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Tag: syria conflict

  • French company to pay nearly $778 million as part of plea deal to US charge of providing support to ISIS | CNN Politics

    French company to pay nearly $778 million as part of plea deal to US charge of providing support to ISIS | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A French cement company admitted Tuesday to making millions of dollars of payments that supported ISIS and another terrorist organization as part of an effort to maintain its operations in Syria as the civil war escalated.

    The company, Lafarge SA, is paying a financial penalty of nearly $778 million and pleaded guilty to a US federal count of conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and another terrorist organization as part of a deal with the US Justice Department.

    It is an unprecedented corporate prosecution under the material support of terrorism law, according to the Justice Department. The company pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday.

    The cement company entered a revenue sharing scheming with ISIS and the al-Nusrah Front that produced millions for the terrorist groups, according to court filings from the plea deal the Justice Department reached with Lafarge.

    “Lafarge made a deal with the devil,” US Attorney Breon Peace, of the Eastern District of New York, said at a press conference after the court proceedings.

    Lafarge and Lafarge Cement Syria – a dormant subsidiary that is also a defendant in the prosecution – entered the conspiracy with “the explicit purpose of incentivizing ISIS to act in a manner that would promote LAFARGE’s and LCS’s security and economic interests,” court documents said.

    Payments that the companies made through intermediaries to the terrorist groups amounted to approximately $5.92 million. When Lafarge evacuated the cement plant in 2014, ISIS took over the plant and sold the cement it had produced for roughly $3.2 million, according to the Justice Department.

    “The defendants paid millions of dollars to ISIS, a terrorist group that otherwise operated on a shoestring budget – millions of dollars that ISIS could use to recruit members, wage war against governments and conduct brutal terrorist attacks worldwide,” Breon said.

    The court filings quote several emails and other documents from the company shedding light on the scheme, which revolved around a cement plant Lafarge was running in Syria.

    Among the communications was an August 2013 email from one executive to two other executives, in which the executive said that, “It is clear that we have an issue with ISIS and al Nusra and we have asked our partner” – referring to an intermediary – “to work on it.”

    A November 2013 agreement between ISIS and LSC, written on a document with ISIS letterhead, laid out a deal for ISIS to let trucks access the company’s cement factory for 400 Syrian pounds per truck, according to the new filings.

    “Relatedly, an ISIS vehicle pass dated April 26, 2014, and bearing ISIS’s letterhead and stamp, allowed LCS employees ‘to pass through after the required work. This is after they have fulfilled their dues to us,’” the court submissions said.

    A July 2014 email from one executive to two others referred to the revenue-sharing scheme as a “cake” to be shared: “We have to maintain the principle that we are ready to share the ‘cake,’ if there is a ‘cake,’” the email said, according to the new filings.

    Prosecutors said Tuesday that the executives sought to conceal the scheme by using personal, rather than company, emails to communicate about it. The executives also falsified documents to suggest that the company had terminated its relationship with an intermediary who was working with ISIS, according to the new filings.

    Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Tuesday that “corporate criminals” had “joined hands” with terrorists.

    “In its pursuit of profits, Lafarge and its top executives not only broke the law, they helped finance a violent reign of terror that ISIS and al-Nusrah imposed on the people of Syria,” Monaco said.

    The executives who participated in the scheme were located in France and countries in the Middle East, according to the DOJ’s investigation, and it did not involve employees of the company based in the United States. The conduct ended before the completion of Lafarge’s acquisition by Holcim, its current parent company, the court filings said.

    “Lafarge SA and LCS have accepted responsibility for the actions of the individual executives involved, whose behavior was in flagrant violation of Lafarge’s Code of Conduct. We deeply regret that this conduct occurred and have worked with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve this matter,” the company said in a statement.

    The company’s dealings with the terrorist group were the subject of an internal investigation several years ago. At the conclusion of that probe, the corporation said that employees of a legacy company were paying off intermediaries without regard to the identity of the groups involved in order to keep operations running and the plant safe as violence escalated in the region.

    “[T]he combination of the war zone chaos and the ‘can-do’ approach to maintain operations in these circumstances may have caused those involved to seriously misjudge the situation and to neglect to focus sufficiently on the legal and reputational implications of their conduct,” Lafarge Holcim, as the company is now known, said in a public statement in 2017.

    Magali Anderson, a top executive at Lafarge, pleaded guilty on behalf of the company.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Six US troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries following Iran-backed attacks in Syria | CNN Politics

    Six US troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries following Iran-backed attacks in Syria | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    Six US service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries as a result of attacks from Iran-backed groups in Syria last week.

    Four US troops at the coalition base near al Hasakah that was attacked on March 23 by a suspected Iranian drone, and two service members at Mission Support Site Green Village attacked on March 24, have been identified as having brain injuries in screening since the attacks, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Thursday.

    “As standard procedure, all personnel in the vicinity of a blast are screened for traumatic brain injuries,” he said. “So these additional injuries were identified during post-attack medical screenings.”

    Those screenings are ongoing, he added.

    One of the service members has been transferred to Baghdad for further treatment, a US defense official familiar with the matter told CNN, noting that Baghdad has more advanced treatment options and better specialists than remaining on base in Syria.

    The other five US service members who have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries are being treated at their facilities.

    The news comes a week after the suspected Iranian drone struck a facility housing US personnel, killing an American contractor and wounding five service members. The US responded with precision air strikes on facilities associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which Ryder said Thursday killed eight militants.

    The US service members who were wounded in the attacks last week, Ryder said, “all are in stable condition.”

    Of the five injured in the original attack on March 23, one other service member is receiving treatment in Germany, while two others and a contractor are being treated in Iraq, and two have returned to duty. The service member who was injured in attacks on March 24 is also receiving medical care and is in stable condition, Ryder said.

    In 2020, more than 100 service members were diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injuries after an Iranian missile attack on the al Asad military base in Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said at the time that symptoms take time to manifest.

    “[I]t’s not an immediate thing necessarily – some cases it is, some cases it’s not,” he said. “So we continue to screen.”

    Mild traumatic brain injuries, or concussion, is one of the most common forms of TBI among service members. But TBIs can also be debilitating; veterans described symptoms of dizziness, confusion, headaches, and irritability after sustaining TBIs, as well as changes in personality and balance issues.

    On Thursday, Ryder reiterated US officials’ remarks last week that the US “will take all necessary measures to defend our troops and our interests overseas.”

    “We do not seek conflict with Iran,” he said, “but we will always protect our people.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Blinken says US is ‘engaged with Syria’ in efforts to free missing journalist Austin Tice | CNN Politics

    Blinken says US is ‘engaged with Syria’ in efforts to free missing journalist Austin Tice | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    The United States is “engaged with Syria, engaged with third countries” to try to bring detained journalist Austin Tice home, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.

    “We are extensively engaged with regard to Austin, engaged with Syria, engaged with third countries, seeking to find a way to get him home. And we’re not going to relent until we do,” Blinken said in remarks at a Washington Post event on World Press Freedom Day.

    Tice was taken hostage in Syria in 2012. President Joe Biden declared last year that the US government knows “with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime” and called on Damascus to cooperate on efforts to release him.

    The government of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has not publicly acknowledged they are detaining Tice. The US does not have diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime and has voiced opposition to rapprochement with Assad.

    Blinken did not provide details about the engagements to bring Tice home. White House and State Department officials would not confirm a report from the Wall Street Journal that US officials had held talks with Syrian officials in Oman.

    “We cannot confirm any specific meetings past or present. As you know in general meetings and negotiations to secure the release of wrongfully detained Americans, that is incredibly sensitive,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a White House briefing. “We want to be really, really careful and mindful and don’t want to confirm any specific conversation from the past or in the present.”

    CNN reported last August that the Biden administration had direct engagements with the Syrian government in an effort to secure Tice’s release. In 2020 under the Trump administration, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens secretly traveled to Damascus and met with Assad regime officials.

    Austin Tice’s mother Debra Tice told CNN Monday that she thinks that the administration is committed to bringing her son home but “they stumble over what needs to be done.” She said she had no doubt that her son would walk free.

    Biden paid tribute to Austin Tice and other wrongfully detained Americans, including Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan in Russia, in remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.

    A number of family members of wrongfully detained Americans – many of whom have joined forces in an organization called the “Bring Our Families Home” campaign – as well as those who had been freed from detention gathered in Washington, DC, this week to seek a meeting with the president and call on the US government to do more to secure the release of their loved ones.

    “Although our loved ones are wrongfully detained and held hostage abroad, including China, including Russia, including Iran, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, our voices are stronger together,” said Harrison Li, the son of Kai Li, who is detained in China.

    “Although each case has its own idiosyncrasies, we all need the same things: for President Biden to meet with us, and to use all tools to bring them home,” he said.

    “We have asked for a meeting with the president for so long now that I frankly don’t know how else to ask or what else to say,” Hannah Sharghi, whose father Emad Shargi is detained in Iran, said at a news conference Wednesday.

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  • Exclusive: Senior US general ordered Twitter announcement of drone strike on al Qaeda leader that may have instead killed civilian | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Senior US general ordered Twitter announcement of drone strike on al Qaeda leader that may have instead killed civilian | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The senior general in charge of US forces in the Middle East ordered that his command announce on Twitter that a senior al Qaeda leader had been targeted by an American drone strike in Syria earlier this month – despite not yet having confirmation of who was actually killed in the strike, according to multiple defense officials.

    Nearly three weeks later, US Central Command still does not know whether a civilian died instead, officials said. CENTCOM did not open a review of the incident, officially known as a civilian-casualty credibility assessment report, until May 15 – twelve days after the strike. That review is ongoing.

    One defense official with direct knowledge of the situation told CNN that some of CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla’s subordinates urged him to hold off on the tweet until there was more clarity on who was actually killed.

    Two other officials denied that, and said they were not aware of any staffers voicing consternation or disagreement with the announcement.

    Either way, the statement ultimately posted to Twitter from the official CENTCOM Twitter account did not identify the supposed senior al Qaeda leader, raising more questions about what had occurred.

    “At 11:42 am local Syrian time on 3 May, US Central Command Forces conducted a unilateral strike in Northwest Syria targeting a senior Al Qaeda leader,” the tweet read. “We will provide more information as operational details become available.”

    The tweet has not been taken down and CENTCOM has not tweeted about the strike again.

    The episode raises questions about how thoroughly CENTCOM has implemented the military’s civilian harm mitigation policy – a process for preventing, mitigating and responding to civilian casualties caused by US military operations.

    The policy was developed in 2022 after a botched US drone strike in Kabul killed 10 civilians in August 2021.

    Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is “absolutely” confident in the Defense Department’s civilian harm mitigation efforts.

    “In terms of CENTCOM’s strike, as you know, they conducted that strike on the third of May. They are investigating the allegations of civilian casualties,” Ryder said at a Pentagon news briefing. “So, you know, I think our record speaks for itself in terms of how seriously we take these. Very few countries around the world do that. The secretary has complete confidence that we will continue to abide by the policies that we put into place.”

    CENTCOM acknowledged last week following a Washington Post report questioning the strike that the operation may have resulted in a civilian casualty and said in a statement that it was “investigating” the incident. The civilian casualty review was not launched until a week after the Post began presenting information to CENTCOM suggesting that the strike had killed a civilian.

    CENTCOM still has not opened a formal investigation into the strike, known as a 15-6 investigation, defense officials told CNN. The officials said the civilian casualty review first needs to determine that a noncombatant was indeed killed in the strike. Then, a commander needs to decide that there are other unanswered questions remaining about the operation that require a more thorough investigation. A 15-6 investigation was launched less than a week after the errant Kabul strike.

    Defense officials told CNN that in the immediate aftermath of the strike, Kurilla and his staff had high confidence that they had killed the senior al-Qaeda leader, though they declined to say why they were so convinced. But they also knew it would likely take a few days to confirm the person’s identity definitively. The US has no military footprint in northwest Syria, an area still recovering from the effects of a devastating earthquake.

    But as the days passed, CENTCOM still could not determine the identity of who they had killed. Some defense officials considered that a red flag, they told CNN.

    By May 8, CENTCOM still had not confirmed the person’s identity, and began receiving information from the Washington Post that raised questions about whether a civilian had been killed, defense officials said. The Post’s information led CENTCOM to open a review into the strike, and whether it had killed a civilian, on May 15.

    There is still some disagreement within the administration about the identity of the person killed, defense officials told CNN. Some intelligence officials continue to believe that the target of the strike was a member of al-Qaeda, even if he wasn’t a senior leader. But there is a growing belief inside the Pentagon that the man – identified by his family as Loutfi Hassan Mesto, a 56-year-old father of ten – was a farmer with no ties to terrorism.

    Mesto’s family told CNN that he had been out grazing his sheep when he was killed. Loutfi never left his village during the Syrian uprisings and did not support any political faction, his brother said.

    Mohamed Sajee, a distant relative living in Qurqaniya, also told CNN that Loutfi was never known to be in favor or against the Syrian regime.

    “It’s impossible that he was with al Qaeda, he doesn’t even have a beard,” he said.

    The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, told CNN they arrived on the scene of the strike after being contacted on their local emergency number.

    “The team noticed only one crater caused by the missile, which was next to the man’s body,” the White Helmets said, also confirming that the man had been grazing his sheep.

    “When the team arrived, his wife, neighbors, and other people were at the location,” the group added.

    The White Helmets tweeted on May 3 that they had recovered the body of Mesto, who they described as “a civilian aged 60” who was killed in a missile strike while grazing sheep. CENTCOM was aware of the White Helmets’ tweet, officials said, but the group’s information was not considered solid enough yet to open a review.

    The May 3 incident bears a stunning similarity to another CENTCOM operation: a US drone strike in Kabul during the closing days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which killed 10 Afghan civilians, including 7 children. The Pentagon initially claimed it had eliminated an ISIS-K threat and defended the operation for weeks, with Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley going as far as to call it a “righteous” strike in a Pentagon briefing two days later.

    A suicide bombing at Kabul’s international airport three days earlier, which killed 13 US service members, had added pressure on CENTCOM to act against any potential threats, and officials believed at the time that another attack was imminent.

    Austin ultimately decided no one would be punished over the botched operation, even as he instructed Central Command and Special Operations Command to improve policies and procedures to prevent civilian harm more effectively.

    Austin committed to adjusting Defense Department policies to better protect civilians, even establishing a civilian protection center of excellence in 2022.

    “Leaders in this department should be held to account for high standards of conduct and leadership,” Austin said at the time.

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  • Russian aircraft harass US drones over Syria for third time this week | CNN Politics

    Russian aircraft harass US drones over Syria for third time this week | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    Russian aircraft once again harassed US MQ-9 Reaper drones over Syria Friday, the Air Force said, in a sign of increasing friction between the two countries in Middle East airspace.

    The incident marked the third time this week that US drones over Syria were intercepted by Russian aircraft.

    “Earlier today three MQ-9 drones were once again harassed by Russian fighter aircraft while flying over Syria,” commander of US Air Forces Central Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich said in a news release. “During the almost two hour encounter, Russian aircraft flew 18 unprofessional close passes that caused the MQ-9s to react to avoid unsafe situations.”

    “We continue to encourage Russia to return to the established norms of a professional Air Force so we can all return our focus to ensuring the enduring defeat of ISIS,” Grynkewich added.

    On Thursday, Russian fighter jets harassed a US MQ-9 Reaper drone that was conducting a mission against ISIS targets in northwest Syria. One of the Russian jets dropped flares in front of US drone in an apparent attempt to hit the drone, forcing it to take evasive maneuvers, the Air Force previously said.

    And earlier in the week, three Russian jets dropped parachute flares in front of three US drones, forcing the drones to take evasive maneuvers. One Russian jet also lit its afterburner in front of a US drone, limiting the drone operator’s ability to safely operate the aircraft.

    Russia is operating in Syria in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the US maintains its presence as part of the anti-ISIS coalition.

    While the two countries have used a deconfliction line in Syria over the last several years to avoid unintentional mistakes or encounters that can inadvertently lead to escalation, Russian military actions have increasingly violated the deconfliction protocols, including flying too close to US military bases in Syria.

    But the US wasn’t the only target of harassment from the Russian military this week. On Thursday, a Russian SU-35 fighter jet conducted a “non-professional interaction” with two French Rafale fighter jets that were flying a mission near the Iraq-Syria border, according to the official Twitter account of the French Armed Forces.

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