Al-Qaida Continues Defiance on Mosul, Claims Hotel Suicide Bombing

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a new video recording and, separately, a text communiqué from Al-Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). During the video, an unidentified individual presented as the official ISI spokesman for the Nineveh province of Iraq (Mosul) sharply denied reports of the ISI's defeat in the city of Mosul: “we bring the good news to you that we are at our full capabilities, and we have not lost a single soldier—neither killed nor arrested. This reality is totally different from what was published by the mass media of the tyrants, which claimed that more than 1,000 fighters were captured, including an officer and commanders. They also claimed that they had arrested the top commander of the ISI in Nineveh province. This is nothing but lies, fabrications, and the falsification of facts… We are the ones who are in control of the situation, and we will choose the suitable time to respond according to the conditions of the present battle.” Underlining the continuing ferocity of its military campaign in Iraq, the ISI has separately claimed credit for a May 29 suicide bombing targeting the Al-Sadeer Hotel. In a text statement claiming its responsibility for the hotel attack, the ISI further declared, “the signs of victory have appeared in Nineveh province, despite the claims from the stooges of al-Maliki that they have taken control of the city [Mosul] and have wiped out the mujahideen. Today, we bring to the Islamic nation the good news that this land is still under the control of the mujahideen—not the apostates.”

These documents can be accessed on the NEFA Foundation website.

NEFA Foundation: New Documents from Emerging Palestinian Al-Qaida Faction in Gaza Strip

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a communiqué and audio recording from an emerging branch of the Al-Qaida-aligned Fatah al-Islam movement based in the Gaza Strip. On January 12, 2008, the group issued a statement naming its local commander in the Palestinian territories as “Abu Abdelrahman al-Ghazzawi”, who it simply described as “a very kind brother, with much previous experience in jihad and deep-seeded roots in theology.” On February 12, 2008, Fatah al-Islam released the first known audio recording of Abu Abdelrahman al-Ghazzawi, in which he announced, “we shall commence our war from Palestine along with the Ansar and Muhajireen [emigrants and supporters] in order to unite our lines and to [honor] our slogans about battling the Jews who live near us—a jihad, in which there is no regard for clay and dirt… We declare to Shaykh Shaker [al-Absi] and Usama [Bin Laden] and Ayman [al-Zawahiri] and Abu Omar [al-Baghdadi]: ‘Go forth with the blessing of Allah, go forth with your Lord and fight, and we shall fight with you.’ O’ sons of Islam, sons of the Gaza Strip, you are our base of support and, on your behalf, we shall ask for help and assistance from Allah… No border or language shall separate us—we share the same Lord, the same religion, and the same enemy.”

The documents can be viewed on the NEFA Foundation website.

Madeleine Gruen Joins Us As a Contributing Expert

By Andrew Cochran

We are pleased to welcome Madeleine Gruen to CTB as our newest Contributing Expert. Ms. Gruen most recently worked in the Counter Terrorism Bureau of the NYPD as an Intelligence Analyst, analyzing terrorist and extremist-group capabilities and intentions; maintaining current knowledge of terrorist tradecraft and means of support, analyzing leads; and anticipating future tactical trends. She is the author of numerous articles and presentations for senior-level officials in law enforcement and the intelligence community, including the following:

“Radicalization Trends in the United States and Opportunities for Interdiction,” presented at a conference about "First Preventers," April 8, 2008;

“Takeover of Moderate Islamic Institutions: Radical Islamist Tactics at the Local Level,” published in The Sentinel by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center, February 2008; and

“Hizb ut-Tahrir: Radicalization Tactics and Disruption,” presented at a conference on radicalization sponsored by the NYPD, January 2008.

Ms. Gruen earned her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a Master’s in Intelligence, Security, and Terrorism Studies from Knightsbridge University, Denmark, and she will soon receive her M.I.A. from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. We look forward to her contributions.

Descent into Appeasement

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Since Pakistan's new government came to power earlier this year, it has noticeably accelerated efforts to negotiate with and enter into accords with militant groups. While one can construct a case for negotiating with Pakistan's extremist groups, none of the talks in this new round address the problems of failed past agreements such as the September 2006 Waziristan accords. Rather, the current negotiations are likely to bolster the Taliban and al-Qaeda -- and create a more dangerous situation for Pakistan, for coalition forces in Afghanistan, and for U.S. citizens who will face an elevated risk of a catastrophic terrorist attack.

My colleague Bill Roggio and I have an article in the new issue of The Weekly Standard examining the current negotiations, and the implications for American security. An excerpt:

The Taliban violated each of the conditions of the now-infamous September 2006 Waziristan accords. It used the ceasefire as an opportunity to erect a parallel system of government complete with sharia courts, taxation, recruiting offices, and its own police force. Al Qaeda in turn benefited from the Taliban's expansion, building what U.S. intelligence estimates as 29 training camps in North and South Waziristan alone. And, while even the Waziristan accords paid lip service to stopping cross-border attacks against Coalition forces in Afghanistan, the new negotiations often leave this consideration aside. As North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) governor Owari Ghani recently told the New York Times, "Pakistan will take care of its own problems, you take care of Afghanistan on your side."

The first in this new round of agreements was struck with the NWFP's Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (the TNSM or Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law) on April 20 in the Malakand Division. The TNSM is led by Maulana Sufi Mohammed, who was imprisoned in 2002 for providing fighters to the Taliban in Afghanistan (as the TNSM continues to do to this day). The Pakistani government and the TNSM entered into a six-point deal in which the TNSM renounced attacks on Pakistan's government in exchange for the promise that sharia law would be imposed in Malakand. The government also freed Sufi Mohammed.

A month later, Pakistan inked a deal with the Taliban in the Swat district. Led by Mullah Fazlullah (Sufi Mohammed's son-in-law), they have been waging a brutal insurgency in the once-peaceful vacation spot. (More than 200 Pakistani soldiers and police have been killed since January 2007.) The 15-point agreement between the Pakistani government and the Swat Taliban stipulates that the military will withdraw its forces, and the government will allow the imposition of sharia law, permit Fazlullah to broadcast on his radio channel--which was previously banned--and help turn Fazlullah's madrassa into an "Islamic University."

Though the government extracted some concessions from the Taliban, they are so difficult to enforce that Pakistan will likely gain little more than the reintroduction of vaccination programs. (Fazlullah has campaigned against vaccinations in the past, describing them as a Western plot to make Pakistani men impotent.) The promise to close down training camps is certainly suspect.

You can read the entire article here. Other writings on Pakistan:

• My profile of new Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in the Middle East Times
• A Middle East Times analysis warning that the triumph of secular parties in the recent North-West Frontier Province elections did not in fact constitute a defeat for the Taliban
• A Weekly Standard cover story outlining the U.S.'s options in Pakistan
  
• An early analysis of the 2006 Waziristan accords (co-written with Bill Roggio)
  

UN Monitoring Team Report Highlights Problems Plaguing Implementation of Measures Against Al Qaeda and the Taliban

By Victor Comras

The United Nations Al Qaeda/Taliban Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team issued its 8th report earlier this month reviewing the implementation by states of the UN measures against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The report also highlights several problems that continue to reduce the effectiveness of these UN measures. Unlike the previous Monitoring Group on which I served, this team has shied away from drawing attention to specific violations of the UN measures. Nevertheless, their description of longstanding generic problems plaguing implementation deserves broad consideration and attention.

The report cites a serious failure on the part of the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, and its member countries, to update and expand the Consolidated List of individuals and entities associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. This list is critical to the application of the UN sanctions measures which, under Security Council resolutions, apply only to those so designated. The bulk of those listed were added in 2001 and in the months following 9/11. But, the list has simply not kept up with the evolving al Qaeda and Taliban leadership. And this problem is likely to be exacerbated given the recent controversy and court challenges surrounding the designation process.

The report notes that as of March 31, 2008, the Consolidated List had 482 entries: 142 individuals associated with the Taliban, and 228 individuals and 112 entities associated with Al-Qaida. But, as the Monitoring Team also points out “none of the several Taliban commanders captured or killed since October 2007 was listed highlighting the growing gap between the actual leadership of the insurgency and the names that currently appear in the Taliban section of the Consolidated List…. Only 19 listed individuals feature among the key leaders identified by the Afghan Government. Only 2 of the 34 operational provincial commanders are listed.” And the situation with Al Qaeda is no better.

The Consolidated list also continues to lack sufficient identifiers for most of the individuals listed, despite requests for such information to the countries submitting those names, including the United States, that date back several years. “At present,” the report says, “ 57 entries for individuals do not contain a full name and date of birth; another 5 have a full name and date of birth, but nothing else; and 26 have a name, date and place of birth but no other identifiers, such as nationality, address or country of residence.” This is a serious fault as this Consolidated List represents the only authority many countries, and their financial institutions, have to implement the required transaction blocks, and asset freezes, stipulated by the UN sanctions resolutions.

The Monitoring Team also draws attention to the broad use Al Qaeda makes of various media services and internet providers. Their report singles out the Al-Sahab media foundation, Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), Al-Fajr information centre or internal media committees, and such password-protected forums such as Al-Ekhlaas, Al-Hesba or Al-Boraq. They suggest that the Al Qaeda Committee “consider listing such media outlets and the main individuals and propagandists behind them, on the basis that their Internet activities demonstrate an association with Al-Qaida, as defined by the Security Council in resolution 1617 (2005).” This seems particularly relevant in instances in which they distribute material that might be considered an incitement to violence or that aims to recruit and train others to manufacture explosives or conduct bombings and suicide attacks, or where they aim to raise funds for listed entities.

Nasrallah's speech: The Explosive Bottom Line

By Walid Phares

Here is a summary of the main points made by Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah this week in Beirut, after the invasion of (mostly Sunni) West Beirut, the attack against (mostly Druze) southern Mount Lebanon and after the declaration of Doha and the election of a new President for Lebanon. Nasrallah delivered his "victory speech" last Monday, outlining the new agenda of the Iranian funded organization in Lebanon. My full analysis will be published Monday. Following are twelve major assertions Nasrallah made.

Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Dr. Donald Kerr addresses The Washington Institute

By Matthew Levitt

Last night, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Dr. Donald Kerr addressed The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's 20th Annual Soref Symposium. In a lecture entitled "Emerging Threats, Challenges, and Opportunities in the Middle East," Dr. Kerr offered a a notional view of some of the issues that will be raised during the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) in the Oval Office on January 21, 2009. Whoever next occupies the While House will inherent critical and pressing foreign policy challenges across the spectrum of U.S. policy toward the Middle East. From Iraq and Iran to Lebanon and the Arab-Israeli conflict, the President will already have a full plate on January 21.

Dr. Kerr's remarks are available here.

Statistical Analysis of Decapitation as a Counter-Terror Strategy

By Aaron Mannes

The most recent edition of The Journal of International Policy Solutions published a statistical analysis I wrote on the efficacy of killing or capturing the top leaders of a terrorist organizations. Entitled "Testing The Snake Head Strategy: Does Killing or Capturing its Leaders Reduce a Terrorist Group's Activity?" the article can be read in its entirety here a summary of the method and findings follows.

It is conventional wisdom that removing an organization's leaders is an effective counter-terror strategy, but the quantitative analysis is less clear on the issue. Most of the successes focus on specific instances, such as the collapse of Sendero Luminoso in Peru after its leaders were removed. There are also examples on the other side, such as Hezbollah's increased deadliness and effectiveness after Israel's 1992 assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Abbas Musawi.

This study was an attempt to shed some light on the issue, focusing strictly on removing top leaders (#1 or #2 - so OBL or Zawahiri would count, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did not.)

Read the full post here.

Iran Moves Banking Facilities to Venezuela

By Douglas Farah

In a little-noticed move, Venezuela and Iran are joining forces not just in petroleum-relate ventures, but in banking ventures. The move toward joint banking is likely to boost Tehran's ability to circumvent U.S.-led sanctions against its financial structure that supports international terrorism and its nuclear program.

The formation of two banks in Venezuela comes on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid Iran has promised the governments in the region that support the Chavez government in Venezuela-Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia, principally.

In addition to helping Iran evade sanctions, the banks, which will be largely operating outside the normal transparency required of financial institutions, will allow Chavez several new avenues to spread money to insurgent groups on the continent, particularly his allies in the FARC in Colombia.

On March 20, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a warning against using several Iranian banks, including the Banco Internacional de Desarrollo, SA (BID), a wholly-owned Iranian bank based in Caracas, Venezuela.

Treasury warned that through state-owned banks, the government of Iran, the government of Iran disguises its involvement in proliferation and terrorism activities through an array of deceptive practices specifically to evade detection. My full blog is here.

The next battlefield: Ceuta and Melilla?

By Olivier Guitta

I recently wrote for the Middle East Times an article about the importance for jihadists of two tiny territories on the doorsteps of Europe.

You can read the whole article here.
Here is an excerpt:

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's No.2, makes a point to regularly mention in his broadcasts the Muslim lands that need to be "liberated." The list includes the usual suspects for every respectable jihadist: "Palestine," Kashmir and Chechnya. But interestingly, the list includes two tiny Spanish enclaves located in Morocco: Ceuta and Melilla.
For the time being Zawahiri focuses on the enclaves rather than the whole "al-Andalus" (historic Spain). Indeed their importance should not be underestimated.

The two enclaves administered by the Spaniards, (as Hong Kong was by the British) physically inside Morocco, are in fact neither Spanish nor Moroccan. Ceuta and Melilla - 140 miles apart as the crow flies, or 240 miles by road - on the Moroccan coast hover between Islamic and Christian cultures.

The 12-square-mile territories however have a vital and strategic importance: they serve as beachheads between Europe and Africa. Ceuta is only 13 miles from the European coast. Morocco and Spain have been fighting over them for years. Now the Islamists have joined the fray.

Tension between the two countries is evident: Rabat considers the territories belonging to Morocco. An intense and loud controversy started when Spanish King Juan Carlos made a very highly symbolic visit in November to Ceuta and Melilla. Even though Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero came to visit the two towns in 2006, the Juan Carlos visit was much more controversial. Indeed, no Spanish king had visited Ceuta and Melilla since 1927 and upon arriving Juan Carlos, addressing the crowd, said: "I did not want to let more time go by without paying you a visit. It was a debt I owed you."

NEFA Exclusive: Further Responses from the Second Round of Q&A with al-Zawahiri

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has translated further excerpts from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s second round of answers to some of the hundreds of questions recently submitted on extremist web forums by Al-Qaida supporters and other interested parties. In response to various questions regarding the structure and relationship between the various “Emirates” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, al-Zawahiri explained, “the Islamic State of Iraq, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan-and I would add to them the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus-are individual Islamic emirates that do not yield to a single ruler… Shaykh Usama Bin Laden is a soldier of the Emir al-Mumineen, Mullah Mohammed Omar, may Allah protect him, and all of those you have cited help and cooperate with each other in order to support Islam and the jihad." Al-Zawahiri was also quick to defend Al-Qaida factions in Iraq, Algeria, and Afghanistan in the face of various critics. According to Dr. al-Zawahiri, “the methodology of the Islamic State of Iraq [is] among the purest banners and methodologies in Iraq… I ask those who have doubts about the Islamic State of Iraq: what is the point of destroying an Islamic state that has arisen after such a long wait in the heart of the Muslim world?” Regarding recent events in Algeria, al-Zawahiri insisted, “I assure you that your brothers from Al-Qaida's Committee in the Islamic Maghreb sincerely care about your lives, property, and honor… They consider guarding your safety as one of their most important religious obligations and they never intend to kill a Muslim unlawfully… Sometimes, mistakes can happen during times of war, which should be corrected and dealt with according to the Shariah. But this doesn't mean that the jihad should simply be stopped.”

Also covered:
- The role of women in Al-Qaida
- Zawahiri's troubled relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood
- Zawahiri's (lack of a) relationship with Imad Mugniyeh and Hezbollah
- A discussion of the various books authored by al-Zawahiri, and how they have been published over time
- Much more...

The English translation can be accessed on the NEFA Foundation website.

Jaish-e-Mohammed: Prophet’s Army is Down but Certainly Not Out

By Frank Hyland & Animesh Roul

This column is another in the ongoing series on the terrorist threat to India and the surrounding region by Frank Hyland and Animesh Roul.

Following severe setbacks in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in 2007 at the hands of security forces, Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of the Prophet) reportedly plans to unleash major terrorist strikes on Indian establishments. Sources in the Indian Intelligence agencies have warned that in early 2008, even though JeM had lost more than 25 commanders in the last couple of years, the group can still make a comeback in the Kashmir valley and elsewhere in India with its signature suicide attacks. Again this May, nearly six Jaish militants, including two local commanders (Javed Ahmed Lone, and Qari Asif), were killed by security forces in a prolonged encounter in Lurem Jagir forest near Tral town (Pulwama district) of J&K.

Despite these setbacks, the group recently had issued letters threatening widespread 'bloodshed' by triggering blasts in commuter trains and other vital places in Aligarh and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh as well as railway stations across Gujarat. Desperate to remain relevant, JeM’s last major attempt to strike in the national capital was foiled in February 4, 2007 when four of its senior cadres were arrested by the Delhi Police near the busy Connaught Place area along with RDX, timers, detonators, hand grenades, and huge amount money including foreign currency ($10,000).

The Union Home Ministry of India noted in its Annual Report (2007-08) that the involvement of JeM - Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)- and Bangladesh-based HuJI, has been observed in most of the terror strikes in the country. Most disturbingly, these groups have been using their sleeper cells to carry out such attacks.

Formed under the leadership of Masood Azhar in Karachi’s Binori Mosque, JeM emerged in the months following the infamous Kandahar hijacking episode (IC 814) in Dec 1999 and subsequent terrorists/hostages exchanges. Masood Azhar, who has masterminded many high profile suicide attacks in India, exerts direct control over terror training camps at Balakot in Pakistan’s restive North West Frontier Province. Having direct affiliations with al- Qaeda and Taliban militants, JeM became the first of the terrorist groups to adopt suicide terror tactics in India when they targeted the J&K State Legislative Assembly on 1 Oct 2001 and again on 13 Dec 2001 fidayeen attack on Indian Parliament.

JeM was involved in many high-profile suicide attacks in Pakistan as well and fought along with Taliban and Lashkar-e -Jhangvi. Maulana Abdul Jabbar, commander of the JeM, masterminded at least three suicide attacks in Pakistan (considered to be the first of their kind in that country), which targeted Christian centers (a church in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave on March 17, a Christian school near Murree on August 5 and Christian hospital in Taxila on August 9) in 2002. Jabbar’s hand was also suspected in the attacks on President Pervez Musharraf. The pan Islamic agenda of JeM came to the fore when the group joined hands with al-Qaeda sometimes in August last year, along with LeJ, to increase terrorist activities, targeting Pakistan Army, pro-Musharraf politicians and government installations. One Abu Ali Tunisi had masterminded this coalition of terror groups.

The Jaish leadership reportedly met at Bahawalpur in Pakistan late April (26) 2008 to rename and revitalize the outfit. The small city, believed to be the Headquarters of JeM, came into the news when Rashid Rauf, the alleged mastermind behind the plot to blow up at least 10 transantlantic planes, was arrested from Bahawalpur in early August 2006. Even though the Rawalpindi court dropped terrorism charges against Rauf late that year, his connection with JeM and its leadership is out in the open. Prior to Rauf’s case, JeM’s complicity in the murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl brought the group even more notoriety.

JeM was re-designated as ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’ along with other 44 terrorist outfits by the US state department on April 08, 2008.

What is it that makes the JeM so resilient? With active support from Pakistan’s secret services and international terror networks, JeM and its leadership have been operating freely in Pakistan’s territory since February 2000. Besides Bahawalpur, the outfit is also based in both Peshawar and Muzaffarabad, Pakistan. The outfit has an imposing presence in Pakistan’s Darra Adam Khel area (NWFP), along with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), LeT and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Second Bin Laden Audio Transcript: "A Message to the Islamic Nation"

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a copy of a May 18 audio recording from Al-Qaida Usama Bin Laden titled “A Message to the Islamic Nation.” During his speech, Bin Laden called upon Muslim youths—particularly those living in countries neighboring Israel—to immediately take up arms in defense of their Palestinian “brothers” in the embattled Gaza Strip. According to Bin Laden, “It is very clear what our brothers, the heroes of Egypt, must do in order to lift that siege, since they are the only ones on the borders [of Gaza]. They should move towards lifting this siege and bringing down this haughty, cruel tyrant [Hosni Mubarak], who has a heart of stone and is the murderer of the children of Gaza… The only way to reach Palestine is to fight the governments and factions that surround the Jews, for they stand between us and them… So, rush towards the battlefields of Jihad, and in particular, those which are closest to Palestine.” Once again, Bin Laden also addressed recent condemnations of Al-Qaida for the killing of fellow Muslims, dismissing these critics as “ignorant of their own religion.”

The English transcript can be accessed on the NEFA Foundation website.

The Beginning of the End for Al Qaeda?

By Paul Cruickshank

Peter Bergen (my colleague at the NYU Center on Law and Security) and myself have a cover story out in the latest issue of the New Republic -- published online last week and now on news stands --- entitled the ‘Jihadist Revolt against Bin Laden.’ We report that key figures in the Jihadist movement, many of them veterans of the Afghan anti-Soviet Jihad, are increasingly publicly repudiating Bin Laden, alarmed by Al Qaeda’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians and the fact that most of its victims since 9/11 have been Muslim.

Although several veterans of the Afghan Jihad saw 9/11 as an illegitimate attack on civilians and a blunder by Bin Laden because Jihadists lost their ability to train in Afghanistan, the emergence of a fully-fledged ‘Jihadist Critique’ of Al Qaeda was almost certainly delayed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, ‘a cause celebre’ for Jihadists around the world.

Since then, however, al Qaeda’s brutal campaign of violence in Iraq (over 10,000 Iraqis have been killed by Al Qaeda’s suicide bombers) has horrified even battle-hardened Jihadists, and ideologues once closely aligned with al Qaeda. One such jihadist, Sayyid Imam al Sharif is profiled this week by Larry Wright (also a fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security) in the New Yorker.

While mainstream Muslim leaders have long criticized Al Qaeda, the new wave of criticism coming from key figures in the jihadist movement has real extra bite, because it is very difficult for Bin Laden to dismiss the arguments of jihadist leaders who once fought at his side, or provided guidance to his organization, or inspired his recruits. To the degree that this makes radical leaning youngsters from London to Lahore think twice about joining al Qaeda, this could be a watershed moment in the war on terrorism. Here is our assessment of just how impactful this new jihadist critique has been.

Virtual Assassination as a Counterterrorism tool

By Roderick Jones

As part of the virtualization of terrorism it is worth considering what, if any, terrorist tactics can be applied in this new paradigm. One tactic, which can probably transfer from the real world to cyber environments is assassination, or in this case virtual-assassination. The tactic of assassination has value for a number of reasons. It can remove competent or charismatic leadership, damage morale and as a side effect can force an increase in security. So how would all this work in cyberspace? You can’t of course physically murder someone there. But by looking at what assassination actually achieves it is possible to formulate a scenario that has a similar cyberspace effect.

One way to think about this is by considering the Presidential candidacy of Barak Obama who has received enhanced security from the US government. Some commentators have called his campaign the 'first campaign of the 21st Century', partly because he has been able to mobilize grass-roots support through the use of the Internet, which has also enabled him to raise significantly more funds than his opponents. So if Obama’s campaign is the first campaign of the 21st century - what would the fifth or tenth campaign look like? Arguably, as well as raising funds and organizing volunteers much of the campaigning would be conducted in cyberspace across virtual forums and virtual spaces - the capacity to deliver speeches to large virtual audiences will be available to candidates as server capacity increases. Some attempts were made during this campaign to integrate cyberspace (the YouTube debates) but this is not yet a working forum.

Therefore a cyberspace assassination would seek to achieve the following aims: prevent the candidate from actually being in cyberspace ( the equivalent of virtual-murder), instill fear amongst their supporters that the same may happen to them and as a side-effect force the political campaigns to spend money on their cyber security or force the Secret Service to protect cyber-personas (the protection of cyber-identities is clearly something that all protective security agencies are going to need to consider). The tools to do this arguably already exist - hackers or botnets for hire could be diverted to these ends. This of course is fast-forwarding to a future more virtualized point where society is heavily reliant on cyber-spaces but similar tools could be applied today.

As with all things virtual, the scenario can be flipped. The use of precision cyber-attacks (or virtual assassinations) against America’s enemies should be considered today as a tactic to disrupt cyber-terrorists. This is in part a direct answer to one of the questions posed by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental affairs (Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat), which asked,

“What, if any, new laws, resources and tactics other than those already employed by intelligence and law enforcement should be used to prevent the spread of the ideology [violent Islamist] in the United States?”

The answer, targeted cyber-attacks. In a recent piece in the Armed Forces Journal Col. Charles Williamson argues that the USA should develop its own botnet facility in order to launch cyber ‘carpet bombing’ against its enemies. This suggestion can be refined and used to address the current problem of cyber-jihadis. There is an ongoing debate about whether to act against extremist websites - on the one hand they provide useful insight and intelligence on the other they are currently the terrorist training camps and propaganda vehicle of choice. The ability to target specific sites for attack or even specific users would seem to be a useful counter-terrorist tool and an answer to this debate. Therefore, Col. Williamson’s cyber carpet-bombing should be adapted for counter-terrorist purposes and directed at the most active and most dangerous cyber-terrorists. For the growing band of Internet jihadi’s permanent disconnection from cyberspace is the equivalent of organizational death.

As online identities become more important they are vulnerable to a variety of different attacks, some of these are adaptations of fundamental human tactics and skills. The ancient tactic of assassination is one of them.

Media and Intel Community Caught by Apparent Al-Qaida Nuke Message "Prank"

By Evan Kohlmann

As of early this evening, ABC News and the Drudge Report are running a headline claiming that "al Qaeda operatives will post a new video on the Internet in the next 24 hours, calling for what one source said is 'jihadists to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West.'" The ABC News report quotes FBI spokesman Richard Kolko as acknowledging that "there have been several reports that al Qaeda will release a new message calling for the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against civilians."

For the record: there is no indication whatsoever that Al-Qaida's As-Sahab Media Foundation is preparing to release anything in the next 24 hours. There has been no notification posted on the usual channels, there are no glitzy advertisements, and there is no credible electronic chatter, period. Rather, the intel community appears to have (once again) fallen victim to poorly researched open source news reporting. In recent days, several fringe media organizations have published stories about a video recording posted by anonymous Al-Qaida miscreants on extremist Internet chat forums. The video consisted of a remarkably amateurish mash-up of Discovery Channel documentaries, widely published sermons by radical clerics, and stolen propaganda footage. While it is perhaps true that the video offered subtle encouragement for nuclear attacks on the United States, it featured no original content and could have been clumsily strung together with little more than two VCRs. The video was meandering, boring, and difficult to follow--and it certainly was not the product of Al-Qaida.

Usama's Message: Good Jihadists v. Bad Jihadists

By Walid Phares

In his latest audio released by as-sahab (media arm of al Qaeda), the organization’s Zaeem (supreme chief) elaborates on the difference between the pure Jihadists and those Islamists who lost their way and determination to continue the fight in the path of the founding fathers, which he calls the "Salaf of Islam." This complex speech (by Jihadist standards) can be only understood -- and thus explained to decision-makers and the public if the listener-analyst is able to grasp the multi-layered world of Jihadism.

But this task has been made unnecessarily difficult for most citizens and certainly impossible to those who in the US bureaucracy are supposed to do the job. By disseminating the so-called "Lexicon", the Bush administration, bureaucrats are prohibited from using the words Jihad, Jihadism, Caliphate, Salafism, Islamism and the like when writing about and analyzing matters related to terrorism. This ridiculous proposition is now put to test when al Qaeda leaders -- and other Jihadist high profile figures broadcast their statements.

Just imagine the poor analysts at the various counter-terrorism centers who chose to apply the new directives to the bin Laden letter. How can these CT bureaucrats process Bin Laden's words which they can't use or touch "when dealing with Terrorism"? One can imagine them staring at these "forbidden words" attempting to replace them with "Lexiconic" terms. So how will they handle such texts? Some are suggesting that the end product of these "Lexiconic" analysis will not only be absurd, but will further confuse the consumers of the intelligence assessment, from the defense and national security sectors up to the highest congressional leaders and of course, the President.

We are not constrained by the “Lexicon”. Let’s dismiss it for the tragicomedy it is. So in real terms, how shall we analyze the latest Bin Laden audio?

The Death of Marulanda and the Future of the FARC

By Douglas Farah

The FARC's announcement this weekend that its top leader, Manuel Marulanda (AKA Tirofijo, or "Sureshot") had died of a heart attack means the end of an era for the Marxist-inspired group that is now more criminal enterprise than insurgency.

Marulanda, whose real name Pedro Marin, was the last of old guard that founded the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) in 1964, after spending more than a decade fighting in the wars between Conservative and Liberal party militias. His death comes as the FARC is suffering from severe internal strains and loss of leadership, leaving the future of the hemisphere's oldest insurgency murky.

In the past two months, the FARC's seven-member board of commanders has suffered three losses-Raul Reyes, Marulanda's chief deputy, whose captured computer has led to an unprecedented intelligence boon to government forces; Ivan Rios, whose own bodyguards executed him and cut off his hands and took his laptop computer; and Marulanda, who apparently died of old age. In addition, dozens of mid-level commanders have quit the movement.

This is a severe blow to a movement had had not lost even one of iits members of the high command (other than to natural causes) since its founding.

While living an extremely isolated life, in recent months, under the tutelage and direction of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the FARC was making a concerted effort to expand both its international sphere of influence and it international contacts. My friend Jonathan Winer outlines the latest revelations here.

Marulanda, as the grand old man, held the FARC together despite the demise of Marxism and Marxist movements around the world. He did it by allowing the movement to become highly compartmentalized and self-financing.

This was accomplished by letting different fronts of the FARC to engage in different types of criminal activity, from the cocaine trade to kidnappings for ransom. While an avowed Marxist himself, the cadres entering his force were, over time, less ideological and more profit-oriented. The group, which continues to hold hundreds of hostages, was designated a terrorist entity by both the United States and the European Union. My full blog is here.

FARC's terrorist diplomacy reaches Germany

By Jonathan Winer

A recent article in the German online publication, Der Spiegel, provides further insights into FARC's efforts to get itself off international terrorist lists.

According to Der Spiegel, documents provided to it by Colombian officials said to be from the seized compters of the late FARC #2 leader Raul Reyes, obtained in Colombia's March 1 cross-border raid of a FARC camp in Ecuador, describe FARC meetings in Berlin with a representative of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) -- the successor party to the East German Communist party, who is today a member of the German parliament with the Left Party and the party's foreign affairs spokesman.

According to e-mails provided to Der Spiegel, the German politician said he that the PDS would make an effort to get the European Parliament to remove FARC from the list of terrorist organizations. Significantly, this internal e-mail is corroborated by external events: in June 2007, the Left Party circulated a proposal that FARC be removed from the European Union's list of terrorist groups.

Other e-mails, previously released by Colombia, described FARC diplomatic initiatives with political leaders in Ecuador and Venezuela, with suggestive hints of outreach to varous European countries. This e-mail is the most specific to date about particular meetings, particular individuals, and confirmable real-world political events. On Saturday May 24, the German politician, Wolfgang Gehrcke, admitted his contacts with the FARC, saying his efforts were undertaken in an effort to end Colombia's civil war. Separately, Colombian officials are opening investigations into domestic politicians found to have worked with the FARC according to information on the guerrilla computers. They have also found e-mails showing ongoing contacts between FARC and a U.S. academic, James C. Jones, who has been involved in efforts to secure the release of FARC hostages.,

In the meantime, Colombia's Semana magazine states that a senior official in Colombia has confirmed the death of the FARC's top general and leader, Manuel "Tirofijo" Marulanda, reportedly of a heart attack in the jungle in March. If true, this would be merely the latest of a series of blows to the FARC that in addition to Marulanda's and Reyes' deaths have included the recent surrender of a top female guerrilla, Nelly Avila Moreno, who gave herself up on May 18 after 24 years with the guerrilla movement.

Supreme Guide of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Discusses his Admiration for Bin Laden

By David Schenker

In a lengthy interview published today in the online Arabic news service Elaph, Supreme Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Mohammed Akef was asked: “Regarding resistance and jihad…do you consider Osama Bin Laden a terrorist or an Islamic Mujahid?”

Akef’s answer:

“In all certainty, a mujahid, and I have no doubt in his sincerity in resisting the occupation, close to Allah on high.”

This statement provides some insight into the current thinking of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. It should prompt a reassessment in the West of the now dominant view that the MB in Egypt is committed to non-violence and democracy.

I’ve written a few pieces in recent months on developments in Egypt, which can be found here and here.

Millions in Criminal Proceeds + Iran's Oil Millions = Hearts, Minds, Votes for Hezbollah

By Andrew Cochran

Our future national counterinsurgency or asymmetric threat strategy must take into consideration the success which Hamas, Hezbollah, and other segments of the jihadist community have had in building and operating a social services network which influences the local populace. Matthew Levitt has written extensively on that success; see his post here on November 21, 2007, "Zakat-Jihad Activism," in which he discusses an excellent "Military Review" article, "S.W.E.T. and Blood: Essential Services in the Battle Between Insurgents and Counterinsurgents." Matt noted, "(t)his 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."

Hezbollah already has such a network in Lebanon, as Matt pointed out in a Washington Institute article. Nothing the U.S. has done has prevented Hezbollah from providing such services outside of Lebanese government channels. For instance, despite the Treasury Department's designation in 2007 of Jihad al-Bina, Hezbollah's construction company in Lebanon, that company is operating with little hindrance; David Schenker tells me that the company's subsidiary is rebuilding much of Dahyia. Hezbollah's diplomatic victory this week will enable further development of that network.

Hezbollah has two sources for hundreds of millions of dollars. First, it has a long history of using criminal activities around the world, including inside the U.S., to raise funds, as Matt wrote on November 8, 2007 and as Dennis Lormel wrote on July 16, 2006. I was told this week by two experts that recent estimates of the funds raised through such activity run from $100 to 300 million. Second, of course, it is the ward of the Iranian regime; Walid Phares recently put that support level at upwards of $1 billion, thanks to the extraordinary price of oil. And we should have no doubt that Hezbollah will use a considerable portion of those funds to buy popular support inside Lebanon. No other group there has that type of financial muscle, and in my opinion, it will enable Hezbollah to maintain and expand its power through the 2009 parliamentary elections and beyond.

Lebanon's Crisis Deferred

By David Schenker

Yesterday in Qatar, the pro-West Lebanese Government and Syrian and Iranian-backed Hizballah reached an agreement to deescalate the crisis. The Doha Agreement has largely been seen as a victory for Hizballah; the militia cum political party will be brought into the Government and provided a cabinet veto. Meanwhile, a discussion of the disposition of Hizballah’s weapons—a core issue for March 14th—will be deferred.

Despite these March 14th concessions, in reality, the deal will do little to change the status quo on the ground. Hizballah, as events of early May made painfully clear, already possesses the ability to veto government initiatives by force.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa has described the Doha Agreement as a historic “reconciliation.” Given the ongoing outstanding issues, however, it appears that the agreement will be more of a hudna—a temporary truce—until the next round of fighting.

An article I wrote analyzing the Doha Agreement for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy can be found here.

NEFA Foundation: Transcript of Bin Laden's "Message to the Peoples of the West"

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a copy of a May 15, 2008 audio recording from Al-Qaida leader Usama Bin Laden, titled, “A Message to the People of the West from the Shaykh Usama Bin Laden: The Reasons for the Conflict on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Israeli Conquest.” During his speech, Bin Laden sought to “reassure” the world that “the Palestinian issue is the primary central issue of our movement. Thus, it has been an important factor in motivating me since childhood and providing the nineteen liberators [the 9/11 hijackers] with a major longing to aid the oppressed and punish the tyrannical Jews and their supporters.” Further on in his address, Bin Laden attempted to deflect criticism of Al-Qaida’s own controversial terrorist tactics, insisting: “The real terrorism and the armed assaults are being carried out by a leader who is the most terrible instrument of war humanity has ever seen… What really causes revulsion in us is that—in the wake of all this killing, destroying, pillaging, plundering, and decadence—your leaders have arisen intent on discussing certain [shared] principles, and this is simply not possible—so do not combine these two injustices… You have designated Palestinian organizations as terrorist organizations, and they were punished and boycotted as a result. Whereas, on the other hand, the Israelis have actually killed civilians—women and children, with car bombs, too—in Jaffa, Haifa, and [elsewhere].”

The English transcript of Bin Laden's message can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

A Needed Push in the Intelligence Community

By Douglas Farah

Mike McConnell, the director for national intelligence, recently announced a significant revision in how members of the Intelligence Community will be paid.

Rather than rewarding employees for simply putting in time, the new pay system seeks to reward performance. As McConnell said, you usually get the behavior you reward.

It is undoubtedly something of a risk, but there is little doubt that it is vitally necessary as a way to reward innovation and those who take a modicum of risk in their jobs, as well as show superior competence.

This is particularly true given the massive drain of the old guard in the Community following 9/11. One of the complaints and criticisms of the old system, which was clearly broken, was that it could not reward competence. People rose through the ranks and were rewarded largely by how long they could stick around.

One of the truly alarming figures in assessing the intelligence community across the board is that more than half have five years of experience or less. My full blog is here.

Another Pakistan Deal with the Taliban Jihadists

By Jeffrey Imm

Once again, the Pakistan government signs another deal with the Taliban, while counting on an impotent American government and an uninformed American public to continue to provide them billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars as our "ally".

This is becoming an near-annual event in Taliban appeasement by the Pakistan government: the September 2006 North Waziristan Accord, the August 2007 calls by President Musharraf to "mainstream" the Taliban, and now a peace agreement with the Taliban in Swat. The next steps will be a further surrender to Taliban-guided Sharia throughout seven districts of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in the months to come.

NEFA TerrorWatch: The Spillover Impact of the Iraqi Jihad in Afghanistan

By Evan Kohlmann

This week's episode of NEFA's TerrorWatch broadcast takes a closer look at Mohammed al-Thibaiti (a.k.a. Abu Sulaiman al-Otaibi), a Saudi Arabian national and a senior Al-Qaida lieutenant who was confirmed killed during recent clashes with the "crusaders and apostates" in the Paktia province of Afghanistan--and the larger spillover impact of the Iraqi jihad on the conflict in Afghanistan. On May 11, Al-Qaida leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid published a letter confirming that al-Thibaiti "was martyred in the Paktika province in Afghanistan… as a result of clashes with the enemies of Allah from the crusaders and apostates. Allah bestowed [him] with dedication and victory and [he] is an example of courage, sacrifice, and valor… We offer our condolences to… to brothers of Abu Sulaiman especially in Iraq and in the Arabian Peninsula."

To watch the latest episode of NEFA TerrorWatch, click here.

Two Easily Exploitable Vulnerabilities of Money Services Businesses

By Dennis Lormel

Money Services Businesses (MSBs) provide important services to a large segment of our society. According to FinCEN, MSBs refer to five distinct types of financial services providers: currency exchangers; check cashers; issuers, sellers, or redeemers of traveler’s checks, money orders or stored value; the United States Postal Service; and money transmitters. MSB customers mostly consist of the “unbanked.” This client base tends to be more transient, consist of low income households, who generally prefer not to deal with banks, and engage in short term transactions. Many of these individuals are immigrants who rely on MSBs to cash checks and/or send money back to their families in their home countries. Either real or perceived, there is an impression that many MSBs possess lax anti-money laundering (AML) programs.

In order to successfully operate and continue to provide services to their constituencies, MSBs require maintaining specific banking services. Between the perceptions of lax AML programs, the transient customer base and fact that MSBs are cash intensive businesses they are inherently considered high risk customers by banks. Because of this inherent risk, many banks either do not service MSB accounts or have closed MSB accounts. This problem has been seriously exacerbated by two distinct areas of vulnerability which have been easily exploited by terrorists, drug dealers, criminals and money launderers alike. These two areas are:

1. Unregistered and unlicensed MSBs
2. MSB agents or operators who facilitate money laundering

It is important to point out that many MSBs are credible businesses possessing adequate to comprehensive AML programs. Invariably, the credible MSBs are registered with FinCEN and licensed in their state(s) of operation. As of April 10, 2008, the FinCEN MSB registration list contained 41,049 MSBs. The problem is that this represents less than 20 % of the MSBs operating in the United States (U.S.). This means that the overwhelming majority of MSBs are unregistered, unlicensed and illegal. Most, if not all of these illegal MSBs do not have AML programs and are extremely vulnerable to terrorist and criminal exploitation. It should be noted however, the majority of MSB transactions are attributable to the seven largest MSBs, which are legitimate sophisticated operations. None the less, the overwhelming number of illegal MSBs is troubling.

MSBs range from simple mom and pop businesses to complex chain operations. There is a broad variance between these types of businesses. In servicing MSBs, banks must understand they are dealing with various levels of risk. Hence, assessing MSB risk is challenging. There cannot be a standard model to assess risk applied to all MSBs. Banks must demonstrate flexibility and assess the risk of MSB clients on a specific client by client basis.

In those situations where the bank is aware the client is an MSB, the risk assessment and monitoring process should be easier to manage. Based on geography; the type of operation, mom and pop versus chain; type of business, ranging from check casher to money remitter; the bank should be able to reasonably assess the level of risk. Based on the risk factors, the bank can determine how to monitor the MSB account, to include planning onsite visits; the extent of onsite reviews; and the frequency. This process should be consistent and well documented.

The greater concern to banks should be the fear of the unknown. Most banks in actuality have MSBs as clients but do not know it. For a multitude of reasons, the MSBs were not identified at account opening as MSBs and were listed as other business entities, such as grocery stores, restaurants, travel agencies or other types of businesses. In addition to their normal services, these businesses offer some type of MSB function. There is a reasonable chance that many of these businesses are not properly registered with FinCEN or licensed by the individual states they operate in.

In the majority of instances, where banks do not identify a customer as an MSB, they are dealing with check cashers. According to industry experts, a lot of small businesses will offer check cashing services to their customers but don’t understand the legal impact or responsibilities. Typically, banks can find MSBs by looking at their customer’s transaction activity. There will be a pattern of depositing a large number of checks such as third party or payroll checks. There will also be a pattern where the amount of cash deposited decreases or the amount of cash back increases, depending upon the type of business, and whether it’s cash intensive or not. Money remittance businesses will have extensive outgoing transfers, usually by wire. Many of these transfers will go to the country of the ethnic community serviced by the business.

Two examples of illegal activity emanating from money remittance operations with a nexus to terrorism involved the Carnival Ice Cream Shop in Brooklyn, New York and Operation Cash Out, a wide ranging multi-agency undercover operation.

The Carnival Ice Cream Shop’s annual average revenue was approximately $185,000. Yet between 1997 and 2003, Carnival’s owner Abad Elfgeeh, an American citizen born in Yemen, illegally wired $22,000,000 overseas, mostly to Yemen. The funds were wired through a major New York City bank. Most people wiring money were of Yemeni decent. The FBI became aware of Elfgeeh’s activity during the course of a terrorist investigation involving Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad. Elfgeeh illegally transferred money to al-Moayad, a radical Yemeni Sheik who raised funds for Al Qaeda and Hamas. Al-Moayad had close ties to Osama bin Laden. The FBI arrested al-Moayad in an undercover sting operation in a hotel room in Frankfort, Germany, in 2003. Al-Moayad was lured to the hotel under the pretext that undercover agents intended to provide him with $2,000,000 for Al Qaeda and Hamas. Al-Moayad was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to 75 years for conspiring to provide material support to terrorism.
The government elected not to charge Elfgeeh with terrorism. Elfgeeh was convicted on charges including operating a money transfer business without a license and avoiding currency reporting laws. A vexing question for banks is how many customers do they have, who function like the Carnival Ice Cream Shop and facilitate money transfers for terrorists and criminals alike? A more vexing question is does the bank have the capability of identifying such illegal accounts?

Operation Cash Out was a four year multi-agency undercover operation that focused on illegal money remittance or hawala activity conducted through a number of businesses ranging from money transmitters to convenience stores. Hawalas operate throughout the world. They function as an underground banking system, operating parallel to the formal banking system. In all, 46 defendants in the U.S., Spain, Canada and Belgium were arrested in September 2007. In this case, subjects laundered more then $2,200,000 for cooperating witnesses they believed were drug dealers. In at least one instance, a subject believed he was moving money intended for terrorists. This case has yet to be adjudicated. However, it cuts directly to the heart of the problem for financial institutions. What can and should banks do to better “know their customer” and identify businesses operating as unregistered and unlicensed MSB customers?

In addition to manual reviews, banks should use AML systems that alert the bank to possible MSB activity through transaction monitoring. The best method for banks to identify MSB customers is on the front end at account opening and/or in the initial due diligence process. Bank employees should be trained to ask the right questions at account opening. In addition, the due diligence process should be thorough and include mechanisms to identify potential MSB red flags.

Each of the above cases also involves the second area of vulnerability for MSBs which can be easily exploited by terrorists, drug dealers, criminals and money launderers. MSB agents working for MSB chain operations and the small mom and pop MSB operators can either operate within the framework of the law and adhere to all AML reporting requirements or they can operate in an illegal manner and facilitate illicit activity. Many MSB agents and operators are honest individuals who run legitimate businesses. However, many others are not. In the case of the small MSBs, the onus falls on the bank to know their customer. With agents, the responsibility for their activities rests with the MSB.

The vulnerability to MSB agent malfeasance was manifested in the case against the MSB Sigue. Sigue has more that 7,000 agents located throughout the U.S. providing money transmission services from the U.S. to Mexico and Latin America. Between November 2003 and June 2006, it was determined that Sigue’s AML program was deficient in all four core elements. Namely, Sigue failed to implement effective internal controls, designate compliance personnel, conduct effective independent testing, and provide training to ensure compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act. As a result, a significant amount of drug money was laundered through Sigue agents. As part of a DEA drug investigation, 47 Sigue agents structured transactions and/or knowingly laundered drug money for undercover DEA agents.

It is incumbent that MSBs maintain strong oversight of agents and operate robust AML programs to identify transactional patterns indicative of money laundering. MSBs must adequately vet potential agents through proper due diligence and they must provide ample and consistent agent training. Agent onsite reviews should be conducted on a scheduled and unscheduled basis and re-reviews conducted of select agents.

MSBs under the best of circumstances face perception problems. The two areas of vulnerability discussed herein, unregistered and unlicensed MSBs, and MSB agents or operators that facilitate money laundering make it challenging for MSBs to establish and maintain bank accounts. More importantly, these vulnerabilities present opportunities for terrorists, drug dealers and criminals to launder money.

Issues involving MSBs are complex and require government oversight and guidance. One step in the right direction is that FinCEN is developing an MSB examination manual. According to a FinCEN representative at a recent AML conference, FinCEN hopes to publish the MSB examination manual in the fall. Based on the steady stream of law enforcement cases reported in the media involving illegal money transmission activities, select Congressional Committees should revisit and assess this issue.

Hezbollah Wins in Lebanon - Is This the "Grand Bargain" in Action?

By Andrew Cochran

Today is a day which we should mark on the calendar and remember for a long time. For on this day, it became abundantly clear that the Iranian-Syrian axis now controls Lebanon through Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda and the Taliban now control the Northwest provinces in Pakistan (see ABC News and the AP story). Both groups of terrorists won through sustained asymmetric (and, in Lebanon, conventional) warfare which eventually collapsed the will of the opposition, which was not supported in any material way by the United States and other nations. I want to concentrate on the events in Lebanon in this post.

Just eight days ago, in an emergency briefing that I helped to arrange on Capitol Hill for Congressional staff, Walid Phares accurately diagnosed the long-term Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah strategy and forecast the outcome unless forces supporting the Cedars Revolution, specifically the U.S. and the U.N., would quickly mobilize. That didn't happen; I suspect, based on past experience, that the Administration couldn't come to a quick determination on the course of action, with the State Department probably at odds with other elements and the White House unable to build a coherent and forceful counterstrategy in time. As Walid posted below, Hezbollah not only built and runs a private strategic telecom network inside Lebanon, but now, thanks to the "victory treaty," it is capable of moving large numbers of men and material right into southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah's sizable conventional and asymmetric forces are a giant dagger aimed straight at Israel. What's the response? For some time, powerful officials in Washington and elsewhere have whispered about a "Grand Bargain" with Syria, to be concluded with the assistance of other Arab states. Rep. Gary Ackerman, chairman of the U.S. House Middle East subcommittee, concisely described the outlines of that proposal at a Congressional hearing on April 24:

"Many analysts believe that the relationship between Iran and Syria is a purely tactical and transactional one. Implicit in this belief is the idea that if only the United States would make Syria an offer of sufficient size and sweetness, the axis from Tehran to Damascus could be shattered and the Middle East transformed. Syria, in this view, might even join our team.

In exchange for the return of the Golan Heights, and the restoration of its overlordship of Lebanon, Syria would renege on its relationship with Hezbollah, give Hamas the boot, and slam the door shut on Iran. The mullahs would be cut-off from their Lebanese and Palestinian terrorist proxies and isolated completely in the region. The flow of jihadis from Syria would dry up-perhaps in return for a restoration of Saddam’s old largess with Iraq’s oil-and the situation in Iraq would settle down, further isolating Iran from the Arab hinterland. Faced with a united Middle East, the ayatollahs would set their dreams of hegemony and Islamic revolution aside, and give up their nuclear program in exchange for international security guarantees."

But be careful what you wish for - note Rep. Ackerman's assessment of the "Grand Bargain" that day in his statement:

"I’m not convinced. It sounds lovely, and it has a sort of logic to it. But it’s a fantasy. The relationship between Iran and Syria is longstanding, durable, and is based on a bedrock of shared interests. This relationship is meant to fulfill each party’s deepest strategic aspirations and regional ambitions. Neither state wishes to live as a second class citizen in a Middle East ordered, organized and run by Washington, Cairo, and Riyadh. They have bigger dreams."

I agree with Rep. Ackerman, and I hope we don't see some American official waving a piece of paper and declaring "We have peace in our time" over this. Because right now, the good Lebanese have lost their freedom, and the new peace in Beirut is just an illusion. There's nothing grand and no bargain in that.

(EDIT: Contributing Expert David Schenker takes a different view: "But given the potential outcome of the 2009 parliamentary elections, the Shiite group's victory may be short lived.")

Hezbollah's Communication Network Confirms Its Terror Goals

By Walid Phares

An intelligence map released by a French web site, referencing Lebanese sources, shows the extensive communications network established by Hezbollah throughout Lebanon. These closed telephone circuits are operationally independent of government networks. The Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications has no link to these closed cable-based networks. These systems were at the heart of the latest confrontation between the Seniora cabinet and Hezbollah commander Hassan Nasrallah. The latter accused the government of attempting to seize these networks or supervising them, and the Lebanese government naturally stating that all telephonic networks in Lebanon, as in any country, must be under the auspices of the legal government. Hezbollah rejected this "normal" status and responded that since it perceives itself as a "resistance" therefore it can and should have its own "closed communications system." In other words, a state within the state.

The Lebanese government, operating under Lebanon's constitution, and under the auspices of UNSCR 1701 and 1559 declared - but didn't even act upon its declaration - that these telecommunication systems were not under government authority and thus must be integrated. This was a basic state of fact. But as soon as these ministerial decisions were publicized Hezbollah waged a blitz campaign on the Lebanese government. Even though the latter wasn't even ready to dismantle these networks nor did it have the necessary means to confront Hezbollah militarily, Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah held a press conference, declared war against the government, and gave the signal to the coup.

Why would Hezbollah wage such a risky war for a telecommunication system? Is it because of the income generated by these networks, used also to sell international phone calls? Less likely. The Iranian foreign aid to the terror group was upgraded from 300 million dollars to less than a billion dollars few months ago. Obviously more revenue isn't bad for the leaders of the so-called "resistance" but more important is the big picture revealed by the Hezbollah-phone map. Look at the web of cable (in red) on the map in this World Defense Review article and let's analyze this.

The High Cost of Oil Dependence

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

With the price of oil over $125 a barrel and U.S. gasoline prices hovering around $4 a gallon, high energy costs have been a top news headline lately. Though the economic effect of these surging prices has been most prominently noticed, the high cost of oil dependence extends far beyond that. Today I have a policy briefing at FDD's web site analyzing the geopolitical implications of our dangerous dependence on foreign oil -- including the impact this has on our war-on-terror policies. An excerpt:

[T]he impact of oil dependence on terrorism extends beyond the financial windfall it entails for terrorist groups and the ideology that drives them: terrorists also understand that our oil dependence is our greatest strategic vulnerability.

Although Osama bin Laden initially declared Saudi Arabia's oil resources off limits as a military target because they were "a great Islamic wealth," his thinking on the matter shifted as he came to understand how much the U.S.'s fortunes were tied to its access to cheap oil. In a mid-December 2004 audiotape, he instructed al-Qaeda operatives: "One of the main causes for our enemies' gaining hegemony over our country is their stealing our oil; therefore, you should make every effort in your power to stop the greatest theft in history of the natural resources of both present and future generations, which is being carried out through collaboration between foreigners and [native] agents. . . . Focus your operations on it [oil production], especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this [lack of oil] will cause them to die off [on their own]."

Since then, other prominent voices within al-Qaeda have affirmed the group's desire to strike the oil supply. In a December 2005 video, Ayman al-Zawahiri stated: "I call on the holy warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the Muslims, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam." Sawt al-Jihad, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's online magazine, noted in February 2007 that "cutting oil supplies to the United States, or at least curtailing it, would contribute to the ending of the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan."

Actual terrorist targeting has made clear that this is not empty rhetoric.... Indeed, former CIA agent Robert Baer warned back in 2003 that tactics in which al-Qaeda already had a demonstrated proficiency could succeed in taking a great deal of Saudi oil off the market instantaneously. He stated that "a single jumbo jet with a suicide bomber at the controls . . . would be enough to bring the world's oil-addicted economies to their knees" if crashed into a major offshore loading facility.

Following such an attack, the substantially reduced worldwide supply of oil would be joined by an inflated risk premium. While it is difficult to determine the ceiling for oil prices if such a scenario unfolded, Sawt al-Jihad may have been correct: diminished access to the military's lifeblood could spell doom for the U.S. ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

You can read the entire policy briefing here.

Good News on the Libel Front

By Douglas Farah

Today there was good news on freedom of speech front, as the Wall Street Journal won a complete victory in a libel case involving terror finance issues. The lead reporter, the venerable Glenn Simpson, is now 4-0 since 9/11 in these types of cases.

While the victory is a testament to his tenacity and care, it is also a testament to the courage of the WSJ in willing to fight and win these cases. Most are lost simply because the will to fight has gone out of so much of the media, who would often rather settle than protect the truth.

A brief summary: The Tribunel Correctionel in Paris issued a ruling in Ancienne Bauche SA v The Wall Street Journal Europe. The Journal, editor Michael Williams and reporters Glenn Simpson and Benoit Faucon were all acquitted on charges of felony and civil libel.

The other WSJ cases are: One UK case was lost at trial but overturned by the House of Lords (the ground-breaking and precedent-setting case of Mohammed Jameel); one UK case was thrown out (Yousef Jameel); one UK case was dropped by the plaintiff (Al-Rajhi), and the Bauche case was won at trial.

The cases seem to indicate that careful, fair and accurate reporting on terrorism-financing can withstand legal challenge even in Europe, where plaintiffs are heavily advantaged in libel proceedings. The catch: You have to be willing and financially able to defend yourself. To all our benefit, the WSJ had the will.

Bauche, a Paris sugar-trading concern which did business with a trader in Gaza accused by the Israelis of backing terrorism, alleged libel over a July 2007 report regarding the use of commodities to transfer value from an Islamic charity in France to Islamic charities in the territories. My full blog is here.

Feared FARC Commander Surrenders

By Aaron Mannes

Another FARC commander has surrendered to Colombian authorities. Nelly Avila Moreno, aka Karina, turned herself in (along with her daughter andher partner, known as Michin.) Karina was commander of the 47th Front. (She was also one of the top-ranked women in the FARC - here is some background on the women in the FARC.) This would be roughly equivalent to a Captain surrendering. At a news conference, she stated the FARC was “crumbling.” She had been out of communications with the FARC leadership for two years. Her once feared unit of 350 was down to about 50 fighters.

Read the full post here.

Secret Report on Saudi School in Virginia Must Be Released

By Andrew Cochran

Yesterday, the Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County, Virginia, near Washington, DC, unanimously voted to continue leasing county property to the Islamic Saudi Academy, which is funded by the Saudi government. The school had been criticized for using textbooks which included virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Christian language and teachings. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report last year urging the State Department to shut the school down unless it materially changed the textbooks to remove the hateful language. To quote the Commission, "Moreover, a 2006 report analyzing some Saudi textbooks from the 2005-2006 school year found that 'a ninth grade Saudi textbook on Hadith teaches teenagers in apocalyptic terms that violence towards Jews, Christians and other unbelievers is sanctioned by God.' For example, the textbook reads, 'the hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.'" ISA's 1999 valedictorian was Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was convicted and sentenced to prison for joining Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush.

Apparently, the Board of Supervisors is satisfied that the textbooks were changed - "apparently," that is, because it commissioned a report to translate the newest version of the textbooks, but the Board refuses to release the report. That secrecy is unacceptable in this instance, especially considering that the report was paid for by taxpayers' dollars.

Either the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors must release the report, or Congress should subpoena it and release it for them.

Unresolved U.S. Strategy on Jihad and the War of Ideas

By Jeffrey Imm

An unresolved question remains who in the U.S. Government is accountable for the wartime "war of ideas" against Jihadists. Last fall, Senator Joe Lieberman questioned the FBI, the DHS, the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) about their organizations' role in the "war on ideas" against jihadists. The answer was a giant shrugging of shoulders.

The Washington Times reported that: "FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III revealed during the hearing that the FBI has no counterideology response other than its 'outreach' to Muslim-American communities so they 'understand the FBI' and address 'the radicalization issue'. " " Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also said nothing is being done domestically to battle Islamist extremist ideas. The department's incident management team, he said, is focused on civil rights or civil liberties -- not fighting terrorists' ideology." "Retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, said the intelligence community does not conduct any battle of ideas against terrorists in the United States unless there is a foreign connection."

Regarding the NCTC, the Washington Times reported: "Retired Vice Adm. Scott Redd, [then] head of the National Counterterrorism Center who has a strategic operational role in countering terrorism, said one of the 'four pillars' of the U.S. war strategy is the 'war of ideas,' but he noted that there is no 'home office' for that effort in the United States." Michael Leiter then replaced Vice Admiral Redd a few months later in November 2007.

So on May 6, when the NCTC Acting Director Michael Leiter had a confirmation hearing with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Mr. Leiter brought up the issue of a "war of ideas", a reasonable person might have expected some discussion as to organizational responsibilities and goals. Mr. Leiter stated "we must have an equally robust effort in what many term the 'War of Ideas'." But Mr. Leiter offered no organizational ownership or goals other than seeking to respond to Al-Qaeda's use of mass media and Internet technologies, "[w]e must engage them on this front with equal vehemence -- and we can do so in a way that makes quite clear how bankrupt their extremist ideology is."

Yet we have deafening silence from the NCTC in response to two Osama Bin Laden messages in the past week encouraging Jihad as "a duty" by Muslims "from Indonesia to Mauritania", and calling for action against "Westerners".

While some suggest that Bin Laden's messages are worth ignoring, two months ago Mr. Leiter's NCTC recommended ignoring Bin Laden as a matter of policy in "communications". In the March 18, 2008 NCTC Memorandum "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide to Counterterrorism Communication", the NCTC Extremist Messaging Branch directed NCTC staff that "[w]hen Osama bin Ladin or others try to draw the USG into a debate, we should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages". This is the NCTC's real idea of a "war of ideas": "minimal, if any, response to their messages".

Turkish Ambassador to U.S. Calls Iran "a threat to Turkey as well as to the U.S."

By Andrew Cochran

Doug Farah and I talked about his post on Hezbollah and clarified that Hezbollah might be the premier non-state terrorist threat. After all, Hezbollah's support and the extent of its direction from the current Iranian regime is massive. Two years ago, I wrote here about my discussions with a senior Western intelligence service official, who estimated Iran's direct financial support to Hezbollah at $100 million, and that was when oil was less than half of the current price. I assume that amount has not been decreased. Those ties now constitute a dagger aimed at the freedom of entire countries - Lebanon and Israel in the Middle East - as well as a threat to the U.S.

Anyone wondering whether the threat posed by Iran is "tiny" or substantial should ponder what the Ambassador from Turkey to the U.S. said today at our panel on the Turkey-U.S. relationship. Ambassador Nahi Sensoy said that Iran has run "clandestine (nuclear) programs for more than two decades," and those programs are "a threat to Turkey as well as to the U.S." Granted, Turkey's method of dealing with that threat includes diplomatic engagement with Iran - the two have not been at war with each other since 1639 - but the Turkish government clearly recognizes that the size of Iran's military is not of critical importance in the age of asymmetric warfare.

(UPDATE, May 20: Here is a story about the panel by CQ Homeland Security.

The first necessity in designing a national security policy is have a clear-eyed view of the threats and opportunities, the allies and potential foes. To brush away Iran's potential for deploying nuclear technology, either on its own or through its terrorist proxies, is to ignore the strategic goals clearly expressed by Iranian leaders: the destruction of the State of Israel and the strategic defeat of the U.S.

Is Hezbollah the Premier Non-State Threat?

By Douglas Farah

There is some serious re-evaluation of priorities in parts of the U.S. and European intelligence communities as to the who now poses the greatest strategic threat to the West-al Qaeda or Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has publicly emerged in recent days the premier military force in Lebanon, able to act with relative impunity while the army stands by.

But perhaps more importantly, Hezbollah has now become a public target of al Qaeda, as Osama bin Laden has explicitly stated in his most recent audio tape.

Bin Laden singled out by name Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, whose 2006 war against Israel boosted the group's popularity among Shiites and Sunnis.

Bin Laden said Nasrallah claimed he had enough resources, such as money and combatants, to fight Israel.

"But the truth is the opposite," he said. "If he was honest and has enough (resources), why then he did not support the fight to liberate Palestine."

He also attacked Nasrallah for allowing the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon "to protect the Jews."

Why the animosity? Perhaps because, for the first time in many years, the Sunni world-and the radical Sunni world in particular-are noticing how much more willing and able Hezbollah and its Shite government backers are to project a strength that at least rivals, and likely surpasses, that of its own fighting forces. My full blog is here.

Where's the Beef? Mystery Grows Surrounding Whereabouts of Adam Gadahn

By Evan Kohlmann

This afternoon, Al-Qaida's As-Sahab Media Foundation has released the second audio recording of Usama Bin Laden in the space of only three days--this time, openly addressed "to the Islamic nation." But, perhaps what is most interesting about Bin Laden's latest set of audio recordings is not what they contain--but rather, what they inexplicably lack: the English-language subtitles and matching transcript that have, until recently, been a customary feature of professional-quality As-Sahab videos. An analysis of the history of As-Sahab recordings and their evolution over time would seem to indicate that the responsibility for creating these English-language products fell largely on the shoulders of one man alone: Adam Gadahn (a.k.a. "Azzam al-Amriki"), the California native who was recruited by Al-Qaida computer specialists living in Garden Grove in the late 1990s, and who later traveled on to Pakistan seeking to join his new hero Usama Bin Laden. Gadahn's voice and, more recently, his face have been an integral part of As-Sahab releases since their first video production in 2001, "The Destruction of the U.S.S. Cole" (a.k.a. "State of the Ummah"). He has frequently appeared as a freely identified commentator in As-Sahab videos, with clips of him speaking in English juxtaposed amid footage of Usama Bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.

In January 2008, the U.S. military used a Predator drone to launch an airstrike on a house in Mir Ali, Pakistan, which was suspected to be hiding several high-ranking Al-Qaida leaders and operatives. Within days, Al-Qaida issued a series of statements and video recordings acknowledging that the airstrike had caused serious casualties, including Abu al-Laith al-Liby--a senior Al-Qaida leader considered to be the "Field Commander" in charge of foreign mujahideen military operations across large swaths of southern Afghanistan. But according to NEFA Foundation sources inside Pakistan, the legendary Abu al-Laith was not the only loss suffered in the strike at Mir Ali. These sources indicated that a host of other less-senior-but-still-significant Al-Qaida members were also inside the house at the time, including Abu al-Laith's deputy, a Somali holding Australian or U.S. nationality, two Kuwaiti jihadis, and--most interesting of all--none other than Adam Gadahn himself. Al-Qaida has never confirmed nor denied reports of Adam Gadahn's death, and that has only added to the growing mystery surrounding his whereabouts.

This much can definitively be said: there has been a palpable decline in the efforts of As-Sahab to provide English-language translations since the January airstrike in Mir Ali. When As-Sahab recently released a two-part online Q&A session with Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, it was only able to produce an English translation for the first segment. Even the limited translations As-Sahab has managed to cobble together recently appear somewhat different linguistically from previous work attributed to Adam Gadahn. What distinctly struck me on Friday was the As-Sahab release of a Bin Laden audio recording specifically addressed "to the people of the West"--most of whom speak little to no Arabic. One would imagine that if As-Sahab were to ever seek to spotlight its foreign language capabilities, this would be the totally obvious occasion. And yet, there has only been silence from Al-Qaida in this regard.

For those who are carefully following the ongoing saga of Adam Gadahn, it is worth paying close attention to one upcoming calendar date in particular: the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Gadahn has demonstrated a past penchant for making grandiose public appearances on 9/11, triumphantly gloating over Al-Qaida's latest "victories" over its enemies. His continued unexplained absence from As-Sahab releases as this date approaches will only add further weight to the argument that Gadahn was indeed "martyred" alongside Abu al-Laith al-Liby in the far northern reaches of Pakistan. For Gadahn, it has been a long journey and a strange ideological transformation from his younger days in California spent promoting recycling and environmental conservation. If ultimately proven, his death will serve as a lesson for what happens to naive individuals lured into believing there is honor in playing foolish games with guns and bombs.

So, Adam, in the event that you are still out there (alive, kicking, and reading this message), please do drop a line and let us know what has become of you!

The Guantanamo Bay Facility - Revolving Door

By Frank Hyland

The public notices in the media become available most often one by one and are typically separated by months if not years. Periodically, then, it is very much worthwhile for The Counterterrorism Blog to refresh readers’ memories on the type of person who has been incarcerated at The Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba, known by its nickname “Gitmo.” I am indebted for a good deal of the research to a person who has spent almost two decades hunting members of al-Qa’ida, but who may not yet be named because “the hunt goes on.”

Literally hundreds of individuals, native to a good number of countries, captured in a number of locations, have been brought to Gitmo and held there for varying lengths of time. The legal aspects pertaining to their status are best dealt with separately from this column, but one aspect that should not get lost in the legal and media drumbeat over the cases is the number of former Gitmo inmates who have been released and who have returned to their efforts to carry out their version of Jihad. As in so many other venues, and in this one as well: Their actions speak louder than their words. Year after year, whether in Tunisia, France, Iraq, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and on and on, the “Gitmo Graduates” have been back at work in their chosen occupation. The latest known is Kuwaiti Abdullah Saleh Al Ajmi, who: 1) admitted that he’d fought with the Taleban in Afghanistan; 2) is said to have been “aggressive” while in Gitmo; 3) was released to Kuwaiti authorities in November, 2005; and 4) blew himself up in a carbomb attack in Mosul, Iraq on April 26th of this year.

In a society like ours that established and that enshrines Freedom of the Press in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, questions are always legitimate. Questions by themselves, however, even those frequently repeated, do not constitute the “case-closed verdict” espoused by so many. Importantly, the questions do not address the lengthy process necessary when prison officials seek to differentiate among those who claim their innocence. Those who carry out the duty of determining whether someone incarcerated at Gitmo is a danger, therefore, owe it to us, the potential future victims of terrorist attacks, to be as certain as possible in their findings and their decisions. Those who raise the questions also owe us, the potential targets of future attacks, as clear a basis for their doubts and concerns as they demand. If anything, those who carry out the investigations appear to have erred from time to time on the side of being too lenient, too trusting. Many readers will recall the brouhaha over the accusation that Gitmo officials had thrown copies of inmates’ Qur’ans into toilets, an accusation subsequently effectively discredited as having been a diversionary tactic. Few readers, though, will recall the circumstances surrounding the release of Abdul Rahman Khowlan. Khowlan, a Saudi, told his Review Board panel that notwithstanding the allegation that he was taken into custody while carrying an assault rifle, he had been in Afghanistan trying to lose weight and to locate the clothing of the Prophet Muhammad; the Prophet is not known to have ever been in Afghanistan. Khowlan, nonetheless, was ordered released from Gitmo.
The releases themselves - now numbering in the hundreds -- point to an honest effort to separate the Terrorist “wheat” from the surrounding “chaff.” Even after such a lengthy process, however, the terrorist attacks carried out by a number of those released clearly are at odds with their earlier protestations of innocence.

Another important aspect of Gitmo, one deserving of treatment in a separate column, is that the process of determining whether someone is there wrongfully or needlessly has resulted in information that turned up other al-Qa’ida operatives and prevented a number of attacks. Questioning of Abu Zubaydah and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, for just two examples, produced identifications and arrests of a good number of terrorists, most notably in and around Indonesia and Pakistan, and reportedly included selectees for a follow-on attack to 9-11.

Finally, it should be remembered by critics and neutral readers alike that this is not solely a US problem. Gitmo is not the only facility from which terrorists have been released, terrorists who returned to carrying out terrorist acts, and the US is not the only nation that has released prisoners to its regret.

** Just the day before 9-11, a member of a Turkish Marxist group, Ugur Bulbul - who had been released from prison just six months before - killed two Turkish Policemen, injured 17 more, and injured four bystanders, including an Australian tourist who lost her left arm.

** Ayman al-Zawahiri, from whom you hear every few months via al-Jazeera TV, was released by Egyptian authorities in 1984. You can bet they have since debated the “wisdom” of that decision innumerable times.

** Literally hundreds of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons over the years have returned to carrying out acts of terrorism.

It's Time Now for a Serious Public Debate on Our Iran Policy

By Victor Comras

I wrote here last month that the time has come for further clarification from the presidential candidates concerning their plans for dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. We have heard numerous sound-bites and even read a few short paragraphs issued by their campaigns on the issue, but each has shied away from providing any real substance. They all indicate that America must not allow Iran to achieve nuclear weapons capability. But none has yet indicated how they actually intend to convince Iran to change course.

President Bush’s May 15th remarks before the Knesset focused some attention on an important aspect of what should, by now, be an open public debate on Iran policy - whether to engage Iran in direct dialogue. The polemic that followed between the candidates did little to throw any new light on this issue, or on other potential options and possible consequences. But, it did signal that Iran could well become the Quemoy-Matsu issue in upcoming presidential campaign debates.

Barak Obama has indicated that, as President, he would engage Iran in direct dialogue, without preconditions, including talks at the highest levels. Hillary Clinton, while also favoring dialogue, has indicated that she would limit contacts with Iran to the sub-cabinet level, at least until significant progress was evident. McCain said he would distain any dialogue with Iran so long as Iran continues its proliferation and terrorist-supporting activities. Any dialogue with Iran, he said, would be restricted to what was necessary to quell violence in Iraq. Both Obama and Clinton have indicated that they would employ political and economic incentives, as well as the threat and application of increasingly stringent sanctions, to gain Iran’s abandonment of enrichment. McCain has put his emphasis on using sanctions rather than offering carrots. It’s time now to carry this debate forward.

For any dialogue to work it must be accompanied by sufficient leverage to entail real consequences for Iran. Such leverage on Iran is now sorely lacking. And, each day the price of a barrel of oil increases, or Iran obtains new international investment interest in its energy infrastructure, or expands its international trade options, this leverage decreases further.

The fact is that the EU has tried dialogue with Iran without real leverage for over two years. They have offered numerous political and economic carrots to convince Iran to suspend its enrichment program, but to no avail. And, Europe certainly has more carrots and more influence with Iran these days then we do. Our agreeing to lift US sanctions is not that precious to Iran and not likely to really buy us any of their good will. They digested US sanctions long ago. And we didn't get much from Iran the last time we lifted our sanctions. So, what can we do now to find the necessary leverage to make dialogue work?

The answer may lie in a combination of steps that perforce, must include new sanctions that target Iran’s real economic vulnerabilities - its fragile financial system; its energy, transportation and communications sectors; and its urban commercial class. This commercial class is key to holding Iranian urban unemployment figures from plummeting, and may well represent Iran's Achilles heel. Such sanctions must also be accompanied by meaningful incentives for compliance, and credible threats of further international ostracism and ultimate military action for failure to comply. But, neither the Security Council nor our European Allies have yet been willing to move down this road. Instead, EU negotiators are now preparing for a new round of dialogue with Iran, which could start as early as next week. They will present Iran with a sweetened package of incentives worked out by the so-called P 5+1 (US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China). What seems to be absent from the package, however, is a list of credible sanctions that the Security Council and/or the EU would impose if Iran, as is now likely, rejects these proposals. While the Bush Administration has opted out of any actual discussions with Iran about this package, the US has signed up to the list of incentives being offered.

Unfortunately, indications are that this round of dialogue is even less likely to produce positive results than previous efforts. Last week, and in anticipation of the upcoming talks, Iran presented its own letter and terms to chief EU negotiator Javier Solana and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The letter re-affirms Iran’s intransigence with regard to its uranium enrichment program. It indicates that Iran might be willing to consider an international consortium arrangement, provided enrichment activities would continue in Iran. They also insist that the discussions address an impossibly broad range of ancillary issues covering “the Middle East, the Balkans, Africa and Latin America." Their proposal also links the creation of a Palestinian state to such talks.

Let’s not forget that Iran has been working on uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons for some time. And, credible estimates indicate that Iran could achieve nuclear weapons capability in as little as 3 to 5 years. The G8 leaders already viewed this program with alarm back in 2003 when they warned that they could no longer “ignore the proliferation implications of Iran's advanced nuclear program.” But, every day brings Iran closer to capability and to a point of nuclear weapons knowledge from which there is no return. The closer Iran approaches nuclear capability, the fewer options the international community will have. We have to ask ourselves now just how close we are willing to let them come. Time is running out and we, and the international community, must soon come together on an effective strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and putting it in its place. If not, dialogue can no longer be an answer - more extreme measures will be required.

Jaipur Serial Blasts: Investigations on, Sketches out, No breakthrough Yet !

By Animesh Roul

Investigations into the May 13 synchronized terror blasts that shook the pink city of Jaipur (Rajasthan, India) have reached ‘nowhere’ even after four days of the incident. Trailing the leads from the blast sites, eyewitness accounts and hoax calls/emails all over the country, agencies only pointed fingers at Islamic militants from across the border and their Indian accomplices. Meanwhile, the death toll in Tuesday's (May 13) blasts have reached 63 and injured over 200.

The usual political statements (quite monotonous though) and blame game aside, Rajasthan state police have issued at least 4 sketches in and rounded up over 30 people for interrogation so far. However, nothing has come out and none has been detained so far. One hitherto unknown outfit, Indian Mujahedeen (IM), has claimed responsibility for carrying out the serial blasts. Obviously the group does not exist and this was bad publicity stunt by the terrorists to make it look like a homegrown phenomenon. Worse, the outfit also sent video clips to the media of a cycle apparently strapped with a bomb laden bag which was for the explosion at Kotwali area. But the evidence found at that blast site made the video clips (3 clips) just bogus and misleading. By naming itself with the India tag, terrorists are desperately trying to ‘Indianize’ their unholy struggle and to discard their foreign (Pakistan/Bangladesh) roots. The video and email message warned India not to support America and Britain and threatened to carry out more attacks at tourist places. The most intriguing fact is that the Email ID [guru_al_hindi_jaipur@yahoo.co.uk] used for sending the e-mail about the explosions is quite similar to the mail ID media received [guru_alhindi@yahoo.fr] following the November 23, 2007 blast in Uttar Pradesh.

Now it’s almost confirmed that the basic ingredients used in making the explosives were all commercially procured near Jaipur: ammonium nitrate, APCL detonators, alarm clock, wonder tape, wooden casing and bag (Chinese made). The use of RDX can be ruled out as all defused bombs have no traces of RDX.

Sketches of suspects were released on the basis of preliminary investigations and with inputs from bicycle shop owners. At least ten bicycles were used for the serial bombings, nine of them were brand new. One of the sketches released by Rajasthan police resembles one absconding SIMI activist Abu Faisal from Indore in Madhya Pradesh. In the meantime another SIMI activist was detained in Sawai Madhopur district of the state and currently under interrogation along with more than 40 Bangladeshi nationals illegally staying in the state (suspected to have Harkat-ul-Jehadi-Islami links).

With not so successful track record in post blast investigations, Indian security and intelligence apparatus have been struggling to crack the latest terror attack. However, two thing are clear: the group whosoever (I am sticking to my assessment: LeT-HuJI-SIMI alliance) is responsible, just trying to waylaid investigation by sending the video and email. And the terror network that caused these blasts and elsewhere (in Uttar Pradesh, Hyderabad and Mumbai in the past) are robust, intact and well entrenched in all important Indian cities.

Bin Laden Has A New Tape Out And He ... Zzzzzzz

By James Gordon Meek

Is there any reason to get excited about a new Osama Bin Laden tape anymore? The Al Qaeda kingpin issued an audio speech to jihadi Internet forums today and the Western world responded with a collective yawn. News organizations have been reporting it today - but not with the breathless tone and play once given to the most wanted terrorist in the world.

In his third audio speech released this year, the Saudi fugitive ridiculed Israel's 60th anniversary. Al Qaeda's founder claimed this year's celebration by Western leaders such as President Bush of the Jewish State's diamond jubilee prove that "Palestine is our land, and that the Israelis are invading occupiers that have to be fought."

"He clearly is creating expectations among Muslims that Al Qaeda will soon hit Israel," ex-CIA Bin Laden hunter Michael Scheuer told me. "He usually does not raise expectations just because he can."

But there was little, if anything, particularly new in Bin Laden's latest rant from an undisclosed location - most likely Pakistan's tribal belt. He has long claimed that the plight of Palestinians motivates his followers, something one counterterrorism official described as a "well-worn theme."

"But that doesn't mean U.S. intelligence is dismissive of it," the official hastened to add.

Recall that in 2002, the late Palestinian radical-turned-pol Yasser Arafat told Britain's Sunday Times that Bin Laden was hiding behind the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause.

"He hasn't helped us," Arafat said.

Bin Laden today also said the 19 hijackers who used four jetliners to attack New York City and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, acted out of revenge for U.S. policies toward the Palestinian people. Killing 2,973 people that day gave the killers a "great feeling" as they unleashed the carnage, he boasted.

Old news. The beast has told us that before.

I really got to thinking about this today after reading ABC News consultant and ex-FBI agent Brad Garrett's take: "It's a case of measured irrelevance. We used to do back flips when one of his tapes would arrive but no longer."

Officially, intelligence agencies view the Bin Laden tapes as mere propaganda.

They're also proof he's still breathing. When he released a tape on January 19, 2006, after a quiet 14-month stretch, it put to rest rumors of his death.

But Scheuer argues that Bin Laden is capitalizing on the ill will President Bush has engendered throughout the Muslim world with his wars in Afghanistan and particularly the "long war" still bleeding America in Iraq.

"Osama's just icing the cake Bush made and which my kids and yours are going to fight and die for," Scheuer said in his usual blunt tone.

The Criminal-Terrorist Nexus and the DEA

By Douglas Farah

It is interesting to note the first major conviction in the United States in a drug case tied to radical Islamist movements, in this case, the Taliban. (Many more case documents can be found here.)

“As an enemy of the United States, Khan Mohammed intended to ship heroin to the United States and use profits from that trade to assist the Taliban,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “A dangerous double threat, Kahn Mohammed purchased rockets to attack American and coalition soldiers who were risking their lives to stabilize Afghanistan. The conviction of Kahn Mohammed puts an end to this source of poison and violence.”

If there remained any doubt that Islamist militants are perfectly willing to engage in criminal activity to finance their military actions, this case should dispel them. As money from donations and charities becomes harder to acquire and move safely, the easy alternative is the drug trade.

Hezbollah learned this in its heroin trafficking days a decade ago, and continues to use a range of illicit activities to fund its operations.

In addition to showing how the lines between drug trafficking and terrorism are often blurred to the point of extinction, it is important to note the role of DEA in this. My full blog is here.

FARC Eats it Own

By Aaron Mannes

Reporting on Interpol’s assertion that the files on the captured FARC computers are authentic has focused on potential Chavez-FARC ties. But another bit of FARC news should be noted. Six of FARC commander Mono Jojoy’s bodyguards had plotted kill him, probably to collect the $5 million reward. The plot was discovered and three of the six were killed, the other three escaped and are now aiding the Colombian authorities. This plot was no doubt inspired by the death of another member of the FARC Secretariat, Ivan Rios - again at the hands of his bodyguards. The Colombian government’s decision to pay Rios’ bodyguards the reward no doubt encouraged Mono Jojoy’s bodyguards. This is roughly equivalent to Generals being shot by their own troops.

Read the whole post here.

National Lab Security Failure - We Get What We Pay For

By Bill West

Today, the Washington Times reported the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, that conducts research on America’s nuclear weapons and houses special nuclear material for that research, failed a crucial counter-terror security exercise (also reported in today’s CTB Newslinks section). The exercise was a “force-on-force” operation where mock commandos infiltrated and took over key parts of the facility, managing to gain access to what would have been quantities of that special nuclear material.

The Department of Energy (DOE) oversees the Lab. The National Nuclear Security Administration is the division of DOE responsible for security at the Nation’s nuclear sites, including the National Laboratory. At many of the country’s nuclear facilities, both private and Government, the front line security forces are private contract security officers. On the surface, at least per the Government-required contract specifications, these contract security officers are supposed to be a notable cut above what the public usually associates with private security guards. They are generally better paid and are supposed to be better trained.

That said, too frequently private security forces protecting nuclear facilities fail these force-on-force exercises. This happens at private nuclear power plants as well as Government compounds such as the National Lab and the Y-12 facility in Tennessee. Critics argue that private security contractors, at least as they are currently configured, are simply not up to the task of protecting facilities as sensitive as the country’s nuclear sites. Interestingly, a NNSA spokesman, when commenting on the security failures at the National Lab resulting from the most recent exercise stated, "The nuclear material at the site is secure, and we have the best security in the government." He is probably one of those senior Government officials who would also not dare call a jihadist a jihadist.


There has been some little noticed Congressional interest in requiring the DOE to establish a Federal security force for nuclear facilities. DOE has resisted this, claiming it would be unnecessary and too expensive. That is perhaps a curious position, given the performance record of the private security forces.

With security, generally we get what we pay for. Some Federal agencies seem to understand that axiom. Visit CIA or NSA headquarters and one immediately realizes those agencies do not skimp on their physical security. Contract private security guards do not protect those facilities. Those agencies have their own uniformed Security Police Officers that are sworn Federal law enforcement officers, who undergo rigorous pre-employment screening and background checks, are highly trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, are reasonably well paid with good benefits and they have a decent chance at career advancement. The same applies at the Pentagon and other Defense Department facilities and many military bases.

Force-on-force exercises at facilities secured by Federal officers can occur far more frequently than at facilities where private contractors are located and where such actions require “negotiated” notifications. The real Feds conduct such operations as routine training. They are far more proficient and professional at what they do. Establishing and maintaining an in-house Federal security force might cost somewhat more than contracting to private security firms, but at least for those nuclear facilities under the direct control of the US Government, especially those facilities directly involved with nuclear weapons, it would appear it may be a better way to go.

INTERPOL Finds FARC Computers Material Authentic and Extensive

By Jonathan Winer

We don't yet know what else is in the contents of the FARC computers that INTERPOL has now verified to be exactly as represented by the Colombian government -- the true and untampered contents of FARC computers seized by Colombia following its March 1 cross-border attack on a FARC camp in Ecuador.

But we know that the sheer volume of what is contained in those computers, which included three Toshiba laptops, one external hard drive, one external hard disk, and three USB "thumbnail drives" is remarkably extensive.

As set forth by the INTERPOL team,

"Without revealing the content of the data, INTERPOL can state the following with regard to the user files contained in the eight seized FARC computer exhibits:
􀁸 109 document files were found on more than one of the exhibits
􀁸 452 spreadsheets
􀁸 7,989 e-mail addresses
􀁸 10,537 multimedia files (sound and video)
􀁸 22,481 web pages
􀁸 37,872 written documents (such as Word documents, PDF files, text format documents)
􀁸 210,888 images
Of the above, 983 files were found to be encrypted."

The report then includes images from the computer of FARC leader Raul Reyes that show him studiously working at what appears to be the very same computer, in the jungle, clothed in camouflage and authentic jungle hat.

The nearly 8000 e-mail addresses could be interesting window into FARC's political as well as operational contacts, at least of the terrorist group's contacts that are online. We have yet to see the bulk of the text documents, but presumably, there are now more than one government that has them. It is of substantial, international public importance that whatever documentation of support for FARC they may contain undertaken by officials of any country be disclosed as soon as possible, now that INTERPOL has confirmed their authenticity.

Hugo Chavez continues to state that the documents are fake and that Colombia is using them as a pretext for war. He also has recently compared German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Hitler. Eventually, he and the region are going to have deal with their reality, and the implications of it.

Addressing Asymmetric Threats: Shifts at the Pentagon And Strategic Communications Strategy

By Andrew Cochran

Last Thursday, I was honored to chair one of four panels at a special seminar, "Dealing with Today's Asymmetric Threat," co-sponsored by the National Defense University and CACI International, with assistance from the Counterterrorism Foundation. The purpose of the seminar was to establish a framework for the development of an integrated and synchronized strategy, by the end of the calendar year, to address the asymmetrical threats to United States and global security. My panel, titled, "Global Strategy to Counter Terrorism and Extremism," included Contributing Expert Douglas Farah; VADM Bert Calland, USN (Ret.), former CIA Deputy Director; Jose Rodriguez, former Director of the CIA's National Clandestine Center and the Counterterrorism Center; and Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, USMC (Ret.), FOX News Channel analyst and President of WVC3. My comments included recommendations for the need for continued deployment of joint DOD-Treasury "Threat Finance Cells" (about which I posted here and here) and the need to promote the continued work of the non-governmental CT community of nonprofits, journalists, and independent media (including this site). I participated with senior officials at NDU and CACI in planning the seminar and look forward to working with them and the broader community towards the development of the strategy for the next Administration and Congress.

An article in today's Washington Post is further proof of the need for such a strategy and indicates the degree to which the Defense Department is recognizing a permanent paradigm shift in the threat from state-based to asymmetric actors:

"An Army board headed by Gen. David H. Petraeus has selected several combat-tested counterinsurgency experts for promotion to the rank of brigadier general, sifting through more than 1,000 colonels to identify a handful of innovative leaders who will shape the future Army, according to current and former senior Army officers... Several of the colonels widely expected to appear on the resulting promotion list, which has not yet been released, are considered unconventional thinkers who were effective in the Iraq campaign, in many cases because they embraced a counterinsurgency doctrine that Petraeus helped craft, the officials said... They include Special Forces Col. Ken Tovo, a veteran of multiple Iraq tours who recently led a Special Operations task force there; Col. H.R. McMaster, a senior Petraeus adviser known for leading a successful counterinsurgency effort in the Iraqi city of Tall Afar, and Col. Sean MacFarland, who created a network of patrol bases in Ramadi that helped curb violence in the capital of Anbar Province, according to the officers."

Contributing Expert Walid Phares participated in another panel at the seminar titled, "Strategic Communications," which explored how to protect security through an effective communication strategy. Another panelist was Steven Monblatt, former senior CT official at the State Department and OAS who participated in our March 19 panel on FARC and Hugo Chavez, presented his views with some excellent and provocative recommendations. With his permission, I am posting his presentation here as a Word file for your review.

Euro 2008 and Terrorism

By Lorenzo Vidino

In 23 days the 2008 European soccer Cup (Euro 2008), this year hosted jointly by Austria and Switzerland, will kickoff. As for any event attracting large crowds and global attention in today’s age, authorities are worried about potential terrorist threats. The Euro Cup, in a way, presents the same security features of a Super Bowl, but it is held in 8 different cities over 3 weeks and with the participation of 16 national teams, making security planning significantly more complicated. Just yesterday Swiss newspaper La Liberté reported an interview with Jürg Bühler, a security official with the Swiss Federal Police, in which Mr. Bühler revealed that his agency has been monitoring threats against the event made by several users of various Islamist websites. While there seems to be no specific threat so far, Mr. Bühler correctly pointed out that vigilance should be kept high, as soccer competitions have attracted the attention of jihadist networks in Europe in the past.

Weeks before the 1998 World Cup held in France police across Europe conducted raids against a network of Algerian militants, apprehending more than 100 individuals. According to French authorities the men were planning a string of attacks against stadiums during the World Cup, even though some believed French authorities used the World Cup as an excuse to crack down on Algerian networks (coincidentally, Farid Benyettou, a militant with close links to the 1998 network, was convicted just yesterday in Paris for recruiting young French Muslims to fight against U.S. forces in Iraq). Allegedly, a similar plot was uncovered by French authorities against Paris’ Stade de France in October 2001, when police arrested a handful of North African men reportedly planning to carry out an attack during the France-Algeria soccer match.

Authorities suspected a terrorist attack was planned also during the 2004 Euro Cup held in Portugal. Days before the beginning of the tournament Portuguese authorities, acting on a tip from Dutch intelligence, arrested three members of the Hofstad group in the city of Oporto. The men were deported and never charged with any crime, but authorities suspected the three wanted to target former Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Barroso (the plot was never fully confirmed). Authorities believe that the 2006 World Cup held in Germany was also targeted by jihadists. Various Islamist websites issued threats against it, but, more concretely, authorities found out, months after the event, that Ayman Hawa and Jihad Hamad, the two Lebanese men that placed suitcases filled with explosives (which, luckily, failed to detonate) on two German commuter trains in July 2006, had initially thought of targeting the World Cup.

On one hand major mediatic attention, the possibility of targeting large crowds (in and out of stadiums) and striking at Europe’s most cherished pastime make Euro 2008 a potential target for terrorists. Austria and Switzerland have a small presence of militants and sympathizers (even though in borderless Europe this has only limited relevance, as the threat could easily come from militants based in other European countries). Austria has recently dismantled its first homegrown network, which was running the German-language branch of the Global Islamic Media Front. The 2007 security report recently released by Swiss federal authorities clearly points to homegrown jihadist networks as “the most serious threat” to the country’s security. On the other hand, there is no reason to be alarmists. Not only is there no specific threat, but terrorists like surprises and easy targets and events such as Euro 2008 offer neither. Most of the plots described above, aside from the one targeting the 1998 World Cup in France, seem to have been either very abstract or very amateurish, often little more than just wishes.

While the terrorist threat clearly worries Swiss and Austrian authorities, who are working closely with their counterparts throughout Europe, a more concrete fear is that of hooliganism, given the precedents of urban guerrilla that took place before and/or after some games (particularly England’s) of the 1998 France World Cup, 2000 Euro Cup (held in Belgium and Holland) and the 2006 Germany World Cup (and just last night there were riots during and after the UEFA Cup final between Glasgow Rangers and Zenit of Saint Petersburg and a Russian fan was stabbed).

Daily Kos and Others on Jihad

By Jeffrey Imm

What do the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC), and the Daily Kos all have in common? They are all seeking to define the enemy as other than "jihadists".

A. Daily Kos: Jihad Not Terrorism

Three weeks after AP's report of the NCTC/DHS recommendations to eliminate the term "jihadist" (among others) from the lexicon describing Jihadist terrorism, the latest salvo in this "war of ideas" was published on the popular Daily Kos web site by "Amad" on May 12: "Who Speaks for Islam? Part 3b: Jihad, Religion & Politics". The Daily Kos author states that to "most Muslims, jihad implies honor and sacrifice for others", and "[u]sing jihad and terrorism as synonyms is wrong and counterproductive" -- seeking to define the threat as "extremism". The article also expands on the real cause of "extremism" as "disrespect for Islam", "aggressive" U.S. foreign policy, and "double-standards exhibited by the US on democracy and human-rights". It quotes a student at the American University of Cairo as condemning U.S. foreign policy: "Bush has given Israel carte blanch to attack Palestinians and Lebanese. The war on terror is an open-ended war on Muslims."

Daily Kos provides a biography on "Amad" stating: "Amad runs MuslimMatters.org... [and]... was one of the founders of Texas Dawah." Amad's blogroll on Daily Kos promotes MuslimMatters.org and CAIR. What Daily Kos does not mention is who some of the participants at Texas Dawah meetings and at the MuslimMatters.org website are, as they include supporters of jihadist groups, unindicted co-conspirators in U.S. terror trials, and supporters of the Taliban.

Handover of Terrorist Paramilitaries Could be Turning Point in Colombia

By Douglas Farah

Colombian president Alvaro Uribe's decision to extradite 13 leaders of the paramilitary, terrorist-designated United Self Defense Forces (AUC) to the United States could be a milestone in Colombia's efforts to erradicate terrorism from all sides of the political spectrum.

Uribe's own past ties to paramilitary organizations, the political influence wielded by the groups and the alleged direct participation in the groups by his cousin and close adviser Mario Uribe, now jailed, have seriously undermined his government's credibility in the international arena, even as his administration successfully tackled the Marxist FARC forces.

Perhaps this is a sign that the AUC leaders, despite their political and military patrons, will finally face justice in the same way the FARC is pursued.

The AUC, along with the FARC, was designated a terrorist entity by the US in 2001, a designation shared by the EU and other groups.

"Among those extradited were Salvatore Mancuso, Rodrigo Tovar, Diego Fernando Murillo, Hernán Giraldo and Ramiro Vanoy. Along with others, they have been accused of ordering the slayings of thousands of people over a generation, from poor peasants to leftist politicians, journalists to union activists."

That encapsulates one of the great tragedies of Colombia-the political violence has been endemic for generations. This group of paramilitary leaders, responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, as well as the export of tons of cocaine, reaches back decades in its criminal activity.

While I have spent much time on the FARC and its alliance with Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) and potential alliance because of that tie, to Iran, the AUC has been an equally destructive force inside Colombia.

While not posing the national security threat to the United States nor possessing the same explicitly anti-American agenda the FARC does, the AUC has been a larger drug trafficking force and wreaked havoc for years on the civilian population. My full blog is here.

U.S. House Makes It Tougher to Remove North Korea From "State Sponsors" List

By Andrew Cochran

(UPDATED May 16 after approval by U.S. House) The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill with a special section that reinforces the conditions governing North Korea’s potential removal from the list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism." Sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Section 306 of the Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Reform Act of 2008 requires that before removal, the President must first certify that North Korea has ceased to provide nuclear assistance to Syria, Iran, and other "state sponsors"; has provided a verifiable list of all of its nuclear programs; and allowed the IAEA to monitor and verify the monitoring and verification of the shutdown and sealing of the Yongbyon nuclear facility.

As I write this, I do not know the Administration's position on this section, but as a matter of principle it usually opposes any Congresional action designed to mandate or limit Executive Branch discretion in foreign policy. The section is already reduced in scope from its original version, which added more conditions. In light of the discovery of North Korean personnel working at the Syrians' nuclear sites, the Administration wil be hard-pressed to publicly justify opposition to this provision. I assume that the Administration will work quietly to remove the section from the Senate version, its usual M.O. in these situations, but I predict that the Senate will include this section. Then we'll see if the President vetoes this bill over this or any other section (and whether Congress moves to pass it separately).

The full text of Section 306, as of today, is below.

India: Multiple Terror Blasts in Jaipur City, SIMI-HuJI-LeT Alliance Suspected!

By Animesh Roul

After brief period of quiescence, mass fatality terror has returned to India. And this time, as usual, it caught the security force, intelligence agencies napping. On May 13, around nine high to low intensity blasts took place at six places within a span of 15 minutes in the pink city of Jaipur, state capital of Rajasthan. All blasts occurred within a radius of one kilometer, hitting crowded markets, places of worships and one eatery. The explosions have killed more than 60 people (as of now) and nearly 200 sustained severe to minor injuries, presently languishing in crammed city hospitals. The epicenters are Tripolia market, Manek Chowk, Chandpol Gate, Lakshmi Mishthan Bhandar, Johri Bazaar, Sanganeri Gate in the walled part of the state capital. At least four more live bombs found in these areas and later diffused safely.

The government though not ruled out the use of military explosives in these blasts (e.g.RDX), enough evidence of cocktail bombs emerged during initial mopping of the blast sites. Mobile phones, Iron pipes, wires and plastic substances, splinters and timer devices found with mangled bicycles and bikes. Looking at these findings, fingers of suspicion pointed at the Islamic terror alliance: Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI)- Lashkar e Toiba- Student Islamic Movements of India (SIMI). HujI has revolutionized use of mobile phones, commercial explosives and chemicals (Neogel-90) in most of terror strikes recently, e.g. in Mecca mosque blasts in Hyderabad last year.

Last October (2007) for the first time, terror struck Rajasthan when an explosion at the famous Ajmer Sheriff (Dargah of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti ) in Ajmer that left two persons dead and over 15 others injured.

Pictures

Blasts rocks the Pink City

Serial blasts leave trail of destruction

Next Public Event: "The Future of Turkey-U.S. Strategic Partnership"

By Andrew Cochran

On Monday, May 19, at 2 pm, I will co-chair, with Professor Yonah Alexander, a special seminar titled, "The Future of Turkey-U.S. Strategic Partnership" (corrected title) in room 2255 of the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington. Our featured speaker will be Ambassador Nabi Sensoy, who has served as Ambassador of Turkey to the United States since January 2006. Ambassador Sensoy previously held several positions in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has also served as Ambassador to Russia and Spain. Ambassador Sensoy is a graduate of the University of Ankara.

CTB Contributing Expert Frank Hyland, a former CIA and NSA official who also writes for the Jamestown Foundation, and Zeyno Baran, Director of the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute and a former CTB Contributing Expert, will serve as Commentators for the seminar after the Ambassador speaks. Closing comments will be made by Professor Edgar H. Brenner, Co-Director of the Inter-University Center for Legal Studies and co-editor of Turkey: Terrorism, Civil Rights and the European Union (2008).

My co-chair, Professor Yonah Alexander, is Director of the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies and co-editor of Turkey: Terrorism, Civil Rights and the European Union. Professor Alexander was a panelist in our February 12 panel, "The Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy" and in our April 15 panel, "Iran and the United States: Outlook for the Next Decade?"

The event is co-sponsored by the Counterterrorism Foundation; the Hudson Institute; the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies, the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and the Inter-University Center for Legal Studies at the International Law Institute.

To RSVP, contact Jenn Zewin by e-mail or call 703-562-4522 with your name and affiliation. Acceptances only, please.

More trouble for Tehran at home

By Olivier Guitta

Further to my last week's article in the Middle East Times regarding Iran's internal rebellion, the newsletter The Croissant (available for a small fee) reported that Khameini’s representative in Eastern Iran was murdered. Indeed after the trouble in Baluchistan, the following story seems to confirm a trend of minorities rebelling against Tehran.

Indeed The Croissant reported that Sheikh Abbassian Abbas, the Supreme Leader’s representative in Taybad (a city located near the Afghan border) responsible for the mobilization and recruitment within the Bassij (a militia at the service of the regime of the mullahs) was killed in an ambush in the city of Khafajia (in the province of Ahvaz, home to a mostly ethnic Arab population). Iranian authorities confirmed this information on 5/6/08.

Assessing the Risks of Turkish Raids in Northern Iraq

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Turkey has just launched a fresh set of air raids against PKK targets in northern Iraq, continuing from last weekend into this week, following a series of PKK attacks in Turkey that killed four civilians and six soldiers. The New Anatolian reported yesterday that after the PKK's attacks, "The Turkish military retaliated with artillery strikes against the PKK hideouts in northern Iraq while the terrorists who attacked the military outpost were cornered as they fled back into northern Iraq and were destroyed by repeated air raids that continued into Monday. Turkish fighters also destroyed the PKK propaganda center in northern Iraq which also served as the main broadcasting unit for Roj TV, the mouthpiece of the militant organization based in Denmark."

Such incursions by Turkey worry many analysts who are concerned about the risks of accidental skirmishes and civilian casualties. Today my associate Samantha Rollinger and I have an article in the Middle East Times that assesses the risks posed by such Turkish raids. An excerpt:

We spoke with several analysts who felt that a miscalculated conflict between Turkish and American forces was simply not a realistic concern due to coordination between the two countries' militaries. Svante Cornell, research director for the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, told us that Turkey's ground offensive in February never could have occurred without coordination with the United States. "An accidental conflict between U.S. forces and Turkish forces is not even worth talking about," he said. "The Turkish military has a direct relationship with the U.S. military. The U.S. was informed, and was brought to a point of approving of it." Cornell emphasized that while the U.S. was likely displeased with Turkey's incursion, it understood that the intervention was inevitable due to PKK attacks against Turkey....

The PKK's location has also helped to keep civilian casualties from spiraling out of control during Turkish interventions. A senior American military intelligence officer told us that the PKK does not follow Mao Zedong's famous adage that "the guerilla is the fish and the people are the sea." Moreover, he noted that the PKK does not have a great deal of support in northern Iraq's large urban areas - thus inhibiting the group's ability to mix into the civilian population to the same extent as, for example, al-Qaida in Iraq.

You can read the whole article here.

NEFA TerrorWatch: New Insight into the 7/7 Bombings, Pakistan Terror Connections

By Evan Kohlmann

This week's edition of the NEFA Foundation's TerrorWatch cybercast takes an inside look at "Operation Theseus": a series of ongoing criminal investigations and trials in the United Kingdom involving a network of alleged accomplices in the July 7, 2005 suicide bombings in London. In the Spring of 2007, British police arrested four men: Waheed Ali, Mohammed Shakil, Sadeer Saleem, and Khalid Khaliq—accusing them of complicity in the bombings and possession of terrorist propaganda materials. Two of the men were arrested at Manchester Airport while attempting to board a flight to Pakistan. At locations in central England, U.K. counterterrorism police recovered a variety of terrorist propaganda documents. During the subsequent trial, prosecutors have released several eye-opening pieces of evidence, including police surveillance footage of the two 7/7 bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer along with several of the Operation Theseus defendants during a suspected reconnaissance trip to London in March 2004 in anticipation of their planned suicide attack.

The entire TerrorWatch episode can be viewed on the NEFA Foundation website.

Docs Suggest Chavez, FARC Agreed to Blame Paramilitaries for FARC's Murders

By Jonathan Winer

On May 10, the Colombian magazine Semana reported that FARC guerrillas developed a strategy in the fall of 2004 to blame Colombian paramilitaries for the Apure massacre in which FARC killed five soldiers and a woman engineer in a raid on Venezuelan oil company assets there. At the time, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his defense minister told the public that Colombian paramilitaries had carried out the raid, murdering the six civilians in cold blood.

Privately, FARC's leaders discussed in e-mails the reality that Chavez knew FARC was responsible. As FARC leader Raul Reyes concluded, "President Chavez is annoyed, but wants to treat this politically and with prudence." According to the e-mails, Venezuelan military leaders were increasingly upset at FARC's kidnapping, extortion and murder of Venezuelan cattle ranchers, but President Chavez wanted to keep things quiet in order to maintain a relationship with FARC despite the provocations due to FARC's ability to contribute regionally to extending the reach of Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution."

Deportation Hearings of Hamas-linked Imam Wind Down

By The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)

Deportation proceedings against Imam Mohammad Qatanani of the Islamic Center of Passaic in New Jersey, charged with failing to disclose an earlier arrest and conviction in Israel, wrapped up today. News reports have alternately described Qatanani as "revered," "influential," and "respected." Likewise, all media reports have outlined both the charges against Qatanani and his excuses, bolstered by a coterie of quotes from supporters about how revered, influential and respected Qatanani is.

What those stories do not detail is Qatanani's history of attending radical conferences in the United States, nor his frequent use of incendiary rhetoric in speeches and sermons.

For the entire story, click here to go to the IPT's website.

UPDATE: News reports indicate that the trial, which had originally been scheduled to last just three days, has been extended. Testimony will resume on Monday, June 1. Please check the CT Blog and the IPT website for updates on the proceedings.

More on the FARC-Chavez Connection

By Jonathan Winer

New materials released to the Associated Press and a Spanish newspaper reinforce earlier information showing ongoing operational cooperation between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombia's FARC guerrillas.

Documents reviewed by AP provided by Colombia from the computers seized by Colomba in the March 1 cross-border raid on FARC that killed Raul Reyes were described by AP as detailing years of close cooperation between top officials in Venezuela's government and military and FARC, including the construction of rebel training facilities on Venezuelan soil.

According to AP, the documents suggested that Chavez was preparing to loan the rebels at least $250 million to provide them with Russian weapons and possibly help them obtain surface-to-air missiles for use against Colombian military aircraft.

AP described the documents as framing "a joint strategic project between Venezuela and the Colombian rebels, with Venezuela even seeking rebel training in "asymmetrical warfare" in preparation for a feared U.S. invasion."

Meanwhile, on May 10, a Spanish newspaper reported that documents from the Raul Reyes computers seized by Colombia in the March 1 cross-border raid included an e-mail from FARC leader Ivan Marquez that Venezuelan head of state Chavez had discussed providing weapons to FARC with Belarus.

According to the Madrid newspaper, El Pais, a partially coded message mentioned a person the newspaper identified as Victor Sheiman, secretary of the Belarus Security Council and a close associate of Alexander Lukashenko, the hardline president of the former Soviet republic, as having discussed the provision of weapons with Chavez.

Expected and undisturbed Hezbollah coup

By Olivier Guitta

Hezbollah has been rearming quite quickly- it has now close to 45,000 rockets, more than before the onset of the summer 2006 war with Israel- under the eyes of the helpless UNIFIL forces. For proof the March 30 incident when a missiles shipment coming from Syria was controlled at Jbal al Botm by an Italian battalion, part of the UNIFIL forces, and then authorized to continue to reach its final recipient: Hezbollah.

I just wrote on Hezbollah's coup for The Middle East Times. To read the whole article, please click here.

Here is an excerpt:

The Lebanese government last week tried to put a stop to Hezbollah's blatant takeover of the country. Authorities outlawed Hezbollah's illegal parallel telecom network and fired the airport's head of security, a Hezbollah ally who had authorized installations of spy cameras in order to monitor the movements of majority leaders.

Saying it amounted to a declaration of war, Hezbollah used its overpowering force to seize most of the Sunni areas of Beirut and shut down the airport and the majority-owned media.

Why is anyone surprised by these latest events?

The Arab league and Western diplomats seem to be speechless and several nations asked their citizens to leave the country. But the writing was on the wall. In December 2007 in an article entitled, "Hezbollah in Beirut's driver seat," published by the Middle East Times, I wrote that "unsurprisingly Hezbollah has been planning and implementing a secret coup for some time using a multi-pronged strategy."

What has been a surprise and a major disappointment for the Lebanese people is the decision of the army not to get involved in the fighting. While it is true that the army needs to remain neutral since it is composed of personnel from the various religious communities, it is no secret that Hezbollah has infiltrated it. The army was perceived as the only functioning part of the government, but the past few days have shown that this was just a bad assessment. Finally this should not have come as a major shocker since the chief of the army and only presidential candidate, Gen. Michel Suleiman, appears to be more and more taking orders from Damascus.

Jeff Breinholt Returns to DOJ and Bows Out of CTB

By Douglas Farah

Jeff Breinholt, who took a leave from the Department of Justice to serve as Director of National Security Law at the International Assessment and Strategy Center has now returned to active government service in DOJ. The board and contributors of the CTB would like to thank him for his contributions, both as a contributor and a member of the board, during that breather from his regular job.

As one of the leading lights on terrorism and the legal issues in that field, Jeff was able to regularly provide our readers with valuable insights and understanding on numerous fronts. As a board member, he was also able to help us navigate through tough decisions as the CTB has undergone enormous growth and works out its place in the CT community.

While his contributions will be missed here, his return to DOJ is a gain for the Department as it faces enormous challenges. So, Jeff, thank you for all your work here, and good luck in your return.

More on the FARC Documents Come to Light

By Douglas Farah

Little by little more of the thousands of documents captured from the FARC rebels in Colombia are coming to light and the picture is not pretty.

While INTERPOL is reportedly set to declare the contents of the computers captured after the March strike that killed FARC commander Raul Reyes, the Colombian government is quietly making use of the documents to inflict unprecedented damage on the guerrilla-criminal organization that is on the terror list of the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Police commander Oscar Naranjo, who has been in the war against drug trafficking organizations for years, says this is the first time in his career that the FARC is shrinking, rather than growing.

Another sign of the guerrilla's weakening are the numbers of desertions by combatants that had been with the FARC anywhere from five to 12 years, said Naranjo.

''It is their qualified combatants that are demobilizing,'' he said. ''What I'm seeing for the first time in the last 30 years is that the FARC are no longer growing -- to the contrary, '' they are shrinking.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the documents show Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in personally involved in helping the FARC, authorizing rest areas for their troops inside Venezuela, offering a $250 million loan to be repaid when the FARC takes power, and allowing senior Venezuelan officials provide weapons to the rebels. My full blog is here.

Lebanon's "300"

By Walid Phares

While the West is busy living its daily life, a beast is busy killing the freedom of a small community on the East Mediterranean: Lebanon. Indeed, as of last week, the mighty Hezbollah, armed to the teeth with 30,000 rockets and missiles and aligning thousands of self described “Divine soldiers” has been marching across the capital, terrorizing its population, shutting down media, taking its politicians and the Prime Minister as hostages, and looting at will. The hordes of Lebanon’s “Khomeinist Janjaweeds” have conquered already half of the Middle East’s cultural capital, Beirut. As I have reported before, Hezbollah has occupied West Beirut and has since sent its storm troops in multiple directions to resume the blitz.

The Burning of TV Stations in Beirut

Unstoppable, including by the Lebanese Army which Commander Michel Sleiman has allowed the slaughter to occur the Pasdaran-founded militia is now hurdling towards the Druze Mountain and positioning its forces against the Sunni North and the Christian Mount Lebanon. Ironically, the geographical bases of Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, are well guarded by the United Nations Interim Forces (UNIFIL). Per a UNSCR 1701 in 2006, more than 10,000 international troops are stationed across the southern parts of Lebanon, technically protecting the 200 Shia towns and villages from where the bulk of Hezbollah fighters came from. Hence, free from guarding their own areas, a dozen thousands well trained “Hezbollahis” have marched north to join another 5,000 already based in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

This huge force, by Lebanon’s standards, was joined by an undetermined number of real Iranian Guards, shipped from Tehran to man sophisticated weapons offered by the Khamanei regime as a gift to topple the democratically elected Government of Fuad Seniora. In addition, from the four corners of the country, Jihadist and ultra radical organizations have joined the fray including: The Nazi-like SSNP, the Amal Movement, the Wi’amWahhab pro-Syrian militia, and many others. And to top it, Damascus was able to neutralize the Lebanese Army which has been equipped recently by the United States. Its Commander, a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic was “convinced” by the Assad regime to open the passages to Beirut and all other regions for the hordes to thrust into their enemies’ backyards. Reminding us of the tales of Greek Antiquity, this Xerxes -Khomeinist- Army burst into the capital, whipping out the thin internal security forces and reigning in with brutality.

Hezbollah's "Immortal Guards" against the "300"?

After securing the Muslim side of the city, the “Immortal Guards” -since most of the Hezbollahis believe in martyrdom as a path to eternal after-life, encircled the mostly Druze Mountain from all directions. Closing in from the coast, the south and the Bekaa, thousands of fighters and their heavy artillery were ordered into battle this week end. The massive “Persian” Army is now attempting to take these passes into the Bekaa and from there into the North and the Christian Mountain. In a sense these may become Lebanon’s Thermopylae: A vast Hezbollah Iranian-backed Army unleashing its power against few Lebanese Spartans, to dislodge them and open the paths for the rest of the country. Indeed, it looks like the few hundred Druze fighters in Aley and the Shuf -who have decided to fight on their own, may become Lebanon’s “300”. The vision is chilling. Despite the calls by their leader Walid Jumblat, now hostage to the Pasdaran in Beirut, to desist from resisting, the mountainous peasants decided to fight and resist the onslaught. The balance of power is terribly uneven. The forces of Hassan Nasrallah, hyper armed by “Xerxes” Ahmedinijad, line up thousands of soldiers, Special Forces, missiles and endless containers of ammunition. They have hardened their battle experience through years of fighting against a powerful Israeli Army, Air Force and Navy. Nasrallah is convinced that his Army of Suicide-bombers has defeated the region’s nuclear super power in 2006. Hence, a few “hundreds” of Druses won’t even stand for a day. Logically, he is correct. The Lebanese Army was tamed by Hezbollah, the Sunnis of Beirut collapsed in few hours, the Christians are intimidated, the U.S and Europe fears Hezbollah’s Terror and the Arab regimes are terrified by his myth. Who on Earth will resist the Khomeinist Xerxes? Well so far, Lebanon’s 300 have.

The Grand Hezbollah Plan

The first waves of attacks launched by the Iranian backed forces aimed at seizing the first portion of the strategic Damascus Highway (the I-70 of Lebanon) linking Beirut to the Syrian border via the Mountain. The offensive began from Kayfoun towards Baysur. Instead of seizing terrain, Hezbollah lost Kayfoun with heavy casualties (about 23 killed) and the Druze fighters of the Socialist Party planted their flag on the enemy bunker before they pulled back to their positions. The Iranian commanders were stunned by these mountain “Rangers.” But the Druze had only AK 47 with one or two clips of ammunitions; rarely an RPG. While the whole of Lebanon was watching with fear, awaiting their turn, the “300” were repelling the waves of “Immortal Hezbollah” who in fact got very mortal in 24 hours. Another battle raged in Aley and the “Persians” lost again: 9 casualties or so: Among the bodies, three Iranians. Near Aley the strategic hill 888 was assaulted repetitively but the defenders repelled the “Guards.” Later on, the Druze transferred the hill to the Lebanese Army. Nasrallah’s troops then stormed Deir Qubal but were pushed back towards the surrounding hills. Hezbollah tried to seize Ein Unub but again the attack failed.

Druze clerics

Hezbollah Guard

Then Hezbollah ordered its forces to advance on the coastal axis towards Shueifat. There, the Druze pulled back inside the town allowing the “Hezbos” to take the control of the beaches and the adjacent roads. But when the Iranian backed militias moved toward the neighborhoods, their advance was stopped. Frustrated the “Xerxes” War Room decided the grand assault by early Monday: More than 2,000 Khomeinist-trained commandos took the back roads to the Baruk Mountain coming from the southern Bekaa. Their target are the Maaser heights and from there to the district capital of the Shuf, Mukhtara. From south Lebanon, the hordes of Hezbollah are marching across Jezzine, Tumate heights into the southern frontiers of the Druze lands. According to reports, 5000 Hezbollah/Iranian/Syrian infantry, backed by rockets and artillery are to close in from the south. The Druze, youth and elderly, have mobilized all they could, but are isolated with little ammunition. Their adversaries are numerous, well equipped, fanaticized and have their supply lines opened to Syria and via Damascus, to Iran. The tableau looks like a real collection of small Thermopylae where the “300” of Lebanon will be fighting a Goliath.

Pasdaran and Hezbollah's forces

But irony is that the United States and other Democracies, whose forces are present in the area and ships cruising the waters along the Eastern Mediterranean, and who have committed to fight terror around the globe may be watching these “300” falling in this epic fight. The greater irony is that these peasants of Mount Lebanon have withstood the mighty machine of Hezbollah for three days and maybe for a few more, while the standing myth internationally was that no one on Earth can defeat this Terror force. Well, for few days the myth of invincibility of Hezbollah was shattered. Eventually if the powers -who have already spent 500 billion dollars on the War on terror- would fail the Lebanese “300” in their mountains, the legend will be owned by those little intrepid and courageous peasants. But if Washington and Paris would quickly assume their strategic responsibilities -which they initiated by voting UNSCR 1559 to liberate Lebanon- then perhaps Khomeinist-Terror won’t plant its banners on the Eastern Mediterranean.

******************

Dr Walid Phares is the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad.

« Close It

NEFA Foundation: Al-Qaida Reports "Martyrdom" of Senior Saudi Terrorist Abu Sulaiman al-Otaibi in Afghanistan

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained a copy of new letter from Al-Qaida leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid confirming the death of Al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Sulaiman al-Otaibi (a.k.a. Mohammed al-Thibaiti) during clashes with the "crusaders and apostates" in the Paktika province of Afghanistan. According to Saudi media, Abu Sulaiman was a former student at Imam Mohammed bin Saud University and had close contacts with influential Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia. Upon leaving Saudi Arabia and arriving in neighboring Iraq, he was appointed by Al-Qaida to be the ‘Justice Minister’ of its so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ (ISI)--even making rare personal appearances in Al-Qaida propaganda videos. In late 2007, al-Otaibi traveled on from Iraq to Afghanistan, where he spent six months fighting on the frontline there. According to Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, "Allah bestowed [him] with dedication and victory and [he] is an example of courage, sacrifice, and valor… We offer our condolences to… to brothers of Abu Sulaiman especially in Iraq and in the Arabian Peninsula.’”

A translation of Mustafa Abu al-Yazid's letter can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

Second Thai Counterfeit Passport Ring Broken Up This Month: Nearly 22,000 Passports Seized

By Zachary Abuza

Today Thai authorities announced arrests in an enormous counterfeit passport ring. 12 people were arrested and some 20,000 fake passports were seized. It was the second such arrest in the past month.

The 12-person gang, included Thais, Burmese, and Indonesians. The 20,000 passports were from a diverse group of countries: Burma, Brunei, Canada, France, Germany, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Thai police reported that 2,000 of the passports were ready to be used.

The ringleader of the cell, Somkhuan Muen-in, had nearly 10-year career in document forging, people and arms smuggling. Police assert that he had smuggled arms for the Tamil Tigers in 2003.

On 29 April, Police arrested a Bangladeshi national, who had 90 real passports, 577 fake US and European passports, 680 counterfeit visas and 1,680 fake passport photo pages, mostly for American passports. One Burmese accomplice was also arrested.

Thailand continues to be a hub for passport and document forging. In late 2006, a Thai and Pakistani were arrested with some 500 fake passports in a joint US-Thai operation. In August 2005, Thai authorities arrested a Syrian-born British subject, Atamnia Yachine, with ties to the 7/7 London bombers, with 186 fake French and Spanish passports. That same month, Thai authorities arrested Mahiededine Daikh, in possession of 452 fake passports.

About Bout & the DEA

By Aaron Mannes

The recently unsealed indictment of arms-trafficker extraordinaire Victor Bout is an interesting read. Perhaps the most notable line is on page 10, when Bout told the DEA operatives (who he believed represented the FARC) that America was also his enemy and their fight was his fight. Another international arms dealer, Monzar al-Kasser, who was arrested in a DEA sting, promised the informants to raise an army for the FARC in order to fight the Americans. Are these heartfelt sentiments, or just salesmen trying to ingratiate themselves to a wealthy client and close a lucrative deal?

The truth is probably a combination of both. Many criminals seek to justify their actions as somehow contributing to a greater good by empowering the powerless. But intentions aside, Bout’s capabilities are the real cause for worry.

Read the full post here.

A Murder in Mexico

By Douglas Farah

The murder of Mexico's police chief signals just how serious the Mexican drug trafficking organizations are about taking on the Mexican state. And just how weak the Mexican state is.

"This could have a snowball effect, even leading to the risk of ungovernability," Luís Astorga, a Mexico City-based sociologist and drug expert, said in an interview. "It indicates terrible things, a level of weakness in our institutions -- they can't even protect themselves."

By most accounts the police chief, Edgar Eusebio Millan Gomez, was a good cop trying to do an impossible job-fighting drug organizations that have more resources, better weapons and the ability to buy or kill those that oppose them.

President Felipe Calderon also wins high praise for sharply ratcheting up the pressure on the trafficking organizations, who have responded in the most predictable and lethal fashion-murdering high-profile symbols of the enforcement effort.

It is worth remembering that the chaos the traffickers are wreaking in Mexico is not just aimed at the Mexican state, it is also aimed at undermining the already-battered viability of our southern border. The hundreds of dead across the border states of Mexico show where the battles are being fought.

The easier it is to cross dope, weapons, illegal aliens from around the world, the higher the profits for the traffickers.

And the FARC rebels in Colombia are now in a direct business relationship with Mexican trafficking organizations, according to the recently-captured FARC documents resulting from the raid that killed rebel leader Raul Reyes.

The FARC, in turn, is allied with Nicaragua (Ortega) and Venezuela (Chavez), who in turn are allied with Iran, which in turn runs Hezbollah, which in turn is actively working to expand its beach head in Latin America. My full blog is here.

Jihad and U.S. Intelligence Resources

By Jeffrey Imm

How could the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence authorize "the largest funding increase in the base Intelligence Budget in history", but refuse to include an amendment that calls for identifying the Jihadist enemy we fight? But that is precisely what happened on May 8.

On May 8, Congressman Peter Hoekstra attempted to strike a blow for reason and sanity in the war against global jihadism, by making the rational and consistent definition of our enemy a priority in allocating budget resources for U.S. intelligence programs. Specifically, Congressman Hoekstra was seeking an amendment that "would prohibit the intelligence community from adopting speech codes that encumber accurately describing the radical jihadist terrorists that attacked America and continue to threaten the homeland."

A majority of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence disagreed, and Congressman Hoekstra's Intelligence budget amendment on this issue was rejected. To be specific, Congressman Hoekstra states that his amendment was "rejected by committee Democrats". Certainly those 12 members of this Committee should clarify their position. Is it true that the majority of Congressmen Reyes, Boswell, Cramer, Holt, Ruppersberger, Tierney, Thompson, Langevin, Murphy, Schiff, Congresswomen Eshoo and Schakowsky, are not concerned about defining the Jihadist enemy? This is a far more disturbing development than the recent DHS and NCTC memos themselves.

Clearly the American people need an accounting of who voted against this amendment.  The members of this House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (of any party) who rejected this amendment have an obligation to inform the American people why they do not view defining the Jihadist enemy as a priority in authorizing funding for intelligence operations. American citizens have a responsibility to contact these members and get an explanation as to why the consistent understanding of the jihadist enemy is not a priority in our intelligence operations, according to House Committee members who voted against the Hoekstra amendment. Americans concerned about jihad should take action and register their concern to these Congressmen and Congresswomen.

Hezbollah’s Beirut’s Blitz

By Walid Phares

As many among us have warned several times over the past year, and many articles later, Hezbollah has indeed waged its expected blitzkrieg against the democratically elected Government of Lebanon. Within 24 hours, the pro-Iranian super-militia blocked all accesses to the Beirut International Airport, established an exclusive security zone around the organization’s headquarters in south Beirut, deployed its forces into several Sunni neighborhoods in the capital and erected check points across the country. Within 48 hours or more the “Party of Allah” may be in control of large areas of the Lebanese Republic. In short, this could mutate into a slow motion coup d’Etat. What’s behind the blitz?

The big picture was very predictable. The Syro-Iranian “axis” which is flaring up various battlefields in the region, from Basra to Gaza, has instructed its local “force” on the Lebanese battlefield to surge against the pro-Western Government of Fuad Seniora. Hezbollah is a disciplined Iranian asset on the Eastern Mediterranean. All of the arguments advanced by its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in his last press conference and grievances against the Government have always been raised since the summer of 2005. These criticisms of the cabinet are invoked when a large scale action is ordered by the Tehran strategists. The local “issues” are part of the greater puzzle, but in Lebanese politics, they seem to be “the” issues at hand. What are they?

Back in September 2004, a UNSCR 1559 has asked all militias, including Hezbollah to disarm and Syria to pull out from Lebanon. The “axis” responded with a string of assassinations against Lebanese critics. An attempt against Minister Marwan Hamade in the fall of 2005 was followed by an earth shaking massacre of the former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and his assistants and friends in February 2005. A Cedars Revolution followed with one million and a half people taking the streets to demand the departure of the Syrians and the disarming of Hezbollah. Assad pulled out his troops in April of that year leaving the “second army” behind, Hezbollah. As of July 2005 a series of murders targeted Lebanese anti-Hezbollah politicians

Bad Omens in Latin America

By Douglas Farah

The Associated Press today reports on how thinly spread U.S. Special Forces are in many parts of the world, including Latin America, at a crucial time.

"We're going to fewer countries, staying for shorter periods of time, with smaller numbers of people than historically we have done," Adm. Eric T. Olson said May 5 in his first interview since becoming commander of U.S. Special Operations Command last July.

To illustrate that point, Olson said that when the 7th Special Forces Group, which is based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and whose normal area of focus is Latin America, rotates into Afghanistan for seven-month tours, it takes two of its three battalions, leaving just one in Latin America.

"That leaves us underrepresented" in Latin America, the admiral said.

In Latin America, as in other areas of greatest interest to the Special Operations Command, Green Berets deploy to friendly countries like El Salvador or Colombia to train local military forces.

Special operations units that are designated mainly for use in Africa and Europe, Olson said, also are under strength for their normal role in those regions because they, too, are tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My full blog is here.

Colombian Newspaper Reports INTERPOL Found No Tampering with FARC Computers

By Jonathan Winer

According to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, computer forensics experts from INTERPOL have found that the personal computers found by Colombia in its March 1 cross-border raids of a FARC camp in Ecuador retain their integrity and have not been changed since the raid.

Initial findings by the Australian, Spanish and Singapore experts from INTERPOL reportedly have found that the computers' archival register, which show the time and date of each entry, show no changes to the computer following the raids. According to the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo, the INTERPOL experts will on May 15 release an inventory of the texts, photos, videos, and other types of content in the computer belonging to Raul Reyes, the FARC leader killed in the raid.

Virtual Worlds require Virtual-HUMINT (VHUMINT)

By Roderick Jones

The excellent Dark Web project at Arizona Universities Artificial Intelligence Lab has recently completed research into the use of Web 2.0 media by International jihadi groups. While fascinating in some respects it also clearly demonstrates how traditional text-mining attempts to collect data can be applied to some Web 2.0 applications, but miss the mark with virtual worlds.

The leader of the lab Dr. Chen kindly forwarded their research paper to me and it can be linked to here (Cyber Extremism in Web 2.0: An Exploratory Study of International Jihadist Groups or here). In essence the Dark Web project’s methodology is to search for material with extremist or terrorist style language (but please read the paper for a better description of methodology). Interestingly, they concluded that sites such as Facebook and MySpace, which have been big components of the Web 2.0 milieu are not suited to the propagation of extremist views,

“We did not consider social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, although they are a major component of Web 2.0. Based on our preliminary exploration, we found that the prevalent amount of personal data on these sites, the tight social linkages, and the potential issue of “guilt by association” (for site owners and “friends”) may have discouraged extremists from using such a medium.“

With regard to virtual worlds the Dark Web project found nuanced evidence of extremist ‘activity’ within Second Life, by using Second Life’s internal search system to look for text containing extremist language. More than anything this highlights the difficultly in researching extremist movements within virtual worlds as the worlds themselves do not easily allow themselves to be searched or data-mined in this fashion. The issue of search within virtual worlds has been grappled with by a number of commentators, the problem being what to search for, people, content, land, buildings, events, etc. But more importantly language used within virtual worlds doesn’t hold the same meaning when pulled out of its in-world context. For example the dark-web project cites a number of groups it discovered in Second Life using extremist language, one of who (Terrorists of SL) has a small virtual headquarters called ‘Taliban Towers’. An examination of this site and associated group would tend to suggest they are a role-playing collective with little real-world application. The same goes for other in-world organizations such as, Elite Jihadi Terrorist group.

Therefore, what this research does is point to something fundamental about how global intelligence and law-enforcement agencies need to approach the examination of virtual worlds, and that is that raw data-crunching is likely to prove unsatisfactory. Ironically, virtual worlds require a uniquely human approach. The only sure way to gather information on extremist or criminal groups operating in virtual worlds is to enter the environment and interact with the suspected groups. The United States Intelligence community is not short of computing power but what this new environment needs is the human touch or to put it in the language of the Beltway -- layer Virtual-HUMINT over the SIGINT mission.

Highlighting al-Qaeda's Bankrupt Ideology

By Matthew Levitt

According to recent U.S. government reports and senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, contesting al-Qaeda's message is no less important than capturing or killing the group's operatives. And as the administration prioritizes its agenda for the last eight months in office, recognizing the need for a refocused communication plan to highlight the bankruptcy of al-Qaeda's ideology is a critical -- albeit overdue -- part of a reengineered counterterrorism strategy.

The State Department's 2007 Country Reports on Terrorism and recent speeches by senior officials indicate that the U.S. government's communication strategy for combating al-Qaeda's ideology has shifted considerably in two respects. First, there is increased recognition that communication must be an integral part of counterterrorism strategy. As Ambassador Dell Dailey, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, recently noted, "Communication should…be used by the United States and its allies to shape perceptions, build allies, and dissuade potential terrorists. This must be a central component in U.S. strategy because it influences attitudes and behavior." According to Deputy National Security Advisor Juan Zarate, this is particularly true when it comes to al-Qaeda, whose leaders are "sensitive to the perceived legitimacy of both their actions and their ideology. They care about their image because it has real-world effects on recruitment, donations, and support in Muslim and religious communities."

While the U.S. government paid attention to its communication strategy in the first few years following the September 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials were far more focused on capturing or killing terrorists. Today contesting al-Qaeda's ideology is an integral part of the U.S. counterterrorism strategy.

The complete article, co-authored with Michael Jacobson, is available here.

Assessment of International Counter-Financing of Terrorism Efforts Needed For Next Administration & Congress

By Andrew Cochran

Last week, in an interview for the MoneyLaundering.Com subscription newsletter, I recommended a complete review of the outcomes of the laws, regulations, and structures governing the counter-terrorist financing effort by the U.S. government and our international relationships. "It is time to take a fresh look at anti-terrorist financing and anti-money laundering regulations as we enter the next administration and next Congress and see what has worked, and what hasn't, how methods have changes and how to change the Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act and other regulations to go along with that." By this fall, our experience with Title III of the Patriot Act, the anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML-CFT) provisions, and the terrorist designation process put in place after the attacks through Executive Order and UNSCR resolutions will be seven years old, long enough to have judged the burdens, successes, and failures.

On this site and others, and in innumerable panels, seminars, and hearings, experts have discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the regime put in place following the 9-11 attacks; its costs and benefits; and the impacts on the financing of terrorism. Existing sanctions programs were significantly enhanced in order to choke off terrorist financing. At the same time, the US engaged in unprecedented cooperation with other countries. Hundreds of millions of dollars of assets were frozen, tougher legislation was passed in numerous countries, and the well-established network of money transfers that had been intensively used by terrorists before the 9-11 attacks was dismantled. But it's obvious that terrorists have adapted their funding strategies and sources in order to stay one step ahead of the authorities. Extremist groups now rely on a combination of private donations, smuggling rings (of drugs, human beings, and weapons), and a secretive, complex network of clandestine financial institutions (the latest example being a FARC-linked Colombian money service business which the Treasury Department has just designated). Terror “franchises” are increasingly raising their money through petty crime, drugs, money laundering, and front companies. Regulatory mechanisms imposed on financial institutions do not reflect successes in some areas and the changes in sources and methods. Regional bodies in the Middle East and Southeast Asia appear to stepped into the shoes of the U.N. as a recent source of AML-CFT guidance for individual countries, which could enhance local prevention and enforcement efforts but also lead to inconsistent international definitiions, standards, and sanctions.

A comprehensive review by government officials, the broader CT community, and financial institutions is needed to chronicle the current threats and weaknesses of terrorist financing and develop an improved and credible strategy for combating them. A previous example of the effort which I envision was the Council on Foreign Relations' 2002 report on terrorist financing (70 pages), which greatly assisted the Members of Congress for whom I worked on the House Financial Services Committee. I know that many experts in the private sector are ready to participate in such an effort, and I hope to post on progress during the remainder of the year.

Pakistan, Taliban and Politics of Peace Accords!

By Animesh Roul

History is against any peace deals with the Taliban. At least three such initiatives (so called ‘peace deals’) had been signed with the Taliban in the past, only to be collapsed soon after.

When Rehman Malik, adviser to Pakistan’s Prime Minister on internal affairs welcomed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud‘s latest offer for truce and peace talks, many observers (including me) thought that the newly crowned civilian government in Pakistan shouldn’t feel excited about these peace initiatives, especially when it involves Taliban militants. At the outset it seemed that the government was in a hurry to show the world that they have better counter terror tools to deal with Taliban or Islamic threat at large, than erstwhile Musharraf regime and US led collation. The government not only reverted the earlier policies adopted by Mushraff regime, but also it released some of the top rung terror leaders e.g. Tehreek e Nafaz e Shariat e Mohammadi (TNSM) leader Maulana Sufi Mohammad. Sufi’s release came after TNSM agreed to abide a six point agenda for peace in Malakand Agency. The tactics might be here that to put pressure on Maulana Fazlullah, the son in law of Maulana Sufi who has been virtually ruling the scenic Swat valley, North West Frontier Province, to stop violence and other subversive activities. The militants are not happy with the Sufi’s release and not convinced with this tactics of the Pakistan government. Their frustration is evident from the TTP’s vice chief Maulvi Faqir Muhammad’s reaction when he indicated that the government should have initiated dialogue with Fazlullah for peace in Swat.

Similarly a peace accord (a 15 point agreement) negotiated late April 2008 with Mesud tribe expected to end militant activities by warring Mehsud tribe and its rising leader Baitulah Mehsud. The deal aimed at ending militant activity, prisoner exchange and government troop withdrawal from the South Waziristan region (Derra Adamkhel and Swat). However, the Mardan blast on April 25 signaled a strong message that Taliban can break the agreement anytime, even though Tehreek's spokesman Maulvi Umer reiterated that the deal was still in place. Again on April 28 the TTP had announced that the peace talks with government had failed due to non-withdraw of troops from FATA and Swat, but the ceasefire remained intact, blaming ‘secret hands’ for derailing peace talks.

In the case of TTP and followers, they have perpetrated at least three suicide attacks (two targeting security forces) after the talks failed without much headway. The latest was the Bannu check post blast in NWFP that killed two policemen guarding the post.

Any peace deal or ceasefire accord with militants only effectively strengthens their manpower and firepower, giving them space to regroup and replenish. They make maximum usage of the ‘no-fire’ period to nourish the depleted armory and take a breather for a long war ahead. Remember how Taliban took control of North Wazirstan after the Sept 2006 accord and recuperated until mid 2007 there making it a safe hideout for both Taliban and Qaeda militants until now.

For now, the only good news is that Baitullah’s TTP has at least one opponent in own fraternity, Haji Namdar, the chief of Amar Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munker (Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice) - organization enforcing Islamic laws in the tribal region, mainly in Bar Kambarkhel area. Namdar has ordered militants under Baitullah Mehsud to leave the Khyber Agency, following a failed attack on his life by pro Taliban Hakeemullah group recently. Namdar might stand strong as a counter force to TTP and Baitulah meshud in the future, if he survives coming suicide attacks. He is reportedly teaching militants (detoxification) true meaning of Jihad and urge them to shun violence against Pakistan. But not against NATO-led International Security Force in Afghanistan (ISAF), fighting in Afghanistan.

It would be prudent on the part of Pakistani government not to initiate dialogue process with Islamic extremists in a haste unless until militants surrender their arms and stop violent activities. The TTP’s motive is perhaps to stop fire in Pakistan’s territory maintaining ceasefire with troops now and then direct all strengths against the US /NATO forces fighting Taliban forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the governments (at Islamabad and NWPF) seem to be still optimistic about a positive outcome of ongoing indirect talks with TTP and TNSM militants. Not to forget, any ceasefire accord between Pakistan and TTP/TNSM will adversely affect the ground situation in Afghanistan for sure.

A Reminder About Sami Al-Arian

By Bill West

Lately, we hear much from supporters of detained ex-University of South Florida computer engineering professor Sami Al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to (was convicted of) the Federal felony violation of providing assistance and support to members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization. Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months prison time for his crime. He was also ordered to be deported from the United States at the completion of his criminal incarceration.

During his incarceration, prosecutors in northern Virginia have sought to have Al-Arian testify before a Federal grand jury investigating an Islamic charity that was linked to a Tampa-based PIJ front think-tank run by Al-Arian and several of his cronies. To date, Al-Arian has refused to testify before the Virginia grand jury and has been held in civil contempt. Al-Arian and his attorneys claim he should not be required to testify because his Tampa plea agreement with the Government carried a non-cooperation clause. The Government claims his plea agreement did not extend to grand jury proceedings where he might be subpoenaed and granted immunity from further prosecution, as is the case in the Virginia inquiry. So far, two Federal appellate Courts, the 4th Circuit and the 11th Circuit, have agreed with the Government’s position.

The Government appears to be currently deciding if it wants to go forward with further contempt proceedings against Al-Arian or to simply move on his removal...as in deportation. Actual physical deportation of a felony convicted terrorist-linked stateless Palestinian is no easy task for the U.S. Government. This became evident with Al-Arian’s cohort Fawaz Damra, a former Cleveland Imam convicted of naturalization fraud in 2004 based on his lying about his Al-Arian-linked support for the PIJ and other radical Islamic organizations. Damra was eventually deported to the Palestinian territories, but not without significant obstacles. Al-Arian’s PIJ-linked brother-in-law Mazzen Al-Najjar was also deported, though not criminally convicted, several years ago after a lengthy legal battle that similarly became a public cause against so-called, but highly misrepresented and misunderstood, “secret evidence” in immigration proceedings. If and when the Government moves to deport Al-Arian, it should be understood that effort will have required substantial and difficult work on the part of several agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the State Department.

Al-Arian reportedly just ended a hunger strike protesting his lengthy detention in the contempt proceedings. His supporters, seemingly spearheaded by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), claim he is being “persecuted” by the Government because of his political beliefs and his support for the plight of the oppressed Palestinian people and because Al-Arian, of course, is Palestinian himself. They claim Al-Arian is no more than a vocal advocate for Palestinian justice pursued by overzealous Government agents and prosecutors. They claim Al-Arian pleaded guilty only to finally end the long case against him, to see freedom with his family and move on with his life. They claim the Government should simply deport Al-Arian and let him reunite with his family members, most of whom have reportedly moved back to the Middle East.

Al-Arian’s supporters ignore the close financial, operational and personnel relationships he and his Tampa PIJ front organization shared with the Virginia charity being investigated; relationships that included at least $50,000 in transactions and the “exchange” of a PIJ-linked operative via immigration fraud (clearly, those Federal prosecutors in Virginia have solid reason to seek Al-Arian’s testimony). Those supporters ignore the multiple independent judicial rulings, including those two separate appellate court rulings, that go against Al-Arian...Sami has indeed had his many days in court. Those supporters are right about one thing...Al-Arian was vocal. As the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has documented, Al-Arian provided ample examples of his Hitlerian speech abilities during various conferences in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he and his cohorts were seeking support for the Jihad movement, a movement that murdered hundreds of innocent people including Americans. You can see these speeches and more about Al-Arian here, here, here, here and here.

Sami Al-Arian will likely continue to be a hero and martyr to his die-hard supporters, and that may say something about some of them. An objective review of the facts in the Al-Arian case reveals he is anything but that.

Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century: Implications for Homeland Security

By Matthew Levitt

In the latest in its series of lectures by senior US counterterrorism officials, today The Washington Institute's Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence hosted the Department of Homeland Security's Undersecretary for Intelligence, Mr. Charlie Allen. Mr. Allen is the Department of Homeland Security's chief intelligence officer, reporting directly to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. Previously, he served as assistant director of central intelligence for collection, a position he assumed in 1998. A native of North Carolina, Mr. Allen served in the CIA beginning in 1958, holding a variety of positions of increasing responsibility both in analytic and managerial capacities.

Mr. Allen spoke on "Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century: Implications for Homeland Security." His on-the-record remarks are available here.

Press coverage of previous lectures in this series, is available here.

Viktor Bout Indicted for Conspiracy to Kill Americans & Related Terrorism Charges

By Andrew Cochran

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Acting Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced the unsealing of an indictment against international arms dealer Viktor Bout for conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to the FARC to be used to kill Americans in Colombia. The indictment, issued in March but sealed until today (download it here), supercedes the original complaint against Bout when he was arrested in Thailand on March 6. Bout is still in jail in Thailand pending extradition to the U.S, which the Russian government has intervened to halt. Quoting the press release:

"Between November 2007 and March 2008, Bout agreed to sell to the FARC millions of dollars’ worth of weapons -- including surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs), armor piercing rocket launchers, AK-47 firearms, millions of rounds of ammunition, Russian spare parts for rifles, anti-personnel land mines, C-4 plastic explosives, night-vision equipment, “ultralight” airplanes that could be outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Bout agreed to sell the weapons to two confidential sources working with the DEA (the CSs), who represented that they were acquiring these weapons for the FARC, with the specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack United States helicopters in Colombia."

Evidence of Iran's Terrorist Training Camps Increases Support for Tougher Sanctions

By Andrew Cochran

The revelation that Iran is training thousands of Shia terrorists inside Iran for operations inside Iraq is likely to markedly increase support on Capitol Hill for tougher U.S. sanctions against Western businesses conducting business with the regime. The specter of hordes of Iranian-trained and armed terrorists intensively targeting our troops in Iraq, especially during the height of the election campaign, haunts Members of Congress who have patiently hoped that financial sanctions would change Iranian behavior, with no apparent success to date. For instance, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who chairs a key U.S. House terrorism subcommittee, is challenging the Administration, both parties, and the business community to tighten the screws further on Iran's international business network. In an interview posted last night by CQ Homeland Security for subscribers, he discussed a number of options:

"(t)he Iran Sanctions Act requires — it doesn’t recommend, not a non-binding resolution, this is an act — that we identify those companies that are investing over $20 million in the Iran oil sector, and this administration refuses to do that. Now, once they identify, well, first they’ve named and shamed a company, and they don’t believe in annoying international oil companies, and second, they would then have to impose sanctions on a company or do a waiver, and the press might notice that...

So for example, the bill to just allow investors to divest from companies doing business — there’s one on Sudan, a separate bill that I was more involved in, I was involved with both on Iran — just to allow trustees, pension trustees, states and cities, their own money without facing frivolous lawsuits...

We’ve got to hit hard at the World Bank and say, look, we can’t sit by while you lend money to Iran. We can change our federal, state procurement and federal corporate assistance programs. We can facilitate divestiture, both in terms of our securities laws and our tax laws. So we have a whole list of ways outside of the U.N. to put economic pressure on Iran and to change the behavior of multi-national organizations and international corporations."

Our Contributing Experts have discussed a number of these options here, including one which would restrict or even shut down all airflights into or out of Iran. During our April 15 panel on Iran, Matthew Levitt urged listeners to remember that financial sanctions are only one available tool and would not be effective without other measures. Congress is increasingly ready to aim its bipartisan wrath at those businesses assisting Iranian's economy and to pass more stringent measures, whether the Administration agrees or not.

Increasing domestic turmoil in Iran

By Olivier Guitta

I just wrote a piece for the Middle East Times on the under reported trouble brewing inside Iran.
You can read the whole article here.

Here is an excerpt:

To many observers Iran is the big winner in the Middle East. While the end result remains to be seen, what seems certain is that the Islamic republic appears to be faring better geopolitically than domestically. And although uncensored information regarding the country's internal problems is scarce and tough to find, reports of increasing trouble in the country are starting to filter out.
The situation in some provinces inhabited by minorities is far from ideal for Tehran. The Kurdish province has seen regular violent clashes between Kurds and Iranian forces. Consequently, Tehran has recently stepped-up its repression of the Kurdish population.

Unrest, however, is not limited to the Kurds; the Baluch minority is cause of great concern to the regime. In fact, the newsletter TheCroissant.com reported that Iran is discreetly leading a violent military campaign in the Kerman province, bordering Baluchistan.

The latest clashes have claimed dozens of deaths in the ranks of Iranian forces and many civilian casualties. According to the usually well informed Internet web site Elaph, "Jund Allah," a faction of the Iranian Sunni opposition in Baluchistan, claimed responsibility for the April 25 abduction in the town of Fahraj of Jawad Tahiri, supreme leader, Ali Khamenei's representative in the Kerman province.

Morocco under high alert after a probable dry run

By Olivier Guitta

A few weeks ago, Algeria warned its Tunisian and Moroccan neighbors of a possible mega terror attack prepared by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Interestingly the newsletter The Croissant (subscriptions available for a small fee) reported a few days ago that an Algerian, aboard a powerful 4X4, sped on the esplanade of the Mosque of Hassan II in Casablanca. He managed to overcome all obstacles limiting traffic, causing a real panic. The Moroccan security forces thought it was a suicide attack.
This could be a dry run to test the security measures put in place by Moroccan authorities. The fact that this individual could go that far is not reassuring, especially since Morocco has been for a month now on a heightened security level.
Indeed on April 6, nine terrorists jailed for their implications in the May 2003 Casablanca terror attacks, escaped from the Kenitra prison.
As of today, just one of them had been rearrested...

Deconstructing Islamaphobia

By Jeffrey Breinholt

There was a hilarious item on the GMBDR, though I am not sure anyone will find it as funny as I do. It turns out UC Berkeley hosted a conference entitled "Deconstructing Islamaphobia." While the intellectually curious rely on the Counterterrorism Blog and other open-source news sources for partial insight into counterterrorism developments around the world, a group of people was going to try to "deconstruct" the irrational fear of Muslims.

The reason why this gave me the giggles is because "deconstruction" is such an elusive notion that it seems to escape even its practioners, or at least the organizers of this conference. Throwing in Islamaphobia, CAIR, and the most self-consciously radical university in the country, and wild, madcapped, zany antics were bound to ensue.

NEFA Exclusive: Selected Responses From the Second Round of Q&A with Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained a copy of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s second round of answers to some of the hundreds of questions recently submitted on extremist web forums by Al-Qaida supporters and other interested parties. Exclusive English translations of selected questions and answers are now available for download. When asked by one critic, “Is jihad only about killing and spilling blood, or are there other ways and means to reach the goals of jihad, without being repulsive”, al-Zawahiri demanded in reply, “if a criminal were to break into your house, hurt your family and kill them, steal your furniture, burn down your home, and then moved on to wreck the houses of your neighbors, would you deal with him gently in order to avoid becoming a member of a band of people who only seek revenge through bloodshed?” In defense of the authority of Al-Qaida’s “Islamic State of Iraq”, Al-Zawahiri insisted, “the Islamic State [of Iraq] is a step towards the establishment of the caliphate, and is superior to the other armed jihadi movements. Thus, it is these groups that are obliged to acknowledge [the authority] of the Islamic State and not vice versa… As for the storming of mosques and markets [by suicide bombers]—this is American propaganda and the Saudi media.”

For more, see the NEFA Foundation website.

France's Confused CFCM Elections -- An Opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood?

By Victor Comras

Deciphering the current political trends and developments within France’s Muslim community is likely to challenge the most knowledgeable pundits for some time. But, what is clear is that the Muslim Brotherhood has made incredible strides in becoming France's most important Islamic organization, and toward taking control of the Muslim Community’s principal representative organization - the Conseil Francais du Culte Musulman (CFCM), .

The CFCM was created by the French Government in 2003 to act as the representative voice of France’s Muslim community. The group has been led since its inception by Dalil Boubakeur, who is also Mufti of the moderate Grand Mosque of Paris (GMP). Boubakeur, who leads a network of over 100 of France’s largest Mosques, has championed the integration and acceptance of France’s Muslim population into mainstream French political, social and economic community life. He has also been identified with France’s more affluent and secular-leaning Algerian origin community.

Boubakeur is now being challenged by the Moroccan backed Rally of French Muslims (RFM), and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF) which has long been dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The UOIF has a very different agenda than its rivals, and has been positioning itself to play a critical pivotal role in these elections. It was set to win a plurality of the CFCM seats already last June, when the French government, pressed by the GMP and other Muslim groups, decided to cancel the elections. Since then, the UOIF has gained further traction and could well sweep the June 8, 2008 rescheduled elections.

According to French government figures there are about 4.2 million Muslims living in France today. An estimated 3.1 million are of North African origin, 400,000 from the Middle East, 300,000 from Africa, 50,000 Asians, 50,000 converts of ethnic French origin, and 300,000 illegal immigrants from unspecified countries. Sociologists tell us that religious participation within France’s Muslim population is modest, with Algerian origin Muslim toward the low end, and Moroccans, Turks and Kurds at the higher end. INED reported that just 23% of Muslims in France join in public prayers at least five times a year.

Against this background, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in France is surprising, if not breathtaking, and demonstrates the Brotherhood’s organizational skills and substantial financial backing. They have effectively kept in the background the more aggressive aspects of their Salafist religious and political aspirations as they portray themselves as moderate modernists, willing to work within France’s political system.

The CFCM election process uses a convoluted formula based in part on the total prayer space provided by each of France’s numerous local Muslim organizations, with 10 delegates for every 1,000 square meters of prayer space in the mosques. Only these delegates are allowed to vote in the national and regional Council elections. As one GMP source reportedly said, “All one needs to do is buy premises in the suburbs, throw a few rugs on the floor and declare the place a mosque, even if there isn’t an imam.”

The GMP boycott may throw a wrench into the CFCM elections, particularly given the GMP's own prominence within Paris’ more politically established and affluent Muslim Community. The effect may be to channel an increased percentage of delegates away from the UOIF and toward the Rally of French Muslims (RMF). However, some Pundits suggest that the real rivalry here is between the Algerian backed GMP and the Moroccan backed RMF, making calculations here even more confused. One way or another, it does not appear that the CFCM will serve the purpose actually intended, of representing France’s Muslim Community. After these elections, the French government will again have to decide whether to deal with the CFCM, or to return to a pre CFCM format of dealing individually with Frances numerous and fractured local organizations. The UOIF stands eagerly ready to fill any vacuums created by an unsuccessful election and an unrepresentative CFCM. All these factors make the June 8 CFCM elections, and the outcome, well worth watching.

NEFA Foundation Report: "Terrorists Behind Bars"

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has released a new report by Senior Analyst Josh Lefkowitz titled "Terrorists Behind Bars," which examines the myriad complexities the worldwide prison system must address when managing incarcerated extremists. While in prison, jihadists have caused officials fits by radicalizing fellow inmates, planning jailbreaks, distributing propaganda to associates, continuing to exercise operational control over their organizations, and plotting attacks. Reflecting these trends, Jordanian researcher Hassan Abu Hanieh has observed, "Things no longer end in prison anymore. In fact, increasingly they begin there." Additionally, the report analyzes campaigns by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Yemen, and even the U.S. military in Iraq to "reeducate" jailed militants.

The report can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

The Tragedy of the USS Cole Case

By Douglas Farah

The Washington Post this weekend carried an extensive and depressing look at how the main suspects in the USS Cole bombing have gone free.

The most infuriating piece is on the freedom of Jamal al-Badawi, who helped organize the October 2000 attack on the US battleship that left 17 sailors dead.

It was a bold attack, and one that should never have succeeded. The hesitancy by the crew to inflict potential civilian casualties cost the lives of soldiers in an era when the armed forces were not yet used to suicide bombing.

It is important to recognize the role bringing perpetrators of violent acts to justice plays in fighting radical Islamists or any other terrorist group, or rather the tremendously high price we pay for impunity.

Impunity in these cases, especially with the complicity of senior government officials (in this case, in Yemen) will, without a doubt not only contribute to emboldening would-be terrorists for future attacks. It also contributes greatly to the _jihadist_ (with apologies to the authors of the much commented-on and rightly condemned DHS memo on language use) narrative of their struggle.

There is no doubt that the US government's conduct in the initial investigation left much to be desired. Lack of cultural training and knowledge and lack of trust made it a difficult task from the beginning.

But that is not the real reason for the unraveling of the case, and there is plenty of responsibility to be shared by all sides. The lack of sustained interest by the Bush administration, Yemeni authorities who view the attacks as less than important, and the weak and corruptible judicial system all are factors. My full blog is here.

Hizb ut-Tahrir's "double level"

By Lorenzo Vidino

Experts and government officials have long debated the real nature of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). Formed in 1953 in Jerusalem, the group has now established a presence in virtually all continents. It defines itself as a “political party whose ideology is Islam” and openly seeks the restoration of the Caliphate as its main goal. The debate has always been on whether HT is a movement that simply aims at peacefully propagating its message, a "conveyor belt" for extremism, or a group directly employing violence. In many Muslim countries, particularly in Central Asia (see this report from the Uzbek government, for example) and the Middle East, the group is banned and authorities accuse it of direct links to acts of terror. HT members, on the other hand, have constantly denied their involvement in any violent act. “We consider that Islamic law forbids violence or armed struggle against the regime as a method to re-establish the Islamic State,” states the website of HT’s British branch (one of its largest).

The debate has been particularly lively in Europe, where HT has a relatively large following. Is HT an organization that, while advocating extremist ideas, acts within the limits of the law (depending, of course, on the different laws on freedom of speech of each country), or is there something more than meets the eye? Is HT involved in violent acts? HT books, tapes and flyers have often been found in possession of jihadists arrested throughout Europe. This, to be sure, confirms only the obvious ideological affinity between HT and groups that adopt violence, but not does not indicate any sort of operational overlap between the two.

Yet, evidence emerging from recent Italian judicial documents possibly reveals a deeper connection between HT and jihadist networks. First, some documents indicate that former Milan resident Mohamed Morgan had been one of the leaders of HT in Italy. Morgan had also been under investigation for his role in a network that was recruiting aspiring jihadists throughout Europe for Iraq and for his connections with Abu Omar, the Milan imam famously “renditioned” by the CIA in February 2003. Morgan left Italy in September 2003 and was later arrested in Egypt, even though some reports indicate that he was himself “renditioned” by the CIA to Egypt.

More tellingly, the November 2007 indictment of a large cell recruiting for Iraq out of Northern Italy shows interesting links between the network and HT. While many of the names and details of the indictment cannot be publicly disclosed, authorities put together an impressive amount of evidence on such links. Particularly interesting is a November 2004 meeting that took place in the apartment of Imed H., a Tunisian residing in Lainate, on the outskirts of Milan. Police identified 26 men, most of them North Africans, who attended the gathering.

The mix is quite interesting. Several of the men had been identified by Italian, German and French authorities as top or mid-level HT members, leading Italian authorities to label the gathering as an HT leadership meeting. But, interestingly, some of the participants at the Lainate meeting were the men behind the network that recruited for Iraq, including one of its ringleaders, Tunisian national Mehdi Ben Naser. As the investigation progressed, authorities put together a picture of virtual symbiosis between the HT structure in Italy and such jihadist network, leading authorities to speak of HT as an organization operating at a “double level,” where the political wing operates under the sun and the military wing operates secretly, not differently from groups such as ETA or the IRA.

Italian authorities’ findings are very interesting, as they seem to cast doubt on the image of HT as a radical yet non-violent group. There are no indications that such alleged “double level” is the modus operandi of all branches of HT throughout Europe, even though many of the people who attended the Lainate meeting had solid ties with/lived in/had spent extensive time in other European countries. While Germany is the only European country to have banned HT (by decree of the Federal Ministry of Interior in 2003, decision appealed by HT and confirmed by a court in 2006), intelligence agencies throughout the continent have been monitoring its activities with attention. The fear of a “double level” should only heighten such vigilance.

NEFA Foundation: Al-Qaida Loses Yet Another Sunni Insurgent Ally in Iraq Amid Allegations of "Threats" and "Blackmail"

By Evan Kohlmann

The Army of al-Mustafa (a.k.a. “Jaish al-Mustafa”)—a Sunni insurgent group which has claimed credit for at least three joint operations with Al-Qaida’s “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI) since January 2008—has suddenly broken off relations with the ISI, accusing its local commanders of engaging in “threats” and “blackmail.” In a statement released on April 15, a Jaish al-Mustafa field commander known as “Abu Muslim al-Mosuli” acknowledged a past relationship with the ISI but added, “something has occurred that we never expected would happen: some new leaders from the ISI in Ninewah province have begun to harass our fighters during their operations. The situation escalated to the point of the ISI threatening one of our field commanders with death for no apparent reason… We see no justification for the acts carried out by the brothers from the ISI—they have blackmailed us, threatened us, and seized the assets of the Army of al-Mustafa.” A follow-up statement released by Jaish al-Mustafa on April 16 insisted that the group has no intention of “sabotaging efforts by Shaykh Abu Omar [al-Baghdadi] or any other individual. We would be delighted if such unity and collaboration took place among the various factions.” However, the statement also flatly rejected the premise that the “Army of al-Mustafa” has ever “tried very hard to associate ourselves with the ISI”: “we require no such association… If we had wished to associate ourselves with the ISI, we would have pledged our allegiance to them.”

English translations of both communiques are available for download on the NEFA Foundation website.

Gut Check for the "Close Guantanamo" Crowd

By Jeffrey Breinholt

Part of the public campaign to close Guantanamo involves the claim that it houses many innocent people who were swept up from the battlefields where the U.S. military is operating. Now Reuters is reporting that someone released from Guantanamo has died in a suicide attack in Iraq. Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti national, reportedly killed himself in an attack in Mosul. He had been held in Guantanamo until his 2005 release and repatriation.

Fortunately, we have not recently suffered the spectacle of prominent Americans traveling to enemy territory to announce their hope that they will succeed in defeating the United States, like Jane Fonda’s notorious trip to Hanoi. This suggests that even Americans who are critical of our foreign policy are careful to stop short of expressing their hope that Iraqi insurgents kill their fellow Americans. Even to them, al-Ajmi should be a villain.

The news of this incident, if true, shows this: we had the right guy. Could it be that he was innocent when arrested but became radicalized as a result of our invasion of Iraq? Perhaps, but this would be a strange thing for someone from Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990.

People as prominent as Defense Secretary Robert Gates have called for the gradual closing of the Guantanamo prison. It will happen as soon as practically possible. Even if it is a gulag (which I doubt, given that the average prisoner has gained weight while incarcerated there), critics have not offered a satisfactory idea for how we should handle the remaining prisoners as part of the closure. The al-Ajmi news shows mass emancipation is hardly the answer, nor is the transfer of these prisoners stateside, where they could claim asylum and stay with us with indefinitely. Would you want al-Ajmi living in your hometown?

It is easy for human rights organizations to criticize Gitmo. The harder problem is finding an acceptable solution to detain terrorists willing to give their lives to kill us. So far, the best one seems to be the Military Tribunals, which might have offered a better alternative than repatriating Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi to Kuwait, where could try to kill those who helped liberate his home country on behalf of those who invaded it.

The views in this article are not those of the Department if Justice.

Investigative Project Releases Gov't Memos Curtailing Speech in War on Terror

By Steven Emerson

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is refusing to identify the "influential Muslim Americans" and "leading U.S.-based scholars and commentators on Islam" who met with Secretary Michael Chertoff in helping shape a softer approach to government lexicon about terrorists and their ideological motivations.

"Our policy is we don't comment on the Secretary's private schedule," spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told the IPT. Nor would she identify any of the participants' organizational affiliation.

DHS and the State Department's Counterterrorism Communications Center each issued reports urging government employees to avoid words like "jihad," "mujahedeen" or any reference to Islam or Muslims, especially in relation to Al Qaeda. The Investigative Project on Terrorism is making the documents available for the first time here and here.

As we reported last week, the memos say a change in language from the U.S. government is needed to win the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims and avoid glamorizing terrorists motivated by religious ideology. "Moderate" is also frowned upon in the memos, though, with "mainstream" or "traditional" suggested as replacements.

Among the recommendations not reported previously:

• "The experts we consulted debated the word ‘liberty,' but rejected it because many around the world would discount the term as a buzzword for American hegemony."
• "The fact is that Islam and secular democracy are fully compatible - in fact, they can make each other stronger. Senior officials should emphasize that fact."
• The USG [U.S. government] should draw the conflict lines not between Islam and the West, but between a dangerous, cult-like network of terrorists and everyone who is in support of global security and progress.

So America, after serving for more than two centuries the sanctuary for huddled masses yearning to breathe free, is being asked to minimize liberty against fanatics bent on a global religious state. The memo doesn't offer examples to show where Islam and secular democracy have reinforced each other, or explain how Shariah law, the imposition of religion into state affairs, is "fully compatible" with secular democracy.

It is no surprise, however, to see the changes praised by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

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

Whose Lobbyists Should Congress Investigate?

By Andrew Cochran

A story last week in "The Hill" newspaper disclosed, "Senior Democrats are starting to discuss ways to target Washington-based lobbying firms whose clients include the Iraqi government as part of their election-year strategy to seize on the costs of the five-year-old war." I would like to suggest a better use of the taxpayers' money and of the Congress' oversight powers: Investigate the lobbyists and representatives for those institutions, companies, and countries which have been identified by the Defense, Justice, Treasury, and State Departments as providing comfort and support to terrorists and other "persons" (defined broadly) which seek to harm the material security interests of the United States. It isn't difficult to identify them; a number of us on this site know some by name. Doug Farah's post below identifies CAIR as possibly supporting a cause which would result in Israel's destruction, hidden behind the phrase, "Palestinian right of return." Take a further look at the writings of one of the champions of that movement, Dr. Salman Abu Sitta:

"The role of the Zionist political and military elite in masterminding and expelling the Palestinians is well documented in Israeli, American, and United Nations sources. Whatever the context, there is no doubt that the mass expulsion of a people from their homeland constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law. Thus it was precisely for this reason that when Israel tried Adolf Eichmann for atrocities committed as a Nazi leader, it included charges of expulsions which were classified as "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity". Under these rules, the Palestinians are entitled to return to their homes and property not as a privilege or favor from Israel but as a fundamental humanitarian, legal and national right."

Let the investigations begin.

An Interesting Pairing at an MB Conference

By Douglas Farah

It is interesting to note that CAIR director Nihad Awad will soon be sharing center stage in a major conference with Mohammad Akram al-Adlouni, the probable author of the most damning documents made public during the Holy Land Foundation trial.

The conference in Denmark, heavily populated with Muslim Brotherhood figures, is, according the program, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakbah or catastrophe, as they refer to the founding of the state of Israel.

The joint attendance of Awad and al Adlouni, now head of the al Quds Foundation in Lebanon, was first noted by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.

The GMBDR further noted that:

The Palestinian Return Centre in London, characterized by sources in London as close to Hamas, has Trustees that have also been on the board of the Muslim Association of Britain, one of the Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the U.K. The Centre itself has been widely promoted by the U.K Brotherhood. CAIR, in turn, had its origins in the Hamas support infrastructure in the U.S.

So, the old gang is getting together again, in the service of the Muslim Brotherhood and its armed wing, Hamas.

It was al-Adlouni who penned the famous “On the General
Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” referring to Muslim Brotherhood organizations, including those in which Awad has been active. CAIR was formed later, but comes from the same family of organizations linked to the Ikhwan.

As I wrote in the analysis for the NEFA Foundation, "In the document, the author is strikingly clear
about the ultimate goal of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States." My full blog is here.

NEFA Foundation: Scenes from AQIM's "Martyr Abu Ibrahim Mustafa" Terrorist Training Camp in North Africa

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained video footage of lessons conducted by instructors from Al-Qaida's Committee in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) at the "Martyr Abu Ibrahim Mustafa" terrorist training camp. This is the second such video recording released by the AQIM in less than a month highlighting the existence of the Abu Ibrahim Mustafa camp, which is thought to be located somewhere within the borders of Algeria. AQIM recruits are shown in the video completing courses in physical calisthenics, weapons training, and advanced combat tactics.

The video can be viewed on the NEFA Foundation website.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad's "Education Wing"

By The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operative Sami Al-Arian ended his hunger strike, which he began, allegedly, in protest of the Eastern District of Virginia's insistence that he testify before a grand jury investigating the terrorist connections of a Northern Virginia think tank, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Al-Arian is currently in the custody of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, awaiting deportation to an as of yet undetermined country. His lawyer, however, expects that Al-Arian may still be indicted for criminal contempt for his refusal to testify before the grand jury despite a grant of immunity.

Before Al-Arian was arrested, he was a computer science professor at the University of South Florida (USF). The current Secretary General of the PIJ, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, was a lecturer at the same university, brought there by Al-Arian to work for Al-Arian's think tank, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE). Shallah taught Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at USF, through a cooperative agreement between USF and WISE.

When Shallah left WISE and became the head of PIJ, Al-Arian and WISE released a statement stating that "Dr. Abdullah" left WISE to write a book and "tend to his sick father," and that:

WISE denies any knowledge of Dr. Abdullah's association or affiliation with any political group or agency in Middle East.

That was, of course, a lie. But today brings news that Al-Arian, Shallah and their USF colleagues are not the only "academics" involved with the Islamic Jihad. In a story today published by CNN, Israeli forces kill Islamic Jihad chief, sources say, the following appears:

The person killed was the deputy commander of the Islamic Jihad military wing, according to the Palestinian sources, who said he also served as a school headmaster at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school.

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

Lorenzo Vidino Returns As Contributing Expert

By Andrew Cochran

We're very pleased that Lorenzo Vidino is rejoining us as a Contributing Expert. Lorenzo has recently accepted a position as Senior Fellow in International Security Studies at the Fletcher School of Law Diplomacy, Tufts University. Previously he was affiliated with the Investigative Project on Terrorism, where he served as terrorism analyst and deputy director, and with the Jebsen Center for Counter Terrorism Studies, where he served as Research Projects Director. Lorenzo posted here often during his affiliation with the IPT, and his new and previous posts are available together on his archives page.

Lorenzo's research focuses on Islamist and jihadist networks worldwide, focusing mostly on Europe (throughout which he travels several months a year). He has testified before Congress twice on the issue and has briefed the Office of the Vice President, various Congressmen and their staffers, the FBI, DHS, ICE, Treasury, State Department and several US and foreign law enforcement agencies.

He is the author of the book Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of Global Jihad, published in 2005. He has published various articles on terrorism in publications such as The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, The Middle East Quarterly, and many others. He is frequently interviewed by national and international media. A native of Milan, Italy, Lorenzo also holds a law degree from the University of Milan Law School and a Masters Degree in International Relations (Security Studies & Islamic Civilization) from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Polygamy and Terrorism: The Religion Factor in Texas

By Jeffrey Breinholt

You might think that the raid on the dissident Mormon compound in Texas and its aftermath are not related to terrorism, but they actually are. The question is whether a state or federal government can define what constitutes a crime, and whether that crime can be enforced where the alleged conduct is religiously-inspired. In this sense, the Texas case involves a common issue in counterterrorism - the ability of the government to take action against religiously-inspired conduct. (More ominously, we know that Timothy McVeigh acted out of outrage over the raid on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco. I pray we don't see a spike in domestic terrorism as a result of what's occuring in Texas).

As an ostensible Mormon (they claim me, but not me them) and descendant of polygamist unions (guilty), and as a former federal prosecutor in Utah (where Mormons often distrust the government), I can say that the FLDS and the state's reaction should not be viewed as a cause celebre. My sentiments are with the cops.

Turkish-Pakistani CT Cooperation Bodes Ill for Bad Guys

By Frank Hyland

Facing well-entrenched insurgencies and numerous acts of terrorism, Turkey and Pakistan have initiated cooperative efforts to increase their security in the face of these threats. Following a two-day, high-level official visit to Pakistan by Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, the two nations announced “strategic” cooperation on a number of fronts, including defense, trade, and diplomacy.....The full article may be read at the Jamestown Foundation website.