WASHINGTON: Most of the United States’ special envoys will be abolished and their responsibilities reassigned as part of the State Department overhaul, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Congress on Monday, including envoys for climate change and the Iran deal.
Special envoys for Afghanistan-Pakistan, disability rights and closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center will be eliminated under the plan. But President Donald Trump’s administration plans to keep envoys for religious freedom, fighting anti-Semitism and LGBT rights, despite speculation from critics that it would seek to downgrade those priorities.
Lawmakers of both parties, think tanks and even the diplomats’ association have long called for absorbing some of the countless US envoys and special representatives into related offices, to help reduce redundancies across the State Department’s notoriously unwieldy bureaucracy. But the idea has attracted new scrutiny amid the Trump administration’s plans to drastically cut the State Department’s budget and concerns that Trump was eschewing the promotion of American values overseas.
While State Department officials stressed that changes to the flow chart don’t necessarily signal a change in priorities, in some cases the policy implications are clear. Elimination of the Guantanamo closure envoy dovetails with Trump’s plans to keep the prison open. The president has pulled the US out of the Paris global climate deal and threatened to do the same with the Iran nuclear deal.
Of 66 current envoys or representatives, 30 will remain, a cut of 55 percent. Nine positions will be abolished outright. Twenty-one will be “integrated” into other offices, five merged with other positions, and one transferred to the US Agency for International Development, the government’s foreign aid arm.
In each case, the envoys’ staff and their budgets will be absorbed by the office taking over their functions. That shift will free up significant funds that Tillerson can draw upon as he restructures other parts of the agency, said a State Department official, who wasn’t authorized to comment by name and requested anonymity. For example, merging the cyber envoy into the broader Economic and Business Affairs bureau will boost the latter’s budget by $5.5 million.
Tillerson, in a letter to Congress, said he believed the State Department could “better execute its mission” by integrating some positions, pointing out concerns that the current system diluting the government’s effectiveness by creating multiple power centers dealing with the same issue. The number of special envoys has grown over the years.
“Today, nearly 70 such positions exist within the State Department, even after many of the underlying policy challenges these positions were created to address have been resolved,” Tillerson wrote.
The pruning offers the first concrete information about how Tillerson’s sweeping overhaul will affect the State Department and its approximately 75,000 employees. Since taking office in February, Tillerson has been scouring the agency and soliciting input from diplomats about how to trim the agency down. A roughly one-third budget cut and elimination of thousands of jobs are expected.
Those anticipated cuts have driven down morale among diplomats, as Tillerson has acknowledged, playing into concerns that Trump’s “America First” approach means the US will stop promoting human rights or helping the most vulnerable global populations.
The Trump administration will keep envoys or at-large ambassadors for women’s issues, hostages, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, human trafficking, HIV/AIDS and Holocaust issues. There will no longer be special envoys for the Arctic, Syria, Myanmar, Libya, Haiti, Sudan and South Sudan, though regional offices will assume those portfolios. The envoy for six-party talks in North Korea, currently vacant, won’t be filled.
In a 2014 report, the American Foreign Service Association, which represents career diplomats, recommended retaining only a handful of envoys while eliminating or merging the rest.
Tillerson’s letter responded to legislation passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July that took aim at the proliferation of special envoys by forcing Tillerson to tell Congress which positions he wanted to keep, and to secure Senate confirmation for all envoys in the future. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, the committee’s chairman, praised Tillerson for working to “to responsibly review the organizational structure of special envoys.”
Some special envoys are mandated by Congress. The Trump administration will ask lawmakers to repeal those mandates.
Tillerson to abolish most special envoys, including climate
Tillerson to abolish most special envoys, including climate
South Korea’s military says North Korea fired missile into eastern sea
- The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile was fired from an area near Pyongyang
- Seoul denounces the launch as a provocation that poses a serious threat on the Korean Peninsula
The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile was fired from an area near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and that the launch preparations were detected in advance by the US and South Korean militaries. It denounced the launch as a provocation that poses a serious threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
The joint chiefs said the military was strengthening its surveillance and defense posture in preparation for possible additional launches and sharing information on the missile with the United States and Japan.
The launch came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Seoul for talks with South Korean allies over the North Korean nuclear threat and other issues.
Blinken’s visit comes amid political turmoil in South Korea following President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law decree and subsequent impeachment by parliament last month, which experts say puts the country at a disadvantage in getting a steady footing with Trump ahead of his return to the White House.
In a year-end political conference, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to implement the “toughest” anti-US policy and criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen security cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo, which he described as a “nuclear military bloc for aggression.”
North Korean state media did not specify Kim’s policy plans or mention any specific comments about Trump. During his first term, Trump met Kim three times for talks on the North’s nuclear program.
Many experts, however, say a quick resumption of Kim-Trump summitry is unlikely as Trump would first focus on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. North Korea’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine also poses a challenge to efforts to revive diplomacy, experts say.
Before his presidency faltered over the ill-conceived power grab, Yoon worked closely with US President Joe Biden to expand joint military exercises, update nuclear deterrence strategies and strengthen trilateral security cooperation with Tokyo.
More than 260 Rohingya refugees arrive in Indonesia
- The mostly Muslim ethnic Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar
- Latest group of refugees arrived on a beach in the region’s town of West Peureulak
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia: More than 260 Rohingya refugees, including women and children, arrived in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Aceh after floating at sea for days, an official said Monday.
The mostly Muslim ethnic Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar and thousands risk their lives each year on long and dangerous sea journeys to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
An East Aceh official, Iskandar – who like many Indonesians goes by one name – said this latest group of refugees arrived on a beach in the region’s town of West Peureulak on Sunday night around 10:25 p.m. local time (1525 GMT Sunday).
“There are 264 of them – 117 men and 147 women,” Iskandar said Monday, adding that in the group, around 30 were children.
He said they had initially been on two boats, one of which had sunk off the coast while the second managed to move closer to shore.
They could then walk to the shore when the tide was low, he said.
“They told me they were rejected in Malaysia,” Iskandar said, adding that the local government has not decided where to move the Rohingya refugees.
Rohingya arrivals in Indonesia tend to follow a cyclical pattern, slowing during the stormy months and picking back up when sea conditions calm down.
In November, more than 100 refugees were rescued after their boat sank off the coast of East Aceh.
In October, 152 Rohingya refugees were finally brought ashore after being anchored for days off the coast of South Aceh district while officials decided whether to let them land.
Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention and says it cannot be compelled to take in refugees from Myanmar, calling instead on neighboring countries to share the burden and resettle the Rohingya who arrive on its shores.
Many Acehnese, who have memories of decades of bloody conflict themselves, are sympathetic to the plight of their fellow Muslims.
But others say their patience has been tested, claiming the Rohingya consume scarce resources and occasionally come into conflict with locals.
Up to 300 Afghans arrive in Philippines for US visa processing
- Action made despite domestic opposition in the Catholic-majority country over security and other concerns
- The Afghans could stay for no more than 59 days and would be ‘confined to their billet facility’ except for embassy interviews
MANILA: Up to 300 Afghans arrived in the Philippines on Monday on temporary stays while being processed for US resettlement, Philippine and US officials said.
The Philippines and the United States signed an agreement last July allowing possibly hundreds of Afghans to stay in Manila while their US Special Immigrant visas were being processed.
This was despite domestic opposition in the Catholic-majority country over security and other concerns.
“The DFA issued the appropriate Philippine entry visa to these applicants in line with current rules and regulations,” Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Teresita Daza said in a statement.
“All applicants completed extensive security vetting by Philippines national security agencies.”
A US State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not be specific about the number involved other than to say “up to 300.”
Under the deal, the US government will shoulder the cost of the Afghans’ stays in Manila, including food, housing, medical care, security and transportation, the Philippine DFA statement said.
The Afghans will stay at a facility operated by the US State Department’s Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, an earlier US Embassy statement said.
Daza had previously said the Afghans could stay for no more than 59 days and would be “confined to their billet facility” except for embassy interviews.
The applicants all underwent medical screening in Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of Afghans fled their country in the chaotic evacuation of August 2021 as US and allied forces pulled out to end Washington’s longest war, launched after the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Many of those who had worked with the ousted Western-backed government arrived in the United States seeking resettlement under a special immigrant visa program, but thousands were also left behind or in third countries, waiting for their visas to be processed.
Blinken to meet Europeans on Syria pathway
- Senior US diplomat Barbara Leaf met Sharaa last month and said that the United States was lifting a bounty that has been on its head
Seoul: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet his European counterparts Thursday in Rome on Syria, as the West looks to engage the new Islamist-led leadership.
Blinken will “meet with European counterparts to advocate for a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition,” a State Department statement said as he visited Seoul on Monday.
The State Department did not immediately specify the participants.
Blinken, on a trip that will also take him to Japan and France, will later join President Joe Biden as he pays a farewell visit to Rome that includes an audience with Pope Francis.
Islamist-led forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in a lightning offensive last month after 13 years of brutal war.
Western powers have since been cautiously hoping for greater stability in Syria, a decade after the war triggered a major refugee crisis that shook up European politics.
The French and German foreign ministers on Friday visited Syria, although the trip was overshadowed when new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa shook the hand only of France’s Jean-Noel Barrot, a man, and not Germany’s Annalena Baerbock, a woman.
Senior US diplomat Barbara Leaf met Sharaa last month and said that the United States was lifting a bounty that has been on its head.
She also welcomed “positive messages” he has made, including on protection of minorities, and said he had promised that Syria would not pose a threat to neighboring countries, as Israel pounds Syrian military sites.
The quiet financier: Daesh’s elusive strongman
- Abdul Qadir Mumin is believed to be already Daesh’s general directorate of provinces from Somalia
- Born in Puntland in Somalia’s northeast, Sheikh Mumin lived in Sweden before settling in England, where he acquired British nationality
- In London and Leicester, he built a reputation in the early 2000s as a fiery preacher in radical mosques, but also in online videos
PARIS: His orange henna-dyed beard and striking eyewear would make him easy to pick out in a crowd, but Abdul Qadir Mumin has remained elusive.
The Somalian leader of the Daesh group has in all likelihood risen to the status of strongman of the entire organization, even if he lacks the official title, analysts say.
While observers wonder who is behind Daesh-designated caliph Abou Hafs Al-Hachimi Al-Qourachi — the would-be leader of all Muslims — or whether such a person actually exists, Abdul Qadir Mumin may already be running Daesh’s general directorate of provinces from Somalia.
“He is the most important person, the most powerful one, he is the one controlling the global Islamic State network,” said Tore Hamming, at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR).
In this opaque structure where the leaders get killed one by one by the United States, Mumin is among the few “senior guys who managed to stay alive the entire time until now, which does give him some status within the group,” Hamming told AFP.
A few months ago it was thought that an American strike had killed him. But since there was never any proof of his demise, he is considered to be alive and active.
“Somalia is important for financial reasons,” said Hamming. “We know that they send money to Congo, to Mozambique, to South Africa, to Yemen, to Afghanistan. So they have a good business model going.”
The transactions are so shadowy that even estimating the amounts is impossible — as is determining the exact routes the money takes from place to place.
Born in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia’s northeast, Sheikh Mumin lived in Sweden before settling in England, where he acquired British nationality.
In London and Leicester, he built a reputation in the early 2000s as a fiery preacher in radical mosques, but also in online videos.
He is said to have burned his British passport upon his arrival in Somalia, where he quickly became a propagandist for the Al-Shabab group, linked to Al-Qaeda, before announcing his defection to Daesh (or Islamic State) in 2015.
“He controls a small territory but has a big appeal. He distributes volunteers and money,” said a European intelligence official, who declined to be named, claiming that a Daesh attack in May in Mozambique “was carried out by Maghreb and African militants.”
Mumin also finances the Ugandan rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — affiliated with Daesh in the Democratic Republic of Congo — “who now number between 1,000 and 1,500,” the official said. With Mumin’s help, “they have recently turned to the jihad” seeking “radicalism, weapons, and funding.”
Some observers have described him as the caliph of the jihadist command structure. However, such an official designation would signal an ideological reversal for the group with deep roots in the Levant, the territory of the Daesh caliphate that lasted from 2014 to 2019 and spanned Iraq and Syria.
“That would create some kind of uproar within the community of supporters and sympathizers of Daesh,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP) think tank.
In theory, the caliph has to be an Arab from a tribe linked to the prophet. The supreme leader of a group so concerned with its ideological foundations “cannot be just any Somali with an orange beard,” Schindler told AFP.
Especially because leaders of operationally active Daesh affiliates, such as IS-K in Afghanistan or ISWAP in western Africa, could lay claim to the position.
While the Somalian does not meet traditional leadership criteria, his geographical location brings some advantages.
“The Horn of Africa may have offered welcome insulation from instability in the Levant and greater freedom of movement,” said CTC Sentinel, a publication on terrorism threats, at the West Point military academy.
“This profile of leadership parallels that of another jihadi leader — Osama bin Laden — who saw that funding his war was most central to winning it,” it said.
Mumin’s rise to the top, despite the small number of fighters under his command, also reflects two internal dynamics within Daesh.
The first, said Hamming, is that “the caliph is no longer the most important person in the Islamic State.”
And the second is that Daesh eeeeeis indeed pursuing a gradual strategic shift toward Africa.
“Ninety percent of violent images on jihad consumed in Europe come from Africa,” said the European intelligence official.
Nonetheless, the organization’s leadership remains centralized in the Middle East, wrote CTC Sentinel.
“In this sense, much is business as usual,” it said.
