Russia condemned U.S. airstrikes that killed a powerful Iranian commander in neighboring Iraq on Friday local time as a “reckless step” that risked “regional peace and stability” in the Middle East.  

The United States killed General Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, in a drone strike as he and an entourage left Baghdad’s main airport by car.   

Pentagon officials said U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the strike to prevent imminent attacks against American forces in the region.  

Yet with Iran’s leadership already vowing a military response, Russia openly questioned the White House’s understanding of the violent forces it had unleashed.

“Such actions do not create … find solutions to complex problems in the Middle East. On the contrary, it will lead to a new round of escalation of tensions in the region,” said Russia’s Foreign Ministry in a statement posted to its website.   

In a separate statement, the ministry noted that Soleimani had “faithfully served and defended the national interests of Iran” and expressed condolences to the Iranian people over the commander’s death.

The Kremlin’s press service later announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin had discussed the attack with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron by phone, with both sides agreeing “this action might seriously escalate tensions in the region.” 

The reaction reflected Russia and Iran’s increasingly close relations — ties forged by a four-year military alliance in Syria, where both Moscow and Tehran have come to the aid of their mutual ally, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.  

Several media reports say Soleimani — widely considered the military architect of Iran’s actions in the Middle East — met with President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow in 2016 to personally discuss the Syrian offensive. Both the Iranian and Russian governments denied the meeting ever took place.      

Soleimani is on a U.N. travel sanctions list and has been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2005 as a supporter of terrorism.  

Observers in Moscow saw little chance of Russia coming to Iran’s aide in the event of a wider military conflict.

“There’s nothing Russia can do,” says Alexey Malashenko, a longtime Middle East watcher and head of the Institute of Dialogue and Civilization said in an interview with VOA in Moscow.   

“It’s a situation involving Iran, the U.S., and Iraq.” 

Nuclear deals 

Yet the U.S. strike on Soleimani again puts Iran near the top of a long list of issues causing friction between Moscow and Washington.  

The Kremlin already had clashed with the Trump administration over its decision to rip up the Iran nuclear deal —- a denuclearization swap for sanctions relief agreement brokered with Iran by the U.S. Obama administration along with Britain, Russia, Germany, France, and China back in 2015.

Russia has found common ground with European powers in denouncing the Trump administration’s decision to abandon the agreement in favor of what the White House touts as a “maximum pressure” campaign that will yield a better deal limiting Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Indeed, Moscow had been working with France and Germany to find ways to maneuver around U.S. sanctions and thereby keep Iran in compliance  — an effort foreign policy experts now concede is all but doomed because of the U.S. attack.  

“The last hopes for resolving the problem of the Iran nuclear program have been bombed to shreds,” wrote Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia’s upper chamber, the Federation Council, in a post to Facebook.  

“Iran can now push forward its nuclear program, even if it wasn’t planning to,” added Kosachev.  

“In that way, this is bigger than just the murder of one important figure.”

Turkey’s parliament has approved a bill that allows troop deployment in Libya to support the internationally recognized government in Tripoli.Turkish lawmakers passed the bill on Thursday with a 315-184 vote.Most opposition parties voted against the bill.The Libyan government, headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, asked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for support as it fends off an offensive by General Khalifa Haftar’s forces to the east of the country, which are backed by Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan. As VOA’S Zlatica Hoke reports.

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a veteran Iraqi militant who was closely allied with Iran and rose to be a senior militia commander during the war against the Islamic State group, was killed Friday in a U.S. strike that also felled Iran’s top general.

Al-Muhandis was the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of mostly Shiite paramilitaries. He was also the founder of the Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades. The U.S. blamed the group, which is separate from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, for a rocket attack in northern Iraq last week that killed a U.S. contractor.

The militias, many of which are backed by Iran and trace their roots back to the Shiite insurgency against U.S. forces following the 2003 invasion, mobilized in 2014 when the Islamic State group swept across northern and western Iraq.

Fleeing Iraq

Al-Muhandis, who had spent much of his life as a secretive operative in Iran’s regional shadow wars, emerged as a public face of the force, a tall man with a gray beard and thick glasses who was often seen on the front lines directing his fighters by radio.

He was killed in an American airstrike near Baghdad’s international airport around midnight along with Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the architect of its regional military alliances. Also killed was al-Muhandis’ son-in-law Mohammed Rida al-Jaberi.

The PMF said in a statement that al-Muhandis’ body was destroyed beyond recognition.

The 56-year-old militant, born Jamal Jaafar Ebrahimi but best known by his nom de guerre, began his political life with the Dawa party, a Shiite Islamist group that was crushed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1970s. Like others in the party, including the future Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, al-Muhandis fled abroad and joined forces with Iran.

Al-Muhandis spent the next few decades in Kuwait and Iran, working closely with the Revolutionary Guard, especially during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. During his stay in Iran in the 1980s and 1990s, al-Muhandis worked with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its military wing, the Badr Brigades.

Return to Iraq

After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam, al-Muhandis like many other Shiite leaders, returned to Iraq and played a role in politics, at one point serving as a member of parliament. Under Soleimani’s direction, Iran steadily expanded its influence, forging close ties with Shiite militant groups as well as major political factions. Al-Muhandis operated independently at first before founding Kataeb Hezbollah.

In 2009, the U.S. Treasury targeted al-Muhandis and Kataeb Hezbollah with sanctions, saying they “committed, directed, supported, or posed a significant risk of committing acts of violence against Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces.”

He was also convicted of planning the 1983 bombings against the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in which five Kuwaitis were killed. He was sentenced to death in absentia in Kuwait over the case. He was also linked to a 1985 assassination attempt against the emir of Kuwait.

When Kuwait raised the case of the bombings with Iraqi officials in the mid-2000s, al-Muhandis relocated to Iran. He did not return until after the U.S. withdrawal in 2011.

War against Islamic State

He re-emerged during the war against the Islamic State group, when his forces battled the Sunni extremists across western Iraq and eastern Syria. Those efforts also helped Iran to carve out a corridor of influence stretching across the Middle East to Lebanon and Israel’s doorstep.

Al-Muhandis used to give speeches in Arabic and Farsi.

In one of his speeches, al-Muhandis thanked Iran and specifically Soleimani for joining the fight against IS and sending weapons and ammunition by land and air.

“They gave what they could immediately,” al-Muhandis said. “This courage and generosity came at a critical time.

“When people speak about American and Russian weapons we ask them where were they in June 2014,” al-Muhandis said. That was the month IS seized large parts of Iraq, pushing all the way to the outskirts of Baghdad.

Today the PMF and allied militias control large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria, where they are allied with President Bashar Assad and the Lebanese Hezbollah. Israel and the U.S. view the groups as part of an aggressive Iranian campaign to dominate the region.

US airstrike

Over the summer, PMF groups blamed Israel for mysterious drone attacks that targeted their positions in Iraq. The strikes eventually lead to the restructuring of the PMF to integrate them into the Iraqi military. The restructuring was approved by Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

On Sunday, U.S. airstrikes hit Kataeb Hezbollah posts in eastern Syria and western Iraq, killing 25 fighters and wounding dozens. Washington said the strikes were in retaliation for an attack on a base in northern Iraq that killed an American contractor and wounded four others.

Shiite militiamen and supporters retaliated by holding violent protests outside the U.S. Embassy for two days, causing damage to the entrances of the embassy. They withdrew Wednesday at the request of Iraqi officials.

In a recent interview, al-Muhandis was asked whether he sees himself one day outside the Popular Mobilization Forces. “It’s possible,” he replied. “God willing, as a martyr.”

Al-Muhandis is survived by his Iranian wife and two daughters.

The United States struck a significant and potentially risky blow against Iran, killing the leader of the nation’s elite Quds Force in an airstrike in Iraq.

The Pentagon confirmed the death of Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani in a statement late Thursday, saying the strike was launched, “at the direction” of U.S. President Donald Trump.

It further described the strike as a “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad.”

“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” the statement said.

“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” it said. “The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.”

The Defense Department statement shared few details of the strike itself, but Iraqi officials said a rocket struck a convoy traveling near Baghdad International Airport early Friday local time.

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, also died in the strike, Iraqi officials said, adding other top officials may have been killed, as well.

Even before the U.S. Defense Department confirmed the strike on Soleimani, photos claiming to show the Iranian general’s lifeless body were circulating on social media.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, as well as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, also quickly confirmed the deaths of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, blaming the United States.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called the U.S. strike an “act of terrorism,” tweeting it was an “extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation.”

The US’ act of international terrorism, targeting & assassinating General Soleimani—THE most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda et al—is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation.

The US bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 3, 2020

Iran Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for three days of national mourning and warned, “All Enemies should know that the jihad of resistance will continue with a doubled motivation, and a definite victory awaits the fighters in the holy war.”

President Trump did not immediately comment but tweeted a picture of the U.S. flag late Thursday.

pic.twitter.com/VXeKiVzpTf

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2020

Just days earlier, Trump warned Iran he was holding its leaders accountable for a series of repeated attacks by members of Iranian-backed militias on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

“They will pay a very big price. This is not a warning. It is a threat,” he tweeted. But he told reporters Tuesday that he did not foresee the U.S. going to war with Iran.

“I don’t think Iran would want that to happen. It would go very quickly,” he said.

Paradigm shifts

The U.S. has already deployed 750 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait to help bolster the defense of U.S. bases and personnel in the region. Defense officials said Thursday more troops would be sent as needed.

Among analysts and onlookers, though, there is a sense that whatever happens next, the paradigm between the United States and Iran has changed.

“The strike was a clear signal from the U.S. that the parameters of our confrontation with Iran have shifted fundamentally,” said Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, in a message to VOA Persian. “Quite simply, the U.S. has demonstrated that it is no longer prepared to exercise restraint in the face of repeated Iranian provocation, the way it has in the past.”

“There is significant risk here,” Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told VOA, calling the strike that killed Soleimani, “the most significant” since the U.S. killed al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden.

“Soleimani and Muhandis were revered by the Iraqi Shia militias. They will want blood,” he said. “It is unclear if the Iraqi security forces are able or even willing to do anything to prevent it.”

Troops in the region

The United States has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 55,000 more across the Middle East, all of whom could potentially be targeted by Iran.

“The key question is whether this will ultimately lead to sustained military confrontation — even war — between the U.S. and Iran and Iran and Israel,” former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator, Aaron David Miller, tweeted. “Matters will get worse before they get worse.”

Suleimani’s assassination is among the most consequential in Middle East in decades.The key question is whether this will ultimately lead to sustained military confrontation — even war — between the US and Iran and Iran and Israel. Matters will get worse before they get worse.

— Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) January 3, 2020

U.S. officials have repeatedly voiced concern about Iran’s military reach, warning Tehran’s forces are capable of targeting personnel and assets throughout the Middle East.

Some of that concern has focused on Iran’s ballistic missile technology and on Iran’s naval prowess. This past July, Iran also disrupted naval traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, seizing several oil tankers.

But there is also concern that Iran’s proxy forces, like the militias it supports in Iraq and Syria, are capable of inflicting considerable damage.

“When you’re dealing with groups like this, they are a hell of a lot more threatening and a hell of a lot more organized than anything we’ve seen out of many Sunni jihadist groups,” said Phillip Smyth, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“It doesn’t operate the same way you might think of, let’s say, the Islamic State,” he said. “You’re dealing with a far more organized apparatus.”

Despite the risk, some key Republican lawmakers praised the U.S. strike against Soleimani.

“President Trump has been clear all along — the United States will not tolerate Iran spilling American blood, and tonight he followed his words with action,” Republican James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said in a statement late Thursday.

“The President made the brave and right call, and Americans should be proud,” Republican Senator Benn Sasse, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said. “General Soleimani is dead because he was an evil bastard who murdered Americans.”

My statement on the killing of Qassem Soleimani. pic.twitter.com/4Q9tlLAYFB

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 3, 2020

Former U.S. Vice President and current presidential candidate for the Democratic Party Joseph Biden was more cautious. While admitting Soleimani “deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes against American troops and thousands of innocents throughout the region,” Biden in a written statement said President Trump owes the American people an explanation of the strategy and plan to keep American servicemen and diplomats and allies safe at home and abroad.

“I hope the administration has thought through the second- and third-order consequences of the path they have chosen. But I fear this administration has not demonstrated at any turn the discipline or long-term vision necessary — and the stakes could not be higher,” he said.

Although Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps [IRGC] and Quds Force are part of the Iranian military, the U.S. State Department designated them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations this past April because of their ties with Middle Eastern terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

The U.S. also blames the IRGC and Quds Force for the death of more than 600 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.

At the time, @SecPompeo was asked if the US would target #Quds Force Cmdr Qassem Soleimani like it would an #ISIS leader

“I don’t have comments…when you say “target,” you’re usually talking about things that the Department of Defense does. I’ll allow them to respond ” he said pic.twitter.com/PPDtucbHHX

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) January 3, 2020

Earlier Thursday, top U.S. defense officials said Iran’s targeting of Americans had resumed.

“There’s been a sustained campaign at least since October,” General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

“We know the intent of this last attack [on a base in Kirkuk, Iraq] was, in fact, to kill American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines,” he added. “Thirty-one rockets aren’t designed as a warning shot.”

Speaking alongside Milley, Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned the United States was also ready to take “preemptive action” against Iran.

“The game has changed. We’re prepared to do what is necessary,” he said.

VOA Persian Service and White House Senior Correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this report.

With just a month to go until the Iowa Caucus — the first nominating contest in the U.S. presidential election — the race to choose a Democratic rival to U.S. President Donald Trump is intensifying. The only Latino candidate in the race, former mayor Julian Castro, withdrew Thursday while new fundraising numbers show Senator Bernie Sanders’ candidacy is stronger than expected. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more on the opening of election year 2020. 

Interpol has formally asked Lebanon to arrest a fugitive, after the former automobile executive fled from Japan where he was awaiting trial for alleged financial misconduct.  Authorities charged him with pouring millions of his employer’s dollars into his own pockets.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us on a mysterious ride currently fueled with more questions than answers.

Navy ships plucked hundreds of people from beaches and tens of thousands were urged to flee Friday before hot weather and strong winds in the forecast worsen Australia’s already-devastating wildfires.

More than 200 fires were burning, and warnings of extreme danger to come Saturday set in motion one of the largest evacuations in Australian history. Thousands have already fled at-risk coastal areas, creating traffic gridlock in places, and firefighters escorted convoys of evacuees as fires threatened to close roads.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrew declared a disaster across much of the eastern part of the state, allowing the government to order evacuations in an area with as many as 140,000 permanent residents and tens of thousands more vacationers.

“If you can leave, you must leave,” Andrews said.

South Australia state’s Country Fire Service chief officer Mark Jones said the weather conditions were cause for concern because some fires were still burning or smoldering.
 
“The ignition sources are already there,” he said. “There are millions of sparks out there ready to go if they break containment lines.”

The early and devastating start to Australia’s summer wildfires has made this season the worst on record. About 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land have burned, at least 19 people have been killed, and more than 1,400 homes have been destroyed.

This week, at least 448 homes have been destroyed on the New South Wales southern coast and dozens were burned in Victoria. Ten deaths have been confirmed in the two states this week, and Victoria authorities also say 28 people are missing. Fires are also burning in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.

The navy was evacuating hundreds from the Victorian coastal town of Mallacoota, which has been cut off for days by wildfires, forcing as many as 4,000 residents and tourists to shelter on beaches. Landing craft ferried people to the HMAS Choules offshore.

Choules Commander Scott Houlihan said 963 people had signed up for evacuation by sea and more had been airlifted to safety.

A state of emergency was in place in New South Wales and a total fire ban.

State Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said strong winds and high temperatures Saturday will make the fire danger worse in many areas and urged those who can flee to do so.

“We know people have got a little bit of fire fatigue. They’ve been dealing with this now for months,” Rogers said. “But we need people to stay focused. Tomorrow is not the day to drop your guard. Take it seriously. If you’re in those areas where we put those maps out, do not be there.”

Morrison: ‘People are angry’

Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited the township of Bairnsdale in Victoria and received a warmer welcome than a day earlier in New South Wales.

Morrison cut short a visit to the town of Cobargo when locals yelled at him, made obscene gestures and called him an “idiot” and worse, criticizing him for the lack of equipment to deal with the fires in town.

In a radio interview Friday, Morrison said he understood the anger of people affected by the fires.

“People are angry and people are raw and people are upset,” he said. “Whether they are angry with me or they are angry about the situation, all I know is they are hurting and it’s my job to be there to try and offer some comfort and support.”

Smoke from the wildfires has choked air quality and turned daytime skies to near-nighttime darkness in the worst-hit areas.

It’s also blown across the Tasman Sea into New Zealand, where skies are hazy and glaciers have turned a deep caramel brown. The color change may cause more melting since the glaciers will reflect less sunlight.
 

Europe’s traditional left-wing parties ended 2019 in disarray. Battling a head wind of disapproval from their traditional working-class supporters, and suffering a series of electoral setbacks in most countries — Spain being an exception — they appear to be at a loss on how to rebuild winning coalitions.

Last month Britain’s storied Labour Party recorded its worst electoral performance in more than 80 years, losing seats it had held for even longer in an election rout that’s triggered internecine internal warfare. Sister parties in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Holland all have hit historic lows.

And the question some analysts are asking is whether there’s any future for them unless they adapt, as some of their Conservative opponents have managed, to a fundamental realignment in Western politics.

“Center-left social democracy and its more radical socialist cousin were founded to answer questions about the economy, but today the primary questions in politics are about culture and identity,” said British academic Matthew Goodwin, co-author of the book National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy, in which he argued populist revolts in Europe “were a long time in the making” and dismissed the idea they are a spasm, or just a backlash to the financial crisis that erupted in 2008, the austerity that followed, or the refugee crisis that has swept through Europe since midway through the last decade.

Examining Labour’s defeat for Britain’s The Times newspaper, Goodwin suggested left-wing parties are facing an existential crisis. “A great irony of our time is that the left has crashed at the exact moment economic growth has slowed and living standards have been squeezed, the very things it expected to bring it to power,” he said.

Labour politicians can’t agree on what went wrong for them in last month’s general election, one that’s likely to be seen as the most consequential British election in a quarter-century. Some, including defeated party leader Jeremy Corbyn, are insisting the radical socialist policies he advocated, including the nationalization of a swathe of the British economy, were individually popular and that the blame should be on Brexit.

The party is now in the throes of a leadership battle, pitching centrists against Corbyn loyalists. A key Corbyn ally, powerful trade union leader Len McCluskey, says the policies in the party’s manifesto were “very popular,” but “we very evidently didn’t win the argument over Brexit” and the party’s policy of holding a second referendum on European Union membership.

But centrists point out that in post-election polling, only 17 percent of Labour defectors cited Brexit as the reason for switching to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, saying Brexit-favoring working-class voters who deserted the party would have overlooked the issue of Europe, if Labour had had a more popular and centrist leader and a manifesto shorn of left-wing dogma.

“For me, the most important thing is that the Labour party is rebuilt, we learn the lessons of the last general election, reflect on them, and address them,” said Keir Starmer a leading centrist contender and the current front-runner to replace Corbyn. But left-wing activists are battling to keep their grip on Labour in the face of calls for a shift back to the center.

The struggle the Labour Party is experiencing is being repeated in other left-wing European parties.

Germany

In Germany, Social Democrats (SDP) have lurched to the left. Activists elected in November two relatively unknown left-wingers as their leaders, Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken, who ran against high-profile moderates. They tapped into a sense of gloom that’s gripped the party since it lost one-third of its support since the 2017 general election and is struggling to recover in opinion polls, lagging behind the Greens and jostling for third place with the hard-right Alternative for Germany.

Reversing a recent string of regional election results is a daunting prospect for the SPD, however, which is the junior partner in Angela Merkel’s governing coalition.

Many activists want the party to quit the coalition if Merkel’s Christian Democrats refuse their progressive demands for a spending splurge — a move that would likely trigger an early election, which the divided party is in no shape to fight. Party moderates fear the new leaders will take the SPD away from the center, just as Christian Democrats are nudging rightward to woo back supporters who defected to the populist Alternative for Germany.

But where exactly is the center now in Western politics? On top of being pulled in opposite directions by middle-class supporters, who have done well economically from globalization and free markets, and the working class, which has been left behind, Western left-wing parties also are facing a cultural divide they’re struggling to bridge.

Their traditional older, working-class voters have become increasingly socially conservative, while progressive activists and younger metropolitan voters are embracing very different identity politics. Conservative parties have been quicker to adapt to a realignment in Western politics that’s as much about identity as economics, warns Goodwin, among other analysts.

The question is, can the West’s left adapt?

 

The co-creator of a video and voice calling app suspected of being a spying tool of the United Arab Emirates defended his work in an  interview with The Associated Press  and denied knowing that people and companies linked to the project had ties to the country’s intelligence apparatus.

Millions downloaded the ToTok app during the several months it was offered in the Apple and Google stores. Co-founder Giacomo Ziani described the popularity as a sign of users’ trust despite a longtime ban in the UAE on such apps.

He denied that the company collected conversation data, saying the software demanded the same access to devices as other common communication apps. Emirati authorities insisted that they “prohibit any kind of data breach and unlawful interception.”

But this federation of seven sheikhdoms ruled by hereditary leaders already conducts mass surveillance and has been  internationally criticized for targeting activists, journalists and others. Ziani repeatedly said he knew nothing about that, nor had any knowledge that a firm invested in ToTok included staff with ties to an Emirati security firm scrutinized abroad for hiring former CIA and National Security Agency staffers. He also said he did not know about ties a computer researcher says link companies involved with ToTok to Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Emirates’ national security adviser.

“I was not aware, and I’m even not aware now of who was who, who was doing what in the past,” Ziani said. “These are not questions you should be (asking) me. You should be eventually asking” them.

ToTok surged to popularity by allowing users to make internet calls long banned in the UAE, a U.S.-allied nation on the Arabian Peninsula that is home to Dubai. The ban means Apple iPhones and computers sold in the UAE do not carry Apple’s FaceTime calling app. Calls on Skype, WhatsApp and other similar programs do not work.

Ziani said ToTok won rapid approval from the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, something long sought by the established competitors that remain banned. The 32-year-old native of Venice, Italy, attributed that to the monopoly on the telecommunications market held by two companies, Du and Etisalat, that are majority-owned by the government. ToTok’s small market share would not cut as deeply into their business as major firms if allowed access, he said.

“They will see their business like totally crashed from a day to another,” Ziani said. With ToTok, “they felt like they were not risking to fall into this situation.”

By installing the app, users agreed to allow access to their mobile device’s microphone, pictures, location information and other data invaluable to intelligence agencies. Most internet firms are based in the U.S., but privacy is viewed far differently in the Emirates, where ToTok’s headquarters are in the capital, Abu Dhabi.

“By using this app, you’re allowing your life to be opened up to the whims of national security as seen by the UAE government,” said Bill Marczak, a computer science researcher at the University of California, Berkley, who has studied ToTok and other suspected Emirati spying operations. “In this case, you’re essentially having people install the spyware themselves as opposed to hacking into the phone.”

In this nation of 9.4 million people where all but a sliver of the population comes from another country, the app represented what appeared to be the first government-blessed app that would allow them to connect freely to loved ones back home. That drew everyone from laborers to diplomatic staffers to download it amid a publicity campaign by state-linked and government-supporting media in the Emirates.

An American diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, said local embassy and consular staff received orders to remove the app from all U.S. government devices. That was only after The New York Times, citing anonymous U.S. officials, described the app as a “spying tool” of the Emirati government.

Ziani alleged, without providing evidence, that criticism of ToTok came more from professional jealousy and trade tensions between the U.S. and China than security concerns. ToTok partly used code from a previously developed Chinese app called Yeecall, where his co-founder, Long Ruan, once worked in a senior position, he said. Ziani said he met Long through G42, which he described as a business “incubator.”

But ToTok described itself on Apple as coming from developer Breej Holding Ltd. and on Google as being from ToTok Pte., a Singapore-based firm.

Both ToTok and Breej Holding Ltd. had been registered in a publicly accessible online database of companies operating out of the Abu Dhabi Global Market, an economic free zone set up in the Emirati capital. After suspicions emerged about ToTok, records of the two firms no longer appeared online.

Following an inquiry about the firms from an AP journalist, their information reappeared Tuesday night in the database. Market spokeswoman Joan Lew blamed a “data migration” problem for their disappearance.

Information from that database shows ToTok’s sole registered shareholder as Group 42, a new Abu Dhabi firm that describes itself as an artificial intelligence and cloud-computing company. The company, also known as G42, in an email to the AP also described itself as “the registered shareholder in ToTok Technology Ltd.,” though Ziani said ToTok has another substantial investor he declined to identify.

G42’s CEO is Peng Xiao, who for years ran Pegasus, a subsidiary of DarkMatter, the Emirati security firm under scrutiny for hiring former CIA and NSA staffers, as well as others from Israel. G42’s website also lists PAX AI as a subsidiary, the new name Pegasus operates under, according to job postings for PAX AI that mention Pegasus. Ziani similarly interchangeably referred to Pegasus as PAX AI while speaking to the AP.

“G42 has no connection to DarkMatter, whatsoever,” the company told AP in a statement. It did not respond to further queries, though other former DarkMatter and Pegasus employees now work at G42, according to publicly accessible profiles on the social media website LinkedIn.

G42’s sole director listed in Abu Dhabi Global Market filings is Hamad Khalfan al-Shamsi, whom Marczak identified as the public relations manager of the office of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Sheikh Tahnoun is a brother to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the powerful crown prince of Abu Dhabi who has run the country from day-to-day since its president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, suffered a stroke in January 2014.

Sheikh Tahnoun, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner always photographed in sunglasses, has served as the UAE’s national security adviser since 2016. The sheikh’s adopted son, the mixed martial artist Hassan al-Rumaithi, is the sole director of Breej Holding Ltd., Marczak said, citing market filings. Similarly, an executive at Sheikh Tahnoun’s company Royal Group, Osama al-Ahdali, is the sole director of ToTok Technology Ltd., Marczak said.

Royal Group did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Emirati officials, Apple and Google.

ToTok on its website meanwhile still lists itself as Totok Pte. Ltd., the Singapore-based company initially listed on the Google app store. Singaporean business records obtained by the AP show a single shareholder, Manoj Paul, with a listed address at one of Abu Dhabi’s upscale Etihad Towers. Paul, who describes himself on LinkedIn as G42’s general counsel and head of group operations, declined to speak with an AP journalist.

For now, Ziani said his focus remains on getting ToTok listed again in the Apple and Google app stores. He mentioned plans to have ToTok become like China’s all-encompassing app WeChat, handling payments, social media posts and other high-frequency activities. G42 appears to already have filed paperwork for a possible payment company in Abu Dhabi.

That could create an Emirati version of WeChat, a service used by more than 1 billion people use in which Chinese government officials routinely censor posts. Dissidents suspect it of allowing surveillance.

Ziani insisted a former NSA hacker named Patrick Wardle, who analyzed ToTok, said the app “simply does what it claims to do.”

However, Ziani ignored the next sentence in Wardle’s analysis, which described “the genius of the whole mass surveillance operation” the app could represent by offering “in-depth insight in a large percentage of the country’s population.”

Libya’s forces based in the country’s east say they have called on citizens to take up arms against Turkish troops if they deploy to fight against them in the country’s ongoing civil war.

The statement came soon after Turkey’s parliament authorized the deployment of troops to Libya to support their rivals, the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli.

In a statement Thursday on Twitter, the self-styled Libya National Army, led by commander Gen. Khalifa Hifter, said it was the people’s “duty” to fight to protect the homeland.

Both sides using militias

Libya’s authorities in the east have several times throughout the war encouraged its citizens to take up arms and volunteer for police or military forces.

Militias are fighting on both sides of Libya’s ongoing conflict.

The Tripoli-based government of Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj has faced an offensive by the rival regime in the east and forces loyal to Hifter. The fighting has threatened to plunge Libya into violent chaos rivaling the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Fighting around Tripoli escalated in recent weeks after Hifter declared a “final” and decisive battle for the capital. He has the backing of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia, while the Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.

Germany to host peace talks

Turkey’s parliamentary approval of a military deployment comes amid increased cooperation between the country and the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli. The recent escalation comes ahead of expected peace talks between the warring parties in Germany early this year.

Ghassan Salame, the U.N. envoy to Libya, said Turkish troops on the ground would further disrupt chances for future peace, though he still expects the talks in Germany to take place in mid-January. He said interference by regional powers means that Libyans could lose control of their country’s fate.

“The direct military involvement of member states in the Libyan conflict is escalating, inflaming, and protracting the conflict,” he said via email.

Turkey’s parliament on Thursday authorized the deployment of troops to Libya to support the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli battle forces loyal to a rival government that is seeking to capture the capital.

Turkish lawmakers voted 325-184 at an emergency session in favor of a one-year mandate allowing the government to dispatch troops amid concerns that Turkish forces could aggravate the conflict in Libya and destabilize the region.

The Tripoli-based government of Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj has faced an offensive by the rival regime in the east and commander Gen. Khalifa Hifter. The fighting has threatened to plunge Libya into violent chaos rivaling the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last month that Sarraj requested the Turkish deployment, after he and Sarraj signed a military deal that allows Ankara to dispatch military experts and personnel to Libya. That deal, along with a separate agreement on maritime boundaries between Turkey and Libya, has drawn ire across the region and beyond.

Ankara says the deployment is vital for Turkey to safeguard its interests in Libya and in the eastern Mediterranean, where it finds itself increasingly isolated as Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel have established exclusive economic zones paving the way for oil and gas exploration.

“A Libya whose legal government is under threat can spread instability to Turkey,” ruling party legislator Ismet Yilmaz argued in defense of the motion. “Those who shy away from taking steps on grounds that there is a risk will throw our children into a greater danger.”

The government has not revealed details about the possible Turkish deployment. The motion allows the government to decide on the scope, amount and timing of any mission by Turkish troops.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told state-run Anadolu Agency that Turkey would send “the necessary number (of troops) whenever there is a need.”

But he also said Turkey would not dispatch its forces if Libya’s rival government halts its offensive.

“If the other side adopts a different stance and says `OK, we are withdrawing, we are backing down,’ then why would we go?” Oktay said.

Turkey’s main opposition party, CHP, had said its lawmakers would vote against the motion because the deployment would embroil Turkey in another conflict and make it a party to the further “shedding of Muslim blood.”

Before the vote, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu called on the government Thursday to work for the establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping force in Libya.

“Turkey must take the lead for efforts to establish stability in the region and concentrate all diplomatic efforts in that direction,” Kilicdaroglu tweeted.

A center-right opposition party also said its legislators would not back the motion.

“We cannot throw our soldiers in the line of fire of a civilian war that has nothing to do with our national security,” said Aytun Ciray, a member of the opposition Good Party, said during the parliamentary debate.

However, Erdogan’s ruling party is in an alliance with a nationalist party, and the two held sufficient votes for the motion to pass.

Fighting around Tripoli escalated in recent weeks after Hifter declared a “final” and decisive battle for the capital. He has the backing of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia, while the Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.

 

Japanese prosecutors raided the Tokyo home of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn Thursday while the international police organization Interpol submitted a warrant for his arrest to Lebanese authorities.

Ghosn skipped bail in Japan and fled to Lebanon before his trial on financial misconduct charges got underway.

Japanese authorities said they were unsure how the auto executive avoided close surveillance and entered Lebanon, but Lebanese authorities said he entered the country legally with a French passport and that there was no reason to take action against Ghosn.

Japanese media showed investigators entering Ghosn’s home, his third home in Tokyo since he was first arrested a year ago.

Ghosn’s lawyers in Japan initially said they were unaware of Ghosn’s escape and that they possessed all of his passports. He has citizenship in Lebanon, France and Brazil.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK TV reported Ghosn had two French passports but did not identify the source of the information.

Japanese media reported earlier that there were no official records in Japan of Ghosn’s departure and that a private jet departed from a regional airport to Turkey.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency reported Thursday that authorities investigating Ghosn’s travels from Japan to Istanbul had arrested seven people, including four pilots, a cargo company manager and two airport employees.

Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reported the plane Ghosn was on landed at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on December 29. It also reported that Ghosn was not registered on arrival and secretly boarded another plane that took him to Lebanon.

Lebanon’s justice minister, Albert Serhan, told the Associated Press that the arrest warrant for Ghosn was received earlier Thursday by the prosecution.

Interpol’s arrest warrants, called red notices, are requests to law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and arrest a fugitive.

Japanese prosecutors have charged Ghosn with under-reporting his future compensation and breach of trust.

Ghosn has maintained his innocence and claimed authorities filed the charges against him to prevent a proposed fuller merger between Nissan Motor Company and carmaker Renault SA.

 

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook northeastern Iran Thursday, state television reported, adding that there were no immediate reports of damage.

The quake hit the town of Sangan at a shallow depth of 8 km (5 miles) it said. The town, which has a population of about 10,000, is located near the border with Afghanistan.
 

Former commissioner of the National Basketball Association David Stern, who oversaw the NBA turning from a struggling U.S. league into a global powerhouse, died in New York Wednesday. He was 77.

The NBA said Stern had been seriously ill since emergency surgery for a brain hemorrhage in early December.

Stern joined the NBA’s legal department in the 1960s and took over the league in 1984 when U.S. professional basketball was struggling to attract the same kind of fans base that followed other sports, such as baseball and American football.

Stern focused on marketing professional basketball overseas, including Europe and Asia, allowing fans who were barely aware of the sport to see superstars such as Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James.

Under Stern, the NBA expanded from the United States into Canada and was the first U.S. major league sport to play a regular season game outside North America, when the Phoenix Suns facing off against the Utah Jazz in Japan in 1990.

The NBA has grown into a $5 billion a year league with games broadcast in more than 200 countries in 40 languages. Stern retired from the NBA in 2014.

Taiwan’s top military official is missing after a helicopter made an emergency landing in northern Taiwan, the island’s defense ministry said Thursday.

The defense ministry said a rescue mission was underway for the 13 people on board the Black Hawk helicopter, which includes the Air Force General Shen Yi-ming, the island’s chief of the general staff.

Three people were still missing, including Shen, while several people were found alive, the ministry said, adding that a team has been dispatched for the rescue mission.

The crash came a week before a key election Jan. 11, when the democratic island is to hold presidential and parliamentary elections.
 

Severe flooding in Indonesia’s capital as residents celebrated the new year has killed at least 16 people, displaced tens of thousands and forced an airport to close, the country’s disaster management agency said Thursday.

Monsoon rains and rising rivers submerged at least 169 neighborhoods and caused landslides in the Bogor and Depok districts on Jakarta’s outskirts, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said.

Video and photos released by the agency showed cars floating in muddy waters while soldiers and rescuers in rubber boats helped children and elders forced onto the roofs of flooded homes.

The floods inundated thousands of homes and buildings in poor and wealthy districts alike, have forced authorities to cut off electricity and water and paralyzed transport networks, Wibowo said.

More than 31,000 people were in temporary shelters after floodwaters reached up to 2.5 meters (8 feet) in places, Wibowo said.

As much as 37 centimeters (14.5 inches) of rainfall was recorded in Jakarta and West Java’s hilly areas on New Year’s Eve, causing the Ciliwung and Cisadane rivers to overflow, Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan told reporters after conducting an aerial survey over the flooded city.

He said 120,000 rescuers were helping people evacuate and installing mobile water pumps as more downpours were forecast. He vowed his city administration would complete flood-mitigation projects on the two rivers.

Director General of Civil Aviation Polana Pramesti said the floods submerged the runway at Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusumah domestic airport, forcing it to close and stranding some 19,000 passengers.

Flooding was possible until April, when the rainy season ends. Flooding also highlights Indonesia’s infrastructure problems as it tries to attract foreign investment.

Jakarta is home to 10 million people and 30 million live in its greater metropolitan area. It is prone to earthquakes and flooding and is rapidly sinking due to uncontrolled extraction of groundwater. Congestion is also estimated to cost the economy $6.5 billion a year.

President Joko Widodo announced in August that the capital will move to a site in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, known for rainforests and orangutans.

Tens of thousands of holidaymakers raced to evacuate popular seaside towns on Australia’s east coast Wednesday, fleeing ahead of advancing bushfires, as military ships and helicopters planned missions to rescue thousands more trapped by the blazes.

Long queues formed outside supermarkets and gas stations near high-danger areas as residents and tourists sought supplies to either hunker down or escape, but many shops and fuel stations had run out of supplies.

Major roads were closed because of fire risks, leaving motorists only a handful of escape routes causing lengthy traffic jams.

More than 50,000 people were without power and some towns had no access to drinking water, after catastrophic fires ripped through the region Dec. 31 sending the sky blood red and destroying towns.

Mass exodus urged

Authorities have urged a mass exodus from several towns on Australia’s southeast coast, an area that is hugely popular in the current summer peak holiday season, warning that extreme heat forecast for the weekend will further stoke raging fires.

“It is vital, critical,” NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said on Australian Broadcasting Corp television. “We need everybody to leave. We are going to face a worse day on Saturday than what we have been through.”

Huge bushfires have been burning for weeks across Australia, with new blazes sparked into life almost daily by extremely hot and windy conditions in bushland left tinder dry after a three-year drought.

Fueled by searing temperatures and high winds, more than 200 fires are now burning across the southeastern states of New South Wales and Victoria, threatening several towns.

Death toll rises

Seven people have been killed in New South Wales state alone since Monday, including a volunteer firefighter, officials said, with one person still missing.

The death toll for this year’s fire season is 15 in New South Wales alone.

One person has died in Victoria state this week.

Military en route

Five military helicopters and two naval ships were en route to the south coast to back up firefighters, bring in supplies like water and diesel and to evacuate people, the Australian Defense Force said.

One ship was headed for the coastal town of Mallacoota in Victoria, where about 4,000 people have been stranded on the beach front since New Year’s Eve when they watched much of the town burn down.

The navy rescue team will include 1.6 metric tons of water and paramedics, officials said.

The only road in and out of Mallacoota was expected to remain blocked for several weeks.

The state’s Country Fire Authority said smoke was hampering efforts to identify how many homes have been destroyed across the eastern region of the state.

“We can’t even get firetrucks into some of these communities,” CFA Chief Officer Steve Warrington said. “This is not over by a long way.”

Soaring temperatures forecast

Temperatures are forecast to soar above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) along the south coast Saturday, bringing the prospect of renewed fires to add to the 200 estimated current blazes.

Fires this season have destroyed nearly 1,300 homes in the state, including 381 homes on the south coast just this week, the NSW Rural Fire Service said.

Bushfires are normal for Australia in the summer, but this fire season has been one of the worst on record, putting pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative climate change policies.

The number of deaths in major air crashes around the globe fell by more than half in 2019, according to a report by an aviation consulting firm. 

The To70 consultancy said Wednesday that 257 people died in eight fatal accidents in 2019. That compares with 534 deaths in 13 fatal accidents in 2018. 

The 2019 death toll rose in late December after a Bek Air Fokker 100 crashed Friday on takeoff in Kazakhstan, killing 12 people. The worst crash of 2019 involved an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max plane that crashed March 10, killing 157 people. 

The report said fatal accidents in 2018 and 2019 that led to the grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max raised questions about how aviation authorities approve aviation designs derived from older ones, and about how much pilot training is needed on new systems. 

The group said it expected the 737 Max to eventually gain permission to fly again in 2020. 

The report said the fatal accident rate for large planes in commercial air transport fell to 0.18 fatal accidents per million flights in 2019 from 0.30 accidents per million flights in 2018. That means there was one fatal accident for every 5.58 million flights. 

The firm’s annual compilation of accident statistics stressed that aviation needs to keep its focus on the basics of having well-designed and well-constructed aircraft flown by well-trained crews. 

Last year may have seen fewer deaths but did not equal the historic low of 2017, which saw only two fatal accidents, involving regional turboprops, that resulted in 13 deaths. 

This report is based on crashes involving larger aircraft used for most commercial passenger flights. It excludes accidents involving small planes, military flights, cargo flights and helicopters. 

Thanks to a very special gift, one family is exceptionally grateful to be celebrating the New Year together this year. Bronwyn Benito tells us about a new surgical technique that makes it easier to give the gift of life.