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Lebanon:Long Term vs. Short Term and Images
By Michael Kraft
The controversy over imposing an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon reflects a basic issue in dealing with terrorism and especially hostage taking –how to solve the short term problem without creating more problems in the long term.
Without acknowledging it because to do so would mean tarnishing the memory of a Republican icon, the Bush Administration apparently is heeding lessons from the Reagan Administration.
During the 1980's, the Reagan Administration talked the tough talk but folded its tents and made deals in reaction to terrorist bombings and hostage-taking in Lebanon by the same terrorist group, Hezbollah, that precipitated the current crisis by crossing the international border to seize Israeli hostages and then launching rockets against Israeli civilians..
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and others calling for an immediate ceasefire seem to have forgotten much history and hard facts of life.
The deaths of civilians in Lebanon are heartbreaking and a major tragedy. There is almost no way one can ignore the dramatic television footage and photos, especially from the village of Qana where a building housing civilians was hit this weekend. It is impossible not to be moved by the scenes on TV. The repeated dramatic airing on Arab television stirs already hot emotions and the numerous human interest stories on Western television add to the pressures for an immediate ceasefire.
These calls, however, are another grasping for short term “solutions” that can lead to more deaths in the future.
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President Bush’s stance that a Lebanon ceasefire should be sustainable is not as calloused a response to the immediate suffering as many,especially in the Arab world, contend. Whether or not the President has the Reagan administration in mind, his effort to make sure that Hezbollah is not in a position to create future crises with more rocket launchings and cross-border attacks has a solid basis in relatively recent history.
In the 1980s when Hezbollah took more than three dozen westerners hostage, Reagan Administration officials made deals to solve the short term problem. These were the infamous deals orchestrated by Ollie North to trade antitank missiles to Iran, the prime backer of the Hezbollah hostage takers. But shortly after each American hostage was released, another was taken. And when Reagan withdrew the U.S. peacekeeping force in Lebanon after a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed 241 U.S. Marines, Navy and Army personnel, this was taken as a further sign in the region that the Americans were weak and paper tigers.
Israel’s past hostage deals with Hezbollah added to the perception of weakness when in 2004 they swapped 433 Arab prisoners for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers killed by the Hezbollah and a businessman who had been lured into a trap.
These U.S. and Israeli fixes were short term. They fertilized the ground for long term problems---the growth of Hezbollah, the emergence of other extremist groups such as al Qaeda and especially the Iranian-Syrian supply of an estimated 13,000 rockets and extensive construction of underground tunnels, bunkers and storage facilities. Many of them were deliberately located in civilian areas, a trick used by the PLO before the Israelis drove it out of Lebanon in 1982.
Several additional points need to be made in this age of media-influenced foreign policy:
• Emotional reactions are dangerous -- not just because of street mobs attacking U.N. facilities in Beirut or other forms of violence but because they often affect the judgments of policy makers.
-- The hyperbole by Lebanese officials and others in calling the Qana bombing a “massacre” and war crimes is too often reported at face value, especially when they are silent about Hezbollah’s deliberate firing of rockets packed with ball bearings designed to kill and main Israeli civilians. Initial assertions that Israel deliberately hit civilian targets or killed huge numbers of people often turn out to be unsubstantiated. A recent case was the bomb that hit the U.N. Observer post.U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan originally claimed it was deliberate. However the Canadian media has reported that that a couple days before he was killed, the Canadian Army observer had earlier emailed that Hezbollah was firing at Israel from nearby positions.
-- Exactly what happened in the Qana explosion also may not be clear cut. Israeli officials said that the building collapsed hours after Israel struck a near by launcher emplacement. The suggestionsthat explosives may have been stored in the building may be self serving but there have been media reports that the roof of the building had not been hit, as would normally been the case if the building struck by a bomb. The Israelis had nothing to gain by deliberately hitting a civilian target, and obviously much to lose. If a smart bomb or laser guided bomb went astray it would not be the first time for either Israel or the U.S.
-- The U.S. Israel and other countries have made deals to release hostages because policy makers were affected by the emotions and pressures from family members and the public.
• Pictures may not lie but they can distort. (And in the age of digital photography they can be made to lie.)
-- It is easy for photographers to focus on a destroyed building, such as the Hezbollah headquartersin southern Beirut, but one has to look closely to note that the nearby buildings apparently suffered only superficial damage. Photos of damage to one area of a city can give the false impression that the whole city is destroyed. Demonstrations can be filmed with a tight focus, giving the impression that more people are taking part than is the case.
-- In January, 1983, I went to Beirut as part of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff team to look at proposals for U.S foreign assistance following the Israeli withdrawal the previous year. As a result of watching the television coverage of Israel's invasion to oust the PLO, I half expected to see most of the city leveled. Instead, as we drove in from the south past rows of intact apartment buildings, an American military attaché pointed out the occasional blackened corner apartment that had been burnt out. There had been PLO machine gun nests or rocket launcher in those apartments he said, that were knocked out by Israelis. He said the TV photos had focused on the billowing smoke, making it appear as if the entire building and section of the city was on fire. But in reality, the damage was confined to one or two apartments in a relatively small number of buildings.
(For the record, the proposed foreign assistance program was largely designed to help the Shia residents of southern Lenabon who had been ignored by the Lebanonese government. The program collapsed when Shia terrorists blew up the American embassy in 1983, killing Agency for International Development experts as well as CIA agents and embassy personnel.)
-- In the first Iraq war the U.S. called the fighting to a halt before Saddam Hussein’s armor was destroyed, largely because of TV footage of the “mile of death” – a long line of trucks and other vehicles that had been attacked and burned by American aircraft. Much of the footage focused on the poor drivers of the lead vehicles who were burnt to death in their cabs. Most of the Iraqis in the other vehicles were caught in the traffic jam, jumped out and escaped. Yet the dramatic TV footage and the fears it might make it appear to Arabs as if the U.S. was “piling it on” the Iraqis, was a factor in calling the war short before the elite Republican guard equipment was destroyed. Saddam Hussein thus was left in a better position to attack the Kurds in the north and the marsh people in the south.
One can only wonder whether if real time television coverage existed in World War II, the allied bombing of French and Belgian villages would have caused an outcry to halt the Normandy invasion to roll back Germany’s control of Western Europe.
It is easy and almost par for the course for the U.N. Secretary General, European and Arab officials to react to emotions and photos by calling for an immediate ceasefire in the current Lebanon crisis. But a simple cease fire would allow Hezbollah to re-supply, perhaps with more long range missiles from Iran and Syria and dig in further. Lebanon will be further destabilized. And the next round of fighting is likely to cause even larger numbers of civilian casualties, especially if Hezbollah obtains more large rockets capable of hitting Haifa and perhaps even Tel Aviv and the Israeli military strikes back even harder.
Whatever other elements might be included in an eventual ceasefire deal, they must include arrangements to cut off Syrian and Iranians re-supply of rockets and other weapons to Hezbollah so it does not feel emboldened to launch more cross-border attacks in the future.
A cease fire that allows Hezbollah to claim victory will encourage Iran and the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who already have left their fatal mark on British, Spanish, Turkish, Iraqi, Saudi, Egyptian, Moroccan, Indonesian, Kenyan and Tanzanian cities in addition to New York and the Pentagon in Washington. The Europeans, Arabs and UN officials who have tried to soft-pedal the threats from fundamentalists and a nuclear equipped Iran and are now clamoring for an immediate cease fire only would be postponing another and perhaps worse crisis.
Short term deals with terrorists too often lead to long term pain. « Close It
Mugniyah's Hidden Hand in Lebanon
By Bill Roggio
| | Imad Fayez Mugniyah |
At the outbreak of war between Israel and Hezbollah, I reported Imad Fayez Mugniyah, Hezbollah's military commander, was likely behind the operation to snatch the Israeli soldiers, and documented Hezbollah and Mugniyah's links to Iran and historical involvement in international terrorism. Dr. Magnus Ranstorp explained Hezbollah's command structure and decision making processes, Mugniyah's likely involvement with the capture of the Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah's links to Iran and Hamas.
On Saturday, the Jerusalem Post reported on Mugniyah's involvement in the current conflict and his past history with Fatah and in Hezbollah. Mugniyah is fingered as the likely operative "behind the abduction of the two IDF soldiers on July 12" as well as "in charge of Hizbullah's rocket unit in south Lebanon."
Hizbullah's top commander in southern Lebanon is a veteran Fatah operative who was very close to former Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat when the PLO was based in Beirut, Fatah officials said over the weekend. They identified the man as Imad Mughniyeh, a former officer in Arafat's Force 17 presidential guard who has been in charge of Hizbullah's military operations in south Lebanon for the past decade.
"Imad Mughniyeh is the overall commander of the Islamic Resistance [Hizbullah's armed wing] in southern Lebanon," said a Fatah official who said he knew Mughniyeh well during the '70s and '80s. "He's nicknamed tha'lab [the fox], and today he's considered the second important figure in Hizbullah after Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. We're very proud to have a Palestinians holding such a high position in Hizbullah," the Fatah official said.
Congress to Review Hamdan Impacts, Border Security, GWOT Status
By Andrew Cochran
Several Congressional committee will hold open terrorism-related hearings this week in and outside Washington:
August 1, 2006
House Armed Services Committee
Northern Border National Security Concerns
Full committee field hearing on "National Security Concerns on the Northern Border."
Witnesses: Air National Guard Brig. Gen. Michael Peplinski, commander of the 127th Wing, Selfridge Air National Guard Base; Chief Patrol Agent John Bates, sector chief of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency; Coast Guard Capt. Patrick Brennan, commanding officer, Sector Detroit; John Jamian, former maritime administrator of the Transportation Department's Maritime Administration and former executive director of the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority; Sheriff Dan Lane of the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department, St. Clair County, Mich.; and Army Col. Paul Disney of the U.S. Northern Command. Joint Task Force North - J3
Location: Selfridge Air National Guard Base, 29423 George Ave., Joint Dining Facility (Building 164), Selfridge, Mich.. 10 a.m.
August 2, 2006
Senate Armed Services Committee
The Future of Military Commissions
Full committee hearing on the future of military commissions in light of the Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Witnesses: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England
Location: 216 Hart Senate Office Building. 2:30 p.m.
Senate Judiciary Committee
Detainee Trials
Full committee hearing on "The Authority to Prosecute Terrorists Under The War Crime Provisions of Title 18."
Witnesses: TBA
Location: 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building. 9:30 a.m.
House Armed Services Committee
Southern Border National Security Concerns
Full committee field hearing on "National Security Concerns on the Southern Border."
Witnesses: Marine Corps Col. Ben Hancock, commanding officer, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz.; Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Jeffrey Calhoon, sector deputy chief, U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and Maj. Gen. Antonio Pineda, national commander, U.S. Civil Air Patrol
Location: Yuma Marine Corps Air Station, intersection of 32nd St. and Ave. 3E, Yuma, Ariz.. 1 p.m.
August 3, 2006
Senate Armed Services Committee
Iraq, Afghanistan and the War on Terror
Full committee hearing on Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism.
Witnesses: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace and Army General John Abizaid, commander of the United States Central Command
Location: 216 Hart Senate Office Building. 9:30 a.m.
Evan Kohlmann on Zawahiri Tape and "Accommodation" With Hezbollah
By Andrew Cochran
Evan Kohlmann was interviewed on MSNBC by Tucker Carlson last Thursday and discussed the Zawahiri tape and the possibility of the U.S. reaching an "accommodation" with Hezbollah: "And I think we can reach some kind of accommodation with Hezbollah one way or the other. It doesn‘t have to be an issue of friendship. But at least we can find a way of Hezbollah not directly attacking us." The full transcript is below. Evan also has a propaganda video from Hezbollah on his GlobalTerrorAlert.com site, with their usual "Death to Israel and America" theme, and wrote to me "that when dealing with Hezbollah, 'endeavor for peace, but carry a big stick.'"
Interview Transcript:
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Zawahiri‘s attitude about life is that there shouldn‘t be free societies. And he believes that people ought to use terrorist tactics, the killing of innocent people, to achieve his objective. And so I‘m not surprised he feels like he needs to lend his voice to terrorist activities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: That was President Bush earlier today responding to a videotape released by al Qaeda‘s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who warned that his group will not stand idly by as Israel bombs Lebanon. He called on his followers to rise up and attack the West, as he has many times before. Is this time any different? That‘s the question for NBC News terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, who joins us from New York. Evan, is this any different?
EVAN KOHLMANN, NBC NEWS TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, I think some people have misinterpreted this as Zawahiri saying, Hezbollah, let‘s get together in an alliance against Israel. I don‘t think that‘s what Zawahiri is saying.
CARLSON: Right.
KOHLMANN: I think Zawahiri here is saying, look, the same way that al Qaeda used an opportunity in Iraq in 2003, and as an opportunity to confront the West by inserting cells of operatives to directly confront us, they want to do the same thing with Israel right now. And the idea is to put cells in Gaza and in Lebanon, not with Hezbollah, but independently. And I think Zawahiri also is trying to encourage those within al Qaeda to move a little bit away from the Zarqawi extreme. That being murdering Shiites by—you know, by scores for no reason other than because they‘re Shiites, and trying to move back towards focusing the energy on the United States and its allies and leaving the Shiite-Sunni issue until later on. As Zawahiri says in this video, the issue right now is Palestine. Palestine. Palestine. It‘s—really, it‘s propaganda issue. It‘s a populist issue.
CARLSON: Right.
KOHLMANN: It‘s pure populist dogma.
CARLSON: But, I mean, on the other hand, doesn‘t the war between Israel and Hezbollah put al Qaeda in kind of a spot? Hezbollah is the only Islamic group that can even sort of plausibly claim to have beaten Israel anywhere in Lebanon. And all of a sudden, they have all this popular support in the region. Does al Qaeda feel like it needs to prove itself by doing something dramatic to win back the affections of lunatics around the world?
KOHLMANN: It‘s not just support. It‘s more attention. I think you‘re seeing a lot of television attention being paid not just to particularly Hezbollah, but Hezbollah leaders, like Hassan Nasrallah, who are becoming voices for resistance against the Israelis. And I think that is the last thing that al Qaeda wants. Al Qaeda has units already in Lebanon. It has for many months. Back in December they launched a rocket attack against Israel. And that rocket attack caused a lot of problems. Hezbollah got very angry. Hezbollah doesn‘t have a problem with attacking Israel. But if attacks are going against Israel, it wants to be responsible for them, not al Qaeda.
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CARLSON: Right.
KOHLMANN: And as a result, Zarqawi himself attacked Hezbollah, saying, you‘re providing a wall between us and the Israelis. So, yes, I think Zawahiri wants a pieces action. Not as part and parcel of Hezbollah, but independently, separately as a competing influence in Lebanon.
CARLSON: So these two groups also have religious differences, Hezbollah being a Shiite group, al Qaeda being a pretty aggressive Sunni Muslim group. Is there anything the United States can do to exacerbate tensions between them so they can eat each other and then spare the world a lot of heartache?
KOHLMANN: Well, it‘s troublesome, because unfortunately, these two groups, as much as they hate each other, they also hate the West. But, that being said, I think the Shiites that are within Hezbollah tend to be a lot more pragmatic and a lot more future-sighted than those in al Qaeda.
CARLSON: Yes.
KOHLMANN: And I think we can reach some kind of accommodation with Hezbollah one way or the other. It doesn‘t have to be an issue of friendship. But at least we can find a way of Hezbollah not directly attacking us. I think Hezbollah may have learned its lesson here. I think they bit off more than they could chew. And I don‘t think they‘re looking for some kind of apocalyptic battle that Zawahiri is talking about. So I don‘t see an alliance between them.
CARLSON: Well, that‘s exactly what—that‘s exactly—look, let me put it this way. We met with Hezbollah yesterday, an American television crew. Obviously American. They didn‘t murder us. Do you think we could meet with al Qaeda? I don‘t think so. We wouldn‘t get anywhere.
KOHLMANN: No, it‘s two very—two very separate groups.
CARLSON: So, right, it‘s this completely different idea than al Qaeda. Is the United States making a mistake by not recognizing that Hezbollah actually has something to lose? They have political power in Lebanon, for instance, and maybe we should suck it up and negotiate with them. As horrifying as that sounds, maybe it‘s in our interest to do that. I don‘t know, is it?
KOHLMANN: Well, negotiating is a strong word. But at least talking with them...
CARLSON: Talk.
KOHLMANN: ... sounds like a wise idea. The same thing with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. These organizations are not our friends. In fact, by many definitions they‘re our adversaries.
CARLSON: Of course.
KOHLMANN: But, then again, they also share adversaries us with, the same way that during the Cold War we shared Russia as an adversary with the Chinese. In the 1970‘s, Richard Nixon took a very brave move and he negotiated with the Chinese, even though they, too, were our adversaries. That relationship worked very well, and potentially you could see the same thing again between the United States and between Shiites or—I mean, this is exactly what al Qaeda fears most. This is what Zarqawi used to talk about. He used to say the end comes when Iran and the United States ally against us. That‘s what they‘re afraid of.
CARLSON: That‘s right.
KOHLMANN: So, you know, maybe it is something to consider.
CARLSON: Anything to defeat al Qaeda, that would be my position. Evan Kohlmann, thanks a lot for coming on. I appreciate it.
KOHLMANN: Thank you. « Close It
Israel Loses the Initiative in Lebanon
By Bill Roggio
| | Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied town; red IDF warned towns of operations. Click map to view. |
After the airstrike in the Lebanese town of Qana, which killed 57 civilians, Israel has enforced a unilateral 48 hour cessation of air strikes against targets in Lebanon. A new report indicates 28 more civilians were killed during Israeli air strikes against Hezbollah positions in villages in southern Lebanon. The fact that Hezbollah is firing from civilian centers to provoke an Israeli response is generally ignored by the media and international community, and subsequently the tide of international pubic opinion has turned against Israel.
From the beginning of this conflict the Israeli leadership lacked a coherent plan to effectively strike back at Hezbollah, and because of this they have lost the initiative. Remember that the Israeli plan to degrade Hezbollah is predicated on creating a 2 kilometer buffer zone while conducting air strikes against Hezbollah command and control centers, as well as rocket launch sites and other infrastructure.
The cessation of air strikes is a tacit admission of failure of this policy, as the propaganda results of civilian casualties far outweighs any possible military gain. Israel, while well capable of defeating Hezbollah militarily, has chosen a strategy that will isolate it politically and provide Hezbollah with its own political victory. The air strikes will eventually kill large numbers of civilians (bloodless air wars are a myth) and the Israelis, by appearing unwilling to confront Hezbollah's army on the ground, makes them appear soft. Every day Hezbollah stands up the the most powerful army in the Middle East is a victory for Hezbollah.
On Saturday, the Israeli Defense Force withdrew from the town of Bint Jubayl, with the reasoning that the IDF never intended to occupy the land. Hezbollah is championing this as a victory for their forces. The Israeli leadership is blind to the political and propaganda ramifications of leaving Bint Jubayl.
The withdrawal follows Hezbollah's launch of a Fajr-5 rocket at the town of Afula, the deepest into Israeli territory. The Fajr-5 has a range of up to 45 miles. Israeli officials claim to have destroyed "an estimated two thirds of Hizbollah's long-range missile capabilities" including "Iranian-supplied Zelzal-2 missiles" which have a range of up to 125 miles. Yet Hezbollah continues to launch rockets into Israeli territory. Israel saw the largest amount of rockets attacks on Sunday, almost 150 landed inside Israeli territory.
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Despite the cessation of the air strikes (except for close air support operations) the IDF continues to conduct limited operations along the Lebanese border. Defense Minister Amir Peretz claims the ground offensive will be expanded, and his speech was "widely echoed by MKs across the spectrum." Clashes have been reported in the town of al-Taibeh (Al Tayyabah on the map.) Al Tayyabah is a few kilometers from the Litani River, and a push further by the IDF along with a blocking force on the Litani River could seal the center and western portion of the Lebanese border from Syrian resupply and trap a significant portion of Hezbollah's southern army. But the Israelis have signaled they are unwilling to go this far at this time. Ynet News also reports "the Paratroopers Division is simultaneously operating in the western region, around villages containing Hizbullah infrastructures."
Israel's unwillingness to pay the price in casualties and enter southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in force may prove to be a strategic defeat which it will pay for in the near future. As I stated on Colonel Austin Bay's blog late last week; "If Israel delays, Hezbollah’s next attack will be far more sophisticated and organized. Hezbollah has transformed from a militia to an organized political and military force in the six short years since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. With an emboldened Hezbollah backed by confident Iran and Syria, Israel’s butcher bill will only increase."
Hezbollah will also increase its power base inside of Lebanon, and directly threaten the Cedar Revolution. Lebanese opposition leader Walid Jumblat gives an inside view of the repercussions Hezbollah's success against the Israelis:
"We have to acknowledge that they have defeated the Israelis. It's not a question of gaining one more village or losing one more village. They have defeated the Israelis... But the question now is to whom Nasrallah will offer this victory. Either we will have a state able to establish its control over the country or we will have a state comparable to what is happening in Palestine... a reduced weakened state and a strong militia beside the Lebanese army that decides war and peace at any time and has its schedule decided by the Iranians and the Syrians. I don't see a state of Lebanon surviving with a militia next to an army. That's it."
Time is running out for Israel. At the beginning of this campaign, they needed to strike hard and fast, using ground forces, at Hezbollah's military assets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. They can still do so, but it will come at a far greater political cost. « Close It
Hezbollah executed 18 "spies" in Tyre
By Olivier Guitta
In fact, the very well informed Kuwaiti daily Al Seyassah reported that Hezbollah shot eighteen people last week. These people were suspected of being collaborators to Israel (sounds awfully like what's been happening in the Palestinian territories in the past years). The executed were accused of helping Israeli airforce to pinpoint where Hezbollah fighters were hiding by tracing signs with phosphorescent paint. Numerous witnesses to the execution were German citizens who were being evacuated by boat through Tyre.
Funny this did not make the news, right?
New Terrorist Videos/Translations of Communiques Available
By Evan Kohlmann
Needless to say, Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups have released quite a voluminous amount of propaganda material lately, and I'm finally getting around to adding some of the most noteworthy recent videos and communiques to my website. Already available this morning on Globalterroralert.com are communiques from the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Al-Fatihin Army in Iraq dealing with the current situation in Lebanon--along with an English-subtitled copy of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri's latest message from last week and a supplementary video of elite Hezbollah fighters training in South Lebanon.
English translations will also soon be added for a series of recent messages issued by Al-Qaida in Iraq, Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, and the Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC).
Lebanon…Let's Stop the Tap Dance
By Dennis Lormel
The Israelis need to accept responsibility for the bombings that have killed innocent Lebanese citizens. Likewise, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran need to be accountable for causing the crisis which resulted in the deaths of so many innocent people.
At what point will responsible countries around the world have the backbone to stand up to the fact that Hezbollah would not be what they are without the support of Syria and Iran? Hezbollah has been adept at being cowardly in respect to using Lebanese citizens and the UN to front and/or mask their terrorist war. In the aftermath of the Israeli bombing of a building where children and women were killed, the Israelis have been roundly criticized, condemned and ostracized. How about Hezbollah? How about Syria? How about Iran? Why aren’t they being held equally accountable?
Why is it that the international community universally and quietly recognizes that Syria and Iran front Hezbollah but bury their collective heads in the sand when it comes to holding those countries accountable? It’s time to stop the tap dance. Before everyone jumps to vilify the Israelis for their bombings or response to Hezbollah’s attacks, why not get to the core of the problem…Syria… Iran. Why doesn’t the international community have the fortitude to openly take Syria and Iran to task? Interestingly, why doesn’t either Syria or Iran have the backbone to admit that they facilitate Hezbollah? Why are they such cowards? To stop the problems go to the root. Go to Syria. Go to Iran. Decapitate Hezbollah, in part that would mean to openly chastise Syria and Iran. Unfortunately, the world diplomatic community is too busy avoiding the issue rather than addressing the issue and doing the right thing. In all likelihood, the UN and world community lack the capacity to honestly take this issue on. A true universal approach would be refreshing. That would be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the UN lacks the strength and/or fortitude to address the problem honestly. Likewise, the international diplomatic services are equally adept at dancing around the issues. It would be nice if at least one country had the balls to stand up and stop Hezbollah, Syria and/or Iran. Backbone takes guts! The international community is adept at lacking guts.
If we want to achieve a true resolution, let’s take on Syria and Iran and not just focus on the Israelis. The problem is the international community realizes this but in accordance with true diplomatic bulls..t, it’s easier to criticize the Israelis than to hold the true villains accountable or to take them to task for their heinous and cowardly behavior.
Is Viktor B. Flying for Somali Islamists?
By Douglas Farah
Twice in one week the airport at Mogadishu, Somalia, was the scene of something almost unseen in the past decade-the landing of two large Soviet-era IL-76 cargo planes, among the biggest in the world, capable of carryng more than 50 tons in its hold. The airport is under the control of the Islamis militias that are intent on turning Somalia into an Islamic nation governed by a radical vision of what sharia law implies. Few flights have landed there at all in the past decade.
News reports from the scene said the aircraft unloaded large amounts of boxes believed to be weapons, into the waiting trucks of the Islamist militias. Little more could be garnered because the militiamen drove off onlookers and journalists.
On the first flight, the plane was painted with the "UN" markings denoting Kazakstan registration, with no other identifiers. The second flight may have been the same aircraft, and if not, was a similar Il-76, and was met by at least six trucks to facilitate the offloading of the cargo.
The BBC reported that "credible sources said that flight originated in Eritrea carrying anti-aircraft guns, uniforms, AK47s and several senior Eritrean officers." AFP managed to squeeze off one picture showing trucks on the ground unloading the aircraft. My entire blog is here.
France and Hezbollah on a collision course? UPDATED 7/31
By Olivier Guitta
I just wrote a piece for the Weekly Standard on French-Hezbollah relations in light of the surely increasing French role in diplomatic negotiations.
Here's an excerpt:
FRANCE HAS A LONG HISTORY in Lebanon, a country it administered under a League of Nations mandate from 1920 to 1943 and whose elite is bilingual in French and Arabic. France also has a history with Hezbollah, going back to the group's beginnings more than twenty years ago. In order to appreciate why French president Jacques Chirac is so far hanging tough for the disarming of Hezbollah in the present crisis, it is useful to cast a backward glance. For those 241 U.S. servicemen blown up in their barracks by Hezbollah on October 23, 1983, were not the only Western soldiers to die in Beirut at the hands of the Islamists that day.
A good place to begin the story is 1978, when France contributed troops to UNIFIL, a United Nations force created to monitor the Lebanese-Israeli border. After a long series of Palestinian cross-border raids killing Israelis, the Israeli army had crossed into Lebanon and pushed the Palestine Liberation Organization north of the Litani River. UNIFIL's job was to police the peace. The peace didn't last. In 1982, after another Israeli incursion, some 800 French troops joined an equal number of U.S. Marines and 400 Italian troops to supervise the evacuation of the PLO from Lebanon and serve, once again, as peacekeepers. The same year, Hezbollah was born.
This new Shiite force created and funded by Iran lost no time in targeting the French in Lebanon. First came a rocket attack on soldiers in April 1983.
Entire Zawahiri Video Now Available
By Andrew Cochran
The entire video from Al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri is now available at various internet sites; the version posted on Thursday was an excerpt released by Al Jazeera. Thanks to Laura Mansfield for sharing this link to the full video with us.
Nasrallah's other war: IRAQ
By Olivier Guitta
I just wrote a piece for the Asia Times on Hezbollah's active involvement in Iraq. See how everything is interconnected : Hezbollah's slogan is anyway: Death to America! Nasarallah said it himself in 2004.
Here's an excerpt of my article:
In the last few weeks, Hassan Nasrallah (which name literally means in Arabic God’s victory), the Secretary General of the Lebanese Shia terror group Hezbollah (The party of God), has almost become a household name. Even though Nasrallah has become “famous” for starting this new Hezbollah-Israel war and declared Israel as its mortal enemy, one should not forget that the Big Satan still remains the USA. And that’s why out of all places Iraq is where Nasrallah’s influence can also be felt.
Nasrallah’s biography can explain how he got close to prominent Lebanese/Iranian/Iraqi Shia clerics and in particular the Sadr family. In fact in 1975 while he was only 15, Nasrallah joined the ranks of the Lebanese Shia movement Amal- that Hezbollah broke from after its creation in 1982- led by Musa Al Sadr. Then from 1976 to 1978, he was sent to study in Najaf, Iraq at the famed Shia seminary, the Hawze. There he met most his mentors starting with Iranian Ayatollah Khomeiny and also his tutor Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (Muqtada Al Sadr’s father). He also was in close contact with Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani and finally he was groomed by future Hezbollah leader Abbas Al Musawi whom he succeeded after Musawi was killed by the Israelis in 1992. These two years in Najaf definetely left a huge imprint on Nasrallah’s psyche.
Indonesia Update
By Kenneth Conboy
Indonesia has been relatively quiet on the counter-terrorism front in recent weeks. There are a few items for updating:
* This past week, the Indonesian attorney general took the unusual step of announcing the date of the planned execution (22 August) for three of the 2002 Bali bombers (Amrozi, his older brother Muckhlas, and Imam Samudra). Unlike in the U.S., the Indonesian authorities usually never announce the date or location of an execution ahead of time. Also unlike the U.S., four of the five members of Indonesian firing squads have blanks--only one has a real bullet. Earlier, the three convicted Bali terrorists said they would not appeal their sentence. However, family members for Amrozi may now go ahead with an appeal, which could conceivably delay their visit to the firing squad for weeks or months.
* On 23 July, an Indonesian court sentenced two men to 3.5 years in prison for hiding top Jemaah Islamiyah fugitive Noordin Top. The two had allowed Top to stay in their Pekalongan, Central Java, house for several weeks in September 2004, and did not notify the authorities despite knowing his identity.
* On 17 July, police in Lombok arrested a man dressed in black robes who planned to take a flight to Central Java. A check of his identity card revealed that he lived at a boarding house in Jogjakarta that had recently been raided by the police. The authorities have been concerned in recent months that Jemaah Islamiyah members are seeking sanctuary in and around Lombok; earlier this year, a Singaporean member of Jemaah Islamiyah was captured on the nearby island of Sumbawa.
War Brewing Between Ethiopia and Somalia's Islamic Courts Union?
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Since capturing Mogadishu last month, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia has moved in an increasingly radical direction. This is reflected both in their leadership choices and also their implementation of Taliban-like Islamic law. Beyond that, the ICU is aggressively expanding its power. It recently surrounded the southern Somali city of Baidoa, where the largely powerless interim Somali government is holed up.
On Monday, Time's website reported Ethiopia's concerns over the ICU's stance toward Baidoa:
The Islamic Courts Union says it will not attack the interim government, which is mostly secular in outlook, but the government’s closest ally, Ethiopia, is worried enough to be massing troops to take on the Islamic forces itself. The Islamists and Somali journalists say that Ethiopia has already sent troops over the border, a claim Ethiopia denies. But there is no doubting Ethiopia's intentions. “We will use all means at our disposal to crush the Islamist group if they attempt to attack Baidoa,” Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu told Reuters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.
Just as Ethiopia has threatened to use military force against the ICU, the ICU has vowed to attack the Ethiopian soldiers that it claims have crossed the border into Somalia. (Although Ethiopia denies this, eyewitness accounts makes it appear that the ICU is correct that there are Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia.)
There is no fighting at present between the ICU and Ethiopian forces. Part of the reason for this may be that a number of politicians within Somalia's interim government are in the process of defecting to the ICU and bringing their militias with them. This is similar to the process that the Taliban used to gain power in Afghanistan, by getting individual warlords and their militias to align themselves with the radical Islamic movement. The ICU may want to gain as many allies as possible before taking on the more powerful Ethiopian military. Then the ICU may launch an attack on the Ethiopians, just as they promised. Both the Ethiopians and the ICU may prefer it if the ICU strikes the first blow.
There are a variety of views on how fighting between the ICU and Ethiopians may go. Ethiopia clearly has the upper hand because their ground forces have better training and equipment, and they have the extra advantage of some air power. Moreover, while every major news outlet has bureaus in Jerusalem and Amman, there aren't any Mogadishu bureaus. The lack of press coverage may make the Ethiopian army feel less constrained in carrying out its military operations than Israel is in Lebanon. But one consideration on the other side is that it's unclear to what degree there is cross-pollination between the ICU and al-Qaeda's factions in Iraq. If the ICU has had much of this exposure, that increases the chance that it could employ some of the insurgent tactics used by al-Qaeda in Iraq, such as improvised explosive devices. That could make things more difficult for the Ethiopian military than they anticipate.
Counterterrorism consultant Dan Darling contributed to the information in this post.
A Guest Worker Amnesty Program is Disastrous for National Security
By Michael Cutler
I testified today before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims on the topic, "Whether Attempted Implementation of the Senate Immigration Bill Will Result in an Administrative and National Security Nightmare." here is a segment of my testimony, and the full text is below: Nearly every week we read news accounts of suspected terrorists being arrested in countries around the world as well as within the borders of our own country. We see compelling coverage of bombings of trains in Spain, England and India, most recently. One of this country’s closest allies, Israel, has been forced to take military action to defend itself against terrorism in the Middle East. Yet inexplicably, there are senators and others who insist on pushing forward to implement a guest worker amnesty program that would be utterly disastrous for national security... if this program were enacted, these millions of illegal aliens would be able to go to an immigration office, assume any identity they found convenient and receive official identity documents from our government. It would be a simple matter for a terrorist or criminal, to walk into such an office, provide a false name to the over-worked bureaucrat at USCIS who will probably be given only a minute or two at most to interview each applicant. The terrorist would then receive a guest-worker identity document in that new identity that would permit him to circumvent the various terrorist watch lists or so called, “No fly” lists and thereby embed himself in our country and gain access to what are supposed to be secure venues...
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Chairman Hostettler, Ranking Member Jackson Lee, members of the subcommittee, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor to come before this subcommittee hearing to offer testimony on an issue is that one of the most challenging and important issues our nation faces today. I commend Chairman Hostettler and members of this subcommittee for demonstrating true leadership at a time when our nation is in need of true leadership.
The principle by which most responsible and sensible people live their lives can be summed up by the phrase, “Safety first.” We instill this principle in our children as soon as they are old enough to understand the words. Yet, this fundamental and commonsense approach is clearly lacking among all too many of the senators of our nation. They voted for a bill that utterly ignores the findings and recommendations of the 911 Commission at a time when our nation is threatened by acts of terrorism. Nearly every week we read news accounts of suspected terrorists being arrested in countries around the world as well as within the borders of our own country. We see compelling coverage of bombings of trains in Spain, England and India, most recently. One of this country’s closest allies, Israel, has been forced to take military action to defend itself against terrorism in the Middle East. Yet inexplicably, there are senators and others who insist on pushing forward to implement a guest worker amnesty program that would be utterly disastrous for national security.
USCIS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that would be responsible for administering the proposed guest worker amnesty program, is unable to cope with all of its responsibilities as we speak. The GAO issued a report in March of this year, makes it clear that USCIS is unable to carry out its vital missions today, without the added burden that the guest worker amnesty program would undeniably bring to bear against that overworked, under funded and in general, inept agency. The report is entitled, “Immigration Benefits: Additional Controls and a Sanctions Strategy Could Enhance DHS’s Ability to Control Benefit Fraud” and can be found at the following link:
http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/gaoimmbenefits31006.pdf
I would recommend that a copy of this report be reviewed by the members of not only this subcommittee, but by all members of our government who favor a guest worker amnesty program.
My fear is that because we are dealing with millions of illegal aliens who, in the parlance of the open borders advocates, are undocumented, have no verifiable means of proving their true identities. This means that if this program were enacted, these millions of illegal aliens would be able to go to an immigration office, assume any identity they found convenient and receive official identity documents from our government. It would be a simple matter for a terrorist or criminal, to walk into such an office, provide a false name to the over-worked bureaucrat at USCIS who will probably be given only a minute or two at most to interview each applicant. The terrorist would then receive a guest-worker identity document in that new identity that would permit him to circumvent the various terrorist watch lists or so called, “No fly” lists and thereby embed himself in our country and gain access to what are supposed to be secure venues. Undoubtedly, these identity documents will become the most valued breeder document enabling the bearer to receive driver’s licenses, credit cards, Social Security numbers and even library cards in a false name, completing the process of creating new false identities at grave risk to national security, at a time that the citizens of our country have witnessed an erosion of many of the freedoms we have come to take for granted.
I have heard the President often state that if our nation allowed aliens who simply wanted to work, to do so, that law enforcement could then focus on the terrorists. I have to respectfully disagree with this optimistic but extremely naïve assessment. Awhile back, Robert S. Mueller, the Director of the FBI testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his concerns about so-called “sleeper” agents. As you know, a sleeper agent is a terrorist, spy or enemy combatant, who one way or the other succeeds in gaining entry into our country awaiting instructions to carry out a terrorist attack or other hostile act against our country. While awaiting his instructions, such individuals do whatever they have to do in order to not call attention to themselves. Many, as we have seen, get a low-profile job such as driving an ice cream truck or a taxi cab, work at a used car lot or attend school. Often the job they take provides them with the mobility to move freely among us as they conduct clandestine meetings, surveillance or other preparatory functions for the day they are called into action. A few days before a terrorist carries out an attack he is, in fact, likely to hide in plain sight by going to his job.
If our government makes it that much easier for a terrorist to legally get a job under an assumed identity, then Al Qaeda should give the people in our government who make this possible, the “MVP Award.” When we see commercials on television or ads in the newspapers for various goods or services, the ad usually concludes with a disclaimer by the provider of that product or service that details the potential negative impact that the product may have on the consumer. With all of the high-pressure sales pitches we have been bombarded with by members of the United States Senate in attempting to sell their bill, S. 2611, they have neglected to provide a disclaimer, so I will do it for them.
If we provide illegal aliens with guest worker amnesty that differentiates how we treat aliens based on how long they have been here, it will be virtually impossible to make certain that this, along with all of the other provisions, will have integrity, just as it will be impossible to make certain that many more illegal aliens don’t run our borders, stow away on ships or gain entry through ports of entry, claiming that they have been here for the 5 years that would virtually provide them with the “keys to the kingdom.” There would be no way to force these millions of illegal aliens to leave our country because we cannot enforce their departure today. The guest worker amnesty program will undoubtedly entice ever increasing numbers of illegal aliens to head for our country because this program will convince people throughout the world that in the United States, not only will you be permitted to break the law and get away with it, we are willing to reward you for breaking the law by even providing you with Social Security benefits if you commit identity theft and work, or claim to have worked, under someone else’s Social Security number, even as law enforcement agencies across our nation are increasingly turning to asset forfeiture strategies to combat a wide variety of crimes on the city, state and federal level. Moreover, there is no door that can be shut, so there is no way to keep millions of more illegal aliens from gaining access to our country. The confidentiality provisions would also hobble efforts by law enforcement officials to make certain that criminal and terrorist aliens have their applications properly scrutinized. The avalanche of applications will further erode any effort to restore integrity to the benefits system meaning that fraud will become even more attractive to criminal and terrorist aliens, further encouraging more of them to seek to enter the United States and making it easier for them to game the system to enable them to embed themselves within our country and hide in plain sight. As it is, each year the director of USCIS and his subordinates promise to reduce the backlog of pending applications for a wide variety of immigration benefits including the granting of resident alien status and the conferring of United States citizenship upon aliens. It is common knowledge that there is an inverse proportion between quantity and quality. The more work you try to do in a limited period of time, the more that the quality of the work you are doing suffers. By having USCIS make the reduction of the backlog of pending applications the priority, more fraud escapes detection. Consequently more aliens get away with committing fraud, emboldening still more aliens to file more fraudulent applications for benefits, further eroding any efforts at quality control and fraud detection. This creates an ever-increasing backlog and an ever-increasing spiral of fraud. In order to break this dangerous cycle, we need to establish a clear priority of combating fraud where those who perpetrate fraud can expect that they may well be discovered and prosecuted. Additionally, a meaningful effort needs to be made to locate, arrest and deport alien beneficiaries of fraudulent applications.
Because of the current pressure to move the applications, much of the fraud escapes detection and only a relatively infinitesimal number of aliens are ever prosecuted or deported because they were involved in immigration benefit fraud. A guest worker amnesty program that has the potential of dumping millions of more applications into the hopper at USCIS would be absolutely disastrous for any effort at combating immigration benefit fraud and restoring even a modicum of integrity to the immigration system and would fly in the face of recommendations of the 911 Commission.
As all of this is going on, our valiant soldiers are fighting in far off lands to help protect our nation against terrorists while some of our politicians at home are seemingly unwilling to secure our nation against the scourge of terrorism in the name of free trade and a desire to keep our nation’s borders wide open. They use deceptive language to obfuscate the issue and, quite frankly so has the President of the United States. I have often heard the President say that he wanted to legalize immigrants. I am, as you know, a former INS special agent. This combination of words, “legalizing immigrants,” has confounded me. Language is important and so I think it is important to make this point. To offer to make immigrants legal is about as meaningful as offering to make water wet. Water is wet and immigrants, by legal definition, are already legal. In fact, an immigrant is defined as an alien who has been lawfully admitted for permanent residence. An immigrant has a so-called ‘green card’ and is able to travel freely around our country and across our nation’s borders. An Immigrant has the right to work at any job he is qualified to do. An immigrant has the right to petition the government to have his spouse join him in the United States as an immigrant and may also do this for his (her) minor children. Indeed, an immigrant is on the path to United States citizenship. How much more legal would the President want to make an immigrant?
I believe that just as the members of the Senate who voted for S. 2611 and other pro illegal alien advocates are not likely to provide a disclaimer for their remedy to the immigration crisis confronting our nation today, this improper and misleading use of the term immigrant falls under the heading of “deceptive business practices.” By eliminating the distinction between illegal aliens and immigrants, it becomes a simple matter to keep hammering away at the concept that America is the land of immigrants and that immigrants have made immeasurable contributions to our nation over the years. I am a strong advocate for the recognition of the contributions of immigrants to our nation, indeed, I am the son of an immigrant; however, there is a world of difference between an immigrant and an illegal alien.
There is scant difference between the bill the Senate recently passed and the disastrous Amnesty of 1986, notwithstanding the protestations of the members of the Senate who would take issue with my position. But, if they do not want to learn the lesson of relatively recent history where the Amnesty of 1986 is concerned, then I would recommend that they study much more distant history and study the strategy behind the “Trojan Horse.” Only a fool would permit strangers into his home without knowing their true identity or purpose for seeking to enter. Yet, this is precisely what S. 2611 facilitates. In these perilous times, this is not acceptable and must not be allowed.
In support of my concerns about the failings of USCIS I respectfully request that a copy of the GAO report I cited previously be attached to this testimony along with a press release prepared by USCIS dated June 29, 2006, entitled, “A Day in the Life of USCIS” that details the myriad tasks that are performed on a daily basis now, before they might have to deal with the onslaught of millions of amnesty applications that the Senate bill would cause. I have attached a copy of that press release to my prepared testimony and believe it provides ample evidence of just how USCIS is over-extended, even without the guest worker amnesty program it would be mandated to administer under the provisions of S. 2611. It may be found at the following website:
http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/gaoimmbenefits31006.pdf
Simply stated, a guest worker amnesty program would not only attract even more illegal aliens into our country enabling terrorists and criminals to more easily blend into our country, it would also provide unknown aliens with official identity documents in assumed identities that would enable the terrorists and criminals with an easy means of creating new identities they could use to travel freely across our borders, around our nation and gain access to secure venues and embed themselves in our country. This would, I fear, create a grave risk to our nation’s security.
I look forward to your questions. « Close It
Intelligence Lacks at Crucial Time
By Douglas Farah
Despite the high priority supposedly allotted intelligence reform, there is bipartisan agreement that things are not going well on that front. This is especially critical as the United States faces an array of challenges, perhaps unprecedented, where intelligence is crucial.
According to this CQ Online report, a Congressional report from the House Intelligence Oversight subcommittee, to be released today finds the DNI "has failed to revamp its approach to information analysis, neglecting large swaths of potentially useful data. The report also found that the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence has done a poor job of prioritizing key tasks."
Crisis are raging or brewing from Somalia to Beirut, the Tri-Border Area to Southeast Asia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Good intelligence, paired with good analysis, have seldom been more vital to our survival and well being. But we are quite far from the ideal of a fully functional intelligence community.
Much of what we need to know is occuring in soft states or grey areas, where governments, which the intelligence community knows and understands, simply do not exist. The community has taken only hesitant steps to meet these changing challenges and priorities.
Among the other problems are the slowness in getting security clearances, the lack of standardized procedures for getting those, and the lack of human intelligence. There is also criticism of the lack of information sharing across agency lines and within agencies.
It is no secret that information sharing among intelligence agencies has sharply deteriorated in recent months. My full blog is here
Zawahiri's New Message: A Landmark Call for Unity or A Tempest in a Teapot?
By Evan Kohlmann
Many observers of the recent violence in Lebanon wondered if and when Sunni Muslims -- particularly Al-Qaida -- might respond sympathetically to their Shiite brethren among Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Some have quickly jumped at the news of a new video from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri discussing the conflict in Lebanon as incontrovertible evidence of a "seismic shift" within the Muslim world towards a united Shiite-Sunni front against Israel and the West.
However, once again, it would behoove us all to listen to the language and words coming from Al-Qaida supporters and sympathizers, rather than trying to interpret Zawahiri's speech from a outside Western perspective. The truth is, within the community that supports Al-Qaida, there is no precise consensus yet on the meaning of Zawahiri's speech. However, the one comment that seems to resonate most frequently among extremist Sunnis is that, in no way, does this video take away from the dire, existential conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. At a maximum, this is being termed a public relations move by Al-Qaida intended to encourage its operatives to temporarily focus their anger on America and its allies, and waiting until later to deliver the same violent fate to the Shiites. At a minimum, others are suggesting that Zawahiri is merely encouraging Sunni Muslims to travel to Lebanon in order to fight Israel--separately from the Shiites--just as they did in Iraq beginning in 2003. In other words, Zawahiri is encouraging the development of a fully-functioning independent Al-Qaida unit in Lebanon, not its merging with Hezbollah.
This discussion will no doubt continue to roil in the coming days -- and observers would be wise to carefully pay attention to the actual words of Al-Qaida's leaders and supporters rather than relying on diluted media interpretations or alternatively our own estranged theoretical perspectives.
Controversy Over New Zawahiri Tape and Al Qaeda's Intentions (updated with translation)
By Andrew Cochran
Last night, I posted on the newest video by Al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Bill Roggio and I have updated it frequently since then. I wanted to post this separate note to report that Evan Kohlmann and other experts are noticing and generating lots of discussion about the precise translation and intent of the tape. Is Zawahiri empathizing in his tape with just the Sunni Lebanese, or also with Hezbollah, or is he even signalling the intent or desire to collaborate with Hezbollah (note some of the quotes in my post below)? Or is he just horning in on the action to raise Al Qaeda's profile and generate recruits? For many experts, the Sunni-Shia split is too great to be overcome, even by terrorists with a common desire to annihilate Israel. On the other hand, on July 16 Doug Farah posted "The Potential for a Hezbollah-al Qaeda Alliance of Convenience," with this note: "However, al Qaeda's own writings, and testimony of senior al Qaeda operatives in U.S. custody (Jamal al Fadl) recounted the extensive contacts bewtween the two organizations while bin Laden was in Sudan, including joint military and explosives training." He also pointed towards Imad Mugniya's work with both al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Magnus Ranstorp posted on July 14 and Bill Roggio posted on July 12 about Mugniya's history with Hezbollah and possible role in the current conflict. Precision in the tape translation and expert knowledge of the history of the groups and individuals are critical to the analysis of the tape and a forecast of the potential outcomes. UPDATE: Here is a translation of the tape by the Site Institute (Acrobat file).
Hezbollah's Army Revisited
By Bill Roggio
The skill and training of Hezbollah's Army in southern Lebanon becomes clearer after details emerge about Wednesday's fighting in Bint Jubayl, where the Israeli Defense Force's elite Golani Brigade and Hezbollah fighters have been slugging it out since last week. The most recent combat in Bint Jubayl claimed the lives of 9 Israeli soldiers and wounded 27. The Jerusalem Post provides further information about the fighting in the town the IDF recently claimed was under their control.
Dozens of Hizbullah gunmen armed with antitank missiles and machine guns and geared up in night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests set a trap for a force of Golani infantrymen... [Lieutenant Colonel Yaniv] Asor and his men moved quickly through approximately 15 one-story homes. But as the troops moved through the narrow alleyways, a strong Hizbullah force sent a wave of gunfire and missiles at the force, killing and wounding several soldiers in the first moments of the fight. As Asor and his men fought to regain control of the situation, other Hizbullah cells outflanked them and opened fire on the force as well as other IDF positions in the town... The battle lasted for several hours during which Asor and his men sustained heavy casualties and killed at least 40 Hizbullah guerrillas, some in gunbattles at point-blank range... Wednesday evening, after the IDF had once again declared it had secured the town, a Paratrooper force nearby was hit by a Sagger antitank missile... [1 IDF paratrooper was killed and three wounded]
There is one problem with the description: the statement "other Hizbullah cells outflanked them" should read "other Hizbullah squads outflanked them." Terrorist cells are by definition clandestine in nature. This ambush was the work of well trained and well armed infantry, conducting attacks at the squad and platoon level.
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We began discussing Hezbollah's military capabilities on July 21, after it became clear during the ambush of the Golani Brigade forced the unit to retreat near Maroun al-Ras that Hezbollah was not your average militia. On that date we noted "Hezbollah also possesses mortars, RPGs, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, anti-tank missiles and possibly surface to air missiles.... Hezbollah is using infantry tactics and fighting at the squad and platoon level." The IDF's slow advance (over two days) into Bint Jubayl and the ambush on a tank unit were clear indications of Hezbollah's abilities to stand up to the IDF as well as the IDF's cautious nature on the battlefield. Yesterday we confirmed Hezbollah is fighting at the company level, has specialized units (mortars, antitank, logistics, etc.) in its combat units and is using sophisticated communications equipment, body armor and other gear.
This is not to say the IDF cannot defeat Hezbollah's army on the battlefield; the IDF can, and has done so at Maroun al-Ras, Bint Jubayl and elsewhere. But this comes at a cost in casualties, a cost the Israeli government seems unwilling to pay.
Hezbollah's actions on the battlefields of southern Lebanon should give the Israelis, the West and neighboring Arab governments reason to worry. In just two weeks, Hezbollah has been fighting the Israeli military to an effective standstill on the ground (remember that time is not on Israel's side due to pressure to accept a cease fire). Not only is Hezbollah fighting at the platoon and company level, but fighting effectively during the initial engagements. al-Qaeda in Iraq (3 years of fighting) and the Taliban in Afghanistan (almost 5 years of fighting) have yet to reach such a level of effectiveness on the battlefield.
Iran has trained a proxy army that now sits on the border with Israeli, an army that cannot be dealt with from the air. If this problem is kicked down the road, Hezbollah will be that much more dangerous. And everything we think we know about Iran's conventional military capabilities needs to be rethought. « Close It
U.S. and Turkey to Develop Joint Strategy Against PKK
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
On July 19, I noted that Turkey had been making noise about launching an incursion into Iraq to fight against the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK). Turkey's concern over the PKK's presence in Iraq was so great that the Turkish government warned the U.S. and Iraqi ambassadors that Turkey would launch a unilateral military operation if sufficient steps weren't taken.
On Tuesday, the Turkish daily Zaman reported that U.S. ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson had announced a joint strategy against the PKK:
The United States has expressed its support to Turkey over a joint operation against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). US Ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson informed that the US is working to develop more functional methods for dealing with the PKK. Wilson referred to the common vision document that was signed between Turkey and the US a month ago, and stressed that the document foresees cooperation over the PKK, economic and commercial issues as well as many others. . . . Sources reported that the US is ready to take concrete military steps against the PKK.
Reader Timothy Thompson reports that he has heard from well-placed Turkish sources that the State Department's position on the PKK shifted markedly two to three days ago, ultimately resulting in the present announcement. These sources believe that the announced cooperation forestalls Turkish plans of unilateral intervention. Turkey is now committed to only crossing the Iraq border with express U.S. approval and coordination.
Had Turkey intervened in Iraq unilaterally, it would have risked clashes with American-backed Kurdish units unaffiliated with the PKK and also would have created the possibility that a Turkish unit could accidentally engage Americans in a firefight. The fact that at least one potential flash point in the Middle East seems to have been resolved is unambiguously good news.
New Tape by Ayman al-Zawahiri Released (updated 7/27 with translation)
By Andrew Cochran
| | Banner announcing the new Zawahiri tape. Banner compliments of Rita Katz and Laura Mansfield. |
Rita Katz of the Site Institute and Laura Mansfield informed us Wednesday night that a new tape from Al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri on the situation in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon would be released soon, as announced by AQ's As Sahab Productions. Rita Katz reported that the tape is titled, "The Zionist-Crusader Enemy in Gaza and Lebanon." Last week, a site not affiliated with Al Qaeda created a brief flurry of interest by announcing an upcoming OBL tape, but that proved to be a phony announcement, and neither Rita Katz, Laura Mansfield, nor Evan Kohlmann trusted that announcement. See my post on that episode, along with a link to a story on a fatwa against Hezbollah by a leading Saudi Wahabi cleric and a translation of that fatwa by Evan.
UPDATE 7/27: The tape is out - Zawahiri refers to "our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon" (a corrected reference to the quote) and says, "The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires... It is a Jihad for God's sake and will last until (our) religion prevails...We will attack everywhere... The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price." The AP story notes that "a picture of the burning World Trade Center was on the wall behind him along with pictures of two other militants." Asharq Al-Awsat quotes his call to fellow Muslims, "Oh Muslims everywhere, I call on you to fight and become martyrs in the war against the Zionists and the Crusaders." Al Jazeera cites this quote, "The war with Israel does not depend on ceasefires... It is a jihad for God's sake and will last until religion prevails... from Spain to Iraq. We will attack everywhere." A message of support by Al Qaeda leadership for the Shiite Hezbollah is an unexpected and troubling development. More on the translation later.
Laura Mansfield has a copy of the video (File size is approximately 19M.) Rita Katz has a full translation of the tape (Acrobat file). Here is a Reuters chronology of major Al Qaeda statements issued thus far in 2006.
Evan Kohlmann comments via email: Zawahiri never said that Hezbollah were his "brothers"... he only said that Al-Qaida has "brothers" in Gaza and Lebanon. Be very careful with this, there is a lot of turmoil and debate in the jihadi community over the exact meaning of this tape. Some are saying that it means Zawahiri is pushing for a pragmatic temporary alliance with the Shiites, at least while they are busy dealing with the Jews. Others are saying that Zawahiri made a purely political speech that simply shows Al-Qaida trying to manipulate the situation to score propaganda points. Among those who share the latter view, there is great emphasis on Zawahiri's discussion of the use of the term "downtrodden."
The SITE Institute also reports on a Taliban message of support for Hezbollah, urging Muslims to unite against “Zionist and the American oppressions,” or “then the Muslim nations will deeply sink into the hole of slavery.”
The Battle of Bint Jubayl and Hezbollah's Army
By Bill Roggio
As the smoke clears from the fighting in the Lebanese border town of Bint Jubayl, Hezbollah's military capabilities become clearer. Today, 8 Israeli soldiers from the Golani Brigade's 51st Battalion were killed and 22 wounded during a "well-planned Hezbollah ambush on the outskirts" outside of Bint Jubayl. This follows the 4 killed and 18 wounded during Sunday's engagement in the town.
Hezbollah was reported to have suffered 150 killed as of this morning, and another 40 killed in today's action after fighting "gun battles at point-blank range." An unnamed American military officer reports several Hezbollah operatives, whose primary purpose is logistical support, have been captured and are currently being interrogated by Israeli intelligence.
The Hezbollah bunker in Bint Jubayl was taken nearly intact. Hezbollah attempted to destroy the equipment in the bunker, but was not successful in destroying it all, according to an intelligence source. Abu Jaafar, the Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, may have killed himself rather than being captured. The Israeli troops seized Hezbollah computers, documents and monitoring devices used to observe the Israeli border, in addition to the "electronic surveillance equipment, weapons and communication devices made in Iran" which was reported yesterday. The bunker served as the equivalent of a Hezbollah headquarters and command and control center for the southern border.
The Israelis targeted the town of Bint Jubayl with the hope of obtaining further intelligence on Hezbollah's organization and capabilites, as well as the location of their two captured soldiers. The documents and computer seized by the IDF may outline Hezbollah's command and organizational structure in southern Lebanon, although this is unknown at this time. Israeli intelligence is currently analyzing the data.
The Israelis have confirmed that Hezbollah is fighting like a professional military. Their units are fighting at the company level at the least (Unit size of approximately 100 men), and perhaps in larger formations. Intelligence also confirms there is specialization within the Hezbollah units, including trained infantry, mortar teams, missile squads, and logistical personal. Iran has trained and organized Hezbollah's army into something far more deadly than a militia force. Hezbollah's core 'active' army is estimated at 3,000 - 5,000, with as many as 50,000 part time militia and support personnel that can be called upon to fight (20,000 is the average estimate).
Intelligence sources also have confirmed that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force have indeed been killed during the fighting in southern Lebanon.
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The Lebanese coastal city of Tyre (also referred to as Sour) has "has steadily fallen more and more under Hezbollah's influence since the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, and rocket launchers in the city are hitting the city of Haifa and the northern Israeli towns. Israeli air strikes have been focusing on the city, but a steady barrage of about 100 missiles continue to fall in Israeli territory each day.
The Israeli government is signaling their plan to combat Hezbollah is to establish a 1-2 kilometer security buffer along the border and accept international peace keepers without explicitly requiring Hezbollah to disarm in accordance to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559. This would give Hezbollah a monumental political and propaganda victory, while allowing Hezbollah's army the time and space it needs to rearm, train and improve their tactics for the next battle with the Israeli Defense Force.
With thanks to counterterrorism consultant Dan Darling for contributing to the information in this post. « Close It
UN MAKES SUBSTANTIAL FORMAT CHANGES TO ITS AL QAIDA AND TALIBAN CONSOLIDATED LIST
By Victor Comras
The UN Al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee issued a Bulletin July 25th advising the international community of important changes to the way it maintains the consolidated list of individuals and entities designated as members or associates of al Qaida and the Taliban. This list serves to identify the individuals and entities that are the target of obligatory UN Security Council sanctions measures. These measures require all countries to deny those on the list access to financial transactions and economic resources, and to freeze their assets. It also prohibits individuals on the list from cross border travel and provides that all countries should adopt measures to assure they cannot obtain weapons or explosives.
The UN list now contains 213 individuals associated with Al Qaeda and 143 associated with the Taliban. It also names 122 al Qaeda entities and one Taliban entity. In the past these individuals and entities were listed in alphabetical order and each time a name was added the number next to their name on the list changed. From now on, permanent reference numbers will be assigned to each designated individual and entity. These reference numbers can serve as a standard reference guide to those on the UN list. And it is hoped that other countries may adopt a similar nomenclature to maintain a common standard of reference regarding such designated individuals and entities.
The permanent reference number will consist of three letters and two numbers. The first letter, T or Q, indicates Taliban or Al-Qaida. The second letter, I or E, indicates individual or entity. The third letter represents the first letter of the last name. The first number represents the order in which the individual or entity was added to the Consolidated List. The second number represents the year the individual or entity was added to the Consolidated List. Both the Taliban and the Al-Qaida sections of the Consolidated List will be maintained alphabetically.
As an example, the permanent reference number assigned to Usama Muhammed Awad bin Laden is QI.B.8.01 where Q indicates that he appears on the Al-Qaida section of the Consolidated List, I indicates that he is an individual, B that his last name starts with a B, 8 that he was the eighth individual to be added to the Al-Qaida individuals section of the Consolidated List, and 01 that he was added in 2001.
Another improvement to the list will be the inclusion, where possible of the names of listed individuals in original script as the names would appear in the individuals travel documents. Transliterations will also be used as required.
POSTSCRIPT: A colleague from the original UN Al Qaida Monitoring Group has reminded me that in paragraph 17 of our report to Al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee and the Security Council dated 29 April 2002, we recommended the use of permanent serial numbers and suggested that the list be maintained both alphabetically and chronologically. It is gratifying to see that this recommendation also has finally, if belatedly, been adopted by the Al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee.
The MMI Concludes Its First Congress Since the Release of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir
By Zachary Abuza
On 26 July, the Majelis Mujihidin Indonesia (MMI) concluded a two-day congress, the first since the release of its chairman Abu Bakar Ba’asyir from prison on 14 June. The frail but firebrand cleric was in his element when he delivered the keynote sermon.
For a man who claimed that upon his release from prison he would simply return to his madrassah and work on curriculum, he has been busy breathing new life into the MMI. The MMI had been hit hard by the arrest of many of its leaders, who were concurrently JI members. It also suffered a blow when the former vice president of Indonesia, Hamzah Haz, abruptly canceled his keynote speech following the August 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott. Many analysts wrote the MMI off at the time, but it quietly went into rebuilding mode. Irfan S. Awas, the MMI’s director of daily operations and Ba’asyir’s assistant, opened up eight more chapters across the archipelago in the past three years. But still the organization floundered without its charismatic chairman.
The MMI spokesman Fauzan Al-Anshori said the national meeting was aimed at consolidating the organization’s ranks, in disarray since Ba’asyir was sentenced to jail. “When Abu Bakar Ba’asyir was in jail, regional branches of the MMI were bereft of a respectable figure as their leader. They also suffered from the terrorist stigma that had been attached to Ba’asyir. But now that he is here with us, there are no more excuses to stay idle.”
Ba’asyir, whom the courts found to be the spiritual leader of JI, is under too much intelligence scrutiny to be involved in militant activities. To that end he will stay focused on rebuilding the MMI and transforming it into the paramount pro-sharia grouping in the country. Ba’asyir claimed in a 7 July interview with Al Jazeera that the MMI “only undertakes da’wah [call to Islam] and nothing else.” Yet the MMI has been deeply involved in fomenting sectarian violence.
The MMI has also become very involved in focusing on charitable action and good works. Following its success in tsunami relief in Aceh, it dispatched aid teams to the June earthquake in Java, even receiving a contract to distribute aid from the world food program, despite Ba’asyir’s inclusion on the UN’s 1267 Committee List and 13 April designation under Executive Order 13224. This contracted was revoked only after a diplomatic outcry led by Australia. The Indonesian government has failed to implement these, believing that as long as members of JI are not involved in acts of terrorism, its operations should be permissible.
Ba’asyir has been cashing in on his celebrity status and has been on tour around the archipelago giving sermons. He attended the anniversary party of an Islamist party trying to forge common cause with more mainstream Islamists. Moreover he called for the government to review the death sentences of the three Bali bombers whom are to be executed on 22 August unless a stay is issued. “The decision should be reviewed, the government should not be trapped by carrying out the execution… They are not terrorists but fighter who took the wrong way.”
German Intelligence Supports Claim of Hizballah Cell Activation
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
On Sunday, I discussed a Jerusalem Post report claiming that Hizballah sleeper cells outside Lebanon had been put on standby. While I noted the plausibility of this claim, I cautioned that it seemed the Jerusalem Post had no source to which it could be attributed.
The evidence begins to build today, as Adnkronos International reports: "'Sleeper' cells belonging to militant Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah are present in Western Europe, Latin America and in southeast Asia and been ordered to be ready to carry out terrorist attacks should Israel prolong its military offensive against Lebanon, according to unnamed German intelligence sources." While "unnamed German intelligence sources" isn't ideal confirmation, Germany is known to have decent intelligence assets in the Middle East.
There have been a number of CT Blog posts on Hizballah's massive international terrorist network. In particular, Zachary Abuza's post about Hizballah activity in Southeast Asia and Brian Hecht's reference guide to Hizballah activity in North America are worth reading.
Two major considerations may keep Hizballah from authorizing these cells to carry out attacks. The first is that Hizballah is depending on world opinion to draw Israel out of Lebanon, thus allowing the terrorist outfit to live to fight another day. As Bill Roggio notes, "Diplomatic pressure for Israel to halt operations and accept a cease fire will only increase as time goes by. The United States can deflect the pressure for only so long." But if Hizballah unleashes terror attacks against Israeli targets elsewhere in the world, the pressure against Israel may substantially diminish. A second consideration is Iran, Hizballah's major sponsor. Iran almost certainly wants to keep as many sleeper cells as possible in place to serve as a deterrent against a possible U.S. attack on its nuclear program. In Iran's view, unleashing the sleeper cells now may be premature.
If Hizballah does launch an attack in the present environment, the U.S. is one of the less likely places for it to do so. Europe is a more likely target for a number of reasons. Most prominent is Europe's coordination problem. If Hizballah attacks a synagogue in Oklahoma, every state in the Union will instantly clamp down on suspected Hizballah activity. But if Hizballah bombs a synagogue in Italy, that doesn't necessarily mean that the various countries comprising the EU will uniformly clamp down on Hizballah.
IDF Operations; Buffer Zones; Operational Possibilities
By Bill Roggio
| | Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied town; red IDF warned towns of operations, orange recent clashes. Click map to view. |
The Israeli Defense Force's Golani Brigade has taken the town of Bint Jubayl, Hezbollah's southern command center, and is moving towards the town of Aytarun, another of the towns the IDF has warned the Lebanese citizens to evacuate due to upcoming operations in the area. The Golani Brigade states it has killed up to 50 Hezbollah fighters, and indicates over 100 may still be holed up in Bint Jubayl. Also, the IDF reports Abu Jaafar, Hezbollah's "commander of the 'central sector,'" has been killed in combat.
Further equipment of Iranian origin has been confirmed. "Electronic surveillance equipment, weapons and communication devices made in Iran," have been uncovered Bint Jubayl, according to IDF Brigadier General Gal Hirsch. "Senior Lebanese political sources" indicate "between six and nine" members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have been killed in Lebanon are being flown home.
A New Buffer Zone (continued)?
We discussed the likelihood of the IDF creating a buffer zone on July 17th. As the IDF continues to methodically engage Hezbollah on the border, the wider picture of the Israeli strategy begins to coalesce. "Israel's ground offensive will not go beyond South Lebanon," states Lieutenant Colonel Hemi Lini, a commander on the Lebanese border, "We have no intention of extending our operation more than 70 kilometers north of our border with Lebanon."
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Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who previously stated he had no interest in occupying southern Lebanon, indicated today that a buffer zone on the southern border would be created and secured by the IDF until "a multinational force with an enforcement capability" was deployed. “Javier Solana, the EU foreign and security affairs chief, will propose at a conference of foreign ministers in Rome on Wednesday the establishment of a rapid reaction force ideally built around French, German and Spanish troop, supplemented by forces from Turkey, the Netherlands, Canada and Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia,” reports The Associated Press. A force of 20,000 is envisioned, however based on the stress the Afghanistan deployments has placed on NATO
Diplomatic pressure for Israel to halt operations and accept a cease fire will only increase as time goes by. The United States can deflect the pressure for only so long. And Hezbollah gains in stature each day as it stands up to the vaunted Israeli Army. Time is not on Israel's side.
Operational Possibilities
Lt. Col. Lini also indicates operations will continue on the Lebanese border are "Israeli troops are planning to enclose additional border villages." Many of the towns the IDF ordered evacuated (red on the map) have yet to receive the attention of the IDF. The move into Aytarun will likely be followed by an assault on Bilda, then followed by a push northward, possibly all the way to the Litani River.
A report indicates Israeli troops are massing at the Israeli border town of Metulla, which lies a few kilometer from the bend in the Litani River, just before it turns northward. The IDF can segment the region south of the Litani by punching through the central sector north of Bint Jubayl, as well as driving northeast from Metulla to the Litani River and north from Marwahin. This would also put the IDF in the position to push north into the Bekaa (it should be noted the Damascus-Beirut Road is about 60 kilometers from the Israeli border, within the 70 kilometer range Lt. Col. Lini indicated was the outer operational limit).
The IDF can use the Litani as a natural barrier, place troops north of the river via the ground push, air assault operations, amphibious operations, or some combination of the three options. The IDF can drop the remaining bridges (except for the bridges needed for the IDF's resupply). The IDF can limit the flow of traffic across the river and interdict Hezbollah's resupply to the region. The rest of the region would need to be cleared, which would be costly in casualties for the IDF if the past fighting at Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jubayl are any indication. Another possibility would be to clear or bypass towns, but not occupy them, and patrol the region via air and other intelligence assets (this works better in theory than in practice.)
This would create a buffer zone of about 20-30 kilometers, which would limit the usability of Hezbollah's shorter range missiles such as the Katushas, Raads and Fajrs. But Hezbollah is launching missiles from as far north as Beirut, about 120 kilometers away (see the report from Karim, the Counterterrorism Blog's special correspondent in Beirut.) The Israeli Air Force can attempt to take out the targets via air, but the past two weeks have had little effect on Hezbollah's ability to continually hit Israeli towns and cities, including Haifa. Hezbollah has consistently launch about 100 missile strikes a day into Israel, despite the IAF's air campaign in Lebanon.
While the IAF claims to have degraded Hezbollah's capabilities by over 50%, western military sources are skeptical of the claims. And as Hezbollah is bought, paid for and controlled by Iran, a resupply of Hezbollah's lost military assets would begin immediately after any cease-fire took place. Israel is going to have to occupy some land and push into Bekaa if it wishes to sufficiently degrade Hezbollah's military capabilities and deal a political defeat to the Army of God. « Close It
Congressional Terrorism-Related Hearings Include Testimony by Michael Cutler & Robert Charles
By Andrew Cochran
Two of our Contributing Experts testify this week before Congress. Michael Cutler will testify before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims on Thursday the 27th at 11:30 am ET on the topic, "Whether Attempted Implementation of the Senate Immigration Bill Will Result in an Administrative and National Security Nightmare." Other witnesses will include the President of 9/11 Families For a Secure America and His Excellency, the Bishop of Brooklyn. Robert Charles will testify before the U.S. House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, on Wednesday the 26th at 2 pm ET on the topic, "Immigration: Responding to a Regional Crisis." Other witnesses will include officials from the State and Homeland Security Departments and from AID.
The schedule of other hearings for the remainder of the week is below.
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Senate Committees
July 27, 2006
Senate Judiciary Committee
Detecting Smuggled Nuclear Weapons
Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on "Detecting Smuggled Nuclear Weapons."
Witnesses: Vayl Oxford, director, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, Homeland Security Department; Pete Nanos, associate director for research and development, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Defense Department; Deputy Energy Undersecretary for Counterterrorism Steven Aoki; and Fred Ikle, scholar, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Location: 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building. 2:15 p.m. (July 27, 2006)
Contact: 202-224-5225
July 28, 2006
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Cyber Security/Infrastructure Reconstitution
Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security Subcommittee hearing on "Cyber Security: Recovery and Reconstitution of Critical Networks."
Witnesses: George Foresman, undersecretary for preparedness for the Commonwealth of Virginia; Richard Schaeffer, director of information assurance at the National Security Agency; Karen Evans, administrator for electronic government and information technology at the Office of Management and Budget; David Powner, director of technology management issues at the Government Accountability Office; Tom Noonan, chairman of ISS; Roberta Bienfait, senior vice president at AT&T Global Network Operations; Michael Aisenberg, director of government relations at Verisign and vice chairman of the IT Sector Coordinating Council; and Karl Brondell of State Farm, representing the Business Roundtable
Location: 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building. 9:30 a.m. (July 28, 2006)
Contact: 202-224-4751
House Committees
July 26, 2006
House International Relations Committee
Regional Immigration Crisis
Western Hemisphere Subcommittee hearing on "Immigration: Responding to a Regional Crisis." This hearing is one of seven Republican announced hearings in opposition to the "Reid-Kennedy bill" more commonly known as the "McCain-Kennedy" bill.
Witnesses: Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Crescenio Arcos of the Office of International Affairs, Office of Policy; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Whitaker in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs; Mark Silverman, principal deputy assistant administrator, Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. Agency for International Development; Robert Charles, president, The Charles Group, LLC; Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas; Manuel Orozco, senior associate, Remittances and Rural Development Program, Inter-American Dialogue
Location: 2172 Rayburn House Office Building. 2 p.m. (July 26, 2006)
Contact: 202-225-5021
July 27, 2006
House Homeland Security Committee
Chemical Facility Security/Regulation
Full committee markup of H.R.5695, the "Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006."
Location: 210 Cannon House Office Building. 10 a.m. (July 27, 2006)
Contact: 202-226-9600
House Judiciary Committee
Citizen and Immigration Services Burden
Immigration, Border Security, and Claims Subcommittee hearing on "Whether Attempted Implementation of the Senate Immigration Bill Will Result in an Administrative and National Security Nightmare." This hearing is one of seven Republican announced hearings in opposition to the "Reid-Kennedy bill" more commonly known as the "McCain-Kennedy" bill.
Witnesses: TBA
Location: 2141 Rayburn House Office Building. 11:30 a.m. (July 27, 2006)
Contact: 202-225-3951
House Select Intelligence Committee
FISA Legislation
Full committee hearing on "FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Legislation."
Witnesses: TBA
Location: 2212 Rayburn House Office Building. 1 p.m. (July 27, 2006)
Contact: 202-225-4121 « Close It
Main current Israeli targets in Lebanon
By Walid Phares
From an analysis of the observation of Israel's air campaign in Lebanon and its limited incursions in the south at this stage, and based on reporting from Lebanon's military and security sources and analysts, it appears that the strategic targets of Israel's action are as follows:
1. Shelling and bombarding Hezbollah's positions and infrastructures in southern Beirut, the south and the Bekaa, so that the entire Hezbollah-land in Lebanon would be under pressure and no area of re-gathering or stability can serve as a strategic depth. (See map, zones in orange)
2. Concentrating on the Dahiya, Beirut's southern suburb aim at dismantling the so-called murabba'a amni (security square) which comprises the main headquarters, communications systems, bunkers and tunnels of Hezbollah. If the Israeli air strikes continue with no cease fire to interrupt them, the "square" will be non-operational for Hezbollah's leadership, which would lead to one of the following options: 1) moving the Hezbollah's leadership structure deeper in greater Beirut or into the Lebanese army perimeter. Which would lead to engage the Army in the conflict. or 2) moving the leadership to the Bekaa, knowing that the south of the country is insecure for such resettlement. According to experts in Lebanon, the Bekaa option seems to be the most logical for Hezbollah, but according to other analysts, Hezbollah cannot afford leaving Beirut for political reasons.
3. Hence, Nasrallah's organization may recourse to dramatic measures to deter Israeli air raids over Beirut's so that the southern suburb remains a basis for the group. The nature of the "new" measures is unknown: Nasrallah has promised "surprises" a week ago.
4. This Israeli process will shape up the essence of Syro-Iranian, Arab, international and even Lebanese responses to the solution. The location of Hezbollah's leadership and infrastructure will be one of the influential elements in the outcome of negotiations There is a difference as to where is this leadership, inside or outside the capital. Both Israel and Hezbollah knows it.
Activating Hezbollah cells "to make no place safe for Israelis": The Implications for Southeast Asia
By Zachary Abuza
Yesterday, Hezbollah's representative in Iran, Hossein Safiadeen warned that that his Islamic militant group plans to widen its attacks on Israel until "no place" is safe for Israelis. "We are going to make Israel not safe for Israelis. There will be no place they are safe." While Daveed Gartenstein-Ross noted that there is still no evidence that Hezbollah has activated sleeper cells, it is important to take stock of where and how similar cells have been used in the past.
Hezbollah’s capabilities in Latin America are well known. On 17 March 1992, they bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires bombed killing 29 people; on 18 July 1994 they attacked a Jewish community center in downtown Buenos Aires, killing 86 people; and on 19 July 1994 a suicide bomber downed an aircraft in Panama, killing 21.
What is less known is Hezbollah’s activities in Southeast Asia. While predominantly Sunni, the region does have distinct Shia communities that Hezbollah has penetrated and actively solicits for funds. In some cases, Hezbollah operatives have taken over legitimate charities. Hezbollah operatives have been arrested in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Hezbollah operatives have long used Thailand as a center for arms procurement and document forging. Most importantly, and not coincidentally, Hezbollah’s activities in Southeast Asia have been in two countries with diplomatic relations and close commercial and or security ties with Israel, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.
• On 17 March 1994, a Hezbollah operation to bomb the Israeli embassy in Bangkok went awry when the terrorists who were driving the truck bomb got into a traffic accident in Bangkok’s notoriously congested streets. The driver fled the scene and the truck was towed to a police station; the bomb was only discovered days later when the police inspected the car.
• Other Hezbollah operations in Thailand include the surveilling of the El-Al office in Bangkok and counter at Don Muang airport, the only airport in Southeast Asia where the Israeli airline flies.
• In Thailand, Hezbollah is believed to use an Islamic school run by an Iranian for fund raising.
• In 1995, Hezbollah dispatched operatives to Singapore, to plan attacks against US and Israeli targets. Operatives were found surveilling Singapore's coastline. It was later revealed to be the early stages of a plot to attack U.S. and Israeli ships in a USS-Cole style attack in the Singapore Straits. Operative had photographed the US and Israeli embassies and surveilled a Jewish synagogue. Singapore later arrested members of a Hezbollah cell in conjunction with this attack and for raising funds in the city-state. In June 2002, Singapore accused Hezbollah of recruiting five Muslims Singaporean nationals in their failed 1995 plot. Singapore claims to have expelled all the Hezbollah cell members.
• Hezbollah collected intelligence on a Jewish synagogue in Manila.
• Hezbollah has also used Southeast Asians to conduct surveillance for them. In one instance, they recruited a Malaysian national, Zinal Bin-Talib, and dispatched him to Israel to collect intelligence.
• In 1999, Philippine officials arrested Pandu Yudhawinata, an Indonesian Hezbollah operative at Ninoy Aquino Airport who revealed that Hezbollah had recruited a small number of Malaysians and Indonesians and sent them to Lebanon for training in order to carry out terrorist attacks in Australia, Southeast Asia and in Israel. An Iranian intelligence officer stationed in Malaysia in the early 1980s had originally recruited Pandu. To that end, the governments in the region must redouble their counter intelligence operations against Iran.
In short, Hezbollah was actively trying to develop a presence in Southeast Asia in the mid-1990s. Several counter-terror operations helped to dislodge some cells, but the organization has maintained a residual presence in the region. Whether it still has the capabilities to hit Israeli or American interests in the region is less clear, but the governments in the region should be aware of the threat. Hezbollah will follow through with its threats, and to that end, it will find the most vulnerable targets throughout the world.
Somalia Goes from Bad to Worse
By Douglas Farah
The current develpments in Somalia show that a bad situation can almost always get worse. It also shows the limits of the administration's uncoordinated policy, where the military, State Department and intelligence communities barely talk to each other and clearly are not looking at the same play book.
The Washington Post reports that the always-dubious offer of the Islamist militias, who control most of the country, to open a dialogue with the weak and ineffectual nominal government, had been revoked.
The reason given for this was the entrance of Ethiopian troops, predominately Christian, into Somalia to protect the central government. Rather than dialogue, the Islamists have now declared jihad against the government and its backers.
The statements reflect the predominance of Hassan Dahir Aweys, with strong links to al Qaeda and a public defender of suicide bombers, within the Islamist militias. Others in the militias may not be in total agreement, but so far have been unable to exercise any autonomy from Aweys.
The U.S. government has acknowledged it did not see the Islamist triumph coming, and so far has limited its official response to public calls for dialogue among all parties and the usual litany of ineffective responses often given in the absence of a real policy. The intelligence community came across as ham-handed and inept in its failure to successfully help non-Islamist militias defeat Aweys and his allies. The State Deparment comes across as uninterested, disengaged and unwilling to face the reality of the Islamist threat in the impoverished nation.
Now there is the prospect of a wider regional war with heavy religious overtones in an region that is of strategic importance and already volitle. My full blog is here.
IDF, Hezbollah battle over the "Hezbollah Capital"
By Bill Roggio
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| | Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied town; red IDF warned towns of operations. Click map to view. |
The Golani Brigade continues to slug it out with Hezbollah between the towns of Maroun al-Ras and the Bint Jubayl on the Israeli-Lebanon border. Reports indicate 15 Hezbollah have been killed, and 4 IDF killed and 18 wounded during the fight. Two Israelis helicopter pilots were killed in an unknown incident (Hezbollah claims to have shot down the helo) and two tankers were killed. Two tanks were destroyed during today's fight, one by a mine, another by an anti-tank missile. The "Golani Brigade troops, tanks and combat engineers engaged in heavy fighting... The troops came under attack from anti-tank missiles and sniper fire," reports the Jerusalem Post.
Despite the fact that the Golani Brigade moved towards the town of Bint Jubayl on Saturday evening (reports indicated "the IDF is moving [towards Bint Jubayl] with fire and surveillance," on Saturday), the status of the town is still contested. Today, fighting was also reported in Maroun al-Ras, which the IDF took on Friday. The Israeli newspapers indicate Bint Jubayl has been surrounded, but the Daily Star claims the IDF was "repelled'. This account shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as the Golani Brigade was forced to pull back from Maroun al-Ras late last week.
The fight in Southern Lebanon has been intense. The Israelis have lost 23 troops during the 13 days of combat. After pushing hard for almost a week in the Avivim sector, the IDF has managed to push only 4 kilometers into southern Lebanon. Bint Jubayl, the "Hezbollah Capital" sits 4 kilometer across the border and is still outside of Israel's control.
Hezbollah's training, tactics, techniques, procedures and weapons have surprised the Israeli military and intelligence services. The IDF may be fighting a conservative battle to limit casualties and gain further intelligence on Hezbollah's capabilities, but this comes at a cost.
The Israeli military has forced to fight a grinding war and eschew the style of bold maneuver warfare they have favored over the decades since the creation of the state. This may be sound at the tactical level, however at the strategic level, time and information are working against the Israelis. Pressure from the international community to force a cease fire continues to mount. Each day Hezbollah fights the IDF to a standstill while launching rockets into northern Israeli towns and cities, Hezbollah scores a propaganda victory.
HEZBOLLAH PENETRATES CHRISTIAN AREAS IN LEBANON
By CTB Special Correspondent
Editor's Note: Karim is a special correspondent for the Counterterrorism Blog and is currently in Beirut, Lebanon. Karim notes "These villages and towns are christians areas. Aounist have been providing the cover..."
Hezbollah has deployed in Wadi Chahrour - Blaybel area in Mount Lebanon. On Monday at 10.30 Hezbollah launched three rockets. At 10:45 AM Hezbollah launched another rocket from the same Christian area.
On Sunday Hezbollah redeployed in some areas in the southern suburb of Beirut, and shut down the access to the area. Hezbollah also has obtained a safe house in Kesrwan.
On Monday, Hezbollah elements went to Mansurieh (Northern Metn) and asked the representative of the Aounist "Tayyar" to provide some reconnaissance help because they wanted to settle some rockets launchers on Mansourieh 's hills.
Also See:
In February of 2006, Andrew Cochran noted that Michael Aoun, a Member of Parliament and leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (Tayyar watani Horr), met with Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and signed a "memorandum of understanding" between Aoun's Christian faction and Nasrallah's Hezbollah.
Update on Southeast Asian Militants Heading to Lebanon
By Zachary Abuza
On 20 July, I posted on Suab Didu, the head of the radical Islamic Youth Movement of Indonesia, who announced the formation of a new regional organization, the "Palestine Jihad Bombing Troops" that was dispatching some 217 Southeast Asians to "help our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon." Yesterday Suaib Didu, commented in the press, "It's all true. Militants from Malaysia and Thailand departed yesterday. Indonesians will leave soon."
A quasi-official from the Philippine Moro Islamic Liberation Front denied that any members of the MILF were among the 57 Filipinos that Didu claimed were being sent to the region.
In other news, another militant organization, the Islamic Defender's Front (FPI) ’s spokesman, Yusuf al Qardawi, announced that 90 members of his group were leaving for Lebanon and “are ready to die as martyrs.” The FPI threatened to recruit large numbers of jihadis to fight the Americans in Iraq in 2003, though few actually went. The FPI's leader, Habib Rizieq, was quickly detained by US forces and sent back to Indonesia, though the government did nothing to punish him.
The veracity of these claims is uncertain.
Hizballah Sleeper Cells Reportedly Activated
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
The Jerusalem Post reports today:
Hizbullah "sleeper" terror cells set up outside Lebanon with Iranian assistance have been put on standby The Jerusalem Post learned on Sunday, and are likely planning attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets throughout the world.
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) confirmed to the Post Sunday night that it had instructed embassies, consulates and Jewish institutions it was responsible for abroad to raise their level of awareness in light of the conflict in the North.
The assumption within Military Intelligence is that Hizbullah would only attack targets abroad if it felt pushed into a corner. According to this thinking, the Islamist group hesitates to carry out such attacks because it does not want to be associated with Global Jihad and al-Qaida.
Hizbullah has attacked Jewish and Israeli targets abroad in the past. The organization is believed to have been behind the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 during which a suicide bomber drove a pick-up truck filled with explosives into the building, killing 29 people and wounding 242, following Israel's assassination of the group's leader at the time, Sheikh Abbas Musawi.
Hizbullah is also thought to have been responsible for the attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building in Buenos Aires in 1994, when an explosives-laden van rammed into the structure and killed 85 people.
A word of caution: At this point, there's no source for the claim that Hizballah cells have been put on standby. The first paragraph states that the Jerusalem Post learned this today, but leaves out any mention of who the Post learned this from. Although the second paragraph cites Shin Bet as a source, this is only for confirmation that it "instructed embassies, consulates and Jewish institutions it was responsible for abroad to raise their level of awareness" -- it doesn't state that Shin Bet told the Post that Hizballah cells were put on standby. Putting these institutions on alert seems a wise move even if there were no evidence that Hizballah cells were on standby.
Counterterrorism consultant Dan Darling comments in an e-mail to me: "I expect that Hezbollah cells, sleeper or otherwise, were put on notice that they might be called upon to carry out attacks in the event that things started to get nasty. If you're running an international terrorist organization, this would seem to me to be a prudent move before you engage in an unprovoked cross-border raid and kidnapping that seems almost certain to spark a regional conflict. I've been operating under the assumption that they had cells in place to carry off attacks at least in Europe should they desire to utilize them since the conflict first started . . . ."
This story is worth following, as Hizballah's activation of sleeper cells would substantially raise what are already large stakes.
Firebrand Islamic Cleric’s True Color Shows Through In Beirut - It’s Yellow
By Bill West
Omar Bakri Mohammed, who lived in the United Kingdom for some 18 years receiving social security benefits and who pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, has been banned from returning to Britain after a trip to Lebanon last year as a result of the British government determining his presence “was not conducive to the public good.” Bakri Mohammed’s fiery calls to jihad were arguably tantamount to incitement and support for terrorism, routinely calling upon young Muslims to join the ranks of jihadis to fight the infidels around the world. He has referred to the 9/11 terrorist hijackers as the “Magnificent 19.” Of course, Bakri Mohammed made those hate-filled, inflammatory and jihadist-inspiring speeches from the safety of his publicly funded refuge in Britain.
Now that Israel has mounted a knock-down military campaign to knock-out the Iranian and Syrian supported terrorist organization Hezbollah within Lebanon, and that campaign includes targeting Hezbollah infrastructure throughout Lebanon, we might have expected the stalwart jihadi recruiter Bakri Mohammed, so close to the front lines with the Zionist enemy, to heed his own sacred words and take up arms with his fellow holy warriors to battle the invading infidels.
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But no, “Mighty” Bakri Mohammed instead is pleading with British authorities for a visa to return to the safety of the United Kingdom. British media have reported Bakri Mohammed is so desperate to leave Lebanon he has even begged officials of the Royal Navy who are evacuating British citizens from Beirut for a ride out of the country, only to be refused. So far, British government officials indicate Bakri Mohammed will not be welcomed back into their country and will have to fend for himself.
Perhaps this display of true colors by a “jihadist warrior cleric” (obviously in words only) is indicative of how many of these like-minded radical Islamic holy men who preach hate and destruction really are. They spew their rhetorical bile from the safety of Western host nations encouraging others, mostly angry young Muslim men, to carry out violence against others yet they themselves prefer to hide within the safety and comfort provided by those host countries. Maybe the audiences of these charlatans should pay closer attention. « Close It
Iran caught red handed in smuggling nuclear material
By Olivier Guitta
Last week Agence France Presse reported that Bulgaria had stopped at its border with Romania a truck filled with radiocative material destined to Iran.
According to Serguei Tstatchev, head of the Bulgarian Nuclear Control Agency, the truck rented by a British company and Turkish registration was on its way to Istanbul and then Tehran. It contained radioactive material including cesium and its radiocative rate was 200 times the normal rate. Some more info can be found here.
While Iran is a little diverting attention with its proxy Hezbollah, it's still focused on implementing quickly its nuclear program. It is high time that the international community acted firmly on Iran because the problem is not going away anytime soon. Hezbollah is the living proof of this...
Telegraphing the punch - IDF moving into southern Lebanon
By Bill Roggio
| | Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied; red IDF warned of operations. Click map to view. |
The Israeli Defense Force is probing along the Lebanese frontier. Earlier today the IDF took control of Maroun al-Ras. Israeli army units have also occupied the towns of Yarum and Marwahin (Marwahin further west, and is currently occupied by the Herev battalion). The town of Bint Jubayl, described as the "'Hezbollah capital' in southern Lebanon", is a strategic target in the south-central front. "Currently, the IDF is moving [towards Bint Jubayl] with fire and surveillance," reports Ynet News.
The move into the central region of southern Lebanon was telegraphed by the Israeli Defense Force. Saturday evening (Israeli time) the IDF issued specific warnings to the residents of 14 towns to leave, as a military operation is eminent (Ynet News reports 13 villages, but then lists 14). I was able to identify the first 12 town on the list below (the alternative spelling is in brackets): Aitrun (Aytarun), Atiri (At Tiri), Barashit (Brashit), Beit Yahoun (Bayt Yahun), Bint Jubayl, Bleida (Blida), Einata (Aynata), Hadatiya (Haddathah), Hirbat Salim (Khirbat Slim), Majal Salim (Majdal Slim), Shakra (Shaqra), Yarun, Kontin and Kharsat a-Talab.
A quick look at the map shows the IDF is planning on driving up through the central region of Southern Lebanon likely all the way to the Litani River, splitting the southern region in two and cutting off the western supply lines from Syria. It should be clear that this may also be a sophisticated information operation, but based on the heavy fighting in the Avivim/Maroun al-Ras region over the course of several days, and the proximity of the 'Hezbollah capital', the IDF push looks legitimate. Due to the international scrutiny and condemnation of the Israeli air and ground offensive, the Israelis are forced to warn off the local population and compromise operational security. This is a harsh reality of modern war, where nations are under the microscope of the international media and the "insurgent" information operations are not recognized by the media.
The Israeli Air Force also dropped leaflets warning the residents to evacuate the entire region south of the Litani River: "To residents of villages south of the Litani River: due to the terror incidents being carried out from within your villages and homes against the State of Israel, the IDF is forced to respond immediately, even within the villages. You are all asked to evacuate the villages immediately for your own welfare. The State of Israel."
Hezbollah prefers the civilians to stay. The IDF states Hezbollah has prevented residents from leave the villages. Hezbollah is using the townspeople as human shields, running up civilian casualties and increasing the international condemnation of the Israeli operation. "In two villages, exchanges of fire between residents and Hizbullah have broken out."
With thanks to Belmont Club's Richard Fernandez for starting the map and providing some of the information in this post. See "The Path of the IDF" for additional information on the Israeli invasion in southern Lebanon.
More fighting near Avivim; prelude to invasion?
By Bill Roggio
| | Fighting in the Maroun al-Ras / Avivim region. Click map to view. |
An unknown sized force of Israeli mechanized infantry units are pushing into the Lebanese town of Maroun al-Ras. This town is the scene of the Hezbollah ambush on the Golani Brigade just two days ago, where the Israelis retreated after taking casualties. Today's fighting does not appear to be a raid or reconnaissance in force. Israeli forces have now established control in Maroun al-Ras and are occupying the town.
Richard Fernandez reports the town sits astride Hezbollah's supply line from Syria into southern Lebanon, and may act as a jump off point into the Bekaa Valley. "This is an attack into central Lebanon," says Fernandez. Whether todays action in Maroun al-Ras is the opening move of a wider Israeli invasion into southern Lebanon and beyond remains to be seen. The IDF certainly has focused plenty of attention on this region over the past week.
Stratfor looks at Israel's political, military, tactical and strategic options to engage Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley [Tigerhawk has the full text.] There are essentially three parts to the military strategy: 1) Insert troops north of the Litani river to the rear of Hezbollah's main forces using an air mobile operation 2) An armored thrust into Bekaa from eastern Israel 3) Special operations forces operating south of Beirut to disrupt Hezbollah's command, control and communications.
| | Potential location of ground strikes and possible amphibious operation/air assault. Map & graphics courtesy of Kathryn Cramer. Click map to view. |
Based on the latest intelligence that Hezbollah maybe in possession of SA-18 surface to air missiles, the Israelis may be planning to insert troops north of the Litani river using an amphibious operation, either as a substitution to or in addition to an air assault. The Israeli Navy does possess LCTs and LCMs (though not in large quantities), and has conducted such operations in the past. An Israeli amphibious operation would likely be limited in sized and scope, and may be used to insert the special operations forces into the south of Beirut. The Israeli naval commandos of Shayetet 13 (Flotilla 13) and the Sayeret Mat'kal (General Staff Reconnaissance Unit 269), can be inserted in the region south of Beirut, and would operate with Close Air Support and perhaps air mobile units from the IDF.
This would be a mission fraught with risk, but has the potential for high reward. As we have explained, the Israelis have suffered from major intelligence failures in the opening 12 days of this conflict. An an air mobile or amphibious operation behind enemy lines are difficult to support from a logistical standpoint. If the commandos can kill or capture senior Hezbollah political and military leaders, or a larger operation can cut off Hezbollah's supply lines from the north, the Israeli military will be in a better position both politically and militarily to strike a fatal blow to Hezbollah.
But the insertion of Israeli troops north of Hezbollah's lines, either by air or sea, would be a bold move that may help to restore the Israeli military's prestige, which has been severely compromised since the fighting began on July 12.
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Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's Secretary-General, has openly mocked the Israelis for their unwillingness to confront Hezbollah on the ground. And Sheikh Naim Kassem, Nasrallah's deputy, claims Israel has no wish to confront Hezbollah on the ground. Whether this is true or not does not matter, the perception in Lebanon and the wider Muslim world is the Israelis are avoiding a ground battle. The Israeli military, which fought multiple nation-states on its own during several regional wars now is perceived as unwilling to battle a single enemy in the form of a militia. Each day Israeli fails to move against Hezbollah, Hezbollah's stature rises in the Muslim world.
Israel has called up another 5,000 reservists to free up active duty unit to fight on the Lebanese front. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports the Israeli military still wishes to engage Hezbollah primarily via air, according to an anonymous " senior Israeli commander":
“I believe in airpower. I believe in our ability to destroy Hezbollah without going into Lebanon again the way we did in 1982. And the only way to do it is to attack any movement we detect, any launch or any activity aimed at hitting Israel — especially from the villages we see.”
The overall aim, Israel says, is to weaken Hezbollah sufficiently so that the international community can help the Lebanese government to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 and exercise its sovereignty all over Lebanon, expelling any foreign fighters and disarming Hezbollah.
Israel is more interested in having an international force patrol the border than it has been in the past, officials say, especially if the force has rules of engagement that will allow it to ensure that Hezbollah cannot reinfiltrate to the border.
Again, this may very well be a sophisticated Information Operation designed to catch Hezbollah with its guard down. But the anonymous officer's words match those of other senior political and military leaders who have gone on the record. Each day Israel fails to confront Hezbollah on the ground is a victory for Hezbollah. « Close It
Al-Mabarrat – A Hezbollah Charitable Front in Dearborn, MI?
By Steven Emerson
As Hezbollah continues to wage its relentless terrorist campaign against Israel, supported by its Syrian and Iranian sponsors, U.S. authorities have expressed grave concern that the Middle East conflict could bleed onto America soil. Earlier this week, William Kowalski, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit office, wondered, “if the situation escalates, will Hezbollah take the gloves off, so to speak, and attack here in the United States, which they've been reluctant to do until now?”
Kowalski’s concerns are undoubtedly justified given a 2002 FBI assessment that “FBI investigations to date continue to indicate that many Hezbollah subjects based in the United States have the capability to attempt terrorist attacks here should this be a desired objective of the group.” A year later, then-CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “Hezbollah, as an organization with capability and worldwide presence, is [Al Qaeda's] equal, if not a far more capable organization.” Further heightening concern, Hezbollah spokesman Mojtaba Bigdeli told Reuters this week that Hezbollah has “2,000 volunteers” ready to be “dispatch[ed]…to every corner of the world to jeopardize Israel and America’s interests…If America wants to ignite World War Three…we welcome it.”
In order to finance the training of these “volunteers,” as well as the seemingly endless barrage of rockets that have rained down on Israeli cities, Hezbollah has established an extensive fundraising infrastructure in the United States, as well as in Canada, South America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Supplementing the nearly $100 million Hezbollah reportedly receives from Iran, Hezbollah operatives in the U.S. have engaged in a litany of criminal activities, including credit card fraud, cigarette smuggling, counterfeiting, drug running, and organized retail theft, that provide millions to the Shiite terrorist organization (see Doug Farah's post below).
Further, although Hezbollah has not utilized charitable front organizations in the U.S. to the extent that its comrade-in-arms Hamas has, there is convincing evidence that a Hezbollah-linked charity, with direct ties to the group’s spiritual leader in Lebanon, is currently operating in Dearborn, Michigan.
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Founded in 1991, the Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization-USA Inc. has changed its name repeatedly over the last fifteen years, discarding the names “Cedar Organization, Inc.”, “Cedar Charitable Organization, Inc.” and “Cedar Social Services of America, Inc.” On its website, http://www.mabarrat.org/, which is no longer active, Al-Mabarrat claimed that its purpose “is to promote the cause of…orphans by providing sponsorship that will go toward schooling, health, and general.” While acknowledging that it proffers that support by working in conjunction with the Al-Mabarrat Association in Lebanon (whose logo it shares), the website conveniently omits the fact that Al-Mabarrat-Lebanon is run by Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.
Fadlallah, labeled Hezbollah’s “chief ‘spiritual leader’” by the Department of Justice, has been designated a Specially Designated Terrorist by the U.S. Treasury Department, thus criminalizing financial transactions with him. The U.S. government has further alleged that “Fadlallah issued the fatwa authorizing” the 1983 Hezbollah bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks that killed 241 Americans. Demonstrating its awareness of Al-Mabarrat-Lebanon’s terrorist agenda, the U.S. government banned Lebanese Finance Minister Fuad Siniora (currently the Lebanese Prime Minister) from entering the United States in 2003 because of a donation he had made to the organization in 2000
Despite Al-Mabarrat-USA’s direct link to a Fadlallah-controlled organization, to date, the U.S. branch continues to operate unfettered. In fact, the organization appears to have gained a level of credibility in the U.S. as the Detroit Free Press reported earlier this month that “many Muslims in the region have donated to Al-Mabarrat.”
The most prominent Detroit area Muslim to be publicly linked to Al-Mabarrat is Talil Chahine, the owner of the La Shish restaurant chain, who was indicted in May on federal tax evasion charges for allegedly concealing more than $20 million in restaurant profits and funneling some of those funds to Lebanon. In 2002, Chahine, who federal prosecutors assert has “connections at the highest levels of ... Hezbollah,” attended an Al-Mabarrat fundraiser in Lebanon at which he and Fadlallah served as the keynote speakers. (For his part, according to the Detroit Free Press, Chahine admits he attended the al-Mabarrat fundraiser in Lebanon.) At that event, “Chahine was the representative…of a worldwide group of fundraisers,” according to DOJ. DOJ has also noted that agents searching Chahine’s Michigan house discovered a letter thanking Chahine for sponsoring Lebanese orphans, which DOJ stated “is a euphemism used by Hezbollah to refer to the orphans of martyrs.”
Hezbollah’s use of Al-Mabarrat as a fundraising front is a savvy strategic move, mirroring a tactic long exploited by terrorist groups. By utilizing charities, terrorists can generate popular support by providing some legitimate services, attract donations from unwitting donors, and obscure financial trails. As the U.S. government’s actions against organizations such as the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, the Illinois-based Benevolence International Foundation, and the Ohio-based KindHearts demonstrate, the U.S. has long served as a fertile ground for these organizations.
As Hezbollah intensifies its terrorist offensive against and threatens to unleash “World War Three,” the U.S. government should act to ensure that aid and comfort are not being provided from within our own borders. « Close It
The forgotten war in Algeria
By Olivier Guitta
The Weekly Standard just published today my piece on the horrific situation in Algeria re the war between the government and the Islamist terrorists of the GSPC.
Here's an excerpt:
ON JULY 10, a group of terrorists entered a campground in Gouraya, a Mediterranean resort 75 miles from Algiers, and randomly massacred 5 people. The victims were among the 22 killed by terrorists in Algeria in the first half of July--putting that month on track to be a little less bloody than those preceding it. In April, the death toll was 60; in May, 54; in June, 65--this in a country with a population roughly the size of California's, and a government insistent that Islamist terrorism has been basically defeated.
Despite the official happy talk, kidnappings by Islamists to raise money for their cause are a routine occurrence in Algeria. And not a day goes by without terrorists' attacking military personnel, government employees, or ordinary civilians, whom they regard as allies of the government. Just in recent weeks, the GSPC (Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat), the al Qaeda affiliate that is now the main Algerian terrorist group, orchestrated an assault that killed 17 customs officers when their vehicles were riddled with bullets; another that killed 7 police officers when their truck was hit by an RPG; and the execution of 5 farmers who were shot, then finished off with daggers, their bodies burned. The GSPC also plants bombs in public places to create panic. Boumerdès, for example, about 25 miles from the capital, was hit twice by terror attacks near the main downtown bus station. Authorities are wondering whether Algiers will be next.
HIZBOLLAH’S IRANIAN WAR IN LEBANON
By Walid Phares
 When Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah held his press conference to declare his new victory over his enemy, Israel, he was triggering –probably without knowing- a new era in the history of Lebanon and the region. “We will continue in faithfulness to our line,” he declared, in legitimizing his cross border attack on an Israeli patrol, killing soldiers and kidnapping two. But the real “fidelity” Nasrallah was referring to wasn’t to his captured men in Israeli jails, but to the regimes decision-makers in Tehran and Damascus. The “operation of July” came as a tipping point in a larger conflict, which superseded Hezbollah’s detainee, the Shebaa farms, borders skirmishes and Israeli tactical responses. Beyond and above the events of that day, Hezbollah was triggering the first Iranian war on Lebanon’s soil: A Syrian-supported offensive, even at the height of the Assad II regime. Brining fire and smoke to the Lebanese-Israeli borders, and week before to the Gaza-Israel demarcation lines, is not simply two local disputes, one over unilateral Israeli withdrawal in Gaza and the other over real estate on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. Nasrallah (as well as his counterpart of Hamas) has calculated perfectly how to conduct a hit and run with the Israelis ordered by regional regime who have miscalculated their strategies. Pressured by the new regional realities and world concerns about nuclear threats and Terrorism, Iran and Syria wanted to throw their allies into the greatest uncertainties of survival.
The road to the current Conflict
 But as Israel’s Air Force began to pound Nasrallah’s organization and Lebanon’s transportation and communications infrastructure, and the media reported the war in progress with its horrific images, world opinion and decision-centers commenced to swing in all directions, seeking a name to the War and a projection of its ending, with great difficulties. Attempts are still ongoing to frame it from the most simplistic to the most conspiratorial: Lebanon is a beautiful country, it doesn’t deserve violence and victimization, says the less informed. Indeed such lamentation should have been expressed since 1975, when this country was thrown to the lions. Between the PLO attacks since the beginning of the War, the Syrian occupation as of June 1976, the Israeli invasion of 1982 and the Iranian penetration of the 1980s, in addition to the civil war between all communities, more than 180,000 people were massacred and killed, with very little compassion under the Cold War and despite its end in 1990. While most militias disarmed in 1991, only one camp dodged that duty: Iranian-backed Syrian-protected Hezbollah and its allies. Co-ruling the country with Syria’s security services, the militia presented itself as a “resistance” for a whole decade, building its networks, and consolidating power inside the country while claiming liberation against Israel’s occupation of the south. The “Khumeinist resistance” endorsed the Syrian “occupation” of Lebanon and never struggled to free its compatriots in Damascus’ jails. In May 2000 it achieved victory over Israel and its local allies, by occupying the so-called “security zone” in southern Lebanon after the latter being evacuated by the Israeli Government. Since then, Hezbollah reached its golden age: Control of about 70 km of international borders with the “Zionist entity,” warranting hundreds of millions of dollars and other military support from Iran’s Pasdarans; but also appropriation of enormous Government assets and resources under the auspices of Syrian control.
Between 2000 and 2005, Hezbollah increased its influence in Lebanese politics, becoming the dominant force, and remaining the principal ally of Syrian occupation. In this half decade, Tehran supplied the organization with weapons capable of reaching remote areas inside Israel. In those years as well, Hezbollah extended and grew its cells around the world including in South America, North America, West Africa and Western Europe. But the surge to high power, both in Lebanon and worldwide began to face challenges as of September 11, 2001.
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The crisis years
From when the American public mobilized against Terrorism in general to the first US-led intervention in Afghanistan, Tehran’s leaders got extremely nervous about the changes hitting their neighborhood. Any democracy anywhere around them is a bad omen. When the Taliban regime was removed from Kabul in 2001, Tehran’s Khumenists witnessed the rise of women in the electoral process and within the Afghani Government. Iranian leaders understood the future implications at home. When Saddam’s regime was removed from Baghdad, Khamenei’s elite wasn’t unhappy with the removal, but with the multi party process that followed, even though they succeeded in inserting their influence in it. And when UNSCR 1559 was voted calling on Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon and Hizbollah’s disarming, both Tehran and Damascus felt the heat pressuring their joint influence on the Eastern Mediterranean. The Syrian Baathist reaction to the new era was quick with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on February 14, 2005. Assad paid a dear price for this fast drawing and shooting against his opponents in Lebanon. In March of that year, and despite an attempt by Hezbollah to shore up popular support to the Syrian President inside Lebanon, one million and a half citizens marched in the street of Beirut, shattering the myth of both Syrian “brotherly” occupation and Hizbollah’s untouched position in the country. With the political weakening of its allied organization by the public and the pulling out of Damascus’ regular troops from Lebanon, Iran’s regime mobilized for the counter regional attack. Hezbollah readied for its role in the general Jihadi offensive.
The counter offensive
The Jihadi Syro-Iranian offensive started simultaneously in early 2005, with the Hariri assassination in Lebanon and the selecting of Mahmoud Ahmedinijad as head of the Islamic Republic in Tehran. In Lebanon and as the pro-Syrian Government collapsed, new elections were held and an anti-Syria majority was established, Hezbollah executed a sophisticated one year plan in preparation for the war launched in July 2006. It began with Nasrallah imposing on the Seniora Government a strange offer: taking three members of the Party into his cabinet, while Hezbollah maintains a strategic relation with Syria’s regime. That success brought other moves forward. For six months, political leaders and journalists of the Cedars Revolution were assassinated with car bombs: Samir Qassir, George Hawi and Gebran Tueni. This sufficed to convince the anti-Syrian politicians that any serious obstruction of the Iranian-Syrian axis and opposition to Hezbollah will be “punished.” The terror treatment seemed to have worked, as the Government was forced to abandon the implementation of UNSCR 1559 and have its components sit down with Hezbollah to “discuss” the future of its weapons. In short, it took Nasrallah and his allies less than a year to contain and weaken the Cedars Revolution and the Government it has produced. Twelve months passed after Syria’s withdrawal from the country, and yet the Lebanese army was not allowed by Hezbollah’s veto power inside the Seniora cabinet to deploy along the borders or even inside the sensitive area of south Lebanon. Strategically, Hezbollah absorbed the consequences of the Syrian withdrawal, penetrated the Government and along with pro-Syrian politicians created further divisions within Lebanon’s religious communities, including within Sunni, Druze and Christian political establishments.
Regional acceleration
During 2006, several factors pushed Iran and Syria to press their allies in Lebanon and in Palestine for havoc. The nuclear crisis with Tehran was the principal factor for convincing the Mullahs that a major crumbling of the region’s new democracies and peace processes is vital to deflect the crisis away from Tehran. In fact the international determination to remove the Iranian nuclear threat was breaking Ahmedinijad’s ambitions for increasing international power. The several elections in Iraq, despite terrorism, indicated the rise of the political process in that country, with future impact on Iran itself. Syria’s isolation as a result of the UN investigation in the Hariri assassination further convinced the Assad regime that inflaming the Gaza and the Israeli-Lebanese borders is the recipe to overshadow the UN report. Hamas also had developed interest in the clash with the “Zionist enemy,” as the financial credibility of their newly formed Government in the Palestinian areas was sinking down and a civil war with Fatah looming on the horizon. And finally Hezbollah: the militia-turned party and still listed as a Terrorist organization on the US list of terrorist group, used extreme patience since 2000 in building its hyper-arsenal across the country, infiltrated the Army and avoided major escalation against Israel. But on Bastille Day Sayyed Nasrallah ended the previous era of preparedness: Now is the time for a qualitative Jihad, he seemed to imply.
Lebanese factors
In addition to the regional injunctions to strike Israel in order to focus the international heat on the Arab Israeli conflict, Hezbollah has also included a number of “Lebanese” factors in its decision to flare up the borders with its enemy. Back in March 2005, the leaders of the Iranian-backed organization saw in disbelief the enormous masses marching against Syria, and by ripple effect, against Hezbollah. Not only the largest democracy demonstration in the history of the Middle East, but also a multiethnic and multi-religious one: Christians, Druze, Sunnis and even some Shiites broke the taboo of Hezbollah’s “sacred” character in Lebanon. Second nightmare was with the actual withdrawal of the Syrian army from the country, opening the path for the implementation of the second item of the UNSCR 1559, i.e., disarming the fundamentalist militia. The third nightmare came when this anti-Syrian coalition brought a majority in Parliament during the May-June 2005 legislative elections in Lebanon. The threat to Hezbollah was not the formation of a cabinet opposing Syrian influence in as much as it was a signal that the people of Lebanon wasn’t endorsing the “resistance” story, or put it simply, wasn’t buying the party’s story period. The Cedars Revolution was the worse development the Khumeinist movement had to absorb since its inception. The sight of a million young men and women in colorful outfits marching in downtown Beirut was the beginning of a new era: liberal democracy, freedom and rejection of the dark ideology of Nasrallah. Hence, it became a must to eliminate that revolution at any price.
The slaughter of the Cedars Revolution
 In a few months, a number of leading politicians and journalists were savagely murdered by the pro-Syrian camp: Syrian intelligence, Hezbollah and other groups were suspected as being behind the assassination campaign. In parallel, Hezbollah and its allies outmaneuvered the parliamentary majority, which was supposed to form an anti-Baathist Government, bring down the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and remove the pro-Syrian speaker of the House, Nabih Berri. A magic hand convinced the so-called politicians of the March 14 movement, that none of these measures is feasible. Hence Syria maintained its power in Lebanon, while U.S and French Presidents were singing the praise of the liberation of Lebanon. Furthermore, and in a suicidal move the Lebanese cabinet, headed by Fouad Seniora invited Hezbollah to join the Government, before the latter disarm. By the summer of last year, the Cedars Revolution was bleeding seriously. Not only entrenched in the legal Government of Lebanon, but Hezbollah succeeded in a penetration of the Christian community, the hardcore of the anti-Syrian resistance, by enlisting the former commander of the Lebanese Army who performed an about face after 10 years in exile, where he claimed opposition to Syria. Michel Aoun signed an agreement of “understanding” with Hassan Nasrallah during the spring of 2006. The “revolution” was beheaded and Hezbollah was waiting for the right time to operate its come back into the center of Lebanese politics, while executing the instructions of Tehran and Damascus.
The “Waad al sadeq” operation
By early July 2006, Hezbollah’s preparations for the bloody return to the top were fulfilled. The organization had already accomplished its Lebanese tasks:
1) Elimination (direct or in conjunction with Syrian intelligence or Syrian Social Nationalists) of visible symbols of anti-Syrian leadership: Tueni, Qassir and Hawi, and attempts against others such as May Chidiac, as an intimidation lesson to all others.
2) Paralysis of PM Seniora’s cabinet from the inside and in cooperation with President Lahoud networks on the outside.
3) Paralysis of the parliament in collaboration with speaker Berri and the Aoun bloc.
4) Dragging the political forces in the country in the so-called national dialogue on the weapons of Hezbollah, a major waste of time and marginalization of the 1559 stipulation
3) Intimidation of the Lebanese army command.
4) Attempts to divide the Lebanese Diaspora by implanting agents linked to the axis.
5) Reactivation of the pro-Syrian and Jihadist networks in Lebanon and within the Palestinian camps.
6) Distribution of weapons among allied militias
7) Finally and most importantly, completing the final steps in the deployment of a system of rockets and long range artillery batteries aimed at Israel.
It is based on these domestic achievements in Lebanon and on strategic injunctions by its regional sponsors that Hezbollah decided to trigger its awaited Armageddon. What was the Hezbollah’s initial plan? The pro-Iranian militia had constructed a theory of invincibility based on the rationalization of a string of former successes against the United States and France in the 1980s, against Israel and the ex-South Lebanon Army in the 1990s, and its intimidation of the Cedars Revolution in 2005. In short, Nasrallah’s team was convinced of the following: A spectacular operation against Israeli military would:
1. Bring back the “struggle with Israel” to the forefront of Lebanese politics, thus cornering the Lebanese Government into capitulation on the Hariri and the disarmament matters.
2. Expect a harsh Israeli retaliation, good enough to attract world condemnation, but not strong enough to change realities in Lebanon.
3. The operation, dubbed “al-Waad al sadeq” (Faithful Promise) would signal the beginning of a series of skirmishes with Israel and a generalized assault on the Seniora cabinet and the Cedars Revolution, to be accused on treason and collusion with the Zionists.
4. With the crumbling of the Lebanese Government under the strikes by Hizbollah-Lahoud-Aoun, the pro-Syrian President would dismiss the Seniora cabinet, and in cahoots with pro-Syrian Berri, would disband the Parliament. A massive campaign of assassinations, arrests and exile would target the March 14 movement, followed by Terror-backed legislative elections, brining back a pro-Syrian Hizbollahi assembly and a radical Government.
5. The “putsch” would reestablish a Pro-Syrian-Iranian regime in Lebanon, and reconstruct a third wing to the Tehran-Damascus axis, reanimating the Arab Israeli conflict, rejuvenating the Syrian dominance, isolating Jordan, reaching out to Hamas, crumbling Iraq, and unleashing Iran’s nuclear programs unchecked. The domino effects of Hezbollah’s “Waad al sadeq” are far from being even imagined by Western and Arab policy planners.
Plans and Surprises
Nasrallah seemed to be in control of his strategy when he appeared in his press conference of victory. His back was safe since he has terrorized the Cedars Revolution’s movement, enlisted Aoun’s support (breaking Christian community unity), and pushed Sunni and Druze breakaways to challenge Jumblat and Hariri (the son). To his south, he was applauding Haniya’s Hamas “cabinet” for having already engaged the Israelis. To his east, Syria was mobilizing and waiting. In Iran, the “masters” were extending their strategic umbrella; and in Iraq, the Terror sapping of sectarian relations was on. All the brothers in Khumeini Jihadism were awaiting Hezbollah to break the chain of events from the Galilee. Nasrallah was at the forefront of a plan aiming at wrecking the rising democracy and the fledgling stability of the region. The stakes were really high for the “axis.” But Hassan Nasrallah’s master plan failed. First the Lebanese Government, smelling the odors of conspiracy was quick to distance itself from the operation. “The Government was not informed by it nor does it endorse it,” stated the Seniora release. Second, Israel’s volte-face surprised Hezbollah and their allies. Why would the Olmert Government, declare a full war on an organization that classical armies cannot take out, thought the Tehran planners. Then came, the Arab position: Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, followed discretely by others didn’t extend their full support to the move. They certainly criticized Israel to the fullest of rhetoric, but didn’t praise the “Hizb.” On the international level, the Terror group “that-provide-services” didn’t fare better. The United States firmly extended its bipartisan support to UNSCR 1559; France and the rest of Europe stated the same –with their continental language- Russia wouldn’t side with Nasrallah against the world, and China has other priorities on its plate. Only Iran threatened to wage wars in the rescue of its most western army. Nasrallah fell into his own trap but decided to come up with a contingency plan.
Hizbollah’s Contingency Plan
Not so different from Plan A, the objectives of Plan B have been readjusted. If Israel bombards Hezbollah’s infrastructure to the ground, Iranian oil will rebuild it. If Israel invades by land, it will find itself against a more aggressive Hezbollah than the one of the 1990s. Besides, Hezbollah will attempt nevertheless to go after the Seniora Government anyway. Calling on the “reserves,” Hezbollah enlisted President Lahoud and his son in law Defense Minister Elias Murr to drag the Lebanese Army in the War against Israel’s forces. And in collaboration with Aounist cadres (while the majority of his partisans are still stunned by the events), Hezbollah has unleashed an international campaign against the “inhumane aggression.” If things go well, Nasrallah expect Plan B to become Plan A, and a land advance by Israel would unleash a total offensive against the Government of Lebanon by pro-Iranian and Syrian forces. If Israel moves north to create a safe area against Rockets, Hezbollah would move north to control the rest of Lebanon. The Syrian-Iranian axis will refuse UNSCR 1559, reject international initiatives for disarming the militias, and will make its stand in Lebanon, even if the Switzerland of the Middle East is to be reduced to rubbles. Assad wants to save his regime in Beirut, and Ahmedinijad wants to shield his bomb in the Bekaa: Alea Jacta Est, the dice are rolling.
The Lebanese Army
Hezbollah’s plan for the Lebanese Army is to drag it to a fight with Israel, as a way to destroy it. For the past 16 years Syria and Hezbollah have penetrated the Lebanese Army and installed their followers at various positions. For example, the command of the southern command, the officers in charge of the southern suburb of Beirut, the Murabb’a al amni (security zone for Nasrallah) and many offices in the second bureau are in the hands of Shiite officers linked to Hezbollah. Syria’s allies including the Hezb and Amal can count on 20% influence within the institution. The commander in chief, General Michel Sleiman is neutral, with possibilities of shifts to either side. The head of the military intelligence, a Christian, follows Lahoud orders. The power map inside the Army keeps changing, but at the core of this institution, most officers are pro-Lebanese, close to the West. If Hezbollah pushes the regular troop into battle against Israel, the Army may split.
The West
The United Nations is bound by a resolution it cannot but implement: UNSCR 1559. Having been among those who worked on introducing it in 2004, I have followed up till very recently the international efforts in this regards. There is a solid consensus that the resolution has to be implemented; it is inescapable. The question is who would implement it? Reality is that the Lebanese Government and its armed forces are too weak in front of the Hezbollah-Baath-Ahmedinijad axis. So if a regional bloc is obstructing a UN resolution, the international community should provide the balance of power. Hence, the US and France, along with the European Union, the moderate Arab states with the consent of the Security Council must provide the tools for the Lebanese Government to spread its sovereignty over its national soil, and the support for the Cedars Revolution to revive itself. The options are very limited: Either Hezbollah will dominate the Lebanese Republic, or the latter will disarm Hezbollah. Anything in between would be a waste of time. If Israel stops its operations short of an international intervention, Hezbollah will win the war. If Israel moves forward inside Lebanon after Hezbollah, an international intervention is inevitable. The days, weeks and months ahead will tell.
Propaganda war
Meanwhile Hezbollah and its allies both in the region and in the West are and will be waging the mother of all propaganda wars. The task assigned to the propagandists is to stop military operations so that Hezbollah survives and fail international interventions so that the Lebanese Government collapses. A war of images, photos, mudding, internet, and media will explode in all directions. Operatives helping Hezbollah, including many with Christian names, will be waging an indiscriminate propaganda offensive against Lebanese, Arab, Western and obviously Israeli figures to spread confusion and psychological collapse in the international community. Objective: Obstruct the implementation of UNSCR 1559, trash the March 14 movement, criticize the Arab Government, and incite for Jihadi violence.
Future of the Hezbollah War
Hezbollah waged an Iranian War with Syrian backing. It knew how to start it, but it won’t know how it will end. The forces unleashed in this conflict have been unpredictable including Israel, Lebanon’s politics, the Arab Governments, and the international community. Hezbollah and its regional allies have spoken of “surprises” to come. In fact the latter are pretty much predictable: more rockets on and suicide attacks in Israel, coup d’Etat in Lebanon, and obviously international terrorism, including in the West. But “surprises” could also happen to Hezbollah. The “Waad al sadeq” operation may not be the only miscalculation by Secretary Hassan Nasrallah. The future of Hezbollah’s war is as uncertain as the fate of the organization.
Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a visiting Fellow with the Foundation for European Democracy, the author of Future Jihad (English) and of books on Lebanon and Iran
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To Cut Hezbollah Funding, Cut External Financial Support
By Douglas Farah
To diminish Hezbollah's future ability to amass the type of weapons it currently possesses and carry out expensive military operations, it is necessary to go after the organization's far-flung financial structure outside of Lebanon. In addition to the support the group receives from Iran and Syria, it maintains an extensive fund-raising arm among the Shi'ite Muslim disapora.
Key concentrations are West and Central Africa, Panama and the tri-border area in South America, where the organization raises money through contraband; "taxes" on legitimate businesses, where voluntary or not; and taking a cut of illegal businesses and smuggling. Partnership Africa Canada wrote a comprehensive paper on the Lebanese role in the West African "blood diamond" trade and other illiciit activities, which reaps Hezbollah and its sister militia, Amal, millions of dollars a year.
The close-knit family ties and kinship networks that are the basis for the Lebanese business operations make even routine criminal investigations very difficult. Because everyone knows everyone and who is related to whom, infiltrating someone undercover has proved to be largely impossible.
As I testified before Congress in April 2004, "Hezbollah operates in a more institutional manner in West Africa, where it has been operational almost since its birth in the early 1980s. My full blog is here.
New Bin Laden Message to Address Gaza and Lebanon...PROBABLY NOT (updated 7/22)
By Andrew Cochran
UPDATED 7/22 WITH NEW INFORMATION: ABC News reported on Friday, July 21 that "A new Osama bin Laden message from al Qaeda's as-Sahab Institute for Media Production is to be released soon, according to IntelCenter, which monitors extremist websites. Sites have begun to advertise a new message. In his message, bin Laden will reportedly address events in Gaza and Lebanon." Laura Mansfield told us the upcoming message was announced on Thursday, but she wasn't sufficiently confident of the source at that time to make any announcement. Here's the translated announcement provided on Friday by Laura:
Breaking news,God willing the Media Department of the Al-Qaeda Network will be made an announcement in the coming few hours regarding a tape from the fighting sheikh Abu Abdullah Osama Bin Laden speaking about about Lebanon and Gaza and Iraq Allah Akbar However, as of Saturday at 3 pm ET, there has been no confirmation of an upcoming message from as-Sahab itself. Moreover, Evan Kohlmann warned us on Friday that, "The indicators that would suggest a new Bin Laden audio is coming out are more or less flat. There was one random message on the Internet posted by one random person, that's it. At least in my book, that's what you call an interesting but unsubstantiated rumor." And Rita Katz informed Site Institute subscribers on Friday that the message "should be considered inauthentic and uncorroborated."
A supportive statement by OBL would conflict with the fatwa issued against Hezbollah by a leading Saudi Wahabi cleric. Evan Kohlmann sent a translation of the fatwa: "The support of this [Shiite] sect is not permissible, and joining under their command is not permissible, and you are neither permitted to pray for their victory and martyrdom. Our advice to the Sunnis is that they renounce [Hezbollah]... [who have shown] their enmity to Islam, Muslims, and their attacks both in the past and present on Sunnis. They try to profit as much as possible from the problems of the Sunnis... cunningly... If anyone joins them, then they should understand Allah's verdict when he said, 'those from among you who support them [the infidels] are in fact part of them."
At this point at 3 pm ET on Saturday, I've come to the conclusion that there is no authentic message announcing an upcoming OBL tape.
Worst Case Scenario II: Hezbollah's Ambush of the Golani Brigade
By Bill Roggio
In Worst Case Scenario: Hezbollah's Conventional Forces: Hezbollah's Conventional Forces, we discussed Hezbollah's surprising conventional military prowess and weaponry, and reported of an ambush on a unit operating in Lebanon near Avivim. Haaretz reports that four soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed and five wounded during the ambush, and the unit withdrew from the batlefield after the encounter, under heavy fire. Excerpted from the Haaretz article, the emphasis is mine:
The hardest clashes Thursday took place at the outskirts of the village of Maroun Ras in the central sector of the border area, just north of Moshav Avivim. This is the second day of fighting in the same area where two IDF soldiers were killed Wednesday.
At about 5 P.M., a unit from the Golani Brigade ran into a large force of Hezbollah militants. It appears that the initial attack began with mortars launched against the IDF soldiers. The ambush took place in an area where a few homes are surrounded by agricultural fields. A number of explosions occurred, and the soldiers and dozens of Hezbollah militants exchanged heavy fire.
The IDF force required reinforcements to extricate itself from the area, and further heavy exchanges of fire followed, with mortars and Katyusha rockets landing on Avivim and its areas. The battle raged for hours, and the soldiers managed to hit dozens of Hezbollah fighters who launched anti-tank weapons, both of Soviet and European origin, and used heavy machine guns.
Hezbollah did not admit it suffered any casualties in the fighting. The IDF is still examining whether the initial blow by Hezbollah militants came from a Sagger anti-tank missile.
The report of an ambush and nine dead Israeli soldiers from Al Manar, Hezbollah's news service, were not far off the mark.
The Golani Brigade is an active duty IDF unit with experience on the Lebanese and Gaza fronts. It is considered an elite IDF unit and has a storied combat history. They were forced to retreat from the battlefield under heavy fire from the Iranian trained Hezbollah fighters.
The Israelis are calling up another couple of thousand troops - essentially another brigade of reservists. The knowledge that Hezbollah possesses a well trained and armed military force must be weighing heavy on Israel's political and military leadership. Hezbollah is a direct threat to the Israeli state, and if allowed to survive will dominate the Lebanese political and military arenas, and only grow stronger and bolder over time. The state-within-a-state will become the state.
Worst Case Scenario: Hezbollah's Conventional Forces
By Bill Roggio
The Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah have fought pitched battles over the past two days in the region around Avivim. Ynet News reports nine Israeli soldiers were wounded during the fighting, and two were killed in the nearby town of Maroun al-Ras. "Attempts to rescue some of the injured were carried out under relentless fire," according to the Ynet News report. Six Hezbollah cells were engaged during the attack. Israeli forces have withdrawn from the area.
Al Manar, Hezbollah's mouthpiece, states "nine Israeli soldiers were reported killed in a Hizbullah ambush while advancing into Lebanon," and "aired footage of Israeli Army equipment seized by Hizbullah fighters in the clashes." While Al Manar inflates, distorts or outright lies quite often when it comes to casualty figures and other information, the fact that the claim on Al Manar must be considered is disquieting. An irregular force such as Hezbollah should not be fighting a professional military to a standstill.
Hezbollah also has built an extensive underground networks, including "fortified underground bunkers some 40 meters (roughly 120 feet) underground, along with mass weapons caches" and communications systems. All of this was built under the nose of the Israeli military and intelligence services, as well as the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The successful Hezbollah raid on the Israeli outpost that started the conflict, followed by the firing of rockets into Haifa and beyond, anti-ship cruise missiles which disabled an Israeli warship and sunk a civilian freighter, and the construction and presence of a fortified bunker network along the border have caught the Israeli intelligence community (Aman and Mossad) flat footed. In the words of an American military officer, "If we didn't know this about Hezbollah's capabilities, just think of what we don't know about Iran's capabilities."
The Hezbollah fighters are well trained, and according to an anonymous senior military source, using ammunition and equipment such as armor piercing rounds, body armor, night vision gear and laser sights. Hezbollah also possesses mortars, RPGs, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, anti-tank missiles and possibly surface to air missiles to accompany their arsenal of short and medium range missiles capable of striking into the heart of Israeli territory. Hezbollah is using infantry tactics and fighting at the squad and platoon level.
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This isn't a garden variety militia, but a well trained fighting force, the Iranian version of the Foreign Legion. This is highlighted by Olivier Guitta, who points out some interesting facts from the Arabic version of an Asharq Al-Awsat article which explained the Iranian's involvement in training Hezbollah and supplying the group with its rocket arsenal:
200 Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been stationed in Lebanon since 1990. They have married Shia Lebanese women, mostly "Hezbollah widows" and have changed their names to Lebanese names. They installed over twenty fixed rocket bases in the Bekaa Valley and provided Hezbollah with mobile bases to launch rockets. Furthermore a secret elite force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard composed of about twenty men is watching the Israel Defense Forces' every move with very sophisticated high-tech material and then deciding on the targets to hit inside Israel.
What we are seeing today is the direct result of the state sponsorship of a terrorist entity after it has gone unchecked for over two decades. Hezbollah has evolved from a terrorist, paramilitary group into the most effective fighting force in Lebanon, capable of conducting professional operations and using sophisticated weapons. The training camps in the Bekaa Valley are not only churning out fighters for Hezbollah, but train other terrorist organizations, exporting the dangerous tactics being used today in Lebanon, much like the training camps in Afghanistan served as a breeding grounds of today's crop of terrorists.
While Israel can degrade Hezbollah via air strikes, naval bombardments and limited raids, the Iranian proxy force cannot be defeated without putting boots on the ground in southern Lebanon and deep into the Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah fighters must be engaged on the ground to be defeated. Anything short of that - a buffer zone or negotiated settlement, both of which members of the Israel government and military has indicated it would accept - is a victory for Hezbollah and Iran. Hezbollah would have struck at Israeli cities and stood up the invincible Israeli army, while weakening the nascent Lebanese democracy and asserting itself as the true military power in the country. This would far exceed Hezbollah's victory of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
The surprise and uncertainty of Hezbollah's military capabilities may in fact be the reason for pausing a massive invasion of Lebanon. Israel has yet to give up the option of a major ground strike, but there is resistance to moving into Southern Lebanon. The Jerusalem Post reports "IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz is known to be opposed to a ground incursion into Lebanon, which he has said would only be carried out as a last resort." The deputy prime minister and the minister of defense have also signaled a large scale ground incursion is not desired.
This attitude will need to change if Israel wishes to eliminate the threat on the northern border. « Close It
Southeast Asians En Route to Middle East to Fight the Israelis: Bombastic Threats of a Previously Unknown Organization or the Real Deal?
By Zachary Abuza
News reports carried on the website of the Indonesian daily Detik and by the Antara news wire are making clear that the events in the Middle East are reverberating in Southeast Asia. The two articles report that a group of 217 Southeast Asian jihadis have pledged to travel to Lebanon to fight the Israelis. This group, calling themselves the Palestine Jihad Bombing Troops (PBJ) is hitherto unknown. However, at the group’s 19 July meeting in Jakarta, the spokesman/organizer was Suaib Didu, the head of the radical Indonesian student organization, the Islamic Youth Movement (known by its Indonesian acronym, GPI). Suaib is also chairman of AMSEC (ASEAN Muslim Youth Secretariat), in whose capacity this week’s meeting/press conference was held. At the meeting, Suaib, presented 12 of the 217 jihadis. According to press reports, they were “dressed entirely in black and wore full face balaclavas.” Several of the 12 claimed to be Afghan veterans. Suaib explained, "They came here today to discuss plans for their fight in Palestine."
What is notable is that the PBJ is a pan-regional organization, and not an Indonesian grouping. Suaib explained that 72 of the 217 were Indonesian but that 57 were from the Philippines, 36 from Malaysia, 43 from Thailand, five from Brunei, three from Bangladesh and one from Singapore. He claimed that 22 of them “had waged jihad in Afghanistan with the Mojahedin.” They would leave from their respective countries and regroup in an undisclosed third country. He did not indicate if they would be fighting alongside Hamas or Hizbollah, or if either of those organizations or state was facilitating their travel.
Indonesian groups, such as the GPI and Habib Rizieq’s Islamic Defender’s Front (FPI) have been vociferous in their condemnation of the US and especially its policies in the Middle East. Both led large protests in the run-up to the Iraq war, and the GPI allegedly threatened to attack the US Embassy in Jakarta at the time. The GPI has sent recruits to Bosnia and Chechnya before. Both the GPI and FPI vowed to send mujihidin to fight the Americans in Iraq in 2003, though few actually made it. This time could be different, for several reasons.
First, it is the Holy Land. Southeast Asian Islamists and Jihadists are always seeking to bring the Islamic periphery into the Muslim core, and convince their Arab coreligionists that they are true Muslims (IE, see for example the skepticism of Abu Bakr Naji in the Management of Savagery). There is no better way to prove their Islamic faith than to fight against Israel in the Holy Land. Second, Jihadists across southeast Asia have been seeking for ways to both recruit anew and to tap into more mainstream Islamist movements.
Suaib denied that the 217 had any links to terrorist/insurgent organizations in the region and said that this was strictly a show of Islamic solidarity and part of their obligation to the ummah.
Europe Still Weighs Whether To Designate Hizbollah As A Terrorist Organization
By Victor Comras
The United States, the United Kingdom and Israel, are among the very few countries that have designated Hizbollah as a terrorist organization (and even the UK has limited its designation to Hizbollah's military wing or “External Security Organization, ” Unlike, Hamas, which was added to the EU's list of designated terrorist organizations in September 2003, there are no special EU restrictions on Hizbollah's financial or other activities in Europe. So, while the US is striving to clamp down on funding for Hizbollah, such activities are not illegal per se, and can be openly pursued in most European countries.
Europe's reluctance to designate Hezbollah, results in part from France's resistance to cutting off its own ties with Hezbollah which also is one of Lebanon's principal political groupings. The French have gone along, however, with designating Hizbollah's Security Chief, Imad Mughniyat as a terrorist. But Hizbollah's Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah and the Hizbollah organization itself are not on the EU list. French courts seem to have a somewhat different vision of Hizbollah. In December 2004 France's highest administive court, the Conseil d'État, led the way in Europe to shutting down broadcasts from Europe of Hizbollah's Al Manar Television Channel. The Court ordered Eutelsat to stop broadcasting Al Manar programming which it held violated France's laws against incitement to hatred and public endangerment. In March 2005, EU broadcasting regulators agreed also to ban all al Manar satellite broadcasts from Europe.
According to Israeli sources both France and Germany remain major recruiting and fund raising centers for Hizbollah in Europe. Numerous European charities have reportedly been engaged in raising and forwarded money for Hizbollah. These have included such charitieds as the Lebanese Islamic Association, the al-Shahid Social Relief Institution, the Help Foundation, The Lebanese Welfare Committee, and the Association of the Righteous. These and similar charities operate openly in several European countries. Germany did eventually act to close down al-Shahid Social Relief Institution after it had been linked also to funding Hamas.
It's not that the French deny that Hezbollah's engages in terrorism. Rather, in the word's of one anonymous EU official “Can a political party elected by the Lebanese people be put on a terrorist list ...Now with Lebanon in a fragile state, is this the proper moment to take such a step?” But the EU Parliament has expressed a different view. On March 10th 2005 the EU parliament voted 473 to 8 to approve a non binding consultative resolution calling on the EU Commission to “take all needed measures to put an end to the terrorist activities of this group.”
In weighing now whether to move ahead on designating Hizbollah as a terrorist organization the EU should take heed of its own recently adopted European Convention Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism. The Preamble of that convention recognizes that >" terrorist offences and the offences set forth in this Convention, by whoever perpetrated, are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature, and recalling the obligation of all Parties to prevent such offences and, if not prevented, to prosecute and ensure that they are punishable by penalties which take into account their grave nature."
The Lebanon Evacuation Window
By Walid Phares
As I have witnessed previous evacuations in Lebanon for about two decades, and as I am monitoring the ongoing evacuations of Western and American citizens by US and European military, I was able to establish a security map through which the evacuation is taking place. In short it is happening in a very dangerous geopolitical context, more than many believed it would be.
South of Beirut and Bekaa
As shown on the map, evacuating persons from Hizbollah-controlled areas faces significant dangers. The confrontations between the Israeli Air Force and Hizbollah's militia can impede transportation in these areas and would endanger the ships coming closer to the shores just south of Beirut. Hence, the entire coastal area south of the capital is off any landing zone. In addition all areas shown in yellow, under Hizbollah control, are also off staging areas for helicopter evacuations. In addition, helicopter landings in the south and the Bekaa plateau are not possible on security grounds.
The North
Areas in the extreme north including in Tripoli's port and the districts surrounding are also dangerous for evacuation operations as pro-Syrian elements are omnipresent.
Al Qaida Factor
In addition to Hizbollah's risk, which most likely won't develop at this stage because of the need of the organization to appear as legitimate worldwide, another high danger is potential: al Qaida. Surfacing from underneath Hizbollah, al Qaida allied cells are present in the Palestinian bases along the southern coast and in the far north as of Tripoli. Even against the will of Hizbollah, al Qaida operatives can -if they decide so- launch attacks against US and other Western units coming close to the shores in these areas. These targets would be ideal to al Qaida as they fulfill their desire to attack US military and citizens.
Map of Evacuation Dangers from MSNBC interview with Walid Phares
(click to enlarge)
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The Window
While very few audiences in the world notice it, there is a narrow geographical window in Lebanon more secure for the ongoing evacuation process. It stretches from the Beirut Port in East Beirut to the Batroun Port in the North: about 65 km of coastlines, where US and Western military and other personnel can land, circulate and organize its logistics relatively safely. One, there are no significant sympathizers to Hizbollah and almost no presence to al Qaida. Besides, the populations of these mountainous and waterfront zones are strongly anti-Syrian. They have formed the majority of the marchers of the historic March 14 demonstration. The core of the Cedars Revolution, these areas have had a dire history of bombardments by the Syrian occupation army during 1976-1990. Western military and evacuees can enjoy a 20 km depth into the mountains as well. Technically, this "zone" can offer launching pads for helicopters and obviously the two major ports of Beirut and Juniah for ship operations. In addition, the Shuf Mountains can secure landing zones for helicopters for the purpose of evacuation process, if needed.
Future Threats
However, in the future these areas, from the Cedars peaks to Beirut and throughout Mount Lebanon to the Shuf district, may well become targets for Hizbollah infiltration and pro-Syrian penetration. For the anti-Western axis in Lebanon would need to secure these zones so that no anti-Syrian areas can obstruct their war with Israel, which dramatically may put these region under Israeli military activities. In fact all depends on the Lebanese Government's readiness to deploy the Lebanese Army solidly in these relatively "secure" areas before the international community equips the Government with needed tools to deeply the Army into the Hizbollah zones in the future.
Evacuation Window
In sum, US and allied forces, in coordination with Lebanon's Government security, are now operating a challenging rescue operation to extract up to 20,000 citizens from Lebanon. The operation is delicate as it factors monitoring the transportation of US and European citizens from regions as diverse as one can imagine into Beirut Port and the helicopters pads in a variety of spots. The operation, protected by Western ships and jets ready to fly, has established a maritime bridge with Cyprus. As I traveled by boat and by helicopter between Lebanon and Cyprus, sometimes under direct artillery action by the Syrians in the 1980s, I realize how dramatic this voyage can be. In the 1980s, the travelers were embarking on commercial ships with no Navy escort, under shelling by the long-range Syrian artillery. The first hour of voyage was the most dangerous, for the shells menaced lives from the port's docks to about 15 miles off the coasts.
Today's evacuees are lucky to be transported by the most powerful military in the world and under the reporting of most world media, two insurance policies non-existent at the time. Those US and Western citizens are traversing waters a few miles from where al Qaida cells would have potentially launched attacks, and not far from areas dominated by Hizbollah, now busy fighting Israel, and not yet set on harming Americans and creating another "act of war" with it.
Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of Future Jihad. « Close It
Europe, potential target for Hezbollah terror attacks
By Olivier Guitta
Two European countries are especially worried about the potential implications of the Hezbollah-Syria-Iran vs Israel war. They are Germany and France.
First, German security services are on the lookout for a potential Hezbollah terror campaign because of the heavy precense of Hezbollah cells and Syrian secret service within Germany. The fact that Europe is viewed by Iran as endorsing the Israeli counterattack, might push the mullahs to order their proxies to hit European cities.
Regarding France, even though President Chirac has been quick to criticize Israel's response, he has nonetheless been forceful in calling for disarming Hezbollah. For more on that please view my Brookings paper on France and Hezbollah: The end of the affair. Keep in mind that Hezbollah has already a history of attacking Paris: in 1986 a terror campaign ordered by Iran and using Hezbollah operatives killed 13 and injured hundreds. French security services are worried of a possible redux: in fact Hezbollah operatives had flown in from Lebanon, used homegrown cells for logistics and flew back after the bombings. As much as France is very well informed on Sunni terrorism (mostly Algerian), they are almost flying blind on Shia terrorism.
Dr. Stephen Sloan Joins Us As a Contributing Expert
By Andrew Cochran
We're pleased and honored to welcome Dr. Stephen Sloan, one of the most respected veterans of the CT community, as our newest Contributing Expert. For over 35 years, Dr. Sloan has been a pioneer in research, teaching and consulting on international terrorism, crisis management, unconventional warfare and political violence. He is currently a Fellow and University Professor at the Office of Global Perspectives, University of Central Florida, a member of numerous advisory boards, and commissions. A list of his contributions through published books, articles, participation in simulations, and statements runs for pages. He has advised and worked closely with many of our existing Contributing Experts. His next book, Terrorism: The Present Threat in Context, will be published later this year by Berg Publishers. Dr. Sloan taught for years in Oklahoma and lived 10 blocks from the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City when it was bombed in 1995; you can read a summary of his perspectives on that event here.
Hizballah Activity in North America
By Andrew Cochran
Brian Hecht of The Investigative Project on Terrorism has prepared a quick reference guide to major Hizballah and Hizballah-linked illegal activity in the United States, Canada and Mexico:
Racketeering, Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing:
* U.S.A. v. Mohamad Youssef Hammoud et al., Charlotte, North Carolina: 25 individuals charged in connection with cigarette smuggling, money laundering, credit card fraud, marriage fraud and immigration violations. Four individuals were charged with providing “material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,” Hizballah, specifically providing “currency, financial services, training, false documentation and identification, communications equipment, explosives, and other physical assets to Hizballah, in order to facilitate its violent attacks.” In 2003, Mohamad Hammoud was sentenced to 155 years in prison, while his brother, Chawki, was sentenced to 51 months.
* U.S.A. v. Elias Mohamad Akhdar et al. (pdf), Dearborn, Michigan: 11 co-defendants charged with racketeering related to the Charlotte, North Carolina scheme. In January, 2004, Akhdar was sentenced to 70 months in prison and was fined over $2,000,000 after having pled guilty in July, 2003.
* U.S.A. v. Imam Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, et al., Michigan, Canada (Ontario, Quebec), Lebanon: In March, 2006, 19 co-defendants charged with a racketeering scheme involving contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig Zag rolling papers and counterfeit Viagra, counterfeit cigarette tax stamps, transporting stolen property, and money laundering. A percentage of the profits derived from the illegal enterprise were given to Hizballah. On July 7, two of the defendants, Imad Majed Hamadeh and Theodore Schenk, 73 pled guilty (pdf). Hamadeh and Schenk face a maximum possible penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
Weapons and Planning:
* U.S.A.. v. Mahmoud Youssef Kourani (pdf), Dearborn, Michigan: In November, 2003, charged with being a “member, fighter, recruiter, and fundraiser” for Hizballah. In June, 2005, Kourani was sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison.
* U.S.A. v. Naji Antoine Abi Khalil, Montreal, Quebec; New York: Canadian/Lebanese dual citizen conspired with an Israeli, Tomer Grinberg, and charged with attempting to export military night vision goggles and infrared aiming equipment to Hizballah. In February 2006, Khalil was sentenced to 60 months in prison.
* U.S.A. v. Ali Boumelhem, Dearborn, Michigan: Man convicted in September 2001 of attempting to smuggle two shotguns, 750 bullets and assault weapon parts in a conspiracy to aid Hizballah, and 5 weapons violations. He was sentenced to 44 months in jail.
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Tax Evasion:
* U.S.A. v. Talal Khalil Chahine et. al, Dearborn, Michigan: Restaurant owner and wife, Elfat El Aouar, in May 2006, charged with four counts of tax evasion and the concealment of more than $16,000,000 of cash from the federal government. The U.S. government, in a written proffer of evidence (in U.S.A. v. Elfat El Aouar, Cr. No. 06-20248, EDMI, 5/22/2006), states that Chahine and his wife attended a fundraising event in Lebanon in August 2002 with Hizballah Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, a Specially Designated Terrorist (see page 8), where the two men were the keynote speakers. The proffer also claims that a search of El Aouar’s residence turned up a “thank you letter” for sponsoring 40 “orphans,” as well as images of Chahine and his family in front of a Hizballah outpost. According to the proffer, “[t]he government is aware that the sponsorship of orphans is a euphemism used by Hizballah to refer to the orphans of martyrs. This is a common public relations and recruitment tool used by Hizballah. Hizballah gains favor with the public in Lebanon by supporting ‘orphans,’ while at the same time recruiting others into the terrorist organization willing to sacrifice their lives in terrorist operations based in part on the promise that Hizballah will take care of their families.” The government has yet to charge Chahine or his wife with any terrorism-related offense.
Drug Running:
* U.S.A. v. Mohammad Shabib, Cleveland, Ohio: Federal prosecutors charged Mohammad Shabib with hiding his role in a drug ring which profits were funneled to Hizballah. Shabib, a gas station owner, had $8,000,000 in a Chicago bank account, which authorities say Shabib amassed by shipping roughly 3 tons of pseudoephedrine from Canada to California, which he would sell to Mexican gangs who would use the drugs to produce methamphetamine. (See: Amanda Garrett, “Terrorists’ Money Takes Convoluted Path in U.S.,” The Cleveland Dealer, January 18, 2004).
Mexico: Human Trafficking:
* Mexico v. Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, Tijuana, Mexico: Boughader, proprietor of a Lebanese restaurant in Mexico, ran a smuggling ring into the U.S. Before he was arrested in December 2002, Boughader had trafficked roughly 200 Lebanese nationals, including Hizballah-linked individuals, across the border and into the U.S. Boughader admitted transporting a former employee of al-Manar television, which is owned and operated by Hizballah and currently designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist entity. Boughder is quoted as saying, “[f]or us, Hezbollah are not terrorists."
Other:
* U.S.A. v. Nemr Ali-Rahal et. al. (pdf), Dearborn, Michigan: Husband and wife pled guilty in January 2006 to credit card and bank fraud worth more than $500,000. Ali-Rahal was sentenced to 33 months in prison (see right side text box). While he was not charged with any terrorism related offenses, when FBI agents arrested Ali-Rahal, they discovered, in his home, Hizballah-related materials including a videotape of a 2002 Hizballah rally in Lebanon at which Rahal was present in Lebanon, as well as a collection of books, posters and videos including one titled “A Martyr Speaks About Martyrs” and a photo showing Rahal burning an American flag.
* Hizballah-linked Counterfeit Goods Ring in Los Angeles (pdf), Los Angeles, CA: Testimony of Lieutenant John C. Stedman, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, May 25, 2005: “There are also indicators that some associates of terrorist groups may be involved in (Intellectual Property Right/)IPR crime. During the course of our investigations, we have encountered suspects who have shown great affinity for Hezbollah and its leadership. The following are just two examples: during the search of a residence pursuant to an IPR related search warrant, I saw small Hezbollah flags displayed in the suspect’s bedroom. Next to the flags was a photograph of Hassan Nasrallah whom I recognized as the leader of Hezbollah. The suspect’s wife asked me if I knew the subject of the photograph. I identified Nasrallah and the wife said, ‘We love him because he protects us from the Jews’. Also in the home were dozens of audio tapes of Nasrallah’s speeches. During the search, one of my detectives also found a locket which contained a picture of the male suspect on one side and Sheik Nasrallah on the other. In 2004, detectives served an IPR search warrant at a clothing store in Los Angeles County. During the course of the search, thousands of dollars in counterfeit clothing was recovered as were two unregistered firearms. During the booking process, the suspect was found to have a tattoo of the Hezbollah flag on his arm.”
* In 2003, Hizballah’s website carried a page on Hajj with Hizbollah, complete with contact information for regions around the world. The page listed a Canadian phone number soliciting Muslims interested in going on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Other phone numbers included Beirut; Conakry, Guinea; Sweden; Switzerland; Ivory Coast; Denmark; Sierra Leone; Togo; Ghana and Gambia for people interested living in those places. « Close It
Possible Turkish Intervention in Iraq?
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Turkey is currently making a lot of noise about launching a cross-border incursion into Iraq to engage the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) in combat operations. On July 18, Professor Sedat Laciner published an article in the Turkish Weekly comparing the situation that Turkey faces from the PKK to the threat Israel faces from Hamas and Hizballah. After stating that Western countries have defended Israel's right to self-defense, Prof. Laciner asks, "But, does the right of self defence just belong to Israel in the Middle East? For example, doesn’t Turkey have such a right?"
Prof. Laciner outlines the damage that the PKK has inflicted upon Turkey: "Turkey has given terrorism more than 36.000 victims. The PKK is the bloodiest terrorist organization in the world. It is among the first places in the lists of terrorist organizations of both the US and the EU. Besides, it does not have democratically elected-members unlike the Hamas and Hezbollah. It sustains its name with its massacres." (For more on the PKK, see CFR's profile.) Prof. Laciner then turns to the situation Turkey faces on its border, with the PKK gaining strength in Iraq:
The PKK has more than 10 armed camps in Iraq. These camps are located in the northeast part of the country. In addition to this, the PKK have direct or indirect offices in many cities of Iraq. Lastly, they opened an office in Baghdad called "Ocalan Culture Center". Turkey transferred the information of all these developments with the documents to the Baghdad Government, to the US authorities and to the Kurdish authority in the north Iraq. Yet, they have nothing to do except wasting Turkey’s time. The USA says: "Go and talk to the Baghdad, they are governing the Iraq". On the other hand the Baghdad says "I have no power in that region, I cannot destroy the PKK bases, go and talk with the Kurdish Authority in the North Iraq." However, the Kurds in the North Iraq say
that "My power is not enough to fight against this organization"
As a result, Prof. Laciner argues that Turkey has the right to engage in a defensive intervention into Iraq to smash the PKK and its network.
Nor is Prof. Laciner alone. The Turkish Weekly reports that the Turkish government recently summoned both the U.S. and Iraqi ambassadors to warn that Turkish patience with continued PKK presence in Iraq was wearing thin. Turkey said that if the U.S. and Iraq do not take "necessary steps," Turkey could launch a "cross-border operation." Turkey has suggested that if it's unsatisfied with the steps that the U.S. and Iraq take, it could launch this operation unilaterally: "Our patience is not endless. Root out Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerillas immediately, otherwise, we will be forced to resort to our right of self-defense." See also the account from the New York Times.
Even Turkish opposition parties are applauding the prospect of such a cross-border incursion.
The flashpoint for the push for intervention is an incident last week in which fifteen soldiers, police and guards were killed by PKK guerillas in a clash in Southeast Turkey. This is just the last in a long string of incidents that has occurred over the last couple of years, but the death of these fifteen was particularly disturbing to the Turks. It has been the lead item in Turkish newscasts.
There are two potential dangers to Turkish intervention in Iraq. The first is that Turkish units may end up clashing with American-backed Kurdish units (i.e. units in the Kurdish areas that aren't affiliated with the PKK). The second danger is that a Turkish unit may accidentally engage Americans in a firefight. This is a particular concern for the Turkish side. Reader Timothy Thompson writes that a senior Turkish naval source of his "feels invading Iraq is about as wise a move for Turkish forces as continuing to occupy Northen Cyprus. Nothing to gain, everything to lose. He stresses the absolute no-win situation of a clash with American forces in northern Iraq. He points out that Greece and Turkey were lucky to avoid a military clash after the collision of Greek and Turkish fighter jets in a game of 'chicken' a few weeks ago -- the entire area is very tense. Political logic gives way to raw emotions in military confrontations. The historic and vital US-Turkish strategic alliance could disappear overnight if Turkish special forces operatives inflict causalities on American troops in northern Iraq."
While Lebanon Burns, Watch Bosnia
By Douglas Farah
It is always very hard to focus on broad pictures when so many fires are in need of being put out. But it is imperative to keep in mind in the ongoing conflict Iran's long-standing ties not only to Hezbollah, but to Islamists in Bosnia, a relationship that spans more than a decade.
There is concern among Bosnian contacts that, if Iran feels things are going badly in Lebanon and that the war needs another front, it would take little to ignite Bosnia. It would not be hard to do and the international presence in Bosnia is greatly reduced. So is the intelligence capacity developed in the late 1990s. Several key intelligence-gathering units have been dissolved in Bosnia in the past six months, meaning the West is more blind there than any time since the mid-1990s.
To date, Iranian intelligence maintains a huge apparatus in Bosnia with several dozen, if not hundred, trainers with the elite units of the Bosnian military. In addition, several hundred mujahadeen who fought in Afghanistan and then Bosnia remain scattered around Bosnia, many of them still with the elite Bosnia units or in the intelligence apparatus. My full blog is here.
Some important missed facts on the Hezbollah/Iran/Syria-Israel war
By Olivier Guitta
In the same vein of my latest July 13 post, here is some additional info that has been overlooked:
1- Over two weeks ago, Hezbollah's leader Nasrallah told opposition leader Walid Jumblatt: "The stability of Lebanon is vital for us. We have to preserve the touristic season and continue with a dialogue between the different political parties."
2- After the Syrian Army left last year, not only did Syrians still place officials in the Lebanese Army, Secret Service, and high in the administration (for more on that, please read my piece in the "Daily Standard" here), but also Hezbollah did the same.
3- Nasrallah admitted that it took five months of preparation to plan this operation.
4- As Bill Roggio pointed out, linking to the English portion of an Asharq Al-Awsat article:
"The source said more than 3,000 Hezbollah members have undergone training in Iran, which included guerrilla warfare, firing missiles and artillery, operating unmanned drones, marine warfare and conventional war operations. He said they have also trained 50 pilots for the past two years. According to the source, Hezbollah currently possesses four types of surface-to-surface missiles, some of which extend to a distance of 150 kilometers."
But the Arabic version of the piece is, as usual, much more detailed: the 200 Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been stationed in Lebanon since 1990. They have married Shia Lebanese women, mostly "Hezbollah widows" and have changed their names to Lebanese names. They installed over twenty fixed rocket bases in the Bekaa Valley and provided Hezbollah with mobile bases to launch rockets. Furthermore a secret elite force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard composed of about twenty men is watching the Israel Defense Forces' every move with very sophisticated high-tech material and then deciding on the targets to hit inside Israel.
5- Hezbollah is purposefully using Christian, Sunni and Druze villages to fire rockets at Israel. In fact, they count on Israel retaliating in these places, killing non-Shia civilians who then in turn might become hostile to Israel and side with Hezbollah.
6- Saad Hariri, Rafik Hariri's son and leader of the majority bloc in Parliament, called for judging the people who have pushed Lebanon into this unwanted war, i.e. Hezbollah.
7- Saudi Arabia's very unusual condemnation of Hezbollah can be also explained by the fact that Hariri holds dual citizenship, Lebanese and Saudi; that Rafik Hariri was extremely close to the Saudi royal family; and that one of the most important Lebanese communities in the world is in Saudi Arabia, numbering around 150,000.
Basayev video commemorates his death
By Bill Roggio
| | Banner announcing Basayev's commemoration video. |
| | Basayev's commemoration video. Click image to view video, file size is ~5M, in Windows Media Viewer format [.mwv] |
Two Islamist websites have posted a video commemorating the life and death of Chechen al-Qaeda commander Shamil Basayev (AKA Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris), who was killed by Russian security forces on July 10, 2006. Counterrorism Blog expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross examines The Death of Shamil Basayev and How Jihadists Are Made and Lorenzo Vidino looks at How Chechnya Became a Breeding Ground for Terror.
I strongly suggest watching the video after viewing the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point's Islamic Imagery Project to understand the symbolism behind various scenes in the video (the moom as a sign of purity, the afterlife and martyrdom; the forrest a representation of paradis.e.) This is a slickly produced As Sahab video comprising of numerous photographs as well as video of Basayev as a fighting commander, and includes shots of a Russian soldier being executed and an attack on a Russian convoy. The musical score is accompanied by voice overs, sounds of explosions, gunfire and screams.
Since Basayev's death, the Russian government has offered the Chechen fighters amnesty to lay down their arms. Nikolai Patrushev, the chief of the Russian Federal Security, claims a large number of Chechen fighters have disarmed. Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov claims that just yesterday 13 "militants from the Doku Umarov criminal armed group" have "have announced they are ready to surrender."
The SITE Institute reports the Abu Hafs, the military deputy of the Chechen Mujahideen Shura Council, "denies that in the wake of his [Basayev's] death that the Mujahideen in Chechnya wish to have negotiations with Russian officials. On the contrary, he states that jihad was not affected by the loss of Basayev, and the Mujahideen will continue to strive for the withdrawal of Russia from Chechnya and to be self-governing."
With thanks to counterterrorism consultant Dan Darling for contributing to the information in this post.
To Repeat: Are We Ready for Hizbollah Attacks in the US?
By Walid Phares
Back on April 5, in "Are You Ready for Hizbollah's Preemptive Terror?" I warned that "The Terror War in Lebanon is a prelude to the upcoming (or highly likely) Hizbollahi Jihad against the US and other democracies, in the same way the Taliban preempted against the Northern Alliance and assassinated Masoud Shah before al Qaida perpetrated September 11." With statements from Iranian leaders that "We are only waiting for the Supreme Leader's green light to take action. If America wants to ignite World War Three ... we welcome it," we should not be surprised if Hizbollah initiates waves of attacks in Canada and the U.S. More analysis later.
(Editor's Note: Punctuation anomalies in Walid's April 5 post are due to the change from the old website.)
Another limited IDF incursion into Lebanon; Evacuating Lebanon
By Bill Roggio
 Israeli troops have entered southern Lebanon for the second time in two days. Like the last raid, this one had the limited objective of destroying Hezbollah strong points on the Lebanese border, as well as "searching for tunnels and mines" in the region.
Israeli leaders continue to signal they do not intend to launch major ground operations to hunt and destroy Hezbollah in southern and deeper into the Bekaa Valley in the east and north. The Washington Times reports on an exchange between MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Peres what would "cause you to take ground troops into either Lebanon on a sustained basis, or into Syria?"
"Nothing whatever," Peres replied. "We don't intend to enter Lebanon from the ground. The danger today is not an exchange of power on the ground but really the missiles and the rockets, we should try to stop it."
While there is always the possibility the Israeli government and military officials are conducting a sophisticated information operations campaign, the military is not mobilizing for a large scale invasion of Lebanon. Only three battalions (about 300 troops per battalion) have been mobilized over the past few days. With Israel being a small nation, a large scale call up of troops could not be hidden from public view.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, in his analysis of the strategic considerations notes "if Israel were interested in a long-term occupation, it would have had to call up far more reserves than it did." This also applies to a large military operation designed to destroy Hezbollah and pursue them into their rear bases in the Bekaa Valley, where they are supported by elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Syrian military. The Beirut-Damascus Road is 35 miles from the Israeli border, Baalbeck and Hermel, two Hezbollah headquarters are 60 and 90 miles from the Israeli border respectively.
Air strikes cannot defeat Hezbollah's forces alone. There is no readily available Lebanese version of the "Northern Alliance" that can act as a surrogate ground force (Hezbollah destroyed the Israeli-back Southern Lebanese Army after Israel's withdrawal in 2000.) The Lebanese Army is fractured and weak, and their involvement would likely spark a civil war.
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Hezbollah is a paramilitary force that excels at blending into the population, and has the state backing of Iran and Syria. Hezbollah can cross over the border into Syria if needed (although this may tarnish their image as the "legitimate resistance" to the Israelis.) In order for the Israel to significantly degrade Hezbollah's capabilities, they must enter Lebanon in force and engage Hezbollah on the ground, and must do so with far more than the three battalions called up. Israel cannot assume the Syrian Lebanese armies will remain on the sidelines, and must provide security for any force advancing into the Bekaa Valley. This requires multiple divisions of the Israeli Defense Forces.
While Israel telegraphs its unwillingness to act decisively, the Iranians continue to flaunt their support of Hezbollah, and even threaten the United States. Mojtaba Bigdeli, the spokeman for Iranian Hezbollah, has claimed his organization has thousands of volunteers willing to conduct suicide strikes and other acts of terrorism. "We have 2,000 volunteers who have registered since last year... They have been trained and they can become fully armed. We are ready to dispatch them to every corner of the world to jeopardize Israel and America's interests. We are only waiting for the Supreme Leader's green light to take action. If America wants to ignite World War Three ... we welcome it," said Bigdeli. Gholam Ali Haddad Adel , the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, vows more missiles will strike Israel. "The towns you have built in northern Palestine [Israel] are within the range of the brave Lebanese children. No part of Israel will be safe," said Adel.
The missile strikes into Israel and Israeli raids in Lebanon are not expected to end anytime soon. Western nations are beginning mass evacuations of their citizens from Lebanon. The United States has tasked nine Navy ships to help remove over 10,000 Americans of the 25,000 estimated in country who wish to leave. Reuters reports "the guided missile destroyer USS Gonzalez, the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima, amphibious transport docks USS Nashville and USS Trenton; dock landing ship USS Whidbey Island; command and control ship USS Mount Whitney; guided missile destroyer USS Barry; High Speed Vessel Swift; and oil tanker USNS Big Horn" have been directed to the region to assist in the evacuation of Americans from Lebanon to Cyprus. These ships will need to pass through the Israeli naval blockade, and run the risk of facing Iranian manned cruise missile batteries and rocket strikes. « Close It
The Israeli Incursion into Lebanon: Strategic Considerations
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
It is critical to understand the strategic implications of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon. Hizballah has proven to be a far more effective fighting machine than Israel anticipated, and the Israelis find themselves in a difficult situation: Continued military operations in Lebanon risk escalation and further destabilization, while a quick withdrawal would hand Hizballah a significant victory. This blog entry analyzes the most salient strategic considerations.
The key issue is Iran's involvement in Hizballah's campaign. Iran appears to be up to its eyeballs in the current conflict. It is no coincidence that Hizballah's July 12 incursion into Israel (in which eight IDF soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped) occurred on the same day that Iran was supposed to report to the IAEA about its nuclear program. Iran has given Hizballah tens of millions of dollars in training, weaponry and monetary support every year for decades, and was even involved in past Hizballah kidnapping campaigns: When Hizballah engaged in a massive hostage-taking campaign in the 1980s designed to drive Westerners out of Lebanon, a number of Hizballah's American hostages reported seeing their captors consort with uniformed Iranian officers. Moreover, as my colleague Bill Roggio has noted, the sophistication of Hizballah's simultaneous sea strikes suggests a level of sophistication Hizballah wouldn't attain without Iranian involvement -- as does the range, accuracy and destructiveness of the missile strikes into Israel.
A second consideration is that, while the Israelis appear to be winning the ground war, the current crisis could benefit Iran, Syria and Hizballah.
Iran. If Iran played a major role in the timing of Hizballah's cross-border raid into Israel, it had many strong reasons for doing so. The flare-up in Lebanon has clearly taken some of the pressure off of Iran concerning its nuclear program. It has also divided the Western coalition that was previously unified against Iranian nuclear development, since many of the U.S.'s partners have strongly differing views on the Israeli retaliation. Oil prices have hit an all-time high, which hurts the U.S. and helps oil-producing nations like Iran. And finally, the coverage of the war in Lebanon on al-Jazeera and other regional networks can fan the flames of fundamentalism. Right now Iran benefits from regional instability; that is one reason that it has been working so hard to bolster the insurgency in Iraq. And the Israeli incursion has clearly created instability and uncertainty.
Syria. Reports from military sources suggest that Bashar Assad would like to see Israel enter South Lebanon. For a long time, one of the key drivers of Syria's economy was its domination of Lebanon; after Syria was pushed out last year, its economy took a major hit. Reports suggest that the Lebanese government has essentially ceased being functional. If Israel enters South Lebanon, engages in major combat operations and then withdraws, it will likely leave a power vaccuum that the Lebanese government cannot fill. That will pave the way for Syria's return.
Hizballah. Hizballah has already shown that it's capable of taking on the Israeli military. This fact alone will help increase its prestige. Moreover, Lebanon's infrastructure has already been so damaged that Hizballah's social services network is bound to expand -- thus bolstering the terrorist group's standing.
A third consideration is what is likely to happen next. There appears to be little chance of a long-term Israeli engagement in Lebanon. If Israel were interested in a long-term occupation, it would have had to call up far more reserves than it did.
It's likely that Israel will begin a major ground engagement within the next two weeks designed to obliterate Hizballah's infrastructure and neutralize as much of its military wing as possible. Israel is likely to use a mobile combat force that can move into Lebanon, inflict maximum damage on the Hizballah terrorist network, and get out rapidly. As of Sunday, my military sources expected major engagements to begin within 72 hours. However, that estimate has been pushed back because Israeli intelligence now acknowledges that it initially underestimated Hizballah’s military capabilities.
A fourth and final consideration is the U.S.'s role moving forward. There have doubtless been many high-level communications between the U.S. and Israel. While the U.S. recognizes Israel's right to self-defense and the benefits of destroying Hizballah's infrastructure in Lebanon, it also wants the Israeli incursion to end as quickly as practicable.
The U.S.'s greatest interests right now are avoiding direct involvement in the clashes and avoiding escalation. Our ground troops are overstretched with our commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. military involvement in Lebanon only risks opening up another chaotic front in the Middle East. While there will probably be a military confrontation with Iran before the end of 2007, fighting Iran now amounts to engaging them on their terms rather than our own.
There have already been attempts at escalating this conflict. For example, there are reports that Hizballah fired rockets at the Golan Heights in an attempt to draw in Syria. Escalation and the uncertainty that accompanies it would benefit those who know the region best. And if the past several years have taught us nothing else, they should leave us no doubt that the U.S. is not the country that best understands the region.
(Thanks to counterterrorism consultant Dan Darling for providing some of the information that appears in this report.)
Hezbollah's Dangerous Ball Bearings
By Michael Kraft
In a rather unusual story, the Reuters new agency reported that the Human Rights Watch criticized Hezbollah’s practice of packing ball bearings into the rockets it fires at Israel as a violation of international humanitarian law and probable war crimes.
The Reuters report said that some of the Kutyusha rockets fired into Haifa Sunday and Monday contained hundreds of metal ball bearings that are of limited use against military targets but “cause great harm to civilians and civilian property. The ball bearings lodge in the body and cause serious harm.”
The Human Rights Watch, in a statement issued yesterday in New York, said “ attacking civilian areas indiscriminately is a serious violation of international law and can constitute a war crime….Hezbollah’s use of warheads that have limited military use and cause grievous suffering to victims only makes the crime worse.”
The story was unusual in that it was one of the few that have reported that the terrorist groups attacking Israelis are not using only explosives but also pieces of metal intended to deliberately cause pain and suffering to victims who are not killed outright. The Hamas makers of the suicide bomb belts routinely pack the bombs with nuts and bolts and nails. There also have been reports that the metal fragments are sometimes dipped into a pesticide, in order to maximize the damage to the victims and make it more difficult for doctors to effectively treat their patients. However there has been little public reporting in the western media of this tactic, which causes torture to the victims who survive the original blast and additional agony for their families and friends.
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The Israeli press has occasionally mentioned this practice but the government has not dwelt on it, perhaps to avoid adding to public concerns about these threats.
The Reuters story also was relatively unusual in that it reported a human rights organization’s statement criticizing terrorists rather than Israel.
A quick Google and Yahoo search indicated that this report was barely picked up by the print media, with the notable exception of a newspaper paper in the United Arab Emirates. Other papers did report, however an earlier Human Rights Watch that called on the Israelis to provide more detail on a bombing that killed 16 civilians in a convoy near the Lebanese village of Marwahin on July 16.
Human Rights Watch has issued protests in the past of the Hamas use of suicide bombers against Israelis, including a detailed report in November 2002 that mentioned the use of bolts and nails and shrapnel packed into the bombs.
Hezbollah’s adoption of the Hamas tactic is another element in the determined Israeli efforts to root out as many of the Hezbollah rockets as possible.
The packing of ball bearings into the Hezbollah rockets also illustrates that the rocket attacks that the Haifa last weekend and again today are not about retaliating for Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah infrastructure and the Lebanese bridges and other infrastructure. Rather, they are a deliberate effort to kill and maim civilians, not accidental fallout or “collateral damage.” It does not bode well for a quick diplomatic or peaceful resolution of the current crisis. « Close It
The Passport Requirement of the WHTI Needs to be Implemented Without Delay
By Michael Cutler
I was quoted in the Canadian press concerning the arrest of 17 terrorism suspects in Canada several weeks ago. I was subsequently contacted by a staffer from the Canadian Senate who asked me to prepare a paper concerning my position on the WHTI (Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative) which will require citizens of Canada and the United States to carry a passport or other secure identity documentation to be developed, when they cross the border separating our two countries.
Needless to say, I was honored to have been contacted by the Canadian government so that I could provide them with my perspective on this important issue. I have complied with this request and a copy of my paper that I have provided to the Canadian Senate follows. I have been told that it will be circulated among all of the members of the Canadian Senate's Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce which is involved with this issue.
It is my belief that in the perilous times in which we live, the requirement established by the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) that citizens of the United States and Canada carry passports when they travel across the international border that separates these two countries is entirely reasonable and should be implemented without any additional delay.
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I am a New Yorker and on September 11, 2001, the ashes from the conflagration at the World Trade Center site that was to come to be known as “Ground Zero” fell on my home and my neighbors’ homes. On that terrible day, I recall seeing the images of the North Tower already ablaze on television when, as I watched the live coverage of that disaster, I saw the second airliner strike the South Tower. I raced around to gather up my children who were attending different schools to make certain that they were safe. In the days that followed, all too many of my neighbors tied yellow ribbons to the trees in front of their homes, signifying that a family member was missing. In those dark days after 9/11 I gave up counting how many cars drove by with photos in their windows with a simple question attached to the photos: “Have you seen my son?” “Have you seen my wife?” “Have you seen my dad?”
The terrorist attacks committed against the United States and our way of life, has forever changed the way that we now have to do business. As I have often stated in public appearances, the “All clear” has not yet sounded. Indeed, the attacks in Spain and England and the arrests of other terrorism suspects throughout the world, including Canada, serve as continuing reminders that we remain at risk.
It is critical that we restore as much of normalcy to our lives as we can. To curl up in the fetal position and become paralyzed with fear would give the terrorists the victory they so desperately want. However, while we must live our lives and travel and do all of those things that have been such an integral part of our individual lives as well as the lives of our respective nations before the terrorist attacks against the United States, we need to take certain prudent yet reasonable measures to help protect ourselves against those who would destroy us. One of the points I made when I testified at a Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. is that no American city is safe if any American city is attacked. We most certainly can make the same statement about those nations that practice democracy and permit people of all cultures and religions to participate fully in the political and social life of that nation. Canada certainly has a justifiably proud tradition of Liberalism where the acceptance of people of all backgrounds is concerned. This attribute, however, can also represent a vulnerability to the security of your nation as well as the United States. I have read a number of reports that indicate that as many as 50 terrorist organizations may well be operating within your nation’s borders. This is something that imperils your safety and survival as well as the safety and survival of the United States. I can also tell you that there are undoubtedly terrorists and terrorist sympathizers who live in the United States who imperil the United States and Canada, as well.
Terrorists have apparently used Canada as a staging point for carrying out, or attempting to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States. The ease with which they can move between our two countries is certainly an inducement for terrorists to come to Canada with the anticipation that they could then move easily across our border to carry out an attack in the United States. This factor also may well attract terrorists to enter Canada as a part of their overall plan to attack the United States. Meanwhile, as they live in Canada, their presence may well also represent a threat to your country as well. The recent arrest of terrorists in Canada, while a tribute to the effectiveness of your law enforcement officials, also makes it clear that Canada is also a potential target for those who are engaged in terrorism.
I can tell you from personal experience, having worked closely with law enforcement officers from Canada, most often with members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, that where these dedicated men and women are concerned; Canada has every reason to be proud of them. They are every bit as competent and professional as are the best law enforcement officers to be found in the United States. The best law enforcement officers alone, however, cannot be the most effective that they can be without the support of the legislators who establish the laws and regulations that facilitate their efforts when they are on duty.
The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, (WHTI), establishes a deadline whereby a requirement will be implemented that when citizens of our respective nations travel between out two countries that they carry with them passports or at the least, suitable identity documents to help screen out those who might be traveling into our respective nations who pose a threat to our safety. This would make it more difficult for terrorists and criminals to enter our respective nations under false identities to conceal their true identities and the true purposes of their travel. This requirement is the direct result of the findings of the Presidential Commission on the Attacks of September 11, 2001. This requirement may well represent an inconvenience to the citizens of both of our nations who desire to travel across our mutual border, but in my judgment, this measure would provide both of our nations with enhanced security.
I have made many trips to Canada, I have been to Toronto, Montreal and Quebec and I plan to make many more trips to Canada and I can tell you the passport requirement will not deter me from traveling north. In the United States, because of the many fatalities our motorists have suffered in automobile accidents, caused by drunk drivers and drivers who have been operating cars under the influence of drugs, so-called “Sobriety Checkpoints” have been set up, especially during the various holidays to help deter drunk driving. These check points are quite frankly, a nuisance to most of us because it often causes traffic delays. However, these checkpoints, while inconvenient, have improved automotive safety on my nation’s roads. Drunk drivers have been caught and have been arrested and their cars seized. These enforcement actions have also resulted in the arrest of motorists who were driving without a license or with suspended licenses. Occasionally, these checkpoints result in criminals being apprehended. Through these efforts, our roads have been made safer. It would seem reasonable to me to think of the passport requirement of the WHTI in the same way that we have come to think of Sobriety Checkpoints. While this represents an inconvenience, I believe that the citizens of both of our nations realize that the threat of terrorism requires greater vigilance on the part of our law enforcement authorities. In New York City, for example, when the alert level increases as it does, periodically, vehicles entering various tunnels may be searched. We all get to airports an hour or more earlier than we used to in anticipation of the more stringent searches being conducted on passengers.
I know that there have been proposals that the deadlines for the implementation of the requirements of the WHTI should be pushed back. While it might make things more convenient for the moment, I would respectfully request you consider two factors where the delay of the implementation of WHTI is concerned. First of all the attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred nearly five years ago. I would remind you that when the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the war was joined by the United States nearly immediately after that attack and in less than four years, the Second World War was brought to a successful conclusion. It required that fleets of new airplanes and warships were designed and built. It required that atomic weapons be constructed with revolutionary new technology. Here we are, nearly 5 years after the worst terrorist attack ever carried out against the United States and some basic commonsense measures are still being discussed and have yet to be implemented. When I testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims in May of last year I made the point that if America fought World War II the way we are fighting the War on Terror, I fear that a different flag would be flying over my nation’s Capitol today.
The second point I would like you to consider, is that if there is, God forbid, another terrorist attack, the loss of human life could be far worse than it was on September 11, 2001 (horrific as that attack was). The financial impact of such an attack could be catastrophic for the economies of both of our countries. World-wide travel would be brought to a screeching halt and commerce would be decimated.
Admittedly the implementation of the WHTI will not solve all of the security issues that we need to address as the world remains at risk for additional terrorist attacks, but it does represent a good step in the right direction. It is important that our nations be able to more effectively screen international travelers who cross our borders. When I was an inspector at JFK International Airport in the 1970’s I was always concerned about the practice of not requiring passports or secure identity documents to properly identify arriving passengers who claimed to be citizens of the United States. Of course, that was long before the threat of an attack being carried out inside the United States was on my country’s radar scope. We admitted returning United States citizens on the ‘honor system.’ Simply stated, the honor system only works when you are dealing with honorable people. Needless to say, terrorists and criminals are anything but honorable.
These factors should make it clear that while the WHTI might represent an inconvenience, it would represent an opportunity to provide our respective nations with enhanced security, an objective that has to be of primary consideration given the on-going threat of terrorism. It is in the best interest of both of our nations that the WHTI be implemented on schedule, without any delay.
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G8 Wants The UN to Strengthen its Role In Combating Terrorism
By Victor Comras
Pre-occupied with the Middle East, Iran and North Korea, the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg apparently had less time to come up with a major new counter-terrorism initiative, as it has at the last 4 summits. Instead, the G8 focused on the need to strengthen the UN’s role in combating terrorism. Perhaps I am reading too much between the lines, but I got the distinct impression they are not that satisfied with what has happened in New York so far. Let me explain.
In paragraph 2 their statement notes that the G8 has long recognized “the key role of the UN in the global fight against terrorism,” and recalls their pledge to ”support the UN Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) in a variety of ways to broaden its reach and enhance its effectiveness.” In paragraph 3 the statement emphasizes that “the UN is the sole organization with the stature and reach to achieve universal agreement on the condemnation of terrorism." It also calls “upon the Secretary-General to continue to use the unique international stature of his office to reinforce this point.” In paragraph 4 it proclaims that “a comprehensive response to the urgent threat of terrorism must be a core focus of the UN.” And in paragraph 5 it expresses concern that:
“Since 2001, the number of UN counter-terrorism-related programs has grown considerably with overlapping monitoring and capacity-building efforts. More should be done to integrate the disparate programs, and we specifically take note of the work initiated by the Secretary-General in this area. We pledge to work with the UN to ensure that each of its programs is results-focused and calibrated to maximize its impact and that subsidiary bodies and their staffs are streamlined and engage with each other and with other relevant international bodies with increased cooperation and systemic coherence.”
In paragraph 6 the statement tells the UN that it must “make the best use of limited resources by focusing on the most vulnerable States and identifying and meeting priority needs” and it specifically calls on the CTC to “to take those steps necessary to make their work more relevant and accessible to both the donor and recipient communities.” It also calls upon the UN to “engage proactively specialized organizations and agencies, with particular regard to ICAO, WCO, IMO, as well as relevant regional organizations and international financial institutions.”
The criticisms in paragraph 7 stand out for me as the most important element in the G8 statement, for it touches on the central problem of oversight and accountability. The G8 leaders say
“We observe that, too often states do not comply with their obligations under UN Security Council counter-terrorism resolutions. We call for the Council and its counter-terrorism bodies to redouble efforts to ensure universal compliance. We agree with the Secretary-General that there must be standards of accountability - against which the compliance efforts of each State can be measured with a view to ensure the implementation of the international counter-terrorism obligations. We encourage the UN to develop such concrete standards. Keeping in mind the primary responsibility of the member States to ensure implementation of their counter-terrorism obligations, we reaffirm our commitment to such implementation and call upon all States to meet their obligations.
Finally I must express my surprise that there is no reference in the G8 Statement to the so-called Comprehensive Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism, or of any other agreement on a “definition of terrorism.” The reader should recall that a Comprehensive Convention and a clear “Definition of Terrorism” were previously set by the G8 leaders as “high priority” items for last years’ UN General Assembly’s 60th Anniversary session. Such a definition is critical to the establishment of any standards of compliance and accountability (see my earlier blog).
IDF enters Lebanon, a new buffer zone?
By Bill Roggio
After a weekend of repeated Hezbollah missile strikes into Israel, including hits in Afula and the surrounding communities, and Haifa, the Israeli Defense Force has launched a ground incursion into Lebanon. The IDF "briefly entered southern Lebanon to target Hizbullah bases along the border in order to push the terrorist group out of rocket-firing range," according to the Jerusalem Post.
This ground strike is limited in nature, and does not appear to be the start of a larger push into southern Lebanon or the Bekaa Valley. "IDF troops had leveled land inside Lebanese territory extending up to one kilometer from Israel's northern frontier," Haaretz reports, with the goal being to "prevent the reestablishment of Hezbollah guerrilla posts along Israel's border."
Israel is currently signaling it is interested in establishing a buffer zone on the Israeli border, and not planning a major ground invasion of Lebanon and a large scale advance into the Bekaa Valley. "One of the aims of the [military] operation is to establish a security area in Lebanon, without the presence of IDF soldiers," Defense Minister Amir Peretz said. "Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz declared that the IDF currently had much better alternatives than to launch a major ground incursion into Lebanon," reports the Jerusalem Post.
A variant of the buffer zone solution was tried in the past, when Israel occupied southern Lebanon after the 1982 invasion and supported the South Lebanese Army. Israel maintained a force of several thousand troops in southern Lebanon, with the brunt of the security provided by the SLA. In May of 2000, Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon without warning, and the SLA was overrun by Hezbollah. The Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon handed Hezbollah its greatest victory to date, as it could claim it drove the "Israeli occupiers" from the country and promoted itself as a legitimate "resistance force".
Six years later, Hezbollah is a state within a state, with the ability to start a war and conduct missile strikes deep into Israeli territory. Hezbollah possesses an arsenal of over 11,500 missiles, supplied by Iran. Asharq Al-Awsat gives additional information of Hezbollah's capabilities and Iran's involvement in funding, arming and training Hezbollah to use advanced weaponry:
The source said more than 3,000 Hezbollah members have undergone training in Iran, which included guerrilla warfare, firing missiles and artillery, operating unmanned drones, marine warfare and conventional war operations. He said they have also trained 50 pilots for the past two years. According to the source, Hezbollah currently possesses four types of surface-to-surface missiles, some of which extend to a distance of 150 kilometers.
The recent statements by Minister Peretz and Lt.-Gen. Halutzis do not exclude the possibility of deeper strikes into Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, but the statements indicate the Israeli government's military and political goals are not that ambitious at this time. The continual launch of longer range rockets into Israel may change the calculus. Today, the Israeli Air Force destroyed "at least one long-range Iranian missile capable of hitting Tel Aviv."
Congressional Schedule Might Include Resolutions on Israel-Hezbollah War (Updated 7/18)
By Andrew Cochran
The schedule of terrorism-related events in the U.S. Congress could include resolutions by both houses addressing the Israel-Hezbollah war. Senior staff in both houses are drafting resolutions now, and the draft Senate resolution is below. (UPDATE 7/18: Both houses will pass resolutions this week - draft House resolution includes this text according to Fox News: "Be it resolved that the House of Representatives reaffirms its steadfast support for the state of Israel; further condemns Hamas and Hezbollah for cynically exploiting civilian populations as shields ... calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli soldiers held captive by Hezbollah and Hamas; (and) affirms that all governments who have provided continued support to Hamas or Hezbollah share responsibility for the hostage-taking and attacks against Israel and, as such, must be held accountable for their actions.")
The schedule of open terrorism-related hearings is also below and includes hearings on the impact of the Hamdan trial, the cost of the Global War on Terror, and on the sale of F-16s and other weapons to Pakistan (rescheduled from last week).
Draft Senate resolution on Israel-Hezbollah War:
Whereas Israel fully complied with UN Security Council Resolution 425 of 1978 by completely withdrawing its forces from Lebanon, as certified by the UN Security Council and affirmed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on June 16, 2000, when he said, “Israel has withdrawn from [Lebanon] in full compliance with Security Council Resolution 425”;
Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 of 2004 called for the complete withdrawal of all foreign forces and the dismantlement of all independent militias in Lebanon;
Whereas, despite the Security Council decision, the terrorist organization Hezbollah has not disbanded, has amassed thousands of Katyusha rockets aimed at northern Israel, and has entered the Lebanese government;
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Whereas the Government of Lebanon, which includes representatives of Hezbollah, has done little to dismantle Hezbollah forces or to extend its authority throughout its territory;
Whereas Hezbollah receives direct financial, military and political support from Syria and Iran;
Whereas the Congress of the United States has enacted several pieces of legislation, including the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act and the Iran Libya Sanctions Act, calling for the imposition of sanctions on Syria and Iran for, inter alia, their support for terrorism and terrorist organizations;
Whereas the Government of Israel has shown great restraint even though Hezbollah has launched at least four separate attacks into Israel using rockets and ground forces over the past year;
Whereas, without provocation, on the morning of July 12, 2006, Hezbollah launched an attack into northern Israel, killing seven Israeli soldiers and taking two hostage into Lebanon;
Whereas on June 25, 2006, despite Israel’s complete evacuation of Gaza in 2005, the terrorist organization Hamas, also supported by Syria and Iran, entered sovereign Israeli territory, attacked an Israeli military base, killed two Israeli soldiers, and seized an Israeli soldier and refuses to release him;
Whereas more than 1,000 rockets have been launched from Gaza into Israel since Israel’s evacuation;
Whereas both Hezbollah and Hamas refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist and call for the destruction of Israel;
Therefore be it resolved by the United States Senate, the House of Representatives concurring, that:
The United States Congress:
1) Reaffirms its steadfast support for the State of Israel;
2) Supports Israel’s right of self-defense and to take appropriate action to deter aggression by terrorist groups and their state sponsors;
3) Urges the President of the United States to continue fully supporting Israel as it exercises its right of self-defense in Lebanon and Gaza;
4) Calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli soldiers held captive by Hezbollah and Hamas;
5) Condemns the governments of Iran and Syria for their continued support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and holds the governments of Syria, and Iran responsible for these acts against Israel;
6) Urges the President of the United States to use all available political and diplomatic means, including sanctions, to persuade the governments of Syria and Iran to end their support for Hezbollah;
7) Calls on the Government of Lebanon do everything in its power to find and free the kidnapped Israeli soldiers being held in its territory, and to fulfill its responsibility under Security Council Resolution 1559 to disband and disarm Hezbollah;
8) Calls on the United Nations Security Council to condemn these unprovoked acts and to demand compliance with Security Council Resolution 1559, requiring that Hezbollah and other militias be disbanded and disarmed, and that all foreign forces be withdrawn from Lebanon.
Congressional Terrorism-Related Hearings This Week:
Senate Committees
July 18, 2006
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Islam and the West
Full committee hearing on "Islam and the West: Searching for Common Ground."
Witnesses: Bruce Hoffman, corporate chairman in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation; Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center; Akbar Ahme, chairman of Islamic studies, School of International Service, American University; and Muqtedar Khan, assistant professor for political science and international relations, University of Delaware
Location: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building. 10 a.m. (July 18, 2006)
Contact: 202-224-4651
July 19, 2006
Senate Armed Services Committee
Detainee Trials
Full committee hearing on detainee trials in light of the Supreme Court ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Witnesses: TBA
Location: TBA. (July 19, 2006)
Contact: 202-224-3871
House Committees
July 18, 2006
House Government Reform Committee
War on Terror Cost Estimates
National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations Subcommittee hearing on "Global War on Terrorism (GWT): Accuracy and Reliability of Cost Estimates."
Witnesses: U.S. Comptroller General David Walker of the Government Accountability Office; John Roth, deputy comptroller, Defense Department; Bradford Higgins, assistant secretary and chief Financial officer, State Department; James Kunder, assistant administrator for Asia and the Near East at the U.S. Agency International Development; Donald Marron, acting director of the Congressional Budget Office; Amy Belasco, defense budget specialist, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service
Location: 2154 Rayburn House Office Building. 2 p.m. (July 18, 2006)
Contact: 202-225-5074
July 20, 2006
House International Relations Committee
Aircraft/Weapons Sales to Pakistan
Full committee hearing on the "Sale of F-16 Aircraft and Weapons Systems to Pakistan."
Witnesses: Assistant Secretary of State John Hillen of the Bureau for Political-Military Affairs
Location: 2172 Rayburn House Office Building. 1:30 p.m. (July 20, 2006)
Contact: 202-225-5021 [Note: Rescheduled from July 13.] « Close It
The Potential for a Hezbollah-al Qaeda Alliance of Convenience
By Douglas Farah
In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, the conventional wisdom in the intelligence community was that the Shi'ite Hezbollah and the Sunni al Qaeda did not operate together because of the religious divide between the two groups.
However, al Qaeda's own writings, and testimony of senior al Qaeda operatives in U.S. custody (Jamal al Fadl) recounted the extensive contacts bewtween the two organizations while bin Laden was in Sudan, including joint military and explosives training.
It has taken the conventional wisdom a long time to catch up with reality on the ground, but it is important to remember that things that were often considered inconceivable in the shadow infrastructure of non-state actors were simply based on our preconceptions, not reality.
If the Lebanese conflict drags on, it would be likely that al Qaeda would try to work again with its occassional ally in an alliance of convenience that could benefit both groups. My full blog is here..
Counterterrorism Roundtable at Global Crisis Watch
By Bill Roggio
 This afternoon Richard Lafayette of Global Crisis Watch hosted a counterterrorism roundtable, attended by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Douglas Farah, Nir Boms of the Center for Freedom in the Middle East, and myself. The main topic was the crisis in the Middle East, including the mood in Israel, Israel's response to Hezbollah's attack, and Iran, Syria, and Imad Mugniyah's roles in the conflict.
Nir Boms joined us live from Haifa, Israel, which just today was struck by a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 8 and wounded dozens. Mr. Bom describes Haifa as a "ghost town" after the rocket attacks.
The podcast also includes an interview with B. Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group. The topic is the Mumbai rail bombings and the role of Pakistani terrorist groups.
Also, Radioblogger has the recording of my appearance on Hugh Hewitt's Saturday evening broadcast, where we discussed the situation in the Middle East, Hezbollah's sophistcated weaponry and Iran's direct involvement in this crisis. Radioblogger has the audio for the full three hour program.
Hezbollah...Fundraising or Security Threat in U.S. ?
By Dennis Lormel
Do the escalating hostilities in the Middle East between the Israelis and Hezbollah cause additional security concerns within the United States (U.S.)? As increasing pressure is placed on Hezbollah in Lebanon, do Hezbollah operatives in the U.S. pose a greater risk of committing terrorist attacks in the U.S.? Hezbollah has a significant international presence with thousands of operatives located throughout the world, to include the U.S.
Since 9/11, Hezbollah has been listed along with Al-Qaeda and Hamas as posing the most serious threat to the U.S. However, unlike Al-Qaeda, who is intent on carrying out attacks in the U.S., Hezbollah and Hamas have been viewed as less likely to do so. The U.S. represents a significant source of fundraising for Hezbollah and Hamas. In that context, Hezbollah and Hamas have not wanted to risk diminishing or losing their fundraising capabilities by alienating their U.S. supporters by carrying out terrorist acts in the U.S. In keeping with that strategy, they did not want to draw the attention to their activities in the U.S. that a terrorist act would generate.
Law enforcement and intelligence services are well aware of the Hezbollah presence and fundraising initiatives in the U.S. Since early 2002, there have been numerous criminal cases successfully prosecuted in the U.S. involving Hezbollah operatives and sympathizers. An internet search under “Hezbollah fundraising” delineates a number of media reports of such cases. The compelling question for law enforcement and intelligence services today is…will the fundraising strategy or mindset give way to a retaliatory posture which thereby would escalate the threat level in the U.S. and make us more susceptible to a domestic attack by Hezbollah? I defer to my former law enforcement and intelligence colleagues to answer this vexing question.
As we well know, Hezbollah is a radical Shia group that was formed in Lebanon. It is dedicated to the creation of an Iranian style Islamic republic in Lebanon. Hezbollah is anti-West and anti-Israel. It is closely aligned to Iran. Iran provides Hezbollah with substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives political, diplomatic and organizational aid. Syria also provides Hezbollah with support. Somewhere between one fifth to one half of Hezbollah’s operating budget comes from Iran and Syria. Other sources of funding include charitable organizations, individual donations, legitimate business, and illegitimate businesses such as illegal arms dealers, cigarette smuggling, currency and product counterfeiting, credit card fraud, product theft, operating illegal telephone exchanges, and drug trafficking.
Hezbollah primarily generates funding in the U.S. through a variety of criminal activities. They operate in close knit cell structures that seem more identifiable with organized crime than terrorism. The front line cell members not only raise money for Hezbollah, but they keep large portions of their illicit gains and tend to live more elaborate life styles. These operatives are not consistent with the typical terrorist ideologists. That’s why these operatives tend to be more identifiable with organized crime than terrorism. A core group of Hezbollah members are identifiable as ideologists and are more consistent with jihadists. Hezbollah cells in the U.S. are proficient in operating small businesses and using these businesses to sell legitimate and counterfeit goods. They conduct a variety of business and credit card scams, and have made considerable profits perpetrating cigarette smuggling schemes. Hezbollah cells are adept at invoicing schemes, import/export schemes and money laundering through structured deposits.
One of the most noteworthy criminal cases involving a Hezbollah cell in the U.S. was known as “Operation Smokescreen”, a cigarette smuggling, bank fraud and money laundering case. This case originated in North Carolina. Ultimately, 25 individuals were convicted to include Mohamad Youssef Hammoud, the main subject and cell leader. Hammoud was convicted of charges to include providing material support to a terrorist organization (Hezbollah). As a consequence, he was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 155 years.
Law enforcement is currently assessing a business scheme involving Hezbollah cells in multiple jurisdictions in the U.S. The scheme may or may not involve criminal activity but invariably results in generating funds for Hezbollah. Schemes like this are reason for Hezbollah to continue its current track in the U.S. However, emerging developments in Lebanon concerning Hezbollah could trigger violent responses by Hezbollah operatives throughout the world, to include the U.S.
Lebanon: Shooting the Katyusha wad
By Michael Kraft
The Lebanese Hezbollah use of Iranian missiles to damage an Israeli navy boat and sank a Cambodian-registered ship with Egyptian crewmembers is the latest and most dangerous chapter of an unholy linkage between hostage taking and missiles that was born during the American hostage crisis in Lebanon two decades ago.
During the 1980’s, Hezbollah terrorists seized over 30 American and other hostages in Lebanon. The terrorists’ primary goal was in an effort to get the United States and other countries to pressure Kuwait into releasing the two Lebanese members of the 17- member Dawa group who were captured after the 1983 attacks on the American and French embassies and other targets. The Iran-backed Dawa group of Shiites attacked Iraq because Kuwait supported Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war.
One of the Lebanese was Mustafa Youssef Badreddin, a brother-in-law of Imad Mughniya, a senior Hezbollah official. It was widely rumored in Beirut that Mughniya’s wife refused to sleep with him until her brother was freed from prison.
(See Bill Roggio’s excellent July 12 blog entry on Mughniya’s role in masterminding the capturing of the Israeli prisoners.)
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Journalists, Christian missionaries and other American citizens were being kidnapped and in some cases murdered by terrorists in Lebanon. The CIA station Chief, William Buckley, was brutally tortured before he died. The longest-held hostage, Terry Anderson of the Associated Press, was held for six years and 9 months.
Pressure from family and friends ultimately resulted in the Reagan administration’s scheme engineered by Ollie North, then the key National Security Council (NSC) officer dealing with terrorism, to trade TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran in exchange for the hostages. Iran was and is the main backer of Hezbollah. These missiles-for-hostage deals were in violation of long standing U.S. policy not to give in to terrorist demands; because of concern that it would encourage more hostage taking.
That is exactly what happened in Lebanon. Shortly after shipments were made and the Lebanese Hezbollah released one or two hostages, the Lebanese terrorists would grab another hostage. They maintained what one of my colleagues in the State Department counterterrorism office at the time called a “hostage bank.”
The kidnappings in Lebanon finally stopped after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and in the confusion the two Lebanese prisoners escaped or were released from jail.
But the damaging pattern was set. The “tough” Reagan administration caved in.
The Reagan administration’s deals, combined with the pullout of American peace keeping forces after the Marine barracks and the U.S. embassy were blown up, only emboldened Hezbollah and increased its stature among other Arabs.
In later hostage episodes, the Israelis swapped their prisoners for a businessman who had been lured into a trap and for the bodies of several Israeli soldiers killed by the Hezbollah. Kidnappings to obtain the release of prisoners, the withdrawal of troops, or old fashioned ransom later became common after the Bush Administration led the invasion into Iraq.
And in 2004, radical Islamist terrorists in Saudi Arabia killed an American engineer, Marshall Johnson, Jr. from New Jersey in an unsuccessful effort to force Saudi officials to release their imprisoned colleagues. Saudi government spokesman Adel Al-Jubeir was quoted by wire services today as saying "Our position over the past 30 years has been the same, we don't negotiate with terrorists and we don't negotiate with hostage takers because then you open the door up to more hostage taking and more terrorism." It is a policy that the government of Israel is publicly following, so far.
Now, once again, even though Israel withdrew from Gaza last year and Lebanon in 2006, hostage taking and missiles are linked in a new crisis.
First it was Hamas taking an Israeli soldier hostage June 25 after tunneling under the Gaza border with Israel and firing of home made Quasam missiles at Israeli towns near Gaza. Then under the cover of a diversionary rocket attack, Hezbollah staged a raid from Lebanon into Israel and seized Israeli hostages. The professed reason was an effort to trade them for Arab prisoners held by Israel although Hezbollah leaders may also have been motivated be efforts to efforts to enhance their Islamic fundamentalist political influence and their role in the Lebanese government.
Israel says that this time it will refuse to trade prisoners, many of whom it contends were have blood on their hands from terrorist attacks.
This time the missiles are not being supplied to Iran but by Iran, in the thousands.
The estimated 10,000 to 12,000 Katyusha rockets and other missiles that Hezbollah stockpiled in Lebanon are far more than the number that could be smuggled in by mule or in the trunks of automobiles. Most were flown in from Iran via Damascus airport and then trucked into Lebanon. The Iranians sometimes used American-built Boeing airliners bought many years ago. The U.S. Government and Boeing were unable or unwilling to completely shut off the spare parts needed to keep the planes operating.
The hostage taking and rocket launchings have led Israel to attack Gazan and Lebanese bridges in order to block the movement of the prisoners, and cut off military supplies and put pressure on Hamas and Hezbollah to release the captives.
In turn, the Hezbollah attacks have taken an even more ominous turn with the launching of missiles against ships off the Lebanese coast. Israeli military sources are quoted by the press as saying the missile that hit their boat was an Iranian-built C-802 missile with a range of about 60 miles. They also say that Iran has about 100 sailors assigned to Hezbollah and was involved in the launch. Whether or not that proves to be the case, the attack was a demonstration that the Iranian missiles, originally developed by China, can hit tankers and other shipping in the Persian Gulf, enhancing Iran’s already existing missile and naval assets. Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries must certainly take notice.
Although it is far too early to tell how this latest crisis will be resolved or burn itself out, there may a consequence that the Iranian backer of Hezbollah did not intend, the weakening of a potential deterrent against possible air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
There has been considerable speculation about a possible U.S. or Israeli air strike to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities before the Tehran regime develops nuclear weapons if the Iranians do not agree to the international community’s efforts to work out an agreement. One of the downsides sides discussed by the “speculating class” been a concern that Iran might retaliate by unleashing against Israel the thousands of rockets that it shipped to Lebanon.
Yet to some extent, the Iranians have shot their wad with this particular possible deterrent. A threat hanging over one’s head is sometimes more of a deterrent than if it is actually used. The hundreds of rockets that have fired against Israel have caused some casualties and damage. The loss of life and damage has been relatively minor -- so far-- compared with the 1948, 1967 and 1973 Arab attacks against Israel when the conventional armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were heavily involved with their tanks, artillery and aircraft.
The Hezbollah may still be a long way from using up its stockpile of rockets and the Israelis may have a way to go before finding and destroying the rest. Meanwhile the Israeli Air Force’s cratering of the runways of Beirut airport and attacks on bridge spans will make it harder for Iran to send in new supplies.
True, Iran and the Hezbollah have other tricks up their sleeves, perhaps more powerful rockets or repeat operations of the bombings of the Israeli embassy in 1992 and Jewish Cultural Center in Argentina 1994. Terrorist attacks on Israeli and western targets in other countries have been all too common. And there could be a surge of successful suicide bombing attempts in Israel. However attacks of this sort are not going to advance the Hamas and Hezbollah dream of destroying Israel. The Israelis already have weathered two intifadahs, and the violence has not left the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank better off.
Basically however, the recent launching of large quantities of Iranian-supplied missiles against Israeli cities and towns, plus the use of a sophisticated missile against shipping has eroded that particular Iranian deterrent against possible Israeli or Western alliance action against nuclear facilities. The missiles are a problem for the Israelis but psychologically, the impact and surprise element is greatest when they are first used.
This does not mean Israel is interested in widening the current crisis. If down the road however, the West, or Israel decided they have to take military action against the Iranian nuclear threat, the Iranians will have to face the unintended consequences of having used and wasted this particular potential deterrent because their Hezbollah clients were so eager to make short term gains. Thus, while the Hezbollah operations may temporarily have strengthened the Hezbollah and Iranian positions in the Arabs street, the current hostage and missile crisis may turn into an over-reach that weakens Iran in the long rum.
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Hezbollah missile sea strikes: UAV or ground based? (Updated)
By Bill Roggio
 | | The Iranian C802 / Chinese Jing YJ-82. Click photo to view. |
In last evening's post, " The War Widens, Hezbollah Strikes Egyptian, Israeli Ships with UAVs," we reported the Israeli warship and an Egyptian civilian vessel were likely hit with missiles launched from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and not a UAV packed with explosives. The Egyptian vessel was sunk. The latest reporting indicates missiles did indeed strike both ships. "We can confirm that it was hit by an Iranian-made missile launched by Hezbollah. We see this as very profound fingerprint of Iranian involvement in Hezbollah," Brigadier General Ido Nehushtan of the Israeli Defense Forces told the Associated Press.
Reuters reports “A military source said a C802 radar-guided missile with a range of 60 miles (100 km) had been fired at the ship as it sat off the coast.” The C802 is also known as the “Noor,” according to NTI. The C802 is the Iranian version of the the Chinese Jing YJ-82, and “Following the 1991 Gulf War Iran imported the C-802 antiship cruise missile from China.” Wikipedia claims Iran purchased up to 60 C802 missiles. The C802 antiship missile can be launched from aircraft. In April of 2006, Iran claimed the the C802 (or Noor) can be fired from aircraft:
"Today we have successfully tested a new air-to-sea-and-ground missile capable of being fired from planes and helicopters, which can evade anti-missile missiles," war games spokesman Rear Admiral Mohammad Ebrahim Dehqani said. "The missile, which is labelled Noor, has a tremendous destructive ability and has an antenna in its warhead which gets activated near the target," he added. Dehqani said like the other missiles, which have been test-fired during the manoeuvres, it was built by Iranians.
The reports do not indicate whether the missiles were guided from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or were from ground based missile systems. The use of a ground based anti-ship missile system in these attacks, while certainly a possibility, is unlikely as the characteristics of this system would certainly have been detected by the Israeli Defense Forces. There are two basic ways a ground launched missile can locate and hit its target:
1) The missile is 'dumb' and is guided by a ground based system.
2) The missile has its own guidance package.
Regardless how the missile is guided (ground radar or its own guidance package) there are certain steps that would occur in order for the anti-ship missile to obtain and hit the target:
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1) The missile needs initial coordinates to launch. This is the “designation phase”, where the fire-control radar must be directed to the general location of the target due to the radar's narrow beamwidth.
2) The coordinates are obtained by firing up a ground based radar, which then searches for the ships.
3) The coordinates are then send to the missile guidance system.
4) The missile is launched, and then directed to the target. This is the “acquisition phase,” where the fire-control radar switches to the acquisition phase of operation once the radar is in the general vicinity of the target. During this phase, the radar system searches in the designated area in a predetermined search pattern until the target is located or redesignated.
5) The missile is guided to vessel either by:
a) the ground radar. This radar remains active to guide the missile to its target.
b) the missile's own guidance package. The missile will emit its own radar signature.
This is the “track phase,” where the fire-control radar enters into the track phase when the target is located. The radar system locks onto the target during this phase.
The active radar, from either the ground based radar or the missile guidance system, would have been detected by the Israeli electronics surveillance packages. The Israeli Phalcon airborne early warning system would be capable of detecting this ground launch radar as well as the actual launch of the missiles. The Israeli warship, the Saar 5, possesses an Elta EL/M-2218S air search radar that would detect the incoming missiles. There are no reports of the Israelis detecting radar emissions from either the ground or the missiles. Israel is in a state of war, and a ground launch would not be missed by the IDF in a heightened state of alert.
Remember that there were two missiles, not one, launched during the strike, making the likelihood of detecting the radar, ground launch as well as two missile radar signatures.
A UAV launched missile system, on the other hand, would be a more stealthy system. The UAVs are difficult to detect as they can fly in below radar, and can be flown by remote visual methods, thus negating the need to emit a radar beam to obtain the target, and can launch the missiles at the last moment, too late for the warship to react to an attack. The Noor C802 misile is approximately the size of a Hellfire missile, which the U.S. uses on their unmanned Predator UAVs.
Both weapons systems indicate a level of sophistication which Hezbollah likely does not possess, but their Iranian backers do. A guided missile system, either from the ground or from UAVs, further implicates the Iranian government in its involvement in this war. A ground based system requires radar and other sophisticated support systems, which require technical expertise and maintenance support, as well as technical training. For Hezbollah to have succeed in this strike using a ground based anti-ship missile system, it would have needed to deploy and fire these missiles without prior testing of the radar along the Lebanese coast. An anonymous Israeli intelligence official claims "about 100 Iranian soldiers are in Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided [C-802] at the ship late Friday."
Updated:
Israel has deployed three PAC-2 Patriot missile batteries near Haifa, "aimed at intercepting missiles launched at the area." But it is unlikely the PAC-2 can intercept the smaller rockets, such as the Raad, which are being launched against the city. The Patriot systems are designed to shoot down aircraft, and have been modified to shoot down larger, medium range missiles such as SCUDs. "Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) is a surface-to-air guided missile defense system designed to detect, target, and destroy incoming ballistic missiles flying three to five times the speed of sound," reports MissileThreat.com.
The PAC-2s are being deployed to intercept longer-range missiles (ballistic missiles fired from deeper in Lebanese territory, or perhaps Syria) and to take down UAVs launched from the Lebanese coast.
Media Note:
I am scheduled to be on Hugh Hewitt's special weekend edition radio broadcast at 6:20 Eastern time. See the link for how to listen online « Close It
The War Widens, Hezbollah Strikes Egyptian, Israeli Ships with UAVs
By Bill Roggio
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated, as Hezbollah has conducted two sea strikes against an Israeli warship and an Egyptian civilian ship, possibly a cruise liner. While initial reports are stating an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was used to ram the ships, an anonymous intelligence official indicates the Egyptian ship was struck by a UAV launched antitank missile. According to the intelligence official, the Egyptian ship was hit with a Raad anti-tank missile (this is a different weapon than the Raad rockets fired against the city of Haifa.)
The two attacks occurred earlier today, as Hezbollah struck an Israeli Saar 5 navy gunship off the coast of Lebanon. Four Israeli seamen are missing and the ship has been damaged badly enough the Israeli Defense Force pulled it out of service. "It's the first time the terrorist group -- any terrorist group -- has used a drone in combat, as far as I know," said DefenseTech's Noah Schachtman. The current reports states an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle laden with explosives hit the Israeli warship.
The Egyptian civilian ship was hit during the same attack on the Israeli warship. "At the same time as the incident took place in which an Israeli ship was hit, a merchant ship was also hit," an Israeli spokeswoman stated, according to Reuters. Initial reports, which as of yet are unconfirmed, indicate the Egyptian vessel may have been a cruise ship.
The fact that two separate ships were struck at the same time, very likely with UAV fired antitank missiles, indicates a level of sophistication far beyond that of Hezbollah. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and Imad Mugniyah clearly have a hand in these operations. The coupling of a UAV with an anti-tank missile requires extensive research, development and testing. It is unlikely Hezbollah conducted these efforts without attracting the attention of the watchful Israelis to their south. And the Iranians possess the technological capabilities; the Raad anti-tank missile is from their arsenal. The use of multiple UAVs over the Mediterranean Sea indicates Hezbollah may have a fleet of these UAVs, which must be maintained.
The UAVs can also be used to strike at Israeli land targets. But the implications of a Hezbollah UAV capable of firing an antitank missile reach farther than the current crisis in the Levant. The Iranians have displayed their ability to deploy UAVs capable of effectively attacking shipping in the Persian Gulf.
This occurs under the backdrop of an Israeli air strikes in Hezbllah-dominated neighborhoods, including an attack on Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's home and Hezbollah's headquarters. Nasrallah survived the attack, and issued a statement of defiance. "You wanted an open war, and we are heading for an open war. We are ready for it. The surprises that I have promised you will start now. Now in the middle of the sea, facing Beirut, the Israeli warship that has attacked the infrastructure, people's homes and civilians - look at it burning," Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said on an broadcast on Hezbollah's Al Manar television.
Today, Syria voiced support of Hezbollah. "The Syrian people are ready to extend full support to the Lebanese people and their heroic resistance to remain steadfast and confront the barbaric Israeli aggression and its crimes," according to the Syrian Baath party. And Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has again called for the destruction of Israel, and voiced solidarity with the Syrians. "If Israel commits another act of idiocy and aggresses Syria, this will be the same as an aggression against the entire Islamic world and it will receive a stinging response." And Moqtada al-Sadr, the Iranian backed Iraqi Shiite cleric who has fought the U.S. and the Iraqi government, has weighed in. “Let it be known to everybody that we in Iraq will not sit by with folded hands before the creep of Zionism,” Sadr said in a written statement.
A Terrorism Related Deportation Case Can Be The Victim Of Success
By Bill West
When is a successful deportation case not a successful deportation case? When the Government cannot actually deport the deportee, even after legally procuring a final removal order against the alien Respondent. This becomes particularly frustrating and troublesome when the alien is linked to terrorism or terrorist support activities.
Former Cleveland Imam Fawaz Damra is the latest example of this dilemma, something I have written about previously in the CT Blog. Damra, a former naturalized US citizen, was convicted in Federal Court in 2004 of having lied in that naturalization process by concealing his links to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terror-connected associates. It now appears the Feds, specifically the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention and Removal Division, is having trouble finding a country that is willing to accept Damra, who because he had his US citizenship revoked, is now a stateless Palestinian. Damra was rightfully placed under removal (deportation) proceedings after his conviction became final and he lost his appeal. Damra gave up in those deportation proceedings and admitted his deportability and accepted a final removal order. Another victory for the Government.
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The problem, of course, is physically removing someone like Damra. He is not a citizen of any country. He is a stateless Palestinian. Additionally, he is now a convicted felon who has been linked to terror support activities. The US Government righteously and successfully pursued the case against Damra, but now is faced with the substantial problem of how and to where to remove him. The Feds faced a similar situation with Sameeh Hammoudeh, the former defendant in the Tampa PIJ case who was acquitted of those charges but convicted earlier of immigration and tax felonies and ordered deported as a result of that case. Hammoudeh was just recently removed to the Palestinian territories, but not until after a long and difficult effort by the US government.
With the current breakout of near open warfare in the Mid-East, the likelihood of deporting Palestinians back to the Territories anytime soon will be next to nil. These kind of cases require the appropriate branches of the Government to become engaged at the earliest stages, perhaps even before the issuance of a final removal order assuming one is anticipated at the end of a case. In the past, movement by the Government may have been something less than swift and enthusiastic in such cases. The State Department must also play a key role. Little known to the public, legally the US can deny visas to any country/entity that refuses to take back its own deportee citizens. In more normal times, such pressure could perhaps be brought upon the Palestinian Authority when they are reluctant to receive their own back into the Territories, as they have been in the past. « Close It
American Spectator: The Death of Shamil Basayev
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Today I have a new article on The American Spectator's web site about the life and death of Chechen commander Shamil Basayev. An excerpt:
Basayev was eventually transformed into a brutal, humorless warlord who appeared to have less interest in Chechen independence than in furthering the international jihad. It is always difficult to speculate on the cause of such wrenching personal changes, but certainly the Russians' killing of his family looms large. In May 1995, Russian attacks reportedly killed eleven of Basayev's relatives, including his wife, two daughters, and a brother.
After the June 1996 Russian withdrawal from Chechnya, Basayev lost his bid for the Chechen presidency but was appointed prime minister. Little more than a military commander, Basayev was unsuited to this job and became politically marginalized. It is around this time that he drew close to Khattab and other jihadist figures that had flocked to the country. Most Western analysts view the alliance between Basayev and the jihadists as a marriage of convenience rather than a genuine religious transformation on Basayev's part. But then again, most Western analysts understand neither theology nor religious conversion and so needlessly downplay them as salient factors.
Even if Basayev's conversion to radical Islam was a fraud, his terrorist attacks carried out in its name were tragically real. Basayev is linked to large number of major terror attacks. The best known is the Beslan school massacre in 2004, in which over 1,200 people were taken hostage. More than 340 were killed, with children comprising over half of the victims. Another prominent incident is the October 2002 Dubrovka theater attack in Moscow, in which Chechen rebels took over 800 theatergoers hostage. When Russian special forces attempted a rescue, 129 hostages died -- most of whom were killed by the narcotic gas the Russians used to knock out the rebels.
Read the whole article here. For more on Basayev, see the CT Blog posts written by Bill Roggio and myself.
MSNBC: "American greases al-Qaida media machine"
By Evan Kohlmann
I have published a new piece on MSNBC.com profiling Adam Gadahn (a.k.a. Azzam al-Amriki), the American Al-Qaida operative who once again re-surfaced last week in the martyrdom video of 7/7 suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer. In addition, the MSNBC story also features links to view other Al-Qaida videos featuring Gadahn, and even an interactive flash map explaining how As-Sahaab transmits its videos to the world.
MSNBC: "American greases al-Qaida media machine"
Inside Hizballah’s decision-making
By Magnus Ranstorp
Hizballah’s decision to kidnap the two IDF soldiers was taken by Sheikh Hassan Nasserallah and the other six members of the Shura Karar, its supreme decision-making body. Additionally there are two Iranian representatives (from the Iranian embassy in Beirut/Damascus) that provide a direct link on matters that require strategic guidance or Iranian assistance or arbitration. The file for handling special operations of this kind is usually left to Imad Mughniyeh, the elusive terrorist mastermind for Hizballah, who stands with one foot within Hizballah (reporting to Nasserallah directly) and with one foot in Iran inside the architectures of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the al-Qods unit within the Iranian Pasdaran. Mughniyeh is strictly reserved for special occasions (like the Buenos Aires bombing in 1992 to avenge the Israeli assassination of the previous leader Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi) and his primary mission over the last decade has been to forge qualitative ‘military’ guidance to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives inside Gaza and the West Bank.
Hizballah’s overall guidance and support to the Palestinian militants has been strengthened on multiple levels. Firstly the presence of Osama Hamdan, Hamas’ representative to Lebanon, makes a qualitative difference. Hamdan is an important conduit for the Hizballah-Hamas-Iran axis as he was the Hamas representative to Iran for many years. Hamdan resides in dahiyya (southern suburbs) of Beirut amidst Hizballah’s own offices and supporters. Alongside with the Hamas exile leadership in Syria (most notably Imad Alami, Khalid Mishal and others), this presence has strengthened Hamas-Hizballah consultations on all strategic and military affairs, especially influencing the decision by Hamas to recently kidnap the IDF soldier. Undoubtedly Hizballah influenced this decision.
Secondly, Hizballah provides continuous qualitative technical advice to Hamas in improving the Qassem rocket series through blueprints via e-mail and advice on advanced tactical guerrilla and other fighting techniques. This has even extended towards smuggling weaponry through Jordan as was evident by the 2001 arrest of one of Imad Mughniyeh’s assistants. Some of this technical expertise has been diverted towards Iraq where Hizballah has provided some technical expertise to local Shia factions to attack coalition forces.
Thirdly, Hizballah has accelerated its efforts to recruit and use foreign nationals (usually EU-passport holders) as low-level reconnaissance operatives inside Israel (see article) providing a potential second internal front for future missions. This has been complimented by a drive to recruit Druze officers inside the IDF.
Fourthly, al-Manar (Hizballah’s TV-station) is the second most watched station in Gaza providing support and direction to the Palestinian factions. In 2001 al-Manar and its high-tech studios moved to underground locations as it feared Israeli military strikes. Al-Manar is a critical vehicle for the Hizballah to amplify its threats and psychological warfare against Israel. In essence Israel will continue to prioritise disruption of media services that will debilitate Hizballah’s manoeuvrability somewhat in political influence terms.
Lastly, the Hamas-Hizballah-Iran axis is strengthened by the guidance of Ali Akhbar Mohtashemi, the former Iranian ambassador to Syria and a key founder of Hizballah in 1982, who is the Secretary-General of the International Islamic Support for the Palestinian Resistance Conference hosted in Teheran. It was Mohtashemi alongside the old Hizballah leader Sheikh Subhi al-Tufayli that were the principal architects of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing, which killed 243 US Marines. If Hizballah should make a break with its darker past (terrorism) these two individuals could constitute an expendable price for rehabilitation of the organisation.
Hizballah’s kidnapping operation was sophisticated and complex. Sheikh Nasserallah continuously calls for negotiations behind the scenes and for further prisoner exchange. This file is handled by Wafic Safa, who personally reports to Sheikh Nasserallah, and there will be no shortage of diplomatic efforts by third parties to intercede to try to resolve this issue. The German intelligence service, who brokered the last deal in 2004, are probably already making overtures to their contacts in Beirut. It is, however, likely to take considerable months, if not years, to resolve as Israel is unlikely to part with Sheikh Obeid or any other high value prisoners they continue to hold. It is also likely that Israeli intelligence will target a senior Hizballah official for abduction or retaliation against Iranian operatives in Lebanon.
Both Hizballah and Hamas have succeeded in manufacturing a crisis to give them manoeuvrability – for Hizballah to avoid disarmament under UN Res 1559 and for Hamas to garner international sympathy and aid. It is critical now for Wasington to assist in breaking the potential for regional escalation and to accelerate the international efforts to disarm Hizballah.
See also Chapter 15, "The Hizballah Training Camps of Lebanon" (Acrobat file), from The Making of A Terrorist.
Iranian manufactured Raad 1 missiles launched at Haifa (Updated)
By Bill Roggio
| | The Raad. Click image to view. |
The rocket attack on the northern Israeli city of Haifa has raised the stakes in the very hot war between Israel and Hezbollah, and increases the possibility of widening the conflict with Syria and Iran. Haifa, the country's third largest city, is home to over 250,000 Israelis, and Hezbollah has proven it can now strike the city with its rockets. Israel can no longer countenance Hezbollah's presence on its border.
The rockets used to strike Haifa (there were two fired) were the Iranian made and supplied Raad. The Raad is said to have a range of about 90 miles (or 150 kilometers, according to the Iranian run media); Haifa is only 30 miles south of the Lebanese border. The Iranians began mass-producing the Raad in January of 2004. In 2 1/2 years, the Raad is in the hands of Hezbollah and launched at a major Israeli city.
"For the first time, Israel mentioned the possible intervention of Iranian Revolutionary Guards based in Lebanon in the war. The danger is that they have long range rockets capable of traveling more than 200 kms and reach Tel Aviv," said the Counterterrorism Blog's Olivier Guitta. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the elite Qods Force (Iran's version of special forces) funds, trains and arms Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the assistance of Syria. The IRGC is also rumored to have conventional military formations in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley.
| | Map of Hezbollah rocket strikes in northern Israel. Click map to view. |
The accusations of direct Iranian involvement of long range missiles precedes the fighting of the past few days. On June 28, 2006, TIME Magazine, in an article titled "Will Hizballah Go To War for Iran?", looks at Hezbollah's posture on the Israeli border and the potential for war. The strike on Haifa was foreshadowed by Israeli military officials, and the IRGC is accused of having direct operational control over the long range missiles.
Hizballah officials have publicly said that the group possesses some 13,000 rockets. Most of them are believed to be standard Katyushas, which have a 12-mile range. But, Israeli officials say Hizballah also maintains a supply of 220mm and even larger rockets from Iran, a "strategic threat" capable of hitting targets in Haifa — 20 miles inside Israel — and beyond. "They can target all of the north and go as far afield as Haifa, threatening one million inhabitants of Israel. It must be considered by Israel's leaders at all times," the Israeli military intelligence official says.
Israeli officials reportedly allege that the long-range rockets are under the direct command of officers of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which Israel alleges has lately expanded its presence along the border. This charge, too, is denied by Hizballah, and has not been independently confirmed.
Israel continues to conduct military operations throughout southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Forces are attempting to destroy Hezbollah's military infrastructure, rocket launch sites, training camps, as well Lebanese infrastructure which can be used to facilitate the movement of weapons and supplies for Hezbollah. The IDF also prevent the two Israeli soldiers from potentially being moved out of country, possibly to Iran. For these reasons, the Damascus-Beirut road has been struck, along with bridges, Lebanese airfields and the fuel supply at the Beirut airport. Israel has also struck Hezbollah political offices in the southern suburbs south of Beirut, and has warned Lebanese to avoid Hezbollah-owned buildings.
The Iranians have already drawn the line at Israeli intervention in Syria, at least rhetorically. "If the Zionist regime commits another stupid move and attacks Syria, this will be considered like attacking the whole Islamic world and this regime will receive a very fierce response," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah has yet to receive such assurances.
Update:
DefenseTech's Noah Shachtmam has additional details on the Raad.
Important overlooked news on latest Hezbollah attacks
By Olivier Guitta
1- According to Israeli Channel 10, Hezbollah was able to hack into the Israeli Army's computer systems prior to the attack.
2- For the first time, Israel mentioned the possible intervention of Iranian Revolutionary Guards based in Lebanon in the war. The danger is that they have long range rockets capable of travelling more than 200 kms and reach Tel Aviv.
3- That's why Yossi Peled, ex Israeli Commander of the Northern area, stated to Yediot Aharonot: " Tsahal's mission is today to strike at Hezbollah with such force that the movement won't survive. Even though Iran is hiding behind Hezbollah, we must focus on the immediate threats against Israel. And those are coming from Hezbollah, Lebanon and Syria."
4- The Hezbollah action was most probably coordinated with Hamas, Iran and Syria. The recent meetings in Damascus and Tehran between all the parties involved is a clear sign of that careful planning. A Hamas leader based in Lebanon, Osama Hamdane, stated that the nature of the relation betwen Hamas and Hezbollah leads to mutual understanding and coordination.
5- Sheikh Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader declared that "the enemy is stuck between Gaza and Lebanon and we are preparing unexpected surprises for him." He also called for Iraqis to step up their resistance against the American invader. Finally he threatened his fellow Lebanese who " by their behaviors will provide cover for the enemy". He also warned the "Lebanese media who will undermine the morale of the resistance."
6- Plenty of Lebanese MPs have been quite vocal in criticizing Hezbollah's actions. The most common expression summarizing the situation for politicians, pundits and laymen is :" Hezbollah opened the gates of Hell." Most commentators, except on Shia radio and TV stations, are also putting the blame on Syria and Iran.
7- How are people on the street reacting ?
Hezbollah is quickly losing popularity in Lebanon.
Most of the Lebanese observers expected a very very quiet summer because a truce had been agreed on by all parties inside and outside government, including Hezbollah.
This is the highest touristic season for Lebanon and everybody was waiting to rack the profits from this season.
So Lebanese are upset not only because of the Israeli retaliation, which most non Shias blame on Hizbullah, but also because it hits them right where it hurts: in their wallets.
The other victim of this unpopularity is Christian General Aoun who decided a few months ago against all odds to side with Hezbollah.
Of course let's not forget Syria which is hated even more than before if that was possible because of its major implication in the current escalation of violence.
8- The positive aspect in domestic Lebanese politics is that Hezbollah lost a lot of luster and that its disarmement is going to be really a priority issue when the situation cools down, if it does anytime soon.
Hizbollah’s War for Iran and Syria
By Walid Phares
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, in his press conference yesterday, declared a war that many in Lebanon believe was in line with Iran and Syria’s strategies. Last night on al-Hurra TV, I developed the real 4 reasons for this war across the Lebanese-Israeli border:
1. Iran is concerned about the nuclear crisis and wants to deflate the issue away.
2. Syria is concerned about the Hariri murder investigation and wishes to postpone its results.
3. Hizbollah is concerned about the call for disarming its militias and therefore decided to flare up the conflict with Israel.
4. Finally, Hamas was sinking in crisis with Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah. Thus a Jihad against Israel was the solution.
On al-Hurra TV, I called the axis “Teheran-Damascus-southern suburbs of Beirut and Gaza.” The aim of Hamas and Hizbollah attacks against Israel is to strategically refocus the conflict back on Israel. More of my analyses were developed on MSNBC, CNN International, Canada TV, and several radio shows. A more detailed analysis will follow soon.
U.S. Treasury Official Provides Details on Use of SWIFT Data to Pursue "Charities" (updated 7/14)
By Andrew Cochran
One comment at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday caught my attention: the top anti-terrorist financing official at the U.S. Treasury Department, Under Secretary Stuart Levey, testified (page 4), "The details remain classified, but the program has been instrumental in identifying and capturing terrorists and financiers and in rolling up a terrorist-supporting charity." In response to my inquiries across and outside government, a Treasury official provided new details to me today on the use of SWIFT data to pursue charities used to fund terrorists - I quote:
1. SWIFT data was important in tracking funding to a terrorist affiliated NGO, and identifying those in the NGO who were providing funds to terrorists. Local authorities raided and closed this NGO, disrupting a significant facilitation network.
2. The Treasury Department designated several branch offices of a Middle Eastern charity for providing support to Usama bin Laden and al Qaida. Using SWIFT data, Treasury found that post-designation, this charity's headquarters began routing its funds to several other al Qaida affiliated entities, apparently to avoid interdiction under US and UN sanctions. The U.S. Government is currently pressing the foreign government where this NGO is located to take appropriate action.
This information adds weight to the assertions by a group of CT experts, including Dennis Lormel, that the SWIFT program was very useful and that the NYT disclosure significantly harms counterterrorism efforts. I started this site, in part, to engage in such debates and discussions on counterterrorism policies and actions (e.g., Dennis' and Doug Farah's debate on Al Qaeda's role in the African diamond trade, first on the CT Blog last year). Victor Comras' June 23 post, "Reports of US Monitoring of SWIFT Transactions Are Not New: The Practice Has Been Known By Terrorism Financing Experts For Some Time," and Dennis Lormel's July 8 rebuttal, "Continued Debate over the SWIFT Disclosure by the New York Times," have been cited and quoted often, including at the Congressional hearing. You can see Victor's response to Under Secretary Levey's testimony, posted on July 11.
UPDATE, 7/14: See today's "Washington Post" article, "Watching Finances Of Terror Suspects Discussed in 2002," which discusses "several examples where government and industry officials have publicly described how counterterrorism agencies access financial records to track terrorists and shut down their funding." The information in Victor Comras' June 23 post is quoted (the reporter didn't cite this website, as he did the NYT about its role).
Also, I have not had time to try to determine the charities referred to in the information given to me by the Treasury official. We're open to suggestions.
Hezbollah escalates the war in Lebanon, launches rocket attacks in Haifa
By Bill Roggio
| | Map of Hezbollah rocket strikes in northern Israel. Click map to view. |
Since the Hezbollah raid on an Israeli outpost on the Lebanese border and kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, and the follow on Israeli raids into Lebanon attacking Hezbollah targets and road, bridge and air infrastructure, several events increased the prospect for a wider war in the Middle East.
Hezbollah has launched a series of missile strikes (over 100 as of 2:33 Eastern Time) against the northern Israeli border towns, and, for the first time, successfully hit the city of Haifa with Katusha rockets. The size of Hezbollah's missile arsenal is estimated between 10,000 to 13,000 rockets. Over 90 have been wounded and 2 killed on the attacks on the northern towns, excluding the strike on Haifa. Hezbollah threatened to strike Haifa if Beirut was struck, which the Israeli Defense Forces have not yet done.
"I was at a lunch with the Israeli Ambassador to the US when he announced that a Hezbollah rocket hit Haifa - the gasp from the crowd was an audible recognition of the major escalation that the attack represents, in part because it wasn't clear beforehand whether the rockets had sufficient range. I would draw a parallel to the 1914 Sarajevo shooting of Archduke Ferdinand, which ultimately led to World War I," said the Counterterrorism Blog's Andrew Cochran, in a post earlier today.
Earlier today, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev claimed Hezbollah wants to move the two captured Israeli soldiers from Lebanon to Iran. The IDF, as part of Operation Just Reward, has struck at the Beirut-Damascus road, as well as Lebanese military airfields and the Beirut airport, very likely in an attempt to prevent the transfer of the captured soldiers to a location outside of Lebanon. Due to the intensity of the fighting, the United States government is working out contingency plans to evacuate U.S. citizens from Lebanon. and the U.S. Navy had a ship that was docked in Haifa put to sea just prior to the Haifa rocket attacks.
Israel is left with no other option than to destroy Hezbollah and remove their presence from the Lebanon frontier. Hezbollah has no intention of keeping the peace on the border, and the Lebanese government is far too weak to handle Hezbollah and secure the south on its own. The Israeli government has indicated Operation Just Reward should be viewed in the time frame of months, not days, indicating the IDF plans to pursue Hezbollah. The operations are already being described as the most intense in Israel's history of fighting in Lebanon.
Iran and Syria may very well enter this conflict. Hezbollah is the proxy of the Iranian and Syrian governments. The destruction of Hezbollah will be a massive loss of face for Iran and Syria, who have invested enormous amounts of time and resources to secure Hezbollah's position in Lebanon, as well as the international terror network.
Terror attacks against world wide U.S. and Israeli interests may very well take place if Israel presses the hunt for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran would very likely push Iraqi Shiite Moqtada al-Sadr to destabilize the situation in Iraq, for starters.
CT Blog Experts' Posts on Lebanon and Hezbollah - Haifa Hit by Rockets (updated)
By Andrew Cochran
Bill Roggio's post below on the Hezbollah attack on Israel is the latest in a long line of CT Blog posts calling attention to the Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Hezbollah axis. Walid Phares's July 7 post on the link from the NYC tunnel plot to Lebanon included the first English translation of an important communique from the Lebanon Internal Security Forces, and he followed up with more about that link on July 8. Back on December 22, 2005, Michael Kraft, who assisted in drafting anti-terrorim legislation, recommended that the US consider naming Lebanon as a "state sponsor of terrorism" (punctuation errors due to move from old website). Here is a selection of other CT Blog posts:
Douglas Farah: What Happened at Bank al-Madina? (Beirut bank used as center for terrorist financing) and Iran Already a Problem With Islamist Radicals
Walid Phares: Are You Ready for Hizbollah's Preemptive Terror? (in which he predicted Hizbollah would attack within the US) and Beware of the other Jihadi blitzkrieg..
My posts: Lebanese Anti-Syrian Leader Agrees to Hezbollah's Terrorism Agenda and Syrian Military Intel Director Tagged for Syria's Support of Terrorism in Lebanon
Olivier Guitta: France and Hizbullah: The End of the Affair
Evan Kohlmann: "In Lebanon, Arab fighters are ready to die in Iraq"
Steven Emerson's Congressional testimony in March 2005 on Syria's support for terrorism and attacks on Israel
Hezbollah drug ring broken up in Ecuador by former CT Blog Contributing Expert Matthew Levitt (now a senior Treasury Department official)
UPDATE: I was at a lunch with the Israeli Ambassador to the US when he announced that a Hezbollah rocket hit Haifa - the gasp from the crowd was an audible recognition of the major escalation that the attack represents, in part because it wasn't clear beforehand whether the rockets had sufficient range. I would draw a parallel to the 1914 Sarajevo shooting of Archduke Ferdinand, which ultimately led to World War I.
Potential Danger in DHS Religious Visa Program
By Douglas Farah
The Boston Globe has a deeply disturbing article on another one of the gaping loopholes that give radical Islamists unfettered, easy access to the United States-the little-known R or Religious Visa, that allows visitors to enter the United States with minimal scrutiny if they claim to belong to a religious order.
The program has been riddled with abuse for years, and a 1999 GAO report found wide-spread fraud, which has since not been addressed. The 1999 GAO report highlighted persistent lapses in oversight. "Neither INS nor [the] State [Department] knows the overall extent of fraud in the religious worker visa program," the report concluded.
The Globe report, based on an internal DHS review of the program said "The probe found a particularly high fraud rate among applicants from countries the government deemed to pose a security risk, such as Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, Syria and Iraq, the report found. There were 11 applications for people from special-risk countries among the 220 petitions that were audited -- and 8 of those 11 were fraudulent, it said."
Michelle Malkin reports that the program has already been exploited to illegally bring in more than 200 Islamic applicants. My full blog is here.
Imad Mugniyah likely behind the capture of Israeli soldiers
By Bill Roggio
| | Imad Fayez Mugniyah |
Hezbollah has conducted a highly successful raid into Israeli territory, attacking a Israeli Defense Force outpost along the Israel-Lebanese border, killing three soldiers and capturing two after they were wounded. Four Israeli soldiers were killed when their tank ran over a land mine in Lebanon during follow-up operations to free the captured soldiers. An additional soldier was killed when attempting to recover the bodies of the four tankers.
Hezbollah carefully planned and selected the personnel for this operation, and executed with precision. The attack began with an artillery barrage along the Israeli frontier. An IDF outpost, with well trained Israeli troops, was overrun, and Hezbollah had the time to take the two wounded Israeli soldiers hostage. The land mine used to destroy the tank during the Israeli follow-up raid into Lebanon was deliberately set to catch the IDF while pressing forward, and large enough to destroy a well armored main battle tank. The Israeli search and rescue combat team took heavy fire once they crossed the border. Hezbollah laid a trap for the IDF.
The sophistication of this attack indicates Imad Fayez Mugniyah, Hezbollah's chief of military operations was directly involved. Mugniyah has a long history of successful military and terrorist operations across the globe. Mugniyah has a history of conducting similar snatch and grab operations against the Israelis. He was responsible for capturing three Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, and the abduction of an Israeli colonel in Kuwait in 2000.
Mugniyah began his career in terrorism in the 1970s with Force 17, the personal bodyguard detachment for Yassar Arafat, and later joined Hezbollah. His more infamous terror attacks include the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63; the October 1983 simultaneous truck bombings on the U.S. Marine and French paratrooper barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and 58 French soldiers; the hijacking of TWA 847; the kidnappings and murders of U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel in Beirut; the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1992, killing 29 people; the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in 1994, killing 86 people. He is suspected of direct involvement in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. servicemen.
Mugniyah has extensive links with the Iranian intelligence services, and has been directly linked to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and recently deceased al-Qaeda in Iraq commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Mugniyah is on FBI's list of 22 most wanted terrorists, with a $5 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture. U.S. Special Forces aborted a raid to capture Mugniyah in the Persian Gulf in 1996. He was believed to have visited Syria in January of 2006, attending a meeting with Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Assad.
 The Hezbollah raid and subsequent capture of two Israeli soldiers has placed Israel in a difficult situation. After Hamas' operation in Gaza, which also included the capture of an Israeli soldier, and the subsequent Israeli incursion into Gaza in attempt to free him, Israel now has fight on a second front. An Israeli reserve division is being mobilized to deploy to the Lebanese frontier. After today's attack, Israel conducted multiple strikes by air and sea, bombarding Hezbollah positions and bridges leading away from the attack site to prevent easy movement of the Hezbollah strike team. The IDF also struck at Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command positions just ten miles south of Beirut.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to Hezbollah's strike was an "act of war" by Lebanon. "The Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a part, is trying to shake regional stability. We are already responding with great strength," said Olmert. The U.S. has directly implicated Iran and Syria (and by default, Mugniyah, their proxy). There are several motivations for Hezbollah's attack: Iran wishes to shift focus from their nuclear program to Israel; Syria Syria seeks an excuse to re-occupy Lebanon; Lebanon has been under pressure to disarm Hezbollah; Hezbollah wishes to gain prestige but striking at their hated enemy while providing assistance to Hamas; the destabilization of the nascent Lebanese democracy would be a blow to the U.S. democracy promotion program.
Bombed, But Not Beaten: Lessons from Mumbai
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
The Indian response to Tuesday's devastating bombings in Mumbai (see Bill Roggio's coverage) bears noting as an example for other countries. There were at least two purposes behind the attacks: crippling the Indian economy and stoking Hindu-Muslim tensions. It appears that the terrorists failed to achieve either goal, as Mumbai's citizens displayed remarkable resolve.
One particularly noteworthy aspect of their response is the self-help that could be seen in the wake of the bombings. Mumbai's governance is a complete disaster, as Bloomberg News columnist Andy Mukherjee explains. There is very little accountability at top levels of government, as tenured bureaucrats are given the bulk of the responsibilities. The mayor isn't directly elected by voters and lacks executive authority. To make matters worse, Mukherjee notes that "the July 11 blasts occurred on trains and stations that are under the jurisdiction of the Railway Ministry, controlled by the federal government in New Delhi."
But Mumbai's citizens turned to intensive self-help efforts in response to the attacks. Mukherjee writes:
One group, mostly the residents of shantytowns along the railway tracks, carried the dead and the injured out of the train carriages, using bed sheets as body bags and stretchers. Another set of people stopped taxis and auto-rickshaws and ordered them to take the survivors to hospital. A third group was at the hospitals, administering all the first aid it could, before the doctors could take over. And all of this happened as rain pounded down. At one of the explosion sites, the local rescue workers pressed a television crew, which had arrived before the police, into helping victims. The filming had to wait.
It isn't uncommon for disasters to force Mumbai's citizens to resort to self-help. Shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Mumbai was flooded by heavy monsoon rains, the city's ancient drains and sewers collapsed, and at least 435 died. In its June 26 cover story on India's economic rise, Time Magazine noted citizens' response to these floods: "[R]escue workers were nowhere to be seen, but shanty dwellers sheltered businessmen, slum children rescued film stars, and untouchables saved holy men." (It is interesting that the assistance of shantytown residents figured so prominently in both quoted articles.)
Another noteworthy aspect of the Indian response is the economic rally that occurred on Wednesday. The Bombay Stock Exchange rose three percent, finishing at its highest mark in almost two months. This is the product of determination. As Prime Minster Manmohan Singh said, "The wheels of our economy will move on. . . . India will continue to walk tall and with confidence."
Terrorists would similarly love to deal a blow to the U.S. economy. And if another terrorist attack succeeds -- if, for example, they hit our mass transit system as they have done now in Mumbai, London and Madrid -- we will do well to remember how India responded to Tuesday's attacks.
UPDATE, JULY 13, 2006, 1:08 P.M.: For another take on lessons to be learned from Mumbai, see an interesting analysis, "Terrorist Tentacles in India," by Wilson John of the Indian think tank Observer Research Foundation. Also see this discussion of Wilson John's analysis from Chad Evans at In the Bullpen.
The Jihadist War Against India
By Walid Phares
Is this the beginning of the Jihadi war on India? Yes and no. Yes it is a jihadist war on India, but no, the trains’ bombings weren’t the beginning of that war. Unlike the U.S., Spain, and the UK, the Indians have been subjected to small explosions of the holy war for years. Yesterday’s bombings of Mumbai’s trains (previously Bombay) are not the first strikes on Indian mainland. In October 2005, terror bombings killed more than 60 people in the Indian capital of Delhi. Mumbai itself was the target of terror attacks that massacred 55 persons and injured 180 in August 2003. And in December 2001, jihadist groups launched raids on India’s parliament killed a number of people, as well. The targeting of the most populous democracy on earth has been taking place for years, even before 9/11 at the hands of followers of a Salafi-Tablighi ideology, with common roots with al-Qaeda’s terrorist doctrine. The July 11 blasts in Mumbai aiming at innocent civilians are the last in a string of crimes directed against the Indian population by militants following orders and engaged in an irreversible path of violence. But who did it and why?
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Indian experts and security sources believe that an Indian jihadist, Daoud Ibrahim, is probably behind the organization of the terror attacks in Mumbai, as he is accused of having a history of similar actions. Ibrahim is an Indian Muslim who followed Islamist ideology and committed himself to waging jihad against the Hindus and the state of India. He is believed to have declared Bay’a (commitment) to Osama Bin Laden in the past. Ibrahim has jihadist networks inside India and is connected with the Kashmir Islamist organizations on both sides of the border with Pakistan.
The main “movement” that starts in Pakistan and stretches into the Indian province of Kashmir is Laskar-e-Taiba, which was founded in the late 1980s by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. Laskar-e-Taiba is said to mean “The soldiers of the Pure.” It could also mean linguistically “the Good soldiers” or the “best soldiers,” in reference to them as the vanguards of the Mujahideen in the region. In reality, the “Laskars” are another form of Kashmiri Taliban whose aim is to establish an Emirate in the Indian province of Kashmir before joining forces with the Islamists of Pakistan and the Taliban of Afghanistan to create a massive and powerful “Jihadi Principality” in south Asia stretching from Iran to China.
The Laskar Taiba is under the ideological auspices of a Wahhabi-style foundation in Pakistan, the Markaz Dawa ul-Irshad, also created in the late 1980s. Some reports conclude that the “Dawa” is the mother ship, while the “Laskar” is the army, or one of its armed branches. In the jungle of south Asia’s Islamic fundamentalism, networks are intertwined but well connected. The Salafi-Tablighi jihadists of Pakistan and their counterparts in India have two enemies: one strategic and the other an interim enemy. The Indian state is seen as the foe obstructing the separation of Kashmir and the establishment of an Emirate. As in the case of Chechnya, the Islamists hijacked the “ethnic cause” and transformed it into a jihadist onslaught. The “Laskar” and their supporters inside Kashmir and the rest of India have in reality moved the center of their struggle from classical separation from India to the establishment of a Taliban regime in northern India, whose real objective would be to radicalize India’s 100-million-strong Muslim community. Reports indicate that this penetration is now embodied by the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), accused by Indian sources of being an associate of the Laskar. Hence, the “Talibanization” of Kashmir’s issue has become the dominant threat to India and by ripple effect also to President Musharref Pakistan. For the second internal enemy to the aggregation of all jihadists from Waziristan to Kashmir is none other but the president of Pakistan. They believe he is “not helping them enough against India,” as they claim on their websites and, obviously, on al-Jazeera.
But above the clouds of the Pakistani-Indian magma, Osama Bin Laden has issued his mortal fatwas against the south Asian “infidel.” In at least their last four messages – audio or video – aired on al-Jazeera or posted on al Sahhab website, Osama bin laden and Zawahiri blasted the Hindus as an abhorred enemy. Lashing out against one billion Hindus in the subcontinent, not distinguishing between governments and individuals, the chief Jihadists ordered their henchmen to shed the blood of the Indian masses on ideological grounds.
Here again, after the U.S., Spain, Britain, Russia, and other target nations of terrorism, India will have to declare the identity of the criminals, not only in term of their names and the names of their organizations, but the name of their ideology and its content. The more jihadists widen their bloody fault lines against the international community, the more they will isolate themselves among “infidels” and Muslims alike.
But what can and should India do to counter the jihadist war on its cities? Any observer can predict that the Mumbai trains won’t be the last ones to be attacked in the future. The penetration of the second largest country in the world is deep and wide, and above all backed from across the border by Pakistan’s powerful fundamentalists. According to reports, almost every shop in the main bazaar of every town – large or small – in Pakistan had a Lashkar collection box to raise funds for the “struggle in Kashmir.” The group was indeed banned by the government in 2002; nevertheless, it still operates across the country, inside Kashmir, and has now spread its tentacles deep inside India. The latter can deal with the branches within India’s many provinces, but the roots of that tree are deeply planted and fertilized inside Pakistan.
Hence, Pakistani President Musharref has to push from the West and the Indian government from the East to contain and isolate the Jihadi terror network. But can the Pakistani president rise to the mission?
Immediately after the attacks, General Musharref and his Foreign Minister denounced the “heinous act.” This was the right thing to do to cool Indian-Pakistani relations. But would the commander-in-chief of the Pakistani Army cross the line and move against the Laskar-e-Taiba inside his own country? It is a very tall order in view of the solid entrenchment of the jihadists in the second largest Muslim country in the world. To the east, on the border of Afghanistan, Taliban-Pashtuns tribes control Waziristan, where Osama bin Laden is believed to hide. To the West, along the border with India, stretch the Laskar. In the center and within the big cities, roam the Islamist parties of the country, intimidating the once influential secular parties. In the middle, stands Musharref with his army. The question is about the Islamist influence inside the Army and the intelligence service. A few months ago, a former higher-up in the armed forces advised on a website, “Musharref better withdraw the troops from Waziristan if he doesn’t want to see the intifada exploding.
Al-Qaeda, the Dawa leadership, the Laskar, and their allies inside India understand this deadly geography. They are playing chicken with both Pakistan and India, manipulating both against the other. The strike inside India was a strategic order coming from the top jihadist command in the hopes of putting pressure on Delhi to retaliate against Pakistan itself, and on Islamabad to strike back against India's retaliation. It is clear bin Laden wants a greater war between these two nuclear powers on the Asian subcontinent. And he believes he can provoke that war by striking in India’s cities.
This is why I believe more strikes will come.
And finally, to bring it home, where is the American connection? Is there one? American diplomats, of course, must monitor tensions between the nuclear powers of India and Pakistan, as they already are. But U.S. Homeland Security must be aware of these strikes on Mumbai, for Laskar Taibe is not alien to our shores. Just three years ago, a jihad group known as the “Virginia Paintball cell” was training to “extend support to Laskar e Taiba.” Indeed, 60 miles from downtown Washington, a number of American-born believers in jihad and followers of al-Qaeda’s ideology were training in urban combat. Among them was one Ismael Royer of CAIR, now sitting in jail as part of a jihadist conspiracy against the infidels.
If a cell of Laskar-e-Taiba was preparing for terror a short distance from the U.S. capital, no one can guarantee that the masters of the jihad won’t someday order the derailing of American trains, as well.
This article was published also on FrontPage Magazine and on FDD Web log
Dr Walid Phares is the author of the newly released book Future Jihad. He is also a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington DC. « Close It
House Committee Postpones Hearing on Weapons Sales to Pakistan (updated 7/13)
By Andrew Cochran
The U.S. House International Relations Committee has postponed its hearing, scheduled for tomorrow morning, on the sale of F-16s and other weapons to Pakistan. The timing is interesting, coming a day after the Mumbai attacks and commentaries which, in part, pin the blame on inaction by Pakistan against extremist elements - see Doug Farah's post today on Dawood Ibrahim. UPDATE 7/13: The hearing was postponed at the State Department's request.
Steven Emerson on Mumbai Train Attacks & NYC Tunnel Plot
By Andrew Cochran
Steven Emerson appeared on NBC Nightly News and on CNN on July 11 to discuss the Mumbai train attacks and the NYC subway plot (with Peter Bergen and Harold Wiseman) and warned that a terrorist rail attack on US soil "is impossible to protect against" and that You can see video of his NBC appearance and his CNN appearance (both Windows Media), and here are the transcripts:
Brian Williams: For more on the threat of terror attacks on transit systems here and around the world, we turn now to Steve Emerson, an expert in counterterrorism and an analyst for us here at NBC news. Steve, why this apparent concentration on the part of the terrorists on this mode of transportation?
Steve Emerson: The train system, Brian, is the softest of all soft targets. It's impossible to protect against. They are moving targets, and they provide a wonderful opportunity for terrorists to inflict mass casualties and most importantly they want to disrupt the economy and they've done so.
Williams: Isn't there another prevalent location here? This one is more geographic, and that is their tendency to look for financial districts, wherever they strike?
Emerson: There's no doubt about that. 9/11 was clearly aimed at disrupting the U.S. economy and the attacks in Mumbai today clearly showed what terrorists can do in the United States. In Washington, in New York or Chicago, it would cripple the economy and cause mass hysteria. It is a very difficult problem that is impossible to protect against.
Paula Zahn Now on CNN
PAULA ZAHN: If the FBI is right about this guy’s plans to cross into theUS from Canada, it raises more concern than ever about security along our northern border. Our top story coverage continues with a panel of security specialists Harold Wiseman with the Institute of Public Affairs In Montreal, CNN Terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, and Steve Emerson, the author of American Jihad: the Terrorist Living Among Us. Welcome, glad to have all three of you as part of our team tonight. Steve I’m going to get started with you. We just heard that piece that preceded this, how much this guy defied the typical profile of a Jihad terrorist, so how much further does the blow apart the assumptions that the intelligence community has to make about who terrorists are?
STEVE EMERSON: Well, it certainly, as you pointed out, defies the stereotype, but it’s still the basic outline of who terrorists mingle with, and how they operate still revolves around a religious type of behavior that they can certainly critique and has a commonality with other terrorists. He clearly did not show that behavior, but he is the exception to the rule, Paula.
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ZAHN: And Peter, how do you reconcile being a Jihadist member and living the way this guy lived. The lifestyle of a playboy with women in a bunch of different cities, a lot of drinking, a lot of carousing.
PETER BERGEN: Well we have seen this story before, one of the lead hijackers in 9/11, Zihad Jarro, was an upper middle class Lebanese who had a girlfriend, and he was drinking, he was socializing with Americans when he was in this country, before he piloted one of the plans on 9/11. Also one of the operational commanders of 9/11, a guy by the name of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was carousing in the Philippines , had sort of a Philipino girlfriend and so while it is unusual it certainly isn’t something that hasn’t happened, actually we have seen this occasionally before. This kind of thing, maybe sometimes it’s a cover, but maybe sometimes people just want to have it both ways, to enjoy these things at the same time they are plotting these terrorist attacks.
ZAHN: Bill, we recently learned that Hammoud actually went to college in Canada so how concerned should Americans watching this show tonight be about what an easy entry point it seems that Canada is for Al-Qaeda.
HAROLD WISEMAN: You’ve hit the major point. Americans have to be less concerned today under the Harper Administration because they are addressing three important points. Immigration is lax, horribly lax, and that bothers the vast majority of Muslims in Canada who are law abiding and contributing to this country. We take in 300,000 immigrants and refugees a year, three times that of Australia . And we have a three-year backlog before their cases are heard. This government is addressing the problem. They ' re also addressing two other problems: the lack of field intelligence. Seasoned agents don ' t have enough people on the ground to gather intelligence. With what they ' ve done, they ' ve done well and stopped a lot of other plots and aborted a lot of operations. The third issue that ' s going to be addressed by this administration that was failed to be addressed for ten years is our port situation. Much attention is always given in the United States and in Canada to airports and subways, and yet none is given to ports where only 1 in 100 cargo containers are checked. Since the federal government in Canada stopped funding port police that ' s not going to get better any time soon.
ZAHN: None of that reassuring as we wait for those changes to have impact. Steve, we saw the FBI make those arrests in Miami in conjunction with a plot apparently to bomb the Sears Tower . Now we see the arrest of this man in conjunction with his co-conspirators. But there doesn ' t seem to be any proof that they were actually ready to carry out this attack. Do you think the feds jumped the gun here?
EMERSON: No. I think they couldn' t afford to wait to take action. If they tried to play it out, they would be playing with people's lives. Look, before 9/11, if people thought 4 terrorist commanders with 15 supporters could take over airplanes and plow into buildings and take them down, people would have thought they were crazy. I think you have to take them down, arrest them before the conspiracy actually materializes.
WISEMAN: This point of Steve’s is very, very important because as all of you have heard, there were the arrests of 17 young men in Toronto and there was a great debate whether they were really plotting, whether they weren 't. Well, they were. And Canadian security authorities for 14 months worked with their family. They went to them to tell them what they were doing. The families and the communities had no influence and they had to arrest them before they did anything.
ZAHN: Peter, you get the final word. Ten seconds left about what the deal is with al Qaeda and trains.
BERGEN: They tend to attack the same kinds of targets. They tend to go back to things that have worked in the past. « Close It
Who is Dawood Ibrahim?
By Douglas Farah
The chief suspect in the Mumbai train attacks is one of the most fascinating characters in the nexus of terrorism and organized crime. This is true even if he was not involved it what appears to be a well-coordinated, sophisticated attack of the type he has been involved in before. Indian authorities are naming his as the primary suspect in the bloody attacks of yesterday.
A criminal kingpin, ally of al Qaeda, large-scale drug runner and financer of some of Bollywood's biggest movies, Ibrahim loves to hang out with movie stars and live the good life. Not exactly a natural ally of radical Islamist groups, but he appears to provide the muscle and know-how to attacks, rather than being the intellectual author of the violence he has pariticpated in. His ideology seems more firmly wedded to his financial well-being than to his religious beliefs.
Ibrahim has a enormous mansion in Karachi, Pakistan, but spends a great deal of time in Dubai, UAE. He has a long history of violence. His flamboyant life style made it difficult to believe that he was not protected by the Pakistani intelligence services for whom he worked, or officials in the UAE.
My friend David Kaplan did one of the best looks at him in U.S. News.
When the Treasury Department designated him in October 2003, hardly anyone paid attention. He had come across my radar screen, however, because of his reported role in the gold trade and in helping al Qaeda and the Taliban ship their money and gold reserves out of Afghanistan as the U.S. invaded in 2001. My full blog is here.
The Real Secrets of Our Terrorism Financing Tracking Program Remain Secret
By Victor Comras
Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey’s testimony today before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations made a strong case that the terrorism financing tracking program developed by Treasury and other US agencies is, indeed, a vital tool in finding and tracking terrorism financing from its sources to its recipients. And being able to trace transactions through SWIFT, and to obtain access to SWIFT records of previous transactions is a key element of this program. But, in my view, he was off track when he exaggerated the damage caused to this program by the recent press disclosures. These disclosures, Levey said, >“compromised one of our most valuable programs and will only make our efforts to track terrorist financing - and to prevent terrorist attacks - harder. Tracking terrorist money trails is difficult enough without having our sources and methods reported on the front page of newspapers.”
I don’t believe that the mere revelation that we have access to SWIFT transaction records really “spills the beans” on this program. As I wrote in my June 23rd Blog, that news came as no real surprise to those who closely follow what has been going on to combat terrorism financing. And I strongly doubt that the press revelations came as any real surprise to the terrorist groups or their financiers. The real trick here is knowing how to identify and target the suspicious accounts and transactions that need to be monitored. And it is that methodology, and the sources and methods associated therewith, that constitute the real heart, and the real secrets, of this program. Happily none of this information has been compromised.
I think it is very exciting that our terrorism financing tracking program has had some real successes. But, I certainly wouldn’t attribute these successes, as some seem to do, to any ignorance on the part of the terrorist groups or their financial sources that SWIFT has been cooperating with US authorities. These are pretty savvy guys. They have long known that the US and other governments would pull no stops in trying to identify and track their financial transactions. They use false names, shell banks and shell trusts and companies, and use every other money laundering trick in the book to hide their transactions. I’m sure that each of our successes was the result of a lot of hard work and some damn good intelligence, analysis and detective work. I doubt that the outcome in these cases would have been any different if the NY Times story had appeared in 2003 or even before.
Multiple Bombs Detonated on Bombay Rail System (Updated)
By Bill Roggio
| | Map of the Bombay rail system. Orange dots indicate bombing sites. click image to view. |
Last Update at 4:20 pm ET. The railway system and rush hour commuters were the targets of a series of bombings in the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai), the country's financial capital. According to an updated Associated Press story, "Tuesday evening's first explosion hit a train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar, said a police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Other blasts followed down the line of the western railway at the Mahim, Bandra, Matunga, Borivili, Mira Road and Jogeshwari stations... Deshmukh, the state's top elected official, also corrected initial reports of seven blasts, saying there had actually been eight, including two at one station." The attacks occurred at stations on the Western Metro Line, in a series of stations along a straight line (the 'red' line in the accompanying map) in just an 11-minute span.
Reuters reports at least 163 people have been killed and 460 wounded. The Bangkok Post reports, "The blasts were timed to inflict maximum fatalities during the rush-hour when people were on their way home from work." "Right now it is not possible for us to give the number of fatalities. We are busy rushing the injured to the hospitals and removing the dead," said Bombay Police Commissioner AN Roy.
Other terrorist attacks in India: Near-simultaneous explosions in three locations in New Delhi on October 29, 2005 killed dozens, hours after India and Pakistan began talks on opening border in disputed Kashmir to aid earthquake victims. The city of Bombay was rocked in 2003 when two car bombs were detonated near a hotel and a Hindu temple. The 2003 bombings killed 44 and wounded over 150. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan terrorist organization with deep ties to al-Qaeda, was implicated in this attack. LeT was also responsible for the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, where 15 were killed. This incident nearly caused a war between India and Pakistan. The Times of India has a chronology of Mumbai attacks since December 2002.
The major Indian cities have been placed on high alert after the bombings. "Police contingents had been deployed at shrines and vital installations in the capital [Delhi]," according to IANS. Police dogs, spotters, and other assets have been deployed at railway stations and airports. There is no indication at this point if the attacks are al-Qaeda related or one of the various India insurgent groups, no group has claimed responsibility yet (12 noon ET) . The attacks are reminiscent of the March 11, 2004 strikes on Madrid's railway system, as there are multiple bombs detonated nearly simultaneously during a heavy travel period, with the purpose of inflicting mass-casualties.
An anonymous intelligence source told the Times of India the attacks were "carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and local Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists and was designed to trigger communal conflagration in the country’s financial capital." MSNBC reports Indian intelligence view Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian terrorist and underground crime boss with links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, as the prime suspect in today's bombings. Dawood was designated as a terrorist by the U.S.Treasury Department on October 16, 2003:
| | Dawood Ibrahim |
Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian crime lord, has found common cause with Al Qaida, sharing his smuggling routes with the terror syndicate and funding attacks by Islamic extremists aimed at destabilizing the Indian government. He is wanted in India for the 1993 Bombay Exchange bombings and is known to have financed the activities of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (Army of the Righteous), a group designated by the United States in October 2001 and banned by the Pakistani Government -- who also froze their assets -- in January 2002.
Douglas Farah noted the links between al-Qaeda and the criminal underworld in December, and specifically pointed to Dawood Ibrahim: "There is also growing evidence of the willingness of al Qaeda and its affiliates to occassionally hook up with organized criminal groups, sometimes blending the two into one operation, as is the case with Dawood Ibrahim." Aaron Mannes provides additional background information on Dawood Ibrahim (July 11 entry).
CT Blog Experts on LeT
Evan Kohlmann's dossier on GlobalTerrorAlert.com (Acrobat file)
Victor Comras on recent US Treasury Department designation of LeT affiliates
Steven Emerson on Pakistani inaction against LeT
Douglas Farah on banned Islamic charities operating openly in Pakistan
Andrew Cochran on LeT efforts in Kashmir & Pakistan Earthquake Zones and on LeT-affiliated terrorists in the United States
Andrew Cochran notes the House International Relations Committee will hold a full committee hearing on the "Sale of F-16 Aircraft and Weapons Systems to Pakistan" on July 13, 2006.
Shamil Basayev: How Jihadists Are Made
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
One interesting and overlooked angle in the coverage of Shamil Basayev's death is his transformation from a Chechen separatist rebel to a brutal jihadist warlord aligned with al-Qaeda. Back in 2004, shortly after the Beslan school massacre, C.J. Chivers wrote an excellent article for the New York Times, "The Chechen's Story: From Unrivaled Guerilla Leader to the Terror of Russia," that explores this transformation in detail.
Basayev first burst onto the scene in 1991 when he and other hijackers took 171 airplane passengers hostage, forcing the jet to Turkey and eventually to the Chechen capital of Grozny. He let all the hostages go unscathed; his purpose in this hijacking was to make a point about Chechen sovereignty. ''We wanted to show that we would resort to anything to uphold our sovereignty,'' Basayev said on Moscow television.
There have been two distinct Chechen wars since 1990. The first war, running from 1994 to 1996, was a war for independence from Russia. The second war, which began in 1999, was precipitated by Chechen mujahideen invading Dagestan with the intention of establishing an Islamic state there (ruled by the most brutal form of sharia law, akin to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan). This second war was no war of liberation, but instead was headed up by jihadists, many of whom were foreign fighters. During the first Chechen war, Chivers notes that Basayev gained notoriety for his battlefield prowess and for his "sarcastic charm":
During his long run as Russia's most wanted man, Mr. Basayev briefly shed the image of a terrorist in the mid-1990's to become a storied guerrilla commander, exuding tactical dexterity and sarcastic charm as he led fighters who chased the Russian Army from Chechen soil. Back then he rarely displayed the ascetic habits of the Islamic extremists he later embraced; in a break during a battle in 1995 he pointed to looted vodka and offered a journalist from The New York Times a drink. . . .
Unlike Osama bin Laden, with whom he is sometimes compared, Mr. Basayev lacked a list of global grievances and the blank messianic stare. He focused his rage against Russia, and, even after the deaths of his family members, often wisecracked.
In 1996 he warned a British reporter that if war resumed, ''Moscow will be destroyed-- not one person will be left,'' but he then leavened the threat with a punch line, ''I'm just warning you so if you have any flats there you'd better sell up.''
But Basayev was eventually transformed into a brutal, humorless warlord who appeared to have less interest in Chechen independence than in furthering the international jihad. In his Times article, Chivers, explores how this transformation may have occurred:
In May 1995, the Russians destroyed his family's homes. The attacks reportedly killed 11 of his relatives, including his wife, two daughters and a brother. ''That could have propelled him, because he was not a born terrorist,'' Dr. [Dmitri] Trenin [the deputy director of the Carnegie Moscow Center] said. ''The annihilation of his clan may have pushed him in this direction.''
Whatever drove Mr. Basayev, Chechnya could no longer contain him. In June 1995 he hid fighters in trucks that ostensibly carried the bodies of slain Russian soldiers and, with a fake police escort, drove to the adjacent republic of Dagestan and seized a hospital and as many as 1,500 hostages. Russia conducted two failed assaults against him; more than 100 hostages died. . . .
After Chechnya won its de facto independence from Russia in 1996, Basayev lost his bid for the Chechen presidency but was appointed prime minister. Little more than a military commander, Basayev was unsuited for this job and became politically marginalized. It is then that Basayev aligned himself with the jihadists, something that many analysts regard as "a marriage of convenience." For example, Chivers quotes Sebastian Smith of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting as saying, ''My distinct feeling is that this was not a religious conversion. This was a means to an end, but a means that led him down this horrible path.'' (Incidentally, I am skeptical of this "marriage of convenience" view. While I won't say that Basayev's conversion was genuine, my experience is that most Western analysts understand neither theology nor religious conversion, and thus tend to downplay them as salient factors.)
The rest of the story is well known. As my colleague Bill Roggio notes, Basayev's terrorist exploits while in league with the jihadists included the Beslan school massacre and the 2002 Dubrovka theater attack in Moscow.
There are many lessons to be gleaned from Basayev's life and the Chechen war as a whole. One lesson is how wars that are brutally executed can play into the jihadists' hands. Just as the killing of his family may have made Basayev more willing to engage in specatular acts of slaughter, so too has the Russian brutality in pursuing the Chechnya war made many Chechens more sympathetic to the radical Wahhabi/Salafi strains of Islam that have been aggressively peddled there.
Moreover, another lesson is that while the Chechen mujahideen are an enemy of the U.S. just as they are an enemy to Russia, we should be careful about how we engage nation-states like Russia in the war on terror. While the Russians did not initiate the second Chechen war, their brutal execution of the conflict has played one hundred percent into the hands of the terrorists.
Fighting resumes in Mogadishu; Shariah Law enforced
By Bill Roggio
 The Islamic Courts Union, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia, is consolidating power in the capital city of Mogadishu. The ICU is conducting military operations against rival warlords who sat out of last month's fighting. Over 140 Somalis have been killed in the past two days of fighting, with over a hundred estimated wounded. The ICU is attacking warlords Abdi Hassan Awale Qeydiid and Hussein Aidid. Hussein Aidid is the son of Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the target of the United Nations and U.S. operations in October of 1993 during the Battle of Mogadishu. Qeydiid's militia has surrendered to the Islamic Courts, who displayed their weapons.
No longer maintaining the fascade of a 'moderate' Islamic government, the Islamic Courts has begun to enforce the strict brand of Shariah law the Taliban favored after their rise to power in Afghanistan from 1996 to their ouster in 2001, and currently is enforcing in several agencies of Pakistan's North West Frontier provinces today. Islamic Courts fighters beat members of the Mogadishu Stars, a musical band, with "electric cables" after performing at a wedding ceremony. "We had warned the family not to include in their ceremony what is not allowed by the sharia law. This includes the mixing of men and women and playing music. That is why we raided and took their equipment. What was going there was un-Islamic," said Sheik Iise Salad, according to the Associated Press.
Two Somalis were killed in Mogadishu after an Islamic Courts militia shut down a cinema broadcasting the World Cup. "They know the law, they broke it and they were punished according to the law. We need to be disciplined because this town especially is in danger from attack by Ethiopia," said Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamic Courts. In Jowhar, the Islamic Courts "punished 11 teenagers with 40 lashes in public each... after they confessed to 'un-Islamic behaviour', including smoking marijuana, pretending to be Islamic militia, violence and looting."
U.S. forces recently signed an agreement with the neighboring government of Djibouti to expand the size and upgrade the facilities in Camp Lemonier, the headquarters for Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa. CJTF-HOA's mission has just become much more complicated with the rise of the east African version of Talibanistan. The seventeen known terror camps and the Islamic Court's consildation of power may neccessatate a switch from covert and humanitarian missions to more overt missions designed to prevent the Islamic Courts from expanding into northern Somalia and westward into Ethiopia.
Intelligence Report links Janjaweed to al Qaeda
By Douglas Farah
A recent international intelligence document says there are credible reports that a cadre of about 15 al Qaeda operatives in Sudan are providing training to troops under the control of Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal.
This is striking given the recent mentions of the janjaweed in Osama bin Laden's most recent public pronouncements, where the Arabs fighters in Sudan are congratulated along with the Islamists in Somalia.
Sudanese officials, who have done nothing so far to halt the Darfur slaughter by the janjaweed, have seized on the report and others like it insist the government's hands are tied in controlling the murderous raiders because the janjaweed are tied to al Qaeda, not the government.
Such logic may be a useful way to try to deflect the accusations of government participation in the genocide there, when faced with strong evidence of al Qaeda support. But the government, which hosted bin Laden and continues to maintain contact with al Qaeda groups, cannot and should not be allowed to get away with such egregious support for mass murder.
The confidential report says the trainers are foreigners who have arrived in Sudan from Kenya, Mali, Libya, Somalia and southern Egypt, and possibly Yemen. There are indications the cadre came out of Afghanistan and Iraq to join the janjaweed for training and combat. My full blog is here.
First Hamdan and SWIFT Hearings on Congressional Committee Schedule This Week (Updated)
By Andrew Cochran
The first Congressional hearings on the impact of the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision and on the SWIFT disclosures will occur this week. On June 29, I posted my prediction that Congress will pass a new law to enable the Administration to hold the detainees as needed until a trial and/or secure transfers to other countries. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross posted commentaries on the case before the decision in April and in March. UPDATE: The Senate Majority Leader said today that the legislation won't be ready until at least September, which will heighten the political debate on the issue.
Contrary to some published schedules, Victor Comras will not testify at tomorrow's SWIFT hearing at the House Financial Services Committee. On June 23, Victor posted his scoop, "Reports of US Monitoring of SWIFT Transactions Are Not New: The Practice Has Been Known By Terrorism Financing Experts For Some Time" and followed up on July 3. See also Dennis Lormel's posts on the matter on July 8 and June 23 and Douglas Farah's posts on June 29. Here is the resolution that the U.S. House passed condemning the disclosures (Acrobat file).
UPDATE: Michael Cutler will testify on Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform. Here is his testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee on June 28 on the need to improve operational intelligence for border security (Acrobat file).
Other hearings will cover the situation in Iraq and measures to protect chemical facilities from terrorist attacks. Here is the schedule of open terrorism-related Congressional hearings for this week:
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Senate Committees
July 11, 2006
Senate Judiciary Committee
Detainee/Enemy Combatant Legal Rights
Full committee hearing on "Hamdan v. Rumsfeld: Establishing a Constitutional Process." On June 29, the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration did not have the constitutional authority to set up "military commissions" to try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
Witnesses: Daniel Dell'Orto, principal deputy general counsel, Defense Department; Steve Bradbury, acting assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel, Justice Department; former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olsen, partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Harold Koh, dean, Yale Law School, New Haven, Conn.; Paul Cobb, former deputy general counsel for the Defense Department; Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift of the Office of Military Commissions, Office of Chief Defense Counsel, Defense Department; former Air Force Judge Advocate General Scott Silliman of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, Duke University School of Law; former Associate Deputy Attorney General Daniel Collins, partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, Los Angeles, Calif.
Location: 216 Dirksen Senate Office Building. 9:30 a.m. (July 11, 2006)
Contact: 202-224-5225
July 13, 2006
Senate Armed Services Committee
Detainee Trials/Military Commissions
Full committee hearing on the future of military commissions in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
Witnesses: Army Judge Advocate General Maj. Gen. Scott Black; Navy Judge Advocate General Rear Adm. James McPherson; Air Force Judge Advocate General Major Gen. Jack Rives; Marine Corps Judge Advocate General Brig. Gen. Kevin Sandkuhler; and former Army Judge Advocate General Thomas Romig
Location: TBA. 9:30 a.m. (July 13, 2006)
Contact: 202-224-3871
House Committees
July 11, 2006
House Financial Services Committee
Terror Finance Tracking Program
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on "The Terror Finance Tracking Program."
Witnesses: Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey
Location: 2128 Rayburn House Office Building. 10 a.m. (July 11, 2006)
Contact: 202-225-7502
House Government Reform Committee
Iraq National Victory Strategy
National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations Subcommittee hearing on "The Evolving National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."
Witnesses: Comptroller General David Walker of the Government Accountability Office (GAO); Joseph Christoff, director of international affairs, GAO; James Jeffrey, senior adviser on Iraq and principal deputy assistant secretary of State for the Middle East; Anthony Cordesman, chairman in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs (CSIS); Kenneth Pollack, director of Middle Eastern policy at the Brookings Institution; Leith Kubba, senior director for Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy; and Kenneth Katzman, specialist in Middle East Affairs at the Congressional Research Service
Location: 2154 Rayburn House Office Building. 2 p.m. (July 11, 2006)
Contact: 202-225-5074
House Homeland Security Committee
Chemical Facility Anti-terrorism
Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity Subcommittee markup of H.R.5695, the "Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006."
Location: 311 Cannon House Office Building. 2 p.m. (July 11, 2006)
Contact: 202-226-9600
July 13, 2006
House International Relations Committee
Aircraft/Weapons Sales to Pakistan
Full committee hearing on the "Sale of F-16 Aircraft and Weapons Systems to Pakistan."
Witnesses: TBA
Location: 2172 Rayburn House Office Building. 10 a.m. (July 13, 2006)
Contact: 202-225-5021 « Close It
Chechen Terrorist Shamil Basayev Killed by Russian FSB (UPDATED with Basayev statement praising al-Qaeda in Iraq)
By Bill Roggio
| | Shamil Basayev in Dagestan, in 1999. Click image to view. |
Chechen terrorist leader and al-Qaeda commander Shamil Basayev (AKA Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris) has been killed by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), according to the chief of the security. Basayev was killed in an explosion during a raid in the Federal Republic of Ingushetia, which neighbors Chechnya. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated Basayev "deserved retribution" for his multitude of terror attacks in the Russian Federation. "Basayev's body has been identified through some of the fragments, including his head," Ingush Deputy Prime Minister Bashir Aushev told the Interfax news service. Up to ten Chechen terrorists may have been killed during the attack.
Ingushetia was the scene of the horrific Beslan school massacre, where over 1,200 children and adults were taken hostage. Over 340 were killed, 184 them were children (see The School, a timely story by C.J. Chivers for the details of the Beslan Massacre). Basayev claimed responsibility for this terror attack.
| | A child killed in the Basayev planned Beslan Massacre on September 3, 2004. Click image to view further pictures. |
Basayev also was responsible for the Dubrovka theater attack in Moscow in 2002, where over 100 were killed during the raid to free the hostages, and the Budyonnovsk hospital siege in 1995, where over 100 patients and hospital personnel were killed. The Associated Press provides a roundup of Basayev's attacks.
The U.S. Department of State designated Basayev as a terrorist in 2003 under Executive Order 13224, and declared he "has links to al-Qaeda." Executive Order 13224 documents Basayev's other terror attacks:
On December 27, 2002, Chechen suicide bombers destroyed the Chechen administration complex in Groznyy, killing 78 dead and wounding 150. Basayev claimed he personally pressed the button detonating the explosive device. On May 12, 2003, a truck loaded with explosives killed 60, including seven children and wounded 200 at a government compound in the Chechen town of Znamenskoye. The next day in Iliskhan-Yurt a female suicide bomber approached Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, at a local religious festival. The blast did not kill Kadyrov but it did kill the bomber and 18 others, wounding 43. Basayev publicly claimed to have planned these suicide bomb operations.
| | Islamic Army of the Caucasus Leadership Chart (January 2005). Click image to view (PDF file). |
Lorenzo Vidino documents the al-Qaeda - Chechen links, Ibn al-Khattab's contribution to the Chechen campaign and Chechnya's international Islamic support network in How Chechnya Became a Breeding Ground for Terror. Dan Darling provides a roundup of the links between the Chechen rebel groups and al-Qaeda, and a look at the different terrorist organizations. Evan Kohlmann has a chart documenting the Chechen-al-Qaeda connections (.PDF file).
UPDATED:
Kavkaz Center, the propraganda arm of the Chechen Islamists, reports on Basayev's last statement, where he "officially thanked the Iraqi Mujahideen for elimination of a group of Russian diplomats the spies in Bagdad."
"Mujahideen of the Caucasus express huge gratitude to those who has carried out the elimination of the Russian diplomats the spies in Iraq. Their elimination is the worthy answer to the murder by Russian terrorists from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation of the Chechen diplomat, ex-president of CRI, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.
May Allah (SWT) reward you in the best way.
Kavkaz Center has confirms Basayev's death, and claims "The Chechen commander died as a result of a accidental spontaneous explosion of a cargo vehicle with explosives on July 10, 2006, in Ekazhevo village, Ingushetia. Three other Mujahideen became Shaheeds (insha Allah) together with him."
Iraqi Police take another shot at Sadr's militia
By Bill Roggio
 | | Map of Baghdad, click to view. Image courtesy of Global Security |
The Shiite militia of Moqtada al-Sadr appear in the cross hairs of the Iraqi government for the second time in three days. Following up on Friday's raid on Sadr's allies in the Sadr City section of Baghdad, Iraqi security forces conducted an operation against the Sadrain mosque in Zafaraniya district in southeastern Baghdad. Twenty suspects were arrested and six AK-47 assault rifles were seized.
The operation, like the one on Friday, was planned and executed by Iraqi forces, with U.S. forces providing perimeter security. "Elements of the 2nd National Police Division surrounded the mosque before officers with the 1st National Police Division entered the building," reports Security Watchtower's C.S. Scott. Also on Friday, "U.S.-led forces," perhaps Task Force 145, arrested Adnan al-Unaybi, a "leader of the Mehdi Army militia... suspected of smuggling surface-to-air missiles and spying for Iran,."
The Iraqi National Police are often reported as being Shiite militia dominated, however there has been extensive reorganizations and purges in the ranks over the past few months. That the police conducted this operation, and not the more diverse and respected Iraqi National Army, is an attempt by the government to show the police forces are now willing and able to address the problems of the Shiite militias. A government television campaign "[emphasizing] the role of government led forces in keeping peace in Iraq instead of militias" is also an indicator the Iraqi government is addressing the Shiite militias on a near equal basis as the Sunni led insurgency.
Continued Debate over the SWIFT Disclosure by the New York Times
By Dennis Lormel
Following the New York Times article disclosing the U.S. Government’s SWIFT monitoring program, the Bush Administration harshly criticized the Time for publishing the article when the Government requested the story be withheld. The Times was strongly taken to task for disrupting and diminishing an important investigative tool. In response, a number of critics have argued that the Government made numerous previous disclosures about tracking and monitoring the financial activity of terrorists. Because of such disclosures, critics reason that the Times article caused minimal damage because terrorists knew that the Government monitored the formal financial system, and therefore, terrorists moved to the informal financial system or alternate remittance system such as the hawala network. This argument is overly simplistic, one-dimensional and flawed. Terrorist financing is complex and multi-dimensional.
In a one-dimensional context, the position of those that the Times SWIFT disclosure was not harmful to Government operations has an element of accuracy from a theoretical standpoint. Theoretically, it’s reasonable to assume that terrorists responded to Government reports about financial monitoring and tracking initiatives by avoiding the formal financial system and moving their activities to the informal system. In actuality, an element of terrorists and their supporters did move to alternate financial channels; however, many more elements did not change their financial practices for a multitude of reasons, a few of which are addressed below. One essential ingredient of a successful terrorist organization is funding.
Terrorist groups require financial support in order to achieve their goals. They must have effective financial infrastructures to include: sources of funding, the means of laundering funds, and the availability of funding. These factors necessitate use of the formal financial system. It should be noted that terrorist organizations have had many years to perfect their methodologies.
Many elements of terrorists and their supporters have no choice but to operate in the formal financial system. This is attributable to factors to include business considerations, fundraising activities, operational requirements, financial conduits, investments and other factors. The Times SWIFT disclosure will spur many individuals and entities in this dimension to better insulate themselves from U.S. Government detection and tracking. The 9/11 Commission Monograph on Terrorist Financing discussed the challenge confronted by the Government in establishing financial links to terrorists and developing compelling evidence against them. There are numerous high profile individuals and entities who have been linked to terrorism but who continue to operate undeterred because compelling evidence is lacking. The Times SWIFT story will certainly cause those identifiable with this element to develop methodologies that better insulate them. This will create greater challenges for investigators.
Another element of terrorists and their supporters believe that in spite of Government financial tracking and scrutiny as long as they operate with a sense of anonymity and without causing suspicion they will avoid detection. In that context they are right, when considering the totality of daily financial transactions. This element has been expert at operating by moving smaller and non-descript amounts of funds and commodities that avoid suspicion. These operatives did not consider the operational proactive tracking mechanisms articulated by the Times. The Times disclosure will likely change that mind set with the realization that intelligence information was used for financial tracking. This will cause terrorists and their supporters to adapt new financial methodologies, seek to exploit new areas of vulnerability in the financial system, or to use informal financial mechanisms to a greater extent.
Returning to the simple argument, one of its flaws was resonant in the Times article itself. The Times article mentioned select operational investigative SWIFT program successes, to include the capture of Jamaah Islamiah leader Hambali. How could that happen if terrorists had stopped using the formal financial system because of Government disclosures of financial tracking mechanisms? Another factor is that many of the skeptics lack operational familiarity with the SWIFT program and do not understand its operational capability or more importantly its continuous operational success up until publication of the Times article.
In taking the argument out of the realm of the theoretical and into the operational, and coupling it with specific and not generic factors, one can better identify the multi-dimensional considerations that should be factored into the debate. The reality is the Times SWIFT disclosure has been harmful. At a minimum, it has disrupted an innovative and productive investigative tool. One fact is certain…the disclosure has received intense media coverage and has caused terrorists and their supporters to sit up and take notice. This will cause terrorist operational changes and significant new challenges for the Government in identifying and countering evolving terrorist financing methodologies.
Iraqi, U.S. Forces strike at Sadr's Militia
By Bill Roggio
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| | Map of Baghdad, click to view. Image courtesy of Global Security |
The new Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken a step to fulfill the pledge to dismantle the militias, including Shiite run militias within his own governing coalition United Iraqi Alliance. An "Iraqi-planned, Iraqi-led and Iraqi-executed operation," supported by U.S. forces in an "overwatch role" made a foray in Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad (Tharwa on the map.) Nine of Moqtada al-Sadr's militiamen in his Madhi Army were killed, and thirty-one were wounded, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
The target is believed to be Abu Duri (or Abu Deraa, Abu Diri), a leader of Sadr's Madhi Army, who has been conducting vigilante-styled murders and kidnappings, as well as "involved in the transfer of weapons from Syria into Iraq." Mohammad at Iraq the Model provides an anecdote about Abu Duri, some of which is believed to be the stuff of urban legend, just one day prior to the raid:
Abu Diri' (whose first name is believed to be Salim) is a member of the Mehdi Army and gained the nickname which means 'the armor bearer' after he murdered an MNF soldier and seized his body armor during one the Sadrists battles against the MNF. Ever since that day he wears the body armor and never puts it away. People say this man commands hundreds (or thousands in some accounts) of "former" Mehdi army soldiers.
The story of Abu Diri' describes him as the killer of Sunnis and suggests that his role is confined to doing a 'Shia body count' after each terror attack on Shia areas and then kidnapping and murdering an equal number of Sunnis. Of course the story has different versions and the ratio varies with the level of enthusiasm of the story teller; an objective teller would set the ratio at 1:1 but a sympathizer would raise it to the level of 10 Sunnis in return for each 1 Shia casualty.
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The Coalition refuses to confirm Abu Duri's capture, but Mohammad's description neatly matches that of the target captured during yesterday's raid. Coalition spokesman Major General Bill Caldwell described the person as follows: "He led multiple insurgent cells in Baghdad... His main focus is to conduct attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces. These attacks have included using improvised explosive devices and vehicle(-borne) improvised explosive devices... His group has kidnapped, tortured and murdered Iraqi citizens, and he personally killed two Iraqi soldiers in an attempt to improve his organization's status with his higher leadership... Iraqi intelligence linked the man to a punishment committee that carries out vigilante judgment on perceived enemies."
This is not the first raid against Sadr's militia this year. In late March ,Iraqi Special Forces, with Coalition units in support, struck at Sadr's forces in the Ur Hayy district of Baghdad, which neighbors Sadr City. Twenty one of Sadr's militiamen were killed during the raid, which was ordered by former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Other of Sadr's associates have been marked for capture. While note identified as such, two of Sadr's associates, Abu Mtafa al-Shaibani and Ahmed Abu Sajjad al-Gharawi, are on Iraq's list of 41 most-wanted.
The dismantlement of the Shiite militias is a crucial component in bringing in the less recalcitrant Sunni insurgent groups to the negotiating table. The Iraqi government and Maliki in particular walk a fine line in alienating its own ruling coalition by taking too hard a line against Shiite militias (the largest of which is SCIRI's Badr Brigade), who are seen as the protectors of the Shiites against the Sunni dominated terrorists groups. The government will need to continue to publicly dismantle the more violent elements of the Shiite militias to show the Sunnis they are serious. « Close It
Amir Andalousi: Casanova or a Jihadi on a mission?
By Walid Phares
Not that it is strategically relevant, but the story of Amir Andalousi life is surfacing in Beirut's press. However, before we dive into its hollywoodian dimension, keep in mind the political context in Lebanon. Those who made the arrest of Assem Hammoud, the alleged co-conspirator in the NY tunnel plot, are the security services of the Ministry of Interior, who are part of the Seniora Government, a cabinet opposed to the Syrian regime and somewhat responds to US requests on Terrorism. But many among those who oppose the Government, including in the press, are pro-Syrian and aim at discrediting the Government anti-Terror activities. So, in short, you will be reading the Government reports detailing Hammoud links to the Jihadist movement and al Qaida, but you will be also reading stories leaked by pro-Syrian antigovernment sources dismissing the seriousness of the Amir Andalous case. In today's press, I singled out an article published in the daily al balad , written by Mohammad Barakat with interesting information about the "Emir" personal life. The title is revealing of the newspaper's hints: "Assem Hammoud, an Andalu prince who traveled through Europe and its women."
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The hint is clear: The man is a womanizer and thus he doesn't sound very Jihadi. The article starts with an interview with his mother Dr Nabila Qotb. She shows her pictures of her son "with quasi naked women" in Italy, Holland, Belgium, elsewhere in Europe, "but not in the United States," repeated the lady. "He drinks alcohol, dances, goes out, rarely goes to the Mosque, collects old cars, has a Canadian girlfriend, and was about to start teaching economics at a local university in Lebanon." Expect all these arguments to resurface in court. Amir Andalousi will be portrayed by his lawyers as a Casanova, nothing to do with Jihad. But then consider the other two pieces of information. One, the family claims they came from Andalusia, where they were "emirs." When I advanced my thesis that something personal out there warranted the nom de guerre linked to Spain it was 20 hours before this article appears in today's Beirut press. But the desire to identify with Andalous is coupled with a testimony by the doorman (or more exactly the guardian) of a near by building, known in Lebanon as Natoor. "A sudden change in his personality occurred lately" says the Natoor. "I don't remember when exactly, but he started to wear the white dashdasha (long robe) on Fridays, started to goes to prayer, and wears it when he comes back from work. He stopped bringing women when he visited the area." In short the Natoor, in his 40s, has just described the "mutation" from Casanova to Islamist. "He has become a Wahabi," whispered the guard. But the al Balad journalist questioned the Natoor's story: "why would he says these things about Hammoud? We will know more when other witness will show up in court.
But the interest in this story is the duality between an apparent "liberalizing" lifestyle and an alleged Jihadi activity. It is simple, if indeed, al Andalousi had sent plans of the tunnels through Internet and engaged himself in conspiracies to flood tunnels in New York, a new benchmark in understanding Jihadi terrorism would be reached, with tremendous political consequences on both sides of the Atlantic.
Dr Walid Phares is a Senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of Future Jihad « Close It
The New York Jihad flood starts in Lebanon?
By Walid Phares
| | Amir Andalousi |
More information has transpired about one of the designated participants in the alleged plot, which according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was to bomb the Holland Tunnel, connecting New Jersey with Manhattan, with the ostensible goal of flooding the financial district of Manhattan. Details of the plot were published in the New York Daily News today.
Sources in Lebanon revealed that a key figure in the plot was a Lebanese national, who had been arrested in Lebanon on April 27, 2006 upon the request of US authorities. His real name is Assem Hammoud, who also used the name of Amir Andalousi. The sources said he is a computer science professor. He is apparently the only Lebanese among the eight suspects, who are from six or seven countries. It is understood that Hammoud was close or part of the Zarqawi group.
This is a translation of today’s communiqué from the general-directorate of Lebanon Internal Security Forces. (Translation was performed as a direct transcription of Arabic words into English words)
”After information as a result of constant surveillance of suspected internet websites, observation took place of “chat rooms” and e-mails on extremist Islamist websites used to recruit terrorists around the world. The result of their analysis showed that they were connected with the planning of the execution of a big terrorist act targeting the tunnels in New York under the Hudson River. As a result of rapid technical pursuit of what is called the Internet Protocol, used by hundreds of persons, and in cooperation and coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and based upon an indication from relevant judicial authorities, the Information Division of the Internal Security Forces identified the wanted person, A.H., a Lebanese nicknamed Amir Andalousi, who was living a life of pleasure, far from suspicions. His arrest took place on April 27, 2006.
Upon an investigation of him, he confessed that he belonged to an extremist organization and was currently preparing to execute a big terrorist act in the United States. For this purpose, he undertook to send detailed maps about the place and manner of executing this operation to his partners, through the internet. He was intending to travel to Pakistan in the near future to undertake a training course to last for four months, provided that the time of the operation was to be at the end of 2006. It was requested from him not to show any religious tendencies during his stay in Lebanon and to give the picture of a frivolous and uncommitted youth. He implemented this expertly. During 2003, he met a Syrian in Lebanon, who gave him many weapons courses. He headed in the Syrian’s company to Ain El-Helweh camp and undertook a training session of light weapons during the tenth month of 2005. He met a foreigner, who asked him to guarantee apartments to host jihadists, recruit persons, and collect money and weapons for the organization. He was in communication with in many persons in foreign countries.
Coordination with security apparati occurred so that they were able to arrest most of the members of this group.” (End of the communiqué)
As a quick commentary on the Lebanese security release and the sources information, here are few points to consider:
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1. Assem Hammoud’s war name “Amir Andalousi” evidently indicates his personal ideological interest or connection to Spain, or al Andalous, for Andalusia. The last name is not the only reference in Jihadi linguistics, but also his first nom de guerre: Amir. From Arabic, it is also transcribed as Emir. In Jihadi hierarchy “Emirs” are commanders, high or lower levels. This could be a rank or an appointment. Hence, for our fertile imagination, his Jihadi personality is an “Andalou Emir.” But from here on, two tracks are possible. One is that he has the link to Spain, a past one. But the second track is that he has chosen this nickname as just that: a code name among Jihadists, to be used in chat rooms and within correspondence. Keep in mind that the Andalousian fantasy is alive in the minds of the Salafi Jihadists. As a young student in Lebanon, I do remember vividly how intense where the fundamentalists about al Andalous. It could also be both: that he chose that name for Jihadi fervor, but that he also has a link. Let’s see which scenario will be confirmed. Ironically I just came back a forum in Spain organized by a national Think Tank, under the auspices of former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, which one of the central themes was to examine the “Andalousian” factor in al Qaida’s doctrine.
2. The “extremist organization” he belonged to, in Lebanese legal and Governmental language is found in the Salafist pool: It ranges from al Qaida-branch to Asbat al Ansar to Abu Muhjen’s direct unit; but it could be another off shoot as well. Most likely, he is linked to the al shabaka al jihadiya, which within Lebanon’s inner Jihadi world, is a web of cells and individuals who have aggregated together to support the worldwide Jihad since Afghanistan’s Soviet war, and have grown in numbers through the Iraq war. The shabaka is found in all visible groups, including the asba and the former Harakat al Tawheed, including the Hizb al Tahrir. To describe it dramatically as Lebanese analysts have put it: No one knows where exactly it starts but we know where it ends: al Qaida. And since the Lebanese battlefield was dedicated by al Qaida’s commanders to support the general efforts in Iraq, it is then more likely that at the Iraqi end of the network was Abu Mus’ab al Zarqawi. At the Lebanese end, you have a web stretching into the main radical Sunni neighborhood from Tripoli to Saida into the Palestinian camps.
3. The fact –if verified- that he is a “computer science” professor would heighten my own suspicion of the whole context and would revive some theories and observations I had developed since the 1990s about the penetration of this field. But that is another story. A computer science professor means that “technological know how” was available, that an access to maps, data, and more was potentially requested, and that other “colleagues” may well be in the picture. These are just theories of course.
| | The Triborough Bridge, New York City |
4. If you read this sentence from the Lebanese security report well you’d draw very important conclusions: “It was requested from him not to show any religious tendencies during his stay in Lebanon and to give the picture of a frivolous and uncommitted youth.” First start with the “it”: Who requested this guideline from him? Obviously a higher level of command, and a sophisticated one. In Jihadi tactics, Taqiya is just about that: You have the right to play another personality until you perform your mission. Unfortunately many among us are still unaware of it. Often media reactions to arrests start with “well, he didn’t look like he was a fundamentalist.” Well, now you have your answer. The misinformation is not restrained to the public, but is also present in the judicial world facing off with Terrorism. At the Detroit Terror case where I testified as an expert in 2003, I wasn’t even able to give a real example of Taqiya from an article published in a national daily.
| | Abu Musab al-Zarqawi |
5. When you read this sentence from the report, you raise even more questions: “He was intending to travel to Pakistan in the near future to undertake a training course to last for four months”. So inside Pakistan, there are “training spaces” for Jihadists, including al Qaida. If you link most cases in the West from London, Toronto, and many groups in the US, you’d conclude that “going to Pakistan, or into Afghanistan,” is a common trait. Which should begin to draw some analytical conclusions, not just that there is “something central” in Pakistan, but that all the Jihadi groups (or most), including the so-called “homegrown” in different countries are linked or wish to be linked.
6. The report says that “during 2003, he met a Syrian in Lebanon, who gave him many weapons courses.” Syria withdrew from Lebanon (officially) in April 2005. So the question is this: Was that Syrian operating under the Syrian Mukhabarat or as an opposition to them? Articles in the Lebanese press between 2003 and 2005 report that Jihadists were heading into Lebanon from various parts of the region, and many local Jihadists inside Lebanon were shipped by buses “through” Syria to Iraq. The buses were not traveling underground and the articles in al Nahar and al Safir were not secret. Thus we have two theories: First, Jihadists in Lebanon between 2003 and 2005 were acting under Syrian observation and tolerance, as long as they were heading towards Iraq to kill Americans, Coalition soldiers and Iraqis. Many Salafists in Lebanon, who disliked the Baath ideologically, took advantage of the Assad umbrella to go perform Jihad in Iraq. Just note that it was precisely for this reason, among others, that Washington and Paris introduced then voted UNSCR 1559 in September 2004: Assad had refused to stop the Jihadi activities across the two borders. Note too, that the one of the main supply lines in warriors for Zarqawi started from Lebanon, and especially inside the Islamist sectors of the Palestinian camps. Another theory is that “al Andalousi” operated among a group of Salafists outside Syrian observation.
| | The Syrian occupation of Labanon |
7. The report continues: “He headed in the Syrian’s company to Ain El-Helweh camp and undertook a training session of light weapons during the tenth month of 2005; which again point the finger at the basis of Jihadists inside the armed camps. And also shows that a “Syrian” (we still need to uncover his affiliation) escorted a Lebanese Jihadi inside a Palestinian camp for training. Note the date: “Tenth month of 2005,” that is October, i.e. 6 months after the official withdrawal of April. This would leave the analyst with the picture that although the Syrian troop evacuated, yet Syrian operatives are in touch with Jihadis and have access to the camps.
8. The report goes on to state: “He met a foreigner, who asked him to guarantee apartments to host jihadists, recruit persons, and collect money and weapons for the organization. He was in communication with in many persons in foreign countries.” A foreigner means a non-Lebanese. The information signals that a plan is designed to establish a vast network of Terrorism in Lebanon and in foreign countries. From a background expertise on Syrian, Hizbollah and Salafist operations out of Lebanon, one would project that the “network” Assem Hammoud has Jihadi business with has cells in various countries, with the very legitimate assumption that the US isn't obviously one of them.
9. Internet use: over the past few years, many among us, including myself have insisted that internet and the chat rooms have become “the” new habitat of al Qaida and other related groups. Evidently this case, especially when clarified and confirmed, will show that cyber war with Terror is serious and is shifting the battleground significantly. It is also opening our mind inquiry about the whole issue of traditional monitoring of the Terrorists with all strategic implications on the so-called NSC domestic surveillance issue. It just shows us that the Jihadists are way ahead of us, our legal system and our national consensus. Fortunately the FBI and their Lebanese counterparts have been able to catch a “fish” in the murky waters of international cooperation.
| | The New York City Tunnel System |
But I advise caution, and a lot of it. We don’t know who is that “Syrian,” and where are his allegiances. We don’t know much about the Lebanese end of the investigation and its complexities: “Intox” could also be a factor. But the psychological conditions are very plausible: Such an operation would be as a revenge for Zarqawi’s elimination. I invite the reader to re-read the speeches of eulogy by Bin laden and Zawahiri, and see what is common to both: a threat of massive retaliation inside the US!
But having noted that, the one remaining item for public concern are “the plans” devised by the cell: Major cataclysm in Amrica. This reinforce the conviction that the “strategic intentions” of al Qaida, the Jihadists, their direct and indirect allies, and the would-be Jihadists seem to converge into one pool: They want the US homeland’s security seriously wounded.
Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of Future Jihad.
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The Alleged NYC Tunnel Plot: Preliminary Points for Consideration
By Jeffrey Cozzens
Although details of an apparent jihadi plot to bomb the Holland Tunnel, attack subways in NYC and flood Manhattan are just emerging--rendering analysis at this stage far from scientific--several points have already presented themselves that seem worthy of further exploration (assuming, of course, they are credible).
First, "Amir Andalousi" appears to be a jihadi nom de guerre for a resident of Spain, likely named after the Andalusian Caliphate--a frequent point of reference for jihadis from that country as post-3/11 investigations have demonstrated. The New York Daily News also notes that U.S. officials have linked the plot to al-Zarqawi's network, which is known to have a foothold in that country evidenced by recent arrests of al-Zarqawi-linked jihadis and my conversations with European officials. The sum of this information suggests that, if the plot is credible, given "Andalousli's" apparent Spanish link, look for the investigation to span the Mediterranean and possibly involve individuals affiliated (even tangentially) with the Sunni Asbat al-Ansar network in Lebanon. Asbat al-Ansar has sent multiple fighters to Iraq and has thus forged some natural links with al-Zarqawi's networks. Social networks linked by common worldviews and shared experiences--especially combat--make some form of cooperation or affiliation a natural in this case.
Second, this is the first known instance of an al-Zarqawi-linked plot to target the continental U.S. (CONUS), if preliminary information is credible. In any case, future analysis should focus on the possible presence of Americans in this plot--whether converts, naturalized citizens, or second or third-generation immigrants--as former plots against CONUS also indicate their presence. For instance, in the 1993 WTC plot, "Dr. Rashid"--a convert from Moorish Science to radical Islam and a former US Army veteran--was a logistician for the cell. However, if the plot did not move past the “talking phase,” as initial reporting suggests, and was conceived entirely by individuals living overseas, the possibility of U.S. resident involvement decreases.
Third, although details of the cell's targeting methodology are hazy at this early stage, these might provide an interesting case study of how banter in the jihadi cyber-sphere materializes into a plot. For example, we know that various jihadis have written in the past about how Hurricane Katrina acted as “Allah’s soldier”—a view these individuals apparently held, according to the media—so examining the process of how a symbol of American catastrophe turns into a catalyst for jihadi operations merits our attention. It is also interesting to note that flooding has never before (at least according to the author’s knowledge) been mentioned as a weapon in the arsenal of global jihad, although one can see how it could be legitimized in the language of “reciprocity” by which jihadis pragmatically justify their actions and ignore other established tenets of Islamic just war theory.
Finally, a question with security and policy ramifications must be raised: At what point does banter become a plot? As the 2004 plot by loosely networked Dutch jihadis (called the “Hofstad Group” by authorities) to attack a nuclear reactor in Holland suggests, many (especially smaller) jihadi cells often are much more bark than bite; they often scale-down their grand ambitions to match their capabilities. This may well be the case here. Flooding Manhattan seems such a grandiose aspiration that even the most sophisticated, globally networked and well-entrenched jihadi organizations like the pre-2002 al-Qa’idah would likely balk at its chances for success. Nevertheless, we cannot discount the danger of individuals with high intent and low capabilities; the templates of Richard Reid, Muhammad Bouyeri and some of the 7/7 bombers suggest that, based upon the initial information in this case, the FBI made the right move. Nevertheless, defining where speech ends and plotting begins is an imprecise, if necessary, science that challenges legal boundaries, both here and in Europe.
As with any plot at this point, we have far more questions than answers.
The Importance of Terrorist Networks
By Douglas Farah
One think I find particularly missing in the current look at several important terrorist-related areas-Somalia, the role of the international Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda's growing efforts in Africa, Viktor Bout-is the discussion of the networks that connect different Salafist/Islamist groups that make them so lethal and so important.
While there is some discussion of networks and their importance in the structures of non-state actors in intelligence and policy circles, there is no broad recognition that networks are what make non-state actors threats of the same order of magnitude or greater, than most states.
This is not a new concept. Jonathan Winer and others in the mid-1990s began to seriously push policy and intelligence to focus on networks, leading Winer and others to do the first serious studies of the Muslim Brotherhood's financial links to different groups. Bout, in his weapons supplies, was viewed through the same lens, making him, in the waning years of the Clinton administration, a high-value, multi-agency target.
Networks are also vitally important in the newly-emerging "self-starting" Islamist groups. Most of these groups, in Spain, Great Britain etc. that are known have received significant help from the existing jihadi networks, in developing concepts, obtaining material and ideological orientation.
Networks also provide the ability to move across national bounderies, find expertise, share knowledge and exploit the existing strengths of each group. The lack of understanding of networks, for example, that led to the long-standing belief that Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims could not work together. But they did, repeatedly, and by the admission of in their own writings. My full blog is here.
Al-Qaida Suffers Further Casualties in Iraq
By Evan Kohlmann
In the wake of several high-profile attacks by Al-Qaida operatives on U.S. military helicopters in central Iraq in April and May, supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's movement have announced the "martyrdom" of numerous members of Al-Qaida's Aeisha Brigade (which specializes in anti-aircraft missions) near the Iraqi town of Al-Yusifiyah. Separately, Palestinian Al-Qaida supporters have announced the "martyrdom" of Abu Jaffar al-Maqdisi, a former senior aide to Zarqawi from the Ain el-Hilweh Refugee Camp in south Lebanon who allegedly was one of the masked militants featured alongside Zarqawi in a video released in April 2006.
- Martyrdom will of Abu Jaffar al-Maqdisi (South Lebanon)
- Abu Usama al-Tunisi (Tunisian leader of Aeisha Brigade)
- Abu Rabieh al-Ghamdi (Saudi member of Aeisha Brigade)
- Biography of two Qatari members of Aeisha Brigade
See also: - Palestinian Asbat al-Ansar members killed in Iraq
Video: April 2006 video of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Video: "The Role of Foreign Fighters in the Iraqi Jihad"
Steven Emerson Interviews Melanie Phillips, "Londonistan" Author, on London Bombings Anniversary
By Andrew Cochran
With today's first anniversary of the London 7/7/05 bombings in mind, Steven Emerson interviewed reknowned British journalist Melanie Phillips, author of "Londonistan," to talk about the legacy of the bombings and what Britain has done in response. An excerpt follows, and you can read the entire interview and buy the book here:
Steven Emerson: Looking back over the past 15 years, what where were the primary reasons why Great Britain allowed itself to become occupied fundamentalist territory?
Melanie Phillips: Ignorance, arrogance, and funk. It didn’t realise it needed to pay attention to the radical Islamist ideology coming out of Wahabbi Saudi Arabia because it didn’t think any British interests would be threatened by it. When it finally realised it had a major problem on its hands, it decided to appease it. Throughout its colonial history, Britain has always done appeasement, and in this present crisis over Islamist terrorism and extremism the British colonial mindset has resurfaced. By which I mean that the establishment has taken the view that these Muslim chappies aren’t very bright, and so the Brits can use their tried and tested tactics of divide and rule — throwing baubles to the Islamists in the form of places on official committees advising the government on combating Muslim extremism (!) and as advisers in the Foreign Office (the equivalent of the State Department). But the Islamists are actually pretty shrewd, and are playing the Brits like fish on the end of a line. And the British ruling class can’t see it because of the funk — the profound loss of cultural nerve which means that they are paralysed by the terror of being thought racist, Islamophobic, or xenophobic if they criticise a minority religion, and are further paralysed by the terror that any actions against Islamist extremism may provoke civil disorder or more terrorism. So the British establishment is locked into a state of pre-emptive cultural surrender.
The Kabul Bombings: Taliban or AGE?
By Bill Roggio
| | Aftermath of a bombing in Kabul on July 5, 2006. Images courtesy of Walt Gaffney. Click photo to view gallery. |
The string of four bombings over two days in Kabul, Afghanistan, have raised the tension level in the city and stoked media speculation of a Taliban resurgence in the capital. On July 4, two roadside bombs were detonated; one in front of the Ministry of Justice, another several hundred meters from President Hamid Karzai's palace. Eleven were wounded in the attacks. On July 5, two more bombs were detonated, one near the "Pigeon Mosque," about 500 meters west of the Ministry of Communications, another "essentially in the middle of nowhere" in Northern Kabul, according to a contact in Afghanistan. The casualties range from 3 to 47. One person was killed, and it appears he was one of the bombers that attempted to use a pushcart to deliver the bomb. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, and al-Qaeda claims to be in possession of 26 more bombs in the city.
But the facts on the ground indicate the bombing may not be al-Qaeda or Taliban related, but the work of political opponents to the Karzai government, much like the riots in Kabul at the end of May. Walt Gaffney, a representative from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), was on the scene of both bombing sites. Tim Lynch, the country manager for World Security Initiatives, a contracting firm, describes Walt's experience at the blast site:
Walt noted that as soon as the BBC rolled up (which was right behind him at both sites) an older man would step out of the crowd and start on an anti-Karzai rant. It would appear that the current rash of IED’s is aimed at the locals and probably designed to put more pressure on Karzai – who is widely considered to be a weak and thus vulnerable leader. Walt also said the on-scene impromptu local color commentators seemed... disciplined... sticking to a set of talking points. If true, that represents a pretty sophisticated IED/media campaign.
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Mr. Lynch also notes the bombs were crude, and likely designed to avoid deaths:
All three of these devices were very small – bigger than a frag [fragmentation grenade] but smaller than a 105 [105 mm artillery shell]. The pushcart was probably to allow for an escape – suicide bombers are rare here and normally outsiders. An outsider (even an unknown Afghani) with a pushcart would find it impossible to travel far with it without getting stopped by ANP [Afghan National Police] who (when they want) will stop and search every male they don’t recognize in their respective neighborhoods. That is probably why the Pushcart attack took place in the outskirts... There is a huge marketplace out there where farmers from all over the country bring produce and strangers can move about in relative anonymity. He could have never got that cart into downtown Kabul today as the police were all stirred up by the attack on their headquarters yesterday.
Whoever is lighting these things off is trying to avoid too much collateral damage. The AGE [Anti-Government Elements] know that if they kill too many Afghans, a blood feud is the certain result if they are unmasked. Those get ugly in this country when multiple families feel compelled to settle up. We have never seen an Iraqi style IED here and doubt we will. They just won’t take the risks of using that much explosive and killing that many civilians.
The Taliban and al-Qaeda are not known for holding back firepower to limit casualties. Walt Gaffney explains the complexities of sorting out who initiates much of the violence in Afghanistan.
There is a reason that we, in theater, call these incidents, "AGE", anti-government elements because it is damn hard determining who is whom, even after you've been in an engagement with them. There are so many competing and conflicting elements here that it is sometimes impossible to figure it out. Afghan politics makes the Italian parliament look like a cohesive group. Hig in the east/north east, Khan in the west, Atta/Dostum in the north, Talibs in the south/south east, different tribal interests across the entire country, blood feuds, Hajiks, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Pashtuns (different in different parts of the country), Iranian influence, Pakistani influence, Indian influence, American/Coalition...it goes on and on.
Media reports are often quick to credit the Taliban for attacks they may have played no part in and the Taliban gladly will take credit for these attacks. This nicely augments the Taliban's media campaign as it builds their stature in the eyes of the international community. « Close It
Drinking the Cool-Ade in Bangkok
By Zachary Abuza
Earlier this week, the head of Thailand’s police region 9 was quoted in the press as saying that the number of violent incidents in the first 6 months of 2006 compared with those of the first six months of 2005, had gone down from 300 to 200. I don’t know where he gets his data from or what he counts as “violent instances,” but its clear he’s not reading the papers.
The number of people in those two periods of time that were slain actually increased from 185 to 253, a 17% increase. Roughly 42/month or 1.4/day. I should note that my death toll figures tend to be very conservative: I only take down what is reported in the press, and not everything is, and second, many who are wounded and later die in hospitals are usually not noted in the papers. And even with my very conservative data, the trend is not good.
There were 172 people killed in assassinations in the first months of 2006 compared with 132 in the first half of 2005; 129 bombings in 2006 (including 74 small bombs in a period of 4 days) and 124 in 2005; 151 arson attacks in the first half of 2006 versus 124 in the first half of 2005.
To date more than 1,300 people have been killed since January 2004. While low in comparison with Iraq, this is not a small and inconsequential Islamist insurgency.
Although the Thai government says the situation has improved, the violence has reached the peak that it hit in May-June 2006. The insurgents’ ability to strike at will and in coordinated fashion has improved. On the one hand, the government claims they are making significant arrests, on the other, almost no one in leadership positions has been arrested and at the same time, the government has been forced to increase its estimate of the number of insurgents to some 3,000. Intelligence remains poor and inconclusive. The government continues to randomly target individuals in ways that alienate them and drive them into the arms of the insurgents.
The government has really offered nothing more than a military solution. And yet, we are unlikely to see any change of strategy or policies on the government at least until the 15 October elections. I think that one of the reasons for this is that the security forces have not been dying in significant numbers: only 45 or so soldiers and roughly 100 police have been killed. The vast majority are civilians (local headmen, teachers, civil servants, rubber tappers, etc). If the insurgents were better trained and skilled, and were ably to target the security forces more effectively you might see some changes in policies.
What is most galling is that the Prime Minister, err, the acting Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, believes he is no longer accountable. He recently refused to comment on the attacks, saying he was no longer in charge of policy in the South, now that overall policy had been delegated to General Sonthi. Yet, the insurgency erupted during his tenure.
The Thaksin government continues to refuse to acknowledge the fundamental religious overtones of this conflict, though it is clear that the insurgents are successfully imposing a harder line version of Islam in the region, and cowering the population into submission. To date, over 60 percent of civilian casualties at the hands of the insurgents have been fellow Muslims. This goes beyond simply killing assumed government informants; they are trying to impose a cultural hegemony over the population.
While the government continues to assert that this is purely a domestic insurgency, the recent arrest of an Indonesian (Sabri Amiruddin), and the assertion that the Indonesian-linked RKK is behind the attacks makes it clear that greater regional factors are at work.
Yemen Officials Reportedly Deny Capturing Jamal al-Badawi
By Andrew Cochran
I posted yesterday on the reported recapture of Jamal al-Badawi, USS Cole bombing mastermind and leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, who had escaped from prison in February. ABC News posted yesterday that U.S. law enforcement sources had confirmed the capture. But a UPI story out this afternoon quotes "a statement published Thursday in official newspapers that the news about recapturing Badawi, who had escaped from Sanaa's main prison with 22 other al-Qaida members last February, are untrue." I assume there is more to come on this important story.
The "Pakistanization" of the Taliban
By Douglas Farah
Te |
