Trump's 17-day holiday causes a stir

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Secret Service quits Trump Tower

The Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower in New York City to a street-level trailer in a dispute with the Trump Organization over a lease.

The federal agency which protects US presidents has been renting office space in the Midtown Manhattan skyscraper since 2015.

But its representatives are baulking at the cost and other unspecified rental terms, reports the Washington Post.

The Trump Organization said the agency should look elsewhere.

Since Mr Trump became a front-runner in the presidential race two years ago, the Secret Service has stationed its command post in a unit one floor below his triplex residence.

US accuses Syrian regime of using 'crematorium' to cover up mass killings

The United States on Monday accused Syria of building a prison crematorium to destroy the remains of thousands of murdered detainees, putting pressure on Russia to rein in its ally.

Warning Moscow it should not turn a blind eye to Bashar al-Assad's crimes, the State Department released satellite images that it said backed up reports of mass killings at a Syrian jail.

"The United States is on record, has stated many times, that we are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime," said Stuart Jones, the top US diplomat for the Middle East.

"And these atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran."

And he added a message to President Vladimir Putin's government: "Russia must now, with great urgency, exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now."

Jones' warning came as UN-mediated peace talks between Damascus and the Syrian opposition were about to resume in Geneva, and appeared aimed at maintaining pressure on Assad's backers.

The head of the opposition delegation to the talks welcomed the US statement, but complained it had come too late.

"This is but a drop in the ocean. What happens in the regime's prisons is much uglier than this," Nasr al-Hariri said.

"The time has come for the world -- chiefly the US -- to act to halt these human rights violations."

'Cover up'

One newly released image, a commercial satellite photograph dating back to January 2015, shows snow melting on the roof of a building attached to the Saydnaya military complex north of Damascus.

This, along with an earlier picture allegedly showing heavy-duty ventilation systems on the structure, appears to support earlier claims by rights groups that Saydnaya is an execution center.

"Beginning in 2013, the Syrian regime modified a building within the Saydnaya complex to support what we believe is a crematorium" built in "an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya," said Jones.

Jones, an acting assistant secretary of state, said Washington's information came from credible humanitarian agencies and from the US "intelligence community" -- implying that classified evidence beyond the commercial pictures exists.

At Saydnaya, Syria holds up to 70 prisoners in cells that are meant for five, Jones alleged.

"And according to multiple sources, the regime is responsible for killing as many as 50 detainees per day at Saydnaya."

He did not give an official estimate for the total number killed, but cited an Amnesty International report that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died in the prison between 2011 and 2015.

Assad's regime, he alleged, has detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same period -- the first five years of a civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead.

It was not immediately clear why the United States waited more than two years to present its evidence.

Jones said: "I would say that this information has been developing."

He also said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had raised concerns about Assad's brutality with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his visit to Washington last week.

Sarin attack

Moscow, along with Iran, is Syria's main foreign backer and Washington believes Russian pressure is the only thing that will compel Assad to negotiate a peace deal.

President Donald Trump came to office vowing to focus US efforts in Syria on defeating the Islamic State group, a jihadist force that exploited the civil war to seize the east of the country.

He also said he hoped to work with Putin towards this goal.

But relations with Moscow, already dire under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, have not improved and Assad has continued to bombard civilian areas in his battle with opposition rebels.

Last month, when Assad was again accused of using the banned nerve agent sarin in a strike on his own people, Trump ordered a retaliatory US cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base.

When asked whether the Saydnaya deaths could trigger action, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump would never "telegraph the actions he takes."

"When he's ready to act, he will let everyone know," he said.

Trump shared 'highly classified' information with Russia, says report

President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants to Russian officials during a meeting last week, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The White House rebutted the story, saying no intelligence sources or methods were discussed.

The newspaper cited current and former U.S. officials who said Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The threat was related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

The anonymous officials told the Post that the information Trump relayed during the May 10 meeting had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.

"I was in the room, it didn't happen," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters outside the White House late Monday.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation," McMaster said. "At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

 Suivre

Dan Scavino Jr. 

✔@Scavino45

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster statement on #WaPo story, out front of the West Wing at the @WhiteHouse.

00:28 - 16 May 2017

 
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He said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, remember the meeting the same way. "Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources" in the news report, he said.

But while White House officials denied that any intelligence sources or methods were discussed, they did not deny that Trump shared the information about the use of laptop computers on aircraft. The Post story does not claim that Trump revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered.

The story will only heighten Trump's strained relations with intelligence workers and former officials, who have expressed worry about sharing classified information with a former New York business magnate who often shoots from the hip.

It's unlikely that Trump has broken any law.

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A president has wide berth to reveal classified information, but critics already have denounced Trump for having too cozy a relationship with Russia, which intelligence and military officials view as an adversary. If true, the breach was ill-timed, coming a day after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election.

The Post said the intelligence partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russian officials. By doing so, Trump jeopardized cooperation from an ally familiar with the inner workings of the Islamic State group.

Afterward, White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency, the newspaper said.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment Monday evening.

Reaction from Capitol Hill Democrats was full-throated.

The story prompted Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., to tweet: "Protip: Don't give the Russians classified information. #Classified101."

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., tweeted: "If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians."

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. — who had just had a root canal — read reporters a statement he scrawled out in the dentist's chair after learning about the story.

"These reports, if true, are of the gravest possible concern. It could harm our national security by cutting off important sources of intelligence that protect Americans against terrorist acts," Wyden said.

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Republicans were only slightly more tempered in their remarks.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount," said Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said, "We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that."

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order."

He said he would have more to say when he knows more about the news report.

"The shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place and there are good, productive things that are under way through them and through others," Corker said. "But the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline — it's creating an environment that I think makes — it creates a worrisome environment."

US to sell 160 missiles to UAE for $2bn

Patriot missiles

The US State Department has approved the possible sale of 160 missiles to the United Arab Emirates for an estimated $2.0 billion, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

The UAE government has requested the possible sale of 60 Patriot missiles with canisters and 100 Patriot guidance enhanced missiles, among other military equipment, according to a Department of Defense statement.

“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by improving the security of an important ally which has been, and continues to be, a force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” it said.

Hamas says it has arrested killer of Mazen Faqha

Hamas says it has arrested the killer of senior commander Mazen Faqha, who was shot dead in March, and said the suspect had carried out the assassination on Israel's orders.

Faqha, 38, was shot dead in the head and the chest at the entrance of his Gaza City home on March 24.

"All the evidence we have ... indicates the perpetrator committed this crime based on orders from the Israeli occupation," Ismali Haniya, the leader of Hamas's political wing, told reporters on Thursday, without identifying the suspect.

"He has confessed to the crime," he added, speaking outside Faqha's house in a press conference attended by the commander's widow.

Haniya, who was elected as Hamas's new political chief last week, said more details would be released in coming days, and he expected the suspect to be executed.

Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007.

Faqha was a senior Hamas official in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when he was jailed by Israel in 2003 for planning attacks against Israelis.

He was sentenced to nine life terms but was released into the Gaza Strip as one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners that Israel let go in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit.

Hamas has previously said Faqha was shot with a silenced gun and accused Israel and its "collaborators" for his death.

Israel has not commented on the killing.

"Over the course of 47 days, the security apparatuses worked hard to uncover the threads of Mazen Faqha's assassination crime, until the killer and those who helped him were reached," Iyad al-Bozum, spokesman for Gaza's interior ministry, said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

A Hamas source said on condition of anonymity that the suspect had "participated in the morning in a reconstruction of the crime", after numerous security forces were seen in front of Faqha's home earlier in the day, according to the AFP news agency.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade for a decade, while Egypt's crossing with the enclave has also remained largely closed in recent years.

Civilians killed as India, Pakistan trade fire

Islamabad, Pakistan - At least two civilians have been killed on either side of the disputed border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, officials say, as the South Asian neighbours traded artillery and small arms fire.

Pakistan's foreign office said on Thursday that a man called Muhammad Rizwan was killed by Indian shelling on in the village of Subzkot, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. At least two other people were also wounded in the exchange of fire, it added.

A 35-year-old woman was also killed on Thursday in the Nowshera area, in Indian-administered Kashmir, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Lieutenant colonel Manish Mehta, an Indian army spokesman, said Pakistani soldiers attacked Indian military posts with automatic weapons and mortars along the highly militarised Line of Control (LoC) that divides Kashmir between the nuclear-armed countries. The woman's husband was wounded in the shelling, police said.

Pakistan's foreign office, meanwhile, summoned the Indian deputy high commissioner to condemn what it termed "the unprovoked ceasefire violation by the Indian occupation forces" overnight.

"The deliberate targeting of civilians is indeed condemnable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws," it said in a statement.

Pakistan and India maintain a 2003 ceasefire agreement across the LoC, but both sides frequently violate it, usually blaming the other for instigating hostilities.

Both countries have claimed the Kashmir region in full since partition and independence from Britain in 1947, but administer separate portions of it. The South Asian neighbours have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.

Tensions have been high in Kashmir since last July, when Indian security forces killed a young Kashmiri rebel leader, prompting months of widespread protests and an ensuing security crackdown in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed at least 80 people.

Relations between India and Pakistan plummeted after a raid in September on an Indian military base in Uri by Kashmiri fighters killed at least 18 soldiers.

That attack prompted India to respond by saying it launched "surgical strikes" on bases used by armed groups in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Pakistan denied that Indian forces ever entered Pakistani-administered territory.

NATO chief, Merkel to discuss Afghan troop increase

NATO already has about 13,450 troops in Afghanistan, including 6,900 US and 500 British personnel [File: Reuters]

A proposal to boost NATO forces in Afghanistan will be on the agenda of a meeting between the alliance Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday.

The meeting comes on the heels of a request from military chiefs for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, Stoltenberg met British Prime Minister Theresa May, a day after reports suggested NATO had asked Britain for more troops a few weeks ago.

He confirmed he had received a request for more troops, but insisted it would not mean a return to combat operations.

"We have received a request from our military authorities to increase our military presence in Afghanistan with a few thousand troops," Stoltenberg said.

"It will continue to be a train, assist and advise operation," he added.

Stoltenberg said a decision on the request will be made within weeks and the issue is expected to be high on the agenda at the NATO annual summit in Brussels on May 25.

Al Jazeera's Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, said Merkel is likely to say Germany supports the role of foreign troops in Afghanistan, but "the question will be whether her government will commit more troops."

'Desperate' for assistance

Since NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan formally ended in 2014, Taliban attacks have intensified and Afghan military and civilian casualties have risen. 

NATO already has some 13,450 troops in Afghanistan, including around 6,900 US and 500 British military personnel, who are training the Afghan armed forces to eventually take over the country's defence and security.

The US has an additional 1,500 soldiers conducting assist missions directly under Pentagon command.

They have faced high casualties, up 35 percent in 2016 with 6,800 soldiers and police killed, according to a US watchdog.

In April, the Taliban announced the beginning of its annual "spring offensive" and last week the armed group stormed and seized a district in the vicinity of Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan.

Al Jazeera's John Hendren, reporting from Kabul, said the Afghan government is in "desperate" need of assistance.

"If you talk to Afghan troops, they say they desperately need the help," Hendren said. "In the north and south of the country, they are embattled."

He added that the goal of the idea of a troops increase is to get the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Separately, the US administration is reportedly considering deploying more troops to Afghanistan as well. Official sources quoted anonymously by US media said the increase would range from between 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers, including Special Operations forces.

President Donald Trump is expected to receive a proposed new approach to the war this week, according to Theresa Whelan, a Pentagon policy official.

According to the United Nations, 583,000 people have fled their homes as a result of the conflict in 2016, the highest number of displacements since records began in 2008.

Knesset's new bill 'portrays racism as entirely normal'

New legislation to cement the definition of Israel as a state belonging exclusively to Jews around the world is a "declaration of war" on Palestinian citizens of Israel, the minority's leaders warned this week.

The bill, which defines Israel as the "national home of the Jewish people", passed its first vote in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, after it received unanimous backing from a government committee on Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to get the measure on to the statute books within 60 days.

Among its provisions, the legislation - popularly known as the Jewish Nation-State Bill - revokes the status of Arabic as an official language, even though it is the mother tongue of one in five citizens.

Israel's population includes a large minority of 1.7 million Palestinians.

The legislation affirms that world Jewry has a "unique" right to national self-determination in Israel, and calls for the government to further strengthen ties to Jewish communities outside Israel.

It also increases the powers of so-called "admissions committees" that block Palestinian citizens from living in hundreds of communities that control most of Israel's land.

In addition, critics are concerned that the legislation is intended to stymie any prospects of reviving peace talks with the Palestinian leadership in the Occupied Territories. US President Donald Trump is due in the region later this month in what is widely assumed to be an attempt to kick-start a long-stalled peace process. 

Netanyahu, however, has already indicated that he will insist on a precondition that Mahmoud Abbas, president of Palestine, recognise Israel as a Jewish state. The new bill effectively sets out the terms of the state Abbas is expected to recognise.

Netanyahu said this week that all Zionist parties in parliament would be expected to support the legislation. "The bill establishes the fact that the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people in our historic homeland," he told supporters of his Likud party.

He added: "There is no contradiction at all between this bill and equal rights for all citizens of Israel."

Comey's sacking will not be the end of President Trump

by

Andrew Mitrovica

@AndrewMitrovica

Andrew Mitrovica is an award-winning investigative reporter and journalism instructor.

Too many so-called "progressives" still don't get it.

There they were on Twitter and in instant coffee-quick columns - joined by their titular intellectual leader, David Frum (yes, him) - mimicking Dylan Thomas' verses to rage against the dying of the light while Donald "Nero" Trump plays the proverbial fiddle as the Constitution and the lingering shreds of the rule of law turn to ashes.

This latest spasm of cable-TV-stoked hysteria was triggered by Trump's jarring decision late Tuesday afternoon to sack the ripe-for-the-sacking FBI director, James Comey.  

Donald Trump's loyal minions insisted that Comey had to go because the cocky G-man had suddenly and conveniently earned an F over his handling of Hillary Clinton's curious handling of her emails. On cue and in unison, "progressives" shouted "cover-up" and crowed that a constitutional "crisis" was afoot after Saint Comey got the boot.    

You'll recall - since they apparently forgot - that days earlier many of these same "progressives" were sticking their rhetorical knives gleefully into the hapless and now unemployed FBI director after his snide remark that he was rendered "mildly nauseous" by the suggestion that his late-day election intervention had tilted the tight presidential race in Trump's favour.    

If you're trying to keep score, among weathervane progressives Comey has gone from devil to saint to devil and back to saint over the past eight months. It's a dizziness-inducing career trajectory, isn't it?

Revisiting a willowy ghost

WATCH: US President Trump defends Comey firing (2:22)

Still, in the wake of Comey's departure, progressives are also, once again, revisiting the willowy ghost of Richard Nixon and, drum roll, Watergate - the facile, all-purpose shorthand for a potentially combustible and politically fatal scandal.

The ultimate intent, I suspect, of resurrecting these familiar tropes in the context of Comey's abrupt dismissal is to suggest that Trump has committed an impeachable offence in order, ironically, to stave off impeachment.

This is a self-defeating delusion that has not only gripped progressives like a coiled snake but reveals how they remain blissfully wedded to their cockeyed faith in - for want of a better term - American "democracy".  

Here's the usually restrained CNN legal analyst, Jeffery Toobin, channeling his fellow progressives' angst in a fit of anguished hyperbole. "It is a grotesque abuse of power by the president of the United States", Toobin told the ever mesmerised-looking, Wolf Blitzer. "This is the kind of thing that goes on in non-democracies."