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The Kurds Advance in Syria

2/28/2017

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The northern Syrian city of Manbij is under the protection of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State after an increase in "Turkish threats" against the city, a Kurdish-allied militia that controls the city said. - Reuters
A Syrian army advance against Islamic State in northern Syria has opened a new link between government-held areas in western Syria and the Kurdish-dominated northeast, redrawing the map of the conflict near the Turkish border. - Reuters
Chris Kozak writes: An open conflict will likely erupt imminently between Turkey and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the town of Manbij in Northern Syria. Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish YPG – the main component of the SDF - to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is currently waging an insurgency in Southern Turkey. The fight for Manbij will derail the U.S.-backed campaign against ISIS and create opportunities for al Qaeda to expand further in Syria. The U.S. must reduce its dependence upon both Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish YPG. – Institute for the Study of War
Residents of Mosul whispered about the deaths at the sinkhole, or “khasfa,” as it is called. But with communications limited and locals too fearful to speak out publicly, it was only after Iraqi forces retook the area last month as they closed in on the city’s western side that the scale of the killings at the site began to emerge. Based on anecdotal evidence, Iraqi officials say thousands may have perished there in recent years. – Washington Post
 
Islamic State built an obstacle course in an old railway tunnel where raw recruits crawled under barbed wire and scaled walls to begin their reshaping into seasoned fighters, according to Iraqi military officials who uncovered it. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
A takeover of Badush would sever Highway 47, a vital road linking Mosul to the Islamic State-held city of Tall Afar, about 40 miles west of Mosul and now cut off from the Syrian border by Shiite-dominated militias known as the Popular Mobilization Units. Taking the road would further restrict the militants’ movements, denying them the use of a vital supply route as well as a pathway to make their escape. – Los Angeles Times
 
Rival Kurdish groups clashed in Iraq's northwestern Sinjar region on Friday, two Kurdish security sources said, causing deaths on both sides. - Reuters
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How U.S. Policy Should Engage Yemen

2/28/2017

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  • Zimmerman: How the US should re-engage in Yemen
Katherine Zimmerman writes: American re-engagement in Yemen should recognize that both al Qaeda and Iran seek to hijack local grievances to gain influence. The war is a composite of multiple spinning local conflicts that let both of America’s enemies expand their footprint in Yemen. The war is also what opened the door for ISIS to begin operations in Yemen. The United States should lead the effort to resolve the conflicts that feed the war. Such a policy would starve al Qaeda and Iran of the sustenance they need to retain their influence in Yemen. – American Enterprise Institute
  • Devices seized in Yemen raid offer clues to al-Qaeda’s tactics
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Mosul Airport Captured

2/27/2017

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Life in Mosul is divided. Residents on the east side are starting to rebuild neighborhoods just over a month after Islamic State was pushed out…At the same time, the battle is escalating on the west side. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
The United States needs to continue its commitment to train and equip Iraqi security forces in the coming years to prevent the reemergence of the Islamic State after its anticipated defeat by coalition forces in Mosul, an expert on the region testified Tuesday. – Washington Free Beacon
 
U.S.-backed Iraqi army units on Wednesday took control of the last major road out of western Mosul that had been in Islamic State's hands, trapping the militants in a shrinking area within the city, a general and residents said. - Reuters
 
Islamic State fighters were increasingly using Mad Max-style suicide vehicles and commercial drones armed with grenades in their defense of the Iraqi town of Mosul, Australia’s defense chief said Wednesday. – Associated Press
 
A few hundred men who had scurried across front lines in a refugee exodus from Mosul sat on the ground in neat rows before an Iraqi intelligence officer who scanned the crowd for hidden militants. - Reuters
As Iraqi troops backed by U.S. warplanes and special forces keep pushing into Mosul, the so-called Islamic State is fighting back with its own air force: commercially available drones carrying small explosive payloads. – The Daily Beast
 
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is presenting the White House with a plan to "rapidly defeat" the Islamic State group, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. The strategy includes significant elements of the approach President Donald Trump inherited, while potentially deepening U.S. military involvement in Syria. – Associated Press
 
Kimberly Dozier reports: The Team Trump plan to defeat ISIS is more like a loose diagram—with most of the options previously pondered by the Obama administration, according to three officials who have read drafts of the plan that was officially discussed at the White House Monday. – The Daily Beast
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Iraqi forces seized most of Mosul’s airport on Thursday, an important milestone in the broader offensive to retake the western half of the country’s second-largest city from the Islamic State, Iraqi and allied officials said. – New York Times
Backed by the U.S.-led coalition’s airstrikes, artillery, Special Operations forces and hundreds of advisers, Iraqi troops are expected to encounter heavy resistance as they enter western Mosul’s labyrinth of alleyways, tight side streets and multistory buildings. This dense urban terrain, compounded with the presence of thousands of civilians, has forced U.S. forces to adjust their tactics to better assist Iraqi troops. – Washington Post’s Checkpoint
As Iraqi forces secure territorial victories in Mosul's western half, taking the city's airport and a sprawling military complex, the east — an area declared "fully liberated" from the extremists in January — has been rocked by insurgent attacks, including one earlier this month targeting a popular restaurant in which four people were killed and seven wounded. – Associated Press
 
Editorial: Victory is not assured and the humanitarian cost, which Iraqi forces managed to minimize in capturing the eastern side of the city, could steeply rise. Yet the biggest challenge looms beyond the immediate battle: whether Mosul and other Sunni-populated areas of Iraq can be stabilized once the jihadists are driven out. Unfortunately, in his first weeks in office President Trump has significantly worsened the chances for success. – Washington Post
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India & The Islamic State

2/27/2017

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Asia Times
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Where is Syria Now?  & U.S. Commitment to Afghanistan

2/27/2017

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Editorial: Mr. Putin, who has frequently hinted that he could be willing to dispense with Mr. Assad, has been trying to orchestrate a new Syrian peace process with Turkey that all but excludes the United States. Predictably, it is going nowhere — in part because, as The Post’s Liz Sly reports, players on both sides are waiting to see what stance the new U.S. administration adopts. This is leverage that Mr. Trump should use: If Mr. Putin wants his help to settle the Syrian conflict and protect Russia’s interests there, he should be obliged to split with Iran and abandon a regime that drops chlorine on women and children. – Washington Post
Rubin Center Israel
The biggest surviving rebel stronghold in northern Syria is falling under the control of al-Qaeda-linked extremists amid a surge of rebel infighting that threatens to vanquish what is left of the moderate rebellion. – Washington Post
After 16 years, Afghanistan’s long war shows no sign of taking a day off, even in midwinter. On Tuesday, 11 police officers were killed in a Taliban attack in the south, but that was only one in a long and not unusual series of assaults against Afghan security forces. In recent weeks, there have been several episodes in which two or three Afghan police officers were killed. – New York Times
 
Afghan Taliban militants said they attacked police, military and intelligence targets in Kabul on Wednesday and security officials confirmed attacks in at least two areas of the city that killed at least three people and wounded dozens. – Reuters
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Islamabad Goes on Offense Domestically

2/27/2017

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When the Pakistan army announced that it was launching a nationwide military operation to “indiscriminately” eliminate the threat of terrorism from the land, the adverb had a precise and politically loaded meaning. – Washington Post
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A Two State Solution; Why U.S. Should Never Fear Hegemony & Why The U.N. is Lost

2/26/2017

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Sohrab Ahmari writes: Absent America’s stabilizing touch, this part of the world can generate ethno-sectarian energies and brutality on the Syria scale at a flight distance of two hours from Berlin. There are worse things in this world than being accused of hegemony. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Anne Bayefsky writes: Substituting a Human Rights “Council” for a Human Rights “Commission” that retains the same fatal flaws — starting with membership for the quintessential very bad dudes — is the classic example of what the U.N., and the Obama administration, have meant by “reform.” Will the Trump administration follow suit and make yet another speech about fixing the unfixable? – National Review Online
Why A Regional Peace Process Will Fail
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Near East Fault Lines:  China, U.S. & RUssia

2/26/2017

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Trump Administration vs Russia & China in the Middle East. @richardfontaine @cnasdc

A century after Sykes-Picot, the lines drawn by British and French diplomats are under pressure like never before. So too is the traditional Middle Eastern model of governance, stability and prosperity. America’s response to the Middle East challenge should aim not to redivide the Middle East, nor to dominate or depart it. As states outside the region increasingly discern interests there, and generate the will and capacity to pursue them, the resurgence of great-power politics in the Middle East will transform American strategy.

As this process plays out, there will remain one irreducible reality. The United States alone retains the unique ability to forge partnerships among these actors to advance not just parochial, short-term interests but the broader security, stability and prosperity needed to prevent the region’s further collapse. It is time to start the endeavor.
​
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/america-no-longer-the-middle-easts-greatest-power-19461?page=show
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A New Afghan Mess & Mass Terror As Strategy

2/24/2017

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Selling Trump a New Afghanistan Commitment 
From Josh Rogin, Washington Post: “After more than 15 years of U.S. fighting, the war is at a crossroads. The Afghan national security forces are on their heels. The government is asking the United States and its NATO partners to help it go on offense against the Taliban, which has been taking territory with the help of Pakistan, Iran and Russia. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, has publicly testified that he wants “a few thousand” more troops there. He also says there is a need for a more “holistic review” of the mission.”
Josh Rogin reports: The Trump administration is considering whether to plunge more resources and troops into the United States’ longest war — Afghanistan — as some of the president’s top generals are calling for. The issue pits President Trump’s commitment to end nation-building against his promise to stamp out terrorism in a conflict where a clear U.S. strategy is sorely lacking. – Washington Post
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The Kurds & U.S. Alliance Architecture in Mesopotamia

2/24/2017

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AEI
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Capital of Punjab Province - Lahore- ROCKED AGAIN WITH BOMBING

2/23/2017

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A bomb blast in an upscale shopping center in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore killed at least eight people and wounded 20 on Thursday, officials said, the latest in a surge of violence that has shaken the country. - Reuters
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Syria:  Linchpin of U.S. Near East Policy Emerging

2/23/2017

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President Trump’s developing plan to defeat the Islamic State may lead to significant alterations in the Syria strategy that Trump inherited from Barack Obama, including a reduction or elimination of both long-standing U.S. support for moderate opposition forces fighting against the Syrian government and the use of Syrian Kurdish fighters as the main U.S. proxy force against the militants, according to U.S. officials. – Washington Post
 
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) secretly traveled to northern Syria last weekend to speak with American military officials and Kurdish fighters at the forefront of the push to drive Islamic State out of their de facto capital of Raqqa, according to U.S. officials. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
President Trump’s vision of “safe zones” for refugees fleeing the brutal violence of Syria’s civil war is running into opposition from a key ally, Turkey, which is warning that the U.S.-protected areas will become havens for Kurdish militant movements that have long battled Ankara. The dispute pits two antagonistic allies that the U.S. is relying on in the final battle to defeat the Islamic State in its Syrian stronghold. – Washington Times
 
As the Pentagon prepares to send the president a plan next week to speed the defeat of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a top U.S. commander has indicated the more robust effort will require additional U.S. troops, especially in Syria. – Washington Examiner
 
U.S. troop increases in Syria and Iraq could be part of the plan for speeding up the campaign against ISIS that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will present to the White House next week, military officials said Wednesday. – Military.com
 
A Democratic senator is requesting Congress undertake an immediate “top to bottom” review of U.S. policy in Syria. – The Hill
 
Russia is pressing world powers to provide Syria with billions of dollars for reconstruction to bolster its faltering efforts to resolve the Arab state’s six-year conflict. – Financial Times
 
The Syrian army and its allies took a small district on the outskirts of Aleppo from rebels on Wednesday, a war monitor and a military media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah said. - Reuters
 
Fifty-six Islamic State militants were killed by Turkey-backed forces around the Syrian town of al-Bab and by U.S.-led coalition air strikes in the latest operations on Wednesday, the Turkish military said on Thursday. - Reuters
 
After months of Syria bloodshed, stalled humanitarian aid deliveries and stop-and-start diplomacy, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura is reconvening talks between government and opposition delegations on Thursday, in the latest bid to end the country's catastrophic six-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions more. – Associated Press
 
Russia is open for dialogue with the United States on safe zones in Syria but believes that any such initiative needs to be coordinated with the Syrian government, Moscow's top diplomat said Wednesday. – Associated Press
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The Rimland & CENTCOM

2/22/2017

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The Plan to Stabilize Afghanistan:  
  • Report: Stabilizing battlefield key to Afghanistan peace
Bodyguards of Afghan Vice President Rashid Dostum who are wanted over allegations of torture and abuse have been questioned by the authorities after weeks of refusing to cooperate, officials say. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
 
Afghanistan and Pakistan are coming back into view as centers of terror and unrest potentially every bit as dangerous to the United States as the so-called Islamic State that operates in Iraq and Syria. And Afghanistan’s a part of the world where McMaster discovered his hard charging left him with limp results. – The Daily Beast
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Kelly Magsamen writes: [C]oherent national security strategy is profoundly influenced by three key institutional relationships — between the White House and the Pentagon, between civilians and the military inside the Pentagon, and between the State Department and the Pentagon. What follows are some recommendations for how the Trump team can try to reach a healthy equilibrium in all three. – Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government
Seeing Gray in the Next World War
From Neil Hollenbeck and Benjamin Jensen, War on the Rocks: "Next to a strong country lays a weaker neighbor internally divided by a long-running political struggle.  Many yearn for unification with the stronger country, with whom they share cultural ties.  But many others are determined to maintain their country’s independence.  By overt and clandestine means, the stronger country skillfully shapes political events across the border.  As the pro-independence party clings to power in this weaker country, their strong neighbor uses a variety of means — from coercive diplomacy to influence operations and bribery — to undermine democratic institutions.  As the situation in the weaker country slips into violence, the stronger neighbor fabricates an official request for military assistance and announces it will send forces to “restore order” with the full consent of its weaker neighbor. Confusion reigns as a misinformation campaign, causing some to believe their head of government has resigned.  Recognizing defeat is imminent, the head of the weaker country’s government relinquishes power to a pro-unification politician.  The country’s military does not resist when forces enter from across the border.  Soon thereafter, news outlets report that a popular referendum shows 99.7 percent favor unification, ratifying the fait acompli.  No shots were fired."
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The Plan

2/21/2017

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  • General Keane and James Jeffreyon the battle for Mosul
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Saudi's In a Bind

2/21/2017

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Interview: Joseph Westphal…The former academic leader and U.S. Army undersecretary relinquished ambassadorship when Donald Trump became president. He spoke with Defense News earlier this month about the defense ties, the turbulence and the kingdom's outlook on President Trump. – Defense News
Mideast monarchies, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are flooding their arsenals with foreign weapons at a staggering pace in the region now accounting for 23 percent of all global arms procurement. – Washington Times
 
Despite the churn in the U.S. capital as the new administration takes over, despite the attempted Muslim ban and despite President Trump’s “America first” proclamations, there is a sense among veteran U.S.-based Middle East observers that relations with the Gulf states are stable and might even benefit from the power changes. – Defense News
 
The Houthi boat that attacked and hit a Saudi frigate Jan. 30 in the Red Sea, reported earlier as a suicide boat, was instead carried out by an unmanned, remote-controlled craft filled with explosives, the US Navy’s top officer in the Mideast said. – Defense News
 
The Army recently added a division headquarters to supplement its eight brigade combat team-sized formations in the U.S. Central Command area of operations, which is freeing up the service to focus on theater-wide strategy and operational tasks, the three-star general in charge of US Army Central said Monday. – Defense News
 
Josh Rogin reports: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson professed in his Senate confirmation testimony that “our values are our interests when it comes to human rights.” Yet one of his State Department’s first acts may be to abandon that stance with the tiny but strategic Persian Gulf state of Bahrain. – Washington Post
 
Con Coughlin writes: Since taking office, President Trump has lost no time signaling his determination to adopt a far more robust approach to dealing with Iran than his predecessor…But if Mr. Trump wants to get tough on the ayatollahs, then he will need to invest time rebuilding relations with America’s traditional Arab allies, many of which feel ostracized by the treatment they received from President Obama. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
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Def. Sec. Must Shape U.S. Policy in Afghanistan & Mosul; McMaster on Corruption in Afghanistan

2/21/2017

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  • US troops move closer to the front lines in Mosul fight
  • Mattis to decide soon on US troop levels in Afghanistan
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, on the first visit by a senior Trump administration official to Iraq, worked on Monday to repair breaches of trust with Iraq’s leaders caused by his boss just as the two sides began a major offensive to oust the Islamic State from its last stronghold in the country. – New York Times
 
Iraqi forces resumed their offensive against the Islamic State in Mosul on Sunday after a weeks-long pause, aiming to capture the militant-controlled western half of the city, where the tight, impassable streets and teeming neighborhoods will pose a formidable challenge to the advancing fighters. – Washington Post
 
The Pentagon is deploying U.S. military advisers closer to the front lines in the campaign against the Islamic State as Iraqi security forces wrestle for control of the city of Mosul, the top U.S. commander here said Monday. – Washington Post
 
Several hundred thousand civilians are enduring desperate conditions and facing retribution by Islamic State fighters in western Mosul as Iraqi forces prepare to attack militants who control the city’s western half, according to residents and humanitarian groups. – New York Times
 
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday he believes U.S. forces will be in Iraq and in the fight against Islamic State militants for a while, despite some rocky times between the two nations. – Associated Press
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U.S. Running out of Patience with Pakistan, Islamabad Running out of Friends

2/21/2017

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AEI
Chris Kolenda:  The Hill
Hostility between Afghanistan and Pakistan has soared after Islamabad responded to a series of attacks at home with military operations that officials in Kabul say included firing rockets into Afghan territory. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
Two suicide bombers were fatally shot and a third blew himself up on Tuesday while trying to attack a courthouse in northern Pakistan as violence continued to hit the country. – New York Times
 
[T]he stunning new eruption of violence, claimed by the Islamic State and its local affiliates as part of a new war on the Pakistani state, has triggered an outpouring of anguished and angry recrimination against Pakistan’s leaders for failing to acknowledge and address the ongoing threat of Islamist violence and the forces that feed it. – Washington Post
 
Although many of the issues galvanizing voters are local, the outcome in Uttar Pradesh is likely to be taken as a midterm report card on the national government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. – Washington Post
 
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he plans to make some decisions soon on whether to recommend an increase in the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and whether the totals should be based on military requirements rather than preset limits. – Associated Press
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Israeli Domestic Consciousness On the Move

2/17/2017

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Pakistan Sufi Shrine Rocked with Suicide Bomber, 100 confirmed Dead

2/16/2017

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The U.K. Guardian
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Pakistan's Social Trajectory Growing, Fracturing; India Launches Into Space & Modi's Voting Begins

2/16/2017

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  • FPI’s Adesnik: Top commander reports “stalemate” in Afghanistan
Pakistan, a Muslim democracy of 180 million people, is becoming both more Western and more Islamic at the same time. As it moves into the Internet era and the global economy, the lines are being drawn more sharply. As more professionals in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi adopt Western dress and tastes, more members of the vast ­religious faithful are hewing to the anti-Western rhetoric of radical clerics. – Washington Post
 
Voters in Uttar Pradesh began going to the polls last weekend, at the start of monthlong voting in seven phases across the state, and the final tally will not be known for several weeks. But if the vote is a referendum on Mr. Modi’s first three years, it will also, to a great extent, determine whether he can follow through on the ambitious agenda with which he swept to power in 2014. – New York Times
 
India’s space agency launched a flock of 104 satellites into space over the course of 18 minutes on Wednesday, nearly tripling the previous record for single-day satellite launches and establishing India as a key player in a growing commercial market for space-based surveillance and communication. – New York Times
 
Russia intends to host on Wednesday a controversial meeting of regional powers aimed at devising a solution to Afghanistan’s 16-year-old war, despite a warning by the top U.S. commander that Moscow’s increasing involvement in the country was threatening its stability. – Stars and Stripes
 
A suicide bomber attacked a van carrying judges in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Wednesday, killing the driver and a passerby, police said, the second attack of the day in a new surge in militant violence. - Reuters
Pakistani counter-terrorism police raided a militant hideout and killed six suspected members of a Taliban faction that has launched a new campaign of violence against the government, police said on Thursday. - Reuters
 
China will delay a planned $1.1 billion investment in a port on its modern-day "Silk Road" until Sri Lanka clears legal and political obstacles to a related project, sources familiar with the talks said, piling more pressure on the island nation. - Reuters
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Iranian Expansion Overseas With Growing Proxies

2/16/2017

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  • Iran warns Trump against disclosing secret deal documents
Iran and Russia aren’t often on the same page in the Middle East. But if President Donald Trump’s administration attempts to drive a wedge between the two, there is precious little incentive it can offer Moscow to abandon its crucial partner. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
Senior Iranian officials are warning the Trump administration about disclosing secret deals related to the nuclear deal that have long been hidden from the public by the Obama administration, according to recent comments that prompted pushback from senior sources on Capitol Hill. – Washington Free Beacon
Iran’s hard-line Islamic regime has escalated its overseas terrorist operations, establishing a network of over a dozen internal training camps for foreign fighters, the regime’s largest resistance group said at a press conference on Tuesday in Washington. – Washington Examiner
When the Shia group’s fighters first poured into Syria to fight the mostly Sunni rebels, many observers expected Hizbollah to be worn down and its reputation as the pre-eminent anti-Israel force to be tarnished as it was dragged into a sectarian conflict. Instead, Hizbollah, closely allied to Iran, looks set to emerge more powerful than before — one of the big winners of Syria’s war. – Financial Times
 
Russian jets pounded rebel-held areas of the Syrian city of Deraa on Tuesday for a second day in the first such intensive bombing campaign since Moscow's major intervention in Syria more than a year ago, rebels and witnesses said. - Reuters
 
The United Nations is warning of catastrophic flooding in Syria from the Tabqa dam, which is at risk from high water levels, deliberate sabotage by Islamic State (IS) and further damage from air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition. - Reuters
 
Report: A new Atlantic Council report—Breaking Aleppo—uses satellite images, TV footage, social media, and security camera videos to debunk Russia’s claims that no civilians were killed in its airstrikes on the city of Aleppo in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. – Atlantic
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Trump Acknowledges New Reality:  2 State Solution Dead

2/16/2017

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  • Fontaine, Singh: Is America no longer the Mideast’s great power?
  • Trump will not press “two state solution” with Netanyahu
Analysis: The Trump administration plans to focus on an “outside-in” approach, meaning that Israel would first pursue agreements with Arab countries to help solve the conflict with the Palestinians. But that is a long shot, experts say, given some of the crises gripping the region: Saudi Arabia is mired in a war in Yemen; Egypt is reeling from economic and security concerns; and Jordan is focused on securing its borders with Iraq and Syria. – New York Times
President Trump said on Wednesday that the United States would no longer insist on a Palestinian state as part of a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians, backing away from a policy that has underpinned America’s role in Middle East peacemaking since the Clinton administration. – New York Times
 
Palestinians reacted with anger and bafflement on Wednesday after the Trump administration apparently backed away from insisting that having two states — one for Israelis, one for Palestinians — was the only viable solution to the decades-long Middle East conflict. – New York Times
 
The Trump administration’s shift away from calling for a separate Palestinian state as part of a peace deal with Israel brings U.S. policy closer to the stance of the Jewish settler movement but puts it at odds with longstanding positions of European, Arab and other allies. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
In the days leading up to Mr. Netanyahu’s first meeting with Mr. Trump as president, and Mr. Friedman’s confirmation hearings, which are expected to start on Thursday, the mood in Beit El seemed to encapsulate all the uncertainty and contradictions manifested by the new administration. – New York Times
 
Editorial: A U.S.-Israeli deal limiting construction to existing communities close to Israel’s borders would have the practical effect of preserving the possibility of side-by-side states. If Mr. Trump really wants to broker a deal, he should start by pressing Mr. Netanyahu for such a commitment. – Washington Post
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AEI New Critical Threats Project, New Arab Coalitions & Updates on Syrian Civil War

2/16/2017

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CTP
  • US, Mideast allies explore Arab military coalition
Richard Fontaine and Michael Singh write: . The United States alone retains the unique ability to forge partnerships among these actors to advance not just parochial, short-term interests but the broader security, stability and prosperity needed to prevent the region’s further collapse. It is time to start the endeavor. – The National Interest
A cease-fire brokered by Turkey and Russia two months ago is fraying along Syria’s southern border as rebel forces launch their largest offensive in the area in more than a year. – Washington Post
 
Months after the Pentagon said it wouldn’t use a controversial type of armor-piercing ammunition that has been blamed for long-term health complications, U.S. aircraft fired thousands of the rounds during two high-profile air raids in Syria in November 2015, the Pentagon acknowledged Wednesday. – Washington Post’s Checkpoint
 
The Defense Department might propose that the US send conventional ground combat forces into northern Syria for the first time to speed up the fight against ISIS, CNN has learned. - CNN
 
Countries opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will meet on Friday for the first time since Donald Trump's U.S. administration took office, to seek common ground ahead of U.N.-backed peace talks in Geneva next week. - Reuters
 
Syrian Islamist fighters have executed scores of insurgents in the west of the country in an increasingly bloody battle between different militant groups, the SITE Intelligence Group said. - Reuters
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News From Mosul:  The Front-lines 2017

2/16/2017

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Rubin Center
The Islamic State is nearing defeat on the battlefield, but away from the front lines its members are seeping back into areas the group once controlled, taking advantage of rampant corruption in Iraq’s security forces and institutions. – Washington Post
 
They called him Abu Zakariya al-Britani — the surname means “the Briton” — and they say he blew himself up on Monday in an attack at a village southwest of Mosul, Iraq. – New York Times
 
U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces closing in on the Islamic State-held western half of Mosul launched a major offensive on the city's airport and fought their way into a nearby military base on Thursday. - Reuters
 
A few hundred civilians have fled their homes in the outskirts of western Mosul, the first reported displacement since a U.S.-backed offensive on the jihadists' remaining stronghold there began at the weekend. - Reuters
 
Until now, a lack of psychiatrists and other mental health specialists in northern Iraq meant that many Yazidi women - a minority singled out for especially harsh treatment by IS - got little or no help. That's about to change with the establishment of a new psychological training center at the University of Dohuk in Iraq, the first in the entire region. – Associated Press
 
Bilal Wahab writes: No one should doubt America’s military capacity to end the totalitarian regime established by the Islamic State on Iraqi and Syrian soil. But the true measure of American greatness will lie in Washington’s strategic capacity to fashion a decent and sustainable order out of the rubble. Getting Kurdish strategy right will be crucial to achieving success. – Washington Post
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The Near East Imploding Now

2/16/2017

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