Once more Tajikistan comes on the radar screen. Who will be the next president of Tajikistan? How is the ban on the hijab helping the deradicalization of Tajik society? What is the role of the Chinese and Russian influence? And how is the relationship with the European Union coming along? 

Every year we face a plethora of Tajik issues, for example corruption and drug usage involving officials, now the ban on face veils, or the newest version a ban on black clothes. The desecration of the grave of one of leaders and the promotions of killer squad of the ministry of interiors. 

Despite the ICC dispatches a fact-finding mission on Tajikistan and reports back we need to ask the question what has changed, if anything? So far very little, to near nothing. Observers of the Tajik issue reports an uptick of Chinese involvement, or Russian press gang related issues to force Tajiks to army service in the Ukraine. 

The German foreign ministry is surprisingly mum about the situation in Tajikistan. The trust level is always low. Maybe the new “Iron Lady” will bring changes to the foreign relations debacle with Tajikistan. It’s about time. 

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Tajikistan officially banned the hijab, imposing hefty fines in its latest move to curb Islamic influence.

Beni Mellal – The Central Asian nation of Tajikistan officially prohibited the wearing of hijabs and other “alien garments” this week, as the country’s parliament passed a new bill regulating Islamic clothing and Eid celebrations.

The bill, approved by the upper house of parliament, Majlisi Milli, on June 19, comes after years of an unofficial clampdown on the hijab in the Muslim-majority country.

Under the new law, individuals wearing hijabs or other banned religious clothing could face hefty fines of up to 7,920 somonis (approximately $700). Companies allowing employees to wear prohibited garments risk penalties of 39,500 somonis ($3,500). Government officials and religious leaders face even steeper fines of 54,000-57,600 somonis ($4,800-$5,100) if found in violation.

The bill also restricts children’s participation in festivities and gift-giving traditions associated with the Islamic holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Government officials stated these measures aim to ensure “proper education and safety” of children during the holidays.

Tajikistan has seen an influx of Islamic clothing from the Middle East in recent years, which authorities view as linked to extremism and a threat to the country’s cultural identity. In a March address, President Emomali Rahmon referred to the hijab as “foreign clothing.” The government has long promoted traditional Tajik national dress as an alternative.

The new law represents an escalation of Tajikistan’s unofficial restrictions on Islamic garb. Since 2007, the hijab has been banned for students, with the prohibition later extending to all public institutions. Authorities have also informally discouraged bushy beards in men, with reports of police forcibly shaving thousands of beards over the past decade.

Human rights organizations have criticized Tajikistan’s hijab ban as a violation of religious freedom. With Muslims comprising over 98% of the population, the law is likely to face significant opposition within Tajik society as it goes into effect.

Source

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The four suspected gunmen under arrest are all citizens of Tajikistan, a central Asian nation that was once part of the Soviet Union. Following the Crocus City attack, Russian police started rounding up and deporting workers who are originally from Tajikistan, as well as from Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The attack, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine, also sparked massive police raids, document checks of migrants as well as harassment towards central Asian immigrants . There are an estimated 10 million labour migrants from central Asia living in Russia, according to the Russian interior ministry. Central Asian migrants have seen Russia’s recent labour shortages, the result of of conscription and the Ukraine war, as an opportunity to find work.

What might change?

Russia’s war in Ukraine has also been an opportunity for these republics to choose a more independent political path, while Vladimir Putin’s attention was elsewhere. A complete break with Russia is unlikely due to geographical proximity and intertwined economies. But there have been some signs that central Asian nations are interested in making their own political decisions without constantly checking with Russia.

One was the refusal of Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in June 2022 to recognise Russia’s annexation of the partially occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk into the Russian Federation. Tokayev also said that Kazakhstan had no intention of helping Russia to circumvent western economic sanctions. The region also did not support Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. But central Asia republics were more reluctant to condemn the annexation of Crimea in 2014, taking a more neutral position. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine the region has been looking for opportunities to build its relationships with other nations without upsetting Russia.

Leaders of central Asian republics have also shown their disapproval of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in more subtle ways. Most of them, except Turkmenistan, opened their borders to accept thousands of Russian citizens looking for refuge and to escape conscription. This did not go unnoticed in Moscow, where measures to reverse immigration were introduced.

Meanwhile, at home these regional leaders find fewer people who speak Russian and are interested in Russian culture. Polls indicate that many people in central Asia (49% in Kyrgyzstan, 43% in Kazakhstan) blame their current economic problems on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There have been anti-war protests in Kazakhstan and some entertainment venues are refusing to host Russian stars. Central Asian media outlets have been blocked in Russia for trying to cover the war in Ukraine objectively.

However, at the United Nations general assembly, these states either abstain from voting to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine or vote with Russia on resolutions, including one on violations of human rights in Crimea.

Historically, Moscow sees its role in the region as a security guarantor, and as a founding member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) which aims to ensure peace and stability in the region. Russian paratroopers arrived in Kazakhstan after Tokayev had requested assistance from the CSTO with the protests that broke out in January 2022. The unprecedented unrest, known as Bloody January, started peacefully but quickly turned violent.

People took to the streets to protest a sharp increase in fuel prices, clashing with police and looting and attacking government property.

Despite the apparent need to restore order, the Kazakh public was disgruntled by such a blatant intervention in the country’s internal affairs. There was a general air of relief when Russian troops left.

Overall, central Asia is walking a fine line between pursuing more independence from Russia and not disturbing the regional balance of power.

One sign of change was a meeting in 2023 between regional presidents, including Sadyr Japarov of the Kyrgyz Republic and Tokayev, with US president Joe Biden in New York and with German chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin. It appears that while central Asian countries were not ready to talk about regional security, they were interested in discussing green energy, climate change, and stabilising Afghanistan.

What the west wants

The west will see this as an opportunity to build alliances and to offset Russian influence, given the area’s strategic importance and abundance of natural resources. By fostering these relationships, western countries can potentially secure energy supplies and promote stability in a region historically dominated by Russia. In return, central Asian republics might seek economic investment and technological development, and potentially support to strengthen their political independence.

As Russia prepares for a long war, there are likely to be further opportunities for central Asia to forge a new relationship with the west, but any shift is expected to be gradual.

Source: The Conversation

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The High Court had last year rejected the government’s request for Glory to Hong Kong to be banned, saying it would have “chilling effects” on free speech.

But on Wednesday an appeal court overturned that ruling.

The move is likely to deepen concerns about freedoms being further eroded in the city.

Amnesty International said the government’s ban was “as ludicrous as it is dangerous”.

The US, meanwhile, said it was “the latest blow to the international reputation” of the city.

In the court’s ruling on Wednesday, it said that the song can still be used for “academic” or “news” activities.

But its melodies and lyrics can not be broadcast, performed, shared or reproduced in any setting where the user intends to “incite others to commit secession” or is used “with seditious intention” against the Hong Kong government. Those convicted of breaching the ban on the anthem could face up to life imprisonment.

It is also illegal for people to use the song to advocate for Hong Kong’s separation from China, and to present it as the anthem of the territory.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman on Wednesday said banning the song was a “necessary measure by (Hong Kong) to fulfil its responsibility of safeguarding national security”.

Amnesty’s China Director, Sarah Brooks said: “Banning ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ not only represents a senseless attack on Hong Kongers’ freedom of expression; it also violates international human rights law.

“Singing a protest song should never be a crime, nor is it a threat to ‘national security’.”

Hong Kong is part of China, but has had some autonomy since the end of British rule in 1997. Campaigners say that democratic freedoms have been gradually eroded since then.

The song Glory to Hong Kong – sung in the territory’s native dialect Cantonese – emerged during pro-democracy protests in 2019 against a controversial extradition law and later became the unofficial anthem of the movement.

Its lyrics include lines such as “Liberate Hong Kong” and “Revolution of our times. May people reign, proud and free, now and evermore. Glory be to thee Hong Kong”.

While the new ban will specifically codify when the song’s use is illegal, people in Hong Kong had already been punished under national security laws for playing it.

In 2022, a harmonica player was arrested for playing the song outside the British consulate in Hong Kong to mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The song has been banned in schools since 2020.

Officials had also petitioned internet giants like Google to remove the protest song from their search results and video platforms – something the sites refused to do.

The song has also at times been mistakenly played as the city’s anthem at official events like international sporting matches, something that has angered authorities.

On Thursday, the appeal court said pursuing a ban on the song’s use in political contexts fell within the remit of current national security laws.

It said that because it was hard to prosecute individual criminal acts, “a more effective way to safeguard national security was to ask” would be to ask internet platforms to “stop facilitating the acts being carried out on their platforms”.

Source: BBC

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The international human rights organization Freedom House called Tajikistan one of the “most repressive” countries in the world in 2023.

In its new report, the organization gave Tajikistan just 5 points out of 100. Freedom House’s annual report “Freedom in the World – 2024. The Growing Damage of Unfair Elections and Armed Conflicts” was published on February 29.

“The level of freedoms in Tajikistan decreased by two points in 2023 due to ongoing actions to suppress freedom of expression and discrimination against the Pamiri minority,” said Catherine Groth, Middle East and North Africa research analyst at Freedom House.

“It had a bad effect”

She sent her opinion on the situation in Tajikistan in writing to the editorial office of Radio Ozodi. According to her, over the past ten years – from 2013 to 2023 – a sharp decline in the level of freedom can be observed in Tajikistan.

“This situation is bad for political rights and civil liberties and is the result of the leadership of autocratic President Emomali Rahmon, who has been in power since 1992,” Groth explained.

Officials in Tajikistan have not yet expressed their opinion on the report, but in the past they have always reproached human rights organizations for biased and one-sided coverage of the issue.

For example, the authorities deny the existence of political prisoners from among the opposition and their supporters, as well as well-known bloggers and journalists, claiming that they were punished for the crimes committed. Although the convicts themselves, their relatives and supporters consider the criminal cases against them to be politically motivated.

Freedom House researchers say that since the crackdown on protesters in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in 2022 and the arrest of dozens of people, including at least eight journalists and bloggers, attacks on civil liberties have been on the rise.

“Journalists and bloggers who have expressed their views in writing and orally have been harassed and threatened by the authorities. Several journalists have been arrested and imprisoned for long periods in the past year, and the authorities continue to suppress and censor the free press,” the report said.

According to the authors of the report, such pressure on the press has led to the fact that even ordinary citizens in Tajikistan are now trying to be careful in expressing their opinions in order to avoid persecution.

“Additional Measures to Suppress the Pamiris”

Catherine Groth also stressed the deterioration of the situation of national minorities, in particular the Pamir diaspora. She points out that “in 2023, the Pamiri community faced even harsher discrimination, and the authorities took additional measures to suppress the Pamiris.”

Officials in Tajikistan have previously said they disagree with the position of international organizations that portray the Pamiris as a national and religious minority.

“The Muslims of the Pamirs are followers of the Ismaili sect in Islam and a religious minority widely persecuted in Tajikistan. In 2023, they faced severe restrictions on their religious freedoms. Authorities restricted the places where they prayed and fined several people for organizing prayers inside their homes. In addition to this restriction of religious freedoms, Pamiri activists and ordinary citizens have faced arbitrary arrest and harassment, and even more Pamiris have fled for fear of persecution,” Catherine Groth added.

In August 2023, the authorities confirmed that they had banned five NGOs in Gorno-Badakhshan in the past six months, and the reason for this decision, they said, was that these organizations had “links to criminal groups.”

As part of the operation to suppress protests in the region, the Tajik government said that these measures were taken in order to strengthen the “factor of strengthening security,” and called the arrests “a way to prevent crimes against public order and officials of the Ministry of Defense.” However, Pamiri activists and opponents of the Tajik government say the purpose of the operation was to suppress dissidents and dissatisfied citizens with the government’s policies.

Freedom House says Russia’s two-year-old war in Ukraine has affected all of Central Asia.

Tajikistan’s economy remains heavily dependent on the income of migrant workers in Russia. As a result of the border conflicts between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the level of hostility between the border population has sharply increased and the security of the residents of both states is suffering. Negotiations between Dushanbe and Bishkek continued throughout 2023, although the level of diplomatic relations between the two countries remained at a low level until the end of the year.

Source: Pamir Inside

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The president of Tajikistan likes to wrap himself in the robes of Islam.

Literally, in some cases. 

In January 2016, Emomali Rahmon performed a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, and took several members of his family along too. His office documented the event by releasing images of the leader covered only in the seamless white garment that must be worn by Muslims performing this rite.

The pictures were doubly striking since the Tajik authorities had for many years been actively repressing pious Muslims. They continue to do so today.

This plays out in absurd ways. From time to time, police will go on the hunt for young men with beards, carting them off to the nearest barber for a shave. Women are chided for wearing the hijab on the grounds that it is not a traditionally Tajik form of dress.

It feels like a paradox for this to be happening in a country where the vast majority of people self-describe as Sunni Muslims. But it isn’t.

What Rahmon’s corrupt and authoritarian regime wants is an antiseptic and lightly worn form of Islam. One that promotes folkish conservatism, compliance and consensus. People may by all means pray and believe, but those things should be confined solely to the mosque. 

And not any mosque at that. In the years after Rahmon paid his visit to Mecca, the government forced the closure of thousands of informally run and unregulated neighborhood mini-mosques dotted around the country. The only permitted places of worship operate under the close scrutiny of the government. State-appointed imams up and down Tajikistan deliver dull, facsimile sermons.

And the regime systematically worked to dilute incoming generations’ familiarity with their own faith.

From 2010, the government started forcing young people studying at Islamic places of learning abroad to return home. Rahmon argued that Tajiks going to foreign Islamic schools, or madrasas, were “not becoming mullahs, but terrorists.”

In 2016, the authorities introduced a ban on private religious schools. Two years after that, it became illegal for children to study the principles of Islam in either mosques or madrasas. The job of teaching about religion was accordingly transferred to state educational institutions. But poorly funded Tajik schools and teachers are ill-equipped to provide basic instruction in subjects like maths and science, let alone religion.

And then, in 2021, the government introduced severe penalties for teaching religion via the internet.

Nusratullo Mirzoyev, the first deputy chairman of the State Committee for National Security (GKNB), justified this cascade of clampdowns as precautionary measures.

“According to studies, 95 percent of young people who joined radical groups and movements got their primary education in private religious schools,” he said.

Even studying the Arabic language was for a time rendered difficult by an informal prohibition. 

The result is a country increasingly populated by the religiously semi-literate. Tajiks are told from birth that they are Muslims, but then purposely denied the right or ability to make sense of that identity.

Conditions could not be more ideal for recruiters from militant organizations like the Islamic State. A 2008 analysis by Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, concluded that “far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly.”

“Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households,” the analysis argued.

The authors had extremist recruits in the West in mind when they wrote those words. But they are just as valid in Tajikistan, whose government has added a few push factors of its own for good measure.

Anywhere north of 1.3 million Tajiks, mostly men, have been compelled by lack of opportunity in their home country to relocate to Russia. Once there, they endure a life of financial privation and routine humiliations at the hands of police and unscrupulous employers. Their dwellings are typically crowded apartments, hostels and dormitories, or even the very same building sites where they work.

Away from the family unit and shorn of the solidarity provided by tight-knit communities, some vulnerable men in those circumstances – and it should be stressed that the numbers are small in relative terms – are ripe for recruitment. Ample research points to how extremist groups use social networks, personal relationships, and specific sentiments of perceived deprivation or grievances when identifying and enlisting members. 

The Crocus City Hall massacre will not, however, give the Tajik government any pause for thought.

In a speech to mark the Nowruz spring equinox holiday, President Rahmon said that what happened last week was a warning to “all of us, especially parents, to once again devote even more serious attention to the education of children.”

“We should protect teenagers and young people from the influence of such destructive and terrifying groups and movements, and we should not allow our children to harm the good name of the Tajik nation,” he said.

What he means by devoting greater attention to education is not teaching Tajik young people more about Islam. Quite the opposite.

Source: Sub Stack

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At first glance, it doesn’t look like much, just a rectangular meadow in the Pamir foothills of central Tajikistan. But there was a time when this ground reverberated with the thunder of hooves.

Occupying a broad saddle, high above the mighty Panj River, this meadow is believed to be an ancient arena for the Central Asian sport of buzkashi, or dead goat polo. The playing field was a centerpiece of a once sprawling settlement, a political and religious capital inhabited for centuries but since lost to history.

What the whole 15-hectare site amounts to, according to those responsible for its conservation, is the most important archaeological site in Tajikistan. It is a keystone of national efforts to resurrect a distinctly Tajik identity from the country’s fragmented history—and a potential magnet for travelers who are already drawn to the legendary road that snakes along the Panj Valley, the Pamir Highway.

Its rediscovery has drawn comparisons with Machu Picchu in terms of historical importance, if not outright spectacle. Archaeologists have dubbed it Kala-i Kukhna, or Castle Karon, the fortress “located at a height.”

A key archaeological discovery in Tajikistan

It was 2012 when Yusufsho Yakubov, chief archaeologist at the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, was summoned to Darvoz district to investigate an incongruous mound of rubble above the small village of Ruzvat, in the western outriders of the Pamir Mountains. For centuries a crossroads of trade and empire, Tajikistan is littered with long-abandoned citadels and caravanserai built during the heyday of the Silk Road. 

But Yakubov, a veteran scientist, now 87, immedediately thought that they had stumbled upon something extraordinary. “For years the site had endured only as a rumor,” he told me in July, when I met him in Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital. “I knew it was a special place within an hour of being there.”

As Yakubov’s team went to work on the mound, they began to unearth an intact building, around 20 feet square, its mud-brick walls topped with a dome. Closer inspection led Yakubov to conclude that it was a “fire temple,” which once would have sheltered an eternal flame, a relic of the Zoroastrian religion that spread out of Persia, modern-day Iran, with the rise of the Achaemenid Empire in the sixth century B.C.

Other discoveries soon followed. Archaic mausoleums dotted the surrounding hills. The excavation of a suspected water temple and observatory, alongside the remnants of a substantial defensive wall, augmented Yakubov’s supposition that Karon may have been a place of special ceremonial prestige. Evidence of winemaking and gold processing pointed to a once thriving economy. Coins found in the vicinity of the fire temple date back to the second century A.D.

(Some of the most magnificent frescoes can be found in the “Paris of the Balkans.”

Karon is located at the western edge of Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), a vast province dominated by the Pamirs, where the scattered population is often at odds with the government in Dushanbe. As such, the uncovering of the Karon story holds significance not just as a milestone of Tajik history, but as an emblem of nation-building—part of a slate of “patriotic projects” that has seen the Dushanbe skyline transformed with extravagant monuments.

For all its historical significance, however, Karon’s timeline remains subject to conjecture. “From the size of the site it might have been a medium-sized town,” says Pavel Lurje, head of Central Asian Studies at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, who worked alongside Yakubov for three seasons. “Such settlements are extremely rare in the highlands of Central Asia where even today the life is essentially rural. Karon is a true enigma.”

By the Middle Ages, Lurje believes, the settlement at Karon had fallen into decline. Sparse literary sources suggest that the last of its population relocated to the Panj Valley in the early 17th century, perhaps prompted by the drying out of local mountain springs. By now Zoroastrianism had long since been displaced by Islam as the region’s dominant religion, though exactly what motivated the concealment of Yakubov’s fire temple remains uncertain.

What does seem clear is that the last chapter in a long period of forgetting came with the Soviet era, which required the erasure of local culture in the service of revolutionary communism. Soon after Tajikistan was absorbed into the U.S.S.R., in 1929, Soviet engineers began construction of the M41, the spectacular road that traverses the high plateaus of Murghob, and onto the trading hub of Osh, in Kyrgyzstan, which would come to be known colloquially as the Pamir Highway.

The importance of Castle Karon now

Today, the nearest major settlement to Karon, Qalai Khumb, also called Darvoz, is a staging post for long-distance truckers and an increasing number of foreign travelers, who drive and cycle in their dust-plumes. The simple restaurant in the center of town, with its balcony protruding over the raging Obikhumbob River, is always busy.

But whatever mule trails once crossed the passes were forgotten generations ago—until now. As you ascend the southern hill, you can start to appreciate the strategic importance of the site and the scale of the settlement that once occupied it. At the crest, a knot of ruins comprise Karon’s best preserved complex, believed to be the remnants of a royal enclosure.

Looking back down to the pass, the polo field is cradled by tapering meadows. Faint ribs stratify the western hill—evidence, Yakubov claims, of stadium bleachers that could have accommodated 10,000 spectators. To fill the arena today, you would need to lure people from miles in every direction.

Despite the uncertainties surrounding its history, champions of the region—and Tajikistan tourism more generally—are hoping it may one day serve as an anchor site for heritage tourism. A modern luxury hotel, the Karon Palace, opened in Qalai Khumb in 2015. A small museum, designed to house the wealth of coins, pottery, and other artifacts that Yakubov’s team has unearthed, is in the planning stages. Huge swaths of the site are yet to be disinterred.

“It might not have the grandeur of Samarkand,” said Yakubov, referring to the Silk Road city in Uzbekistan, famed for its Islamic architecture. “But it is just as important to the story of Central Asia.”

What to know

How to get there: Travelers require a permit in order to visit GBAO; these can usually be obtained in advance through your tour operator or local embassy.

Qalai Khumb is located around 230 miles from Dushanbe by road. Buses and shared taxis go from the Badakhshan bus station and take around 12 hours.

Outfitters: Recommended tour agencies specializing in the Pamir region include Orom Travel and Paramount Journey in Tajikistan, and Silk Road Adventures in the U.K.

Where to stay: Karon Palace is a modern, comfortable hotel in the center of Qalai Khumb. Simple and more affordable accommodations can be found at one of the numerous homestays that are signposted on the main road.

What to do: For most travelers, Qalai Khumb is a stopping point on the road to Khorog, and the central Pamir valleys. The Tajik National Park is the country’s only UNESCO World Heritage site. Comprising 10,000 square miles of the Pamir range, it’s a spectacular region of stark desert plateaus and snow-bound peaks rising above 23,000 feet and a mecca for trekkers and climbers.

Castle Karon is one of a number of cultural sites in the Pamir region, including the thermal springs of Garm Chashma and the spectacular Yamchun Fortress, high above the Wakhan Corridor.

Source: National Geographic

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Yitzhak Brick might be the only Israeli military official to see what was coming. And he’s been warning of it for some time. He also does not see a ground invasion of Gaza as the only option. And Israel must prepare for a multi-front war given the situation in the north. Brick cautioned, among other things, of problems with the competence of ground forces and made it clear that the ground invasion does not have to be a mandatory step. But according to Brick, Israel urgently needs to “change its hard disk,” i.e. make fundamental changes.

General Brick has been warning for years about the horror we saw in southern Israel on that accursed Shabbat morning a week ago. But his assessment was dismissed by the defense establishment and the political leadership. Brick was even called delusional by many.

“There could be a massacre, the State of Israel has not yet recognized the danger,” Brick warned. “We feel among the people that everything is fine and there is no threat, but the public is not told that powers (Hamas) are preparing. These are equipped, trained fighters who will cross the border on foot and attack and occupy our settlements in the south. The likelihood of this happening is very high. Hamas will conquer settlements, throw grenades into bunkers and shelters and cause a massacre. The local residents, you and me, must defend these communities because the army will not be there.” Brick said these words months ago, but no one wanted to listen to him. After the massacre in the south, everyone now has an ear for retired general, even Bibi.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Brick spoke this week about the continuation of the war against terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, as well as developments on the Lebanese border. The general made it clear to Netanyahu that his position was to continue the surgical strikes, divide the armed forces and find a solution through a hermetic siege of the Gaza Strip. His view contrasts with the attitude of the military staff, which assumes that no success in the Gaza Strip is possible without an Israeli ground invasion.

Brick warned that the Israel Defense Forces have turned into a primarily air-based military, and criticized the army leadership for its sensitivity to human losses on the ground. “The current situation of the land forces is tragic, they are not ready for war. Emergency supplies are not available, exercises have stopped and the battalions have not trained in years. There is also no weapons training and education, and the army is not capable of carrying out an attack.” The former ombudsman added that technology alone is not enough to win wars. “The truth is that an imaginary reality has been created by the general staff and spread throughout the army. The soldiers have lost their motivation and fighting spirit in recent years, and many are not ready to go into battle.”

“To completely avoid losses on the battlefield is to hinder the army’s ability to win the war. This type of thinking will ultimately lead to heavier casualties in war,” Brick told Channel 12 back in May.

Brick added that Israel’s ground forces and reserve system have been constantly ignored: “We have lost the ability to field an effective army and have become a one-dimensional aerial power that cannot win a war on its own.” In his view, Israel’s ground forces are not ready for war. The warning follows a series of polls showing that a large portion of Israeli citizens have lost faith in their country’s future. This was particularly evident over the last year, when the people were divided over political and judicial issues.

“In my role as general, I have visited more than 1,400 units and spoken to tens of thousands of commanders and soldiers, three to four times a week, four hours in each unit. I know the army on the ground better than anyone in the Israel Defense Forces,” Brick said years ago. “I have seen soldiers who do not take care of their weapons before leaving the base. No army in the world behaves like this. The soldiers carry their smartphones with them everywhere. Commands are sent via WhatsApp groups. These phones are being tracked by the enemy.”

Not only that, but commands are said to have been sent via email and then deleted, meaning no follow-up action is possible. “Our system has lost all control. Have we gone crazy? I cannot sleep at night. Our ground forces and armored corps are not ready for war,” Brick continually warned.

“What I present to you here is something you will not hear from the top IDF officials. Not only do many of the commanders not know anything, but even those who do know are afraid to speak out lest they be punished,” he wrote, calling on members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to speak to the rank-and-file soldiers and address the issue. “Let them show you what is going on, share with them their problems and difficulties. It will not be the division, brigade and battalion commanders from whom you will learn about the reality that exists in the field. You should learn it from those for whom it is the routine of their life… Their statements are the truth.”

Israel’s entire security apparatus has failed and relied too heavily on technology, with an unhealthy dash of arrogance. But as is typically the case, those who don’t go with the flow and call out the glaring problems are dismissed as lunatics, like General Brick, who saw the danger before anyone else.

Source: Israel Today

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They might as well have been sitting ducks.

They are the tatzpitaniyot, mostly female soldiers stationed on the IDF bases near the Gaza Strip, their eyes glued to security cameras and other feeds of the border. Last Saturday morning, the Hamas terrorists who entered some of those bases with hang gliders shot at cameras and jammed some communications systems. They shot at the combat soldiers who were stationed at those bases, as well as at the tatzpitaniyot.

“Yes, they surprised us, and we weren’t ready for it,” said a female soldier at one of the bases who shared her harrowing story on social media. “Half of the force was home for Sukkot…and we had no intelligence about this…I took care of the injured while terrorists walked around my base, my second home, and murdered my friends. I prepared for this moment for two years, but nothing can prepare you for the moment of truth.” 

As Israel readies for a possible ground invasion of the Gaza Strip following the massive surprise attack last Saturday that killed some 900 Israelis and left the country reeling, Israelis are grappling with how the soldiers in the south were left so unprotected, and how the intelligence lapse — one that carries an eerie echo of the Yom Kippur War surprise attack almost 50 years ago to the day that Hamas brazenly struck southern Israel — was so glaring.

Some details of the initial cabinet meeting on Saturday night have leaked, and ministers were reportedly blindsided, having not been given any indication that an invasion or war was on the way in their weekly briefings with the prime minister’s military secretary. Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis asked flat-out in the meeting: “What happened to Israel’s intelligence?” 

The full picture will likely become clearer when the fog of war dissipates and a commission of inquiry investigates, as has become the custom in Israel after wars in the past 50 years. In the short term, as Israelis ask themselves, “How did this happen?” several possible explanations have already come to light.

The Conceptzia

“We were apparently dependent on a conceptzia that Hamas wanted money from Qatar and was deterred,” former IDF Military Intelligence Directorate head Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin told JI. “For every surprise, the surprisers come up with a distraction, and that is what we saw.”

After the Yom Kippur War, one of the answers to how Israel was surprised by an attack from Egypt and Syria was the “conceptzia.” The word literally translates to “preconception,” and it refers to groupthink or an idea that captivated the whole cabinet, without consideration of the alternatives.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu combatted reports on Monday that the extent of the conceptzia was such that he did not heed a warning that war was coming. According to AP, Egypt had warned Israel that “something big” was coming from Gaza, but the IDF was too busy with terrorism in the West Bank. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said he had not received any warnings and had not spoken with Egyptian Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamel since returning to office this year. 

“We were apparently dependent on a conceptzia that Hamas wanted money from Qatar and was deterred,” former IDF Military Intelligence Directorate head Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin told JI. “For every surprise, the surprisers come up with a distraction, and that is what we saw.”

Israel built its defense plans “on the idea that Hamas was not interested in a war. They distracted us and kept us busy with other violations on the [border] fence,” Yadlin said.

“It’s clear that there was a tactical and conceptual surprise that led to a strategic failing — though it can be turned around,” he added.

Hamas “duped” Israel intentionally over the past two years, by pretending that economic incentives such as aid from Doha and increased permits for Gazans to work in Israel were working, Reuters reported. In the meantime, Hamas trained 1,000 terrorists for the invasion, reportedly without telling them exactly what they were preparing to do.

Former National Security Adviser Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said in a briefing to reporters that Israel’s allies had claimed Hamas had “more responsibility,” and was busier managing the Gaza Strip than preparing to fight Israel.

“We stupidly began to believe that it was true, so we made a mistake,” Amidror said. “We won’t make this mistake again and we will destroy Hamas, slowly but surely.”

A senior defense official who left his post this year spoke on condition of anonymity because he only wanted to support the war effort on the record. 

“At some point in recent months, Hamas changed their strategy from supporting stability and quiet, as it did in Operation Shield and Arrow” — in May, when only Palestinian Islamic Jihad attacked Israel — “to an all-out war. They are giving their maximum,” he said.

The ex-official speculated that the “change in policy is connected to trying to destroy Israel’s ability to make peace with Saudi Arabia, which is a clear Iranian goal.”

While he said his former colleagues indicated to him this week that there was an inkling of Hamas’ plans, the official said the intelligence gap “disturbs me, because it goes deep.”

In addition, he argued that the IDF should have been able to defend the towns close to the Gaza border even if they were totally surprised.

“I don’t know why there were not enough soldiers in the towns. It could be that they were in the West Bank, but we should have been prepared regardless of the intelligence,” he said.

After an Egyptian police officer crossed into Israel and shot three IDF soldiers in June, “we should have known that our front positions were not working as they should.”

Blinded lookouts

Another element of Hamas’ attack that delayed Israel’s ability to respond effectively was its targeting of bases in the south where tatzpitaniyot, who watch cameras and other feeds of the border, are stationed.

“In my worst dreams, I could not have imagined something like this,” one tatzpitanit wrote. “I woke up for a 4 a.m. shift that turned out to be a nightmare. I never thought I’d see something like this from my lookout point in my life. I did the best I can, until a sniper shot my camera.”

One tatzpitanit who finished her service earlier this year told JI that she was going back to her old base, because there was no one left who knew how to do the lookouts’ job.

Some of the tatzpitanyiot on bases attacked by Hamas told harrowing stories on social media.

“In my worst dreams, I could not have imagined something like this,” one wrote. “I woke up for a 4 a.m. shift that turned out to be a nightmare. I never thought I’d see something like this from my lookout point in my life. I did the best I can, until a sniper shot my camera.”

She described “crazy noise, blood everywhere,” while she spent “16 hours locked in a small war room with a lot of hope and prayers.”The Hottest Place in Hell, an Israeli independent investigative journalism site, published a message it received from another tatzpitanit, who had only finished her training four days before the war began.

“We received a message that there was an invasion, that terrorists entered Israel…all along the line there were large numbers of terrorists and the forces weren’t making it in time to stop them, it was a psychotic number of terrorists. They started shooting at our cameras, until we weren’t able to look out. They told us the only thing to do is to run to the war room, while we heard rocket sirens and rockets fell by us. I ran like I had never run before,” she said.

All of the tatzpitaniyot were told to leave their positions and hide behind their large computer systems, as combat soldiers came to protect them.

“There was a Golani unit and they were all erased, very quickly, killed one after the other. They started bringing the injured to our war room. I started helping take care of them as much as possible because I was afraid to get out from behind the computer[.] I feared for my life.” 

The soldiers, according to the accounts in Hottest Place in Hell, did not eat for 26 hours and did not have enough water, were in a hot room with no air conditioning because of the power outage and had to use cups and trash cans because there was no toilet.

At one point, the terrorists tried to light the building on fire, and the soldiers had to decide whether to stay in a building on fire or run out to where they would be shot or captured, but soldiers managed to put out the fire quickly. Terrorists shot at the doors, and the soldiers saw that they were stealing IDF uniforms.

“There were so many terrorists and so many killed and injured. No one knew what to do, and we were all crying and hysterical. I don’t know how I survived,” she said.

Eventually, they were evacuated under fire: “We saw corpses on the way to the bus,” she recalled.

The retired officer who predicted it all

From the start of the war, an interview with Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brick on an Israeli Jewish-interest cable news channel Hidabrut went viral. In the video from July, the former IDF ombudsman seemed to predict exactly what happened on Sunday.

Brick, 76, was an Israeli general who fought in the Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War and the First Lebanon War, officially retiring from the army in 1999. He then became the IDF ombudsman in 2008-2018, after which he began publicly criticizing the IDF for its lack of preparedness. 

A series of newspaper op-eds, as well as a lengthy article in the journal Hashiloach that Brick wrote in 2020, drew significant attention in Israel for its warning that the IDF, especially its highest-ranking officers, has lost its fighting spirit.

In the last month, Brick wrote articles warning that Israel is not prepared. In Haaretz, he wrote: “Netanyahu, the next war is near. Declare a national state of emergency.” In Maariv: “Though the political leadership abandoned our security, I will continue to fight without fear.” In Israel Hayom the headline was: “Residents of the north, prepare to defend yourselves ahead of the next war: No one else will do it.” 

In the viral video, Brick chillingly describes the nightmare scenario that came true this week.

“A massacre can happen here and the State of Israel doesn’t understand it,” he said.

Hamas is preparing “to enter a number of towns on foot. The likelihood it will happen is very high, whether they come in the thousands or hundreds,” he said.

“If you’re a resident sitting in a shelter, they’ll come to the shelter, throw a grenade and you’re dead. Not just you, everyone, they’ll sit there and be slaughtered,” Brick warned.

He called on Israelis to prepare to defend their towns.

“No one else will be there,” Brick continued in the video. “The army won’t be there. The army is small today, and the things it wants to send won’t arrive because of roadblocks…You have to be able to fight with your own body to defend your town, and in order to be able to do that you have to prepare the town to fight.”

“The army won’t be there for you in a war,” he emphasized. “In the first hours, you will be in the shelters because of the rockets, but the moment that word gets out that [terrorists] are on the ground, get into position and fight for your lives.”

Brick said that towns near the Gaza border should dig trenches and set up positions, have backup water and medical supplies, and more.

He criticized the IDF for taking local security teams’ weapons, a decision the military made two years ago because of theft. Brick said that “everyone under 70, most of whom were in the army and know how to shoot,” should have access to a weapon and should be trained.

“No one is saying this, and we’re in a lawless situation,” Brick lamented. “[The security establishment] is just telling people ‘hide,’ but not what to do if a terrorist arrives. Who will stop the terrorists? The army can’t do it today.”

“All kinds of details are coming out about all of [Hamas’] preparations, distractions by holding demonstrations by the border fence, shooting at cameras, taking over the Southern Command base and disrupting its ability to command the whole area,” Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University said.

Brick is a controversial figure. Some of the responses to his video claim that he is attempting to deflect blame from Netanyahu, since Brick said the problems began when National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz and MK Gadi Eisencot, also of National Union, were IDF chiefs of staff.

One former senior defense official who spoke with JI said “Brick says so much nonsense that sometimes some of it ends up being right.”

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said in a conversation with JI that, while Brick correctly predicted part of what happened, much of it still remains unexplained.

“The security in the towns is really problematic and not developed enough,” he said. “In places with more guns and people who were better trained, they were able to kill terrorists. But the things Brick spoke about are more about the local level of supplies and fighting. It doesn’t explain what happened here.”

“All kinds of details are coming out about all of [Hamas’] preparations, distractions by holding demonstrations by the border fence, shooting at cameras, taking over the Southern Command base and disrupting its ability to command the whole area,” Michael said, “but I still don’t understand how an event like this can happen, how they can shut down the whole border fence and why it took three hours for more forces to arrive. I have no answers. So many senior officers were killed.”

Michael and Yadlin both said that an investigation is likely.

“I think a lot of heads will roll,” Michael said.

Now, the government must set “totally different goals” to the fighting between Israel and Hamas since 2009, Michael said.

“The reaction will be totally different and the result must be totally different. It can be that some good can come out of all of this bad. We can create a reality where we improve the army. Now, we understand the army is too small and we need a bigger IDF for our missions, just like the Ukrainians understood in their war,” he said. 

Michaeli warned that Israel is “heading into a long campaign that will exact a price. There are no free lunches. We need a lot of patience and unity and wisdom from our leaders – military and political – and I want to believe that we will find it and in the end, from this whole mess, we can hope for something good.”

Source: Jewish Insider

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Sri Lanka has told hundreds of thousands of Russians and some Ukrainians staying in the country to escape the war that they must leave in the next two weeks, immigration officers said.

The immigration controller issued a notice to the tourism ministry asking Russian and Ukrainian people staying on extended tourist visas to leave Sri Lanka within two weeks from 23 February.

Just over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have traveled to Sri Lanka in the last two years since the war began, according to official data.

Commissioner-General of Immigration said the “government is not granting further visa extensions” as the “flight situation has now normalised”.

However, the office of president Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered an investigation of the notice to the tourism ministry in an apparent bid to prevent diplomatic tensions.

The president’s office said that the notice had been issued without prior cabinet approval and the government had not officially decided to revoke the visa extensions, reported the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror.

The exact number of visitors who extended their stay beyond the typical 30-day tourist visa duration remains unclear.

However, concerns have been raised over thousands of Russians and a smaller number of Ukrainians staying in the country for an extended period of time and even setting up their own restaurants and nightclubs.

Tourism minister Harin Fernando told Daily Mirror that the ministry has been receiving complaints of some Russian tourists running unregistered and illegal businesses in the southern part of the country.

Raids were conducted by the authorities following discussions with the Immigration Department, he said.

It comes amid a furious social media backlash over Russian-run businesses with a “whites only” policy that strictly bars locals. These businesses include bars, restaurants, water sports and vehicle hiring services.

In a bid to boost tourism and recover from its worst economic crisis since 2022, Sri Lanka began granting 30-days visas on arrival and extensions for up to six months.

In April 2022, the nation defaulted on its $46bn (£36 bn) foreign debt. The economic crisis triggered violent street protests for several months and ultimately culminated in the resignation of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa three months later.

Source: Independent

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