Quick takesGermany’s new anti-terror police unit, squeezing ISIS financially, U.S. Libyan operations

Germany: New antiterrorism police unit
Germany on Wednesday announced the creation of a new police unit which officials said will be specifically armed, outfitted, and trained to deal with terrorism. The creation of the unit – called BFE+, for Beweissicherungs- und Festnahmeeinheit plus (“Proof-securing and Detention Unit pus”) is the result of an analysis of Germany’s security in the wake of the January and 13 November attacks in Paris. The new unit will initially consist of 250 specially trained officers. These officers will be based at five locations around Germany. The federal German policy already has an elite SWAT team, called GSG9, but it is used only as an emergency response unit. The BFE+ will also be involved in day-to-day police operations.

ISIS: UN calls for tightening financial noose on ISIS
The UN Security Council on Thursday passed a resolution aiming to make it more difficult for IIS to raise funds by selling oil and antiquities, ransom payments, and other criminal activities. Thursday meeting of the Security Council was unique as most of the council members, for the first time, were represented by their finance ministers, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. The United States and Russia co-authored resolution strengthens a similar resolution approved by the council in February. The new sanctions obligate member states to report on “interdictions in their territory of any oil, oil products, modular refineries, and related material being transferred to or from (IS or the Nusra Front).” It remains to be seen how effective the implementation of the resolution will be. The Assad regime has been supporting ISIS by abstaining from bombing the organization’s oil facilities and by buying about 60 percent of the oil produced in ISIS-controlled territory. Assad views the moderate rebels as posing much more of a threat to his regime, and ISIS is fighting the moderate rebels. The rest of ISIS oil is either bought by Turkey, or passes through Turkish territory. Turkey has been offering tacit support to ISIS not only by buying the organization’s oil, but by allowing tens of thousands of foreigners to cross Turkey on their way to joining ISIS. ISIS is fighting the Syrian Kurds, which Turkey views with suspicion. Turkey also hopes that eventually ISIS will turn its weapons on Assad and his regime.

Libya: U.S. commandos try to shore up friendly forces
Libya has been in a state of disintegration since November 2011, when Col Qaddafi was toppled after more than four decades in power. In August 2014, a coalition of Islamist militias called Libyan Dawn captured the capital Tripoli and created a new government and parliament. The Dawn government in Tripoli is recognized only by Turkey and Qatar. Members of the internationally recognized government and parliament fled to the eastern city of Tobruk. Libya now has two governments, two parliaments – but no army or police. There several armed militias, each controlling a different part of the country, and these militias hire themselves out to one government or the other to provide security services as needed. The United States, however, is trying to help the more friendly militias by sending small units of Special Forces to train, equip, and offer intelligence and logistical assistance. One such commando mission to Libya has been inadvertently revealed when photographs of a U.S. Special Forces unit were posted on the Facebook page of the Libya’s nominal air force. The text accompanying the photos said that twenty U.S. soldiers arrived at Libya’s Wattiya airbase on Monday, but left soon after local commanders asked them to go because they had no permission to be at the base. Since there is no functioning central authority in the country, it was unclear whether another branch of the Libyan military – that is, one armed militia or another — had requested or authorized the mission. Wattiya is located close to Sabratha, site of the ISIS’s western Libya base, leading to speculations that the United Staes was getting set to attack the Islamist group. The sprawling Wattiya airbase, although deep in Libyan Dawn-controlled territory, is controlled by forces loyal to the Tobruk government, and it is thought that the United States wants to help the internationally recognized government strengthen its hold of the base and the areas immediately next to it.