Indian Strategic Studies: 10/25/24

25 October 2024

The CPEC And Its Discontents: Security, Unrest And The Human Cost Of Development In Pakistan’s Balochistan – Analysis

Imran Ahmed

Insurgencies, ethnic tensions and confrontations between local separatist groups and state security forces have long marred Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The violent attack on 11 October 2024 at the Junaid Coal Company mines in Balochistan’s Duki district, where armed militants killed 20 miners and injured several others, serves as a stark reminder of the region’s ongoing instability.

Although no group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, the fact that ordinary labourers were targeted in such brutality highlights the profound unrest and discontent that permeates Balochistan, particularly within its resource extraction and development sectors. Despite the substantial presence of both private and state security forces in the province tasked with safeguarding lucrative mining and infrastructure development projects, violence remains a frequent occurrence in the region. This ongoing unrest raises pressing concerns about the efficacy of a security-centric approach to managing insurgency, safeguarding development projects and maintaining stability. The recent violence in Balochistan reveals a clear gap between security measures and the everyday challenges faced by the local communities. It also shows the harmful effects this approach can have on civilian populations.

The False Promise of Regime Change

Philip H. Gordon

Since the 1950s, the United States has tried to oust governments in the broader Middle East once every decade, on average. It has done so in Iran, Afghanistan (twice), Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Syria—a list that includes only the instances in which the removal of a country’s leaders and the transformation of its political system were the goals of U.S. policy and Washington made sustained efforts to achieve them. The motives behind those interventions varied widely, as have Washington’s methods: in some cases sponsoring a coup, in others invading and occupying a country, and in others

The Falklands War of 1982: Lessons for a Potential 21st Century China-US Conflict Over Taiwan

Martin Mitchell

The Falklands War of 1982 holds several modern geopolitical and tactical precedents that apply to a potential conflict between China and the United States over Taiwan. In both cases, the contested islands are located near a continental nation-state aimed at reunifying such islands to the mainland, despite long periods passing wherein the island residents either aligned with an over-the-horizon maritime power possessing a representative form of government and/or developed indigenous democratic institutions.

The successful British intervention in the Falklands not only rekindled a sense of national pride but served as a catalyst for elevating the importance of the United Kingdom as a player on the world stage where incipient economic globalization and a protracted Cold War dominated the scene. For the Falkland Islanders, the right to self-determination was secured and later affirmed in a 2013 referendum when alignment with the U.K. was chosen by over 99 percent of the voters.

For the United States, a successful intervention against China (either alone or in coalition with others) in the Taiwan Strait would thwart China’s efforts to usurp the U.S. as the leading world power and allow Taiwanese to define their future as they see fit.

GPS Jamming in Myanmar

Sribala Subramanian

Myanmar is the epicenter of GPS jamming in Asia.

A map from Flightradar24, the aircraft tracking website, shows a cluster of red hexagons blanketing the country’s southern region. The pixelated dots represent areas experiencing high levels of interference with satellite-guided navigation systems and serve as a warning to aircraft in the region.

“GPS jamming involves saturating GPS receivers with unknown signals. . . essentially degrading everyone’s ability to effectively use GPS for navigational purposes,” explained a post on Flightradar24. The crowdsourced service, started by “two Swedish aviation geeks” in 2006, now operates the largest aviation surveillance network using ADS-B receivers.

Scrambled signals, the website warned, can result in “flight deviations, missed approaches, or potential collisions, especially in critical phases such as takeoff, landing, or during instrument approaches in low visibility conditions.”

The motivating factors behind specific jamming incidents are not always clear. Natural phenomena such as solar flares can degrade GPS signals. However, defense analysts agree that the recent surge in large-scale jamming comes from nation-states “driven by the desire to protect military targets” from satellite-guided missiles or drones.

Bangladesh Is Well-Positioned to Build a New Political Area. Can It Seize the Moment?

Paul Staniland

The dramatic collapse of former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has created extraordinary churn and uncertainty at home, in the region, and geopolitically. A student-driven movement led to widespread demonstrations that triggered a crisis within the regime, most notably the military’s refusal to repress the protests. Hasina is now in India, and an interim government is in place in Dhaka, advised by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. External observers are watching developments carefully to understand what trajectory Bangladesh might take.

The most important questions are domestic. The aftermath of political revolutions can go in numerous directions, from civil war to the consolidation of a new and broadly accepted political system, and everything in between. Hasina’s regime was what political scientists refer to as “competitive authoritarian”: there were elections, but her Awami League political party used the state apparatus to undermine the opposition and tilt the playing field to its advantage. The sudden end of that configuration has thrown the entire political system into a state of flux. The interim government is pursuing reforms of key sectors of the state, including the electoral system, the police, and the constitution.

The good news is that Bangladesh is better positioned for stability than many other post-regime change cases. A state structure is in place, even if hollowed out and in need of serious reform. The comparative lack of large-scale regional or ethnolinguistic cleavages avoids some of the sources of state failure and political polarization witnessed in other contexts (though violence in tribal areas is a worrying development). Labor mobilization, which has been a regular occurrence in recent months, is generally not a source of political breakdown in these cases.

The Navy Is Freaked: The Age of Big Warships Is Just About Done

Brandon J. Weichert

For centuries, navies around the world have taken pride in their large surface warships. The dominance of these warships persisted even after the advent of submarines. In fact, during the Second World War, when submarines became a primary weapons platform for navies, the aircraft carrier stole all the headlines.

Today, however, things are changing.

A Sizeable Liability

The rise of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) means that the large surface warship’s days as the primary form of power projection in a naval fleet are coming to an end.

Consider that the Ford-class aircraft carrier, America’s newest, costs $13 billion per unit, plus hundreds of millions of dollars per year to maintain. The more numerous Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, while older than the Ford-class, are also very expensive.

An aircraft carrier is a large, highly complex warship. Its purpose is to maneuver a floating airbase near the territory of an enemy in order to threaten that rival with precise and consistent airstrikes.

Diplomatic decoupling in the South China Sea

Evan A. Laksmana

China and the Philippines have been trading barbs and engaging in dangerous brinkmanship in the South China Sea for the better part of two years. In late August 2024, the Philippines reported that a China Coast Guard vessel manoeuvred dangerously and repeatedly rammed a Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessel in Sabina Shoal, located in the Spratly Islands and claimed by both countries; China accused the PCG of deliberately approaching and ramming its vessel. In that month alone, there were at least six confrontations between China and the Philippines at sea and in the air in the South China Sea.

These dangerous episodes obscure a deeper diplomatic decoupling that has been taking place over the past few years on three levels: firstly, between the Philippines and China; secondly, within the Philippines’ domestic strategic-policy establishment; and thirdly, between the Philippines and other Southeast Asia states. Changing the strategic equation between China and the Philippines requires a broad diplomatic reassessment and re-engagement on all of these levels, over and above moving the tactical needle in the South China Sea. After all, there is a hard ceiling in the ladder of escalation that should discourage the parties from ultimately fighting a war neither truly wants.

Hanging onto the ladderSince early 2023, Manila and Beijing have carefully sought to control the ladder of escalation during a cycle of alarming encounters around Second Thomas Shoal and other sites in the Spratly Islands. Manila, believing it has international law and its alliance with the United States on its side, has pursued a campaign of ‘active transparency’, spotlighting and publicising Beijing’s grey-zone tactics.

Stimulus Measures Expose Weakness Since Third Plenum

Alicia García-Herrero

For more than a decade, the rate of economic growth in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been slowing. This trend first accelerated in the wake of the trade war initiated by the United States in 2018, and then even more so after the end of the Zero-COVIDpolicies in late 2022. The causes of the slowdown are both structural and cyclical. Examples of the former include a declining population, while overinvestment—leading to diminishing returns, overcapacity in many sectors, and deflationary pressures—is an example of the latter. The collapse of the PRC’s once massive real estate market has further worsened the country’s economic outlook since 2021. Considering these challenges, there was hope that the Third Plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), held from July 15–18, would introduce structural reforms (China Brief; July 23, July 27).

Prior to the plenum, analysts focused on three possible reforms that could revitalize the PRC’s domestic economy: reducing the Party-state’s involvement in the economy to empower the private sector; fostering domestic consumption to reduce reliance on exports; and rebalancing away from the manufacturing sector and toward consumption as a driver of growth. The reforms introduced at the plenum disappointed on all three fronts and indicated that PRC President Xi Jinping has no intention of changing the overall direction of his economic policies. A string of weak data in the interceding months has finally persuaded the leadership that stimulus measures are necessary, yet a series of press conferences making vague announcements of further stimulus has done little to assuage concerns. It appears that further announcements will only be made at the end of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee meetings, which will likely be held at the end of the month (South China Morning Post, October 15).

Xi Jinping Has Further Boosted the Military-Industrial Group of China

Arthur Ding, K. Tristan Tang

On June 28, Huang Qiang (黄强) was appointed as the party secretary of Jilin Province. Formerly secretary-general of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission (国防科工委) and deputy director general of the National Defense Science and Technology Bureau (国防科工局), Huang’s promotion marks a further development for the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) group of military-industrial leaders (Xinhua, June 28). Alongside Hao Peng (郝鹏) in Liaoning and Xu Qin (许勤) in Heilongjiang, all three provincial Party secretaries for the major industrial bases in Northeast China now have backgrounds in the defense industry.

Supreme leader Xi Jinping has provided consistent support to the defense industry in recent years, and has increased his reliance on officials from defense industry backgrounds—as seen in the curricula vitae of Central Committee members unveiled at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 20th Party Congress in October 2022 (The Diplomat, September 12). These developments represented a culmination of personnel decisions that date back to at least the 19th Party Congress in 2017, when Xi’s emphasis on the importance of military-industrial officials began to become observable. Research to date has tended to analyze this rising group of military-industrial personnel from a technocratic perspective (see China Leadership Monitor, December 1, 2022; February 29). Owing to the significant differences between military-industrial officials and technocrats in general, however, the PRC’s military-industrial group merits attention as a growing force within both the defense industry and the CCP Central Committee, and has the potential to one day emerge as a key faction within the PRC’s political system.

Part II: Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics: PRC Consulate Gray Zone ‘Pop-up’ Events in New York

Sze-Fung Lee

The activities of consular officials from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the United States and other countries appear to extend beyond the standard provision of consular services. This implies not only the breaking of diplomatic norms, but also the violation of international—as well as US domestic—law. The US government has announced that it is aware of PRC activities that are seeking to influence congressional races and candidates in the country’s November elections (US Department of State, October 7). It has not stated whether it is aware of the penetration of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials directly into local communities via consular “pop-up” events. These events, held at non-designated diplomatic facilities, are often co-hosted with organizations connected to the CCP’s united front system. Some of these organizations appear to have been involved in influencing previous election races (US China Press, July 31, 2023; China Brief, October 4).

Much of the activity surrounding these consular events occurs in the digital domain. Increased activity is found before and after pop-up events, usually coordinated across Chinese and Western social media platforms and between official accounts and those of state-affiliated media. Online content serves two purposes. One is informational, to broadcast general information about the events themselves for potential attendees and to document their execution. The other is to propagandize on behalf of the Party-state. Two narrative frames recur throughout the content posted about the pop-up events: The characterization of the consular officials—and, by extension, the CCP—as benevolent and willing to go above and beyond for its citizens, and of those citizens as grateful, in turn, to the “motherland” for taking care of their needs.

Iran is Gaining Ground in Jordan

Ahmad Sharawi

Jordanians marched in the capital of Amman last week, holding aloft portraits of the late secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. The streets echoed with chants of “Labayk ya Nasrallah” (“We are here, oh Nasrallah”), a Shia chorus of devotion rarely heard in Jordan, which is almost entirely Sunni. Since October 7, it is not just support for Hamas that is rising, but also for other groups within the so-called “axis of resistance” led by Tehran. This trend only adds to the troubles of Jordan’s king, Abdullah II, who finds it ever harder to justify his alignment with Washington to subjects resentful of both economic stagnation and American support for Israel.

More than half of Jordan’s population—perhaps as much as 65 percent—is of Palestinian descent. The country’s unemployment rate is now 21 percent. The people’s sympathy for the Palestinians has always been evident, but increasingly, it takes the form of support for Hamas. At protests on the Palestinians’ behalf, the marchers chant, “Put the bullet in the chamber…We are your men, [Yahya] Sinwar” and “Our army is the army of the free…We are your soldiers, oh Sinwar.” In one instance, demonstrators held a mock funeral for Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader slain by an Israeli bomb in Tehran.

The Islamic Action Front (IAF), which won the most seats in last month’s parliamentary election, has worked to radicalize the population. The IAF is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization from which Hamas also sprang. Iran’s role has been more subtle. Khaled Meshal, the senior Hamas official, helped rouse the population to “take the responsibility” in dealing with Israel during a visit of the Hamas political bureau to Tehran.

Why Hezbollah is having more success with its drones after a year of war - analysis

SETH J. FRANTZMAN

More and more drones are getting through Israeli defense systems. On Saturday, Hezbollah launched an unmanned aerial vehicle attack on Israel, one of which targeted the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea. This strike comes in the wake of a deadly drone assault a week ago that killed four Golani soldiers and wounded sixty at an IDF base near Binyamina.

These follow another deadly UAV attack in the Golan, carried out by Iraqi militias. The drones appear to have become more effective, deadly and precise, and there may be various reasons for this.

According to Ynet, “Hezbollah’s latest tactic involves combining heavy rocket barrages with drone strikes to overwhelm Israeli air defenses, aiming to cause confusion and increase damage from interception debris, with casualties from drones steadily rising.”

That might not be the only reason. Israel’s enemies possess a plethora of UAVs of varying types, including the ones that have been filmed and photographed in recent attacks. The videos of Saturday’s strike showed a relatively normal type of attack drone that has a wing, fuselage and a V-shaped tail. The Houthis used a similar one to hit Tel Aviv in July, resulting in one fatality. A strike on Yom Kippur that targeted Herzliya appeared to use a similar drone.

How Yahya Sinwar’s death will change the Middle East

IN THE END Yahya Sinwar died brutally in the rubble of Gaza, like tens of thousands of victims of the war he unleashed a year earlier. In a firefight with an Israeli patrol in southern Gaza, the leader of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, was killed on October 17th. The massacre a year earlier that he masterminded altered the trajectory of the Middle East, although not in the way he dreamed of.

Why Did the Experts Fail to Predict Russia's Invasion of Ukraine?

Peter Rutland

On September 24, the Center for Strategic and International Studies released a seventy-two-page report, The Russia-Ukraine War: A Study in Analytic Failure. It indicts the U.S. policy community for failing to predict the likely outcome of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The report was written by Elliot Cohen and Phillips O’Brien, with an introduction by Hew Strachan (the authors also discussed the report in a panel that is available on YouTube.) The authors are distinguished military historians. However, they are not Russia specialists and have not written extensively about the Ukraine war. Critics argue that Cohen and O’Brien are not neutral observers but have an ideological axe to grind—that is, a desire to discredit critics of full-scale support for Ukraine’s war effort.

The vast majority of observers were caught by surprise by Putin’s invasion. Even though U.S. intelligence documented the build-up of Russia’s forces in the weeks and months before the invasion, it was just too hard for most analysts (the present author included) to imagine that Putin would unleash a devastating land war on his neighbor.

Nevertheless, Putin did start the war. He must have thought that he could achieve his goals at a cost worth paying. Cohen and O’Brien want to know why most American and European analysts failed to understand Putin’s intentions.

‘They’ve Forgotten Their Own Recent History’: Why Israel Won’t Move Toward Peace

Michael Hirsh

The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar this week could be an opening that might lead to the freeing of Israeli hostages and a cease-fire, but history suggests Israel and its enemies won’t take it. That’s the assessment of former U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker, a veteran diplomat known as “America’s Lawrence of Arabia” for his deep understanding of the Middle East.

Crocker spent nearly four decades representing America’s interests in the Arab world, serving as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Kuwait, as well as to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now retired, Crocker believes the hostilities between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah — as well as Iran — are nowhere near to ending. The death of Sinwar, which followed the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah last month along with many other senior commanders, will result mainly in the continuation of a guerrilla war unless the U.S. and Israel work hard toward a cease-fire, Crocker says. And it also increases the likelihood that Iran will ramp up its nuclear weapons program.

The current situation is all too similar to what happened four decades ago when the Israelis invaded Lebanon, Crocker says. “That invasion and the subsequent Israeli occupation created Hezbollah. This invasion is not going to end it.” He adds: “One thing I’ve learned over years, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that the concept of the defeat of an adversary only has meaning in the mind of that adversary. If that adversary feels defeated, he is defeated. If he doesn’t, he’s not.”

Alfred McCoy, The New Cold War Comes to Asia

Yes, it’s hard even to remember (if you aren’t of a certain advanced age), but I grew up in a world where the two superpowers, the United States and Russia, both increasingly armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and so unable to fight each other directly without the possibility of the planet going up in flames, engaged in what came to be known as a Cold War. Meanwhile, we kids found ourselves in our own school-time version of the possibility that the Cold War might turn all too hot — with regular “duck and cover” drills (while sirens wailed outside) and, not having shells like Bert the Turtle, we had to dive under our desks to protect ourselves from the Russian nukes theoretically heading our way.

But that was then… this is… hmmm… Could it be possible that, as TomDispatch regular Alfred McCoy suggests today, without a duck-and-cover drill in sight, we’re nonetheless in a new Cold War with a rising power (all too well-armed with nukes), this time in Asia, a “war” that the island of Taiwan threatens to turn hot any day now? And yet, isn’t it strange — among all the horrors on this planet from Ukraine to Gaza and (endlessly) beyond — that this new Cold War gets remarkably little attention, even as both sides in it grow ever more edgy and even aggressive?

So let McCoy, author of a classic book on the rise and potential fall of the first of those powers, the United States, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, lay out for us how the two great powers on this planet at present (Russia now being a great warring mess) are facing off ever more dangerously. Just what we need now, right? Tom

Ukraine’s Victory Plan: Last Chance for West to Reverse Trajectory of Defeat

Vladimir Socor

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy unveiled his eagerly-awaited Victory Plan to his nation from the parliament’s rostrum on October 16. He plans to bring it to a summit of EU heads of state and government in Brussels yesterday, October 17. The word “victory” is meant to sustain the national morale under Russia’s assault. The plan itself should, however, be read by Kyiv’s Western partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as an eleventh-hour appeal for action to reverse the looming defeat. The plan’s basic premise is that Ukraine and its Western partners would lose or win this war together.

The plan consists of five chapters, three of which contain secret annexes that are being shared with selected NATO member states. Four chapters address wartime requirements, while the fifth deals with post-war security guarantees to Ukraine (President.gov.ua, October 16).

Chapter One urges NATO to invite Ukraine to commence accession talks immediately. This political gesture “would strengthen not only ourselves but all of us.” NATO would acknowledge that “Ukraine is defending the Euro-Atlantic space” and “show how our partners truly see Ukraine’s place in the security architecture.” This demonstration of resolve would “make the Russian people feel that their Tsar has lost geopolitically.” That said, “We understand that NATO membership is a matter for the future, not the present.”

Drones Are Swarming U.S. Military Bases, And Our Incompetent Bureaucracy Won’t Do Anything About It

Kyle Shideler

If you had told President Dwight D. Eisenhower that the military-industrial complex he famously warned against would find itself repeatedly foiled by an off-the-shelf product available at the grocery store, he probably would not have believed you.

The Oct. 12 story published in The Wall Street Journal, about how mysterious drones over Langley Air Force Base have baffled the best of America’s military and homeland security apparatus, is clearly not intended to leave you with this impression, yet it does.

The Journal article was likely intended as yet another entry in the now-extensive subgenre of Pentagon reporting that might be called, “What are we going to do about the UFOs?”

In these stories, which seem to regularly appear several times a year (possibly timed with congressional appropriations), military and intelligence officials either publicly or anonymously complain to their regular Pentagon beat journalists about how they are stumped by the mysterious lights in the sky. In 2022, the Pentagon set up the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to better collect and analyze reports of these UFO sightings. Before AARO was the wordier Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), set up in 2021. Congress has had multiple UFO hearings, ranging from fairly serious investigations into the likely role of Russian and Chinese drones surveilling U.S. national security sites to “X Files”-style hearings with whistleblowers claiming the U.S. has recovered alien corpses — or, as they phrase it, “biologics.”

HYBRID INTELLIGENCE: DECISION DOMINANCE AT THE STRATEGIC LEVEL

William Barry , Aaron "Blair" WIlcox

In the months before Russia’s expanded invasion into Ukraine in 2022, six planners meeting in a nondescript room in the headquarters of U.S. Army Europe-Africa (USAREUR-AF) frantically developed various options for the employment and positioning of forces across NATO’s eastern flank to avert, or at least limit the harm resulting from, the impending calamity. The commanding general of USAREUR-AF wanted options that would assure allies of continued U.S. support and deter any hostile actions into NATO territory. The job of developing these options fell to four graduates of the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), one army strategist (Functional Area 59), and a logistics planner. With little time for research or to seek outside expertise, the six planners had to make the best use of available tools—sometimes just a map and whatever knowledge they had gained from education, experience, or self-development—to develop military options that would achieve the commanding general’s intent; this was a daunting task as it required assessing the feasibility of complex movements of large numbers of troops and equipment to achieve difficult-to-measure objectives in a dynamic operational environment. The initial recommendations on these consequential matters often came down to the “best guess” informed estimates made by a small number of talented, well-educated but, in the end, mid-grade officers. As seasoned military planners can attest, this experience is hardly unique. It is a frequent occurrence created by the too-familiar demands of limited time and personnel common to crises.

The axis of evil is a fantasy North Korean help exposes Putin's weakness

Ian Garner

A terror is stalking Europe. That, at least, is the impression you get from Kyiv. As Andriy Yermak, head of the country’s office of the president proclaimed, a new “axis of evil” is forming right across the planet, developing into a thoroughgoing military alliance that “challenges democracies and the world order”. And certainly, you can understand his fears to a point. North Korea, after all, is apparently planning to deploy some 10,000 troops to bolster Russia’s war effort, even as Pyongyang may now be supplying half of Moscow’s artillery shells.

Yet if a June 2024 agreement between the countries is certainly worrying, especially when dovetailed by Chinese sabre-rattling in the Pacific, the West is facing less an axis of evil than of convenience. The truth is that Vladmir Putin is deeply reliant on Kim Jong Un — and the help he’s getting from the hermit kingdom is basically a sign of weakness, not strength.

The sudden appearance of North Koreans in their country was unsurprisingly greeted by alarm in Kyiv. And considering how the conflict is going, Yermak’s dramatic language surely makes sense. Over the last few months, after all, the Russians have made grinding gains right across Ukraine, sometimes advancing as much as a kilometre a day and threatening strategically significant cities like Pokrovsk. To an extent, meanwhile, the recent alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang reflects a long-standing amity. The countries have enjoyed generally warm relations since Putin’s ascension to the presidency 25 years ago. Among other things, Pyongyang played host to one of the president’s first state visits abroad, when he hailed the Soviet army’s special role in “liberating” North Korea from Japanese occupation in 1945.

DIED LIKE A DOG Step-by-step operation that killed Yahya Sinwar as he cowered in bombed out building from Israeli commandos & drone

Juliana Cruz Lima

Gaza's Bin Laden, 61, had his last humiliating moments sat slumped over in an armchair in a bombed-out building in the Strip as he feebly tried to fight off an Israeli drone with a stick.

An autopsy revealed that Sinwar was likely wiped out by a long-range gunshot to the head - executed with sniper-like precision.

His corpse was also riddled with shrapnel fragments after the house he was in was blasted by a tank.

Sinwar's body has now been transferred to a secret location inside Israel, Hebrew news site Walla reports.

His identity was confirmed last night after Israel ran DNA tests.

The October 7 mastermind had a target on his back for over a year as Israel's security service - backed by the US - spent more than a year scouring the country for him.

But Sinwar was wiped out by a unit of three trainee squad commandos after they unexpectedly stumbled across him, Israeli officials told The New York Times.

Israel’s Hidden War

Mairav Zonszein

In August, Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s general security service, the Shin Bet, wrote a remarkable letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli cabinet ministers. The letter didn’t get much attention in Israel or abroad, but it went to the heart of the crisis that has afflicted the country since the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas. Bar warned that intensifying attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, which he called “Jewish terrorism,” challenge “Israel’s national security” and are a “large stain on Judaism.” He described a trend in which “hilltop youth” (the term used in Israel for extremist settlers, although some of these militants are long past their youth) in the West Bank are not only assaulting Palestinians but also clashing with Israeli security forces—all with the backing of senior members of the government. The settler militias had gone from “evading the security forces to attacking the security forces,” Bar wrote, “from cutting themselves off from the establishment to receiving legitimacy from certain officials in the establishment.”

Over the past year, events in the West Bank have been obscured first by Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza and now by the war’s escalation in Lebanon and Iranian strikes on Israeli territory. But since October 7, 2023, the UN has recorded over 1,400 incidents of settler attacks in the occupied territories (ranging from vandalism to assault, arson, and live fire) that resulted in injury or property damage and led to the displacement of 1,600 Palestinians from their homes, an uptick after an already record-breaking year of settler violence in 2023. Bar’s intervention in the summer came as Israeli officials in the defense ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned that the West Bank was on the verge of an explosion that could cause hundreds of Israeli fatalities in a new conflagration in Israel’s multifront war.

Israel’s Killing of Yahya Sinwar Is Not a Turning Point

Daniel Byman

The Israeli killing of Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas and the key architect of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that killed almost 1,200 people, may prove to be more of an anti-climax than a turning point in the Israel-Gaza war. The killing is yet another indicator that Israel has devastated Hamas as an organization, but both Hamas and Israel appear ready to continue fighting, and Israel has yet to resolve the harder question of what should come next in Gaza.

Sinwar had been a leading member of Hamas from the group’s inception. He spent many years in prison until a 2011 prisoner swap and was known for his militant views. Since the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel has made him public enemy number one, declaring him a “dead man walking” early in the war—a promise that, after a year of brutal conflict, Israel made good on.

Death of Yahya Sinwar is boost for Netanyahu but may not end war

Jason Burke

The death of Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas and mastermind of the 7 October attacks, has huge implications for the conflict in Gaza, for Israel’s other campaigns in Lebanon and the occupied West Bank, and for Israel’s domestic politics.

There will be the war – or wars – before the killing of the 62-year-old veteran militant and the war(s) after it.

One of the biggest immediate impacts will obviously be on Hamas, which has now lost much of its top leadership. Already the head of its military wing in Gaza, Sinwar took charge of the organisation after Ismail Haniyeh, his predecessor, died in a bomb explosion in a government guesthouse in Tehran in July that was blamed on Israel. Other senior officials were killed in Beirut and in Gaza, where Israeli airstrikes successfully targeted military Hamas commanders such as Marwan Issa and Mohammed Deif.

Hamas will portray Sinwar as a martyr and look to frame his death in a way that will inspire new volunteers. That he appears to have died fighting on a frontline, with a weapon in his hand, will help this. But whatever the propaganda, the elimination of such a respected leader is unlikely to boost recruitment, and Hamas sorely needs new manpower in Gaza where it has taken heavy casualties.

Yahya Sinwar’s Death Was Preordained

Graeme Wood

In 2008, Yahya Sinwar—then an inmate in Israel’s Eshel Prison—developed a brain tumor. An Israeli surgeon operated on his head and saved his life. Today, Israel announced that one of its snipers had done the opposite. Photos of the Hamas leader’s body, half-sunk in rubble and dust in Rafah, show a massive head wound. Sinwar’s killing ends a one-year manhunt but not the invasion that his decision to attack and kidnap Israeli civilians last year all but guaranteed.

Few world leaders have spent as much time as Sinwar contemplating the manner and meaning of their death. During his 22-year stay in prison, he wrote a novel, The Thorn and the Carnation, in which Palestinians die gloriously, with poetry on their lips. The novel’s theme is martyrdom, and Sinwar seems to have lived so as to make his own violent death predictable. The valedictory poem of one of Sinwar’s fictional martyrs counsels stoicism: One need not fear death, because on the day it will come, it will come, “decreed by destiny.” One should not fight what is preordained. “From what is fated, no cautious person can escape.”