Week in Review: MENA – March 28, 2014 Share This /

Tensions are rising in the United States over the Obama administration’s Syria policy, Libyan weapons continue to spread through North Africa, and Gulf Cooperation Council powers expand their naval presence. Below is a roundup of these stories and some of the other highlights from around the Middle East and North Africa over the last week:

United States Policy:

• The Fifth Fleet is expanding its operational infrastructure in Bahrain with $580 million in new funding, according to Vice Admiral John Miller, commander of the Fifth Fleet and the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. Miller said the base expansion includes modifications to lodge the Navy’s new littoral combat ships (LCS).

• The Pentagon said Tuesday that it spent millions of dollars and contributed thousands of man hours complying with the congressional investigations into the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in September 2012.  

• The U.S. military is considering a plan to arm the Yemeni air force with four missile-ready crop duster planes, says a report by BuzzFeed's Aram Roston.

• Israeli, Greek and U.S. military personnel met in Crete on Tuesday for Noble Dina 2014, a two-week, trilateral exercise in the Mediterranean Sea. According to Defense News, “In addition to search and rescue, sea maneuvering, anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and coordinated command-and-control missions… Noble Dina 2014 will feature undersea divers and other specialists deployed for joint port protection.”

• The U.S. is concentrating its reinvigorated initiative to assist Syria’s faltering opposition forces in the so-called “Southern front.” With peace talks stalled, the assistance is expected to ramp up in the near future. According to Foreign Policy’s The Complex, the effort will include “tens of millions of dollars’ worth of new assistance into Syria, including ambulances, communications gear and Toyota pickup trucks.”

• A Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on U.S.-Syria policy turned combative as lawmakers and administration officials participated in tense exchanges over accusations of a failed U.S. policy.

Other top security stories:

• An estimated 10-15 million illicit light weapons are flowing through Libya. The weapons are from storage facilities that once belonged to Gaddafi’s military forces and from high-level thefts of new weapons deliveries over the last few months.

• Egyptian Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said on Sunday that Egypt is considering importing  arms from Russia. Ibrahim cited the delay in weapons delivery from the U.S. following a partial suspension that has been in place since October 2013.

• Yemeni Interior Minister Abdo al-Tarib met with Chinese ambassador to Yemen Chang Hua to discuss prospects for enhanced of security cooperation between the two countries. The Chinese government already provides support to Yemen’s government in its efforts to upgrade its security system, particularly in counter-terrorism and organized crime areas.

• Qatar is working on completing a new high-tech naval base as it continues to expand its naval capabilities. The base will serve as a forward operating base to help protect Qatar’s oil and gas reserves and will help support special operations forces and air force operations. This news comes as another report says the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) navies, as well as Iraq, have been building up their naval power in order to protect their oil and gas reserves.

• Turkey shot down a Syrian fighter jet on Sunday after it allegedly entered Turkish airspace during fighting between Syrian rebels and government forces.

• Turkey’s $3.4 billion purchase of a Chinese long-range air and missile defense system is nearly final. The deal has drawn the ire of both NATO and the U.S. over claims that the system will not be interoperable with Europe’s missile defense infrastructure.

• A Sunni insurgent group based in Pakistan named Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), kidnapped five Iranian border guards and executed the sole officer. The group has demanded than the Iranian government free 200 of their members from Iranian prisons.

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