Situation Update - Headlines

• Syria appointed its chief government negotiator in upcoming peace talks with opposition leaders. • Iraq plans to launch the operation to dislodge Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul in the first half of 2016, Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeid said. • A British inquiry into the 2006 death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy critical of the Kremlin, has found that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably approved his murder. • China’s working age population saw its largest decline on record in 2015, underscoring concerns about a looming labor shortage. • North Korea arrested a U.S. university student for allegedly committing a “hostile act” intended to "destroy the country’s unity." • Indonesian police have foiled potential terror attacks in at least three locations in the days following the Jan. 14 attack in central Jakarta, Jakarta police chief Inspector-General Tito Karnavian said. • Laos’ ruling Communist Party unveiled a new central committee that will not include the incumbent prime minister or party chief, signaling a change in senior leadership. • Al Shabaab gunmen opened fire after setting off at least one car bomb at a beachside restaurant in a busy area of Mogadishu.

Situation Report – Headlines

• U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said defense ministers from France and five other countries have agreed to step up the military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. • French President Francois Hollande said that French airstrikes against the Islamic State will accelerate in coming months and that 2016 must be a “year of transition for Syria.” • Germany will extend its border controls for an indefinite period, with the goal of drastically reducing the number of refugees coming into the country, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. • Austria announced that it will grant asylum to half as many immigrants this year as it did in 2015. • In a televised speech, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized the Guardian Council’s sweeping disqualification of reformist candidates for next month’s parliamentary election and appointed Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri to work with the Council toward allowing candidates to re-enter the race. • Chinese President Xi Jinping continued his Middle East tour in Egypt today, where he signed a series of economic agreements that include infrastructure support and $1.7 billion in loans to shore up the Egyptian banking sector. • Israel is “in the final stages” of appropriating a 380-acre tract of arable land in the West Bank, near Jericho, drawing criticism from Palestinian groups, the United States, and the United Nations. • Armed militants opened fire on a security checkpoint in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula, killing five policemen and wounding three soldiers; the Egyptian government is responding with airstrikes and ground operations, BBC reports. • Intra-Syrian peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25 in Geneva may be pushed back “a day or two,” but do not face a fundamental delay, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said. • A Russian Deputy Foreign Minister canceled his Jan. 22 trip to Istanbul, which would have been the first high-level visit by a Russian official to Turkey since the downing of a Russian warplane on the Turkish border two months ago. • Japan is expected to lift its sanctions on Iran on Jan. 22. • Iraq's plan to increase oil production in 2016 this year will proceed as planned, despite Iran’s return to the market, Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said. • Suspected Islamic State militants once again attacked oil installations close to Libya's Ras Lanuf terminal, setting oil tanks on fire. • Assailants shot and killed five policemen and wounded three others in an attack on a security checkpoint in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. • The number of HIV-positive patients registered in Russia has reached one million, according to Vadim Pokrovsky, the head of the Moscow-based Federal Center for Fighting AIDS. • Hundreds of protesters, many of them supporters of pro-Russian parties, have stormed Moldova's Parliament after lawmakers voted to form a new government. • Niger Delta militants have forced the shutdown of two refineries in Gbaramatu after gunmen attacked Nigerian oil and natural gas pipelines.

Iraq Update

Iraqi Shi'a militias significantly escalated their confrontation with the U.S. by kidnapping three American contractors and an interpreter in southern Baghdad on January 15, reportedly from the apartment of the interpreter. While no group has claimed responsibility, Iraqi Shi'a militias proliferate both the neighborhood of abduction, al-Dora, as well as Sadr City, the northeastern neighborhood to which the contractors were reportedly taken. Iranian proxy militias were responsible for kidnapping American servicemen before the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. Iraqi Shi'a militias carried out similar kidnappings of Turkish citizens in Baghdad in September 2015 and Qatari citizens in Muthanna Province in December 2015. The kidnapping of the American citizens came just one day before the release of four American prisoners by Iran and two days before the imposition of additional sanctions on Iran in response to an Iranian ballistic missile test in October 2015. The timing of the kidnapping suggests that Iranian proxies did not kidnap the contractors in response to the additional sanctions, but did so in order to secure future leverage over the U.S. However, the possibility remains that an Iranian proxy militia may have conducted the kidnapping without a direct order from their supervisors in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps - Quds Force (IRGC-QF). Regardless of intent, the kidnapping underscores the impunity with which Iranian proxies operate as well as the persistent threat they pose to U.S. personnel and interests.

Situation Report – Headlines

• The United States is looking to increase the number of trainers working with Iraqi military and police forces, U.S. Secretary of Defense told reporters during a trip to Europe; the increase in trainers would include U.S. troops, but the United States is also talking to coalition countries about increasing their training commitments. • Information obtained by Stratfor reveals that Saudi Arabia has no plans to purchase military hardware from Russia, including the Iskander-E, a tactical ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon. • The Russian ruble dropped to a near-historic low, falling past 80 rubles to the U.S. dollar. • Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on condemned the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran earlier this month. • Iraq's parliament suspended its meeting after Sunni lawmakers and government ministers elected to boycott parliamentary and government meetings because of violence against Sunnis in the eastern part of the country. • North Korea’s Jan. 6 nuclear test did not expand its technical capability, the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said. • China has moved an offshore oil rig back into South China Sea waters disputed with Vietnam, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said. • Militants attacked a university in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing at least 21 people. • Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) mounted a counterattack against Somali jihadist group al Shabaab in Somalia. • Tunisian police fired tear gas on hundreds of protesters gathered near the government headquarters in the central city of Kasserine. • The Southern African Development Community halted its activities in Lesotho over a disagreement over the death of former Gen. Maaparankoe Mahao. • The Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) asked the United Nations for a 12-month observer mission to oversee a cease-fire between the two sides. • The Turkish government is targeting mayors and local representatives belonging to the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party for prosecution; 18 mayors and nearly 50 local representatives are currently facing charges brought in recent weeks. • During a visit to Saudi Arabia, Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a joint statement with Saudi Arabia stating his support for the “unity, independence and sovereignty of Yemen” and the Hadi government; Xi is expected to also visit Egypt and Iran during his trip to the Middle East. • The head of Iran’s central bank said yesterday that it has begun accessing some of the frozen assets made available after the implementation of the nuclear agreement and that $32 billion assets will be freed under the deal. • Oman has closed two border crossings with Yemen because of security concerns; the closures happened earlier this year but were only confirmed by Omani officials today.

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