#anchal vohra

[tomorrowusa]

Anti-Putin Russian partisans have apparently destroyed an Su-24 tactical bomber in Novosibirsk. Such bombers are used, among other things, to launch missiles against Ukraine. 

The guerrillas said they had set the aircraft on fire on May 8 at the Sukhoi Superjet Company's aviation plant in Novosibirsk, in the south of Siberia, the message reads.

"As we were informed, the plane was successfully burnt out. It will no longer need repairs," they said," captions to the video read.

The guerrillas burned the combat plane in order to demonstrate that "this war (of Russian against Ukraine) must be ended," the legion said.

"You can't fight for peace by killing children and women in a neighboring country. The Kremlin has indeed ‘managed to repeat’ the crimes of the Nazi regime against humanity, and everyone involved will be held accountable for it in court," the legion said.

Novosibirsk is far from Ukraine. I am unaware of any drones which are able to fly such distances. Novosibirsk is 1,964.92 miles/3,162.23 km from Ukraine’s eastern border. So the Kremlin would look silly trying to blame this on Ukraine.

Internal guerilla activity inside Russia by partisans is yet another unintended consequence of Putin’s invasion. Even if Russia left Ukraine tomorrow, the anti-Putin partisans would probably remain active.

Just today, Anchal Vohra at the journal Foreign Policy (archived) devoted a column to this topic. Some excerpts...

Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, mysterious attacks have occurred across Russia. Explosives have derailed trains, blown up power lines, and damaged a bridge connecting Crimea to Russia. Arsonists have also thrown Molotov cocktails at military enlistment centers. Russian opposition groups later claimed credit for these attacks as part of a larger armed rebellion. 

[ ... ]

Among the more active groups is BOAK, whose co-founder, Dmitry Petrov, also known as Ilya Leshy, had also fought in Syria. BOAK carried out several attacks of sabotage including an explosion that damaged a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway in Krasnoyarsk in early January. Last year this month they blew up a railway line that regularly transported military equipment to a Russian military base north of Moscow, leaving their initials on the track. The group is on the list Ponomarev mentioned as receiving Ukrainian support. The group, nonetheless, is a genuine partisan entity that existed before the war started and fought at home for basic freedoms. 

[ ... ]

Among other partisan Russian groups is STW, which has no known links to Ukraine. It has derailed a number of freight trains supplying war material to Russian troops and perhaps slowed them down.

It’s highly doubtful that any one group or combination of groups can overthrow Putin. But if open feuding inside the Kremlin spills over into armed confrontations, such organizations might feel emboldened to step up their level of activity.

[mariacallous]

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has a plan for peace in Gaza and Israel. If it has any hope of becoming reality, he’ll need Western backers. Thus far, he doesn’t have any.

It’s time for Western leaders to step up.

As the death toll in Gaza grows, now over 10,000, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has been trying to win allies for his three-step peace plan. First, Mikati proposes, would come a five-day pause in hostilities, during which Hamas would release some of its Israeli hostages and Israel would open its border crossings to more humanitarian aid. If the peace can hold for those 120 hours, negotiations would begin for the release of the remaining hostages in exchange for prisoners held by Israel. As that happens, work on an international summit for a permanent two-state solution would begin.

If it can get off the ground, Mikati’s proposal would channel the worst violence Israelis and Palestinians have seen in decades into the most serious peace effort since the collapse of the Oslo Accords.

It is a plan that is as ambitious as it is unlikely to succeed. But as Israel’s brutal incursion into the Gaza Strip continues, with indications that it could last indefinitely, Mikati’s plan may be the best one we have, and its odds of success are directly correlated with who chooses to join the effort. And it’s certainly better than the modest, fragmented, and incoherent positions of Western leaders to date.

While Mikati has been hobbled by political and economic catastrophe in Lebanon, he sits at a uniquely positioned nexus between various Arab powers. On Wednesday, Mikati met with the Iranian ambassador in Beirut, highlighting his ability to serve as an interlocutor with Tehran. On Saturday, he met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has become the guarantor for aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip. Days earlier, Mikati met with the emir of Qatar, whose country has hosted Hamas’s senior political leadership for the past decade.

Getting these Arab leaders on board will be crucial, but it is also achievable. Lebanon is particularly anxious about avoiding broader regional conflict, particularly as it would likely involve Hezbollah, an armed group with 100,000 fighters that operates independent of Mikati’s government. But they’re not the only ones. Destabilization in the region could be ruinous for Iran’s regime, already facing pressure from years of domestic unrest. Qatar, meanwhile, is keen to flex its regional leadership.

Speaking to the Economist, Mikati was bullish on the idea that he could untangle the complex Arab politics, at least. “If we have [an agreement on] international and comprehensive peace, I am sure [Hezbollah] and Hamas will lay down their weapons,” he said. He further predicted that “the Iranians will be part of a comprehensive peace.”

Mikati may have connections, but he lacks clout. A staple of Lebanese politics for the past few decades, he is viewed as a vestige of an old political order and—given his $2.6 billion net worth—kleptocracy. “Nobody believes Mikati’s leadership is sustainable even in the medium term,” Anchal Vohra wrote in Foreign Policy in 2021, Two years on, amid total political dysfunction, he remains a caretaker prime minister. And now he is trying to do the hardest job in the world: creating lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

And his plan, thus far, has floundered. Mikati has found no converts in the West, at least so far. Given that Lebanon has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel—a reality that is unlikely to change, given that Beirut is pursuing war crimes charges for the deaths of civilians in Gaza—it will need to win over Israel’s friends.

On Saturday, he met face to face with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and the two discussed the need for a pause in hostilities to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. But while Mikati pressed on the need for a cease-fire, Washington’s position is unchanged. “That’s not policy we’re pursuing,” a State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The U.S. position is no great surprise. The Biden administration has tried to leverage its close position to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to de-escalate the situation. On Wednesday, Blinken filled in more of his administration’s position, insisting that forcible displacement is not an option. “No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza,” he said following a G-7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Japan. Washington, however, has been supportive of Israel’s current operation and has resisted any calls for a cease-fire.

While critics have demanded the Biden administration go further, the soft diplomacy seems to be netting some results. The White House announced Thursday that Israel had agreed to a daily four-hour “humanitarian pause” to allow civilians to evacuate. It shows Israel is not intractable and that foreign advocacy can make a real impact.

Four hours of peace a day, however, is simply not good enough. Israel’s operations in Gaza threaten not only widespread destruction but potentially an even more aggressive occupation or blockade, which will only worsen a long-standing humanitarian crisis in the territory. It will be critical that other leaders put forward a more ambitious—and permanent—path to peace. And Mikati’s proposal is the only one on the table right now.

Unfortunately, the United Kingdom and European Union have staked out quixotic positions on the matter. France is focusing on organizing international aid delivery to Gaza while delivering completely contradictory messages on whether it supports a cease-fire. London has refused to stake out a real position while musing whether a humanitarian pause is even possible. Germany has only edged toward supporting a modest humanitarian pause in recent days.

With the United States committed to its own position, and the EU unlikely to coalesce around a plan, it will fall to the world’s middle powers to pick up Mikati’s challenge.

Norway, as mediator of the original Oslo Accords, would be a logical quarterback for the Lebanese proposal. “Norway has a duty to speak up about the fact that the military actions against Gaza have gone too far,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide wrote in Al Jazeera this week. Aside from some sweeping calls for what Israel, Hamas, and the international community must do, Eide offered no particular road map for how to get there and did not mention Lebanon’s plan. It is a position shared by the leaders of all the Nordic countries.

Canada would, similarly, be an ideal champion for the proposal. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to date, has supported only a humanitarian pause—despite abstaining from a vote calling for exactly that at the United Nations—but domestic support for a cease-fire is mounting. Trudeau is facing an internal revolt from within his Liberal Party over his soft stance on the conflict, while a sizable majority of Canadians support an immediate cease-fire. Australia finds itself in a similar spot.

Neither the Norwegian nor the Canadian foreign affairs offices responded to a request for comment.

Mikati may find supporters for his plan outside the normal corridors of political power—he met with representatives from Brazil on Monday—but it seems certain that he will need at least one G-7 nation to take up his plan.

There are limitations to Lebanon’s proposal. It offers little clarity about what would happen to Hamas and its fighters as the cease-fire is implemented. Israel has been steadfast that the militant group must be destroyed entirely after its massacre of civilians on Oct. 7, but former Palestinian Authority official Muhammad Dahlan has warned that governing without Hamas is impossible. Mikati has not detailed how to ensure the cease-fire holds, given that Hamas has a long record of breaching such agreements.

But even if Lebanon’s peace plan is far from perfect, the world is currently bereft of better options. The only meaningful attempt for talks thus far was supposed to bring Biden together with representatives from Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, but that was scuttled after the horrific blast at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

Rather than relying on more perfectly measured statements and speeches from European capitals or via G-7 communiqué, the world’s middle powers need to help Mikati build a plan for peace.

[andronetalks]

China Is Quietly Expanding Its Land Grabs in the Himalayas

Foreign Policy By Anchal Vohra February 1, 2024 As the U.S. government has spent ever more of its time in recent years preparing to respond to any potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, Beijing has been busy slicing away parts of the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Over the last few years, China has built massive infrastructure with hundreds of concrete structures, military posts, and…

[noisynutcrusade]

The uncertain future of the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor – POLITICO

Anchal Vohra is an international affairs commentator and was based in Beirut until recently. The India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) was launched on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi amid much fanfare. A key pillar of United States President Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific and Middle East strategies, the American leader hailed the project as a “real big deal.’’ European Commission…

[wpristav]

Публикация в Foreign Policy: Украинские войска нацелились на район, где на атомной станции находятся русские

В крупном зарубежном издании Foreign Policy вышла статья обозревательницы Анчал Вохры (Anchal Vohra), посвящённая анонсированному украинскому контрнаступлению. Ситуация в западной медиасреде сегодня сложилась таким образом, что об этом наступлении не пишут только самые ленивые. Как заявил интервью американскому CNN военнослужащий 46-й аэромобильной бригады ВСУ, «контрнаступление потеряло фактор вн... Читать дальше »

[andrewtheprophet]

Europeans Are Terrified of the Bowls of Wrath: Revelation 16

Europeans Are Terrified of the Bowls of Wrath: Revelation 16

Europeans Are Terrified of Putin’s Nuclear Button Across Western Europe, people are taking Russian president’s threats very seriously. By Anchal Vohra, a columnist for Foreign Policy and a freelance TV correspondent and commentator on the Middle East based in Beirut. MARCH 1, 2022, 8:50 AM Russian President Vladimir Putin placed his nuclear forces on high alert on Sunday, citing NATO’s…

[speakerreetywadhwa]

FP Editor's picks - Newsletter

FP Editor’s picks – Newsletter

              1     Drug hub. Despite its draconian laws, Saudi Arabia has become the Middle East’s most lucrative market for amphetamines—especially captagon, FP’s Anchal Vohra writes.          2     Money talks. U.S. President Joe Biden is doling out ambassadorships to billionaire donors—many of whom have no diplomatic experience, FP’s Robbie…

[xtruss]

Two Talibans Are Competing for Afghanistan

The gap between the group’s international leadership and its rank-and-file fighters has never been wider.

— By Anchal Vohra, a columnist for Foreign Policy and a freelance TV correspondent and commentator on the Middle East based in Beirut.

— AUGUST 18, 2021

Head of the Taliban delegation Abdul Salam Hanafi, accompanied by Taliban officials Amir Khan Muttaqi, Shahabuddin Delawar and Abdul Latin Mansour, walks down a hotel lobby during the talks in Qatar's capital Doha on Aug. 12. KARIM JAAFAR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, reports have spread of looting and executions across the country. Afghans based in Kabul have been sending messages to their friends abroad about Taliban ground troops hunting female journalists and doctors in house-to-house searches.

The leadership of the Taliban has been at pains to spread a very different message. They have scrambled to order their ground forces to operate with restraint and to persuade all Afghans of their good intentions. Taliban leaders have declared a general amnesty for anyone who worked for the previous regime; asked government officials and journalists, including women, to return to work; and even reached out to minority groups to assuage their concerns.

The top of the Taliban hierarchy, many of whom have spent years abroad during the recently ended war, clearly intend on presenting themselves as benign and reformed rulers who crave legitimacy among Afghans and recognition from the international community. Far less clear is whether the rank-and-file Taliban members now governing the entirety of Afghanistan desire the same—much less how, and at whose expense, any resulting tensions within the Taliban will get resolved.

A day after entering Kabul, the group’s leading spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, conducted a lengthy press conference in the city in which he said the Taliban did not seek revenge and would not execute anyone who had previously opposed them. He also assured the protection of women’s rights within an Islamic framework, the formation of an inclusive government, and round-the-clock protection to foreign embassies.

Many Afghans, and experts who have followed the group since its formation, believe these assurances amount to little more than a public relations exercise. Some pointed to Mujahid’s demand, in that same press conference, that the media would be obliged to observe Islamic law whilst reporting and the way he seemed to suggest that women might only have the opportunity to work in a few selected professions.

There are questions about whether the Taliban’s political leadership is inclined to make more concessions than its ground troops are willing to concede. Reports are already rife of Taliban rank-and-file shooting at protesters and public images of women being painted over.

This month, a Taliban fighter in Kandahar told Foreign Policy that the Taliban would never allow elections in the country. “Elections do not work,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity as he was not allowed to talk to the press. “For the last 20 years, we had elections, but that achieved nothing. We will have our own way.” The group’s official spokesperson in Doha, Suhail Shaheen, however, countered that view and said, “We are open to all ideas brought to the table,” including holding elections.

Douglas London, a former head of CIA counterterrorism operations for South and Southwest Asia, said the Taliban have become “fabulously media-savvy.” That newfound sophistication could forestall the group from committing an overt genocide, as it has in the past against the Hazara minority. But none of that suggests the group won’t continue to disrespect basic human rights or tacitly support terrorists. “They are going to cloak themselves in religious appropriateness in returning to repression of women, limiting exposure to the West, suppressing democracy, and disrespecting human rights,” London said. “They will not restrict terrorist groups, just ask them to operate low-key.” The Taliban have already released a number of significant al Qaeda fighters in the Indian subcontinent who had been held by Afghan authorities at a detention facility at Bagram Air Base.

Foreign Policy’s conversations with Taliban representatives at different rungs of the group’s hierarchy underscore that they are planning to resurrect an authoritarian regime yet one that might moderate its infamous cruelty. Some believe that the Taliban aims to adopt a more stringent version of the governance already in place in other Islamic nations, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. This would indeed amount to a more tempered and restrained regime than the Taliban oversaw the last time it was in power. The comparison with Iran suggests an unabashedly religious regime but one run according to an organized religious hierarchy, rather than ad hoc fundamentalist brutality. “Iran wants the Taliban to be like itself, an Islamic country run by clerics,” Rahmatullah Nabil, a presidential candidate in the last elections and former head of the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency, told me days before the Taliban claimed Kabul.

Taliban leaders in Doha, Quetta, and Kabul are currently debating the extent of social freedoms to grant to urban populations in the country, which have grown in size and have become less conservative since the group was last in power. Their goal will be to silence critics abroad while at the same time keeping its hard-line support base intact.

Habib Agha, the son of senior Taliban leader Sayed Akbar Agha who claims to be in touch with the Taliban leadership in Doha and Quetta, as well as with the group’s foot soldiers in Kabul, told Foreign Policy of the group’s political plans. “Girls will be allowed to go to school and even to university if they want,” said the younger Agha in Urdu. “They can become doctors because women need female doctors, but it might be hard for them to become journalists or lawyers, I think.”

Habib added that women might not be forced by law to wear a full veil as long as they wear a hijab and keep their hair covered. He added that the Taliban will likely stop running entertaining TV shows as they “distract the young from studying and waste the time of older people,” but there might be some room to listen to “good music.” However, it would all be monitored by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a draconian entity in its last incarnation under the Taliban. He admitted that some people had been executed by the Taliban in the south but only “the thieves,” in his words, and that some house-to-house searches were carried out but only of those who “hid weapons or owned state goods such as vehicles.”

Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and the author of a definitive book of the group’s ideology, said the Taliban will try to keep the country’s basic economic system in place to protect their own access to state assets, but the same doesn’t apply to human rights. “They don’t believe in democracy, so how will they choose a leader, for instance? Many questions they have not answered,” Rashid said. “I think they will try hard to integrate themselves in the international community, to get recognition. But all the talk of women’s rights is lip service. A whole new generation of zealots who were freed from jails in Afghanistan and spent time in Guantánamo, [who] had bad experiences with the West, will take a very hard line. The younger generation of Taliban fighters did most of the fighting. They will demand their pound of flesh and avoid any concessions toward liberalism and modernism.”

Russia, China, and, of course, Pakistan have already expressed trust in the Taliban’s return to power. But many in the West find it hard to swallow the group’s new self-presentation as a resistance force against U.S. occupation without any acknowledgement of its own history of domestic cruelty and terror. The world is watching and wondering if the Taliban deserve the chance to rule that they acquired so easily. Afghans meanwhile are holding their breath and wondering whether it is safe to step out of their homes yet.

— Anchal Vohra is a columnist for Foreign Policy and a freelance TV correspondent and commentator on the Middle East based in Beirut. Twitter: @anchalvohra

[ourprefers]

Lebanon crisis: Boutique hotels pivot in the age of ‘Lollers’

Lebanon crisis: Boutique hotels pivot in the age of ‘Lollers’

Colette Khalil runs the boutique hotel Beit al Batroun, about an hour and a half from Lebanon’s capital, Beirut [Anchal Vohra/Al Jazeera] Beirut, Lebanon – Call it a tale of two Lebanon’s. With a twist. Or rather, a pivot. Bust-ups in supermarkets and runs on staples have become a daily fixture of life in the economically ravaged nation, as more people fall into poverty while food prices…

[mariacallous]

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” says William Shakespeare’s King Henry IV. To us at Foreign Policy, those lines ring true. Over the years, we’ve covered runaway Arab princesses to the series of crises that have plagued the Spanish monarchy since the country’s former king took an ill-advised hunting trip in 2012.

Read on for a few of our favorite articles on the high-profile tiffs, scandals, and intrigues of royal life.—Chloe Hadavas

Why Do Royals Get Away With So Much? Prince Andrew’s entanglements with Jeffrey Epstein lack the usual excuse of affairs of state. By Harriet Williamson

Is Spain’s Royal Family Finished? Corruption charges against the former king forced him into exile—and the latest scandal could be the nail in the coffin for the monarchy. By Mark Nayler

The Kaiser’s Family Wants Its Stuff Back. Germany Isn’t Sure They Deserve It. The former royal family lost countless artworks, palaces, and wealth in the 20th century. But were they victims—or enablers of the Nazis? By Nate Berg

Jordan’s King Is His Own Worst Enemy There’s much more evidence of the monarch’s poor governance than a foreign conspiracy against him. By Anchal Vohra

The Secret Lives of Arab Princesses Most women in the Arab world are disadvantaged—and the most privileged women often have it worst of all. By Ola Salem

[lollipoplollipopoh]

India hangs four men over 2012 Delhi bus gang rape and murder by Al Jazeera English Four men convicted of raping and murdering a student in India have been executed. They attacked the 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 then left her to die on a road. The case set off mass protests in the country, which has one of the highest cases of sexual violence against women in the world. Al Jazeera's Anchal Vohra reports New Delhi. - Subscribe to our channel: https://ift.tt/291RaQr - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://ift.tt/1iHo6G4 - Check our website: https://ift.tt/2lOp4tL #AlJazeeraEnglish #India #2012DelhiBusGangRape

[votenet-blog]

Australia political parties hacked by 'sophisticated state actor'

Australia political parties hacked by ‘sophisticated state actor’

Author: Anchal Vohra / Source: Al Jazeera

Morrison: ‘Our cyber experts believe that a sophisticated state actor is responsible for this malicious activity’ [File: Aaron Favila/AP Photo]

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said the country’s major political parties were hacked earlier this month alongside the federal parliament by a “sophisticated state actor”.

The announcement on…

[ebenpink]

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- February 13, 2019 http://bit.ly/2V3rENJ

Members of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stand together near Baghouz, Deir Az Zor province, Syria [Rodi Said/Reuters]

Anchal Vohra, Al Jazeera: What next as battle against ISIL nears an end? Fears of a resurgence as thousands flee to IDP camps in the 'final' offensive to push ISIL out of eastern Syria. It is the moment Abu Jaber al-Shaiti has waited for more than four years. A few more hours, a few hundred metres, and he will have his revenge. In 2014, as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS) expanded to Syria through the Iraqi border, Abu Jaber's kin in the Shaitat tribe stood up to challenge the group's designs on their oil-rich lands. ISIL hunted down 700 to 1,000 men, shot some and beheaded others, and even filmed their slaughter to serve as a lesson for the rest. Read more ....

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- February 13, 2019

America's Effort to Isolate Iran Will Backfire -- Trita Parsi, National Interest America's Mideast retreat -- Paul Salem, Chatham House A ‘New INF’ with China? No Talks Yet, US Arms Control Chief Says -- Katie Bo Williams, Defense One The New NAFTA's Real Target? China -- Jorge López Areválo, World Crunch Russia wants to unplug itself from the internet. Here's how that works -- Daniel Miller, ABC News Online Will the yellow vests movement spread across Europe? -- Tara Varma, ECFR Global Spain vs. Catalan separatists: The ultimate PR battle -- Diego Torres, Politico.eu Catalan trial: Will Spanish Socialists survive snap polls? -- Creede Newton, Al Jazeera Russia Reset Redux Not the Answer to Increased Chinese-Russian Cooperation -- Bradley Bowman & Andrew Gabel, RCD Could Russia and Belarus trade oil for national sovereignty? -- Emily Sherwin, DW Door slams on guilty El Chapo after old mob pals line up to squeal -- Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian Despite El Chapo arrest, powerful Sinaloa cartel marches on -- Maria Verza and Mark Stevenson, AP from War News Updates http://bit.ly/2GnYuFz via IFTTT

[speakerreetywadhwa]

FP Newsletter: Editor's Pick

FP Newsletter: Editor’s Pick

SPONSORED BY THE THUNDERBIRD SCHOOL OF GLOBAL MANAGEMENT AT ASU 1 Return to the past. Since taking power in Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed law-and-order policies derived from the 7th century. The brutality of their punishments is incomparable, FP’s Anchal Vohra writes. 2 Shifting into space. India is opening its space sector to private companies and new allies—a move that signifies a…

[exyzuk]

India citizenship law: Media accused of pro-government coverage | India News

India citizenship law: Media accused of pro-government coverage | India News

[ad_1]

Media coverage of the protests against a controversial citizenship law in India has ranged from being neutral to avowedly pro-government, say press freedom advocates.

The law puts citizens from three neighbouring countries on a fast-track to obtaining citizenship, but discriminates against Muslims.

And that has done a disservice to India’s viewers.

Al Jazeera’s Anchal Vohra reports from…