The U.S. military conducted about half as many airstrikes in 2021 as it did in 2020, a change that defense analysts say is due at least in part to the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Biden administration’s emphasis on diplomacy over military force. 

According to data published by the military, U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia totaled 510 last year, which was 48.3% fewer than the 987 U.S. airstrikes carried out in the same war zones in 2020. 

VOA used airstrike confirmations provided in press releases by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and airpower summaries published by U.S. Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT) for this report.

However, since VOA began inquiring about global airstrike data, two U.S. military officials have confirmed that the published airstrike numbers, which reporters rely on to monitor these strikes, are an incomplete picture of the total number of global airstrikes carried out by the U.S. military. Since 2019, a counterterror joint task force established in the Middle East has carried out additional airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan that are not included in the AFCENT airpower summaries because AFCENT is not responsible for those strikes.

VOA has asked U.S. Central Command for the number of additional airstrikes carried out by the joint task force in 2020 and 2021, which will increase the total numbers of strikes from both years, but that data was not provided ahead of publication.

Two weeks after Inauguration Day, President Joe Biden announced his administration would take steps to “course-correct” U.S. foreign policy to “better unite our democratic values with our diplomatic leadership.” He tasked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to lead a review of U.S. forces around the world, so that America’s military footprint was, in his words, “appropriately aligned with our foreign policy and national security priorities.” 

Afghanistan 

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, told VOA a decrease in airstrikes falls in line with Biden’s views about diplomacy but also reflects both the U.S-led coalition’s withdrawal from Afghanistan last year and the more stable situations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. 

“There were fewer targets to hit, and fewer reasons to do so,” he told VOA. 

U.S. forces halted strikes in Afghanistan following the end of its troop pullout on Aug. 31, 2021.

The Pentagon has vowed to use “over the horizon” airstrikes from outside Afghanistan to target terrorists in the country who plan to attack the U.S. homeland or the homelands of American allies. However, the last such strike occurred on Aug. 27, 2021, targeting the Islamic State-Khorasan terror group in eastern Afghanistan. That strike came a day after a suicide bombing at Kabul’s international airport killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghan civilians. 

Iraq, Syria 

In Iraq and Syria, U.S. and international forces officially transitioned to a non-combat mission on Dec. 9, 2021, a day before Iraq’s government celebrated its fourth anniversary of defeating the Islamic State. Airstrikes there in 2020 and 2021 were used to target the terror group’s remnants and defend U.S. and international allies from attacks by militant groups backed by Iran. 

“Even as the (Biden) administration negotiates with Iran in Vienna, Tehran’s proxies are attacking our troops,” Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA. He added that increased attacks from Iranian-backed militants and decreased U.S. airstrikes were a result of the president’s “misunderstanding of the relationship between diplomatic success and military power.”

In the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia, U.S. airstrikes surged during the Trump administration, as military commanders used the strikes to quickly target the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab without placing significant numbers of troops on the ground.

The fast pace of strikes continued into the final days of Trump’s presidency, with six of the 10 strikes of 2021 carried out before Biden took office January 20. 

In 2020 and 2021, no U.S. military airstrikes were carried out in Yemen, which once saw multiple airstrikes each year against members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), according to U.S. Central Command. 

Criticism of civilian casualty investigations 

Though U.S. commanders and some analysts have applauded airstrikes’ ability to limit risk to American forces, these strikes have come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks after a New York Times investigation revealed several flaws in the Pentagon’s dismissals of civilian casualty claims.

Allegations that civilians were killed in U.S. airstrikes were dismissed a majority of the time by the civilian casualty cell tasked with assessing them. 

However, the New York Times reviewed 80 such assessments and “repeatedly found what appeared to be simple mistakes,” – “oversights that Times reporters were able to detect using resources widely available to the public.”

In one example, the military learned of a claim that more than 30 people, including women and children, were killed in an airstrike in the Mosul neighborhood of Siha, but military investigators dismissed the claim because they failed to locate the neighborhood. Times reporters found the neighborhood in Google Maps simply by adding an “h” to the end of Siha, as Arabic names often have multiple spelling variations when converted to English. Several news reports at the time had also verified the neighborhood’s location.

Other claims were dismissed because of the investigator’s inability to determine which of many strikes in the area was the subject of the claim.

The Pentagon has said that it is committed to investigating these mistakes.

“Civilian harm is something that we do take seriously, and as the secretary said himself, we do recognize that we’ve got to do better,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said earlier this month in response to a question from VOA. “And as we make improvements, as we make changes, we’ll certainly be transparent about that.” 

 
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The Kremlin said Tuesday it has little optimism about a breakthrough on talks with the United States this week about its European security concerns, while Washington said Moscow’s massive troop buildup along the Ukraine border is at the root of current tensions. 

After a day of talks with U.S. diplomats Monday in Geneva, Moscow said it would wait for the outcome of more meetings set for Wednesday in Brussels and Thursday in Vienna before deciding whether it’s worth it to continue negotiations with Washington officials. 

But in the U.S., Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told reporters, “We haven’t seen the slightest hint of de-escalation” on Russia’s part. “It is Russia that created this crisis out of whole cloth” by deploying 100,000 troops just across from Ukraine’s eastern border. 

At the Geneva talks, Russia demanded guarantees, rejected by Washington, that the West’s 30-country NATO military alliance halt further eastward expansion toward Russia and curb military deployments in Eastern Europe. 

“NATO poses no threat to Russia. It is a defensive alliance whose sole purpose is to protect its members,” Nuland said. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the first day of talks in Geneva were “open, comprehensive and direct,” an assessment echoed by Washington. But Peskov said it was the result that ultimately matters. 

“So far, let’s say we see no significant reason for optimism,” he said in a conference call with reporters.

NATO and Russia are holding talks in Brussels, while the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is meeting in Vienna. 

“There are still several rounds [of talks] ahead of us, which will allow us to work out a clearer understanding, a clearer picture of where we stand with the Americans,” Peskov said. 

He said Russia is not setting deadlines for the talks but also would not accept dragging them out. 

Western allies fear that Russia is planning to invade Ukraine after annexing its Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Russia has denied it plans to invade its one-time Soviet satellite state but also has not acceded to U.S. demands that it withdraw troops from the border. 

U.S. President Joe Biden has ruled out a military confrontation with Russia in the event it decides to attack Ukraine but says the U.S. and its allies would impose significant economic sanctions if it does invade. 

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who led the U.S. delegation in Geneva, said Tuesday on Twitter, “The United States is committed to working in lockstep with our allies and partners to urge de-escalation and respond to the security crisis caused by Russia.” 

In Monday’s bilateral talks, the two parties discussed “reciprocal action that would be in our security interest and proved strategic stability,” Sherman said. That includes possible limits on both sides on the size and scope of future military exercises in the region.

European Council President Charles Michel reiterated that “we have clearly said that if there was to be a military offensive against Ukraine, there would be a massive reaction from the European Union in coordination with our partners and allies.” 

Estonian Defense Minister Kalle Laanet called the Russian demands to curb NATO expansion, if it wishes to do so, “completely unacceptable,” adding that he expects the alliance members at Wednesday’s meeting to “be very clear in saying that … NATO’s collective defense continues to be a value that is being defended by its members.” 

In Geneva, Russian negotiator Sergei Ryabkov rejected U.S. demands that Moscow pull back its estimated 100,000 troops from the Ukrainian border, saying it had the right to deploy them wherever it wanted.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are headed Tuesday to the southern state of Georgia to promote voting rights legislation that would greatly expand federal purview over elections but has stalled in the Senate. 

A White House official said Biden would use an address to advocate for the right to vote in free, fair and secure elections untainted by partisan manipulation, and say that the way to guarantee those rights is by enacting two pieces of voting legislation introduced by Democrats. 

“The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning point in this nation,” Biden says, according to a White House excerpt of his remarks.  “Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice? I know where I stand. I will not yield. I will not flinch. I will defend your right to vote and our democracy against all enemies foreign and domestic. And so, the question is where will the institution of United States Senate stand?” 

He later said on Twitter, “History has never been kind to those who have sided with voter suppression over voting rights. And it will not be kind to those who fail to defend the right to vote.”

But Republicans in Congress have uniformly opposed the measures, contending that each of the individual 50 U.S. states should continue to set their own rules, including on voting hours, how many days of early voting should be allowed ahead of the traditional early November election days and the extent to which mail-in balloting is allowed.

In the 2020 presidential election, Biden ousted former President Donald Trump after a single White House term. Biden won some states where voting days were added, voting hours extended and mail-in balloting expanded to limit the need for voters to go to traditional, crowded voting places on Election Day in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, Democrats, in the legislation Biden supports, want to codify many of those changes for future elections, including the 2022 elections next November, when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and about a third of the Senate seats are up for grabs. Numerous Republican-controlled state legislatures in the last year have curtailed many of the changes enacted for the 2020 election, fearing that Democrats would gain a permanent electoral advantage if the rules were left in place.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to force votes this week on both the Freedom to Vote Act, which would overhaul federal election rules, and separate voting legislation that would strengthen the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring federal approval of newly enacted state voting regulations.

But Senate Republicans are set to use the 60-vote legislative filibuster to block those bills from advancing. The 100-member Senate is evenly divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans and the entire Republican caucus opposes the Democratic election legislation, meaning Democrats can likely only pass their proposals if they carve out an exception to the filibuster rule for voting rights legislation and win approval on a 51-50 vote, with Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.

Schumer has vowed to hold a vote by next Monday to change the legislative filibuster rules, but at least two Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, remain opposed to changing the legislative filibuster rule, even for voting rights measures. 

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has adamantly opposed the Democratic election law legislation and changing the filibuster rule.

“No party that would trash the Senate’s legislation traditions can be trusted to seize control over election laws all across America,” McConnell told the Senate recently. “Nobody who is this desperate to take over our democracy on a one-party basis can be allowed to do it.”

Democrats routinely criticize Trump and his Republican allies for what they characterize as his “Big Lie” that he was cheated out of re-election. McConnell, in turn, attacked Democrats over “the left’s Big Lie,” what he said is the belief that “there is some evil anti-voting conspiracy sweeping America.”

In supporting greater federal control of elections, Schumer cited data from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School showing that in the last year at least 19 states have passed 34 laws restricting access to voting. One of the states enacting more restrictions is Georgia, where Biden and Harris won in 2020 and are visiting on Tuesday.

But Senate Democrats have no path forward unless they change filibuster rules that prevent contentious legislation from advancing without the support of at least 60 of the 100 senators.

The White House official said Biden would voice support for changing the rule in order to protect voting rights and make the drawing of geographical lines for congressional districts less partisan.
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The United States set a new single-day record of 1,483,656 new COVID-19 infections Monday, according to figures compiled by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. 

The world leader in the total number of COVID-19 infections and deaths — with over 61.5 million and 839,500, respectively — is also poised to break another pandemic record as the number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 in recent days is close to surpassing the peak of 142,315, set on January 14, 2021.

The recent omicron-driven wave of new infections has pushed health care systems in parts of the U.S. past the breaking point, with some hospitals already dealing with a critical shortage of doctors and nurses either due to emotional exhaustion brought on by the two-year-old pandemic or because they have tested positive for COVID-19 themselves. 

Many hospitals are operating under a “crisis standards of care” designation, which allows them to limit the number of patients they admit and delay treatment and surgeries for various non-COVID-19 related issues.

The new surge has also impacted the reopening of scores of public schools after the Christmas and New Year holidays, with thousands of students and teachers infected with COVID-19, forcing school districts to briefly return to online instruction.

The union representing public school teachers in Chicago, the third-largest school district in the U.S., announced Monday its teachers would be returning to work this week after reaching a deal with city officials to increase coronavirus testing and create new metrics to determine if a school dealing with a major COVID-19 outbreak should close.

The teachers refused to resume in-person classes last week because of coronavirus safety concerns, leading to a dispute with administrators who cancelled classes altogether instead of agreeing with the union’s request to temporarily resume online instruction for more than 340,000 students.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday placed Canada on its list of destinations that pose a “very high” risk for travelers of exposure to COVID-19. The CDC designates as “Level 4” any destination with more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents over the past 28 days. The federal health agency also placed the Caribbean island of Curacao on its list of Level 4 destinations Monday. 

More lockdowns in China

Meanwhile, the number of residents forced into strict lockdowns across China is growing amid a threat of new coronavirus infections. Officials in the central city of Anyang have ordered its 5.5 million residents to stay home Monday after it confirmed two omicron cases. The infections are believed to be linked to at least one person, who had traveled to the port city of Tianjin, located about an hour from the capital, Beijing. 

As the lockdown of Anyang begins, residents in the neighboring city of Xi’an, home of the world-famous Terracotta Warrior sculptures, remain under strict lockdown protocols first imposed in December following a wave of COVID-19 infections driven by the delta variant. The city’s 13 million citizens are banned from leaving their homes unless they have essential jobs.

The surge of new COVID-19 outbreaks across China could pose a challenge to Beijing’s stringent “Zero COVID” effort, while also casting a pall over the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, which begin February 4. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
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A snowy owl apparently touring iconic buildings of the nation’s capital is captivating birdwatchers who manage to get a glimpse of the rare, resplendent visitor from the Arctic.

Far from its summer breeding grounds in Canada, the snowy owl was first seen on January 3, the day a winter storm dumped eight inches of snow on the city. 

Since then, it’s been spotted in the evenings flying around Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, landing on Union Station, the National Postal Museum, various Senate buildings, and Capitol Police headquarters. 

Late last week about three dozen people in thick coats trained their binoculars on the football-sized bird with bright yellow eyes as it perched on the stone head of Archimedes, a famous ancient Greek mathematician, carved above the train station entrance.

The nocturnal hunter appears to be targeting the city’s plentiful downtown rat population. 

“Snowy owls are coming from a part of the world where they see almost nothing human, from completely treeless open Arctic tundra,” said Scott Weidensaul, a researcher at the nonprofit Project SNOWStorm, which tracks snowy owl movements.

Some owls migrate south out of the Arctic every winter, but the number fluctuates, he said. About every 3 to 5 years, a spike in the population of lemmings, their chief food source, results in a larger number of surviving owl chicks. In those “irruption” years, more birds migrate and migrate farther. 

Most winters, North American snowy owls don’t go much below the Great Lakes or Cape Cod area, Weidensaul said. 

However, “in irruption years, they tend to go farther south than they usually would,” he said. “A lot of the snowy owls we’re seeing now in the East and Upper Midwest are young birds, on their first migration.” 

On eBird, a nonprofit platform used by birdwatchers, snowy owls have been reported this winter in Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina and Maryland.

Since it was first seen, the Capitol Hill owl has attracted a few dozen birdwatchers each night hoping to spot the same owl species that delivers messages to Harry Potter.

The onlookers have included new birdwatchers and those who have been doing it for decades, like the Swiss ambassador to the U.S., Jacques Pitteloud. Many are hoping for a “lifer” — the first time a birdwatcher has seen a particular bird.

Last Thursday, the owl perched on a bronze eagle atop a flagpole. Then it soared, its 5-foot white wingspan silhouetted against the inky night sky, to land on a large stone orb held by carved birds, part of an ornate fountain. 

Pitteloud picked up his camera tripod and ran through the grass to get a better view. When he later posted on Facebook, the 50-year veteran birdwatcher wrote, “The Superstar of Union Station! Snowy owl, a lifer for me in a very, very unlikely setting!” 

Kerry Snyder, who lives in Washington, said she recently became an avid birdwatcher. “I got into birding during the pandemic — it’s a great way to connect with people outdoors, when that’s been the safest place to be.”

She reminded other onlookers not to use flash photography or approach the owl too closely, lest the bird feel startled or threatened — good practices for viewers observing any bird of prey. 

Scientists consider snowy owls to be “vulnerable ” to extinction and estimate the total global population to be less than 30,000 birds. 

Weidensaul said that threats to snowy owls include urban hazards — in particular, vehicle collisions and poisons used to kill prey animals like rats, which can also kill raptors — as well as climate change.

“The climate is changing more dramatically in the Arctic than anywhere else on Earth,” he said, and that may make sightings like this one even rarer. In some parts of the Arctic, thinning ice is already reducing the number of boom years for lemmings.

After decades studying snowy owls, Weidensaul still feels awe: “This is a piece of the Arctic in downtown D.C. — you’re not going to see a polar bear walking in front of the White House.” 
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The U.S. and European Union on Monday announced sanctions on six Nicaraguan officials for what the Biden administration called “fraudulent national elections orchestrated by their regime in November, further consolidating their control of power to the detriment of the Nicaraguan people.”

The announcement comes on inauguration day for President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.

The U.S. Treasury Department accused the six officials of “state acts of violence,” spreading disinformation and targeting journalists.  

After the November elections, which saw Ortega-Murillo reelected for the fourth time, President Joe Biden called the elections “pantomime” and said he would “use all diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal to support the people of Nicaragua and hold accountable the Ortega-Murillo government and those that facilitate its abuses.”

At the time, the U.S. sanctioned several officials linked to Ortega.

“The Ortega-Murillo regime continues its subjugation of democracy through effectuating sham elections, silencing peaceful opposition, and holding hundreds of people as political prisoners,” Brian Nelson, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the statement.

“The United States and our partners are sending a clear message to President Ortega, Vice President Murillo, and their inner circle that we continue to stand with the Nicaraguan people in their calls for the immediate release of these political prisoners and a return to democracy,” Nelson said.

The officials sanctioned Monday are from the military, the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Mail, and the state-owned Nicaraguan Mining Company.

Citing previous sanctions that seemed not to deter Ortega, analysts doubted a new round of sanctions will have any effect, Reuters reported in November.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
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