Iranian forces have withdrawn from their bases in Damascus and southern Syria, away from the border with the Golan Heights. This suggests that Iran would possibly withdraw from its relationship with Israel, but it is unclear whether this is a transitional measure or a component of a larger strategy. regional displacement.
The withdrawal follows key figures in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iran says this is a precautionary measure after recent attacks that it blames on Israel.
In early April, a missile strike, which Tehran accuses Israel of organizing, hit the Iranian consulate and killed seven members of the Revolutionary Guards, Commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the Iranian army’s highest-ranking officer in Syria.
Iran responded with a drone and missile attack on Israel, its first direct attack. Israel reportedly retaliated with measures in Iran.
This update marks a shift in Iran’s military presence in Syria, which could signal a novelty in the region’s dynamics.
Recent reports, some of which cite Iranian sources, that Iran is reducing its presence in Syria. However, Iraqi politicians, adding a key Shiite leader, reject the concept that Iran is abandoning Syria’s strategic importance in its clash with Israel.
One politician suggests Iran’s presence in Syria has been limited, despite rumors that Iraqi militants are filling the void left by Iranian forces.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on condition of anonymity, the Iraqi politician said that “despite the willingness of Iraqi militants to fill the vacuum left by Iranian army personnel, the operation may simply be a cover-up. “
They also stated that “Iran’s presence – in the usual sense of the word in the chamber – has been limited from the beginning. “
According to a source close to Lebanon-based Hezbollah, fighters from the organization and Iraq have replaced Iranian forces in spaces around Damascus, Daraa and Quneitra.
Two other sources close to Iraqi factions say Iran has requested fighters with Syrian experience, but it is unclear that they have already been sent.
“Kataib Hezbollah and the Popular Mobilization Forces have obtained requests from Tehran to send fighters with boxes of delight to Syrian territories,” the sources, who requested anonymity, told Asharq Al-Awsat.
These discussions call into question Iran’s intentions in Syria.
A former Iraqi official, who is in charge of Syrian affairs and who met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad several times between 2015 and 2019, says Iran suspects Syrian security agents collaborated against the Iranians and leaked their movements to others.
The official told Asharq Al-Awsat that “Iran is investigating and is close to reaching a conclusion,” but is “taking precautionary measures,” noting that “the easing of the army’s presence takes into account high-ranking figures blatantly linked to the Revolutionary Guards. “
On April 13, Iranian media quoted Gen. Morteza Qorbani, a senior adviser to the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, as saying that an investigation was underway to determine whether Zahedi’s fate had been revealed.
“Spies abound in Syria and Lebanon, and enemies can track other people through satellites and communication networks. . . It only takes one infiltrator to transmit data to enemies,” Qorbani said.
Iran’s suspicions of 18 commanders killed in attacks blamed on Israel.
According to Bloomberg, a Syrian defector claimed to have had the affair with an Iranian official.
The defector suggests that Iran and Syria are jointly investigating security breaches. At one point, Iran conducted a separate investigation with Hezbollah to avoid dealing with Syrian intelligence.
An Iraqi official told Asharq Al-Awsat that Iran admits it faces demanding situations in Syria. Tehran has pleaded with Iraqi teams to beef up phone security or shut them down entirely, a tactic also used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Despite suspicions that Syrian security is betraying Iran, this inspires Iran to leave Syria.
“Assad gives little strategic value, apart from Syria’s position, which affects Israel’s security. Iran will not surrender, even if Assad asks them to leave,” the official revealed.
Reports suggest that Assad is unaware of security breaches affecting Revolutionary Guard leaders. Iranian forces began fleeing Syrian provinces earlier this year, with a recent acceleration.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Iranian advisers left the areas, Baniyas added, in March.
Iran still has forces in Aleppo (north) and Deir Ezzor (east), key spaces of its influence in Syria.
The structure of a new port in Gaza and an offshore dock built by the U. S. military are underway, but the complex plan to bring in more food that Palestinian civilians desperately want is still mired in fears about security and how humanitarian aid will be delivered.
The Israeli-developed port, for example, has already been attacked with mortar fire, forcing senior U. N. officials to take cover this week, and there is still no resolution forged on when aid deliveries will begin.
While satellite imagery shows the main port structure along the coast near Gaza City, aid teams make clear that they have serious considerations about its protection and reservations about how Israeli forces will manage security.
Sonali Korde, director of the U. S. Agency for International Development, said key agreements related to security and control of aid deliveries were still being negotiated. These include how Israeli forces will operate in Gaza so that aid workers are not harmed.
“We want to see measures implemented. And the humanitarian network and the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) continue to discuss, interact, iterate on the formula so that everyone feels safe in this very challenging operating environment,” Korde said.
A senior U. S. military official said Thursday that the U. S. is on track to begin offering aid to the new port and pier as early as May. The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss major points that have not yet been made public, said deliveries by sea would first in total be about 90 trucks per day and could temporarily increase to about 150 trucks per day.
The senior official acknowledged, however, that the final installation of the U. S. -built roadway on the harbor beach will be governed by the security situation, which is evaluated daily. The Israel Defense Forces has a brigade (thousands of infantrymen) as well as ships. and aircraft engaged in protection deliveries, the official said.
Asked about the mortar attack, the army official said the U. S. felt it had nothing to do with the humanitarian mission, adding that security around the port would be “much stronger” when deliveries began.
In addition, the U. S. has repeated offensive and defensive measures so that U. S. troops on the dock and those on the floating platform several miles offshore are protected.
Aid teams have been rocked by the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen aid staff in an Israeli airstrike on April 1 while traveling in clearly marked cars for an Israeli-authorized delivery mission. The killings have reinforced sentiment among some aid teams that the foreign network is instead focused on pressuring Israel to remove obstacles to the delivery of aid via trucks on land routes.
The staff of World Central Kitchen, who were revered at a memorial service Thursday in Washington, D. C. , are among more than 200 humanitarian workers killed in Gaza, a figure that the UN says is three times higher than any previous figure for humanitarian workers in a year of single war.
The advance of the port and pier comes as Israel faces foreign grievances over the slow flow of aid to the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations says at least a quarter of the population is on the brink of famine.
Here’s how sea steering will work:
— The aid pallets will be inspected and loaded onto the most commonly advertised vessels in Cyprus, which will then sail about 200 miles to the giant floating platform being built by the U. S. military.
The pallets will be moved onto trucks, to smaller military vessels, and then transported several kilometers to the causeway, which will be about 1,800 feet, or 550 meters long, and will be anchored to the coast through the Israeli army.
— The trucks will then travel along the highway to a safe delivery area, where the pallets will be distributed to humanitarian agencies. The project could last only several months, the U. S. military official said.
A U. N. official said the port will most likely have three zones: an Israeli-controlled one where aid is dropped off from the dock, where aid will be transferred, and a third where Palestinian drivers hired through the U. N. will wait to pick up the aid. Help. assistance before delivery to distribution points.
Construction of the new port in the Gaza Strip appears to have progressed over the past two weeks, according to satellite imagery analyzed Thursday by The Associated Press. On the high seas, U. S. Navy and Army ships are flying the U. S. Navy. The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began building the giant jetty or floating platform.
The port is just southwest of Gaza City, just north of a road through Gaza that the Israeli army built during the fighting. This domain was once the most populous domain in the territory, before the Israeli ground offensive occurred, pushing back more than a million people. to the south, towards the city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
No armed organization promptly claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s mortar attack on the port, and there were no injuries or deaths. But it reflects constant threats from Hamas, which has said it will reject the presence of any non-Palestinians in Gaza.
Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas political figure, told the Palestinian Authority that the organization would have Israeli forces — or forces from any other country — stationed near the pier to protect it as “a force of profession and aggression” and resist it. .
The U. N. World Food Program agreed to lead the relief effort. Carl Skau, WFP’s deputy executive director, speaking at the U. N. on Thursday, said it was “necessary for us to be able to operate, to succeed in communities, to have access to necessities, and to do so safely. “He also said the port project deserves to be just one component of a broader Israeli effort to sustain ground aid deliveries to avert famine.
The U. N. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the behind-the-scenes deliberations, said there are still several outstanding issues about how the Israelis will deal with the port’s security. The army is reportedly trying to set up remotely controlled weapons positions. which the U. N. opposes, the official said, though it was unclear which weapons are described.
In a statement on Thursday, the IDF said it would “act to provide security and logistical assistance to the initiative,” adding the structure of the pier and the transfer of aid from the sea to the Gaza Strip.
The port will provide more aid, as it has proved difficult to get more materials into Gaza through land crossings, with long lines of trucks awaiting Israeli inspections. Previous efforts to unload land by sea failed after the attack on World Central Kitchen.
Countries have even tried to drop aid from the sky, a tactic that aid teams consider a last resort as it allows aid to be delivered in gigantic quantities and has also led to deaths.
“The more time we spend communicating about JLOTS,” said Bob Kitchen, deputy assistant superintendent of emergencies for the International Rescue Committee, employing the U. S. military’s acronym for the U. S. -built jetty, “the more we communicate about the airdrops, all of which are incredibly expensive, small-scale and a spectacle-looking spectacle. It’s a distraction.
Since the start of the fighting in Gaza, following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, Iran has been visibly preoccupied with the regional crisis. This involvement extends from its allied militant teams in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, as well as political, diplomatic and military movements under the leadership of President Ebrahim Raisi.
Two hundred days into the war in Gaza, tensions between Tel Aviv and Tehran have risen. The escalation marks the transition from years of Iranian-Israeli phantom clash to a direct confrontation, led primarily through Iran.
In the early days of the war, Iranian officials hinted at their ability to escalate the confrontation and confront Israel by unifying the fronts if Gaza remained the target. This was seen as a political maneuver.
While Iran hinted at its involvement in the confrontation, Western reports, from the United States, differed on Iran’s role in Hamas’s Al-Aqsa flooding operation on Oct. 7 that sparked the war.
In the blame game and attempts to implicate foreign parties, some Western newspapers, drawing on Israeli resources, accused Iran of orchestrating the attack. On the other hand, media outlets and agencies have turned to Iranian resources to challenge the Israeli narrative.
As Iran tried to capitalize on Israel’s shock in the aftermath of the Al-Aqsa floods, leaders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards sent a strong message. They discussed Iran’s motivations for the attack, adding retaliation through Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani on a U. S. strike in early 2020. However, Iran temporarily denied any direct link between the Hamas attack and the upheaval of the delicate balances it has established in the region.
Diplomatic moves
Iran has rushed to intensify its regional international relations under Raisi, in a bid to improve relations with neighboring countries and counter their external isolation, especially after the clash with Ukraine that confounded efforts to revive its nuclear deal with Western powers.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s recent intervention at the University of Tehran, suggesting that Iran will have to be consulted on any deal with Palestine, has raised eyebrows.
Abdollahian’s visits to Jeddah, Geneva and New York for Palestine-related meetings have raised questions in Iranian media about the authorities’ delay in taking action on urgent domestic issues, adding nuclear negotiations to lift U. S. sanctions.
However, the aftermath of the war has eased Western pressure on Iran’s nuclear program, and Western powers have avoided turning to the UN Security Council or condemning Iran because they do not need to escalate the crisis with Tehran in the context of the Gaza conflict.
Iran has emphasized its ties with powers around Israel while continuing its diplomacy. It continues with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and senior Iranian officials, such as the foreign minister, travel to Doha, Beirut and Damascus to coordinate with the two groups.
Iran also supports armed teams connected to Tehran, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Houthi militias in Yemen, and Iraqi armed factions.
Iranians see the war in Gaza as the greatest evidence of coordination between international relations and the on-the-ground activities of the Revolutionary Guards and allied groups. However, Tehran officially denies any direct involvement in the decisions or operations of those groups, while supporting their behavior.
Maritime Developments
In early November, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called for disrupting Israel’s main routes of origin by blocking energy, food and trade by sea.
Following his statement, Houthi militias in Yemen began attacking advertising ships in the Red Sea.
These attacks have caused new tensions at sea. The U. S. and the U. K. responded through Houthi positions to deter further attacks. Meanwhile, Western and regional powers were forming maritime alliances to safeguard sea routes.
The Revolutionary Guards have further escalated tensions by sending Iranian naval escorts to the Red Sea and threatening to block key waterways such as Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Gibraltar, as well as disrupting shipping in the Mediterranean.
They also formed a “Naval Basij” unit comprising maritime sets of unbreakable equipment against Iran.
Israel Backs Down
As tensions rose in the Red Sea and U. S. forces from Iranian-aligned factions, Israel introduced two exact airstrikes in December. The first, in Damascus on 2 December, killed two Revolutionary Guards officers: Brigadier Generals Panah Taghizadeh and Mohammad-Ali Ataie Shourcheh.
They were reportedly killed in “advisory operations” at a military base in the Sayyida Zainab region.
On 25 December, Razi Mousavi, the head of logistics for the Revolutionary Guards in Syria and Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home in the Sayyida Zainab area. The attack took place shortly after he left his workplace on the grounds of the Iranian Embassy.
The third attack took place in Mazzeh on January 20 and killed Brigadier General Hojjatollah Amidwar, head of intelligence for the Revolutionary Guards in Syria, and four other Iranian officers.
Subsequently, the Revolutionary Guards reported the death of 3 officials in separate operations in Damascus, Homs and Deir Ezzor between February and March.
Increased losses and tensions.
As tensions mounted, Damascus suffered the deadliest blow to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the ongoing fighting between Tehran and Tel Aviv.
The Iranian consulate in Mazzeh was attacked, killing Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the Revolutionary Guard forces in Syria and Lebanon, as well as Hezbollah’s advisory council member and five other senior Revolutionary Guard officers.
Iran has vowed retaliation, sparking intense speculation, and Khamenei has declared a consulate on Iranian territory and promised a response.
Israel remained silent after all the attacks, while Iran introduced more than 300 missiles and drones two weeks later. Israel claimed to have intercepted most of them.
Khamenei said Iran seeks to show its power.
In response, Israel threatened heavy retaliation on Iranian territory. Western powers tried to deter Israel, but attacked a military airport near Isfahan. Satellite photographs showed damage to the S-300 radar that protects nuclear facilities.
The exchange continues, and its activities are very likely to keep tensions between Israel and Iran high, even after the dust settles on the Gaza conflict.
Two hundred days after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, efforts for a ceasefire continue, although it remains to be seen whether mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States will be able to resolve the crisis.
Since it began on Oct. 7, the war has been halted for only a week, following a November deal brokered through Egypt and Qatar, in which Hamas released more than 100 of its hostages and Israel released roughly three times that number of Palestinian prisoners.
Since that “one-time truce,” mediators have been pushing for a “broader and more comprehensive” agreement, but their efforts have so far failed to bear fruit. Israeli affairs expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Dr. Saeed Okasha, attributed the failure to “miscalculations on the part of both sides of the conflict. “
“Tel Aviv agreed to the first truce, believing it would help ease the tension and then temporarily the war in its favor. For its part, Hamas hoped to mount a foreign initiative to end the war, arguing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of the deal would weaken its standing and damage its symbol in the foreign community, as it considers the motion a terrorist motion, Okasha told Asharq Al-Awsat.
In recent months, hopes for a “truce” have sometimes risen and sometimes faded, as mediators’ efforts have been hampered by persistent “Israeli intransigence” and “conditions” that Hamas is unwilling to abandon.
At the end of January, hope was based on “the framework of a truce agreement in three stages, each lasting 40 days”. The framework agreed at a meeting in Paris was finalized by the heads of Egyptian, American and Israeli intelligence services, as well as Qatar’s prime minister. They hoped that the proposal would eventually lead to negotiations to end the war.
But the framework, described as “constructive” by Israeli and U. S. officials, materialized after six rounds of indirect negotiations, spanning positions from Paris to Cairo, Doha and back to Paris.
Towards the end of the month of Ramadan, Cairo hosted a new circular of negotiations in which CIA Director William Burns presented Hamas with a proposal to restore calm. He called for a six-week truce in which Hamas would release 40 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of 800 to 900 Palestinians arrested in Israel, daily access to 400 to 500 trucks of food aid and the return of other displaced people from northern Gaza to their homes.
However, the mediators failed to convince either side to reach an agreement, so the negotiations reached an “impasse”. Here, Okasha said, “Neither side needs to make concessions, because that means wasting the battle. “
He noted that Tel Aviv is a victory for the army by invading the city of Rafah, while Hamas is heading for “political suicide. “
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said in an interview with CNN last week that the talks “are continuing and have never been interrupted,” although “no agreement has been reached yet. “
Although two hundred days have passed since Israel’s war on Gaza, few in Israel, with the exception of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claim a transparent victory. Even the boastful army now speaks more modestly.
Expectations have shifted from the “destruction of Hamas” to the “weakening of its power” and from the “obligation of the captives” to the “negotiation of the whole”.
While Netanyahu insists on the narrative of a landslide victory, the most sensible pundits warn of a significant failure, with some even suggesting a defeat.
Ron Ben-Yishai, a security expert with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, warned that Israel is at a strategic impasse. He noted that as far as the prisoners are concerned, Israel has lost its influence over Hamas.
As for the Rafah invasion, Netanyahu is still in talks with Washington about the scope of Israeli actions, with U. S. approval for now.
As for the “next day,” Israel is still unsure, as its proposals are impractical. Although Hamas has lost much of its military power, it still controls many areas.
Tensions are also emerging on the Lebanese front, but there is no transparent path to war or a political settlement, and everyone is waiting for the fighting in Gaza to end.
As for Iran, Israel is struggling to shape a regional alliance because of the lack of progress on the Palestinian issue, which is being warned about solving other problems.
Ben-Yishai said Israel will have to soften its stance on Palestine and heed Washington’s calls.
Without strategic cooperation with the Biden administration, Israel will remain deadlocked and also face defeat in the war, he warned.
In a recent article in the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz”, Israeli philosopher Yuval Noah Harari states that war is a tool to achieve political goals.
Harari argues that the good fortune of a war deserves to be measured in terms of whether or not those purposes are achieved. He is under pressure that after the tragedy of October 7, Israel’s purpose was to release prisoners and disarm Hamas, but that it also needed alliances and to identify regional stability.
However, he criticizes the Netanyahu government for focusing on revenge beyond those broader goals, by failing to release all prisoners and eliminate Hamas.
Terry Anderson, a global correspondent for the Associated Press and one of the longest-serving hostages held in the United States after being kidnapped on a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for about seven years, has died at age 76.
Anderson, who recounted his kidnapping and tortured imprisonment through Hezbollah in his best-selling 1993 memoir “The Lair,” died Sunday at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York, said his daughter, Sulome Anderson.
Anderson died after surgery at the center, his daughter said.
“Terry was deeply involved in eyewitness reports from the box and showed wonderful courage and determination, both in his journalism and in his years of holding hostage. We are so grateful for the sacrifices he and his circle of family members have made through his work,” said Julie Pace, AP senior vice president and editor-in-chief.
“He never liked being called a hero, but that’s what everyone called him,” Anderson said. “I saw him a week ago and my wife asked him if he had anything on his to-do list, anything he wanted to do. do. He replied, ‘I have lived a lot and done a lot. I’m happy. ‘”
After returning to the United States in 1991, Anderson led an itinerant life, giving public speaking, teaching journalism at several major universities, and at several of them, managing a blues bar, a Cajun restaurant, a horse ranch, and a fine-dining restaurant.
He also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, made millions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets after a federal court found the country played a role in his capture, and later lost most of it due to bad investments. It filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
Upon retiring from the University of Florida in 2015, Anderson settled on a small horse farm in a quiet rural area of Northern Virginia that he discovered while camping with friends.
“I live in the countryside and here it’s pretty good and quiet and it’s a great place, so I’m fine,” he said with a laugh in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press.
In 1985, Anderson became one of several Westerners kidnapped by members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah party in a time of war that had plunged Lebanon into chaos.
After his release, he received a hero’s welcome at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in New York.
Louis D. Boccardi, president and CEO of the Palestinian Authority at the time, said Sunday that Anderson’s fate is never far from the minds of his PA colleagues.
“The word ‘hero’ gets thrown around a lot, but applying it to Terry Anderson only reinforces it,” Boccardi said. “His ordeal of six-and-a-half years as a hostage of terrorists was as unimaginable as it was real: chains, taken from hiding place to stash, strapped to the chassis of a truck, receiving inedible food, cut off from the world he spoke of so skillfully and attentively. “
As the Palestinian Authority’s leading correspondent in the Middle East, Anderson had been reporting for several years on violence in Lebanon as the country waged a war with Israel, while Iran funded militant teams seeking to overthrow its government.
On March 16, 1985, a day off, he had taken a break to play tennis with former AP photographer Don Mell and drop Mell off at his home when armed kidnappers dragged him out of his car.
He probably attacked, he said, because he is one of the few Westerners still in Lebanon and because his role as a journalist aroused the suspicions of Hezbollah members.
“Because, in his words, other people who ask questions in difficult and harmful places are going to have to be spies,” he told The Review of Orange County in Virginia newspaper in 2018.
What followed was nearly seven years of brutality during which he was beaten, chained to a wall, threatened with death, guns pointed at his head, and held in solitary confinement for long periods.
Anderson is the longest-serving Western hostage kidnapped through Hezbollah over the years, in addition to Terry Waite, a former envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who arrived to negotiate Anderson’s release.
According to the accounts of Anderson and other hostages, he was also their most hostile prisoner, constantly giving them better food and treatment, arguing about faith and politics with their captors, and teaching sign language to the other hostages about where to hide the messages so they could simply talk. privately.
He managed to maintain a sharp wit and a biting sense of humor throughout his long experience. On his last day in Beirut, he called the leader of his captors to his room to tell him that he had just heard an erroneous report over the radio that he had been released. and he was in Syria.
“I said, ‘Mahmound, pay attention to this, I’m not here. I’m gone, babies. I’m on my way to Damascus. ‘ And we both laughed,” he told Giovanna Dell’Orto of “AP Foreign Correspondents in Action: World War II to the Present. “
Mell, who was in the car at the time of the kidnapping, said Sunday that he and Anderson are posting bail.
“Our quotes are much broader and deeper, and more vital and meaningful than just this incident,” Mell said.
Mell credited Anderson with launching his career in journalism, pushing the young photographer to be hired full-time through the AP. After Anderson’s release, their friendship deepened. They were each other’s most productive men at each other’s weddings and were in common contact.
Anderson’s humor masked the post-traumatic stress disorder he admitted to suffering from for years.
“The AP brought in a couple of British hostage decompression experts, clinical psychiatrists, to suggest to us that my wife and I were very helpful,” he said in 2018. “But one of the disorders I had where I didn’t recognize enough the damage had been done.
“So when other people ask me, you know, ‘Are you done?’Well, I don’t know. No, not really. I don’t think about it much those days, but it’s there,” he said.
Anderson said his religion as a Christian helped him let go of his anger. And everything his wife told him later also helped him keep going: “If you keep the hate, you won’t be able to have the joy. “
At the time of his abduction, Anderson was engaged. The couple married shortly after their release, but divorced a few years later and maintained a good relationship; Anderson and her daughter remained separated for years.
“I love my dad so much. My father enjoyed me. I just didn’t know because he couldn’t prove it to me,” Anderson told the AP in 2017.
Father and daughter reconciled after the publication of her critically acclaimed 2017 book, “The Hostage’s Daughter,” in which she chronicles her adventure to Lebanon to confront and forgive one of her father’s kidnappers.
“I think he’s done some ordinary things, he’s gone on a very complicated private journey, but he’s also done some pretty important journalistic work,” Anderson said. “She’s a better journalist now than ever. “
Terry Alan Anderson was born on October 27, 1947. He spent his early formative years in the small town of Vermilion, Ohio, on Lake Erie, where his father was a police officer.
After graduating from high school, he turned down a scholarship to the University of Michigan and enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he rose to the rank of sergeant while serving in the Vietnam War.
Upon returning home, he enrolled at Iowa State University, where he earned a dual primary in journalism and political science and soon turned to painting for the AP. He painted in Kentucky, Japan and South Africa before arriving in Lebanon in 1982, as the country descended into chaos.
“It was the most desirable assignment I’ve ever had in my life,” he told The Review. “It was intense. The war continues, it was very damaging in Beirut. A brutal civil war, and it lasted about 3 years before. They kidnapped me. “
Anderson was married and divorced 3 times. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by his daughter Gabrielle Anderson, from his first marriage; a sister, Judy Anderson; and a brother, Jack Anderson.
“Although my father’s life was marked by excessive suffering during his captivity as a hostage, he found a quiet and comfortable peace in recent years. I know he would choose to be remembered not for his worst experience, but for his humanitarian work. “We work with the Vietnam Children’s Fund, the Committee to Protect Journalists, homeless veterans and many other incredible causes,” Anderson said in a statement Sunday.
Commemorative arrangements are underway, he said.
President Joe Biden can breathe a little easier, at least for now, now that Israel and Iran appear to have subsidized the Middle East into all-out war.
Israel’s retaliatory measures against Iran and Syria have caused limited damage. The dovish action came after Biden suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government moderate its reaction to Iran’s unprecedented direct attack on Israel last week and an escalation of violence in the region. The drone and missile barrage caused little damage and followed a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus this month that killed two generals.
Iran’s public reaction to Israel’s measures on Friday has also been muted, raising hopes that tensions between Israel and Iran, long carried out in the shadows with cyberattacks, assassinations and sabotage, will simmer.
The scenario remains complicated for Biden as he prepares his re-election efforts in the face of headwinds in the Middle East, Russia and the Indo-Pacific. Everyone is testing the proposal he made to the electorate in his 2020 campaign, that a Biden White House would bring some measure of calm and renewed respect for America on the global stage.
Foreign policy issues are not usually the biggest concern of American voters. This November will be no different, as the economy and border security will have greater resonance.
But public polls recommend that considerations of the electorate would likely matter more to the electorate than in any U. S. election since 2006, when voter discontent with the Iraq war was a key factor in the GOP’s loss of 30 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate.
“We’re seeing this factor gain in importance, and at the same time, we’re seeing that voter evidence of President Biden’s handling of foreign affairs is quite negative,” said Christopher Borick, director of the Institute for Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College. “This combination is ideal for Biden. “
Biden has staked enormous political capital on his reaction to the Israel-Hamas war, as well as his administration’s, for Ukraine to reject a Russian invasion.
The obvious de-escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran also comes as Congress moves toward approving $95 billion in war aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, a move Biden has championed as Ukrainian forces desperately run out of weapons.
After months of delay in the face of the risk of toppling by his party’s right flank, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. , pushed the package forward and it is expected to final approval in the House this weekend. of weapons on the front lines – gives the White House renewed hope that Ukraine can turn the tide after months of war setbacks.
Biden has also made strengthening relations in the Indo-Pacific region a central issue on his foreign policy agenda, seeking to win allies and forge ties as China becomes a more formidable economic and military competitor.
But Republicans, adding former President Donald Trump, have an argument to argue that Biden’s policies have contributed to the U. S. facing a myriad of global dilemmas, said Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington tank.
Republicans have criticized Biden’s unsuccessful efforts early in his term to revive an Iran nuclear deal negotiated through the Obama administration and abandoned through Trump, saying it would embolden Tehran. The deal gave Iran billions in sanctions relief in exchange for the country’s agreeing to give it its nuclear program.
GOP critics have sought to link Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Biden’s resolve to withdraw from Afghanistan and blame the Obama administration for not offering a strong enough reaction to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea.
“You can make an intellectual argument, a political argument about how we got from point A to point B and then to point C and then to D and we ended up in a global fire,” said Goldberg, the national security official in the Trump administration. People probably don’t care how we got here, but they do care about our presence here. “
Polls recommend that Americans’ anxiety about foreign policy issues is rising, and there are combined symptoms that Biden’s rhetoric as a foreign policy enterprise resonates with voters.
About four in 10 U. S. adults cited foreign policy issues in an open-ended question asking others to rank up to five issues the government was working on in 2024, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ballot released in January. That’s about double what was reported in an AP-NORC poll last year.
In addition, about 47% of Americans said they thought Biden had harms with other countries, according to an AP-NORC ballot released this month. Similarly, 47% said the same about Trump.
Biden was in top form during the first six months of his presidency, with the American electorate largely endorsing his appearance and giving him high marks for his handling of the economy and the coronavirus pandemic. But the president saw her approval ratings plummet after the chaotic withdrawal of U. S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 and never fully recovered.
Today, Biden faces the uncertainty of two wars. It’s possible that both will stay with him until Election Day.
In the context of the war between Israel and Hamas, Republicans ridicule him for sufficiently supporting Israel, and the left wing of his party harshly criticizes the president, who has been dissatisfied with Netanyahu’s continuation of the war, for doing more to force Israelis. to safeguard the lives of Palestinians.
After Israel’s painstakingly calibrated measures against Iran, tensions in the Middle East have entered a “gray zone” that all sides will have to conscientiously navigate, said Aaron David Miller, an adviser on Middle East issues in both the Republican and Democratic administrations.
“Has what happened in the last 10 days increased preparedness for threats from both sides, or pulled them back out of the abyss and back into threat aversion?” said Miller. Israel and Iran have managed to attack each other without primary escalation. What conclusions do you draw from this? Is the conclusion that maybe we can do this again?Or do we dodge a bullet here and have to be incredibly careful?
Israel and Hamas appear to be a long way from reaching an agreement on a transitional ceasefire that would facilitate the release of remaining hostages in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and deliver aid to the territory. It’s an agreement Biden sees as critical to finding an end. to war.
CIA Director William Burns last week expressed sadness that Hamas had not yet accepted a proposal that Egyptian and Qatari negotiators had put forward earlier this month. He blamed the organization for “obstructing innocent civilians in Gaza who are receiving the humanitarian aid they so desperately need. “
At the same time, Biden’s leadership has sought to show that it holds Israel accountable, on Friday imposing new sanctions on two entities accused of increasing the budget for extremist Israeli settlers already under sanctions, as well as the founder of an organization whose members Attack. Palestinians.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and other management officials met Thursday with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi. According to the White House, U. S. officials reiterated Biden’s considerations about Israel’s plans to conduct an operation in Gaza City in southern Gaza. Rafah, where around 1. 5 million Palestinians have sought refuge.
Ross Baker, professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University, said Biden may have temporarily benefited from tensions between Israel and Iran, diverting attention from deprivation in Gaza.
“Sometimes salvation can come unexpectedly,” Baker said. “But the road ahead is uncomplicated. “
When Russian troops deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh four years ago, their task was clear: keep the peace between bitter enemies Armenia and Azerbaijan, and prevent a new war in the volatile region.
But when Azerbaijani forces swept through the Karabakh Mountains last September and crushed Armenian separatist forces in a matter of hours, the Russian project failed.
The Kremlin quietly demonstrated this week that peacekeepers were withdrawing, taking with them their weapons and equipment, as well as Russian influence from a region that has long been its own backyard.
Moscow ruled the Caucasus region first under the Russian Empire and then during the Soviet era. When war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan following the collapse of the USSR, Moscow tried to play a mediating role.
The Kremlin deployed around 2,000 troops in 2020 as part of a ceasefire agreement that ended six weeks of brutal fighting between archenemies in the Karabakh region.
The agreement held until last September’s lightning offensive through Azerbaijan triggered an exodus of more than 100,000 Armenians from Karabakh and deepened their frustration with Moscow.
Russia has ‘betrayed’ us
“With the departure of the Russians from Karabakh, the last hope for the population to return to their homes has disappeared,” Iveta Margaryan, a 53-year-old accountant in training, said on the streets of the Armenian capital.
“The Russians have betrayed us,” he added.
Observers in the Caucasus say Russia is too busy with its invasion of Ukraine to exert its influence in the region.
Azerbaijan has recently deepened its ties with Turkey, a close military and political partner that shares common cultural ties. And with the Karabakh withdrawal, Moscow has further alienated Armenia.
Yerevan has criticized Moscow’s apparent shortcomings, while Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is busy forging ties with the West.
In February, he froze Yerevan’s participation in the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, a defense of several states in the former Soviet Union.
Yerevan also joined the International Criminal Court (ICC), opposed to Moscow’s, a move requiring it to arrest Vladimir Putin if he travels to Armenia.
The European Union and the United States are now leading efforts to broker a peace deal between the Caucasus enemies, while Moscow plays the fiddle.
“Broken” myth
Moscow’s unease over Armenia’s rapprochement with the West has also been made public. The Foreign Ministry this week demanded that Yerevan “disavow” reports that it was deepening its military ties with Western countries.
France, home to a gigantic Armenian diaspora, has also planted a flag in the region, increasing diplomatic aid to Yerevan and offering radars and defensive missiles. “Russia is out, the West is in,” said Azerbaijani political analyst Eldar Namazov.
Russian peacekeepers aimed to “project their influence,” said Gela Vasadze, a researcher at the Georgian Center for Strategic Analysis.
But his withdrawal clearly illustrates the limits of Russian power, he told AFP.
“The myth that Russian boots leave the territories they once entered is shattered. “
Shahinoglu said Putin withdrew from Karabakh to maintain friendly relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey at a time when the Kremlin is isolated due to the war in Ukraine.
But in doing so, Russia has lost its ability to “exploit” Armenian separatism in the Caucasus and harness it to exert regional influence, he said.
“Russia definitely has its old anchors in the Caucasus. “
This sentiment resonated in Azerbaijan, where the announcement of the Russian withdrawal was greeted with joy and relief.
“People say Russian troops are leaving voluntarily,” said Ramil Iskenderov, a 37-year-old courier.
“Azerbaijan has shown that with the right policy it is possible to achieve the unimaginable,” he told AFP.
In Armenia, where Russia still maintains a military base, the withdrawal of peacekeepers was the straw that broke the camel’s back and forced Yerevan to cut military ties with Moscow.
“Russia once again betrayed the other Armenians and sold us out. That’s it,” said Valery Harutyunyan, who lived in Karabakh before fleeing to Armenia in September.
“We can’t count on the Russians anymore. We expelled the Russians, not only from Karabakh, but also from Armenia,” he told AFP.
By Rasha Awad
The war in Sudan between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has entered its second year of progress towards a non-violent and negotiated solution to the conflict. There is some hope on the horizon with the announcement that the Jeddah talks will resume in Saudi Arabia in two weeks’ time.
On the domestic stage, the army’s escalation continued on the ground and through the army’s rhetoric. The scenario has alarmed experts and observers in Sudan, fearing that the country is heading toward a long war that could lead to the country’s department and consequences. of the confrontation in the region, especially after the launch of a drone attack by the RSF on army positions in the eastern city of Al-Qadarif.
Eastern Sudan was largely spared from the war until the April 9 attack.
Time as a deciding factor
The good fortune of the negotiations will depend largely on the weather. If the war drags on, new obstacles will emerge that will complicate negotiations. These headaches come with desertions from the army or the RSF.
In this regard, Dr. Bakri al-Jak, official spokesman for the Coordination of Democratic Civil Forces (Taqaddum), warned that the war may take on regional and ethnic dimensions, in addition to its existing ideological and political dimensions.
It is conceivable that the army and leaders of the RSF will lose control of their forces on the ground and that the country will be divided into zones of influence and control, which would be the first step towards the division of Sudan, he added.
He stressed the desire to promote the search for a negotiated solution and to accentuate regional and external contacts in favour of peace in order to avoid the prolongation of the war.
Domestic political will
Experts estimate that a year of war has cost Sudan $100 billion. Some 90 factories have been destroyed, 65 in agricultural production have stopped and 75 in the service sector have ceased to function. In addition, the squandered opportunities have cost Sudan an estimated $200 billion.
An estimated 14,000 civilians have been killed, thousands are injured and missing, and millions have been displaced.
As for army casualties, the army and RSF have refrained from disclosing figures, both are believed to have suffered heavy losses.
Despite these heavy casualties, neither side has demonstrated the political will to move towards a negotiated solution, even though the majority of millions of Sudanese need peace.
National and Regional Determination
Like all wars in the region, the confrontation in Sudan is unlikely to end without a national will to achieve peace. It will also be accompanied by effective regional and foreign pressure on the parties to the conflict to settle for a negotiated solution.
Writer and analyst Al-Haj Warraq said several points will determine whether the war will extend or end. One is whether the U. S. will take a unified stance on Sudan.
He explained that lately the United States has been deeply divided between the strategic visions of Republicans and Democrats. President Joe Biden’s own Democratic administration is divided between supporters of civilian rule in Sudan and others who would opt for an Islamist force (National Congress) to increase power. army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
Meanwhile, proponents of civilian rule continue to offer “blanket empty slogans” that offer nothing specific, Warraq said.
He added that the goals stated by the U. S. administration are “unattainable” because they adhere to any express policy and contradict Sudan’s democratic tendencies. In the end, however, many of the cards to end the war are in the hands of the Americans.
“Democratic civilian forces will have to invest in Washington’s openness to expand an express policy that guarantees the end of the war, restores the democratic formula and restores the unity of Sudan on true federal foundations,” he stressed.
War and Gold
Another thing in the war is the looting networks that finance it, adding gold miners and smugglers. In addition to financing the war, these networks have led to endemic corruption in the country.
They played a role in destroying the ranks of civilian forces. Powers seeking peace will have to confront this factor with the West and seek sanctions against those networks, which would be a step towards ending the war.
Another thing that puts an end to the war is the unification of peacekeepers and a civilian democratic regime. Warraq said that although Taqaddum was the largest coalition of civilian forces, “it wants to be more open to others and come with new forces and non-partisan personalities. “
It also wants to expand its internal design to make it more efficient, he suggested.
Unifying an effective and united movement of democratic civilian forces will help “remove the legitimacy of the war,” Al-Jak said, emphasizing the need for forces to refrain from adopting the narrative of either side to the conflict. Rather, they try to prevent them.
*Rasha Awad is a Sudanese researcher and spokesperson for Taqaddum.