Iran has agreed to increase Hamas’ monthly payments in exchange for “information about Israel’s missile capabilities,” like reported by aawsat.com.

The Israeli Channel 12 said that Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, during a recent meeting in Tehran with nine Hamas officials, expressed his readiness to raise the movement’s monthly allocated financial support to $30 million.

Iran has long provided financial support to Hamas, but has decreased it sharply in recent years because of differences over the Syrian crisis. The new Iranian support is a powerful boost to Hamas, which is suffering a severe financial crisis in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere in the West Bank and abroad.

Over the past few years, Hamas and Iran have rebuilt their ties through Hezbollah’s interventions in Lebanon. Tehran resumed limited support for the group before deciding to increase it, following a visit by a Hamas delegation to Tehran two weeks ago.

The Israeli Channel 12 said that during these meetings, Tehran asked Hamas to provide intelligence information about the locations of Israel’s missile stocks. Hamas members said they would deliver the request to their leaders in Gaza. The movement has also reportedly asked Iran to launch a mediation with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, after their relations deteriorated during the Syrian crisis.

According to a Haaretz report last week, Israeli intelligence officials believe Hamas and Iran have agreed to open a front against Israel from the Gaza Strip in the event of war with Iran’s allies on the northern border.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad would try to force Israel to divert forces and air defense systems to the south from the northern front, a senior Israeli defense official was quoted by Haaretz as saying.

Amidst much speculation and contestation about the presence and strength of the Islamic State (IS) in India, two developments came in rather quick succession, like reported by eurasiareview.com. On 10 May 2019, the IS’s Amaq News Agency claimed that it has established “Wilayah of Hind” (province in India). This demonstrates an attempt by the outfit which had lost much of its footing in Iraq and Syria to gain foothold in new theatres, especially after the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka.

On the same day, Indian security forces in Kashmir’s Shopian district killed Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi, a militant associated with the IS. The IS in Jammu & Kashmir (otherwise known as the ISJK), according to security forces, is now left with only about three militants. Between the rhetoric of the IS and the claims of success by the security forces, lies a much larger area of understudied global jihadist mobilization in India. This article attempts to map the threat this phenomenon poses to the security of the country and the region.

Weakness of Global Jihadist outfits
The failure of the IS to ‘rage a storm’ in India needs to be analysed within the broader context of the lack of success of global jihadist organisations to find supporters among Indian Muslims, in the conflict theatres of India like Kashmir. The government of the day has periodically stressed upon the insularity of the Indian Muslims from what was happening in the Middle East, as also near home in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Muslims in general and especially those in conflict theatres of Kashmir have not made common cause with the alleged sufferings of their fellow Muslims elsewhere in the world; the prospect of living in a caliphate has also not held out much of an attraction for them. The fact that existing militant organisations and overground secessionists foresaw an existential threat from the global jihadists and hence, periodically criticized them, also played a part in limiting the latter’s influence.

Apart from this, two other reasons prevented the growth of either the al Qaeda (AQ) or the IS in Kashmir. First, the AQ and the IS were attempting to find foothold in an extremely crowded jihadist landscape of Kashmir. Outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen etc. have been operating in the region for many years and had captured the imagination of most militant sympathisers, either to fight for independence from India or to merge with Pakistan.

The only way for the AQ and the IS to find cadres in such an area was through mass-scale defection of existing outfits and reorienting them towards a goal of an Islamic Caliphate. They only had very limited success in this regard. Secondly, serious attempts by global jihadists, especially the AQ, to open shop in Kashmir started when their influence was waning in their core areas. Announcement of the al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) was made in September 2014. By then the AQ central had weakened significantly. No one wanted to be a part of a lost cause.

As a result, barring a dozen militants who were part of the Zakir Musa-led Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) and few others who joined the ISJK, Kashmir’s contribution to global jihad was almost non-existent. A lone youth, Aadil Ahmad Wada of Jawahar Nagar locality of the Srinagar city, is known to have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join the IS. Adil, who has an MBA from Queensland University in Australia, joined the organisation in 2013. He is now reportedly being held as a prisoner in Syria by the US-led coalition forces.

Trends and patterns in Recruitment
The Islamic State (IS) in India, however, has had greater success outside Kashmir. Although meagre compared to the huge Muslim population of 180 million in India, the number was significant enough to constitute a security challenge to the state.

There is no consensus, however, on the actual number of people who managed to join the outfit. The official figure is 108 and is revised upwards every passing month. The actual figure, collated from various sources by the strategic research forum Mantraya, is in the range of 200. A similar number of people were prevented from joining the IS while attempting to go to Iraq/Syria. Some of them were simply sent back to their families and some others, depending upon their level of radicalization, were arrested. It is possible to map these various patterns of radicalization and recruitment by the IS by identifying fourmajor trends.

First, IS recruitment has predominantly been targeted at Indian Muslims in general, maximum success has been achieved in southern Indian states like Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu. Although in the initial days of the declaration of caliphate in 2014, four individuals from Maharashtra started the phenomenon of outward journeys to join the IS, almost 90 per cent of the subsequent recruitment have been from India’s south. In 2016, for instance, 14 persons from Kerala had left India to join the IS in both Afghanistan and Syria. Several reasons such as contacts with the gulf states, influence of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism, and existence of home-grown radical outfits have been identified as some of the reasons for the phenomenon.

Secondly, the IS tapped successfully into the home-grown Islamist extremist organisations like the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Both the IM and the SIMI had lost considerable influence at the time when the IS established its caliphate. Their cadres, some who had been trained in explosives assembling and others who had operated as logistics providers, were lying low. It is this pool of people who were willing to become a part of the IS. Among the five Indians killed while fighting on behalf of the outfit are Abdul Qadir Sultan Armar from Bhatkal and Bada Sajid, both leaders of the SIMI/IM.

Thirdly, the IS tried to tap into the existing religious and sectarian faultlines in the country. Although it is difficult to assess the impact of such effort, IS’ clarion calls to Muslims to join the outfit often broached upon the alleged pitiful state of Muslims in a Hindu India. Instances of communal tensions, banning of beef, and alleged lop-sided policies of the government were cited to elicit support. One of the calls, however, did express exasperation at the group’s inability to inspire Indian Muslims to join the caliphate.

Fourthly, both online and offline efforts were made to find cadres and facilitators. Islamic State social media pages and Islamist forums have been the usual meeting points between recruiters and these youths. The arguably coherent and learned interpretation of Islam deeply rooted in prophetic methodology as well as its regressive practices have found reverberations in the youths attempting to join the outfit. This appeared to have impacted the youth with an inclination towards more puritanical sect of Islam.

Such online radicalisation has further been backed up by a rather large group of facilitators/ recruiters who not only spotted the potential recruits, motivated them and even made logistical arrangements for their journey. Mansoor Biswas, an employee in a multinational firm in Bangalore who handled the twitter handle @Shamiwitness to propagate IS-related news is well known. While Biswas, arrested in December 2014, remained the only known amplifier of Islamic State related news in India, people like HajaFakkurudeen Usman Ali, a Tamil Nadu resident and Afsha Jabeen, a lady from Hy derabad have played important role in directly recruiting people for the Islamic State.

Current state of Mobilization and Future threat
India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) has initiated investigations into at least 23 Islamic State-related cases since 2015 and has arrested approximately 100 people in connection with them. Since December 2018, 23 suspected IS operatives have been arrested from Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Kerala. Additional raids have been carried out in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Investigations into the IS networks that pan across India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh have been initiated.

One of the new trends discovered through these measures is the use of innocuous overground Muslim religious organisations to radicalize and plot attacks. According to Maharashtra police, nine persons arrested in January 2019 for planning to carry out attacks on behalf of the IS belonged to a group named Ummat-e-Mohammadiya. Similarly, 13 people arrested in December 2018 and January 2019 from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh belonged to a group called Harkat-ul-Harb-e-Islam.

The IS narrative in India appears to have gained a new meaning and importance after the Sri Lanka bombings which revealed complex networks through which the Islamic State tends to radicalize people and facilitates terror plots. Self-financed attacks carried out by a close-knit group of educated and computer savvy individuals without any criminal background are emerging as the newest set of perpetrators. The plans to carry out attacks, thus, remain within the group till the execution of the plot. India, thus far, has done well in thwarting threats posed by the radicalized individuals within the country.

However, in the times to come, it has to deal with the spectre of terrorists taking advantage of neighbouring countries with inadequate preparedness and counter-terror (CT) legislations to plot attacks. In the absence of a regional counter-terrorism architecture in South Asia, India has to fall back on bilateral CT cooperation with individual countries and inputs from the major powers like the United States. With the rising spectre of the Islamic State threat, India will need to devise better strategies to prevent the spread of the IS influence and mobilization inside the country and the region.

Iran said that it seized another ship on Sunday – an oil tanker it accused of smuggling oil from Iraq. Tehran has also mocked America’s attempt to create an international coalition to protect shipping in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, like reported by jpost.com. In short, Iran’s message is: We can do whatever we want in our Gulf and Strait. 

This is a far cry from the early days of May when the US warned Tehran against any provocations and threatened “unrelenting force.” Instead Washington has been cautious in its response. First came the sabotage of four tankers in May 12 and then the attack on two more on June 13, rockets fired near US bases in Iraq in mid-June, the downing of the US drone on June 20, harassment of a British oil tanker on July 11, capture of the tanker Riah on July 13 and the capture of a British tanker on July 19, as well as the recent seizing of another tanker on August 4.  

Iran would argue that all of these incidents are responses, or deny that it had even carried out some of them. But it increasingly appears that the Islamic republic is involved not only in the attacks in Iraq, but also attacks in Saudi Arabia and against the tankers. But the real message is that Iran can do what it wants, and there is no “unrelenting” response. In fact, there is little response. The US has said that sanctions are breaking Iran and that it is facing “relentless” pressure. Iran says it faces “economic terrorism” and accuses the US and UK, as well as others, of working against it. Iran is scrapping parts of the nuclear deal in response. 

But its real message is closer to home. Iran knows that no country has the stomach for a conflict with it, and most won’t join a US coalition in the Gulf. It also knows that the UK wants de-escalation amid the Brexit crisis and that US President Donald Trump does not want war.

Tehran has read the American playbook and, through its recent actions, is attempting to assert power in the Persian Gulf: power not just in the areas controlled by its coastal waters, but real power – to show that it is the only one that guarantees security in the Gulf.

Iran has said as much and wants to show that this is the case. Yet it holds out a fig leaf about peace to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Javad Zarif, who was sanctioned by the US last week, has reached out to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. The UAE appears to be reciprocating, with one Emirati minister indicating that both Gulf countries want diplomacy over conflict. 

On July 12, al-Shabaab Islamic terrorists attacked a hotel in the Somali seaport of Kismayo. They detonated a suicide car bomb, and then gunmen shot their way into the hotel. The attack left 33 human beings dead and injured at least 50, like reported by townhall.com.

Do events like this in anarchic Somalia matter beyond the immediate region?

Let’s consider some uncomfortable history. In April 1992, the UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM I) deployed to feed and protect 5 million threatened people. In December 1992, American military forces arrived to assist Operation Restore Hope. In October 1993, U.S. Army Rangers fought militants hand to hand in the streets of the capital, Mogadishu. The tragic incident, now known as Black Hawk Down, led to America’s 1994 withdrawal from Somalia.

Declassified al-Qaida documents revealed that the American withdrawal from Somalia fed the megalomaniacal fantasies of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. Somalia told them Americans would flee when confronted by Islamists who possessed unbreakable will.

The U.S. left, for a while. However, international peacekeepers have remained in Somalia for 27 years (1992 to 2019). The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is the current force. Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti contribute soldiers.

In late May, the UN, which co-sponsors AMISOM, ordered troop reductions and begrudgingly extended the mission through 2021.

Then, June and July produced bad news as al-Shabaab launched surprise attacks in Somalia and in neighboring Kenya.

With the spectacular Kismayo attack, al-Shabaab sent the message that virulent Islamist terrorism continues to plague Somalia and East Africa. A “declining” al-Shabaab had been the tenor of distant media coverage. Kismayo completely scotched rosy notions that al-Shabaab’s threat to Somalia is abating.

Not everyone bought the optimism. In January, Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal, wrote that al-Shabaab “continues to maintain an effective insurgency, controls large rural areas in southern and central Somalia, and continues to threaten Somali cities and towns.” Roggio challenged an NBC News report that the Pentagon was scaling back counterterror unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) strikes in Somalia.

In the December 2018 issue of CTC Sentinel magazine, Voice of America’s Harun Maruf and Dan Joseph noted al-Shabaab’s financial strength: “According to U.N. monitors, the group’s taxation system has grown in sophistication and reach to the point where al-Shabaab is now likely running a budget surplus.”

Taxation? Theft at gunpoint is more accurate. Al-Shabaab’s smuggling operations exploit Somalia’s anarchy and fragmentation. There is evidence the terror outfit consorts with Somali pirates and shares in ship ransoms.

Al-Shabaab is resilient, but it’s unlikely negotiations could end the war. The group insists Somalia must have an Islamic government implementing al-Shabaab’s preferred interpretation of sharia. Here’s a hint of what that entails: According to AllAfrica.com, Dalsan Radio in Mogadishu reported that al-Shabaab has threatened to kill Somali clan elders helping select potential members of the federal parliament unless the elders “repent within 45 days.” The terrorists accused the clan leaders of creating an “apostate administration contrary to the teachings of Allah.”

Al-Shabaab isn’t omnipotent. U.S. drone attacks have killed key al-Shabaab leaders and hindered its operations. Striking leadership meetings and concentrations of gunmen has a demoralizing effect.

U.S. drones also target al-Qaida and Islamic State terrorists in Somalia.

Al-Shabaab has ties to both international terror groups. It counts the Allied Democratic Forces-National Army for the Liberation of Uganda as a regional ally. Al-Shabaab claimed credit for the July 2010 terror bombings in Kampala, Uganda, that killed 76 people. The ADF’s violence has no limits. This year, ADF jihadis have attacked and destroyed Ebola virus clinics in eastern Congo. The militants regard the Ebola virus as a weapon of mass destruction that their terror attacks can unleash on sub-Saharan Africa.

Yes, Somalia matters, for the global war on terror continues because the terrorists’ war on America continues, and Somalia is one battleground.

The commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), Khalifa Haftar, has launched a new foreign-backed air campaign to unseat the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, like reported by warontherocks.com.

The LNA launched Operation End of Treachery July 1 after a GNA ground offensive pushed Haftar’s army back out of the city of Gharian, which had served as the staging ground for the LNA’s April 4 Tripoli offensive. This loss seriously jeopardized Haftar’s ability to sustain his ground offensive in Tripoli. Now, the last LNA supply line in the town of Tarhuna, 60 kilometers of Tripoli, is the prize GNA forces eye hungrily from Tripoli.

The loss of Gharian was a pivotal moment in the Libyan civil war, as GNA ground forces now begin to encircle and apply pressure to Tarhuna in the hope of breaking the LNA’s military resolve. Tarhuna’s armed groups aligned with the LNA days before the offensive and are primarily motivated by access to Tripoli’s lucrative security arrangements. A siege could force Tarhuna to renegotiate a pragmatic ceasefire and enduring peace, independent of Haftar, around inclusive security arrangements. A military siege that cuts the final military supply line from Tarhuna or ends in negotiations almost certainly ends Haftar’s ground offensive against Tripoli. It also demonstrates Haftar’s political irrelevance to a peace agreement.

These military vulnerabilities, a fear of losing local allies, and political desperation to win Tripoli, all drive Haftar’s new operation with the backing of international sponsors. The current push poses a danger to any prospective peace deal to end the war. The new operation could transform the civil war from a shrinking and geographically contained ground offensive into a foreign-led air campaign intended to prop up Haftar, rendering any local ceasefire or peace talks between ground forces meaningless.

Why Gharian Was a Turning Point

The loss of Gharian is both a symbolic blow and a strategic loss to Haftar and marks a serious setback to his bid to take Tripoli by force. Gharian is one of two major supply lines into the LNA’s Tripoli offensive, and LNA ground forces in Tripoli are now more reliant upon the last remaining vulnerable supply chain from Tarhuna. Importantly, the supply chains offered unequal value and served the LNA operations room in distinct ways. Gharian is home to a small airfield, and was the most dynamic point in Haftar’s military logistics network supplying Tripoli. The airfield was critical to receiving high-value military equipment and arms by air deemed too risky to transport by land from Eastern Libya. After Haftar’s forces fled Gharian, GNA forces uncovered the LNA’s massive cache of high-value French-procured and U.S.-manufactured anti-tank missiles. Critically, Haftar’s ground forces used Gharian and its airfield as a rapid response supply line. The LNA operations room in Gharian also was able to rapidly respond by air to unanticipated military shortages and needs of LNA forces in Tripoli in a way that Tarhuna’s slower ground supply line couldn’t. This loss has put a tremendous amount of strain on the LNA and redirected the focus of GNA forces on Haftar’s last remaining supply line in Tarhuna. If Tarhuna’s military resolve were to be broken, through negotiations or conflict, the ground offensive in Tripoli would likely be over.

Libya’s Air War

Haftar responded to his loss in Gharian by launching the End of Treachery air campaign July 1 after “exhausting all traditional means” to capture Tripoli. There is growing concern that Haftar’s foreign backers are leading this new air campaign on Tripoli to compensate for Haftar’s ineffective ground offensive and military strategy. LNA military sources claim to have received new American-produced F16 aircraft, indicating foreign support from Haftar’s sponsors.

Both sides in the war now have foreign air support, but the strength, variety, and use of Haftar’s support vastly outweighs that of the GNA’s. Haftar has long relied upon the air support of the United Arab Emirates, which established an air base in eastern Libya in 2016, to support his military campaigns in Benghazi and Derna shortly after a U.N.-led agreement installed the GNA. The United Arab Emirates possesses a fleet of at least four Chinese drones in eastern Libya in addition to a mercenary air force using converted air tractors operated by Erik Prince. The first confirmed image of an alleged Emirati-operated, Chinese-produced Wingloon drone surfaced in Tripoli, shortly after the LNA announced its new air campaign. In comparison, the GNA recently came into possession of a Turkish drone that was reportedly destroyed by the LNA last month. The remainder of the GNA’s known air force, outdated MiG 21s and 23s, are effectively no match for the top-of-the-line American aircraft now carrying out airstrikes on Haftar’s behalf.

The full impact of this new air war was felt July 2. The GNA claims the United Arab Emirates conducted airstrikes that struck a migrant detention facility in Tripoli’s suburbs, killing at least 44 people and wounding 130. The strike targeted a GNA-allied armed group based in the complex housing the detention center. The United Nations claims the act could constitute a war crime in the bloodiest day since the Tripoli offensive began.

What next for Tripoli?

Mediation between GNA forces in Tripoli and LNA forces in Tarhuna could be the key to ending the ground offensive in the war for Tripoli. GNA forces began to coalesce around Tarhuna from neighboring towns on July 1 in a sign they intended to besiege the city and force a ceasefire. The United Nations has experience in local ceasefires around Tripoli: It successfully brokered a ceasefire last September between the very same forces from both factions in Tripoli, and it sanctioned actors who broke the ceasefire. However, the LNA successfully evaded condemnation, sanctions, and diplomatic pressure to enter ceasefire agreements since 2014. The LNA ignored International Criminal Court warrants for officers accused of war crimes, abandoned political talks and declared war on Tripoli during a visit by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres, and continuously violates embargos without repercussion. The GNA, which mediated with Haftar for 3 years until April 4 in an attempt to avoid conflict claims that international ambivalence and air support to Haftar left its forces with no choice but to break the arms embargo and seek “alternative options to defend themselves.” The confirmation of French military assistance to Hafter in Gharian will send shockwaves in Libya. France denied supporting Hafter on April 4, and claimed any French military presence in Gharian was “fake news” on July 1. This will certainly cast doubt on how the United Nations can criticize the GNA for breaking the arms embargo, whilst a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council delivers weapons and intelligence to Haftar to unseat the GNA.

Prospects for a diplomatic and peaceful settlement for the time being seem unrealistic given the prevailing military dynamic and discrete diplomatic support to Haftar. The U.N. Security Council convened July 4 to discuss LNA airstrikes on the migrant detention facility, but the United States prevented a statement condemning the airstrikes. Analysts question whether the United States has a coherent Libya policy, citing its political and commercial ties to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt as reason behind its tacit support of Haftar.

The transformation of the conflict from a localized battle in Tripoli’s suburbs and low intensity civil war into a large-scale, foreign-led air campaign seems more likely now than it ever has been before. This would render local ceasefires on the ground meaningless. Intriguingly, as military facts on the ground change, and new developments in the sky emerge, Haftar has become increasingly irrelevant to the decision to continue the war or broker peace. The growing role of external actors reveals that the key to an elusive peace and an end to the civil war may be in Libya, but not on the ground, and not entirely decided by Libyans.

The government of Iraq appears to be playing a double game with the United States and Iran over the influence of the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi umbrella organization of predominantly Shiite militias in the country, like reported by inn.com.

Almost three years after a law was passed making Hash al-Shaabi integral part of the Iraqi security forces Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi issued a decree ordering the Iranian-backed organization to integrate fully into the Iraqi military and abandon previous affiliations.

Mahdi issued an ultimatum which said the offices of Hasd al-Shaabi affiliated militias had to be closed down before July 31 while the militias also must end their practice of erasing checkpoints in areas where they want to increase their influence.

Militias failing to comply with the order will be considered illegal organizations while Mahdi gave them the option to transform into political parties after abandoning their weapons.

At first sight the move appeared to be the result of American pressure to curb the Iranian influence in Iraq. However, if we take a close look at what is actually going on in Iraqi Iranian relations we will see that the decree benefits Iran and that Iraq is playing a double game.

The US Administration of President Donald J. Trump started to pressure Iraq over curbing the activities of Hashd al-Shaabi after a series of attacks on US-related targets in Iraq by militias affiliated with the umbrella organization.

The State Department, furthermore, concluded that it was the Iranian proxy in Iraq and not the Ansar Allah (Houthi) militia in Yemen which was behind a recent drone attack on Saudi Arabia.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported the State Department “said it had evidence that drones used in the attack originated from southern Iraq, an area filled with pro-Iran Shia jihadist groups (Hashd al-Shaabi) that fight under the command of the Islamic (Iranian) Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”

The conclusions of the State Department came after a visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Iraq where he discussed the Iranian activities in the country.

After meeting with Iraqi leaders Pompeo said he had “urged the Iraqi government, for its own security, to get all of those forces [the militias] under Iraq central control.”

Mahdi’s decree was welcomed by some Hashd al-Shaabi militias while the powerful Hezbollah brigades did not take a clear stance on the decision and instead urged the Iraqi government to crack-down on alleged spy-rings in Iraq starting with the US Embassy in Baghdad.

The Hezbollah brigades last week published audio recordings and WhatsApp chats between Mahmoud al-Falahi, the commander of Iraqi army operations in the al-Anbar Province and an unnamed CIA agent which showed that al-Falahi had given the CIA detailed coordinates of military bases in the region of the Iranian border.

Fars News, an IRGC controlled media outlet in Iran, said al-Falahi had endangered Iraq’s national security and claimed he had also delivered sensitive information to the Israeli spy agency Mossad.

Other Hashd al-Shaabi leaders defiantly vowed that they would ignore Mahdi’s order and boasted the prime minister and Americans “are dreaming” if they think they can implement the decision.

The leaders of the largest Hashd al-Shaabi factions such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organization welcomed Mahdi’s decree, however.

The reason these groups are in favor of incorporating Hashd al-Shaabi as an integral part of the Iraqi military is that it would effectively transform Iraq into a second Lebanon where Hezbollah is doing Iran’s biding and is calling the shots.

Being a part of the Iraqi military would give Hashd al-Shaabi the same status as the IRGC in Iran and would give them access to sophisticated American weapons.

The US has provided over $22 billion in military aid to Iraq since 2005 and has delivered modern M1A1 tanks to the Iraqi army, for example.

There are other signs Iraq is turning into an Iranian proxy-state where the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani is taking the real important decisions.

Iraq succeeded in obtaining waivers on the (oil) sanctions imposed on Iran despite being one of the most oil-rich countries in the world.

In addition, Iraq is currently establishing a new financial system which will bypass US sanctions by creating a copy of the EU’s Instex.

“The Iraqi government will continue to pay Iran for gas by depositing money into a special bank account inside Iraq, in Iraqi dinars,” an Iraqi government official announced.

Last week, Iran, Iraq and Syria also signed a deal which will create a “multimodal transport corridor” from Tehran to Damascus. The deal will allow Iran to complete its land bridge from the Iranian border in the Nineveh Province in Iraq to the Syrian Golan Heights.

Then there is the big increase of Iranian exports to Iraq which have increased 20 percent over the past 100 days compared to the same period last year.

A staggering $25 million worth of goods were exported by Iran to its neighbor every day over the last three months while the Islamic Republic tries to import Iraqi products with the help of the Central Bank of Iraq.

The two countries are also in the process of establishing industrial zones near border crossings in both Iran and Iraq which will further boost economic ties.

So, does Mahdi’s decree help the United States or Iran?

The Iraqi Prime Minister owes his appointment to Hashd al-Shaabi which is part of the so-called Fatah-block and issued the order after consultations with his new chief of staff, Mohammed al-Hashimi, also known as Abu Jihad.

Al-Hashimi is affiliated with Hashd al-Shaabi and reportedly takes his orders from Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force.

The bombing of a Libyan migrant detention center that left more than 44 dead and more than 130 severely injured, the United Nations describing the attack as “a war crime and odious bloody carnage”, like reported by eurasiareview.com.

The center that was bombed by two airstrikes in the east of Tripoli was housing in the early hours of Wednesday morning and left the detention center a charred ruin. The LNA had on Monday warned that it was stepping up air raids on the capital in response to recent military reverses, the result of the bombing left more than 610 people died.

Libya’s UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, blamed Khalifa Haftar about the bombing they said that since April 4, 2019 hundreds of people have died.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for an independent investigation into the “outrageous” bombing. UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said the secretary general condemned “this horrendous incident in the strongest terms”.

They claimed that Haftar was responsible for that bombing because the detention center is close to a military supply depot for militia working to protect the GNA.

But Gen Khaled el-Mahjoub, a spokesman for the LNA, denied targeting the detention center, saying “We didn’t give orders to target the shelter,” he also mention that we had warned that as part of “exhausting all traditional means” to capture Tripoli, LNA would conduct “strong and decisive airstrikes” against select targets.

A few month ago, the UN refugee agency had previously called for people to be removed from the detention center in Tajoura, they mention we are expressing fears that they were likely to be victims of air raids being mounted by Haftar’s air force.

Ghassan Salamé UN special envoy for Libya said,“This attack clearly could constitute a war crime, as it killed by surprise innocent people whose dire conditions forced them to be in that shelter,” and we will put pressure on Haftar’s backers, notably the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, to withdraw their support, or at least demand an end to the nightly air raids.

Last week, though his military forces are deeply engaged in next-door Syria’s ruinous civil war, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to launch a military campaign in another former Turkish Ottoman Empire colonial possession: Libya.

Don’t dismiss the Ottoman link as a quaint historical reference, like reported by townhall.com. Ottoman rule influences contemporary Libyan politics in odd but evident ways. Empire connections have some resonance in 21st-century Turkey. Imperial glory may well have psychological import for the authoritarian Erdogan. His nickname is Sultan Recep.

European and Middle Eastern media paid close attention to Erdogan’s threat to attack Libya’s most militarily potent faction, the Libyan National Army. I’ll list a few reasons:

Libyan illegal migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea and enter Europe keep Libya’s conflict on European media radars. The Islamic State has a presence in Libya, so terrorist infiltration is a concern. Tunisia and Egypt fear “spillover” combat.

Turkey is a NATO member. When a NATO member threatens war, NATO allies review their treaty commitments relative to the potential war zone.

Through NATO, Turkey cautiously provided some support for Libyans rebelling against dictator Muammar Gaddafi during Libya’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution. Turkey had reasons for caution. In 2011, a substantial number of Turkish citizens were in Libya, many working for Turkish construction firms. Officials in Ankara were worried that Gaddafi or a rebel faction might hold Turks hostage.

In 2015 and 2016, the LNA, rooted in “eastern” Libya, began taking cities in the east. Most of Libya’s oil production and export facilities are in the east. The LNA secured them and began driving Government of National Accord forces further west. The LNA is sponsored by the eastern government: the House of Representatives, headquartered in Tobruk (not far from Egypt). The GNA is headquartered in Tripoli, the national capital, located way out west.

Deep divisions exist among and between Turkey and the leading Gulf Arab states about Syria. The same holds true for Libya. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt back the LNA, as (allegedly) does France. Turkey and Italy support the GNA, and it is nominally supported by the UN. The GNA, however, only controls the Tripoli area. Stranger bedfellows: Russia claims to support the LNA, and the U.S. has cautiously encouraged it. The LNA is led by the controversial general Khalifa Haftar. He was exiled in the U.S. for several years.

In April 2019, the LNA launched an offensive to take Tripoli. In June, as GNA militias near Tripoli began to defect, the LNA and UN officials recommenced ceasefire discussions. Combat near Tripoli has left an estimated 600 dead. Over 120,000 civilians have fled their homes to avoid the violence.

Then LNA fighters near the eastern seaport of Benghazi seized six Turkish seamen. Understand the LNA accuses Turkey of encouraging militant Islamic militias in Libya. The LNA freed the sailors after Erdogan’s threat. He had cause to demand their release. His threat, however, was quick and not proportional, especially with ongoing negotiations.

Erdogan’s trigger theatrics vastly complicate efforts to end the anarchic war, which was his real goal. The hostages gave Erdogan a handy reason to threaten military action. Now the GNA seems less willing to negotiate a settlement.

The Ottoman Empire had two major provinces in contemporary Libya: Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. Tripolitania was the west, ancient Cyrenaica the east. The Ottoman divide reflected the Roman Empire’s division. The Turks imposed a brutal and corrupt rule in both provinces. Italian colonial control, from 1912 to 1943, continued the legacy of foreign misrule. That affects 21st-century Libya.

Italy, a rising power seeking a neo-Roman Empire, invaded Libya in 1911, starting the Turco-Italian War (1911-1912). This obscure conflict was the first in an explosive chain of three little wars involving the Ottoman Empire, a declining great power. The First Balkan War (1912-13) and Second Balkan War (1913) followed. In 1914, World War I erupted, with the Balkan “powder keg” supplying the spark.

Al-Qaida has recruited an estimated 40,000 fighters since Sept. 11, 2001, when the Osama bin Laden-led extremist group attacked the United States, according to the not-for-profit Council on Foreign Relations and like reported by nationalinterest.org.

Despite a United States-led global “war on terror” that has cost US$5.9 trillion, killed an estimated 480,000 to 507,000 people and assassinated bin Laden, al-Qaida has grown and spread since 9/11, expanding from rural Afghanistan into North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, the Gulf States, the Middle East and Central Asia.

In those places, al-Qaida has developed new political influence – in some areas even supplanting the local government.

So how does a religious extremist group with fewer than a hundred members in September 2001 become a transnational terror organization, even as the world’s biggest military has targeted it for elimination?

According to my dissertation research on the resiliency of al-Qaida and the work of other scholars, the U.S. “war on terror” was the catalyst for al-Qaida’s growth.

Bin Laden and the ‘war on terror’

Al-Qaida was founded in Afghanistan in 1988 in response to the Soviet invasion of that country.

For decades, it was a small, weak and uninspiring movement. Bin Laden sought to raise an Islamic coalition of forces to establish a caliphate – an Islamic state governed with strict Islamic law – across the Muslim world. But as late as 1996 he had just 30 fighters willing to die for the cause.

For years, bin Laden tried to merge with such extremist groups as Egypt’s Ibn al-Khattab and the Libyan Islamic Fighting group, hoping to create a global Islamist movement.

These organizations rejected bin Laden’s overtures. These disparate groups lacked a common enemy that could unite them in al-Qaida’s fight for an Islamic caliphate.

So bin Laden shifted his strategy. He decided to make the United States – a country most Islamic extremist groups see as the enemy of Islam – his main target.

In 1998 al-Qaida waged successful attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In 2000, it bombed the USS Cole, a military ship refueling in a Yemen harbor, killing 17 sailors.

Bin Laden hoped the U.S. would respond with a military invasion into Muslim majority territory, triggering a holy war that would put al-Qaida at the forefront of the fight against these unholy invaders.

After al-Qaida operatives flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,977 people, bin Laden got his wish. The United States invaded Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001. Eighteen months later, it invaded Iraq.

How al-Qaida grew

Islamic groups and individual extremists flocked to bin Laden’s cause after 9/11. Al-Qaida became the nucleus of a global violent Islamist movement, with affiliates across the Middle East and Africa swearing their allegiance.

At the same time, the war in Afghanistan was decimating al-Qaida’s core operations.

Leaders were killed by drone strikes or driven into hiding. The Bush administration claimed killing 75% of al-Qaida leadership. Bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders sought refuge in places like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan and Yemen – remote areas outside the easy reach of U.S. ground forces.

To evade U.S. detection, al-Qaida had to limit communication between its newly decentralized fronts. That meant the group’s global leadership had to have autonomy to operate relatively independently.

Bin Laden expected al-Qaida affiliates to adhere to certain core values, strategies and, of course, pursue the objective of establishing an Islamic caliphate.

But newly minted regional al-Qaida leaders – people like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, Ahmed Abdi Godane in Somalia and Nasir al-Wuhayshi in Yemen – enjoyed enough autonomy to pursue their own agendas in these unstable places.

Al-Qaida Iraq, al-Shabaab and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as their groups came to be known, embedded themselves in the local political scene. They began building credibility, establishing alliances and recruiting fighters.

By 2015, when bin Laden was killed, al-Qaida was a network of regional caliphates. Today its territory spans from Afghanistan and Pakistan to North Africa, the Middle East and beyond.

Manipulation of a sectarian divide

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, headquartered in Yemen, is a case study in how the group now wields its power more locally.

Yemen has been in civil war since 2015, when a Houthi Shiite armed group declared war against the country’s Sunni Muslim government.

Although this conflict appears sectarian in nature, the Yemen scholar Marieke Brandt argues it is largely about political power – namely, the Yemeni government’s longstanding neglect of the Houthi minority, who come from northern Yemen.

Nonetheless, al-Qaida – a Sunni terror group – saw political opportunity in Yemen’s civil war.

The group has played up religious divisions in the civil war. Using its Arabic magazine, martyrdom videos, poetry and popular songs, al-Qaida has endeared itself to the local Sunni people and Yemen’s powerful Sunni tribal leaders. It has also ingratiated itself to Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed government and fought alongside Sunni tribal militias to battle the Houthi incursion.

The strategy has been remarkably effective for al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula had hundreds of fighters at its founding in 2009. It now has about 7,000 fighters in Yemen, most of them Sunnis recruited from territory the Houthis have attempted to take over.

It has planted landmines and bombs across Yemen that have killed hundreds, held journalists hostage and, in 2015, orchestrated the massacre at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris.

The U.S. government considers al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to be the most sophisticated and threatening branch of al-Qaida.

Adapt the tactic, keep the mission

In adapting its methods to Yemeni culture, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has made some missteps.

In 2011, the group attempted to impose extremely strict Islamic rule over two areas it controlled in south Yemen. Al-Qaida instituted rigid punishments of the sort common in Afghanistan, such as cutting off the hands of a thief and banning the chewed stimulant plant called khat.

These extreme rules got al-Qaida run out of town by Sunni tribal militias.

The next time al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula asserted its political power over parts of Yemen left ungoverned in the chaos of civil war, in 2015, it did not rule directly over these territories. Rather, it allowed a local council to govern according their own norms and customs. And it kept the khat market open.

Al-Qaida also paid for long-neglected public services like schools, water and electricity – effectively becoming the state.

According to the International Crisis Group, a humanitarian organization, this softer stance helped garner the acceptance of the local population. That, in turn, ensured al-Qaida could keep using Yemen as a regional headquarters.

A similar shift from global to local has occurred in al-Qaida affiliates in Somalia, Iraq and Syria.

Al-Qaida is no longer a hierarchical organization taking orders from its famous, charismatic leader, as it was on 9/11.

But it is stronger and more resilient than it was under bin Laden. And the “war on terror” has helped, not hurt it.

Airstrikes and active air defenses across Damascus into the mountains near Lebanon and near Homs 160 km. to the North woke up Syrians after midnight in the first hours of Monday. It was the largest series of airstrikes many had seen in months or years, according to social media accounts tweeting from Syria or in touch with people on the ground, like reported by jpost.com.

Houses were damaged, soldiers and civilians were reported injured and killed. Explosions rocked areas around Damascus, primarily to the West and into the mountains.

Syrian state media SANA says people were injured and homes in Sahnaya – near Damascus – were damaged. But this is only one location, and as the full picture emerges, Syria’s regime and its allies in Tehran and Moscow will take notice. Over the years, Syria has accused Israel of numerous airstrikes and former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot has said that more than 1,000 were carried out. However, the larger picture is that the Syrian government must wonder what the message is.

Syria wants to put on a brave face, claiming that its air defenses have downed incoming missiles. But in the past, it has said the same and it has been shown that it cannot intercept airstrikes. Last fall, Russia said it would provide the Syrian regime with the S-300 system. On Sunday, images were released by ImageSat International showing four S-300 systems in Syria’s Masyaf area, not far from Homs.

In addition, a Ynet report in May indicated that an airstrike at the T-4 airbase on the road to Palmyra from Homs destroyed an Iranian 3rd Khordad air defense system that is supposed to be similar to the S-300. The two details matter for the Syrian regime, because in both cases these relatively sophisticated air defense systems were either all sitting in the same place – and thus not deployed to protect all of Syria – or one was allegedly destroyed at T-4.

Syria knows that a high level meeting was held in Israel in June with US National Security Advisor John Bolton and his Israeli and Russian counterparts. Russia has stressed that it does not want Syria to become a battlefield for any foreign power against Iran. However, Israel has said numerous times last year that it views the Iranian presence in Syria as a threat. US-Iran tensions are at an all-time high. US F-22 raptors were sent to the Persian Gulf this week in position to deal with any Iranian threat.

Reports now indicate that an Iranian-backed group used a drone from Iraq to attack a pipeline in Saudi Arabia in May. With each incident – whether rocket attacks near US troops in Iraq, Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia or the Iranian downing of the US Global Hawk drone in June – the tensions continue to rise. The complex airstrikes in Syria on July 1 are the latest in what appears to be a much larger regional message to Damascus and its allies. The Within Syria Blog reports “super heavy losses today.” As news continues to emerge about targets in Damascus and Homs, spanning such a wide area, Syria’s regime will have to weigh what it has lost. At the same time, the US and Russia will be watching closely.