NEW YORK: He had been brought from the battlefields of Syria to a New York lockup, a US citizen charged with serving as a sniper and weapons trainer for the Daesh group.
And even in jail, Ruslan Maratovich Asainov kept a makeshift version of the militants’ black flag right above the desk in his cell, according to trial testimony this week.
“What’s the big deal? It’s mine. It’s religious,” then-jail lieutenant Judith Woods recalled him saying when she went to confiscate the hand-drawn image in 2020.
Years after the fall of the extremist group’s self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate, the trial is a reminder of the enduring and far-reaching fallout of a war that drew tens of thousands of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq. Their home countries are still contending with what should become of them.
Jurors, who are expected to start deliberating as soon as Monday, have gotten a refresher course Daesh’s gruesome rule and its sophisticated, social-media-savvy recruitment of distant supporters to come and take up arms. Prosecutors say Asainov did so and rose through the group’s ranks, eventually becoming an “emir” who taught other members to use weapons.
In post-arrest videos shown at his trial, he gives his occupation as “a sniper” to FBI agents and readily tells them that he provided instruction in everything from rifle maintenance to ballistics to adjusting for weather effects — and, of course, “how to actually pull the trigger.”
“Oh, it’s a long lesson,” he explains, sitting on a bed in a room where he was being held. “I would give, like, a three-hour lesson, just on that, just to pull the trigger.”
Jurors have seen photos alleged to be of Asainov in camouflage, aiming a rifle, and the handmade flag that Woods said she took from his cell. Witnesses have included his flabbergasted ex-wife, who testified that he morphed from a Brooklyn family man into a zealot. She said he weighed in from Syria to complain about their daughter donning a Halloween costume and sent a photo of the bodies of what he said were comrades killed in a battle, according to the Daily News of New York.
Asainov chose not to testify. One of his lawyers, Susan Kellman, has said he went to Syria because he wanted to live under Islamic law. He has pleaded not guilty — a plea that Kellman entered on his behalf because, she said, he didn’t abide by the American legal system.
Nonetheless, the 46-year-old Asainov listened politely to government witnesses on a day this week, alternately stroking his beard and folding his arms across his chest.
Daesh fighters seized portions of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared the establishment of a so-called Islamic caliphate there, at a time when Syria was already convulsed by civil war. Fighting laid waste to multiple cities before Iraq’s prime minister declared the caliphate vanquished in 2017; the extremists lost the last of their territory two years later, though sporadic attacks persist even now.
During the height of the fighting, as many as 40,000 people from 120 countries showed up to join in, according to the United Nations. There is no comprehensive US statistic on Americans among those foreign fighters; a 2018 report by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism found at least 64 who had joined jihadist fighting in Iraq and Syria since 2011.
Since Daesh’s defeat, some foreign members and their families have lingered in detention facilities in Syria because their countries refused to take them back. Other accused foreign fighters have returned to their countries, including some who were prosecuted.
Recent US cases include a Kansas mother who led an all-female Daesh battalion, a Minnesota man who served in a battalion that prepared foreign fighters for suicide attacks in Europe, and a Detroit-area convicted this week of training with and then spending more than two years with the group.
Born in Kazakhstan, Asainov is a naturalized US citizen. He lived in Brooklyn starting in 1998, married and had a child.
Then he flew to Istanbul on a one-way ticket in December 2013 and made his way to Syria to join what he later described in a message as “the worst terrorist organization in the world that has ever existed,” authorities say.
“You heard of Daesh,” he said in another text message in January 2015, according to prosecutors’ court filings. “We will get you.”
By that April, Asainov told an acquaintance — in fact, a government informant — that he’d been fighting in Syria for about a year, according to court papers. They say that in various exchanges, he urged the informant to come to Syria and help with Daesh’s media operations, asked for $2,800 to buy a rifle scope, and sent photos of himself with fatigues and rifle, saying he “didn’t mean to show off” but was showing what was “just normal” in his new life.
Authorities announced in July 2019 that US-backed forces in Syria had captured Asainov and turned him over to the FBI.
He faces charges that include providing material support to a US-designated foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
Job: ‘Sniper’: Accused Daesh fighter on trial in US
https://arab.news/wndp8
Job: ‘Sniper’: Accused Daesh fighter on trial in US
- Ruslan Maratovich Asainov kept a makeshift version of the militants' black flag right above the desk in his cell
- The trial is a reminder of the enduring and far-reaching fallout of a war that drew tens of thousands of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq
US resumes sending weapons to Ukraine after Pentagon pause
- Weapons now moving into Ukraine include 155 mm munitions and precision-guided rockets known as GMLRS
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the pause last week to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, a week after the Pentagon had directed that some deliveries be paused.
The weapons now moving into Ukraine include 155 mm munitions and precision-guided rockets known as GMLRS, two US officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. It’s unclear exactly when the weapons started moving.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the pause last week to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles, in a move that caught the White House by surprise. The Pentagon has denied that Hegseth acted without consulting President Donald Trump.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that had not been announced publicly.
Nobel: The prize for peace that leaders go to war for
- Israeli PM’s nomination of Trump has reopened debate over the Nobel Peace Prize’s meaning and credibility
- As Gaza burns and indictments loom, a wartime leader endorsing a recipient raises questions, says analyst
LONDON: In what supporters have called a symbol of solidarity and detractors a humiliating act of fealty, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week revealed he had nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — an award long sought by the US president.
The decision by Netanyahu appears designed to help bolster ties between the two long-term allies and ease reported tensions over Israel’s 21-month-long war in Gaza and its bruising 12-day conflict with Iran last month.
Netanyahu presented the nomination letter to Trump at the White House on Monday, and was met with a look of surprise from the US president.
“It’s nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved, and you should get it,” Netanyahu said.
“Wow, coming from you, in particular, this is very meaningful. Thank you very much, Bibi,” Trump responded.
Netanyahu is also seeking US guarantees relating to arms supplies, especially after Iran’s ballistic missile barrages last month placed substantial pressure on Israeli air defense systems, Khatib said.
“He wants to show Trump that he is the best ally he can have; he also knows that Trump is really looking after getting the Nobel Peace Prize,” she added
FASTFACTS:
• The Nobel Peace Prize was founded by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.
• Regret over his invention partly drove Nobel to create the prize to promote peace.
• Carl von Ossietzky, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Liu Xiaobo, were imprisoned when awarded.
• The youngest Nobel Peace laureate is Malala Yousafzai, who received it in 2014 at age 17.
For Dania Koleilat Khatib, a specialist in US-Arab relations, Netanyahu’s decision to nominate the president rests on his desire to “do anything to court Trump.”
She told Arab News that Netanyahu arrived in Washington with a set of demands covering almost every regional file of interest to Israel: Syria, Turkiye, Gaza, the West Bank and Iran.
IN NUMBERS:
• 142 Individuals and organizations have received the prize since 1901.
• 19 Women have been awarded.
• 28 Organizations received the award.
• 19 Years the prize was not awarded.
(Source: NobelPrize.org)
Trump has made no secret of his yearning for the prestigious prize, yet the nomination itself is only the first part of an extensive, secret process that winds up in the stately committee room of Oslo’s Nobel Institute.
The distinction and tradition of the Nobel name, however, is arguably a far cry from the reputation of Trump’s nominator.
Netanyahu, alongside former defense minister Yoav Gallant, is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to the conduct of Israel’s military in Gaza.
That fact would no doubt weigh on the minds of the five Norwegian Nobel Committee members who deliberate over the prize.
For Khatib, the ICC arrest warrant alone means that Netanyahu’s gesture is “worthless.”
She told Arab News: “I am not sure whether the nomination will be discarded but it is ironic that someone wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and potentially genocide nominates someone for the Nobel Peace Prize.”
GUIDELINES ON NOBEL NOMINATIONS
• Only nominees put forward by qualified nominators are considered.
• Self-nominations are not accepted.
• The prize may be awarded to individuals or organizations.
Upholding the reputation of the prize is a tall order, in part due to the strictness of its rules. The committee’s choice for the annual award effectively ties the Nobel name to the future reputation of any recipient. The Nobel Foundation’s Statutes also forbid the revocation of any award.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese icon of democracy, fell from grace over her treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority in the decades since she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
Former US President Barack Obama was controversially awarded the prize just nine months into his first term, to the dismay of figures including Trump, who called on the institution to retract the award.
The decision to award Obama for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” soon appeared foolish after it emerged the president had told aides, referring to his use of drone strikes: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people.”
The Nobel Committee’s then secretary, Geir Lundestad, later expressed regret over the decision. “Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake,” he said. “In that sense the committee didn’t achieve what it had hoped for.”
Khatib told Arab News that the most basic requirement of the prize is that the recipient contributes to peace.
“I personally don’t know why Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” she told Arab News. “What was the achievement for which he was awarded the prize?”
The Obama controversy may well have sparked Trump’s desire to win the prize. He has referred to the 2009 award numerous times since, and has regularly expressed frustration over an accomplishment that he feels has eluded him.
Netanyahu’s nomination of Trump, however, is only the most recent that the US leader has received. He was nominated separately by a group of House Republicans in the US and two Norwegian lawmakers for his work to defuse nuclear tensions with North Korea in 2018..
WHO CAN NOMINATE?
• Members of national assemblies and governments.
• Members of international courts.
• University rectors, professors, and directors of peace research or foreign policy institutes.
• Past laureates and board members of laureate organizations.
• Current and former Norwegian Nobel Committee members and former advisers.
In 2021, Trump was also nominated by one of the two Norwegian lawmakers and a Swedish official for his peace efforts in the Middle East, including the Abraham Accords, which established formal relations between Israel and several Arab states.
Shinzo Abe, the late former prime minister of Japan, also nominated Trump in 2019
Earlier this year, Pakistan said that it had nominated Trump for the prize in recognition of his work to end the country’s brief conflict with India. New Delhi later denied that Washington played a role in mediation.
Trump is also working toward a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has so far defied his negotiators.
A day after Monday’s White House meeting, Netanyahu’s office released a copy of the nomination letter — dated July 1 — seen by Trump.
“President Trump has demonstrated steadfast and exceptional dedication to promoting peace, security and stability around the world,” it said.
“In the Middle East, his efforts have brought about dramatic change and created new opportunities to expand the circle of peace and normalization.”
The prime minister’s letter singled out the Abraham Accords as Trump’s “foremost achievement” in the region.
“These breakthroughs reshaped the Middle East and marked a historic advance toward peace, security and regional stability,” it said.
The description of the region as having experienced a historic advance toward peace will raise eyebrows in many parts of the Middle East.
Yet the strange circumstances of an alleged war criminal acting as a peace prize nominator has parallels with the Nobel name’s own peculiar past.
The prizes were established through the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, inventor and industrialist who amassed a fortune after inventing and patenting dynamite. The explosive was rapidly adopted for industrial use but was also soon prized for its utility as a tool of warfare.
The first awards bearing the Nobel name were handed out just after the turn of the century in 1901, five years after the Swedish visionary had died.
They cover medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. An economics prize was later established by the Swedish Central Bank in 1968, but it is not considered a Nobel prize in the same manner.
Nobel’s wishes were for the peace prize to go to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
The strict codification of Nobel’s will resulted in the Nobel Statutes, a set of rules followed by the Nobel Foundation, which oversees the secretive process behind the five prizes. Judges are forbidden from discussing their deliberations for half a century after they take place.
The peace committee is the sole Nobel prize body in Norway, and its five members are appointed by the country’s parliament.
Nominations for the revered prize can only be submitted by specific people and organizations, including heads of state, national politicians, academic professors and company directors, among others. It is forbidden for people to nominate themselves.
Prominent Arab politicians have been awarded the peace prize.
Yasser Arafat was given the award in 1994 for his efforts toward reaching a peaceful settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict. In 1978, Egypt’s Anwar Sadat was recognized for signing the Camp David Accords, which were witnessed by Jimmy Carter, the US president at the time, who was later awarded the prize in 2002 for his work to promote human rights after leaving office.
For Trump, however, hopes for his long-desired prize will have to wait until next year; nominations must be submitted before February for the prize to be awarded in the same year.
At the time of publishing, the Nobel Committee had not commented on Netanyahu’s nomination, whether they had any reservations, or whether they would accept it.
Starmer, Macron agree on need for new deterrent against boat crossings, UK says
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on Wednesday on the need to go further and develop a new deterrent to tackle irregular migration and small boat crossings across the Channel.
“The leaders agreed tackling the threat of irregular migration and small boat crossings is a shared priority that requires shared solutions,” a British readout of a meeting between the two in London said.
“The two leaders agreed on the need to go further and make progress on new and innovative solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model of these gangs.”
Dozens of sites vie for UNESCO world heritage list spot
PARIS: The United Nation’s cultural organization announces its choice of sites for inclusion in its world heritage list this week, with pre-historic caves, former centers of repression, forests, marine bio-systems and others vying for the coveted spots.
Making the UNESCO’s heritage list often sparks a lucrative tourism drive, and can unlock funding for the preservation of sites that can face threats including pollution, war and negligence.
Climate change is another growing problem for world heritage sites, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay told Monday’s opening session of the body’s World Heritage Committee.
“Close to three quarters of world heritage sites are already faced with serious water-related risks, lack of water or floods,” she said.
Governments failing to ensure adequate protection of their sites risk them being added to UNESCO’s endangered sites list — which currently contains over 50 names — or dropped from the list altogether.
Armed conflict is the reason for about half of the downgrades to the endangered sites list, Azoulay said. Many of such problem areas are located in the Middle East.
The current world heritage list contains 1,223 cultural, natural or mixed sites. Of the organization’s 196 member states, 27 are absent from the list, including several African nations.
Two of them — Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone — hope this will change this year, as they pitch the Bijagos islands and Gola-Tiwai wildlife reserves, respectively, to UNESCO. UNESCO has been seeking to boost Africa’s presence on the heritage list, officials say.
“Since her arrival in 2018, Audrey Azoulay has made Africa not just her own priority, but one of UNESCO’s overall priorities,” said Lazare Eloundou Assomo, who heads up the organization’s world heritage center.
Syria’s government and Kurds still at odds over merging forces after latest talks, US envoy says
- Tom Barrack met with Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa in the Syrian capital
DAMASCUS: A US envoy said on Wednesday that Syria’s central government and the Kurds remain at odds over plans on merging forces after the latest round of talks.
US Ambassador to Turkiye Tom Barrack, who is also a special envoy to Syria, told The Associated Press after meetings in Damascus that differences between the two sides remain. Barrack spoke after meeting with Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and Syria’s interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa in the Syrian capital.
In early March, the new authorities in Damascus signed a landmark deal with the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Under that deal, the SDF forces would be merged with the new national army. The agreement, which is supposed to be implemented by the end of the year, would also bring all border crossings with Iraq and Turkiye, airports, and oil fields in the northeast under the central government’s control.
Detention centers housing thousands of suspected members of the Daesh group would also come under government control.
However, the agreement left the details vague, and progress on implementation has been slow. A major sticking point has been whether the SDF would remain as a cohesive unit in the new army — which the Kurds have pushed for — or whether it would be dissolved and its members absorbed into the new military as individuals.
Barrack said that question remains “a big issue” between the two sides.
