US airstrikes in Afghanistan

During this past week, the US military launched several airstrikes in support of Afghan government forces fighting Taliban, including in the strategically important province of Kandahar. It must be kept in mind that at present United States has no airbases in Pakistan or Central Asian countries.

These strikes demonstrate the US intentions to continue supporting Afghan forces with combat aircraft based outside the country, at least until the scheduled conclusion of the US military withdrawal by 31st August 2021.

The US has a variety of combat aircraft based in the Middle East within range of Afghanistan, including warplanes aboard an aircraft carrier in the region and fighters and bombers in the Persian Gulf area.

These are the first known US airstrikes in Afghanistan since Gen. Scott Miller, the top US commander in the country, relinquished his command and left the country. The authority to launch airstrikes against the Taliban has since been in the hands of Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, who oversees US military involvement in the greater Middle East.

The United States conducted a total of more than four airstrikes in support of Afghan forces. At least two of the strikes were to destroy military equipment, including an artillery piece and a vehicle that the Taliban had taken from Afghan forces. The Afghans requested those strikes, as well as those targeting Taliban fighting positions, including at least one strike in the southern province of Kandahar.

At a Pentagon news conference Wednesday, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Taliban now control about half of the 419 district centers in Afghanistan, and while they have yet to capture any of the country’s 34 provincial capitals, they are pressuring about half of them. As the Taliban seize more territory, the Afghan security forces are consolidating their positions to protect key population centers, including Kabul, he said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that after 31st August the main focus will be on countering threats to the US homeland from extremist groups inside Afghanistan. He added that the administration will provide financial and other kinds of support to Afghan defense forces, even with no combat troops or strike aircraft based there.

 

Can joining Quad help India fight Himalayan war against China?

The ambiguity over officially announcing China as its adversary, the lack of overlap between the geographies or the issues of its members with China, and the military disadvantages before a well-prepared Chinese puts a question mark over Indian inclusion in the Quad.

India has maintained that it perceives the Quad as not aimed against anyone, “denied it is an Asian NATO”, stressed on broader issues from vaccine collaboration, to resilient supply chains, and framed its language that avoids irking China. But the belated adoption of broader goals such as climate change and vaccines in the 12th March Quad Leaders’ Summit, to make it more acceptable to other countries, suggested that the target is Beijing.

Only India and Japan have territorial disputes and are geographically close with China, while the US and Australia’s opposition stems from Great Power contest, China’s socio-political system and policies in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the South China Sea and Taiwan.

The only tangible dispute Australia has with China was the trade war where the latter’s tariffs cost Australia US$3 billion ‑ themselves in response to Australia backing a global inquiry into the COVID-19 origins in April 2020.

While India’s territorial disputes with China are in the Himalayas, Japan contests the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyu in Chinese) in the East China Sea. Thus, the lack of a contiguous land or maritime geography with China does not allow a ‘united front’ per se — like Egypt and Sudan against Ethiopia, or Egypt, Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean against Turkey. Moreover, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on 22nd April refused intervening in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan itself, while clarifying 17th April joint statement with Biden in the Japanese Parliament.

India is not likely to join Quad members to collectively confront China in the South China Sea, as China can be expected to retaliate with severe backlash in Ladakh. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is already limiting the disengagement only to the Pangong Tso, with the standoff becoming a year old.

Beijing initiated the standoff because of India’s rising military dalliance with the US and tacitly joining former US President Donald Trump’s COVID-19-origin charge in early 2020. China perceived it as a threat to its sovereignty and India and US exploiting its vulnerability. Moreover, India’s reconciliatory statements at the beginning of the standoff reflected an unwillingness to go to war.

Giving up the Kailash Range plateau that had stunned the Chinese, has also left India with little military options. Add to it its obsolete military equipment and structure, India can only fight a defensive war. In the South China Sea against the US Navy that is stretched thin, the Chinese have a home advantage.

In the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) knows it faces the ‘away’ disadvantage and, therefore, will not challenge the Quad or India.

Retired US Navy Admiral Dennis Blair also discredits the ‘String of Pearls’ theory, saying it is “not possible for any navy to encircle a country (like India) with a few ports.” Since international law would permit India to strike regions it faces attacks from, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Pakistan will not host Chinese military facilities aimed at India.

A China policy independent of the US geopolitical rivalries that objectively addresses Indian issues with Beijing and avoids the destabilization that Washington’s military alliances effect would inspire a positive response from China. Moreover, banking on military alliances against China would harm the current government’s muscular, nationalistic image.

Remembering King Abdullah I of Jordan

The year 2021 marks 70 years of assassination of King Abdullah I of Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He was assassinated on the Temple Mount, while visiting Jerusalem to meet Israeli officials amid his efforts to reach a settlement with Israel. 

Abdullah was assassinated at the age of 69 as he was exiting al-Aqsa Mosque after Friday prayers with his grandson Hussein.

The assassin, Mustafa Shukri Ashshu, was associated with Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, who sparked riots against Jews in Mandatory Palestine and was close with Adolf Hitler during World War II. Those associated with the Mufti were often termed "bitter enemies" of Abdullah, as the Mufti supported the establishment of a Palestinian state, which Abdullah seemed to have thwarted by annexing the West Bank, according to a Guardian article from the day after the assassination.

A few days before the assassination, Riad al Sohl, the first prime minister of Lebanon, was also assassinated in Jordan. Ali Razmara, Prime Minister of Iran, and Abdul Hamid Zanganeh, former Education Minister of Iran, were also assassinated in the months before Abdullah's assassination. The assassinations were seen as a sign of increasing instability in the region.

Abullah was succeeded by his son Talal, who was forced to abdicate about a year later due to mental illness. Talal was succeeded by Hussein, who ruled until 1999, when he was succeeded by the current king of Jordan, Abdullah II.

King Abdullah I was known for his efforts to reach at least some form of peace with Israel, although he was assassinated 43 years before a peace treaty between the two nations was finally signed.

Abdullah met with Reuven Shiloah, the first Mossad director, and Golda Meir in a number of discussions from 1949 to 1950. The king made extensive efforts to get other Jordanian officials to support reaching a settlement with Israel, but faced intense opposition from both officials and the Jordanian and Palestinian public.

Abdullah had been set to meet with Shiloah and diplomat Moshe Sasson in Jerusalem the day after he was assassinated, according to Avi Shalim, an Israeli-British historian.

In Lion of Jordan, Shalim's biography of Abdullah's grandson, Hussein, Abdullah is quoted as having told Sasson "I want to make peace with Israel not because I have become a Zionist or care for Israel’s welfare but because it is in the interest of my people. I am convinced that if we do not make peace with you, there will be another war, and another war, and another war, and another war, and we shall lose all these wars. Hence it is the supreme interest of the Arab nation to make peace with you"

Elias Sasson, Moshe's father, wrote shortly after Abdullah's assassination: "King Abdullah was the only Arab statesman who showed an understanding for our national renewal, a sincere desire to come to a settlement with us, and a realistic attitude to most of our demands and arguments... We as well as some of the Arabs and foreigners are going to feel for a long time to come his absence, and to regret more than a little his removal from our midst," according to Shalim's biography.

By the time of his assassination, Israeli officials had largely lost hope that Abdullah's efforts would ever lead to an actual peace due to continuing opposition by Arab and Jordanian officials.

At the time of his assassination, a newsreel by the British Pathé News described Abdullah as "the one man who might have brought peace to the Middle East."

Winston Churchill expressed deep regret after hearing of Abdullah's assassination, saying "I deeply regret the murder of this wise and faithful Arab ruler, who never deserted the cause of Britain and held out the hand of reconciliation to Israel," according to The Guardian.

Fervent protests in Indian Parliament over spyware scandal

There was lot of huge and cry in the Indian Parliament on Tuesday as opposition lawmakers accused government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using military-grade spyware to monitor political opponents, journalists and activists. 

The session was disrupted repeatedly as opposition lawmakers shouted slogans against Modi government and demanded an investigation into how the spyware, known as Pegasus, was used in India.

“This is a national security threat,” an opposition Congress party official, Kapil Sibal, said at a news conference.

The protests came after an investigation by a global media consortium was published on Sunday. Based on leaked targeting data, the findings provided evidence that the spyware from Israel-based NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire company, was used to allegedly infiltrate devices belonging to a range of targets, including journalists, activists and political opponents in 50 countries.

In India, the list of potential surveillance targets included senior Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, at least 40 journalists, a veteran election strategist critical of Modi and a top virologist, according to the investigation.

Newly appointed Information Technology Minister, Ashwani Vaishnaw dismissed the allegations on Monday, calling them “highly sensational,” “over the top,” and “an attempt to malign the Indian democracy.”

Minutes after his statement in Parliament, India’s independent The Wire website ‑ part of the media consortium ‑ revealed that his name also appeared on the list as a potential surveillance target in 2017. He was not a member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party at that time.

NSO Group has said it only sells its spyware to “vetted government agencies” for use against terrorists and major criminals. The Indian government has so far dodged questions over whether it is a client of the group.

A list of more than 50,000 cell phone numbers was obtained by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International, which was then shared with 16 news organizations.

Journalists were able to identify more than 1,000 individuals in 50 countries who were allegedly selected by NSO clients for potential surveillance, including 300 verified Indian numbers, The Wire reported.

In India, the investigation fueled a slew of angry reactions from officials.

Home Minister Amit Shah called the investigation an attempt to “derail India’s development trajectory through their conspiracies” and said it was “timed to cause disruptions in Parliament.”

The former IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said there was “not a shred of evidence linking Indian government or the BJP” to the allegations. Prasad called it an international plot to defame India.

Rights groups say the findings bolster accusations that not just autocratic regimes but also democratic governments, including India, have used the spyware for political ends.

It has also intensified concerns of a democratic backsliding and erosion of civil liberties under Modi. Recently, the Washington-based Freedom House downgraded India, the world’s most populous democracy, from “free” to “partly free.”

Rahul Gandhi, the most influential Indian name revealed so far, was Modi’s main challenger in the 2014 and 2019 general elections. Two of his phone numbers used between mid-2018 and mid-2019, in the runup to the election, appear on the list.

Gandhi no longer has the devices so it was not possible to analyze them to determine if they had been hacked, The Wire reported. They also found at least nine numbers of people in Gandhi’s circle.

The list also included Gangandeep Kang, a top virologist, Prashant Kishor, a longtime political strategist who helped Modi to power in 2014 but is now one of his strongest opponents, and Ashok Lavasa, a former top official in India’s Election Commission.

Phone numbers of a Supreme Court staffer who accused the former Chief Justice, Ranjan Gogoi, of sexual harassment in 2019, also appeared in the data just days after she recorded her allegations. Gogoi was later cleared of the allegations, which he had denied.