Al-Shabab attacks military base used by US forces in Kenya
"As Tensions With Iran Escalated, Trump Opted for Most Extreme Measure"
Abdi Guled, Tom Odula and Cara Anna Associated Press
Jan 5, 2020
NAIROBI, Kenya – The U.S. military said the security situation was “fluid” at a Kenyan airfield used by U.S. forces after a pre-dawn attack Sunday by the al-Shabab extremist group. The attack destroyed U.S. aircraft and vehicles, Kenyan authorities said, and at least four attackers were killed.
It was not yet clear whether any U.S. or Kenyan forces were killed. A U.S. Africa Command statement said “an accountability of personnel assessment is underway.” The midday statement said the Manda Bay airfield was “still in the process of being fully secured.”
The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, based in neighboring Somalia, claimed responsibility and asserted that “intense” combat with U.S. forces continued. The U.S. statement called the al-Shabab claims exaggerated and said U.S. and Kenyan forces repelled the attack.
It is the first known al-Shabab attack against U.S. forces inside Kenya, a key base for fighting one of the world’s most resilient extremist organizations.
A plume of black smoke rose above the base. Residents said a car bomb had exploded early in the morning. Lamu county commissioner Irungu Macharia told The Associated Press that five suspects were arrested and were being interrogated.
An internal Kenyan police report seen by the AP said two fixed-wing aircraft, a U.S. Cessna and a Kenyan one, were destroyed along with two U.S. helicopters and multiple U.S. vehicles at the Manda Bay military airstrip. The report said explosions were heard at around 5:30 a.m. from the direction of the airstrip. The scene, now secured, indicated that al-Shabab likely entered “to conduct targeted attacks,” the report said.
The U.S. military said only that “initial reports reflect damage to infrastructure and equipment.” The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said the airstrip was closed for all operations.
Al-Shabab’s statement included photos of blazing aircraft it asserted were from the attack. A second al-Shabab claim issued hours later asserted that “ïntense close-quarters combat” against U.S. forces continued.
The military’s Camp Simba in Lamu county, established more than a decade ago, has under 100 U.S. personnel, according to Pentagon figures. U.S. forces at the Manda Bay airfield train and give counterterror support to East African partners, according to the military. A U.S. flag-raising at the camp in August signaled its change “from tactical to enduring operations,” the Air Force said at the time.
According to another internal Kenyan police report seen by the AP, dated Friday, a villager that day said he had spotted 11 suspected al-Shabab members entering Lamu’s Boni forest, which the extremists have used as a hideout. The report said Kenyan authorities did not find them.
Al-Shabab has launched a number of attacks inside Kenya, including against civilian targets such as buses, schools and shopping malls. The group has been the target of a growing number of U.S. airstrikes inside Somalia during President Donald Trump’s administration.
The latest attack comes just over a week after an al-Shabab truck bomb in Somalia’s capital killed at least 79 people and U.S. airstrikes killed seven al-Shabab fighters in response.
Last year al-Shabab attacked a U.S. military base inside Somalia, Baledogle, that is used to launch drone strikes but reportedly failed to make their way inside. The extremist group also has carried out multiple attacks against Kenyan troops in the past in retaliation for Kenya sending troops to Somalia to fight it.
This attack marks a significantescalation of al-Shabab’s campaign of attacks inside Kenya, said analyst Andrew Franklin, a former U.S. Marine and longtime Kenya resident.
“Launching a deliberate assault of this type against a well-defended permanent base occupied by (Kenya Defence Forces), contractors and U.S. military personnel required a great deal of planning, rehearsals, logistics and operational capability,” he said. Previous attacks against security forces have mainly been ambushes on Kenyan army or police patrols.
The early Sunday attack comes days after a U.S. airstrike killed Iran’s top military commander and Iran vowed retaliation, but al-Shabab is a Sunni Muslim group and there is no sign of links to Shiite Iran or proxies.
“No, this attack was no way related to that incident” in the Middle East, an al-Shabab spokesman told the AP. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
One analyst, Rashid Abdi, in Twitter posts discussing the attack agreed but added that Kenyan security services have long been worried that Iran was trying to cultivate ties with al-Shabab.
“Avowedly Wahhabist Al-Shabaab not natural ally of Shia Iran, hostile, even. But if Kenyan claims true, AS attack may have been well-timed to signal to Iran it is open for tactical alliances,” he wrote, adding that “an AS that forges relations with Iran is nightmare scenario.”
But a former member of the U.N. committee monitoring sanctions on Somalia, Jay Bahadur, said in a tweet that “the attack is far more related to AS wanting a do over on their spectacular failure at Baledogle four months ago.”
When asked whether the U.S. military was looking into any Iranian link to the attack, U.S. Africa Command spokesman Col. Christopher Karns said only that “al-Shabab, affiliated with al-Qaida, has their own agenda and have made clear their desire to attack U.S. interests.”
The al-Shabab claim of responsibility said Sunday’s attack was part of its “Jerusalem will never be Judaized” campaign, a rarely made reference that also was used after al-Shabab’s deadly attack on a luxury mall complex in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, in January 2019.
Blowback: Iran abandons nuclear limits after US killing
The blowback over the U.S. killing of a top Iranian general is mounting
By NASSER KARIMI, JON GAMBRELL and ZEINA KARAM Associated Press January 6, 2020, 12:23 PM
VIDEO 3:21 Fallout from Iranian general's death Is the United States heading to war with Iran after the killing of its military leader?
[Iran to be held responsible for all actions by surrogates, as Hezbollah. The Colonel says it could go either way.
Also, we should not forget surrogates have their own agendas too. No one wants war so likely there will not be all-out war.]
The Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran -- The blowback over the U.S. killing of a top Iranian general mounted Sunday as Iran announced it will no longer abide by the limits contained in the 2015 nuclear deal and Iraq's Parliament called for the expulsion of all American troops from Iraqi soil.
The twin developments could bring Iran closer to building an atomic bomb and enable the Islamic State group to stage a comeback in Iraq, making the Middle East a far more dangerous and unstable place.
Iranian state television cited a statement by President Hassan Rouhani's administration saying the country would not observe the deal's restrictions on fuel enrichment, on the size of its enriched uranium stockpile and on its research and development activities.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran no longer faces any limitations in operations," a state TV broadcaster said.
In Iraq, meanwhile, lawmakers voted in favor of a resolution calling for an end to the foreign military presence in the country, including the estimated 5,200 U.S. troops stationed to help fight Islamic State extremists. The bill is subject to approval by the Iraqi government but has the backing of the outgoing prime minister.
In yet another sign of rising tensions and threats of retaliation over the deadly airstrike, the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq said it is putting the battle against IS on hold to focus on protecting its own troops and bases.
The string of developments capped a day of mass mourning over Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad on Friday. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets in the cities of Ahvaz and Mashhad to walk alongside the casket of Soleimani, who was the architect of Iran's proxy wars across the Mideast and was blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in roadside bombings and other attacks.
U.S. President Donald Trump responded to the Parliament's troop withdrawal vote with a monetary threat, saying the U.S. expected to be paid for its military investments in Iraq before leaving and threatening economic sanctions if the U.S. is not treated properly.
“We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it," he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame," he said
He added: “We’re not leaving until they pay us back for it.”
State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus earlier said the U.S. is awaiting clarification on its legal meaning but was “disappointed” by the move and strongly urged Iraq to reconsider.
“We believe it is in the shared interests of the United States and Iraq to continue fighting ISIS together,” Ortagus said.
The leaders of Germany, France and Britain issued a joint statement on Sunday calling on Iran to abide by the terms of the nuclear deal and refrain from conducting or supporting further “violent acts.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson specifically urged Iran to “withdraw all measures” not in line with the 2015 agreement that was intended to stop Tehran from pursuing its atomic weapons program.
Iran insisted that it remains open to negotiations with European partners over its nuclear program. And it did not back off from earlier promises that it wouldn't seek a nuclear weapon.
However, the announcement represents the clearest nuclear proliferation threat yet made by Iran since Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. It further raises regional tensions, as Iran's longtime foe Israel has promised never to allow Iran to produce an atomic bomb.
Iran did not elaborate on what levels it would immediately reach in its program. Tehran has already broken some of the deal's limits as part of a step-by-step pressure campaign to get sanctions relief. It has increased its production, begun enriching uranium to 5% and restarted enrichment at an underground facility.
While it does not possess uranium enriched to weapons-grade levels of 90%, any push forward narrows the estimated one-year “breakout time” needed for it to have enough material to build a nuclear weapon if it chose to do so.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations watchdog observing Iran's program, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, Iran said that its cooperation with the IAEA “will continue as before.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi earlier told journalists that Soleimani's killing would prompt Iranian officials to take a bigger step away from the nuclear deal.
“In the world of politics, all developments are interconnected," Mousavi said.
In Iraq, where the airstrike has been denounced as a violation of the country's sovereignty, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said that the government has two choices: End the presence of foreign troops or restrict their mission to training Iraqi forces. He called for the first option.
The majority of about 180 legislators present in Parliament voted in favor of the troop-removal resolution. It was backed by most Shiite members of Parliament, who hold a majority of seats. Many Sunni and Kurdish legislators did not show up for the session, apparently because they oppose abolishing the deal.
A U.S. pullout could not only undermine the fight against the Islamic State but could also enable Iran to increase its influence in Iraq, which like Iran is a majority-Shiite country.
Soleimani's killing has escalated the crisis between Tehran and Washington after months of back-and-forth attacks and threats that have put the wider Middle East on edge. Iran has promised “harsh revenge" for the U.S. attack, while Trump has vowed on Twitter that the U.S. will strike back at 52 targets “VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. ”
He doubled down on that threat Sunday, dismissing warnings that targeting cultural sites could be a war crime under international law.
“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump told reporters.
The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia warned Americans “of the heightened risk of missile and drone attacks.” In Lebanon, the leader of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said Soleimani's killing made U.S. military bases, warships and service members across the region fair game for attacks. A former Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader suggested the Israeli city of Haifa and centers like Tel Aviv could be targeted should the U.S. attack Iran.
Iranian state TV estimated that millions of mourners came out in Ahvaz and Mashhad to pay their respects to Soleimani.
The casket moved slowly through streets choked with mourners wearing black, beating their chests and carrying posters with Soleimani's portrait. Demonstrators also carried red Shiite flags, which traditionally symbolize both the spilled blood of someone unjustly killed and a call for vengeance.
The processions marked the first time Iran honored a single man with a multi-city ceremony. Not even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic, received such a processional with his death in 1989. Soleimani on Monday will lie in state at Tehran's famed Musalla mosque as the revolutionary leader did before him.
Soleimani's remains will go to Tehran and Qom on Monday for public mourning processions. He will be buried in his hometown of Kerman.
———
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy in Dubai, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Kelvin Chan in London and Robert Burns and Jonathan Lemire in Washington contributed to this report.
"As Tensions With Iran Escalated, Trump Opted for Most Extreme Measure"
The administration has sacrificed a crucial relationship with Iraq at the altar of a dangerous policy on Iran.
By Daniel Benaim
Mr. Benaim was a Middle East adviser in the Obama administration.
Jan. 5, 2020
A protester outside the American Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday. Khalid Al Mousily/Reuters
Americans will debate the American drone strike that killed the Iranian commander Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani for a long time: whether it was wise, what it means for the Middle East, and how to proceed. But so far, the most dramatic consequences have arisen from where the strike happened — in Iraq. It appears that in undertaking the strike, the Trump administration may have sacrificed a valuable American counterterrorism partnership with Iraq at the altar of a risky pressure campaign against Iran with no end in sight.
On Sunday, Iraq’s Parliament took a nonbinding vote urging Iraq’s government to expel American forces from the country. The strike — on Iraqi soil, killing Iraqi officials, without Iraqi consent — appears to have united the two largest rival Shiite parliamentary blocs behind expulsion. Since 2014, American troops have been in the country as invited guests of the Iraqi government to fight the Islamic State and train the Iraqi military. Iraqis deemed a shooting war with Iran and its Iraqi allies as a far cry from that mission.
Iraqi politics sometimes goes to the precipice only to pull back. That could still happen here, especially given that Kurdish and Sunni leaders boycotted the vote. But it is difficult to see how American forces can stay to conduct their mission if the Iraqi Parliament, as well as inflamed Iraqi militias, now wish them gone. Iraqi political factions have previously tried to expel American forces only to fall short. But this time is different. After popular protests against corruption, Iraq’s political leadership is the weakest it has been in 15 years. So are the ties between American and Iraqi leaders.
Assuming these votes do indeed mean that America’s days in Iraq are numbered, that is bad for Iraq and America, a major opportunity for the Islamic State, and also a big victory for Iran. General Suleimani would have been pleased to see American forces pushed out of a country that shares a 900-mile border with Iran, where American troops represented one of the major counterweights to Tehran’s domination.
Yet leaving Iraq would be a logical outgrowth of Mr. Trump’s policies to date. Until recently, he has treated Iraq as either an afterthought or a disappointing appendage to his “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran. Despite its disastrous invasion and occupation, America has achieved both meaningful influence in Iraq and real joint successes in fighting jihadists with a combination of military and civilian engagement. Mr. Trump seemed to understand the military half of this equation. Had he set out to undermine the civilian side of the formula, he could scarcely have done better.
In his first week in office, the “Muslim ban” barred Iraqis from American soil even as they battled the Islamic State alongside American troops. Mr. Trump spoke early and often about wanting to “take the oil .. https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-3d9cd027-b3bb-4276-aaba-6e75c5c5aeee.html ” from Iraq, and then said America was only there .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/us/politics/trump-iraq-troops-syria-iran.html .. to “watch Iran.” In December 2018, he visited American troops in Iraq without meeting a single Iraqi leader — indeed, he still hasn’t met Iraq’s prime minister. There remains no senior point person for Iraq in the Trump administration. The administration also dangerously neglected reconstruction in the areas liberated from the Islamic State.
Even as tensions between the United States and Iran spiked after Mr. Trump walked away from the Iran nuclear deal, his administration withdrew American diplomats from southern Iraq and evacuated nonessential civilian staff from Baghdad. This means military reinforcements are arriving to protect a diplomatic skeleton crew navigating a political crisis in Iraq’s capital.
More American diplomats in Iraq would certainly be helpful right now: The United States should be urgently working with its remaining security and political partners, including Kurdish and Sunni leaders whose parliamentary blocs boycotted the vote, to see if it is possible to stave off complete expulsion or at least set the terms for an orderly departure. Americans’ safety remains paramount and under threat. Securely removing all Americans, advanced weaponry, sensitive intelligence, and other infrastructure would be a dizzying logistical challenge, as it was in 2011 over a long timeline in a relatively permissive environment. Should American forces be permitted to stay, operating safely and effectively will be immensely challenging. So will rebuilding Iraqi good will.
It did not have to be this way. A more successful policy .. https://tcf.org/content/report/america-pay-attention-iraq-late/ .. would have treated Iraq not simply as a battleground with Iran but as an important if flawed partner whose stability is in America’s self-interest. Iraq remains ground zero for fighting the Islamic State, which only a few years ago menaced the entire region as the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization. There are already signs of resurgence. That becomes more likely should the Defense Department and intelligence agencies lose their counterterrorism footprint inside Iraq.
Some may argue that by leaving, the United States will make Iraq and the jihadists there into Iran’s problem. But that ignores recent history, including the global chaos wreaked by the Islamic State just five years ago after American troops had left. Others suggest that, should the Islamic State re-emerge to threaten the world, America would be invited back. That is a risky bet given the nature of America’s departure.
Iraq is not only a counterterrorism theater and flash point for outside powers. It is also a country of nearly 40 million still recovering from civil war. It matters to America that the risk of relapse is real, but so are Iraqis’ chances to demonstrate that different sects and ethnicities can still live together in today’s Middle East. A wiser American approach in Iraq would have invested in Iraqi nationalists — seeing not just counterterrorism, Iranian infiltration, and oil, but the concerns of a young population that braved militia bullets to demand reforms to corrupt, broken politics. Mr. Trump has made clear his priorities lie elsewhere.
Daniel Benaim (@danielbenaim) holds fellowships at the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress. He served as a Middle East adviser in the Obama administration.
Top Democrat blasts Trump's 'false' justification for Soleimani killing
"As Tensions With Iran Escalated, Trump Opted for Most Extreme Measure "The Latest: Iraq parliament votes to expel US military""
The administration highlighted the 2002 authorization passed ahead of the invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
By CONNOR O’BRIEN
02/14/2020 11:50 AM EST
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel .. https://cd.politicopro.com/member/51370 .. slammed the Trump administration Friday over last month's killing of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, arguing a new report justifying the attack undermines the argument that the operation was in response to an imminent threat.
"The administration’s explanation in this report makes no mention of any imminent threat and shows that the justification the President offered to the American people was false, plain and simple," Engel said in a statement.
"To make matters worse, to avoid having to justify its actions to Congress, the administration falsely claims Congress had already authorized the strike under the 2002 Iraq war resolution," the New York Democrat added. "This legal theory is absurd."
The administration also highlighted the 2002 authorization passed ahead of the invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, which it argued also "may address threats to the United States posed by militias, terrorist groups, or other armed groups in Iraq."
"The airstrike against Soleimani in Iraq is consistent with this longstanding interpretation of the President's authority under Article II and the 2002 AUMF," the administration argued.
"Iran's past and recent activities, coupled with intelligence at the time of the air strike, indicated that Iran's Qods Force posed a threat to the United States in Iraq, and the air strike against Soleimani was intended to protect United States personnel and deter future Iranian attack plans against United States forces and interest in Iraq and threats emanating from Iraq," it said.
Congressional Democrats, and even some Republicans, have complained top administration officials haven't adequately outlined the imminent threat that justified the provocative move of killing Soleimani or shown an adequate legal justification.
"This spurious, after-the-fact explanation won’t do," Engel added of the report.
After weeks of wrangling with House Democrats, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to testify at a Feb. 28 Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Iran and Iraq policy, which the chairman said will cover "the Soleimani strike and war powers."
Lawmakers in both chambers have rebuked Trumpand sought to limit his war powers in the wake of Soleimani's killing and a retaliatory missile attack by Iran against bases in Iraq housing U.S. troops.
The Senate on Thursday passed a resolution .. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/13/cotton-amendment-war-powers-bill-114815 .. calling for an end to hostilities against Iran without congressional authorization. In addition to passing a war powers resolution, the House has recently voted to cut off funding for offensive military operations against Iran and to repeal the 2002 Iraq war AUMF.
DOJ drops leak case vs. McCabe, judge said White House involvement like a 'banana republic' The judge, a George W. Bush appointee, said "the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted" was like a "banana republic." .. in reply .. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153847659
Iran issues arrest warrant for Donald Trump, asks Interpol for 'red notice' over Qassem Soleimani killing
Posted 9 hours ago, updated 33 minutes ago
Iran has issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining US President Donald Trump and dozens of others it believes carried out the US drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad.
Key points:
* Iran wants Mr Trump and more than 30 other people detained under Interpol's highest level of arrest warrant
* Interpol is not expected to issue a red notice for Mr Trump due to its guidelines about political interference
* The US special representative for Iran said the move was a stunt that looked foolish
While Mr Trump faces no danger of arrest, the charges underscore the heightened tensions between Iran and the US since it unilaterally withdrew from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.
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