Negotiators Make Progress on Sanctions in Iran Talks

With one month remaining before the deadline for the P5+1 to reach an agreement with Iran to prevent it from attaining a nuclear weapon, diplomats report progress and skepticism about the current timeframe. Meetings this weekend brought the P5+1 nations to a consensus on the mechanism to reinstate sanctions should Iran violate an agreement, the “snapback” provision. “We pretty much have a solid agreement between the six on the snapback mechanism, Russians and Chinese included,” a diplomat told Reuters. “But now the Iranians need to agree.” The timing and mechanisms for sanctions relief have been a contentious set of issues for negotiators.

The State Department has stressed the importance of the June 30 deadline and an official told the New York Times that “We’ve often seen during these talks that deadlines are action-forcing mechanisms.” But experts say it might be necessary to extend talks to allow the completion of the technical annexes of the agreement and to diminish Iran’s ability to try to force last-minute compromises. Talks featuring the parties’ lead negotiators will resume on Thursday.

Islamic State Claims Friday Mosque Attack

The Islamic State has claimed credit for the suicide bombing that targeted a Shia mosque in Dammam on Friday and called for more attacks in Saudi Arabia. Four people were killed in the attack, and the father of one of the victims has cast doubts on the official account of the attack. The father of Abduljaleel Alarbash said that his son, who was studying electrical engineering at Wichita State University and in Saudi Arabia to get married, had volunteered as a security guard at the mosque and intercepted the bomber. Saudi officials’ initial account suggested the bomber had detonated his bomb when approached by authorities.

Headlines

• Qatar has extended the travel ban for the five Taliban detainees that were released in exchange for the release of U.S. prisoner Bowe Bergdahl last year.

• U.S. officials are reportedly meeting with Houthi diplomats in Oman to discuss ways of resolving the country’s civil war; the Houthis may be holding five American prisoners.

• Egyptian demolition crews began dismantling what remains of the headquarters of Hosni Mubarak’s now-defunct National Democratic Party; the building has been vacant since being torched during protests in 2011.

• The Israeli Knesset is considering legislation that would allow penalties of up to 10 years in prison for throwing stones; the proposal would amend the current law which allows for up to 20 years imprisonment but that has been difficult to prosecute because it requires clear intent to inflict harm.

• The Islamic State claimed credit for a car bombing on Sunday at a Libya Dawn checkpoint near Misrata that killed five people.

Arguments and Analysis

“Yemen: Cluster Munitions Harm Civilians” (Human Rights Watch)

“A local resident and medical staff told Human Rights Watch that four civilians, including a 10-year-old boy, were wounded on April 29 in Baqim, a village 10 kilometers from the Saudi border, when unexploded submunitions of a type previously undocumented in Yemen detonated after local residents picked them up. Based on photographs, Human Rights Watch identified the weapon as a type of ground-fired cluster munition containing “ZP-39” submunitions with a distinctive red ribbon. The ZP-39’s producer and the delivery system used are not publicly known or included in standard international reference materials. Neither Saudi nor Houthi forces are known to possess this type of weapon, but both sides have rocket launchers and tube artillery capable of delivering them.”

“The ISIS Twitter Census: Defining and describing the population of ISIS supporters on Twitter” (J.M Berger and Jonathon Morgan, Brookings Institution)

Account suspensions do have concrete effects in limiting the reach and scope of ISIS activities on social media. They do not, at the current level of implementation, eliminate those activities, and cannot be expected to do this. Some critics argue suspensions are ineffective because ISIS propaganda is still available on Twitter. Any balanced evaluation of current levels of suspension activity clearly demonstrates that total interdiction is not the goal. The qualitative debate is over how suspensions affect the performance of the network and whether a different level of pressure might produce a different result. While it is possible to target suspensions in a manner that would be far more devastating to ISIS networks, we do not advise such an approach for several reasons.”

-J. Dana Stuster

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