The Levant Files

  By the Editorial Team of TLF Washington’s warning comes at an awkward moment for Baghdad. American troops are preparing to leave, the promised disarmament of powerful militias has slipped well beyond the withdrawal date, and the war with Iran is making it increasingly difficult for Iraq to stay out of the regional confrontation. Marco Rubio chose a striking word to describe the danger facing Iraq: “Balkanisation.” But the US Secretary of State’s warning does not necessarily mean Washington expects Iraq to break apart. The more immediate concern is subtler — and, for Baghdad, perhaps more difficult to manage. Iraq could remain one country on the map while authority over guns, security and foreign policy becomes increasingly fragmented on the ground. The timing of Rubio’s intervention matters. The remaining US forces are due to leave Iraq by September 30 under the phased agreement that ends the international coalition’s military mission against ISIL. At almost exactly the same mome...

  By the Editorial Team of TLF Iranian travellers are giving up on planes and heading for the border. Shargh Daily reports queues stretching out at crossings in the country's north-west and beyond, filled with students trying to get back to universities, patients chasing treatment abroad, older passengers, families split from relatives overseas. Nobody at the airports can tell them when a flight will actually leave. Travel agents are fielding the same panicked calls, Shargh says, and giving the same non-answer: no idea which flights survive the week. No foreign carrier has touched Iranian airspace since the war. Meanwhile the list of countries turning away Iranian planes keeps growing. Washington moved on 8 September. Thirty-six entities sanctioned, 27 of them Iranian airlines, according to Shargh's reporting. The fuel suppliers, insurers, ground handlers, ticket agents, baggage crews — anyone servicing those carriers now carries exposure to US penalties themselves. Britain fol...

  By the Editorial Team of TLF Two agreements could begin to redraw the security map of northern Iraq: Turkish forces are set to leave their long-disputed base at Bashiqa, while Baghdad moves to bring Yazidi armed formations in Sinjar under federal authority. A military presence that has troubled relations between Baghdad and Ankara for years may finally be coming to an end. Turkey has agreed to withdraw its forces from the Bashiqa-Zilkan base in northern Iraq, while the Iraqi government has separately reached an agreement aimed at bringing the Yazidi armed groups of Sinjar into the country's official security structures, Numedya24 reported. Taken together, the agreements go beyond a routine security arrangement. They point towards an attempt by Baghdad to reclaim authority over one of Iraq's most fragmented and politically sensitive regions — a landscape where local armed groups, Turkish forces and competing regional interests have overlapped since the war against Islamic Stat...

  By the Editorial Team of TLF The Navy’s admission of eight suicide attempts across the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group has exposed the human cost of an exceptionally long deployment. It also raises a harder question: what happens if Iran eventually succeeds in seriously damaging a US carrier, one of its escorts or the logistical system keeping the fleet at war? Eight members of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during its extended deployment, Acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao has confirmed in a letter to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Two of the sailors attempted to go overboard. Both survived. Nothing in those cases demonstrates that the Lincoln was incapable of defending itself, and the sailors’ experiences should not be turned into evidence of military weakness. They do, however, reveal something that is easier to overlook when a war is measured in missiles, sorties and ships: the extraordinary pressure involved in keeping thousan...

  By the Editorial Team of TLF Mohsen Rezaei has warned Iran’s neighbours against blocking Iranian flights as Washington’s new sanctions begin to push the country’s airlines out of international airports. The battle over Iran’s airlines has taken an unsettling turn. Tehran is now warning neighbouring countries that if they stop Iranian aircraft from landing under pressure from Washington, their own airports could pay a price. Mohsen Rezaei did not leave much room for misunderstanding on the basic point. “If neighbouring countries cooperate with the United States by stopping Iranian flights, Iran will ensure their airports cannot function,” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council told Iranian state television on Wednesday, 23 September, according to Reuters. What he left unexplained was how Iran might do that. Rezaei named no country and no airport. He did not say whether he was talking about economic retaliation, political pressure, cyber operations or something m...

By the Editorial Team of TLF Azerbaijan’s first vice-president, Mehriban Aliyeva, reportedly spent a week on the Spanish island of Ibiza with one of her daughters after arriving aboard an Azerbaijani government aircraft. The trip raises questions about the use and cost of the plane, though neither the passengers nor the funding arrangements have been independently confirmed. A Week on the Island Ibiza newspaper La Voz de Ibiza reported that Aliyeva, who is also President Ilham Aliyev’s wife, stayed on the island from 9 to 15 September. According to the newspaper’s account, she was accompanied by one of her two daughters and a group of roughly 30 advisers and security personnel. It did not identify the daughter. The outlet said the group stayed at Sabina Estates and visited restaurants on the island. It identified the aircraft as an Airbus A340-642ACJ bearing registration 4K-AI08, and reported that it remained at Ibiza airport during the visit before departing for Baku on 15 Sep...

By the Editorial Team of TLF A corruption investigation into government technology contracts has reached the top of Albania’s intelligence service. A special court has placed Vlora Hyseni, the former head of the State Intelligence Service (SHISH), under house arrest as prosecutors investigate whether she disclosed secret information and helped a businessman while he was wanted by the authorities. The court ordered Hyseni’s house arrest and suspension on 21 September, according to SPAK’s statement. Prime Minister Edi Rama subsequently announced her removal from the intelligence post. The case is linked to an investigation into contracts awarded by the National Agency for the Information Society, or AKSHI, which manages Albania’s digital public services. Businessman Ergys Agasi, a suspect in that investigation, was arrested on 26 August after months on the run. Communications Under Scrutiny Albanian broadcaster Report TV reports that investigators recovered more than 500 Signal...

By the Editorial Team of TLF Iran’s security chief says Tehran has delivered seven conditions to mediators and will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed until the United States meets them. He also warns neighbouring countries against restricting Iranian flights. Washington Must Act First  Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, set out a stark sequence for ending the confrontation with Washington in a state television interview on 23 September: the United States must act first; only then will Iran consider reopening the Strait of Hormuz and entering negotiations.  “Talk alone is enough. Now we must act,” he said, according to the published Persian account of the interview. Rezaei said Iran had seven conditions, drawn up in writing and conveyed through mediators including Pakistan and Qatar. He did not publish the complete list. He insisted that passing messages through intermediaries should not be mistaken for negotiations or a change in Tehran’s pos...

By The Levant Files Editorial Team Cyprus has been divided since Turkey’s 1974 invasion, which followed a coup backed by Greece’s military junta. The Republic of Cyprus is internationally recognised and has belonged to the EU since 2004. The Turkish Cypriot administration in the north declared a separate state in 1983; only Turkey recognises it. The UN framework for reunification remains a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality. This week’s speeches at the UN General Assembly exposed three political calculations behind the familiar diplomatic deadlock. Ankara Bets On Time President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan again urged countries to recognise the north and establish political, diplomatic and economic relations with it. In his address to the UN General Assembly, he also argued that the organisation could no longer fulfil its peacekeeping mission and called for Security Council reform. Erdoğan invokes international law when condemning occupation in Palestine while s...

Fifteen years after an intelligence officer died in his prison cell, Turkish prosecutors are examining a cult television series for possible hidden messages — as an extraordinary investigation continues to widen. A dead intelligence officer, an exhumed grave, a fictional agent killed with a syringe and a car licence plate bearing the letters “FG.” One of Turkey’s most closely watched criminal investigations this autumn has acquired elements that could have come from the television series now at the centre of the inquiry. That series is Kurtlar Vadisi (Valley of the Wolves), the hugely popular Turkish action drama built around the worlds of intelligence, organised crime and the state. Famous for incorporating recognisable elements of real Turkish political events into its fictional universe, its later incarnation, Kurtlar Vadisi Pusu (Valley of the Wolves: Ambush), has now become part of a formal investigation. Who Was Kaşif Kozinoğlu? Kaşif Kozinoğlu was a former special forc...