Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

The United States is considering measures it could take in response to Iran’s shipment of fuel to crisis-stricken Venezuela, a senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration told Reuters on Thursday. – Reuters 

In its newly released Global Maritime Advisory (GMA), the U.S. government has advised the world’s shipping lines to be vigilant about “Iran’s, North Korea’s and Syria’s deceptions”. – Radio Farda 

China rejected on Thursday a planned push by the United States to extend a United Nations arms embargo on Iran and, if that fails, Washington’s assertion that it could trigger a return of all sanctions on Tehran at the U.N. Security Council. – Reuters 

A petition calling for a ban on overflights by foreign airlines in Iran’s airspace launched by families of victims who perished when a Ukrainian airliner was shot down over Tehran in January has sparked huge controversy among Iranian social media users. – Radio Farda 

Iran’s elected government under President Hassan Rouhani is embroiled in an internal power struggle against hardline factions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for control of the country’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. – Business Insider 

The Iranian parliament has disclosed in a report that 95 percent of smuggling into the country is done through legal ports of entry and procedures, using 31 different techniques. […]The report explicitly referred to three IRGC-controlled wharves in Chabahar, Khor Zangi, and Hormozgan, and several other piers run by the security forces. – Radio Farda 

Iran is taking advantage of a stock market boom to boost state revenues by selling stakes in state companies, but risks political repercussions if those buying shares get burned. – Reuters 

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) has proposed a “coronavirus peace plan” between the United States and Iran to prevent instability during the global pandemic. – Radio Farda 

International media-freedom watchdogs are urging Iran to stop jailing members of the press arbitrarily, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, after a local journalist started serving an 18-month prison sentence in Tehran’s Evin prison. – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty 

But in recent weeks, open-source intelligence gleaned from Persian- and Arabic-language sources, as well as commercially available location data from mobile devices, suggests that Iranian military activity did not drop off as severely as civilian activity, according to data analytics company Babel Street. Both types of activity picked back up in May, and Iran’s support for offensive cyber operations and proxy forces in Yemen and Iraq didn’t show any signs of waning at all. – Defense One 

Amnesty International has called on the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran to determine the status of four prisoners sentenced to death who have been transferred from prison to unknown locations. – Radio Farda 

Iran on Thursday dismissed “foolish” claims by the U.S. that it can reimpose all United Nations sanctions if an arms embargo on Tehran is not extended. – Washington Times

Syria

For nine years, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has waged a brutal civil war against his enemies and allowed his friends to profit from it. Now, he is squeezing those same allies to solidify power and ensure the economy stays afloat as the costs of rebuilding from the conflict pile up. – Wall Street Journal 

A U.S. State Department official, who joined Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his lightning visit to Jerusalem Wednesday, said that it seems that Israel has been recently intensifying its airstrikes in Syria. – Haaretz 

Over the past seven years – the first attack attributed to Israel took place in April 2013 – Syrian anti-aircraft systems have launched a minimum of about 700 missiles at IAF warplanes. – Haaretz

Seth J. Frantzman writes: But the reality as it plays out in eastern Syria shows that even during a global pandemic, authoritarian regimes always come first, even if they can’t provide for their own people or don’t control most of their country. For similar reasons, people in Libya, Yemen and parts of Somalia receive no support during the pandemic. – Jerusalem Post

Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed the swearing in of his new unity government until at least Sunday because of a last-minute dispute within his Likud party over the allotment of ministries, extending political uncertainty in the country. – Wall Street Journal 

The government to be sworn in Sunday by Israel’s parliament will be the fifth under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but one that could be unlike any he has led before. – Washington Post

It is a refrain we have heard over and over again from the Trump administration: Annexation is Israel’s decision. US Secretary of State Pompeo said it last month and he reiterated it on his visit to Israel this week. Senior State Department officials repeated it in their briefing on the way back from Israel. – Jerusalem Post

More than 50,000 Palestinians downloaded an app that gives Israel access to files and data from their cell phones. Contrary to what Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activity in the Territories says, employers were required to have Palestinian laborers use the app. – Haaretz

A Palestinian teenager was shot dead on Thursday by Israeli military forces in the West Bank after a suspected car-ramming attack that injured an Israeli soldier. – Haaretz

In his May 7, 2020 column in the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, political analyst Bassem Barhoum lashed out at U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. The column, titled “Friedman Is a War Criminal,” was published in response to an interview Friedman gave to the Israeli daily Israel Hayom, in which he stated that the U.S. is willing to recognize an Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. – Middle East Media Research Institute 

The European Parliament on Thursday passed a resolution condemning the Palestinian Authority for continuing to include hate speech and violent material in school textbooks. – Times of Israel

European Union foreign ministers were set to meet Friday to consider potential measures against Israel over its plan to annex parts of the West Bank. – Times of Israel

Ghaith al-Omari and Katherine Bauer write: For now, the PA is considering ideas to continue making the prisoner payments without exposing its banking sector. […]Ultimately, a political understanding of some sort between the PA and Israel is the only way to resolve this issue. Failure to take that path will only add to local tensions and increase volatility ahead of what may be an unsettled summer. – Washington Institute

Saudi Arabia

Twin calamities — the coronavirus outbreak and plummeting oil prices — have saddled Saudi Arabia with its worst financial crisis in decades. It has spread unaccustomed pain across the kingdom, including among the private-sector workers and business owners who are central to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitions to steer the economy away from dependence on oil. – Washington Post

American firm Oshkosh Defense and Saudi Arabia’s Al Tadrea Manufacturing Company have established a joint venture to manufacture armed vehicles in the kingdom. The two companies formed Oshkosh Al-Tadrea Manufacturing, creating “the largest partnership in the history of Saudi armored vehicles,” according to a message on Al Tadrea’s official Twitter account. – Defense News

Saudi writer Abdulhamed al-Ghobain gave an interview with BBC Arabic TV on May 10 in which he states that the Saudi public is no longer interested in the Palestinian cause or Arab interests, according to MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) – Jerusalem Post 

Zvi Bar’el writes: Over 20 years ago, a new generation of rulers, like the king of Jordan, the king of Morocco and the president of Syria fueled hopes that these young leaders, all in their thirties then, would institute democratic regimes (or at least regimes that were more open and transparent), that they would adopt policies to protect human rights and carry out major economic reforms. Now the next generation of leaders that includes 39-year-old Qatari ruler Tamim bin Hamad and 34-year-old Prince Mohammed is showing yet again that political tradition is stronger than any new spirit. – Haaretz

Libya

A team of Western mercenaries linked with two Dubai-based companies was briefly deployed to Libya to assist Russian-backed strongman Khalifa Haftar in his offensive to capture Tripoli, according to a confidential UN report, underscoring how the country’s proxy war has become a magnet for hired guns. – Bloomberg

Bombs, bullets, the constant threat of kidnap – and Covid-19. In Libya, a country torn apart by civil war, with a shattered health system, a man from Kent is one of the last international charity workers staying on to lead a team of 40 volunteers. – BBC

Turkish Petroleum (TPAO) has applied to Libya for an exploration permit in the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported on Thursday. – Reuters 

Alison Pargater writes: However, tribes remain an important component of Libyan society, and while some city dwellers may look upon them with disdain, associating them with backwardness and colonial plots to divide and rule, they have proved able not only to survive, but to adapt and modernize, too. Indeed, tribes still represent an important force in the country both socially and in the political and security realms, and they will continue to have a bearing on the evolution of the conflict and what comes after it. – War on the Rocks

Korean Peninsula

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has unexpectedly replaced both the head of the rogue state’s spy agency and his bodyguard in another apparent purge, according to South Korean media reports. – Fox News 

Kim Jong-un is currently facing a dilemma. After a few weeks of (over)attention due to his unexplained absence from public view, he is once again largely being overlooked. While the North Korean leader doesn’t mind being hated, he hates to be ignored. – The National Interest 

South Korea’s U.S. crude oil imports in April increased 32.1% from a year earlier, although overall crude imports fell as some refiners lowered run rates to cope with a slump in demand, customs data showed on Friday. […]With the sanctions in place, South Korea’s imports of Iranian crude oil, have remained zero since May 2019. – Reuters

Afghanistan

In the wake of a devastating attack in Kabul on Tuesday on a maternity unit that saw gunmen shoot women in labour, new mothers and their newborn babies, hopes of a peace process for Afghanistan appear to be slipping away as both the government and Taliban ramp up military operations. – The Guardian 

The FBI has offered a $1m reward for the arrest and prosecution for those responsible for the kidnapping of US citizen Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle, eight years ago in Afghanistan. – The Guardian 

The United States has assessed that Islamic State Khorasan conducted two attacks in Afghanistan this week, including on a hospital in Kabul in which two newborn babies were killed, U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad said on Thursday. – Reuters

Stefanie Glinski writes: But the complex array of militant groups now fighting in Afghanistan suggested that the latest violence could as easily have emanated from the Islamist State, which seeks to disrupt the U.S.-orchestrated peace process between the Afghan national government and the Taliban. […]The Taliban were quick to deny both incidents—but the Afghan government has blamed the militants for the hospital attack regardless. – Foreign Policy 

Michael Rubin writes: Pompeo promised that the U.S. would calibrate the withdrawal of its forces to Taliban compliance. […]This is not to bless “a forever war” but rather to preserve the meaning behind American diplomacy. U.S. and NATO authorities can then consider other strategies to compel the Taliban to stand down, first and foremost of which would be to hold the Taliban’s sponsors to account. – Washington Examiner

Asia

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract manufacturer of silicon chips, said Friday it would spend $12 billion to build a chip factory in Arizona, as U.S. concerns grow about dependence on Asia for the critical technology. – Wall Street Journal 

A watchdog report into the policing of protests during the months of unrest that gripped the city last year has found officers had a duty to use force in response to increasing violence. – Wall Street Journal

Taiwan has won praise for its effective response and donations of medical equipment, including millions of face masks — the fruits of a campaign to combine health diplomacy and relief with an effort to bolster Taiwan’s international image. – Washington Post

A proposed “Indo-Pacific Deterrence Initiative,” a multibillion-dollar program to strengthen the U.S. presence in the Pacific in the face of a growing threat from China, cannot be done alone, say Heritage Foundation analysts. – Washington Examiner

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG-85) transited the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, a week before Taiwan’s anti-China reunification president is inaugurated for a second term. – USNI News 

Accusations of police brutality must not be used as “a weapon of political protest”, Hong Kong’s police watchdog said in a report on Friday, adding that the Chinese-ruled city appeared to be getting dragged into an “era of terrorism”. – Reuters 

Henry Olsen writes: Chinese emperors used to force envoys from neighboring states to recognize their total superiority by use of the kowtow — abjectly prostrating oneself on the floor before the emperor and his officials. It also forced those nations to acknowledge China as “the Middle Kingdom,” i.e., the center of the world. Communist China’s actions to suppress international criticism is just the first step toward a resumption of that despotic ritual. The United States and the West need to stand proudly on their feet and resist. – Washington Post

Patrick M. Cronin writes: While Asian nations have been ramping up cyber defense and offense capabilities over the past decade or more, the pandemic inflamed them like an autoimmune disorder under stress.  The China-US competition over narratives and data is likely to exacerbate entrenched regional disputes over territory, as well as US-China tensions over high technology and trade. – The National Interest 

Tony Walker writes: More than half a century later, another Australian prime minister has fumbled his way into a contentious international dispute. The issue is to what extent China should be held responsible for its mismanagement of the early stages of the pandemic. This is an open question, which an independent international panel should investigate. China should not be let off the hook. – The Conversation 

Europe

It would be “unacceptable” for French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi to give the United States first access to a potential coronavirus vaccine, French government officials said Thursday. – Washington Post

French pharmaceutical group Sanofi promised Thursday that it would make its COVID-19 vaccine, when ready, available in all countries, hours after the company’s CEO said the United States will get first access. – Associated Press

Spain’s government said Thursday it will extend the deadline for descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from the country more than 500 years ago, who have launched the process of acquiring Spanish citizenship but couldn’t complete it due to the pandemic. – Associated Press

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told lawmakers on Wednesday that she has seen “hard evidence” pointing to Russia being responsible for hacking attempts targeting her emails and those of the nation’s lawmakers. – The Hill 

A leading Jewish human rights group has called on Bosnia’s authorities to ban a memorial Mass for Croatian pro-Nazis killed at the end of World War II. – Associated Press

Slowed by the coronavirus pandemic and whipped up by a U.K.-imposed deadline, talks between the European Union and Britain on their future relationship in the wake of Brexit are struggling to make significant progress. – Associated Press

Kosovo declared independence in 2008, and Serbia does not recognize it as a separate state. Tensions between the two remain high. But efforts to identify remains from both sides of the brutal war have gone on in both Serbia and Kosovo to determine if missing individuals can be declared dead and the remains repatriated to the respective country. – Associated Press

Europe’s strongmen leaders want to use the coronavirus pandemic to tighten their grip while touting their prowess in overcoming crises, but their authority risks being badly undermined if the outbreak is mishandled. – Agence France-Presse

European Parliament lawmakers demanded Thursday that European Union leaders punish Hungary’s government for using the COVID-19 pandemic to grab power through a controversial emergency law. – NPR

George Weigel writes: Students of the Cold War’s dark arts know that Communist intelligence services deeply penetrated the Vatican in the 1970s. Yet few know that Pope John Paul II, whose centenary will be marked on May 18, had his own secret agent in the Soviet Union during the 1980s. That relationship led to a remarkable personal encounter that helps explain what made the pope the man he was. – Wall Street Journal

Christina Pushaw writes: Saakashvili’s turbulent history in Ukraine gives Zelensky the benefit of hindsight. The president knows Saakashvili will not allow himself to be used in a facade of half-hearted reform attempts. On the contrary, Zelensky’s decision has reaffirmed his commitment to real change. In appointing Saakashvili, Zelensky is seizing a critical moment to push forward more boldly than ever on the reform agenda. – The National Interest

The Americas

Since the coronavirus struck Mexico, a plethora of videos and photographs uploaded to social media have shown what appear to be cartel operatives in about a dozen states handing out food packages marked with the logos of the different criminal groups to lines of Mexicans. In some cases the videos show the food being distributed by heavily armed men, driving in military-style trucks with cartel markings. – Wall Street Journal 

The head of the World Trade Organization said he would leave his post in August, a year earlier than scheduled, adding pressure on the body as it faces fundamental challenges including a slumping world economy and deep rifts among its members. – Wall Street Journal 

The World Health Organization’s director-general has faced many challenges during the coronavirus pandemic: racial slurs, death threats, social media caricatures — he was once depicted as a ventriloquist’s dummy in the hands of Chinese President Xi Jinping — and U.S. funding cuts. – Associated Press

The FBI is probing several Mexican and European companies allegedly involved in trading Venezuelan oil as it gathers information for a U.S. Treasury Department inquiry into possible sanctions busting, according to four people familiar with the matter. – Fox News 

A South Carolina middle school teacher was placed on leave after a social media post accused him of being a Nazi who helped make travel arrangements for white supremacists attending a 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that ended in violence. – Associated Press

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged Wednesday to begin reopening Mexico’s economy next week — under pressure at home and from U.S. officials — even as the country saw its largest one-day jump in coronavirus cases, hospitals are reeling, and testing remains inadequate. – Associated Press

John Yoo and Robert Delahunty write: China’s capture of the WHO, and the WHO’s unfortunate turn from public health to crass politics, should prompt the U.S. and its allies to build a new international organization. […]China’s desire to overturn the rules of the U.S.-led global order will require the United States and its allies to construct new international institutions for a different strategic environment. The first casualty of China’s rise may well be the WHO. – Newsweek  

Cybersecurity

So, on Wednesday night, Cundle filed a class-action lawsuit in San Jose, where Zoom is based, on behalf of the church, as well as other people affected by Zoombombing. – Washington Examiner

Greg Touhill writes: We need to better integrate the skills and experiences of our reserve and Guard workforce into our cyber teams, rather than as an independent adjunct to them. We also should deliberately consider broadening the composition of our teams to foster diversity of thought by actively seeking and encouraging contrarian views. – Fifth Domain 

Meagan Metzger writes: There is no question that working with the right emerging tech companies is imperative for the DoD and other government agencies. But at a moment in history when time is particularly of the essence, there is no room for trial and error when it comes to identifying which tech companies can meet the government’s specific needs. – Defense News 

Shane Tews writes: The economic benefits of 5G wireless and its ability to power a new generation of technologies have received much fanfare. But for the planned 5G buildout in the US to reach its potential, open radio access networks (O-RAN), the creation of virtualized networks using software-defined networking, and cloud computing will be key. – American Enterprise Institute  

Alyza Sebenius writes: Despite years of added familiarity, social media giants have found no magic bullet to fight disinformation, or “fake news,” since the 2016 U.S. elections. […]Even more alarming, perhaps, the appeal of such tactics appears to be growing among elements of both major parties. – Bloomberg

Trump Administration

Sen. Richard Burr will temporarily step down as the chairman of the high-profile Senate Intelligence Committee after FBI agents seized his cellphone in their investigation of stock trades he made shortly before the coronavirus roiled markets. – Wall Street Journal 

President Barack Obama’s former spy chief acknowledged that he never saw evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. – Washington Examiner

Jennifer Santos, the U.S. Defense Department’s primary liaison to the defense industry and a key player in the department’s COVID-19 response, is departing as head of industrial policy to take a new role with the Navy, the Pentagon has confirmed to Defense News. – Defense News