Ill-timed visit of Bennett to United States

I may not be an admirer of Israeli Prime Minister, Natfali Bennett, but certainly dismayed at the bad timing of his visit to the United States. He has gone there with ambitious plan, but may not succeed in getting even sympathetic hearing.

His visit must have been scheduled, when no one had thought Taliban would be taking control of the entire Afghanistan. Now, the US president and his team are up to neck in Afghan due to very tight evacuation schedule and likely fallout, in case they fail in meeting 31st August 2021 deadline.

Despite hating it, the US is too eager in avoiding any bloody encounters at this juncture, resulting in accepting some of the conditions of Taliban. It is on record that Afghanistan has resumed buying petroleum products from Iran, despite the US sanctions in place.

Similarly, Iran-backed Hezbollah of Lebanon has announced to buy petroleum products from Iran. It has also warned all the foes not to make any attempt to stop movement of ships carrying Iranian products. Israel has expressed its dismay on the decision and it was feared that some mysterious actions may be taken to disrupt supply.

Naftali Bennett landed early Wednesday in the United States, kicking off his first state visit overseas since taking office.The trip comes in the midst of heightened tensions with Jerusalem’s regional enemy Iran, and as Israel grapples with a gradual resurgence of hostilities on its southern border with the Gaza Strip.

Bennett, who landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, was scheduled to meet Wednesday with senior US administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and on Thursday with President Biden.

In a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office before his departure, Bennett said the top priority in his conversation with Biden would be Iran, “especially the leapfrogging in the past two to three years in the Iranian nuclear program.”

He said other issues would also be discussed, including preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge in the Middle East, confronting the coronavirus pandemic and economic matters.

Bennett has spoken out against the possibility of a new nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, and says that any agreement must also put the brakes on Iran’s regional aggression.

Earlier this week, Bennett told the cabinet that he would tell the American president “that now is the time to halt the Iranians, to stop this thing,” and not to reenter “a nuclear deal that has already expired and is not relevant, even to those who thought it was once relevant.”

Bennett repeated that stance Tuesday in a Zoom call with US congressmen.

 “There’s a new government in the US and a new government in Israel, and I bring with me from Jerusalem a new spirit of cooperation, and this rests on the special and long relationship between the two countries,” Bennett said before takeoff.

Bennett took office two months ago after cobbling together a ruling coalition of eight disparate political parties — ranging from right-wing parties to the Islamist Ra’am faction — that ousted longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu from office following the country’s fourth consecutive parliamentary election in two years.

Ahead of his US trip, Bennett told The New York Times in an interview published Tuesday that he would neither annex West Bank territory nor allow it to become a Palestinian state, since the left-to-right composition of his coalition government meant that drastic diplomatic moves in either direction were off the table for now.

Building resilience for Asia and Pacific countries

Countries meeting on Wednesday in Bangkok at the seventh session of the ESCAP Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction were called on to intensify their efforts to prepare for and tackle complex, overlapping crises as the region strives to increase the resilience of its people as well as its economies.

“Notwithstanding the progress made by many countries in devising more robust systems of early warning and responsive protection - with far fewer people dying as a result of natural disasters - the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that  almost without exception, countries around the world are still ill-prepared to deal with multiple overlapping crises, which often cascade, with one triggering another,” said Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP. “Tropical cyclones, for example, can lead to floods, which lead to disease, which exacerbates poverty.”

Since the start of the pandemic, the region has been hit by multiple natural and biological disasters. At the same time, climate change has continued to warm the world, exacerbating the impacts of many of these disasters. The Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2021, also launched today, shows that the pandemic, combined with the persistent reality of climate change, has reshaped and expanded the disaster “riskscape” in Asia and the Pacific.

The triple threat of disease, disaster and climate change is causing not only considerable human hardship but also significant economic losses. Currently, the annual average disaster-related losses are US$780 billion. This could nearly double, to around US$1.4 trillion, in a worst-case climate scenario. Choosing a proactive strategy of adapting to natural and other biological hazards would be far more cost-effective at an annual cost of US$270 billion.

In her statement during the opening session, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mami Mizutori, voiced support for the Committee’s work and reiterated the need for immediate and decisive action to build disaster resilience.

“The string of record-breaking weather events show that we do not have the luxury of ‘waiting this out’ action must be taken now to address these risks,” she said. “This includes increasing international funding for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation, especially for countries graduating from the least-developed category.”

Also speaking at the opening session, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, emphasized the importance of climate change mitigation efforts.

“All in all, successful climate mitigation doesn’t affect our everyday life very much,” he said, “but if we fail with climate mitigation the impact is going to be felt for centuries, even millennia.”

The final speaker at the opening session, the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, Houlin Zhao, highlighted the need for countries in Asia and the Pacific to make progress on digital transformation.

“It’s time for the Asia-Pacific region to rely even more on ICTs (information and communication technologies),” he said. “I am confident that countries in the region will access the unique opportunity presented by Covid-19 to accelerate digital transformation and leverage the historic role of ICTs in tackling the dual challenges of climate-related disasters and Covid-19.”

Today also saw the return of the ESCAP Regional Conversation series, with a Ministerial Panel on Disaster, Climate and Health Resilience. This was the first in a series of four events that will bring together eminent personalities and thought leaders to exchange ideas and solutions to some of the key challenges facing Asia and the Pacific.

In her remarks, Ms. Alisjahbana highlighted the need to build universal resilience to address the vulnerabilities the pandemic has exposed and to tackle rising levels of inequality and poverty. She called for a paradigm shift in disaster risk management toward a focus on investing in prevention and the building of resilience.

Israeli weapons used against Taliban in Afghanistan

From drones to missiles and armored vehicles, Israeli-made weapons systems helped coalition forces against Taliban fighters. Though Israeli troops have never been on the ground in the war-torn central Asian country, numerous coalition nations used Israeli systems during the 20 years of fighting against the radical jihadist terrorist group.

While many Israeli defense companies have stayed mum on the use of their products in Afghanistan, according to multiple reports, countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Australia have used their products for years.

Numerous countries used remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs) to collect intelligence, and Israeli-made SPIKE missiles were used in battle. Troops were also able to drive around safely in high-intensity areas in Israeli-made MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) military light tactical vehicles.

One of the main Israeli weapons systems used by foreign militaries in Afghanistan was drones.

Foreign reports state that Israel is considered a leading exporter of drones and has sold such systems to numerous countries including Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Singapore and South Korea.

The German Air Force began operating the Heron TP, manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), in Afghanistan in 2010. They were involved in thousands of missions, logging thousands of flight hours.

The Heron TPs are IAI’s most advanced RPAs with 40-hour endurance, a maximum take-off weight of 11,685 pounds, and a payload of 2,204 pounds. They can be used for reconnaissance, combat and support roles, and can carry air-to-ground missiles to take out hostile targets.

The German pilots were trained in Israel regarding how to operate the RPA and learn about its surveillance capabilities.

The Canadian military and the Australians also flew IAI’s Heron 1 RPA in Afghanistan.

Equipped with satellite data link and electro-optical infrared sensors, the Heron 1 is not only able to provide reconnaissance to ground forces in combat situations, assist in convoying and patrolling, create movement profiles, and carry out long-term monitoring, but it is also able to track down explosives from the air.

Several of them crashed in Afghanistan.

But it wasn’t only the Heron that was flying in Afghanistan’s skies.

Since 2005, the Australian Army in Afghanistan has also flown the Skylark 1 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufactured by Elbit Systems.

The Skylark, measuring seven and a half feet, is used by troops for tactical surveillance and close-range counter-terror missions. It can be launched by one or two soldiers, and is operated on the roof of buildings or in the back of armored personnel carriers, providing live video to operators once airborne.

With a range of 10-15 km, the mini-UAV has an exceptionally quiet electric motor and outstanding observation capabilities giving troops beyond-line-of-sight intelligence, enhancing their performance in various mission scenarios.

Australia also flew the Skylark during missions in Iraq.

In addition to RPAs, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems’ Spike NLOS (Non Line Of Sight) missile was used by both the British and Canadians in Afghanistan.

The missile’s precision proved useful in battles against the Taliban. Although the Brits tried to keep its use quiet, they publicly admitted to using the missile, known as Exactor, in 2014.

The Spike NLOS is capable of penetrating 39 inches of armor, and can be operated in either direct attack or mid-course navigation based on target coordinates only. These modes enable the defeat of long-range hidden targets with pinpoint precision, damage assessment, and the obtaining of real-time intelligence.

It has a range of 25 km and can be used with a number of warheads such as heat, fragmentation, PBF (penetration, blast and fragmentation) and PBF/F suited for urban and high-intensity conflicts. The missile, which can be installed on a variety of platforms, provides the gunner with the ability to attack targets at stand-off range and get real-time intelligence and damage assessment following the strikes.

Though Israel does not comment on foreign reports, Iranian media reported in 2019 that troops were sent to Afghanistan to collect intelligence on Iranian military movement.

According to Iran’s Tasnim news agency, Israeli troops operated out of a United States Air Force base in Shindand in the western Afghanistan province of Herat some 75 km from the Iranian border and were collecting intelligence on Iranian movement around the Persian Gulf region.

Russia’s Sputnik News stated at the time that the Israelis were operating “under the flags of the United States and the United Arab Emirates.”

Sputnik quoted an expert on Israel as saying that the Israeli troops were operating under the framework of American forces stationed there, and that the activity was carried out with the knowledge and approval of the Afghan government.

As Western forces leave Afghanistan and the Taliban solidifies its power over the country, the jihadist group has also obtained advanced American weaponry, including some drones.

But with the Canadians, Brits and Germans having ended their fight several years ago, it’s unlikely that the Taliban got their hands on the Israeli-made systems that hunted them for so long.

Iran resumes fuel exports to Afghanistan at Taliban request

Iran restarted its petrol and diesel exports to Afghanistan a few days ago, following a request from Taliban, the Union of Iranian Oil, Gas and Gas Exporters announced on Monday.

The Sunni Muslim group seized power in Afghanistan last week as the United States and its allies withdrew their troops after a 20-year war.

Gasoline prices in Afghanistan hit US$900/ton last week as many panicked Afghans left towns fearing retaliation and a return to a harsh version of Islamic law imposed by Taliban when they were in power two decades ago.

To counter the surge in prices, the new Taliban government has asked Shia Iran to keep the borders open to traders.

“The Taliban have sent messages to Iran saying ‘you can continue to export petroleum products’,” Hamid Hosseini, member of the board of directors and spokesperson for the Iranian union in Tehran, told Reuters, adding that some Iranian traders had been cautious due to security concerns.

Iranian exports started a few days ago, after the Taliban cut tariffs on fuel imports from Iran by up to 70%, Hosseini added, showing an official document from the Afghan customs organization.

The main Iranian exports to Afghanistan are gasoline and diesel. Iran exported around 400,000 tons of fuel to its neighbor from May 2020 to May 2021, according to a report released by PetroView, an Iranian oil and gas research and advisory platform.