The US, Turks and Saudis jostle for Raqqa; 3 urgent tasks for Trump’s natsec team; Russia charts Afghanistan’s future; B-52s have been busy vs ISIS; And a bit more.
The Pentagon’s new plan to accelerate (even more) the ISIS war is almost ready for delivery to President Donald Trump. It's due early next week, and right as the Raqqa offensive’s puzzle pieces are falling into place. To that end, we begin with CENTCOM, whose commander, Gen. Joseph Votel, today told reporters traveling with him that “perhaps” more American troops will be sent to Syria to keep up the pressure on ISIS.
“I am very concerned about maintaining momentum,” Votel said. “It could be that we take on a larger burden ourselves. That’s an option.”
Votel said the U.S. forces in Syria, about 500 special operators, “don’t have as good mobility, they don’t have as much firepower, so we have to be prepared to fill in some of those gaps for them and that may involve additional fire support capability, a variety of other things that we bring in to help offset some of the gaps that they have and we take the burden on ourselves for that aspect of the fight.”
So, let’s get to it, how many troops? Should the White House decide to expand the U.S. footprint in Syria, “additional personnel could come from conventional combat units, though General Votel stressed that he would not recommend deploying large combat formations,” The New York Times reports, traveling with Votel. That would counter whispers that the Pentagon may recommend sending a brigade-sized team, which could number upwards of 5,000. (Remember the old days in Iraq, when Combat Action Brigades, or CABs, suddenly were renamed and re-missioned as Advise & Assist Brigades, or AABs?)
“We want to bring the right capabilities forward,” he said. “Not all of those are necessarily resident in the Special Operations community. If we need additional artillery or things like that, I want to be able to bring those forward to augment our operations.” Read the rest, here.
Elsewhere in the counter-ISIS alliance, the Saudis are reportedly ready to deploy “ground troops” to Syria’s Raqqa province, home to ISIS HQs, Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday. Middle East Monitor picks up the story to report discussions “with the US forces are underway to ‘find out what the plan is and what you need to implement it,’” adding the plan would be announced soon. Adel Al-Jubeir: “The basic idea is to free the region from the IG [Daesh] and not to allow their controlled Hezbollah, Iran or the Syrian regime.”
What about the Kurds? Turkish Defence Minister Fikri Isik is optimistic over what he sees as a change in the U.S. approach toward pushing ISIS from Raqqa—in particular, the U.S. possibly curtailing its partnership with Syrian Kurds of the YPG, Reuters reports.
Isik also said Turkey’s three-month long offensive on al-Bab, Syria, has ground down ISIS to roughly 100 remaining fighters, he told Turkish NTV Television, AFP reports, adding “the battle for the town has been fierce, with most of the 69 Turkish soldiers killed in the Syria campaign dying there.”
ICYMI: Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu lashed out at Iran over the weekend, accusing it of being responsible for regional instability. That, via al-Arabiya, here.
Speaking of Iran, General Mohammad Pakpour, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ ground forces said “the United States should expect a ‘strong slap in the face’ if it underestimates Iran's defensive capabilities,” Reuters reports this morning. Notes Reuters: "On Wednesday, the Revolutionary Guards concluded three days of exercises with rockets, artillery, tanks and helicopters, weeks after Trump warned that he had put Tehran 'on notice' over the missile launch." More here.
Near Mosul, the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Units are advancing fast from the west, AP reports. “The forces' spokesman, Ahmed al-Asadi, said on Wednesday that the villages being targeted are located southwest of the town of Tal Afar, still held by the Islamic State group. The spokesman for the Hezbollah Brigades, Jaafar al-Husseini, said the troops captured the villages of Sharia and Khirbat al-Jahish. A car bomb exploded near the advancing forces, killing three troops and wounding 14 others, al-Hussaini added. At least 17 IS militants were killed in the fighting, which was still underway late Wednesday afternoon, he said.” More here. Or take a look at some of the PMUs purported axes of approach on west Mosul, here.
The Gitmo suicide bomber: “An Islamic State suicide bomber who attacked an army base in Iraq this week was a British former Guantanamo Bay detainee,” USA Today reports. “Ronald Fiddler, who became known as Jamal al-Harith after converting to Islam in the 1990s, was freed from the detention camp in 2004 after lobbying by the government of then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair...He was announced as a suicide bomber who targeted coalition forces outside Mosul this week when ISIS released a picture of him smiling in a 4x4 that was seen in video footage speeding down a track. ISIS claimed Harith caused multiple casualties.” More here, and here.
From Defense One
3 Urgent Tasks for Trump's National-Security Team // Bradley Peniston, reporting from the WEST 2017 naval conference in San Diego: The administration needs a single line on various policies — but even more urgently, it must fill about 100 top federal jobs, says retired Adm. Stavridis.
Now China Wants All Subs in the South China Sea to Ask Permission, Surface, Show Flag // Steve Mollman, via Quartz: Beijing's proposed revisions to maritime law could set up a nuclear naval confrontation with the United States in international waters China claims to own.
A Border Wall by 2020? Doubt It // Adrienne LaFrance, via The Atlantic: Megaprojects — especially big government ones — rarely, if ever, finish on schedule.
Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Kevin Baron. (Got a tip? Let us know by clicking this link to email us: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.)
Historic moment for Thailand’s southern insurgency? “Thailand's army has reached a breakthrough pact with a Muslim separatist group to create a safety zone in restive southern provinces, the lead negotiator said on Wednesday,” Reuters reports.
The news happens to come during this year’s massive multinational annual Cobra Gold exercise, which continues its snake-blood drinking fun across Thailand through the week.
What’s new: "Both sides have agreed to the creation of a safety zone in one of the three southern provinces to show their good faith," negotiator Major General Sithi Trakulwong told Reuters. "This is the most progress we've made in over two years of negotiations."
The background: “A decades-old insurgency in the Muslim-majority southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat has claimed more than 6,500 lives since it escalated in 2004...Talks between the government and the insurgents began in 2013 under then Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, but stalled after the military overthrew her government in 2014.”
What’s next: “Sithi said the agreement would be finalized next week in neighbouring Malaysia, which has facilitated the discussions, once senior army officials arrive to conclude the talks. The safety zones would be an area where fighting is off-limits, but precise details of its location or size have not been made clear.”
One big caution: “Analysts say the government is negotiating with a group comprised mostly of exiled fighters that does not carry weight on the ground. The insurgent group Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), which has been left out of negotiations, is now the main actor in the three provinces, they say.” More here.
While you weren’t looking: “Russia hosted a six-nation conference on Afghanistan’s future in Moscow last week that saw participation from India, Iran, Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan,” The Diplomat reported Tuesday evening. “This was Russia’s second initiative, after the first trilateral conference in December last year which only included China and Pakistan.”
BLUF: “As Washington remains distracted by the seemingly never-ending drama in the White House, Russia wants to fill a vacuum in South Asia by taking a lead on Afghanistan. Its engagement with Pakistan has been gathering momentum and its partnership with China is aimed at forming a global bulwark against the West. It is in this wider context that emerging fault lines in South Asia become important. It is not simply Afghanistan, but the very future of South Asia that is at stake.” Read the rest, here.
Moscow “will rely increasingly on conventional weapons to deter any aggression,” AP reports off remarks from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. He said "the role of nuclear weapons in deterring a potential aggressor will diminish, primarily thanks to the development of precision weapons" that Russia tested in Syria.
As well, Shoigu told Russian lawmakers the “military received a sweeping array of new weapons last year, including 41 intercontinental ballistic missiles…[and] the air force will receive 170 new aircraft, the army will receive 905 tanks and other armored vehicles while the navy will receive 17 new ships this year,” AP reports in a separate piece on Russia’s ongoing military build-up from Moscow.
Your HumpDay Read(s): “How White House control over U.S. nuclear arms is vulnerable to even limited conventional or hybrid attacks.” It comes to us from Elaine Grossman writing at War Is Boring. It’s the first “in a three-part series on how limited enemy attacks could endanger America’s fragile command and control over nuclear weapons.” The second take—why strategic bombers have the weakest communications systems of the nuclear triad—just posted today, and you can find that, here.
For what it’s worth: Turkish and Russian officials are pleased with their bilateral talks to sell S400 missiles to Ankara, Reuters reported Tuesday. Turkish Defense Minister “Isik also said that Turkey's preference was to originally buy a NATO system but that wasn't possible.”
From the archives: Read “Why Turkey Chose, and Then Rejected, a Chinese Air-Defense Missile,” from back in February 2016, here.
Because, why not? Behold the B-52, which has “dropped 3,419 weapons on Daesh targets since April 2016,” The Aviationist reports in a photo-heavy update on the old airframe wreaking havoc on ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
In Yemen, a Houthi missile attack killed a senior Yemeni general. “A ballistic missile fired by Yemen's Shiite rebels on Wednesday killed the deputy chief of staff of the country's military in a major blow to the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition,” AP reports. “The SABA news agency, which is controlled by the Houthi rebels, said their forces struck the vehicle of Brig. Gen. Ahmed Seif al-Yafie in the Red Sea port of Mokha. Yemeni military officials said the missile hit a gathering point for the military commanders. A total of seven officers were killed, including al-Yafie, and 25 were wounded.” More here.
Also this morning: Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya reports a Houthi leader and his bodyguard were killed in a recent airstrike in southern Yemen. That short hit, here.
Lastly today: “Terrorists are building drones, and France is destroying them with eagles,” the Washington Post reported Monday off an original story from AFP. (The Netherlands was already doing this.) “The eagles — named d'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis — grew up with their nemeses. They chased drones through green grass that summer, pecking futilely at composite shells as seen in Sky News footage. They were rewarded with meat, which they ate off the backs of the drones...The bird covered 200 meters in 20 seconds, slamming into a drone, then diving with the wreckage into the tall grass.”
Adds the Post: “The military has already ordered a second brood of eagles.” Read the rest, here.