Afghan officials say they are closely investigating pictures that show the new commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, on an official visit in Bamiyan Province in 2018. VOA’s Rahim Gul Sarwan reports from Kabul. 

The Islamic State group (IS) could be the major beneficiary of the conflict between the United States and Iran as tensions reach a new level between the two countries over the U.S. killing of Iran’s most powerful commander, Qassem Soleimani, experts charge.

The U.S.-led counter-IS coalition in Iraq and Syria said in a statement Sunday that it had temporarily stopped all of its attacks on IS and training of local forces because of “repeated rocket attacks” over the last two months by Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq. The move, which the coalition said was made to protect its personnel, followed reports that dozens of U.S. and allied forces left Iraq because of Iran’s threats of revenge.

Experts said the withdrawal of the forces could imperil the international fight against IS, allowing the group to reorganize in Iraq and Syria.

“Obviously, the U.S. operation and the recent escalation and the relationship between Iran and the United States is adversely affecting and has already adversely affected the campaign against ISIS or the remnants of ISIS because it has taken resources away from that fight,” said Sarhang Hamasaeed, the director of Middle East Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, using another acronym for IS.

Hamasaeed said that IS, which was defeated in Iraq in December 2017 and in Syria in March 2019, has resurged in recent months despite the help from the U.S.-led coalition to the Iraqi government and Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria. A U.S. exit because of the recent escalations with Iran will be exploited by IS and other extremist groups in the region, he warned.

“The Iraqi forces may not have stated it publicly in order not to get caught in the military and political sensitivities, but it is clear that Iraq still needs the resources of the United States and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS to continue the fight against the remnants of ISIS,” he told VOA.

The Iraqi parliament Sunday passed a resolution that asked for the removal of American troops and other foreign forces. The decision was in protest of the U.S. airstrike in Baghdad last Friday that also killed, along with Soleimani and several others, the Iraqi Shiite leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Act of war

Iran’s regime labeled the U.S. strike on Soleimani an act of war, vowing a “harsh revenge.” The regime Tuesday fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq.

WATCH: Qassem Soleimani: From Construction Worker to Architect of Iran’s Middle East Expansion

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Ahmet Yayla, a counterterrorism researcher and professor at DeSales University in Pennsylvania, told VOA that the recent escalation had forced the anti-IS coalition to shift its attention away from IS to counter possible Iranian attacks.

“ISIS is observing these developments and very much aware that two of its arch enemies are at [each other’s] throats. This is a morale boost for [IS] first. Also, they will carefully calculate their actions and the movements of the Iranian proxies and American forces in the region and will carry out operations while they are busy with each other,” Yayla said.

The diverged attention makes IS prisons guarded by Kurds in northeast Syria particularly vulnerable by giving the militant group an opportunity to carry out operations to free its members, according to Yayla.

“The Kurds are on high alert, too, as their ally and protector’s shift has changed, and they can very easily find themselves [in the crossfire] of the Iranians and ISIS,” he added.

The largest Shiite Muslim country in the world, Iran is an opponent of the Islamic State, which is a Sunni extremist group. The country, after the 2014 rise of IS in Iraq, supported Shiite militias and organized them into one group known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.

WATCH: A Look at Soleimani’s Axis of Resistance

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U.S. President Donald Trump in a statement Wednesday following Iran’s missile attacks called on Tehran to work with Washington against their common foe, IS.

“The destruction of ISIS is good for Iran, and we should work together on this and other shared priorities,” Trump said, while at the same time calling Soleimani “a ruthless terrorist” and defending the decision to kill him.

Iran role against IS

Iranian officials say Soleimani, through his Quds Force leadership, played a key role in the ultimate demise of IS, particularly in Iraq. Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif last week called Soleimani “the most effective force fighting Daesh [ISIS], al-Nusra, al-Qaida,” and other extremist groups.

However, according to Norman Roule, a retired CIA officer and a top Iran analyst, Tehran has played a minor role in the fight against IS despite claims by Iranian officials.

“Iran despite its rhetoric has actually been a rather modest element in the counter-ISIS fight with the exception of work in Iraq, which took place at the same time as heavy U.S. airstrikes and assistance. Iran’s activities in Syria have generally been aimed at sustaining the Bashar al-Assad regime. So to the extent to which the regime faced ISIS elements, Iran played a role,” Roule told VOA.

Al-Qaida-Iran

The former CIA official said Iran in the past has turned its eye from al-Qaida operations conducted from its territory despite U.S. condemnation.

“Iran has not necessarily supported al-Qaida, but they have tolerated al-Qaida operations, and indeed the al-Shura Council from al-Qaida was based in Iran for some time. And there have been public reports confirmed by the administration that al-Qaida operatives operated from within Iranian territory with the knowledge of Iranian officials,” he told VOA.

Mohammad Jawad Rahimi, a U.S.-based Afghanistan analyst, said the recent rise of tensions with the U.S. makes it more likely for Iran to continue to permit al-Qaida operations and, possibly, ease its pressure on IS.

“After Soleimani’s death, the Iranian regime publicly threatened to target the United States. In order to target the U.S. and its regional allies, the Iranian regime will increase its anti-American foreign operations not only through its Quds Force, but it will also reorganize or support other fighter groups including IS in the region, especially in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other countries. If the Iranian regime doesn’t support the IS openly, it will do it secretly because its number one goal is to target the U.S. and damage its interests in the region,” Rahimi told VOA.

The top U.S. general says Iran was intending “to kill” when it fired missiles at Iraq bases used by U.S. forces, contradicting the administration’s general belief that Iran deliberately avoided casualties.

“In my professional assessment, at al-Asad [Airbase] … the points of impact were close enough to personnel and equipment,” Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley said Wednesday. “Based on what I saw and what I know, they were intended to cause structural damage, destroy vehicles and aircraft, and to kill personnel.”

Milley said early warning systems and what he called “defensive techniques” were the reasons no U.S. or Iraqi troops were hurt.

The overall assessment by the Trump administration so far is that Iran deliberately avoided casualties because it wanted to avoid a more serious military confrontation with the United States.

Milley stressed that his belief about Iran’s true intent was his own assessment. He also said he thought it was “too early to tell” if Iran intended to strike again.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Iran fired 16 missiles — with 11 hitting al-Asad and one falling outside a second airbase in Irbil. Four others failed in midflight.

Most of the damage was to tents, parking lots and airbase taxiways. A U.S. helicopter was also damaged.

Late Wednesday, two rockets were fired into Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to a number of foreign embassies, including the U.S. Embassy.

Iraqi officials said no one was hurt and that no one was claiming responsibility yet.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint call for restraint by Washington and Tehran. The declaration made Wednesday in Istanbul is the latest sign of deepening regional cooperation by the leaders, symbolized by the inauguration of a Russian-Turkish gas pipeline.  

“We are deeply concerned about the escalation of the tension between the U.S. and Iran, as well as its negative repercussions on Iraq,” read a joint statement by Putin and Erdogan.  

The statement criticized last week’s killing of the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by an American drone as “an act undermining security and stability in the region.” Criticism also was aimed at Tehran for Wednesday’s missile strike against a U.S. military base in Iraq.

“We believe that exchange of attacks and use of force by any party do not contribute to finding solutions to the complex problems in the Middle East, but rather would lead to a new cycle of instability and would eventually damage everyone’s interests,” the statement said.

 

pipeline

 

Erdogan, addressing an inauguration ceremony of a gas pipeline between Russia and Turkey, criticized Solemani’s killing.” Nobody has the right to throw the entire region, especially Iraq, into a ring of fire for the sake of his or her own interests,” said Erdogan.

The Turkish president pledged to work to defuse tensions. “We will use all the means available to prevent our region from bursting into tears and bloodshed,” he said.

“Our purpose is to de-escalate and to let common sense prevail again. At this critical moment where the war drums play, we want to de-escalate tension by using all the diplomatic channels,” Erdogan added.

Erdogan said he had spoken to regional leaders and would dispatch Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to Baghdad on Thursday.

Putin and Erdogan held more than an hour of talks before attending the inauguration ceremony of the Turk Stream gas pipeline. The pipeline delivers Russian gas to Istanbul’s 15 million inhabitants, as well as Europe. Erdogan described the pipeline as a “beacon” of Turkish-Russian cooperation.

Turk Stream is the target of American sanctions, as part of broader economic measures aimed at Moscow. Ankara’s deepening cooperation with Moscow is causing concerns among Turkey’s western allies.

 

casin/leaders

 

Senior Russian ministers and military officials accompanied Putin in his visit to Istanbul. “I am surprised Putin brought so many high-ranking officials from foreign ministry to the military for such a ceremony. This is a message to Washington and Turkey’s western allies,” said Professor Mesut Casin, a foreign affairs adviser to Erdogan.

Wednesday’s talks appear to have secured a diplomatic breakthrough, with Putin and Erdogan calling for a cease-fire in the Libyan civil war.

“I would like to emphasize the call that Presidents Putin and Erdogan addressed to all the Libyan sides — to immediately stop fighting, starting from 00:00 on Jan. 12,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Wednesday in a joint press conference in Istanbul with Cavusoglu.

lavrov / cavysiglu

 

“We have been especially working with our Russian partners to achieve a cease-fire in Libya,” Cavusoglu added.

Cavusoglu said the cease-fire is aimed at helping to secure the success of a planned meeting in Berlin later this month to resolve the Libyan conflict.

Moscow and Ankara are backing rival sides in the Libyan civil war. Erdogan sent military forces on Sunday to support the internationally recognized Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

Russian mercenaries of the Kremlin-linked Wagner group are fighting with General Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are laying siege to Tripoli.  

rende

 

The cease-fire call is seen as a diplomatic win for Erdogan, who was expected to lobby Putin to support such a move. “A cease-fire is important for Turkey, as it does not want to be drawn into a war in Libya,” said former Turkish ambassador Mithat Rende. “Its deployment of forces to Libya is to secure a cease-fire. Otherwise, this becomes a risky operation, given the distances involved.”

Supporting a significant force in a combat zone nearly 2,000 kilometers way is widely seen as posing a significant challenge for the Turkish military’s logistic capabilities.

But with Haftar forces at the gates of Tripoli and having powerful backers other than Russia, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, it remains unclear whether the cease-fire call will be heeded.

Idlib

 

Syria also was on the agenda for Putin and Erdogan, and in particular, the future of Idlib. The Syria province on Turkey’s border is the last stronghold of rebels, with about 3 million people trapped in the enclave.

Erdogan is lobbying Putin to end a Syrian regime offensive backed by Russian jets in Idlib. The joint statement issued after Wednesday’s talks, however, appears to fall short of Turkish hopes, with no specific call for a cease-fire, other than a call for “calm.”

“Turkey is concerned about a new mass migration of hundreds of thousands of people from over the border [from Idlib], but it appears Putin has not given anything,” said Casin.  

Pakistan and China have launched a major joint naval drill in the Arabian Sea to, as officials put it, deepen their security cooperation and consolidate an “all-weather strategic partnership” between the two allied nations.

The nine-day “Sea Guardians 2020” exercise went into action Monday. It is the sixth in the bilateral cooperation plan between Chinese and Pakistani military forces.

An official statement Wednesday noted that warships, including frigates, destroyers, and fast attack craft “along with air and sub-surface assets” as well as marines and special operations forces from China and Pakistan, are participating in the drill.  

“The exercise (also) aims at enhancing capabilities of both navies to jointly deal with terrorism and crime at sea and to promote efforts for a safe maritime environment,” visiting Captain Zhou Han Wen from China’s Peoples Liberation Army (Navy) was quoted as saying.

The Chinese Ministry of National Defense announced days earlier that its fleet for the Pakistan-hosted joint naval exercise would also include a supplement ship and submarine rescue ship.

Pakistani Commodore Raja Rab Nawaz said the exercise will help the two navies understand each other’s perspective and share expertise in various naval domains to promote maritime stability.

“Pakistan considers that maritime security isn’t just important for itself but for all other countries whose prosperity and progress are strongly bonded with the seas,” Nawaz said.

Rival India has reportedly expressed concerns over the joint drill because the strategically important Arabian Sea region hosts many key Indian ports. The Pakistan-China naval exercise comes at a time of New Delhi’s heightened military tensions with Islamabad.

Chinese officials in the run-up to the mock battles, however, dismissed those concerns saying they were neither related to “regional affairs” nor were they aimed at “any third party.”

While Beijing has long-running strong defense ties with Islamabad, the two allies in recent years have deepened economic cooperation under Beijing’s trillion-dollar global infrastructure project known as the Belt and Road Initiative.  

The deepening collaboration known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, has brought in around $30 billion in Chinese investment over the past six years, building roads, ports and energy production projects in the South Asian nation.  

The massive Chinese project has expended and opened Pakistan’s strategically located Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.  

Chinese workers and facilities related to CPEC, however, have also come under deadly terrorist attacks, prompting the two countries to boost counterterrorism cooperation.  

 

A startup heavily backed  by Hollywood is wagering that you’re ready to set aside YouTube and TikTok to watch star-studded short videos on your phone — for a price.

The company behind this billion-dollar bet is Quibi, which is preparing to offer movies, shows and other short-form video designed for viewing in short bursts on mobile devices. It’s an enormous gamble, especially considering that several earlier efforts in mobile entertainment — most notably Verizon’s ill-fated Go90 service — fell flat.

Founded by former Disney studios chief and DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and helmed by former Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, Quibi is heavy on big ideas and Hollywood muscle. It has backing from all the major movie studios and entertainment companies, $1 billion invested in original programming, and star power in the form of creators and producers from Steven Spielberg to Chrissy Teigen.

Quibi plans to launch April 6. It will charge $5 a month for an ad-supported service, and $8 a month for an ad-free version.

Company executives argued at CES that Quibi will offer the first entertainment platform designed exclusively for the phone. In an interview at CES, Katzenberg said it represents the first time “professional storytellers” have tackled the problem of delivering a high-quality viewing experience on mobile.

But the big question is whether a subscription service like Quibi can attract mobile viewers — particularly younger ones — already immersed in an ocean of free-to-watch short video on YouTube and other social-media services. It will also go up against roughly a half-dozen other paid streaming platforms from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu to Disney Plus and upcoming services from WarnerMedia and NBC Universal.

Upcoming shows

During the keynote, Quibi previewed shows including “Don’t Look Deeper,” a sci-fi show starring Don Cheadle and Emily Mortimer, and “#Freerayshawn” a crime thriller starring Laurence Fishburne as a cop and executive produced by “Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua. Shows and movies, as well as other material like news and weather, are designed to be watched in “quick bites” of 10 minutes or less.

“‘Paid premium short form (video)’ has never been in the same sentence, it has never really been proven,” said Seth Shapiro, managing partner at Pacific Strategy Partners. “That’s the challenge.” Among other things, he noted, it’s already possible for people to watch those other services in the same quick bites Quibi plans.

Quibi executives at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas showed off technology on Wednesday designed to make video viewing on the phone easier. For instance, it will let you watch full-screen video whether you hold the phone upright or sideways.

Filmmakers deliver two edits to the company, one vertical, one horizontal, and Quibi stitches them together with one audio track. Some creators have incorporated that feature into their productions, as in one show in which horizontal viewing delivers a traditional picture — but turning the phone upright displays a view from the main character’s phone camera.

Advertising

Advertisers, at least, are on board. Quibi said it has sold out its $150 million first-year advertising slots to blue-chip companies including Procter & Gamble, Anheuser Busch, General Mills, Google, T-Mobile and Walmart. Ads will appear before shows and aren’t skippable.

Jeff Wlodarczak, principal analyst at Pivotal Research Group, says he understands why advertisers are flocking to the product. Millennials can be hard to reach, he said, and when a brand places ads on YouTube or Snapchat, they never quite know what kind of video they might end up next to.

Quibi offers a safe place for advertisers by delivering a known quantity “as opposed to people doing something stupid on YouTube,” he said.

That advertising model will stick around, Whitman said. Quibi guarantees that all creators own their own intellectual property, and can repackage it and take it wherever else they want after seven years. It brought creators in, but it also means that Quibi needs both subscriber dollars and advertising revenue to stay afloat.

The company just closed on another $400 million equity funding round from investors, Whitman said, and has a plan to be profitable “soon.”

Others have tried short-form content, mostly in ad-supported form. Facebook Watch features original shows with episodes as short as 12 or 13 minutes, but none have garnered much buzz or mainstream attention so far. Verizon pulled the plug on Go90 in 2018, roughly three years after it launched; several concurrent efforts have also shut down. Meanwhile, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have all been experimenting with short-form offerings,  many of them in comedy.

Quibi is “either brilliant or tone deaf,” said Tim Hanlon, CEO of Vertere Group. “I just don’t know what the answer is and I don’t think anybody does.”
 

President Donald Trump is addressing the nation Wednesday, after Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles targeting two Iraqi air bases that house U.S. troops.

WATCH the statement LIVE at 11:00 am EST

The missiles were fired early Wednesday following threats by Iranian leaders of retaliation against the United States for a  U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian commander.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the Iranian strikes a “slap in the face” to the United States, and said the “corrupt presence” of the U.S. in the region should come to an end.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani added later in a tweet that Iran’s “final answer” to the killing of Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani “will be to kick all U.S. forces out of the region.”

Hours after the attack, President Trump tweeted that an assessment of casualties and damage was taking place, but that “So far, so good!”

“We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far!” he said.

All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2020

The Iraqi prime minister’s office said there were no casualties among Iraqi forces, and that it had not received reports of any casualties from the U.S.-led coalition.

The statement said Iran notified Iraq that it was carrying out its response to the U.S. strike.  

Iraq also rejected any violation of its sovereignty and aggression on its territory, and called for restraint to prevent the U.S.-Iran crisis from developing into a devastating war.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote in a tweet after the missile strikes that Iran had taken and concluded “proportionate measures in self defense.”

“We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression,” Zarif said.

Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched.

We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 8, 2020

The missile attack was the latest step in a series of events that have unfolded in the past two weeks with increasing tensions between the United States and Iran.  

The U.S. blamed an Iran-backed militia for a rocket attack on an Iraqi base that killed a U.S. military contractor.  U.S. airstrikes then hit that militia’s positions in Iraq and Syria, drawing complaints from the Iraqi government and militia-led demonstrations at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.  On Friday, a U.S. airstrike killed near Baghdad’s airport.

A Pentagon spokesman said the missiles launched from Iran targeted the Al-Asad base, located about 60 kilometers west of Baghdad, as well as one in Irbil, part of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent out a statement hailing what it says was a successful missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops, calling it “revenge for the assassination and martyrdom of Qassem Soleimani.”

U.S. forces have been on high alert since Iran threatened to strike back after last week’s targeted killing of Soleimani.

“We will take all necessary measures to protect and defend U.S. personnel, partners, and allies in the region,” the Pentagon spokesman said.

Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN, “The President and his crew better figure out a way to tone things down, because we could be in the midst of a full-blown war.”

“What we have to do now is tone down the rhetoric on all sides and extricate ourselves from this situation,” he added.

Steven David, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, told VOA the potential for the situation is “very frightening” with two leaders and countries that do not want to back down, and which are armed with all kinds of physical and cyber weapons.

“On the other hand, I do hope that at some point both sides simmer down and allow this to de-escalate,” David said.  “There’s a lot of Iran can do in the area.  It can attack Saudi Arabia, it can attack Israel, especially with cyber, it can attack America. Neither country wants this to get out of hand, and to me, that’s the most people positive sign in this horrible mess.”

Tom Warrick, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, noted officials from many nations around the world have called on the United States and Iran to de-escalate, and pointed the role Iraq may play going forward as the country where the back-and-forth attacks have taken place.

“What we’re faced with is a situation where I believe that Iraq is going to go to the United Nations and demand that the United Nations put together some kind of process that will get Iraq out of the middle of the dispute between the United States and Iran,” Warrick told VOA.  “And we’ll have to see whether the diplomats in New York can come up with a way that tries to get the countries talking rather than fighting.”

VOA’s Pengaton correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this story.

President Donald Trump is viewed negatively by the public in many countries, but the image of the U.S. itself is generally favorable, according to a survey published on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

Sixty-four percent of those surveyed outside the US said they do not have confidence in Trump to do the right thing in foreign affairs, while just 29 percent expressed confidence in the U.S. leader.

The survey looked at public opinion in 33 nations and was conducted among 37,000 people between May and October 2019.

Trump is viewed particularly poorly in Western Europe, Pew said.

Only 13 percent of those polled in Germany said they had confidence in Trump, 18 percent in Sweden, 20 percent in France, 21 percent in Spain, 25 percent in the Netherlands and Greece and 32 percent in Britain.

In Russia, 20 percent said they have confidence in the U.S. president to do the right thing in world affairs.

In Mexico, 89 percent do not have confidence in Trump, Pew said.

In some countries, the public did express support for Trump: India (56 percent), Nigeria (58 percent), Kenya (65 percent), Israel (71 percent) and the Philippines (77 percent).

There was overall disapproval, however, of some of Trump’s signature foreign policy initiatives.

Researchers used the median — the middle value in any list of numbers — to summarize non-U.S. opinion on Trump’s performance.

A median of 68 percent opposed his imposition of tariffs, 66 percent opposed the withdrawal from climate change agreements and 60 percent were against the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Trump’s direct negotiations with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un met with 41 percent support and 36 percent disapproval.

Pew also asked respondents for their views on other world leaders.

Germany’s Angela Merkel received top marks with 46 percent expressing confidence in her leadership, followed by France’s Emmanuel Macron (41 percent), Russia’s Vladimir Putin (33 percent) and China’s Xi Jinping (28 percent).

Overall attitudes towards the United States, however, were favorable, Pew said.

The most positive reviews in Europe came from Poland, where 79 percent said they have a favorable attitude towards the United States, followed by Lithuania (70 percent) and Hungary (66 percent).

The lowest ratings for the United States in Europe came from the Netherlands (46 percent), Sweden (45 percent) and Germany (39 percent).

 

 

Nissan’s fugitive ex-boss, Carlos Ghosn, on Wednesday described his arrest in Japan, from which he escaped last month, as a plot against him and his detention conditions as a “travesty” against human rights.

In his first appearance since his daring and improbable escape from Japan, Ghosn told a news conference in Beirut that the decision to flee “was the most difficult of my life.”

He was due to stand trial for alleged financial misconduct at the automaker and on Wednesday again dismissed all allegations against him as untrue.

With big gestures and a five-part slide presentation projected behind him, Ghosn brought his case to global media and said that his view was on fleeing Japan was: “You are going to die in Japan or you are going to get out.”

He quickly said he would not address the details of his escape, which has perplexed and embarrassed Japanese authorities.

Media reports have said that he left his Tokyo residence alone, skipping bail and despite supposedly rigorous surveillance. He met two men at a hotel, and then took a bullet train to Osaka before boarding a private jet hidden inside a case for musical equipment. He flew to Istanbul and was then transferred onto another plane bound for Beirut, where he arrived Dec. 30.

Ghosn portrayed his arrest as a plot linked to a decline in the financial performance of Nissan. Ghosn had been in favor of merging Nissan with industry ally Renault, of which he was also chairman.

“Unfortunately there was no trust. And some of our Japanese friends thought that the only way to get rid of Renault in Nissan is to get rid of me,” he said.

“I should never have been arrested in the first place,” he said. “I’m not above the law and I welcome the opportunity for the truth to come out and have my name cleared,” he told a packed room of journalists.

Ghosn said he would be ready to stand trial “anywhere where I think I can have a fair trial.” He declined to say what country that might be.

Lebanon last week received an Interpol-issued wanted notice – a non-binding request to law enforcement agencies worldwide that they locate and provisionally arrest a fugitive.

Lebanon and Japan do not have an extradition treaty, and the Interpol notice does not require Lebanon to arrest him. Lebanese authorities have said Ghosn entered the country on a legal passport, casting doubt on the possibility they would hand him over to Japan.

At the request of the Japanese government, Interpol published the notice on its website Wednesday as Ghosn was giving his news conference. The notice previously was only sent to Interpol’s member governments but not shared with the public.

Ghosn, who is Lebanese and also holds French and Brazilian passports, was expected to go on trial in Tokyo in April. In earlier statements, he has said he fled to avoid “political persecution” by a “rigged Japanese justice system.” He also said that he alone organized his departure from Japan and that his wife, Carole, played no role.

On Tuesday, Tokyo prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Carole Ghosn on suspicion of perjury. That charge is not related to his escape. Lebanon’s justice minister said Tuesday that Lebanon has not received any request related to that warrant.

Japanese justice officials acknowledge that it’s unclear whether the Ghosns can be brought back to Japan to face charges.

Ghosn’s former employer, Nissan Motor Co., said it was still pursuing legal action against him despite his escape, adding that Ghosn engaged in serious misconduct while leading the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance. Ghosn denies all the charges.

In France, meanwhile, prosecutors are investigating a 50,000-euro gift from the chateau of Versailles to Ghosn, linked to a lavish party there. Renault alerted French authorities after a company investigation found that Ghosn personally benefited from “an exchange worth 50,000 euros in the framework of a philanthropic accord signed with the Chateau of Versailles.”

Renault said in June that an internal audit with partner Nissan found 11 million euros (currently $12 million) in questionable expenses at their Dutch-based holding linked to Ghosn. The two carmakers recommended legal action in the Netherlands, where the alliance is based and ordering Ghosn himself to reimburse the company for some of the expenses.

Earlier in the day, Tokyo prosecutors raided a Japanese lawyer’s office where Ghosn had visited regularly before he fled. Japanese media reports said prosecutors had likely seized the computer to track down how Ghosn escaped and who might have helped him.

An hour before the scheduled press conference, a Lebanese prosecutor said Ghosn will be summoned “in the coming hours” over a visit to Israel more than 10 years ago, according to the state-run National News Agency.

Two Lebanese lawyers had submitted a report to the Public Prosecutor’s Office against Ghosn last week, saying he violated Lebanese law by visiting Israel. The two neighboring countries are technically in a state of war. Prosecutor Ghassan Khoury met with the two lawyers who filed the case on Wednesday and asked them to bring additional evidence, adding he would summon Ghosn in the coming hours.

Ghosn visited Israel in 2008 and met officials including the prime minister and the president. At the time he announced the launch of electric cars in Israel.

Governments are urging the United States and Iran to take steps to de-escalate tensions after a series of attacks on each other’s interests in Iraq.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Wednesday condemned Iran’s missile attack on two Iraqi air bases that house U.S. and coalition forces, including British troops.

“We urge Iran not to repeat these reckless and dangerous attacks, and instead to pursue urgent de-escalation,” Raab said.

He added that a war in the region would only help Islamic State, the militant group at the center of the coalition’s mission in Iraq.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga expressed concern about the situation in the Middle East, and called for all nations involved to exert whatever diplomatic effort they can to improve relations.

United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted it is essential for the region to pull back from what he called “current and troubling tensions.”

“De-escalation is both wise & necessary. A political path towards stability must follow,” Gargash wrote.

Some commercial airlines on Wednesday rerouted flights crossing the Middle East to avoid possible danger amid escalating tensions between the United States and Iran.

Australian carrier Qantas said it was altering its London to Perth, Australia, routes to avoid Iran and Iraq airspace until further notice. The longer route meant that Qantas would have to carry fewer passengers and more fuel to remain in the air for an extra 40 to 50 minutes.

Malaysia Airlines said that “due to recent events,” its planes would avoid Iranian airspace.

Singapore Airlines also said that its flights to Europe would be re-routed to avoid Iran.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said it was barring American pilots and carriers from flying in areas of Iraqi, Iranian and some Persian Gulf airspace. The agency warned of the “potential for miscalculation or mis-identification” for civilian aircraft amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

Such restrictions are often precautionary in nature to prevent civilian aircraft from being confused for ones engaged in armed conflict. The FAA said the restrictions were being issued due to “heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the Middle East, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations.’’

Following the FAA, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation advised Indian commercial carriers to avoid Iranian, Iraqi and Persian Gulf airspace.

At least two Kazakh airlines – Air Astana and SCAT – were considering rerouting or canceling their flights over Iran following the crash of a Ukrainian plane that killed 176 people.

The plane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in the Iranian capital when a fire struck one of its engines, said Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry.

Kazakhstan’s officials said that Air Astana, the country’s flagship carrier, “is currently holding a meeting on whether to reroute or ban” flights. SCAT, one of the largest airlines in Kazakhstan, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that they were also considering rerouting flights. The emergency flight restrictions follow Iranian ballistic missile strikes Tuesday on two Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops. Those strikes were retaliation for the U.S. killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike near Baghdad last week.

The disgraced former chairman of Nissan is expected to speak to journalists in Beirut on Wednesday, more than a week after his dramatic escape from Japan ahead of his trial for alleged financial misconduct.

The highly anticipated news conference by Carlos Ghosn will be first public appearance since he smuggled himself from Tokyo to Beirut, arriving in the Lebanese capital where he grew up and is regarded by many as a national hero.

Dozens of local and international journalists are expected to attend. Lebanese authorities have not made any comments about the news conference and it was not immediately clear whether they intend to summon him for questioning.

Ghosn’s daring and improbable escape has perplexed and embarrassed Japanese authorities after he skipped bail and managed to flee the country despite supposedly rigorous surveillance.

Media reports have said that he left his residence alone, met two men at a Tokyo hotel, and then took a bullet train to Osaka before boarding a private jet hidden inside a case for musical equipment. He flew to Istanbul and was then transferred onto another plane bound for Beirut, where he arrived Dec. 30.

Lebanese authorities have said Ghosn entered the country on a legal passport, casting doubt on the possibility they would hand him over to Japan. Lebanon last week received an Interpol-issued wanted notice – a non-binding request to law enforcement agencies worldwide that they locate and provisionally arrest a fugitive.

Lebanon and Japan do not have an extradition treaty, and the Interpol notice does not require Lebanon to arrest him.

Ghosn, who is Lebanese and also holds French and Brazilian passports, was expected to go on trial in Tokyo in April. In statements, he has said he fled to avoid “political persecution” by a “rigged Japanese justice system.” He also said that he alone organized his departure from Japan and that his wife, Carole, played no role.

On Tuesday, Tokyo prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Carole Ghosn on suspicion of perjury. That charge is not related to his escape. Lebanon’s justice minister said Tuesday that Lebanon has not received any request related to that warrant.

Japanese justice officials acknowledge that it’s unclear whether the Ghosns can be brought back to Japan to face charges.

Ghosn’s former employer, Nissan Motor Co., said it was still pursuing legal action against him despite his escape, adding that Ghosn engaged in serious misconduct while leading the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance. Ghosn denies all the charges.

The escalation between the United States and Iran over the killing of an Iranian commander now has sparked deep concerns about prospects for the peace process in Afghanistan, with officials and experts warning that Iran could collaborate with the Taliban to thwart American efforts in the war-torn country.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran Tuesday of attempting to build proxy networks in Afghanistan, asserting that Iran is trying to coordinate with the Taliban and its offshoot, the Haqqani network.

“Iran has refused to join the regional and international consensus for peace, and is, in fact, actively working to undermine the peace process by continuing its long global effort to support militant groups there,” Pompeo said during his opening remarks at a rare State Department news conference.

The top U.S. diplomat warned that the “Taliban’s entanglement in Iran’s dirty work will only harm the Afghanistan peace process.”

VOA reached out to Afghan officials who declined to comment on Pompeo’s statement, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

Experts in both Kabul and Washington concur that Iran is likely to increase its outreach to the Taliban as part of its effort to retaliate against the U.S. for targeting Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) in an airstrike last week.

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“Tehran has a sky-high incentive to scale up arms support to the Taliban that enables the insurgents to push back against U.S. forces. It would be a relatively risk-free Iranian reprisal against the U.S.,” said Michael Kugelman, director for the Asia Program at the Wilson Center in Washington.

Kugelman said Iran has a long history of aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan. A recent high-profile example of Tehran’s support for the Afghan militants came last year when the Taliban staged a large-scale attack in the western Farah province, reportedly with material and assistance provided by Soleimani’s Quds Force.

He said disturbing U.S. efforts to restore peace would be a viable option for Tehran officials as they determine responses to the deadly U.S. strike on Soleimani and other key Iranian officials.

“The only question would be the status of Taliban peace talks. If the Taliban has signed a deal with the U.S. and agreed to stop attacks on U.S. forces, then that makes it less likely to cooperate with Tehran,” he told VOA.

The Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has publicly expressed concerns that Soleimani’s death could turn his country into a battleground.

“We call on the Islamic Republic of Iran, our big neighbor, with whom we have extensive common language, religious, historic and cultural [values], and we call on the U.S., who is Afghanistan’s strategic and fundamental partner, to prevent conflict escalations, and we hope that both sides solve their differences through negotiations,” Ghani said in a statement last week.

Despite Ghani’s ongoing efforts to keep Afghanistan out of the conflict, some analysts charge escalating salvos in the Middle East inevitably will disrupt the minimal progress made in the Afghan peace process.

According to Rebecca Zimmerman, a researcher on Afghanistan, “If Iran is looking for a way to respond to the U.S, without taking actions that could lead to war, Afghanistan is a place where it might be able to inflict pain while staying below the threshold of war.”

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Mohammad Jawad Rahimi, a U.S.-based Afghanistan political analyst, says the peace process is particularly vulnerable given Iran’s leverage on certain members of the Taliban.

“I don’t believe that all the Taliban listen to Iran, but definitely some of them who are receiving Iranian support will be used against the U.S.,” said Rahimi, noting adding that Taliban leaders in the past repeatedly have traveled to Iran and received military support from Tehran.

“In 2016, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor spent two months in Iran and on his way back to Pakistan, he was killed by a U.S. airstrike. An Iranian passport and other documents were found in his pocket. Last year, the Taliban delegation, including Mullah Beradar, traveled to Iran and met with Iranian Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif and other Iranian officials. One of their main agenda items was to stop the U.S.-Taliban negotiations. The meeting between the two sides was confirmed by the Taliban’s spokesman and Iranian officials,” Rahimi told VOA.

The Afghan peace process has gained some momentum since late 2018 in an effort to end nearly 19 years of ongoing war in Afghanistan. The process, involving direct U.S. talks with the Taliban, seeks to reach an agreement that begins intra-Afghan peace, followed by the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.

VOA’s  Muhammad Habibzada from Washington contributed to this story.

Iranian state media reported Wednesday a Ukrainian passenger plane carrying 180 people crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in Tehran.

There was no immediate word on injuries.

The reports said the suspected cause of the crash was mechanical issues.

Iran’s top commander Qassem Soleimani was killed last week in a U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Soleimani, who led Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was the architect of many Shi’ite and pro-Iranian proxy militia groups across the region known as the “Axis of Resistance.” Here is a look at those groups.

The start of a new year is the time for resolutions and promises, and New York state decided to welcome 2020 with a series of bans. The state governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed almost 700 initiatives ranging from helping immigrants to protecting pets. Nina Vishneva looked into what will be banned in the state in 2020 and how New Yorkers feel about it. Anna Rice narrates her story.

A new cellular network just for kids? The company behind it, Gabb Wireless, promises their phones help protect kids from the dangers of smartphones. Deana Mitchell dials in.
 

NATO is moving some of its trainers out of Iraq, a NATO official said Tuesday, following fears of a regional conflagration in the wake of a U.S. drone strike on Iran’s top military commander last week.

“We are taking all precautions necessary to protect our people. This includes the temporary repositioning of some personnel to different locations both inside and outside of Iraq,” a NATO official told Reuters.

The NATO Iraq mission, made up of several hundred trainers, advisers and support staff from both countries of the 29-member alliance and non-NATO partner countries, includes military and civilian personnel.
 

Zimbabwean authorities say they have retrieved the bodies of two park rangers who had arrested four poachers but were then thrown into Lake Kariba by the suspects.
                   
The bodies of the two rangers were taken to the capital, Harare, for examinations, said Tinashe Farawo, spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority on Tuesday.
                   
The two rangers had arrested four Zambian men for poaching and on Dec. 31 were transporting them by boat to Kariba town to be charged and jailed. But the four suspects overpowered the rangers and threw them into Lake Kariba, said Farawo. The rangers’ bodies were discovered after a week-long search.
                    
Authorities are searching for the suspected poachers, he said.
                   
The rangers had caught the poachers in Matusadona National Park, home to lions, leopards, elephants and hyena on the shores of Lake Kariba, one of the world’s largest man-made lakes. The park is popular with tourists who go on walking safaris and boating on the lake.
                   
The rangers had detained the poachers overnight before attempting to take them by boat to Kariba town.
                   
Although the parks agency has recorded “a significant decrease” in poaching in the wildlife rich southern African country, cases of armed contact between poachers and rangers have been on the rise in the Kariba area, where Zimbabwe borders Zambia to the north, said Farawo. The two countries share the lake as well as the magnificent Victoria Falls along the Zambezi River.

A researcher with dual French-Iranian nationality held for months in a notorious Tehran prison will not be tried on espionage charges, her lawyer said Tuesday. But she and another French researcher still face other security-related charges.

Iranian prosecutors dropped the spying charges against Fariba Adelkhah after an hours-long hearing, Saeid Dehghan told The Associated Press. Both Adelkhah and Roland Marchal will remain in custody on charges of spreading propaganda, their lawyer said.

Iranian officials disclosed in July that Adelkhah, a prominent anthropologist who often traveled to Iran for research on post-revolutionary Iranian society, had been arrested on espionage charges. Her friend and fellow researcher Marchal was arrested as he tried to visit her, France revealed in October. He is being held in a men’s ward.

In December, France summoned Iranian envoy to Paris, saying it considered the months-long detention of Adelkhah and Marchal “unacceptable” and sought permission for consular officials to visit them.

Iran does not recognize dual nationality for its citizens.

Also in December, Adelkhah and Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an academic and co-prisoner from Australia, went on hunger strike to protest their detention. The strike was revealed by the Center for Human Rights in Iran. They were confirmed by Sciences Po’s research center CERI, where Adelkhah works.

Abdekhah’s lawyer did not say if she remained on hunger strike.

Moore-Gilbert, a University of Melbourne scholar on the Middle East, has been jailed since October 2018.

Two Australians were freed from Iran in October while Australia freed an Iranian in what appeared to be a prisoner swap.

Meanwhile, Iran had indicated a willingness to make prisoner exchanges with the United States after freeing a Chinese-American scholar from Princeton held for three years in a prisoner swap.

However, these moves all came prior to the U.S. killing of Iran’s top general last week, which has dramatically increased tensions between Washington and Tehran.