MENA Week in Review - June 27, 2014

06/27/14
Amanda Claypool
Middle East and North Africa
Terrorism, Foreign Policy, U.S. Policy, Politics and Security, Counterterrorism, Human Rights

Al Jazeera journalists convicted in Egypt as U.S. extends support towards the new Sisi government, ISIS continues to make gains in Iraq as the crisis becomes regional, and an increase in violence in Beirut demonstrates the precarious position Lebanon finds itself in.

  • Secretary of State John Kerry visited Cairo where he sought to mend the relationship between Egypt and the U.S.  As a result of the visit, the U.S. is working towards restoring Egypt’s aid package, which has been frozen since last year’s coup.
    • Shortly after Secretary Kerry’s visit, Egyptian courts convicted three Al Jazeera journalists of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to produce false reports.
      • Following the verdict, President Sisi announced that he would not intervene in the case.
      • In response to the Al Jazeera decision, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced an amendment that would decrease Egypt’s military aid by 30 percent.  That amendment was defeated, 35-11.
    • This week, House appropriators voted to approve the Fiscal Year 2015 State and Foreign Operations Bill, maintaining Egypt’s current aid package. This comes a week after Senate appropriators voted to cut aid to Egypt by $400 million.
    • Meanwhile, four bombs exploded in Cairo’s metro on Wednesday.
  • Secretary Kerry visited Iraq where he met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani. Secretary Kerry promised “intense and sustained” support for Iraq.
    • According to the Pentagon, any U.S. support in Iraq will be derived from CENTCOM’s budget, rather than the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), which is also known as being the “war fund” that sustained U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade.
    • After initially resisting pressure to create a national unity government, Prime Minister al-Maliki announced that the newly elected Iraqi parliament would convene on July 1 where it will face the daunting task of creating a new government in the midst of a raging insurgency.
    • President Barzani indicated that the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq might seek full independence.
    • Reports came out this week that last year, President Obama developed a plan to share intelligence with Iraqis to stem the growth of Sunni militants, however, fear that U.S. intelligence would be acquired by Iran limited the extent to which intelligence sharing took place.
      • Kurdish forces gathered intelligence well in advance of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham’s (ISIS) capture of Mosul and other northern Iraqi cities earlier this month, and attempted to relay concerns to Western governments.
  • According to declassified Department of Defense documents “[ISIS] records suggest that the United States will find it difficult to rout an organization whose structure and attention to detail allowed it to prosper even during the toughest U.S. counterterrorism efforts of the last decade.”
    • A recent Congressional Research Service report suggests that ISIS is intent on attacking targets within the U.S. after it consolidates a base of power in Iraq and Syria.
  • The ISIS insurgency in Iraq is quickly becoming a regional conflict:
    • Syrian aircraft bombed ISIS targets inside Iraq along the Syrian-Iraqi border
    • ISIS forces continue advancing on key border positions:
      • Jordan is increasing security along its eastern border, closing the border connecting Baghdad with Amman
      • ISIS is threatening to capture Balad Air base, the largest and one of the most important strategic outposts in Iraq. If successful, ISIS would gain access to the equipment necessary to launch aerial strikes.
    • Iran is providing the Iraqi government with aerial surveillance of ISIS, including drones.
  • A year after the British government returned him, Abu Qatada, charged with plotting attacks against U.S. targets in Amman in the 1990s, was acquitted by a Jordanian military court, but will remain in jail for another terrorism charge that he also denies involvement in.
  • Of the $5 billion Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund--proposed by President Obama during a May 2014 speech at West Point--$1.5 billion has been requested for a Regional Stabilization Initiative to support Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon, with $500 million of that to go to supporting the moderate opposition inside Syria.
  • The Israeli military launched strikes against Syrian targets after an incident in the Golan Heights that left an Arab-Israeli dead.
  • Two suicide bombs detonated this week in Lebanon.  The first occurred in a Shia suburb of Beirut, while the second took place at a hotel near the Saudi Arabian embassy.
    • In an effort to thwart further attacks, the Lebanese Army searched hotels for suspected militants while imposing strict security measures on the Dbayieh Palestinian camp.
  • Khalil al-Marzooq, one of Bahrain’s opposition leaders from the al-Wifaq party, was acquitted of terrorism charges.