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  • North Korea agrees to a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests, will hold landmark summit in April

    North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has agreed to stop nuclear and missile tests if his country holds talks with the United States on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has agreed to stop nuclear and missile tests if his country holds talks with the United States on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

    The breakthrough was announced Tuesday by Chung Eui-yong, South Korea’s presidential national security director, after a rare visit to Pyongyang.

    “The North expressed its willingness to hold a heartfelt dialogue with the United States on the issues of denuclearization and normalizing relations with the United States,” he said in a statement. “It made it clear that while dialogue is continuing, it will not attempt any strategic provocations, such as nuclear and ballistic missile tests.”

    PHOTOS: South Korea meeting thrusts North’s Kim into the limelight

    The promising move followed a flurry of cooperative steps taken by the Koreas during last month’s Winter Olympic games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

    President Trump welcomed the turn of events with a note of caution.

    “We will see what happens!” he tweeted.

    In a later tweet, he described it as “possible progress being made in talks with North Korea.”

    “For the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned. The World is watching and waiting! May be false hope, but the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction!” wrote the president.

    The shift from the North also follows increasing pressure from the United States. The Trump administration has ratcheted up economic sanctions, while Mr. Trump took a hard line and demanded a nuclear-free Korean peninsula in exchange for talks.

    The standoff was repeatedly punctuated by Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim trading insults, including the U.S. president taunting his foe as “Little Rocket Man.”

    The North had steadfastly refused to even consider surrendering its nuclear arsenal or missile program, now capable of hitting the U.S. mainland and heralded by Mr. Kim as an essential deterrent against American invasion plans.

    Vice President Mike Pence, who led the U.S. delegation to the Olympic opening ceremony and avoided interaction there with North Korea officials, vowed to keep pressure on Mr. Kim’s rogue regime.

    “Whichever direction talks with North Korea go, we will be firm in our resolve,” he said. “All options are on the table and our posture toward the regime will not change until we see credible, verifiable and concrete steps toward denuclearization.”

    Mr. Chung led a 10-member South Korean delegation that met with Mr. Kim during a two-day visit to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. They returned on Tuesday.

    The two Koreas also agreed to hold their third-ever summit at a tense border village in late April.

    Mr. Chung said the leaders will establish a “hotline” communication channel to lower military tensions and would speak together before the planned summit.

    The two past summits, in 2000 and 2007, were held between Mr. Kim’s late father, Kim Jong-il, and two liberal South Korean presidents. They resulted in a series of cooperative projects between the Koreas that were scuttled during subsequent conservative administrations in South Korea.

    Mr. Chung said North Korea agreed to suspend nuclear and missile tests for as long as it holds talks with the United States.

    North Korea also made it clear that it would not need to keep its nuclear weapons if military threats against it are removed and it receives a credible security guarantee, Mr. Chung said.

    • This story is based in part on wire service reports.

  • Donald Trump takes credit for Kim Jong-un’s desire for talks

    President Trump on Tuesday credited his campaign of maximum pressure — coupled with “great help” from China — for driving North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sudden decision to raise the prospect of t

    President Trump on Tuesday credited his campaign of maximum pressure — coupled with “great help” from China — for driving North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sudden decision to raise the prospect of talks with Washington about his nation’s nuclear arsenal and to halt nuclear and missile tests while such negotiations play out.

    In stunningly swift thawing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Kim told a visiting South Korean delegation Tuesday that he was ready to hold a “candid discussion” with the Trump administration on denuclearization, that Pyongyang would freeze its nuclear and missile programs as the talks began, and that he was willing to join South Korean President Moon Jae-in next month for the first face-to-face meeting between the nations’ leaders in more than a decade.

    With critical details of the North’s offer still to be nailed down, Mr. Trump expressed cautious optimism. He said he believed Mr. Kim’s overture during a meeting with South Korean officials was sincere, but he stressed that it “may be a false hope” to think Pyongyang would truly agree to give up its nuclear security blanket.

    “We have come certainly a long way, at least rhetorically, with North Korea,” a cautious Mr. Trump said at a joint White House press conference with visiting Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven. “It’d be a great thing for the world, would be a thing great for North Korea, it would be a great thing for the peninsula. But we’ll see what happens.”

    National security insiders said it’s too early to know whether Mr. Kim is just trying to buy time to complete Pyongyang’s covert nuclear program or whether Mr. Trump’s bare-knuckle policy approach — coupled with a U.S.-organized set of international sanctions that show signs of truly hurting the North’s economy — has produced unexpected progress.

    One caveat evident in the text of the six-point accord brought back by the South Korean envoys: North Korea said it would have no need for nuclear weapons “as long as military threats to the North are eliminated and the regime’s security is guaranteed,” which could call into question the U.S.-South Korean military alliance and the huge U.S. troop presence in the South.

    “Does the Trump administration deserve credit for sticking to a policy of maximum pressure while remaining open to engagement? Yes,” said Patrick Cronin, who heads the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. “But the cause and effect here is not necessarily something you want to take credit for until you see how it turns out.”

    The White House last month announced the sharpest U.S. sanctions to date against Pyongyang. While the increased pressure may have inspired Mr. Kim’s growing eagerness for talks, some point to other important factors at play.

    “One is the progress that North Korea has made on its nuclear program …,” said Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow with the New America think tank in Washington. “Kim Jong-un has declared the completion of his nuclear force and believes he now has the capacity to deter an attack by the U.S.

    “So in terms of timing,” she said, “it makes great sense that the North Koreans are now ready to return to talks with Washington.”

    The shift in Pyongyang

    The South Korean president’s office said in a statement Tuesday that the Kim regime had expressed a willingness to denuclearization and to halt nuclear tests in order to get talks underway with Washington.

    Chung Eui-yong, South Korea’s presidential national security director and head of the delegation that met with Mr. Kim, said the late-April summit will be held in Panmunjom, the tense border village where the two hostile Koreas have faced off since the inconclusive end of the Korean War in the 1950s.

    The developments, which follow a flurry of North-South diplomacy that surrounded last month’s Winter Olympics in the South, appeared to mark a major shift from Pyongyang, which long refused to discuss its nuclear arsenal or missile programs.

    The Trump administration had vacillated on whether it would be willing to engage in direct talks with North Korea if the Kim regime did not first commit to abandoning the programs. As recently as this past weekend, the North Korean Foreign Ministry had criticized Washington for clinging to the idea of denuclearization as a precondition for direct talks.

    Efforts to rein in the isolated North’s military programs have repeatedly ended in failure.

    Negotiations with Pyongyang broke down in 2009 amid a flurry of North Korean missile tests in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. At the height of the talks in 2005, Pyongyang signed an agreement with the U.S., Japan, China, Russia and South Korea stating that it was “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.”

    The White House offered a sober message on the denuclearization issue Tuesday, asserting that it is in no hurry to ease its campaign of maximum pressure and sanctions.

    “Whichever direction talks with North Korea go, we will be firm in our resolve,” said Vice President Mike Pence. “All options are on the table, and our posture toward the regime will not change until we see credible, verifiable and concrete steps toward denuclearization.”

    The comments coincided cautious but optimistic posturing from Mr. Trump. “We will see what happens!” the president tweeted.

    The U.S. government, Mr. Trump added in an early morning tweet, “is ready to go hard in either direction!”

    ‘Me’

    The president said there was little doubt that his combination of tough, even bellicose rhetoric and coordinated economic pressure had helped change the dynamic of the Korean Peninsula stalemate.

    Asked at the White House briefing who was responsible for the North’s apparent turnaround, he responded: “Me.”

    “I think [the North Koreans] are sincere also because the sanctions and what we are doing to North Korea, including the great help we’ve gotten from China,” he added.

    Mr. Cronin said in an interview that Mr. Trump would be “right to dampen expectations and take it step by step in order to assess what North Korea’s real intentions are here.”

    The North’s offer also put pressure on Washington to calibrate its own response, he said.

    “The ball is in the president’s court at this point,” Mr. Cronin said.

    Bruce Klingner, a former CIA division chief for the Koreas and a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, was among those who urged extreme caution on North Korea’s sudden willingness to talk about the future of its nuclear weapons.

    “What we do know about North Korea,” Mr. Klingner wrote in an analysis Tuesday, “is that past offers of dialogue frequently prove to be a fig leaf for ulterior purposes.

    “The real question: Is this a diplomatic breakthrough, or the setup of a Red Wedding?” said Mr. Klingner, referring to the famous massacre episode of the TV drama “Game of Thrones.”

    The road ahead

    The challenge for the Trump administration, said Mr. Cronin, is to keep the pressure on the Kim regime “while engagement takes a bigger step in this process.”

    “Can we walk and chew gum at the same time? By all means, we have to,” he said. “We have to show agility because Kim has become more agile diplomatically.”

    Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats told a congressional hearing Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials are still trying to determine the sincerity of the North’s offer and Mr. Kim’s willingness to consider giving up his nuclear arsenal.

    “We have seen nothing to indicate … that he would be willing to give up those weapons,” Mr. Coats told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said he could not adequately assess the South’s account of the Pyongyang talks until the South Koreans have provided a full briefing, The Associated Press reported.

    Ms. DiMaggio said Mr. Trump is hampered by a “very thin diplomatic bench” in any coming talks. There is no permanent ambassador in Seoul, the State Department point man on the North Korean crisis retired last week, and there’s been a “hollowing out” of State Department specialists on the region.

    “If we head down this road of talks with North Koreans,” she said, “it’s going to be very challenging because we don’t have seasoned diplomats in place to carry it out.”

    While the denuclearization issue could take years to fully resolve, Ms. DiMaggio said, the administration should seize on the opening for talks on a range of other issues, such as getting assurances from the Kim regime that it won’t sell chemical, biological or nuclear weapons material to U.S. enemies or terrorist groups.

    “North Korea is the only nuclear-armed country with which the U.S. doesn’t have direct discussions,” she said. “Can we have talks on avoiding an accidental military conflict? That should top the agenda.”

    • Dave Boyer contributed to this article.

  • Jerusalem mayor assures Congress city is safe enough to move U.S. Embassy there

    The mayor of Jerusalem has assured U.S. Congress that America faces no additional terrorist threat by moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to the ancient city despite opposition from Palestinians and the

    The mayor of Jerusalem has assured U.S. Congress that America faces no additional terrorist threat by moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to the ancient city despite opposition from Palestinians and the greater Muslim world.

    “The importance of the move to Jerusalem is second to nothing else,” Nir Barkat told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Tuesday while visiting Washington. “God forbid if there is a security challenge, I assure you we will not shy away from it.”

    On Monday, President Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he may visit Israel for the opening of the embassy, slated for early May.

    “We’re going to have it built very quickly and very inexpensively,” Mr. Trump said to reporters before a meeting with Mr. Netanyahu. “While not making any specific commitments, we’re looking at coming … If I can, I will.”

    On Tuesday, Mr. Barkat discussed the history of Jerusalem during a roundtable gathering hosted by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform member Rep. Ron DeSantis. The Florida Republican played a key role on Capitol Hill advocating for the move, including scouting possible sites for the new facility while visiting Israel.

    Mr. Barkat also praised Mr. Trump for his “boldness and leadership” on the issue and noted that Israelis deeply appreciate the historical significance of the White House’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as a capital, and move the embassy there, 70 years after President Harry Truman recognized Israel as a sovereign state.

    On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu, who was visiting Washington to address the pro-Israel group AIPAC, sang similar praises for the Trump Administration’s Jerusalem decision.

    “Mr. President, this will be remembered by our people, throughout the ages,” the prime minister said. “And as you just said, others talked about it; you did it.”

    Palestinians, meanwhile, have lashed out the decision and argue that it negates the United States as a credible negotiator in peace talks.

    From a local security standpoint, Mr. Barkat told lawmakers that the Israeli government would dedicate all possible resources to protecting the new embassy. He also pointed out that Washington has a murder rate 15 times higher than Jerusalem.

    “So,” he joked, “whenever I fly to D.C., I pray to come back to Jerusalem safely.

  • China’s investment in Greece tangles Europe relations

    Since 2008, Chinese business leaders have agreed to almost $9 billion worth of infrastructure and business deals — equivalent to about 5 percent of Greek gross domestic product — involving ports, te

    ATHENS, Greece — Unlike many in Europe, Chinese investors saw the Greek economic crisis of the past decade not as a disaster but as an opportunity.

    Since 2008, Chinese business leaders have agreed to almost $9 billion worth of infrastructure and business deals — equivalent to about 5 percent of Greek gross domestic product — involving ports, telecommunications companies, energy facilities, real estate and tourism, according to the American Enterprise Institute.

    For many, it’s a case study of how Chinese investment dollars lead to political payoffs. As Greek political leaders feuded with principal members of the European Union — notably Germany — over an imposed policy of harsh austerity, China offered an economic lifeline. In return, Greece became a leading voice inside the EU to take a softer line on China’s political failings and to offer a warmer welcome to Chinese investments.

    SEE ALSO: China’s foothold in Europe

    “The Greek economy is thirsty for investments, and the presence of Chinese companies is important and we welcome it,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in September during a business conference in Thessaloniki that featured representatives of Chinese business.

    Although the economic situation has improved, Greece remains mired in a decade of economic turmoil. The unemployment rate still tops 20 percent, growth lags and punitive high taxes are necessary to pay off a debt burden that amounts to 180 percent of GDP.

    The Institute of International Economic Relations, in a major survey of the burgeoning Sino-Greek economic relations released in December, noted that “Greece’s debt crisis has definitely contributed to the rapprochement between Athens and Beijing.”

    SEE ALSO: China’s involvement in Piraeus, Greece

    Chinese officials have openly played on the tensions between Greece and its fellow EU states. The state-controlled Chinese news site Global Times noted in an editorial that “different from the EU, which has treated Athens as a delinquent borrower, Beijing designates the country as a ‘trusted partner.’”

    At a popular level, Greeks are split. Many are thankful that China invested at a time when few other foreigners would take a chance and say Greece badly needed the cash and the jobs. A Pew Research Center survey in early 2017 found that 50 percent of Greeks had a positive attitude toward China, compared with 40 percent negative. The Greek pollster Kapa Research last year found China behind only Russia among countries that Greeks would most like to see closer bilateral relations.

    Culture clash 

    But others are concerned about Chinese influence and Chinese-style management in a southern European country, where management traditionally respects labor rights and workplace conditions.

    China Ocean Shipping Co., or COSCO, a state-owned company, purchased a majority stake in the port of Piraeus from the Greek government in 2016 for $456 million — the largest Chinese investment in Greece to date. The port is now a major node in China’s $1 trillion Belt and Road initiative, a system of trade routes and infrastructure projects that follow the old Silk Road and maritime passages through the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal.

    Labor unions negotiating a new contract with COSCO are likely to have to accept lower wages. Since 2009, when a COSCO subsidiary purchased two piers at Piraeus, workers lost overtime and faced pay cuts of 30 percent.

    “This deal shouldn’t make the port into a Chinese colony,” said Giorgos Gogos, secretary of the Piraeus dockworkers union. “It’s important to secure good labor conditions and make sure the state actually profits from the investment.”

    As real estate prices in Greece continue to fall, 850 Chinese nationals have purchased properties worth more than $310,000, making them eligible for Golden Visas that allow them to travel within 26 European countries that have eliminated internal border controls. Golden Visas have generated more than $500 million in revenue for Athens, according to Enterprise Greece, a state economic development agency.

    Even so, Chinese money is raising political questions about Beijing’s influence in Greece and its long-term ambitions for countries all along Europe’s eastern flank.

    In June, Greece’s left-wing government surprised European leaders by blocking a critical EU statement at the U.N. Summit on China’s human rights record. A year earlier, Greece, Croatia and Hungary — where Chinese investments are also extensive — opposed a joint EU statement on China’s military expansion in the South China Sea. Without the required consensus, the EU statement was blocked.

    “China uses Greece in order to have a strong foothold in the European Union,” said Michael Tsinisizelis, a professor of international and European studies at the University of Athens.

    Greece is in line for membership in Beijing’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. In November, the government sent a delegation to the so-called 16+1 annual summit of China with 16 Eastern and Central European nations. Athens and Beijing in May signed a three-year action plan to guide investment and trade deals. In December, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered an ardent speech under the Acropolis, where he expressed concern about Greek and European economic weaknesses that Beijing could target and keep the bloc from speaking with a united voice about global issues.

    “Our European sovereignty is what will enable us to be digital champions, build a strong economy, and make us an economic power in this changing world and not be subjected to the law of the fittest — the Americans and, soon, the Chinese — but our own law,” he said.

    China is now the EU’s second-biggest trading partner behind the United States. In 2016, China spent $40 billion compared with $23 billion in the prior year.

    Regulation

    While COSCO is expanding its footprint at Piraeus, among the world’s fastest-growing ports, the EU is looking to closely regulate foreign investments in European strategic assets, including ports.

    “There’s a general uneasiness in the EU concerning Chinese investments,” said Polyxeni Davarinou, a researcher at the Institute of International Economic Relations in Athens. “The EU wants to have a better control. At the same time, though, Greece and Eastern European countries really need these Chinese investments.”

    She said Greece and Europe have the power to contain Chinese influence if leaders enact bold rules to monitor foreign investment.

    “There are voices in Europe that believe Greece is too close to China, and that’s because we’ve given them reasons to see it that way,” she said. “Greece’s problem is how to develop a clear and steady strategy.”

    The survey by the Institute of International Economic Relations noted that Greece is still emerging from a period when it could hardly afford to be choosy about who invested in its beleaguered domestic economy.

    “It is an indisputable fact that, trapped in its severe fiscal and economic predicament, Greece is not in a position to discourage foreign investment from any legitimate source,” the report concluded. “In fact, a certain diversification of foreign investment from countries outside the EU is even welcome.”

    But the survey also cautions that, “engulfed by its economic woes and disenchantment with the EU, Greece welcomes China with a coherent strategy.”

    In Piraeus, meanwhile, cranes are offloading shipping containers from huge cargo ships around the clock. COSCO is planning to invest an extra $372 million to build three five-star hotels and a new dock that can accommodate 14 cruise ships.

    Still, Mr. Gogos, the union leader, is pessimistic about Greece’s recovery. No matter how much Chinese money flows into Greece, he said, the country is still laboring to repay its debts. Greeks won’t see the benefits of their hard work for generations, he said.

    “Nothing will change for Greece,” Mr. Gogos said. “All the money ends up in the country’s black hole, repaying its humongous public debt instead of rebuilding the economy.”

  • Violence halts rare aid delivery to Syria’s eastern Ghouta

    The first aid delivery in weeks to reach the besieged eastern suburbs of Damascus was cut short after Syrian government forces began shelling the area while aid workers were still inside, a local coun

    BEIRUT (AP) — The first aid delivery in weeks to reach the besieged eastern suburbs of Damascus was cut short after Syrian government forces began shelling the area while aid workers were still inside, a local council said on Tuesday.

    Monday’s shipment was the first to enter eastern Ghouta amid weeks of a crippling siege and a government assault that has killed hundreds of civilians since February 18.

    The International Committee for the Red Cross confirmed that its joint convoy with the United Nations had to leave before offloading all its supplies on account of the deteriorating security situation.

    Ingy Sedky, the ICRC spokeswoman in Syria, said most of the aid from a 46-truck convoy was delivered to the town of Douma in eastern Ghouta but the mission was cut short before the rest of the supplies could be unloaded.

    Iyad Abdelaziz, a member of the Douma Local Council, said nine aid trucks had to leave the area after government shelling and airstrikes intensified in the evening.

    At least 50 civilians were killed Monday by shelling and airstrikes in eastern Ghouta as the Syrian government, backed by Russia’s military, showed no signs of easing its assault on the beleaguered region, despite a U.N. Security Council resolution passed Feb. 25 demanding a 30-day cease-fire.

    The convoy that reached Douma on Monday carried only a fraction of the relief needed for the estimated 400,000 people trapped under the government’s siege. The U.N.’s humanitarian office said the convoy carried food for 27,500 people.

    But it said the Syrian government offloaded 70 percent of the health supplies, including trauma and surgical kits and insulin, before allowing the convoy to enter eastern Ghouta.

    The government routinely removes lifesaving medical supplies from aid convoys, in a pattern of denying such aid to civilians living in opposition areas. U.N. officials have complained for years about such actions by the Syrian government.

  • Sergei Skripal case: U.K. counter-terror specialists offer help after ex-Russian spy collapses

    British counter-terror specialists offered expertise Tuesday to police in southern England Tuesday as they sought to unravel the mystery of why a former Russian spy fell critically ill following expos

    SALISBURY, England (AP) — British counter-terror specialists offered expertise Tuesday to police in southern England Tuesday as they sought to unravel the mystery of why a former Russian spy fell critically ill following exposure to an “unknown substance.”

    Authorities maintained a cordon near the spot — a bench near a shopping mall — where former double agent Sergei Skripal and an unidentified woman collapsed Sunday in Salisbury, 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of London. British media reported that the woman was Skirpal’s daughter.

    Though authorities are trying to keep an open mind, the incident drew parallels to the death of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium 11 years ago in London.

    “I think we have to remember that Russian exiles are not immortal, they do all die and there can be a tendency for some conspiracy theories,” Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Mark Rowley told the BBC.

    “But likewise we have to be alive to the fact of state threats as illustrated by the Litvinenko case.”

    Skripal, 66, who was convicted in Russia on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in prison. He was freed in 2010 as part of a spy swap, which followed the exposure of a ring of Russian sleeper agents in the United States.

    The Kremlin said Russia has not been approached by British authorities to help in the investigation. But Dimitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said Tuesday at a daily conference call with media in Russia that “Moscow is always ready to cooperate.”

    Wiltshire Police, which is responsible for the Salisbury area, said the man and woman appeared to know one another and had no visible injuries.

    “They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care,” police said in a statement.

    The discovery led to a dramatic decontamination effort. Crews in billowing yellow moon suits worked into the night spraying down the street, and the Salisbury hospital’s emergency room was closed.

    A closed circuit television image of a man and woman walking through an alleyway connecting the Zizzi restaurant and the bench where Skripal and the woman were found is believed to be of interest to police.

    “Police had a good look at the footage and were interested in these two people. It was the only image they took away,” said Cain Prince, 28, the manager of a nearby gym. “They wanted a list of everyone in the gym between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. as well.”

    Public records list Skripal as having an address in Salisbury.

    Skripal served with Russia’s military intelligence, often known by its Russian-language acronym GRU, and retired in 1999. He then worked at the Foreign Ministry until 2003 and later became involved in business.

    After his 2004 arrest in Moscow, he confessed to having been recruited by British intelligence in 1995 and said he provided information about GRU agents in Europe, receiving over $100,000 in return.

    At the time of Skripal’s trial, the Russian media quoted the FSB domestic security agency as saying that the damage from his activities could be compared to harm inflicted by Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU colonel who spied for the United States and Britain. Penkovsky was executed in 1963.

    The circumstances surrounding Sunday’s incident were still murky and police urged the public not to speculate. But few could avoid invoking the name of Litvinenko — the former Russian agent who died after drinking polonium-210-laced tea in a swanky London hotel in 2006.

    His illness was initially treated as unexplained; evidence eventually emerged indicating he had been deliberately poisoned with the radioactive material.

    A British judge wrote in a 2016 report that Litvinenko’s death was an assassination carried out by Russia’s security services — with the likely approval of Putin. The Russian government has denied any responsibility.

  • Probe finds deadly Niger mission lacked proper approval

    A military investigation into the Niger attack that killed four American service members concludes the team didn’t get required senior command approval for their risky mission to capture a high-level

    WASHINGTON (AP) — A military investigation into the Niger attack that killed four American service members concludes the team didn’t get required senior command approval for their risky mission to capture a high-level Islamic State militant, several U.S. officials familiar with the report said. It doesn’t point to that failure as a cause of the deadly ambush.

    Initial information suggested the Army Special Forces team set out on its October mission to meet local Nigerien leaders, only to be redirected to assist a second unit hunting for Doundou Chefou, a militant suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of an American aid worker. Officials say it now appears the team went after Chefou from the onset, without outlining that intent to higher-level commanders.

    As a result, commanders couldn’t accurately assess the mission’s risk, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the results of the investigation before they’re publicly released. The finding will likely increase scrutiny on U.S. military activity in Africa, particularly the role of special operations forces who’ve been advising and working with local troops on the continent for years.

    Four U.S. soldiers and four Nigerien troops were killed Oct. 4 about 120 miles (200 kilometers) north of Niamey, Niger’s capital, when they were attacked by as many as 100 Islamic State-linked militants traveling by vehicle and carrying small arms and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Two other American soldiers and eight Nigerien forces were wounded.

    The investigation finds no single point of failure leading to the attack, which occurred after the soldiers learned Chefou had left the area, checked his last known location and started for home. It also draws no conclusion about whether villagers in Tongo Tongo, where the team stopped for water and supplies, alerted IS militants to American forces in the area. Still, questions remain about whether higher-level commanders – if given the chance – would have approved or adjusted the mission, or provided additional resources that could have helped repel the ambush.

    Army Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, wouldn’t comment on the investigation, beyond saying it’s now complete and being reviewed by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other senior leaders.

    The other U.S. officials said the final report could have consequences for U.S. military operations in Africa.

    Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the Africa Command’s leader, is expected to recommend greater oversight to ensure proper mission approval and risk assessment, they said. Waldhauser isn’t expected to scale back missions in Africa or remove commanders’ authorities to make decisions. He is slated to testify before a House committee Tuesday.

    The incident is likely to trigger discussions about improved security measures, too, including heavier armored vehicles, better communications and improved individual trackers to make it easier to find missing troops.

    Top Africa Command officials, led by its chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier Jr., have spent months trying to unravel the complex incident, conducting dozens of interviews across the U.S., Europe and Africa.

    U.S. and Nigerien officials say the troops received intelligence about Chefou’s location and acted on what was likely considered a fleeting chance to get him, or at least gather valuable intelligence on the American hostage.

    It’s unclear where Chefou was believed to be. But before arriving at that location, the U.S.-Nigerien team learned he had left. The troops traveled on to the site to collect any remaining information there. A second U.S. commando team assigned to the mission was unable to go because of weather problems.

    One Nigerien official said the troops that reached the destination found food and a motorcycle. They destroyed the motorcycle. The team then headed home, the official said, but stopped in Tongo Tongo to get supplies.

    The U.S. investigation notes the team stayed at Tongo Tongo longer than normal, but says there is no compelling evidence to conclude a villager or anyone else deliberately delayed their departure or betrayed them by alerting militants.

    The Nigerien official said Abou Walid Sahraoui, an IS leader in the region, heard the team had visited the site of Chefou’s last known location. He then dispatched about 20 fighters to pursue the U.S. and Nigerien troops. A larger group of militants followed later, said the official, who also would only discuss the matter on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials couldn’t corroborate that information.

    Shortly after leaving Tongo Tongo, U.S. and Nigerien forces were attacked and eventually overrun by the IS ambush. Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Florida, became separated from the others as he fought and ran for cover in the brush. He was gunned down, but his body wasn’t found until two days later.

    The other three Americans killed were Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Washington; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Georgia. Black and Wright were Army Special Forces. Johnson and Johnson weren’t Green Berets; the others were.

    The U.S. troops called for help using the code “Broken Arrow,” which signals they were in imminent danger, officials said. They then followed procedures and shut down their radios to prevent the enemies from using them. As a result, they couldn’t communicate quickly with French aircraft sent in to rescue them. Some footage of the gruesome battle, taken off one of the U.S. soldier’s helmet cameras, surfaced in recent days in an IS propaganda video posted online.

    Officials said the procedural breakdown meant the overall mission lacked the higher-level command approval necessary to go after a senior militant. Such missions require approval by senior Special Operations Command officers who would’ve been in Chad or at Africa Command’s headquarters in Germany.

    The reporting failure meant those commanders lacked a complete picture of what the unit was doing, so concluded the mission was unlikely to encounter enemy forces. Had the unit gotten proper oversight and approvals, officials said, it might have been better equipped or included additional personnel more capable of sustaining a fight.

    ___

    Baba Ahmed in Bamako, Mali, contributed to this report.

  • Christopher McCray guilty of taking kickbacks from Afghanistan business

    A former government contractor pleaded guilty Monday to accepting illegal kickbacks from an Afgahn company in exchange for assistance in obtaining U.S. government subcontracts, the Department of Justi

    A former government contractor pleaded guilty Monday to accepting illegal kickbacks from an Afghan company in exchange for assistance in obtaining U.S. government subcontracts, the Department of Justice said.

    Christopher McCray, 55, of Jonesboro, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to one count of accepting illegal kickbacks. He entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Mark H. Cohen of the Northern District of Georgia.

    McCray will be sentenced on June 14.

    As part of the plea deal, McCray admitted that he managed subcontracts for an American company that moved cargo for the Army and Air Force from Bagram Airfield to military bases throughout Afghanistan. When the contractor needed McCray to take a bigger role in the distribution, he could influence the choice of subcontractor picked for the job, the Justice Department said.

    McCray’s employer eventually entered into an agreement with an Afghan company that secretly agreed to kick back to McCray 15 percent of the revenues it would receive on the contract, court documents alleged.

    McCray admitted that he received secret payments from December 2012 to May 2014 and that he and the Afghan trucking company maintained separate invoices so the deal could not be detected.

    The company paid McCray in cash, then by wires sent to his bank in Atlanta and then by Western Union payments to his mother, who would deposit the payments as cash into McCray’s bank account.

    The FBI, Air Force, and Army investigated the case.

  • Moscow lawmaker: ‘Death penalty’ for anyone interfering in Russian election

    The outspoken deputy of Russia’s communist party said Monday that any foreign official — including from the United States — found guilty of “interfering” in Russia’s upcoming presidential election s

    The outspoken deputy of Russia’s communist party said Monday that any foreign official — including from the United States — found guilty of “interfering” in Russia’s upcoming presidential election should face the death penalty or up to 25 years in prison.

    “That’s the worst crime that there is, other than rape and murder,” said Leonid Kalashnikov, who’s also a key committee chief in Russia’s State Duma or lower house of parliament, according to news reports in Moscow.

    While the death penalty has been constitutionally banned in Russia since 1996, Mr. Kalashnikov suggested in an interview with the state-run RIA Novosti news agency that a “constitutional order” may be needed to restore it and deal with any foreign meddling in the election slated for March 18.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking a second consecutive — and fourth overall — term in the election, which will be the first of its kind in Russia since 2012.

    According to a report by The Moscow Times, Mr. Kalashnikov’s comments came as a top Russian diplomat claimed Monday to have evidence of ongoing U.S. attempts to undermine the electoral process.

    Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Rybakov made the assertion at a meeting of the Russian Federation Council or upper house of parliament, during which he claimed that Moscow is ramping up its efforts to identify and block the alleged “interference” by U.S.-backed operatives.

    “The Russian Foreign Ministry streamlined efforts to collect the relevant information,” Mr. Rybakov said according to the state-owned Tass news agency in Moscow. “That concerns both attempts to meddle in our affairs and broader detrimental efforts of this kind that the U.S. stoops to committing.”

    While few details were given on the actual nature or goals of the alleged U.S.-backed meddling, Mr. Rybakov claimed broadly that “opponents” of Russia are attempting to “sway young people and work in the regions.”

    “The focus of this struggle will center on the information space,” he said. “Information warfare will grow far bitterer, and that’s something we will have to live with during the upcoming period.”

    The Tass news agency claimed to have obtained an annual assessment Monday by an upper house “commission on the protection of state sovereignty” that exposed “numerous signs of interference from abroad” in Russia’s electoral process between 2011 and 2017.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, made international headlines Monday by asserting that the United States has a “rich tradition” of interfering in the internal affairs of Russia and other nations around the world.

    The flurry of allegations from Moscow come amid ongoing federal government investigations in Washington over accusations that Russian operatives engaged in an expansive hacking and digital propaganda campaign aimed at undermining the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

    Last month saw the U.S. Justice Department level indictments against 13 Russian citizens and two entities on charges their meddling activities amounted to conspiracy to defraud the United States.

    Mr. Putin said in an interview with NBC News that aired Sunday that Russia will “never” extradite the 13 individuals charged, even as he insisted they didn’t act on behalf of his government.

    The Associated Press noted that the United States has no extradition treaty with Moscow and can’t compel it to hand over citizens, and a provision in Russia’s constitution prohibits extraditing its citizens to foreign countries.

  • Collapsed building in Poland may have been blown up

    An “intentional” attack could be the reason an apartment building collapsed in western Poland, leaving five people dead and 21 injured, a prosecutors’ spokeswoman said Monday.

    WARSAW, Poland (AP) — An “intentional” attack could be the reason an apartment building collapsed in western Poland, leaving five people dead and 21 injured, a prosecutors’ spokeswoman said Monday.

    The building with 18 apartments collapsed early Sunday in the western city of Poznan, most probably as a result of an explosion, authorities said.

    Magdalena Mazur-Prus, a spokesman for the regional prosecutors’ office, would not confirm unofficial media reports, including by the state PAP agency, that one of the victims had been murdered before the collapse and that explosives might have been used to cover up the crime.

    Still, she would not exclude that the building could have faced an “intentional” attack.

    The news outlet wPolityce.pl said, citing anonymous sources, that a woman had been decapitated some time before the building crumbled.

    Earlier Monday, firefighters found the body of a fifth victim in the rubble and rescued a little dog. Rescuers with trained dogs have been searching in sub-freezing temperatures through the debris since the building collapsed.

    Mazur-Prus said three women and two men had died in the destroyed building. Forensics experts were performing post-mortems.

    The explosion of a gas cylinder was considered to be a possible reason why the building was destroyed. Gas service to the site was cut off and the remaining part of the building was closed.

    City authorities said 21 people were injured in the blast, four of whom remain hospitalized.

    Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki sent his sympathies to the families of the victims and wishes of a quick recovery to the injured.