Iraqi government forces have retaken control of Fallujah, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) stronghold. The first city to fall to ISIS and situated so close to the capital Baghdad, the government victory has symbolic and strategic value. However the battle is far from over.

By Mohammed Sinan Siyech*

Following a month-long offensive, Iraqi government forces have announced the recapture of Fallujah, a key town in the Anbar province of Iraq, which has been under the control of ISIS since January 2014. Backed by Shia militia units belonging to the Popular Mobilisation Front (PMF), the government forces retook the city on 18 June 2016, signalling a major defeat for ISIS, which is also facing prospective losses in Mosul and Raqqa in Syria.

Fallujah has historically been an important catalyst for many of the military operations run by insurgents of Al Qaeda against the US military. Violence, destruction, evacuations, recapture and relocation are a familiar process for the city dwellers that are experiencing another phase of the same with the present offensive launched by the Iraqi government. The government’s victory however is only the beginning. With battles to clear out pockets of fighters holed up in different districts still to be fought. The focus will now have to shift to many issues within the city that if left unchallenged will result in more instability.

Booby Traps and Recurring Violence

The first problem that will be faced by the Iraqi army will be military in nature. Due to the usage of civilians as human shields to hamper the government’s progress, ISIS militants would have had ample time to place improvised booby traps, mines and other explosives all over the city. This is a strategy used by the group in Ramadi where there is an estimated 5,000 land mines placed all over the city. This will not only create a problem for the military securing the city but it will make it difficult for those civilians who will inevitably return.

The second concern will be the reining in of Shia militia units that have assisted the military forces throughout the offensive. Led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander, Qasim al Sulaymani, the militia units have been harsh in their treatment of civilians. Disturbing reports have emerged on the number of dead and tortured bodies found in areas where the Shia militia have taken control.

The militias have been fuelled by their hatred of ISIS’ extreme Sunni ideology which also brands Shias as heretics. Since most of the civilians in the city are Sunnis, the spillover of hatred creates a potent problem for the Iraqi government. While Prime Minister Abadi has declared his intention to protect the Sunnis from these militia units, it remains to be seen if it will be carried out. This should be done as part of a larger drive to repair the Sunni-Shia relationship which has contributed significantly to the backlash against the government in the past.

Humanitarian Issues

Another problem posed by a fleeing ISIS is the difficulty of differentiating between a civilian and a militant posing as a civilian. This has been another reason for the brutal tactics of the Popular Mobilisation Front units present in the city. Many militants have chosen to hide or dispose their weapons and pose as civilians rather than be arrested.

This strategy also enables them to spy on the security situation of the city and report back to the group so as to organise counter offensives. This has the potential to create a security paradox as wrongly imprisoning any civilian will lead to increasing distrust of the government.

More urgently though is the problem of treating the civilians who have remained back in Fallujah. Hospitals at this time do not have any medical supplies, and many people requiring medical treatment have been turned away or have had to endure inadequate treatment. Failure to address this pressing need can lead to outbreaks of diseases which will undoubtedly be aggravated by the poor sanitation and inadequate water facilities.

Long Term Resilience a Necessary Strategy

While many ISIS militants fleeing Fallujah have been captured, many others still hold parts of the city trying to launch counter offensives. Although their chances of taking back Fallujah from the military are low, it is quite probable that any operation they launch will result in the killing of innocent people. Iraqi forces face the monumental task of clearing these remaining fighters and then securing the borders from any further attacks.

Looming large for the Iraqi government is also the issue of dealing with a population that has been exposed to war for more than a decade now. Without sufficient law and order in the city it is quite likely that battle-weary citizens with no incentive to follow the law will turn to crime or fall prey to ISIS subversions in the future. Being sufficiently accustomed to war means that these disgruntled citizens will be prone to violence, creating another problem for the military.

In the long run the Iraqi government will have to contend with issues of reconstruction, governance and resilience. Far too many reconstruction projects have led to deeper anger and mistrust of the government due to work being given to foreign contractors, the subsequent exclusion of the local population and mostly unfinished projects.

In the past, unemployment during times of rebuilding the city has been an active factor in driving youngsters frustrated with the government to join terrorist groups. This was exacerbated by the fact that extremist groups like Muqtada As Sadr’s Mehdi Army have taken advantage of the vacuum to provide their own basic services and gain legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens. It remains to be seen if the Iraqi government, which has made many mistakes in the past, will take a strategic and comprehensive approach to secure Fallujah this time around.

*Mohammed Sinan Siyech is a Research Analyst with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

By James Stafford

Just a few years ago, we would have scoffed at the idea that electric vehicles could be mainstream anytime soon, or that the global appetite for lithium-ion batteries and mass power storage would be so voracious, and so sudden. Today, no one is scoffing, and lithium is being viewed as our new super-mineral that will catapult us firmly into the next century.

Now Tesla has started buying up Nevada and building its battery gigafactory, with competing gigafactories following suit and competing electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers all throwing billions at this fast-moving market that no one has been able to keep up with.

Not only has the EV taken its first major leap into the mainstream—most notably indicated by Tesla’s phenomenal advance sales of its affordable Model 3—but it’s gone beyond the mainstream.

Electric vehicles will be the rule rather than the exception; and lithium the number one commodity of our time.

Germany has mandated that all new cars registered in the country will have to be emissions-free by the year 2030. And to make this a reality, the government has cut a deal with automakers to jointly spend $1.4 billion on incentives to boost electric car sales. They’re hoping to sell 500,000 EVs by 2020. So they’re subsidizing the EV industry, and giving lithium an automatic boost at a time when it doesn’t even need it.

Norway is following suit as well, working on legislation to outright ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2025.

And in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal now reports that the mainstream popularity of electric cars will reduce gasoline demand by 5% to 20% over the next two decades, assuming that EVs gain more than 35% market share by 2035.

While our energy revolution got off to a slow start, better cars at more affordable prices, tighter air-pollution regulations and a growing global desire to halt climate change have pushed the revolution over the edge. It’s all powered by lithium, which has always enjoyed steady demand just from our consumer electronics cravings—but is now about to go where no mineral has gone before.

Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA), Nissan Motor Co. (OTC:NSANY), Hyundai Motor Co. (OTC:HYMTF) and Volkswagen AG (ETR:VOW3) are all putting out EVs, and Ford Motor Co. is planning to invest $4.5 billion over the next four years to develop an amazing 12 new EVs and hybrids, according to the WSJ.

“Electric vehicles are one of the biggest market disruptors in centuries—which makes lithium the commodity that gives us the most reason to be bullish,” Oroplata Resources CEO Craig Alfred told Oilprice.com.

Let the Hoarding Begin

Metal hoarding and demand is driving up prices to $15,000 per ton or higher on the spot market, vs. only $5,000 a couple years ago.

In 2014, lithium prices grew 20%. And in 2015 battery grade lithium spot prices in China surged from $7,000 per ton in the middle of the year to a market-shocking $20,000 per ton earlier this year.

Market consumption could triple from 160,000 metric tons to a staggering 470,000 metric tons by 2025. And even if the EV market share increased by only 1%, it would raise lithium demand by 70,000 metric tons—which is about half of today’s demand.

This has made the commodity—described by Goldman Sachs as the “new gasoline” a prime target for the break-out of junior miners who are keen to get in on what has traditionally been an oligopoly. These juniors will be just as disruptive to the market as EVs themselves.

In the race to secure new lithium supply acreage, the juniors are relentless, and the newest junior on the scene is Oroplata Resources, Inc., which recently staked its own claim in Tesla’s backyard, with the 100%-owned Western Nevada Basin project.

Close to home—and close to the North America EV center stage—there’s nowhere else to be but Nevada, which has the only brine-sourced lithium in the country and has strategically positioned itself to be the front line of the American energy revolution.

The ‘gigafactory’ state is now the scene of the hottest activity since the California gold rush, and the new entrants are scrambling to stake their claims around the only producing lithium mine in America–Albermarle’s Silver Peak Mine.

According to Fortune magazine, by some estimates the Silver Peak Mine alone “holds the promise of even greater untapped riches of the valuable metal buried beyond the mine.”

The juniors are betting that Nevada’s Clayton Valley Basin holds a lot more lithium than we have ever imagined, and geology may just prove them right.

“Never before has there been commodity supply that is this fantastically tight,” says Alfred of Oroplata Resources, which has just confirmed the presence of “highly anomalous lithium values” from its Western Nevada Basin project, right in the heart of the state’s lithium ground zero. “Right now it’s all about getting it out of the ground first and becoming the next suppliers of a revolution that’s already unfolding at a phenomenal pace.”

Musk would agree. When he cut the ribbon on the new gigafactory he noted that he alone would use up most of the world’s existing lithium supply.

“In order to produce a half million cars per year…we would basically need to absorb the entire world’s lithium-ion production,” Musk said.

And that’s just one man, one brand of EV and one gigafactory. The race is indeed on to be the first to get at new lithium supply—and there is every reason to be bullish on the new juniors who will disrupt the entire market.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Move-Over-Oil-Lithium-Is-The-Future-Of-Transportation.html

By Sanjay Badri-Maharaj

By Ted Bromund*

On June 23, Britain will hold a referendum on its membership in the European Union. Opponents of a British exit from the EU assert that a “Brexit” would be bad for both British security and the peace of Europe. Indeed, on May 9, British Prime Minister David Cameron, a supporter of Britain’s EU membership, implied that Brexit risks causing a European war.[1]

This argument rests on bad history and a worse understanding of the risks to peace in Europe today. If Britain exits the EU, it will ensure that it retains control of its foreign, security, and alliance policies. This will allow it to continue to play a leading role in the NATO alliance, and ensure that it remains a vital security and intelligence ally of the United States. It is the United States and NATO—not the EU—that have brought peace to Europe.

Moreover, the EU’s policies today, while not posing an immediate risk of war within Europe itself, are based on a complete failure to learn the lessons of the post-1945 era. By simultaneously failing to deter Russia, refusing to confront the crises on the European periphery, and following policies that encourage the rise of domestic political radicalism, it is the EU itself that threatens the stability of Europe. As such, democratic assertions of national sovereignty, such as Brexit, are the best way to bring Europe back to sanity and security alike.

The EU Did Not Bring Peace to Europe

Defenders of the EU claim that it ended the wars of Europe—a risibly false assertion. The wars of Europe were caused first by the rivalry between various European powers attempting to control the continent and, second, by the anti-democratic ideologies of Nazism, fascism, and Communism.

War came close to disappearing from Europe after 1945 because the dominance of the superpowers—the U.S. and the USSR—made it impossible for the European powers to resume their rivalries. At the same time, the U.S., with NATO, deterred the Soviet Union, Western Europe’s external enemy, from launching an assault on it. The catastrophe of World War II made the pursuit of continental dominance illegitimate, while the defeat of Nazism and fascism—and in 1989, of communism—removed the ideological obstacles to peace. As historian James Sheehan points out, Europe’s nations came to rely on prosperity, not war, for their legitimacy.[2]

The EU did not cause any of these great events, it benefitted from them. Only in a Europe that had already decided not to return to the path blazed by Philip II, Napoleon, and Hitler could the EU have been built through its successive stages. The first step toward the EU, the Coal and Steel Community, did not happen until 1951, and the most significant one, the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), did not take place until 1958, by which time Western Europe was both peaceful and increasingly prosperous.

Britain did not seek to join the EEC until 1961, and did not gain entry until 1973. British membership of the EEC thus played no role at all in securing the peace of Europe in the three decades after 1945. The argument that British membership of the EEC is necessary to preserve the post-war peace ignores the fact that Britain was not in the EEC when that peace was built.

Moreover, British membership of the EEC was—in the realms of security policy and parliamentary sovereignty alike—a rejection of its historic role. In the past, Britain had always sided with the weaker powers on the continent against the strongest one. But by joining the EEC, Britain was in effect siding with a political and economic organization that had aspirations to unify all of Western Europe. Britain had, in effect, become part of the stronger power.

In the context of the Cold War, this decision was understandable, but after 1989, the paradox that Britain the balancer was now siding with an increasingly dominant continental bloc became all the more obvious. For this reason alone, comparisons between the policy that Britain followed against Napoleon and its membership of the EU are absurd.

The EU Has Not Preserved Peace in Europe

The EU’s defenders also claim that it plays an important role in preserving peace in contemporary Europe. This claim is equally false. It was clearly not the EU’s predecessors that deterred the Soviets after 1945: That honor belongs to the United States, Britain, and NATO. Of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, Sheehan observes that while Europe’s institutional weaknesses were serious, what really mattered “were the Europeans’ failures of will and imagination.”[3] To put it simply, the more the EU came to define itself as the avatar of peace, the less psychologically capable it was of recognizing the need to meet force with force.

What was true in the 1990s remains true today. The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy offers the worst of all worlds.[4] It tempts the majority of EU members that are also in NATO to allocate their increasingly limited military resources simultaneously to both the EU and NATO. This double-counting creates an illusion of strength and thus encourages them to spend even less, while simultaneously distracting them from an exclusive focus on NATO, which is the vital but increasingly fragile security link between Europe and the U.S.

Moreover, because six members of the EU—Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden—are politically and militarily neutral, the EU cannot stand whole-heartedly alongside NATO as an alliance of democracies, even if it were minded to do so. In practice, the EU wavers between the fantasy of a European army and a less grandiose plan for a European defense union. Such a union would in practice force EU members to choose between the EU and NATO, for the simple reason that they would no longer be able to make independent commitments to the transatlantic alliance.[5]

The EU’s security achievements remain paltry: Missions usually take place in the former French colonial empire in West Africa, or with substantial support from the U.S. and NATO, such as in the former Yugoslavia or off the coast of Somalia. Worse, though, is the role the EU has played in destabilizing Europe. Both of today’s great security crises, the flow of migrants from Syria and the wider Middle East and the Russian occupation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, were facilitated by the EU’s policies and bungling.

In the case of the migrants, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany invited what turned out to be well over one million migrants into Germany. The EU’s open internal borders transformed this spontaneous and poorly considered initiative from a German crisis into a European one. While the initial responsibility for this failure rests with Merkel, the EU’s responses to the migrant crisis have been as hesitant and confused as they were to the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

The case of Ukraine is equally complex. Ukraine had serious political problems, but it also had—and still has—the right to make its own policies, including the right to seek association with the EU. Russia was clearly opposed to such an association, which the EU and Kyiv sought to negotiate in 2014. The EU was eager to come to an agreement with Ukraine, but it failed to recognize the need to deter a Russian intervention: The result was Russia’s dismemberment of Ukraine and the first successful use of force to change European borders since 1945.

This fact alone refutes the claim that the EU is a force for peace: The EU has never had more power than it does today, and yet today, there is a war raging in Europe, while Europe’s borders are palpably not secure. The EU is not responsible for Russia’s crimes, or those of Assad’s Syria, but it is responsible for its own failures of diplomacy and imagination that allowed Vladimir Putin, and the civil war in Syria, to threaten the security of the heart of Europe.

The EU Fails to Recognize the Basis of European Peace

The most immediate and obvious threat to European peace is posed by Russia, which is illegally occupying two large regions of Ukraine. Russia also poses a threat to the Baltic nations, which are both NATO and EU members, and to Georgia, which aspires to join both NATO and the EU. As long as Georgia and Ukraine are partially occupied, Europe is not whole, free, or at peace.

The flow of migrants from the Middle East also poses a direct threat to European security. These migrants cannot be effectively screened, which raises concerns about Islamist terrorism—concerns already made real by the Paris attacks of November 2015. Moreover, the European publics do not want to welcome that many migrants to Europe, and as long as the mainstream parties demand that the migrants be let in, the publics are likely to vote against them, and in favor of parties on the left or right that are willing to take a clear stand against further migration.

Not all of these parties are anti-democratic—indeed, in the sense that they are standing up for what their publics want, they have a good claim to be more democratic than their centrist rivals. But the arrival in Europe of millions of migrants from the Middle East must have political consequences, and it is difficult to believe that those consequences will all be positive.

In short, the EU’s inability (or refusal) to cope with the migrants or to deter Russia shows it has failed to recognize one of the bases of European security: the need to ensure that external pressure does not reach directly into Europe, or so frighten the European publics that they abandon democratic values. That was precisely what the U.S. sought to achieve after 1945 by protecting Western Europe from the external pressure posed by the USSR.

The EU has also failed to recognize another vital basis of European security. As Sheehan points out, the European nation-states were relegitimated after 1945 by economic growth. This was what the U.S. wanted and expected, and it was in considerable part the result of U.S. policies, exemplified by the Marshall Plan. But today, growth in the EU is slow, and in many EU nations, unemployment is frighteningly high. The result has been exactly what the U.S. would have predicted after 1945: rising concerns about European political extremism.

Moreover, the EU has decided that its central aim must be to save the euro currency. The result in Greece has been a punishing depression: Since Greece uses the euro, it cannot adjust the value of its currency externally, and must therefore deflate its own economy. In consequence, the old Greek party system has collapsed, and Greek politics are now dominated by the far Left and the far Right. Italy, Spain, and France are going down the same path, and unlike Greece, those nations are too big to be bullied by the EU into enduring a depression for the sake of saving the euro.

The EU’s financial leadership, the European Central Bank (ECB), has also embarked on a policy of quantitative easing and negative interest rates in order to prevent deflation by making it easier to borrow. But, as one German bank has already warned, “by appointing itself the eurozone’s ‘whatever it takes’ saviour of last resort, the ECB has allowed politicians to sit on their hands with regard to growth-enhancing reforms and necessary fiscal consolidation.”[6] In short, by making it easier to borrow, the ECB is merely postponing the national reforms that are the only basis for sustained growth, which in turn is vital to preserving democracy and peace in Europe.

As the U.S. recognized after 1945, bad economics make bad politics. That is still true today. The EU’s economics are bad, and until they improve, its politics are likely to become worse. While bad politics do not guarantee wars, they are inherently undesirable, and they pose risks of even greater instability. Ironically, while the EU vaingloriously prides itself on bringing peace to Europe, it is doing exactly the opposite of what actually brought peace to the continent: deterring external enemies and promoting democratic politics by pursuing economic growth.

What the U.S. Should Do

The U.S. can, and should, do two things:

1. Return to the goals that guided U.S. policy after 1945. The U.S. should recognize that its interests in Europe have not changed since 1945: It wants peace, prosperity, and democracy. All three are inherently good, and all three contribute to each other. The path to peace rests partly in deterring Europe’s external enemies: That has been, and remains, a job for NATO. It rests also in the pursuit of democracy inside Europe, and post-war history strongly suggests that this is most safely achieved if Europe’s nation-states are prosperous. The next President should defend these interests by ending the outsourcing of U.S. policy in Europe to the EU.[7]
2. Recognize the risks posed by the EU’s erosion of democracy and national sovereignty. The EU makes no contribution—except a negative one—to European security. It poses serious risks to European prosperity, and it exists to override and control Europe’s nation-states, thus making them less than fully sovereign and democratic. Defenders of the EU should ask: If the EU makes a central contribution to British and European—and thus American—security, why did Western Europe turn to peace before the EEC was established, and why today, with the EU at its peak, is Russia waging a war inside Ukraine, has the Syrian war crested Europe’s borders, and do the far Right and far Left threaten Europe’s political order?

The European Union is not the solution. It is the problem.

About the author:
*Ted R. Bromund, PhD, is Senior Research Fellow in Anglo–American Relations in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Notes:
[1] Henry Mance, “David Cameron Says Leaving EU Puts Peace at Risk,” Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c36e4b52-1538-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e.html (accessed June 14, 2016).

[2] James J. Sheehan, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe (Mariner Books, 2009), p. xx.

[3] Ibid., p. 205.

[4] For more on the broader ideology on which the EU is based, see Todd Huizinga, The New Totalitarian Temptation: Global Governance and the Crisis of Democracy in Europe (Encounter, 2016).

[5] Robin Emmott, “Germany, France to Revive EU Defense But No Plans for EU Army,” Reuters, June 3, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-defence-idUSKCN0YP11B (accessed June 13, 2016).

[6] Szu Ping Chan, “‘Desperate’ ECB Risks Destroying European Project with Negative Rates, Warns Deutsche Bank,” Telegraph, June 8, 2016, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/08/desperate-ecb-risks-destroying-european-project-with-negative-ra/ (accessed June 13, 2016).

[7] For more on these themes, see Ted R. Bromund, “America’s Outdated Europe Policy: In 2017, the Next President Must Adapt to New Reality,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4559, May 18, 2016, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2016/05/americas-outdated-europe-policy-in-2017-the-next-president-must-adapt-to-new-reality.

By William J. Krouse*

On June 12, 2016, an armed assailant killed 49 people and wounded over 50 others in an Orlando, FL nightclub. After a three-hour stand-off with police, the assailant was killed by police. It is unknown at this time whether any of the victims may have been killed in the crossfire between the police and the assailant during a hostage rescue operation.

The deceased assailant was armed with a 5.56 caliber Sig Sauer rifle and a 9mm Glock semiautomatic pistol.

Assailant’s Gun Check

The alleged assailant, 29-year-old Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, acquired these firearms from a federally licensed gun dealer about two weeks prior to the shooting. In so doing, he underwent and passed a background check through a computer system administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), known as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). In addition, the alleged assailant was employed as a state-licensed security guard and held a concealed carry weapons (CCW) permit. It has been reported that the state-issued security guard license might have allowed the alleged assailant to purchase these firearms with minimal background check requirements. Neither the Florida-issued security guard license nor his CCW permit would have exempted him from the federally required NICS background check, however.

Gun Checks and Terrorist Watchlists

Pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (P.L. 103-159), in November 1998 the FBI activated NICS for the purposes of determining an individual’s firearms transfer and possession eligibility whenever an unlicensed individual seeks to acquire a firearm from a federally licensed gun dealer. Federal law enumerates several grounds that disqualify someone from firearms eligibility. However, being a known or suspected terrorist is not a federal firearms eligibility disqualifier.

Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI modified its NICS background check procedures to search an additional file in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) that includes terrorist watchlist records. Today, this NCIC file is known as the Known and Appropriately Suspected Terrorist (KST) File. Since February 2004, information related to the subjects of NICS-generated terrorist watchlist matches has been passed on to the FBI Counterterrorism Division and special agents in the field who are usually members of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs). These FBI agents, in turn, verify the match between the individual and the watchlist record, and they check for information that would prohibit that individual, the prospective transferee, licensee, or permittee, from possessing firearms or explosives (e.g., illegal immigration or fugitive status).

According to the FBI, as of July 31, 2015, the KST included 323,522 persons. The KST is a subset of the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), which is a multi-agency effort managed by the FBI-administered Terrorist Screening Center. The TSDB is the U.S. Government’s consolidated watchlist of all known or suspected terrorists, whether they are of the international or domestic type. The TSDB had grown to include over 879,000 persons, and the system had been used by screening agencies to positively identify more than 230,000 persons over 11 years (2004-2014). Over the same time period, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), federal firearms-related background checks resulted in 2,233 valid terrorist watchlist matches. Of those checks, 2,043 were allowed to proceed and 190 were denied, but the denials were not based on the watchlist hit.

“Terror Gap” Legislation

In the 114th Congress, Representative Peter King and Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015 (H.R. 1076 and S. 551). These proposals would give the Attorney General discretionary authority to deny firearms or explosives transfers to persons watchlisted as known or suspected terrorists if she deemed them to be “dangerous terrorists.” These bills mirror a legislative proposal developed by DOJ and submitted to Congress in April 2007. First introduced in the 110th Congress, these bills have been dubbed the “Terror Gap” proposal.

On December 2, 2015, the day of the San Bernardino shooting, President Barack Obama called on Congress to pass legislation that would prevent persons on a “No Fly” terrorist watch list from acquiring a gun. The President may have been referring, at least rhetorically, to the “Terror Gap” proposal. The next day, Senator Feinstein offered the language of S. 551 as an amendment (S.Amdt. 2910) to the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act (H.R. 3762). The Senate rejected a motion to waive a point of order made against the amendment by roll call vote (45-54). Senator John Cornyn offered a counter amendment (S.Amdt. 2912) to H.R. 3762 that would require the Attorney General to file an emergency petition with a “competent court of jurisdiction” to prohibit a firearms transfer to an otherwise eligible person. The Cornyn amendment was also ruled out of order.

On December 6, 2015, however, President Obama again called on Congress “to act to make sure no one on the no-fly list is able to buy a gun” in a nationally broadcasted Oval Office address. On December 7, 2015, Representative Mike Thompson filed a discharge petition on H.R. 1076. On December 9, 2015, Representative Thompson moved to recommit a bill, the Red River Private Property Protection Act (H.R. 2130), back to committee with instructions to report the bill back to the House amended with the language of H.R. 1076. The chair ruled this motion out of order because the amendment was not germane to the bill, and the chair’s ruling was sustained by a voice vote (246-182), preventing further consideration of this amendment.

On June 15, 2016, Senator Christopher Murphy filibustered the FY2017 Commerce, Justice, State, Sciences and Related Agencies Appropriations bill (H.R. 2578) for nearly 15 hours, which may have prompted the Senate leadership to agree to bring the Terror Gap proposal and the “Manchin-Toomey” Comprehensive Gun Background check proposal (S.Amdt. 2908) to the Senate floor for a vote. For a similar House bill, see the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act of 2015 (H.R. 1217).

About the author:
*William J. Krouse, Specialist in Domestic Security and Crime Policy (wkrouse@crs.loc.gov, 7-2225)

Source:
This article was published by CRS as CRS Insight 10509 (PDF)

The 70-year-old Baruch Plan to eliminate nuclear weapons could prevent another arms race.

By Bennett Ramberg*

Seventy years ago this month the United States placed on the global agenda a proposal that would have eliminated nuclear weapons for all time. Drawing on the US State Department’s Acheson-Lilienthal scientific advisory study, the Truman administration turned to the long-time confidant of presidents, Bernard Baruch, to craft a proposal for global action.

In June 1946, Baruch appeared before the newly constituted UN Atomic Energy Commission to present the nuclear abolition plan that would come to bear his name. He called for establishment of an International Atomic Development Authority that would retain “managerial control or ownership of all atomic energy potentially dangerous to world security,” eliminate weapons manufacturing and dispose of all existing bombs while asserting “power to control, inspect, license all other atomic activities” coupled with assured enforcement. Had Cold War politics not intervened – Stalin pressed his scientists to build a competitive Soviet bomb as rapidly as possible – the nuclear Damocles Sword that’s hung over the world ever since might have been avoided.

Marking this anniversary prompts the question whether there still might be a place for a Baruch Plan. President Barack Obama still calls for a world without nuclear weapons and was eloquent in his May 27 speech in Hiroshima. Conceding that nuclear abolition might not be achieved in his lifetime, Obama entreated “we must have courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.”

As Obama leaves the world stage, there’s little sign of anyone of his stature to take his place in prioritizing nuclear elimination. Depending on how history unfolds, a grim nuclear turn would be the impetus and a Baruch Plan redux could be the foundation. A look back at the post World War II years suggests why abolition did not materialize and how nuclear misfortune would bring new life to this old and important idea.

Rather than the nuclear elimination Baruch had hoped for, the decades following his proposal saw a Moscow-Washington arms race that consumed trillions of dollars of investment, a gamble that each additional weapon would enhance deterrence and thereby increase security. At the peak, the 1980s, the Soviet Union and the United States housed a collective arsenal of roughly 60,000 bombs. Over time, the superpowers conceded that yet more weapons athe vast inventories in place did not go hand in hand with more security. Limitations and reductions substituted for buildup as a series of treaties and unilateral steps dramatically reduced the stockpiles. Today Russia and United States each retain roughly 6,000 deployed and stored devices.

As the USSR and US built up and tore down their stockpiles, other countries joined the nuclear club. Although the current members of the nuclear club – Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan with tens to hundreds of nuclear weapons – never approached the largesse of Moscow and Washington, detonation of just a fraction of the nuclear arsenals on urban areas could kill hundreds of thousands.

Yet for today’s public, nuclear weapons remain largely out of mind. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, notwithstanding the historic Obama visit, are barely in the consciousness of the current generation with the Baruch Plan lost in time. The fact that no country has used the bomb since World War II has inured many nations to the danger. Memories of near misses during Cuban missile and Berlin crises, Indo-Pakistan wars, and border conflict between Russia and China remain incidents for the history books and little more. Nuclear-armed nations have suffered defeat or near defeat – the United States in Vietnam and Korea, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and Israel in the 1973 war as Syrian forces dug deeply into the country’s north – without turning to nuclear weapons. A presumption emerged that a nuclear-use taboo overwhelms any inclination toward nuclear use.

Not willing to leave fate to chance, multiple US presidential administrations – Truman in the 1940s, Reagan in the 1980s and Obama in this century – called for nuclear elimination while continuing to invest in the weapons. In 2015, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that fulfillment of the Obama administration’s nuclear modernization plans over the next decade will cost $350 billion with hundreds of billions of additional dollars in decades to follow, according to other estimates.

Moscow today is beating its own path to nuclear modernization as other countries – China, India, Pakistan and North Korea – enlarge their arsenals and put the weapons on submarines, land and other platforms.

While the past suggests “no need to worry – things will work out as they always have,” the vagaries of international and domestic politics call for humbleness in predicting future risks. Yes, deterrence may hold, governments may remain self-restrained, but “what ifs” cannot be excluded and neither should thinking about what to do next.

A country could suffer a command-and-control failure over nuclear weapons due to mutiny, civil war or terrorist incident allowing a bomb to go off. Another country could suffer an intelligence failure, signaling that an adversary is set to launch. Leaders of nuclear states would be forced into deciding whether to initiate a preemptive nuclear strike. Other nations may be tempted to launch a nuclear strike to meet either aggressive or defensive needs.

The worst that could happen – if bombs were to hit city centers and kill millions. The instinctual response might be to buckle down – boost nuclear defense, deterrence, intelligence, safeguards and security. But a nuclear dike failure would also bring outrage and demands from another corner – renewal of “ban the bomb movement” of a former generation, this time on steroids. A global, popular chorus would insist the time for abolition is now.

This brings us back to the Baruch Plan, a practical idea even for today. The elimination of nuclear weapons and capacity in three countries – South Africa, Belarus and Ukraine – offer proof of performance that weapons can be eliminated. Such elimination may seem implausible for countries without undergoing dramatic domestic change. Even in the immediate shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the effort at abolition failed. But the response may be more vigorous after a thermonuclear attack with dramatically greater consequences, subject to the CNN effect, showing the devastation over and over again. Or the world could lose basic services and go numb.

Granted, the world must hope such a spur never comes, but if it does, the Baruch Plan offers the foundation to move forward and prevent repetition.

*Bennett Ramberg (PhD, Johns Hopkins, JD, UCLA) served as a policy analyst in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the George H.W. Administration. The author of three books on international politics – including what is considered the classic treatment of consequences of military attacks on reactors (Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy, University of California Press) – and editor of three others. Ramberg has published in more than a dozen professional journals and magazines including Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, Washington Quarterly, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Much of the discussion about Brexit has focused on the UK and has ignored the another party – the European Union. This column examines how the UK leaving the EU would affect the distribution of power among the remaining member states. The larger members such as France and Germany would likely benefit directly from Brexit, at least in terms of power.

By László Kóczy*

Decision-making in the EU is complicated, with the Commission, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament each having its roles. Of these, the Council – formerly called the Council of Ministers – is the body that is meant to represent national interests. In the Council, each member state is represented by an individual, but a complicated weighted voting method ensures that larger countries have a bigger say in European matters. Since the Lisbon Treaty, the method has no arbitrary weights and is directly applicable to a possible EU without the UK.

Under qualified majority voting, even deciding if a proposal has been accepted requires some calculation, and assessing how much influence each member has on decisions is far from obvious. The Banzhaf index (Banzhaf 1965, Coleman, 1971) and the Shapley-Shubik index (Shapley and Shubik 1954), coming from cooperative game theory, provide mathematical means to calculate the power of each voter, of each member state. The power index of a voter is the conditional probability that if a vote is critical to a proposal, it will be that of the voter in question. Assuming that such critical players can influence a decision, this expresses the probability that a player is able to turn a policy in his interest or to obtain a share of a budget.

Using the latest available population data and population projections (Eurostat 2014) and software that can compute power indices for large games (Bräuninger and König 2005), we have calculated the power of each player before and after a potential Brexit (Kóczy 2016). It is hardly surprising that some of the remaining members would get a larger share of the ‘cake’, but some smaller countries are actually harmed. We also must not forget that the UK is a net contributor, so the budget (the ‘cake’ at hand) is smaller, further harming these small member states. Interestingly, the gain of the larger members is larger than the loss of the budget.

Figure 1 Adjusted share after Brexit as a percentage of the current share

It seems therefore that key members of the EU would directly benefit from Brexit, at least in terms of power. France and Germany together used to have a combined power of 17.5%. This increased to 25.7% thanks to the Lisbon reform; after the Brexit this value would go up to nearly 30%, an increase of over 70% from the value a few years ago.

Figure 2 The combined power of France and Germany with (dotted line) or without (solid line) Brexit

By holding the referendum after the negotiations with the EU, David Cameron put the faith of the referendum into the hands of countries who would, according to this very partial analysis, benefit from Brexit. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the negotiations did not produce breakthrough results.

Author’s note: For the full analysis see Kóczy (2016).

About the author:
*László Kóczy, Senior Research Fellow, Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Associate Professor, Óbuda University

References:
Banzhaf, J. F. (1965), “Weighted voting doesn’t work: A mathematical analysis”, Rutgers Law Review, 19, 317–343.

Bräuninger, T.  and T. König (2005), “Indices of Power IOP 2.0”, Konstanz: University of Konstanz.

Coleman, J. S. (1971), “Control of Collectives and the Power of a Collectivity to Act”, in B. Lieberman (ed.), Social Choice, New York: Gordon and Breach, pp. 192–225.

Eurostat (2014), EUROPOP2013 – Convergence scenario, national level, Population predictions – [tps00002].

Kóczy, L. Á. (2016), “How Brexit affects European Union power distribution”, IEHAS Discussion Papers No. 16/11, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Shapley, L. S.  and M. Shubik, M. (1954), “A method for evaluating the distribution of power in a committee system”, American Political Science Review 48(3), 787–792.

Egypt may be inching towards a return to the stands of soccer fans, who played a key role in the 2011 toppling of President Hosni Mubarak and have been barred entry into stadiums for much of the last five years.

Clubs, players and fans see a June 28 CAF Champions League match between storied Cairo club Al Ahli SC and Ivory Coast’s ASEC Mimosas Abidjan as a dry run for a gradual lifting of the ban that has repeatedly sparked at times deadly clashes between militant, street battle-hardened fans and security forces.

International matches have been largely exempted from the ban to shield the government from potential accusations of responsibility for the poor performance of an Egyptian squad because it lacked the support in the stadium of its supporters.

Next week’s Al Ahli match is however likely to be a litmus test because it will be attended by 15,000 fans, the highest number since the ban was imposed on the eve of the 2011 popular revolt. The government has moreover harked back to an initial understanding first reached in 2013 but never implemented in which the interior ministry, clubs and militant fans agreed that security forces would be replaced in stadiums by private security firms.

“A private security company will be in charge of the stands. This match will be another step forward towards the full return of spectators to Egyptian stadiums,” said Al Ahli executive Sherin Shams.

The ministry’s consent to the use of private security companies, many of which are managed by former senior military officials, constituted implicit recognition that the country’s brutal, unreformed security forces are as much part of Egypt’s security problems as they are part of its solution.

The consent also appears likely to be an effort by the ministry and the security forces to shore up their tarnished images. In internal memos leaked to journalists earlier this year, interior ministry officials called for the boosting of the ministry’s media image and monitoring capabilities, including the hosting by popular television shows of former police generals and stepped-up monitoring of news websites on a 24-hour basis.

Egypt’s security forces have long been one of the country’s most despised institutions. Almost weekly clashes with security forces during soccer seasons in the years before Mr. Mubarak’s downfall turned militant fans, who played a key role in the revolt as well as most anti-government protests since, into one of Egypt’s foremost social movements.

More than 70 Al Ahli fans were killed in 2012 in a stadium in the Suez Canal city of Port Said in a politically loaded brawl that was widely seen as an attempt by the security forces and the military to cut the fans down to size that got out of hand. Last year, 20 supporters of Al Ahli rival Al Zamalek SC died in clashes with security forces outside a Cairo stadium.

Fans in April forced their way into a stadium in protest against the ban on supporters attending football matches. At the Borg Al Arab stadium in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Ultras Ahlawy stormed the pitch during an African Championship match against the backdrop of growing criticism of general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and protests against his handing over to Saudi Arabia of two islands in the Red Sea during a visit to Cairo in May by Saudi King Salman.

The protesters, although far smaller in number than those that toppled Mubarak, adapted the slogans of the 2011 popular revolt: calls of “Bread, freedom – the islands are Egyptian!” replaced the 2011 revolt’s “Bread, freedom and justice.” An Egyptian court this month ruled against the return of the islands.

Continued clashes with fans who repeatedly have over the years targeted the interior ministry have persuaded Mr. Al-Sisi to move government offices out of the centre of Cairo.

Mr. Al-Sisi recently inaugurated a new office of the Interior Ministry at the Police Academy in New Cairo, east of the Egyptian capital. The academy joined the prosecutor-general, state security, and judicial bodies in an effort to deprive protesters of symbols at a time of mounting discontent.

“The security situation is connected to the targeting of these institutions by a number of protesters centred in downtown Cairo. They seek to spread chaos throughout the country, especially after the demonstrations became unfortunately chaotic themselves. And they’re attempting to break the aura of authority around state institutions by putting them under siege, covering their walls with graffiti of vulgar images and language degrading to those who work there… The security challenges the country is going through have forced the ministry to accelerate its construction plans,” General Ahmad al-Badry, the former head of the Police Academy, told Al Monitor during the inauguration.

General Badry’s acknowledgement of the street power of the fans followed an unprecedented bid in February by Mr. Al-Sisi, who heads one of the most repressive governments in recent Egyptian history, to reach out to his opponents.

In his government’s initial recognition of the power of the fans, Mr. Al-Sisi phoned in to a television programme on the fourth anniversary of the Port Said incident to invite militant fans to appoint ten of their members to independently investigate the incident.

It was the first time Mr. Al-Sisi reached out to his opponents, many of whom have been killed by the interior ministry’s security forces, forced underground or into exile, or are lingering in prisons where they risk abuse and torture.

Ultras Ahlawy declined the invitation saying it could not be accuser and judge at the same time but kept the door to a dialogue open.

By Matthew Tempest

(EurActiv) — Polls have closed in the UK’s referendum on leaving the EU – leaving an overnight wait until the result of one of the most significant events in the 28-member bloc’s history.

Turnout – a possible indicator of the final result – may known within a few hours, but a full and final result of voting in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar will not come until around “breakfast”, according to the Electoral Commission, the independent body overseeing the count.

Once the result is announced, in the northern city of Manchester early morning on Friday, the Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to address the nation.

A ‘leave’ victory could see him and Chancellor George Osborne under pressure to resign within days – even hours – whilst all eyes would be on the stock market and foreign exchanges to see the affect of what both sides admit would be a massive political rupture on the economy.

A ‘remain’ win would see sighs of relief in London, Brussels, Berlin, Paris and Washington.

Second Scottish referendum, stock market chaos?

Among only the most obvious effects would be a possible second Scottish independence referendum, if Scotland votes to remain in the EU but the overall vote is for ‘out’, and a possible ‘domino effect’ on other EU member states wanting to renegotiate their terms of membership, in the face of popular discontent and rising nativist forces.

However, with months of opinion polling effectively predicting a dead heat, the final margin of victory or loss may have to be measured – for either side – in hundreds, even tens, of thousands, from a possible electorate of 46.5 million.

On Thursday night Brussels was hit by torrential rainstorms, thunder and lightning, as if reflecting the turmoil and uncertainty across the EU institutions.

That severe weather had also hit parts of southern England during the day, raising worries about turnout.

With no real precedents for such a national referendum in recent times, political analysts have suggested that a weak turnout, below 60%, would help the Leave side of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage, whose supporters seem the most motivated to turn out.

The polling card asks simply: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”

With results expected to trickle in through the early hours of Friday, extrapolations of a national result will be difficult, thanks to the polarised nature of the contest.

In outline, London, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, and cities such as Oxford, Cambridge are expected to be heavily pro-EU, whilst the east coast, industrial northern England, parts of Wales and the south west, could swing for an ‘out ‘vote.

On Thursday, as throughout the campaign, all officials in Brussels were tightlipped – as excited, or anxious, as the voters of the UK. However, Commission spokesman Margaritas Schinas permitted himself a small joke, pointing out that all the teams of the UK – England, Wales and Northern Ireland – had succeeded in going through the group stage of the Euro 2016 football competition.

On Wednesday, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker – at a press conference with the Austrian Chancellor, had warned that “out is out”, saying the February renegotiation of the UK membership had given Britian all that Brussels could offer.

London’s benchmark FTSE 100 share index closed up 1.2 percent at 6,338.1 points, while key eurozone indices in Frankfurt and Paris forged even higher, at around two percent up.

In currency trading, the pound hit a 2016 high against the dollar at $1.4947.

In many European countries on Thursday, newspapers pleaded “Please don’t go” while several monuments were lit up with the British flag.

The often acrimonious and bad-tempered campaign – which focused on little other than immigration and the economy – was also shaken by the brutal murder of the MP Jo Cox, who was campaigning for Remain, and a passionate advocate of the cause of Syrian refugees.

The US Supreme Court split struck a blow against the White House’s immigration agenda with a 4-4 ruling. The split decision affirms the ruling of the lower court, which said the Obama administration overstepped its bounds.

The ruling was announced Thursday morning with only nine words: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court.”

The Obama administration in late 2014 began its attempt to bypass Congress with an executive order that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

The Obama administration in late 2014 began its attempt to bypass Congress with an executive order that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. However, lower courts have since blocked its implementation after 25 states joined Texas in a lawsuit against the order that claimed that such an action was not within the president’s power.

The administration continuously appealed as courts ruled against block the order, until it reached the Supreme Court, which has had only eight members since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. A tie vote means that the court can’t issue a ruling, which effectively upholds the lower court’s ruling against the White House.

The administration’s amnesty program is called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA for short. It would shield illegal immigrants from deportation to allow them to seek lawful employment, and also expand an already-existing program that allows young people to stay in the country if they are under 16.

The states that were against the move, which were all led by Republican governors, had legal standing based on the claim that DAPA would force them to provide government services to newly protected illegal immigrants.

Current estimates put the number of illegal immigrants in the country at 11 million. The administration says that deportation of so many people would be unfeasible, but critics of this stance point at that the purpose of enforcement of any law is deterrence even if every single offender can’t be brought to justice.

The White House’s proposal isn’t dead from the tie vote, since the issue will return to a lower court. It is very unlikely that it will go into effect during the remainder of the Obama presidency, however.

House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters that the House of Representatives came out in support of the courts’ rulings because it was an issue of separation of powers.

“It’s a win for Congress and it’s a win for the separation of powers,” he said. “Presidents don’t write laws. Congress writes laws. And today the Supreme Court validated that very core fundamental principle.”

Hillary Clinton said in a tweet that she was saddened by the ruling, echoing others who say that US immigration policy breaks up families. Unlike most countries, children of illegal immigrants born on US soil are granted “birthright citizenship” and have the option to stay. Their parents do not have such an option and can be deported.

President Obama spoke to reporters following the ruling, saying that he disagreed with the outcome.

“I took steps within my existing authority to make our immigration system smarter, fairer and more just,” he said. “But today’s decision is frustrating for those who seek to grow our economy and bring a rationality to our immigration system.”

The president also used the opportunity to chastise the Senate for not considering his nominee for the Supreme Court, using the court’s tie vote as an example of why a full bench is necessary.

“The Supreme Court was unable to reach a decision. This is part of the consequence of the Republican failure so far to give a hearing to Mr. Merrick Garland,” the president said.

A protest against the Supreme Court decision broke out in Phoenix, Arizona, where approximately 100 immigrant advocates blocked the main road of Central Avenue. The gathering was declared unlawful and people peacefully moved back to the sidewalks. However, the demonstration did end with some arrests, as two men and two women were seen refusing to leave the street, according to local station KGUN.

New rules for deciding which country’s courts should settle property disputes in divorce or death cases involving international couples or registered partnerships were approved by MEPs on Thursday. These rules should end parallel proceedings – costing around €1.1bn annually – in various member states whose courts have to settle such property disputes. They will apply in 18 EU countries which were willing to join this “enhanced cooperation” initiative.

“It was about time that we had a European instrument for the property consequences of matrimonial regimes and registered partnerships. From now, international couples in all forms of marriages will benefit from legal security, better access to justice and harmonized rules that will fit the nearly 16 million international couples who live in the EU,” said rapporteur Jean-Marie Cavada (ALDE, FR).

The two regulations, one on matrimonial property regimes and the other on the property consequences of registered partnerships, determine which court has jurisdiction and which law applies in proceedings concerning the property of international couples. They will also facilitate the recognition and enforcement of a judgment given in one member state on property matters in another member state.

The regulation on matrimonial property regimes was approved by 498 votes to 58, with 35 abstentions, and the regulation on property consequences of registered partnerships was adopted by 490 votes to 68, with 34 abstentions.

The institutions of marriage and partnership nonetheless remain matters that are defined by the national laws of the member states. The regulations include a series of safeguards to ensure respect for national legal systems. For example, nothing obliges participating member states whose law does not recognize the institution of a registered partnership either to provide for it, or to assume jurisdiction for such partnerships.

By Clint Watts*

(FPRI) — Omar Mateen’s violent rampage that killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub on June 12, 2016 solidified a dangerous new trend of cascading terrorist attacks in the West.  Successful directed attacks both encourage networked terrorist attacks and mobilize inspired supporters to commit violence in their homelands. Dating back more than a year ago to the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, tracing responsibility for terrorist attacks to either the Islamic State or al Qaeda has become increasingly challenging.[1] Some attacks demonstrate direct linkages back to top terror leaders. But most attacks have differing degrees of connection to either terror group’s central headquarters. As of today, the two most recent mass shootings in San Bernardino and Orlando show no direct connection between Islamic State and its inspired supporters.[2] In some cases, inspired attacks show an affinity for the terror group’s online propaganda and/or leaders. But the greater the distance between the attack location and Syria or Iraq, the more muddled the linkages become between attackers and terror groups.

The Islamic State’s successful direction of the Paris attack sparked a rapid increase in networked attacks – attacks committed by terror group affiliates and former foreign fighters operating in cells acting largely on their own initiative, but relying on support from their chosen groups network. In the weeks after the Paris attacks, Islamic State affiliates perpetrated a suicide bombing in Tunisia, a car bombing and assaults in al Arish and Giza, Egypt, a car bombing in Yemen, a suicide bombing in Istanbul, Turkey, and a multi-prong attack in Jakarta, Indonesia.[3]

Relatively dormant al Qaeda affiliates mobilized in the wake of the Islamic State’s Paris success. Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s splinter al Murabitoon allegedly reunited with their former overlords al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) conducting raids in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast along with many other smaller attacks.[4] Al Qaeda affiliates likely feel compelled to launch attacks. In the Sahel, a strong Islamic State affiliate in Libya pressures the once dominant AQIM. Launching successful operations in Mali and Burkina Faso provides motivation for local members to stay with the brand rather than leave for the more popular Islamic State.[5]  Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has long been al Qaeda’s strongest affiliate, but over the last year it has seen rise of a Yemeni Islamic State challenger. AQAP, like AQIM, must demonstrate success to prevent being overtaken by the more fashionable younger generation of the Islamic State.

The most curious outcome of the Islamic State’s Paris attacks leading up to the more recent Orlando assault has been a rash of inspired attacks – attacks committed by lone individuals or small groups with no demonstrable connection to jihadi terror groups and motivated simply by propaganda calls for violence. Examples are plentiful: an attempted knife attack in the London subway, a vehicular attack in Valence, France, a Paris police station assault in Paris, a machete attack in Marseilles, a police shooting in Philadelphia. All of these attacks along with many other disrupted plots have been inspired by the Islamic State.[6] Only after the Islamic State’s brazen Paris attacks did these perpetrators choose to launch deadly strikes.

At any given time around the Western world, lone individuals or small groups sit primed to undertake violence inspired by a jihadi group. These inspired terrorists, whether they opine for al Qaeda or the Islamic State, come in two varieties. The more dangerous and operationally effective inspired extremists are those persistently committed to jihadi ideology, slowly radicalized over extended periods reaching their resolve for violence over many years. These individuals or groups deliberately plan and plot their attacks. They link local frustrations with broad jihadi grievances common to both al Qaeda and the Islamic State. As seen with Nidal Hasan of the Fort Hood shooting, Amedy Coulibaly in Paris, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernardino and now Omar Mateen in Orlando, justifications for violence blend propaganda from both terror groups, but the tipping point for action likely came from observing successful jihadi violence elsewhere.

The less effective and more common inspired terrorists appear mobilized more by headlines than ideology. Edward Archer in Philadelphia, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau’s attack on the Canadian parliament, and dozens of other perpetrators with a mix of psychological issues and egomaniacal motivations rapidly mobilize in response to successful Islamic State attacks hoping to join the band wagon. Headline-inspired attacks come in reactionary waves and feature a mix of bumbled plots and unforeseeable terrorist successes. These attacks target randomly and despite their wide range of success often times generate additional headline-inspired attacks in the name of the Islamic State.

What’s different about the Islamic State’s inspired attacks?

In the Islamic State-era, the pace of terrorist attacks, whether directed or inspired, has proven more rapid in pace, greater in number, and as a result are more difficult to detect. Al Qaeda throughout its history sought operational control over its directed attacks and those of its networked affiliates which resulted in slow and less frequent successes. This in turn likely influenced its decline. The Islamic State, in contrast to al Qaeda, cares less about potential failures or collateral damage. They allow affiliates, former foreign fighters and inspired supporters to plan, resource, and execute attacks with greater independence often learning of attacks in their name only after they’ve happened. Al Qaeda would conduct rounds of communication between affiliates and its headquarters finely tuning the application of violence, this oftentimes created communication signatures tipping off counterterrorists to upcoming plots.[7] The Islamic State, however, has developed a loose system allowing for lots of plots and few signatures putting counterterrorists at a significant disadvantage. Unlike al Qaeda, who sought spectacular attacks on symbolic targets, the Islamic State’s message has been to attack soft targets and large gatherings of people anywhere and everywhere.[8]

What does Orlando mean for the future of terrorism?

Al Qaeda’s calls for inspired attacks during the Anwar al-Awlaki-era found some support in the U.S., but the plots never achieved the terror group’s vision. The assumption since September 11, 2001 has been that the most deadly attacks would come from directed plots perpetrated by operatives trained, resourced, and promoted by the headquarters of terror group .

Mateen in Orlando and Farook and Malik in San Bernardino have turned this assumption on its head. Inspired, homegrown extremists have perpetrated the most deadly attacks in the U.S. since September 11, 2001 by simply hitting soft targets they know well with gun assaults that could be executed by anyone almost regardless of skill. The Islamic State and al Qaeda no longer need to direct attacks when their inspired plotters achieve equal body counts and media attention.

Today, there are no barriers to another extremist replicating the techniques of Orlando and San Bernardino. All terrorist groups and their supporters, whether international or domestic, directed or inspired, have watched and learned from the Islamic State’s successes in Europe and the U.S. and will follow their model in the future: soft targets, gun runs, encrypted communication, and openly available assault weapons.

About the author:
*Clint Watts is a Robert A. Fox Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Program on the Middle East as well as a Senior Fellow with its Program on National Security. He serves the President of Miburo Solutions, Inc. Watts’ research focuses on analyzing transnational threat groups operating in local environments on a global scale. Before starting Miburo Solutions, he served as a U.S. Army infantry officer, a FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force, and as the Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC).

Source:
This article was published at FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Clint Watts. (12 January 2015) Inspired, Networked, Directed – The Muddled Jihad of ISIS and al Qaeda Post Hebdo. War On The Rocks. Available at: http://warontherocks.com/2015/01/inspired-networked-directed-the-muddled-jihad-of-isis-al-qaeda-post-hebdo/

[2] Dina Temple-Raston. (16 February 2016) Analysts Parse Differences Between San Bernardino, Paris Attacks. National Public Radio. Available at: http://www.npr.org/2016/02/16/466898543/analysts-parse-differences-between-san-bernardino-paris-attacks

[3] (29 April 2016) ISIS Goes Global: 90 Attacks in 21 Countries Have Killed nearly 1,400 People. CNN. Available at: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/world/mapping-isis-attacks-around-the-world/index.html

[4] Caleb Weiss. (8 June 2016) al Qaeda has launched more than 100 attacks in West Africa in 2016. Long War Journal. Available at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/06/over-100-al-qaeda-attacks-in-west-africa-since-beginning-of-the-year.php

[5] Andrew Lebovich. (16 January 2016) The Hotel Attacks and Militant Realignment in the Sahara-Sahel Region. Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel. Available at: https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-hotel-attacks-and-militant-realignment-in-the-sahara-sahel-region

[6] Karen Yourish, Derek Watkins and Tom Giratikanon. (22 March 2016) Where ISIS Has Directed And Inspired Attacks Around The World. New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/17/world/middleeast/map-isis-attacks-around-the-world.html.

[7] Clint Watts. (4 April 2016) Why ISIS Beats Al Qaeda In Europe. Foreign Affairs. Available at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-04-04/why-isis-beats-al-qaeda-europe

[8] Clint Watts. (23 March 2016) A Wounded Islamic State Is A Dangerous Islamic State. Foreign Policy. Available at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/23/a-wounded-islamic-state-is-a-dangerous-islamic-state-brussels-attacks/

When you see a beautiful shirt on a fashion model or in a shop window, you ask yourself: shall I buy it? Can I afford it? But before deciding, there is another question to be answered: How much damage to the environment did the company cause in manufacturing the clothing?

The textile industry has a background of polluting water and causing deforestation when producing and using fabrics and leather. But over the last years, many companies have been changing their attitude to become more environment-friendly.

Greenpeace launched Detox Catwalk. Textile companies were asked to adopt and implement solutions to avoid using and releasing dangerous chemicals from their global supply chain and products by January 1, 2020.

“H&M, Nike, Adidas, Valentino, Levi’s and Burberry are among the 36 major fashion and retailer brands that have already joined our campaign,” said Chiara Campione, Fashion Duel Project Leader at Greenpeace Italy. “If these big names have taken the step, why should we expect less from all luxury fashion brands?”

One of the historical districts of the textile made in Italy, renowned worldwide, is the region of Biella, North-West Italy. The secret to the success of this industrial area has been the chemical properties of its waters and the presence of big falls ensuring enough energy for production cycles.

At the Reda firm, founded in 1865, the finest merino wools are converted by the expert hands of local craftsmen into fabrics, some of which are worn by Hollywood stars. But this excellence is achieved while caring for the environment, for example by using water filtration systems and integrating renewable sources in the industrial process.

“It is not just a matter of ethics. Pursuing sustainability makes good business sense in terms of energy efficiency and reduced costs,” said Ercole Botto Poala, CEO of the company. The manufacturer has also achieved the Emas certification, an advanced system of eco-management.

At the end of 2015 Olimpias Group inaugurated Europe’s first water treatment plant capable of recovering up to 100% of the water processed in industrial production. The group is controlled by the Benetton family, European leaders in clothing and fabrics.

In the past this textile factory, located in Osijek, Croatia, used 1,600 m3/day of water of which only 10.5% came from recovery treatments. Today, thanks to the innovations introduced, this percentage has jumped to about 70%, or 1,000 m3/day.

Consequently, the use of the hyrdic resources from the well have been considerably reduced, with obvious environmental benefits and industrial cost reduction. To put this into perspective, a population of 7,000 uses the equivalent of 1,000m3 of water per day.

“By revolutionizing the treatment of the processed water we can make significant savings in water and energy, and improve the finished product thanks to the higher quality of the reused water,” said Gianni Zanella, CEO of Olimpias Group, “We joined the European project Wasatex – Water Saving Process for Textiles – as part of a broader strategy that the company started years ago to support its eco-friendly supply chain. It began with the elimination from our processes of all chemicals which were harmful to the environment and health”.

Furthermore the amount of CO2 reduced and energy saved is considerable. The purified water has, in fact, an average temperature of 30°C compared to the 15°C of the well water; hence less energy is required to heat the dyeing baths.

Another example of investments in higher energy efficiency for manufacturing processes is represented by Bossa, one of Turkey’s largest integrated textile corporations that produces denim fabrics and sportswear.

The company relies on research to limit its use of resources and energy consumption, and to preserve the environment. Some 15% of their products costs goes on energy. “We have found that the remaining 85% is subject to global trading prices on chemicals or on materials like fibers, and these costs are hard to compress. Therefore, focusing on energy consumption and the use of resources has turned out to be the first step in reducing costs,” said Ozgur Demirel, a senior technical supervisor.

The company joined the European project REEMAIN (Resource and Energy Efficient Manufacturing), which examines solutions for a sensible use of renewable energy technologies and resource saving strategies.

The number of passwords that each of us has to memorize is continuously on the increase. A password is easily forgotten. But watch out: if a new password is generated after the old one was lost, the information might be intercepted by third parties.

On the whole, losing a password is not a great problem: the Internet user will be sent a new one by email, or he will have to provide a correct answer to a security question to be assigned a new password.

Both methods have certain drawbacks, as Prof Dr Markus Dürmuth, Head of the research group Mobile Security at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), elaborates: “Emails are usually not encrypted and can be easily intercepted. Whereas correct answers to security questions can be guessed with a bit of luck and some research.”

Not discernible at first glance

Together with colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (INRIA), Grenoble, Dürmuth has developed an alternative to the methods described above. To this end, they use so-called Mooney images. This term refers to black-and-white images that were edited using a special filter.

At first glance, it is impossible to tell what a Mooney image is showing. Only after viewing the original picture, a user will be able to recognize the motive – an effect that lasts a long time. This is referred to as priming for a picture.

The images originated in the field of brain research. In the 1950s, they were deployed by the psychologist Craig Mooney for examining the so-called aha! effect with the aid of MRI.

Hackers betray themselves by knowing too much

This is how Dürmuth uses the mechanism: rather than coming up with a security question and answer to prepare for the worst-case scenario, the user is presented ten Mooney images and the respective original pictures during the priming phase. Should he forget his password one day, he will be shown 20 Mooney images and will have to state what he has recognized.

“The true account holder will recognize the ten Mooney images for which he had been primed,” explained Dürmuth. “But he won’t be able to identify the other ten. Subsequently, he will be assigned a new password.” A hacker would betray himself either by not recognizing any Mooney images at all, or recognizing those that the true user is not familiar with.

By Priyama Chakravarty*

One of US President Barack Obama’s core campaign promises during the 2008 Presidential election was a military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Following through, his actions seem to have prioritised diplomacy over interventionist military responses, and policies of ‘strategic patience’ and the prudent use of power where necessary. Part of the policy package has been the shift from the model of fighting expensive large scale ground wars, to capacity-building in partner countries to prevent the growth of violent extremism and conflict.

Syria is a classic example of this strategy. It can be argued that the US’ policy is aimed at avoiding repeats of interventions in Libya, Afghanistan or Iraq – whose outcomes are virtually impossible to determine, in addition to getting bogged down in expensive nation-building exercises with no definable exit option. This is possibly why despite limited training and capacity building of a select few “moderate rebels,” the administration has been remarkably aversive to play an active role in the war theatre. This has been frequently done against overwhelming allied disapproval, including holding back on the proposed joint strike in Syria with the French forces in the wake of the Ghouta chemical attacks. At best, the US’ air strikes have focused on achievable outcomes. Tactics of coercion and dissuasion have been employed to eliminate the Syrian government’s arsenal of chemical weapons through diplomatic means, and specific targeted strikes have been carried out by fighters and drones against carefully selected ISIS targets by the CIA, and by having local players do the heavy lifting.

Those who have persistently argued for a US intervention firmly believe that Russia has filled the power vacuum left by Washington’s inaction. The Russian military intervention in Syria seems to have tilted the balance heavily in the favour of the Syrian government. However, President Obama believes that in Syria, “the price of action may be greater than the price of inaction.” He sees Russia sinking into much the same trap the US fell into in Iraq, given the debilitating costs it imposes.

Simultaneously, he has also been able to leverage non-intervention with amelioration: negotiating a cessation of hostilities agreement through the UNSC Resolution 2262 in February 2016. This resort was chosen over challenging Russia militarily in Syria, even though that would not have been realistically possible. All this has raised the benchmark for what constitutes a strategic US interest. Obama’s continued refusal to abide by the ‘Washington playbook’ seems to indicate that he has grasped that an empire can only endure by not fighting every battle.

Another overriding aspect of the non-intervention in Syria was Obama’s dogged pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran. Getting involved in combat in Syria would have almost certainly brought the US forces into direct conflict with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Tehran’s proxy, the Hezbollah. A direct US intervention in Syria would have vastly complicated the already convoluted calculus of the nuclear deal. In effect, Obama’s Syria policy was subordinated to his Iran policy. In doing this, he was willing to accept tactical “defeats” in exchange for a major and tangible “strategic victory.” If it realises its full potential, the nuclear deal, combined with the economic rehabilitation of Iran, holds the promise of altering the power dynamic in the ‘middle-eastern’ politics as we know it. While it will take time, the lifting of sanctions will lead to a stronger Iran, stabilising the Shia-Sunni conventional balance of power in the region, possibly reducing Iran’s dependence on sub-conventional actors for power projection.

The deal also creates path dependency – i.e. the benefits of maintaining a non-nuclear Iran will vastly outweigh the US’ institutional tendency to pick fights with the Iranians. In effect, this forces the regional US dependents such as Saudi Arabia to seek its own allies and methods to tackle Iran, rather than perpetually seeking the US’ assurances and bogging the US down in intractable and untenable conflicts.

The Gulf Cooperation Council’s intervention in Yemen is the clearest example of the US trying to get its regional allies to bear the cost of their own follies. A stronger Iran will also keep the Sunni extremism restricted in West Asia, while refracting the forces of international Sunni jihadists back onto Saudi Arabia, as opposed to the practice of exporting them abroad.

Finally, the lack of a direct US intervention provides a powerful counter-narrative to the jihadi elements who have perpetually justified their attacks on Western targets on the basis of a prolonged US military intervention in the region. Even though most of these interventions have been at the behest of local allies, those allies remain content to feed the narrative of victimisation at the hands of the West. The clearest example of this was the US basing in Saudi Arabia upon the request of the Saudis themselves during and post the liberation of Kuwait. An intervention in Syria without the regime’s permission would have simply added fuel to the fire. Therefore, a vastly diminished US presence reduces the friction points.

Therefore, Obama’s policy of increasing the diplomatic engagement with minimum use of force is a prudent use of power. It is both visionary and realistically cautious and quite possibly the least worst of a whole range of bad options.

* Priyama Chakravarty
Research Intern, IRes, IPCS
E-mail: Chakspriya@gmail.com

By European Council President Donald Tusk

Dear President, dear friend, today I had the pleasure to meet you again, after my visit to Ramallah last year, and to discuss our relationship and the situation in the region.

The EU has been working with the Palestinian Authority to help build the institutions of a future democratic, independent and viable Palestinian state, living side-by-side with Israel and its neighbours. Rest assured, the European Union will remain a strong and reliable partner in this. We will continue to provide financial support to Palestinian social and economic development.

Of course, for these investments to bear fruit in terms of stability and sustainable socio-economic development, there needs to be peaceful co-existence, with two independent national states, Israel and Palestine.

Two days ago, I also met Israeli President Rivlin, and I urged Israel to put an end to illegal settlement activity and demolitions, which put into question the two-state solution. And in the same way, I have also condemned the recent acts of violence, such as the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv two weeks ago. There can be no progress unless there is an end to violence, and to incitement. Palestinians also need to work seriously on their internal reconciliation.

The EU is – and will remain – one of your closest partners. I am determined to work with you for a better future for the Palestinian people and for the whole region. Thank you, Mr President.

The United Nations should make public the findings of two UN investigations into the February 2016 attack on civilians in a UN camp in South Sudan and act on their recommendations, according to Human Rights Watch.

The brutal attack on the Malakal camp for civilians displaced from conflict in South Sudan killed at least 30 camp residents and injured 123. The UN established a special investigation to examine the causes of violence, as well as an internal board of inquiry to review peacekeepers’ responses to the incident. The Security Council will be briefed on both reports and their recommendations on June 22, in a closed-door session.

“The UN did the right thing by investigating both those responsible for carrying out this horrific attack and the lackluster peacekeeper response, but a behind-the-scenes inquiry is not enough,” said Akshaya Kumar, deputy UN director at Human Rights Watch. “A camp that should have been a sanctuary came under fire, and no one has been held accountable.”

On February 16 and 17, fighting between youth inside the camp escalated along ethnic lines. In the early hours of February 18, armed Dinka men, including soldiers from the government Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), forced their way into the camp, shot civilians, and systematically burned homes of Nuer and Shilluk civilians as UN peacekeepers stood by. The UN Security Council condemned the attacks against civilians and the UN compound as possible war crimes.

A summary of the reports obtained by Human Rights Watch says that the special investigation found that, “it is difficult to exonerate the local SPLA commanders and government allied militias from involvement in the incident.” The investigation also found that the “Eastern Nile political leadership […] pursued a vigorous policy aimed at ensuring that the state would be exclusively for the Dinka ethnic group.”

The summary also states that South Sudanese soldiers in pick-up trucks assisted Dinka and Darfuri civilians as they left the camp in an orderly fashion before violence broke out.

The response by peacekeepers – composed of Ethiopian, Rwandan, and Indian contingents – was woefully inadequate. Independent researchers found that some forces waited for written authorization before using force, while others appeared to have abandoned their posts along the fence where the attackers entered. A report on the UN response by the medical group Doctors Without Borders says the peacekeepers actively blocked displaced people in the camp from reaching safety during a large part of the emergency.

The UN board of inquiry report also recommends an investigation of each case of “underperformance of troops and police” and decisive action to “hold the troop contributing countries accountable, ultimately repatriating commanders and/or units.”

The UN peacekeepers in South Sudan are mandated by the UN Security Council to use force when needed to protect civilians from imminent harm. The UN mission hosts nearly 200,000 displaced people on several of its bases. However, it has repeatedly failed to effectively protect civilians from armed attacks in or near its bases, underscoring wider problems in its effectiveness.

In April 2014, armed Dinka youths in Bor, supported by the local authorities, opened fire on the UN camp there, killing more than 50 civilians and injuring dozens. The South Sudanese government did not hold anyone to account for the killings, and a UN board of inquiry investigation into the UN response to that attack was never made public. The mission did not release its own findings on the attack until January 2015. Human Rights Watch is unaware of any steps by the UN following the Bor incident to avoid a similar attack in the future.

The precedent set in Bor created a permissive atmosphere of impunity and underlines the importance of public reporting and UN follow-up, Human Rights Watch said. On June 13, the head of UN peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, told media that the two Malakal investigation reports would soon be released. But the UN has issued only a brief note to correspondents about the reports, with limited details.

The special investigation report recommends that South Sudan’s Transitional Government of National Unity “hold accountable the individuals identified” as responsible for the violence, including “the political and military leadership in Eastern Nile state.” It also recommends that President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar make a public televised statement condemning any form of attack “against civilians anywhere, particularly those who have sought protection in UN sites.”

The South Sudanese government has not held anyone responsible for the attack at Malakal or other serious crimes against civilians during the country’s recent conflict. In March 2016, a government investigation into the Malakal incident concluded that the violence was “instigated by political interests and the failure” of the UN peacekeepers “to arrest the situation as required by their mandate to protect civilians,” but did not investigate any local political or military authorities for their role in the violence.

Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly urged the African Union to begin work to establish an African-South Sudanese court, envisioned in the country’s August 2015 peace agreement, to try the most serious crimes committed during the conflict.

“Holding those responsible for the Malakal attack accountable is only half the battle,” Kumar said. “The UN Security Council also should stand behind its mission in South Sudan, even when that means confronting troop-contributing countries whose soldiers aren’t delivering on their commitments.”

A 4-to-4 tie by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday morning slapped down President Barack “Pen & Phone” Obama’s unilateral immigration revisions to laws that all but legalized millions of illegal immigrants, according to the Homeland Security News Wire (HSNW).

Obama had issued his executive order after House Republicans refused to bring to the floor for a vote a 2013 bipartisan Senate legislation which provided a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, HSNW reported. “With his usual arrogant tone, Obama told the nation that he decided what is good for America and its people. He arbitrarily changed or voided laws as he saw fit and to me that is a serious breach of constitutional law,” said former police captain, Morris Delvechio.

Although the GOP lawmakers in Washington made statements opposing Obama’s laws, they did little to try to stop his actions which led to a tsunami of illegal aliens crossing the border into the U.S. Southwest. But 26 states with Republican governors legally challenged Obama’s far-reaching executive order,claiming that once again the so-called constitutional scholar had disregarded the separation of powers by granting a blanket deportation deferment to millions of undocumented immigrants without any action by the federal legislature.

They went on record as saying that Obama’s argument that “his action amounts to nothing more than common prosecutorial discretion was wrong, because such discretion should be applied on a case-by-case basis, not to an entire category of potential law-breakers.”

A federal court judge in the state of Texas ruled in favor of the 26 GOP governors, and when the Justice Department brought the case to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, those judges upheld the lower court’s decision in November 2015. A panel of the 5th Circuit said the program changed the designation for the immigrants which would give the illegal aliens eligibility for federal and state benefits that wouldn’t otherwise be available.

Meanwhile on Thursday, former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman, who had founded Judicial Watch and is now the founder and president of Freedom Watch, saluted the four originalists on the Supreme Court for holding fast in effectively affirming the decisions by a Texas federal court and the Fifth Circuit blocking President Barack Hussein Obama’s executive amnesty for over 5 million illegal aliens. Klayman believes that the decision will prevent likely Muslim terrorists from entering the U.S. as refugees especially since the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation contradicted Obama’s claim regarding “the vetting” of asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq and other Muslim nations.

Klayman, along with Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, were the first to challenge this unconstitutional executive amnesty but drew an Obama-appointed judge who dismissed the case claiming it was only a political ploy.

Later an Obama-packed federal appeals court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, affirmed the lower court’s decision, uttering hardly a word about the merits of the case. However, a fine judge, the Honorable Andrew S. Hanen, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas took the correct and legally honest legal path and blocked Obama’s amnesty, according to Klayman, who has made a name for himself as a government gadfly.

The Obama Justice Department, led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the president’s pliant law enforcement officer, took an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, in a “slam dunk,” quickly lost again.

Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling not only underscores just how political the High Court has become, but cements Judge Hanen’s ruling. The amicus brief filed by Klayman and Arpaio is credited with aiding in achieving the victory, as did their initial complaint before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which was virtually copied by Texas and the myriad of other states that later mounted the court challenge before Judge Hanen.

Klayman had this to say for himself and his client, the man known as America’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio:

“Having started the ball rolling on this challenge to President Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional executive actions granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens including likely Muslim terrorists who have crossed our borders and are here on bogus student visas and other subterfuges, we are thankful that the so-called conservatives on the Supreme Court held fast to the leftists on the High Court. While we have little hope that President Obama will now take action to deport these illegal aliens, particularly since they are a large illegal voting block for the Democrats this fall, this Supreme Court ruling at least tells Obama and his allies that their lawlessness will not be countenanced. Unlike a judge in Arizona who has been presiding over a compromised and ethically conflicted trial of Sheriff Arpaio that also concerns illegal immigrants in Maricopa County, four justices of the Supreme Court did the right thing and shut the door to Obama’s lack of respect for the will of We the People. They legally stood up to an out-of-control president who rules like he is King George III in 1776. As bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution, this is the proper role of the judiciary, to serve as a check and balance to government tyranny.”

By Terri Moon Cronk

The significantly increased pressure that US-led coalition and local forces are putting on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s fighters is causing the terrorist group’s “caliphate” to unravel and crumble, a senior Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve official told reporters Thursday.

Via teleconference from Baghdad, British army Maj. Gen. Doug Chalmers, deputy commander for strategy and sustainment, updated the Pentagon reporters on the campaign to defeat ISIL.

Harnessing Coalition Power

Iraq security forces are making greater progress with increased coalition-partner capability and capacity and by “harnessing the power of the 65-nation international coalition,” Chalmers said.

Ramadi’s fall to ISIL fighters about a year ago became a “high-water mark of the ISIL expansion,” Chalmers said. But since that time, he added, “we’ve seen the tide turning on [ISIL]. Not only have their advances been stopped, the terrain they have briefly controlled has been taken back by the Iraqi security forces and by Syrian opposition.”

Chalmers said the coalition is striking ISIL on multiple fronts: its fighters on the front lines and command and control operators, ISIL leaders, its industrial base, financial systems, communication networks and its system to bring foreign fighters in to fill ranks in both Iraq and Syria.

Enemy Faces Multi-Directional Fight

“We are forcing them to fight in multiple locations and in multiple directions,” Chalmers said.

As coalition support accelerates, he said, airstrikes in support of Iraqi ground advances continue to provide overwhelming combat power “at the right time and place” on the battlefield, the general said.

Increased training for Iraqi police officers will add to the existing 23,000 trained Iraqi forces, Chalmers said, adding that training also will soon expand to the Iraq border security force.

“Not only will the Iraqi security forces be able to liberate their territory,” he said. “They will be better-set to be able to hold it and secure the population within it.”

Chalmers said the Iraqi forces’ increased confidence, as they face ISIL fighters on the battlefield and defeat them, is likely the most important factor in their increased success against the terrorist organization.

“The recent advances that they’ve made in both the Tigris and Euphrates River Valleys at the same time … is deeply impressive,” he said. “Not just in fighting terms, but also in sustainment terms.”

Counter-ISIL Fight Also Progresses in Syria

In Syria, the fight against ISIL is showing similar trends in the face of efforts by partnered opposition forces, Chalmers said. “The multiethnic components of the Syrian Democratic Forces are united against [ISIL]. We’ve seen opposition forces in the northeast, near Mara, and in the southeast … remain focused on defeating [ISIL] and removing its influence from their homelands.”

The coalition advise-and-assist programs that support local ground forces are proving to increase their effectiveness in combat, he added.

With ISIL wanting to mount attacks against the military forces involved in the ongoing fight and against innocent civilian populations, the fight ahead will continue to be challenging, Chalmers said, but he added that the counter-ISIL campaign is progressing, and a defeat of ISIL in Iraq and Syria is “inevitable.”

And because of the increased pressure on ISIL in both countries, Chalmers said, operations “in Manbij, Fallujah and the Tigris River Valley are shaping the battlefield and establishing the conditions for the two big future fights: Raqqa and Mosul.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on the Mexican government to find those who killed newspaper reporter Elidio Ramos Zárate on June 19 in the southern state of Oaxaca and freelance journalist Zamira Esther Bautista on June 20 in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas. Their deaths have brought the number of journalists murdered this year in Mexico to eight, confirming its status as the western hemisphere’s deadliest country for media personnel.

Two gunmen shot Elidio Ramos Zárate while he was with two other people, one of whom was also killed in the attack. He had been a crime reporter for the past ten years for the regional daily El Sur, writing under the byline of Guillermo Parie.

El Sur’s news editor said Ramos had reported receiving threats that morning as he and other journalists covered the blocking of a motorway by teachers and other demonstrators protesting plans to reform the educational system.

Zamira Esther Bautista was gunned down by several armed individuals as she was getting into her car in Ciudad Victoria, in Tamaulipas state. She had been a correspondent for the La Verdad and El Mercurio newspapers before becoming a freelancer.

“We urge the authorities to conduct exhaustive investigations into these fatal shootings and under no circumstances to rule out the possibility that they were linked to the victims’ work as a journalists,” said Emmanuel Colombié, the head of RSF’s Latin America desk.

“There seems to be no end to the spiral of violence against journalists in Mexico. The Oaxaca and Tamaulipas authorities have to a duty to protect media personnel in their states and to investigate, identify and punish the perpetrators and instigators of the frequent murders of journalists”.

A total of six people were killed in Oaxaca on 19 June in the course of violent clashes connected with the protests against the proposed educational reform.

The clashes broke out when around 800 policemen intervened to disperse an estimated 1,000 teachers who had been blocking the motorway at Asunción Nochixtlán for the past week with the help of around 100 students and other supporters. Several groups of unidentified gunmen opened fire on both civilians and policemen.

Ramos was the third journalist to be killed in Oaxaca state this year, following Marcos Hernández Bautista on 21 January and Reinel Martínez Cerqueda on 22 January.

Mexico is ranked 149th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index.