Islamic State Used Mustard Gas in Iraq Last Year

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has confirmed that mustard gas was used in an attack in Iraq last year. Lab samples analyzed by the U.N. chemical arms watchdog tested positive for sulfur mustard. Though the OPCW will not attribute use to a specific group, diplomatic sources confirmed the mustard gas was deployed by the Islamic State against Kurdish forces near the city of Erbil last August.

Bahrain Charges and Releases U.S. Journalists

Bahrain released today the four American journalists arrested on Sunday while covering the anniversary of the government’s crackdown in 2011. The Bahraini government has charged the journalists with “illegally assembling with the intent to commit a crime” and said one of them attacked a police officer. It is unclear if they are free to leave the country.

Headlines

• Saudi Arabia began large military exercises in the country’s northeast yesterday; the operation, dubbed North Thunder, includes troops from 20 countries and are the largest that have ever been conducted in the region, according to the Saudi Defense Ministry.

• Nations from eastern Europe agreed to prepare a “Plan B” for the event that the European Union’s arrangement with Turkey to stem the flow of refugees fails; the plan would involve augmenting border controls in Macedonia and Bulgaria to seal Greece’s European borders.

• Egyptian policeman Yaseen Hatem, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail for contributing to the death of protester Shaimaa Sabbagh in January 2015, will be retried after Egypt’s highest court overturned his conviction on Sunday.

• Police in Germany and Belgium carried out raids this morning in relation to two separate investigations of terrorist recruitment networks; ten people were arrested in Brussels and several houses searched in Bremen.

• Gunmen opened fire on the motorcade carrying Aden’s governor and security directory; both men were unharmed in the attack, but three attackers were killed and two bodyguards wounded.

Arguments and Analysis

“After the Geneva Talks: Re-setting U.S. Strategy for Western Syria” (Ilan Goldenberg, Nicholas A. Heras, and Paul Scharre, War on the Rocks)

“Instead of so aggressively pursuing negotiations, U.S. strategy in Syria and Iraq must start by changing conditions on the ground first before negotiations can proceed productively. U.S. actions should aim to fill the security and governance vacuums with acceptable and sustainable alternatives that eliminate safe havens for those who threaten the United States and its partners with terrorist attacks and regional destabilization. This means shifting from an approach where the United States focuses on whom it is against (Assad, ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusra) to one that emphasizes whom it is for. Otherwise, it risks pursuing a strategy that defeats one enemy but yields to another. A bloody Assad takeover of Syria, for example, would not only be horrific from a humanitarian perspective but would lead to perpetual instability and permanent pockets of extremism. Therefore, the first phase of any American policy must be to empower acceptable elements in the Syrian opposition so that they can become the center of gravity for rebel forces on the ground.”

“Were there irregularities in Turkey’s 2015 elections? We used this new forensic toolkit to check.” (Walter R. Mebane, Jr., Allen Hicken, and Ken Kollman, Monkey Cage)

“Mapping hot spots shows that higher than average frauds probabilities occur in eastern Turkey. Towns where these signs of frauds occur significantly more often than average are red and significantly less often than average are blue. The high probabilities of AKP-favoring frauds occur not merely in eastern Turkey but in areas where the party that supports Kurdish interests (HDP, Peoples’ Democratic Party) is the dominant party. Many districts have anomalous features. The currently ruling AKP is the party that by most measures benefited from the extensive frauds that we detect, especially in eastern Turkey.”

-J. Dana Stuster

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