Several Congress people and some officials in the CIA and Trump administration try to throw a spanner into the negotiations with North Korea. They "leak" to NBC News about an intelligence assessment on North Korea's nuclear facilities. The result is a sensationalized piece that includes no surprising facts.

North Korea has increased nuclear production at secret sites, say U.S. officials
"Work is ongoing to deceive us on the number of facilities, the number of weapons, the number of missiles," said one U.S. official.

One of the NBC authors is Ken Dilanian who is well known for his tight cooperation with the CIA.

Its opening:

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that North Korea has increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months — and that Kim Jong Un may try to hide those facilities as he seeks more concessions in nuclear talks with the Trump administration, U.S. officials told NBC News.

The intelligence assessment, which has not previously been reported, seems to counter the sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after his historic June 12 summit with Kim that "there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."

Analysts at the CIA and other intelligence agencies don't see it that way, according to more than a dozen American officials who are familiar with their assessments and spoke on the condition of anonymity. They see a regime positioning itself to extract every concession it can from the Trump administration — while clinging to nuclear weapons it believes are essential to survival.

The result of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore was a "freeze for freeze" deal. North Korea stopped its nuclear and missile testing while the U.S. stopped the large maneuvers it regularity held with South Korea's army. Both sides agreed to further talks. North Korea made some aspirational statements about denuclearization which have the same time frame as similar aspirational statements made by the U.S. in Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). There is no time frame to reach a certain state. There is no commitment towards declaring nuclear sites nor is there a commitment to stop the production of nuclear stuff.

Trump declaration that there is "no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea" is correct in the sense that there is certainly no North Korean intent to launch a nuclear attack.

Kim Jong Un will not only "try to hide" the North Korean nuclear facilities. He will surely keep them secret as long as he can. The security of his country depend on them.

That "more than a dozen American officials" talk with NBC on that issue shows that there is a concerted operation to sabotage a possible deal. Those opposed try to move the goalposts.

While the North Koreans have stopped missile and nuclear tests, "there's no evidence that they are decreasing stockpiles, or that they have stopped their production," said one U.S. official briefed on the latest intelligence. "There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are trying to deceive the U.S."

Four other officials familiar with the intelligence assessment also said North Korea intended to deceive the U.S.

Why is it "deceiving" when North Korea continues something that it did not promise to stop? Why is it "deceiving" when North Korea rejects to submit targeting coordinates of its nuclear facilities? There is no deceiving in either.

The intelligence assessment the "American officials" (the term includes Congress staffers) talk about says that North Korea has the well known Uranium enrichment site in Yongbyon, a second one at an unnamed place and possibly a third one. All of this was known to people who read the details about the issue. They are not new and were certainly known to the CIA boss Pompeo and Trump while the negotiations took place:

Ankit Panda @nktpnd – 12:00 UTC – 30 Jun 2018
These assessments have been around since at least May, I understand, so POTUS should have been briefed prior to the Singapore summit.

The "leak" to the NBC/CIA's Ken Dilanian lacks any surprising content. The only interesting point is that it happened at all. It demonstrates that are are serious forces who will try their best to sabotage the talks and a possible agreement.

To take the next steps towards a larger deal and towards peace on the Korean peninsula will require month of diligent and detailed talk and serious attention by senior administration officials. Until a special envoy is named to lead further talks Secretary of State Pompeo will continue the negotiations. He will visit Pyongyang next week to push the issue.

In my view the Korea talks are one of the few things the Trump administration is doing right. It is sad that many are out to destroy them.

On December 13 2005 the British Secretary of State Jack Straw was questioned by the British Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs about illegal "renditions". Straw responded:

Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been, and so what on earth a judicial inquiry would start to do I have no idea.

Those who believed in that 'conspiracy theory' were right, finds the British Parliament:

Britain’s intelligence services tolerated and abetted “inexcusable” abuse of terrorism suspects by their American counterparts, according to a report released by Parliament on Thursday that offers a wide-ranging official condemnation of British intelligence conduct in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
…
The committee documented dozens of cases in which Britain participated in sending suspects to other countries that were known to use torture or aided others in doing so — a practice known as rendition.

There has still not been a judicial inquiry into the issue. The parliament report notes that the British government blocked access to relevant documents and prohibited the questioning of many witnesses the parliament inquiry wanted to hear.

Ambassador Craig Murray, who blew the whistle on British complicity in torture in Uzbekistan, notes:

Theresa May specifically and deliberately ruled out the Committee from questioning any official who might be placed at risk of criminal proceedings – see para 11 of the report. The determination of the government to protect those who were complicit in torture tells us much more about their future intentions than any fake apology.

In fact it is impossible to read paras 9 to 14 without being astonished at the sheer audacity of Theresa May’s attempts to obstruct the inquiry. They were allowed to interview only 4 out of 23 requested witnesses, and those were not allowed “to talk about the specifics of the operations in which they were involved nor fill in any gaps in the timeline”.

There is also evidence that the British MI6 outsourced illegal operations to other countries or agencies:

Although British policy prohibited rendition, the committee found, British agents repeatedly aided other countries in sending suspects to places where there was a high probability they would be mistreated. In three cases, it reported, the British paid, or offered to pay, for renditions; in 28, they “suggested, planned or agreed to rendition operations” conducted by others; and in 22, they provided intelligence to enable a rendition to take place.

The United Nations considers such extraordinary renditions to be crimes against humanity. Neither the U.S. nor the United Kingdom has held anyone but a few grunts accountable for their involvement in these crimes.

Murray concludes:

The British state has since repeatedly acted to ensure impunity for those involved, from Blair and Straw down to individual security service officers, who are not to be held responsible for their criminal complicity. This impunity of agents of the state is a complete guarantee that these evil practices will continue.

It seems that impunity is part of the "western values". The CIA, MI6 and the myriad of "special forces" under this or that name continue to use these illegal practices.

The United Arab Emirates were just found to torture random Yemenis in its prisons in south Yemen. U.S. special forces and CIA interrogators are present:

Hundreds of men swept up in the hunt for al-Qaida militants have disappeared into a secret network of prisons in southern Yemen where abuse is routine and torture extreme — including the “grill,” in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire, an Associated Press investigation has found.
…
Several U.S. defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the topic, told AP that American forces do participate in interrogations of detainee.

Prisoners get isolated, threatened with dogs, waterboarded and more:

They raped detainees while other guards filmed the assaults. They electrocuted prisoners' genitals or hung rocks from their testicles. They sexually violated others with wooden and steel poles.

"They strip you naked, then tie your hands to a steel pole from the right and the left so you are spread open in front of them. Then the sodomizing starts," said one father of four.

The U.S. defense establishment claims that none of its soldiers are "present" when actual torture happens. It also put bridges on sale. The CIA declined to comment to AP.

Some of the chaps the Saudi-UAE alliance or its al-Qaeda allies round up are brought onto (U.S.?) ships off the Yemeni coast where U.S. personal – special forces, CIA agents or their contractors – 'interrogate' these prisoners. To say that they directly torture them is – Jack Straw would say – a conspiracy theory.

Unless some court finally takes up the issues and throws some higher ranking officers and politicians into prison for committing these crimes nothing of this will change.

'China's financial imperialism' is a relatively new genre in western journalism. China is providing loans to other countries to build infrastructure. If those countries can not pay back the loans, China offers to lease and manage the infrastructure built with its money. That somehow is supposed to create a "debt trap for vulnerable countries".

Yesterday the New York Times lamented about Sri Lanka's Hambantota Port Development Project:

Over years of construction and renegotiation with China Harbor Engineering Company, one of Beijing’s largest state-owned enterprises, the Hambantota Port Development Project distinguished itself mostly by failing, as predicted. With tens of thousands of ships passing by along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the port drew only 34 ships in 2012.

And then the port became China’s.

Mr. Rajapaksa was voted out of office in 2015, but Sri Lanka’s new government struggled to make payments on the debt he had taken on. Under heavy pressure and after months of negotiations with the Chinese, the government handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land around it for 99 years in December.

The port is in a strategic location right alongside the shipping lines between Asia and the Middle East and Africa.

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The U.S. does not like it that China is building infrastructure in such a strategic position. Instead of competing with it in the same field it is betting on propaganda and a more militaristic approach.

The first warning flag that the NYT piece is part of such propaganda is the quoted statistic. Why is it using a 2012 number of 34 ship arrivals  for a port that only opened in late 2010? Ocean ports do not develop in just two years. It takes decades to develop their hinterland and businesses. Unlike Sri Lanka's main port Colombo, which is specialized in container traffic and already congested, Hambantota was build to handle other goods:

Cont. reading: China’s Port In Sri Lanka’s Is Good Business – The NYT’s Report On It Is Propaganda

[Just arrived back home after an extended and somewhat hilarious stay with my extended family. Regular blogging will proceed tomorrow.]

News & views …

[Please excuse the lack of posts this week. I am with my larger family and the kids keep me busy.]

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

• June 18 – Counterdrug Programs Come With Increased Drug Production – Where Does The Money Go?

• June 19 – Syria – Ready To Start The Daraa Campaign
• June 22 – Syria – Damascus And Its Allies Prepare To Remove U.S. Forces From Al-Tanf

The U.S. embassy in Jordan let the "rebels" in southwest Syria know that they are on their own: ".. you should not base your decision on the assumption or expectation of military intervention by us." Several towns in the area have already decalred their will to reconcile with the Syrian government. More will follow. The Russian air force started to support the Syrian operations around Daraa with heavy bombing. The U.S. or Israel are now unlikely to intervene with anything but the usual propaganda. Get ready for new "last hospital", "barrel bombs", "chemical attack" and other nonsense headlines. Eva Bartlett is on the ground and reports from Hader, A Village Under Siege by al-Qaeda and Israeli Forces Alike.

• June 20 – Pity The Russophobe Journos Whom No One Believes

Use as open thread …

On June 8 we asked if the then ongoing ISIS attack on Albu Kamal was part of a U.S. plan:

There is sneaking suspicion that the U.S. directed the ongoing ISIS attack on Abu Kamal to gain control over the crossing and to disable road supplies from Iran through Iraq into Syria.
…
The U.S. must be given no chance to use the ISIS pretext to take Abu Kamal. The Syrian government must rush to support its forces in the border city. It must immediately request that Iraqi forces cross the border from Al-Qaim and support the endangered Syrian troops.

Some reinforcement came in and Albu Kamal was soon back in Syrian government hands. The Syrian army also launched an operation to destroy ISIS positions in southeastern desert.

Southeast Syria (red: Syrian Army, green: U.S. zone around al-Tanf crossing to Iraq, grey: ISIS, yellow: U.S./Kurdish SDF) bigger

But U.S. interference in the east continued:

The Russian military is warning of a false-flag "chemical incident" in Deir Ezzor governorate. The Syrian Observatory reports that Islamic State remnants in the southeastern desert and in the Rukban camp, both under cover of the U.S. occupied zone around al-Tanf, prepare for a large attack on Syrian government forces. It claims that such an attack is an attempt to occupy the zone between al-Tanf and Albu Kamal at the Euphrates. Both operation would be planned diversions intended to draw Syrian forces away from Deraa and could provide excuses for U.S. intervention on the opposition side.

Late Sunday an airstrike destroyed a building in the Harri area near Albu Kamal directly on the Syrian-Iraqi border. The building was used as a headquarter for the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU) who are securing the border in coordination with the Syrian army in the fight against the Islamic State. More than 20 fighters were killed and more than 10 were wounded. This may have been in preparation for the reportedly planned large ISIS attack.

Another serious incident followed last night when U.S. supported Maghawhir al-Thawra "rebels" (which include 'former' ISIS fighters) attacked Syrian government forces:

Cont. reading: Syria – Damascus And Its Allies Prepare To Remove U.S. Forces From Al-Tanf

News & views …

The "western" reporting on the World Cup in Russia is a stream of continuous Russia bashing. Some positive remarks are made about the obviously excellent atmosphere and organization. But no piece gets published that does not include a reinforcement of the official anti-Russian propaganda lines.

Alec Luhn is the "Russia correspondent for The @Telegraph". Shaun Walker is a correspondent for the British Guardian who is "Covering central and eastern Europe for The Guardian." This week both were in Volgograd, the former Stalingrad, to report on the World Cup game between England and Tunisia.

On Monday Alec Luhn wrote about the excellent welcome the English fans received:

“It’s been brilliant,” said Adam Haimes, 29, a geologist and Plymouth Argyle supporter drinking in the fan zone, set up on the west bank of the mighty Volga River. “I have had absolutely zero problems. All sorts of Russians have come up to us and are being friendly and just wanting to have drinks with us. I didn’t expect it but they are so lovely.”

That positive picture of Russia can of course can not stand alone. Luhn thus mentions: the "threat of violence", the "attempted assassination of the Russian spy Sergei Skripal", "ratcheted up tensions", "Russian Ultras" and "Volgograd’s local hoodlums".

On Tuesday evening Shaun Walker wrote a piece for the Guardian which followed a similar scheme:

[T]hose who came were almost uniformly positive about the experience so far. At a central Volgograd bar in the early hours of Tuesday, Craig and Tommy, two Sunderland fans, were practising Russian phrases with obliging locals and said they had spent three days in “fantastic” Volgograd, bonding with the locals and taking military history tours.

“We’re sick of people talking about trouble. If you’re respectful there won’t be any problems,” said Tommy.

Reading Walker's piece would make Tommy even sicker. It repeats all the usual propaganda points: "unprecedented tension", "strongly critical of Russian authorities", "poisoning of Sergei Skripal", "1936 Olympics, held in Nazi Germany" and "safety of LGBT fans".

After having delivered their propaganda routines Luhn and Walker joined the English fans in a local pub.

Alec Luhn @ASLuhn – 00:02 UTC – 19 Jun 2018

Harat's Pub, Volgograd, 3am. 100 or so drunk British fans, some Tunisians, and some Russian guys who just chanted something about "jugend SS." What could wrong?

Cont. reading: Pity The Russophobe Journos Whom No One Believes

There are signs that the long expected liberation of the Daraa region in southwest Syria is about to begin. After a month of negotiations between Russia, Israel, Jordan and the U.S. no peaceful solution has been found. The various terrorist forces in the (green) area, including al-Qaeda aligned HTS and groups loyal to the Islamic State, have rejected all negotiations. For over a month Russian negotiators tried to convince locals to give up and to reconcile with the government. But the hardliners under the rebels have killed anyone who talked with the Russians. The U.S. government has warned against a Daraa operation and threatened to intervene.

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First airstrikes were launched by the Syrian government today against villages in the eastern part of the Deraa area. Some local fighting is ongoing. This is not yet the expected all out attack on the ‘rebel’ held areas but the testing of enemy forces. The Syrian army has assembled a large force to liberate the southwest. It includes ten thousands of soldiers, more than 100 tanks and lots of artillery. Short range air defenses have been moved into the area to protect the Syrian troops. A well coordinated attack on several front and multiple axes should allow for a quick victory.

Cont. reading: Syria – Ready To Start The Daraa Campaign

Two reports published today point to some curious phenomenon. Immensely expensive U.S. counter-narcotics efforts go along with massive increases in drug production.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report Counternarcotics: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan finds:

From fiscal year (FY) 2002 through FY 2017, the U.S. government spent roughly $8.62 billion on counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan.
…
From 2002 to 2017, Afghan opium poppy cultivation soared. In 2002, cultivation estimates ranged from 31,000 to 74,000 hectares, compared to 328,000 hectares in 2017. Opium production also rose to historic levels, from approximately 3,400 metric tons in 2002 to roughly 9,000 metric tons in 2017. No counterdrug program undertaken by the United States, its coalition partners, or the Afghan government resulted in lasting reductions in poppy cultivation or opium production.

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—

The Washington Post reports on the newly installed U.S. stooge in Colombia: A conservative ‘D.C. Colombian’ wins his country’s presidency":

BOGOTA, Colombia — Conservative Ivan Duque captured Colombia’s presidency Sunday, bringing to power a U.S.-educated 41-year-old whose victory promises an aggressive new era in the drug war and could upend a historic peace deal that ended Latin America’s longest running insurgency.
…
Duque’s win could herald a return to more forceful tactics. The United States has spent $10 billion in two decades fighting coca growth here — only to find it higher now than at the launch of the campaign.

Since its creation the CIA was involved in drug production and trafficking. In many cases this appears to have been a 'side effect' of other operations like running the rightwing 'Contras' against a leftish government in Nicaragua. The contras needed money which drug smuggling provided. The CIA helped along to achieve the 'higher purpose' – the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government. I am not aware of any sound evidence that shows that the CIA reaped financial profits from drug dealing.

There is no such excuse for counternarcotics programs. There is no 'higher purpose' to be achieved. But the sums spent on these programs are so big now, and their effect so counterproductive, that one must assume that the money is not used as intended. Layers of contractors will be involved in crop eradication programs in Afghanistan and elsewhere. These may cost a few millions per year. But the effects are so minor that one can not imagine how several billions of dollars get spent on them.

I find no accounting for these programs. Where does all that money go? Who is profiting from these?

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

• June 11 – Yemen – U.S. Grants Approval For Genocide
• June 13 – Yemen – The Starvation Siege Has Begun

Patrick Cockburn calls the attack a deliberate act of cruelty by the Trump administration. But he, like others, still does not get the real dimension of the cruelty. The attack is not about Hodeidah. It is about blockading all food supplies to some 18 million people living in Sanaa and further north. An unprecedented siege on a large and defenseless population that is intended and guaranteed to cause a famine.

The U.S. and the UK blocked a Swedish resolution at the UN Security Council that called for an immediate ceasefire at Hodeidah.

LeFigaro reports that French special forces are on the ground in Yemen but the French claim that those are not at Hodeidah. There were also unconfirmed reports that France agreed to deploy minesweepers to clear the harbor of Hodeidah of potential mines. Two Houthi sources claimed today that they had caught French troops on a ship in Hodeidah. But information from the ground is unreliable. Both sides have made false claims about their progress and positions.

• June 12 – First Thoughts On The Kim Trump Photo-Op Summit
• June 14 – The Real Results Of The Trump-Kim Summit – Freeze For Freeze (And Some Amusement)

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reports that South Korea and the U.S. will soon announce the suspension of all major military exercises. This is, like North Korea's suspension of nuclear and missile testing, easily reversible.

• June 12 – Jordan Shows Gratitude For Saudi Gift By Planting Fake News

Other issues:

The Nation: The Mueller Indictments Still Don’t Add Up to Collusion – A year of investigations has led to several guilty pleas, but none of them go to the core of the special counsel’s mandate. By Aaron Maté. This is the first piece in main stream media that points out that the St. Petersburg–based Internet Research Agency was a commercial marketing scheme and not a "Russian influence" operations. One wonders (or not) where Aaron Maté got that idea.

Use as open thread …

Politicians like to manipulate news outlets for their purposes. Below is a nice little example of how this works.

Today the Saudi owned fish-wrap Al Arabiya tweeted this:

Al Arabiya English @AlArabiya_Eng – 11:12 AM – 15 Jun 2018
#Jordan withdraws ambassador from #Iran: Source tells Al Arabiya English: “There is no intention to name another Jordanian envoy in #Tehran at the time,” the source said.
http://ara.tv/n4ngn

That tweet made me curious. I was pretty sure that Jordan had withdrawn its ambassador from Iran quite a while ago. Indeed – on April 18 2016 several outlets had reported such: Jordan follows Riyadh's lead and recalls Iran ambassador

Abdullah Abu Rumman, Jordan's ambassador to Iran, has been recalled to Amman over Tehran's policies towards Arab countries, said Mohammed Momani, the government spokesperson.

An Iranian contact confirms to me that there has been no Jordanian ambassador in Iran since April 2016.

What happened?

The Al Arabiya link goes to a page with the URL:

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2018/06/15/Jordan-withdraws-ambassador-from-Iran-Source-tells-Al-Arabiya.html

The original headline of the piece, visible in the URL, was "Jordan withdraws ambassador from Iran: Source tells Al Arabiya". It  has since been changed to:

Jordan won’t name an ambassador to Iran: Source tells Al Arabiya English

A high-ranking Jordanian source told Al Arabiya English on Friday that Jordan transferred its ambassador Abdullah Abu Rumman from Iran to the Jordanian Foreign Ministry headquarters in Amman based on a decision by the Jordanian cabinet.

“There is no intention to name another Jordanian envoy in Tehran at the time,” the source told Al Arabiya English.

Commenting on the decision’s circumstances, the source reiterated: “Jordan’s fixed position from Iranian policies which include interfering in the affairs of the region’s countries,” and voiced Jordan’s concern over “the security of the region’s countries particularly of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.”

“Saudi Arabia’s security is (part) of our security,” he said, adding: “We are concerned over our Arab and Gulf depth.”

In response to a question from Al Arabiya English, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi stressed that “the security and stability of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is part of the security and stability of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”.
…

It seems to me that the "high-ranking Jordanian source", very likely the later quoted Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, scammed Al Arabiya. He used vague wording to insinuated that Jordan just now recalled its ambassador from Iran when that in fact had happened two years ago. It took a while for Al Arabiya to recognize that it had been had and to change its headline.

A week ago I wrote about how U.S.-Saudi Pressure On Jordan Opens The Way For Iran. Jordan is in economic and political trouble. It needs  financial sponsors. Saudi Arabia and the U.S., its traditional donors, are pressing for an Israel policy that the Jordan's King can not support. I speculated that this might give an opening for Iran.

But the Jordan king decided differently. He went to Saudi Arabia, met the Saudi King and received a nice package to help him over his budget difficulties. On June 10 Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait coughed up fresh money for Jordan:

Cont. reading: Jordan Shows Gratitude For Saudi Gift By Planting Fake News

The aftermath of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore confirms my early take on the talks. What both sides committed to is the "freeze for freeze" agreement North Korea had offered since at least 2015. The U.S. stops its threatening maneuvers while North Korea stops missile and nuke testing. Both sides further committed to future talks about a peace treaty in exchange for some nuclear disarmament

Under pressure from hawks the Trump administration tries to spin additional Korean concessions into the summit declaration. It claims that North Korea committed to "verifiable and irreversible" steps. It is a bad move as that is not the case. Only the written words count. "[T]he DPRK commits to work towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" is the binding wording.

In 1970 the U.S. committed itself to its own complete nuclear disarmament in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT):

Article VI – Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Both statements are aspirational. "To work towards" and to "undertake to pursue negotiations" are both intentionally vague and of equal determination.

The real point of the Singapore summit was the "freeze for freeze" the U.S. and North Korea both committed to it.

After North Korea successfully tested a thermonuclear device and an intercontinental range missile the U.S. was no longer able to go to war against it without risking the destruction of a major U.S. city. It had to negotiate towards some new truce with North Korea that would reduce the risk of a nuclear conflict. Freeze for freeze is the first step towards that.

North Korea had economic reasons for seeking nuclear weapons. The cost of constant military preparedness against a potential U.S. attack was killing its economy:

Cont. reading: The Real Results Of The Trump-Kim Summit – Freeze For Freeze (And Some Amusement)

Last night the Saudi coalition launched its attack on the city of Hodeidah in Yemen. Hodeidah is the only Yemeni harbor on the Red Sea coast that can take large vessels. It is ruled by the Houthi who in 2014 took over the capital Sanaa and disposed of the Saudi installed Hadi government. 90% of the food for the 18 million people living in Houthi controlled areas comes through Hodeidah.

Saudi-owned satellite news channels and later state media announced the battle had begun, citing military sources. They also reported coalition airstrikes and shelling by naval ships.

The initial battle plan appeared to involve a pincer movement. Some 2,000 troops who crossed the Red Sea from an Emirati naval base in the African nation of Eritrea landed west of the city with plans to seize Hodeida’s port, Yemeni security officials said.

Emirati forces with Yemeni troops moved in from the south near Hodeida’s airport, while others sought to cut off Houthi supply lines to the east, the officials said.

The port is now classified as a zone of active military conflict. Prolonged fighting may well destroy the port infrastructurer. Even if the Saudi coalition forces take and reopen it they will continue to block food supplies for the central highlands of Yemen. They want to starve the Houthis into submission.

The attack from the south includes 3,000 to 5,000 troops under the command of Tariq Sale, a cousin of the recently killed former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. They have been equipped with trucks and new weapons by the UAE. More forces are on their way from Aden and Taiz. They are supported by Emirati artillery, tanks and Saudi aerial bombing. The Saudi coalition forces are commanded by former officers from Australia, the U.S. and UK who have been hired by the UAE.

The New York Times editors do not want to understand the real problem with this attack:

Cont. reading: Yemen – The Starvation Siege Has Begun

The photo-op summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea went well. The visuals show North Korea and the United States as equal partners.

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The atmosphere was cordial.

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Both sides won.

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The signed document is short. The core part:

Cont. reading: First Thoughts On The Kim Trump Photo-Op Summit

The genocide in Yemen is going to start tomorrow. Eight million are already on the brink of starvation. Eighteen out of twenty-six million Yemenis live in the mountainous heartlands (green) which are under control of the Houthi and their allies. They are surrounded by Saudi and U.A.E. forces and their mercenaries. There is little agriculture. The only supply line from the outside world will soon be cut off. The people will starve.

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Even before the war Yemen imported 90% of its staple food. Three years of Saudi/UAE bombing have destroyed local infrastructure and production. The ongoing war has already caused mass starvation and the outbreak of a large cholera epidemic. The Yemeni coast is under blockade by Saudi and U.S. naval forces. The only supplies coming in are UN and commercial deliveries through the Red Sea Hodeidah port (Al Hudaydah on the map).

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The United Arab Emirates is leading local mercenaries and Islamist gangs against the Houthi and their allies. During the last months these forces moved from the south along the coast up to Hodeidah. The fighting is fierce:

Heavy fighting in Yemen between pro-government forces and Shiite rebels has killed more than 600 people on both sides in recent days, security officials said Monday.

Tomorrow, when the media will be busy with the Kim-Trump photo-op summit, the UAE forces will launch their attack on the city.

The UN, which oversees the aid distribution through Hodeidah, tried to negotiate between the parties:

The U.N. special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, traveled to the U.A.E. capital over the weekend in an effort to forestall an attack. Mr. Griffiths had secured an agreement with Houthi rebels who control Hodeidah to allow the U.N. to operate the port jointly, the people said. But people briefed on the discussions said they doubted the U.A.E. would accept the offer or delay the planned assault.

The briefed people were right. The UN is now evacuating its staff:

Cont. reading: Yemen – U.S. Grants Approval For Genocide

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

• June 5 – John Bolton Wants No Deal With North Korea Or Iran – But Is There Any Other Choice?

Trump is in Singapore to meet Kim Jong-un. Bolton will take part in the meeting. That is bad because it makes it more likely that it will fail. Bolton is on the record saying that he wants to 'get over' the negotiation phase as fast as possible to then escalate into war.

• June 6 – Yemen – The Attack On Hodeidah Is A Prelude To Genocide

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) pulled out 71 of its foreign staff in Yemen after one was assassinated. It still has local staff on the ground but the ICRC is usually respected by both sides of a conflict and is used to work under the worst circumstances. Presumably it was the Saudi side that tried to instrumentalize the ICRC and killed one of its employees when the ICRC did not agree.

• June 7 – U.S.-Saudi Pressure On Jordan Opens The Way For Iran

SaadAbedine @SaadAbedine – 16:21 UTC – 9 Jun 2018
King Abdullah II @KingAbdullahII and Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah @AlHusseinHKJ of Jordan will participate in the Mecca meeting called by #Saudi King Salman @KingSalman with leaders of the #UAE & #Kuwait to discuss economic aid #Jordan in the face of the economic crisis.

There will be strong pressure on Abdullah to agree to the Trump/Kushner/MbS/MbZ Israel plan. Al-Aqsa would be lost. 70% of the people in Jordan are Palestinians. I do not see how Abdullah can agree to the plan without losing everything.

Interestingly the new prime minister of Jordan, Omar al-Razzaz, once worked at the World Bank where his main projects were development programs in Iran. I wonder if he speaks Farsi …

• June 8 – Syria – Is The ISIS Attack On Abu Kamal Part Of A U.S. Plan?

The Islamic State was pushed back from Abu Kamal but renewed its attack early today. The spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Defense points out that all remaining ISIS zones in Syria are in US-controlled territory.

Journalist Hala Jaber interviewed the Syrian President Bashar al Assad for the British Daily Mail. SANA provides a full transcript and a six minute video. The Daily Mail write up: I use chemicals? Prove it! Syrian President Assad brands gas attacks 'fake news' and calls Theresa May a 'colonialist and a liar' in astonishing face to face interview

• June 9 – The 'West' Is Past

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On May 14 we wrote about the election in Iraq: The 'Kingmaker' Is Back – Muqtada Al-Sadr Wins The Election In Iraq. Observers agreed that the elections went quite well. Since then the political situation deteriorated. In several areas the electronic vote count was manipulated. The election commission decided to do a manual recount. All ballot boxes were brought to Baghdad and stored in a warehouse. Today the warehouse burned down:

Abdulla Hawez @abdullahawez – 14:19 UTC- 10 Jun 2018
– The guy filming asks the security guard: "how many of the ballots lost in the fire?"
– The security guard all smiling: "all of them were lost".
vid

Yesterday Elijah Magnier took a peak behind the scene. A weak and divided Iraq is stumbling towards an unbalanced future

Use as open thread …

G-7 summits are supposed to symbolize "the west", its unity and its power. The summits pretended to set policy directions for the world.

We are happy to see that they are dead.

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I do not know who made this pic.

It is a modification of a photo by German chancellor Merkel's staff photographer Jesco Denzel that was uploaded to her Instagram account:

Cont. reading: The ‘West’ Is Past

The people in Syria and Iraq believe that the Islamic State (ISIS) is an instrument the U.S. uses for its own purposes. A new ISIS attack on Syrian government forces today will deepen these beliefs.

Since November 2017 the U.S. and its proxy forces in north-east Syria did absolutely nothing against ISIS in east Syria north of the Euphrates. U.S. air strike were stopped and ISIS's territorial hold did not change one bit.

In February local tribal forces aligned with the Syrian government crossed the Euphrates from south to north in order to attack the ISIS pocket and to take control of an oilfield. The U.S. claimed that its Kurdish SDF proxy forces were attacked by the Syrian government aligned group. Curiously no one on the side of the U.S. and its proxies was hurt at all. Soon a large number of U.S. air support assets arrived and bombed the Syrian group to smithereens. 

ISIS in the northeastern pocket is the justification for the continuing U.S. occupation. But when Syrian government forces attacked those ISIS forces the U.S. claimed that only its forces were there. On June 6, six months after the U.S. had stopped attacking ISIS,  U.S. Secretary of Defense Mattis finally announced that U.S. proxies forces had again taken up the fight:

48 hours ago, the SDF, the coalition force and — advising the Syrian Democratic Force, recommenced their offensive against one of the last remaining pockets of ISIS.

There have been no reports yet of these new attacks against ISIS.

According to Mattis the offense re-started on June 4. Just the night before the restart of the U.S. operation several hundred well rested ISIS fighters crossed the Euphrates towards the south and attacked the Syrian government forces on the southern side.

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They shortly interrupted traffic on the road between Deir Ezzor city and Abu Kamal on the Syria-Iraq border and then hid away in some local farms.

Last night these forces reemerged, moved southeast and attacked the border city Abu Kamal:

Cont. reading: Syria – Is The ISIS Attack On Abu Kamal Part Of A U.S. Plan?

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has traditionally been in the 'western' camp. It is politically attached to the United Kingdom and the United States as well as to Saudi Arabia and other Sunni majority Gulf states. The Jordanian King Abdullah II has in the past been hostile to Iran. He was to first to publicly stoke fear of a 'Shia crescent'.  But the new Saudi and U.S. plans for 'peace' with Israel are a threat to Jordan and to King Abdullah's personal legitimacy. He needs to change his position. Provided with the right incentives Jordan could, eventually, join the 'resistance' side with Iran, Syria and Hizbullah.

The country ruled by King Abdullah has nearly ten million inhabitants but is relatively poor. It has few natural resources. The generally well educated population attracted some foreign investment in its industry. Many Jordanians work abroad and send remittances. But all that is not enough. The country needs foreign subsidies to keep its standard of living.

The King of Saudi Arabia derives legitimacy from his title as "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" in Mecca and Medina. The King of Jordan springs from the thousand year old great Hashemite dynasty. He heads the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf (Foundation) and is the custodian of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. This responsibility is the only prominent function left for the Hashemite family. It is the source of King Abdullah's legitimacy.

The changes in Saudi Arabia's policy towards Israel and the Zionist 'peace plan' the Trump administration develops create a new situation for Jordan. It is put under immense economic pressure to agree to these plans.

Jordan took part in the war on Syria. While Turkey provided support for the "rebels" attacking Syria from the north Jordan played a similar role in the south. Weapon and ammunition supplies from Saudi Arabia and Qatar were shipped through Jordan and smuggled into Syria. The country welcomed the families of the 'rebels' as refugees and provided medical support. The "southern operation room" of the 'rebels', run by the CIA, was hosted in Jordan's capital Amman.

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Cont. reading: U.S.-Saudi Pressure On Jordan Opens The Way For Iran