Iran will not lift its ban on talks with the United States, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday, describing the two countries as implacable foes on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
“One way to block America’s political infiltration is to ban any talks with America. It means Iran will not yield to America’s pressure,” Khamenei, who is Iran’s top authority, was quoted by state TV as saying.
“Those who believe that negotiations with the enemy will solve our problems are 100% wrong.”
Relations between the two foes have reached a crisis over the past year after U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 pact between Iran and world powers under which Tehran accepted curbs to its nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions.
Washington has reimposed sanctions aimed at halting all Iranian oil exports, saying it seeks to force Iran to negotiate to reach a wider deal. Khamenei has banned Iranian officials from holding such talks unless the United States returns to the nuclear deal and lifts all sanctions.
FILE – Religious symbols are held up outside the U.S. Embassy gates in Tehran, Iran, where students hold American hostages, on Nov. 28, 1979.
The anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution is marked in Iran with annual demonstrations of crowds chanting “Death to America” across the country.
The embassy capture cemented the hostility between the two countries which has remained a central fact in Middle East geopolitics and an important part of Iran’s national ideology.
Iran, which accused the United States of supporting brutal policies of its ousted Shah, held 52 Americans for 444 days at the embassy, which it called the Den of Spies.
“The U.S. has not changed since decades ago … it continues the same aggressive, vicious behavior and the same international dictatorship,” Khamenei said. “Iran has a firm, iron will. It will not let America return to Iran.”
Washington’s European allies have opposed the Trump administration’s decision to abandon the nuclear pact. Iran responded to U.S. sanctions by gradually scaling back its commitments under the nuclear agreement and has said it could take further steps in November.
FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference after the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the French mission to the UN in New York, Sept. 24, 2019
Khamenei poured scorn on French President Emmanuel Macron for trying to promote talks between the foes. Macron tried to arrange a failed meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.
“The French president, who says a meeting will end all the problems between Tehran and America, is either naive or complicit with America,” Khamenei said in remarks reported by state television.
Bangladesh said Sunday plans to relocate thousands of Rohingya living in overcrowded refugee camps to a remote island were “uncertain” after authorities failed to gain support from U.N. agencies.
Dhaka had wanted to begin its long-held plan this month to move 100,000 people to the mud-silt island of Bhashan Char, amid growing frustration with the presence of the squalid tent settlements in its southeastern border towns.
Bangladesh has said thousands of Rohingya families have volunteered to relocate, with some 3,500 of the Muslim minority due to be moved between mid-November to February during calm seas.
But the plan was in doubt as the U.N. has not supported the relocation so far, Bangladesh disaster management and relief minister Enamur Rahman told AFP.
“This has become uncertain,” Rahman said of the relocation to the island, which takes around three hours to reach by boat.
“They [U.N. agencies] still haven’t agreed to the relocation plan.”
Aid agencies including the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Food Program (WFP), which held meetings with the government, told him the island was “isolated” and “flood-prone.”
The agencies set out a list of conditions that had to be met, including a regular shipping service between the islet in the Bay of Bengal and the mainland, Rahman added.
The organizations provide humanitarian aid to the nearly one million Rohingya in the vast camps, including 740,000 who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar in August 2017.
“We won’t do anything forcefully,” he said, adding that at least two ships were set to ply the waters between the site and the mainland.
A U.N. official told AFP on Sunday that “U.N. agencies cannot support a move for which [they] have no technical information.”
Dhaka is due to hold another round of talks with the agencies on Wednesday, Rahman said.
Global activist group Fortify Rights said last month it interviewed 14 Rohingya at three camps, including some who appeared on lists of refugees allegedly willing to go, and found none had been consulted “and all opposed it.”
Other groups have also expressed misgivings about moving people to the island, which is regularly hit by devastating cyclones.
In Beirut, thousands of people turned out Sunday to show their support for Lebanon’s president.
The demonstration was held near Michel Aoun’s presidential palace in southeastern Beirut.
The show of support for Aoun is in direct contrast to the protests Lebanese citizens began staging across the tiny Mediterranean country last month, demanding a complete overhaul of Lebanon’s sectarian-based politics.
The demonstrators have also blamed the political establishment for rampant corruption and poor public services.
Another anti-government protest, however, is slated for later Sunday in central Beirut.
Egypt’s Islamic State affiliate, Sinai Province, has sworn allegiance to the new leader named by the group following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the affiliate said on Telegram on Saturday.
Sinai Province, which has waged an insurgency against the Egyptian state, posted pictures of around two dozen fighters standing among trees, with a caption saying they were pledging allegiance to Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in April said he would give the U.S. until the end of the year to become more flexible on nuclear talks. Since then, he’s launched 12 missiles to back up that warning, including a launch on Thursday. So far, though, there is no evidence the U.S. is changing its stance, meaning the situation could soon get much more volatile, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.
His revolutionary fervor diminished by the years that have also turned his dark brown hair white, one of the Iranian student leaders of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover says he now regrets the seizure of the diplomatic compound and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed.
Speaking to The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s 40th anniversary of the attack, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh acknowledged that the repercussions of the crisis still reverberate as tensions remain high between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.
Asgharzadeh cautioned others against following in his footsteps, despite the takeover becoming enshrined in hard-line mythology. He also disputed a revisionist history now being offered by supporters of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that they directed the attack, insisting all the blame rested with the Islamist students who let the crisis spin out of control.
“Like Jesus Christ, I bear all the sins on my shoulders,” Asgharzadeh said.
At the time, what led to the 1979 takeover remained obscure to Americans who for months could only watch in horror as TV newscasts showed Iranian protests at the embassy. Popular anger against the U.S. was rooted in the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that toppled Iran’s elected prime minister and cemented the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The shah, dying from cancer, fled Iran in February 1979, paving the way for its Islamic Revolution. But for months, Iran faced widespread unrest ranging from separatist attacks, worker revolts and internal power struggles. Police reported for work but not for duty, allowing chaos like Marxist students briefly seizing the U.S. Embassy.
Iranians walk past anti-U.S. graffiti on the wall of the former U.S. Embassy, in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 15, 2019.
In this power vacuum, then-President Jimmy Carter allowed the shah to seek medical treatment in New York. That lit the fuse for the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover, though at first the Islamist students argued over which embassy to seize. A student leader named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who later became president in 2005, argued they should seize the Soviet Embassy compound in Tehran as leftists had caused political chaos.
But the students settled on the U.S. Embassy, hoping to pressure Carter to send the shah back to Iran to stand trial on corruption charges. Asgharzadeh, then a 23-year-old engineering student, remembers friends going to Tehran’s Grand Bazaar to buy a bolt cutter, a popular tool used by criminals, and the salesman saying: “You do not look like thieves! You certainly want to open up the U.S. Embassy door with it!”
“The society was ready for it to happen. Everything happened so fast,” Asgharzadeh said. “We cut off the chains on the embassy’s gate. Some of us climbed up the walls and we occupied the embassy compound very fast.”
Like other former students, Asgharzadeh said the plan had been simply to stage a sit-in. But the situation soon spun out of their control. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the long-exiled Shiite cleric whose return to Iran sparked the revolution, gave his support to the takeover. He would use that popular angle to expand the Islamists’ power.
“We, the students, take responsibility for the first 48 hours of the takeover,” Asgharzadeh said. “Later, it was out of our hands since the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the establishment supported it.”
He added: “Our plan was one of students, unprofessional and temporary.”
As time went on, it slowly dawned on the naive students that Americans wouldn’t join their revolution. While a rescue attempt by the U.S. military would fail and Carter would lose to Ronald Reagan amid the crisis, the U.S. as a whole expressed worry about the hostages by displaying yellow ribbons and counting the days of their captivity.
As the months passed, things only got worse. Asgharzadeh said he thought it would end once the shah left America or later with his death in Egypt in July 1980. It didn’t.
“A few months after the takeover, it appeared to be turning into a rotten fruit hanging down from a tree and no one had the courage to take it down and resolve the matter,” he said. “There was a lot of public opinion support behind the move in the society. The society felt it had slapped America, a superpower, on the mouth and people believed that the takeover proved to America that their democratic revolution had been stabilized.”
It hadn’t, though. The eight-year Iran-Iraq War would break out during the crisis. The hostage crisis and later the war boosted the position of hard-liners who sought strict implementation of their version of Islamic beliefs.
Seizing or attacking diplomatic posts remains a tactic of Iranian hard-liners to this day. A mob stormed the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011, while another attacked diplomatic posts of Saudi Arabia in 2016, which led to diplomatic ties being cut between Tehran and Riyadh. And Iran will commemorate the 40th anniversary of U.S. Embassy takeover on Monday by staging a rally in front of the Tehran compound where it was located.
However, Asgharzadeh denied that Iran’s then-nascent Revolutionary Guard directed the U.S. Embassy takeover, although he said it was informed before the attack over fears that security forces would storm the compound and retake it. Many at the time believed the shah would launch a coup, like in 1953, to regain power.
“In a very limited way, we informed one of the Guard’s units and they accepted to protect the embassy from outside,” Asgharzadeh said. “The claim (by hard-liners) on the Guard’s role lacks credit. I am the main narrator of the incident and I am still alive.”
In the years since, Asgharzadeh has become a reformist politician and served prison time for his views. He has argued that Iran should work toward improving ties with the U.S., a difficult task amid President Donald Trump’s maximalist campaign against Tehran.
“It is too difficult to say when the relations between Tehran and Washington can be restored,” Asgharzadeh said. “I do not see any prospect.”
Thirty-five soldiers were killed Friday in a “terrorist attack” on a Mali military post in the northeast of the country, the army said.
“The provisional death toll has risen to 35 deaths,” it said on Facebook late Friday, adding that the situation was “under control.”
An investigation into the attack on the outpost in Indelimane in the Menaka region was continuing, it said.
The attack came a month after two jihadist assaults killed 40 soldiers near the border with Burkina Faso, one of the deadliest strikes against Mali’s military in recent Islamist militant violence.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for Friday’s assault.
The Malian government earlier condemned the “terrorist attack,” saying it had left numerous dead or wounded but without giving a precise toll.
It said reinforcements had been rushed to the area to boost security and track down the attackers.
Northern Mali came under the control of al-Qaida-linked jihadists after Mali’s army failed to quash a rebellion there in 2012. A French-led military campaign was launched against the jihadists, pushing them back a year later.
But the jihadists have regrouped and widened their hit-and-run raids and land-mine attacks to central and southern Mali.
The violence has also spilled over into Burkina Faso and Niger where militants have exploited existing intercommunal strife.
Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters descended on the capital of Islamabad Friday, determined to send the sitting prime minister home. The leader of the protests threatened dire consequences if his demands were not met within two days. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem was at the protest and has this story from Islamabad.
Backed by tens of thousands of protesters, Pakistan’s opposition parties Friday demanded the country’s prime minister resign within two days.
Demonstrators in Islamabad accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of destroying Pakistan’s economy and stealing the last election with the help of the military.
“Poor mothers are forced to sell their children for money. Young men are committing suicide. … Can we leave the people at the mercy of this incompetent government?” said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a cleric and leader of the Islamist political party Jamiat e Ulema e Islam Fazl (JUI-F) leading the protest.
Fazal-ur Rehman, president of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) waves to supporters during what participants call Azadi March (Freedom March) to protest the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, in Islamabad, Nov. 1, 2019.
March from Karachi
Friday’s peaceful demonstration was the culmination of a long march Rehman started Sunday in the port city of Karachi to draw attention to Pakistan’s issues.
Support from Pakistan’s biggest opposition parties, Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), seemed tepid at first. But the party’s senior leadership, including Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, joined Rehman on stage Friday to make fiery speeches.
“Our prime minister is selected, he does not represent the people, he is incompetent, he is inept,” Bhutto Zardari said.
Sharif savaged the prime minister’s economic performance.
“Imran Khan Niazi, you promised 10 million additional jobs. Instead, you’ve made hundreds of thousands jobless,” he said.
Supporters of religious and political party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) chant slogans during what participants call Azadi March (Freedom March) to protest the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad, Nov. 1, 2019.
Senior members of both opposition parties are being investigated for corruption, allegedly carried out during previous governments. Both say the cases are politically motivated.
Meanwhile, Khan and his ruling party call the protests a ruse to compel the government to back off on the inquiries.
“People know what they really want. … The truth is, their cases are now public. With the massive corruption they carried out, all of them are scared they will be arrested,” Khan said while addressing a rally.
The opposition leaders did not spell out consequences if Khan does not step down, only hinting they may move to paralyze the government by blocking a main road leading to Parliament and other buildings.
The government said such a move would be forcefully repelled, prompting fears of possible violent clashes between security forces and demonstrators.
The protest has also increased tension between the opposition and Pakistan’s powerful military, which has directly ruled the country for half of its history.
“If we feel that our establishment [the military] is supporting this illegal government, then we are issuing a two-day ultimatum. After that, don’t stop us from making up our own minds,” Rehman said.
Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said opposition leaders should not drag the military into Pakistani politics.
“The army is an impartial institution. We believe in the constitution and law and our support is for a democratically elected government, not for any political party,” he said.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has hailed a “landmark” meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee. In his address in Istanbul Thursday, the U.N. chief expressed hope for a political solution that will end the Syrian war. The U.N. says at least 180,000 people have been displaced since the Turkish incursion into Syria last month adding to the 6.5 million already displaced. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports U.S. troops have returned to a border area east of Qamishli.
The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives formalized the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump Thursday, passing a resolution along party lines setting up procedures for the next phase of the investigation. After weeks of testimony behind closed doors, Democrats are expected to begin public hearings into allegations Trump invited foreign interference into the 2020 election by putting pressure on Ukraine to provide information about a political rival. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
November marks 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall’s demise brought an end to a divided Berlin — and symbolized the eventual liberation of East Germany, and later the rest of Eastern Europe, from Soviet communist rule. Yet as Charles Maynes reports, while the Wall is long gone, it still casts a shadow over German life.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary forces have “committed summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability” — including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and attacks on health-care facilities.
In its report, released on Thursday, HRW called on the Afghan government to immediately disband all pro-government paramilitary groups that operate outside the “ordinary military chain of command.”
It is also calling for the Afghan government to “impartially investigate all allegations of abuse by Afghan security forces” and to “prosecute those responsible for war crimes and serious abuses.”
It says both the United States and the Afghan government should also “cooperate with independent investigations of all allegations of war crimes and other human rights abuses.”
It also says the U.S. government should “investigate any U.S. personnel” involved in abuses, and should “cease supporting Afghan forces that have been responsible for serious violations.”
HRW documented 14 cases from late 2017 to mid-2019 in which it said CIA-backed “strike groups” committed grave abuses during night raids, such as one in the southeastern province of Paktia in which a paramilitary squad killed 11 men, including eight who were home for the Eid holidays.
In some cases, HRW says, troops detained men and didn’t tell families where they were being held.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has disputed the HRW report, saying many of the claims against Afghan special forces were “likely false or exaggerated.”
“In ramping up operations against the Taliban, the CIA has enabled abusive Afghan forces to commit atrocities including extrajudicial executions and disappearances,” said Patricia Gossman, the report’s author and HRW’s associate Asia director.
“In case after case, these forces have simply shot people in their custody and consigned entire communities to the terror of abusive night raids and indiscriminate air strikes,” Grossman said.
Night raids, which combine surprise, overwhelming firepower, and night-vision equipment, are a tactic preferred by special forces.
FILE – Taliban fighters stand with their weapons in Ahmad Aba district, on the outskirts of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, Afghanistan, July 18, 2017.
On several occasions, raids which usually take place in Taliban-controlled areas were backed by airstrikes that “indiscriminately or disproportionately” killed civilians, HRW said.
According to data released this week by NATO, the United States conducted 1,113 air and artillery strikes in September, a large increase on previous months that came as talks between Washington and the Taliban collapsed.
CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said the agency’s operations abroad are conducted in “accordance with law and under a robust system of oversight.”
Barrett accused the Taliban of spreading misinformation and noted that the militants do not operate under any similar rules.
“Unlike the Taliban, the United States is committed to the rule of law,” officials added in a CIA statement.
“We neither condone nor would knowingly participate in illegal activities, and we continually work with our foreign partners to promote adherence to the law.”
Afghanistan’s CIA-backed militias, whose tradition goes back to the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s, are seen as a critical tool in the fight against Taliban and Islamic State militants.
Such paramilitary groups are officially under Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) but often operate almost independently of Afghan authorities.
Speaking to HRW, one unnamed diplomat referred to them as “death squads.”
The NDS did not immediately comment.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a U.S. government monitor, says Afghan special forces conducted 2,531 ground operations from January-September this year, more than the total of 2,365 for all of last year.
A U.N. report earlier this month said 1,174 civilians were killed and 3,139 wounded in Afghanistan from July to September this year — a 42 percent increase over the same period last year.
Indian Kashmir officially became a federally ruled territory Thursday, nearly three months after New Delhi stripped its decades-old special status, but peace remains elusive in the Himalayan region that has been wracked by a violent separatist insurgency and is the flashpoint of its dispute with Pakistan.
The erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state is now split into two territories administered by New Delhi. One consists of the Muslim dominated Kashmir valley and Hindu dominated Jammu. The second is Ladakh, an icy desert bordering China.
However, months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government made the dramatic move, saying it will help stamp out terrorism and spur development in the country’s most restive region, there is widespread disenchantment and little semblance of normalcy in the Himalayan valley that is home to 8 million people.
“New highways, new railway lines, new schools, new hospitals will take the development of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to new heights,” Modi told a public rally in the western state of Gujarat.
The optimism was not reflected in the Kashmir valley, where shops were shuttered and streets largely deserted as a New Delhi appointee, Girish Chandra Murmu, was sworn in as the top official of Jammu and Kashmir.
“We are very apprehensive that things should not worsen. They are already bad,” according to Noor Ahmad Baba, a political analyst in the Kashmiri capital Srinagar. He describes the mood in the valley as sullen and angry, particularly among young people, and fears that downgrading Kashmir’s status could fuel the anti-India rebellion that New Delhi has struggled to control.
“They can’t go for any active resistance because of very heavy security presence around and there is no leadership,” Baba said.
While a huge security lockdown has kept a lid on popular protests, there has been a spate of militant attacks in the past two weeks. The internet continues to be shut down, although the communication blackout Kashmir faced ahead of the move has been somewhat eased. Businesses are counting losses of $1.4 billion, and apple farmers and traders have struggled to harvest and transport the bountiful crop due to fears of reprisals by militants. Regional political leaders who were placed under arrest to prevent them from fanning unrest remain in detention.
The most conspicuous change is that people from the rest of India can now buy land in Kashmir, previously banned under a constitutional provision known as Article 370 that gave Kashmiris special rights in property, education and jobs to protect the region’s identity.
The government has defended its move, saying it will link Kashmir with mainstream India, lessen its sense of alienation, guarantee its people rights available to other Indians, such as the right to education, and bring investment and jobs.
Home Minister Amit Shah told a public rally in Gujarat that scrapping Article 370 had shut down the “gateway to terrorism” in India, and will integrate Kashmir with the rest of the country.
That may not be easy, observers say. Recent militant attacks targeting migrant workers from outside the state are being interpreted as a signal Kashmir will not be secure for people from other parts of India. In the latest attack, on Tuesday, five construction workers were lined up and shot dead, according to officials. Earlier this month, six truckers who came to transport apples from the lush orchards were killed in separate incidents.
Businesses that have been crippled since the August 5 announcement because of the communication blackout are not optimistic that direct federal rule will make any difference on the ground.
“For every Kashmiri it is one and the same. Nothing is going to change. People are talking of investment now, but what about the present businesses? This is the big challenge,” according to the president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad.
“The nascent IT sector is crippled. When there are no orders, where will our weavers and artisans go? In tourism sector alone 70,000 people are jobless.”
Outside of Kashmir, in the rest of India, Modi has won wide praise for making a bold move to stamp out the separatist insurgency fomented by Islamic militant groups that India says are supported by Pakistan an allegation denied by Islamabad.
“I don’t have doubts about the need for such a step and I am optimistic that things will improve,” Jayadeva Ranade, a security and intelligence expert in New Delhi, said.
Others underline that to “win the peace” in Kashmir, the government urgently needs to address the political vacuum in the state where virtually all regional leaders and party workers remain under detention.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who is under detention tweeted, “GOI (government of India) has left Kashmiris in the lurch & shown disregard for their rights. But if you consider them as your own, reach out & engage with them before it’s too late.” Her Twitter post is being handled by her daughter.
Pointing out that the government has yet to allow people to speak out, The Indian Express newspaper said in an editorial that it should free political leaders and workers and lift curbs on people.
Bringing Kashmir under New Delhi’s rule has worsened India’s fraught relationship with Pakistan, which has strongly opposed the move. Islamabad has downgraded diplomatic ties, and stopped trade, postal and train services with India.
Dracula, Frankenstein, and other monsters may have literary origins but Hollywood has made them iconic characters that have scared and thrilled audiences around the world. Filmmakers looked to science and archeology as inspiration for the movie monsters. The connection between science and art is shown at an exhibit called the Natural History of Horror at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
The medical examiner who ruled Jeffrey Epstein’s death a suicide is immediately pushing back against the suggestion by a longtime forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s family that some of the evidence indicates homicide.
New York City Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson says Wednesday she stands “firmly” behind her findings. The autopsy report appeared to put much speculation about the 66-year-old financier’s death to rest.
Dr. Michael Baden reignited conspiracy theories Wednesday when he said on Fox News that fractures to Epstein’s larynx and hyoid bone are more consistent with homicidal strangulation.
Other experts have said the hyoid bone often breaks in suicidal hangings.
Baden was in the room for the autopsy, but he cautioned that his observations weren’t conclusive.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center with a bedsheet around his neck on Aug. 10.
Go inside the mission by US Special Forces that resulted in the suicide of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren examines how the mission was executed and what the fallout might be. Join Greta and VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb (@CarlaBabbVOA); VOA National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin (@jseldin); VOA Extremist Watch Desk reporter Hasib Alikozai (@Alikozai86); and retired Major General Robert Scales. Aired October 30, 2019.
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death will mean nothing to 19-year-old rape victim Jamila unless the Islamic State militants who enslaved her are brought to justice.
Jamila, who asked not to be identified by her last name, is one of thousands of women from the Yazidi minority religion who were kidnapped and raped by IS after it mounted an assault on the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq in August 2014.
“Even if Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, it doesn’t mean Islamic State is dead,” Jamila told Reuters outside the tent that is now her temporary home in the Sharya camp for displaced Yazidis in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.
FILE – This file image made from video posted on a militant website July 5, 2014, purports to show the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq.
“This doesn’t feel like justice yet,” she said. “I want the men who took me, who raped me, to stand trial. And I want to have my voice heard in court. I want to face them in court. … Without proper trials, his death has no meaning.”
Baghdadi, who had led IS since 2010, detonated a suicide vest after being cornered in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwest Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday.
Inspired by his edicts to enslave and slaughter Yazidis, whom IS regard as infidels, his followers shot, beheaded and kidnapped thousands in a rampage which the United Nations called a genocidal campaign against them.
Along with thousands of other women and children, Jamila said she was enslaved by the militants and kept in captivity for five months in the city of Mosul along with her sister.
She was just 14 when she was seized. But her problems did not end after she and her sister managed to escape when, she said, their guards were high on drugs.
“When I first came back, I had a nervous breakdown and psychological problems for two years, so I couldn’t go to school,” she said.
No plans to go home
Now instead of working or catching up on her years of lost schooling, she looks after her mother, with whom she shares her cramped tent at the camp.
“My mother can’t walk and has health problems, so I have to stay and take care of her because my older siblings are in Germany,” she said.
The prospect of going home to Sinjar in northern Iraq is not an option for Jamila, and many others. The city still lies in ruin four years after the IS onslaught, and suspicion runs deep in the ethnically mixed area.
“Sinjar is completely destroyed. Even if we could go back, I wouldn’t want to because we’d be surrounded by the same Arab neighbors who all joined IS in the first place, and helped them kill us (Yazidis),” she said.
Displaced people from the Yazidi religious minority buy vegetables at the Sharya camp, in Duhok, Iraq, Oct. 29, 2019.
IS trials
Thousands of men are being tried in Iraqi courts for their ties to IS. Iraq has so far not allowed victims to testify in court, something community leaders and human rights groups say would go a long way in the healing process.
“It is deplorable that not a single victim of Islamic State’s horrific abuses including sexual slavery has gotten their day in court,” said Belkis Wille, Iraq Researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Iraq’s justice system is designed to allow the state to exact mass revenge against suspects, not provide real accountability for victims.”
For some of the nearly 17,000 Yazidis at the Sharya camp, Baghdadi’s death was a first step in that direction, though they fear the IS fighters who are still alive.
Mayan Sinu, 25, can dream of a new life after the camp as she and her three children have been granted asylum by Australia. But she also wants the men who shot her husband in the legs and dragged him off to be brought to justice. He has been missing since the incident five years ago.
“I hope Baghdadi is suffering more than we ever did, and my God we suffered,” said Sinu. “I wish he (Baghdadi) hadn’t blown himself up so I could have slaughtered him myself with my bare hands.”
Hungary is set to reappoint its chief prosecutor to a new 9-year term and will remove its main judicial administrator, in moves that critics say highlight premier Viktor Orban’s mixed success in influencing the judiciary which remains one of the most independent bodies in Hungarian society.
Despite constant clashes with Western partners over the rule of law, the conservative populist Orban has solidified his grip over most walks of Hungarian life.
He rejects allegations that his government has eroded checks and balances and has said his strong mandate received in democratic elections empowers his Fidesz party to change laws.
While the country’s prosecution system has been under the direct control of chief prosecutor Peter Polt, an Orban loyalist, the National Association of Judges has resisted Orban and has been engulfed in a bitter dispute over administrative attempts to rein it in, via appointments or financial pressure.
President Janos Ader, a former head of Fidesz party and Orban’s key ally, proposed reappointing Polt as chief prosecutor for a second nine-year term on Tuesday. He gave no reasoning.
Parliament, where Fidesz holds a large majority, will have to confirm Polt.
The European Union said in 2019 Hungary lacked determined action to prosecute corruption in high-level cases and “the effective functioning of the prosecution service remains a concern.”
Polt has dismissed those claims as “baseless”.
Tunde Hando, the wife of Fidesz stalwart and European Parliament member Jozsef Szajer, will leave her position as chair of the judiciary administration a year early.
As chief administrator she was ultimately responsible for the operation of the court system, with a say over issues like the nomination of new senior judges or budgeting.
Hando said she always acted by the law, adding Hungary’s Constitution makes clear the fundamental division of powers.
Balazs Toth, a legal expert at the rights group Hungarian Helsinki Committee, who has represented clients in cases against the government, said Fidesz wants a country without checks and balances, but judges have withstood the propaganda and pressure.
Fidesz has nominated Hando to the Constitutional Court, once Hungary’s top arbiter of law but greatly weakened after Orban’s party started to appoint its members.
Prosecutors filter criminal cases and decide which cases to investigate and how, choosing which cases to refer to the courts – a power that critics have said it used selectively to block cases detrimental to Fidesz or Orban’s associates.
When investigating a case of suspected fraud in 2014 involving Orban’s son-in-law Istvan Tiborcz, Polt’s prosecutors found no wrongdoing. A later probe by the European anti-fraud body OLAF however, detailed alleged fraud totalling 13 billion forints ($44 million) and recommended Hungary investigate.
Polt reopened the case but again dismissed it.
Tiborcz has not commented on the case, in which he and his business partners were never charged, as matters did not proceed to court.
Guinea-Bissau President Jose Mario Vaz named a new prime minister on Tuesday but his sacked predecessor refused to step down, intensifying a bitter power struggle between Vaz and the ruling party weeks ahead of a presidential election.
Vaz, who is running for again in the Nov. 24 poll, dissolved the government late on Monday saying the political situation was undermining the normal functioning of state institutions in the West African country.
It has suffered repeated bouts of instability since it became independent from Portugal in 1974, including nine coups or attempted coups and a surge in cocaine trafficking from South America that has been linked to senior military officials.
The country has been largely peaceful since Vaz came to power in a 2014 election that followed a coup two years earlier.
But he has repeatedly clashed over the balance of power in the semi-presidential system with a string of prime ministers put forward by the African Party of the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which controls a majority in parliament.
In a decree on Tuesday, Vaz named as prime minister Faustino Fudut Imbali, who served in the same post from 2000-2003 and represents the small Manifest Party of the People.
FILE – Aristide Gomes, speaks to journalists, Nov. 13, 2008, at his party’s headquarters in Bissau.
Aristides Gomes, who was put forward for the job by PAIGC, told Reuters he was refusing to go: “I am in my office, working.”
Gomes said Vaz’s orders were illegitimate since the president’s term technically expired on June 23. West African regional bloc ECOWAS declared a few days later that Vaz could stay in office through to the November election.
Vaz won the 2014 presidential election as the PAIGC’s candidate but fell out with the party after sacking his prime minister in 2015. He is now running for re-election as an independent candidate.
In a rare political protest, demonstrations from a party opposed to Gomes’s government took to the streets of the capital Bissau at the weekend, demanding the election be postponed so that voter lists could be checked for irregularities.
One protester died on Saturday and several were wounded, according to the government, a hospital source and march organizers.
Instability in Guinea-Bissau has typically taken the form of military coups, led by officers drawn mostly from a narrow military elite who fought for independence in 1963-1974.
President Donald Trump on Monday outed a military working dog that tracked down the head of the Islamic State.
Trump tweeted a photo of a Belgian Malinois that he said worked with a team of special forces in the capture of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a tunnel beneath a compound in northeastern Syria.
The name and other details about the dog remain a secret.
“We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!” the president tweeted.
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters earlier Monday that the animal “performed a tremendous service” in the Saturday night raid.
Al-Baghdadi set off an explosion that killed himself and three children and apparently wounded the dog.
Milley said the dog was “slightly wounded” but is now recovering and has returned to duty with its handler at an undisclosed location. He and Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the U.S. is protecting the dog’s identify by keeping any information about the canine classified for now.
“We are not releasing the name of the dog right now,” Milley said. “The dog is still in theater.”
The U.S. military commonly uses the Belgian Malinois to guide and protect troops, search out enemy forces and look for explosives. The breed is prized for its intelligence and ability to be aggressive on command, said Ron Aiello, president of the United States War Dogs Association.
“That’s the kind of dog you want to lead a patrol like this,” said Aiello, a former Marine dog handler whose organization helps active duty and retired military dogs. “They are the first line of defense. They go out front.”
Not releasing the name makes sense as a security precaution for the same reason you wouldn’t identify the troops who take part in the raid, he said. “There could be retaliation.”
A Belgian Malinois service dog named Cairo accompanied U.S. Navy SEALs in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, in Pakistan. President Barack Obama met the canine at a ceremony to honor the commandos.
Trump gave a dramatic account of the raid in Syria, variously saying there was one dog and multiple canines involved in the operation. He said that as U.S. troops and their dogs closed in, the militant went “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way” to his death.
“He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down,” Trump said.
The U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, is expected to be nominated as early as this week to be second-in-command at the State Department, officials said Monday.
Two Trump administration officials and a congressional aide familiar with the selection process said the White House is expected to nominate Biegun to be the next deputy secretary of state in the coming days. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Biegun would replace John Sullivan, who has been nominated to be the next U.S. ambassador to Russia. Both positions require Senate confirmation.
Biegun has had a prominent role in the delicate negotiations that led to historic meetings between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
A former Ford Motor Co. executive who served in previous Republican administrations and has advised GOP lawmakers, Biegun has led as yet unsuccessful negotiations to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons since being appointed to his current post in August 2018. He is expected to keep the North Korea portfolio if he is confirmed to the new post, the officials said.
His nomination has been expected since mid-September, but its timing has been unclear amid turmoil in the State Department over the House impeachment inquiry into the administration’s policy toward Ukraine.
Sullivan was nominated to be envoy to Moscow in September although his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was just set for Wednesday, making Biegun’s nomination to fill the soon-to-be vacant No. 2 spot at the State Department more urgent.
Sullivan’s confirmation hearing is likely to be dominated by questions from committee Democrats about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and his role in Ukraine policy.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified to impeachment investigators earlier the month that Sullivan was the official who informed her that she had lost Trump’s confidence and was being recalled early from Kyiv. Democrats are expected to use Wednesday’s confirmation hearing to press Sullivan on the extent of his involvement in Ukraine and why the department bowed to a campaign to oust Yovanovitch spearheaded by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Lured by a long-looming stock offering of Saudi Arabia’s massive state-run oil company, investors and business leaders have returned to the kingdom’s capital for an investment forum that was overshadowed last year by the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yet drawing big names to the Future Investment Initiative alone does not mean Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s dream of having Saudi Aramco offer a sliver of itself at a $2 trillion valuation will become a reality.
King Salman’s son needs to raise $100 billion required to fund his ambitious development plans for a kingdom desperate to offer jobs to its 34 million people as unemployment remains above 10%.
Stagnant global energy prices and a Sept. 14 attack on the heart of Aramco already spooked some. One ratings company downgraded the oil giant. Meanwhile, questions persist over how the initial public offering will be handled even as Saudi Aramco offers sweeteners and promises of an estimated $75 billion dividend next year.
“Tepid oil prices, the fraught politics of the Middle East and the demonization of fossil fuel producers in response to climate change fears have all made the initial public offering a mission impossible,” wrote Roberto Sifon-Arevalo of the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s.
The Future Investment Initiative, which begins on Tuesday, will draw 6,000 people and international firms to Riyadh for a forum that’s the brainchild of the 34-year-old Prince Mohammed. Already, the forum announced Dow Chemicals, HSBC, Samsung and other global firms will be partners to the event.
Heads of state also will attend, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II both scheduled to speak Tuesday. Also scheduled is Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a White House adviser.
It again will be held in part at Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, which served as a detention facility during a 2017 purge targeting businessmen, princes and others. Described at the time as an anti-corruption campaign, the arrests targeted wealthy potential challengers to the prince and cemented his grip on power amid allegations of torture denied by the kingdom. Authorities later said it saw the government recoup over $100 billion.
However, there will be big names not taking part. Among them is Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and the owner of the Post, who had been in negotiations to open data centers in the kingdom before the killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, the Post reported Monday.
FILE – A Turkish police officer walks past a picture of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi prior to a ceremony, near the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, marking the one-year anniversary of his death, Oct. 2, 2019.
Khashoggi’s death cast a pall over last year’s forum, which saw Prince Mohammed give a fiery speech in which he described the killing as “a heinous act that is unjustifiable.” However, U.S. officials and a recent United Nations’ special rapporteur report suspect Prince Mohammed had a role in the slaying as members of the team of assassins sent to kill Khashoggi had links to the prince.
“It inconceivable that an operation of this scale could be implemented without the crown prince being aware, at a minimum, that some sort of mission of a criminal nature, directed at Mr. Khashoggi, was being launched,” the U.N. report read.
Investors appear poised to move beyond the columnist’s killing for one major reason: The long-discussed initial public offering of Saudi Aramco. The firm, formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., was founded in 1933 with America’s Standard Oil. By 1980, the kingdom owned 100% of the firm, which runs like a Western-style firm and refers to the government as its sole “shareholder” in its corporate documents.
The Aramco IPO has been pitched by Prince Mohammed since 2016 as a means to generate cash to fund development in the kingdom. Aramco’s scale remains impressive, able to pump 10 million barrels of crude oil a day, some 10% of daily global oil demand. In its first-ever half-year results, it reported income of $46.8 billion. Yet analysts say a $2 trillion valuation — Apple and Microsoft separately for instance are $1 trillion — may be a stretch.
Yet questions remain about Saudi Aramco, such as the health and the size of its oil reserves, something held as a state secret by the kingdom.
“Publicly traded oil companies faced financial disclosure regulations that required them to make information about the size and the health of their oil reserves public,” wrote Aramco expert Ellen R. Wald in her recent book “Saudi, Inc.” “Saudi Aramco had no such requirement and released only the information it chose.”
The global business press also frantically following each step of the IPO has raised repeated questions over its constant delays. It appears like the kingdom is preparing to offer a first part of the IPO on the local Tadawul stock exchange. The firm’s ties to the kingdom also have raised questions about whether it would take the risk of listing in the West, where it could be targeted by lawsuits.
FILE – A production facility is seen at Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield in the Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia, May 22, 2018.
Saudi Aramco has sought to assure investors. A presentation posted to Aramco’s website this month announced the intent to offer a $75 billion dividend for investors in 2020. That’s the payment per share that a corporation distributes to its stockholders as their return on the money they have invested in its stock.
It also pledged that some 2020 through 2024, any year with a dividend under $75 billion would see “non-government shareholders” prioritized to get paid.
But beyond the stocks, worries persist that Saudi Arabia could be hit by another attack like the one Sept. 14, which the U.S. blames on Iran. Iran denies it launched the cruise missiles and drones used in the attack. Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, but analysts say the weapons used wouldn’t have the range to reach their targets.
Yet worries about the firm are nothing new. Even as far back as 1953, when Aramco still was held by American oil firms, then-U.S. Ambassador Raymond Hare linked the company’s success to the kingdom’s own.
“A strong Aramco meant a strong Saudi Arabia and a weakened Aramco a weakened Saudi Arabia,” he once told the kingdom’s first ruler.
French luxury group LVMH has offered to buy Tiffany & Co. for $14.5 billion in cash, sending shares in the New York jewelers soaring.
The purchase would add another household name to LVMH’s plethora of upscale brands. It owns fashion names such as Christian Dior, Fendi, and Givenchy as well as watchmaker Tag Heuer.
It would also give LVMH a much broader foothold in the United States and broaden its offerings in jewelry.
LVMH cautioned in a brief statement that “there can be no assurance that these discussions will result in any agreement.”
Tiffany said the offer was for $120 a share, which is about $14.5 billion. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the offer over the weekend.
The New York-based company said Monday that it was considering the offer. Its shares jumped 31% to $128.81 in premarket trading in New York.
The offer comes as Tiffany has struggled with stagnating sales as China’s slowing economy has weighed on spending by Chinese tourists, who make up a substantial portion of luxury spending. The strong dollar has also made Tiffany products more expensive for consumers outside the U.S.
LVMH competes with the Kering Group, which owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, and Richemont SA, which owns Cartier.
Thousands of students have joined Iraq’s anti-government protests, defying a government order and tear gas from security forces.
The students skipped classes at several universities and secondary schools in Baghdad and across the Shi’ite south on Monday to take part in the protests. The demonstrations are fueled by anger at corruption, economic stagnation and poor public services.
In Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the protests, demonstrators chanted: “It’s a student revolution, no to the government, no to parties!”
Security forces have fired tear gas and stun grenades to keep protesters from crossing a main bridge leading to the Green Zone, home to government offices and embassies.
At least 219 people have been killed in clashes with security forces since the protests began earlier this month.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it is operating at a ” heightened state of vigilance” following the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi but there are no plans to issue an (National Terrorism Advisory System) alert unless “we develop specific or credible threat information” to share with the public.
“Our security posture will remain agile, we will continue to mitigate and respond to the ever evolving threat landscape,” the DHS said in a statement a day after President Donald Trump announced that U.S. military special forces operation in northwest Syria successfully targeted and “violently eliminated” Baghdadi.
FILE – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi purportedly appears for the first time in five years in a propaganda video in an undisclosed location, in this undated TV grab taken from video released April 29 by Al-Furqan media.
“Last night the United States brought the world’s number one terrorist leader to justice,” said Trump, speaking from the Diplomatic Room of the White House, explaining that the IS leader detonated a suicide vest in a tunnel, also killing three of his children.
“No (US) personnel were lost in the operation,” but a large number of al-Baghdadi’s fighters were killed and others were captured, according to Trump. He said the Islamic State leader, who was hiding in a tunnel tried to flee, “was screaming, crying and whimpering” in his last moments.
“He died like a dog. He died like a coward,” added Trump.
Baghdadi’s remains were positively identified in 15 minutes, according to Trump.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces says IS spokesman and Baghdadi’s “right-hand man” Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was also killed in the U.S. operation. U.S. officials have yet to confirm his death.
A destroyed vehicle at the site where helicopter gunfire reportedly killed nine people near the northwestern Syrian village of Barisha in the Idlib province, Oct. 27, 2019.
A U.S. official told VOA the operation was staged from a base in Iraq. President Trump said eight helicopters flew slightly over an hour to reach the compound.
There were also “many other ships and planes” supporting a large group of U.S. fighters who “blasted their way in so quickly” and then “all hell broke loose,” said Trump.
Russia “did not know the mission,” explained Trump but allowed the helicopters to fly over areas in Syria it controlled.
Trump also thanked Iraq, Syria and Turkey for unspecified cooperation and expressed appreciation to the Syrian Kurds for providing helpful information.
Initial reports of the IS leader’s death were greeted with a degree of skepticism as Baghdadi’s demise had previously been erroneously reported several times.
Since 2016, the United States had offered a reward of up to $25 million for information to help bring Baghdadi to justice. Only one other person, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, has a reward that high.
Jeff Seldin, Carla Babb and Steve Herman contributed to this report.
The United States is promising there will be no let-up in its pursuit of the Islamic State terror group despite the death of self-declared caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in what is being described as a “daring and dangerous” nighttime raid in northern Syria.
Baghdadi, who took over the group formerly known as al-Qaida In Iraq in 2010 and turned into a global threat, died “whimpering and crying” in a dead-end tunnel, according to U.S. President Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, Oct. 27, 2019.
“Baghdadi’s demise demonstrates America’s relentless pursuit of terrorist leaders and our commitment to the enduring defeat of ISIS and other terrorist organizations,” the U.S. president said from the White House Sunday, using an acronym for the terror group.
“We know the successors,” he added. “And we already have them in our sights.”
Efforts to track them down may get an additional boost from the raid on the compound in Barisha, in Syria’s Idlib province, which led to the capture of a small group of IS officials and fighters.
Trump said U.S. forces also recovered, “highly sensitive material and information… much having to do with ISIS, origins, future plans, things that we very much want.”
Already, those efforts may be paying off. The commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, General Mazloum Abdi, tweeted Sunday that IS spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was targeted and killed in a subsequent joint SDF-U.S. operation near the northern Syrian town of Jarablus, though U.S. officials have yet to comment.
But military and intelligence officials admit tracking down and eliminating key IS emirs and operatives, while serving to degrade the terror group’s capabilities, has not been sufficient to lead to its ultimate demise.
At one point, in late 2015, as the U.S.-led coalition tried to roll back the terror group’s caliphate, officials said airstrikes were killing, on average, one mid-level or senior-level IS leader every two days.
HVI [High Value Individual] strikes killed abt 70 senior/mid-level #ISIS leaders since May “depleting #ISIL‘s bench” per @OIRspox
U.S. counterterrorism officials later described some of those so-called decapitation strikes as “significant blows.”
Yet IS carried on, and even as it’s caliphate collapsed, with the last bit territory falling to coalition forces this past March, the terror group’s leadership was proving to be nimble and adaptive, focusing their efforts on a potent and growing insurgency.
“ISIS is working to advance an insurgency in Syria and Iraq comprised of dispersed networks spanning the battlespace,” a U.S. counterterrorism official recently told VOA.
“The group is using these networks to undermine local governance and reconstruction efforts by stoking violence and mistrust among ethno-sectarian lines,” the official added.
Other current and former officials warn such resiliency has been built into the IS’ operating model from the start.
“It’s a big deal, simply because of the symbolic importance of Baghdadi,” former U.S. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told VOA, of the U.S. operation that killed the IS leader.
Baghdadi’s death not enough to stop IS
But he said Baghdadi’s death alone would not be enough.
“ISIS has been more de-centralized and has groomed leaders for just this eventuality,” Clapper said.
Terrorism analysts also point to a growing body of evidence that suggest even in groups which are less prepared to cope with the loss of an influential leader, strikes like the one that killed Baghdadi are rarely death blows.
“The death of a jihadist leader is always a dangerous moment for the group as it can lead to internal struggles,” said Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence for Le Beck, a Middle East-based security and geopolitical consultancy.
FILE – Then-al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden speaks to a select group of reporters in mountains of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, Dec. 24, 1998.
“In general, however, jihadist groups do tend to survive such strikes,” he said, pointing to IS’ main rival, al-Qaida, as an example. “[Osama] bin Laden was replaced by his former number two, [Ayman] al-Zawahiri, a much less charismatic leader, but one that still heads a powerful and global terror franchise.”
Recent intelligence from the U.S. and other countries indicates IS, even without Baghdadi, is well-positioned to survive and even thrive.
Despite no longer controlling territory in Syria and Iraq, the terror group still had an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 thousand fighters across Syria and Iraq. Officials also believe it still has plenty of cash, perhaps up to $300 million at its disposal.
And U.S. officials note IS retains many of its former capabilities, moving them underground as it ceded territorial control to U.S.-backed forces.
“The group has tens of thousands of seasoned fighters and hundreds of leaders who have survived decades of war,” said Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “The Islamic State is more than its emir.”
Islamic State ‘brand lives on’
U.S. officials have likewise warned that IS has built itself in such a way that developments which they thought would undoubtedly lead to its demise — like the loss of almost all of its physical caliphate — have had less impact than anticipated.
“The so-called ISIS caliphate has been destroyed, but the ISIS brand lives on around the world,” State Department Counterterrorism coordinator Nathan Sales warned this past August.
Still, IS is likely to face some significant challenges, especially in the short term, knowing that the U.S. may have gained access to crucial information during the raid on Bashira.
“The first thing they’re going to do will probably be to activate security protocols to try to get their manpower and their resources to a position of safety with the expectation that the U.S. is going to hit the [IS] network hard,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst and CEO of Valens Global.
There is also a question of securing the allegiance of IS’ various affiliates, especially those in Afghanistan, Egypt’s Sinai, Libya and Nigeria.
“The standard bayat [pledge of allegiance] is not to an organization,” said Gartenstein-Ross “Bayat is on an individual to individual level.”
And exactly who that new leader will ultimately be is not clear.
This file image made from video posted on a militant website July 5, 2014, purports to show Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq.
“If you asked me this question a few years ago, I would have said that ISIS was always expecting that Baghdadi would eventually be killed and that the process of succession was already set in place,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, a terrorism researcher and assistant professor at Queen’s University in Ontario Canada, who has interviewed active members of the movement.
“But now, after Baghuz, all of this is up in the air,” he said. “Whatever structures they had in place for succession are probably no more.”
There are also questions about how Baghdadi’s death will impact the morale of IS fighters and supporters. While analysts say most will view him as a martyr, ignoring President Trump’s descriptions of the IS leader dying “like a dog” and “like a coward,” his continued ability to defy the U.S. and send out occasional messages may be felt.
“It seems his reappearance earlier this year was a real morale booster for supporters,” said Raphael Gluck, co-founder of Jihadoscope, a company that monitors online activity by Islamist extremists.
“Clearly he, or those around him, thinks it’s good for ISIS and worth the risks,” Gluck said at the time.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Vice President Mike Pence said late-breaking intelligence gave special forces the opening they needed to carry out the attack on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after President Trump approved the raid earlier this past week.
Vice President Mike Pence told CBS News that by Thursday afternoon, the U.S. had a “high probability” that Baghdadi would be in the compound in Idlib, Syria. He added that the U.S. received “actionable intelligence” on Saturday morning that allowed the mission to move forward that night.
A U.S. official told VOA the operation was staged from a base in Iraq. President Trump said eight helicopters flew slightly over an hour to reach the compound.
Esper said soldiers had intended on capturing Baghdadi but were prepared to kill him, if necessary. The team called out to Baghdadi to try to get him to surrender.
“He refused. He went down to a subterranean area, and in the process of trying to get him out, he detonated a suicide vest, we believe, and killed himself,” Esper told CNN.
According to Pence, the president looked at options presented to him by military leaders on Friday morning.
“He reviewed them, asked some great questions, chose the option that we thought gave us the highest probability of success and confirmation that the head of ISIS would be there and either captured or killed,” Esper added.
Esper said there were two “minor” injuries to U.S. soldiers in the operation, who have since returned to duty. Trump also indicated a U.S. K-9 was injured.
Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces who partnered with the U.S. to defeat Islamic State in Syria, thanked the president on Twitter Sunday and said there had been monitoring and “joint intel cooperation on the ground” with the U.S. for five months.
He called the death of Baghdadi a “joint operation,” and hinted at “other effective operations” between the U.S. and SDF in the future. He later said an operation in the region targeted and killed Islamic State spokesman Hassan al-Muhajir. U.S. officials would not comment on Abdi’s Tweets.
During the announcement, Trump thanked the SDF, Iraq, Russia, Turkey and Syria, in addition to U.S. military forces who were “so brave and so good.”
