Chinese], however, are short-circuiting the long waits at the consulates. At the southern border, Chinese migrants are entering the United States in unprecedented numbers.
Once here, the military fighters can link up with China's agents already in place or Chinese diplomats.
How many of the PLA fighters have slipped into the United States this way? Some estimate 5,000, others 10,000. Those numbers sound high, but whatever the actual figure more are coming.
These are China's shock troops. The concern is that, on the first day of war in Asia they will take down America's power lines, poison reservoirs, assassinate officials, start wildfires, spread pathogens, and create terror by bombing shopping malls and supermarkets.
The saboteurs will almost certainly attack American military bases. China has already been probing sensitive installations. Chinese agents posing as tourists have, for instance, intruded into bases, including the Army's Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska.
"When the Chinese Communist Party starts its war against Taiwan and the United States, Americans should expect that Chinese sleeper agents now in America will hit targets like gas stations and military-age Chinese now crossing our border will be mobilized for assassination attacks and assaults on U.S. military bases." — Richard Fisher, International Assessment and Strategy Center, to Gatestone, June 17, 2023
[T]he next war in Asia will almost certainly be fought on U.S. soil, perhaps on its first day. Unsuspecting Americans will be in the fight.
Immigrants make countries strong, and almost all the Chinese migrants crossing the southern border will contribute to American society. Some, however, are coming to wage war on the United States.
How many soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army have slipped into the United States across the southern border? Some estimate 5,000, others 10,000. The concern is that, on the first day of war in Asia they will take down America's power lines, poison water reservoirs, assassinate officials, start wildfires, spread pathogens, and create terror by bombing shopping malls and supermarkets. Pictured: Migrants, headed for the U.S., travel through the jungle in Darien Province, Panama, on October 13, 2022. (Photo by Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images)
There is now a Chinese invasion of the U.S. homeland.
"The jungle is filled with Chinese marching to America," said war correspondent Michael Yon to Gatestone.
Chinese migrants are entering the United States on foot at the southern border. Almost all are desperate, seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Some, however, are coming to commit acts of sabotage.
China is in a state of distress; gloom pervades Chinese society. Chinese by the hundreds are now patiently waiting for visas in sweltering heat in lines at U.S. consulates in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
Many, however, are short-circuiting the long waits at the consulates. At the southern border, Chinese migrants are entering the United States in unprecedented numbers. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that the number of apprehensions of Chinese migrants in the first five months of the current federal fiscal year was more than double that during all of the last fiscal year. The 8,000 Chinese migrants apprehended this calendar year are more than quadruple the number apprehended in the comparable period a year ago.
Chinese nationals are flying to Ecuador, which permits them to enter visa-free. They then make their way to the southern edge of the Darien Gap, about 66 miles of jungle separating Colombia and Panama. The migrants cross the natural barrier on foot, and once safely on the north side continue the journey to America, often by bus.
Some Chinese migrants are poor. Many, however, are middle-class. They can afford to pay $35,000 each to Mexican cartels to be smuggled into America.
"It's like an animal stampede before an earthquake," said "Sam," a Chinese migrant who crossed into America first in February at Brownsville, Texas, to Axios.
Some migrants are almost certainly members of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA). Representative Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said at a press conference on the 14th of this month that a Border Patrol sector chief informed him that some of the Chinese migrants at the southern border have "known ties to the PLA."
"We have no idea who these people are, and it's very likely, using Russia's template of sending military personnel into Ukraine, China is doing the same into the United States," said Green.
These military-linked migrants, despite their affiliations, have been released into America.
There is no question that China's PLA is inserting saboteurs through Mexico. "At the Darien Gap, I have seen countless packs of Chinese males of military age, unattached to family groups, and pretending not to understand English," said Yon, the war correspondent. "They were all headed to the American border."
"Normally in groups of five to fifteen, they typically emerge from the Darien Gap and spend one night in the U.S.-funded San Vicente Camp, or next door in the Tonosi Hotel, before boarding luxury buses for the trip up Highway 1 toward Costa Rica," Yon reports. "One group of six young men bought a chicken at the Tonosi Hotel, drank its blood from small glasses, then cooked the chicken themselves in the hotel restaurant, according to the hotel manager. Drinking raw chicken blood is a rite among some PLA soldiers."
Once here, the military fighters can link up with China's agents already in place or Chinese diplomats.
How many of the PLA fighters have slipped into the United States this way? Some estimate 5,000, others 10,000. Those numbers sound high, but whatever the actual figure, more are coming.
These are China's shock troops. The concern is that, on the first day of war in Asia they will take down America's power lines, poison water reservoirs, assassinate officials, start wildfires, spread pathogens, and create terror by bombing shopping malls and supermarkets.
The saboteurs will almost certainly attack American military bases. China has already been probing sensitive installations. Chinese agents posing as tourists have, for instance, intruded into bases, including the Army's Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska. There, the suspected Chinese agents drove past a base gate and were later apprehended with a drone inside their car.
"Ancient Chinese strategists prized the use of subterfuge and surprise to achieve victory, and the two PLA colonels who wrote Unrestricted Warfare in 1999 were full of praise for the tactics of Osama bin Laden," Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center told this publication. "When the Chinese Communist Party starts its war against Taiwan and the United States, Americans should expect that Chinese sleeper agents now in America will hit targets like gas stations and military-age Chinese now crossing our border will be mobilized for assassination attacks and assaults on U.S. military bases."
Therefore, the next war in Asia will almost certainly be fought on U.S. soil, perhaps on its first day. Unsuspecting Americans will be in the fight.
Immigrants make countries strong, and almost all the Chinese migrants crossing the southern border will contribute to American society. Some, however, are coming to wage war on the United States.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
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After Wagner Group’s failed coup, spread the word: Putin is vulnerable
Ivana Stradner/ New York Post/June 29/2023
In response to Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s threat over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin refrained from any serious counteraction as Wagner troops neared the city. Prigozhin ultimately called off his attack, but the event alone is a stark indication of Putin’s debilitated and humiliated position.The Kremlin was quick to place the blame on the West, immediately stating that “the mutiny plays into the hands of Russia’s external enemies. . . . We warn Western countries against undertaking even the slightest attempts to use the domestic Russian situation to achieve their Russophobic goals.”
Hmm. What an excellent idea!
Washington should play off Moscow’s famous paranoia and launch new information operations to communicate Putin’s diminished strength, security failures and greatly reduced influence to Russia’s allies.
To be sure, Prigozhin’s “coup” failed; Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko negotiated an agreement for Prigozhin to be exiled in Belarus and for charges to be dropped. Later, reports indicated that even the rebel himself would not be charged.
Of course, Putin is not known to forgive betrayal.
And on Monday he vowed to bring “the organizers of this rebellion” to “justice.”
That was a vow surely intended to head off the likelihood that he will be seen as weak.
Yet the Russian leader was humiliated by his former protégé (and caterer!), and if Prigozhin survives unscathed, it’ll make Putin look weaker still.
The United States should capitalize on the moment to convey Putin’s unreliability to his allies, via strategic information operations. Convincing his partners abroad, not to mention Russians themselves, could undermine support for his war in Ukraine and perhaps hasten an end to the conflict. This approach would be familiar to the CIA, which countered Soviet propaganda during the Cold War using similar informational and cultural techniques.
Indeed, to some extent, Washington and Kyiv have already begun efforts to embarrass Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly stressed that Wagner had “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime.”US Secretary of State Antony Blinken mocked the Russian strongman, pointing out that a mere 16 months ago, Putin seemed intent on capturing Kyiv, but just he found himself having to protect Moscow from invading forces.
Such rhetoric is a step in the right direction, yet the United States should expand on these efforts by disseminating these messages worldwide through social media.
A smart campaign that uses humorous memes distributed on social media is the best way to convey information rapidly and universally. America should craft and spread memes that use images that highlight or even poke fun at Putin’s weakness.
Most important, the United States should ensure that all of Russia’s allies are aware of the risks associated with aligning themselves with a diminished and unreliable figure.
It is especially critical to relay the message to the Global South, where Russian disinformation surrounding the war in Ukraine is highly prolific.
In Russian-occupied Syria and Africa, where Wagner’s influence is pervasive, the United States could cooperate with local media outlets to create and distribute informative content that not only clarifies the ongoing situation but also communicates the reality of Putin’s weakened state. Local influencers, popular radio programs or even digital billboards in urban areas could serve as effective media for such a campaign. In Latin America, too, Washington could leverage its strong historical ties and the reach of existing broadcasting networks. Engaging with popular regional TV networks and radio stations to share content that reflects Putin’s vulnerability could be effective. Since the end of the Cold War, the US government has been reluctant to use information to its full advantage in fighting enemies like Putin.
This should change.
Information today is an enormously powerful weapon. The United States would be foolish not to use it (as Russia does) and fail to spread the truth about Putin’s real weakness, making sure all Russian allies know the risks of hitching their wagon to a declining, unreliable star. Ivana Stradner is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on Twitter @ivanastradner. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

More Emirati Military Involvement in Somalia Could Help Curb al-Shabab
Ido Levy/The Washington Institute./June 29/2023
The United Arab Emirates has much to offer if it chooses deeper military involvement in the fight against al-Shabab, but it would need to coordinate closely with other actors, especially the United States, to optimize its contribution.
On June 16, the UAE carried out its first publicly reported airstrike in Somalia, targeting a jihadist-controlled village in the country’s Galguduud region with a Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone. This is the first overt Emirati kinetic military operation conducted in Somalia and follows deepening UAE involvement in the country over the past year. The airstrike could signal that Abu Dhabi is willing to upgrade its involvement in the war against the al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist group al-Shabab. This analysis considers the current situation in Somalia and the UAE’s military intervention record to assess the prospects for deeper Emirati involvement.
The UAE Presence in Somalia
In 1993-94, the UAE contributed the 640-man al-Wajeb Battalion to the 37,000-strong Unified Task Force (UNITAF) humanitarian mission in Somalia. It also contributed to the United Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II) peacekeeping mission, providing several units and a field hospital. Three Emirati soldiers were killed in action. As the Somali civil war ground on and international forces withdrew, the UAE assumed more of a donor role. Afterward, the UAE was involved at various levels with the federal government of Somalia; the autonomous Puntland region; and Somaliland, which had declared its independence from Somalia in 1991: In 2010, in the wake of rising piracy off the Somali coast, the UAE began funding training for the Puntland Maritime Police Force by a South African security contractor. That contract ended scandalously in 2012, though Abu Dhabi apparently continued funding the force and maintained good ties with the Puntland administration. In 2017, DP World, through subsidiary P&O Ports, signed a thirty-year contract to develop and manage Puntland’s port of Bosaso on the Gulf of Aden coast.
In 2016, Emirati firm DP World signed a deal with Somaliland to upgrade the port of Berbera. In addition, the UAE committed to building a military base next to the city’s airport and seafront; training the Somaliland police and army; and constructing a highway from Berbera to the Ethiopian border town of Wajaale. The project would augment the Emirati presence in the Gulf of Aden, as Berbera is 300 miles south of an Emirati base in Assab, Eritrea. The Emirati presence in Berbera, Assab, and Bosaso has helped counter piracy, interdict Iranian arms smuggling to Houthi rebels in Yemen, and ferry in Sudanese fighters for anti-Houthi operations in southern Yemen.
The UAE officially began a program to train Somali federal government forces in 2014. A year later, it opened a training center in Mogadishu, where Emirati forces have trained Somali commandos. It also provided vehicles to Jubaland state forces and the federal government’s Ministry of Internal Security and Police. By 2018, the UAE said it had trained thousands of Somali soldiers, built training centers and a hospital, and paid 2,407 soldiers’ salaries. Abu Dhabi terminated the training mission after Somali troops boarded an Emirati plane in Mogadishu on April 8, 2018, and seized $9.6 million, which the Somali government claimed was undeclared U.S. dollars. Tensions had been rising prior to that, as Somalia chose to remain neutral after the 2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis, though the UAE had urged Mogadishu to take its side.
Relations with the federal government started improving after Hassan Sheikh Mohamud returned to power in the May 15, 2022, presidential election with substantial Emirati financial backing. The $9.6 million that had been seized by Somali troops was released days later. In February 2023, Mogadishu approved an official security cooperation agreement with Abu Dhabi, and a month later, Emirati military vehicles arrived in the Jubaland region to begin construction of a new base to be owned and operated by the UAE.
Overall, Emirati contributions in Somalia have been largely positive, if less noticeable. They include helping to fund development of the Somali National Army (SNA) and upgrading Berbera’s airport, which U.S. Africa Command is now considering using. Some Emirati operations are low profile, such as those in Puntland against Iranian weapons smugglers. Abu Dhabi’s funding has earned it allies at various levels of Somali politics, including, as noted, President Hassan Sheikh. In addition, Ahmed Mohamed Islaam—the president of Jubaland state, where the UAE is building its base in Somalia—has a strong relationship with Abu Dhabi and previously received Emirati military aid.
Other International Actors in Somalia
The UAE is by no means the most prominent international military actor in Somalia. The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), previously known as the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), whose major donor is the European Union, today numbers about 22,000 troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda and has been indispensable in securing Mogadishu and other cities. AMISOM led the fight against al-Shabab for a time, filling in for the dysfunctional SNA, whose brigades have remained subject to political misuse, such as involvement in clan feuds and intimidation of political opponents. With territory controlled by al-Shabab confined to rural south and central Somalia, the elite Danab Brigade—created, trained, and funded by the United States and insulated from clan politics—has increasingly taken on the burden of offensive operations. Recently, government-allied Macawisley tribal fighters have shown themselves to be effective in conducting joint operations with Danab and holding liberated territory.
Turkey has emerged as another important actor. In 2011, then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled with his family to Somalia to show support during the famine, and Turkish humanitarian aid followed shortly after. That same year, Turkey reopened its embassy in Somalia, which had been closed since 1991. In 2013, Turkish firm Favori LLC began running Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport, and two years later, the Turkish Albayrak Group took over operations at Mogadishu International Port. In addition, Turkey has constructed health facilities in Somalia, and its new embassy building in the country, opened June 2016, is its largest in the world.
Ankara also opened its largest overseas military training facility, Camp TURKSOM, in Somalia in 2017. The Turkish-trained Gorgor commando unit has demonstrated its combat effectiveness, though during the tenure of the previous president, Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed, it gained notoriety for political misuse, as seen when he deployed Gorgor members to compel political support. Moreover, Turkish-operated TB2 drones are now being used on the battlefield, bolstering Somalia’s capacity to strike al-Shabab targets. While the United States provides better air support, Turkish airstrikes require approval only from a Turkish officer in-theater, whereas U.S. strikes require approval from Washington. This could confer an advantage when time-sensitive targets appear, though this option should not be used carelessly in populated areas.
Implications for U.S. Policy
The UAE has proven in its recent missions in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen that it can contribute real military capability when it desires to do so. Emirati forces have proven adaptable and capable in both direct action and “by, with, and through” operations. Most important, in a range of environments, the Emiratis have developed a strong record of building capable partner forces that can take on local adversaries and regularly accompanying such partners into battle with a light footprint of special forces advisors and airstrike controllers. Thus, increased Emirati military involvement in Somalia could be a significant force multiplier to efforts by the United States, Turkey, and African Union if this is coordinated properly with the other military actors in the country.
If the UAE does decide to deepen its involvement in Somalia, the United States should ensure that it can properly coordinate operations and promote transparency between the UAE and other pro-government forces. In the fight against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen, the UAE enjoys a remarkably close working relationship with the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and this could be a model to replicate in Somalia. Yemen has seen the development of what Michael Knights calls the “trilateral operations” model of counterterrorism operations, in which local forces do the bulk of the ground fighting and operate local human intelligence sources. U.S. forces control the technical intelligence assets overhead, and embedded UAE special forces provide the forward-deployed connective tissue between the two. In Yemen, this worked better than operations exclusively by local forces or bilateral operations involving local forces and U.S. or UAE forces. This model has also worked to some extent in Afghanistan, where the UAE brought Islamic and some cultural and linguistic capability to an environment that was not predominately Arabic speaking.
Most important, the United States must keep its own modest yet indispensable military presence in Somalia. U.S. support has proven paramount in the fight against al-Shabab, and the period of U.S. withdrawal from Somalia between January 2021 and May 2022 emboldened the group and saw stagnation among pro-government forces. Now, U.S. support, coupled with determined Somali political leadership, has enabled a serious offensive campaign aiming to deprive al-Shabab of all its territory. While Emirati activity in other countries—such as deep involvement in Yemen or provision of drones to Ethiopia—has stabilized frontlines and expanded government control to an extent, a large-scale offensive in Somalia would be extremely challenging for the UAE to undertake alone. In the fight against al-Shabab, the United States remains the indispensable international actor.
**Ido Levy is an associate fellow with The Washington Institute’s Military and Security Studies Program and a PhD student at American University’s School of International Service. He gives special thanks to Michael Knights and Alex Almeida for valuable comments on earlier drafts.

Turkey’s Growing Ukrainian and Russian Communities
Sude Akgundogdu and Collin Trissel/The Washington Institute./June 29/2023
For nationals on both sides of the fight, the Ukraine war has transformed Turkey from a popular summer destination to a longer-term safe haven or permanent home on the Mediterranean.
Since the 1990s, Turkey has become a major destination for tourists and migrants from Ukraine, Russia, and other former Soviet states. Yet Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine set into motion an even greater wave of migrants from both countries. Those fleeing the crisis have used myriad channels to enter and remain in Turkey, from obtaining “golden visas” to applying for protection. Going forward, their presence could have a sizable effect on future socioeconomic ties between the three countries.
Ukrainians and Russians in Turkey Before 2022
During the Cold War, Turkey and the USSR had little interpersonal exchange—in 1964, for example, government data shows that only 414 Soviet visitors came to Turkey. In the decades following the Soviet collapse, however, Turkey became a major destination due to its tourism infrastructure and geographic proximity.
According to the Turkish Ministry of Interior and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), the yearly influx of Russian tourists rose steadily from 1.3 million in 1996 to 7 million in 2019, the highest number among all nationalities. Ukrainians have similarly flocked to Turkey (especially in the summer), from 93,794 visitors in 1996 to 1.5 million in 2019.
Over the past two decades, this growing influx has begun to reshape the social fabric of Turkey’s destination cities. Russian became a prevalent language in the key tourist city of Antalya, leading many employees in the Turkish tourism sector to attend language schools in Russia. The number of marriages between Turks and individuals from Russia or Ukraine increased as well. According to TUIK, the two nationalities made up a combined 10.1% of foreign spouses by citizenship as of 2016. Additionally, 10,117 Russians and 7,575 Ukrainians had been granted residence permits by 2012, enabling longer stays for non-tourism purposes.
Ukrainian and Russian Influx During the War
Ankara’s policy toward the war can be summarized as “pro-Ukraine but not anti-Russia.” In line with this approach, it has allowed individuals from both countries to seek temporary or permanent refuge within its borders since last year.
By September, Turkey was hosting at least 145,000 Ukrainian refugees. That number has since fallen to 46,000, with most refugees located in big cities (e.g., Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara) and coastal provinces (Antalya, Mugla). Around 7,130 have applied for asylum. As seen in other host countries, most of the former registered refugees likely returned to Ukraine or left for other destinations, but a portion of them obtained alternative status (e.g., short- or long-term residence permits) or found other ways of staying in Turkey (see the “golden visa” discussion below).
Ankara has simultaneously kept its doors open to a greater influx of Russian migrants during the war, including individuals seeking to avoid sanctions, escape Vladimir Putin’s government, or move their lives and assets overseas. Among them have been affluent Russians (e.g., the oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Dmitry Kamenshchik) and various dissidents, from renowned journalists to individuals associated with Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Golden Visas and Passports
For Russians and Ukrainians alike, the most common path to secure a longer or permanent stay in Turkey has seemingly been the “golden visa” option, wherein the government grants residence permits or citizenship in exchange for large investments. For example, to become eligible for a Turkish passport via this path, applicants are required to store at least $500,000 in Turkish banks or state funds, purchase the same value in government bonds, or create at least fifty jobs in Turkey. Alternatively, purchasing real estate worth at least $400,000 enables an applicant to quickly secure Turkish citizenship, in some cases within 120 days.
Foreigners can also take three other paths—purchasing real estate at a lower value, setting up a business in Turkey, or investing a lesser amount determined by the Council of Ministers—to obtain short-term residence permits for up to five years with the option to renew. Once short-term residents (not asylum seekers) complete seven years of consecutive, lawful presence in Turkey, they become eligible to pursue citizenship.
Short-Term Residence Permits
According to the Turkish Presidency of Migration Management (GIB), 40,872 Ukrainians currently hold short-term residence permits there. This figure was 46,804 at the end of 2022, mirroring the drop in refugee numbers since September. GIB did not release data on Ukrainian short-term permits before the war, since Ukrainians were not one of the top ten nationalities to hold that status until 2022. They are now ranked tenth, down from ninth place last year.
Russians have moved even higher on that list. Before the Ukraine invasion, Iraq sent by far the most short-term residents to Turkey, while Russia came in fifth. In 2022, however, Russians skyrocketed from about 4.8% of Turkey’s total short-term residents to over 10%. Currently, 145,092 Russians hold that status, a slight decrease from 145,715 in 2022. This drop was likely caused by large numbers of wealthy Russians acquiring Turkish passports and then either relocating to third countries or returning home with the ability to enter Turkey at will.
Real Estate Purchases
According to data from TUIK, Ukrainian home purchases in Turkey experienced a dramatic spike of 106.4% between 2021 and 2022, increasing from 1,246 houses to 2,572. This growth will likely continue in 2023, with 1,540 houses already sold to Ukrainian buyers as of May.
Russian house purchases have likewise increased during the war. Among foreign buyers, Russians purchased the third-highest number of homes in 2019-2021, behind Iranians and Iraqis. Yet they topped the list in 2022, making up almost 25% of total foreign purchases (rising from 5,379 houses in 2021 to 16,582 in 2022, an increase of 208.3%). And as of last month, they had bought another 5,723 houses, indicating that the wartime spike will continue in 2023.
The growth in Russian and Ukrainian real estate purchases has raised domestic demand dramatically, causing many Turks to be priced out of the areas in question. For example, in Antalya—the capital of Turkish beach tourism—rent prices have increased by over 300% in some cases. According to the Antalya Chamber of Commerce and Industry, roughly seven out of every ten rental customers there are now Russian or Ukrainian.
Conclusion
Historically, Turkey has been a destination for immigration from parts of Europe, including former Ottoman territories in the Balkans and around the Black Sea. Russian and Ukrainian migration is a relatively new phenomenon there (apart from the influx of “White Russians” after the 1917 revolution, many of whom later moved on to the United States or Western Europe). Now that both nationalities are visiting Turkey in larger numbers and laying down socioeconomic roots, they could build up sizable Slavic communities there over time—a development that would add to Turkey’s diversity while also building bridges between all three countries.
*Sude Akgundogdu and Collin Trissel are research assistants in The Washington Institute’s Turkish Research Program.

The Emirates at St Petersburg
Haitham El-Zobaidi/The Arab Weekly/June 29/2023
At the root of the Emirati position is a high sense of responsibility.
I was sitting in front of a TV screen when an image of UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin caught my eye. For a moment, I thought it was archive footage. But the tag line below the image said "Urgent" and referred to an event being broadcast live from St Petersburg.
I realised that the Emirates not only participated in the St Petersburg Forum, but Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed himself had decided to go there and meet Putin. This was an exceptional encounter at a time when Russia appears to be increasingly isolated in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
The world has adopted different positions on Russia and Putin. Although generalisations can be misleading, one can place these in three categories.
There is the Western position on Putin, which is hostile if not extremely so. The West parted ways with Russia a few years ago. The United States made an early decision to follow policies that are antagonistic to Russia. The war in Ukraine has reflected some of these policies, which have fuelled Russia’s paranoia.
The policies in question insisted on moving NATO’s presence near Russia’s borders, hence doing away with buffer countries such as Ukraine and Belarus, and on poisoning the Russian-German economic relationship by imposing sanctions on everyone involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas project.
The Rand Corporation published two research papers in 2019, which actually talked about scenarios of dragging Russia into a war that drains the country’s resources. The Rand Corporation is a major US think tank and is considered quite influential in American decision-making circles
The war in Ukraine ended all Russian-European understandings. There is no daylight between Europe and the United States in confronting Russia, no matter how hard European leaders try to mitigate the excessive rhetoric and US insistence on escalation with Moscow.
Then there is the position of the East. This is much more against the United States than it is with Russia. The new Cold War is based on the West's stand-off with China. Increased American hostility to China and the frantic attempts by US officials to classify Beijing as a strategic adversary, have reached unreasonable levels.
Just as Washington weaponised the Russian gas pipeline to Europe in the start of its drive to turn competition into hostility, the position on Huawei and the 5G phone and communication technology was the springboard for Washington’s mobilisation of Western allies against China.
Current attempts at appeasement, such as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's trip to Beijing, will not affect the course of the relationship.
Hostility is now the rule and coordination has become the exception. Washington has not hesitated to send an aircraft carrier to Vietnam, a former enemy that inflicted bitter defeat on the US in Southeast Asia, in a move aimed only at irritating China.
Some Western countries are still reluctant to join the US drift towards igniting a new Cold War. China is the industrial workshop of the world and one of its most important sources of global financing, including the financing of the United States itself through Beijing’s purchase of US Treasury bonds of more than a trillion dollars. China stands with itself, not with Russia.
On the fringes of the East’s position, there are major countries that the United States is trying to win over to its side, pushing them to take anti-Russian positions.
One saw clear evidence of that in the red carpet rolled out for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent visit to Washington. But it is still too early to tell whether a country such as India can be so naïve as to accept the US interpretation of the post-war world in Ukraine.
The third position is that of the fence-sitters.
The ongoing conflict, from the point of view of many, is either an opportunity to achieve additional financial gains from oil and gas sales, or it is too dangerous to approach.
Those who benefit from the war are trying to appease both the West and Russia. They pump more oil and gas to prevent Russia’s blackmail of the West and strangling of its lifelines. But they continue nonetheless to coordinate their moves with Moscow to keep energy prices high enough to prevent a Russian financial meltdown from lack of revenues.
Appeasement has reached confusing levels, making it difficult to draw the line between both political divergence and rapprochement with the United States, or to accept that Russia pumps large quantities of oil at reduced prices without eliciting direct protests from OPEC+ countries, especially Saudi Arabia.
Fence-sitters who have been adversely affected by the war, such as Egypt, do not have a set strategy. Sometimes they complain about the rise in energy and food prices because of the conflict. At other instances, we read reports about their plans to provide Russia with military equipment that can only prolong the war. Russia is too important to be left in isolation and not to try to understand what is going on there. Even before the Wagner forces’ mutiny and their projected attempt to overthrow the military leadership (or hatch a coup against Putin), there were enough alarm signals amid the faltering course of the war. Russia is a country that could determine the future of peace and war in the world. Political chaos in Russia is very dangerous. There can be no world stability if mayhem in Russia extends beyond its borders. There is a lot at stake, from nuclear weapons falling in foolhardy hands to energy and grain agreements.
Far from hostility to Russia or to the US and from fence-sitting, the policy of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed stands out. The UAE is not aligned with the West which wants to settle scores with Putin, nor is it aligned with China in its wariness about every Western political move, thus further fuelling hostility. Abu Dhabi is not among the beneficiaries of the conflict, nor one its casualties nor one of the fence-sitters.
Just as it took the initiative in helping contain the regional chaos that followed the so-called Arab Spring and thwarted the various ploys of the forces of political Islam, posturing as either democratic or radical, the UAE has taken the initiative to be close to developments in Russia and understanding the Russian leaders’ world view, even if this has cost it the displeasure of the West.
The political independence that characterises the UAE’s position is not intended to settle scores with the United States, which is increasingly disengaged from the region. It is not intended either to keep up with the rise of new powers such as China and India, nor to take a distance from the positions of fence-sitters. At the root of the Emirati position is a high sense of responsibility.
One day soon, the world will find that it needs a reassuring leadership figure with clearly-understood motives, who will help Russia get out of the dead end of the war in Ukraine and talk to Putin not only from the perspective of a mediator, but also from the vantage point of a partner who cares for the interests of his partner, especially when he sees him going too far in his political gamble.
The type of meeting that brought together Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and Putin in St Petersburg and their talk about their partnerships, as well as the multiple stakes in UAE-Russia relations, are the first steps in a process that could restore peace to a world gripped by anxiety and festering enmity.
*Dr Haitham El-Zobaidi is the executive editor of Al Arab Publishing Group.

Wagner and the Mutiny of the President’s Chef
Jebril Elabidi/Asharq Al Awsat/June 29/2023
He who cooks poison tastes it... This is exactly what happened when the leader of “Wagner” declared a rebellion against the authorities in Moscow. His ally Putin called it a stab in the back, while Western media outlets rushed their reporting and let their imaginations run wild. Indeed, they went so far as to make errors, sometimes even misleading their audience.
In fact, so Western broadcasters, among them some who occupy prominent positions on the global media map, published reports that verged on fiction. “President Putin fled” after Wagner forces began marching towards Moscow. Some channels even showed trenches being dug and roads being blocked to hinder the progress of the advancing Wagner forces after stressing that President Putin had “fled.”
The manner in which the media addressed the Wagner mutiny was ridiculous. Indeed, the hysteria even got to some political analysts, who had been misled into becoming a choir of laughing fools. However, this “mutiny” they found hilarious lasted no more than 24 hours, ending before anything worth noting was achieved. All that it did was expose the unprofessional media outlets that rushed to mislead and weave events together instead of sticking to accurate and credible reporting.
The Wagner militia has no more than twenty thousand members; how could it possibly occupy Moscow, whose traffic police could have put an end to the Wagner rebellion? Moreover, despite their ferocity, its forces could not have achieved anything without the air and artillery support provided by the Russian army forces. Thus, they would have been exposed to airstrikes in a march on Moscow, and the air force would have wiped them out before the Moscow traffic police could get involved.
The leader of the Wagner militia, Yevgeny Prigozhin, threatened Moscow: “Anyone who tries to resist us will be considered a threat, and we will kill him immediately.” He raises many questions, especially given the Kremlin’s silence when Prigozhin was making fiery statements that went as far as making threats. His tirades culminated with the declaration of a “mutiny” against Moscow and threatening to attack it.
The most consequential question remains: Did the president’s cook really turn or rebel? Prigozhin accused the Russian army of attacking Wagner forces, which killed a “massive” number of its forces. And he vowed to launch an attack on the Russian Ministry of Defense that, he claimed, had refused Wagner’s requests for enough ammunition to fight. The Russian Ministry of Defense had demanded that Wagner fighters sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense directly; Prigozhin refused.
In an unprecedented escalation that came less than 24 hours after the Wagner rebellion and President Putin calling the Wagner coup a stab in the back, the Russian Prosecutor General summoned Prigozhin for questioning. The latter was “accused” of crimes tied to Russian national security, although Wagner built influence on Moscow’s behalf in various conflict zones around the world. So, is it time to do away with the Wagner model, or is this all nothing more than a
theatrical play whose chapters were written by the man in the Kremlin to prelude to changes to the guards and the security top brass at the Kremlin?
Indeed, the Kremlin was not attacked at any point between the era of the Tsars and the era of the Bolsheviks. It also remained out of reach with the establishment of the Russian Federation until, that is, one of its major domes was recently almost brought down by a drone. This drone attack exposed the unprecedented deficiencies of the air defenses protecting the symbol of Russian power through the Ages, raising questions about internal disloyalty. Could a betrayal have enabled the drones to fly over the Kremlin before being shot down by the Kremlin’s defenses, saving face to an extent?
Before Prigozhin announced his mutiny against the authorities in Moscow, especially the Ministry of Defense, whose relationship with him was strained for a while, he had been dubbed a “hero” for the progress he had made in the Ukraine war. Today, meanwhile, he is accused of treason on the streets of Russia.
The rebellion is over. Prigozhin is going into exile or a luxurious life of retirement in Belarus, which mediated the deal that ended the Wagner rebellion.
Whatever truly happened - whether it was mutiny and betrayal or a play directed by Putin to facilitate future changes in the Russian Ministry of Defense - the Ukrainians will be the ones to benefit from Wagner’s exit from the war. This is the case despite the stupidity with which the Western media has reported and analyzed the shortest mutiny in history.