Proposed Reform of UN Counter-terrorism Activities Falls Short

By Victor Comras

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has just issued his recommendations on steps to streamline UN activities. The report, entitled � Mandating and Delivering: An analysis and recommendations to facilitate the review of mandates,� takes a hard look at the numerous UN activities that have been mandated over the years by the Security Council and General Assembly. These cover a wide range of activities and the report devotes separate sections to (a) International Peace and Security; (b) Promotion of Sustained Growth and Sustainable Development; (c) Development of Africa; (d) Promotion of Human Rights; (e) Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance; (f) Promotion of Justice and International law, (g) Disarmament; (h) Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women, and (f) Research and Training. It also has a section on Drug control, Crime Prevention and Combating International Terrorism. I am going to deal here only with these counter-terrorism recommendations.

With regard to terrorism, the Secretary General notes there are now three different Security Council Committees dealing with Terrorism: the Counter-Terrorism Committee, the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, and the Committee charged with preventing terrorists from acquiring WMD. He also notes that there is considerable overlap between these committees. The most obvious is that the membership of all three committees is the same as the membership of the Security Council. Each committee is supported by a separate Secretariat staff. Each has different procedures. Each reports separately to the Security Council. The Secretary General believes that special consideration should now be given to consolidating their work and their reporting requirements. Immediate steps should be taken, he recommends, to combine their travel to reduce the burdens on the UN as well as the countries being visited. �In the long run,� he says, �it would be a good idea to look at the possibility of creating a single subsidiary body that covers all the expertise of the current three. This body could include experts in different areas and would in effect take care of the other problems mentioned.�

The corridor talk is that the Secretary General wants to combine the three counter-terrorism committees under the general structure of the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate. That would be a big mistake. CTED was established by the Security Council over two years ago with the intent of re-invigorating the near dormant Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC). Its principal function is to assist countries in developing and implementing national counter-terrorism laws and strategies, and matching technical assistance to countries lacking the means to combat terrorism. The results of this work have either been very sparse, or tightly held. For, there is little public evidence of any of these accomplishments. Nor has the CTC lived up to expectations that it would provide a meaningful platform for stimulating international cooperation and judicial assistance in going after the terrorists.

The performance of the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee has been more substantial. It is the only terrorism related committee that maintains a list of al Qaeda terrorists and their financial supporters. It obliges all countries to take specific measures against those on the list. This includes freezing their assets, halting their travel and depriving them of access to arms and explosives. The Committee has its own Monitoring Team which, while constrained from �naming and shaming,� has been able to hammer away at the systemic problems associated with these objectives. Unfortunately, the list this committee maintains is woefully short, out-of-date and inaccurate.

As for the Committee dealing with WMD and Terrorism, it has served as little more than a repository for country reports�each prepared by the countries themselves. None provides any real glimpse into problems or shortcomings.

Perhaps the UN should scrape all three committees and start afresh. What�s really needed is an independent auditing or watchdog group that could oversee what countries are actually doing, or not doing, to implement internationally agreed counter-terrorism measures. Such a group would bring increased transparency and credibility to the international counter-terrorism effort. It would place increased pressure on countries to comply with these measures. It would also provide an independent assessment of any remedial action that might be needed. The fact is that no Security Council Committee will ever be in a position to truly question what specific countries are actually doing. There is just too much diplomatic and political baggage involved in their initiating such inquiries or findings.

The watchdog group that I envisage would include 8 to 10 senior experts or statesmen appointed for three to five year non-renewable terms. Their work would be supported by an independent staff that answered only to them. Their authority would derive from the Security Council pursuant to Chapter VII of the UN Charter. They would report directly to the Security Council on a periodic basis, but no less than quarterly. These reports would be public. The reports would include their own independent assessment concerning the implementation of the counter-terrorism measures along with recommendations to improve their effectiveness. These experts would be beholden to no country. Their views would not be ascribed to any country avoiding the political and diplomatic pitfalls when one country appears to investigate or question another. The Security Council would be free to discuss, debate, and even question their findings. In this way all countries would be on notice that their actions or inactions may well come under close public international scrutiny.

I suspect that the actual reforms that the UN will adopt will fall far short of this strident approach. .

Did Saddam Hussein Assist Palestinian Terrorist Groups More Than Previously Thought?

By Andrew Cochran

On January 7, I discussed the potential disclosure of up to 2 million documents from Saddam Hussein's intelligence apparatus and whether it would lead to a reassessment of his ties to Islamic terrorist groups. I expressed hope that the documents would be "seriously examined, analyzed, and released to the public" and that "counterterrorism experts with knowledge of terrorist groups and individuals, from inside and outside government, should be invited to review the evidence." The first group of 600-700 have been released by the Director of National Intelligence and are available from the website of the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office at Ft. Leavenworth. Concurrently the U.S. Joint Forces Command released the unclassifed version of its "Iraq Perspectives Project" (large Acrobat file), a two-year effort in which information from interviews with senior Iraqi military and political leaders and thousands of official Iraqi documents were analyzed to determine the forces and motivations behind the Hussein regime's pre-war and wartime decisions. (EDIT: The U.S. House oversight subcommittee which reviewed UBS's currency violations this week will hold a hearing next week on this report.)

The IPP authors carefully tried to authenticate the statements in the report. "Some things we did not use in the study because we could not find multiple ways of identifying was it true or not true. We explicitly excluded them...Then there's the plausibility factor of does it make sense militarily, is this possible the way they described it? Some of the stories were not so we left those off."

More evidence of Saddam's ties to terrorist groups has already emerged from these releases. One of the docs from Saddam's intel stash apparently points toward funding of Abu Sayyaf, the Filippino-based terrorist group. One paragraph on page 54 of the IPP has drawn attention to Saddam's possible ties and cooperation with Islamic terrorist groups, especially those with a Palestinian focus. We already knew that Saddam had funded Palestinian suicide bombers through an account in Rafidain Bank in Jordan, but this paragraph extends the possible range of such assistance. Even those in the CT community (official and otherwise) and the "terrorism press" who are highly skeptical of claims of the value of the intel docs are intrigued by the following paragraph:

Jill Carroll is free; the reasons will be known soon

By Walid Phares

Jill Carroll's release is a reason for joy and relief among her family and the public. Any hostage freed from the Jihadists or any other terrorists is excellent news. The next stage, now, is to understand why she was kidnapped, and what were the reasons for her release, unharmed. The study of her kidnappingand release may help in analyzing the other hostage taking situations, including the fate of those still abducted. "Why was she kidnapped at first, and how did the Jihadists exploit her captivity" are the first set of questions. What is the importance of the Islamic Party in this equation? Why would the kidnappers release her to a location close by the headquarters of this particular party? Who was she interviewing when she was kidnapped, and why was her translator killed? Then one would look at her writings before and after she was kidnapped and see if the Jihadists had another wider issue on their mind. Ms. Carroll said she didn't know why she was kidnapped nor who were her abductors, even though she speaks Arabic. However, she used specific words to describe them politically when she was released. Each word used by the ex-hostage before and after the abduction, are now of great importance to better understand the matter. Her future writings are going to tell the world more about the reasons behind the kidnapping.

New "Martyr" Biographies from Zarqawi in Iraq

By Evan Kohlmann

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaida's faction--now a leading force within the so-called Iraqi "Mujahideen Shura Council" (MSC)--has released several new biographies of fallen Al-Qaida members killed during past clashes with U.S. and Iraqi government forces, including: Abu Fares al-Ansari (a former Iraqi intelligence officer), Julaybib al-Muhajir (from Saudi Arabia), Abu Baseer al-Emirati (from the United Arab Emirates), Abu al-Hurr al-Ansari (a native Iraqi recruit), and Abu Turab al-Najdi (from Saudi Arabia).

Click to view documents c/o Globalterroralert.com:
- Al-Qaida's Distinguished Martyr: Abu Fares al-Ansari
- Al-Qaida's Distinguished Martyr: Julaybib al-Muhajir
- Al-Qaida's Distinguished Martyr: Abu Baseer al-Emirati
- Al-Qaida's Distinguished Martyr: Abu al-Hurr al-Ansari and Abu Turab al-Najdi
- March 2006 video clips from the MSC in Iraq  (video)

Finally, Taylor in Hand

By Douglas Farah

In an incredible stroke of luck, Nigerian policemen arrested fugitive Charles Taylor as he tried to cross by land into Cameroon. According to eyewitness accounts, he was wearing a white safari suit, driving a Landrover with diplomatic plates and had bags full of dollars in the trunk. He made it through the immigration check point, but was stopped when trying to get through customs.

He was flown to Abuja, Nigeria, then put on a presidential jet to Roberts Field, Liberia. From there he should be flown to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where his cell is awaiting him, along with some of his cohorts in the murder and mayhem that he wreaked. He is charged with 17 counts of crimes against humanity.

The arrest does not mitigate the gross negligence on the part of the Obasanjo government in letting Taylor operate with impunity from his estate in Calabar while in exile and then allowing him to escape. While Taylor's arrest may have salvaged Obasanjo's visit today with President Bush, it should not preclude a reevaluation of the close and dependent relationship the United States has developed with Nigeria's president, who has shown himself to be little better than his reviled predecessors who were international pariahs. My complete blog is here..

Daily Standard: The New Roman Lions

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

I discussed the Abdul Rahman apostasy case in several previous CT Blog posts (see below). Now that Abdul Rahman has been released, I summarize the lessons that we should take from this case at the Daily Standard. Most significantly, the practice of punishing apostates is more widespread throughout the Middle East than most Americans realize -- and this practice affects not only those who leave Islam, but also everybody who believes that democratizing the region will make us safer. An excerpt:

A BROAD CONSENSUS EXISTS through much of the Islamic world that apostates from the faith deserve to be killed. This consensus could be glimpsed in Abdul Rahman's case, where the judge, Ansarullah Mawlavezada, said, "In this country we have the perfect constitution. It is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished." Even the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, expected to take a more moderate stance, called for Abdul Rahman's punishment, claiming that he clearly violated Islamic law.

But apostasy laws stretch far beyond Afghanistan. At least 14 Islamic countries make conversion out of Islam illegal. The crime is punishable by death in at least eight of these states, either through explicit anti-apostasy laws or the broader offense of blasphemy.

Official proceedings against those who convert out of Islam are rare, at least in part because most of those who leave Islam choose to keep it secret. More often the government looks the other way while irate citizens mete out their own punishment. In July Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, estimated that dozens of apostates from Islam had been killed throughout the world in the previous year. Bolstering Marshall's estimate, the Compass Direct News Agency was able to identify 23 expatriate Christian workers who were killed in the Muslim world between 2002 and July 2005.

BUT THE RIPPLES spread beyond the obvious victims. While a large number of elections were held throughout the Middle East over the past year, we may be seeing a rise in illiberal democracies in the region. Hamas's victory in the Palestinian Authority and the Muslim Brotherhood's massive parliamentary gains in Egypt are suggestive of this trend.

The reason for the rise of illiberal democracy is the lack of true alternatives. The only safe way to criticize most Middle Eastern governments is from a fundamentalist direction, so citizens are forced to protest the ruling regimes by voting for the Islamist opposition. Thus, in our promotion of voting, we may be unwittingly empowering our enemies.

Read the whole article here. My previous postings on the subject:

• "The Apostasy Problem is Far Larger than Abdul Rahman" (March 22)
• "Afghan Clerics Call for Abdul Rahman's Death" (March 24)
• "Abdul Rahman Freed" (March 26)

Pressure Grows on Bush to Cancel Meeting with Obsanjo

By Douglas Farah

A growing bipartisan chorus in Congress is demanding that President Bush cancel his meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, with Nigerian president Obasanjo, given Obsanjo's complicity in the escape of Charles Taylor.

The best line of the day was provided by Obsanjo's spokesman, Femi Fani-Kayode: "It was not for us to take him back," he said of Nigeria's failure to keep Taylor in custody. "The onus was on the Liberian government. He was a guest of ours, and you do not pick up your guests and take them anywhere." Whew, that clears it up! Seems to apply even if the guest has an outstanding indictment on 17 counts of crimes against humanity and Interpol arrest warrants.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif and leader of the movement to bring Taylor to justice, was the first to call on Bush to cancel tomorrow's informal summit. �Nigeria reportedly has let a mass murderer with alleged links to al-Qaeda slip out the back door. President Bush should cancel tomorrow�s scheduled meeting with President Obasanjo,� Royce said. He also warned that any country that gave Taylor sanctuary would face serious sanctions.

Sen. Barak Obama, D-Illinois, and Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, joined the call. "There have been persistent questions about the level of security provided by the Nigerian government to ensure that Charles Taylor didn't haveunchecked ability to travel," said Smith. "As a result a warlord with ties to Al-Qaeda and terrorism is now on the loose."

Human Rights Watch says Mr Taylor's disappearance is a "disgrace" and "brings into question President Obasanjo's commitment to peace and security for the people of West Africa, the reason he allegedly took Taylor in the first place."

The White House hinted it would drop the meeting. The full blog is here.

House Oversight Subcommittee Targets UBS Currency Violations

By Andrew Cochran

The U.S. House International Relations Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has announced additional witnesses for tomorrow's hearing on offshore banking and terrorism (previously noticed on CTB here). It's clear from the witness list that the subcommittee, which conducted a very successful investigation into the Oil-for-Food scandal last year (see the 12/07/05 hearing), wants to pursue currency violations by Swiss-based bank UBS. U.S. dollars supposedly guarded by UBS in a Swiss facility somehow found their way to pre-war Iraq (Saddam stored them in a vault), Cuba, and Iran, in violation of U.S. law. First publicized in 2004, the violations have already resulted in a $100 million fine of UBS, the loss of its privilege to transport U.S. currency overseas, and an embarrassing hearing at the Senate Banking Committee in May 2004, during which the committee chairman referred to UBS employees' acts as "despicable." Last year, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) demanded an investigation and wants the U.S. government to freeze any assets of the Castro regime that may be held by UBS in Zurich. The expanded witness list now includes an assistant prosecutor from New York, UBS's head of compliance for the Americas, and John Moscow, a former (and legendary) prosecutor in Manhattan who led the investigation that resulted in the conviction of Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski. This could be worth watching.

There Is No Evidence to Support Moussaoui's Claims

By Steven Emerson

This morning I appeared on NBC's "Today" program to discuss the claims by Zacarias Moussaoui yesterday that he was supposed to hijack a fifth jetliner with Richard Reid and fly it into the White House as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks. You can see a clip of my appearance as posted on The Investigative Project on Terrorism website, and here is the full transcript:

LESTER HOLT: Steve Emerson is an MSNBC News terrorism analyst. Steve, good morning to you.

STEVEN EMERSON: Good morning, Lester.

HOLT: Let's talk about the credibility of this claim and if it is true, why didn't authorities know about this earlier?

EMERSON: The question really comes down to whether in fact he is credible. He has given many different stories before this. Obviously, as you pointed out, he had referred to the fact earlier on in his confession that he was going to be in a follow up plot. Now he is alleging that he was actually going to be part of the fifth set of hijackers carrying out an attack on the White House. There is no evidence, Lester, to suggest that there were co-conspirators in the United States at the time he was arrested that have not yet been found, and there is no evidence that Richard Reid, whom he alleged was a co-conspirator, was actually going to be in the United States at the time of the 9/11 plot.

HOLT: Let's back up a second, Steve. We all remember the jitters we had in the days after 9/11 and theories that maybe other planes had been targeted but they were grounded before they could carry out the attacks. Just that part of his claim that there was a fifth plane with a target that day, do you totally discount that?

EMERSON: I don't totally discount it, because in the end, he may go to his grave or to his gallows without ever confessing the final details in the same way that Richard Reid may never have fully disclosed all that he knew about the shoe bomb plot for which he was convicted in the December 2001 conspiracy. The fact of the matter is that most of the evidence suggests, Lester, that the U.S. government has not found anyone else who would have participated in this fifth set of hijackers as he has alleged.

In Choreographed Move, Taylor Escapes

By Douglas Farah

In a stunning display of choreographed incompetence, the Nigerian government of president Obasanjo has let Charles Taylor slip away into the night. Nigeria, Liberia, the Bush administration and United Nations all bear a large dose of responsibility in the fiasco that will haunt the region for generations.

So, a man who sold diamonds to al Qaeda, bankrolled weapons dealer Viktor Bout while Bout was selling weapons to the Taliban and wreaked havoc on an entire region, has flown from the gilded cage, where the money he stole from his raped and pillaged country was able to buy him freedom.

Despite being indicted on 17 counts of crimes against humanity, he enjoyed almost three years of relatively unfettered freedom in his exile home in Calabar. From his gilded cage in Calabar, where he paid his Nigerian "security guards" to let him continue his deadly meddling unabated, to some undisclosed location where his cash reserves in France, Switzerland and offshore structures will buy him more protection.

Like a bad novel, Taylor's escape became a foregone conclusion when Obasanjo suddenly announced that Liberia could come and get Taylor. Obasanjo, who now, in classic Big Man African fashion, is ordering an "investigation" into how Taylor escaped, withdrew all of the guards from Taylor's compound. It was clear that was Taylor's signal to slip away. The U.S. did virtually nothing. The UN was paralyzed. The British ran for cover. The complete blog is here..

Immigration Reform Is Critical to National Security

By Bill West

The national debate about how to reform and improve America�s massive immigration problems is heating up dramatically. There are many competing interests in all this that will seek their own agenda. What should be remembered are how critical immigration issues are to national security.

From border security to visa issuance control to interior enforcement to the aggressive pursuit and prosecution of immigration benefit fraud perpetrators, these are all significant aspects of immigration control that have been violated and abused by foreign terrorists, their organizations and supporters for the purpose of those terrorist aliens gaining entry into the US and remaining here once they�ve crossed the border. Any immigration reform measures must put national security as the highest priority.

That said, given the highly charged political nature of immigration policy, the American people can probably expect, at best, any changes in US immigration law and policy to reflect only moderate improvement relative to security. These issues will be very interesting to observe as they play out over the coming months. In October of last year, I wrote an article for FrontPage magazine detailing a number of these issues and suggested how immigration enforcement matters might be substantially improved without implementing draconian measures.

These are critical times in the immigration arena. While a handful of US political leaders seem to genuinely recognize the importance of these matters relative to our national security, there are far too many who still appear to place other considerations ahead of that issue.

Daily Standard: Free to Dissent

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case. This will be a significant case for determining the role of federal courts in the global war on terror, as the Supreme Court will consider whether the Bush administration can try Guantanamo detainees in special military tribunals, or whether the detainees' cases have to be heard in federal court. But the current controversy surrounding this case is whether Justice Scalia should recuse himself because of remarks he made in a March 8 speech at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland.

In that speech, Justice Scalia allegedly told attendees that "[w]ar is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts." Asked if detainees were entitled to relief under the Geneva Convention, he allegedly said, "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy." While these remarks appear to present a strong cace for recusal at first blush, they are far less damning when one realizes that his comments do not go beyond the views already articulated in two published opinions, a dissent in Rasul v. Bush and another in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. I weigh in on the recusal today in the Daily Standard. An excerpt:

So a strongly-worded dissent in a matter likely to reappear before the Supreme Court shouldn't disqualify a justice from future cases. Such opinions are invaluable, as they offer a competing analysis that can affect subsequent court decisions, be they mere years (Justice Stevens's dissent in Bowers) or generations (Justice Harlan's dissent in the Plessy v. Ferguson segregation case) after the fact.

Nor should the fact that Justice Scalia put forward essentially the same views expressed in Rasul and Hamdi in a public speech change matters. Such a rule would have prohibited Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Stevens and Blackmun from publicly espousing their prior dissents for fear of future recusal. To ban such post-opinion statements, as opposed to pre-opinion statements, would upend the precarious balance our legal system achieves in the interests of promoting judicial impartiality on the one hand and steady, predictable rule of law on the other. Every time a judge hears a case, that judge brings to the bench an entire foundation of held legal principles, represented not only by past holdings of Court majorities, but also by the past concurrences and dissents of that judge. (Witness the extent to which justices cite their own past concurrences and dissents in subsequent opinions.) Our system does not demand that justices approach each case with a clean jurisprudential slate, and it has never demanded that a justice pretend that his past concurrences and dissents never happened.

Read the whole article here.

Round Two of Dubai Investment Issue Begins, This Time for U.S. Defense Plants

By Andrew Cochran

Weeks after political pressure forced Dubai Ports World to announce that it would surrender its control of U.S. port operations obtained in the P&O purchase, the issue could return to the front page. Today UPI reports the following:

Dubai International Capital, an investment company owned by the emirate's ruling al-Maktoum family, inked a deal last year to acquire a privately held British aerospace company called Doncasters Group, Ltd. The company owns nine plants in the United States, and makes parts for U.S. tanks and military planes, including for the Joint Strike Fighter -- currently at the center of a transatlantic row about contracts and technology sharing.

After senators questioned officials about the Doncasters deal earlier this month, the secretive inter-agency panel known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which is responsible for assessing such takeovers, announced that it was launching a special 45-day national security review of the purchase. The attention led Dubai International Capital to announce last week it was postponing the $1.2 billion takeover for two months while the CFIUS review went ahead.

Dubai International Capital isn't standing still; they've hired veteran Washington lobbyists at the firm of Hill & Knowlton to persuade Congress and the Executive Branch to approve the sale. And the UAE Minister of Economy was in Washington last week to try to ensure that relations between the UAE and the U.S. are not permanently damaged. But news of the DIC-Doncasters deal could run smack into the same issues that sank the DPW deal. Here are the CT Blog posts about that issue:

"The UAE�USA�Important Allies" by Dennis Lormel
"A Jihad Window at the Emirates Gate?" by Walid Phares
"The DP World Port Sale: Overblown Fears" by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
"DP World Expands Worldwide, including to United States Ports. What effect on Port Security?" by Victor Comras
"Steven Emerson: Mixed UAE Record on Terrorism, With Hamas Still Supported" - my post of an interview with Steven Emerson
"Al Qaeda Claimed Infiltration of Key UAE Agencies in 2002" - my post on information provided by Lorenzo Vidino
"Poetic Justice in Ports" by Michael Kraft
"US Ports, the UAE and US visas" by Bill West
"Weaknesses in CFIUS Review Process Reported to Congress Last Year" by me
"The UAE (Hesitantly) Takes on Bout" by Douglas Farah

The Abu Sayyaf Strike Again

By Zachary Abuza

The Abu Sayyaf is suspected in detonating a bomb in the southern Philippines island of Jolo, which killed 9 and wounded 20. Some 2,000 US forces conducted a joint training exercise with their Filipino counterparts there earlier this month. A small contingent of US advisors and trainers is based in Zamboanga, where a bomb was detonated killing one, outside of the military base. A Special Forces soldier was killed by an ASG bomb in October 2002. The attack continues a trend of ASG terrorism since 2004, with a concurrent stoppage in kidnapping.

Abdul Rahman Freed

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Today the case against Abdul Rahman, the 41-year-old Afghan man who was charged with apostasy for converting from Islam to Christianity, was dismissed. (See my previous blog posts about Abdul Rahman, here and here.) An Afghan official who spoke with the media on condition of anonymity said that the court dismissed the charges because of a lack of evidence, and the matter has been returned to prosecutors for further investigation.

Time has an excellent summary of how this result leaves in place the anti-apostasy laws pursuant to which Abdul Rahman was prosecuted -- and thus might only postpone a showdown between the U.S. and Afghanistan over these laws:

Abdul Rahman and others like him still face the possibility of being charged with apostasy for converting out of Islam, an offense that carries a penalty of death unless they renounce their new faith. While Afghanistan's constitution embraces international human rights conventions that guarantee freedom of worship, it also codifies the role of Islamic Sharia law -- under which Abdul Rahman was charged. And even while Washington and NATO governments whose troops help provide security for Karzai's government had urged Kabul to drop the charges, public opinion on the streets of Afghanistan -- recently inflamed by episodes such as the furor over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad -- showed strong support for legal action against the convert. But Karzai, whose government's security position remains as precarious as ever, was in no position to resist Washington's demands. As President Bush put it, "We have got influence in Afghanistan, and we are going to use it to remind them that there are universal values."

But it was not in recognition of "universal values" that Abdul Rahman was released. Instead, authorities cited insufficient evidence, insinuations about his mental state and even questions raised by the authorities over his citizenship. The legal basis for charging someone for converting from Islam to Christianity has not, thus far, been altered -- the political confict that from having U.S. troops trying to protect a government that can't guarantee the right of its citizens to choose the same faith as the President of the United States has simply been kicked down the road. Not only that, the Abdul Rahman case has alerted the Evangelical Christian base of the Republican Party to the need to press the Bush Administration on the issue, and at the same time mobilized the conservative Muslim clerical establishment and the powerful Islamist politicians in Afghanistan's coalition government to defend their Sharia code. Not surprisingly, there is speculation that Abdul Rahman may leave Afghanistan once he's out of jail.

Congress to Examine Nuclear Terrorism, Terrorist Financing, and Shoulder-Fired Missile Threat

By Andrew Cochran

Congressional committees will hold a number of open terrorism-related hearings during the week of March 25, including two hearings on the threat of nuclear terrorism; a hearing on offshore banking and terrorist financing; one on the terrorist threat from shoulder-fired missiles; and another on counternarcotics strategies in Latin America (timely in light of the FARC indictments this week - see Doug Farah's and my posts). You can download an Acrobat file with all open terrorism-related hearings here:

Download CongCommHrgs032506.pdf

Qatar, next target of Iranian attacks?

By Olivier Guitta

In fact the Saudi daily Al Riyad very recently reported on Iranian threats on Qatar. The leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are very angered by Qatar's alliance to the US and allegedly to Israel. In case of a military confrontation between the US and Iran over the nuclear crisis, Revolutionary guards are threatening to attack Qatari oil and gaz facilities by sea and air. They plan to use suicide boats and air missiles.
One overlooked aspect of the whole Iran crisis is the huge fear instilled by Iran to Gulf Arab monarchies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Barhein and the Emirates. This is why, Arabs are trying to define a common position on that very issue. I suspect that a "middle of the road" communique is going to come out of the forthcoming Arab League summit in Khartum in order not to antagonize Iran too much.

Will We Allow Illegal "Other Than Mexicans" to Remain as "Guest Workers?"

By Michael Cutler

I have linked to an interesting story ("Non-Mexican migrants 'rent a family' to avoid deportation") that manages to combine a number of immigration issues in one fell swoop. It shows the burgeoning problem that so-called OTMs ("Other Than Mexican") aliens represent to our nation along the Mexican border. That the number of so-called OTMs apprehended along the border has more than doubled last year from the previous year, makes it clear that the Mexican border is a major entry point for aliens from a variety of countries other than Mexico. While the article did not name the countries from which these aliens came. I would be curious to know how many of them were identified as being from "Special Interest Countries." The term "Special Interest Country" is the term that DHS uses to describe countries known to be involved in terrorism such as Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran, to name three. I would also be curious to know how these OTMs managed to gain entry into Mexico. Somehow, I believe that some sort of corruption was involved, but then I tend to be mistrustful of a country that has made a national policy of encouraging its indigent citizens to head to a neighboring country for health care, education and most significantly, money. I am also mistrustful of a country that acts as a way point for much of the narcotics that flows into our country.

Afghan Clerics Call for Abdul Rahman's Death

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

In my previous blog entry about Abdul Rahman, the 41-year-old Afghan man who may face the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity, I noted that while a number of Islamic states outlaw apostasy, "the greater threat comes from vigilantes." I made a similar observation in a February 2004 article that I wrote for Commentary:

The greatest threat to apostates in the Muslim world derives not from the state, however, but from private individuals who take punishment into their own hands. In Bangladesh, for example, a native-born Muslim-turned-Christian evangelist was stabbed to death in the spring of 2003 while returning home from a film version of the Gospel of Luke. As another Bangladeshi apostate told the U.S. Newswire, "If a Muslim converts to Christianity, now he cannot live in this country. It is not safe. The fundamentalism is increasing more and more."

The Abdul Rahman situation bears this out. Even if the state doesn't put Abdul Rahman to death, Afghan clerics have announced that they will incite others to kill him. The Associated Press reports today (with emphases added):

"Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001. . . . Diplomats have said the Afghan government is searching for a way to drop the case. On Wednesday, authorities said Rahman is suspected of being mentally ill and would undergo psychological examinations to see whether he is fit to stand trial. But three Sunni preachers and a Shiite one interviewed by The Associated Press in four of Kabul's most popular mosques said they do not believe Rahman is insane. "He is not crazy. He went in front of the media and confessed to being a Christian," said Hamidullah, chief cleric at Haji Yacob Mosque. "The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if he is freed." Raoulf, who is a member of the country's main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, concurred. "The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled."

"Cut off his head!" he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque. "We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left." He said the only way for Rahman to survive would be for him to go into exile. But Said Mirhossain Nasri, the top cleric at Hossainia Mosque, one of the largest Shiite places of worship in Kabul, said Rahman must not be allowed to leave the country. "If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to be Christian so they can, too," he said. "We must set an example. . . . He must be hanged."

These clerics add their voices to a growing chorus of Aghan citizens calling for Abdul Rahman's death, including his own father: "He is my son. But if a son does not care about the dignity of his family, the dignity of his father, God can take him away. You cannot make anything out of such a son. He is useless."

This case makes clear that the threat to converts out of Islam does not just come from the state, but from private citizens as well. And it makes clear that the belief that apostates deserve death is not an aberration, but is more widespread that many would like to acknowledge. The resolution of this case may well be a barometer of Afghanistan's future, and the future of democracy in the Middle East.

Senior Executive William Langford to Leave FinCEN

By Dennis Lormel

William Langford, Associate Director of Regulatory Policy and Programs, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), will be leaving the agency next month to join JPMorgan Chase & Co. This represents the second significant personnel loss at FinCEN since February when former Director Bill Fox left to join Bank of America.

Langford joined FinCEN, along with Fox, in January 2004, when they both left main Treasury to assume their leadership positions. Like Fox, Langford was highly visible and accessible with the financial sector. He worked diligently to foster a positive working relationship between government and industry.

As noted above, William was accessible and readily participated in industry Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Compliance conferences. Last week, for example, he participated in the Money Laundering Alert Annual AML Conference. There were more than 1,500 attendees. William was gracious enough to participate in five separate and distinct panel discussions. This required considerable preparation. Based on his executive position and the sensitivity of issues, William was repeatedly barraged with difficult and complex questions. He was straightforward and unwavering in his responses.

William possesses a remarkable grasp of the myriad issues, conflicts and concerns surrounding the Bank Secrecy Act and the respective interests of industry, law enforcement and the regulators. He served the government with distinction and left an impression of credibility with anyone who listened to his presentations at the many forums he spoke at. His outreach efforts served FinCEN well.

Langford�s departure represents another tough loss for FinCEN. He was definitely one of the good guys in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. I would like to take the opportunity to thank William for his outstanding government service and wish him well in his future endeavors.

My schedule has precluded me from writing posts on the Counterterrorism Blog on a regular basis. A topic that deserves attention is the turnover of senior and vital personnel in government service. There are a number of dimensions that warrant discussion. I plan to discuss certain of these dimensions. In conclusion, I believe we can rest assured that, despite the losses of talented individuals like Bill Fox and William Langford, FinCEN and its companion government agencies will move forward and continue to excel in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

U.S. Treasury Department Designates Hizballah's Media Arms as Terrorist Entities

By Walid Phares

The U.S. Treasury Department today designated the al-Manar television operation, al Nour Radio, and the Lebanese Media Group, parent company to both al-Manar and al Nour Radio, as Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entities.  Under Secretary Stuart Levey made it clear why the media arms were designated: "Any entity maintained by a terrorist group � whether masquerading as a charity, a business, or a media outlet � is as culpable as the terrorist group itself."  Al-Manar has also supported the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.  The State Department had placed al Manar on the Terrorist Exclusion List in December 2004, thus barring aliens who engage in a range of actions involving Al-Manar from entering the United States.

This very positive announcement also proves that a nonpartisan, grassroots organization can move the U.S. government towards action against terrorism.  The Coalition Against Terrorist Media, a coalition of numerous groups (including Muslim and Jewish organizations) and founded by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, worked tirelessly for the designation and obtained the support of Congressmen from both sides of the aisle.   �Today�s action gives the government the tools it needs to cripple al-Manar�s broadcasts, which spread the Iranian regime�s propaganda, support terrorism, recruit suicide bombers, and incite violent attacks,�  said Mark Dubowitz, COO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

I have discussed al-Manar's role as jihaist propagandist often on this blog - here is just one example.

Going After the FARC is Important for Terror Financing

By Douglas Farah

The indictment of 50 top leaders of Colombia's Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is a sign of the increasing importance U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities are placing on the extensive opportunities that the flow of FARC's illicit money provides to aid other terrorist organizations, including Islamic radicals.

Some intelligence efforts have been focused on the tri-border area of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. But until recently no consenus had emerged in the intelligence or law enforcement communities over the existence of links between Islamic terrorism and the massive amount of drug trafficking revenues, comingled with tens of millions of dollars from contraband and counterfeit goods, that flow through the region.

There has been no solid evidence that the financial network of the FARC overlaps with the Islamic groups. While it is difficult to imagine that there are clear barriers to doing business when that much money is in play, so little is known from human intelligence that the reporting has been weak for years. That could be changing.

Because the amounts of money sloshing through the illicit money channels in Latin America are so large-billions from FARC-controlled cocaine and heroin trafficking, many millions more from other criminal activities-it is impossible to trace where the money goes.

A host of financial institutions, from banks to informal exchange houses to merchants willing to sell their products for cash, all help launder the funds. This needs to be juxaposed with another reality which is often overlooked or ignored: There have been many signs of radical Islamic activity in the tri-border region, from the reported visit of Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 1995 to 1999 arrests of several al Qaeda-linked operatives in the region. The full blog is here.

Foiled Attacks Can Lull Public

By Michael Kraft

In looking at the linked articles on the right side of the blog, I was struck by the number of attempted major terrorist attacks in different parts of the world that were foiled and thus unlikely to register in the public consciousness.

If reported at all in the U.S press, the overseas news reports were relegated to the inside pages or a fleeting mention on the media. Thus, it is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security, that the international terrorism threat is receding.

Illustrative Items:
� In London, seven British Muslim men are on trial for attempting to blow up a significant target in the capital city.
One of seven was linked with efforts to obtain radioactive material from Russian mafia members in Belgium.

� In Spain, 32 men, mostly of Algerian background, were indicted by a judge for allegedly planning a massive truck bomb attack against the National Court building in Madrid, where many terrorist investigation records are housed.

� In Israel, after a dramatic chase between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, police arrested a vanload of 10 Palestinians and found a five kilo explosive belt in vanload of 10 Palestinians who apparently were planning to bomb a major target there. Israeli officials said they are dealing with at least 13 solid warnings of attacks as the country prepares for elections March 28.

� In France, a trial began this week of 27 persons accused of planning to attack the Eiffel Tower and a Paris shopping center.

� In Azerbaijan, officials said three army deserters were involved in plots to blow up major energy facilities.

Had any of these plots succeeded, there potentially could have been a large loss of life and massive destruction. In four of the countries, Britain, France, Israel and Spain, there are large numbers of American visitors, students and residents. One can easily imagine the flow of words from Congress and talking heads (with apologies to some of my colleagues) had the plotters managed to kill large numbers of persons, especially Americans. However, when the attacks do not succeed, no news in the American press is not necessarily good news. It is too easy to think that because major attacks have not taken place on American soil since 9/11, the terrorist threat -- outside Iraq -- is fading.

It is still out there. It is growing more dangerous because it is decentralized and can emerge from self starters who are inspired by al-Qaeda, live in the target country and are willing to blow up their neighbors. The next time the terrorists might be lucky and escape undetected, perhaps because some investigator could not connect the dots or get their superiors to pay enough attention, as an FBI agent testified in the Moussaoui case.

The international terrorism threat will not be effectively countered by speeches or resolutions. International cooperation is key to countering international terrorism. It is far from certain that the White House and Congress will do a better job doing the hard work of funding and effectively implementing nuts and bolts counterterrorism programs than it has in the past.

Is the ETA's "Ceasefire" Sincere and Permanent?

By Andrew Cochran

The "Basque Fatherland & Freedom" terrorist group, known as ETA, has declared a ceasefire and pledged to pursue the political process to achieve its goal of political independence for the Basque territory. Founded over 40 years ago, ETA is considered responsible for over 800 killings. You can read profiles on ETA at the BBC site, Wikipedia encyclopedia, and MIPT's Terrorism Knowledge Base. You can see the text of the ceasefire statement at the CNN site. ETA was first designated as a "Foreigh Terrorist Organization" by the U.S. State Department in October 1997.

But is the ETA sincere in its new declarations, considering the numerous ceasefires previously declared and broken, and will this one be permanent? Emilio Alonso, a Spanish blogger with whom I've communicated about ETA from time to time, wrote a post on his blog (Spanish-language) with his skepticism. At my request, he translated his post, which I'm running in total below with no edits, comments, or explanation of the parties named in the post. For a more optimistic view, see James Dunnigan's post on his StrategyPage.com site. Here is Emilio's post (all links are his, and I removed footnotes in his original):

Where�s the news here?

What�s this all fuss about? It could have happened a little later, as Socialist Party would have wished to use it as lure for the nearing local polls but, as a matter of fact, it was as clear as daylight that ETA was to announce a cease-fire sooner or later. It is the next logical step in the strategy designed by the radical nationalists in Perpignan which includes, obviously, the vile exploitation of the people�s passionate eagerness to see the end of the terrorist murdering, just to achieve their objectives.

No need to be Talleyrand to know the way the next facts will happen.

FARC Terrorist Leaders Indicted for Massive Cocaine Dealing

By Andrew Cochran

The U.S. Justice Department has obtained indictments against 50 of the top leaders in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for importing more than $25 billion worth of cocaine into the United States and other countries. This is the single largest narcotics trafficking indictment ever filed in U.S. history and represents a major commitment of U.S. government resources towards ending the leading narco-terror group in the Western Hemisphere. From the DOJ press release: "According to the indictment, the FARC currently supplies more than 50 percent of the world�s cocaine and more than 60 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States...According to the indictment, the charged FARC leaders used terrorism and violence to further the FARC�s cocaine-trafficking activities and ordered that Colombian farmers who sold cocaine paste to non-FARC buyers or otherwise violated the FARC�s strict cocaine policies be murdered." In addition, the State Department announced rewards of over $75 million for information leading to the capture of 24 of the FARC leaders charged today. Pertinent documents:

Indictment (43-page Acrobat file from FindLaw site)
Press conference transcript
U.S. DEA fact sheet about FARC terrorists
U.S. Justice Department press release

This is just the latest step taken to try to puruse the most active and dangerous terrorist organization operating south of our borders today. President Bush designated FARC as a "Significant Foreign Narcotics Trafficker" on May 29, 2003, and in February 2004, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added the names of FARC leaders to the list of �Tier II� persons designated under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act). President Bush�s Executive Order 13224 in October 2001 named FARC as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist." In October 1997, FARC was identified as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.