Burkina Faso’s military summarily executed more than 220 civilians, including at least 56 children, in two villages in late February, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

“We saw the bloody corpses riddled with bullets. We were able to save a 2-year-old child whose mother was killed shielding him with her body,” a 19-year-old witness, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Intercept. “The attackers were soldiers from our own army. They arrived on motorbikes and in vehicles, and they were armed with Kalashnikovs and heavy weapons.”

“The attackers were soldiers from our own army. They arrived on motorbikes and in vehicles, and they were armed.”

The mass killings came as the U.S. counterterrorism strategy in the West African Sahel crumbled, with U.S.-trained military officers launching a long string of coups , including in Burkina Faso itself. Despite the coups and massacres, the U.S. has not cut ties with Burkina Faso, and a contingent of U.S. personnel remain in-country to “engage” with the armed forces serving the ruling junta.

Burkinabè soldiers killed 44 people, including 20 children, in Nondin village, and 179 people, including 36 children and four pregnant women, in nearby Soro village in the north of the country on February 25, according to HRW. The mass killings are part of a long-running counterterrorism campaign aimed at civilians accused of collaborating with Islamist militants.

“The massacres in Nondin and Soro villages are just the latest mass killings of civilians by the Burkina Faso military in their counterinsurgency operations,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “The repeated failure of the Burkinabè authorities to prevent and investigate such atrocities underlines why international assistance is critical to support a credible investigation into abuses that may amount to crimes against humanity.”

The West African Sahel was once touted as an American foreign-policy success story, but persistent violence over the last decade intensified as the U.S. implemented its counterterror strategy.

Putsches by U.S.-linked military officers, prompted by spiking militant attacks, have brought with them seismic geopolitical changes. Niger, for example, the site of the most recent coup by U.S.-trained officers in the Sahel, severed its lon-gstanding ties with the American military and welcomed in Russian trainers .

“They Showed No Mercy”

The February massacres followed several attacks by Islamist militants which killed scores of soldiers and civilians, including an assault on a military base almost 15 miles from Nondin.

Witnesses in Nondin told HRW that a military convoy with over 100 Burkinabè soldiers arrived on motorbikes, pickup trucks, and armored cars about 30 minutes after a group of Islamist fighters on motorcycles passed near the village yelling “Allah Akbar!” The eyewitnesses said the soldiers went door to door, rounding up locals before gunning them down. Villagers said a similar sequence played out in Soro.

“Before the soldiers started shooting at us, they accused us of being complicit with the jihadists,” a 32-year-old survivor from Soro, who was shot in the leg, told HRW. “They showed no mercy. They shot at everything that moved, they killed men, women, and children alike,” said a 60-year-old farmer who witnessed the murders.

The Burkinabè Embassy in Washington did not respond to repeated requests from The Intercept to speak with the defense attaché or other officials.

The United States has assisted Burkina Faso with counterterrorism aid since the 2000s, providing funds, weapons, equipment, and American advisers, as well as deploying commandos on low-profile combat missions .

In 2018 and 2019, alone, the U.S. pumped a total of $100 million in “security cooperation” funding into Burkina Faso, making it one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in West Africa. U.S.-trained Burkinabè military officers have also repeatedly overthrown their government, in 2014, 2015, and 2022 .

At the same time, militant Islamist violence skyrocketed. Across all of Africa, the State Department counted just 23 casualties from terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2003, combined. Burkina Faso alone suffered 7,762 fatalities from militant Islamist attacks last year, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. That represents an almost 34,000 percent spike.

In 2020, Simon Compaoré, who previously served as Burkina Faso’s interior minister and was then president of the ruling political party, admitted to me that the Burkinabè government was conducting targeted executions of terrorist suspects. “We’re doing this, but we’re not shouting it from the rooftops,” he said.

The democratically elected government of that time was overthrown in 2022 by the U.S.-trained Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba , who himself was ousted months later by Capt. Ibrahim Traoré. The extrajudicial killings continued.

“Significant human rights issues included credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by security forces,” reads the most recent U.S. State Department report on human rights in Burkina Faso, adding that “impunity for human rights abuses and corruption remained widespread.”

Earlier this year, The Intercept reported on three 2023 drone strikes by Burkina Faso’s government — targeting Islamist militants in crowded marketplaces and at a funeral — that killed at least 60 civilians and left dozens more injured.

U.S. Risking Complicity

The “Leahy laws” prohibit U.S. funding for foreign security forces implicated in gross violations of human rights. U.S. law also generally restricts countries from receiving military aid following military coups. The United States, however, has continued to provide training to Burkinabè forces, Gen. Michael Langley , the chief of Africa Command, or AFRICOM, told the House Armed Services Committee last year.

The U.S. provided millions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance to Burkina Faso in 2023, according to State Department data. Last month, a State Department press release touted the fact that the U.S. has given Burkina Faso “hundreds of millions of dollars in development and humanitarian assistance, as well as counterterrorism support to civilian security and law enforcement actors.”

Burkinabè soldiers also took part in Flintlock 2023, an annual exercise sponsored by U.S. Special Operations Command Africa. (Past Flintlock attendees, including Damiba, have overthrown the government .)

“The United States should stop all military cooperation with Burkina Faso, otherwise they risk becoming complicit in the abuses,” a civil society activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation, told The Intercept.

Last October, senior White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials told Traoré, now Burkinabè president, that working with Russia-linked Wagner Group mercenaries would irreparably damage his relationship with the U.S. In January, Russia’s Africa Corps — described by Russian officials as the successor to the Wagner Group following the death of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin — deployed troops to Burkina Faso to, according to their post on Telegram , protect Traoré and battle terrorists.

Even with the raft of atrocities, coups, and transgressions against the Russian red line, a small contingent of U.S. military personnel are nonetheless deployed to Burkina Faso to, according to AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan, “engage and interact” with the Burkinabè military and “keep lines of communication and dialogue open.”

On March 1, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called on the junta to conduct “complete investigations” of the massacres “with integrity and transparency and hold those responsible to account.” (The State Department failed to provide on-the-record responses to questions by The Intercept.)

The Burkinabè activist scoffed at the suggestion that the Burkinabè military could investigate itself and said that the junta would “erase” evidence of the massacres.

“The United States and the international community must demand concrete actions,” the activist told The Intercept. “Real repercussions are needed, such as sanctions against the perpetrators of the crimes, in order to deter them.”

The post U.S.-Trained Burkina Faso Military Executed 220 Civilians appeared first on The Intercept .

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned in a conversation with Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington that the safety of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan was a high priority of the United States, multiple sources familiar with the exchange told The Intercept.

The warning issued late last month by Schumer, the most powerful Democrat in Congress, to Pakistan came after intense activism by members of the Pakistani diaspora amid concerns that the Pakistani military may harm Khan, the former prime minister who was ousted from office in 2022.

“The Pakistani American diaspora has felt let down by Washington’s failure to engage power brokers in Pakistan and hold them accountable for blatant violations of human rights.”

“Chuck Schumer speaking to the ambassador regarding the safety of Imran Khan is very constructive,” Mohammad Munir Khan, a Pakistani American political activist in the U.S., told The Intercept. “The Pakistani American diaspora has felt let down by Washington’s failure to engage power brokers in Pakistan and hold them accountable for blatant violations of human rights, and destruction of basic fundamentals of democracy.”

Imran Khan is currently incarcerated on corruption charges that are widely seen as politically motivated. Khan, who is regarded as the most popular politician in Pakistan, was removed from power in an April 2022 no-confidence vote orchestrated by the country’s powerful military establishment and encouraged by the U.S. Since then, Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, has faced a brutal repression that has raised international alarms and been denounced by human rights groups .

The concerns about Khan’s life that prompted Schumer’s call to the Pakistani Ambassador Masood Khan reflect a growing fear that the military may deal with Khan’s stubborn popularity by simply putting an end to his life behind bars. (Schumer’s office declined to comment for this story. The Pakistani Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

The outreach from Schumer, who represents a large, vocal Pakistani American community in New York, came as a new governing coalition in the South Asian country seeks to consolidate power despite public disaffection over a February election rife with fraud.

In addition to banning PTI, Pakistan engaged in heavy repression ahead of the February vote. A record turnout suggested PTI-aligned candidates had the upper hand. Ignoring widespread fraud, however, a coalition of parties supported by the Pakistani military successfully formed a government led by Shehbaz Sharif in the vote’s aftermath.

The international community, including the U.S., noted voting irregularities, and credible allegations arose of vote rigging and flagrant fraud in the election.

“There is undeniable evidence, which the State Department agrees with, that there were problems with this election,” Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, told The Intercept in March. At the time, Casar and other members of Congress had just called on President Joe Biden to withhold recognition of the government, but Washington’s ambassador to Pakistan congratulated Sharif in early March.

“There is undeniable evidence, which the State Department agrees with, that there were problems with this election.”

Foreign policy experts in Washington said the Biden administration’s approach risked transgressing democratic principles in the name of security. Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, said, “This appears to be an example where the administration is allowing its security relationship with a foreign government to crowd out other critical concerns like democratic backsliding and human rights.”

Imran Khan himself has reportedly been held in dire conditions at a prison in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. Last month, his visitor privileges were abruptly suspended for two weeks, prompting fears from his supporters about his physical conditions in custody. Earlier this month, one of his lawyers claimed that his personal physician was not being allowed to see him in jail. Khan’s wife, who is imprisoned on politically motivated charges of an un-Islamic marriage and graft, has also reportedly suffered health problems due to conditions of her confinement, according to remarks from her lawyer this week.

In a statement given to reporters from prison and later shared on social media, Khan, who was wounded in an attempted assassination in November 2022 at a political rally, alleged that there had been a plot to kill him while behind bars. Khan suggested his fate was in the hands of Gen. Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief.

“Let it be known that if anything happens to me or my wife, it’ll be him who will be responsible,” Khan said.

Schumer’s call to the Pakistani ambassador, however, may play into the military’s calculations about killing Khan. “A senior Democrat influential in the Biden administration is sending a warning, which is somewhat significant,” said Adam Weinstein, the deputy director of the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute, adding that he did not believe the military would will Khan in prison.

As extreme as a step it would be, the military harming or even killing a leader it ousted, even one as popular as Khan, would fit a pattern in Pakistani history. Several Pakistani leaders have died violently in the past few decades after falling out with the military, some under murky circumstances, while others, like former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, were executed by military rulers after being deposed from power.

Although nominally led by a civilian government today, Pakistan’s military is widely known to call the shots in the country politically and is currently led by Munir, whose clashes with Khan and his party have been the main political storyline in the country for over a year.

For Pakistani activists in the U.S., the American relationship with Pakistan creates leverage that can be used to ensure that Khan is not murdered behind bars. Mohammad Munir Khan, the Pakistani American activist, said, “The least Washington can do is to ensure Imran Khan is not harmed physically.”

Supporters of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party hold a March 10, 2024, protest in Peshawar against election fraud. Photo: Abdul Majeed/AFP via Getty Images

Capitol Hill Hearing

The U.S. has played an outsized role in Pakistan’s internal politics, especially over the past several years, including a pivotal role in Khan’s ouster from power.

In August 2023, The Intercept reported on and published a classified Pakistani diplomatic cable — a contentious document that had become a centerpiece of political drama, though its contents had remained unknown — showing that Khan’s removal from power had taken place following intense pressure placed on the Pakistani government by U.S. State Department officials.

In the cable, Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu, whose office covers South Asia at the State Department, is quoted as telling the Pakistani ambassador to Washington that the countries’ relations would be seriously damaged if Khan were to remain in power.

“I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington,” Lu said, according to the Pakistani cable.

Since Khan’s removal from power, the U.S. has worked closely with the new military-backed Pakistani regime. Pakistan provided weapons to Ukraine in exchange for the U.S. brokering a favorable International Monetary Fund loan package, according to previous reporting from The Intercept .

Before being imprisoned, Khan made frequent reference to the classified cypher and even claimed to be brandishing a physical copy during a political rally. He is now facing a lengthy prison sentence on charges related to his handling of classified information, in addition to the raft of corruption charges that initially landed him in custody.

Coming in the context of a broader crackdown on his party — which has including killings, extrajudicial disappearances, and torture targeting supporters of PTI and members of the press — most observers believe Khan’s continued imprisonment is a politically motivated gambit to keep him and his movement out of power.

Following this year’s election, with Casar and others in Congress raising questions about Khan’s removal and the vote, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing featuring Lu, the assistant secretary of state.

The sole person testifying, Lu denied that he had been involved in a “regime change” in Pakistan — a reference to Khan’s comments about his role and the content of the cable reported by The Intercept.

On the election, Lu paid lip service to concerns about how the ballot was carried off, while failing to outline what consequences there would be for the vote rigging.

“You have seen actions by our ambassador and our embassy,” Lu said, alluding the congratulations extended by the U.S. to Pakistan’s new prime minister. He then quickly added: “We are in every interaction with this government stressing the importance of accountability for election irregularities.”

“In the long term it has never worked out in the United States’ benefit to be seen as propping up illegitimate, military-led governments.”

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., raised the issue of Khan’s safety in detention at the hearing. Sherman urged Lu to meet directly with Khan in prison, earning applause from the mostly Pakistani audience in hand.

“Ensuring the safety of leaders, regardless of political differences, is paramount,” said Atif Khan, another Pakistan American diaspora activist. “Congressman Brad Sherman rightly advocated for accountability and protection, urging the US Ambassador to visit former Prime Minister Imran Khan and prioritize his well-being.”

While Khan’s fate hangs in the balance, members of Congress have warned that continued U.S. support for a government seen as illegitimate by most Pakistanis risks harming not just Pakistan, but also the U.S. position in a critical region.

“Promoting democracy is important in itself, but it’s in our interests as well,” Casar, the Texas Democrat, told The Intercept. “Regardless of the short-term military benefits, in the long term it has never worked out in the United States’ benefit to be seen as propping up illegitimate, military-led governments.”

The post Chuck Schumer Privately Warns Pakistan: Don’t Kill Imran Khan in Prison appeared first on The Intercept .

Planet Earth vanishes as ongoing conflicts constitute the real World War III that is all around. Image: Getty Images

Israel’s attack on Iran late Thursday night was met with a dangerously premature sigh of relief from both the news media and U.S. government, that somehow full-scale “war” was avoided.

Outlets like the New York Times were quick to characterize the attack as “subdued” and “limited” in scope, pointing to Iranian statements that the attack was launched from within Iranian borders and used small drones rather than fighter jets. Then it was further revealed that the Israeli attack included a stealth cruise missile launched from long range so as to not upset Israel’s new Arab partners .

But this, in fact, is what actual war looks like these days: Sometimes it’s a volley of 300 missiles and drones, and sometimes it is lean, targeted, and carried out covertly. Gone are the days of vast conquering armies and conventional military confrontations between two parties. So long as experts, the government, and the media worry only about a kind of war that is obsolete, it cannot see the war right in front of our faces.

The misconception has even infected the U.S. government.

“The downplaying of direct attacks on its soil may indicate the Islamic Republic lacks the desire, or capability, to match its bluster with professed military might,” a State Department communiqué produced after the attack and obtained by The Intercept says. “Over weeks of unprecedented military exchanges between Iran and Israel … Iranian officials appear keen to avoid further escalation.”

On Thursday, prior to the attack, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian vowed that if Israel strikes back, “the next response from us will be immediate and at a maximum level.” Now, Tehran has to adjust to the reality that a massive Israeli counterattack didn’t come and might never.

As the media and the world awaits full-scale war between Iran and Israel and even frets about nuclear escalation, a huge reality of modern warfare is being overlooked: We are already fighting World War III. No, it is not empires marching armies through countries, conquering continents. And no, it isn’t millions of young men (and now women) pressed in uniform on scales of nearly 100 years ago. And no, in most societies where war is a constant, the public doesn’t even have to feel the pain of war, except in that the military dominates everything and robs everything else of resources : programs to fight poverty, food, housing, health care, transportation, climate change .

World War III instead is all around, a planet that is aflame with armed conflict and awash in arms sales , an overlapping Venn diagram of killing that engulfs the globe, and a constant bonanza for national security “ experts ” and the military–industrial complex .

Let’s take a tour of the battlefield.

In the Middle East, the U.S., Turkey, Iraq, and even Iran all have footholds in Syria as their internal civil war continues unabated. And all of it goes unremarked most of the time as people look elsewhere for World War II-like battles. Iranian; Iranian-funded or backed or inspired; or independent militias in Syria and Iraq target U.S. troops in Syria, Iraq, and now Jordan. The United States bombs, but so does Israel, and Turkey, and other silent partners of Washington in the war against Iran, and Syria, and ISIS, and Hezbollah. The fight against ISIS, Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. says , involves 80-plus “partners” fighting not just in Syria and Iraq, but also in Afghanistan and Libya. A coalition of 80-plus countries — but the U.S. is loath to name them all, especially the allied “special” operators who are clandestinely working on the ground.

What we do know is that 10 countries have been involved in airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, including the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, and South Korea. Like so many other conflicts, it’s not altogether clear who bombed who or from where, nor other members of the supporting cast. The U.S. bombs from aircraft carriers and from the Gulf states, and from Kuwait and Jordan, and possibly even from Saudi Arabia and Oman. But World War III is about keeping things secret, so who knows.

In the Red Sea, these same countries — plus France, Italy, Norway, Seychelles, Spain, Greece, Finland, Australia, and Sri Lanka — have joined to fend off Houthi attacks at sea . Even more countries are allegedly participating in the coalition in secret, given the sensitivities surrounding support for Israel during its war with Hamas. But then there’s also the war against pirates, and the war against nuclear proliferation, and the war against arms smuggling, and the Middle East war even against drugs, all carried out by a vast international maritime fleet involving dozens of countries.

While Israel’s war in Gaza, and its back and forth with Iran, is atop the Billboard charts for now, in Ukraine, a trench war and a standoff has now dragged on for more than two years. Here as well, all eyes have been on some kind of decisive victory or defeat, but World War III is more characterized by Ukraine or its proxies regularly attacking targets inside Mother Russia, attacks that Moscow downplays. Russians fighting on the Ukrainian side are now making regular incursions into Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions. Meanwhile, the real World War III is NATO already at war with Russia, increasing its activities adjacent to the enemy, expanding its ranks, building up its military, and supplying arms to Ukraine. The United States, meanwhile, is deployed from Norway to Bulgaria, and has in the past two years built up a major new base in Poland. Meanwhile, Iran and North Korea have played their part in shuttling drones, missiles, and artillery shells into the Russian war effort.

Though the blatant Russian invasion seems to embody the old-fashioned concept of occupying armies and World War II, the reality is that Ukraine never turned into “the largest tank battle” ever, as some predicted, nor did it “escalate” to nuclear war, nor has it even been decisive.

The war in Ukraine is certainly the world-altering event of the past five years, but even here, without more borders crossed, without escalation, and without Russia and NATO shooting at each other directly, some mighty lessons can be learned. Armies clashing is an illusion. World War III is thus not some conquering army sweeping its way across the continent. At no time have more than 300,000 soldiers been on the battlefield in Ukraine at any one time; in World War II, it was nearly 10 million facing each other on a daily basis (and some 125 million mobilized overall). Because of the greater lethality of weapons, military casualties in Ukraine have been enormous. But most of the ground engagements have taken place at the company or even platoon level; massing too many troops in one place is just too dangerous in today’s world. And this has all unfolded while neither Russia nor Ukraine have been able to harness airpower in the same way the United States has. Other than Vladimir Putin’s heartless offensive that used young Russian men as cannon fodder, few nations want to fight this way, preferring long-range air and missile (and now drone) attacks.

South of Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia continue to simmer. Last year, Azerbaijan attacked the breakaway republic of Artsakh . With the backing of Turkey and Israeli weapons, Azerbaijan attempted to permanently squash the ethnic Armenian enclave, successfully driving tens of thousands of civilians into neighboring countries.

Past the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea is also brimming with maritime conflict. Constant Chinese naval passes around the borders of Taiwan are supplemented with close calls with South Korea, Japan and the Philippines (and the United States). Meanwhile, Myanmar’s civil war continues unabated.

On the Korean Peninsula, North Korea continues nuclear testing and the unannounced firing of ballistic missiles into the ocean, and tensions are a constant background noise of war games, military incursions, and cross-border incidents. Thousands of artillery batteries stare each other down across the Demilitarized Zone, as South Korea points the finger at North Korean technology used in Iranian missiles launched toward Israel. And, of course, the United States and other “partners” are active on the ground.

In a world of supposed “international order,” India and Pakistan continue to fight over their common border, as they have been doing for decades. And India and China face off, another flashpoint that could spell World War III to some but one that is already here in reality.

In Africa, military forces, terrorists, militants, mercenaries, militias, bandits, pirates, and separatists are active, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, in Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Sudan. China and Russia scramble for bases and influence (China already has a base in Djibouti). Russia’s Wagner Group is active in Africa and involved in combat, and in the past two months, Rwandan military forces have attacked targets in the DRC, and Morocco has conducted drone strikes on Polisario fighters near the Western Sahara border.

On the African continent, the U.S., France, and the U.K. have been engaged in expansive yet clandestine fighting, supposedly against Islamic terrorists , while all around the continent smolders and neither can claim any long-term wins on the dual fronts of counterterrorism and peacekeeping. American troops operating in Niger are stuck as the country’s U.S. government-trained junta claims America’s footprint is illegal. The United States has also been bombing targets in Somalia for years now, and the African Union mission in Somalia has been actively involved in combating al-Shabab.

U.S. forces continue to fan out across Latin America and the Caribbean, using missile cruisers to intercept drug smuggling submarines, sending marine anti-terrorism teams into a fully destabilized Haiti, and fast-tracking exports of helicopters, aircraft, and naval drones to Guyana as its neighbor Venezuela hungrily eyes its oil reserves. Senior Biden administration officials have floated sending U.S. troops into the treacherous swatch of jungle connecting South and Central America known as the Darién Gap to stem the flow of migrants and drugs across the U.S. southern border.

And what even happened to neutrality in the past few years? Switzerland and Austria have provided arms to Ukraine. Sweden and Finland have joined NATO. Only little Costa Rica, Iceland, Mauritius, Panama, and Vanuatu have no formal armed forces, but even there, Iceland is a very active member of NATO and Panama is a close military ally of the U.S. Speaking of small countries taking on big fights, Fiji and Luxembourg both count themselves as members of the global coalition to defeat ISIS .

Ubiquitous warfare, our World War III, paints a worldwide picture that is overwhelming, leaving little room to imagine that something can be done about it. And it’s hard not to conclude that the superpowers and the national security “community” aren’t somehow satisfied with the status quo. But as with addiction, the first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem — or in this case, a global war.

The post Israel Attack on Iran Is What World War III Looks Like appeared first on The Intercept .

Once a well-respected public commentator and academic in his native Austria, Farid Hafez’s life slowly began to unravel after rumors spread that he was an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood — allegedly a sleeper agent promoting extremism in the country.

“I used to be published every month in newspapers from both the left and right. I had a high profile in Austria, and people took me seriously,” Hafez said. “But some years ago, people started calling me to tell me that there were rumors about me spreading behind closed doors. I felt there was a difference, and that something was changing.”

“Eventually,” he said, “I was sidelined to such an extent that newspapers would not even publish me anymore.”

“I was sidelined to such an extent that newspapers would not even publish me anymore.”

Hafez’s growing ostracism in Austria culminated in a controversial police operation in 2020 called Operation Luxor. Hafez and others were targeted with raids and asset seizures. Hafez ultimately left Austria for the United States, where he took up a visiting professorship at Williams College in Massachusetts.

Operation Luxor was later deemed unlawful by Austrian courts, and the police’s terrorism charges against Hafez were eventually dropped. Today, the case is widely viewed as a witch hunt that targeted Austrian Muslims. Despite his exoneration, the damage to Hafez’s life from the yearslong ordeal have been immense.

“A lot of this has basically been about destroying my reputation,” he said. “Everybody knew that I was affected by this, even far from Austria.”

Little did Hafez know at the time, but the rumors about him and others in Austria originated from a research center at George Washington University and a prominent U.S.-based terrorism analyst there named Lorenzo Vidino, according to a lawsuit filed late last month. Hafez’s suit alleges fraud and racketeering, asking for $10 million in damages from Vidino, along with George Washington University and its Program on Extremism, the research center that Vidino heads.

The lawsuit, according to a press release, alleges that Hafez and others were targets of an organized smear campaign, accusing Vidino of “participating in a criminal enterprise that deployed fake journalists, social media bots and pay-to-play reporters to destroy the careers of dozens of individuals by constructing and disseminating false narratives linking them to the Muslim Brotherhood.” (Vidino and George Washington University haven’t filed a response to the lawsuit, and neither replied to requests for comment.)

The campaign against Hafez exploited an environment of suspicion that can result in Muslim or Arab scholars being targeted, said an academic who works on anti-Islam bias, noting that such campaigns often fixate on people whose work touches on politically sensitive subjects.

Farid Hafez, now a professor at Williams University, at a panel on Islamophobia in Istanbul on Oct. 19, 2017. Photo: Emrah Yorulmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

“Farid Hafez is not the first Muslim professor to be targeted by ideologues who seek to silence and censor scholarship on Islamophobia, or Palestine, or anti-Arab racism,” said Sahar Aziz , a national security expert and director of the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers University. “In the U.S., individuals who are critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East are often slandered as un-American or disloyal. In direct contradiction of American principles of academic freedom and free speech, Islamophobic organizations and government officials seek to censor Arab and Muslim professors when they disagree with the substance of their scholarship.”

“Meanwhile,” Aziz added, “in Europe there is vilification of almost any Muslim individual or group that is politically active, such that their activities are conflated with support for terrorism.”

GWU’s Lorenzo Vidino

Vidino worked with a private investigation firm in Switzerland that covertly spread spurious allegations against various Muslims in Europe, accusing them of involvement in terrorism and extremism, according to a report last year in the New Yorker.

Many of the details in the New Yorker, which are repeated in part in Hafez’s lawsuit, became public when hackers leaked internal communications from the firm behind the campaign, known as Alp Services. The hackers sent the files from Alp, another defendant in Hafez’s suit, to one of its intended targets: an American citizen living in Italy named Hazem Nada, who alleged in a separate lawsuit that his company and personal reputation were tarnished by unfounded accusations of terrorist financing.

The leak suggested that the operation was being financed to the tune of millions of dollars by the United Arab Emirates government as part of a broader campaign to destroy perceived ideological enemies in Western countries, and particularly those it accused of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE campaign reportedly targeted more than 1,000 people in 18 European countries.

Among those mentioned in the files as working with Alp was Vidino, who took a 3,000-euro consulting fee from the firm for “a series of gossipy reports about the Brotherhood’s reach,” according to a passage from the New Yorker quoted in Hafez’s lawsuit. The “gossipy reports,” which helped form the basis of the campaign on behalf of the UAE, appeared to consist of lists of suspected Islamists that Alp could then show it had discredited on behalf of its Emirati client. (Alp has neither responded to Hafez’s lawsuit nor a request for comment.)

In addition to his work with the Austrian government and George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, Vidino maintains public connections with think tanks based in the UAE, including the Abu Dhabi-based Hedayah, which is chaired by members of the royal family. Earlier in his career, he worked as a senior analyst at the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a think tank run by anti-Muslim activist Steve Emerson .

Lorenzo Vidino, of the George Washington University Program on Extremism, at a press conference following a meeting on radicalization with Italian officials in Rome on Jan. 5, 2017. Photo: Riccardo De Luca/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Nada filed his separate lawsuit against the government of the UAE, Vidino, Alp Services, and several others alleged to have been involved in the smear campaign against him. The UAE-sponsored campaign, the suit says, triggered a series of events that ultimately led Nada’s oil trading company, Lord Energy, to declare bankruptcy.

Nada is seeking $2.7 billion in damages and compensation. In addition to ideological reasons for the campaign against him, Nada’s lawsuit alleges that the UAE, a major oil and gas producer, had commercial motivations when it hired Alp Services to help shut his firm out of competing in the global energy market.

“The enterprise’s sham accusations that Hazim and Lord Energy were involved in terrorist financing were meant to — and did — eliminate a commercial competitor by causing banks and financial institutions to stop lending to Hazim and Lord Energy and causing other industry participants to stop doing business with Hazim and Lord Energy,” Nada’s lawsuit says.

The defendants in Nada’s case have not responded directly to the allegations against them, either in court or in the press.

Luxor’s Toll

Hafez would seem like an unlikely target for a smear campaign. A well-respected academic researcher in Austria, his work focused on documenting and combating anti-Muslim racism in Europe. He was a co-author of the European Islamophobia Report, a scholarly annual analysis of anti-Muslim discrimination on the continent, and was affiliated with a Islamophobia research center based out of Georgetown University.

Starting in 2015, Vidino began appearing as a public commentator and later working as a consultant with the Austrian government, focusing on issues of political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. Hafez said his reputation began to suffer around the same time.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a political movement mostly based in the Arab states, which has often clashed with the conservative monarchies in the region. The movement has been suppressed in countries like Egypt but remains a bogeyman for local leaders as well as right-wing groups in Western countries who have frequently accused Muslim political opponents of association with the group.

Hafez felt himself gradually becoming the target of these attacks. The accusations were often put forward vaguely in public where individuals or organizations were accused of “affiliations” with the Muslim Brotherhood rather than holding any concrete roles or membership. The allegations were amorphous enough that they were impossible to refute, or even challenge, mostly disseminated as they were through whisper campaigns spread through the Austrian government and security establishment.

After the smears took hold, Operation Luxor came down on the night of November 9, 2020. Hundreds of armed police officers raided the homes of Hafez and dozens of others, along with institutions they were affiliated with.

The search warrant used to justify the raid was based on a report authored by Vidino about the Muslim Brotherhood in Austria. Vidino also served twice as a witness for the Austrian government against targets in the case.

The Austrian government at the time — led by right-wing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz — celebrated the raids as a blow to “political Islam.” Despite these claims, however, the operation ultimately failed to uncover evidence of terrorism or even generate any arrests and convictions.

Despite being eventually exonerated by Austrian courts, Hafez’s career and reputation suffered in Austria and his financial assets were frozen. He has suffered ongoing stress — along with his family, including his young children who remain traumatized by the armed raid on their house in 2020.

“In a way, what Vidino was enabling was the criminalization of critical scholarship about Islam and anti-Muslim racism in Europe.”

The lingering impact of the smear campaign and raid on his life have now led Hafez to seek relief from American courts against Vidino, George Washington University, and Alp Services. A press release about Hafez’s lawsuit said, “Vidino presented himself as a disinterested academic with an expertise on terrorist figures and groups, feeding the narrative to both legitimate reporters and pay-to-play journalists, fellow academics and think-tanks that Hafez was deeply connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Hafez knew that Vidino was antagonistic to his work on behalf of Muslim communities in Austria. The New Yorker article and Nada’s lawsuit, however, had raised more troubling questions. Vidino had, according to Hafez’s lawsuit, acknowledged that he strongly suspected the payment from Alp was coming from the Emirates. Hafez’s lawsuit said, “Alp and Dr. Lorenzo Vidino (‘Dr. Vidino’), with the assistance of the other co-defendants, targeted Dr. Hafez and others similarly situated because they saw him as a means of keeping their UAE gravy train rolling and veracity was simply beside the point.”

Hafez’s lawsuit, in other words, raises the possibility that Vidino’s advocacy may not have been merely ideological but driven by financial incentives from the UAE.

“In a way, what Vidino was enabling was the criminalization of critical scholarship about Islam and anti-Muslim racism in Europe,” Hafez said. “But when I first started looking into him, I was focused on his ideological ties to the far-right in the United States. I assumed that he was an ideologically inspired person. I had no clue whatsoever that the UAE was behind his work, and maybe even the main driver.”

The post Lawsuit Links Wild UAE-Financed Smear Campaign to George Washington University appeared first on The Intercept .

While Democrats and independents make up the bulk of support for Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., his campaign is attracting new Republican donors as he has hardened his stance in support of Israel since the Hamas attacks on October 7.

At least 14 registered Republicans have contributed to Fetterman’s campaign since October, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. A 15th Fetterman donor listed as a registered Republican told The Intercept he recently switched his party registration to Democrat to vote for George Latimer in the Democratic primary against Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y. Three of the donors gave to Fetterman’s last campaign for Senate.

While the donations haven’t been big enough to change Fetterman’s overall numbers, they point to both a shift in the public perception of Fetterman, who once identified as a progressive, and the shifting politics on Israel in the U.S.

“It’s shameful that Sen. Fetterman is choosing to align himself with the GOP and its enthusiasm for the mass death of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Where support for Israel was once subject to bipartisan consensus , Israel’s rightward lurch in recent decades has been mirrored in U.S. politics, where its staunchest supporters are increasingly aligned with the Republican Party. Among Democrats, progressives have been generally more critical of human rights abuses in Israel while centrists and mainstream liberals, especially in party leadership, show more robust unconditional support for Israel.

“It’s shameful that Sen. Fetterman is choosing to align himself with the GOP and its enthusiasm for the mass death of Palestinians in Gaza over the majority of Americans who want to see a ceasefire and equality and Justice for Palestinians and Israelis,” said Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, a Jewish American group that opposes support for Israeli apartheid. (Fetterman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)

As his roster of GOP supporters slowly grew, Fetterman has, in recent weeks, stridently criticized President Joe Biden from the right on Israel policy. He bashed Biden for not vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and spoke out against the administration for discouraging an Israeli offensive in Rafah, a beleaguered corner of the Gaza Strip clogged with refugees in dire conditions .

While the Pennsylvania senator was explicit about his unconditional support for Israel during his 2022 Senate campaign , some of his supporters have expressed frustration as his rhetoric has veered to the right of other pro-Israel Democrats, all as the death toll among Palestinians in Gaza climbed to more than 30,000.

Fetterman has also faced progressive disapproval for taunting pro-Palestine veterans demonstrating at the U.S. Capitol and doubling down on his position that there should be no conditions on aid to Israel. Three of Fetterman’s top communications staffers have left the office since October, when more than a dozen of his former campaign staffers wrote an open letter calling on him to support a ceasefire.

In addition to the 14 Republicans and one recent conversion, some of Fetterman’s non-GOP campaign contributors have themselves increased donations to Republicans since October. More than a dozen other Democratic and independent Fetterman donors who’ve given to Fetterman’s campaign in the last six months have also given to Republican candidates and causes.

Several Fetterman donors have also contributed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is targeting Democratic members of Congress who’ve called for a ceasefire in Gaza and to end U.S. military support for Israel. Other Fetterman donors have given to candidates backed by AIPAC to challenge members of the progressive Squad in Democratic primaries, including Latimer in New York, Bhavini Patel in Pennsylvania , and Don Samuels in Minnesota.

Fetterman has raised $4.7 million this cycle, including at least $1.6 million since October, and 83 percent of those recent contributions came from outside Pennsylvania, a figure similar to the proportion of out-of-state contributions that fueled his 2022 campaign.

Far-Right and Centrist Donors

While Fetterman has raised the bulk of his contributions from Democrats, registered Republicans have given at least $18,900 to Fetterman’s campaign since October. Several were first-time donors to a federal campaign.

New York Republican Joshua Landes said he supported Fetterman because of his stance on Israel. “Yes I’m a Republican and I exclusively supported John through the Jewish community for his principled actions supporting Israel now during this Israel Gaza war,” Landes said in an email to The Intercept.

Edward Neiger, a Fetterman donor and attorney in New York, said he recently switched parties from Republican to Democrat to vote in the Democratic primary against Bowman . Neiger said he’s a libertarian at heart and that Fetterman’s “moral clarity” on Israel has been a breath of fresh air. He’s given $3,000 to Fetterman’s campaign since November.

Former Meridian Capital CEO Ralph Herzka, a registered Republican in New York, gave $2,500 to Fetterman’s campaign in November. Herzka, like several other Republican Fetterman donors, declined to comment.

Several of the donors who are registered Democrats or haven’t declared a party affiliation have also given heavily to Republicans. The recipients included former President Donald Trump; former Republican presidential primary candidates Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Republican House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.; Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick; and the Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans.

Eliezer Scheiner, whose voter registration does not list a party affiliation, has given a total of $5,000 to Fetterman. A nursing home operator who gave more than $750,000 to Trump’s failed 2020 reelection campaign , Scheiner also contributed this cycle to campaigns for Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries; Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y.; and New Jersey Senate candidate Tammy Murphy.(Scheiner did not respond to a request for comment.)

Scott Barshay, partner at the law firm Paul Weiss, gave $3,300 to Fetterman’s campaign in January. Barshay has given to both Democrats and Republicans, and has contributed this cycle to Haley; Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; as well as Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y. Barshay also gave $5,000 in March to No Labels, the centrist group that recently suspended its bid to field a primary candidate to run against Biden after raising tens of millions of dollars.

At least three Republican donors also gave to Fetterman’s 2022 campaign. Retiree Clyde Robbins has given mostly to Democrats as well as to the leadership PAC for former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney. Robbins gave Fetterman’s campaign $1,000 in March, and $1,200 to his 2022 campaign.

Another Republican donor. Kathleen Forest, an 82-year-old vineyard owner in Pennsylvania, gave $500 to Fetterman’s campaign in March. Her contribution to his 2022 campaign was her first listed federal contribution since 1994. (Barshay, Robbins, and Forest did not respond to requests for comment.)

While Republican donors gave Fetterman contributions between $500 and $3,300, Fetterman has continued to pull in donations from small-dollar donors. More than 40 percent of Fetterman’s contributions last quarter came from donations under $200.

The Pennsylvania senator has also received support from Palantir CEO Alexander Karp , who gave the maximum contribution of $3,300 to Fetterman’s campaign in January. Karp has given to several Republicans this cycle. (Karp did not respond to a request for comment.)

No Labels co-founder John Avlon , who is currently running in the Democratic primary in New York’s 1st Congressional District, gave Fetterman $1,000 in February. (Avlon did not respond to a request for comment.) Avlon denounced No Labels’s effort to recruit a candidate to challenge Biden and said he hasn’t been involved with the group since 2013.

The post Since October, Sen. John Fetterman Has Been Building a Roster of Republican Donors appeared first on The Intercept .

The Biden Administration is “actively suppressing intelligence reports” about the state of U.S. military relations with Niger, according to a new report issued by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. U.S. military service members told Gaetz’s office that they can’t get medicine, mail, or other support from the Pentagon.

“The Biden Administration and the State Department are engaged in a massive cover-up,” Gaetz told The Intercept. “They are hiding the true conditions on the ground of U.S. diplomatic relations in Niger and are effectively abandoning our troops in that country with no help in sight.”

Last month, Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, a spokesperson for Niger’s ruling junta, took to the national television network to denounce the United States and end the long-standing counterterrorism partnership between the two countries. Abdramane revoked his country’s agreement allowing U.S. troops and civilian Defense Department employees to operate in Niger, declaring that the security pact, in effect since 2012 , violated Niger’s constitution.

The Pentagon has maintained in the month since that it is seeking clarification.

“The Biden Administration and the State Department are engaged in a massive cover-up.”

“The U.S. government continues to work to obtain clarification,” Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, told The Intercept on Thursday.

Gaetz’s report contends that the U.S. Embassy in Niger, under Ambassador Kathleen FitzGibbon, is “covering up the failure of their U.S. diplomatic efforts in Niger.” The report says the embassy is “dismissing or suppressing” intelligence from the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, or OSI, as well as Special Operations Command Africa.

“When our AFRICOM leaders look to us to provide atmospherics on the ground, they go to the Embassy first and hear a watered down or false story than what is being reported,” according to one service member quoted in the report. “I know of at least 3 reports from OSI about Nigerien sentiment that have been discredited by the Embassy and turned out to be 100% true.” (The State Department denied the allegations but did not provide a statement on the record.)

Gaetz said, “They are suppressing intelligence because they don’t want to acknowledge that their multibillion-dollar flop for Niger to be centerpiece of their Africa Strategy has been a complete and total failure.”

In interviews conducted by Gaetz’s office, U.S. service members currently serving in Niger said they are, as the report put it, “functionally stranded” in the increasingly hostile country. The military officials said they are prohibited from conducting missions or from returning home at the scheduled end of their deployments.

“No flights are authorized by Niger to enter or exit the country in support of DoD efforts or requirements,” reads the report which notes that mail, food, equipment, and medical supplies “are being prevented from reaching” Air Base 201, the large U.S. drone base in the town of Agadez , on the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert.

“Some diplomatic clearances for military flights have recently been denied or not responded to, which has forced extended deployments in some cases,” Langley said, in a statement to The Intercept.

Pentagon spokesperson Pete Nguyen told The Intercept that “sustainment” of U.S. personnel has continued through commercial means, and the Pentagon is in “discussions” with the junta “to approve clearances on our upcoming regularly scheduled flights.”

Military personnel said the blood bank at Air Base 201 is not being replenished, possibly jeopardizing troops in the event of a mass casualty situation.

Next month, critical medications will also run out for individual service members. U.S. personnel “have repeatedly reached out for assistance but their strategic higher headquarters such as AFRICOM routinely overlook their concerns and those of AB101’s higher chain of command, or simply do not provide relief or guidance,” reads the report, referring to Air Base 101, located at the main commercial airport in Niger’s capital, Niamey.

“The Biden administration needs to acknowledge that their plan in Niger has failed and they need to bring these troops home immediately,” Gaetz told The Intercept. “If there is no remedy between Niger and the United States before the end of the month, our troops will be in immediate danger.”

The post U.S. Troops in Niger Say They’re “Stranded” and Can’t Get Mail, Medicine appeared first on The Intercept .

Though Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia directly participated in the defense of Israel, intercepting Iranian missiles and drones and supporting the operation, none of the Arab countries involved are willing to publicly admit their participation, and Washington is going along with the deception. The full extent of “partner” air operations responding to Iran has now been added to the web of secret bases, hidden military alliances, and undisclosed weapons pockmarking the region. Now, as the region finds itself perched on the possibility of a wider war, the public has once again been left in the dark.

As Iranian-made missiles and drones headed toward Israel in the 12-hour operation last Saturday, U.S. military officers were stationed throughout the region to coordinate the unified response and coach the secret partners, according to military sources. Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain were also tied into the American-led air and missile defense network, but these countries also have stayed quiet.

Now, the secret partners are even going out of their way to deny their roles, while at the same time delivering a subtle message to Israel (and the United States) that they are not going to be so cooperative should Israel further escalate.

Take Jordan, a long-standing U.S. ally and one of America’s staunchest military partners in the fight against ISIS. While acknowledging that the kingdom’s American-made F-16 fighter jets joined those from the U.S., Britain, France, and Israel in shooting down Iranian drones and missiles, Amman has not revealed any specific details about whose jets were where, above whose airspace, or when they engaged targets. (As The Intercept previously reported , U.S. F-15E strike aircraft primarily operated from Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base. And Israeli fighters shot down drones and missiles over Jordanian territory.)

Despite its involvement as the central hub, Jordan’s foreign minister offered a stark if vague warning, hinting that the patience it has shown toward Israel and America may be waning. On April 14, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Safadi said that Jordan’s participation “is a firm policy that anything that poses a threat to Jordan will be confronted, because our priority is to protect Jordan, protect the lives of Jordanians, protect the capabilities of.”

King Abdullah II said on Tuesday that Jordan’s “security and sovereignty are above all considerations.”

Safadi added that similar action would be taken to respond to any attacks emanating from Israel toward Iran. “We will intercept every drone or missile that violates Jordan’s airspace to avert any danger,” he told Al-Mamlaka state-run news channel.

In his own effort to distance his country from the spiraling conflict, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani denied that any Iranian-made weapons had been launched from within his country’s borders. The prime minister’s remarks came after both the Israel Defense Forces and Iranian media identified Iran, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon as countries from which drones and missiles originated. On Tuesday, the Pentagon said that Iranian weapons originated from Iran, Syria, and Yemen.

“We … condemn the fact that the weapons launched at Israel violated the airspace of several regional states, putting at risk the lives of innocent people in those countries,” the U.S. said at the United Nations on Wednesday. (Iraq also secretly hosts U.S. Army Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries, which shot down some Iranian missiles, as The Intercept previously reported . The presence of U.S. Patriots on Iraq soil had not been publicly known before Saturday.)

Like Jordan’s foreign minister, al-Sudani added , “Iraq rejects the use of its airspace from any country. We don’t want Iraq to be engaged in the area of conflict.” What steps Baghdad might take to protect its airspace remain unclear.

Saudi Arabia is a stranger case still. The Israeli press reported that “Saudi Arabia acknowledged that it had helped the newly forged regional military coalition,” according to a story on KAN News, Israel’s public radio English language news. But the Saudi monarchy pushed back. “Saudi Arabia was not involved in intercepting recent Iranian attacks on Israel, according to informed sources speaking to Al Arabiya TV channel,” the Saudi Gazette reported . “The sources stressed that there have been no official statements issued regarding Saudi involvement in countering these attacks. This clarification follows reports by some Israeli news sites that attributed statements to an official Saudi source, claiming the Kingdom’s participation in the defensive alliance that responded to the Iranian attacks.”

Some reports say that American KC-135 aerial refueling tanker jets circled in the air over Saudi airspace at the time of the Iranian strike. The U.S. is known to station these flying gas stations on Saudi soil at King Abdulaziz Air Base in Dhahran. Other reports say that Saudi Arabia closed its airspace to U.S. aircraft during the operation, demanding that the U.S. refrain from launching any counterattack on Iran from its territory.

The United States has sold Patriot missile batteries and the longer range Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile systems to Saudi Arabia, and stationed Patriot missiles on Saudi soil. Patriot has also been sold to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE; THAAD is also operational or in development in the UAE, Oman, and Qatar. The U.S. Army deploys its own Patriot batteries in Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

“Secretary [of Defense Lloyd] Austin continues to communicate with leaders throughout the Middle East region and beyond to emphasize that while the United States does not seek escalation, we will continue to defend Israel and U.S. personnel,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday, declining to name what leaders and only referring to the Arab states as “partners through the region.”

There has hardly been any American media coverage of the role of these various Arab countries in the defense of Israel, further adding to the state-imposed secrecy. But what these “partner” nations choose to do, should Israel decide to attack Iran, in protecting their airspace and sovereignty is an important factor in any Israeli decision,

“You got a win,” President Joe Biden reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. “Take the win,” urging that Israel restrain from further action.

Biden also said that the U.S. would not help Israel in any effort to retaliate on Iran. But as with the current war in Gaza , and reports about Israel’s unwillingness to share plans about the strike on Iran’s embassy in Syria until just moments before it was executed, Israel has often found that America’s red lines don’t count for much. Soon, the U.S. may have to decide on which side to take in the event that Arab states engage with Israeli aircraft, drones, or missiles.

The post The Secret U.S. Alliance That Defended Israel From Iran Attack appeared first on The Intercept .

Since Israel began its war on the Gaza Strip after the October 7 attacks, internal strife has wracked the New York Times. The intensity of the debate reached its zenith in late December and January, amid a sustained fight over the paper’s claim that Hamas had systematically weaponized sexual violence on October 7.

Published on December 28, the story, headlined “ Screams Without Words ,” instantly served as a powerful reference in a mounting campaign waged by Israel and its supporters to convince the world that Hamas had implemented a systematic rape campaign against Jewish women on October 7. The article by Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella also was met with skepticism by independent journalists and other analysts who combed through each line of the story highlighting inconsistencies and credibility issues with people presented as witnesses and experts.

Since the story’s publication, the internal dispute led to the shelving of an episode of “The Daily,” the paper’s flagship podcast, that was to be based on “Screams Without Words.” The fight over the podcast episode spilled into the pages of The Intercept, prompting a far-reaching leak investigation that the New York Times’s union alleged was carried out in a manner that singled out and discriminated against reporters of Middle Eastern and North African extraction. A Times spokesperson denied that it engaged in racial targeting.

On Monday, executive editor Joe Kahn told staff the leak probe was ending. “We did not reach a definitive conclusion about how this significant breach occurred. We did identify gaps in the way proprietary journalistic material is handled, and we have taken steps to address these issues,” Kahn wrote on a Times Slack channel message seen by The Intercept. “The breach that occurred should upset anyone who wants to have transparency in our editorial processes and to encourage candid exchanges. We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule.”

In weeks leading up to the announcement that the probe was over, however, top officials in the Times newsroom justified the investigation and its conduct, according to newsroom sources and remarks at an April 4 meeting reviewed by The Intercept.

Internal concerns about the “Screams Without Words” article have been borne out by subsequent reporting from several media outlets, including The Intercept and the New York Times itself. The Times has not appended any major corrections to the December 28 story. Instead, the paper took the unusual step of inserting a bracketed “update” within the body of the story, with a link to a recent Times news article that undermines the original reporting.

Defending Leak Probe

Roughly 20 Times staffers were interviewed in the probe , which was led by Charlotte Behrendt, the chief of the paper’s internal investigations unit. Initially, Times leadership said, “The inquiry is focused narrowly on how internal materials were shared with outsiders.” In a March 5 statement , however, the New York Times Guild said this was not true and filed a grievance with the newspaper for discrimination against employees of Middle Eastern or North African background.

“Members faced extensive questions about their involvement in MENA ERG” — employee resource group — “events and discussions, and about their views of the Times’s Middle East coverage,” the union said. “Group leaders were asked to turn over the group’s membership list, as well as the names of all New York Times colleagues who had ‘raised concerns’ — in private discussions — about a published New York Times article.”

Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said, “The claim that anyone was singled out based on ethnicity or associations is completely untrue.” (The New York Times Guild did not respond to a request for comment about whether the grievance process was ongoing.)

In the weeks leading up to the closing of the probe, the intensity of the internal debate over Gaza coverage in the newsroom calmed, several Times staffers have told The Intercept, and interviews that were supposed to take place as part of the leak investigation never did. This led some employees to speculate that the investigation was winding down.

In an April 4 meeting, however, staffers were left with the impression the leak probe was continuing, according to three newsroom sources. During the all-staff meeting, Kahn, the executive editor, was asked for an update on the investigation and whether any staffers had been disciplined.

“There is nothing really concrete that we can say about it right now beyond the fact just to re-emphasize that this inquiry was very narrowly focused just on one issue which was making sure that we can protect the confidentiality of the journalistic process,” Kahn said. “It’s just very important that we be able to have that process unfold with the full confidence that that will remain internal to our staff and not be revealed or leaked externally. So that’s really the focus of it.”

Times managing editor Carolyn Ryan told staffers at the meeting that the internal probe was more than a simple leak investigation.

“It doesn’t really capture the gravity of what occurred here and the kind of extraordinary nature of it,” she said. “You’re talking about sharing pre-publication, pre-broadcast materials that were clearly internal, confidential, and sensitive.”

Times editorial leaders alluded to new internal policy initiatives aimed at stanching leaks and external criticism of the paper by staffers. They also emphasized that criticism and attacks on colleagues or the journalism of the Times was prohibited “outside of the proper channels.”

The day Kahn announced the probe was over, The Intercept published a story on a leaked Times style memo that instructed its journalists covering Israel’s war on Gaza to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land.

New York Times executive editor Joseph Kahn speaks during a panel hosted by the Wall Street Journal in New York City on May 3, 2023. Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP

Cutting Ties

At the same April 4 meeting, Times international editor Philip Pan told the staff that the paper had cut ties with Schwartz, an Israeli filmmaker who freelanced with the paper. Hired by the Times to work with Gettleman, one of its marquee reporters, Schwartz did much of the on-the-ground reporting and interviews for “Screams Without Words,” which purported to show a systematic pattern of rape and other sexual violence by Hamas on October 7.

“Anat was a freelancer that we worked with in Israel,” Pan said. “She made valuable contributions to our report. We didn’t see anything amiss with her work for us, but we learned about social media activity that predated her time working with us that was unacceptable and she’s not working with us right now.” (Neither Pan nor Schwartz responded to requests for comment.)

Schwartz’s social media history intensified the controversy around the “Screams” story. Following October 7, Schwartz liked a post on the platform X , saying that Israel needed to “turn the Strip into a slaughterhouse.” Another post on X liked by Schwartz repeated a since-debunked viral claim about beheaded babies in the October 7 attack and she also liked a post called for creating a narrative that would support Israel’s war aims.

After the posts were brought to light, the Times announced it was reviewing Schwartz’s social media activity. “Those ‘likes’ are unacceptable violations of our company policy,” said a Times spokesperson in February.

The Times had previously stood by Schwartz’s reporting publicly. “Ms. Schwartz was part of a rigorous reporting and editing process,” Pan said in a statement provided to The Intercept for a late-February story about the controversy . “She made valuable contributions and we saw no evidence of bias in her work. We remain confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stand by the team’s investigation. But as we have said, her ‘likes’ of offensive and opinionated social media posts, predating her work with us, are unacceptable.”

On March 5, according to chat records reviewed by The Intercept, Times Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley removed Schwartz from the WhatsApp group used by the paper’s journalists for communicating about Gaza coverage. (Kingsley directed questions to the Times communications team.)

The day before Schwartz was removed from the group, The Intercept published a story challenging one of the central allegations of sexual assault featured in “Screams Without Words.” In its article, the Times had cited an anonymous Israeli special forces paramedic who claimed that two teenage girls were sexually assaulted in Kibbutz Be’eri, offering a graphic description of the scene.

A spokesperson for the kibbutz, however, told The Intercept that, based on the information they had been provided, the story was flatly false. Family members of the two girls also disputed they were sexually assaulted. A spokesperson for the Times told The Intercept the paper continued to stand by its reporting.

Schwartz would only author one more story for the paper after “Screams”: a co-byline with the “Screams” team on a January 29 story about the arrival of a United Nations team in Israel to draft a report about sexual violence on October 7.

“Screams” Falls Apart

When the U.N. report finally arrived on March 4, the Times story about it wasn’t written by any of the “Screams” reporters. What the U.N. had found seemed to undermine the December story: Two high-profile cases sexual assault alleged to have happened at Kibbutz Be’eri were “unfounded.”

Yet the Times stuck by its reporting. The paper’s story on the U.N. report said the special forces paramedic’s account in “Screams” was not in question: “First responders told The New York Times they had found bodies of women with signs of sexual assault at those two kibbutzim, but The Times, in its investigation, did not refer to the specific allegations that the U.N. said were unfounded.”

The newspaper never explained the basis for its assertion that the U.N. had not actually debunked the paper’s reporting on the incident, but evidence soon came to light indicating that the reporting was false: There was video. On March 25, the Times itself reported that it had reviewed video taken by an Israeli soldier of the scene’s aftermath, showing three fully clothed bodies with no signs of sexual violence — making clear the paramedic’s description offered in “Screams Without Words” was false.

The Times’s new article on the video did not feature Gettleman’s byline. “New video has surfaced that undercuts the account of an Israeli military paramedic who said two teenagers killed in the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7 were sexually assaulted,” the paper reported. “The unnamed paramedic, from an Israeli commando unit, was among dozens of people interviewed for a Dec. 28 article by The New York Times that examined sexual violence on Oct. 7.”

The Times, after submitting its article for a prestigious George Polk Award — and winning — suddenly began looking to share credit for its erroneous reporting. “The Associated Press, CNN, and the Washington Post reported similar accounts from a military paramedic who spoke on condition of anonymity,” reported the Times. (Eylon Levy, who at the time was an Israeli government spokesperson, had publicly offered to connect the paramedic with Western media outlets.)

The Times also walked back its claim that the previous U.N. report had not referred to its reporting. The Times article on the video said: “The report said the U.N. team was unable to establish whether sexual violence occurred in Be’eri and that at least two Be’eri cases reported in the news media were determined to be ‘unfounded,’ but it did not explicitly specify a military paramedic’s account.” It was a departure from its previous claim of certainty that the U.N. wasn’t referencing the account reported in the paper.

Instead of issuing a correction, the Times simply updated its “Screams Without Words” with the bracketed revelation that an entire section of its article was incorrect.

An official with the George Polk Awards confirmed to The Intercept that “Screams Without Words” was part of the Times package that won in the category for best foreign reporting. Gettleman, however, did not attend the Times’s private reception celebrating the award last week, nor did he appear at the awards luncheon on Friday.

“A number of our team members, including Jeffrey, were invited to attend but could not due to other commitments,” said a Times spokesperson. “The Times stands behind the reporting he and our entire team have done and is supportive of their earned accolades.”

The Polk committee said it stands by its citation and the award.

The post New York Times Brass Moves to Stanch Leaks Over Gaza Coverage appeared first on The Intercept .

Ahead of the United Nations Security Council action to consider the Palestinian Authority’s application to become a full member of the international body, the United States is lobbying nations to reject such membership, hoping to avoid an overt “veto” by Washington. The lobbying effort, revealed in copies of unclassified State Department cables obtained by The Intercept, is at odds with the Biden administration’s pledge to fully support a two-state solution.

In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution granting Palestine the status of a non-member observer state.

The diplomatic cables detail pressure being applied to members of the Security Council, including Malta, the rotating president of the council this month. Ecuador in particular is being asked to lobby Malta and other nations, including France, to oppose U.N. recognition. The State Department’s justification is that normalizing relations between Israel and Arab states is the fastest and most effective way to achieve an enduring and productive statehood.

While clarifying that President Joe Biden has worked vigorously to support “Palestinian aspirations for statehood” within the context “of a comprehensive peace that would resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” a diplomatic cable dated April 12 details U.S. talking points against a U.N. vote for Palestinian statehood. The cable says that Security Council members must be persuaded to reject any proposal for Palestinian statehood — and thereby its recognition as a sovereign nation — before the council’s open debate on the Middle East, scheduled for April 18.

“It remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors,” the cable reads. “We believe this approach can tangibly advance Palestinian goals in a meaningful and enduring way.”

“We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of ‘Palestine’ as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks.”

Experts say that without a unanimous Security Council vote, any vote from the U.N. General Assembly is largely symbolic.

“Like it or not, a General Assembly vote on this issue is of political rather than legal weight,” Richard Gowan, the International Crisis Group’s U.N. director, told The Intercept. “The Assembly can only accept a new state ‘on the recommendation’ of the Security Council.”

The diplomatic cable includes a rationale for the administration’s opposition to the vote, citing the risk of inflaming tensions, political backlash, and potentially leading to the U.S. Congress cutting U.N. funding.

“Premature actions at the UNSC, even with the best intentions, will achieve neither statehood nor self-determination for the Palestinian people. Such initiatives will instead endanger normalization efforts and drive the parties further apart, heighten the risk of violence on the ground that could claim innocent lives on both sides, and risk support for the new, reform government announced by President Abbas,” the cable says.

Asked about the cable and whether its opposition to U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood contradicts the Biden administration’s position in support of a two-state solution, the State Department did not respond at the time of publication.

“The U.S. position is that the Palestinian state should be based on bilateral agreements between the Israelis and Palestinians,” Gowan said. “It does not believe that the UN can create the state by fiat.”

A second cable dated April 13 sent from the U.S. Embassy in Quito, Ecuador, relays Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld’s agreement with the United States that Palestine should not be recognized for statehood. In cooperation with the United States, according to the cable, Sommerfeld instructed Ecuador’s permanent representative to the United Nations José De La Gasca to lobby Japan, Korea, and Malta (all rotating members of the Security Council) to reject the proposal. Lobbying of permanent member France is also mentioned.

Sommerfeld agreed, according to the cable, that “It was important any proposed resolution fail to achieve the necessary votes without a U.S. veto.” The cable says, “Ecuador would not want to appear isolated (alone with the United States) in its rejection of a ‘Palestine’ resolution (particularly at a time when the most UN member states are criticizing Ecuador over its April 5 incursion into Mexico’s embassy in Quito).” Ecuador finds itself in an escalating conflict with Mexico over its decision to arrest the former Ecuadorian vice president inside the Mexican Embassy.

Asked about the second cable, the State Department and the Ecuadorian Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

With its yearlong seat on the powerful 15-member Security Council, Ecuador holds outsized influence to vote against the Palestinian proposal for recognition.

“This really shows the extent to which the [Ecuadorian President Daniel] Noboa administration is beholden to the United States,” Guillaume Long, senior fellow at the D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research and former foreign minister of Ecuador, told The Intercept when shown the cable. “On top of this, it is quite shocking to see the United States, which condemned Ecuador’s April 5 storming of the Mexican embassy and its violation of international law … making the most of Ecuador’s isolation in the hemisphere to get it to do its bidding. Ecuador is just buying its way out of its crimes by committing more crimes. Truly shocking,” said Long, referring to Ecuador’s rejection of Palestinian membership in the U.N.

Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority’s request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.

“It is important that all Security Council members hear at this stage of the process that a number of members have questions that require further study about the Palestinian Authority’s formal request for UN membership through the Council, and that if a vote is forced on the issue, you will join the United States and not support approval of the application,” the cable reads.

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