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German prosecutors say they’ve arrested a 29-year-old Syrian man on allegations he committed war crimes as a member of the Islamic State group in his home country.

The federal prosecutor’s office said Wednesday that Fares A. B., whose last name wasn’t released in line with privacy laws, is also accused of membership in a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors allege that he joined the Nusra Front extremist organization in 2013, and then moved to IS in 2014.

There, he was detailed to a jail and allegedly abused three prisoners. He’s also accused of beating a pickup truck driver with his assault rifle at a traffic control point, and executing an IS prisoner in 2014.

He was arrested in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg July 31 and brought before a judge Tuesday.
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says he doesn’t believe there is any imminent threat from North Korea to the Pacific island of Guam, despite Pyongyang’s claim that it is examining its plan for “making an enveloping fire” around the U.S. territory.

Tillerson spoke to reporters while flying to Guam Wednesday, after a day of heated rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang.   The U.S. Secretary of State was on the island on a refueling stop following a visit to Asia.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued a stark warning to North Korea, saying if Pyongyang continues its threats against the United States, “they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Trump: Pyongyang ‘Best Not Make Any More Threats’

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“I think the president, what the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un would understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Tillerson said. I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime that the U.S. has unquestionable ability to defend itself, will defend itself and its allies, and I think it was important that he deliver that message to avoid any miscalculation on their part.”

On Wednesday morning, Trump renewed his strong rhetoric aimed at North Korea, tweeting that he directed the U.S. military to bolster its nuclear arsenal, promising the U.S. would always the most powerful nation in the world.

Guam threat

In the statement issued early Wednesday in Asia, the North’s Korean Central News Agency said its armed forces were “carefully examining” a plan for missile strikes on Guam. American military bases on the U.S. Pacific island territory are believed to hold the largest U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons outside the continental United States. 

A spokesman for North Korea’s army was quoted as saying the strike plan will be “put into practice in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment,” once an order is given by Kim Jong Un. 

Guam Governor Eddie Calvo said there was no threat to the island, but also said it was “prepared for any eventuality” in a televised speech.Governor Calvo said “Guam is American soil…not just a military installation,” and was assured by the White House that an attack on Guam would be considered an attack on the United States.

Earlier Tuesday U.S. media outlets reported the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that North Korea recently succeeded in building a miniaturized nuclear warhead, small enough to fit in the intercontinental ballistic missiles Pyongyang recently has test-fired. 

The North has threatened nuclear war with the United States in the past in response to United Nations sanctions over its nuclear tests. On Saturday, the U.N. Security Council voted 15-0 on new sanctions is seen as an effort to cut back Pyongyang’s export income by one-third – from $3 billion to $2 billion per year. 

Pyongyang has described the U.N. sanctions resolution as a “flagrant infringement” of its sovereignty. 

War fears grow

Trump’s forceful language on Tuesday, and Pyongyang’s vociferous response, revived concerns about renewed war on the Korean peninsula, where three years of combat in the early 1950s ended in stalemate. 

“What the last 60 years, since the Korean War ended in an armistice, has shown is that a war of words does not translate into real war,” says Balbina Hwang, a Georgetown University adjunct assistant professor. “The increase in rhetoric does raise existing tensions, but it does not translate into a shift of U.S. policy or strategy on North Korea.” 

Jon Wolfsthal,a former National Security Council official in President Barack Obama’s administration, warned in a tweet late Tuesday: “We are closer to nuclear use now than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. We need the president to stabilize, not disrupt.”

Media reports on Tuesday that referenced the DIA report said U.S. analysts have concluded that Pyongyang has now amassed 60 nuclear weapons, although some experts think the number is smaller, perhaps only half as many. 

“The U.S. government has not been able to have reliable, confirmable, accurate intelligence about North Korean military assets for decades, so it’s all speculation,” Hwang, a former U.S. State Department adviser on North Korea, told VOA. “It could possibly be true, or not necessarily accurate.”  

The United States concluded early last year that Pyongyang was struggling to build intercontinental ballistic missiles, but that it would eventually be able to produce them and have nuclear-armed rockets capable of targeting all adversaries. 

VOA’s United Nations Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report 
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U.S. President Donald Trump has assailed the leaks of intelligence documents from his White House, but on Tuesday he sent a news story to millions of followers on his social media account about North Korean missiles that was based on reports from anonymous U.S. intelligence sources.

Trump, apparently wanting to emphasize the dangers posed by North Korea’s missile tests and nuclear weapons development, used his Twitter account to retweet a Fox News story saying that a few days ago U.S. spy agencies had detected Pyongyang loading two anti-ship cruise missiles onto a patrol boat.

Fox attributed the story to “officials with knowledge of the latest intelligence in the region,” although it was not known whether the information was classified as secret. At another point in the story, Fox said it was quoting “one official who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information.”

The story retweeted by President Trump:

The White House had no immediate comment on why Trump retweeted the story that had appeared on the “Fox & Friends” show, which he frequently watches in the early morning hours.

From his first days in the White House in January, Trump has complained often about leaks of classified information from government agencies, particularly news stories based on the leaks that have cast a shadow on his administration, and he has demanded that those leaking the information be found and prosecuted.

Last month he criticized his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, as “VERY weak” on “Intel leakers!”

But when Sessions last week announced the Justice Department had stepped up its investigations of leaks of classified material, Trump tweeted, “After many years of LEAKS going on in Washington, it is great to see the A.G. taking action! For National Security, the tougher the better!”
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is reviewing a climate change report prepared by 13 federal agencies that has reached conclusions that conflict with administration perspectives.

The report found human activity is “extremely likely” the cause of more than half the earth’s temperature increase since 1951, a position that is at odds with the administration’s belief that the cause of global warming is uncertain.

The report said human impact caused an increase in the global temperatures of 0.6 degrees Celsius to 0.7 degrees Celsius between 1951 to 2010 and that heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions leads the way as the primary contributor.

“There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate,” said the study, the Climate Science Special Report.

The Trump administration received a copy of the most recent draft of the report several weeks ago, senior administration officials said. It is unclear if the administration, which announced in June it would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, will approve the report. The study will be included in the National Climate Assessment, which is mandated by Congress every four years.

Some scientists are concerned the administration could amend or suppress the report. Conversely, skeptics of human-caused climate change are equally concerned that the report will be publicly released, along with the more comprehensive National Climate Assessment.

The report concluded that if humans immediately halted greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures would still rise an additional 0.3 degrees Celsius this century, above the actual projected increase of 2 degrees Celsius.

Small increases in global temperatures can have a significant impact on the climate. For example, a global temperature rise from 1.5 degrees Celsius to 2 degrees Celsius could cause more intense rainstorms, longer heat waves and lead to more rapid deterioration of coral reefs.

Policy recommendations are not included in the study, but it emphasized the need to stabilize the global mean temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius by significantly cutting carbon dioxide levels. An increase above 2 degrees Celsius would push the global environment closer to catastrophic changes, scientists have said.

The Paris climate accord, in which nearly 200 countries participate, includes an agreement to cut or limit fossil fuel emissions. The report said meeting the emissions goals would be a significant step toward managing global warming.

 
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Hot on the heels of its proposal to lower nicotine levels in cigarettes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced plans on Tuesday for an education campaign to discourage use of electronic cigarettes among youth.

The plan follows the agency’s proposal last month to both lower nicotine in combustible cigarettes and extend by four years the date by which e-cigarette manufacturers will be required to apply for authorization to sell their products.

Its new policy “aims to strike a careful balance between the regulation of all tobacco products, and the opportunity to encourage development of innovative tobacco products that may be less dangerous than combustible cigarettes,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.

Gottlieb is walking a tightrope between satisfying the interests of tobacco control advocates, who like the idea of lowering nicotine levels in cigarettes, and e-cigarette companies that have been lobbying for a lighter regulatory hand.

But while they welcomed the proposal to lower nicotine content in conventional cigarettes, public health experts disapprove of the proposal to extend the deadlines by which e-cigarette companies will be required to seek authorization for new and existing products.

The plan means products with flavors that appeal to children will be available longer than they would have been without the extension. The new education campaign could go some way towards mitigating those concerns.

More than 2 million middle- and high-school students in the United States were current users of e-cigarettes and other vaping devices in 2016 and half of all middle and high school students who used a tobacco product of some sort used two or more, the FDA said.

Gottlieb said the figures reflect “the troubling reality that they are the most commonly-used tobacco product among youth.”

The education campaign will be part of the agency’s “The Real Cost” campaign to discourage cigarette use and will begin this fall. A full-scale campaign will be launched in 2018. It will start by releasing new digital material to educate youth about the potential for nicotine to rewire a teen’s brain and create cravings that can lead to addiction.

The FDA said it estimates “The Real Cost” campaign to have prevented nearly 350,000 young people between the ages of 11 and 18 from starting to smoke from 2014 to 2016.
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Nebraska regulators opened a final hearing on TransCanada Corp’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Monday, a week-long proceeding that marks the last big hurdle for the long-delayed project after President Donald Trump approved it in March.

The proposed 1,179-mile (1,897-km) pipeline linking Canada’s Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries has been a lightning rod of controversy for nearly a decade, pitting environmentalists worried about spills and global warming against business advocates who say the project will lower fuel prices, shore up national security and bring jobs.

Nebraska has last word

Trump’s administration handed TransCanada a federal permit for the pipeline in March, reversing a decision by former President Barack Obama to reject the project on environmental grounds. But the line still needs a nod from regulators in Nebraska — which would be the last of three states to approve its proposed path into the heartland.

A lawyer for opponents of the line opened the hearing in front of the five-member Nebraska Public Service Commission on Monday morning by grilling an executive for the Canadian company about how the pipeline will be disposed of after its anticipated 50-year lifetime.

“Do we have to clean up TransCanada’s abandoned pipeline?” attorney David Domina asked TransCanada executive Tony Palmer.

On Sunday, hundreds of pipeline opponents, including members or Indian tribes, marched through downtown Lincoln under police escort, following a rally at the Nebraska Capitol.

Decision expected in November

Nebraska’s Public Service Commission is meant to weigh whether the project is in the state’s public interest, and will announce a decision by November. The arguments of opponents are constrained by the rules of the commission, however: the commission is not permitted to consider the risk of spills because the route already has an environmental permit.

Opponents — including scores of landowners on the proposed route — will instead argue the jobs are temporary and the risks of the pipeline to local industries like cattle ranching too great. They will also note that if the commission approves the line, TransCanada could seek to seize property along the route using eminent domain law — a politically unpalatable option in the conservative state.

Proponents, meanwhile, will argue the project will bring in hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue.

Job numbers different

Trump has said the project would create 28,000 jobs nationwide, but a 2014 State Department study predicted just 3,900 construction jobs and 35 permanent jobs.

The 830,000 barrel-per-day Keystone XL would link Alberta to an existing pipeline network feeding U.S. refineries and ports along the Gulf of Mexico.

The project could be a boon for Canada, which has struggled to bring its reserves to market. But demand for the line has declined since it was first proposed, due to surging U.S. production, lower prices, and other Canadian pipeline projects.

 
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The Interior Department on Monday scrapped an Obama-era rule on coal royalties that mining companies had criticized as burdensome and costly.

The Trump administration put the royalty valuation rule on hold in February after mining companies challenged it in federal court. Officials later announced plans to repeal the rule entirely. The final repeal notice was published Monday in the Federal Register and takes effect Sept. 6.

Repealing the rule “provides a clean slate to create workable valuation regulations,” said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, adding that the repeal will reduce costs that energy companies would otherwise pass on to consumers.

Still, he said Interior remains committed to collecting every dollar due, noting that public lands are assets belonging to taxpayers and Native American tribes.

The valuation rule, crafted under the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama, was aimed at ensuring that coal companies don’t shortchange taxpayers on coal sales to Asia and other markets. Coal exports surged over the past decade even as domestic sales declined.

Federal lawmakers and watchdog groups have long complained that taxpayers were losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually because royalties on coal from public lands were being improperly calculated.

Interior disputed that, saying in the Federal Register notice that the soon-to-be-reinstated regulations “have been in place for more than 20 years and serve as a reasonable, reliable and consistent method for valuing federal and Indian minerals for royalty purposes.” As evidence, the agency noted that the Obama-era rule would have increased royalty payments by less than 1 percent a year.

Rules in place since the 1980s have allowed coal companies to sell their fuel to affiliates and pay royalties to the government on that price, then turn around and sell the coal at a higher price, often overseas. Under the now-repealed rule, the royalty rate would have been determined at the time the coal is leased, with revenue based on the price paid by an outside entity, rather than an interim sale to an affiliated company.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, hailed the repeal, saying it would encourage more responsible energy development and spur investment in federal and Indian lands.

But conservation groups criticized the action, calling it a “sweetheart deal” for the industry that will deprive states of much-needed revenues. About half the coal royalties collected by the federal government is disbursed to states including Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.
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A federal judge in New York has tightened the house arrest conditions for a Chinese billionaire convicted of bribing United Nations diplomats.

The judge ordered Ng Lap Seng to remain inside his closely guarded luxury Manhattan apartment 24 hours a day, meaning Ng can no longer have a daily meal at a Chinatown restaurant.

The judge also ordered the bedroom door to stay open when Ng’s massage therapist visits, and said the therapist has to stop cooking meals and feeding them to the guards.

The court will approve all non-family visits to the apartment, and an interpreter must monitor all conversations.

Persecutors had argued that Ng is a flight risk and could try to return to China before he can be sentenced. However, the judge rejected their appeals to put Ng in jail.

Ng was convicted last week of bribing U.N. diplomats of more than a million dollars to win their approval for a U.N. conference center he wanted to build in Macau. He apparently hoped the building would lead to more development, including hotels and shopping centers.
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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is pushing back on suggestions that he is already plotting a run for the presidency in 2020 if President Donald Trump does not seek a second term in the White House.

Pence said he found “disgraceful and offensive” a report in The New York Times Sunday that he is forming a “shadow campaign,” and that aides have “intimated” to Republican donors that he would seek the presidency if Trump does not run for re-election.

Pence and Trump were inaugurated six and one-half months ago, but the early months of the president’s four-year term have proved chaotic. National opinion surveys show only about a third of American voters approve of Trump’s performance so far.

That has led some Republican operatives, according to The Times, to consider the possibility that Trump might not run again, even though he has already declared that he will.

Pence, a former Indiana governor before Trump tapped him as his vice-presidential running mate last year, declared the newspaper report was “categorically false,” and said it was “just the latest attempt by the media to divide this administration.”

The vice president said he plans to focus all his efforts on advancing Trump’s agenda, and on seeing him re-elected in 2020.

With Trump’s White House notable for political infighting among aides, his administration has been marked by the failure so far to win congressional passage of any major pieces of legislation. Notable among the unsuccessful efforts has been Trump’s vow to dismantle the country’s health care law championed by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

Trump has ousted numerous key aides, including his first chief of staff and his initial pick as national security adviser. Numerous congressional investigations and a criminal probe are underway into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election aimed helping Trump win, but he has largely been dismissive, calling them a “witch hunt” and an effort by Democrats to explain his upset win.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has convened a grand jury in Washington to hear testimony whether Trump aides illegally colluded with Russian interests to help Trump claim the White House and whether he obstructed justice by firing Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey, who headed the Russia investigation before Mueller was appointed.

 
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The city of Chicago will sue the Trump administration over its threat to cut off certain federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities that provide asylum to illegal immigrants.

Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the city will file its suit Monday.

“Chicago will not let our police officers become political pawns in a debate,” Emanuel said at a news conference on Sunday. “Chicago will not let our residents have their fundamental rights isolated and violated. And Chicago will never relinquish our status as a welcoming city.”

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said the Justice Department will withhold a justice assistance grant from cities that fail to comply with new requirements related to immigration. Municipalities known as sanctuary cities are those that refuse to cooperate with federal requests to detain and hold noncitizens under arrest on charges unrelated to their immigration status, until immigration enforcement officers can take custody and possibly deport them.

Chicago has used justice assistance grants in the past to buy equipment for its police department. Sessions announced that any city applying for the program this year must meet new requirements: The should allow Homeland Security officers to enter jails and inquire about inmates’ citizenship, and they also would be required to notify federal officers 48 hours before any suspected immigration violator is released from local custody.

The Chicago lawsuit is expected to argue that the Justice Department would be federalizing local jails and requiring city authorities to violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which requires probable cause for an arrest and blocks what it calls unreasonable search and seizure.

The Justice Department has not commented on Chicago’s planned legal action.

Sessions has said the actions of sanctuary cities are “designed to frustrate the enforcement of our immigration laws.” Mayor Emanuel has answered the attorney general by defending Chicago as a “welcoming city,” one that encourages all of its residents to cooperate with police.

Rather than frustrating law enforcement, as Sessions alleged, a spokesman for Emanuel said Chicago “promotes public safety by ensuring that no city resident, regardless of their status, is afraid to cooperate with law enforcement, report criminal activity to the police, serve as a witness in court or seek help as a victim of crime.”

President Donald Trump has made immigration reform one of the key goals of administration, arguing that undocumented migrants are making the U.S. less safe. His proposals include building a wall along U.S.-Mexican border and expanding requirements for those who want to emigrate to the U.S. legally.

A federal judge has already blocked a presidential executive order excluding sanctuary cities from consideration for any federal funding assistance. On the separate issue of Trump’s attempt to ban for the time being all immigrants from six Muslim-majority countries, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on the case during the coming weeks.

 
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The Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in suburban Minneapolis, like other U.S. mosques, occasionally receives threatening calls and emails. But leaders say they’re more frightened after a weekend attack in which an explosive shattered windows and damaged a room as worshippers prepared for morning prayers.

“We feel like it’s much deeper and scarier than like something random,” Mohamed Omar, the center’s executive director, said Sunday. “It’s so scary.”

No one was hurt in the blast, which happened around 5 a.m. Saturday. Windows of the imam’s office were shattered, either by the blast or by an object thrown through them. The FBI is seeking suspects and trying to determine whether the incident was a hate crime.

Gov. Mark Dayton, who joined other public officials and community leaders for a meeting inside the building Sunday, described the bombing as “so wretched” and “not Minnesota.”

“This is an act of terrorism. This is against the law in America,” Dayton said at a news conference afterward, the Star Tribune reported .

Besides serving as a place of worship and community center, the mosque in Bloomington, just south of Minneapolis, has a fitness center, gymnasiums for boys and girls, a football field and adjoins a city park, Omar said. He estimates the mosque holds up to 300 worshippers for Friday prayers. The community center also hosts computer classes, a basketball league, religious classes, lectures and other events.

“It’s a place that a family can come and get everything they need,” Omar said.

The mosque opened in 2011 at the site of a former elementary school in the suburb of about 85,000 and serves people primarily from the area’s large Somali community. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali community in the U.S., roughly 57,000 people, according to the latest census figures.

Some residents opposed the center’s opening, and complaints have been made about parking, noise and traffic, the Star Tribune reported. Omar said the center gets along with “92, 93 percent” of its neighbors.

And while the mosque has received threatening calls and messages, Deputy Bloomington Police Chief Mike Hartley said Sunday he was unaware of any hate crimes reported at the center.

Saturday’s bombing comes amid a rise in reports of anti-Muslim incidents in the U.S., including arson attacks and vandalism at mosques, harassment of women wearing Muslim head coverings and bullying of Muslim schoolchildren. Just recently in Minnesota, an Islamic cemetery in Castle Rock Township reported it had been vandalized with spray painted profanities and swastikas.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a Saturday statement on the Bloomington explosion that the department “fully supports the rights of all to freely and safely worship the faith of their choosing and we vigorously condemn such attacks on any religious institution.”

The reward for information leading to an arrest or conviction has grown to $24,000, said Asad Zaman, director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said its national office is urging Islamic centers and mosques to step up security.

“If a bias motive is proven, this attack would represent another in a long list of hate incidents targeting Islamic institutions nationwide in recent months,” said Amir Malik, the local chapter’s civil rights director.
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The Trump administration is sending its envoy for Ukraine negotiations to Moscow in a bid to make progress on the diplomatic crisis, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Sunday.

After his first meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson since new American sanctions, Lavrov emerged with an upbeat assessment about the potential for finding common ground on Ukraine, Syria and other issues.

Lavrov said he and Tillerson had agreed to preserve a high-level diplomatic channel that Russia had suspended in protest of an earlier tightening of U.S. sanctions.

“We felt that our American counterparts need to keep the dialogue open,” Lavrov said. “There’s no alternative to that.”

There was no immediate reaction to the meeting from the U.S. State Department. Tillerson did not comment publicly or respond to shouted questions from journalists allowed in briefly for the start of the hour-plus meeting in the Philippines.

Lavrov said Tillerson had asked him for details about Moscow’s recent action to retaliate against U.S. sanctions by expelling American diplomats and shuttering a U.S. recreational facility on the outskirts of Moscow. The Russian diplomat said he explained to Tillerson how Russia will carry out its response, but Lavrov isn’t giving out details.

Last month, the Kremlin said the U.S. must cut its embassy and consulate staff in Russia by 755 people, a move that echoed former President Barack Obama’s action last year to kick out Russian diplomats in punishment for Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 American election. The Russian announcement has caused confusion because the U.S. is believed to have far fewer than 755 American employees in the country.

Word that U.S. special representative Kurt Volker plans to visit the Russian capital was the latest sign that Washington is giving fresh attention to resolving the Ukraine conflict. The U.S. cut military ties to Russia over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and accuses the Kremlin of fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine by arming, supporting and even directing pro-Russian separatists there who are fighting the Kyiv government.

In recent days, the Trump administration has been considering providing lethal weaponry to Ukraine to help defend itself against Russian aggression.

Lavrov didn’t say when Volker, a former NATO ambassador, would go to Moscow. Last month, Volker paid his first visit as special representative to embattled eastern Ukraine.

In their meeting, Lavrov said, Tillerson agreed to continue a dialogue between U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov. That channel was created to address what the U.S. calls “irritants” preventing the two countries from pursuing better ties. Russia had suspended the talks after the U.S. tightened existing sanctions on Russia related to its actions in Ukraine.

Lavrov and Tillerson met on the sidelines of an Asian regional gathering in the Philippines. It was their first face-to-face conversation since Congress passed new legislation in July that makes it harder for Trump to ever ease penalties on Russia. Trump signed the bill last week, but called it “seriously flawed.”

The White House said Trump’s opposition stemmed from the bill’s failure to grant the president sufficient flexibility on when to lift sanctions. Trump’s critics saw his objections as one more sign that he is too eager to pursue closer ties to Russia, or to protect the former Cold War foe from penalties designed to punish Moscow for its actions in Ukraine, election meddling and other troublesome behavior.

A U.S. Justice Department investigation is moving ahead into Russia’s election interference and potential Trump campaign collusion. Trump denies any collusion and has repeatedly questioned U.S. intelligence about Moscow’s involvement.

At the same time, Trump’s administration has argued there’s good reason for the U.S. to seek a more productive relationship. Tillerson has cited modest signs of progress in Syria, where the U.S. and Russia recently brokered a cease-fire in the war-torn country’s southwest, as a sign there’s fertile ground for cooperation.

The Syrian cease-fire reflected a return of U.S.-Russia cooperation to lower violence there. The U.S. had looked warily at a series of safe zones in Syria that Russia had negotiated along with Turkey and Iran — but not the U.S.

Lavrov said there will be more talks in the coming week involving Russia, Iran and Turkey about how to ensure the truce in the last safe zone to be established, around the north-western city of Idlib. He predicted “it will be difficult” to hammer out the details but that compromise can be reached if all parties — including the U.S. — use their influence in Syria to persuade armed groups there to comply.
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Since taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump has shown an affinity, and perhaps even a deference, to the generals he has surrounded himself with in his Cabinet and at the White House, save one exception: the war in Afghanistan.

More than a dozen interviews with current and former U.S. officials familiar with the discussions reveal a president deeply frustrated with the lack of options to win the 16-year-old war, described internally as “an eroding stalemate.”

The debate carries echoes of the same dilemma Barack Obama faced in 2009. Then, as now, odds are that Trump will ultimately send more troops, current and former officials say.

“It’s the least worst option,” one former U.S. official familiar with the discussions said, speaking on condition of anonymity, while acknowledging that with Trump, a pullout cannot be completely ruled out.

Trump’s defense secretary, retired Marine Corps General Jim Mattis, has had the authority for nearly two months to add thousands more troops to the roughly 8,400 there now (down from a peak of more than 100,000 in 2011). Army General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, requested the troops back in February.

But officials say Mattis won’t use his authority until he has buy-in from Trump for a strategic vision for America’s longest war. Beyond more troops for Afghanistan, the strategy would aim to address militant safe havens across the border in Pakistan.

That too has become a divisive issue, with several members of Trump’s inner circle split on how hard to press Islamabad.

Sources say that the discussions — which included a high-level White House meeting on Thursday — could drag out for the rest of the summer, blowing past a mid-July deadline to present a war strategy to an increasingly impatient Congress.

After Thursday’s meeting, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, people familiar with the deliberations told Reuters that a final decision did not appear imminent.

Pentagon officials have declined to comment on internal deliberations. The White House has also declined to comment ahead of a decision on the strategy.

Commander under scrutiny

While U.S.-backed fighters are rolling back Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the same cannot be said of the fight against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the conditions in Afghanistan will almost certainly deteriorate through next year, even with a modest increase in military assistance from America and its allies.

During a July 19 meeting in the White House Situation Room, Trump said Mattis and Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, might want to consider firing Nicholson, who was picked by Obama in 2016 to lead the war effort and has earned the respect of Afghan leaders.

“We aren’t winning,” Trump told them, according to accounts of the conversation.

But current and former officials say the frustration had been mounting for months.

At least as far back as February, one former U.S. official said the internal deliberations about Afghanistan were not aimed at creating a broad set of options for Trump.

Shortly before McMaster was due to present his plan to Trump for approval ahead of the May NATO summit, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declined to endorse it, saying Trump was not being presented with options, the former official and another current official said.

“The lack of options meant that the only recommendation that was originally to be put forward to the president was essentially the status quo,” the former official said, discounting the troop increase as any serious shift in strategy.

But in the months since, the possibility of a full pull-out has been repeatedly presented and refined along with a true “status-quo” option in which no new troops are sent to Afghanistan, but none are pulled out either.

Still, U.S. defense leaders are not believed to be favoring those options.

David Sedney, a former Pentagon policy advisor under the Obama administration, said failure to prioritize Afghanistan could replicate the mistakes by previous U.S. presidents.

“We’ve been ambivalent about Afghanistan for the last 17 years and when you have an ambivalent policy, it fails,” said Sedney, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington.

McMaster, Mattis, Tillerson, Dunford, Nicholson and some U.S. intelligence officials argue that refusing to commit more U.S. forces to train, equip and in some cases support the Afghan security forces would eventually result in the Taliban retaking most of the country from the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

Trump’s concerns about Afghanistan are shared by some senior officials close to the president, including chief strategist Steve Bannon, who, officials say, is skeptical about the need for an increase in troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan also divides team

Divisions have also emerged within Trump’s administration on how much to pressure Pakistan, and how quickly, in order to address militant safe havens blamed for helping prolong Afghanistan’s war.

Nicholson, McMaster and Lisa Curtis, senior director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, favor taking a strong hand with Pakistan to deal with Taliban militants using that country as a base from which to plot attacks in Afghanistan, current and former officials say.

On the other side are State Department officials and others at the Pentagon, including Dunford, who take a broader view of Pakistan’s strategic importance and are less convinced that harsh actions will secure more cooperation from Islamabad, they said.

Pakistan fiercely denies allowing any militant safe havens on its territory.

The Trump administration is exploring a new approach towards Pakistan, Reuters has reported. Potential responses under discussion include expanding U.S. drone strikes, redirecting aid to Pakistan and perhaps eventually downgrading Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally.
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