Fdd's overnight brief

August 20, 2024

In The News

Israel

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing attempt in Tel Aviv, threatening to open a violent new chapter of the conflict as Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli leaders to press for a cease-fire. – Wall Street Journal

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Monday that Israel had accepted a Biden administration proposal to bridge some remaining differences with Hamas on a cease-fire deal, as he pushed what he called “probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity” to secure a truce and free the remaining hostages in Gaza. – New York Times

Hamas senior official Osama Hamdan criticized U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an updated proposal, saying it “raises many ambiguities” because it is “not what was presented to us nor what we agreed on.” – Reuters

Senior officials will convene for Gaza ceasefire negotiations in Cairo before week’s end, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday, adding that U.S. President Joe Biden was talking with regional leaders to finalize a deal. – Reuters

Israel retrieved the bodies of six hostages from the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza overnight, according to statements from the military and the prime minister’s office on Tuesday. – Reuters

Israel’s demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has long rejected, threatens to unravel cease-fire talks aimed at ending the 10-month-old war, freeing scores of hostages and preventing an even wider conflict. – Associated Press

Some 55 projectiles entered Israeli territory after alarms were triggered earlier Tuesday morning in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights, the IDF reported. – Jerusalem Post

IDF troops in the 603rd Battalion and the Yahalom Unit destroyed a 1.5-kilometer-long tunnel in which a compound was discovered containing weapons, explosives, and equipment for long-term stay, the IDF reported Monday – Jerusalem Post

As yet another round of cease-fire and hostage negotiations took place in Doha, Qatar over the weekend and was set to continue in Cairo despite a total rejection by Hamas, President Joe Biden said a deal is “still possible.” – Jewish Insider

Editorial: The alternative is to ratchet up the pressure on Hamas, something the Biden Administration hasn’t tried. Mr. Biden could do it by speeding arms deliveries to Israel or enforcing oil sanctions against Hamas’s funders in Iran. But instead the White House is going to try another last-and-best set of talks, except this time even more last and best than before. – Wall Street Journal

Marc Champion writes: This is a unique war. The extent to which Hamas spent years building tunnels to make the entire above-ground territory of Gaza into a field of fire and human shield for a subterranean army is without modern precedent […]I think the context Spencer has to offer on urban warfare deserves a hearing in the same way at the International Court of Justice, as the judges weigh all evidence of Israeli intent in Gaza before ruling on the genocide case South Africa has brought against the Jewish state.” – Bloomberg

Yosef Yair Collins writes: Sinwar, the terrorist who masterminded the October 7 massacre that saw some 1,200 Israelis murdered and some 250 abducted, has now taken the position of the head of the political wing of Hamas while simultaneously holding the position of top military leader of the group. This shows without a shadow of a doubt that the political and military leadership are complementary parts of this machine of destruction […]there is no moderate Hamas and no radical Hamas – there is only Hamas. It is not enough to theoretically declare Hamas as a terrorist organization. It must be fully treated as such. – Jerusalem Post

Yair Lapid writes: And of course, what starts in Israel never stays in Israel. If tolerance for terrorist retaliation becomes the new international norm, sooner or later it will affect everyone. If this narrative takes hold, it will impact any country attempting to fight terrorism. It’s time to put an end to it and take a clear moral stand: Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas cannot attack Israel (or New York, or the London Underground, or music clubs in Paris), and there can be no justification for it. If they do choose to attack, the West should stand behind Israel’s response, because it’s the moral thing to do and because a precedent set in the Middle East never stays in the Middle East. – Times of Israel

Anchal Vohra writes: Israelis are in a tight spot. They can perhaps weaken Hezbollah if they attack, but they cannot defeat it definitively. On the other hand, Hezbollah’s insistence to stay put on the Blue Line with missiles aimed at Israel is a constant source of tension and anxiety among the Israeli people. But Hezbollah has also measured its response—partly because it understands that Israel has much more fire power, but mainly because the Lebanese people do not want a war. It has said that the group doesn’t want a “total war” and that it would only invade northern Israel “in the context of any war imposed on Lebanon.” Even Hezbollah needs some legitimacy to operate in Lebanon, and staying in control of the country is the biggest prize for both Hezbollah and its patron Iran. – Foreign Policy

Iran

Iran projects power through a web of allied militias that it influences with money and weapons. But as the region sits on the brink of a wider conflict, the degree to which it can rely on its partners will be tested as never before. – Wall Street Journal

American intelligence agencies said on Monday that Iran was responsible for hacking into former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign and trying to breach the Biden-Harris campaign. – New York Times

As the US gears up for the 2024 presidential elections, Republicans are amplifying Iran concerns with GOP leaders saying Tehran may declare itself a nuclear weapons state this year. – Iran International

Jonathan Harounoff writes: The protest movement in Iran has since subsided, in part because of the regime’s brutal campaign of arrests and executions – and waning international support for the protesters – but the revolutionary spirit lives strong among Iranians as shown by the meager turnout in the last presidential election. Sounder US and Israeli foreign policies might focus on empowering and supporting the people of Iran as much as on precision strikes against key Islamic Republic assets and figures. – Jerusalem Post

Saeid Golkar writes: Instead, Pezeshkian may be destined to run into the same institutional entanglements and paralysis that rendered his predecessors unable to govern efficiently. The likely results seem clear: more popular resentment at home, an eventual return to mass protests, and little if any ability to effectively engage with the international community on major issues like the nuclear program or regional escalation. – Washington Institute

David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, Paul Tervo, and the Good ISIS Team write: Due to its violations of the JCPOA, including the termination of implementing the Additional Protocol, Iran has not reported amounts of uranium mined or milled for several years and the IAEA has not been able to verify or monitor the amount of uranium ore concentrate produced in Iran or obtained from any other source; and whether such uranium ore concentrate has been transferred to the conversion facility at Esfahan. – Institute for Science and International Security

Russia & Ukraine

Throughout the war, Russia has deployed aggressive measures to keep its own numbers strong in the face of so many deaths. It emptied prisons with the promise of early release to convicts, and froze criminal trials for defendants willing to serve. – Wall Street Journal

Ukrainian forces have struck three bridges in Russia’s Kursk region in recent days, delivering a blow to Russian efforts to retake the area and suggesting that Kyiv plans to hold the territory for the long-term. – Wall Street Journal

Ukraine’s air defences shot down three missiles and 25 drones fired by Russia in an overnight attack on Tuesday, the Ukrainian air force said. – Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday his country’s assault on Russia’s Kursk region showed that Kremlin threats of retaliation were a bluff, and he urged Kyiv’s allies to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons. – Reuters

Russia launched its fifth missile attack on Kyiv this month, Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday, with preliminary data showing air defence systems were again successful in repelling the strikes. – Reuters

Ukraine’s military said its troops were subjected to dozens of attacks by Russian forces on Monday around Toretsk and Pokrovsk, two settlements in eastern Ukraine where Moscow is gaining ground against embattled Ukrainian forces. – Reuters

Russian prosecutors said on Monday they had designated The Clooney Foundation for Justice, a U.S. non-profit group, as an “undesirable” organisation for carrying out work at “a Hollywood scale” to discredit Moscow. – Reuters

Civilians in Ukraine’s eastern strategic logistics hub of Pokrovsk have no more than two weeks to evacuate as Russian troops press towards it, while those in nearby Myrnohrad have only a few days to leave, officials said on Monday. – Reuters

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Monday that Moscow was not ready to hold peace talks with Ukraine for now given Kyiv’s attack on Russia’s Kursk region, but that Russia was not withdrawing its earlier peace proposals. – Reuters

Russian marines have captured a group of 19 Ukrainian soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region, the state RIA news agency reported on Monday, describing the Ukrainians as “saboteurs.” – Reuters

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ukraine on Friday to boost ties with Kyiv, weeks after a trip to Moscow in which he rebuked Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war with its neighbour. – Reuters

Russian leader Vladimir Putin held talks on Monday with his Azerbaijani counterpart as part of a two-day trip to secure Moscow’s under-pressure trade routes and shore up ties in the South Caucasus. – Associated Press

President Joe Biden and other Western leaders must accelerate the “delivery of supplies” for Ukraine’s soldiers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged. – Washington Examiner

Amy Knight writes: Russia has made only modest military progress after 2½ years of conflict, which has spread across Russia’s borders. It has suffered around 500,000 casualties and is draining its coffers. Ordinary Russians, fed a steady stream of propaganda about defending their country against the “evil” West, are unlikely to protest. But Mr. Putin’s support among elites, essential to his remaining in power, is less certain. He shouldn’t assume they will always back a war with no end in sight. – Wall Street Journal

Hezbollah

An Israeli strike on Monday evening targeted a Hezbollah arms depot in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, the Israeli military said. – Reuters

Pro-Hezbollah Lebanese commentator stirred up a virtual storm in Lebanon following a sharp attack against his Christian compatriots in Lebanon, where he claimed that the Christians’ role in Lebanon is over and alleged that American battleships are coming to the region to take them away. – Jerusalem Post

Security forces are investigating the possibility that Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are linked to Sunday’s attempted suicide bombing by a Palestinian man in Tel Aviv, Hebrew media reported Monday. – Times of Israel

Middle East & North Africa

Kuwait, perched on the Persian Gulf, is one of the richest countries in the world, with a $980 billion sovereign fund built on oil revenue. But little of that wealth is enjoyed by migrant workers like Mr. Kumar and his roommates, who often struggle with inadequate housing and low wages, and who have limited power to seek recourse. – New York Times

Egyptian officials and the U.S. ambassador inaugurated renovations of several monuments and buildings in Historic Cairo, including the Bimaristan al-Muayyad Sheikh, a hospital complex built in 1420 A.D. – Reuters

Germany’s Lufthansa Group extended its suspension of flights to Tel Aviv, Tehran, Beirut, Amman and Erbil again on Monday, with flights now affected up to and including August 26. – Reuters

One of Libya’s dueling authorities unilaterally fired the country’s powerful central bank governor in an abrupt move that is likely to inflame tensions in the divided North African country. – Associated Press

A former Saudi official on Monday alleged that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman forged his father’s signature on the royal decree that launched the kingdom’s yearslong, stalemated war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. – Associated Press

Police in Istanbul launched a large-scale investigation after an Israeli Arab man was killed and two other men were wounded in a shooting as they sat in a car, officials and media said Monday. – Associated Press

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have returned the United Nations Human Rights Office in Sanaa, which they had seized earlier this month, a UN spokesman said Monday. – Agence France-Presse

Manuel Langendorf writes: The Middle East is charting its own course in digital transformation, and European countries should engage with the region accordingly rather than anchoring their relationship solely on 20th-century migration and security concerns. Technology is central to EU-MENA relations, and it is time for Brussels to base its relationship with the Middle East on 21st-century principles. – Middle East Institute

Korean Peninsula

More than 200 South Korean and U.S. fighter jets are due to fly around the clock for five days this week in what would mark the largest number of sorties flown in training by the allies, South Korea’s air force said on Tuesday. – Reuters

A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea early on Tuesday crossing the militarized border in the eastern part of the Korean peninsula, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the South’s military. – Reuters

The U.S. State Department on Monday approved the sale of up to 36 AH-64E Apache helicopters, logistics and support to South Korea in a deal worth $3.5 billion. – Defense News

China

A protracted corporate struggle between an Australian mining company and Chinese investors has pulled back a curtain on the intensifying global conflict for critical minerals as the United States and its allies try to break Beijing’s control over an industry that will be central to the green revolution. – Washington Post

The U.S. State Department condemned “dangerous actions” by China on Monday against Philippine vessels in the South China Sea. – Reuters

China approved 11 nuclear reactors across five sites on Monday, a record amount of permits as the government leans even more heavily on atomic energy to support its push to cut emissions. – Bloomberg

Michael Beckley writes: Calls are rising for wealthy economies and creditor nations to collaborate to provide debt relief, market access and other ways to help fragile economies. Such steps will have only a limited impact unless China is confronted over its role in exacerbating these problems and failing to address them. Finding the collective international resolve needed to get China to change its self-serving ways will be difficult. The crucial first step is to recognize the scale of the problem. – New York Times

Jeffrey Ding writes: When some of the leading thinkers of the era declare that the AI revolution will be more significant than earlier industrial revolutions, it is easy to get caught up in their excitement. Many people in every generation wind up believing that their lives coincide with a uniquely important period in history. But the present moment might not be so unprecedented. Previous industrial revolutions suggest that real success in the age of AI will come to those countries that best position their populations and industries to embrace new technologies—not simply invent them. – Foreign Affairs

South Asia

Thousands of Indian junior doctors on Monday refused to end protests over the rape and murder of a fellow medic, disrupting hospital services nearly a week after they launched a nationwide action demanding a safer workplace and swift criminal probe. – Reuters

Bangladesh’s Summit Group plans to renegotiate preliminary deals to import renewable power from India after a recent rule change by New Delhi allowed generators that exclusively export their electricity to sell locally, the utility’s chairman said. – Reuters

A strike by India’s port workers could exacerbate the existing congestion issues at Asian and European ports, leading to further delayed shipments, which have a global impact on trade and commerce. – Reuters

India’s Supreme Court ordered on Tuesday the setting up of a national task force of doctors to make recommendations on safety at their workplace, days after the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor sparked nationwide protests. – Reuters

Pakistani security forces killed five militants in a remote northwestern area on Monday when they tried to sneak in from neighboring Afghanistan, the military said. – Associated Press

Asia

The Philippines reported its first case this year of mpox, previously known as monkeypox, on Monday, just days after the World Health Organization declared the disease a global health emergency. – New York Times

The U.S. and Philippine governments have reached a deal to create a new pathway to the United States for Afghan allies who assisted the American war effort, relying on temporarily relocating some of them to Southeast Asia as they await approval for U.S. visas and resettlement, U.S. and Philippine officials said. – Washington Post

The Philippines on Tuesday said China’s coast guard was not helping efforts to build confidence in the South China Sea, after accusing it of ramming and damaging its vessels in the latest in a succession of altercations. – Reuters

Taiwan showed off its missile firepower on Tuesday, launching a battery of surface-to-air missiles in front of reporters during a visit to a sensitive test site on a remote part of the island’s southeastern coast. – Reuters

Politicians in Thailand must reform the judiciary to prevent interventions that have the country “going around in circles”, a recently banned opposition figurehead said, after two big rulings that dissolved his party and dismissed a prime minister. – Reuters

Australia and Indonesia agreed a treaty-level defence cooperation agreement which allow Australian and Indonesian militaries to operate from each other’s countries, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday. – Reuters

The Philippines said a former local official embroiled in alleged money laundering through China-centric online casinos has left the country. – Bloomberg

This is the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a vast development project founded by a Chinese businessman named Zhao Wei. Outwardly it resembles a midsize Chinese city[…] Behind the glassy facades, however, more is going on. The GTSEZ operates as a self-governed enclave, and for the better part of a decade investigators have warned that it’s a hub for criminal activity of every description—a legal no-man’s land. – Bloomberg

Karishma Vaswani writes: The younger population won’t stop agitating for change, and have found new ways to survive. Take the Move Forward Party. Disbanded from politics, it has reemerged as the People’s Party, with a new head in place: 37-year-old IT expert Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut. He has ambitious plans, and wants to win enough seats to form a single-party government in the next elections in 2027 […]Still, changing the establishment takes time. Thailand’s conservative ruling classes should pay attention to what has happened in places like Bangladesh, where leaders don’t respond to voters’ concerns. It makes sense to listen to listen to your people. – Bloomberg

Europe

The disclosures that a team of Ukrainians blew up the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines while using Poland as a logistical base have sparked a dispute between Berlin and Warsaw, two U.S. allies backing Ukraine in the war. – Wall Street Journal

At least one person was killed and six others, including a British software mogul, were missing on Monday after a sailing yacht carrying 22 people sank during a violent storm off the coast of Sicily, Italian officials said. – New York Times

Belarus said on Monday it had sent aircraft, air defence forces and armoury to its border with Ukraine, a day after President Alexander Lukashenko said he had deployed nearly a third of his country’s armed forces to the region. – Reuters

Britain will use an emergency measure to detain suspected criminals in police station cells until it can find space for them in its overcrowded prisons after police arrested hundreds over widespread rioting this month. – Reuters

Belgian politician Bart De Wever, appointed by King Philippe to lead coalition talks following the country’s June election, has received an extension until Thursday from the king to form a government, the Royal Palace said in a statement on Monday. – Reuters

Britain’s support for Ukraine remains unwavering, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday, in response to comments by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who said London’s support was weakening. Zelenskiy said at the weekend that although Britain’s leadership had saved thousands of lives since the start of the war with Russia, support had recently “slowed down”. – Reuters

A German federal court will announce its verdict Tuesday on the appeal of a 99-year-old woman who was convicted of being an accessory to more than 10,000 murders for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis’ Stutthof concentration camp during World War II. – Associated Press

German officials on Monday rejected suggestions that national budget constraints could hurt weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Berlin is its biggest supplier after the United States. – Associated Press

Africa

Kenya’s government will have to bring back some tax measures that it scrapped after deadly protests in June, the finance minister said, raising the risk of further unrest. – Reuters

Emergent BioSolutions said on Monday it would donate 50,000 doses of its smallpox vaccine to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other impacted countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda to address the current mpox outbreak. – Reuters

Senegal has set up a commission of legal, tax, and energy sector experts to review its oil and gas contracts and work to rebalance them in the national interest, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said on national television on Monday. – Reuters

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) hopes to receive its first doses of an mpox vaccine by next week, following promises from the United States and Japan to help it fight its outbreak, the Congolese health minister said on Monday. – Reuters

The Americas

The Nicaraguan government on Monday canceled the legal status of 1,500 nonprofit organizations — many of them evangelical religious groups — in the authoritarian government’s continued effort to quash people and institutions that are not allied with the government. – New York Times

Federal judges voted on Monday night to go on strike across Mexico, protesting President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s proposed overhaul of the country’s judicial system. The judges will join thousands of other court employees who went on indefinite strike earlier in the day over the contentious policy changes. – New York Times

For the past five months, five top aides for the party of Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, have been living in an Argentine diplomatic residence where they sought asylum after the country’s attorney general announced warrants for their arrest. – New York Times

The first U.S.-funded flight repatriating migrants who crossed into Panama irregularly is scheduled for Tuesday, the Panamanian president’s office said on Monday. – Reuters

Police in Haiti’s capital tear-gassed hundreds of peaceful protesters Monday as they called on law enforcement to help them stop the gangs that have been violently seizing control of their neighborhoods. – Associated Press

Andrés Martínez-Fernández and Allison Engle write: The United States must recognize this aggressive shift in Beijing’s engagement in Latin America. Offering the region an alternative to Beijing’s economic engagement is still necessary. However, it is just as important to support regional governments struggling to stave off Beijing’s active coercion […]As Latin America wakes up to the realities of Chinese engagement, Washington has a unique opportunity to both unseat Beijing in the region and reestablish the United States as the region’s partner of choice. – National Interest

United States

Dozens of protesters broke through part of the perimeter security fence surrounding the Democratic National Convention on Monday, drawing riot police to the site, a Reuters Television witness said. – Reuters

Most students at Columbia University who faced disciplinary action, suspension or arrest for participating in pro-Palestinian protests opposing Israel’s war in Gaza and calling for an end to U.S. military support to its ally, will soon return to campus, information shared by the institute showed. – Reuters

Derek Scissors writes: If the country and candidates aren’t interested in US-China relations, fine. Immigration, inflation, and Israel are big issues, and that’s just one letter’s worth. But if we’re talking China, it should be about 2025 and beyond. There are major challenges for America in facing Xi Jinping’s regime. We need to learn how leaders will respond to those challenges, not recall what they thought in the 20th century. – American Enterprise Institute

Cybersecurity

Swiss engineering company Schlatter Industries, said on Tuesday that its computer network had been back up since Monday following a cyberattack nearly two weeks back. – Reuters

US firms have warned that proposed cyber regulations could grant the Hong Kong government unusual access to their computer systems, highlighting the latest challenge to Western tech giants in the city. – Bloomberg

City leaders in Columbus warned victims and witnesses of crimes to stay alert about potential threats after a ransomware gang published information stolen from the local prosecutors office on the dark web. – The Record

Researchers said they discovered eight vulnerabilities in a range of Microsoft applications for macOS, including Teams, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and Excel, that could allow an attacker to gain access to a user’s “microphone, camera, folders, screen recording, user input and more.” – The Record

A pro-Russian hacker group known as Vermin is using lures related to Ukraine’s offensive across the border to infect devices with malware, according to a new report from Kyiv’s cyber agency. – The Record

Editorial: Not all bots or disinformation actually work. OpenAI said the latest Iranian effort was probably a dud and did not reach many people. But a flood of new malign influence campaigns might be undetected and could sway unsuspecting voters. How to fight back? One way is for the platforms to exploit the power of AI against the disinformation tidal wave, using the technology to spot and expose the campaigns. Congress ought to fund and upgrade programs that warn citizens against getting duped. And everyone should remain alert for more strangers named Sue peddling propaganda from a guy named Vladimir. He’s for real. – Washington Post

Defense

The U.S. Department of State has approved the possible sale of Javelin missiles and related equipment to Australia for estimated cost of $100 million, the Pentagon said on Monday. – Reuters

The Missile Defense Agency expects to launch a new sensor designed to discriminate between complex ballistic missile targets by the end of the decade, according to agency director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins. – Defense News

A key test intended to demonstrate the Missile Defense Agency’s Long-Range Discrimination Radar’s capabilities against a live ballistic missile target has beens scheduled for 2025 after the original test was stopped a year ago. – Defense News

A former Air National Guardsman who fled to Russia amid criminal charges of possessing child pornography appears to now be serving in the Russian military as a drone operator — but he denies betraying the U.S., according to videos released Monday by Russia’s Ministry of Defence. – Military.com