The Giant Al Qaeda Defeat That No One’s Talking About

By Michael Morell | Politico

Something significant and positive just happened in the Middle East, and most Americans are not aware of it. The United Arab Emirates, under the banner of a Saudi-led coalition, late last month delivered a major blow to the most lethal Al Qaeda group on the planet—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the primary Islamic extremist group operating in Yemen.

The Sunni Gulf states are often painted in the Western media as shying away from a fight, not being capable of a fight and not willing to deal with terrorists and extremists in their midst. The UAE operation in Yemen proved that none of these characterizations are true of Abu Dhabi.

AQAP has long been, and still is, a threat to the American homeland. The past three attempted terrorist attacks in the United States by an outside group were conducted by AQAP—the 2009 attempt to bring down an airliner flying to Detroit by the so-called underwear bomber, the 2010 attempt to bring down U.S.-flagged cargo planes flying from the Middle East to the United States by hiding bombs in printer cartridges, and the 2011 plot to bring down a civilian airliner flying to the United States with a sophisticated suicide vest containing no metallic parts.

These plots resulted from the extensive safe haven that AQAP then enjoyed in Yemen. In 2012 and 2013, military operations by the Yemeni government, supported by U.S. counterterrorism operations, eliminated that safe haven and removed numerous AQAP leaders from the battlefield. But a civil war in Yemen that began in 2014 created a power vacuum that gave AQAP new life. Early last year, the group seized a large amount of territory, garnered thousands of new recruits, acquired caches of weapons and raised new revenues.

In the civil war, the Saudi-led coalition has been fighting on the side of the internationally recognized government of Yemen and its president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The coalition is fighting against an Iranian-backed Yemeni militant group called the Houthis that had swept across the country in 2014, capturing the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014. The focus of the coalition has been fighting the Houthis, but over the past five months it has quietly turned its attention to the growing threat of AQAP, culminating in last month’s major operation.

On the weekend of April 23-24, the Emirati military, with the support of the Yemeni military and local Yemeni tribes, seized from AQAP the strategically important city of Mukalla and the surrounding area. Mukalla, Yemen’s fifth-largest city, hosts the country’s second largest port—from which AQAP was earning substantial revenues by taxing the shipment of goods there. The city was to be the center of AQAP’s Islamic emirate in Yemen. Its loss is a major blow to AQAP. It is the equivalent of the Islamic State losing Mosul or Raqqa.

The military operation was well planned and executed. The Emiratis worked with local Yemeni tribes to secure their support for the operation, and the Emiratis trained a cadre of Yemeni soldiers to assist in the operation. The attack itself involved choreographed air, naval and ground operations. The operation, which some thought would take weeks, took only days. And now the coalition is shifting to operations to ensure that AQAP cannot return—to include the establishment of good governance in the area. It is a textbook solution of dealing with terrorist groups that hold territory.

Degrading AQAP was in the interests of the Saudis and the Emiratis. The two countries are the primary targets of AQAP in the region. But the degradation of the group is also in the national security interests of the United States since the homeland remains target No. 1 for AQAP outside the region.

Thus, the implications of the Emirati operation are significant. It is the kind of military capability and willingness to act against terrorists that should become a model for other countries in the region. It is the kind of action that the United States should support—both with tangible assistance and public statements. And, it is the approach to dealing with terrorists holding territory that will work against other extremist groups, including the Islamic State, winning the support of local tribes, training local Sunni forces to take the fight to the enemy, and fighting ourselves where necessary.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia vows to end its ‘addiction to oil’

Attendees, including Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, silently swept past gathered journalists at a luxury hotel in Doha ahead of the meeting. — Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is now starting to contemplate a future in which gasoline and diesel now longer power the majority of the world’s cars.

Over the next decade and a half, it hopes to transition its economy away from oil, largely by investing today’s oil revenues in other industries.

It’s part of a plan known as “Vision 2030” that Saudi Arabia claims will end its “addiction to oil.”

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the plan’s chief architect, believes the Saudi economy will survive “without any dependence on oil” as soon as 2020, The Washington Post recently reported.

It would be a major but necessary transition for the Saudi economy.

In recent years, oil has accounted for an estimated 90 percent of the kingdom’s income, but declining prices led to a $98 billion deficit last year.

As countries across the globe enact stricter fuel-economy standards and other measures to curb carbon emissions, Saudi Arabia will only be able to depend less on oil revenues.

The government’s first major step to address that trend will be an initial public offering (IPO) in Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, it says.

While the government plans to sell less than 5 percent of Aramco, the company’s sheer size—Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed believes it will be valued at $2.5 trillion—has some analysts already describing this as the largest IPO in history.

Some funds from the sale will be used to establish a $2 trillion “Public Investment Fund,” which will then invest in other industries.

The goal is to make investment income the main source of Saudi revenue, Mohammed has said.

Yet despite Aramco’s immense value, Saudi Arabia’s opaque government and business practices could keep investors at arm’s length.

Much of how Aramco is run remains highly unclear to potential investors, an oil-industry insider told Green Car Reports on the condition of anonymity.

The Aramco IPO is the most prominent of a number of policies proposed in the Vision 2030 plan.

It also calls for the diversification of the Saudi workforce by encouraging greater participation by women, and a “green card” program for guest workers from other Arab and Muslim countries.

The plan would also see Saudi Arabia focus more on its tourist industry, and cultivate a domestic defense industry as an alternative to buying arms from countries like the U.S.

Still, Saudi Arabia will continue to keep pumping oil for decades, until that activity is no longer economically viable.

The government wants to diversify not out of concern for pollution related to burning fossil fuels, but because it knows an oil-dependent economy puts it in a vulnerable position.

President Obama Adding US Troops in Syria to Keep Up ‘Momentum’ Against ISIS

President Obama says he is expanding the U.S. military presence in Syria in order to keep up the “momentum” in the campaign against ISIS.

“I’ve decided to increase U.S. support for local forces fighting ISIL in Syria,” the president said today in a speech in Hanover, Germany, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State. “They’re not going to be leading the fight on the ground, but they will be essential in providing the training and assisting local forces that continue to drive ISIL back.”

The president will deploy an additional 250 Special Operations Forces to Syria to assist local forces in their fight against ISIS. This adds to the 50 personnel aiding fighters in Syria, bringing the total number of US troops in the country to 300.
Obama to Send 250 Additional Military Personnel to Syria, Official Says

Obama encouraged his NATO counterparts to step up their counter-ISIS efforts, including increasing the air campaign in Syria and Iraq, providing trainers to help build up local forces in Iraq and providing greater economic assistance to Iraq.

“These terrorists are doing everything in their power to strike our cities and kill our citizens so we need to do everything in our power to stop them,” he said.

Before the speech, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes stressed that while the troops will be in “harm’s way,” they are not being tasked with a combat mission.

“Obviously, any special forces troops that we deploy into Iraq or Syria are going to be combat-equipped troops. They may be in circumstances where they find themselves in harm’s way because these are dangerous places,” Rhodes told reporters today. “They’re not being sent there on a combat mission. They’re being sent there on a mission to be advising and assisting and supporting the forces that are fighting against ISIL on the ground.”

The United States is also ramping up its military presence in neighboring Iraq. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced last week the deployment of an additional 217 troops to serve as advisers in Iraq, raising the total number of authorized military forces to 4,087.

The president’s decision comes before a security-focused meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Rhodes said the president will encourage his European counterparts, both publicly and privately, to expand their commitment to fight ISIS.

“Everybody is in this fight,” Rhodes said. “We will do our part, but this will only succeed if we are working together as a coalition and as a global community to stamp out the threat of ISIL.”

The leaders will also discuss other global security concerns, including the refugee crisis, assisting a new government in Libya, and maintaining pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been at odds with Western leaders over aggression in Ukraine and support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

President Obama will urge European leaders to expand intelligence sharing as ISIS continues to pose a threat to their countries in the wake of the attacks in Paris and Brussels.

US ups pressure on IS with first B-52 bomber strike

Washington (AFP) – The US Air Force for the first time deployed a B-52 bomber against the Islamic State, the Pentagon said Wednesday as it ramps up a 20-month campaign to smash the jihadists.

The bombing mission, in which a hulking B-52 destroyed a weapons storage facility south of Mosul, comes the same week that Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Baghdad and announced extra US troops, cash and equipment for the anti-IS campaign in Iraq.

In other signs of an increasing tempo, US commandos working with Kurdish troops conducted a raid targeting a senior IS group figure and the Pentagon said it has changed how air strikes risking civilian deaths are approved.

Under the new rules, authority now comes from the commanding three-star US general in Baghdad, instead of going through a four-star at the US Central Command’s headquarters in Florida.

Baghdad-based military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren insisted the changes do not lessen oversight standards in determining when civilian losses are an acceptable risk.

“This does not translate to more civilian casualties, this translates to a more rapid execution of strikes,” Warren said.

The Pentagon has acknowledged 26 civilian deaths due to US-led coalition strikes since the campaign began in August 2014 in Iraq, and credits the use of guided missiles in keeping the number relatively low — though independent observers say the figure is far higher.

– More US troops –

Carter this week announced an additional 217 US forces would be deployed to Iraq as advisors, pushing the official count there past 4,000.

The Pentagon has also offered Apache attack helicopters for use in an eventual push on Mosul, Iraq’s second city and which is under control of the IS group.

Separately, Danish lawmakers have approved a plan to commit seven F-16 warplanes, a transport aircraft and 400 military personnel to expand its fight against the extremists.

Monday’s strike by a B-52 Stratofortress blew up an IS weapons storage facility in the town of Qayyarah, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) south of Mosul.

The enormous planes, originally designed in the 1950s, became a symbol of US might during the Cold War and the aircraft was used to conduct carpet bombing in Vietnam.

Warren said the B-52s are only being armed with guided bombs.

“There are memories in the collective unconscious of B-52s, decades ago, doing… arguably indiscriminate bombing,” Warren said.

“Those days are long gone. The B-52 is a precision-strike weapons platform and it will conduct the same type of precision strikes that we have seen for the last 20 months.”

Several B-52s arrived in Qatar earlier this month to replace a contingent of newer B-1 bombers that had been working in Iraq and Syria for about a year.

Warren also announced that US commandos in northern Iraq had targeted Suleiman Abd Shabib al-Jabouri, “one of ISIL’s military emirs and an ISIL war council member.”

The Kurdish regional security council said Jabouri was killed in the raid, conducted jointly with Kurdish fighters.

– ‘Shoving match’ –

The US military has since 2014 led an international coalition against the IS group in Iraq and Syria after the jihadists captured vast areas of territory across the two countries.

Despite major gains, including the recapture of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, the coalition has still not chased IS fighters from Raqa in Syria or Mosul, as well as several other important towns.

In Syria, vetted Syrian opposition fighters are clashing with IS fighters in the north, especially around the Manbij region, but have recently lost some ground to the jihadists.

It “has developed into a shoving match,” Warren said. “We will continue to pressure ISIL but we expect them to fight hard to hold their ground.”

Additionally, the IS group has tightened the noose on a regime-held enclave in eastern Syria, overrunning part of the city of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Elsewhere in Syria, a Russian- and US-brokered ceasefire grew ever more fragile as violence continued to flare up around Aleppo. IS and other jihadist groups are not party to the February “cessation of hostilities.”

The biggest oil meeting in decades will take place on Sunday — here’s what you need to know

Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi speaks to media on his arrives for the Gulf Cooperation Council Oil Ministers' meeting in Riyadh on October 9, 2012. — Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi speaks to media on his arrives for the Gulf Cooperation Council Oil Ministers’ meeting in Riyadh on October 9, 2012.

Major oil players will be gathering to discuss a potential production freeze on Sunday, April 17, in Doha, Qatar, in what some analysts have called “the most important meeting of the last three decades.”

Analysts have been hoping for a coordinated move ever since mid-February, when Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and Qatar agreed to freeze production at January levels if other producers joined in.

Since then, several states, including the relatively better-off Gulf Cooperation Council members Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, expressed willingness to support the deal.

But others weren’t as supportive. Most notably, Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Zangeneh, previously called the idea to freeze production “a joke.“

Plus, not everyone is planning to attend the Doha meeting. Libya said that it’s not going. Whether or not Iran actually shows up is a bit fuzzy after reports on Wednesday suggested that Zangeneh doesn’t plan on attending the upcoming Doha meeting, but will instead send a representative.

In light of all this, analysts aren’t exactly feeling optimistic about the meeting’s outcome.

A Macquarie Research team, led by Vikas Dwivedi, argued in a note to clients (emphasis added):

We have muted expectations for any meaningful impact on crude fundamentals from the April 17th Doha meeting. Practically, implementation of any accord that is reached would be so difficult that we view anything beyond foregoing splashy growth in 2016 as too optimistic.

The commodities-research team at RBC Capital Markets, headed by Helima Croft, also voiced doubts about the meeting’s outcome.

“As it stands now, we believe that the most likely outcome is that producers fail to close the deal and announce a freeze on Sunday, but that they instead pledge to continue to conversation and even possibly put an additional OPEC/non-OPEC meeting on the calendar for later in the year,” Croft wrote.

“Saudi Arabia and Iran do not appear ready to give sufficient ground to get a comprehensive freeze agreement done by Sunday, given current information,” she wrote.

“In order to get a breakthrough, we would likely need to see Saudi Arabia move beyond an outright insistence that Iran freeze production at current levels and/or for Iran to agree to a production ceiling that falls well short of their current 4 mb/d negotiating stance,” she continued.

But Croft also added that, given that the majority of oil producers — including Russia and the aforementioned GCC states — want a deal, their team can’t entirely rule out anything.

Even if some sort of deal is reached, however, it may not even have a huge impact.

“In the event an accord is reached, there will be very little impact on global crude supply/demand balances,” Dwivedi’s team wrote.

“The return of OPEC to country-level quotas replacing the current ‘free-for-all’ strategy is viewed as broadly positive, as is the elimination of the KSA/Iraqi production growth tail risk. However in light of the production growth already achieved in January by OPEC members and Russia, an accord will not significantly impact crude S/D balances,” they continued.

Notably, in the background of all this, it seems like global production is finally starting to cool down.

Credit Suisse’s Ed Westlake and Jan Stuart shared a chart on Wednesday showing that global oil production excluding Saudi Arabia slowed to approximately 83 million barrels per day in 2016, from about 84 million in mid-2015.

But the US Energy Information Administration‘s latest data showed that total world production is up to 96.27 million barrels per day in 2016, up from 95.76 million bpd in 2015.

In any case, analysts will be keeping their eyes and ears open for any news of possible coordination at Sunday’s meeting.

WTI crude is trading higher by 0.4% at $41.93 per barrel, and Brent crude is up 0.5% at $44.39 per barrel as of 11:52 a.m. EST.

Missing Ugandan maid fuels fears of abuse in Saudi Arabia

By Yasin Kakande | Thomson Reuters Foundation

KAMPALA, April 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Jannat Mubiru has heard nothing from her daughter since the 27-year-old called to say she had arrived safely in Riyadh, where she was due to start work as a maid five months ago.

Mubiru has repeatedly phoned the Saudi number her daughter, Shamim Nakitende, used but her calls went unanswered at first, and then were blocked.

“There are so many stories of Ugandans being mistreated in Saudi Arabia. I am so worried,” Mubiru told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Shamim left behind a daughter and son and it’s difficult to answer their daily questions about their mother without knowing if she is still alive or not,” she added.

Since Nakitende left, the company which had offered her work in Saudi Arabia has closed its external recruitment department and severed links with the unit’s director over violations of recruitment guidelines, Mubiru said.

More than 10,000 Ugandans are estimated to be working in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait as security guards, domestic workers, drivers and cashiers in supermarkets and fast food restaurants.

In January, the Ugandan government announced a ban with immediate effect on the recruitment of Ugandans as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, after the local media reported cases of abuse and mistreatment.

Despite the ban, the recruitment of Ugandans to work in the oil-rich Gulf states is still flourishing as agents prey on jobless youths in the east African country eager for adventure, overseas travel and the promise of a good salary.

Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Welfare Muruli Mukasa said the government had received many complaints of exploitation from workers in the Gulf – including having their passports confiscated on arrival and being made to work 12 hours a day or more, sometimes without enough to eat.

Some also reported having their salaries withheld and being subjected to verbal abuse, physical assault, threats and intimidation by their employers.

Thomson Reuters Foundation asked Saudi embassy officials to respond but they declined to comment.

UNSCRUPULOUS AGENTS

Some Ugandans said they were deceived as to the nature and income of their promised jobs by recruitment companies, though these were licensed and vetted by the authorities.

The same agencies sometimes took money from both the prospective employer and the migrant worker to cover recruitment fees, the cost of a visa and the air fare, workers said.

“An Arab employer who has paid these exorbitant fees, believes he or she just bought you. In other words you are his slave with no rights whatsoever,” said Ramla Nakazibwe, who returned from the UAE in January, her dream in tatters.

Nakazibwe used a licensed recruitment agency to find her a job in the UAE, spending 6 million shillings ($1,800) on fees.

Instead of working in a supermarket as she was promised, she was given a cleaner’s job which paid only 600 dirhams ($160) a month.

President Yoweri Museveni’s government is trying to raise awareness of the risks of being trafficked abroad, using a TV campaign urging Ugandans to be careful about overseas job offers, said Moses Binoga, national coordinator for the interior ministry’s anti-trafficking task force.

TOUGHER PENALTIES FOR UNLICENSED AGENTS

He said his task force was lobbying government for a review of 2005 guidelines on the export of labour, seeking tougher penalties for recruitment agents working without a licence.

“The government should also be urged to develop international agreements (extradition treaties) with the Middle East countries so that those who exploit Ugandans can face justice also,” Binoga told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Theopista Nabulya, a member of parliament representing exploited workers, said her group had asked the government to stop licensing recruitment companies unless a proper system was in place to protect migrant workers’ rights.

She said she had visited Ugandans in most of the Gulf Arab states between 2011 and 2015, and found that most of them had been duped at some point during the process.

Some of the worst exploitation involved women who had escaped from their employers and ended up as sex workers in Dubai, she said.”There’s an opportunity to arrive at the same results (of getting Ugandan jobs in the Gulf) by making the process cleaner and more ethical, without preventing Ugandans from migration,” Nabulya told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

US B-52s arrives in Qatar to strike ISIS – beautiful photos

Two US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress aircraft from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, have arrived at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, on Apr. 9, 2016.

The aircraft will operate in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the air war against ISIS replacing the B-1 Lancers, the last of those returned stateside in January, after a 6-month deployment worth 3,800 munitions on 3,700 targets in 490 sorties. By the way, the B-1s could return to the Mideast this summer after they receive additional cockpit upgrades…

Although the B-52s are capable to perform round-trip missions directly from their homebase as demonstrated in May 2015, when two B-52Hs showed their ability to do on a range in Jordan (a 14,000 miles 30-hour trip to drop some 500-lb GBU-38 JDAM – Joint Direct Attack Munition – bombs in an old-fashioned carpet bombing mission) the about 60 years old “Buffs” (Big Ugly Fat Fellas) will be stationed at Al Udeid in Qatar, the first deployment of the Stratofortress in the region after the Gulf War.

Dealing with the type of mission the B-52s will carry out in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, it will probably be the same of the B-1s: Close Air Support and Air Interdiction delivering a wide variety of PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions), including JDAMs on ISIS positions.

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