Source Compromise Exposes Probable Connection Between Al Qa'ida and Hizb ut Tahrir

By Frank Hyland

An unauthorized disclosure on 7 September that revealed the existence of an Al Qaeda Internet-based communications network received extensive coverage at the time. In the context of earlier reporting by The Jamestown Foundation (see Terrorism Monitor, August 16), however, the 7 September leak points also to the likelihood of a much closer working relationship between AQ and another Jihadist group - the London-headquartered Hizb ut Tahrir (Party of Liberation) (HT) - than had been known previously. The relationship may in fact be that of Superior-Subordinate rather than that of merely independent groups espousing the same ideology.

On 7 September, four days before its apparent intended publication date on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, the ABC News website reported excerpts from a videotaped address by Usama Bin Ladin. Subsequent reporting revealed that the 7 September compromise had alerted AQ to the ability of non-members to acquire its intra-group communications and that AQ had shut down the network in very short order. Since the Internet-based network was used also to convey revenue- and personnel-related matters, that shutdown reportedly resulted in the loss of insight into far more than just pre-publication Bin Ladin videotapes. The order to shut down the AQ network reportedly was originated by Al Qaeda´s internal security apparatus and was issued to a team of technical workers in Malaysia (9 October, quoting The New York Sun).

Hizb ut Tahrir, founded in 1953 in Jerusalem and now headquartered in the UK, presently has branches in approximately 45 nations. From its beginning in then-Jordanian Jerusalem, it has become a multi-continent entity of growing power and reach (globalpolitician.com/, October 11). From Southeast Asia, through Europe and into the United States, HT is an organization on the ascendancy in terms of membership and revenues. HT has also gained considerably in notoriety, having been banned in a number of Central Asian and Western European nations because of its activities.

The similarities between AQ and HT are both numerous and striking, beginning with the public expressions of each group’s philosophy and aims. HT’s often-stated hatred of the nation of Israel, its frequent use of the term “Crusader” to characterize its opponents, and even its touting of the superiority of business and economic activity under Islam are eerily reminiscent of Al Qaeda’s pronouncements.

Membership is another area that points to a very close association between the two groups. The results of HT’s recruitment and indoctrination efforts are perhaps most visible in the number of its members who went on to greater notoriety, including ranking AQ members Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Omar Khan Sharif, the attempted bomber of a bar in Tel Aviv in 2003, is another HT alumnus, as is attempted “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid.

HT’s focus in recent years, and perhaps the greatest threat posed by the group, has been on the recruitment of youth members. In that regard and as reported in the August Jamestown, HT has been producing videos that include hip-hop fashion boutiques and hip-hop bands, as well as the use of online social networks, video-sharing networks, chat forums and blogs (Terrorism Monitor, August 16). A number of observers, including those in the public sector, have remarked over the past year and a half on the increase in the number of videotaped messages released by AQ and the higher technical quality of the presentations.

It is in the context of HT’s use of and expertise in technology that the latest clue lies with respect to what is probably its true relationship to AQ. The aforementioned coverage of the 7 September disclosure included the reported AQ order to shut down its Internet-based communications network. That order, it was said, went to “a team of technical workers in Malaysia.” It is likely highly significant, then, that the first words to appear on the screen of the YouTube video are “HIZBUT TAHRIR MALAYSIA.”

Because of its worldwide presence, AQ exhibits a “distributed” form of organizational architecture to reflect the locations of its subordinates and affiliates. It is also to AQ’s advantage to disperse its subunits in order to reduce the damage if, for example, a catastrophic military strike were to be carried out on its leadership cadre and facilities in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. AQ oversees a dispersed (and covert) financial network; its affiliates’ training camps are spread out across a number of nations. It is, therefore, absolutely vital to AQ that it maintain the capability to stay in touch with its membership. Distancing that capability geographically from the leadership cadre and placing it, for example, in another Muslim nation - Malaysia - with the expertise and the technology needed to maintain AQ’s communications capability makes very good sense from the group’s standpoint.

It is to be expected that both AQ and HT would deny that HT is a subordinate unit of AQ. Just as AQ would not publicly expose the locations of its financial holdings to negative actions, AQ would not voluntarily wittingly divulge the location, identity, or capability of the key node in its Internet-based communications network. The revelation of the destination (Malaysia) of the 7 September AQ order to shut down its network, paired with the knowledge of the location (Malaysia) of HT’s sophisticated media production facility have likely removed the last “veil” from the true nature of the hidden relationship between the two groups.

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Hamas, Teddy Bears in Sudan and the Muslim Brotherhood

By Douglas Farah

There are two places where the Muslim Brotherhood exercises governmental power-Sudan and the Palestinian territories. That is, where it controls the levers of the state. It seems to me it is worth looking at these states to see how the Brotherhood would govern if given the chance, and to see the real agenda of the organization that claims to represent moderate, modernizing and tolerant interpretations of Islam.

For an excellent summary of why the Muslim Brotherhood is such an important topic, see this new paper by Hillel Fradkin of the Hudson Institute.

To give the core arguement:

The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 and, as such, is the oldest formal and organized expression of Islamism or Salafism. It is certainly the oldest mass and ultimately worldwide Islamist movement. In accordance with that conception, it is today an impressively widespread movement, having at this point many, many branches in both Muslim countries and Muslim minority communities in other countries. Its accumulated experience forms by far the greatest part of the history of Islamism, and it remains the Islamist organization with the greatest general impact on Muslims overall. This alone would suffice to render it an important subject of study.

But this does not suffice to exhaust its centrality. For because of its long history, it has by now had a substantial impact on almost all other Islamist organizations in a variety of ways. Many have been inspired by it—Jamaat-e-Islami of South Asia founded by Maulana Maududi, for example. Some, like Saudi Wahhabism, have collaborated with it and been profoundly influenced by that association. Others have grown out of it, led by defectors who ultimately rejected its approach and set a new and frequently violent course of their own. This includes al-Qaeda, the Brotherhood being one of Osama’s first intellectual influences. Indeed, for many Muslims who eventually wind up in the most radical terrain, the Brotherhood and its sister organizations serve as an entry point. Few Islamists have remained unaffected by its existence, therefore, whether in a positive or negative sense—and sometimes in both.

In short, since its founding the Brotherhood has constituted the broad and essential base of the Islamist movement, which in itself is a remarkable achievement. For reasons to be mentioned later, it has also provided the essential framework of the movement.

But lest I be misunderstood, let me immediately say and stress what I just implied—that the Islamist movement today and broadly understood embraces a wide variety of viewpoints, tendencies and organizations that are sometimes at odds with one another. We will have many opportunities to discuss and do justice to these divisions later. But here I want to note the commonalities. All Islamists are joined together by at least three factors: the desire to purify and thus revive Islamic life; the desire to restore the worldly fortunes of Islam; and the conviction that both can be achieved only by reappropriating the model of Islam’s seventh-century founders, the Salaf or virtuous ancestors, which include Mohammed and his closest companions or followers.

The first, now in the news, is Sudan, where a middle-aged British teacher has been sentenced to 15 days in prison for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Mohamad." Angry crowds of thousands are in the streets of Khartoum, demanding her death. She was found guilty of inciting religious hatred. My full blog is here.

Bin Laden and Future Jihad in Europe

By Walid Phares

What is interesting about the latest audio message of Usama Bin Laden, carried by al Jazeera, is its delayed argument. Strangely he is trying to convince the Europeans - seven years later - that they are wrong to have followed the United States into Afghanistan. Why?

In his speech - irrespective of the ritual investigative questions regarding its location, technology and other details - the central issue appears to be his growing concern with the European role in Afghanistan, and perhaps because of it, the potential growth of that role in the fight against the forces of Jihadism worldwide. As a reader of the Jihadi strategic mind, I believe that the speech writers (Bin Laden himself or his “advisors”) are looking ahead in their evaluation of future European involvement in the so-called War on Terror, and are positioning al Qaeda to “own” it. The significance of this is, as al Qaeda’s war room has showed in the past, they are skilled at anticipating trends.

Don’t we remember how in February 2003, way before the US Marines brought down the Saddam statue in April, a Bin Laden audio tape called on the Jihad fighters to begin heading to Iraq, “for Baghdad, the second capital of the Caliphate would be falling into the hands of the Kuffar (infidels)”? In a sense, this is how I read this new Bin Laden tape: he is asking the Europeans to leave the battlefield of Afghanistan now, because he is projecting that events may push the nations of Europe to expand further their involvement overseas. The hidden message in his speech is by far greater than the words aired on al Jazeera, or even the entire text his followers are claiming the Qatari-funded channel “didn’t air.” We’ll come back later to the al Qaeda/al Jazeera labyrinth. The question now is about the essence of the message.

The commander of the Jihadi mother ship says the Afghans sustained the Soviet occupation for many years; hence he warns the European governments that their forces deployed in that country will be continuously attacked. That was the first salvo. Then he “informed” them that they’d made a tremendous mistake by deploying along with US troops and dislodging the Taliban in 2001. He argued that since he was the man behind the massacre of Manhattan, the regime of the Taliban had nothing to do with it. “I am responsible for the attacks of 9/11,” said Bin Laden. (I suggest making sure this declaration is well saved to document future trials and respond to current allegations that Jihadists have nothing to do with it.) He added - the classic refrain - that 9/11 “was in response to aggression in Palestine and Lebanon.” Usama insisted that Taliban ministers didn’t even know that he was launching this operation.

That part, I must admit, came as a surprise to me. Why is he attempting to distance his protectors from the Ghazwa (Jihadi raid) seven years later? We’ll come back to this later as well.

Meanwhile, US administration spokespeople rushed to “explain” that the Afghani people are “happier now because they are better administered.” I disagree with this PR logic. Nations wouldn’t be happier with foreign forces just because richer governments can distribute goodies. This argument won’t buy support among the public there.

Washington’s spokespeople must be clear on the principles, seven or seventy years afterwards: the US removed the Taliban regime because this regime was responsible for the acts of the terror group al Qaeda, executor of the massacres in New York and Washington. The Taliban - under international law - had the opportunity to arrest al Qaeda leaders and dismantle their camps, but it didn’t. As such, the Greater Middle East audience must hear solid counter arguments coming out of America and the free world about this particular issue, not “explanations” about what the Coalition is doing now in Afghanistan. After the democratic elections in that country, the legitimate government is responsible for the presence and deeds of NATO and UN troops anyway. But In the war of ideas, no allegation should be allowed to fly unchecked.

Bin Laden alleged that the Taliban didn’t know about the operation, but he ignored the fact that the Jihadi regime and its spokespeople “blessed” the attacks afterward, and that they continue, even today, to do so in their media. Usama has forgotten that in one of his videotapes he boasted that even his close comrade Sleiman Abul Ghais didn’t know about it. But even though the preparation for the terror “operations” weren’t shared with all levels of power among the Taliban or even al Qaeda, the war against America has been declared since 1998. These are simple counter arguments but they need to be made in response to this statement by the leader of the War on Terror.

Future recruits will be fed with Bin Laden’s rhetoric about the innocence of his Taliban brothers and hence, we may find these arguments made by future suicide terrorists blasting against targets in European cities. “This is in response to your illegitimate and unjust attacks against Afghanistan,” would scream the Shaheed in his or her prepared videotape before they spread mayhem. A strong and direct response to today’s false arguments, delivered in Arabic via satellite channels, would have been the appropriate response, minutes after the al Jazeera airing. What is important is not how we satisfy our perception of a good image, but how we affect the perception of those who are about to be indoctrinated or recruited to the other side.

Back to Usama’s Euro concerns. In short, he is preparing the psychological terrain for an escalation on European soil. Remember Madrid. His cells struck the trains while claiming it was because of the unjust presence of Spanish troops in Iraq. It is very possible that future strikes in Europe would be accompanied with claims related to French, British, Spanish, Danish, Dutch and other military presence in that part of central Asia. The potential forthcoming attacks are being prepared now with al Qaeda propaganda.

Interestingly Bin Laden mentions Blair, Brown, Aznar and Sarkozy. While the first three past and current prime ministers have ordered troops into and within Iraq, the French President has inherited a previous military policy in Afghanistan. What links all these leaders in the mind of Bin Laden? In my estimate, it is not only the past; rather it is the future. The Jihadi supreme commander has been advised by his operational emirs and advisors in Europe that the fight is coming to that continent. Many combat Salafists are already deployed and preparing for violence in Britain, Spain, Scandinavia, Germany and the Benelux. The so-called youth gangs in French suburbs - manipulated by the radical clerics - are already in a state of war against the French state.

Global Jihad in Europe has begun. Al Qaeda wants to claim it, own it and boast about its coming spread. That’s what is on Bin Laden’s mind.

As a classic leader of Jihadism, he wants to warn beforehand that what is to come in Europe is “because” of its alliance with the US and its military presence in Afghanistan, an “occupied Muslim land.” In reality, the dice has already rolled: the Jihadists have already waged their campaign on that continent but the al Qaeda master wants to father it and widen it.

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Dr Walid Phares is the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. He is the author of The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracies.

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NEFA Foundation: Complete Transcript of Latest UBL Audio Recording, "Message to the Peoples of Europe"

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained a copy of the new audio recording from Al-Qaida leader Usama Bin Laden, titled "A Message to the Peoples of Europe." During his speech, Bin Laden acknowledged being "responsible for 9/11", but strongly criticized the U.S. and its European allies for continuing military operations in Afghanistan even after they had "destroyed the camps of al-Qaida and killed some of its members." In addressing his European audience, Bin Laden insisted, "the American tide is ebbing, by the grace of Allah... So it is better for you to restrain your politicians who are thronging the steps of the White House."

A complete English-language transcript of Bin Laden's message is now available on the NEFA Foundation website, c/o the TerrorWatch subscription service.

Special Public Event: Panel on Holy Land Foundation & Muslim Brotherhood

By Andrew Cochran

On behalf of the Counterterrorism Foundation, I will moderate a panel on the Holy Land Foundation and the Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday, December 11, from 12 noon to 1:30 pm, in 2168 Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. This event is open to the public.

The panel, titled "Infiltration and Deception: The Holy Land Foundation and the Muslim Brotherhood in America," will include three experts representing the three groups which were responsible for much of the analysis of exhibits and the links from HLF to Hamas, the MB, and the extended MB network. Douglas Farah will represent the NEFA Foundation; Jeff Breinholt will represent the International Assessment & Strategy Center; and Michael Fechter will represent the Investigative Project on Terrorism. They will provide handouts of the most important exhibits to the attendees. To my knowledge, this will be the only live event in Washington bringing together all the best evidence for presentation and analysis. We wish to gauge interest for the event, so please e-mail me at this address.

Holy Land Mistrial: Judging a Designated Terrorist Entity

By Matthew Levitt

Recently, the Palestinian Authority (PA) shut down several Islamic charity committees in the West Bank, stating that Hamas was using them as a means to transfer funds to the group's activists there. Meanwhile, on October 22, the U.S. federal trial of the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and several of its officers -- accused of financing Hamas (a U.S.-designated terrorist group) by funding some of these same charities -- ended in mistrial.

The defendants and their supporters immediately trumpeted the verdict, claiming their innocence and arguing that the foundation's 2001 terrorist designation must be similarly flawed. Many other critics have also pounced on the outcome, charging the government with overreaching in a manner similar to other "failed" terrorism financing prosecutions. Although the mistrial was a major setback for the government, it was hardly the victory depicted by the defendants (who all remain under a standing indictment and are likely to be retried), and it will not affect Washington's previous blacklisting of the foundation.

The full article is available here

New Bin Laden Audio Tape Demands Europeans Halt Afghanistan Ops (updated)

By Andrew Cochran

The new audio tape from Osama bin Laden is being released this afternoon on Al Jazeera. in it, OBL demands that the Europeans end their cooperation with the U.S. against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The release of the tape was announced by as-Sahab on November 26. ABC News reports that "Bin Laden says he was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and that the people and government of Afghanistan are innocent victims of America's war there." A quote from the tape from NBC News: "The American tide is ebbing, so it is best for you to press your leaders to change their policies." This is the fourth tape from OBL this year. Read reactions to his last tape, released in October, by Walid Phares and by me. More on this tape later.

New NEFA Foundation Report: "The Madrid Indictment: Steps Toward Countering the Global Jihad Movement"

By Evan Kohlmann

A new report is available for download from the NEFA Foundation website by Senior Investigator Douglas Farah and titled "The Madrid Indictment: Steps Toward Countering the Global Jihad Movement." The report is based primarily upon facts revealed during the recent trial in Spain of eighteen suspects alleged to be members of terrorist organizations—including several accused of assisting Al-Qaeda sympathizers based in Europe with traveling to Iraq in order to become suicide bombers. According to the final ruling of the presiding Judge Magistrate in the case, at least two such individuals succeeded in carrying out actual suicide missions in Iraq. Garzon’s intimate knowledge of the Salafist-jihadist network structure is demonstrated in his lengthy explanation of his decision. According to that decision, “The[se] people... were part of a cell that was formed, both locally and internationally, to operate in Spain (Catalonia and Madrid) and outside the country (Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey, Morocco, Syria and Iraq) with a very specific purpose: to send people (mujahidin or militants) to Iraq to become involved in the terrorist activity sponsored and led by al Qaeda in Iraq. The recruits into these ranks were trained to attack vital civilian and military objectives, as well as public and private targets, or they were used as auxiliary personnel, who were equally necessary for carrying out their attacks… To obtain the cohesion necessary to achieve their ends, there are intense contacts among small groups... It is true that the conceptualization of this type of terrorism is different from that of a traditional terrorist organization, but it perfectly fits the purposes of these local cells in their loose networks, tied to international organizations (al Qaeda)."

The report can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

Head of Indonesian Counter-Terrorism School Assaulted

By Kenneth Conboy

On 28 November, two unidentified persons riding a Yamaha motorcycle fired a pistol at a van carrying Lausther Cross, an Australian national and the director of the Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation (JCLEC). Despite its name, JCLEC is actually a counter-terrorism training school located in Semarang, Central Java. The incident took place at Klaten, near Jogjakarta. Cross's vehicle was heavily reinforced, and neither he nor his driver suffered any injuries.

The motorcycle sped away after the shooting and no arrests have yet been made. Cross reportedly had noticed the motorcyclists for quite a distance before the assault. While it might have all the hallmarks of an assassination attempt by extremists, the Indonesian authorities have still not ruled out purely criminal motives.

Concerns about Mobile Phone Smuggling

By Aaron Mannes

Since Slate was kind enough to cite my thoughts on Syria’s attendance at the Annapolis Conference in its daily feature Today’s Blogs I thought I might return the favor.

Yesterday Slate’s Hot Document section published a PowerPoint briefing given by the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center to a Department of Agriculture workshop on Animal & Plant Biosecurity. The document is unclassified, but For Official Use Only (which in practice means very little.)

This slide stuck out.

Read the complete post.

Darfur (Again)

By Douglas Farah

To the surprise of no one, the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government of Sudan is making it impossible to deploy the promised peacekeeping mission in Darfur, the a senior UN official says.

Jean-Marie Guehenno told the United Nations Security Council that excessive demands from Khartoum "would make it impossible for the mission to operate".

Among other demands, Sudan wants advance notice of troop movements and to be able to shut down communications.

That is handy, to be able to shut down communications and know where troops are, especially when those responsible for the vast bulk of the genocide are operating under government protection.

The UN knows, and has reported on, the growing presence of al Qaeda in training camps in the Darfur region, something that my Western intelligence sources tell me is a growing problem.

The camps, some dating to the time Osama bin Laden was an honored guest of the regime, are small, but expanding. Al Qaeda has publicly stated its ambition to return to Sudan and expand in the Horn of Africa. The regime of Omar Bashir and his thugs are quite accommodating.

For an interesting look at who Sudan plays the outside world like a fiddle, see this Le Monde Diplomatique piece. My full blog is here.

Frank Hyland Joins Us As a Contributing Expert

By Andrew Cochran

We welcome Frank Hyland today to the CT Blog as a Contributing Expert. Mr. Hyland served in the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency's Counter-Terrorist Center, and the National Counter-Terrorism Center and has been involved in counter-terrorism work for more than 25 years. Mr. Hyland has taught at both The Johns Hopkins University and the Joint Military Intelligence College and is presently on the faculty of the American Public University System. His career includes an 18-month tour in Ankara, Turkey. He is the author of Armenian Terrorism: The Past, The Present, The Prospects, which was published by Westview Press. As the CEO of S&F Enterprises, he is presently a consultant to both private-sector and public-sector clients. Mr. Hyland writes periodically for the Jamestown Foundation, one of the outstanding institutes in the CT community in the U.S. You can read his articles on the Jamestown website.

Who's Who of Presidential Campaign National Security Advisers

By James Gordon Meek

As a companion to the New York Daily News' three-month investigation into who is advising Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on counterterrorism, national security and foreign affairs, today we offer a complete list of the major presidential candidates' top wisemen on these important national issues.

The presidential campaigns of Democrat Christopher Dodd and Republican Fred Thompson would not disclose their advisers to the Daily News. But in the case of Thompson, our reporting yielded two names. There also are some security experts advising multiple candidates, such as National Security Network director Rand Beers, who are not included on the master list. A former career counterterrorism official at the National Security Council who worked on John Kerry's unsuccessful 2004 presidential bid, Beers told me he is counseling Democrats Joe Biden, Dodd, Clinton and Obama.

Read the full list at the Mouth of the Potomac Blog after the jump.

Counter-Insurgency Conference to Be Held in Stockholm in March 2008

By Andrew Cochran

The Global Defence Forum, with the Swedish National Defence College and the UK Defence Academy, will hold a conference titled, "Countering Insurgency and Terrorism," on March 11 through 13, 2008, in Stockholm. The Counterterrorism Blog is proud to serve as a "Media Partner" for the conference. Co-hosted by Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely, KCB MC Director of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, and Swedish National Defence College (SNDC) President Henrik Landerholm, the conference will include some of world’s most distinguished military thinkers to debate the current threat from insurgency and terrorism. The risk of use of CBRN weapons; intelligence methodology; countering radicalization; and the best military and police doctrine on adversary methods will be discussed. The long list of esteemed expert speakers will include Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, the UK Commander of Field Army & Land Command, and former Deputy Commander of Multinational Force Iraq; Gijs de Vries, former Counter-Terrorism Coordinator for the European Union; Nigel Inkster, former Director of Operations and Intelligence, British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6); and Dr. Magnus Ranstorp, Research Director of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies, SNDC Sweden. Sessions will discuss topics such as "Theological and psychological drivers of contemporary terrorist violence;" "How transnational targets differ from state-centric targets" (a topic of one of Douglas Farah's recent posts); and "The roadmap for the future of counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan." You can review the entire program and speakers list on the summit website.

Annapolis Conference & Syria's Truth

By Aaron Mannes

If Syria switched teams, from its current alignment with Iran to the U.S. aligned Arab states led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Gulf states, it would be a diplomatic masterstroke. It would isolate Iran and cut loose its key terrorist proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the lesser Damascus-based groups. If it could be done, it might even be worth paying Syria’s price - return of the Golan Heights and wiping the slate clean on past Syrian support for terrorism, including the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

For decades American foreign policy realists, most recently in the Iraq Study Group, have called for engagement with Syria in order to achieve this aim. The news that Syria will send an emissary to the upcoming conference in Annapolis has raised hopes that this maneuver is possible.

But it won’t happen and anyone who believes that it will doesn’t know the truth about Syria - literally. They must not have read The Truth About Syria by Barry Rubin.

Read the complete review here.

First target for Iran: Qatar?

By Olivier Guitta

Iran has been vocal about what it would do in case of an American or Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities.

I just wrote a piece on that topic for the Middle East Times.

Here is an excerpt:

What would be the most logical target Iran would strike in case of a U.S. or Israeli attack on its nuclear sites?

Qatar.

In fact, Iranian Revolutionary guards have already threatened to attack Qatari oil and gas facilities (hence crippling the world economy by creating an oil and gas shock) by sea and air by using suicide boats and air missiles.

For Iran, it's a no-brainer: Qatar hosts the largest U.S. base in the Middle East (8,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed there) and is also viewed by some as being friendly with Israel.

What is Qatar doing about it?

First and foremost, Qatar has been heavily using the diplomatic weapon. Its strategy is to befriend everyone: from Israel to Hamas, from Syria to France.

Even though Qatar's deputy foreign minister Mohamed al-Ruhaimi firmly believes that "speaking to everyone allows us to have a dynamic and independent policy," it is a recipe for disaster. For instance, Qatar has not been terror-free: in fact, in March 2005, a suicide bomber (most likely linked or inspired by al-Qaida) killed one Briton and wounded 12 people in Doha in an attack at a theater frequented by Westerners.

To read the rest, please click here.

In "Call for Donations," Al Qaeda Admits Financial Stress

By Andrew Cochran

On November 20, I posted on the success of the U.S.-led Iraq Threat Finance Cell in disrupting Al Qaeda in Iraq's financial network. Reuven Paz, one of the leading experts in the CT community and the founder and Director of the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements (PRISM) at the GLORIA Center in Israel, has written a follow-up to that post for us, with an analysis of Al Qaeda's admission of financial distress. I am pleased to run Mr. Paz's analysis below in its entirety with my gratitude:

On 20 November 2007, Andrew Cochran reported on this blog about the success of the U.S. ITFC in shutting down elements of Al-Qaeda's financial network in Iraq, and that the government of a key Gulf state has assisted in these efforts. On the same day, the Washington Post published a report of its own about the U.S. efforts to break Iraqi insurgents’ financial networks, and the growing interest of insurgents in money rather than ideology.

A significant evidence for the U.S. successes in this field has recently appeared from an unexpected direction - Al-Qaeda itself. The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF)—the primary indoctrination and propaganda means of Al-Qaeda, published on the same day - 20 November 2007, on the main Jihadi forum of Al-Hesbah, an unprecedented announcement, which we may title A CALL FOR DONATIONS. It was not the first time that Jihadi elements posted material on the significance of the Jihad bil-Mal (financial Jihad). However, past writings on the issue have had the religious and indoctrination nature. This time it looks as a genuine call resulting out of a real stress. The post by the “official” GIMF provides it also a nature of an official call by Al-Qaeda, not just some group belonging to the Iraqi insurgency. It does not refer to Iraq or any other place in particular, and therefore, it might also indicate the stress in which the organization is found in other regions of Jihadi fight as well, in the field of finance.

The post by GIMF—titled “A Call from the People of the Places of Fight (Ahl al-Thughur): Oh Muslims, Do You Think You are Going to Enter Paradise?”—is “upgrading,” for the first time in recent years, the financial Jihad to the same level of the fighting form of Jihad. After the process of “upgrading” and the legitimacy of the Jihad by propaganda through the Internet in the past two years, it is now the turn of the financial Jihad to receive the legitimacy of a fully recognized Jihad.

The author of this call is not hiding or coloring the financial situation of the group in the battle field:

“Oh Muslims !! this is a call for you from the fighters to the entire Muslims. Following the campaign against Islam to dry its sources, many of the people who support this religion suffer from lack of equipments and basic means for their Jihad, after the belief in Allah. The situation became really bad. Imagine brothers, that some of them carry weapons with no ammunition. Sometimes they have no food or place of refuge. I see you calling for Jihad day and night without implementing it, as if the Jihad is just carrying weapons.

Brothers, in many cases the financial Jihad is not less than Jihad by fighting (Al-Jihad bil-Nafs). How could the Mujahid fulfill his huge tasks without weapons? Or without the support for his family while he is away or martyred?

The Noble Qur’an gave the financial Jihad a great priority. It is always compared to the Jihad by fighting as two sides of the equation. Moreover, in all the Qur’anic verses that record the two, except for one verse, the financial Jihad has a priority over the fighting Jihad.

… From these verses and stories, the significance of the financial Jihad is clear. The infidels spend their money to fight [the supporters of] Allah, and their reward, at the end of the day, is only defeat. Should not the believers spend their money to strengthen the basics of religion and enable its spread in the world? No one can claim that he owns nothing. I tell him, don’t you know any wealthy Muslim? Approach him and encourage him [to donate]. We know how far the infidels (Taghout) are suffocating the finance of the Mujahidin, and how dangerous it is.”

The picture is clear and the call seems to be genuine. There is also an interesting element in using the term Taghout for “those who suffocate the finance of the Mujahidin.” This term is used for the Arab or Muslim governments, rather than the U.S. or other Western “enemies.” This might be an indication to the cooperation of Arab governments in this field.

This call is significant and reassures the success in fighting the Jihadi insurgency through its “pockets.” Nevertheless, it should also be an indicator to the openness of Al-Qaeda, which runs much of its affairs in public on the Internet, and an indicator for the reliability of the E-Jihad and the significance of its profound monitoring.

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Danger in Afghanistan

By Douglas Farah

The Washington Post on Sunday carried a disturbing piece on Afghanistan, where the problems cited are part of a broader pattern of the same mistakes across the spectrum in the war with radical Islamists.

After summing up the litany of problems, from a weak and failing government to the fact that the _jihadists_ seem to be able to easily replace the large number of combatants being killed, Karen DeYoung writes that:

But others said the problem is not Pakistan or a lack of military or financial resources in Afghanistan. It is the absence, they say, of a strategic plan that melds the U.S. military effort with a comprehensive blueprint for development and governance throughout the country.

"There are plenty of dollars and a hell of a lot more troops there, by a factor of two, from when I was there," the former commander said. The question, he said, is "who owns the overarching campaign for Afghanistan, and what is it?" My full blog is here.

Look and Learn: Virtual worlds and Strategic Communication

By Roderick Jones

Governments are catching-up with the arrival of 3-D virtual worlds with a number of initiatives across both public and privately accessed virtual worlds. The focus of these projects to date, has been the ‘training’ element that these environments offer to their users. Therefore, diverse agencies from the Police in Columbus, Ohio to the JFK Special Warfare School are developing environments with companies such as Virtual Heros, where they can dry run role-playing counter-terrorism scenarios. This activity is however, confined to closed networks --government engagement with public virtual worlds has been more circumspect. However an intriguing prospect was recently discussed by the House Armed Services Committee, whose subcommittee on, Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities was holding hearings into the issue of, strategic communications chaired by U.S. Rep. Adam Smith. These hearings attracted the attention of the tech press because it emerged during the testimony that the Digital Outreach team at the State Department has employed two Arabic bloggers for the past year to post entries to influential Arabic blogs. The team also stated it was going to examine the use of Second Life to advance its out-reach mission.

Violent Islamist groups have been some of the most effective global groups in the use of ‘new media’ especially in the realm of propaganda. There is little doubt that virtual worlds will be used by Islamists in the war of ideas. It remains to be seen whether any government can fight an effective information war within virtual communities, given the freedom of operation enjoyed by the individual user as opposed to the constrictions government employees work under. However, there are clearly a number of opportunities for governments within virtual communities - one of the more interesting is the ability to translate ideas out of virtual environments and apply them to real-world government, an idea put forward by the noted virtual world scholar Edward Castronova in his forthcoming book, Exodus to the Virtual World. A version of this approach may in fact be governments best chance of combating terrorist based information war in virtual worlds -- by observing and learning from their fleeter footed adversaries and re-conceiving their approach. But potentially the best form of ‘strategic communication’ is the virtual platform itself. While the development of virtual worlds remains in the hands of US and western companies - these environments are likely to continue to offer freedoms that do not exist in more repressive countries. Just as in the Cold-War, the system is the propaganda.

Al-Fajr Media Center: "We’ll Do It Again: Annapolis Shall Not Rescue Their Metropolis."

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a copy of a new communique from the Al-Fajr Media Center--Al-Qaida's official online logistical network--titled, "We'll Do It Again: Annapolis Shall Not Rescue Their Metropolis, Written by a Soldier in the Army Aiming to Destroy Their Metropolis." The statement condemned the upcoming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Annapolis, Maryland, as a bid to "declare war against the Muslims and to cleanse the desire for jihad from each and every believer." It further boasted of Al-Qaida's role in "the collapse of Manhattan’s metropolis": "The decision to target the World Trade Center during the [9/11] raids was a wise one because it made other weaker regimes tremble, run, and hide... Allah has paid back all the Muslims who prepared and executed that attack and has chosen them to lead his battle against evil... The owners of that collapsed metropolis (the Jews) could not handle the fact that it was totally and completely a Muslim operation. Therefore, they have been busy using their media outlets around the entire world (including Al-Jazeera) to spread lies about various 9/11 conspiracy theories... The infidels are in denial about the well-known fate of the World Trade Center… We thank Allah for enabling Muslims to destroy it. ” The statement also included a veiled threat to the Arabian Gulf emirate of Dubai, labeling it "merely another state in the United States, a base for information and intelligence-gathering, a technological and media center, and a center of corruption. The Jews can be found there in the same way they can be found in Tel-Aviv… We hope they will learn a lesson and change before ‘Burj al-Arab’ becomes [the next World Trade Center].”

An English translation of the statement from the Al-Fajr Media Center can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website, c/o NEFA's TerrorWatch news service.

Surprise, Surprise: Yet More Evidence that the Majority of Foreign Fighters in Iraq Come from Saudi Arabia

By Evan Kohlmann

Almost since the beginning of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq in late 2003, there has been an ongoing public debate about the significance and origins of foreign-born jihadists who have traveled to Iraq intent upon joining Al-Qaida and killing Americans and Muslim "apostates". Despite a veritable avalanche of evidence suggesting that these foreign fighters have had a disproportionate role in destabilizing Iraq and that a large cross-section (if not outright majority) of these fighters are coming from Saudi Arabia, a host of journalists and experts have wasted no effort in downplaying their impact. Regular readers of the Counterterrorism Blog will recall Jonathan Finer's article in the Washington Post, similar pieces published in the Christian Science Monitor, and a litany of commentary from Tony Cordesman (based almost entirely upon facts spoon-fed to him by Saudi intelligence and paid Saudi lobbyists).

Yet, now, it seems that the evidence of the involvement of Saudi Al-Qaida recruits in the Iraqi insurgency has become so plainly obvious that even the New York Times has taken note. In an article published this week, Times writer Richard Oppel cites statistics derived from a "trove of documents and computers discovered in September, when American forces raided a tent camp in the desert near Sinjar, close to the Syrian border", featuring a "collection of biographical sketches that listed hometowns and other details for more than 700 fighters brought into Iraq since August 2006." According to the Times article, at least 305 of those biographies--or 41%--were of fighters from Saudi Arabia: "Among the Saudi fighters described in the materials, 45 had come from Riyadh, 38 from Mecca, 20 from Buraidah and the surrounding area, 15 from Jawf and Sakakah, 13 from Jidda, and 12 from Medina." Compare this to Tony Cordesman's suggestion in his 2005 report on the Iraqi insurgency that Saudi nationals represent only 12% of the total number of foreign fighters. Quite obviously, Cordesman's estimate was way, way too low.

I should add that the latest evidence cited in the New York Times is hardly an incredible revelation. Other independent researchers--such as Reuven Paz and myself--who rely primarily on information obtained directly from insurgent groups--have long pointed to Saudi Arabia as the main source of Al-Qaida's recruits in Iraq. The evidence is almost unmistakable--in the form of countless video recordings, photographs, interviews, and written testimonials. Our motivation for reporting these facts has not been political or financial, but out of a genuine concern that one of America's closest allies in the Middle East has been nearly as unhelpful in Iraq (wittingly or unwittingly) as the regimes who have been routinely painted as America's most troublesome regional adversaries, namely Syria and Iran. Indeed, as noted by the New York Times piece, "whatever aid Iran provides to militias inside Iraq does not seem to extend to supplying actual combatants: only 11 Iranians are in American detention, United States officials say." I rarely find myself in agreement with Juan Cole on the issue of foreign fighters in Iraq, but even I can admit that he makes a fair argument when he points out: "Which country is providing a lot of foreign suicide bombers? US ally Saudi Arabia. Has any general or Bush administration official called a press conference to denounce Saudi Arabia? No. Has Joe Lieberman threatened it with a war? No. Everything is being blamed on Iran... regardless of the facts."

On a related note, I've been asked to write a piece about Iraq's foreign fighters for a new monthly publication produced by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center and slated to debut in January. I'm really looking forward to this opportunity, because I intend to publish for the first time some of the actual conversations I have had with the friends and families of Saudi foreign fighters who were killed while fighting alongside Al-Qaida in Iraq over the past four years. I would advise those who have been so quick to dismiss these fighters as "insignificant" (or even an outright "myth") to speak with these individuals first before jumping to more hasty conclusions.

Sentence in Chicago Hamas Trial

By Matthew Levitt

Abdulhalim Ashqar, who was convicted of obstruction of justice and criminal comtempt in a Hamas-related trial in Chicago earlier this year, was sentenced today to 135 months imprisonment and a $5,000 fine. The sentence was arrived at through application of the Sentencing Guidelines terrorism enhancement based on what the judge thought the trial evidence showed about Ashqar's activities for, and knowledge of, Hamas

On February 1, after fourteen days of deliberation, a Chicago jury acquitted Muhammad Salah and Ashqar of charges that they were involved in a racketeering conspiracy by financing and supporting Hamas terrorist activities in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The two were accused of laundering funds, facilitating communications, and providing recruits for Hamas, but were convicted only on minor charges of obstruction of justice and, in Ashqar's case, criminal contempt.

A large body of evidence documents Salah and Ashqar's activities on behalf of Hamas, though they predated the group's official terrorist designation. Marzouk dispatched Salah to the West Bank and Gaza several times between 1989 and 1993 to fund and reorganize the Hamas military wing, first after the 1989 arrest of some 260 Hamas activists and again in the wake of the 1992 deportation of hundreds of Hamas members and other radicals to southern Lebanon. Around 1990, Salah "hand-selected ten people to serve on a military team and had them trained in the United States by Muslim instructors from the United States and Lebanon who had military experience," according to information Salah provided to Israeli officials. Marzouk instructed him "to recruit people in the U.S. As a result, various operatives [in America] learned how to prepare explosive charges. These activists were planned to come to Israel and join the military activities of the Hamas there."

At the time of his January 1993 arrest in Israel, Salah had $97,000 in cash in his possession and admitted to distributing approximately $140,000 to activists in Hamas's Qassam Brigades. Salah had already provided funds to a Hamas military cell the previous year. Salah Arouri, the Hamas recruiter and commander to whom Salah provided these funds, admitted receiving "approximately $96,000 to procure weapons from Abu Ahmed [Salah] in August 1992" and providing "$45,000 to Musa Muhammed Salah Dudin to be used for weapons to conduct attacks." Dudin purchased several weapons, including one M-16 rifle, two Kalashnikov rifles, two Uzi submachine guns, two or three 8mm and 9mm pistols, one carbine rifle, and ammunition for each. Dudin and others then used these weapons in attacks on Israelis, including the murder of Yuval Tutange on December 12, 1992.

Ashqar's actions on behalf of Hamas were also the subject of an FBI investigation. In a 1994 telephone conversation recorded by the FBI, Sheik Jamil Hamami, a Hamas political leader in the West Bank, told Ashqar and a fellow Hamas member in Yemen: "We . . . will act to make [the peace process] fail too. Operations [of] particular types will take place to shake this [Palestinian] self-rule administration." FBI files include statements of Hamas militants arrested by Israeli authorities detailing Ashqar's role in overseeing Hamas militant activity. For example, Sufian Abu Samara, a Qassam Brigades leader in Gaza, provided verifiable details about specific funds transfers that Ashqar facilitated for Hamas militant activities, noting that Ashqar often specified how the funds should be spent. Until his arrest in 1991, Samara focused on recruiting new Hamas operatives to carry out attacks, especially at Gaza's Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold where Ashqar and many senior Hamas leaders have worked.

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The Heart of the Matter

By Douglas Farah

The Middle East Quarterly, in an article called "Should Muslims Integrate into the West?" goes to much of my thinking on the crux of the issues between political Islam, espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations-some overtly violent and some not-and the traditional immigration model that the United States and Europe have dealt with for many decades.

Certainly not all Muslims, and perhaps not even most, in this country, subscribe to the theology/ideology of political Islam. By this I mean the espousing the oneness of religion and political life. That is, that _sharia_ law and Muslim precepts are not something that regulates the behavior between an individual and Allah, but something to be imposed by divine writ on all humanity.

One must understand the fundamental principle of political Islam in order to understand its goals. This is often not well articulated, but this article does a good job in laying out the issues.

It is because of these fundamental and irreconcilable differences that the Muslim Brotherhood, its legacy groups in the United States and Europe, and other Islamists, pose a threat to liberal democracies and why they cannot do other than try to destroy the current structures. My full blog is here.

Zakat-Jihad Activism

By Matthew Levitt

A new article in Military Review, written by a Belgian military officer, offers important insights into what the author describes as zakat-jihad activism. That is, a means by which groups like Hamas, Hezbollah or Iraqi insurgents “generates popular support by establishing an unarmed infrastructure that provides essential services.” As I have noted in the past, this tactic (sometimes also described as dawa activities) not only produces significant grassroots support, it also creates an ideal means to launder and transfer funds as well as a means of providing activists day jobs and a veneer of legitimacy. It many cases, it also serves as a logistical support network for less altruistic activities.

This is certainly the case for Hamas, for example. As US officials have noted, “Hamas is loosely structured, with some elements working clandestinely and others working openly through mosques and social service institutions to recruit members, raise money, organize activities, and distribute propaganda.”

For Hamas, zakat-jihad activism serves five primary purposes in support of Hamas terror activity:
• Dawa operatives and organizations fund and participate in Hamas attacks;
• The dawa functions as Hamas’ logistical support network;
• Senior Hamas leaders and operatives hold positions within the dawa;
• Dawa activities are targeted to building grassroots support for Hamas;
• Dawa charities and social organizations radicalize Palestinian society.

The “most critical vulnerability” of this tactic, the Military Review article argues, “is its need for a large flow of external funds, necessitated by the local population’s inability to finance all of the infrastructure needed to provide essential services.” Targeting the primary financing channel - charitable fronts - in a counterinsurgency strategy is complicated by the fact they enjoy legitimacy for the overtly humanitarian nature of their activities. Neglecting the extremely high cost of maintaining safe houses, buying loyalties, maintaining the physical infrastructure of its organizations, paying its members’ the salaries and more, critics frequently comment that terrorism is an inexpensive business and conclude that zakat-jihad funds are solely geared toward good works. In fact, these charities and social service organizations - which fund and facilitate the attacks of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and some Iraqi insurgents- form the backbone of these groups’ grassroots support and operational capacity.

The recent mistrial in the case of the Holy Land Foundation is just the latest example of how difficult it can be to expose such group’s illicit and covert activity in light of their extensive overt activities. But as the Military Review article stresses, the clean image of zakat-jihad organizations, often operating in a corrupt environment, also leaves them open to exposure. It is therefore critical to expose the underlying fraud inherent in such organizations whereby donors are led to believe they are donating funds to non-violent, humanitarian organizations, when those funds were actually going to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, Tamil Tigers, or similar groups. The most effective means of doing this is by publicly designating such groups as a means of informing the public and disrupting terrorist financing.

While the Holy Land mistrial was a major setback for the government, it was hardly the victory depicted by the defendants, all of whom remain under a standing indictment and are likely to be retried. The verdict also has no bearing on the government's earlier terrorist blacklisting of the foundation, based on a 3,130-page evidentiary which a federal district court determined - and an appellate court later affirmed - “provides substantial support for [Treasury’s] determination that HLF acts for or on behalf of Hamas.” Whether a jury ultimatley convicts the foundation and its senior officers of material support and other crimes or not, the foundation's exposure back in 2001 was a service to American donors.

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Tensions Mount in Lebanon as Presidential Elections Draw to a Close

By David Schenker

The Islamic Action Front fared poorly in yesterday’s parliamentary elections in Jordan. Meanwhile in Lebanon-where the two month presidential election period ends tomorrow—prospects for the Hizballah-led opposition are looking up.

Word from Lebanon is that the pro-West March 14th Government will not be able to elect one of their two preferred candidates (Boutros Harb and Nassib Lahoud) president. Instead, it now appears that the March 14th forces and opposition may settle on a “compromise” candidate—codeword for a president-elect who is sympathetic to Syria.

[The outgoing president Emile Lahoud was appointed by Syria nine years ago, and so endeared himself to Damascus that Syria engineered a 2005 constitutional amendment in Lebanon to extend his term by three years.]

It’s not clear who this compromise candidate will be, but the Beirut rumor mill is leaning toward Michel Edde. Edde was a former minister in several Lebanese Governments, is a member of the Board of the French language Lebanese daily L’Orient Le-Jour, and served from 2003-2007 as President of the Maronite League. Edde, who is 80, is also a self-professed expert on Jewish affairs, and a periodic guest commenting on these matters on Hizballah’s Al Manar TV.

The Edde scenario goes something like this: Edde is elected by consensus and agrees to serve only two years of the six year term. By agreeing to two years, this plan might stand a chance of securing the support of Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun--the most popular Maronite leader in Lebanon--who is 72 and also wants to be president someday.

While this deal might avert conflict for now, however, it would also effectively kick the can down the road on the difficult decision on president—almost guaranteeing another crisis in Lebanon in two years.

Despite all the talk about Edde, it’s apparently not yet a fait accompli. Sources close to Sa’ad Hariri—the head of the Mustaqbal Party and the March 14th Movement—reported today that during a meeting yesterday with Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, Hariri told him that he “refused the candidacy of Michel Edde.”

Stay tuned. The deadline for a decision is Friday night

Cannistraro, Apologist: Then and Now

By Steven Emerson

In an interesting, and rather telling, footnote to the Nada Prouty plea deal, Ms. Prouty finds herself with a curious defender:

Vince Cannistraro, an ex-CIA counterterror chief, said Prouty was worried for her sister Elfat, who married accused Hezbollah fund-raiser Talal Khalil Chahine.

Prouty had worked as a waitress in Chahine's Detroit cafes before joining the FBI, and he helped vouch for her sham marriage in a 1992 letter to immigration authorities. In pleading guilty, she admitted searching bureau files for his name, her sister's and her own in 2000.

"It looks more like she was concerned about her brother-in-law being involved in Hezbollah and was legitimately worried about her sister," Cannistraro said.

Cannistraro has a history of defending despicable behavior, harmful to America's national security. Famously, Cannistraro was a long-time apologist for now-convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami al-Arian, even going so far as writing a letter on Al-Arian's behalf after the University finally terminated him for repeatedly lying about his ties to the terrorist group:

Dear President Judy Genshaft,

I was surprised by your decision to terminate al-Arian's employment at the University. You have essentially caved in to the hysteria that is being promoted by some irresponsible media, including the Fox program, O'Reilly Factor. That was one of the worse pieces of "yellow journalism" I have ever seen. There is no connection between anything al-Arian is or was connected to that has any bearing whatsoever on the events of 9/11. I am a professional in the field of counterterrorism, having served both as Director of Intelligence Programs in the Reagan Administration and as CIA's Chief of Counterterrorism Operations. Your action is both a blow to academic freedom and, dare I say it, a cowardly act that reflects poorly on both the University and your own lack of convictions.

Regretfully,

Vincent M. Cannistraro McLean, VA

Think about that for a second. Just how scary is it that the former top CIA Counterterrorism official publicly went on the record to protect the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)? At the time of Al-Arian's firing, the evidence of his ties to PIJ, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, was overwhelming.

For the evidence (including the extensive links between Al-Arian and current PIJ Secretary General Ramadan Abdullah Shallah), read the entire article at the website of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

U.S. "Iraq Threat Finance Cell" Puncturing Insurgents' Financial Network

By Andrew Cochran

On November 2, I posted on the degree of integration of a "threat finance" mindset into the Pentagon's intelligence and military operations, and discussed the Iraq Threat Finance Cell co-directed in Baghdad by DoD and the Treasury Department. Today's Washington Post reports on recent successes that U.S. force have had in targeting and shutting down the financial network of Al Qaeda in Iraq. An excerpt:

Mosul is the central hub in Iraq for wiring money to the insurgency from Syria and other countries, Welsh said, with three of the largest banks in the country that transfer money operating branches in the city. He said U.S. forces have shut down several such money exchanges in Mosul.

U.S. forces detained a major al-Qaeda in Iraq financier Sept. 25 with a passport that showed he had been to Syria 30 times, according to a military summary of his capture.

Another man, captured by the Iraqi army Sept. 3, is thought to be the No. 1 al-Qaeda in Iraq financier in Nineveh province, responsible for negotiating the release of kidnapping victims, according to another military summary. It said he was found with checks totaling 775 million dinars, or $600,000.

My sources informed me weeks ago of the recent success of the ITFC in shutting down elements of Al Qaeda's financial network, and that the government of a key Gulf state has assisted in these efforts. That cooperation is a welcome contrast to the situation a year ago, when that same government seemed unwilling or incapable of blocking the flow of funds to Sunnis in Iraq.

The article notes that "a growing number of insurgent cells, struggling to pay recruits, are turning to gangster-style racketeering operations." That is consistent with the behavior of numerous terrorists, now self-financing through transnational criminal enterprise, as discussed here often and most recently by Douglas Farah. Recognition of that model should be a foundation for counterinsurgency and asymetric warfare officials in Western governments, as should the success of the ITFC concept against such enterprises.

How Will the Islamists Fare in Jordanian Elections Tomorrow?

By David Schenker

Tomorrow, Jordanians go to the polls for parliamentary elections. Over 900 candidates, including 200 women, will vie for 110 parliamentary seats in the contest. During the last parliamentary elections in 2003, the Islamic Action Front (IAF) took 17 seats, the best performance by a political party in the Kingdom.

During the most recent elections in Jordan—the August 31, 2007 municipal balloting—the IAF withdrew hours after the polls opened claiming Government fraud. IAF accusations centered on claims that the Government bused pro-monarchy soldiers to polling stations from their military bases, and fraudulent/repeat voting in some districts. Islamists also claimed official harassment in the run-up to elections, as evidenced by the arrest of several Islamist candidates and their supporters earlier in the month.

Critics of King Abdullah and the Jordanian Government are concerned that tomorrow’s parliamentary elections may not be free and fair. Weeks ago, a coalition of Jordanian NGOs said they had dropped plans to monitor the elections due to “crippling” government restrictions. According to Government Spokesman Nasser Judeh, however, the Government had reached an agreement with the National Center for Human Rights allowing 150 monitors to observe polling stations throughout Jordan.

No doubt, the IAF will continue to maintain Government foul play. While the Government may have used a heavy hand against the Islamist during the municipal elections, however, there is no indication whatsoever that this played a role in what would have ultimately been a disastrous outcome for the Islamists.

Indeed, according to exit polling conducted by the International Republican Institute and the Jordanian Center for Social Research, prior to the IAF’s withdrawal from the municipal elections, “most IAF candidates were losing by a large margin to their independent/tribal competitors, particularly in cities like Madaba, Rusaifeh and Irbid where a greater IAF presence is supposedly felt.” The implication is that if they continued to participate, the Islamists would have been soundly defeated. The dominant interpretation of the IRI/JCSR poll is that Islamist support in Jordan is slipping.

Of course, election time in Jordan is typically when people take stock of issues like democratic development and plans for reform. In Jordan, regardless how these elections transpire, there’s not lot a progress on this front. The “National Agenda”—as Jordan’s reform plan is called—has largely been shelved since Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher resigned from Government in November 2005.

Tomorrow, the IAF is only fielding 22 candidates, so in any event, it is unlikely the IAF will improve on its performance of 2003. But if the Islamists are defeated in largely free and fair elections, it just might provide King Abdullah with enough confidence to return to long-dormant reform plans.

Iran's secret Syrian plan

By Olivier Guitta

While the story about the September Israeli bombing on a Syrian nuclear facility has been off the radar for a few weeks, the implications of what really took place are going to reverberate for a long time.
For more on this, The Croissant (available to subscribers) ran several stories on this issue.

Interestingly, while North Korea has been mentioned many times, the role of Iran has not been scrutinized.
I just wrote a piece for the Middle East Times on that topic.
Here is an excerpt:
Israel has been providing intelligence and satellite images to the U.S. about a secret Syrian nuclear program for several months, according to media reports. Discussions between Israel and the United States took place last summer regarding a possible strike. But when Israel found the matter so pressing that when they realized the U.S. was not ready to act, on September 6 they attacked a Syrian nuclear site. Hence the question: what is Syria really up to or more to the point what is Iran up to?

First, let's start with an underreported explosion that occurred in a Syrian military base outside Aleppo on July 26. Jane's Defense Weekly reported, citing Syrian defense sources, as saying the explosion took place during a test to fit a "Scud C" missile with a mustard-gas warhead. It quoted the sources as saying the explosion occurred when fuel caught fire in the missile production laboratory.

But there might be another explanation. Kuwait's Al Seyassah newspaper recently reported that a Shiite Lebanese religious cleric claimed the Iranians were allegedly supervising a chemical weapons manufacturing program and that tens of Iranian experts and engineers died as a result of that explosion. He also said Israelis attacked the base. He added that Western officials told him they received proof from Israel on the Syrian chemical weapons program. Even if Israel's involvement is not proven, what remains sure is that it must be very happy that a chemical weapons facility in Syria has been partly destroyed.

You can read the rest here.

Townsend’s Forgotten Legacy: Blocking Investigations Into Hamas’ U.S. Fundraising Activities

By Brian Hecht, IPT

Bush Homeland Security Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend resigned today, after more than 4 years in that role. As is customary, President Bush praised his long term aide, stating that Townsend “has ably guided the Homeland Security Council. She has played an integral role in the formation of the key strategies and policies my administration has used to combat terror and protect Americans.”

The Associated Press described just such an instance:

When Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on Bush to refrain from using the phrase "Islamic fascists" on grounds it was offensive to Muslims, Townsend explained the president's use of the phrase.

"What the president was trying to capture was this idea of using violence to achieve ideological ends — and that's wrong," Townsend said at a news conference. "Regardless of what label you pin on it, it is this form of radical extremism that really wants to deny people freedom and impose a totalitarian vision of society on everyone, that we object to."

And it may indeed be true that Ms. Townsend has served ably in her recent capacity. But what neither any of the various hagiographies printed in today’s newspapers, nor the White House, will convey, is one of Townsend’s most consequential and lasting legacies in the field of counterterrorism.

Before 9/11, Townsend was an official with the Justice Department, beginning her career as a prosecutor in New York in 1985, and, as she moved up through the chain of command, exerted her authority in a key way, hampering an investigation of Hamas operatives in the United States. According to the Chicago Tribune (“Hamas probe nearly fell apart,” August 22, 2004):

The investigation started in Chicago in 1996 and was closed by the FBI in 2000--a victim of turf warfare inside the bureau, political sensitivity about Saudi Arabia and bureaucratic bungling, according to former and current officials involved with the case.

Had the investigation been allowed to proceed, charges could have been brought years ago, these officials said.

"We're five years behind because of the FBI dragging its feet and because of conflicts within the organization," retired FBI agent John Vincent said.

Mark Flessner, the federal prosecutor in charge of the case in the 1990s, said former Justice Department official Frances Fragos Townsend--who became President Bush's homeland security adviser in May--played a central role in stymieing the investigation. (emphasis added)

The investigation at issue was the case against Muhammad Salah and Abdelhaleem al-Ashqar, associates of current Hamas Deputy Political Bureau Chief Mousa Abu Marzook (indicted in absentia along with Salah and al-Ashqar). Last year, Salah was convicted of obstruction of justice and al-Ashqar of both obstruction of justice and contempt of court, but both were acquitted of the larger racketeering charge involving funneling money to Hamas.

Salah was eventually sentenced to 21 months in prison and al-Ashqar’s sentencing, after several delays, is set for this coming Wednesday.

Also from the Chicago Tribune in 2004:

Townsend, who headed the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence, Policy and Review, "played a big role in not allowing the investigation to proceed," Flessner said.

Townsend has been criticized by Justice Department officials for impeding investigations by rigidly enforcing the separation of the FBI's criminal and intelligence branches, according to a New York Daily News profile of Townsend published Aug. 16.

Flessner also said supervisors at the Justice Department's headquarters in Washington shied away from the investigation because it appeared to be leading to money from Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally.

One of the factors cited for the less than optimal result of this trial is the timeliness of the evidence. The case may have turned out very differently if the Northern District of Illinois had filed charges when they had wanted.

Similarly, the Chicago case was closely related to, and likely had a direct impact on, the investigation into the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), another Hamas-fundraising trial which ended in a mistrial in October. An HLF juror specifically cited the length of time between some of the alleged crimes and when the charges were brought, stating, “Some of (the evidence) is 20 years old.”

To be sure, there were other issues which led to the HLF mistrial, and the government has stated its intention to retry the case. And, obviously, many mistakes were made in the years before 9/11, and Townsend was not the only official involved in shutting down the Chicago/Hamas investigation. But today's resignation, for better or worse, is a reminder that prosecutors and policy makers alike need to remain cognizant of long-term affects of certain political decisions on counterterrorism investigations and trials.

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Islamist Thuggery and Official Complacency Challenge Secular Foundations of Indonesia

By Zachary Abuza

This month has seen several incidents that are calling into question the Indonesian government’s commitment to maintaining its multi-ethnic and pluralist traditions, enshrined in its national identity the Pancasila.

Today, some 30 Islamist vigilantes attacked a “house church” in a town in West Java, a region where Islamists have traditionally been quite strong. Despite a constitution that enshrines freedom of religion, in order to establish a Christian, Buddhist or Hindu house of worship, a permit must be obtained. The permitting process, as defined in the 21 March 2006 law on religions, includes requirements for the group to have at least 90 members and win the support of at least 60 local residents of a different faith. It is often difficult to obtain such permits, and religious minorities often have informal houses of worship.

But where one sees an even greater hardening of Islamist values is in the state’s handling of Muslim sects. On 9 November, the Indonesian Supreme Court sentenced a leader of a fringe Islamic sect known as Lia Eden, Abdul Rachman, to three years in prison for blasphemy for claiming to be be the reincarnation of the Prophet Muhammad.

On 8 November 2007, the Attorney General’s office banned another Islamic sect, al-Qiyada and arrested its founder Ahmad Moshaddeq, who claimed to be the next Islamic prophet, as well as several other of his followers.

In 2004-06, there was a spate of attacks by hardline Islamist militias, such as the Islamic Defenders Front, on the Ahmadiyah sect. Several Ahmadiyah temples were destroyed and many members were injured in those attacks.

If recent history is any judge, today’s attackers of the Christian house church will not face much if any in the way of official prosecution. The government failed to arrest any FPI members for their attacks on the Ahmadiyah sect. Likewise the FPI’s 2005 march on the Liberal Islam Network headquarters and verbal threats to their leadership was not prosecuted by the state, indeed their right to free speech was cited. The quasi official Ulama’s Council of Indonesia (MUI), now headed by Din Syamsuddin, has only pushed the government to adopt a more conservative position. The MUI issued a number of fatwas against the Liberal Islam Network in 2005, and issued them against al-Qiyadi in 2006. In 1999-2001, the MUI also supported Islamic vigilantism against Christian and Hindu paramilitaries in the Malukus and Central Sulawesi. As reported by the International Herald Tribune, on 15 November 2007, “According to the People's Religious Monitoring Agency, a government body charged with keeping track of potentially heretical sects, there are 250 Islamic sects in Indonesia classified as "deviant." The Ulema Council has issued 86 fatwas against them since 1975.”

What is truly outrageous here is the fact that Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional terrorist group, is not a proscribed entity in Indonesia. Mere membership in JI is not a crime and many JI leaders, such as Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and Muhammad Iqbal Rahman (Abu Jibril), freely proselytize and raise funds for their dawa and social welfare activities. The Majelis Mujihidin Indonesia, an overt civil society organization run by Abu Bakar Ba’asyir has some 13 offices around the country.

Over 80 percent of Indonesia’s 240 million people are Muslim, making it the largest Muslim country in the world. While the majority is moderate, piety has grown rapidly, as has the prevalence of Salafism and Islamists in politics and society.

States have an obligation to uphold the law and defend their religious and ethnic minorities. While the Indonesian government deserves much credit for their determination to target militant terrorist groups, their record in defending the country’s secular traditions is poor. The state’s failure to challenge and roll back gains by Islamists, including gains made through illegal and extralegal activities, is eroding secularism and minority rights and laying the groundwork for a less tolerant society.

USAID and Possible Terrorist Funding

By Douglas Farah

The Chicago Tribune today brings word that USAID, purveyor of billions of dollars in aid around the world, cannot insure the money does not go to terrorist organizations.

It is hard to believe that six years after 9/11, with the amply-documented propensity for terrorist groups to use charities to fund that activities, that the agency:

_cannot "reasonably ensure" that its money does not wind up in terrorist hands, an internal audit has concluded._

The review found that AID had, in fact, funded terrorist-affiliated groups on two occasions, and that, despite operating in countries where terrorism is a major concern, "USAID has not developed or instituted a worldwide anti-terrorism program."

_USAID risks providing funding or other material support and resources to terrorists or terrorist organizations."_

It does seem incredible to me that this was not a high-priority issue over the past six years. This is not to say that aid should be cut off. I am a firm believer that the right kind of foreign aid, properly channeled, can be a huge help, both on humanitarian grounds and to help combat radical Islam and other ideological threats.

But the grants are not just grants, and that is why they must be taken seriously, and seriously vetted. My full blog is here.

How To Handle Terrorist Suspects: No Easy Answers

By Michael Jacobson

On October 22, a U.S. government case against the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and five of its officials -- accused of financing Hamas -- ended in a mistrial when jurors deadlocked on nearly all of the 197 counts. A week later, Spanish judges acquitted a number of defendants charged with involvement in the 2004 Madrid train attacks. These are only the latest examples of the difficulties Western countries have faced in prosecuting terrorist suspects since September 11. Efforts to handle terrorism suspects outside of the criminal justice system have also encountered significant obstacles, making clear that there are no easy answers for how to treat suspected terrorists.

Terrorism Prosecutions: A Mixed Record

Although U.S. officials have made clear that they intend to retry the HLF case, the initial verdict was nevertheless a significant setback for government efforts to prosecute terrorism supporters. It demonstrated, once again, the difficulty of convicting defendants charged with anything short of involvement in a specific terrorist attack. As a Justice Department official stated several months before the trial, "We have not alleged that Holy Land pulled the trigger or lit the fuse of a bomb. But they have facilitated those who pulled the trigger or lit the fuse."

The HLF case was not the first time the U.S. government has had difficulty with terrorism financing prosecutions. In February 2007, for example, a jury acquitted Muhammad Salah and Abdulhalim Ashqar of providing financial and logistical support to Hamas, although both were convicted on lesser charges. In 2005, Sami al-Arian, accused of heading Palestinian Islamic Jihad's (PIJ) North American operations, was acquitted of the most serious terrorism-related charges against him but pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide funds or services to PIJ.

The record is mixed even in cases involving an actual attack or plot. In the Madrid case, judges acquitted eight of the twenty-nine defendants charged with playing a role in the train attacks. The most notable acquittal was that of Rabai Usman Sayed Ahmed, the alleged mastermind of the Madrid cell who is now imprisoned in Italy, where he was convicted of ties to terrorist cells in Europe and Iraq. And this summer, a British jury failed to agree on a verdict against two of the six individuals -- Manfu Kwaku Asiedu and Adel Yahya -- charged in connection with the failed 2005 London bombings (although the two will be retried later this month).

The Zacarias Moussaoui case provides an even better example of how difficult it is to prosecute terrorist suspects even when a specific attack was involved. During the course of his three-and-a-half-year litigation, Moussaoui managed to tie the system in knots with numerous appeals. Moussaoui's ability to prolong the case was particularly striking in light of his behavior during the course of the proceedings. At various points, he admitted being a member of al-Qaeda, swore his allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and announced that he "prayed for the destruction" of the United States.

To read the rest of the piece, click here

Security Tightens Ahead of Climate Change Summit in Bali

By Kenneth Conboy

Indonesian security officials have started pouring in assets to Bali to secure that resort island ahead of a major climate change summit set to begin on 3 December. In addition to naval vessels, some thirty-five police patrol boats will begin patrolling Balinese waters in late November.

The police are being especially vigilant at points of entry to the island, and have already announced three arrests of suspicious persons. On 24 October, a person was detained at Hotel Deep Blue in Karangasem. The reason: he was alone, had a Muslim-type goatee (unusual in predominently Hindu Bali), and was found to possess a fake ID card.

On 26 October, a person claiming to be from Cimahi, West Java, was questioned in Labasara village, Karangasem. He, too, had a goatee and held fake ID.

During the first week of November, a person with a Javanese accent but no identification was stopped for questioning in Karangasem. The police have yet to announce further details of this third arrest.

More detainments can no doubt be expected during the final run-up to the Summit. Ironically, Indonesian authorities believe that the major threat to the event will not come from religious extremists, but rather from radical environmental activists..

In Stunning Move, UN and US Delist Nasreddin and His Companies from Sanctions

By Jonathan Winer

In a move subject to no publicity whatsoever, and so far not reported by the press, the UN Security Council today without explanation removed Ahmed Idris Nasreddin and 12 of his companies from the terrorist sanctions list, freeing them from sanctions on a global basis. The UN action followed a similar action by the United States dated yesterday.

The move reflects a 180 degree change from previous assessments of Nasreddin, as articulated by the U.S. Treasury when he and his companies were designated as terrorist financiers by the G-7 on April 19, 2002 and by the UN a week later.

At that time, Treasury stated that Nasreddin operated an extensive financial network providing support for terrorist related activities through commercial holdings which included "an extensive conglomeration of businesses" from which he derived income and conducted transactions. Back then, Treasury stated without qualifiication that "Nasreddin’s corporate holdings and financial network provide direct support for Nada and Bank Al Taqwa," themselves designated as terrorist financiers by the U.S. on November 7, 2001, and the UN on November 9, 2001.

Five years ago, the U.S. Treasury stated that Nasreddin held a controlling interest in Akida Bank, also on the terrorist finance sanctions list, which it described as not being a functional banking institution but a shell company lacking a physical presence, and which had its license revoked by the Bahamian government.

Treasury further stated that Bank Al Taqwa, for which Nasreddin was a director, was established in 1988 with significant backing from the Muslim Brotherhood, which had been involved in financing radical groups such as the Palestinian Hamas, Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Islamic Group, Tunisia's An-Nahda, and Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaida organization.

Previously, President George W. Bush personally announced the freezing the assets of Nasreddin's bank, Al Taqwa after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C.

Was it all some kind of mistake, and Nasreddin and his bank and companies were all on the list by error, having never helped finance any terrorist group? Or was the U.S. right the first time when it stated:

"Ahmed Idris Nasreddin provides direct support for Youssef Nada and Bank Al Taqwa, both of which were designated as terrorist financiers by the Department of Treasury on November 7, 2001. The al Taqwa group has long acted as financial advisers to al Qaida, with offices in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and the Caribbean. Ahmed Idris Nasreddin and Youssef Nada are both founders and directors of Bank Al Taqwa. Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida organization received financial assistance from Youssef Nada. Al Taqwa provides investment advice and cash transfer mechanisms for al Qaida and other radical Islamic groups."

An official explanation is definitely needed to begin to make sense of this one.

The Criminal/Terrorist Pipeline to the United States

By Douglas Farah

The Justice Department recently unveiled a case that demonstrates the growing nexus between criminal and terrorist organizations.

The case involves corrupt Colombia police officials facilitating the travel of informants purporting to be from the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the Western Hemisphere's oldest Marxist guerrilla movement and designated terrorist organization. The FARC has, over the past decade, devolved into an organization that concentrates heavily on kidnappings, extortion and the protection of the drug trade rather than any ideological motivation.

What is interesting in the case is that criminal groups are willing to knowingly transport terrorist to the United States, and not simply using the "coyote" route through Central America and Mexico.

Rather, the criminal groups offered false passports from Spain with all the supporting documents, to those posing as terrorists seeking safe passage to the United States.

This reinforces the point I have been making in recent talks to the military and elsewhere-that that pipelines matter, and control of the pipelines is one of the key concepts of the new, flat world of transnational criminal organizations. My full blog is here.

Islamists Will Quickly Aid Bangladesh Cyclone Victims (updated Nov. 18)

By Andrew Cochran

Bangladesh is the latest victim of a natural disaster in which Islamists, including groups designated by the U.S. as terrorists, already have a social assistance infrastructure. The death toll from the Bangladesh cyclone has topped 1,100 as of this post and will climb further (updated at 2:20 pm ET). Bangladesh Islamist groups such as Hizbut Tahrir, Islami Oikya Andolon, Chhatra Mukti Andolon, Islami Shasantantra Andolon, and the deadly and dangerous Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islam (which uses mobile phone technology for triggering IEDs) will no doubt provide considerable funds to assist the victims and enhance goodwill among the populace (my thanks to Animesh Roul for his posts on these groups, and see Olivier Guitta's October 1 post about Hizbut's recent growth). In May, the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) announced that it would expand its activities to help orphans in Bangladesh, as reported here by Zachary Abuza, while the U.S. have designated the IIRO offices in the Philippines and Indonesia for terrorist financing (the U.N. later also designated those offices).

The U.N., U.S., European Commission, and other Western governments have announced aid packages. I assume we will deploy Defense Department delivery assets, as we did after the Indonesia tsunami and the Kashmir earthquake, where we were quite effective in projecting American humanitarian aid. The more we deploy those assets and the faster we deploy them, the better.

UPDATE, Midnight, November 18: CNN reported that Defense Secretary Gates is expected to send "three Navy amphibious warships, with up to 3,500 Marines, to locations off the coast of Bangladesh to assist in relief efforts." And the White House announced that "the U.S. will airlift 35 tons of non-food items such as plastic sheeting, jerricans, hygiene kits and other supplies." The death toll is now reported over 2,000. Meanwhile, the Bangladesh director of Save the Children specifically asked for the U.S. to do more. The Islamists will take advantage of the tragedy to funnel money from rich donors around the world into the area to expand their existing social services while attracting grateful recruits. The U.S. and other Western countries will need to continue to deploy more assets and aid to counter the Islamists.

New NEFA Report: “The 1993 Philadelphia Meeting: A Roadmap for Future Muslim Brotherhood Actions in the U.S.”

By Evan Kohlmann

A new report is available for download from the Nine Eleven Finding Answers (NEFA) Foundation website authored by NEFA Senior Analyst Josh Lefkowitz and titled “The 1993 Philadelphia Meeting: A Roadmap for Future Muslim Brotherhood Actions in the U.S.” In October 1993, key members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. Palestine Committee - primarily representing the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) - came together in Philadelphia for a conference carefully monitored by the FBI. Wiretaps, entered into evidence at the 2007 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, reveal an extremely savvy group committed to exploiting American freedoms in order to turn the U.S. into a “safe place for the Movement” (a.k.a. Hamas). The wiretaps also provide evidence of the deeply duplicitous nature of the attendees and their organizations. From referring to Hamas as “Samah” throughout the meeting to advising that “War is deception," the attendees exhibit an acute awareness of the language they must use and the institutions they must infiltrate to achieve their goals.

The report is accompanied by a chart produced by NEFA Director of Research Ron Sandee.

Click to view NEFA Foundation website

Success Against Jemaah Islamiyah As "Bali Three" Near Execution

By Andrew Cochran

On October 25, Kenneth Conboy wrote here about the lack of attacks by Jemaah Islamiyah during Ramadan season in Indonesia: "In hindsight, 2007’s Ramadhan fast and Lebaran will probably go down as one of the most peaceful in recent memory. Not only were there no acts of terrorism, but the number of raids by hard-line Muslim vigilante groups against entertainment venues—which were commonplace around 1999—were few and far between." He also wrote of the apparent end of the appeals process for three of the 2002 Bali bombers sentenced to death for the most lethal terrorist attack after the 9/11 attacks. Late last week, Indonesia's President said the death sentence must be carried out. No date will be announced out of fear of reprisals.

So where is JI now? Our other Contributing Expert on SE Asian terrorism, Zachary Abuza, has written a new report, "The State of Jemaah Islamiyah: Terrorism and Insurgency in Southeast Asia Five Years After Bali," published by the Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies at Tuft's University's Fletcher School. Zachary discusses JI's background, its resiliency, and the means by which Indonesia and its allies have degraded JI since 2002. He concluded that "JI is operationally a shadow of its former self, and the short-term threat posed by the group has been significantly mitigated." Here are excerpts from the section on the success:

First, Indonesian security officials finally broke free of political restraints and were able to do their job following the 2002-2003 bombings. They quickly developed a cadre of highly skilled and disciplined counter-terrorist police, known as Densus-88... In general, counter-terrorist operations across Southeast Asia have led to the development and professionalization of legal and security institutions...

Second, there is now a historically unprecedented degree of security cooperation amongst the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia... Perhaps the most noticeable sign of cooperation has been in patrolling the tri-nation maritime border of Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, which has proven to be JI’s Achilles’ Heel... There has also been enhanced cooperation with foreign counterparts—in particular, the United States and Australia.

Third, the Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singaporean governments have done a very good job at trying to rehabilitate or disengage members of JI... The three governments are acutely aware that the battle against JI and similar groups is an ideological struggle, and they recognize the need to create a counter-narrative to JI’s ideology.

Iran: Has the Rising Price of Oil Trumped Sanctions?

By Victor Comras

A major debate is ranging in European capitals on how best to deal with the growing prospect of confrontation with Iran over its ongoing nuclear weapons development program. Last month French President Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called on their EU colleagues to impose new EU sanctions against Iran. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also warned that dire consequences could result if Iran were permitted to continue unimpeded on its presence course. G7 Ministers meeting in Washington also praised new warnings issued by the 34 nation Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that Iranian banks posed serious international money laundering and terrorism financing risks. The United States had hoped that against this background EU countries would follow-suit after the US targeted new sanctions measures against Iran’s largest banks, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and IRGC controlled companies. But, this has not happened. Rather, the EU council has put on hold any new measures pending further developments and further reports from EU negotiator Javier Solana and IAEA director Mohamed El Baradei.

Some of my colleagues have suggested that the new US measures, and threats that the US will look more closely at those institutions doing business with designated entities in Iran, would persuade major European and other financial institutions to disengage from such relationships. But, without EU Countries adopting their own new sanctions measures, this may be no more than wishful thinking given the rise in the price of oil, significant increases in Iran’s oil revenues, and profit motivations. While several European banks have taken some steps to reduce their Iran exposure, few have actually withdrawn from the Iran market. Several have moved away from handling US dollar transactions for Iran and substituted euros or other foreign currencies. And, Iran, itself, has adeptly moved away from US dollar transactions into euro based transactions. This is particularly the case with oil industry-related transactions. Last March, Iran’s then Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh announced Iran would accept euros for crude oil sales, and would carry out its oil-industry related equipment purchases in euros rather than dollars. Arrangements were also made with Japanese customers to accept the Yen. Iran’s new Oil Minister, Gholamhossein Nozari is also expected to direct Iran’s energy sector further away from US dollar influence. Iran's central bank has also shifted to holding its foreign reserves in a basket of 20 currencies of which U.S. dollars now reportedly make up less than 20 percent..

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s meetings last week with President Bush further underscored differences in Europe over the course of action to be followed. Unlike recent statement by French and British leaders, German leaders have continued to express their reticence to restrict banking activities, commercial deals and investments in Iran. Merkel again stressed Germany’s position that the Security Council, rather than the EU Council, is the proper forum for seeking agreement on further sanctions. She also insisted that the current round of negotiations be allowed to run through before new sanctions are considered. And, even in the likely event that such further negotiations go no-where, she committed herself only to having “a closer look again at {sanctions} and possibl(e) need to work together with our German business community. I will talk with them again on further possible reductions of those commercial ties." At the other end of the spectrum, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for a worldwide ban on all companies developing Iran’s oil and gas fields if Iran fails to curb its nuclear ambitions.

And what effect has the current international sanctions and the additional US measures actually had on Iran. Well, it is clear that they have had some impact, but certainly not enough to deter Iran from its present course. Several European banks have pulled back, or put on hold further discussions concerning some major oil field, pipeline and other potential financial commitments. Bank Sepah has had to close down its direct operations in Europe, and Bank Saderat and Bank Melli are cautiously redirecting their accounts away from European financial institutions. European boardrooms are also reflecting on the risks and likelihood of further EU sanctions measures, and as to whether they should really be concerned by threats of additional US regulatory activity. They are also concerned about their public relations in the United States, the growing impetus behind US disinvestment movements, and the threats of possible new US congressional action.

The fact is that Iran’s oil export revenue surge has served to shore up Iran’s otherwise foundering economy, at least for the short term. Last February Iran officials expected oil revenues to surpass $50 billion, and this can probably be raised by some 20 to 30 percent a result of the spot market price increases. Either way, increased oil revenues have resulted in a government revenue surplus which can be used to substitute for the loss of foreign funding for current critical infrastructure projects. However, this increased oil revenue has not insulated Iran’s vulnerable commercial class from the potential impact of any new European trade restrictions that might be directed at them. And this commercial class, which is crucial to providing new job development and for moderating current high urban unemployment rates, could prove to be Iran’s Achilles Heel.

Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal, and Islamist Financing

By Jeffrey Imm

On November 18, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), published by Dow Jones, is sponsoring a conference in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on "Islamic and Ethical Finance" to "examine the huge opportunities presented by this high-growth sector". The Wall Street Journal's "Chief Shariah Officer" for this November 18 conference is Shaykh Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, who has worked for the pro-Wahhabist International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) organization and who was secretary of the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) beginning in 1989. IIIT was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum as one of the Muslim Brotherhood's like-minded "organizations of our friends." The Investigative Project has linked members of the FCNA to Islamist extremism and terrorism.

The Dow Jones Company provides a Dow Jones Islamic Market and a Dow Jones Islamic Fund (IMANX). The Dow Jones Islamic Fund is managed by Allied Asset Advisors, a subsidiary of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). NAIT is a venture of HLF trial unindicted co-conspirator Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Regarding NAIT, Newsweek has reported that "authorities say NAIT has long been a funnel for Saudi and other gulf money seeking to spread an often anti-American brand of Islamic fundamentalism in American mosques from southern California to South Carolina -- a little-noted movement financed by Saudi billions over the past 40 years."

Among the Dow Jones' "Shari'ah Supervisory Board" is Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, who has been recently reported in the London Times as supporting aggressive Jihad against non-Muslim nations, where the London Times summarized his views as "[o]ur followers 'must live in peace until strong enough to wage jihad'". Dow Jones' advisor Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani's support of Jihad is not new. His book "Islam aur Jidat Pasandi (Islam and Modernism)" has been widely read among Islamists for years, and Chapter 11 of this book, "Aggressive and Defensive Jehad", clearly demonstrates this Dow Jones' advisor's support for aggressive Jihad. Per the London Times, Dow Jones' advisor Mufti Usmani is a Deobandi cleric and a former shariah judge from Pakistan. The Wall Street Journal's Chief Shariah Advisor Yusuf Talal Delorenzo also has experience with the Pakistan government, and was former Advisor on Islamic Affairs to the Government of Pakistan.

While the Wall Street Journal has recently published articles with criticism of politicians who link Islam to terrorism, the Wall Street Journal's financial reporting on Shariah finance seems to show no understanding of the political ideology of Islamism. An August 9, 2007 Wall Street Journal article clearly states WSJ's view of Shariah as "Islamic law" which "stems from the Quran and subsequent interpretations by scholars". Neither the Wall Street Journal nor Dow Jones addresses the role of Shariah as part of the Islamist political ideology, or the role of Islamist political ideology in promoting Jihad. The WSJ and Dow Jones efforts are effectively legitimizing the political Islamist ideology by defining Shariah as "Islamic law" and developing financial vehicles based on that ideology -- one that is not shared by Muslims that view Shariah law as neither "Islamic" nor compatible with the norms of modern society.

The Bombing at the Philippine Parliament House

By Zachary Abuza

A bomb was detonated at the Philippine House of Representatives soon after their adjournment at 8PM local time, on 14 November, killing Congressman Wahab Akbar and two other staffers, and wounding at least eight people. According to a Philippine National Police Spokesman, “It looks like Congressman Akbar was the target." Secretary of the Interior, Ronaldo Puno, reiterated that the investigation is "pointing away from terrorist attack and more of a directed assault on a certain individual." The investigation is ongoing.

Wahab Akbar, 47, was formerly the two-time governor of Basilan Province, an island just south of the Zamboanga peninsula. He was previously a guerilla leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) that signed a peace agreement with the Government in 1996. In the early 1990s, he was known to have ties to the Abu Sayyaf Group’s (ASG) founder, Abdurrajak Janjalani. Akbar cut ties following the 1996 Accord, his foray into electoral politics, and the ASG’s degeneration into a criminal gang. In 2002, US forces assisted their Philippine counterparts in driving the Abu Sayyaf off of Basilan. Governor Akbar was supportive of the efforts of the US Embassy and JSOTF-P’s operations in Basilan. But in the past two years, the ASG have been trying to return to the island. Akbar has been openly supportive of operations against his former allies, the ASG. While the ASG has engaged in bombings in metro-Manila before, it tends not to employ bombings for targeted assassinations. Late Tuesday the evening the PNP received an SMS message from someone claiming to be a member of the ASG. Police, however, said that the sender was not known by them to be a member of the ASG. The ASG claimed responsibility for an explosion at the Glorietta Mall in Makati last month that killed 11, whose cause is still being investigated.

But the ASG are only one of many suspects. Akbar had friends but he also had plenty of enemies.

The MILF, who have a small presence on Basilan, have their own beef with Akbar. In July, Philippine Armed Forces went on an offensive against a group of Abu Sayyaf, who had taken refuge in an area of Basilan controlled by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The MILF do not deny that they fought the armed forces in self defense, killing 14. Yet ten of those were also beheaded. The MILF deny that they were protecting, let alone, fighting along side, the Abu Sayyaf, yet that position is not tenable. The MILF have been increasingly angered by the MNLF’s unwillingness to support the GRP-MILF peace process, and tend to view the MNLF as corrupt sellouts who no longer are the legitimate representatives of the Bangsamoro. On 10 November, the MNLF chairman, Nur Misuari warned that the peace pact with the MILF “will be illegal,” as the MNLF’s agreement is the “final agreement” and cannot be superceded. The GRP-MILF peace process has been stalled for almost 14 months, over the issue of ancestral domain, but the real issue is the intra-Moro conflict. The MILF will of course deny any involvement, citing their commitment to the peace process, and right now there is no evidence that they were behind the bombing. The MILF, it should be noted, have attempted bombings cum assassinations against Muslim rivals in the past, in particular against the Ampatuan clan.

No other group or individual has claimed responsibility, and there is the potential that it could have simply been a political feud. Akbar had plenty of political enemies in Basilan. The two term-governor was succeeded by one of his three wives, and another wife is the Mayor of the provincial capital, Isabella. The third wife has tried to enter electoral politics, which tends to be a blood sport in the southern Philippines.

But the ASG should not be ruled out just yet. It would be the first known attempt by the ASG to target a political leader for assassination outside of the deep south, in particular with a bomb. It is also evidence that despite a concerted military campaign against the ASG, they are still able to conduct operations that reinforce the perception of political instability in the Philippines.

But sadly the bombing reinforces the notion that the Philippine Government, despite massive American assistance just cannot get their house in order. The security situation remains fragile. The NPA have stepped up attacks around the country. And a culture of impunity not seen since the Marcos era is evident with the extrajudicial killing of some 700 suspected leftists and government critics.

The Long Decline of Counter-Intelligence Capability

By Douglas Farah

As my colleagues have noted, the case of Nadia Nadim Prouty and her ability to illegally acquire citizenship, security clearances and sensitive employment in the FBI and CIA, raises many disturbing issues.

But underlying this failure and numerous other penetration efforts by Islamist groups is the large-scale failure of U.S. counter-intelligence efforts for many years. There are numerous cases of Chinese infiltration agents, Islamist penetration and Russian penetrations that underscore the shrinking ability to monitor or detect the spies working in this country.

The capacity has been rapidly shrinking for several decades, and, despite the threat of Islamist terrorists and the growing activities of the Chinese in both traditional and industrial espionage, the entire concept of a counter-intelligence has withered on the vine, from before the Clinton administration through the current administration. Currently, that capacity barely exists, according to my friends in the intelligence community.

This does not mean spying on everyone or running roughshod over our constitutional rights. But it does imply a realistic view of how the world works, and basic measures to protect ourselves. There are historic examples of counter-intelligence efforts run amok, too, and safeguards must be put in place to guard against that.

One of the fundamental problems goes back to the basic conceptualization of the problem. When the Cold War ended it was assumed that counter-intelligence capacity was no longer needed. The Soviet Union was gone, the world was becoming flat and the capacity was redundant. My full blog is here.

Video Games: Crucial Front in the War of Ideas

By Aaron Mannes

Today's New York Sun has an op-ed I co-authored with my boss, University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies director, V.S. Subrahmanian on incorporating video games into the war of ideas against Islamist extremism.

Gaming: Tactical Advantage

BY AARON MANNES AND VENKATRAMANAN SUBRAHMANIAN
November 14, 2007

When Hezbollah released the second version of its video game "Special Force" in August, it demonstrated, yet again, how quickly terrorist groups have taken advantage of technology in order to propagate their worldview. While America dominates the fastgrowing multi-billion dollar video game industry, there has not yet been an effort to develop video games that counter Islamist extremism.

"Special Force 2" updates the 2002 video game with scenarios based on last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah: players kidnap Israeli soldiers, fire missiles at an Israeli gunboat, and launch Katyusha rockets into Israel. When the game was released a Hezbollah press official, Sheikh Ali Dahir, described it as a recruiting tool stating, "The Lebanese child has the right to know what happened in the south so as to imitate the jihadist action and the act of liberating the land."

Read the entire article here.

Hizballah Mole Case Reflects Depth of Threat

By Bill West

The emerging prosecution case against the former FBI and CIA officer in Detroit who has just pleaded guilty to various Federal felonies stemming from her apparent fraudulent infiltration of those agencies demonstrates the threat posed by operatives and sympathizers of terrorist organizations penetrating the front-line national security departments defending America from those very terror organizations. This is nothing new. This is the way skilled hostile intelligence organizations conduct espionage during wartime. This particular case, disturbingly, may be indicative of the level of sophistication Hizballah’s intelligence apparatus, surely with the assistance of the Iranian government, has reached.

Equally disturbing is how the accused defendant employed, with apparent ease, immigration fraud to remain in the United States after first entering on a temporary student visa (and how many hundreds of thousands of others like her from terrorist producing countries have similarly entered the US in recent years?). She then engaged in a sham marriage to obtain permanent resident status and ultimately obtained naturalized US citizenship via fraud. Having obtained US citizenship, she applied to the FBI and became an agent and later transferred to the CIA. A more potentially damaging security scenario would be hard to imagine.

While the Federal law enforcement authorities who brought this case to fruition should be commended, there are apparent systemic problems presented by this case. The background investigation process for such positions, one might have assumed, should have identified her original illegal immigration status. Was that even a “red flag” in the security process? Original illegal immigration status, followed by resident status via marriage and quick divorce, facts identified in the case press release, are indicators of fraud. Should those factors not have been considered during the vetting for a Top Secret clearance? If not, why not? These, perhaps, are questions for further inquiry; perhaps by Congressional oversight authorities.

Unfortunately, terrorists and their supporters fraudulently acquiring US citizenship and otherwise engaging in immigration fraud in support of their nefarious actions, to include the infiltration of US Government agencies, is something not limited to this case. Read more about such matters here, here, here and here.

Hizballah's Penetration of the FBI, CIA

By Steven Emerson

As noted by Michael Cutler, the sister-in-law of Hizballah-linked fugitive Talal Chahine pled guilty today to fraudulently obtaining her citizenship, using her illegally acquired status to attain employment with both the FBI and CIA, and illegally using government computers to gather Hizballah-related intelligence.

Nadia Nadim Prouty, aka Nadia Nadim Al Aouar, came to the U.S. in 1990 on a non-immigrant visa, overstayed her visa and entered into a fraudulent marriage in Michigan to a U.S. citizen. Prouty submitted a series of fraudulent affidavits, notably from her sister Elfat Al Aouar and her husband, Talal Chahine, attesting to the validity of Prouty’s marriage. According to the federal government, “As planned, [Prouty] never lived as husband and wife with her fraudulent ‘husband’ and the marriage was never consummated sexually.”

But Prouty did use her newly gained citizenship to get a job as a Special Agent with the FBI, which requires U.S. citizenship for employment, in 1999. Prouty was given a security clearance and tasked to the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

According to prosecutors in the Eastern District of Michigan, Prouty used FBI computers - absent authorization - to run searches on herself, her sister and her brother in law, Elfat Al Aouar and Talal Chahine, owners of the popular Michigan-based restaurant chain, La Shish.

In May 2006, Chahine and Al Aouar were charged with tax evasion, with some of the proceeds allegedly funneled to Hizballah. As part of that case, the government asserted, in a written proffer 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.

Prouty Case Shows Citizenship the "Keys to the Kingdom"

By Michael Cutler

I do not know how many times I have made the point that United States citizenship represents the "Keys to the Kingdom." United States citizenship opens all sorts of doors to those who do not wish to share the "American Dream" but rather create a nightmare for our nation and our citizens. United States citizenship enables the alien who acquires United States citizenship to be able to work at any job he or she is qualified to do. It enables the person in question to be given security clearances that provide access to highly sensitive intelligence and enables such individuals to embed themselves in our nation and hide in plain sight among us.

Time and time again, we have seen how terrorists and spies have gamed the immigration system to acquire legitimate immigration status and even United States citizenship in furtherance of their nefarious objectives. This Justice Department press release chronicles the most recent example of how Nada Nadim Prouty, an individual linked to a terrorist organization, managed to become a resident alien based on her marriage to a United States citizen and then, ultimately naturalize. This made her eligible to hold a high security clearance and use that access to intelligence and information against our nation.

I find it a bit ironic that, as I have often noted in public appearances including when I have testified before Congressional hearings that as someone once noted, "An effective spy is someone who would not attract the attention of a waiter or waitress at a greasy spoon diner." I have gone on to say that in point of fact, the same could be said of an effective terrorist and, indeed, it might well be that the waiter or waitress in such an establishment might be, in fact, a spy or terrorists.

You will note in the highlighted sections of the DOJ press release that the defendant and terrorist in this article, Nada Nadim Prouty, a naturalized citizen from Lebanon was, in fact, identified as being a waitress who was, in reality, affiliated with Hezbollah, a known terrorist organization.

This is why it is patently absurd to think that as the President and other open borders advocates have continually said that if we allowed those aliens into our country who simply want to work and do the jobs "Americans won't do," we will be safer because then law enforcement and the intelligence community can focus on the terrorists who seek to enter our country to do us harm. Here is a startling clear example of a terrorist who apparently wanted to do nothing more serious than get a job. She was facilitated in her quest to embed herself in our country by a division of DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in providing her with United States citizenship even though she had committed naturalization fraud.

Last year, you may recall, Senators Chuck Grassley and Sue Collins commissioned an investigation into allegations that USCIS claims to have "lost" 111,000 alien immigration files of aliens seeking a wide variety of immigration benefits including some 30,000 such aliens who were naturalized without their relating files! You can access this press release issued by Senator Grassley concerning this critical issue and the GAO report findings. You can also access a press release issued by Senator Sue Collins on this matter. Additionally, on March 10, 2006, Representative James F. Sensenbrenner, the then-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a press release concerning a GAO report that was issued on the day of his press release into the national security implications of immigration benefit fraud.

What we need to know is what is being done to create a system that possesses true integrity where the granting of immigration benefits is concerned. In point of fact, little is done to ferret out the fraud in the immigration benefits program. This must change. Immigration is not simply about building a fence on the border or even going after employers who knowingly employ easy to exploit illegal aliens. For immigration enforcement to be truly effective our government must also create an immigration benefits program that possesses meaningful integrity that identifies those who commit fraud to deter future such criminal violations. This would require that ICE employ many thousands of additional special agents who conduct effective proactive investigations into immigration benefit fraud. To ignore this critical component of immigration is to leave the door open to this sort of situation

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Turkish Special Forces Attack PKK Inside Iraq

By Andrew Cochran

Just over a week after President Bush promised Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan aid in fighting PKK, Turkish special forces attacked across the border into Iraq. The limited action, apparently consisting of helicopter gunship raids on two villages, is a clear sign of more cross-border activity to come, as the army basically promised last week after the meeting. Reports after last week's meeting indicated that the U.S. would provide detailed intelligence which would enable the Turkish military to hit specific PKK targets, and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki publicly signaled his government's support for Turkish incursions. "The prime minister renewed the willingness of the Iraqi government to take steps to isolate the terrorist PKK, prevent any help reaching its members, chase and arrest them, and put them in front of the Iraqi judiciary because of their terrorist activities."

In the November 5 meeting with President Bush, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan “strongly urged that the United States work with leaders in Iraq to cut off money flows to the PKK.” Whether the PKK's international financial structure is vulnerable to conventional methods of designation by the U.S. Treasury Department and allies is a subject of discussion and some doubt in the counter-terrorism community.

My thanks to Timothy Thompson for his valuable contributions to this post and to our knowledge base on this issue.

Book: Saddam Hussein Faked Having WMDs to Trick Iran

By James Gordon Meek

Saddam Hussein: Cried when FBI interrogator went home

Living in a hush-hush prison cell inside Baghdad International Airport after his capture in a Tikrit spider hole, ex-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a study in megalomania for the FBI agents tasked to interrogate the despot. He was obsessive about cleanliness, constantly washing his hands with baby wipes - just like those used by most American G.I.s - and even used them to polish the fruit his military captors delivered. Though jailed and facing certain execution, he believed, Saddam still thought he would be viewed as one of the region's great leaders in a thousand years, he told his FBI interrogator.

This fascinating story of Saddam's last days unfolds in journalist Ronald Kessler's new book, "The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack," which we report on exclusively in today's New York Daily News. The chapter on the FBI interrogation of Saddam reveals essential insights that are certain to raise new questions about how the U.S. became mired in Iraq.

Read my full post with more details at the Daily News' Mouth of the Potomac Blog.

Legal response should be software response

By Roderick Jones

Lord Admiral Alan West, Gordon Brown's chief security minister made an unfortunate mistake yesterday - he spoke his mind. When asked at 8.20am whether, he thought detention times should be extended past 28 days he said, "I'm not convinced we need to hold terror suspects longer than 28 days". Following a breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister he emerged from Downing Street stating that, "Actually, I am convinced". Lord West is not a career politician and was bought into government by Gordon Brown as GOAT (Government of all the Talents). Moving the detention time for terrorists is a political power-play by the government and has little to do with what is actually needed. This episode also highlights an unfortunate trend in Britain, whereby Security and Intelligence officials are forced into making statements for political consumption. In the long run this is to the benefit of neither them or the public they are there to serve.

The focus of my CT blog postings is to be the intersection of terrorism, technology and innovation. By way of introducing the subject and demonstrating how they interact I would like to make some comment on the debate that continues in the UK regarding pre-charge detention times as they relate to terrorist offences.

The current terrorist threat faced by the U.K. is different to what has preceded it, but then no new security threat is the same as that which came before it. Terrorists innovate and adapt technology, so while the threat from domestic jihadi terrorism is of a new kind, the scale of home grown extremist threats in the UK is not. MI5 has long tracked more individuals than the 2,000 extremists that its new head claims are operating in the UK. The two main tactical innovations that jihadi terrorists have applied in the UK, which have proven so disruptive to the British legal and procedural response, are suicide bombing and use of the Internet. In essence the stated need for increased pre-charge detention times is a government tactical response to the terrorists tactical shift to suicide bombing. The practice of counter-terrorism has indeed changed since the days of the Provisional IRA. Counter-terrorism commanders tasked with intercepting terrorists no longer have the ability to allow plots to run long enough to form conclusive evidence against a terrorist cell - the introduction of suicide bombing compresses the space for interdiction. With the conviction against the Metropolitan Police in the de Menezes case under public health and safety legislation, the disruption of plots may now have to happen even further up the chain of events. This leads to an evidential reliance on material collected from suspect terrorist’s computers -- due to the terrorist use of the Internet for planning and communicating and the fact that ‘wiretap’ evidence is still considered to be outside the legal process.

The system of forensically discovering incriminating evidence on computers is time-consuming given the mass of data potentially involved in a large-scale plot. Hence, the stated need for the increased detention times. However, when faced with new threats it is imperative that the counter-terrorist agencies also innovate, and in this case the creation of specialized search software for use on seized computers may negate the need for dismantling important legal protections. The challenge is one of software not legislation. But is also likely that terrorists will simply change the rules of the game to ensure incriminating data isn’t held on hard-drives that can be seized, rendering this particular avenue of prosecution obsolete as well as making the debate over detention times seem rather quaint.

As part of the political battle surrounding detention times (Gordon Brown is said to favor an increase to 56 days) the British government has taken to using senior police and intelligence officers to bolster its case. All of these figures will focus on the need to change and add to the law’s covering terrorism - something the government has done four times since 2000 and proposes to do once more. British counter-terrorism doesn’t need new law it needs new technology, coupled with a recognition it is now fighting in a virtual landscape. Therefore, the next time the head of MI5 makes a public speech, it would be more re-assuring if he were announcing a deal with Google!

Roderick Jones Joins Us As Contributing Expert

By Andrew Cochran

We are pleased to welcome Roderick Jones to CTB as a Contributing Expert. Roderick is a former member of the UK’s Special Branch (now Counter-Terrorism Command) and is currently Vice President of Concentric Solutions, a security consultancy. His professional focus has been largely on terrorism, but he has also concentrated on wider issues of intelligence and security policy through PhD work with Peter Hennessy at the University of London (interrupted by 9/11).

Roderick’s current interest is the intersection of technology, security and innovation. He will also post on terrorism events and counter-terrorism policies in the UK.

Roderick wrote a concept paper on the use of Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMPORGs) by terrorists, which I posted on March 1 as "MetaTerror: The Potential Use of MMORPGs by Terrorists." That post drew numerous reactions in the Internet and broader tech community, resulting in my follow-up on March 12.

Roderick has a Master’s degree in History from the University of Cambridge. He can be reached at roderick.jones@gmail.com. We look forward to his contributions.

A Dangerous Transfer of Wealth

By Douglas Farah

The Washington Post had a provocative article on the massive redistribution of oil wealth the new, record prices for oil, is causing.

The reality of shifting resources from one section of the world to another is not unusual, although this shift is the largest in history. Nor is it necessarily a bad thing for new countries to experience the bounty of controlling a vital natural resource. But what is disturbing about it is that it is mostly benefiting countries that wish to do us harm.

Our inability to wean ourselves from foreign oil has long been providing the financing for groups and countries that want to eliminate us, including terrorist organizations fed from the oil-rich nations. Former CIA director R. James Woolsey has been trying to drive that point home for years. The irony of financing our own destruction seems lost on most policy makers.

Even if one does not buy into the ecological stakes in the need to slash our oil consumption, the national security reasons should be compelling, and yet no one in this election year, Democrats or Republicans, is making that case. And the current administration certainly has not.

In short, we are delivering a $700 billion (at least, as prices are still rising) to the following nations: Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela. The implications are profound, and an orchestrated response by us is years away. My full blog is here.

New Report from NEFA Foundation - "A Taliban Resurgence: The Destabilization of Kabul?"

By Evan Kohlmann

An exclusive new report is available for download from the NEFA Foundation website by NEFA Senior Investigator Claudio Franco, titled "A Taliban Resurgence: The Destabilization of Kabul?" Although the defeat of the Taliban regime in 2001 seemed complete and virtually effortless, the initial optimism has long since given way to a security situation which is once again seriously deteriorating. Over the past few years, the Taliban has introduced the sinister tactic of suicide bombing to Afghanistan, and maintains its alliance with international terrorists. The movement of Koranic students that the U.S. bombed out of power has undergone a metamorphosis. In his report, Mr. Franco examines the resurgent Taliban organization in Afghanistan, its new generation of leaders, and what its future intentions are--and, moreover, whether rumours of a possible split within the movement are actually credible, or just wishful thinking.

Click to view NEFA Foundation website

Justice for AMIA: Interpol & Argentina vs. Iran

By Aaron Mannes

There is a country and an international organization willing to stand up to the Iranian. Earlier this week Interpol voted overwhelmingly (74-14 with 26 abstentions) to issue a red letter calling for the arrest of five Iranians accused by the Argentine government of orchestrating the 1994 bombing of the Jewish communal offices (known as AMIA) in Buenos Aires. This move may not bring real justice to the AMIA victims, but it is a small step in the right direction and it sheds important light on the nature of the Iranian regime.

Interpol’s red letter placed five Iranians and Hezbollah’s notorious director of external operations on its most wanted list. This move will probably not bring the perpetrators of the bombing to justice. Interpol has no power force these arrests. Countries that abide by international standards are likely to comply; countries that evade international standards do not comply. Iran is notorious for evading international standards, on issues large (such as the nuclear program) and small (such as keeping politics out of the Olympics).

Unsurprisingly Iran lobbied heavily against the decision and accuses Interpol of bowing to U.S. pressure.

The Argentine investigation of the AMIA bombing, which killed 85 people and wounded over 200 got off to a rocky start and has been dogged by allegations of corruption and incompetence - leading Interpol to deny previous Argentine requests. However, the Interpol vote endorses the latest investigation as “highly professional” and thorough. (A summary translated into English can be read here.)

Read the complete post here.

Islamists Waste Little Time in Pakistan

By Douglas Farah

Defense secretary Robert Gates is rightly concerned that the internal turmoil in Pakistan is distracting crucial efforts from tracking al Qaeda and the resurgent Taliban.

"The concern I have is that the longer the internal problems continue, the more distracted the Pakistani army and security services will be in terms of the internal situation rather than focusing on the terrorist threat in the frontier area," Gates said.

There are plenty of signs of the damage already done. Some 200 members of government forces in the Swat Valley surrendered to the Taliban in recent days. In the Northwest Frontier Territory, a car bomb has killed a senior government official. Across the country troops are deployed to monitor, arrest and beat the democratic opposition.

How distracted is the army? It seems like plenty. Musharraf's power play has discredited an already weak government, and my friends monitoring the situation say the command-and-control structure is in tatters. My full blog is here.

Pakistan Amends Anti Terror Law Amid Fear of 'Territorial Disintegration'

By Animesh Roul

With prevalent chaotic political and security situation, Pakistan military government has amended the controversial Army Act of 1952. The amendment would allow military courts to prosecute anybody suspected of terrorist or subversive activity. It would also give a legal standing and sweeping powers to law enforcement and intelligence agencies to arrest any suspects and the detention could not be challenged in any court, including the Supreme Court. Government sources have been drawing parallel with the United States’ Patriot Act.

Pakistan’s military ruled government is increasingly loosing its grip over the mainstream political parties, especially Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, even though countrywide crackdown continues on media, political activists and lawyers. The country, presently under emergency rule, is also fast loosing territory to pro-Taliban Jihadi elements, leaving President Musharraf in a bind. Thousands of militants, mostly from neighboring Uzbekistan and Afghanistan have already joined Maulana Fazlullah, the Islamist leader of Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) outfit, who holds sway over tribal dominated scenic Swat region. Fazlullah armed with deadly Shaheen commando force and one radio channel, raised voice against President Pervez Musharraf since late last month, have forced hundreds of security forces to surrender and captured many government posts and camps during their continued offensive. Fazlullah led militants’ reportedly controlled six administrative divisions of Swat including Matta, Charbagh, and Kalam. Sources indicate that the militants are planning to capture two remaining divisions of Swat in the coming days. Militants have reportedly replaced Pakistani flags with flags bearing Quranic inscription in the occupied territory. Like Fazlullah, Taliban warlord and Pro al Qaeda militant leader Baitullah Mehsud too holds control of over large tracts of Waziristan region. Observers fear the whole North West Frontier Province (NWFP), bordering Afghanistan, would come under militants’ occupation soon, if not restricted by Pakistan armed forces effectively. Now Musharraf has no option but to wage a full fledged war with militants, as talks in the past have failed with these militants.

Sources: Feds Target Hezbollah Cell in L.A.

By James Gordon Meek

Today we report in the New York Daily News about a bizarre case unfolding in the Los Angeles communities Bell and Cudahy, where a special task force collared a dozen Arab-American and Latino suspects involved in a seemingly small-time drug and counterfeit clothing ring. While on the surface it doesn't appear to be terrorism-related, our sources say Operation Bell Bottoms targeted a "classic case of terrorism financing," with the defendants smuggling profits from selling dope and counterfeit goods in L.A. back to Iran-backed Shiite terror group Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon.

Neither the press release by the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California or court filings by the government specifically mention Hezbollah or terrorism. But one clue is found in the affidavits filed in court, which are signed by prosecutors from the Justice Department's National Security Division and by an FBI official assigned to "Counterterrorism Squad 4" in L.A., a task force brimming with agents from the FBI, DEA, IRS, Department of Homeland Security and local cops. CT-4 isn't known for making drug and counterfeiting cases.

The counterfeit designer duds were sold out of local stores by the defendants from Bell and Cudahy. My colleague Jeff Anderson has written astounding stories that suggest no criminal activity in Cudahy is done without the blessing - and tax being paid to - the Mexican mafia and 18th Street gang. Also, while unmentioned so far in court papers, Hezbollah is well known to have profited from the illegal sale of name-brand counterfeits produced in the tri-border area of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.

The Daily News has reported on similar scams before that were proven in federal court to be Hezbollah fundraising operations. Often they have involved smuggling cigarettes and other goods, as CT Blog contributing expert Matthew Levitt blogged about yesterday.

As the possibility of a confrontation with Iran arises, so have fears that Hezbollah operatives involved in the U.S. fundraising schemes could turn operational and attack at Tehran's behest. While that may be a remote possibility, a federal case in 2003 fueled such speculation. Defendant Mahmoud Youssef Kourani was accused by federal prosecutors in Detroit of being a Hezbollah soldier trained in "weaponry, spycraft and counterintelligence." Kourani's brother was Hezbollah's security chief in southern Lebanon.

Lebanese imbroglio

By Olivier Guitta

While the deadline for the election of a president is looming fast in Lebanon, the situation remains as murky as possible.
World diplomats are trying to deal with this potentially explosive issue.
The potential role of Christian General Aoun might turn out to be quite important.
For proof, please read on two excerpts (full stories available to subscribers) of two recent stories featured in The Croissant:

1- Lebanese Christian General Aoun, potential next target?

The Beirut antenna of a Western intelligence service recently sent a confidential and secret note to its European headquarters stating that General Aoun is allegedly threatened and that he is sitting at the top of the list of potential targets of political assassinations.
This document bases its analysis on the evolution of Aoun’s policy. In fact, Aoun has been recently accused by its allies of “getting closer to the US again” after he met last week with US ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman.
Indeed some in the US administration still believe that Aoun would be a good president to disarm Hezbollah in accordance to UN resolution 1559.
Aoun also thinks that its allies [mostly Hezbollah and Syria] have exploited him without supporting its candidacy to the presidency.That is exactly why Hezbollah and Syria are concerned about Aoun’s allegiance.

2- General Aoun losing its main financier?

Since he has become an Hezbollah ally, General Aoun does not hold the US close to his heart [The Croissant’s note: this is pretty ungrateful because no country helped more Aoun than the US when his only goal was to kick Syria out of Lebanon.]
In an interview with Le Temps over the summer, the Christian general accused Washington of destabilizing Lebanon.
[President] Bush said he would freeze the assets of those who work against the legitimate Lebanese government. Obviously Aoun felt threatened and said "some of our supporters are getting scared".
According to the brand new revelations of the Kuwaiti newspaper Ar Rai, Wadih Absi is one of Aoun’s main financiers.
Absi is a Lebanese Christian who made a fortune in Kuwait: he arrived there as a worker and is today at the helm of one of the largest construction companies in the region: the First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Company (FKTC).

Hezbollah Financing Through Criminal Activity

By Matthew Levitt

A two-year counterterrorism and drug investigation culminated earlier this week with the arrest of a dozen individuals in Los Angeles. Authorities reportedly seized 30 kilograms of cocaine and counterfeit merchandise valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to the LA Times, at least one of the suspects is tied to Hezbollah and was referenced - though not by name - in 2005 congressional testimony by an official with the LA County Sheriff’s Department.

I testified at that hearing as well. As I noted then, Hezbollah depends on a wide variety of criminal enterprises, ranging from smuggling to fraud to drug trade to diamond trade in regions across the world, including North America, South America, and the Middle East, to raise money to support Hezbollah activities.

FBI's New Friends Were Kicked Out of UAE For "Talibanization"

By Andrew Cochran

As a follow-up to Steve Emerson's post about the FBI's meeting with Tanzeem-e-Islami, I want to suggest to the FBI that they use a website named "Google" to comprehensively search the groups and individuals with which they are planning to meet. If they had done that search well, they would have found that the UAE government kicked Ahmad's supporters out of the country back in May, fearing "the spread of Talibanization." Excerpts from a story:

ISLAMABAD: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deported dozens of the disciples of noted scholar Dr Israr Ahmad for holding Dars-e-Qur’aan sessions in Dubai, fearing the spread of Talibanisation in the country.

“They violated the laws,” FO spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told The News but added that she had no knowledge of the exact numbers of the deportees.

The News has learnt that the Dubai police arrested around 70 Pakistanis for attending the congregation. The majority of them are believed to be the disciples of Dr Israr Ahmad. About 30 of them have been deported, while the rest have been directed to wind up their businesses and leave the country by the end of July, Bakhtiyar Khilji, chief administrator of Tanzeem-e-Islami - the party headed by Dr Israr Ahmad - told The News.

Khilji feared that this “crackdown” by the UAE government might lead to an en masse deportation of Dr Israr’s followers. “The UAE government happens to be very sensitive to such congregations. The police had arrested the people whenever suspicion of their participants to the Dars-e-Qur’aan congregation arose.”

The FBI should have been able to find this story - it took me about two minutes - and take a deep breath before thinking about that meeting.

Winds of Military Change

By Douglas Farah

In recent weeks I have spent time at numerous events with U.S. military personnel across the different services, speaking, listening and watching as the senior officers challenge the assumptions they have help on the war on terrorism, Iraq, Afghanistan and other pressing issues.

One of the most innovative new concepts bubbling to the surface is that a great deal can be accomplished in pushing back against Islamist radicals, transnational criminal groups, warlords and militias by recognizing these issues all affect a nation's sovereignty.

If one recognizes this, then the need to form coalitions built on U.S. assumptions, pressures and cajoling diminishes considerably. Nations can take actions in their own enlightened self interest to improve or regain their own sovereignty that benefit aspects of U.S. policy, without having to agree on any other policy aspect.

Most nations do not want organized criminal networks corrupting the system. Most do not want their territory to be terrorist enclaves. Most do not want warlords controlling vast swaths of territory.

This concept of helping nations focus on their own national sovereignty issues is liberating from the highly unpopular concepts of "coalitions of the willing" and other policies that have been trotted out in recent times. My full blog is here.

FBI's Latest Outreach Outrage

By Steven Emerson

As Pakistan rapidly descends into chaos, the FBI is reaching out to an American branch of one of the most noxious Islamist elements in Pakistan, the Tanzeem-e-Islami. Top officials from Detroit's FBI Field office spoke at a gathering in a Warren, Michigan mosque to talk about the dangers of extremism in every religion. Apparently, the FBI agents were unaware that at that very moment, they were speaking to an extremist organization. Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote on the Investigative Project on Terrorism's website:

Much has been written about the U.S. government's current bout of schizophrenia in its outreach to the American Muslim community, specifically related to the Department of Justice. While federal prosecutors in Dallas have labeled several Islamist organizations as unindicted co-conspirators - describing them as front groups for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood - in the terrorist financing trial against the Holy Land for Relief and Development (HLF), the FBI is meeting with the very same groups to hold outreach events and the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ is setting up booths at their conferences.

As wrongheaded and shortsighted as these policies are, they do not hold a candle to a recent outreach event held by the FBI's Detroit field office at the end of last month. As reported in the Detroit Free Press (see: Detroit's FBI chief: Violence extremism cuts across religions), two top FBI officials from that office "spoke to about 50 Muslims inside the Islamic Organization of North America, or Tanzeem-e-Islami." The Free Press described the organization as merely "a Sunni mosque with a primarily Pakistani congregation" and tells us that the meeting was nothing more than "part of an effort by the FBI to reach out to Muslims and other communities."

While outreach to the Muslim community remains an important endeavor, officials at the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have become far less discerning in determining who the gatekeepers and spokesmen for the American Muslim community should be.

Take this recent meeting with Tanzeem-e-Islami, a group founded in Pakistan in 1975 and headed by a man named Dr. Israr Ahmad. The FBI might be unaware, but Ahmad is often credited with initiating the vicious rumor, spread throughout the Muslim world, that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. On the heels of the attacks, he sent faxes to various U.S. mosques and Islamic centers, stating:

The secret Israeli service Musad [sic] orchestrated these terrorist attacks ... [which] are a vital link in the chain of events that the Jews are undertaking to fulfill their dream of world domination.

It turns out that Dr. Ahmad is a rather prolific writer on such topics, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories permeate his writing.

For the full article, click here to visit the IPT's website.

Interpol Adds Buenos Aires Bombing Suspects to Most-Wanted List

By Andrew Cochran

Interpol today added five Iranians and a Lebanese man to its most-wanted list over their suspected role in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The bombing killed 85 and injured 250. In adding the suspects, Interpol members soundly rejected Iranian objections, with members voting overwhelmingly in favor of the proposed additions, 78-14, with 26 abstentions.

Quoting from the AP story: "The six wanted notices are for former Iranian intelligence chief Ali Fallahian; Mohsen Rabbani, former cultural attache at the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires; former diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari; Mohsen Rezaei, former leader of the elite Revolutionary Guards; Ahmad Vahidi, a general in the Revolutionary Guards; and Hezbollah militant Imad Moughnieh, one of the world's most sought-after terror suspects. Moughnieh, whose whereabouts are unknown, is wanted for his alleged role in the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s, and suicide attacks on the U.S. Embassy and a Marine base in Lebanon that killed more than 260 Americans."

We've followed this process closely over the past year, including withholding sensitive information from release at the request of Interpol officials. Several of our Contributing Experts have covered and analyzed it continuously since the 1994 bombing. This clear victory vindicates the years of dogged pursuit by Interpol and Argentine prosecutors and demonstrates the eventual fruits of persistent international cooperation between law enforcement agencies. It also adds an important international imprimatur to efforts to sanction Iran for sponsoring international terrorism for years.

See the following CTB posts about the matter:

Douglas Farah, "Small Progress in Argentina," October 26, 2006

Aaron Mannes, "AMIA Background," October 27, 2006 - and Aaron also wrote, "Terror in Buenos Aires: A lesson in Hezbollah terror" in 2005 on National Review Online

Douglas Farah, "Small But Important Steps on Iran, Hezbollah and Argentina," March 5, 2007

Matthew Levitt, "Dangerous Partners: Targeting the Iran-Hizballah Alliance," August 1, 2007 (full piece on Washington Institute website)

Pakistan: Media Reports on Pakistani Islamists Conceal Their Anti-Freedom Ideology

By Jeffrey Imm

In the media coverage of Pakistan President Musharraf's declaration of emergency and martial law, Islamists objecting to his emergency declaration are being portrayed as defenders of Pakistani freedom, when in fact they represent Islamist anti-freedom ideologies. While there are certainly other genuinely pro-freedom individuals who object to Musharraf's emergency declaration, media sources are combining reports of anti-freedom Islamists' criticism along with other democratic opponents of Pakistan President Musharraf, and in the process, lending undue credibility to Islamist Pakistanis.

This is starkly reflected in the media reporting on such figures as Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Hamid Gul. Both of these individuals are Islamists within Pakistan, who seek to undermine any remaining pluralism and freedom in Pakistan and replace it with an anti-freedom Islamist ideology. What media reports fail to point out is that such "repressed" Pakistani Islamists as Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Hamid Gul and their supporters are likely to want to see someone like Osama Bin Laden lead Pakistan.

Islamist Qazi Hussain Ahmed

Regarding Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the November 5 Washington Post views him as "head of a conservative religious party", and reports Qazi Hussain Ahmed's calls against Musharraf as: "It's time to take a stand. It's a now-or-never chance, and people should come out on the streets and throw out this military dictator." The Washington Post reports that "[h]undreds of the party's activists had been arrested as of Monday morning, a party spokesman said". The Washington Post does not identify the organizations or the ideology that Qazi Hussain Ahmed and his political parties represent.

In fact, the "conservative religious party" that Qazi Hussain Ahmed leads is Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), which is also part of the Muttahidah Majlis-e-'Amal (Council of United Action) (MMA) -- that he also leads. Neither are merely a "conservative religious party", but are Islamist political organizations, with reported support of Jihad by their leaders and some of their members.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed has been reported as a sympathizer and defender of Osama Bin Laden. One media report stated "Qazi Hussain Ahmed has earlier made flattering comments about Osama bin Laden, and his party, Jamaat-e-Islami, also has hailed al-Qaeda members as heroes." Qazi Hussain Ahmed views that the 9/11 attacks were "specially designed to crush Muslims all over the world under this garb".

In his own party's media news ("Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) Media News"), Qazi Hussain Ahmed "has warned the government that unrest in the country would assume serious dimensions if it assisted the United States or any agency in arrest of Osama bin Laden." In May 2003, South Asia Intelligence Group reported potential links between Qazi Hussain Ahmed, JEI, and Bin Laden: "US intelligence officers posted in Pakistan have reportedly been making detailed enquiries into the likely links of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Pakistan headed by Qazi Hussain Ahmed with Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden".

Regarding Jamaat-e-Islami, the Christian Science Monitor reported that Pakistan's Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisel Saleh Hayat has alleged links between JEI and Al Qaeda stating "[a]ll of the activists and terrorists who have been apprehended in recent months have had links to the Jamaat-e-Islami, whether we have arrested them in Lahore or here or Karachi....[t]hey have been harboring them."

Prior to the Musharraf emergency declaration, the Pakistan Daily Times reported that Jamaat-e-Islami has been petitioning the Pakistani Supreme Court to halt all Pakistani military action in the Tribal Areas.

As GlobalSecurity.org states of Muttahidah Majlis-e-'Amal (MMA) political coalition: "it venomously attacked the Musharraf government for having betrayed the Taliban and sided with the US in its supposed 'war against Islam'. They...speak in favour of the militant groups banned by the Musharraf government Leaders under the MMA umbrella have issued fatwas of death on Americans and have denied the 9/11 attack by Osama bin Laden. The four parties are opposed to the present fiscal system and want it Islamised together with a complete enforcement of 'shariah'."

Islamist Hamid Gul

Regarding Hamid Gul, the November 4 London Times reported his comments as "one senior official" stating that "General Hamid Gul, the former head of Pakistan's military intelligence and a long-time opponent of Bhutto, said Musharraf's state of emergency would have no impact in the war with Islamic militants. 'The terrorist campaign will become more intense, but the army cannot do any more under martial law. It's a suicidal action on Musharraf's part, Gul said." AP's November 5 report simply views Hamid Gul as merely a "critic of Musharraf".

The London Times report fails to note that ex-ISI head, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul is a retired military official, whose career was pivotal in establishing the Taliban, in supporting Jihadist groups in Kashmir, and who is a publicly documented supporter of Jihad. In December 2001, during the U.S. initial war against the Afghanistan Taliban, the Asia Times reported that "Hamid Gul, nicknamed the 'godfather of the Taliban', is believed to be behind moves to help the Taliban establish a base in Pakistan's autonomous Pashtun tribal belt".

As the Pakistan Daily Times has reported, Hamid Gul has been a "strategic adviser" to the Islamist MMA organization. Gul has stated that "God will destroy the US in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever it will try to go from there. The Muslim world must stand united to confront the US in its so-called war against terror which is in reality a war against Muslims. Let's destroy America wherever its troops are trapped."

UPI and the Washington Times have quoted Hamid Gul's interview in Pakistan's Urdu newspaper Nawa-e-Waqt where he stated: "The leadership vacuum created by the sad demise of (Palestinian) President (Yasser) Arafat can only be filled by Osama Bin Laden and (Taliban leader) Mullah (Mohammad) Omar, the real leaders that are the only dedicated individuals with the mass support of the Muslim world."

BBC reported Hamid Gul's views on Jihad, criticizing President Musharraf for seeking to stop Jihadists and saying: "Who is Pervez Musharraf to say we should stop Jihad, when the Koran says it and when the United Nations Charter backs it up? Musharraf says: 'Stop the jihad, do this, that and the other.' No, no, no. He cannot. There is a clear-cut Koranic injunction."

Repeatedly, this "godfather of the Taliban" Hamid Gul is used by western media sources in providing interviews and comments on Pakistan political issues, with no reference or context to his Islamist beliefs or his support for Osama Bin Laden and Jihad. There is no concern that Hamid Gul is using such western media sources to propagate anti-western and anti-freedom propaganda.

The London Times reported on July 15, 2007 incendiary comments by Hamid Gul after the Lal Masjid conflict: "The government is trying to hide the number of young girls killed. As the truth comes out that young girls were gassed and burnt, riddled with bullets and killed, it'll be bad for Musharraf." Then on March 11, 2007, the London Times used Hamid Gul as a source on NATO raids on the Taliban: "Last night Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, former director of Pakistan's intelligence service, said he was preparing to issue a writ in the Supreme Court to stop US raids. He claimed that senior army figures were embarrassed at what they regarded as a breach of sovereignty, and that continued breaches could result in Musharraf being toppled." Gul's role as a Taliban supporter, pro-Jihadist, and supporter of Osama Bin Laden was not provided for context in these reports. As with the current media reporting on the Pakistan emergency, such major omissions provide a platform for anti-freedom propaganda.

Militants Capture Two Towns in Pakistan's Swat Tribal Agency

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

I noted in an article published today at National Review Online about Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf's declaration of a state of emergency that the move makes it more likely that Pakistan will lose territory to militants by over-extending the police and military. Pakistani security forces are now charged not just with defending the country against militants but also clamping down on peaceful demonstrators, journalists, human rights activists, and lawyers. It is not difficult for Islamic militants to exploit this period of weakness.

The most recent news from Pakistan highlights the validity of this concern. Militants have apparently been able to capture a town called Matta in the Swat tribal agency. The Associated Press reports:

Hundreds of Islamic militants seized a town in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday after outnumbered security forces laid down their arms, militants and police said. About two dozen police officers and several troops offered no resistance to militants who seized three police stations and a military post in and around Matta, a town in the Swat valley."We didn't harm the police and soldiers and allowed them to go to their homes as they didn't fight our mujahideen," said Sirajuddin, a spokesman for Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand cleric whose armed followers are battling security forces. He said the militants had hoisted their black and white flags over the captured posts.

Since then, Sirajuddin has acknowledged that militant positions are under attack by government forces, stating, "This ruthless firing from helicopters is likely to kill civilians."

This comes on top of an offensive by Islamic militants over the weekend, during which 120 police and paramilitary soldiers were seized in Matta, and 48 men said to be paramilitary soldiers were seized in Khawazakhela. In fact, Pakistan's Daily Times quotes local residents as saying that Khawazakhela had fallen to the Taliban in addition to Matta -- and that Taliban militants are now "directing the traffic on the road."

There are many critical indicators to watch in Pakistan over the coming weeks. Militants' attempts to control a greater area in and around the tribal regions is one of them.

Defense Attorney Runs Afoul of Judge in Glasgow Terrorism Trial

By Evan Kohlmann

Those who have been following the development of "homegrown" terrorism trials in the U.S. and U.K. will no doubt be familiar with the case of Scottish student Mohammed Atif Siddique, who was recently found guilty by a jury at the High Court in Glasgow of multiple criminal charges relating to terrorism--including distributing terrorist material through websites and claiming to be a member of Al-Qaida. On October 23, the sitting justice in the case, Lord Carloway, sentenced Siddique to eight years in prison--admonishing him that the evidence gathered in the case "is strongly suggestive of you having had close links, whether by the internet or otherwise, to people in the United Kingdom who promote Al Qaeda and associated terrorism... It is clear from the evidence that you did not have this material because of some innocent curiosity." [See the full sentencing memorandum from Lord Carloway, c/o the NEFA Foundation website]

Typically, this would be the end of the case against Siddique -- but now, there has been a further wrinkle. On September 17--when Siddique was first found guilty by the jury--one of his defense attorneys, Aamer Anwar, quickly organized an aggressive media campaign aimed at shedding public doubt on the verdict in the case. In addition to giving an address to journalists from the steps of the Glasgow High Court, Anwar also issued a press release, condemning the trial as "farcical" and "a tragedy for justice and for freedom of speech." Anwar further accused prosecutors of mobilizing limitless "money & resources used to secure a conviction in this case, carried out in an atmosphere of hostility."

While Mr. Anwar's remarks were eagerly picked up on by highly-slanted publications like The Register, not everyone was so pleased with his comments--namely, the trial judge, Lord Carloway, who has issued an official memorandum remitting the matter to a panel of other Scottish judges to decide if Aamer Anwar is in contempt of court. According to Lord Carloway's latest memo, attorney Anwar's public remarks "appeared, at least in part, to be: (a) untrue; and (b) misleading":

"...The remarks appeared to be an unjustified attack on almost every area of the trial process, other than the defence... it appeared to amount to an attack on the integrity of the jury... The statement appears to be an attack on the independence of the Advocate Depute who prosecuted the case... Finally, the statement seems to be an attack on the fairness of the trial and thus presumably an attack on the Court itself... Of course, if there is any merit in any of the content of the criticisms of the Court, then the panel, through his legal advisors, has the opportunity to make such complaints at the appropriate time to the appropriate forum, namely the Court of Criminal Appeal or even the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. That was not what was done here. Rather, before even the process of sentencing had been completed, the remarks were deliberately made in public and expressed as the views of a solicitor; a person in whom members of the public are entitled to place their trust as a person of some integrity."

Lord Carloway also specifically addressed the repeated ad hominem attacks made by Anwar and other defense attorneys on expert witnesses testifying for the prosecution in the Siddique case--namely, myself. In his memorandum, Carloway labeled Mr. Anwar's attempts to impugn my professional credibility as "an unwarranted attack on an expert witness... in suggesting in public that he ran a web site full of hatred. Mr. Kohlmann had been instructed to give evidence covering Islamic terrorism in general and the significance of some of the material in the panel's possession... Most of his evidence was itself not challenged. Such an attack within the trial process for a legitimate purpose is one thing, but to make accusations against him in public is another."

Prime Suspects in Worst Suicide Attack in Afghanistan's History (updated)

By Andrew Cochran

UPDATED: A suicide bomber hit a sugar factory in the northern town of Baghlan, killing 40 and injuring dozens of others, with at least 5 members of the Afghan Parliament killed (Reuters reports 50 killed, quoting an Afghan official). An Interior Ministry spokesman blamed "the enemy of the people of Afghanistan," a term used in Afghanistan to refer to the Taliban, al-Qaida, and other terrorists. (NOTE: Death toll reports have fluctuated wildly. The death toll in the worst suicide bombing prior to today's was 35 in a Kabul attack this past June.)

An early AP account noted, "The northern Afghan region where the blast happened is known for tensions between the mainly ethnic Tajik government leadership and remnants of the militant group Hezb-i-Islami, whose fugitive leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an ethnic Pashtun, is allied to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida but has denied organizational links."

We've written often here about Hekmatyar, who was allied with the U.S. against the Soviets in the 1980s, then fled to Iran during Taliban rule, then returned in 2002 to form his group with fellow Pashtuns. On March 8, I wrote about his proclamation of a split with the Taliban and suggestion of a peace deal with the Karzai government. Douglas Farah wrote about him back in August 2005. On April 6, I quoted a NY Daily News blog post by James Gordon Meek about the Taliban's offensive, in which James wrote, "Taliban forces predominantly fight in the south, while Pashtun tribal militias commanded by Al Qaeda-linked warlords such as Bin Laden pals Jalaluddin Haqqani and ex-Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar fight in the eastern border. (Haqqani and Hekmatyar also were CIA allies in the war against the Soviets.)"

Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son SiraJuddin Haqqani, who goes by Siraj, are other prime suspects in today's bombing and were the subject of James' October 21 post here. James reported then that, "In announcing a $200,000 bounty for Siraj on Friday, the U.S. military claimed that the younger Haqqani 'is working to rival Mullah Omar for the Taliban leadership.' The Haqqanis, who hail from Khowst, Afghanistan, are also under fire in the seat of their Pakistani base of operations, border towns Miram Shah and Mir Ali, which the Pak Army has bombed heavily this month. Using rare specificity, the military command at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan said in the document that Siraj 'brings foreign fighters from places like Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Turkey and Middle Eastern countries into Afghanistan,' and his Al Qaeda ties have facilitated "more financial support from Middle Eastern countries."

In an e-mail to me, James noted that "this part of Afghanistan has been relatively violence-free." We'll see if this attack touches off others as part of a new campaign in that region.

UPDATE: James Meek adds more with a different angle in this message:

My diplomatic source said the warlord Dostum, who was a pretty notorious U.S. ally during the 2001 battle of Mazir-E-Sharif, holds sway in the town where today's blast occurred, although his primary stronghold is Shebregan.

"Dostum's influence thins at the margins, and Baglan is getting towards the margins," my diplomatic source said. "There is also a large Pashtun 'bubble' between Mazar and Shebregan - moved there at the beginning of the last century by the King in an effort to dilute Uzbek power and influence." The Taliban is a Pashtun movement, though most Pashtun are not Taliban.

Many NATO allies are only willing to send troops to "safe" areas in Afghanistan, and this bombing may be a Taliban effort less directed at Dostum than the Hungarian troops who man the Baglan Provincial Reconstruction Team. It would be entirely consistent with Taliban strategy to use violence to seed political discord at home for a NATO member such as Hungary.

See this Asia Times Online story about Dostum and Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Jam'iat-e Islami-yi commander and former Karzai defense minister until he was sacked for alleged corruption.

Evidence on Red-Green Alliance in Italy

By Lorenzo Vidino

The article “Italy's Left-Wing Terrorists Flirt with Radical Islamists,” which I published with Andrea Morigi in last September’s issue of the Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor, has generated abundant feedback. While most of it is positive, I came to know of a negative review by an authoritative source. Judge Armando Spataro, the Italian magistrate in charge of the investigation on the so-called New Red Brigades (NRB), has, in fact, expressed his disagreement on the article’s take. In an email sent to Ely Karmon, Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, and circulated by Dr. Karmon through his list serve, Judge Spataro noted that “we didn't find any evidence on the possible link or program of the Left-Wing Terrorists pointed to Italian mosques as Lorenzo Vidino and Andrea Morigi wrote.” Since Dr. Karmon has refused to disseminate my response, I find myself obligated to respond here. This post serves not only as a personal response, but also introduces primary sources as hard evidence of the alleged links, something that could be useful to all those who have studied the links between Extreme Left and radical Islam. Here is what I had asked Dr. Karmon to send to his list serve:

While not disputing Mr. Spataro's unquestionably superior knowledge on the NRB, I have to take issue with his comments on my article. Nowhere in my piece do I mention concrete material links between the NRB and Islamists (hence the "flirt" in the title "Italy's Left-Wing Terrorists flirt with Radical Islamists," if there was more I would have said "link up" or "work with," the "flirting" implies that no concrete action has been consummated but there are public expressions of strong sympathy). What I attempted to describe, and what I think it is undeniable, is the fact that Italian left-wing militants, including (but not only) the NRB, have repeatedly expressed strong sympathies for radical Islam. This is the main point of the article and I think that is corroborated by ample evidence.

Just to enter into the specifics: Mr. Spataro claims that "we didn't find any evidence on the possible link or program of the Left-Wing Terrorists pointed to Italian mosques." This seems to contradict the wiretaps that DIGOS did in Davanzo's hideout last February and that were then published on the front page of all Italian newspapers. This is the story, as it was published by Il Giorno (but I could attach links to Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica or any other major newspaper): Reclutamento in stadi e moschee. Svelati i piani delle Brigate rosse. It translates: Recruitment in stadiums and mosques, revealed the plans of the Red Brigades. A pretty straightforward conclusion reached by all Italian papers based on the evidence provided by DIGOS. The article goes on by describing the conversation, as taped by DIGOS, that I detailed in my article for Jamestown. In the conversation the men argue that they should find new venues for their recruitment efforts and pointed to Italian mosques, described as "propellers of protests and struggles," as one of the most obvious choices. Mr. Spataro and I can disagree on the assessment of the conversation, but it is undeniable that Davanzo and his partners talked about it. One can say they were just fantasizing (and I would probably agree with that view), but the fact that they talked recruiting in mosques is undeniable.

To reiterate my point, nobody alleged that there is any operational link between the NBR and Islamists, but the evidence that the NBR and other hard-core left wing militants sympathize with radical Islam is overwhelming. To prove that, I have attached (among the many possible proofs):
1. The link to the hundreds of pages of writings from La Voce, a magazine published by individuals close to the New Red Brigades, most of which deal with political Islam and praise Hamas, Hezbollah and the Afghan and Iraqi “resistance.”
2. a picture of the Arabic banner unfolded by sympathizers of the Red Brigades at the Padua protest that I mentioned in my article (the picture was taken by Andrea Morigi, who, like myself, has covered several conferences and protests organized by groups of the Italian Extreme Left)
3. The full statement given by Nadia Lioce, leader of the NRB after her arrest. "September 11, 2001," said the 44-year-old militant, "must open the field to the revolutionary vanguards and not only in Italy. The upcoming war against Iraq constitutes an attempt to remove the main obstacle to the hegemony of the Zionist entity, the stronghold of imperialism in the region, disarming and annihilating the Palestinian resistance, which is the reference of all Arab and Islamic masses who have been expropriated and humiliated by imperialism and who constitute the natural ally of the urban proletarian class in European countries"
4. Official request of information filed by an MP to the Ministry of Interiors re: links between Islamists and left wing militants in May 2007
5. Finally, probably the item that Mr. Spataro will find most interesting: a letter sent by a group of self-described "Sardinian comrades" in support of Adel Ben Soltane, a Tunisian jihadist that was convicted of various terrorism charges by Mr. Spataro's very own Milan's tribunal and designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a terrorist for his links to the GSPC.

To conclude, I agree with Mr. Spataro on the lack of material links (something I have never alleged), but I respectfully disagree on the rest of his analysis of my article.

The Real Danger of Pakistan's Chaos

By Douglas Farah

It is clear that Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf has serious problems on his hands, and that his decision to impose marshal law is a setback for democracy.

But the real long-term danger, as noted by Bruce Riedel in Newsweek is that ""If you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it's right in their backyard."

The facts on the ground in Pakistan pose serious challenges, and those challenges spill over in lethal form to neighboring Afghanistan, where the Taliban is slowly but consistently edging closer to Kabul and maintaining a presence on the economic arteries of the country, including the opium trade.

But the most dangerous element of Pakistan's chaos is its secret nuclear program and unauthorized proliferation, which did not stop with the house arrest of A.Q. Khan in 2004. My full blog is here.

U.S. Treasury Freezes Assets of Individuals Assisting Syrian Influence Over Lebanon

By Andrew Cochran

As two Congressional committees prepare for hearings this week on the state of affairs in Lebanon, the U.S. Treasury has announced the designation of four individuals who are assisting Syria's efforts to undermine Lebanese sovereignty. The designations freeze any assets those individuals might hold under U.S. jurisdiction, but the primary impact is to signal the Administration's intentions to keep the heat on the Assad regime during Lebanese presidential elections.

From the Treasury press release:

Syria has used all means at its disposal - from bribery to intimidation to violence - to undermine the legitimate political process in Lebanon,” said Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence... Syrian intelligence has assisted Hizballah and other oppositionists in Lebanon to orchestrate protests and demonstrations demanding the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's cabinet, which it deems illegitimate... Assaad Halim Hardan, Wi’am Wahhab and Hafiz Makhluf were designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13441, signed by President George W. Bush on August 1, 2007. E.O. 13441 blocks the property of persons undermining the sovereignty of Lebanon or its democratic processes and institutions. Muhammad Nasif Khayrbik was designated pursuant to E.O. 13338, which is aimed at individuals and entities contributing to the Government of Syria's problematic behavior. President Bush signed E.O. 13338 on May 11, 2004 in response to the Syrian government's continued support of international terrorism, sustained occupation of Lebanon, pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and undermining of U.S. and international efforts in Iraq."

Hardan is a Member of the Lebanese Parliament and senior official in the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party. Wahhab is a former member of the Parliament and still works with senior Syrian officials to maintain their influence in Lebanon. Colonel Makhluf, a senior official in the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate, is a cousin to Syrian President Bashar al-Asad. Khayrbik is Syria's Deputy Vice President for Security Affairs.

See David Schenker's November 1 article about the Lebanese elections and see his numerous posts about the situation there in his archives.

New worrying signs of activity in the Maghreb

By Olivier Guitta

After the recent multiple Al Zawahiri's videos specifically on the Maghreb, law-enforcement authorities in North Africa and very much so in Europe as well are on alert.
For proof of this, here are two excerpts (full stories available to subscribers) of two recent stories from the Counterterrorism newsletter The Croissant:

1- About 150 terrorists ready to strike in the Maghreb:
According to August Hanning, Germany’s Home Secretary, training terrorist camps are in operation in Northern Mali, similar to the ones in Pakistan.
Hanning said:” In Pakistan and Mali alike, terrorist techniques are taught. (…) Teaching is done in an ideological fashion. These camps are cause for concern, even for us, Germans”
Hanning estimates that there are between 100 and 150 terrorists in these camps [in Mali].

2- Pakistani suicide bombers in Algeria?

After having imported mercenaries from Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Mali and Tunisia, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is allegedly recruiting Pakistani nationals.
According to security services information confirmed by testimonies of ex-terrorists, Pakistani suicide bombers are on the brink of entering Algeria.

For more specifically on the threats to Libya, please read my two posts here and here.

Canada's FinTrac Public Info Limited by Canadian Law

By Jonathan Winer

Andrew Cochran has highlighted an important problem in assessing the effectiveness of Canada's Financial Intelligence Unit, FINTRAC, namely, the lack of feedback received in Canada by the financial institutions reporting to it.

Under Canadian law, FINTRAC is prohibited from saying very much publicly about the cases it builds on the basis of reporting from the country's financial institutions. To protect privacy, Canada deliberatedly structured its law so that reports made to FINTRAC by financial instituions must first be investigated by FINTRAC. The information is then made available to Canadian law enforcement and/or intelligence agencies, that is, the RCMP and CSIS, only after FINTRAC has determined that there are sufficient indicators of suspicious (criminal or terrorist) activity to warrant referral.

In late October, FINTRAC reported that over the past year it had referred a total of about $10 billion in transactions for further investigation in some 193 cases. Of that amount, 33 cases and $209 million involved suspected terrorist finance cases. Thus, the amount of funds relating to terrorist finance was some 2 percent of the total.

From there, the mission of further investigation, prosecution, or other activity falls entirely to other Canadian agencies.

FinTrac has long prided itself on being intelligence driven, and on having pioneered in the use of artificial intelligence pattern spotting as a foundation for the further reviews it takes before making a referral -- termed a "disclosure" under Canadian law -- to the two Canadian agencies to whom it is allowed to make such a referral, and to its foreign counterparts.

Unfortunately, Canadian law leaves FinTrac poorly situated to provide details on what it doing to anyone else. As described by its director, Horst Inscher, to Canada's Parliament a year ago:

"Our Act was carefully crafted to provide the highest possible protection for personal information while also making it possible for some information to be disclosed to law enforcement to facilitate the detection and deterrence of serious criminal activity. The protections begin with the very nature of the institutional arrangements that establish FINTRAC as an independent and arm’s length entity that receives and analyzes reported financial transaction information and that can only pass on such information if particular tests are met. The information we hold can not be accessed by any other outside body, except by a court-granted production order, and the Act provides for serious criminal penalties to be applied to the unauthorized disclosure of information."

The privacy protections have not merely prevented disclosure of information to the financial institutions that object to the "black hole" which they view disclosure to FINTRAC to represent. Until the end of last year, with the enactment of reforms to Canada's anti-money laundering law, severely limited the amount and type of information that FINTRAC was permitted to share with the RCMP and CSIS. Before these reforms were enacted last December, FINTRAC was prohibited from telling Canadian law enforcement or intelligence that it knew that a person involved in a particular suspicious transaction had a criminal record, or who it believed to be the kingpin or ringleader of a terrorist finance scheme.

Now, Canada has corrected its disclosure law to tilt it towards FINTRAC being able to share more information with other government agencies in Canada. But privacy still trumps publicity when it comes to telling the public more than the absolute statistical minimum about what is going on. This is obviously not helpful to FINTRAC's public image. Over time, the results of prosecutions and intelligence operations may, perhaps, provide a fuller picture of how well Canada's FIU is actually working.

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Iraqi Insurgents Accuse Al-Qaida of "Horrific" and "Insidious" New Crimes Despite Calls for Unity From Bin Laden

By Evan Kohlmann

The Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI)--one of the largest and most influential Sunni insurgent groups active in Iraq--has issued yet another stinging condemnation of Al-Qaida's network in Iraq from its media spokesman, Dr. Ali al-Naimi. According to Dr. al-Naimi, Al-Qaida is the "main cause" behind recent "painful events" in Latifiya and Samarra: "It is such a horrific scene that makes the occupiers pleased and is painful to Muslims... we weren’t expecting that after the speech of Shaykh Usama Bin Laden who announced Al-Qaida's incorrect acts and the need to overcome them." It should be noted that this is only the latest in a series of verbal attacks that the IAI has launched on Al-Qaida since April, when it began to repeatedly and publicly accuse the terrorist network founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of killing other Sunni militants and other "un-Islamic" behavior.

English translations of this IAI communique (along with a digest of other selected recent statements issued by the group) can now be accessed through the NEFA Foundation website, care of the TerrorWatch subscription news service.

Numerous Terrorism-Related Hearings This Week in U.S. Congress

By Andrew Cochran

Various committees of the U.S. Congress will conduct oversight hearings on the state of affairs in Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and Lebanon; on use of the Internet by jihadists; the problems with terrorist watch lists; and on planning for a post-9/11 world. The lineup:

Tuesday, November 6:

House Oversight & Government Reform Committee on "Six Years Later (Part II): ‘Smart Power’ and the U.S. Strategy for Security in a Post-9/11 World," 2:00 PM in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building

House Homeland Security Committee on “Using the Web as a Weapon: the Internet as a Tool for Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism,” 2:00 PM in 311 Cannon House Office Building

Wednesday, November 7:

House Foreign Affairs on "Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Terrorism in Contemporary Pakistan," 2:00 PM in 2172 Rayburn House Office Building

House Oversight & Government Reform Committee on "Iran: Reality, Options, and Consequences. Part 2 - Negotiating with the Iranians: Missed Opportunities and Paths Forward," 2:00 PM in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building

Thursday, November 8:

House Foreign Affairs on "Lebanon on the Brink," 9:30 AM in 2172 Rayburn House Office Building

House Homeland Security Committee on “The Progress and Pitfalls of the Terrorist Watch List,” 10:00 AM in 311 Cannon House Office Building

Senate Foreign Relations on "Syria: Options and Implications for Lebanon and the Region," 2:30 PM in 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Pakistan Emergency Amidst Growing Talibanization

By Jeffrey Imm

On November 3, Pakistan's President Musharraf declared a state of emergency and martial law in Pakistan, suspending the Pakistan constitution, stating that Pakistan's sovereignty was at stake. This emergency declaration was made as the continuing growth of power and influence of the Taliban has turned the area of Swat into a mini-state within Pakistan, as Pakistan army and police are surrendering to Taliban, and as the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. (NWFP) government has publicly offered to meet the demands of the Taliban to enforce Shariah throughout the Swat area.

This grim news also comes after repeated polls taken among the Pakistani public which shows between 60 to 76 percent of those polled favor the growth of Islamist Shariah law throughout Pakistan, as well as news reports of growth of Pakistan Taliban armaments and tolerance of Taliban in major cities within Pakistan. This emergency declaration also comes less than a week after a suicide bomber attack near the heavily-fortified Pakistani Army HQ in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, which houses President Musharraf's office. Pakistan's internal security has been challenged in the past several months with a continuing series of suicide bombings and attacks, including one on Benazir Bhutto's convoy last month that killed 145 people.

In the text of the November 3 declaration of emergency, Pakistan President Musharraf stated that he put Pakistan under martial law based in part on "visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, IED explosions, rocket firing and bomb explosions and the banding together of some militant groups have taken such activities to an unprecedented level of violent intensity posing a grave threat to the life and property of the citizens of Pakistan." In the declaration, Musharraf also stated that "some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the executive and legislature in the fight against terrorism and extremism" and that "the police force has been completely demoralized and is fast losing its efficacy to fight terrorism and Intelligence Agencies have been thwarted in their activities and prevented from pursuing terrorists". Moreover, Musharraf stated that "some hard core militants, extremists, terrorists and suicide bombers, who were arrested and being investigated were ordered to be released" and "[t]he persons so released have subsequently been involved in heinous terrorist activities, resulting in loss of human life an property."

The Pakistan Supreme Court was reported that it was to give its verdict by November 6 on the legality of Musharraf's re-election in uniform for the post of President. In the November 3 declaration of emergency, Musharraf dismissed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, and replaced him with Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar. Chaudry declared the state of emergency illegal. In addition to this issue, the Musharraf government had differences with the Pakistan Supreme Court on "concessions" given to Lal Masjid (aka "Red Mosque") Islamist clerics. On October 2, the Pakistan Supreme Court ordered the government to re-open the pro-Taliban Lal Masjid mosque. On October 10, the Musharraf government filed a petition of review with the Pakistan Supreme Court "asking that the concessions given to the former clerics of Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa be withdrawn". On October 18, the pro-Jihadist, Islamist political organization Jamaat-e-Islami petitioned the Pakistan Supreme Court to move "against the deployment of the armed forces in the tribal areas".

While some view Musharraf's declaration of emergency to be a ploy to retain power, there remains a very real battle for the identity of Pakistan between Islamists and moderates, a battle in which the Islamists are gaining ground and influence in this nuclear nation. The Pakistan Taliban's goal of enforcing Islamist Shariah throughout Pakistan is one that a majority of Pakistanis would agree with based on recent public opinion polls.

The Pakistan Army has faced a series of humiliating defeats in recent days, with 48 soldiers surrendering to the Taliban on November 2, and 120 policemen and paramilitary soldiers surrendering to the Taliban on November 3. The surrendering Pakistanis were released after being paraded and announcing their surrender to the "mujahedeen". Moreover, the surrendering military have stated publicly that "[w]e did not want to fight these Muslim brothers who are striving for the enforcement of Islamic sharia".

Indian intelligence has reported mass casualties, desertions, suicides, discharge applications in the Pakistani military, which have been echoed in other reports of serious problems in the Pakistan Army by media sources Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, and Newsweek, among others.

The September 2006 peace pact between Pakistan and the Taliban has allowed both the Taliban and Al Qaeda to regroup in Waziristan and carry out terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In August 2007, while President Musharraf was holding meetings with Taliban representatives, encouraging the Taliban to become a mainsteam political organization, the Taliban has continued to solidify a base in the North-West Frontier (NWFP) Province of Pakistan.

This NWFP base of the Taliban is centered in the Swat area, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have created a mini-state within Pakistan, where pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah uses FM radio to broadcast the Islamist ideology of the Taliban to the public. Pakistan Daily Times reports that Milt Bearden, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, states that "losing Swat is shocking... the Pakistanis, and by extension the United States, have almost no control of events... I don't think anyone in Washington really gets it." The influx of 2,500 troops into the Swat area has not deterred the efforts of the Taliban. Pakistan Daily Times reports that Jihadist Abdul Samad states that he traveled in recent weeks to North Waziristan and recruited scores of militants to reinforce Fazlullah's followers in Swat. Samad says "It's not just in Swat or in Waziristan or in Bajaur. We are getting stronger everywhere in the area."

On November 2, the Pakistan NWFP government announced an initial appeasement to the Taliban to help it achieve its Islamist goals in enforcing Shariah throughout Pakistan -- the creation of a committee to enforce Sharia law in Malakand Division. The Pakistan Daily Times reported that the "provincial government has directed the committee to submit its report as soon as possible for swift implementation of Sharia law". On November 3, prior to the emergency declaration, NWFP governor Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai announced that Pakistan was considering enforcement of Shariah in Swat valley to meet the demands of pro-Taliban militants, stating "[t]he government is considering the implementation of Sharia law in the view of the demands of the local people."

The November 3 Pakistan Daily Times reports that "[a] confidential memo circulated to the National Security Council in July and made public soon afterward warned that militants from the border region were exerting wide influence. It spoke of a nexus between radical clerics behind the bloody siege of Lal Masjid in Islamabad, which resulted in more than 100 deaths, and the clerics in northwest Pakistan. 'When I was following Lal Masjid, one thing was very clear -- that they had strong sympathizers within the establishment and within the military,' said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a leading independent Pakistani defense analyst."

On November 2, Pakistan Federal Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani stated that some Pakistani politicians were directly supporting terrorists, and that such individuals would be exposed. Durrani also stated that the government and the media needed to unite against the Taliban.

However, the October 22 Christian Science Monitor reports, "the Taliban are viewed differently here than they are in the West, not least because they are Pakistani. While the West sees an Islamist war against its liberties, many here see a US-led war against Islam itself. Voicing an opinion commonly heard on Pakistani streets, Mr. Gul says: 'This is a false war. People are not convinced that 9/11 was done by Al Qaeda.'"

While the US State Department and US military have objected to Musharraf's emergency declaration, the Taliban continue their efforts of enforcing Islamism throughout Pakistan unchecked. On Friday, a bomb blast destroyed 14 shops in Peshawar market selling selling CDs, TV sets and music albums. Bombing of non-Islamist businesses and threatening the lives of non-Muslims if they do not covert to Islam is becoming a relatively routine occurrence in Swat and other parts of the NWFP in Pakistan.

The failure of American leadership to have a policy on Islamism has prevented the ability to provide a pro-active coherent policy in Pakistan that addresses both the strategic issues of pro-Islamist Pakistani public sentiment along with support in areas of the government and public for the Taliban, as well as the tactical issues of fighting "extremists" in Afghanistan who have found safe haven in NWFP in Pakistan.

While U.S. Admiral William J. Fallon has told Pakistan President Musharraf that an emergency rule order would risk U.S. support to his military, the U.S. military support to Pakistan has limited long-term impact without addressing the Islamist public opinion and support in Pakistan for the Taliban and other Islamist organizations. The current situation in Pakistan illustrates the train wreck of pursuing tactical operations in fighting "extremists" without a strategy to clearly define the enemy and to define a U.S. policy on Jihad and Islamism.

The LIFG Joins Al-Qaida: Not Exactly "New News"

By Evan Kohlmann

As has been reported here and elsewhere, Al-Qaida's As-Sahab Media Foundation released a new audio recording early this morning featuring Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu al-Laith al-Liby. Abu al-Laith is a senior Al-Qaida military commander and likewise a key principle behind the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). According to Zawahiri in the recording, "Honorable members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group have announced that they are joining the Al-Qaida organization in order to continue the march of their brothers... Your good sons are gathering [in the Maghreb] under the banner of Islam and jihad against America, France, Spain and their people... O' nation of jihad, support your sons so that we defeat our enemies and rid our homeland of their slaves." In the As-Sahab recording, Zawahiri's address was followed by a response from Abu al-Laith al-Liby--in which he confirmed, "We announce we are joining Al-Qaida as loyal soldiers."

While it is certainly interesting to see both Al-Qaida and LIFG leaders openly acknowledging a formal relationship with each other, this is hardly what one would term "new news." Last month, the NEFA Foundation published a dossier on the LIFG based upon an expert witness report that was filed on behalf of the Scotland Yard SO-15 Counter Terrorism Command and the United Kingdom Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) during "Operation Cavern" (Regina v. Al Bashir Mohammed al-Faqih, 2007). In my report, I cited the litany of evidence that is already widely available connecting the LIFG to Al-Qaida. One can begin with the testimony of confessed former Moroccan Al-Qaida operative L’Houssaine Kherchtou in U.S. federal court during United States v. Usama Bin Laden et al. (SDNY, 2001):

“Q. Any other countries besides Algeria that had a group within al Qaeda?
A. We have the Libyan Fight Group…
Q. Did you know who the representatives of the Libyan Fighting Group were within al Qaeda?
A. Who is emir [commander]?
Q. Yes.
A. Saif al Liby.
Q. Do you know any other members of the Libyan Fighting Group who also belonged to al Qaeda?
A. I remember Abu Jaffar al Liby, and Abu Anas al Liby, and Hamzallah al Liby, and Abu Abdel Qader al Liby. This is what I remember now.
Q. You mentioned this morning that there was a person named Hamzallah al Liby who worked in Pakistan helping you to get the passports and travel documents. Is that the same person who was a member of the Libyan Fighting Group?
A. Yes.
Q. You mentioned this morning a person named Hamas al Liby. Is that the same person who was a member of the Libyan Fighting Group?
A. Yes.”

Then, of course, there are the direct and public communiques that the LIFG has continuously issued over the past decade--long before the events of 9/11 and the subsequent U.S. military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, as early as May 1997, the LIFG made perfectly clear how it felt about America when it condemned the U.S. conviction of Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman for conspiring to carry out a series of terrorist attacks across the New York metropolitan area:

“Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman—may Allah set him free—refused to sell out his religion and decided to keep his words vivid and alive in the hearts of those who knew him and were raised on his teachings… His positions and efforts shall always be a model for those who are loyal to our banner and to the whole Islamic nation. Those who oppressed our Mujahid Shaykh and paid no heed to his senior clerical status, his age, and his blindness should know that by doing so they have offended the entire Islamic nation which admires Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman and considers him to be a true role model and leader. The Islamic Fighting Group declares its support for Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman and reminds Muslims everywhere about his predicament. [The LIFG] also warns the Americans to take heed of the growing anger among Muslims who have had enough with the American tyranny that has spread across the whole world.”

A year later--in August 1998--Al-Qaida executed twin suicide bombing attacks at two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Among those later indicted for their involvement in the East Africa embassy bombings was at least one senior LIFG commander. When the U.S. launched retaliatory missile strikes on suspected terrorist training camps in southern Afghanistan--including the Salman al-Farisi base frequented by LIFG operatives--the LIFG issued a bold statement in response. Rather than distancing themselves from Al-Qaida, the group instead boasted:

“The arrogant American government has committed a historic act of stupidity… This act strengthens the feelings of hostility and hatred among Muslims as well as the desire for revenge against this arrogant American bullying that deals with others only by means of force... the American Administration has chosen the path of hostility toward our Islamic nation, and has decided to adopt a policy of open confrontation. The Islamic Fighting Group strongly condemns this barbaric attack, and announces its support for Muslims in Sudan and Afghanistan... America is not only the enemy of the Mujahid Shaykh Usama Bin Laden and the Islamic movements, but rather the enemy of the entire Islamic nation. America has stood behind the Jews and against the Islamic nation since their state was established and continues to do so until this very day… The Islamic Fighting Group calls upon Muslims to confront this American aggression in order to respond to this bellicose attack against the people of our Islamic nation… Whereas the American Administration relies on its fleets, its warplanes, and its missiles, we rely on Allah alone.”

Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government launched a campaign to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations. As part of that campaign, on September 23, 2001, President Bush signed Executive Order 12334, naming several Al-Qaida affiliate groups as Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entities, including the LIFG. On the same day, in response to threats by the U.S. government to invade Afghanistan in order to apprehend Usama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaida leaders responsible for 9/11, the LIFG published a new fatwah, or religious edict, asserting that the U.S. was using terrorist attacks in New York and Washington “as an excuse to initiate a war against the Muslims, Islam, and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan [the Taliban].” Moreover, according to LIFG religious advisor Shaykh Hassan Qaid (a.k.a. Abu Younis al-Sahrawi):

“It is a duty upon Muslims… —no matter if they are Arab or foreign, Asian or European, if they live nearby or far away—to [protect the Taliban]… Every individual in the Islamic nation must contribute in defeating this enemy with any means available, whether physically, financially, or simply by calling for jihad in order to spread fear among the infidels… By declaring war against the Muslims and occupying their countries, the United States of America has made all of its worldwide interests into legitimate targets for the mujahideen. They [the mujahideen] shall bomb and demolish them by any means necessary. Those interests include military, economic, humanitarian, diplomatic, cultural, tourism, or anyone else anywhere around the globe… Women, children, and the elderly… should not be specifically targeted, unless they are in the vicinity of those whose killing is permissible—in which case, there is no sin in killing them… Anyone who stands alongside the United States and assists it with moral support, petroleum, intelligence, shared military bases, or airports in its war against the Muslims in Afghanistan and elsewhere should be fought and killed in order to support our Muslim brothers in their battle against the infidels, to protect Islam, and to take our revenge upon the oppressors.”

For more about the LIFG and its support for Al-Qaida, read the complete dossier at the NEFA Foundation website.

Al Qaeda's Zawahiri Calls for Attacks Against Western Interests in North Africa, Overthrow of Leaders

By Jeffrey Imm

On November 3, Al Qaeda's number 2 Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri called for attacks on Western interests throughout North Africa, and called for the overthrow of leaders of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

Per AP report, the latest Internet audio message from Al-Zawahiri was a 28-minute audiotape called "Unity of the Ranks".

Per AFP report, Zawahiri stated in the November 3 message:
"Islamic nation of resistance and jihad (holy war) in the Maghreb, see how your children are uniting under the banner of Islam and jihad against the United States, France and Spain".

AFP reported that the Zawahiri also stated:
"Support... your children in fighting our enemies and cleansing our lands of their slaves Kadhafi, Zine El Abidine, Bouteflika and Mohammed VI".

This was an apparent reference to the Libyan president Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and Moroccan King Mohammed VIl.

AP reports that Zawahiri also harshly condemned Libyan president Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, and announced that Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was joining ranks with Al Qaeda:
"The Islamic nation is witnessing a blessed step ... The brothers are escalating the confrontation against the enemies of Islam: Gadhafi and his masters, the Washington crusaders" and "Tell the dogs of Gadhafi, the agents of the international crusaders, our brothers will confront your evil".

Al Jazeera reports that Zawahiri also stated:
"Honorable members of the Fighting Islamic Group in Libya announce that they are joining the al-Qaeda group to continue the march of their brothers". Moreover, Zawahiri presented Abu al-Laith, who appeared to be the leader of the new Libyan wing, and Abu al-Laith stated: "We announce we are joining al-Qaeda as loyal soldiers".

AP reports that the Zawahiri message also included audio from Abu Laith al-Libi, a Libyan Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan, condemning Gaddafi:
"He is the tyranny of Libya and is dragging the country to the swamp" and "After long years, he (Gadhafi) discovered suddenly that America is not an enemy ... and is turning Libya into another crusader base".

On another subject, it was reported that Zawahiri urged Fatah organizations in the Palestinian territories to join other Jihadist groups: "I urge ... Fatah and al-Aqsa [Martyrs] Brigades to confront their leadership which turned their organization into a branch of the CIA and the Mossad".

On October 23, Evan Kohlmann and the NEFA foundation provided a report of the LIFG: "Dossier: Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

Sources:

November 3, 2007 - AFP: Zawahiri urges attacks on Western targets in north Africa

November 3, 2007 - AP: Al-Qaida's No. 2 threatens Libya, accuses Gadhafi of being an enemy of Islam

November 3, 2007 - Al Jazeera: Zawahri: Libya group joins al-Qaeda

Top Taliban Military Commander: Focus on Global Jihad Operations Will Continue

By Evan Kohlmann

Al-Qaida's official As-Sahab Media Foundation has released a new video interview with Mullah Mansour Dadullah, who has served as the top military commander of the Taliban since his brother's death in May 2007. When asked whether he intended to persist on with his brother's "tactics of conducting international jihad", Mansour responded, "we have been walking on his footsteps, and following his methods. We are still following his strategy and working to finish what he started." During his interview with As-Sahab, Mansour Dadullah also repeatedly boasted of "friendly" relations between the Taliban and Sunni insurgent groups fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

As-Sahab claimed that it had been able to arrange the interview with Mansour Dadullah by dispatching a camera team to accompany senior Al-Qaida spokesman Mustafa Abu al-Yazid as he attended high-level planning meetings with the Taliban military leadership in Afghanistan.

Relevant English-subtitled excerpts of the latest As-Sahab interview of Mansour Dadullah are now available for viewing on the NEFA Foundation website, care of its TerrorWatch news service.

Fighting Terrorist Financing: Canada's Problems and Pentagon's "Threat Finance" Initiatives

By Andrew Cochran

On October 24, I posted three suggestions for federal financial regulators in the U.S. to consider to improve anti-terrorist financing efforts. Two separate terrorist financing issues worth considering include (1) a recent report which raises questions whether Canada's financial intelligence units are reliable partners in anti-terrorist financing efforts or "a big black hole," and (2) the degree of integration of "threat finance" into the Defense Department intelligence and military operations.

(1) Are the Canadian financial regulators reliable partners or just "a big black hole?"

Two weeks ago, the inquiry into the Air India bombing received a report from consultants at Deloitte & Touche who were asked to interview institutions and organizations that currently report large cash transactions, suspicious transactions and cross-border wire transactions to FinTRAC, the Canadian government agency for the receipt, analysis, assessment, and disclosure of financial intelligence on suspected money laundering and terrorist financing (basically the sister agency to Treasury's FinCEN). The Deloitte consultants were to determine those institutions' views on the adequacy of Canada’s existing legal framework for the constraints on terrorist financing in, from or through Canada.

FinTRAC received very low marks from the interviewees, who described it as a "big black hole" into which lots of information flows in, but nothing flows out. Some quotes from the report: "A common theme amongst all those interviewed is the fact that terrorist financing is not on anyone’s radar screen... Have any specific patterns been identified?... The feedback we get from FINTRAC and the RCMP on this is that you shouldn’t lose sleep over the fact that you’re not seeing any prosecutions for money laundering or terrorist financing.” The Royal Canadian Mounter Police and Canadian Security Intelligence Service were also lacking in the eyes of the experts interviewed. "You never hear anything about CSIS. There’s no exchange with those people."

Yet there has been no reaction to the report in either Canada or the U.S. and almost no press coverage (see this lonely story in which the head of the Air India inquiry blasted FINTRAC for lack of cooperation). The Canadian government didn't issue a rebuttal. In the U.S., the FinCEN Director publicly spoke of "very fruitful discussions... to learn how in Canada there is a focus on risks by the Financial Transactions Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC)" after the report was released.

I have some questions: Was Deloitte accurate in its assessment or was its methodology flawed? Are the Canadian financial intelligence units reliable partners in the prevention of cross-border terrorist financing or not? Shouldn't the U.S. government read this report and worry about Canada's ability to detect and prevent cross-border terrorist financing, especially considering its recent terrorism-related cases?

Courtroom Jihad: The Defense of "I Am a Muslim"

By Jeffrey Breinholt

This week, Family Security Matters published my two-part report on a fascinating aspect of American legal history: Muslim litigants who attempted to explain their conduct by their religious beliefs and mandates. I consider these findings an extension of the "Overlooked History" series I have been posting over the last few months on the Counterterrorism Blog. The "I Am a Muslim" defense was most prominently on display in the cases of Sheik Omar Rahman and John Walker Lindh, but has been attempted in a variety of federal and state court contexts for over 20 years. I argue that a more subtle version is in play whenever a Muslim party insists on the right not to cooperate with authorities, and when he/she objects to the religious make-up of juries or religious affiliation of judges. Part I is here, while Part 2 is here.

How Europe Can Pressure Iran

By Michael Jacobson

My colleague Patrick Clawson and I had a piece in today's Wall Street Journal Europe on how the Europeans, and in particular the British, could ramp up the financial pressure against Iran.

The U.S. ratcheted up the financial pressure against Tehran last week, unilaterally slapping sanctions on Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, three state-owned banks, and a number of key officials for their involvement in the regime's terrorist financing and WMD-related activities. Realizing the leverage that American financial markets give Washington, senior U.S. Treasury officials have been telling global financial institutions in the last couple of years that doing business with Iran could do great harm to their reputation and complicate their access to the U.S. market. As a result, a number of global institutions -- including Switzerland's UBS and Credit Suisse and Germany's Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank -- have either terminated or dramatically reduced business with Iran.

There are limits to this unilateral strategy, though. Companies and financial institutions that do not operate in the U.S. may be willing to ignore Washington's warnings. But being cut off from New York and the world's other leading financial capital, London, is a risk not too many of these firms would be willing to take. Few could afford to relocate to a smaller financial hub and miss out on the opportunities only the City of London or New York could offer just to continue doing business with Iran.

To read the rest of the piece, click here

Pakistan Polls and Growing Support for Islamism

By Jeffrey Imm

Two recent polls of Pakistanis show that between 60 and 76 percent of those polled seek the growth of Sharia throughout Pakistan, which is a key principle in political Islamism. The enforcement of Sharia throughout Pakistan is the stated goal of the Taliban in Pakistan.

The Islamist aspects of these poll findings are not news headlines because America lacks a policy and a coherent position on Islamism. However, these polls are not only informative to American taxpayers funding the Pakistan efforts in the "war on terror", but also should be a red flag to American policy makers regarding its long-term relationship with Pakistan as well as the underlying ideological disconnects between U.S. policy and Pakistani public opinion.

In the most recent World Public Opinion poll of Pakistanis, it was found that 60 percent of Pakistanis believe that "Sharia should play a larger role in Pakistan law" than it does now. Per this recent World Public Opinion poll, only 26 percent say Sharia should play the same role (15 percent) or a smaller role (11 percent) and 15 percent do not answer.

Most of the news stories based on the recent World Public Opinion poll of Pakistanis have been focused on the limited support within Pakistan in pursuing Al Qaeda or in fighting "insurgents", and these are legitimate tactical war concerns: (a) only 44 percent favor the Pakistani Army pursuing Al Qaeda, (b) only 48 percent would support the Pakistan Army acting against "Taliban insurgents who have crossed over from Afghanistan", and (c) nearly 80 percent are against US pursuing Al Qaeda or Taliban in Pakistan. But the underlying problem in U.S. relationships with Pakistan are demonstrated by the polls indication of significant Pakistani support for Islamism.

Nor is this the only poll that shows such Pakistani sentiment. A month earlier, a poll of Pakistani opinion, taken for Terror Free Tomorrow, yielded similar results on Islamism and support for Jihadist groups. Once again, the Islamist results were not the headline story, but they were a significant finding. To the question regarding Pakistani positions on the need for "implementing strict Sharia law throughout Pakistan", 76 percent of the Terror Free Tomorrow poll responders viewed this as "important". This 76 percent was comprised of 41.2 percent that viewed this as "very important" and 34.8 percent that viewed this as "somewhat important".

The Terror Free Tomorrow Pakistani poll also showed 46 percent of Pakistanis in that poll having a favorable view of Osama Bin Laden (and only 26 percent having an unfavorable view). Other results of the Terror Free Tomorrow Pakistan poll showed: (a) 74 percent opposing US pursuing Al Qaeda or Taliban in Pakistan, (b) 37 to 49 percent approving local Pakistani Jihadi groups, and (c) half of those responding approving of the Taliban.

The American long-term strategy with Pakistan must be clarified if 60 to 76 percent of its population seek to turn Pakistan into an Islamist, Sharia-based nation.

As the US spends $150 million per month in Pakistan ($11 billion since 2001), and as President Bush seeks another $60 billion for Pakistan's tribal areas, the percent of "moderates" within Pakistan needs to be evaluated, in determining the relative likelihood of long-term success of anti-Jihad efforts in that nation.

U.S. Treasury Designates FARC Leaders Under "Drug Kingpin" Law

By Andrew Cochran

The U.S. Treasury Department has designated 15 of the top commanders of the Colombian narco-terrorist group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or FARC), under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. The designation blocks the designees' assets located within U.S. jurisdiction (if there are any) and prohibits U.S. persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions with them. This is the latest in a number of measures targeting FARC over the past 10 years. In March 2006, these 15 and other FARC leaders were indicted on federal narcotics trafficking charges. In May 2003, President Bush designated the entire group, pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. FARC was designated as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" pursuant to Executive Order 13224 in November 2001, and the State Department named it a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" in October 1997.

The 15 FARC leaders designated today are named on this Acrobat chart released by the Treasury Department. EDIT: See the Treasury press release for more details.

The Horn of Africa in Decline

By Douglas Farah

Al Qaeda and its affiliates in recent years have made no secret of their desire to open new hot war fronts that will drain the resources and willpower of the West.

The Horn of Africa is clearly part of that strategy, and the inroads the radical are now clearly discerable. Perhaps the most dramatic public setback has been the government of Yemen's decision to pardon Jamal al-Badawi, a key architect of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. The bombing left 17 U.S. sailor dead, and was the announcement of al Qaeda's continuing presence in the region. In 1998 the group successfully bombed two U.S. embassies East Africa.

Al-Badawi, who recruited the Cole bombers, was originally sentenced to death, had escaped from prison once, and was recaptured. He suddenly swore allegiance to Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Last week Badawi was set free, and was reportedly receiving well-wishers at his home outside Aden.

The pardon came just days after Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush's top counterterrorism adviser, had been in Yemen praising that nation's contributions to the war on terror. Who played whom like a fiddle? My full blog is here.

Yemen & Turkey: First "Walkaways" Under Assumed U.S. Retreat

By Andrew Cochran

An editorial early in October by Tariq Alhomayed, Editor-in-Chief of the influential Asharq Al-Awsat, probably voiced the opinion of many leaders in the Arab world: "In preparation for the American withdrawal from Iraq, activity is in full swing to fill the imminent vacuum in Baghdad. The Iranians are not the only ones who are preparing for this; the Syrians are also getting ready... America will leave the region and we will find ourselves opening a new chapter that is no better than where we are today. After the devouring of Iraq and Lebanon at the hands of Iran and Syria, the Gulf region will be under the siege of the Islamic revolution and under pressure from Syrian meddling." These statements and the full editorial weren't anti-American, just straight predictions based on an assumption among Arab leaders that the inevitable American withdrawal from Iraq is the precursor to a broader retreat from the region.

We've already seen evidence of that assumption in the recent actions by Turkey and Yemen. At virtually the same time as the publication of the editorial, the U.S. special envoy for the PKK issue, Gen. Joseph Ralston, resigned. That was the last signal that Turkish incursions against the PKK and a full-scale invasion of Iraq are inevitable, with the U.S. considered increasingly powerless to prevent it. I attended a Jamestown Foundation briefing with Gen. Ralston in March, and the difficulty he faced in mediating the situation was obvious. The most recent news reports indicate the Bush Administration's acquiescence in those actions, with a complete change in stance from doing "absolutely nothing" a week ago to yesterday's statement, "We are assisting the Turks in their efforts to combat the PKK by supplying them with intelligence, lots of intelligence."

Similarly, the Yemeni government slapped the U.S. in the face by releasing Jamal al-Badawi, the U.S.S. Cole bombing mastermind, right after the top counter-terrorism adviser at the White House, Fran Townsend, left Yemen and praised it for cooperation in fighting terrorism. Newsweek also reports that Yemen might have also released Jaber Elbaneh, an FBI fugitive indicted as part of the "Lackawana Six" plot. Yemen's backtracking on the Badawi release stories isn't giving anybody in Washington a warm, comfortable feeling.

These are not isolated events. They are the first evidence of countries with at least some partial record of cooperation walking away from the U.S. over an assumption that the next two or three years will bring a American retreat from the Middle East and an unwillingness to assert American influence for our interests and those of our allies in the entire region. That is a political calculation made from watching polls, early Presidential debates, and Congressional actions (or inactions) on future appropriations. It is our political leaders' responsibility to either assure Arab leaders that is not the case, or to prepare the American people for a more precipitous decline in our influence.

And don't think the Israelis aren't thinking about this, too, when they make their judgments and plans with respect to Iran.....