Tag Archives: Americans

U.S. bolsters protection of American forces in Syria as tensions climb

A U.S. fighter stands near a military vehicle, north of Raqqa city, Syria
A U.S. fighter stands near a military vehicle, north of Raqqa city, Syria

A U.S. fighter stands near a military vehicle, north of Raqqa city, Syria November 6, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has made slight adjustments to its military activities in Syria to strengthen protection of American forces following cruise missile strikes last week on a Syrian air base that heightened tensions, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.

The officials, citing operational security concerns, declined to specify what measures the United States has taken after the strikes, which Damascus, Tehran and Moscow condemned.

But one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stressed the strikes had not slowed the campaign against Islamic State militants.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the cruise missile strike on Syria’s Shayrat air base last week in retaliation for what Washington and its allies say was a poison gas attack by Syria’s government in which scores of civilians died.

The chemical weapons attack killed at least 70 people, many of them children, in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the assault.

Moscow says there is no proof that the Syrian military carried out the attack, and called the U.S. missile strike an act of aggression that violated international law.

A joint command center made up of the forces of Russia, Iran and militias supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday said the U.S. strike crossed “red lines” and it would respond to any new aggression and increase its support for its ally.

The United States has about 1,000 U.S. forces in Syria advising and training fighters to combat Islamic State and has regularly carried out air strikes against the militants. Those strikes have continued.

But as U.S. jets fly in Syrian airspace, one big question is whether the United States and Russia are keeping open a military communications channel to avoid an accidental clash.

The United States used the channel to advise Moscow ahead of its attack on the Syrian air base, to help ensure Russian personnel, who were also located on part of the base, would not be harmed or misinterpret the cruise missile strikes as an attack on them.

The U.S. military, which confirmed on Friday morning it believed the line of communications was still active, has since stopped commenting on whether it was operational.

Russian media has reported that Moscow has suspended the agreement that allows for those communications, a step that could heighten the risk of an accidental clash.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by James Dalgleish)

U.S. to hold accountable those who commit crimes against ‘innocents’

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, (C) talks to reporters during a ceremony at the Sant'Anna di Stazzema memorial, dedicated to the victims of the massacre committed in the village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema by the Nazis in 1944 during World War II, Italy

y Crispian Balmer and Steve Scherer

LUCCA, Italy (Reuters) – The United States will hold responsible anyone who commits crimes against humanity, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Monday, days after the U.S. military unexpectedly attacked Syria.

Tillerson is in Italy for a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) major industrialized nations, with his counterparts from Europe and Japan eager for clarity from Washington on numerous diplomatic issues, especially Syria.

Before the April 7 missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, U.S. President Donald Trump had indicated he would be less interventionist than his predecessors and willing to overlook human rights abuses if it was in U.S. interests.

But Tillerson said the United States would not let such crimes go unchallenged. “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” he told reporters while commemorating a 1944 German Nazi massacre in Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

Trump ordered his military to strike Syria in retaliation for what the United States said was a chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces which killed scores of civilians, including many children.

European ministers are eager to hear whether Washington is now committed to overthrowing Assad, who is backed by Russia. They also want the United States to put pressure on Moscow to distance itself from Assad.

Tillerson, who travels to Russia after the two-day G7 gathering, said at the weekend that the defeat of Islamic State remained the U.S. priority, while the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said that “regime change” in Syria was also a priority for Trump.

The mixed messages have confused and frustrated European allies, who are eager for full U.S. support for a political solution based on a transfer of power in Damascus.

“The Americans say they agree, but there’s nothing to show for it behind (the scenes). They are absent from this and are navigating aimlessly in the dark,” said a senior European diplomat, who declined to be named.

Italy, Germany, France and Britain have invited foreign ministers from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Qatar to sit down with the G7 group on Tuesday morning to discuss Syria. All oppose Assad’s rule.

SENSITIVE ISSUES

The foreign ministers’ discussions in Tuscany will prepare the way for a leaders’ summit in Sicily at the end of May.

Efforts to reach an agreement on statements ahead of time – a normal part of pre-meeting G7 diplomacy – have moved very slowly, partly because of a difficult transition at the U.S. state department, where many key positions remain unfilled.

Some issues, such as trade and climate change, are likely to be ducked this week. “The more complicated subjects will be left to the leaders,” said an Italian diplomat, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

However, the foreign ministers will talk about growing tensions with North Korea, as the United States moves a navy strike group near the Korean peninsula amid concerns over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

They will also discuss Libya. Italy is hoping for vocal support for a United Nations-backed government in Tripoli which has struggled to establish its authority even in the city, let alone in the rest of the violence-plagued north African country.

The Trump administration has not yet defined a clear policy and Rome fears Washington may fall into step with Egypt and Russia, which support general Khalifa Haftar, a powerful figure in eastern Libya.

The struggle against terrorism, relations with Iran and instability in Ukraine will also come up for discussion, with talks due to kick off at 4.30 p.m. (10.30 a.m. ET) on Monday.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer and Steve Scherer; editing by Andrew Roche)

Israeli ban targeting boycott supporters raises alarm abroad

FILE PHOTO: Anti-Israel demonstrators led by the protest group Code Pink wear masks of Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu as they sit at the entrance to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, March 1, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Miriam Berger

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A law barring foreigners from entering Israel if they back boycotts against the country is causing alarm among liberal American Jews and others who perceive an attempt to suppress critical political opinion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has long campaigned against the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, describing it as anti-Semitic and an attempt to erase Israel’s legitimacy.

The movement, launched in 2005 as a non-violent campaign to press Israel to heed international law and end its occupation of territory Palestinians seek for a state, has gathered momentum in recent years even if its economic impact remains negligible.

On March 6, Israel’s parliament passed legislation saying any individuals or representatives of groups supporting BDS-type boycotts – excluding Israeli citizens and permanent residents – would be barred from the country.

Before the law was published and took effect on March 14, some foreigners were denied entry, including a British activist from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

This week, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan went further, calling for a database of any Israelis involved with BDS, including tracking their activity on social media.

In a further sign of a crackdown, one of the founders of the BDS movement, Qatari-born Palestinian Omar Barghouti, who cannot be banned under the law because he’s married to an Israeli-Arab and is a permanent resident of Israel, was arrested this week on suspicion of tax evasion, local media reported.

American Jews who frequently visit Israel say they are alarmed by the law. While they may not support BDS, they oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem – which most of the world regards as illegal under international law – and support pressure on the government to end it.

“I was horrified by the ban because it seemed to announce that people would be excluded from Israel because of political views,” said Rabbi Arthur Green, a well-known scholar of Jewish mysticism at Hebrew College in Boston, who visits Israel regularly. “I feel it emboldens extremists on both sides.”

Green and other prominent Jews abroad published an open letter in the Israeli press last week denouncing the ban and challenging the government to arrest them when they arrive.

WHERE IS ISRAEL GOING?

Others see the legislation as an attack on free speech and question what it says about the right-wing government’s openness to criticism. Internally, Israel tolerates a large diversity of opinion, but commentators say it appears not to accept it so readily from the outside.

This can put the nation in conflict with Jewish communities abroad that might normally be natural defenders of Israel.

“I would map it within deep divisions among Jewish and Israeli communities about where Israel should be and is going,” said Moshe Halbertal, a professor of philosophy at Hebrew University and a leading authority on ethics.

“It really harms the case of Israel in a serious way, and the idea that it’s a country that invites open debate and discussion.”

One of the chief concerns about the law is that it does not distinguish between general boycotts of Israel and boycotts targeting Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for their own state.

Several European Union countries, for example, label products made in Israeli settlements. Israel calls this a boycott of settlement goods. The countries involved say it is about identifying where the goods come from and clearly separating between Israel and the land it occupies.

Jennifer Gorovitz, vice president of the left-leaning New Israel Fund, a U.S. non-profit group, said the new law seemed to erase the line between Israel and the Palestinian territories, making all criticism, including of settlements, unacceptable.

(Editing by Luke Baker and Mark Heinrich)

Congress remains overwhelmingly Christian as U.S. shifts

U.S. President Barack Obama (L-R), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) bow their heads in prayer at the end of a ceremony commemorating the 150th anniversary of the 13th Amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress taking office on Tuesday remains almost as overwhelmingly Christian as it was in the 1960s even while the share of American adults who call themselves Christians has dropped, according to Pew Research Center analysis.

A report from the nonpartisan group said that 91 percent of lawmakers in the Republican-dominated 115th Congress described themselves as Christians, down slightly from 95 percent in the 87th Congress in 1961 and 1962, the earliest years for comparable data.

By contrast, the portion of American adults who call themselves Christian fell to 71 percent in 2014, the Pew report said. While Pew did not have numbers for the early 1960s, a Gallup survey from that time found that 93 percent of Americans described themselves as Christian.

“The most interesting thing is how little Congress has changed over the past several decades, especially in comparison with the general public,” Aleksandra Sandstrom, the report’s lead author, said in a telephone interview.

The biggest gap between Congress and other Americans was among those who said they have no religion. Only one lawmaker, Democratic Representative Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, called herself religiously unaffiliated. The Pew survey found that 23 percent of Americans described themselves the same way.

The percentage of Americans who have no religion has grown, but the portion of voters who said in exit polls that they have no religion is lower than the share of the general public, said Greg Smith, a Pew expert on the U.S. religious landscape.

“The political power of that group might lag their growth in the overall population,” he said.

Among the 293 Republicans elected to the new Congress, all but two identify as Christians. The two Jewish Republicans – Lee Zeldin of New York and David Kustoff of Tennessee – serve in the House.

The 242 Democrats in Congress are 80 percent Christian, but that side of the aisle includes 28 Jews, three Buddhists, three Hindus, two Muslims and one Unitarian Universalist.

The share of Protestants in Congress has dropped to 56 percent today from 75 percent in 1961, while the portion of Catholics in Congress has risen to 31 percent from 19 percent.

The U.S. population in 2014 was 46.5 percent Protestant and 21 percent Catholic, the Pew survey showed.

The survey was based on data gathered by CQ Roll Call through questionnaires and phone calls to members of congress and candidates’ offices.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

U.S. to disclose estimate of Americans under surveillance by early 2017

An undated aerial handout photo shows the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters building in Fort Meade, Maryland.

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. intelligence community has committed to providing as soon as next month a public estimate of the number of U.S. persons whose electronic communications are ensnared under a surveillance authority intended for foreign espionage, according to a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers’ letter that Reuters saw.

The decision would reverse the government’s longstanding position that calculating such a number may be technically impossible and would require privacy intrusions exceeding those raised by the actual surveillance programs.

It also comes as Congress is expected to begin debate in the coming months over whether to reauthorize or reform the surveillance authority, known as Section 702, a provision that was added to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008.

The letter, sent on Friday to National Intelligence Director James Clapper, said his office and National Security Agency officials had briefed congressional staff about how the intelligence community intends to comply with the lawmakers’ disclosure request.

Clapper’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 11 lawmakers, all members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, termed their letter an effort to “memorialize our understanding” of the intelligence community’s plan to provide an estimate in real numbers, not percentages, as soon as January that can be shared with the public.

“The timely production of this information is incredibly important to informed debate on Section 702 in the next Congress— and, without it, even those of us inclined to support re-authorization would have reason for concern,” the letter said.

Section 702 will expire on December 31, 2017, absent congressional action. It enables two internet surveillance programs called Prism and Upstream that were revealed in a series of leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden more than three years ago.

Intelligence officials have said that data about Americans is “incidentally” collected under Section 702, due to a range of technical and practical reasons. Critics have assailed such collection as back-door surveillance of Americans without a warrant.

Clapper, who is stepping down next month, suggested in April that providing an estimate of Americans surveilled under Section 702, a figure some have said could tally in the millions, might be possible, while defending the law as “a prolific producer of critical intelligence.”

Republicans James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Ted Poe and Jason Chaffetz signed the letter, in addition to Democrats John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Hank Johnson, Ted Deutch, Suzan DelBene and David Cicilline.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Americans see slightly higher inflation as uncertainty grows

Detail from the front of the United States Federal Reserve Board

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An increasingly important gauge of U.S. inflation expectations edged higher last month but remained broadly depressed, as Americans said they were less certain about prices in the years ahead.

In what could be welcome news for the Federal Reserve, the New York Fed’s April survey of consumers released on Monday found expectations for inflation one year ahead rose to 2.6 percent, from 2.5 percent in March, while three-year-out expectations jumped to 2.8 percent, the highest reading in five months.

The U.S. central bank wants to be confident that inflation is headed higher before raising interest rates for a second time, after its December “liftoff” from near zero. The New York Fed gauge is still close to its lowest levels since it was launched in mid-2013.

The monthly survey also showed median inflation uncertainty jumped sharply. The one-year-ahead measure was at its highest level in five months while the three-year measure was at its highest in six months.

The internet-based survey taps a rotating group of 1,200 households and is done by a separate organization.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

Al Qaeda Head Calls For Kidnapping Of Americans

The head of terrorist group Al Qaeda is calling on members worldwide to kidnap Americans to use for bargaining chips for the release of Muslim terrorists.

Ayman al-Zawahiri told the As-Sahab news service that Muslims should kidnap Westerners, especially Americans, so that they can be exchanged for what he called “captives” in Western prisons.

Al-Zawahiri spoke specifically of Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as the “blind sheikh”, that is serving a life sentence for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

“I ask Allah the Glorious to help us set free Dr. Omar Abdel-Rahman and the rest of the captive Muslims,” al-Zawahiri said, “and I ask Allah to help us capture from among the Americans and the Westerners to enable us to exchange them for our captives.”

Al-Zawahiri also called on warring Muslim factions in Syria to come together in unity to overthrow the “criminal al-Assad regime.”

Islamist Websites Call For Kidnappings Of Americans

The capture of an al-Qaeda terrorist in Libya by U.S. Special Forces has caused a stir among Islamic extremists to the point they’re declaring open season on Americans.

“Over the past few days, we picked up significant chatter related to the kidnapping of American citizens in response to the abduction of Abu Anas al-Libi,” a source told Fox News.

One of the terrorists being monitored by analysts told followers on Twitter there was no need to consult with anyone if you wanted to kidnap an American.

According to multiple jihadist websites, the general plan is to kidnap a number of Americans to use as bargaining chips to get terrorists released from jails across the world. Specifically mentioned was Omar Abd Al-Rahman, convicted for his part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described creator of the 9/11 attacks.

While there is nothing explicitly saying al-Qaeda is supporting the evolving plan, no leaders from the group have taken any steps to stop it.