Iraq's Shi'ite militias formally inducted into security forces

According to the decree, members of the Shi’ite militias, an assortment of militia groups known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which are mostly backed and trained by Iran, will be granted many of the same rights as members the military.

Paramilitary members will be given equivalent salaries to those members of the military under the Ministry of Defense’s control, the decree said. They will also be subject to the laws of military service and will gain access to military institutes and colleges.

The decree had been expected for some time and comes two months ahead of a high-stakes general election. The PMF commands popular support among Iraq’s majority Shi’ite population and is expected to sway voters.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis heeded a call to arms in 2014 after Islamic State seized a third of the country’s territory, forming the PMF. The paramilitaries supported Iraq’s military in ejecting Islamic State from areas the militants overran in 2014, when Iraqi military and police divisions deserted en masse.

Iraq declared victory over the militants in December, but the militias, estimated to comprise more than 60,000 fighters, are still deployed in many of the predominantly Sunni areas which saw heavy fighting during the three-year war to oust Islamic State.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-militias/iraqs-shiite-militias-formally-inducted-into-security-forces-idUSKCN1GK354

Colombia and ELN rebels begin first-ever ceasefire

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia and the Marxist ELN rebels began a ceasefire on Sunday aimed at generating goodwill during complicated talks to end a half-century war that has killed hundreds of thousands. 

The truce, the first with the National Liberation Army (ELN), will run through Jan. 9 and may be extended if it is respected. 

“This is a very important step, a step that I hope will be the first in a process that will also lead the ELN to hand in their weapons,” President Juan Manuel Santos said ahead of the armistice. 

The ELN is in talks in Ecuador to end its part in the conflict. Since negotiations began in February, the ELN has continued to take hostages for ransom and in recent weeks stepped up bomb attacks on oil companies. 

Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas warned that, although Colombia’s military would avoid confrontations with the ELN during the ceasefire, it would go after the group if it engaged in criminal activities such as illegal mining and drug trafficking. 

“We’ll respect the ceasefire in the sense that we won’t confront the ELN, looking for contact and combat. We hope they do the same,” Villegas told Reuters in a recent interview.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-rebels-eln/colombia-and-eln-rebels-begin-first-ever-ceasefire-idUSKCN1C61CT

Egypt launches air raids on Libya after Christians killed

Egyptian fighter jets carried out strikes on Friday directed at camps in Libya which Cairo says have been training militants who killed dozens of Christians earlier in the day.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he had ordered strikes against what he called terrorist camps, declaring in a televised address that states that sponsored terrorism would be punished.
Egyptian military sources said six strikes took place near Derna in eastern Libya at around sundown, hours after masked gunmen attacked a group of Coptic Christians traveling to a monastery in southern Egypt, killing 29 and wounding 24.
The Egyptian military said the operation was ongoing and had been undertaken once it had been ascertained that the camps had produced the gunmen behind the attack on the Coptic Christians in Minya, southern Egypt, on Friday morning.
"The terrorist incident that took place today will not pass unnoticed," Sisi said. "We are currently targeting the camps where the terrorists are trained."
He said Egypt would not hesitate to carry out further strikes against camps that trained people to carry out operations against Egypt, whether those camps were inside or outside the country.
Egyptian military footage of pilots being briefed and war planes taking off was shown on state television.
East Libyan forces said they participated in the air strikes, which had targeted forces linked to al-Qaeda at a number of sites, and would be followed by a ground operation.
A resident in Derna heard four powerful explosions, and told Reuters that the strikes had targeted camps used by fighters belonging to the Majlis al-Shura militant group.
Majlis al-Shura spokesman Mohamed al-Mansouri said in a video posted online that the Egyptian air strikes did not hit any of the group's camps, but instead hit civilian areas.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the Christians, which followed a series of church bombings claimed by Islamic State in a campaign of violence against the Copts.
Islamic State supporters reposted videos from earlier this year urging violence against the Copts in Egypt.
At a nearby village, thousands later attended a funeral service that turned into an angry protest against the authorities' failure to protect Christians.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-security-idUSKBN18M10P

Egypt hits Libyan terror camps again after attack kills 29 Copts

Egypt launched a fresh wave of air strikes against Libyan terrorist bases on Saturday in response to the killing of 29 Coptic Christians south of Cairo, with a warning of further retaliation possible.
The airstrikes follow six bombing raids in Libya that hit the north-eastern coastal town of Derna on Friday, with Cairo officials saying bombs struck terrorist training camps of the Shura Council, aligned with al-Qaida.
Pictures from Derna on social media showed devastated buildings but there were no reliable casualty numbers.
The savagery of the attack on the Copts, with at least two children, aged two and four, among the dead, has shocked Egypt. The Copts had been travelling to the monastery of St Samuel the Confessor, 85 miles south of Cairo, when their small convoy was halted on a desert road by up to 10 gunmen dressed as soldiers, who then opened fire.
Although Egyptian forces targeted an al-Qaida affiliated group, the responsibility for the attack was claimed by Islamic State, which has carried out previous atrocities against Egypt’s Copts. Libyan sources say Egypt has indicated more attacks, possibly including groundstrikes, are being considered by Cairo.
Within hours of Friday’s killings, the president of Egypt, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, declared: “Egypt will not hesitate to strike terrorist camps anywhere.” The president told Pope Towadros II, leader of the Coptic church in Egypt, that the state would not rest easy until the perpetrators of the attack were punished.


Egypt has been in a state of emergency since two suicide bombings killed 45 people at Coptic churches last month, following December’s slaughter of 29 Copts in a Cairo cathedral.
The bombing highlights Libya’s position as a haven for jihadist groups, with the civil war leaving much of the country in chaos and jihadi groups proliferating.
Neighbouring countries are also coming under attack from Libya-based jihadists. Tunisia is fighting a cat-and-mouse battle with Isis terrorists crossing back and forth from Libya. Seifeddine Rezgui, who killed 38 tourists, 30 of them British, on a beach in Sousse two years ago, was trained by Isis in the western Libyan town of Sabratha.
Isis itself is on the back foot in Libya, its main base at Sirte having been overrun in December after a bloody six-month campaign by Misrata militias backed by US airstrikes. But its response has been to withdraw further into Libya’s vast Sahara. On Friday, four Libyan soldiers were killed battling Isis near the desert town of Bani Walid.
Diplomats say airstrikes alone will not purge Libya of terrorists, and are pinning their hopes on the end of a civil war between Libya’s two rival governments to bring peace and allow terror groups to be cleaned out. That is a distant prospect, with Tripoli’s all-powerful militias fighting one of their periodic turf wars this weekend. The battle was witnessed on Friday by British ambassador Peter Millett who tweeted: “Can hear explosions & artillery fire in south Tripoli.”
The Foreign Office will not be offering consular visits to Manchester bomber Salman Abedi’s father, Ramadan, and younger brother, Hashim, who were arrested by a pro-government militia last week. Salman Abedi is believed to have spent three weeks in Libya shortly before the attack.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/27/egypt-hits-libyan-terror-camps-again-after-attack-kills-29-copts

Iran´s Ballistic Missile Programme: Its Status and the Way Forward

What’s the status of Iran’s ballistic missile program? In this article, Paulina Izewicz tackles the question by focusing on 1) the program’s history and scope; 2) the part it continues to play in Iran’s statecraft, national discourse and military doctrine; 3) the attempts by others to curtail and defend against Iranian missile systems; 4) the exclusion of missile development restrictions from the Iran nuclear deal; and 5) what the EU and other international actors might do to engage with Tehran in the future on its missile program.
Iran’s ballistic missile programme has long been a source of tension in Iran’s immediate neighbourhood and beyond. Providing Iran with a diverse and extensive arsenal, the ballistic missile programme plays multiple roles: it is an important element of military doctrine, a means of deterrence, and a tool of statecraft. The primary threat posed by the programme stems from its potential connection to Iran’s nuclear programme, and the international community has consequently sought to address it as such. Supply-side restrictions and missile defences have played a prominent role. Despite attempts to include ballistic missiles in an agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran’s resistance proved too difficult to overcome. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) took a compromise approach, relegating the matter to a new United Nations Security Council resolution—Resolution 2231—and imposing an eight-year conditional ban. Continued implementation of the nuclear agreement is inextricably linked to Iran’s ballistic missile programme, ensuring that, at least for its duration, Iran does not develop a nuclear warhead to mount on top of a missile. Controlling Iran’s access to sensitive goods will also remain important, but Iran’s progress to date has demonstrated the limits to what export controls alone can achieve. As a result, other approaches, though rife with difficulty,
http://www.css.ethz.ch/en/services/digital-library/articles/article.html/2e7df138-4267-4de7-8378-29e4ee01ea6d

Political, ideological and economic factors have contributed to the flow of fighters from Iran to Syria

About three million Afghan refugees currently reside in Iran, and discrimination against them is well documented.
  According to reports by human rights researchers and journalists, recruitment of Afghan fighters can take place anywhere from mosques in Iran to Shia neighbourhoods across Afghanistan.
"In many Afghani towns there are Shia mosques," an Afghan returning soldier said in an exclusive interview with the UK-based Kayhan newspaper. "The imams and prayer leaders give sermons about these issues and if anyone wants to volunteer, they arrange contacts with the IRGC. We travel by land from Afghanistan to Tehran."
For some, the fear of deportation looms if they choose not to serve in the army. Last May, a bill was passed by the Iranian parliament, which permitted family members of slain foreign soldiers in Syria who reside in Iran to be granted immediate citizenship.

They did not give us a choice; they forced us to train and fight. They said: 'You will fight in Syria and become a martyr, and that is a good thing.' Masheed Ahmadzai, former detainee

In other cases, Afghans have reportedly been coerced to take up arms in Syria. A report by Human Rights Watch released last January provided detailed reports of Afghan fighters who were recruited by the IRGC.
Masheed Ahmadzai, a 17-year-old Tehran resident who arrived last year on a rubber boat at the Greek island of Lesbos, told researchers that he had been living undocumented for four years and was working in construction when police detained him and his cousin.
He said that police took them to a military base, where numerous other Afghanis and Pakistanis were being detained, and military officers selected the men most physically fit.
"The military officers separated us into those fit to fight, and those not fit to fight," he said. "They took me with a group of 20 men, but did not select my cousin and deported him to Afghanistan …They did not give us a choice; they forced us to train and fight. They said: 'You will fight in Syria and become a martyr, and that is a good thing.'"

EXPLAINER: Syria's civil war

While many of Iran's fighters in Syria register in the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia operating under IRGC, thousands of others serve as paid soldiers under the IRGC's Fatemiyoun unit, mainly made up of Shia from the diaspora in Iran.
Estimates of fighters' salaries have ranged from around $500 to $750 a month, according to media reports. But in a recent interview with reporters from Iran, Brigadier-General Mohammad Ali Falaki, a retired IRGC commander who was deployed to Syria, said that foreign fighters actually earn just $100 a month - a figure some speculated was being played down because of the struggling Iranian economy.
Falaki also acknowledged the insufficient support in Iran for Afghan refugees, which he viewed as an untapped pool of recruits.

Besides being a significant regional force in the Middle East, the IRGC wields huge political, economic and ideological power throughout Iran. Whether its fighters are incentivised by money, citizenship, or greater social acceptance, one thing is clear: It does not need to look far for support.
But in the eyes of some analysts, the geopolitical costs for Iran's military involvement in Syria have been high.
"Iran's actions in Syria totally undermine their claim to representing the global Muslim community," said Mohammad Fadel, an associate professor of law at the University of Toronto. "It reinforces the idea that Iran is a clearly sectarian state."
For a long time, Fadel points out, there were two different narratives about Iran - that it was a sectarian state. Then there was another that viewed Iran as a kind of revolutionary, anti-imperial state - one that supported Muslims and self-determination and was more or less an ally of the people. "Iran's intervention [in Syria] completely destroyed that second narrative."
The overt religious rhetoric about protecting the shrines of the Prophet's family reinforced their sectarian stance, Fadel added. "It  implied that those who were against Assad were against the Prophet's family. It's obvious there is a strand in the Sunni community who object to shrines, but to then paint the entire Syrian revolution with that brush - and then imply that protecting these shrines merits a type of violence - is something else."
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/11/thousands-iranians-fighting-syria-161120090537447.html

L’Australie s’apprête à abattre deux millions de chats

Ces chats sont accusés d’être responsables de la disparition d’une trentaine d’espèces endémiques, principalement des mammifères. Parmi eux, le bandicoot-lapin à queue blanche ou la souris sauteuse d’Australie à grandes oreilles. C’est dans ce pays que le taux d’extinction des mammifères est le plus élevé depuis 200 ans. Or les chats menacent encore des dizaines d’autres mammifères, oiseaux, reptiles.  

« L’Australie est le seul continent autre que l’Antarctique où les animaux ont évolué en l’absence de chats, ce qui explique pourquoi notre faune est tellement vulnérable face à eux », commente Gregory Andrews, le commissaire chargé des espèces menacées au sein du gouvernement, qui a participé à l’étude. Le chat a été introduit en Australie par les premiers colons, à la fin du 18^e siècle, afin de s’attaquer aux souris, principalement dans les fermes.

« C’était à l’origine des animaux domestiques, mais ils ont été laissés dans la nature et vivent depuis comme des animaux sauvages », explique Sarah Legge, de l’Université du Queensland, co-auteure de l’étude. Ils se sont peu à peu répandus dans l’ensemble du territoire. « Ils s’adaptent très facilement à leur environnement, sont de formidables chasseurs. Ce sont des animaux incroyables, mais ils n’ont rien à faire ici », poursuit Sarah Legge.
En juillet 2015, le gouvernement australien a déclaré « la guerre » aux chats sauvages, affichant l’objectif de 2 millions de chats tués d’ici à 2020. Si l’annonce a été plutôt bien accueillie en Australie, elle a fait bondir Brigitte Bardot, qui a dénoncé « un génocide animalier inhumain et ridicule ».
On estimait alors que 20 millions de chats sauvages se trouvaient sur le continent. Mais ce chiffre était bien au-dessus de la réalité selon l’étude qui vient de paraître et qui est la première à comptabiliser les chats et à donner une estimation de leur densité. Quarante scientifiques se sont penchés sur la question, et ont réuni des données provenant de cent différentes études menées à travers l’Australie.

En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2017/01/18/la-guerre-de-l-australie-contre-les-chats-sauvages_5064391_3244.html#Y0gKcPRekRIbYjE7.99