Fdd's overnight brief

Afghanistan

The U.S. military has not located a suspected Islamic State safe house in Kabul, Afghanistan, that officials initially said led to an American drone strike on Aug. 29 that mistakenly killed 10 civilians, including seven children, according to two senior military officials. – New York Times 

Last month, the family of Mawlavi Ezzatullah, a member of Afghanistan’s Hizb-e Islami party, received a WhatsApp message from his phone: “We have slaughtered your Mawlavi Ezzat, come and collect his body.” Ezzatullah’s killing, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, was one of a steady stream of assassinations and bombings that have undermined Taliban claims that they have brought greater security to Afghanistan after 40 years of war. – Reuters 

The Taliban are carrying out background checks within their ranks as they look to identify and capture infiltrators from rival Islamic State, which has carried out several deadly attacks across Afghanistan since the militant group took power in August. – Bloomberg 

The United States is worried about an uptick in attacks by Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan and remains deeply concerned about al Qaeda’s ongoing presence there, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West said on Monday. – Reuters 

Editorial: This is the result of the Air Force’s investigation last week into the drone strike that President Joe Biden authorized. The strike, one of several measures taken to distract the public from the completely incompetent withdrawal of U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan, turned out to target an innocent aid worker and nine others with no apparent terrorist ties, including multiple children. […]This time, innocents and children were actually murdered in what was supposed to be a careful and well-calculated retaliatory strike. As usual with Biden, it appears that no one will be held accountable at all, not even a little bit. – Washington Examiner 

Iraq

A drone attack that targeted the Iraqi prime minister on Sunday was carried out by at least one Iran-backed militia, Iraqi security officials and militia sources said, weeks after pro-Iran groups were routed in elections they say were rigged. – Reuters 

David Ignatius writes: Iran and its militia allies made a predictable attempt to suggest that the United States was somehow to blame for the confrontation and attempted murder. […]But this anti-American spin isn’t likely to gain traction, even among conspiracy-minded Iraqis. And it’s easily rebutted because the drones were recovered. If Kadhimi can stay alive, he has a better chance than a week ago of remaining in power and mobilizing the kind of reforms that Iraq desperately needs. – Washington Post  

Jonathan Spyer writes: The attempted assassination of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi at his Baghdad home Sunday represents a grave escalation in that strife-torn country. […]What’s happening in Iraq is part of a larger pattern of Iranian assertiveness in the region. The attack on the U.S. base in Tanf on Oct. 20, the continuing intimidation of Judge Tarek Bitar in Lebanon, and the killings of Iranian oppositionists in northern Iraq are all part of the same process of muscle flexing. The attempt to murder the elected Iraqi prime minister sharply raises the stakes. – Wall Street Journal 

Gulf States

Kuwait’s government on Monday submitted its resignation to the ruling emir, a move which along with an amnesty pardoning political dissidents could help end a standoff with opposition lawmakers that has hindered fiscal reform. – Reuters 

John C. Hulsman writes: Out of the shambles of Afghanistan, it is imperative that America quickly reassemble working regional policy for the Middle East, the graveyard of a generation’s worth of U.S. presidencies. […]As the U.S. looks at Middle East regional policy anew, through the more grown-up realist prism of viewing nations in a less all-or-nothing manner, it will be important to see that the U.S.-Qatari relationship already has served the United States — and as we seek to more adroitly defend our interests and manage conflict in one of the world’s most challenging regions, we surely will need to make use of Qatar’s good offices in the future.  – The Hill 

Simon Henderson writes: It looks like the future is to head back in history to yet another rerun of an OPEC crisis. Saudi Arabia and others are in an arm-twisting competition with us and other industrialized countries about the price of oil. The cartel, now known as OPEC+ because of the loose addition of Russia, Kazakhstan and a few others, rather likes prices as they are — more than $80 per barrel, with $100 in its sights. They are only increasing production marginally so as not to weaken the price, when most of us here want more oil and we want it cheaper. – The Hill 

China

China appears to have built models with the dimensions of a U.S. aircraft carrier and other warships in a western desert, illustrating how the People’s Liberation Army is focused on increasingly realistic training as tension with the U.S. rises over Taiwan. – Wall Street Journal 

The growing public and private role of the PLA in China’s vaccine diplomacy shows how the country’s soft-power outreach is developing a harder edge in the intensifying contest with the U.S. for global influence. Though military-to-military donations represent only a small portion of the roughly 1.4 billion doses China has sold and donated abroad, they are calibrated to help Beijing achieve strategic objectives it believes are necessary to compete with Washington, defense analysts and international-relations scholars say. – Wall Street Journal 

China’s armed forces are capable of blockading Taiwan’s key harbours and airports, the island’s defence ministry said on Tuesday, offering its latest assessment of what it describes as a “grave” military threat posed by its giant neighbour. – Reuters 

China on Monday labelled the charges against a Chinese citizen convicted in the United States of stealing trade secrets as “pure fabrication”. The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday that Xu Yanjun had been convicted by a federal jury of plotting to steal trade secrets from several U.S. aviation and aerospace companies. – Reuters 

The Biden administration looks to launch a global infrastructure financing program, intended to counter China’s Belt and Road initiative, with between five and 10 flagship projects announced as soon as January, a senior U.S. official said Monday. – Bloomberg 

China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has begun using the new electronic warfare (EW)-capable variant of the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) J-16 fighter aircraft in combat training. – Jane’s 360 

China continues to pursue both aviation and maritime capabilities to counter the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. – USNI News 

Editorial: China’s quest for a stronger nuclear force could be intended to deter the United States from coercion if a conventional or nonnuclear conflict breaks out in the South China Sea — say, over Taiwan. China’s leaders also no doubt are taking note of the intensifying cooperation among the United States, Japan, Australia and India. President Xi Jinping seems determined to demonstrate China’s great power status, and that includes a great-power-sized nuclear arsenal. – Washington Post 

Walter Russell Mead writes: But for now, the world must deal with a Chinese government simultaneously puffed up by triumphalism and haunted by fears of the future. In response, the U.S. and its allies must make resolute and robust preparations to deter Chinese aggression while conveying a genuine desire to work cooperatively with a China willing to uphold the basic framework of international order. – Wall Street Journal 

Michael Cunningham writes: Those in Washington wondering how long they will have to put up with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his hardline policies are about to get a hint that they probably won’t like. […]While China’s lack of concrete regulations around leadership succession and the full year between the plenum and the expected date of the party congress make it premature to jump to conclusions, Xi does not appear likely to retire anytime soon. U.S. officials and policymakers should get used to the idea of continuing to deal with him for the foreseeable future. – The Hill 

Russia

For the second time this year, Russia has massed thousands of troops and their armored equipment near its border with Ukraine, and again appears to be using its energy supplies as a weapon to stop any westward drift by Ukraine’s government. In response, the Biden administration dispatched William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a former ambassador to Russia, to Moscow to let the Kremlin know the U.S. is watching. Meantime, Chinese President Xi Jinping skipped the two most important international gatherings of the year—the Group of 20 summit meeting in Rome and the big international climate-change conference in Scotland – Wall Street Journal  

Russia is moving more tanks near the border with Ukraine, defense-intelligence firm Janes said, reinforcing western concerns about reports of a build-up of Russian military forces close to its neighbor. – Bloomberg 

On November 4, The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy Forum with Anna Borshchevskaya, Lester Grau, and Michael McFaul. Borshchevskaya is a senior fellow at the Institute and author of the new book Putin’s War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America’s Absence. Grau is the research director for the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and one of the Army’s leading experts on Russia. McFaul is director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and former U.S. ambassador to Russia. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks. – Washington Institute 

Africa

A new round of deadly attacks and forced conscription has begun against ethnic Tigrayans in an area of Ethiopia now controlled by Amhara regional authorities in collaboration with soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, people fleeing over the border to Sudan tell The Associated Press as the yearlong war intensifies. – Associated Press 

The U.S. State Department on Monday said Washington believes there is a small window of an opening to work with the African Union to make progress on peacefully resolving the conflict in Ethiopia as a special envoy returned to Addis Ababa. – Reuters 

Sudan’s military tightened its grip on state institutions and arrested hundreds of opponents, dampening hopes the African nation’s democratic transition can be put back on track after last month’s coup. Despite international outcry over the putsch, military chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has pressed ahead in overseeing a shakeup at government-owned media and the central bank. – Bloomberg 

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed angrily complained in a phone call with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that Ethiopians brought to Israel in recent months during an intensifying war in the African country have included officers involved in war crimes, a report said Monday. – Times of Israel 

Editorial: Any interim government would have, as a matter of urgency, to try to settle the issue that has eaten away at Ethiopia at least since the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. That is how to reconcile the claims for autonomy by different ethnic nationalities within the structure of an Ethiopian state. Abiy’s attempt to resolve that issue has gone irreparably wrong. The next must succeed if Ethiopia is to avoid the fate of Yugoslavia. – Financial Times 

Christopher Rhodes writes: But even if sympathies for the TPLF wane, this is unlikely to translate into support for Abiy. The Ethiopian leader has shown himself to be a weak and overly ambitious leader at best, and a duplicitous war criminal at worst. Abiy’s meteoric rise in Ethiopia and the effusive praise of the global community — to which I contributed at the time — created a hubris that has proved disastrous for Abiy and for Ethiopia as a whole. – Washington Post 

Cameron Hudson writes: As the crises in Sudan and Ethiopia begin to spiral out of control, U.S. officials must acknowledge where diplomacy has come up short and apply pressure to not only influence but also actively shape the peaceful and democratic outcomes the Biden administration has been calling for. Imposing a regional arms embargo, suspending debt financing, and issuing targeted sanctions on government-owned entities and military leaders in both countries would be an overdue start. – Foreign Policy 

Rida Lyammouri writes: Events in the Sahel, and Mali especially, are taking an uncertain and worrying turn. Mali witnessed two coups d’état in less than a year, while the West African Sahel went through its most violent year yet and there are no signs that the violence is slowing down. […]Strategic and political shifts in the Sahel have exacerbated the decade-old security threat presented by violent extremism, political instability, and domestic conflicts in the region. The transformation, according to Macron, of Operation Barkhane makes the future of counterterrorism in the Sahel uncertain. – Middle East Institute 

Cybersecurity

Law enforcement in the U.S. and Europe announced a series of actions aimed at a Russia-linked criminal group behind ransomware attacks that crippled critical infrastructure and businesses, aiming to strike a blow at a scourge the Biden administration has identified as a prime national-security threat. – Wall Street Journal 

European officials are seizing on disclosures from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen to accelerate and sharpen their plans to impose sweeping new restrictions on big technology companies. – Wall Street Journal 

Hacking software sold by the NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance firm, has been used to spy on journalists, opposition groups and rights activists. […]But the company’s biggest backer, the government of Israel, considers the software a crucial element of its foreign policy and is lobbying Washington to remove the company from the blacklist, two senior Israeli officials said Monday. – New York Times 

A suspected Ukrainian hacker has been arrested and charged in the United States in connection with a string of costly ransomware attacks, including one that snarled businesses around the globe on the Fourth of July weekend, U.S. officials said Monday. – Associated Press 

Representatives from EU countries have agreed that the European Commission will be the sole enforcer of new tech rules, with a limited role for national antitrust watchdogs instead of the wider powers sought for them, officials said on Monday. – Reuters 

Law enforcement agencies around the world have made a series of arrests in the past five days that together constitute one of the largest law enforcement crackdowns on suspected ransomware hackers to date. – NBC 

As part of a sweeping crackdown on ransomware on Monday, the Biden administration sanctioned a virtual cryptocurrency exchange called Chatex, accusing it of facilitating financial transactions for hackers. An analysis of Chatex’s known transactions indicates that more than half are “directly traced to illicit or high-risk activities such as darknet markets, high-risk exchanges and ransomware,” according to the U.S. Treasury Department statement. – Bloomberg 

Editorial: Cryptocurrency lobbyists have come to Washington to ask Congress for “guidance.” New laws, however, should not be permission to evade old ones that apply to banking and other traditional financial operations. Meanwhile, federal regulators already can guide the industry by letting it know they’re prepared to enforce the laws that currently exist. – Washington Post