By Elise Labott
Kim Jong Un’s latest threats against the United States may be even more apocalyptic than Kim Jong Il’s. But the Obama administration still believes the young North Korean leader is reading from a page in his father’s playbook.
One senior administration official described the tried-and-true play as something like this: “Talk tough and scare people. Follow that with some kind of provocation. Then at some point of your choosing, step back, put your weapons down and say, ‘Well, we won that round. What are you going to do for us?’ It’s the classic North Korea provocation-extortion cycle.”
U.S. officials can’t guarantee the North Koreans will play it this way now. They do fully expect some type of tactical action from the North in the form of anything from a nuclear test to a computer hacking to a shelling of South Korea. But they point to natural biorhythms in North Korea that suggest the regime cannot sustain the current tempo. With the spring planting season approaching in a few weeks, North Korean soldiers will have to return to their fields and the regime will be forced to choose between target practice on paper maps of the United States and feeding their people.
“The operating assumption is that we don’t think he is going to stay too far from this pattern,” the official said of the new North Korean leader. “There may be lower lows and sharper threats that come thick and faster now, but a lot is driven by the North’s own internal requirements. At some point, this will end because they need help. And we expect to be finding ourselves hearing the North Korea sweet sounds asking for economic help. If we can get there without real bloodshed, this is not overly concerning.”
FULL POST
By Elise Labott
Senior administration officials say North Korea's threats to restart its nuclear reactor is part of a pattern of North Korea asserting itself as a nuclear weapons state. The North Koreans want the U.S. to deal with them as they dealt with the Soviets: the U.S. accepted them as a nuclear power and then they held talks as two nuclear states.
North Korea has repeatedly said it would rather have "arms control" talks with the U.S. as opposed to talks about disarming its nuclear program.
"This is part of a premeditated campaign to force acceptance of their nuclear status," one of the officials said, who added, "it's not going to happen. It would blow up the entire global non-proliferation regime."
Officials say they have not seen any signs the North has begun reconstituting facilities they've shut down. But the officials say they do already have a uranium workshop up and running and are "within months" of completing construction of a small plutonium reactor.
By Elise Labott
The State Department has put a multimillion-dollar bounty on the heads of two Americans who the United States claims belong to an al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, CNN has learned.
Posters and matchbooks in Somali and English emblazoned with the names and pictures of Omar Shafik Hammami and Jehad Serwan Mostafa tout rewards up to $5 million each for information leading to their arrest or conviction. Both men are on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List.
Image on matchbox to be distributed as part of the Rewards for Justice program
The rewards are being offered through the State Department's Rewards for Justice Program.
Hammami and Mostafa are members of Al-Shabaab, the al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, and "have made significant contributions to this terrorist organization's media and military activities," according to a State Department statement on the rewards, obtained by CNN. They are both are believed to be in Somalia and speak English, Arabic and Somali.
A senior FBI official said the United States has information that both men "had a persistent interest in targeting U.S. interests" and are "believed to be involved in planning attacks on U.S. persons or property." But it is unclear what specific attacks against Americans, even ones that have been thwarted, these men have taken part in. Officials said that information is classified.
Hammami, a 29-year-old Alabama native, moved to Somalia in 2006. The State Department claims he joined Al-Shabaab there and received training from Islamic militants, rising through the organization's ranks to command a contingent of foreign fighters. Officials say he was also a "propagandist" for the group, helping to recruit English-speaking youth through writings, rap songs and video statements. FULL POST
By Elise Labott
Next week, European Union ministers will meet to discuss lifting the arms embargo on Syria, a move that some countries say could strengthen the hand of moderate members of the opposition and make them less reliant on well-armed extremist elements within their ranks.
Not all of the EU's 27 members agree on the idea. Germany, for one, has voiced concern. And EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has warned it could further inflame the conflict and backfire against the West.
But regardless of the decision, Britain and France seem poised to ignore the ban altogether, arguing that it has, in effect, become a weapon against the members of the Syrian opposition it was meant to protect.
"The European Union arms embargo is now backfiring," one French official said. "Ideally, we'd like the European Union to lift the embargo. But if that doesn't happen, we'd be ready to take our responsibility."
FULL POST
By Elise Labott
A year ago this week, an Iranian court threw out the death penalty conviction of a former U.S. Marine accused of spying and ordered a retrial.
After the death sentence was overturned, his family in Michigan held out hope Amir Hekmati would be released.
Instead, he has spent the past year in solitary confinement at Iran's notorious Evin Prison.
Hekmati was detained by Iranian authorities in August 2011 during a two-week visit to see his grandmother. Iranian authorities accused him spying on behalf of the CIA, a charge the family and the Obama administration deny.
FULL POST
By Elise Labott
North Korea's threat to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States has puzzled American officials, who see the regime ramping up its threats and rhetoric.
It's leading to the belief that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is more unpredictable, more dangerous and harder to read than his late father, Kim Jong Il.
"The new leader is acting in ways a bit more extreme than his father, who was colder and more calculated," a senior administration official said. "Kim Jong Il was more aware of the off-ramps to end these escalations.
"I don't recall he ever went this far in terms of the pace and scope of the rhetoric. Threatening to launch nukes directly against the United States and South Korea confirms what a lot of people have been saying, which is we are dealing with someone new," the official added.
Comparing Kim Jong Il, who died last December, to a chess player, the official said the son is more like a boxer.
FULL POST
By Elise Labott
Ever since he called former President George W. Bush "the devil" in a speech to the United Nations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had been America's boogeyman to the South. Will his death brings the promise of a diplomatic thaw between United States and Venezuela?
Not likely.
In announcing Chavez's death on Tuesday, his anointed heir, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, accused the United States of a conspiracy to kill Chavez and expelled two American military members working in the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
After categorically denying the charges, the White House issued a curt, three-line statement about Chavez's death, stripped of any condolences for the leader many Venezuelans revered but with whom Washington's relations were icy at best.
While President Barack Obama signaled support for the Venezuelan people and called for a "constructive relationship" with the government, the statement said the United States "remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights."
FULL POST
By Elise Labott
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, proposed the U.S. provide ammunition to the Syrian opposition Wednesday, warning that the rebels feel "abandoned" by the West.
"I think it behooves us to do everything we can to ensure that the strongest elements in Syria post-Assad are those that are listening to us, can be influenced by us and have a desire not just to keep the Syrian nation together but to respect the rights of the diverse country that Syria is," he said, told an audience at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Rubio said that while there are "plenty of weapons in Syria, what the opposition really needs is access to ammunition. And I think one of the things we can consider, if we can identify a couple of responsible groups, or more responsible groups, that we feel have built capacity, ammunition is something we can provide, which is not weaponry, per se, but is essential to the weaponry."
"I think that's a step that I'm prepared to advocate for, the provision of ammunition to resistance groups within Syria that we think we can build a long-term dialogue with," added Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who just returned from the Middle East.
Rubio, who is frequently mentioned as a possible contender for Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said the Syrian opposition felt the West in general, "and the US in particular has abandoned them." FULL POST
By Elise Labott
Kazakhstan, the venue for the latest round of nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, offers the kind of symbolism the United States hopes will serve as a model for Iran.
The former Soviet Republic gave up a formidable nuclear stockpile after achieving independence in the 1990s and now is in negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency to host a bank of nuclear fuel that would eliminate the need for a county like Iran to enrich uranium for themselves.
"Kazakhstan made very, very fundamental decisions to give up their nuclear weapons, to have a peaceful civil nuclear program," a senior U.S. official told reporters in Almaty, the nation's former capital. "In many ways, they are a model of what is possible."
From 1949 through 1989, the Soviet Union conducted hundreds of nuclear tests and experiments, both underground and above ground, at Kazakhstan's Semipalatinsk test site.
FULL POST
By Elise Labott
Iran has begun installing advanced new centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment site at Natanz that are capable of accelerating production of fuel for a nuclear weapon, a move that senior U.S. officials warned could jeopardize upcoming talks aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The disturbing revelation comes as the "P5 plus one" diplomatic bloc of countries is preparing to offer a package of incentives to Iran to close its underground facility at Fordow and ship out its stockpile of uranium already enriched to a high purity level of 20%.
READ: Sources: Iran to be offered 'serious' incentive
"This can't help the talks," a senior US official said.
The P5 plus one bloc consists of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.
FULL POST
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