U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Tuesday and met with the Iraqi prime minister and other senior officials after voicing U.S. concern about Iraqi sovereignty due to increasing Iranian activity in the region.

The visit came two days after U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said the United States was deploying the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group to the region as well as a bomber task force because of a “credible threat by Iranian regime forces.”

Washington has ramped up sanctions pressure on Iran over its nuclear program in recent months and listed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group.

“I wanted to go to Baghdad to speak with the leadership there, to assure them that we stood ready to continue to ensure that Iraq is a sovereign, independent nation,” Pompeo told reporters en route to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Asked if there was a threat to the Baghdad government from Iran that raised U.S. concerns about Iraqi sovereignty, Pompeo said, “No, no, generally this has been our position since the national security strategy came out in the beginning of the Trump administration.”

An Iraqi government source confirmed the meeting with Abdul Mahdi but did not elaborate on the details.

Speaking with reporters ahead of his meeting with the Iraqi leaders, Pompeo also said he would have an opportunity to discuss pending business accords with Iraqi officials, including “big energy deals that can disconnect them from Iranian energy.”

“I will obviously talk about the security situation there, and the forces that we have in Iraq as well, ensure that we continue to support the Iraqi security forces, the ISF, and can train them, professionalize them, so that the new leadership there in Iraq can have security control inside of the country,” Pompeo said.

The visit to Iraq came after Pompeo canceled a planned visit to Berlin, citing “international security issues.”
…

VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.

PENTAGON / WHITE HOUSE — The U.S. military has “recent and clear indications” of an Iranian threat against American forces in the Middle East, defense officials said Tuesday.

“U.S. Central Command has seen recent and clear indications that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were making preparations to possibly attack U.S. forces in the region. This includes threats on land and in the maritime,” U.S. Central Command spokesman Navy Capt. William Urban said.

The United States announced Monday it was speeding up the arrival of a naval aircraft carrier strike group to the Arabian Sea and deploying a bomber task force in response to a potential Iranian threat. Urban said Tuesday B-52 bomber jets were deploying to the region “to protect U.S. forces and interests in the region and to deter any aggression.”

The USS Abraham Lincoln is currently operating in the U.S. European Command area of responsibility (AOR) but will expedite its arrival into the Middle East, a defense official told VOA.

“We have continued to see activity that leads us to believe that there’s escalation that may be taking place, and so we’re taking all the appropriate actions, both from a security perspective as well as our ability to make sure the president has a wide range of options in the event that something should actually take place,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Monday in Finland. 

The concerns expressed by Pompeo and U.S. defense officials contrast with the U.S. Central Command’s assessment just over a month ago.

Despite Iran’s “significant capability” in Syria and the region, Central Command officials said there were no indications Tehran was aiming to set its sights on U.S. forces.

“Iran’s priority is to defeat ISIS, which it sees as an existential threat,” the Defense Department’s Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve said, summarizing CENTCOM’s March 26 assessment in a report issued Tuesday. 

“They are not displaying the intent to attack U.S. forces,” the report added, warning, “this calculus could change if Iran perceives a U.S. desire to ramp up anti-Iranian activities in a post-ISIS environment.”

‘Threat’ from US

Some former U.S. intelligence and security officials worry, however, that recent rhetoric from the White House combined with its ongoing “maximum pressure” campaign, has done just that.

New America Foundation Fellow Ned Price told VOA an unusual and aggressive Sunday evening statement issued in the name of the U.S. national security adviser John Bolton — in which he warned the U.S. is “fully prepared to respond to any attack” — makes it seem like the U.S. is “intent on driving the Iranians into a corner.”

“The concern with Bolton’s threat — coming in the midst of a series of escalations from the Trump administration — underscores the concern that the administration is trying to goad the Iranians into an unwise and ill-considered reaction,” said Price, a former spokesman for the Obama-era National Security Council.

In addition to the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the strike group being sent to the Central Command area of operations includes fighter jets, helicopters, destroyers and more than 6,000 sailors when it left its U.S. port in the state of Virginia in early April.

‘Prudent repositioning of assets’

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, on Twitter, stated Monday that the deployment of a naval carrier strike group and an air force bomber task force to the area “represents a prudent repositioning of assets in response to indications of a credible threat by Iranian regime forces.” 

Shanahan added: “We call on the Iranian regime to cease all provocation. We will hold the Iranian regime accountable for any attack on US forces or our interests.” 

The Trump administration has been working to apply what it calls a “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran to try to get the country to change its behavior, including its sponsorship of terror groups and what the White House alleges is a ballistic missile program that threatens the United States.

In response to last month’s U.S. designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group, Iran responded by declaring the United States a state sponsor of terrorism and its forces in the Middle East as terror groups.
…

Syrian and Russian warplanes have been escalating airstrikes on the last remaining rebel redoubt in northern Syria. The air raids are as much a message to Turkey as to die-hard rebels and jihadists in the province of Idlib, say analysts.

Russia wants Turkey to do more to remove from the province jihadists fighters once affiliated with al-Qaida, they say.

The U.N. is calling for de-escalation in northwestern Syria, with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urging all parties to recommit to a truce covering opposition-held parts of Idlib, western Aleppo and northern Hama. More than 2.7 million people live in the rebel redoubt, many displaced from other parts of the war-wrecked country.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said at least 27 civilians have been killed and 31 injured since April 29, including women and children.

Turkey, which backs moderate Syrian rebels and has been in alliance with them against the Syrian Kurds, agreed in September to disarm and remove fighters in the hardline Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham faction. That armed group, once formerly affiliated with al-Qaida, has been expanding its control over parts of Idlib.

Activists say 43 combatants and five civilians were killed on Monday alone in the stepped up airstrikes that reportedly have included dropping barrel and incendiary bombs on residential areas. U.N. officials say the use of barrel bombs in the last few days is the worst they’ve seen by the Syrian army in the 15 months since an agreed to cease-fire for Idlib, which shares a 130-kilometer border with Turkey.

Two medical facilities were also reportedly damaged Monday, bringing to 12 the number of medical clinics bombed since April 28. Relief workers say the bombings occurred despite their coordinates having been shared with the warring parties through a U.N. deconfliction mechanism.

Aerial attacks have targeted the city of Jisr al-Shughour and the al-Ghab plain, as well as the towns of al-Latamenah and Maarat al-Numan in the south of Idlib province, rebels say.

A 15-kilometer demilitarized buffer zone was established along the front lines separating the opposition and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last September in a deal between the leaders of Russia and Turkey. The move shelved a threatened all-out assault by the Russia-backed Assad government on Syria’s last rebel stronghold.

Under the terms of the deal, all “radical fighters” would withdraw and all opposition factions would remove heavy weaponry from the zone. By the end of 2018, transportation routes between Syria’s port of Latakia with Aleppo and Hama were meant to have been restored.

Rebel leaders say the military objective of the intensified airstrikes appears to be aimed at seizing control of highways M5 and M4. But they are warning also the air blitz may herald the start of a final government offensive on the rebel enclave, much as intense bombing did in 2016 before a successful government assault on Aleppo.

“An offensive will happen sooner rather than later. It’s just difficult to say how soon,” according to Ahmad Rahal, a former rebel commander.

On Monday, government troops and allied Iran-backed militiamen captured a string of opposition-held villages in northern Hama. Rebel factions carried out counter-attacks in neighboring Latakia province and launched some weaponized drone attacks on the Russian airbase at Hmeimim.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War say the government forces appear to be setting the conditions for only a limited ground attack mainly focused on the southern Idlib and northern Hama countryside. Armored units have been deployed, according to Syrian government news reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said it is unlikely that a full-scale assault on Syria’s Idlib province will be mounted, dismissing it as impractical for now, although he has not ruled it out entirely. The political aim of the intensified airstrikes appears aimed at putting pressure on Turkey to fulfill its side of the demilitarized zone deal.

Whatever the objectives, the human cost is mounting. U.N. agencies such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimate that tens of thousands are fleeing and relief workers are warning of an “apocalyptic” humanitarian disaster.

OHCHR spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said, “We call on all parties to the conflict to respect the international humanitarian law principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality and to ensure the full protection of civilian objects.”

“This blatant aggression has forced well over 300,000 people out of their homes and did not stop even on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan,” rebel leaders say. In a statement issued Tuesday, the Syrian Coalition, the main umbrella opposition group, said, “The fierce Russian airstrikes and the regime’s heavy artillery shelling are directly targeting residential areas.”

 
…

Syrian troops captured a village and a strategic hill from insurgents Monday in the country’s northwest, pro-government media said, amid the heaviest fighting to hit the region in eight months. A nearby Russian air base was also targeted by a missile attack from militants.

The Syrian government’s advance was the deepest push so far this year into Syria’s last major rebel stronghold. The latest wave of violence, which began April 30, has raised fears the government may launch a wider offensive to retake the area, home to around 3 million people. It is also the most serious challenge to a Russia-Turkey sponsored cease-fire in place since September.

A senior Russian official said Russia’s air base in the coastal province of Latakia came under fire from the insurgents, the latest assault on the military post since Friday.

Gen. Viktor Kupchishin said the base was targeted twice Monday by “multiple missile launcher systems.” He blamed the attack on al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group in control of most of the rebel-held enclave. He said 36 missiles were fired using a drone but were repelled by the defense system. There were no casualties or damage, he said. 

Kupchishin said the situation has “deteriorated dramatically” in the area. His comments were carried by Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed great concern at the intensifying hostilities in what was supposed to be a de-escalation area and alarm at reports of aerial attacks on population centers and civilian infrastructure “resulting in hundreds of civilian dead and injured and over 150,000 newly displaced persons,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Three health facilities were reportedly hit by airstrikes Sunday, bringing the total to at least seven struck since April 28, Dujarric said. Nine schools have reportedly been hit since April 30, leading to closures in many areas.

Guterres called for an urgent de-escalating as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins, and he urged all parties to recommit to cease-fire arrangements agreed to last September, Dujarric said. 

Insurgents in Idlib and Hama provinces, where the rebel-held enclave is located, have previously used drones to target the base. Most of those attacks were thwarted, but they often serve to ratchet up tensions in the area.

Earlier Monday, the government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said the village of al-Bani and the nearby Othman hill in the northern countryside of Hama province had been captured by Syrian troops. 

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitor, confirmed that al-Bani had been captured and that troops were marching toward the hill. The Observatory said the intense fighting on Monday killed 20 people.

Jaish al-Ezzat, one of the main rebel groups in the rebel-held enclave Syria, said it destroyed a Syrian army tank and that all the soldiers inside were killed. The group described “fierce clashes” near al-Bani.

The latest round of fighting has killed dozens and displaced tens of thousands in Idlib and nearby rebel-held areas, who fled to safer regions further north. It’s the worst violence since September, when Russia and Turkey negotiated the cease-fire to avert a government offensive on Idlib and surrounding areas.

The Observatory reported more than 60 Russian airstrikes on insurgents Monday alone. 

Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that Syrian troops intensified their shelling of insurgents in northern parts of Hama province and the southern parts of Idlib.
…

For 12 years, Israel has maintained a blockade over the Gaza Strip, seeking to weaken the territory’s militant Hamas rulers. And for 12 years, Hamas has remained firmly in power, developing a thriving homegrown weapons industry along the way.

This weekend’s violence, the worst in a string of flare-ups since a 2014 war, provided the latest illustration of the limitations of the blockade and fueled calls Monday in Israel for a rethinking of the longstanding policy, which many see as ineffective and even counterproductive.

“Israel, similar to the leaders in Gaza, must look forward. Only an economic solution to the Gaza Strip, and orderly work, will bring quiet and money and dignity,” Smadar Peri, a veteran Israeli defense commentator, wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily. “It would be a very good idea, in tandem with the umpteenth talks on a cease-fire, to decide to steer toward a businesslike dialogue.”

This will be no easy task. Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies that have fought three wars since the Islamic group seized control of Gaza from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007.

Israel considers Hamas, which seeks Israel’s destruction, a terrorist group, while Hamas sees Israel as an illegal occupier. They do not speak to one another, communicating through Egyptian, Qatari and U.N. mediators.

The Israeli blockade has been a driving factor in the three wars, numerous smaller battles and countless rounds of negotiations over the years as Hamas demands an easing of the closure in exchange for a halt in rocket fire.

Israel and Egypt, which borders Gaza to the south, imposed the blockade after the 2007 Hamas takeover, seeking to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons into the territory. Since then, Israel has controlled Gaza’s airspace and coastline, and restricted the flow of goods and people in and out of the territory.

Eitan Dangot, the former commander of COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said Israel has no choice but to enforce the blockade.

“Because Hamas has refused to accept Israel as a state, refused to move toward disarmament, refused to declare a long-term cease-fire and stop launching rockets, we have all the right to maintain the blockade as long as we can avert a humanitarian crisis,” he said.

“If we open the borders, do you believe that Hamas will disarm itself and not produce new rockets in its factories?” he added. He gave no alternative, beyond allowing small-scale “goodwill gestures.”

But the effects of the blockade have been devastating for Gaza’s civilians. Unemployment has soared above 50%, according to U.N. estimates, and is even higher for younger workers in their 20s and 30s. Gaza suffers from chronic electricity outages. Its water is undrinkable, and the poverty rate is rising.

Yet Hamas seems stronger than ever. And despite the Israeli pressure, it possesses a seemingly never-ending supply of rockets, some of which are capable of striking deep inside Israel.

Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, boasted that the group has been able to continue to fight, thanks to its ability “to shift to self-reliance and produce weapons locally.” 

While the group’s arsenal is no match for the powerful Israeli military, it gives Hamas enough power to greatly disrupt life on the other side of the border whenever it sees the need.

In the latest fighting, Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group launched roughly 700 rockets into Israel over two days, while Israel responded with several hundred airstrikes on militant targets in Gaza.

Twenty-five Palestinians, including at least 10 militants, and four Israeli civilians were killed before a cease-fire was reached Monday. They were the first Israeli fatalities from rocket fire since the 50-day 2014 war.

For both sides, it has become a familiar scene. Accusing Israel of violating past understandings, militants fire rockets. Israel retaliates with airstrikes, fighting escalates and another vague cease-fire is reached in which Israel promises to ease the blockade if rocket fire stops.

These battles, however, have become increasingly violent and frequent. Israel and Hamas engaged in two rounds of fierce battles in March, following fighting in November and last summer. In addition, Hamas has been orchestrating weekly mass protests against the blockade for over a year along the Israeli border. Some 200 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier have been killed in protest-related violence.

Perhaps with this on people’s minds, the cease-fire announcement got a cool reception in Israel.

Gideon Saar, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said the truce was “bereft” of benefits for Israel. “The war hasn’t been averted, only postponed,” he wrote on Twitter.

Yair Lapid, a leader of the opposition Blue and White party, called on the government to use heavier force against militants, but also to show “political bravery” and help Gaza’s civilians.

“Major economic projects in Gaza will cause the civilian population to tell Hamas, ‘stop firing, we have too much to lose,’” he said.

Netanyahu is unlikely to make major policy changes anytime soon. Fresh off an election victory, he is engaged in coalition negotiations with smaller, hard-line parties that will oppose any concessions, even if he wanted to make them.

With Muslims marking the holy month of Ramadan and Israel marking its Memorial Day and Independence Day this week and hosting the Eurovision song contest next week, neither side appears eager to return to fighting.

That should give international mediators at least a few weeks to shore up the latest cease-fire and try to press ahead on some of Israel’s deeper pledges, such as expanding Gaza’s fishing zone, increasing the electricity supply to Gaza and implementing an internationally funded jobs program in Gaza.

Broader concessions, however, remain a long way off. Israel will demand disarmament as well as the release of two captive Israeli civilians, and the return of the remains of two Israeli soldiers, held by Hamas as a condition for a wider easing.

Still, there seems to be a growing awareness that something must change. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of time before the next round of violence.

“I think that Israel is ready to reconsider the whole blockade, or at least to ease it,” said Kobi Michael, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.

“It’s clear that the only way forward is to cooperate with Hamas, Egyptians, Qataris, and find the right mechanisms for Hamas to rule the Gaza Strip effectively,” he said.
…