Tuesday, 17 June 2014

Sunni Rebels in Iraq Kill Shiite Volunteers and Seize New City

Sunni Rebels in Iraq Kill Shiite Volunteers and Seize New CityBAGHDAD — Sunni rebel extremists ambushed and killed more than two dozen Shiite volunteer militiamen late Sunday just outside the holy city of Samarra, the first such killings since Iraq’s government started mobilizing thousands of untrained Shiites to stop the insurgent advance threatening the country.

That advance appeared to gain momentum elsewhere on Monday. Sunni insurgents took over the small city of Tal Afar, in northwestern Iraq, according to Iraqi security officials and residents, sending both Shiite and Sunni residents fleeing.

In another sign of diminished confidence in the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, President Obama said on Monday that he had ordered approximately 275 members of the United States armed forces into Iraq to guard the American Embassy in Baghdad, a day after the State Department announced a partial evacuation of the heavily fortified facility. "This force is deploying for the purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and property,” Mr. Obama said in a letter to Congressional leaders that was released by the White House. “This force will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that it is no longer needed.”

Cities Controlled by the Militants

UPDATED JUNE 16

Having occupied crucial sections of Syria over the past year and more recently seizing vast areas of Iraq, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria controls territory greater than many countries and now rivals Al Qaeda as the world’s most powerful jihadist group.Related Maps and Multimedia »

Sources: Caerus Associates, Long War Journal

TURKEY

Hasakah

Mosul

Erbil

Tal Afar

Aleppo

Raqqa

Kirkuk

Deir al-Zour

IRAN

Hama

Baiji

Homs

Tikrit

Jalawla

LEBANON

Samarra

SYRIA

Saadiyah

Ramadi

Damascus

Baghdad

Falluja

IRAQ

ISRAEL

ISIS control of cities

Partial or complete

Contested

Recent attacks

JORDAN

Basra

KUWAIT

Earlier Monday the United Nations said it had temporarily relocated 58 staff from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan. Farhan Haq, a spokesman for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, told reporters in New York that more United Nations staff members may be extricated in coming days.

The new setbacks for the government added urgency to demands from Iran and the United States — which have now both signaled a new willingness to cooperate on the crisis — that Prime Minister Maliki move quickly to reach out to Sunnis and Kurds, and forge a united front against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the extremist group that in the past week has brought much of the north and west of the country under its control.

Mr. Maliki has publicly declared his confidence that the volunteers would supplement his beleaguered military, which has been decimated by desertions. Young Shiite men have enthusiastically signed up throughout Baghdad and southern Iraq, racing to the front lines with little training or preparation, since Iraq’s top Shiite cleric exhorted them on Friday to take up arms and defend the country. The bloody ambush on Sunday raised questions about how effective such volunteers will be in fighting experienced insurgents.

The volunteers had just left the northern town of Ishaqi and were heading south to reinforce Samarra, which is still held by the Iraqi Army but is under pressure from ISIS, which has threatened to destroy its historic Shiite shrine. An attack on that shrine in 2006 provoked bloody sectarian warfare nationwide.

The volunteers had hidden themselves inside a small convoy of refrigerator trucks for the perilous journey through territory where ISIS is active. According to a Shiite militia leader, Abu Mujahid, the convoy was struck by a roadside bomb, and “at the same time the militants came from nowhere and started shooting from everywhere and killed 28 volunteers.”

A Shiite militiaman in Baghdad on Monday. CreditAyman Oghanna for The New York Times

At the morgue of the hospital in Samarra, an official said that 29 dead were brought there, and that a further 190 volunteers were wounded in the attack. Mr. Mujahid put the wounded at only 17.

Farther north, the fall of Tal Afar followed a two-day-long battle between the Iraqi military and ISIS insurgents. The militants have now gained control of another city on the road to Syria through Nineveh Province, after the fall less than a week earlier of the province’s capital, Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, about 35 miles to the east of Tal Afar.

As concern intensified about the Sunni militants’ advances toward Baghdad, and about their claims of slaughtering Shiites as they marched, American and Iranian officials suggested that they could collaborate over their common interest in stabilizing Iraq.

One senior Obama administration official said that Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns may talk to the Iranians about Iraq at the nuclear talks in Vienna this week. “There may be discussion of that on the margins,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss unfinished planning.

Secretary of State John Kerry, in an interview with Yahoo News, also suggested that cooperation with Iran was a possibility, saying, “I wouldn’t rule out anything that would be constructive.” Mr. Kerry also said that American airstrikes on the Sunni militants were a possibility.

“They are not the whole answer, but they may well be one of the options that are important,” Mr. Kerry said.

In Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani said that despite years of acrimony, his government would not rule out working with the United States to try to stabilize the situation in Iraq. “We have said that all countries must unite in combating terrorism,” he said.

American and Iranian officials are both pressuring Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, to reach out to Sunni Arabs and include more of them in his government and security forces. On Sunday, President Obama made such an effort a prerequisite for any direct American military help.

Iran seems to be preparing to step in if needed. There have been unconfirmed reports from Iraq of Iranian troops on the ground there, with estimates ranging from 500 to 2,000.

On Friday, American officials said that Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the shadowy commander of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, had flown to Iraq with dozens of his officers to advise Iraq’s leadership about how to stop the advance of Sunni militants on Baghdad.

Both Mr. Rouhani and his deputy stopped short of completely denying any Iranian military presence in Iraq. On Saturday, Mr. Rouhani said the Iraqi government had not asked for Iranian support.

A senior Shiite member of Parliament in Baghdad confirmed that General Suleimani had come to Iraq with 200 officers from his Quds Force, many of whom he said were expected to stay behind to act as advisers.

In northern Iraq, ISIS militants claimed that along with taking Tal Afar, they had captured the commander of Iraqi Army forces in the city, Gen. Abu al-Waleed, and planned to execute him in a square in central Mosul. Residents said the militants were using bullhorns to call people to come to the square to witness the execution, but it never took place. General Waleed’s voice was later heard on the Iraqi state television channel, refuting the insurgents’ claims. “I am in good health and on the battlefield and will announce victory over ISIS in all of the territory of Tal Afar in the next few hours,” the channel quoted the general as saying.

Residents in Tal Afar, which has a population of 200,000, said most Shiite families had fled west, toward Sinjar, while Sunnis had gone east, toward Mosul.

In the capital, Brig. Gen. Saad Maan, the spokesman for the Baghdad Operation Command, held a news briefing to announce that the authorities had killed 56 insurgents in areas of western and southern Baghdad. He also denied reports by Al-Hadath Television, part of the Saudi-owned Arabiya television network, that the insurgents had launched strikes near Baghdad International Airport. “The airport is functional, and everything is normal,” General Maan said, adding that the authorities wanted the Al-Hadath channel to be shut down because of its reports.

He added that the government planned to continue paying employees of the Ministry of Interior, which includes police forces, even if their areas fall under the control of ISIS.

After reading a brief statement, the Iraqi officer concluded his briefing without taking any questions.

Iraq’s effort to limit news of successful attacks by the insurgents has expanded in recent days. After initially shutting down Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social media sites, the authorities have also blocked mobile data connections as well.

Supreme Court Rules Against ‘Straw’ Gun Purchases Justices Also Allow Challenge to Law Banning Lies in Elections

Supreme Court Rules Against ‘Straw’ Gun Purchases

Justices Also Allow Challenge to Law Banning Lies in Elections

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a challenge to an Ohio law banning lies in political campaigns to move forward, turned back a challenge to a law concerning gun purchases and refused to hear a case about holding high school graduations in churches.

Political Speech

The court ruled unanimously that two advocacy groups could challenge an Ohio law that makes it a crime to make knowingly or recklessly false statements about political candidates that are intended to help elect or defeat them. The first offense could lead to six months in jail and the second could lead to disenfranchisement.

Lower courts had dismissed the case, saying the groups seeking to challenge it had not faced imminent harm sufficient to give them standing to sue. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said the groups “have alleged a credible threat of enforcement” of the law and so were not barred from pursuing their challenge to it.

The case was brought by Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group, and Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes. Both had sought to criticize Steve Driehaus, a Democrat, in the midst of what turned out to be his unsuccessful 2010 run for re-election to the House of Representatives. They asserted that his vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act could be interpreted as one “for taxpayer-funded abortion.”

The Supreme Court took no position on the truth of that statement.

Mr. Driehaus filed a complaint against the anti-abortion group with the Ohio Elections Commission, which makes preliminary determinations and can recommend criminal prosecutions. It issued a finding of probable cause that the group had violated the law. Mr. Driehaus dropped his complaint after he lost the election and before the case had gotten much further.

The federal appeals court in Cincinnati dismissed the groups’ suit challenging the law, saying they no longer had anything to worry about. In his opinion reversing that ruling, Justice Thomas said the groups had shown that they intended to repeat their critique of the Affordable Care Act against other candidates and that “the threat of future enforcement of the false statement statute is substantial.” That meant, he said, that their lawsuit could move forward. The case is Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, No. 13-139.

Gun Sales

By a 5-to-4 vote, the court allowed a prosecution under a federal law that requires gun buyers to disclose that they are making their purchase for someone else, even if both the straw buyer and the real one are eligible to own guns.

The case involved Bruce Abramski, a former police officer in Virginia who bought a handgun for his uncle, Angel Alvarez, who lived in Pennsylvania. At the gun store, Mr. Abramski filled out a federal form indicating that he was buying the gun for himself.

Mr. Abramski pleaded guilty to making a false statement but reserved the right to appeal. He was sentenced to five years of probation.

Writing for the majority in a case that divided the court’s more liberal members from its more conservative ones, Justice Elena Kagan rejected Mr. Abramski’s argument that his misstatement had been immaterial because the federal law meant only to make sure that the immediate buyer was eligible to own a gun.

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“Abramski’s reading would undermine – indeed, for all important purposes would virtually repeal – the gun law’s core provisions,” she wrote, including ones meant to keep firearms out of the wrong hands and to help investigate serious crimes.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion.

In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that it is permissible to buy guns as gifts, for later resale or as raffle prizes. The majority erred, he said, in interpreting the law to make it “a federal crime for one lawful gun owner to buy a gun for another lawful gun owner.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the dissent in the case, Abramski v. United States, No. 12-1493.

Graduation Ceremonies

The court said it would not hear a case about whether high school graduation ceremonies held in a church violated the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.

The court’s order gave no reasons. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented, saying the court should have heard the case or sent it back to the lower courts for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last month allowing prayers at town board meetings.

Justice Scalia said he knew that some might be offended by the religious symbols in a church.

“I can understand that attitude: It parallels my own toward the playing in public of rock music or Stravinsky,” he wrote. “And I too am especially annoyed when the intrusion upon my inner peace occurs while I am part of a captive audience, as on a municipal bus or in the waiting room of a public agency.”

But that sort of offense, Justice Scalia continued, was not a problem under the First Amendment.

“It is perhaps the job of school officials to prevent hurt feelings at school events,” he wrote. “But that is decidedly not the job of the Constitution.”

The case, Elmbrook School District v. Doe, No. 12-755, arose from graduation ceremonies held by two public high schools in Brookfield, Wis., at Elmbrook Church, an evangelical Christian institution. Administrators said they chose the church for its comfortable seats, air conditioning and ample parking.

A divided 10-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, ruled that the religious symbols in the church, including a large cross and pews filled with Bibles and hymnals, made it an inappropriate setting.

“Regardless of the purpose of school administrators in choosing the location,” Judge Joel M. Flaum wrote for the seven-judge majority, “the sheer religiosity of the space created a likelihood that high school students and their younger siblings would perceive a link between church and state.”

In a dissent, Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook said the majority did not give the students enough credit. “No reasonable observer believes,” he wrote, “that renting an auditorium for a day endorses the way the landlord uses that space the other 364 days.”

“Elmbrook Church is full of religious symbols — but any space is full of symbols,” Chief Judge Easterbrook continued. “Suppose the school district had rented the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Blackhawks. A larger-than-life statue of Michael Jordan stands outside; United Airlines’ logo is huge. No one would believe that the School District had established basketball as its official sport or United Airlines as its official air carrier, let alone sanctified Michael Jordan.”

House Panels Looking Into I.R.S.’s Claims of Lost Emails I.R.S. Says Lois Lerner Emails Were Destroyed in Computer Crash

House Panels Looking Into I.R.S.’s Claims of Lost Emails

I.R.S. Says Lois Lerner Emails Were Destroyed in Computer Crash

WASHINGTON — Two House committees investigating the Internal Revenue Service are looking into whether the agency’s claim that it lost emails of interest to investigators amounted to obstruction and a violation of federal record-keeping rules, congressional aides said on Monday.

The I.R.S. late on Friday told investigators looking into accusations of politically motivated misconduct by the agency that two years’ worth of emails sent and received by Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the inquiry, had been destroyed because of a computer crash in mid-2011.

The disclosure, included in an I.R.S. filing to the Senate Finance Committee, added to suspicions among Republican lawmakers that the I.R.S. was not cooperating fully with the investigations of its treatment of conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status during the 2012 election cycle.

“We have a lot of questions,” said an aide to the Ways and Means Committee, which is focusing on suspicions of obstruction. “How long have they known about this? What do you mean they’re completely gone?”

Photo

Lois Lerner refused to answer questions at a hearing in Washington in May. Credit
Separately, the House Oversight Committee is looking into the more technical question of whether the I.R.S. violated its own document-retention rules and provisions of the Federal Records Act, an aide to that committee said. The aides spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, a Republican who is the Ways and Means chairman, called for an “immediate investigation and forensic audit by the Department of Justice as well as the inspector general.”

Republican lawmakers, after first demanding emails directly related to the agency’s scrutiny of political groups, later expanded their inquiry to include all of Ms. Lerner’s emails.

The I.R.S. initially provided 11,000 of her emails that it deemed directly related to the applications for tax exemption filed by political groups. Under pressure from Republican leaders, John Koskinen, the I.R.S. commissioner, agreed to provide all of Ms. Lerner’s emails but said that doing so might take years. Since then, the I.R.S. has provided roughly 32,000 more emails directly from Ms. Lerner’s account.

After the agency discovered that its initial search of Ms. Lerner’s emails was incomplete because of the computer crash, it recovered 24,000 of the missing messages from email accounts on the other end of Ms. Lerner’s correspondence, the I.R.S. said.

Although Mr. Koskinen had indicated in congressional testimony that I.R.S. emails were stored on servers in the agency’s archives and could be recovered, the agency said on Friday that was not the case.

The agency said that because of financial and computing constraints, some emails had been stored only on individuals’ computers and not on servers, and that “backup tapes” from 2011 “no longer exist because they have been recycled.”

The I.R.S. also said that it was not in contact with Ms. Lerner, who quit in September as the head of the agency’s division on tax-exempt organizations, and could not interview her.

Last month, the Republican-led House voted to hold Ms. Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer lawmakers’ questions about her role in holding up applications for tax exemption from conservative political groups.

Benjamin Whitehead

Tuesday, 17 June 2014