World roundup: May 2 2024

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere

May 03, 2024

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: As I mentioned a few days ago, I need to step away from the newsletter for the next several days to deal with family matters. We will resume our usual schedule on May 14. Thanks for reading and for your patience.

TODAY IN HISTORY

May 2, 1611: This is probably the date upon which English printer Robert Barker produced the very first edition of the King James Version of the Bible. I say “probably” because it’s the date you most often find cited for the KJV’s publication but as far as I know there’s no documentary evidence backing that up. Regardless, the KJV proved to be a monumental achievement that not only stands as probably the most important vernacular (meaning I’m excluding the Latin Vulgate) translation of the Bible but also a fundamental text in the development of the modern English language. So it’s probably worth commemorating.

May 2, 2011: Not long after midnight (local time), according to the official narrative, a team of US special forces operators raids a house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, in the process killing al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden. There have been more than a few alternative theories offered about bin Laden’s death, partly to try to explain how America’s Most Wanted Man was able to spend years living in the Pakistani equivalent of West Point without our good pals in Islamabad ever finding out and/or letting us know. The official story has relevance, since it’s the version of events most people believe. Anyway, the good news is that we all lived happily every after.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Hamas is putting out some fairly mixed messaging with respect to how it regards the ceasefire proposal it’s currently considering. The group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, reportedly spoke with Qatari and Egyptian officials on Thursday and described the “positive spirit” in which Hamas officials are “studying the ceasefire proposal.” This is discordant with a statement that Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas’s political committee, gave to AFP late Wednesday in which he characterized the group’s reaction to the proposal as “negative.” I think the fact that everybody is still waiting for an official Hamas response that was supposed to arrive on Monday and then again on Wednesday suggests that the chances of a deal are fairly slim—if they were going to accept the proposal they would have done it by now. The disparate comments may indicate some level of disagreement within Hamas, which would be consistent with reporting during previous negotiating rounds that posited differences of opinion between the group’s political/Qatar-based wing and its military/Gaza-based wing, which if true also doesn’t seem conducive to reaching a deal.

In other news:

If you clicked that AFP link above you may have noted that the United Nations now estimates that Gaza will require upwards of $40 billion in reconstruction after the Israeli military (IDF) finishes deconstructing it. That is World War II-level ruination and there is no indication where anyone intends to find the money to do it. There’s a lot of talk about coalitions of Arab states taking responsibility for rebuilding and/or securing Gaza in a “day after” scenario, and the Gulf states could afford the cost but I their leaders might want to know why they should assume the cost and risk for cleaning up the Israeli government’s mess.
Palestinian Authority security forces killed an Islamic Jihad fighter in the West Bank city of Tulkarm on Thursday after said fighter allegedly opened fire on a PA patrol. Hamas and Islamic Jihad both condemned the shooting, with the latter denying that its fighter had shot first.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group for Iranian-aligned militias, claimed that it launched several cruise missiles toward the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Thursday. There’s no indication as to how the alleged attack played out and so far there’s been no comment from the Israeli government.
The Turkish government announced on Thursday that it’s cutting commercial ties with Israel. It may be doing more than that—Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz is accusing Turkish officials of denying the use of the country’s ports for any commercial shipping to or from Israel. Ankara imposed a number of restrictions on trade with Israel last month but this is obviously an escalation (particularly if Katz is correct). This comes one day after Colombia President Gustavo Petro announced that his government is cutting all ties, commercial and diplomatic, with an Israeli government he called “genocidal.”

SYRIA

IDF airstrikes near Damascus wounded at least eight Syrian soldiers on Thursday night, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is claiming that the target was a facility used by Hezbollah.

Elsewhere, the US military’s Central Command has concluded that its May 3, 2023 drone strike in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province did not, as previously claimed, kill “a senior Al Qaeda leader.” Nor does it appear that the victim, Lotfi Hassan Misto, had any connection with al-Qaeda at all, as CENTCOM insisted when presented with evidence that he was not a “senior leader” of any jihadist organization. It turns out that he was, as local sources claimed at the time, a shepherd, and the “senior Al Qaeda leader” CENTCOM thought it was targeting remains at large.

In announcing its oopsie on Thursday, CENTCOM didn’t go into any detail about the conduct of the strike except to assert that its personnel did everything properly right up until the point where they killed an innocent man. An anonymous “defense official” privately told The Washington Post that the error should be attributed to “confirmation bias and insufficient red teaming,” the latter being the department’s term for an exercise whereby targeting assumptions are questioned and tested. The Pentagon publicly acknowledged only that its “investigation revealed several issues that could be improved” and said that it is “committed to learning from this incident and improving our targeting processes to mitigate potential civilian harm.” Of course, the US military apparently hasn’t learned anything from its many past oopsies so the odds that it will actually take anything useful away from this one are probably low.

IRAN

The Iranian government on Thursday blacklisted seven US individuals, five UK individuals, five US entities, and eight UK entities over their support for Israel. The individuals included a number of senior military officers and the entities included several defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. Somehow I suspect they’ll all come out of this OK, but we’ll see.

ASIA

GEORGIA

The Georgian parliament was forced to cancel its scheduled session on Thursday amid ongoing protests in Tbilisi over the government’s proposed “foreign agent” law. Apparently the parliament building itself was damaged, possibly by a police water cannon or tear gas canister but I digress. Parliament is expected to give final approval to the bill later this month, though if it has to keep postponing sessions that time frame will have to be adjusted.

PAKISTAN

An apparent double-tap bombing killed at least one person and wounded another 18 in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province on Thursday. There’s been no claim of responsibility as far as I know, but both the location and the nature of the attack—double-tap attacks are meant to draw in and kill police and other security forces—may indicate that Baluch separatist militants were responsible.

PHILIPPINES

The Philippine Foreign Ministry summoned the deputy chief of China’s diplomatic mission in Manila on Thursday to protest what it says are recent acts of aggression by the Chinese Coast Guard that damaged two Philippine vessels in waters around the disputed Scarborough Shoal. This is apparently the 20th such complaint lodged by the Philippine government so far this year and the 153rd under current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

CHINA

Sticking with the South China Sea, The Washington Post reports that China’s plans to pepper it with “floating nuclear reactors” has the US military sounding an alarm:

China is pursuing plans to develop floating nuclear reactors that could power military facilities it has built in contested areas of the South China Sea, according to the top U.S. military commander in the Pacific and State Department officials, a prospect they warn would undermine regional security and stability.
After more than a decade of research and development and Chinese regulators’ safety concerns, China appears to be moving forward with its plans — at a time when the international community has not yet crafted standards governing floating reactors’ safe use, U.S. officials said.
U.S. officials say they believe any deployment is still several years away. Still, the concern is great enough that Adm. John Aquilino, who leads U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, is raising a warning flag.
“China’s intended use of floating nuclear power plants has potential impacts to all nations in the region,” said Aquilino, who is relinquishing his command Friday. "Chinese state media has stated publicly Beijing’s intent to use them to strengthen its military control of the South China Sea, further exerting their unlawful territorial claims. China’s claim of sovereignty of the entire South China Sea has no basis in international law and is destabilizing the entire region.”

OCEANIA

SOLOMON ISLANDS

The Solomon Islands parliament on Thursday elected former Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele as the country’s new prime minister. Manele replaces Manasseh Sogavare, who opted not to stand for another term after last month’s election and whose Ownership, Unity, and Responsibility Party then turned to Manele as its PM candidate. Manele took 31 votes in the 50 seat parliament while his opponent, Matthew Wale, took 18 votes despite allegedly fronting a 20 seat opposition coalition. Manele is expected to continue Sogavare’s China-friendly foreign policy, though he may behave a bit less stridently toward Australia and the US than his predecessor.

SUDAN

The Guardian warns that the Rapid Support Forces group’s siege of El Fasher, in Sudan’s North Darfur state, is causing the city to run low on basic supplies:

Water, food and fuel supplies for people in the largest city in the Darfur region of Sudan are being choked off as fighting intensifies, according to reports.
El Fasher has been encircled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group over recent weeks, besieging the population as well as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and allied militias.
Already hosting many of those displaced from other parts of Darfur that have fallen to the RSF, residents this week said more people have been displaced within the city as the SAF carried out airstrikes.

MALI

Separatist groups in northern Mali announced the formation of a new coalition on Thursday. They’re calling the new outfit the “Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad” (CSP-DPA), which really rolls of the tongue so kudos to them for their branding savvy. I’m not entirely clear how this new group differs from the previous “Permanent Strategic Framework” coalition except inasmuch as it seems to acknowledge that they’re back to a state of conflict with the Malian government and are regrouping after losing several important towns to Mali’s ruling junta last year. The announcement of the new coalition may signal that they’re ready to resume hostilities.

NIGER

Russian soldiers have reportedly moved into Niger’s Airbase 101, located just outside Niamey. This is noteworthy because there are still US forces based in that facility, though the Russians are occupying a separate part of the base so they aren’t interacting with the Americans. Nevertheless this seems like a recipe for tension moving forward. US and Nigerien officials are negotiating a US military withdrawal but those talks are expected to take a fair amount of time, as will the redeployment of the 1000 or so US soldiers currently in the country. The arrival of the Russians will also raise concerns in Washington that Niger is planning to hand over US-operated bases (this one and Airbase 201, a drone facility in Agadez) to Moscow.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

Human Rights Watch says it has evidence that Russian soldiers summarily executed at least 15 surrendering or surrendered Ukrainian soldiers in five incidents that took place between December and February. There are at least six more cases that the group is also investigating. Killing surrendering soldiers is a war crime. HRW says it’s used drone footage, videos posted to social media, and reports from media and Ukrainian personnel in its investigation.

UKRAINE

The Russian military claimed the capture of another Ukrainian village on Thursday. This one, Berdychi, is located northwest of Avdiivka and is one of three villages in Donetsk oblast that Ukrainian forces abandoned over the weekend as they continue to retreat in hopes of establishing a new defensive line. According to the AP, as Ukrainian soldiers retreat they’re finding that the defensive fortifications to which they’re supposed to be retreating aren’t ready yet. This is threatening to turn what has been a steady withdrawal into a rout unless the Ukrainians can finally fall back to defensible positions where they’re able to resist Russian attacks.

The construction of defensive works is something that should have happened while the Ukrainians were on the offensive or at least when the front line was mostly static. Trying to do it with Ukrainian forces in retreat is difficult if not impossible. Compounding the problem, the Ukrainian military apparently lacks the engineering units that would typically do this kind of work and so front line soldiers have to do it instead. Kyiv has contracted with construction firms to do the work but that doesn’t seem to be going very smoothly.

HAITI

Reuters is reporting that Haiti’s transitional council has rescinded its selection of former sports minister Fritz Bélizaire as Haiti’s new prime minister. According to this report, the four member bloc that pushed Bélizaire through without notifying the council’s three other voting members announced late Wednesday that it would honor an agreement the council previously made to choose a new PM from a “pool of applicants” that apparently doesn’t include the relatively obscure Bélizaire. I haven’t seen any other outlet mention this so take it with a grain of salt.

At any rate, insurgents reportedly launched new offensives in several Port-au-Prince neighborhoods overnight. This is the first major operation by the insurgents since the council formally took office and is presumably their answer to whatever claim to authority the council is trying to make.

One of the neighborhoods that saw overnight violence (CLARENS SIFFROY/AFP via Getty Images)

UNITED STATES

Finally, Spencer Ackerman believes that the future of drone warfare is being determined by the Israeli military in Gaza:

THE BESIEGED PEOPLE of Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp got a terrifying glimpse this month of the shape of war to come.
Disturbing sounds of crying infants and women were audible throughout the camp. When they went out to investigate, "Israeli quadcopters reportedly opened fire directly at them," the award-winning Palestinian journalist Maha Hussaini reported for Middle East Eye. The quadcopters – small, cheap, and disposable drones usually used for civilian photography and, more recently, military reconnaissance – had been blasting the sorrowful recordings as a lure.
Once the lure worked, it created a self-fulfilling prophecy: those who ran to help the fake victims became real ones. Residents struggled to help those real victims as the "quadcopters were firing at anything that moved," eyewitness Samira Abu al-Leil, a 49-year-old Nuseirat resident, told Middle East Eye.
Gaza is the scene of Israeli carnage so pitiless that the International Court of Justice in January found it to be plausibly genocidal. Palestinian journalists and health workers on the ground are documenting that it's also something else: a laboratory for the wars of the future. Playing a recording of a crying baby to kill those who seek to save children is a risible cruelty but hardly an innovative one. Arming a quadcopter, however, is an inevitable idea that Israel now appears to have been the first to bring into battlefield usage. And Gaza will by no means be the last conflict where armed quadcopters kill.

As Spencer notes, a fleet of even mid-range combat drones is expensive enough to make it cost prohibitive to employ them. But sticking a gun on a quadcopter is so cheap and technologically simple that even non-state actors are likely to get in on the game now that the IDF has shown the way.