Your Duty: 2015-02-15

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Jews in Europe say no to exodus after Copenhagen, Paris attacks

PARIS — Like any Jew living in France, Emilie Dahan was deeply shaken by last month's attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket. She wondered whether, after four generations in the country, rising anti- Semitism and the risk of more terrorism might drive her family from its shores.

"When the attacks happened, I thought, 'This is it, the moment we all feared,' " the 40-year-old mother of three recalled. "Then something happened in me. Leave my home, my life, my country? All of a sudden it seemed absurd. Deep inside, I am French, and the attacks made it clear to me."

Even as synagogues, schools and cemeteries across Europe step up security, the vast majority of Jews in the region are staying put. Like Dahan, Jews from London to Berlin say their cultural, business, and social ties trump fears of rising extremism such as the Paris attacks and shootings last week in Copenhagen that killed two people, including a Jewish man at a synagogue.

They offer a more nuanced picture than the one painted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Feb. 15 called for "the absorption of mass immigration from Europe" because Jews aren't safe there.

True, more than 7,200 French Jews emigrated to Israel last year, according to the Jewish Agency, which manages migration-double the 2013 level-and after the attacks others are considering such a move. The 2014 figure represents about 1.5 percent of the nearly half-million Jews who reside in France, which is significant in terms of emigration, but means the vast majority of the community remains.

"We do see more and more Jews leaving France," with some motivated at least in part by rising anti-Semitism, but also due to the stagnant economy, said Sergio DellaPergola, a demographer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Yet "even in France, where it could be argued that the situation is the most precarious, it's only a minority."

In most countries, it's a far smaller minority. About 9,000 of western Europe's 1.1 million Jews immigrated to Israel last year, while just 627 of Britain's roughly 290,000 Jews-0.2 percent-made the move. And only 103 German Jews did so, or less than 0.1 percent of the country's 120,000 Jewish residents.Immigrants have given

Immigrants from the former Soviet Union have given new life to Berlin's Jewish community, which was almost wiped out by the Nazis. They've been augmented by some 17,000 Israeli citizens drawn to the German capital's artsy, liberal atmosphere and cheap housing. In hip Prenzlauer Berg, the Rykestrasse synagogue-set aflame during Kristallnacht-has been restored to its pre-war beauty, as has the Moorish-style New Synagogue a few U-bahn stops away.

William Glucroft, 29, an editor and translator from Connecticut, arrived in Berlin five years ago from Israel, where he had met a German woman vacationing in Haifa. Now he helps organize events at a local synagogue, which he says has been transformed from "a small group of aging men" to a growing, diverse community.

"The only person telling Jews to leave Europe is Netanyahu," said Glucroft, who lives in a largely Muslim district. "If I felt unsafe here-and I don't at all-Israel would be the last place I would go. Last time I checked more Jews were killed there by terrorist acts than anywhere in Europe."

The outlier is France, which has Europe's largest Jewish population as well as the largest proportion of Muslims. It has seen some of the region's worst anti-Semitic violence in recent years, including a 2012 attack in Toulouse that left seven people dead. Since January's attacks, Jewish sites in Paris have been guarded around the clock by soldiers with automatic rifles.

Yet when Netanyahu, visiting in the wake of the January violence, spoke at the Grand Synagogue of Paris, the congregation belted out the Marseillaise, France's national anthem-a riposte to his suggestions that Jews flee.

"Integrating socially and economically in Israel is not easy," said Jacques Bloch, 35, whose family has been near Strasbourg in the Alsace region for six generations. "Fear isn't enough. One must have strong beliefs to make the move."

Professional considerations weigh heavily on the determination to stay put in Europe. Benedetto Habib, 51, a Milan film producer who worked on Italy's entry for the Academy Awards, a drama called "Human Capital," said he has no intention of leaving. Doing so would mean giving up a successful career, he said, and he doesn't feel unsafe or unwelcome.

"Extremism just hasn't taken root here," Habib said. "Jews feel comfortable in Milan."

Few European Jews would discount the importance of confronting anti-Semitism in poorly integrated Muslim communities. Although security is crucial, the long-term solution can only lie in cultural integration and education, said David Kat, 43, a tech entrepreneur in Amsterdam who serves as treasurer to the board of the city's Jewish museum. He's a ninth-generation citizen of the Dutch capital, and said he knows no one considering a move to Israel.

"We have a moral obligation to our youth to integrate kids whose parents or grandparents were born in the Arab world," Kat said. Muslims are as much a "part of Dutch society" as Jews, he added. "It's about living together."

In London, Jewish life remains particularly vibrant. One example is the new JW3 cultural center, a sprawling, glass- fronted structure completed in 2013 at a cost of 32 million pounds ($50 million). It offers a frenetic events calendar, from the serious-a talk with Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel-to the frivolous, like 'Skating, Dating and Mating' for singles on a temporary ice rink.

JW3's blend of fitness classes, hipster-inflected arts programming and a well-reviewed Middle Eastern restaurant is catching on fast. Organizers expected 60,000 visitors in the first year of operation; more than 225,000 came.

"We are a reflection of a renaissance," said JW3 chief executive officer Raymond Simonson, who tweets under the handle @FatSideburns, a reference to his ample mutton chops. "I want us to be loud and proud."

— With assistance from Henry Meyer in Moscow, Shoshanna Solomon in Tel Aviv, Stefan Nicola and Hans Nichols in Berlin and Maria Tadeo in Madrid.

Sheikh negotiated with Islamic State for Japanese hostage's release

TOKYO — An Islamic scholar was delegated to negotiate with the Islamic State militant group during the recent hostage crisis involving two Japanese men, The Japan News has learned.

The hostage crisis began a month ago, when the militants released a video threatening to kill freelance journalist Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa.

Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, an ultraconservative Islamic scholar in Jordan, was asked by the Jordanian government to negotiate with the Islamic State after a video in which Goto was seen holding a photo of what seemed to be Yukawa's body appeared online on Jan. 24, sources including a Maqdisi aide and people involved with the Jordanian government revealed Wednesday.

"The Japanese [Goto] is not a soldier. You shouldn't kill him," Maqdisi told ISIL, according to the sources.

Maqdisi is believed to have been a mentor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, ISIL's predecessor organization. Zarqawi was killed by an airstrike in 2006.

At the same time, however, Jordanian government officials told their Japanese counterparts that they believed negotiations would be difficult, according to sources involved with the Jordanian government. A Jordanian government official said even if they freed the death-row inmate whose release the Islamic State was demanding, there was no guarantee the militants would free Goto, the sources said.

Islamic State later released videos in which it claimed it had murdered Goto and Yukawa. Radical groups are boosting their activities in sympathy with ISIL in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and other areas.

An official of the Foreign Ministry's Consular Affairs Bureau advised Goto, who had indicated his plan to visit Syria, in late September last year to refrain from visiting Syria, telling him over the telephone: "We advise you to refrain from traveling [to Syria] in consideration of your safety."

The ministry repeated its advice again in early October. In the middle of that month, the ministry official tried to persuade him to refrain from the Syria visit over a meal. "All right, all right," Goto was quoted by the official as saying.

Goto reportedly said so with a smile, but did not change his plan to enter Syria.

An email message written in English, saying Goto had been detained, was received by his wife on Dec. 2. Informed of this the following day, the Foreign Ministry contacted Goto's local guide four times to collect information and came to strongly believe that he had entered an area under the control of the Islamic State. But in view of the fact that there are many groups in Syria who try to obtain ransom money through kidnapping, it could not be determined that Goto was detained by the militant group.

"The email message addressed to his wife warned never to reveal it to others, so the government didn't enter into negotiations," said a high-ranking government official while recalling the hostage crisis. The government also took the stance of not holding direct talks with any terrorist group.

In preparation for his possible involvement in a kidnapping case, Goto took out a ransom insurance policy issued by a British insurance firm. Therefore, his wife asked a crisis management consultant company in Britain to negotiate with the abduction group via email.

Views have emerged within the government that it should have been involved in negotiations with the kidnapping group from the very beginning.

On Jan. 20, Islamic State posted video of Yukawa and Goto online and demanded the Japanese government pay a ransom of $200 million. It threatened to kill the two men if payment was not made within 72 hours.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Israel on a tour of the Middle East at the time, and hurriedly summoned Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko, Vice Foreign Minister Yasuhide Nakayama and other high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials to the hotel suite where he was staying.

"This is a really difficult situation," Abe was quoted as saying when Seko showed him the video of Goto and Yukawa on a tablet computer.

The officials at the emergency meeting decided not to comply with the demand for ransom and not to negotiate directly with the terrorists. They also decided to send Nakayama to a task force headquarters in Amman.

Abe's executive secretary and other government officials worked out the gist of a statement to be made by Abe during a news conference after the meeting, saying basically that Japan would not give in to terrorism and calling for the release of the hostages. However, Abe directed them to change the order of the sentences so as to give priority to preserving human life and securing the release of the hostages, and then refer to Japan's humanitarian assistance to refugees.

"This is the national feeling of Japan," Abe said as he sought the understanding of the executive secretary and government officials.

Abe then talked to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who was in Japan, by cellphone, urging him to spread overseas the information that Japan's provision of $200 million in assistance was intended solely for humanitarian assistance.

Via the Jordanian government and others, Tokyo sought cooperation from such parties as religious leaders, Jordanian terrorists who had joined the militant group and leading members of an influential tribe in western Iraq's Anbar Province.

Tokyo received many offers of cooperation in resolving the hostage crisis, with one saying it would be possible to rescue the men if a certain amount of money was paid. The government referred all offers to the Jordanian government to verify them, but ultimately no information was provided that could secure the release of hostages.

Some opposition parties criticized Abe for touring the Middle East while the two Japanese were being held hostage and for vowing in a speech to provide about $200 million in assistance for the Mideast countries that have been fighting the ISIL.

A senior government official rejected such criticism, saying that Abe's commitment to assistance came in response to requests from Europe and the Middle East.

"[Abe] didn't have the option of changing Japan's diplomatic policy toward the Middle East just because there was a possibility that Japanese nationals were being detained by ISIL," the official said.

Gemalto probes alleged data breach by UK, US spy agencies

BERLIN (Tribune — Gemalto NV, the largest maker of mobile-phone cards, said it’s investigating a report that U.S. and U.K. spies allegedly hacked into its computer network to steal the keys used to encrypt conversations, messages and data traffic.

The U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters and the U.S. National Security Agency started intercepting the encoders in 2010 as they were being shipped to phone companies, allowing them to monitor wireless communications and bypass the need to get permission for wiretapping, the Intercept reported Thursday, citing documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Gemalto is a particularly valuable holder of the keys as the French company produces 2 billion SIM cards every year, according to the report.

“The publication indicates the target was not Gemalto per se — it was an attempt to try and cast the widest net possible to reach as many mobile phones as possible, with the aim to monitor mobile communications without mobile network operators and users consent,” Gemalto said in a press statement Friday, adding it couldn’t immediately verify the findings in the report.

In an e-mailed statement, GCHQ said it couldn’t comment on intelligence matters, citing agency policy.

The theft of encryption keys would potentially allow U.S. and U.K. agencies to also unlock communications it had recorded but was previously unable to unlock, the Intercept said.

A U.K. court this month ruled against the nation’s spy agencies for the first time, saying its mass collection of Internet and phone data was illegal until late last year. The data-sharing program with U.S. agencies contravened privacy and free-speech provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal said Feb. 6 in London.

According to the Intercept, the spies planted malware on several of Gemalto’s computers and obtained access to private communications among employees to help them set up the theft. They also targeted unidentified mobile-phone companies to gain insight into customers and network maps, and tapped into authentication servers that verify communication between an end user and the network operator, according to the report.

While individual hackers are responsible for the lion’s share of security breaches, state-sponsored attackers typically can afford large teams and expensive hardware to help them carry out complex assaults on company and government computer systems.

While calls and messages transmitted over older networks, such as those based on 2G technology, can be decrypted with little more than a powerful computer and some mathematic shortcuts, private hacker and secret services alike are finding it harder to break security locks used for 3G and 4G systems that have become more popular. That makes the acquisition of keys a worthwhile endeavor.

The Intercept is a publication founded by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill to report and explain the findings in the documents supplied by Snowden.

Gemalto, whose headquarters are in Amsterdam, said it had detected and mitigated many types of hacking attempts over the years.

“At present we cannot prove a link between those past attempts and what was reported yesterday,” it said. “There have been many reported state sponsored attacks as of late, that all have gained attention both in the media and amongst businesses, this truly emphasizes how serious cyber security is in this day and age.”

———

(With assistance from Jeremy Hodges in London.)

———

Visit Bloomberg News at www.bloomberg.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Friday, February 20, 2015

Guilty plea ends another chapter in years-long Iraq War fraud investigation

(Tribune Content Agency) — The picture painted by federal prosecutors is worthy of a spy novel: Globe-hopping trips to clandestine meetings in luxury hotels. Coded ledgers tracking cash bribes shoved in shopping bags. Raucous parties involving drugs, alcohol and prostitutes.

These were the methods by which Montgomery County, Pa., military contractor George H. Lee Jr. hustled for poorly monitored government business during the Iraq War's early days.

On Friday, Lee, the 71-year-old chairman of Kuwait City-based Lee Dynamics International, pleaded guilty to bribery charges, the latest development in a years-long investigation aimed at exposing fraud and graft that emerged in the 2003 run-up to the war.

So far, four high-ranking Army officers tied to Lee have admitted to accepting $1.2 million in cash, jewelry, spa treatments and hotel stays in exchange for steering $20 million in contracts his way.

Stoop shouldered and hoarse, Lee entered his plea in a federal courtroom in Philadelphia, two months after Thai immigration agents detained him in what prosecutors say was an attempt to flee from justice.

Lee was first indicted in 2011 but remained stuck under a travel ban in Kuwait, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. He had pledged to return to Philadelphia as soon as the ban was lifted but instead flew to Thailand in November to visit his wife and daughter and seek medical care, his lawyer, Bryant Banes, said.

"It was never his intent to evade anyone," said Banes. "He has taken responsibility — as he has his entire life. He is ready to assist the government in finding the truth in this case."

The case against Lee stems from the hectic search to supply American and Iraqi troops with equipment and supplies in the early days of the war.

Officials contend a "culture of corruption" emerged at the small office in the Kuwaiti desert outpost of Camp Arifjan that housed the Army Contracting Command.

There, a half-dozen poorly trained officers made decisions on billions of dollars in military spending to aid Iraqi reconstruction efforts.

Former civilian contractors have described Arifjan as a place where cost didn't seem to matter, oversight was next to nonexistent and ordered equipment often disappeared or was never delivered at all.

In that environment, Lee thrived.

A graduate of Hatboro-Horsham High School near Philadelphia, Lee had served as an Army supply clerk in Vietnam and later worked as a military contractor across Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He found himself in Tehran in the late '70s working for Bell Helicopter during the tumult of the Iranian Revolution.

He "was the last person on the bus to leave Iran in '79," Banes said Friday.

When American forces appeared to be amassing for their invasion of Iraq in early 2003, Lee made his way to Kuwait City, where there was money to be made.

Under his plea agreement with prosecutors, Lee pleaded guilty to only one count of bribery — a 2004 instance involving $15,000 cash, a Rolex watch and an attempt to coerce an Army National Guard lieutenant into extending a contract held by Lee's company.

But the conduct alleged in his 2011 indictment details graft of a much wider dimension, first in his role at American Logistics Services, a company he formed with a Kuwaiti partner, and later at Lee Dynamics.

Lee cultivated relationships with a number of Camp Arifjan's contracting officers, including Maj. Gloria Davis.

Davis killed herself in December 2006 in Baghdad, a day after admitting to Army investigators she helped steer $14 million in contracts to Lee to supply bottled water and maintenance on tents, latrines, bunk beds, dumpsters and military vehicles between 2003 and 2004.

In exchange, Lee lavished her with spa trips to Southeast Asia and a 2004 trip to Thailand, where he helped her set up a bank account to which he would later wire $326,000 between 2004 and 2006.

Lee hired her son, Damien, to work for him, after Davis' tour at Arifjan ended and she had returned to work at the Pentagon in 2004.

Later that year, Davis e-mailed Lee saying she hoped to return to Kuwait soon and hoped she could "help out a lot more" because she was "ready to make some real money." In a later exchange, Lee's son responded: "You know if you float back over this way you will be as kept a woman as the princess herself."

But even with Davis gone, Lee found other officers at Camp Arifjan also willing to play his game, according to court filings, including:

Col. Kevin A. Davis, who admitted he leaked secret information to help Lee secure an $11.7 million contract for Baghdad warehouse maintenance in exchange for $50,000 in cash, first-class travel to Venice and the United States and a job after his retirement from the military.

Lt. Markus E. McClain, who turned down offers of drugs, women and a Rolex watch but took $15,000 and a steak dinner to lobby in favor of extending one of Lee's contracts to supply buses in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Levonda Selph, who Lee showered with a "pleasure trip" to Thailand and a stay in Kuwait City's Le Meridien Hotel, when she took over monitoring his company's warehouse work.

And Maj. John Cockerham, the lead defendant in what prosecutors now describe as the largest bribery case to come out of the Iraq War.

Army investigators found coded ledgers during a search of Cockerham's home at San Antonio's Fort Sam Houston, noting bribes from at least six companies collected by his sister and wife. Entries marked "Lee Dynamic" listed $1 million in pledged bribes — including a $400,000 payment from Lee's son, Justin, listed under the alias "Mrs. Julie Landsheen."

Cockerham and his wife pleaded guilty in San Antonio to accepting bribes in 2008. His sister — Carolyn Block, a suburban Dallas schoolteacher who told investigators she quit her job and moved to Kuwait in 2004 to make better money — is serving a prison sentence of more than five years.

But despite all the business Lee's bribes brought in, they appear to have done him little good.

His son pleaded guilty in 2011. And Lee himself is now all but penniless, Banes said Friday.

He spent almost all he had to secure his release from Kuwait, where he had been stuck for the past four years under a travel ban imposed over a $75,000 debt.

"He had to get out of there and basically leave under the cover of night for fear that someone else would place another ban on him before he left," Banes said.

Prosecutors, however, weren't buying that story. Instead of flying to Philadelphia, Lee headed to Thailand and lived there for a month before surfacing at an American embassy seeking to renew his passport in December.

Slomsky, the judge, ordered Lee detained until his sentencing hearing, scheduled for July. Under the terms of his plea deal, prosecutors will recommend a sentence of no more than six years.

F-16 pilot error caused October midair collision, Air Force says

14 minutes ago

By BROCK VERGAKIS

The Associated Press

Published: February 21, 2015

NORFOLK, Va. — An F-16 crashed in a southeastern Kansas field in October after a student pilot failed to maintain visual contact with his instructor's jet, resulting in a midair collision that caused the instructor to lose control and eject, the Air Force said Friday.

The pilots were participating in a combat maneuvers training mission when it happened, according to an investigation by the Virginia-based Air Combat Command. The student pilot was able to return to Tulsa National Guard Base, Okla., where both pilots belonged to the 138th Fighter Wing. The instructor pilot suffered minor injuries after ejecting, and his plane crashed about 3 miles northeast of Moline, Kan., a farming and ranching community.

The report said the instructor's jet was destroyed on impact, and the student pilot's jet had 5 feet of its right wing tip cut off from the collision. The report says another jet was brought into inspect the student pilot's plane over an unpopulated area to make sure it could safety get back to Oklahoma before the decision to do so was made.

The Air Force estimates the damage to government property at $22.5 million. There was no significant damage to private property.

The report says the instructor and student were serving as each other's wingman in a combat training scenario involving a third jet that was simulating an adversary attacking them. The first engagement finished with no problems, but on the second one, the student pilot failed to tell his instructor that he had lost sight of his jet.

As the supporting fighter, it was the student pilot's job to ensure the flight path was clear.

Seconds later, the student pilot tried to get behind the attacking jet, but the instructor pilot misperceived the turn the student was making.

As a result, the instructor pilot began moving to simulate a kill on the attacking jet and failed to recognize he was on a collision course with the student's plane in time.

The Air Force has not released the names of any of the pilots involved.

Carter visits Afghanistan days after taking reins as defense chief

KABUL, Afghanistan — Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday as the Obama administration is weighing whether to slow down the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal from the country.

The new Pentagon chief, who was sworn in Tuesday, is slated to meet with Afghan political leaders and American military commanders to discuss the way ahead.

There are currently about 10,000 American servicemembers in Afghanistan, down from a peak of 100,000 in 2011. The troops there now are participating in Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, a train, advise and assist mission with a relatively small counterterrorism component.

The current withdrawal plan, laid down by President Barack Obama, calls for U.S. troop levels to be cut roughly in half by the end of this year, with the force shrinking to a small embassy presence by the end of 2016, weeks before the president leaves office.

Army Gen. John Campbell, the commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, has told lawmakers and Pentagon officials that he wants to take a more conservative approach, retaining more troops at more bases for a longer period of time to support the Afghan National Security Forces in their ongoing fight against the Taliban.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has also suggested that he thinks that Obama’s plan should be adjusted.

“Deadlines concentrate the mind. But deadlines should not be dogmas," he said in a CBS ’60 Minutes’ interview last month. "If both parties or, in this case, multiple partners, have done their best to achieve the objectives, and progress is very real, then there should be willingness to re-examine a deadline.”

During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Carter told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that he’s open to the idea of changing the pace of the withdrawal and perhaps keeping a significant number of troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016.

“The president has a plan. I support that plan. At the same time, it’s a plan. And if I’m confirmed and I ascertain… that we need to change that plan, I will recommend those changes to the president,” Carter said.

Carter told reporters traveling with him that he’s going to Afghanistan to “make my own assessment of that progress and my own assessment of the way forward.”

While there, he will confer with American military officials, including Campbell and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the head of U.S. Central Command. He will also meet with Ghani and other Afghan political leaders.

He said he plans to ask them for their assessment of:

The performance of the Afghan security forces.

American contributions to the fight against the Taliban.

The battlefield situation and the prospects going forward.

The best way that the U.S. can support the ANSF in the future.

Carter will also meet with U.S. troops in the field.

“The reason for (going to) Afghanistan in my very first week in office… is because this is where we still have 10,000 American troops (there), and they come first in my mind always,” Carter said.

Although the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan officially ended in December, American forces continue to participate directly in the fight.

Earlier this month, a U.S. airstrike in Helmand province killed former Taliban commander Abdul Rauf Khadim and seven other militants.

Khadim had recently declared his allegiance to the Islamic State group.

“He and his associates were targeted because we had information that they were planning operations against U.S. and Afghan personnel there in Afghanistan,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters when the attack was announced. “If (militants are) going to threaten our interest, our allies, our partners in Afghanistan, they're fair game.”

Last month, U.S. and allied aircraft bombed insurgents in Kunar province’s Dangam district to thwart a Taliban offensive. Local leaders said the airstrikes were instrumental in turning back the siege there.

Meanwhile, counterterrorism raids have ramped up in recent months, according to a New York Times report.

In October, U.S. and Afghan special operations forces reportedly carried out a raid against al-Qaida figure Abu Bara al-Kuwaiti, which yielded a massive intelligence haul about the terrorist organization.

The information seized has contributed to a significant increase in joint night raids against Islamic extremists, according to The Times, which cited anonymous American and Afghan officials.

A U.S. military official told The Times that the current tempo of such operations is “unprecedented” for this time of year, which falls outside the main fighting season in Afghanistan.

A former Afghan security official, who informally advises his former colleagues, told The Times that “the secret war” waged by special operators is still “going hard.”

Some U.S. officials fear that a too-fast withdrawal from Afghanistan will lead to a repeat of what happened in Iraq last year, when Islamic extremists routed the U.S.-trained Iraqi army and overran much of the country in the absence of a significant American military presence.

When asked whether he was concerned that the Taliban will undergo a resurgence and make a similar power grab if the U.S. continues to draw down in Afghanistan, Carter said the reason the U.S. is “reassessing what we’re doing is that we want a lasting (military and political) result here… That’s the whole point.”

Gains made in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion have come at a high price for American troops: 2,216 servicemembers have died there and another 20,000 have been wounded.

Stars and Stripes reporters Travis J. Tritten and Carlo Muñoz contributed to this report.

harper.jon@stripes.com

Twitter: @JHarperStripes

Debaltseve: Ukrainian town's carnage leaves only 'zombies' behind

VUEHLEHIRSK, Ukraine — On a snowy, empty highway, a couple and their son emerge from weeks of hiding, wandering in a hungry daze. A rebel truck, mangled by a land mine, is blocking the road. Half a dozen Ukrainian corpses, several burned, lie in a ditch.

The weeks-long battle for Debaltseve is over, and the pro-Russian rebels have won. The Ukrainians made a bloody retreat. What remains — apart from a smoldering ruin and exhausted survivors — is a challenge to the U.S. and Europe in their attempt to deter the threat of President Vladimir Putin nibbling off other bits of eastern Ukraine.

Most who remain here are rebel supporters who repeat the Russian narrative.

"Ukrainians call us separatists," said Natalya, 59, who emerged from a basement in town after the fighting. "But we don't have a single Russian here. Every fighter in town is one of us."

Ukrainian forces had gained control of the city in July. In January, the rebels started a counterstrike that continued through the cease-fire that was supposed to come into force on Feb. 15. It triggered one of the deadliest artillery volleys of the war.

Thousands of civilians have left Debaltseve, which used to have 25,000 people. Only a few thousand remain.

The town is a symbol of the patriotic fervor that has stoked the worst crisis between Russia and the U.S. and its allies in a generation. As the conflict moves toward other parts of eastern Ukraine, the survivors here are reeling, their world ripped apart.

The death toll is contested, with the separatists claiming to have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Ukrainian soldiers, including fighters outside of the military's command. The government in Kiev says at least 179 of its soldiers died in the last month of fighting and more than 80 are missing, while 110 are being held near Debaltseve. Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said at least 2,745 troops pulled out.

While explosions and gunfire continued to keep people from entering this strategic railway hub from the west on Thursday, access from the east was open.

The couple and their son, the Kanaevs, who were wandering the highway, had fled Debaltseve a month ago, moving from farmhouse to farmhouse as artillery cracked the skies and leveled buildings. They ran out of food the day before and decided to brave the journey back into town — now well inside rebel territory — in search of the humanitarian aid they heard was being handed out.

At a checkpoint where the road crosses the Kharkiv-Rostov highway, a detachment of Cossacks, semi-military communities that once policed the czarist empire's frontier, combed through captured Ukrainian vehicles in search of anything useful. The Ukrainians left behind a message on one of their armored personnel carriers: "Putin — Turd!" The body of a Ukrainian fighter lay near another APC, draped in a Ukrainian flag.

"They weren't retreating easily; they fired at us," said Dmitry Kuzmin, a Cossack volunteer. "Finally, yesterday, they dropped their stuff and left."

Ukraine, the U.S., the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization say Russia is backing the separatists with hardware, cash and troops — accusations the leaders in the Kremlin deny. Russia says Ukraine is waging war on its own citizens and discriminates against Russian speakers, a majority in Donetsk and Luhansk. More than 5,600 people have died in fighting that erupted after Russia seized Crimea last March.

Kuzmin and two of his colleagues said Ukrainian soldiers recovered most of their fallen comrades from downtown but left behind many corpses, mainly in ditches along the railway where skirmishes were continuing.

"See that corner," a young Cossack officer said, pointing and laughing. "A Ukrainian tank just resurfaced over there, so a group went to check it out," he said as a rebel tank passed. The vehicle's gunner had Asiatic features common in areas of Siberia where many Russian "volunteers" along the frontlines say they're from.

Not all Ukrainian fighters managed to escape the city, according to rebel officers. Many of them, mainly from volunteer brigades, are holing up in industrial areas, refusing to surrender, they said.

Inside the city limits, a 48-year-old factory worker named Alexei said he's emotionally and physically exhausted but lucky to be alive. A shell destroyed his apartment just days after he moved his family to a safer location.

"We are like zombies here," Alexei said. "We only go on the street for food or to cook potatoes over a fire. ''The rest of the time, we swarm in the basement.''

A Cossack officer armed with a bazooka, Anatoly, 63, gave what he said was a ''mine-free'' tour of ravaged residential neighborhoods. The path followed a slow-moving delivery truck laden with bags of rice.

''This was the most advanced republic in the Soviet Union,'' Anatoly said, sadly. ''What crap have we done here, instead of just living?''

Near a previously disused factory, the truck stopped, and a gate opened for three women dressed in soiled parkas.

The curses against Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for what they said was starting the war in the country's industrial heartland flowed immediately. The cries stopped when two men arrived and the women focused on their task — barking orders to move the rice into the makeshift bomb shelter that's now their home.

In the basement of the factory, a dozen men and women of various ages sat on mattresses. This room doubled as a rest area for rebels, so these civilians had benefits: a small generator that powered two light bulbs and a 400-liter boiler.

Vadim, a Russian fighter at a checkpoint who goes by the name Vietnamese, said that he lives in a town near Cam Ranh, Vietnam, where Russia has sought to revive a Soviet-era military base and that he couldn't be more proud of fighting in the rebellion in eastern Ukraine.

''I traveled 16,000 kilometers when the war started," said Vadim, a sniper dressed in white camouflage. "I was here on April 2." That was before Ukraine started its military action against the separatists.

Seventy-five kilometers to the southwest, in the capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, life is returning to normal. Traffic flows uninterrupted, women jog near the river Kalmius and the rebel government is sponsoring a production of the romantic ballet "Giselle."

About two or three times an hour, though, heavy artillery is shot northwest from the city. It takes about 10 seconds for the sound of its explosion to be heard downtown.

'The Order: 1886' - quickly, press X!

Most werewolves aren’t preening pretty boys hoping to win a girl’s heart. No, they’re more likely to eat her heart.

That’s why we need heroes like Galahad in Ready At Dawn’s “The Order: 1886.” He and his companions in this PlayStation 4 exclusive are part of an elite order of knights formed by King Arthur. Their current mission is to protect Victorian London from the threat of lupine “half-breeds” and rebel elements.

Galahad and friends are helped in this endeavor by some unusual new technology, much of it developed by the favorite scientist of video game developers, Nikola Tesla. They are armed with arc rifles, incendiary rifles and assault rifles, as well as some really wicked knives that are handy for dispatching werewolves. They also have access to dirigibles, mechanical lock picks and cool gizmos that can short-circuit electrical devices.

Perhaps the most intriguing item among their equipment is Blackwater. This substance provides almost instantaneous healing of wounds. It also extends the lives of the knights by centuries. By 1886, Galahad is about 600 years old, though he still has the reflexes of someone one-twentieth his age.

Galahad’s hunting grounds are a London that would seem familiar to Sherlock Holmes. Fog shrouds the slick streets and alleys, which are flanked by gloomy buildings. And nefarious schemes unfold in the brothels of squalid slums and the salons of posh estates. The game’s graphics engine brings this all to life in detail that’s virtually unmatched by other games. The facial renderings and animations also are top notch.

This supports a storyline that’s very good by video game standards. Sure there are few elements that could have been explained a little more thoroughly, but overall the story is compelling, with plenty of action, angst and intrigue involving characters who are diverse and interesting.

The action usually alternates among stealthy platforming, searches for evidence, shootouts involving human enemies and fights with half-breeds. The latter are the most intense. Unfortunately, these encounters are likely to prove fatal until you get the hang of the fighting mechanics.

Ready At Dawn — whose credits include a couple of “God of War” titles — decided to go with a refined version of the quick-time events used in the games featuring the Spartan warrior Kratos. This involves quickly pressing the correct button when given a prompt on screen. Success initiates an attack that unfolds in a brief cinematic. Failure brings death.

Personally, I find these mechanics annoying, but manageable. What I didn’t find easily manageable was an extension of this system. In the middle of some encounters, a pair of small indicators appear on the screen. You need to line these up using the right-side control stick and immediately press a button that is also on the right side. The problem is that this maneuver is counterintuitive. It might sound picky, but most games that use this sort of maneuver use the left stick. Making the switch to the right side means that you have to think rather than react, which takes precious time. In addition, it just doesn’t feel right to use the same thumb to move the stick and immediately press a button. When split seconds count, these idiosyncrasies can prove deadly for your hero.

That’s not the only control problem. Overall, the controls feel very sluggish. Galahad seems to be wading through a pool of molasses most of the time.

While the story is very good, it is also very linear. There’s one path to follow and no decisions to make. A small degree of freedom is granted only when you engage in a shoutout, stalk a guard, fight a werewolf or search a room for evidence.

A combination of the quick-time controls and linear story make it feel like you have very little input into the course of events. It’s like you’re watching a movie where you’re periodically asked to hit a button to allow the action to continue. That has always been my complaint with this control mechanic. It makes me appreciate games that allow you to choose your own path to a goal and make decisions that have repercussions. I suspect that most others feel the same way since we see relatively few of quick-time games anymore.

The game earns its mature rating for violence, gore and a few instances of frontal nudity.

Bottom line: “The Order: 1886” presents an intriguing story that’s beautifully presented, despite a few issues with the controls.

bowers.brian@stripes.com

Platform: PlayStation 4

Online: theorder.playstation.com

Texas Guard troops staying on border, but some question mission

McALLEN, Texas — On U.S. 83, the highway that hugs the southern stretch of the Texas-Mexico border, law enforcement is everywhere.

Even on a national holiday this week, the green-and-white trucks of the Border Patrol circled tirelessly around the empty streets of Rio Grande City, a hotspot for illegal border crossings. Texas state troopers pulled over vehicles, and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter hovered above, keeping watch over the Rio Grande.

Less visible are hundreds of Texas National Guard troops who arrived last summer and are under new orders from Gov. Greg Abbott to remain indefinitely — probably at least through next year. But with migration numbers falling and the guard moving to remote outposts, local authorities and residents are questioning the troops' continued presence here.

Previously scheduled to leave in March, guard members who typically respond to short-term disasters like hurricanes are instead digging in for one of the longest domestic deployments in the U.S. That is despite dwindling apprehensions and an even steeper drop in unaccompanied children arriving from Central America.

It was the arrival of those children in overwhelming numbers that prompted former Gov. Rick Perry to activate the guard in the first place. Abbott says the extended mission remains necessary until Texas hires more state troopers.

"We will stay on station until our presence there is not needed any further," National Guard Maj. Gen. John Nichols said.

The troops had been stationed mostly along the Rio Grande. But in recent weeks, their presence became less visible as the guard began a gradual drawdown in anticipation of the mission ending in March.

Still unclear is how many guard troops will remain, serving in their strictly surveillance role. They are armed, but they do not have arrest authority and must call another agency at the first sign of trouble.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw this week refused to disclose the total number of gun-carrying patrolmen the state has saturating the Rio Grande Valley, making a complete picture of security elusive.

The governor and state officials no longer disclose the number of guard troops being kept on the border, citing what they call operational security.

When about 1,000 guard troops first arrived in August, more than 6,600 illegal crossers were apprehended in the first week, according to state officials. Those numbers have since fallen to around 200 guard members and about 2,000 weekly apprehensions.

The National Butterfly Center, on a 100-acre property adjacent to the Rio Grande in Mission, was home to a group of guardsmen through the end of 2014. The center's executive director recalled seeing them set up on a nearby levee in full body armor in the hot sun with high-tech surveillance equipment. Their presence appeared to act as a deterrent.

"The folks on the other side are aware of everything going on, so they move it elsewhere. It is a business, and they want business to go smoothly," Marianna Trevino Wright said.

But the crush of law-enforcement activity and the media attention focused on the border also deterred visitors — the birders and butterfly enthusiasts who come from as far away as Japan. Participation in the center's annual festival last fall fell by 20 percent, she said.

"You come out here and see how lovely and tranquil and peaceful it is, and the news made it sound like we were being invaded," she said.

The center held two dinners for guard troops, but she said she has not seen one guard member anywhere in the area since January. "They sort of vanished," she said.

The National Guard's lowered profile has caused some local law enforcement officials to balk at the cost of keeping them in the area. Next year, Texas will surpass $1 billion in border-security spending since 2008. The money has paid for everything from raw manpower to futuristic spy planes and $600,000 armored boats with machine guns that fire 900 rounds per minute.

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said that he's never spotted the guard working in his county and his officers don't report seeing them either. That money would be better used beefing up local law enforcement, he said.

"We have to know when you can stop somebody, when you can interrogate someone, when you have probable cause to stop. The National Guard does not have that authority," Lucio said.

Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities in McAllen, which opened a shelter for migrants last summer, also questioned what the guardsmen added.

"Folks in general appreciate the sense of safety that our local law enforcement provide for us," Pimentel said. "I don't know that the National Guard is doing anything to increase that safety."

Guard troops to stay on border, but some question mission

McALLEN, Texas — On U.S. 83, the highway that hugs the southern stretch of the Texas-Mexico border, law enforcement is everywhere.

Even on a national holiday this week, the green-and-white trucks of U.S. Customs and Border Protection circled tirelessly around the empty streets of Rio Grande City, a hotspot for illegal border crossings. Texas state troopers pulled over vehicles, and a Border Patrol helicopter hovered above, keeping watch over the Rio Grande.

It was the arrival of those children in overwhelming numbers that prompted former Gov. Rick Perry to activate the guard in the first place. Abbott says the extended mission is necessary until Texas hires more state troopers.