Situation Report: Trump’s comments draw Pentagon response; more hints White House micromanaging the DoD; Ash Carter to the Hill; new Kunduz accusations; ISIS iPhone app; and lots more

By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley

Getting messy. The Donald Trump show marches on, and now the Pentagon and the U.N. are getting involved. The Republican presidential front-runner’s recent comments calling for a ban on Muslims from entering the United States have caused an international firestorm, and Prince Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein of Jordan, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, isn’t having it. The official told a small group of reporters at U.N. headquarters that Trump’s comments were “grossly irresponsible,” FP’s Colum Lynch writes. Earlier in the day, British Prime Minister David Cameron called Trump’s remarks “divisive, unhelpful, and quite simply wrong.”

Over at the Pentagon, spokesman Peter Cook also pushed back. Asked how Trump’s comments might play among the thousands of Muslim servicemembers in the U.S. military, he said, “anything that creates tensions and creates the notion that the United States is at odds with the Muslim faith and Islam would be counterproductive to our efforts right now, and totally contrary to our values.” Given that many Muslim countries are allied with Washington in the fight against the Islamic State, he added it would also be “contrary to our national security.”

Too big, but not too big to fail. Across town on Capitol Hill, one of the most respected national security minds in Washington — widely regarded to be Hillary Clinton’s top pick to serve as Defense Secretary should she win the presidency — hinted to lawmakers that the White House micromanages decision-making at the Defense Department. “Too often that happens because of two reasons: one, a lack of role clarity, who has what job; and two, a risk aversion,” Michèle Flournoy told the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to FP’s John Hudson.

Flournoy, CEO at the Center for a New American Security and a foreign-policy advisor for Clinton’s presidential campaign, had turned down a chance last year to be the first woman to run the Pentagon, citing “family concerns” for her decision. But her comments Tuesday also suggested another reason: the Obama administration’s tendency to push the Pentagon’s tactical decisions to “the senior reaches” of the White House.

Go boom. For the first time, Russia has launched cruise missiles from a submarine at targets in Syria. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that the submarine Rostov-on-Don, sailing off the Syrian coast in the Mediterranean, struck “two large terrorist positions in the territory of Raqqa.” He made the comments during a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Shoigu added, “we can say with complete confidence that fairly serious damage was done to weapons stores and a factory for preparing mines and, naturally, oil infrastructure.” Pentagon officials confirmed that the Russians had warned the U.S.-led coalition beforehand that it was about to carry out airstrikes near Raqqa.

Big day. Tune in at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning for Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Paul Selva, as they take the hot seat in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee to explain Washington’s military policy for fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Livestream here.

After you watch the hearing, stick around for another Armed Services hearing to consider the nominations for some top Pentagon civilian officials that might be interesting. The committee will get back together at 2:00 p.m. to consider the nominations of Marcel J. Lettre II to be Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; Gabriel O. Camarillo to be Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs; and Vice Admiral Kurt W. Tidd, to take over as commander of U.S. Southern Command.

Given allegations that military commanders in in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the U.S. Central Command, may have cooked the books to make the wars appear more successful than they actually are — FP’s Dan De Luce has done some great work on that front — Lettre’s testimony may prove interesting. Livestream here.

Click bait. The Islamic State, unsurprisingly, has created an iPhone app that is also, helpfully, capable of running on Android devices. FP’s Elias Groll writes that the app functions “as a basic news reader and a portal for Amaq News Agency, which is linked to the Islamic State’s propaganda operations,” and the app includes video and text reports “about life under the Islamic State, announcing battlefield victories and executions of the extremist group’s enemies.”

Thanks much for clicking through this morning, the early morning crew here at SitRep HQ is back again for another installment of this little thing we have going on. As always, if you have any thoughts, announcements, tips, or national security-related events to share, please pass them along to SitRep HQ! Best way is to send them to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Syria

As international diplomacy to resolve the Syrian conflict heats up, Saudi Arabia is hosting a three day conference in Riyadh for Syrian opposition groups in hopes of coordinating a united front among the rebels. But in a reflection of the tensions between Kurdish and Arab opposition groups, the Saudis failed to invite Kurdish groups like the YPG and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces coalition to the party. So they’re putting together their own separate conference of Kurdish groups in Hasakah, Syria.

The Islamic State

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is requesting permission to carry out humanitarian work in territory controlled by the Islamic State, according to an interview with the group’s director by Agence France Presse. The organization’s head, Yves Daccord, said he’s looking at “building a relationship” with the Islamic State so the ICRC can provide services to the 10 million people living under its rule in Iraq and Syria.

Time magazine takes a look at where terrorist groups like the Islamic State get their guns in Europe. While European countries tend to have fairly strict gun laws, experts and law enforcement officials have noticed that the Balkan states, still teeming with weapons from the wars of the 1990s, are a popular source. More troubling is the growing demand for assault rifles on the European black market — an apparent signal of more lethal terrorist activity, rather than simply criminal intended use.

Iraq

Iraqi Security Forces have made some progress in taking back Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, from the Islamic State. The BBC reports that Iraqi forces have taken Tamim, a southwestern district across the Euphrates from the rest of the city. Sources tell the BBC that further progress may be difficult as the Islamic State appears to have mined the routes of approach with layers of improvised explosive devices. Pentagon officials have for months said that one of the biggest obstacles to retaking cities like Ramadi, Mosul, and Fallujah would be hacking through the defensive rings of buried bombs planned by ISIS fighters.

Iran

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said that the U.S. will carry out a “serious review” of a report that Iran tested a Ghadir-110 medium range ballistic missile near the port city of Chabahar on November 21, Reuters reports. Power said the test would be a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, including a 2010 prohibition on ballistic missile tests, and that the U.S. would bring the matter to the Security Council if the report was confirmed.

An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin More is hinting at a major uptick in Russian-Iranian arms deals once international sanctions on Iran are lifted as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, according to RT state news. Vladimir Kozhin told the Russian newspaper Izvestia that “we are expecting to enter very large projects” and that “we are talking very big contracts, worth billions.”

Afghanistan

New information obtained by Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-Calif.) office about the U.S. airstrike on a charity hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan on Oct. 3 that left 30 dead calls into question the official line that the attacks were caused by malfunctioning equipment aboard an AC-130 gunship. Two U.S. servicemembers involved in the attack told Hunter that they believed the Taliban were using the building as a command center, contradicting the U.S. military’s claim that the plane simply hit the wrong building.

“There were enemy in there,” Hunter quotes one of the servicemen as saying. “They had already removed and ransomed the foreign doctors, and they had fired on partnered personnel from there.” Hunter included the new information in a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Last month, as FP’s Paul McLeary has reported, head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan Gen. John Campbell denied reports that the Taliban were using the building as a firing position, a claim fully backed up by MSF, the aid group who ran the hospital.

The Taliban have carried out a major attack on Kandahar Airport, with 46 people reportedly dead following the assault according to the BBC. Civilians bore the brunt of the attack, with 37 killed and seven Taliban dead. The attackers didn’t manage to make it past the first gate to the airport, according to reports.

Fighters loyal to Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour and Mullah Mohammad Rasul, leader of the dissident “High Council of Afghanistan Islamic Emirate” faction of Taliban, clashed on Tuesday in Afghanistan’s Herat province, according to the Long War Journal. Despite the fighting, Long War Journal reports that the Taliban under Mansour are playing down reports of fighting with dissident factions in order to buttress the image of Mansour as the consensus leader of the group.